Decent Wage
As an African-American whose life work is devoted to protecting the rights of minority workers, I am outraged that George F. Will, of all people, would have the temerity to suggest (column, Feb. 5) that the Davis-Bacon Act is racist.
This is part of a campaign by Mr. Will's right-wing friends in Congress to repeal Davis-Bacon prevailing wage protections by spreading disinformation about the law's impact on minorities and women.
Such charges are disingenuous at best and malevolent at worst, coming as they do from many of the same people who are trying to gut positive affirmative action programs without quotas.
The Davis-Bacon Act, which provides that workers on federal construction projects such as highways and office buildings be paid the wages and benefits that prevail in their communities, has done as much to make the American dream a reality for minorities as any federal law short of the Civil Rights Act.
That's because as African-Africans, Hispanics and other minorities have entered the construction work force in ever-increasing numbers, Davis-Bacon ensures a livable wage and the opportunity to join the middle class.
While Mr. Will apparently believes that African Americans can only be hired in the construction industry at low-wage jobs, the fact is that the current system, underpinned by the prevailing wage, gives minorities the training through bona fide apprenticeship programs to become well-compensated skilled craftspersons.
Union apprenticeship programs, for example, train and graduate minorities at much higher rates than non-union operations, which rarely make efforts to hire minorities and seldom give trainees sufficient skills to advance their careers.
Without Davis-Bacon, as former Labor Secretary John Dunlop noted, "Minorities and women who have achieved employment in the building trades and are currently enrolled in bona fide craft apprentice programs will be replaced with lower-paid and untrained workers."
The principle behind prevailing wage is simple in concept and beautiful in execution: Government should not be in the business of driving down American workers' living standards.
If Mr. Will and his followers in Congress think there are political points to be scored by squeezing the middle class further out of existence -- especially for many newly-arrived minorities -- they either need their heads examined or their political antennae retuned.
Norman Hill
Washington
The writer is president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.
Easy Pension
When I came out of World War II, everyone was urged to go into business for himself. After being in business for 40 years, I got violently sick to my stomach when I read about the benefits accorded to the Prince George's County employees including the governor.
Major Riddick initially received a lump sum payment of $189,915.42 in sick leave and vacation benefits he didn't use in his 16 years with the county and is also entitled at the age of 44 to $21,165.00 in pension benefits. (He later returned half the sick-leave compensation, or $60,416. He waived the pension benefits until he leaves state government.)
Being in business for yourself, you pray that you don't get sick because that means you have no pay coming. I'm not against sick leave benefits for anyone working in private industry or government.
I don't think sick leave was made to be accrued for 16 years and then give a person $129,000 in cash benefits.
Major Riddick should be down on his knees thanking the Lord that he wasn't sick for the 16 years he worked. I don't feel that it is at all fair to the taxpayers of our great nation to pay such a large sum to anyone who didn't take his sick leave.
A self-employed businessman or woman has no sick leave benefit or pension plan, being over-taxed and over-regulated by these overpaid bureaucrats who are supposed to be public servants but are no more than public robbers.
Matthew Skidmore, Sr.
Frostburg
Governor's House
On the day my father, Herbert R. O'Conor, was sworn in as governor of Maryland, our entire family moved into the mansion in Annapolis, lock, stock and barrel, from our home in Baltimore.
The cars and roads were not as advanced way back then [1939], but each morning my brother Herb drove my brother Jim to school in Mount Washington and dropped me off at Loyola-Blakefield in Towson, before going on to Loyola College.
Suppers back in Annapolis were often late. This schedule was hectic and trying, but well worth it.
My father understood the honor, privilege, and importance of residing in the mansion at the seat of his work and responsibility.
For me -- a great memory as a teen-ager and a great sense of involvement.
Gene O'Conor
Towson
Tragedies
I am moved to write as the result of a story in the Jan. 18 edition of The Sun.
The owner of a Rottweiler buried alive nine new-born puppies, only to have the mother dig them up. Fortunately, this was witnessed by a neighbor, who contacted authorities.
I understand that within a day over 100 calls came in from across the country offering to adopt one or all of the dogs involved.
While I applaud the humanity shown by those who have rallied around these unfortunate animals, I must ask: Why does it take national publication of a tragic event to move people to help unwanted animals?
Every year, hundreds of thousands of unwanted, abused or neglected dogs and cats end up in our nation's animal shelters. Most of these animals are killed.
There were 10 Rottweilers involved in the above story. At least 90 people who offered to take one ended up without an animal.
I would hope that these kind souls will make a trip to their local animal shelter and instead save a nameless, faceless tragedy from death.
Nancy Jean Olsen
Timonium
Hiram Holton, Unheralded Hero in Life
Few people have a front page newspaper article written about them in their lives.
Hiram Holton II should have made the front page of The Baltimore Sun a long time ago -- long before Feb. 8, when The Sun reported on the front page: "Friends School athlete dies of cancer at age 18."
There is something very disturbing and sick about a society that only gives public attention to someone when they do something horrible or something horrible happens to them.
A young man who takes a gun in his hand and in one night kills another young man has more chance of making the front page than a young man who spends his life quietly dedicated to friendship, service and challenging his mind and his body.
Is it any wonder kids think it's "cooler" to deal drugs than go to school?
America need not re-tell the Book of Job -- only celebrating the victories of good people who die prematurely. America must celebrate positive role models -- young people working day-to-day to make a difference in the world.
A brave young man like Hiram Holton should not have to die before he is heralded as a hero.
I had the opportunity to know Hiram Holton II. We were in the Lancers Boys Club together. And Hiram -- before he even got cancer -- was always the kind of person everyone else wanted to be.
The basketball star, Hiram did not strut. He seemed to glide up to the front of Lancers meetings for committee reports. One of the co-chairmen of the tutoring committee, Hiram always knew how to say volumes with his silence.
I am at college now, and e-mail is the preferred method of communication with fellow Lancers alumni.
The phone rang last night and it was my friend and fellow Lancers Club officer from last year. I lamented:
"It seems so wrong; someone who never had a bad thing to say about anyone . . . someone whose presence was so gentle, so supportive, so sensitive . . . Why does that kind of person have to die?"
I cried when I read the article on Hiram in The Sun that was sent to me by Judge Robert I. H. Hammerman, the head of the Lancers Boys Club.
I believe that every human life is of the utmost value. Death should be reported and lamented, but life should be heralded and celebrated.
What can our generation accomplish if we are not recognized for our successes, if we are not given heroes and role models?
Hiram Holton was a role model long before he got cancer. Where was the front page article two years ago?
Where was the front page feature article about the modest Lancer, the scholar-athlete, the successful young African-American man in a still-racist world?
Marcus Civin
Providence, R.I.