Joanne Little is loose, pending her trial on the next charge she’s innocent of, and she has turned up in Chicago, where she spoke the lecture circuit dialect like a native. There are a million blacks unjustly imprisoned in this country, she told a press conference, leaving columnist Mike Royko to wonder where they were all being hidden (the official figure is 250,000 cons total, counting all races, creeds, colors, sexes). She also announced that the rich, would you believe, can hire good lawyers and beat the rap, while the poor . . . well, you can hum the rest. Snapped Royko: “That would be a grave problem if the streets were filled with trigger happy multi-millionaires.”
Ah, the leadership we are getting on the busing issue these days! Sargent Shriver, that tribune of the people who has just declared for the Presidency, strides toward the busing barricades with these ringing words on NBC-TV’s Meet the Press: “I think that busing is an effective weapon for improving quality education [sic], but it is not the only weapon and in some places it’s counterproductive . . . . There are areas where busing works. In fact, if we didn’t have busing the public school system in the United States would not work at all.” For whatever they are worth, those comments make Shriver the firmest opponent of busing among Democratic candidates, with the exception of George Wallace. President Ford was quick to pick up the challenge here, his phrases ringing and memorable. Ford thinks that busing may not be the “best” way to achieve “quality education.” He “hopes” it will not be a “political issue” in 1976. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
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