OVER 48 years ago, Marianas Variety marked its first anniversary by reiterating that it was “For the People, by the People.” Then and now, however, “the People” are various individuals who do not agree with each other on so many things most of the time. “The People” can also believe two or more contradictory things at the same time. Then and now, moreover, “the People” are flattered and courted by politicians who are sincerely interested in “the People.” But this, to quote P.J. O’Rourke, is not always a virtue. “Fleas,” he noted, “are interested in dogs.” Many politicians, to be sure, are also idealists. But an idealist, as H.L. Mencken once said, “is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.”
In 1973, the NMI was still one of the districts of the U.S.-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands whose capital was Saipan. One can say that government was the TT’s primary “industry.” It had so many layers and offices, programs, instrumentalities and responsibilities, etc., etc. — and personnel, of course. (Says a former TT official from the states: “We will hire them and they’ll sit at a desk, won’t be very much to do, but we just can’t have them going out sitting under a coconut tree somewhere. They’re going to have to sit there eight hours a day and do the typing or push the paper or whatever it was that had to be done in order to justify this pay.”)
The head of a sprawling executive branch was the high commissioner who was appointed by the U.S. president while the legislative branch was the bicameral Congress of Micronesia whose members were elected by voters in each of the six districts: the (Northern) Marianas, Palau, the Marshalls, Ponape, Truk and Yap. The districts had their own elected legislatures and appointed administrators who oversaw several district agencies. In the NMI, the main islands had elected mayors and municipal councils. Saipan, in addition, had elected village commissioners.
In those days, the dominant political party on Saipan was the aptly named Popular Party which, in the spring of 1973, was thinking about changing its name to “Democratic Party.”
On MV’s editorial page was a lengthy letter from an educator (and future CNMI Democrat lawmaker) who wrote that he was “much disturbed by the manner in which the…administering authority [the U.S.] is educating us…. I cannot see any way in which [the islands] can develop or improve its economy given this type of education. All I can see is that the [TT] is depending more and more on the United States for survival. And our education system prepares our people for this dependency.”
Another opinion piece had this to say about the alleged misuse of public funds by the Marianas District Legislature: “There is…a tendency, a very human one, to dole out yourselves as much money as possible if you have the power to do it. The Congress of Micronesia has done it and invariably the [district] legislatures or their members will want to follow the example…. If we see that that or this leader is getting $12,000 [worth about $74,000 today] we should like to receive that much….”
MV’s March 23, 1973 issue carried a letter to the editor critical of the legislative special committee that looked into the legislature’s alleged misuse of public funds and found that the funds were spent “legally and in the best interest of the Marianas people.” In a report, the committee also found “that the financial matter of the Legislature is the business of the Legislature and it should remain so without any requirement to report to anyone except to the members thereof.”
“Is this really a finding???” asked the letter to the editor. “It sounded more like a directive from God!!” The letter noted that although the committee found no illegal expenditure of public funds by the president of the legislature, the committee also “strongly recommended” controls for overtime, “no transfer of funds,” “procedures regarding travel and per diem,” and that “all expenditures of the legislature…shall be substantiated with vendors receipts or invoices, etc.”
As for the Congress of Micronesia, the same letter-to-the-editor writer said its only “accomplishment” so far was the $1,000 (worth about $6,000 today) bonus it appropriated for each of its members. The Congress of Micronesia was supposed to draft and act on a constitutional convention bill, “but I would expect…more years of a**-dragging and more appropriations. A cycle of money-waste, time-waste will again take place.”
Wait. Let me check the date. Yup. That was written over 48 years ago.
On April 20, 1973, MV published a letter to the editor from another irate resident who asked, “Have you ever stopped to wonder what it would feel like to ride in an automobile on a paved road?” In the then-main villages of Chalan Kanoa and Susupe, “the green gardens and lawns in front of private residences [are now] white. It seems like snow is falling over these two villages every day,” he said referring to road dust. “I think it’s about time that something must be done in order to minimize the white-powdered snow and the ugliness of our island.”
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