An Ordinary Citizen Discusses the Morality of Watergate (1974)

to begin serving time for obstruction of justice. But first to Mrs. Grace Crawley, who lives in Babylon, New York. Three weeks ago, Mrs. Crawley wrote a letter to Neil MacNeil, the Time magazine correspondent and regular panelist on our Friday night program Washington Week in Review. It was a thoughtful four pages of troubled questions and concern about the Watergate ethic. Impressed with her words NPACT reporter Missie Rennie went to Babylon and talked with Mrs. Crawley. The first question had to do with her background. - Well, I was born right here in this house and I was raised here, lived in Babylon all my life, went to school here from kindergarten through high school in the same building. My family have always been Republican. I think I would feel the same sadness whether it was a Republican or Democratic administration. I feel sad that this has happened in our government. - Mrs. Crawley's home town is an older middle class suburb of New York City, a forty mile sixty minute commute on the Long Island railroad. Politically, it's two hundred and three thousand people usually vote conservative republican

majorities. They went for President Nixon in nineteen-sixty, sixty-eight and seventy-two by overwhelming margins. - It's a traditional community but Babylon has definitely changed. It's grown tremendously since the war. Our population is just about tripled and, of course, when you have an influx of new people, you have an influx of new ideas and new ways and new methods but essentially a lot of the old-time residents are still here and still cling to their old ideals, their old principles. - While we were in Babylon, we also talked with Mrs. Crawley's mother and minister as well as following some of the themes to discussions with groups of young people and older citizens. The thrust of every conversation was the current damage and the potential good wrought by Watergate. - The thing that bothered me most about Watergate, I felt that all those things we had had been taught had been violated. All of the principals we had been taught, the ethics, the morality of the government, the integrity of the government had just suddenly been

shattered. The perfect willingness to subvert the Constitution, to subvert the American way of life and their behaviour throughout the entire thing, is the only important thing was that this was being exposed and how can we best keep the American people from knowing about it so that we can go on and continue doing the same darn thing. I've always felt that the government pretty much ran itself, that those men were put there because they knew their business, they were educated to run the government, they knew things that naturally all of the citizens couldn't begin to know, couldn't begin to comprehend and I felt that it would be a little presumptuous on my part, for instance, to question our congressman why he did a certain thing or why he did not do something. I feel now that this isn't going to happen again. To carry one step further the remark that one of the news commentators made, that no word politician will ever

dare try this sort of thing again. I don't think the people in the country are going to permit anyone to try this again. I hope now that we're all going to pay closer attention to what our politicians are doing, what they stand for. Well, the older people