Correspondence to: A. B. Abraham, P.O. Box 17, Bloomington, Calif. 92316

The newest
left republic

I, early July, the world’s oldest independent
republic elected a new 60-member Great and
General Council, and the Republic of San
Marino became the first West European
country in two decades to have a communist-
Socialist coalition government. The 10-
member Congress of State, the executive
body elected by the Great and General Coun-
cil, is composed of four communists and six
Socialists. The government serves a 5-year
term, and no interference from surrounding
Italy is likely, conside ng the communist
Participation in the new Italian government.
(A previous left coalition government in San
Marino was brought down by foreign inter-
ference in 1957, when the cOuntry was
blockaded by Italian police.)

The republic was founded about A.D. 350
by Marinus, a stonecutter from the Dalma-
tian island of Arbe, now in Yugoslavia. The
2-lire stamp shows Marinus (later Saint
Marinus) ‘‘raising the Republic”’ (Scott
#261). Cut stone from quarries on Mt. Titano
Still provides part of San Marino’s export
trade, though postage stamps bring in more
money.

Through a Careful sixteen-century politi-
Cal tightrope walk, San Marino has been able
to maintain its independence and republican
government with only brief interruptions.
The present constitution was adopted in Oc-
tober, 1600. San Marino has served as a place
of refuge for many political exiles over the
years. The 3-lire stamp (#C58) notes the 100th
anniversary of Garibaldi’s flight to San
Marino in 1849.

In March, 1861, the regent captains of the
Republic of San Marino wrote to Abraham
Lincoln, conferring honorary citizenship
upon him and expressing their support for the
preservation of the Union. Although Secre-
tary of State Seward answered most diploma-
tic communications in Lincoln’s name, Lin-
coln’s reply to San Marino is unmistakably in
his own phrasing. A portion is quoted on the
5-lire stamp of 1959 (#433). The full text may
be found on page 360, volume IV of Lincoln’s
“Collected Works” (Rutgers).

A government of domestic fascists ruled
San Marino from the 1920s until liberation in
1943. The 50-centesimi stamp (#220) was in-
tended to commemorate fascism’s 20th an-
niversary, but was instead overprinted to
celebrate the fascists’ downfall.

Even the left didn’t complain when the
right government showed a greedy American
millionaire on the 15-lire stamp of 1970
(#742). Scrooge McDuck smiles as he pinches
a Shiny gold coin. The stamp is part of a set
honoring the late right-winger Walt Disney.

The coat of arms of the 24-square mile re-
public is shown on the 500-lire stamp of 1968
(#686). The central design has three stylized
watchtowers on peaks of Mt. Titano, on whose
slopes San Marino’s 20,000 people live. The
motto, “Libertas,” has even greater meaning
under the new government. :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—November 3, 1978—Page 6 :

By Tim Wheeler

The right wing has toned down its blat-
ant anti-labor, racist, and anti-
communist rhetoric that has been its
standard fare for decades, but ‘which
lent an air of lunacy to its pronounce-
ments. However, hatred of organized
labor, minorities, and the progressive
left in general remains the bedrock of
right-wing groups. But rightists like oil
millionaire Paul Gann, Co-author of the
California Proposition 13 property tax
initiative, rely more heavily than ever
before on code words like “‘welfare
cheaters” and “big labor” to sugarcoat
the poison pills they feed the public.

Even the AFL-CIO’s Industrial

Union Department Warned in a recent
issue of its publication Viewpoint of a
resurgence of anti-labor, racist right-
wing sects in the U.S. Utilizing the slick
computerized direct mail operations of
the Richard N. Viguerie company of

- Falls Church, Va., these groups have

launched a highly coordinated and
lavishly financed Propaganda cam-
paign on a variety of issues in recent
months.

The key to success, Viewpoint said,
is the right and ultra-right’s strategy of
focusing on “‘single issues” selected on
the basis of how amenable they are to
demagoguery. ~

Taxation has been one of the preemi-
nent issues seized on by the ultra-right
and this emphasis has become primary
since. the ultra-rights’ success in win-
ning passage of Proposition 13.

Howard Jarvis, co-author of Propo-
sition 13, has been basking in the
limelight, but his extensive right-wing
ties and ripoff mentality have been ex-
posed in the press. .

~ Records show that Jarvis has raised
hundreds of thousands of dollars for
right-wing .causes including
“‘Businessmen for Goldwater,” the
“National Freedom to Work Commit-
tee,”’ and the ‘Friends of Hayakawa
Committee,” all of which J arvis helped
setup. At thesame time Jarvis has been

accused of mishandling the funds col-

Paul Gann: chairman of the board of advise

lected by these organizations to his own
advantage.

The ultra-right has established 4
network of overlapping top level and
“grassroots” so-called “tax revolt”
front groups with the aim of capturing
the outrage against tax injustice.

- Thegroupsrun the gamut from topt0

_ bottom. The American Council for Capi

tal Formation, for example, is headed
by Charles Walker, former Nixon Ad-
ministration undersecretary of the
treasury who also is retained by the
Business Roundtable as a top level con-
sultant. Walker helped to establish the
ultra-right-connected “‘Committee on
the Present Danger’ which seeks t0
torpedo a SALT II arms control agree
ment with the Soviet Union.

Walker enlisted blue chip corpora-
tions like Exxon, GM, and U.S. Steel ina
recent high powered lobby campaign to

- push through the House a $16.3 billion

tax cut measure with most benefits
going to those with incomes above
$100,000. Included was a $4.4 billion re-
duction in the capital gains tax coupled
with an “inflation index” loophole that
allows corporations to further reduce
their taxes to compensate for inflation.
This ‘‘inflation index” for the rich is es-
pecially outrageous since wage earners
are forced to pay every penny of their
taxes no matter how badly inflation has
eroded their income.

The American Council also sup-
ported a House-passed measure that for
the first time makes unemployment
compensation benefits subject to in-
come taxes! On the other hand, the bill
reduces the corporate tax rate from 48%

to 46% ($3.8 billion in added profits) and —

makes permanent the 10% investment
tax credit.

- The John Birch Society is a covert

of the John Birch Society in Maryland,

_they have succeeded in setting up 250

chapters of a Birchite front called the
“Trim Committee”’ across the nation.

_An acronym for “Tax Reform Im-

mediately,” the group is headquartered

partner of the “Capital Formation ©
Council’’ in this ripoff operation. Ac- —
cording to Miriam Ostreicher, a leader ©

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