STORIES FROM THE PAST

50 years ago

Arizona Gov. John R. (Jack) Williams this morning at Imperial Valley College lashed out at federal aid benefits as “governmental goodies.”

He also: n Compared city street rioters with the “ancient Vandals and Huns (who) ravaged, burned and looted”; n Said their acts are “almost a rebellion being piously fed by a daily federal dole”; n Sneered at city slums as “the product of people who could care less whether their garbage is on their sidewalk or in the street”; n Predicted that “the brand of federalism running wild in this country, unless checked, will result, at the best, in a majority of people being held in bondage to a remote bureaucracy by a network of federal grants and subsidies and, at the worst, will make slaves of us all.”

But it was not his intent to sound pessimistic, the governor observed at one point. “We have enough (federal aid) programs to remake the world. Only somehow we have an uncomfortable feeling that they aren’t working. The only solution we have is to create more programs and spend more money. “I would propose a new and novel solution. “Quit promising so much (because) history shows that paternalistic government-inspired programs have never done anything more than create wards of the state.

30 years ago

CALEXICO — Children at Rockwood Elementary School are eating their lunches outside after the school’s cafeteria was declared unsafe.

The cafeteria building and the kindergarten classrooms were shut down by the state Wednesday because of continuing structural deterioration.

Approximately 90 kindergarteners were moved to other classrooms in the school, and meals are now served in a grassy area near the cafeteria.