The Register

Is the County's Leading Newspaper REALLY Conservative?

By: Michael Harrington

The press of Orange County is among the most politically one-sided in the country. In 1964, there was no paper which endorsed Johnson, and the editorial policies seemed in many cases considerably to the right of Goldwater. The Los Angeles Times, which publishes an Orange County edition, is the nearest approach to liberalism which is available. Among the County's own papers, the Freedom chain—the Santa Ana Register, the Anaheim Bulletin, the La Habra Star, the Orange Daily News and the Brea Progress--all of them owned by R. C. Hoiles, account for most of the circulation. The Register, with over 80.000 paid subscriptions, is the biggest and most influential. It follows an editorial policy which may well be the only one of its kind in the world.

The Register employes some good reporters, and the careful reader can glean much of the news if he avoids succumbing to the headlines. Who, for example, on reading an April 30. 1966 item—Some Reds In CDC, Party Leader Admits would be able to guess what the story actually was?The following day a front-page story headlined “Negro Mob Attacks Cops After Arrest" quoted the police officer involved in smaller type: "There were no racial overtones at all," he had stated. When the Register likes a candidate, it can keep his name almost constantly in the headlines: “Reagan Reluctant To Bid For UROC Endorsement", "Reagan Applauded Loudest at UROC". "Reagan Endorsed By UROC"—three days breathless coverage of one of the most predictable and least important of California's recent political events. When it disapproves, however, as it does of liberals like Steve Allen, the treatment is different: "Free Enterprise 'Inadequate' Says Comedian." When there is nothing much going on that the Register likes. it will fill its front page with interviews with obscure citizens, who invariably say the kind of thing the editor enjoys hearing. The Register calls itself "Southern California's Watchful Newspaper". but on occasion it can watch firmly in the wrong direction. The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported in October, 1964, that Santa Ana's Police Department was in trouble, with certain officers who were members of a Birch Society chapter involved in an effort to force the resignation of Police Chief Edward Allen. The Register said nothing about the matter until the election was over and the City Manager broke the story.

*The party leader in question was William Taylor, of the American Communist Party. He had asserted that Mayor Yorty's charges of red influence in C.D.C. were "ridiculous", though he thought there were a few individual Communists in that organization.

The Register's editorial pages have a curious air of withdrawal from the world. The paper carries only one column which deals with current events--the AllenScott Report--and employs John Birch Society leader Tom Anderson, segregationist Thurman Sensing, and Dr. George Crane, who writes a medical column which sometimes deals with such matters as Communist infections caught from "liberal" professors. H. L. Hunt regularly expresses the viewpoint of an ordinary American millionaire. In addition, there are a variety of little known amateurs or personal favorites of Mr. Hoiles whose opinions make those of fellow-columnist Russell Kirk look pale pink by comparison. The editorials themselves seldom deal with problems of national importance, preferring to focus on some "unnecessary" function of government, or on morality. "The Clearing House" includes letters on a strange variety of subjects, often including incredible items of misinformation --"There is no evidence that Red China has more than approximately one-half of the 700 million people that it claims" (May 1). Once in a while some critic of the Register line appears there, inevitably followed by a stern editorial rejoinder.

From all this, it might be supposed that the Register is an ultraconservative paper, and that is its political reputation in the county. But if this is "conservatism", it has nothing to do with the philosophy of Edmund Burke, generally conceded to be the intellectual father of that school of thought. The central principle of the Register is hostility to government--all government. Many so-called conservatives have somehow drifted into a belief that the best government is that which governs least, though why such an approach is likely to conserve anything is becoming less and less clear. The Register demonstrates what happens when this philosophy is carried to a logical extreme. The Register is not so much conservative as anarchist. Its opposition to the state goes far beyond that sporadic irritation with interfering bureaucracy that characterizes much so-called conservative thinking today, and is based on a philosophy which the paper itself calls "voluntarism."

The Register believes in a system of universal law under which moral facts are no less concrete and timeless than physical facts. As such, neither is amenable to change, and virtue is a matter of uncovering both and planning one's life accordingly. Persons, groups and governments should not threaten or use force to attain their ends since every man is born with the right to take moral action" and to make secure his property which includes his life, liberty and all he produces. While men may form voluntary associations for any reason, neither the group nor any members can possess any rights which individuals in that group do not possess as individuals. Government, if it is to exist, should be voluntarily supported, and its only function should be to protect the rights of every individual- not to redistribute property, manipulate the economy or establish social patterns.

Maintaining these convictions in face of reality requires a certain firmness. Traditional conservatism has always held that reckless or sweeping interference with society is dangerous, since it is an organic unity with all the parts interdependent on the others and the consequences of reform are difficult to foresee. This interdependence seems to be increasing as life grows more complex, and one may wonder, as one reader did, whether it does not call for at least some planning and coordination. The editors bouyantly replied that:

"Life is no more complicated noir than in primitive times other than for the fact that men now have more decisions than they did in primitive times ... (it is less complicated, since so many serve the individual."

"What Laws are Necessary?" asks the March 26th editorial page. "Only those that attempt to prevent theft," comes the inevitable answer. Contemplating an obvious surfeit of legal restraint as a result of this declaration, the editors rhetorically wonder where did Van go wrong?" Answer: "He failed to grasp the principles that man controls his own energy, is universally profit motivated, and will exchange that which is his only when he wants what the other person has more than he wants that which he himself has to offer." If man only recognized his true nature (based essentially upon Pavlovian responses in the market place. it seems), he would see that "Man-made laws and the free market are a contradiction in terms." What laws are therefore necessary? "None whatsoever! The free market regulates itself."

One sees here an example of the enormous confidence placed in the market mechanism. Seemingly capable of regulating what most consider man's legal as well as economic affairs, the free. unfettered market place is almost reverently referred to in a variety of connections. "If we had a free market, and our government did not interfere with the production of peaceful persons. we wouldn't be in one war after another and our standard of living undoubtedly would be much, much higher than it is at present." The cause and effect relationship between the internal structure of the American economy and the rise of Hitler, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the North Korean invasion of the South or Viet Cong activity in Viet Nam is hardly self-evident. While the unregulated free market has proven its productive mettle, it has done less well with the problems of distribution, prevention of monopoly, and the provision of basic though unprofitable services. Nor has it become increasingly productive automatically. A basic lesson of the Great Depression was that the economy could, under certain circumstances, easily stabilize at a level which left 20% of the labor force unemployed and growth stagnant.

Nothing if not consistent. The Register finds itself taking some unique editorial stands. Strongly anti-Communist. It yet opposes the draft law as an inexcusable interference with individual liberty. Nationalistic and sometimes verging on a white-supremacist racism. It was yet one of the only papers in California to speak out strongly against the deportation of Japanese-Americans to internment camps during World War II. Seeing this issue simply in the terms it sees everything; freedom of the individual versus tyrannical government.

It also follows logically that tax supported or compulsory education must be morally wrong, and the Register engages in a permanent crusade against public schools. It holds further that true education is impossible in such "socialistic" institutions. Some people might think that what is taught in the classroom may not be immediately dependent on how the operation of the schools are financed; they must of course, be wrong. It appears that education is not a matter of teaching science, technology, literature or the arts.

"By education we mean the process by which people are continuously developing their understanding of the laws of God and Nature and the great guides by which all things are governed and judged." "If people were educated properly," the paper pensively muses. "we would not be drafting soldiers, there would not be increasing debt for our children and grandchildren to pay or repudiate and there would not be a dollar that was worth less and less all the time.''

With remarkable imagination, very divergent public ills are attributed to a single villain. "improper" education. Though few theologians would agree. The Register thus assures us that the "laws of God and Nature" cover such non-ethereal topics as defense manpower needs, fiscal policy and the equilibrium between aggregate supply and demand.

This curious and dogmatic stand precludes the paper from playing any constructive role in regard to school policies. It also dramatizes the difference between the conservative and the anarchist. Public schools have existed in every civilized country, and in America they were established before the founding of the Republic. A conservative would recognize these facts, and be impressed by them. An anarchist. However, has no interest in history, and he would as soon destroy that which is traditional as preserve it.

The Register maintains a novel stock of ideas in the field of public law and economics which it propounds at the drop of a letter to the editor. "Technically there is no such thing as public property" the reader is reminded lest his personal experiences with it bamboozle him. "If one wants to test whether he own public property, he need only try to set his own conditions for use of it."Equal access to such property for each citizen would seem to be a more workable criterion, yet apparently one either owns something with all attendant privileges or one does not. Presumably the stock holder in a large corporation is not "technically" an owner either, for for his share does not allow him to "set his own conditions for use of" the business. Perhaps this means that none of the nation's corporations are owned, or alternatively, that they are all owned by non-owners. The confusion of oversimplified logic is apparent here.

Since taxation is compulsory, it is therefore theft. Once we understand this, the motivations of people in government appear in an entirely different light, Discussing Senator Dodd's firearms bill, for example, the Register concluded that a desire to restrict civilian ownership of firearms comes naturally to the "politicians:"'

"Put yourself in the government's place. If you were a member of an organization involved in stealing hundreds of billions of dollars per year from the people and intent on enslaving them, would you sleep easy at night in the knowledge that your victims possessed firearms?"

Obviously unassailable logic.

The Register's obsession with the evils of government produces some curious editorial conclusions, none odder than in the field of medicine. Most people may have thought, for example, that the issue in the trial of the proponents of Krebiozen as a cancer cure was whether in fact the drug did what was claimed for it. Not so.

"Krebiozen is not the issue. The principal consideration here is the necessity of the Establishment forever to assert itself over the individual."

Register columnist Paul Travis approaches cancer in the same spirit:

"You have no idea how many Southern Californians go to Tijuana for medical treatment. I found that many do, after my column on the Tijuana doctor who treats cancer patients in ways forbid den by our state and national governments."

Mr. Travis goes on to discuss the alleged virtues of Mexican chiropractors. He notes in passing that his information is dependent on letters to him, and that he does not know the writers. However, it is evidently not whether you get cured or not which is important, nor whether you get defrauded or killed by quack doctors. The real issue is government control.

In the same way, anyone who has followed the controversy between Ralph Nader and the auto industry about car safety may have missed the point. A letter to the editor published with evident approval notes that the writer in future is going to buy foreign cars, if American manufacturers are going to bow to the evil pressures of government, and install compulsory safety devices.

In any other paper, this might be dismissed as irresponsibility, but in the Register it is the consequence of a well-defined philosophy, rigorously adhered to. Man, it is assumed (1) Always knows what is best for himself—what education, which cancer cure, etc., and (2) Being totally selfish, always will do what is best himself, unless restrained by law, Law is therefore contrary to individual welfare, except laws against theft. Further, the individual who works in government is selfish like everyone else, and naturally uses his power to steal from those not in government. Any pretense that government serves the individual or society must therefore be a sham.

Where does this philosophy come from? it is not Christian, for Christianity has never accepted total selfishness of the individual as "natural", and Christianity does assert the capacity and duty of men to benefit one another. The Register talks about "God's laws", but it also runs long articles by Ayn Rand, whose views are very close to the paper's own, Miss

Rand calls herself an objectivist', and she is both consistent and candid in explaining her position on religion: she is an atheist.

Nor is the Register's position conservative in any meaningful sense. Its policy calls for the destruction of many traditional institutions, such as the public schools and taxation. It denies the unity, complexity and interdependence of society, belief in which has always been at the heart of conservative philosophy. It invokes historical examples in defense of its position from time to time, but it has none of the true conservative's reverence for historical fact. Its anarchic hatred of established power and established institutions is in the tradition of Bakunin, not of Burke, and Bakunin was a nineteenth century anarchist who was perceived in his time as closely akin to Karl Marx. The Register claims to be strongly anti-communist, yet its curious vision of utopia evidently involves the withering away of the state.

The Register's philosophy is not based on facts. There is, to put it mildly, considerable evidence that the individual cannot judge in all cases what is best for himself, that the economy is not permanently self-regulating, and that many functions -- defense, education, welfare — can only be performed by a strong government. The Register is uninterested in such evidence, since it has already answered all questions by its own logic. Nor need it worry about the consequences of its own recommendations, since it knows in advance that what it proposes will be right.

The Register's editorial pages are reminiscent of a goldfish bowl, cut off from the modern world by soundproof glass, in which non-issues are fought out with great concentration and ferocity. It may be a tribune to the influences of the Freedom newspapers that much of Orange County's political life possesses the same quality.

1 See "Convictions That Led to Our Belief in Universal Single

Standard of Right." pamphlet published by the Register.

2 Question Box. 15. til. 1966.

3 "About the Register", pamphlet published by the paper. 1965.

4 Register. 15 Nov. 1959.

5 Register. 9 April. 1966.

6 Register, 11 April. 1966.

7 Register, 21 March, 1966.

8 Register, 15 Feb., 1966.

9 Register, 17 April, 1966.