Vietnam Debate Just Falls Apart
The monthly meeting of the Canyon Country Republican Club (CCRC) Tuesday night was only slightly disrupted when the featured guest speaker (and unexpected guests) failed to arrive.
Instead, a club member took the floor and gave an unprepared speech explaining the Los Angeles County juvenile court system.
The meeting had promised to be a bit more lively, though it would have been hard for the audience to pay any more attention to the scheduled speaker then they did to impromptu speaker, John Hackney. Hackney is a juvenile court referee and a member of the board of trustees of the junior college district.
Earlier in the day Tuesday, two Canyon High School students, who have been active in the “People For Peace” organization, told The Signal they planned to attend the CCRC meeting and challenge two members of the club to debate them.
The challenge was issued as a response to last month’s CCRC resolution which placed the blame on Moratorium day protestors for America’s war dead In Vietnam.
The two students, Mike Hethmon and Dan Miles, failed to appear, and as their challenge to the club was not publicized until Wednesday the Republican club members had no idea that the two had planned to come.
The scheduled speaker had been Captain Rlchard Green, commander of the North Hollywood Station of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The police officer had been scheduled to speak to the club about student militants in general and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in particular. Club president Jerry Alexander promised to try and arrange to have Captain Green again soon.
Hackney had, originally, been asked by Alexander to speak only to fill time until Green arrived, but his talk so interested the group that after he closed his speech and the applause died down Alexander thanked Hackney for being “the guest speaker.”
Hadkney explained that there are two kinds of kids brought before him; the dependent children and the delinquent children. He explained that the dependent children are those that cannot care for themselves — they may have been beaten or abandoned by their parents for example.
The delinquent children are classified as either Incorrigible or criminal, and are made wards of the court.
Hackney said the dependent children are the “saddest to handle.” Many times the children have been physically abused or abandoned he said.
Hackney reported that many detention hearings involving Incorrigible youths are the result of the child running away from home. “Quite frankly, some of the kids should split,” he said, referring to the home life many of the kids come from.
The club also passed, unanimously, two resolutions dealing with national current events. One was voicing the club’s support to Vice President Spiro Agnew for his recent remarks concerning television and newspaper reporting.
The other unanimous approval was for a resolution voicing the club’s “undiminished confidence in Judge Clement Haynsworth’s ability and integrity.” The resolution claimed that Judge Haynsworth’s appointment to the Supreme Court would have “vastly improved the caliber of the court.”
Shortly before Hackney’s address CCRC president Alexander, along with essay committee chairman Sam Dalmont, presented a trophy and a $10 check to Carrie Andrews, 15, the Canyon High School winner of the club’s essay contest.
Club members were also urged by second vice president Cheryl Tiveron to sign two petitions which urged the two judges who handled the controversial Angela Davis case be removed from the bench. She said the two have for years held membership in communist front organizations — naming the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild.