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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 14, 1985
sponsibility to know where all members stood on issues of national impor
tance. For this reason, on the crucial draft legislation, Miller refused
to admit seven onrushing congressmen, all of whom he knew would have voted
against the draft. The bill passed by one vote. What power even door
keepers sometimes have!
Near the end of the Q-and-A period, Mr. Overton stressed that the United
States, as leading power in the free world, cannot afford to let its min
eral-based industrial strength ebb away, allowing the nation to have merely
a service-based economy. "Our enterprises can't only be those of cutting
up chickens and cooking hamburgers." He reiterated the advice given by the
lawgiver Solon to the wealthy Greek king Croesus: "He who hath better iron
than yours will win all your gold."
Mr. Overton admitted that the American m1n1ng industry has a "massive edu
cational problem" trying to get its concerns over to Congress and out to the
public at large. Talking about a minerals policy, he says, has all the "sex
appeal of a radish." It has no saleability as news copy.
When I introduced myself at the end of his talk, Mr. Overton was very pleas
antly surprised. He said he has been taking The PLAIN TRUTH for three or
four years. He was introduced to the magazine when a colleague showed him
the article in the September 1980 issue entitled "Just Ahead•••world Crisis
Over Minerals."
Mr. Overton said the editors of The PLAIN TRUTH may use his speech "any way
you wish" and departed by saying that we should "keep up the fine job you're
doing." We'll certainly give his remarks a much wider circulation--more
than the handful of people present to hear him in San Francisco.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau