O.C.’s Past Giants Are Needed Today

* While contemplating the results of Measure R and the possible effects on the future of our once-great county I began to speculate on just what type of county we would have today if the same do-nothing mind-set that we have been exposed to in recent months had existed among our political and business leaders in the past.

Would they have endorsed the multimillion-dollar ballot issue--in the midst of the Depression--that built the MWD aqueduct that brought Colorado River water to a parched Southern California? Would they have supported a $40-million bond issue in the early 1950s to build our still marvelous flood control system? How about the money that financed our huge sanitary sewer system that includes huge pipelines, massive treatment plants in Fountain Valley and the long ocean outfall line? I wonder if they would have been so willing to support all the school bond issues that passed in the 1950s and 60s to house the exploding number of students? Oh, and let’s not forget about all the parks, and beach projects that we enjoy today, not to mention something as seemingly benign as a library system that we now seem so willing to destroy.

It’s possible that the distant rumbles I seem to hear these days could be coming from the likes of people such as Willis Warner, Dr. Edward Lee Russell, Walter Schmid, Charles Pearson, C.C. Chapman, Al Koch, H. George Osborne, Ken Sampson, John Murdy, Bill Phillips, John Lawson, David Baker and hundreds of others just like them who saw what had to be done and had the courage to put their heads, hearts, jobs and reputations on the line until the job was finished.

Instead, we’re stuck with such brave stalwarts as Supervisors Roger Stanton, Gaddi Vasquez and Jim Silva, Congressmen Chris Cox and Dana Rohrabacher, a TV show host with very little positive to offer, the Lincoln Club, which has certainly strayed from its original ideals, and something called the Committee for- something-or-other whose members seem to be more concerned about avoiding any responsibility for anything than worrying about the future of our county. Somehow, I don’t think any of them quite measure up.

DON SMITH

Santa Ana