Women Power

Most chief executive officers in Maryland are white males. Therefore, we live in a completely sexist and racist society. D. W. Dent, whose opinion was expressed in an Aug. 1 letter, uses this sort of erroneous reasoning. Unfortunately, there are many others who think this way.

D. W. Dent is upset because there are no women or minorities represented among the top chief executives in Maryland. This is not because of sexism or racism.

Any woman or minority with the brains and the ambition can achieve their goals. Add to that the preferential treatment they get from affirmation action and they have no excuses for failing to achieve their goals.

Let us assume that to become CEO of a corporation one must have a lot of knowledge and experience. Therefore, CEOs must be at least in their 40s. These people would have received their advanced degrees in the early 1970s when most of their classmates were men.

Women constituted only 5 to 10 percent of the people receiving advanced degrees in the early 1970s, so it is not logical that they would be major players in the upper reaches of business. Today, 30 to 40 percent of the people receiving advanced degrees are women.

If The Sun looks at the corporate power structure 20 years from now, I am sure that D. W. Dent will be pleased with the results.

Society is very complex. We cannot look at one statistic and make a conclusion, nor can we prevent the facts from getting in the way of our model. We must look at a large amount of data before we come to any conclusions.

Erik Nelson

Odenton

False Rumors

The report in The Sun July 31, that "Rumors sweep eastern Balto. Co." about the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program fails to answer directly the rumor that MTO participants will be moving to Essex and Dundalk.

The simple answer is the rumor is false. Those chosen for MTO must move into areas where no more than 10 percent of families have incomes below the federal poverty level.

Since large parts of Dundalk and Essex are high poverty areas, it is virtually certain that no MTO participants would be moving into either area.

Given the outspoken sentiments expressed by politicians and others from Dundalk and Essex who are quoted in the report, it is unlikely that any MTO participants would want to move either place even if they were eligible areas.

The report also says: "Many residents see MTO as the first step in a government plan to tear down the city's housing projects and move the residents to eastern Baltimore County."

Again, it is false that there is any plan to place public housing in eastern Baltimore County. Although some of the high-rise public housing buildings in the city are scheduled for demolition, federal rules prohibit replacement units being located in areas where there are high concentrations of poverty.

Both being places where a high level of poverty prevails, Dundalk and Essex would be ruled out as possible locations for replacement public housing.

MTO intends to do what its name suggests, make it possible for poor people to move where there is opportunity to find employment, good schools, decent housing and safer streets.

It intends also to disperse, not reconcentrate, poverty. Those being the program's goals, a move to Essex or Dundalk would hardly help achieve them. Public housing residents would fare as well staying where they are.

Martin A. Dyer

Baltimore

In Haiti

I must have been asleep and did not hear about our being required to seek permission from the Security Council of the United Nations to undertake an action that we deem appropriate.

When President Clinton decided to seek permission from the United Nations, he set a dramatic precedent that could do irreparable harm in the future.

The Monroe Doctrine has been abrogated in one fell swoop by a president who appears to want to conduct an invasion with no responsibility on his part.

Allowing the United Nations to give approval does not make this poor decision a good one. What is our national interest? This action will open Pandora's box.

I find it rather strange that the president and those congressional leaders who are advocating this action are the same people who would do nothing to assist those in Nicaragua when an administration attempted that.

It is not necessary to speak about what they did themselves when they were young and we were in Vietnam.

We are using our military to do an ever-increasing number of things while simultaneously reducing it in strength.

Contrary to what these people think, the military is trained and expected to fight wars and not be involved in nation building.

It is not worth one American life to install a new dictator in Haiti, especially when the American people are diametrically opposed to it.

D. J. Myers

Sparks

Liberals and Labels

The phrase "Politically correct liberals," appearing in a headline on a Today section story (Aug. 4) is a stupid oxymoron.

True liberals (forget the tiresome definition beloved of Republicans) utterly abhor so-called politically correct terminology, finding it anti-free speech, thus unconstitutional, thus anti-American.

Indeed, the cloistered know-nothing academics who bear the main responsibility for having foisted this garbage on ignorant young people and on our society would be more at home, I think, in Communist China.

William Stump

Cockeysville

Theodore R. McKeldin

Aug. 10 is the 20th anniversary of the death of Theodore R. McKeldin, probably the foremost Republican of Maryland during the 20th century and without a doubt the greatest civil rights advocate who ever held elective office in Maryland's history.

Except for the current generation, all Marylanders know of McKeldin, and the majority probably met him at one time or another.

He was a gregarious man whose greatest pleasure, it seems to me, was to be either on the campaign trail meeting the people or speaking before small or large groups, whether at a small church fellowship meeting or nominating Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower for president at the 1952 Republican National Convention.

Remember his use of alliteration as he thundered in his great oratorical manner: "The plundering potentates of the Potomac have reached the end of their road of privilege and pelf."

Or as we were campaigning on the Eastern Shore in 1954, at the time of the Supreme Court's decision eliminating the infamous "separate but equal" in our educational system, when he was confronted by those who disagreed, he replied, "I represent the law."

This great man of humble origin from Pigtown served two separate terms as mayor of Baltimore City and two consecutive terms as governor of Maryland ' a Democratic state with a 3-to-1 majority in registration.

Some of his many accomplishments were the Baltimore-Washington International Airport, the Inner Harbor, Maryland state roads program, the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and modern program budgets for Maryland.

Like St. Paul, he may have been all things to all people Protestant, Roman Catholic or Jew; but how we loved hearing him and being in his presence.

He was a leader not only in government but in civic, social, ethnic causes and particularly a great champion of the State of Israel and its survival and growth from its inception.

Governor McKeldin had no edifices named after him while in office. It was not the custom during that era to use the name of a governor, mayor or other office holders while in office (how times have changed!).

However, his name will long be remembered for his compassion by those who cherish the advancement of civil rights and participation in government by citizens of all races, creeds, classes and disabilities.

In closing, we should also remember his gracious First Lady, Honolulu McKeldin, his steadfast spouse throughout their years together, who died on Aug. 8, 1988. Both are buried up on the hill at Greenmount Cemetery, not too far from that other great governor and Democrat, Albert C. Ritchie.

I for one will visit his grave on Aug. 10 and for a moment share his close presence and shed a tear in his memory.

Samuel A. Culotta

Baltimore