MISSOURI WATCH: DEFENDING OUR SMALLEST MINORITY

I rise today to offer a defense of the smallest, most isolated minority among us. My words will no doubt trigger countless letters from scornful readers who will declare that my liberality has gone too far this time. Faithful readers, recoiling from my revolutionary views, will probably cancel their subscriptions to scores of newspapers across the state.

But I remain adamant: we must stop this senseless abuse and isolation of a small minority in our state and nation.

For long months, even years, this minority has suffered through hard times and good times, prevailing despite public angst, even anger, as they willingly accepted almost universal scorn and disgust among millions of Missourians and Americans.

But we are talking first-class abuse, folks, and we will no longer be able to lay claim to a civilized society if we continue to sweep it under the rug. So, I say, it is time to end this hateful campaign against a beleaguered few, a small band of silent, paranoid men and women who have suffered far too long at the hands of a hateful citizenry and a hostile press.

Perhaps you have already guessed the minority of which I speak. Perhaps you have even read of how they have suffered abuse, been isolated from society, deprived of important rights, such as the ability to shop Wal-Mart without being recognized, rights that you and I take for granted every day.

I rise today in defense of that small minority known hatefully by John Q. Public as the overpaid, pampered and greedy board chairmen/presidents/chief executive officers of the handful of large corporations located within our humble state. It is time to stop discriminating against a small band of corporate officers merely because they make a few million dollars a year in salary and a trifling few more millions in stock options.

I say, enough is enough. Just because the chairman of General Electric, Jack Welch, received a trifling 21.4 million in salary and performance bonuses last year is no reason to slander and libel the poor man. After all, his salary/bonus payments were only a minuscule 400 percent higher than in 1965. Some militia-type Missourians even viewed with jaundiced eye last year's salary/bonus increase of 51 percent for the chairman of one of our most important companies, Anheuser-Busch.

When our state's largest bank was sold to an outside company, right off the bat the press started hollering at what it called "obscene" salaries/bonuses/pensions to local bank officials. The hate-mongering even extended to the future widow of one officer, attacking the very heart and soul of "family values." Thank heavens Andy Craig didn't have a dog or the press would have attacked his poor defenseless animal with the same viciousness accorded Richard Nixon's beloved Checkers.

A handful of other Missourians have also been victims of this hateful discrimination campaign. Presidents and CEOs of Ralston, Monsanto, Southwestern Bell, McDonnell Douglas and a few others have also been forced to take it on the chin.

This public discrimination is not only unfair, ungentlemanly and even un-American, it is causing great distress among the victims. The notoriety that has been thrust among these innocents has forced them to refrain from ordinary pleasures that the rest of us take for granted.

For example, what chance does a $10-million-a-year CEO have when he stands in line to order a Big Mac with large fries and medium drink at his favorite McDonald's? Chances are some surly order taker will make a crack about the CEO's lack of a tip or his attempt to save a couple of bucks on a quick lunch. The result has been this isolated minority has been forced to isolate itself even further, taking refuge in small, secluded and exclusive country clubs, where they can at least dine among fellow-sufferers and not be forced to endure the slings and arrows of insolent burger servers.

Most of us take for granted our ability to get into our cars in the morning and drive to work, all the while sipping our second cup of coffee and listening to the radio to get the latest traffic information. We recognize this as a challenge that keeps us on our toes and alert. The discriminated against CEOs in our midst never have this opportunity for challenge and must adjust to their morning commute by way of a chauffeured limo that isolates them further from the joys of the majority.

We must begin to recognize still other difficulties faced by this distraught minority. While the rest of us spend our days dreaming of when we can go home to the blissful quietude of our homes, harassed CEOs are distracted on an hourly basis as they deal with market fluctuations in their stock options. If they make the wrong decisions on when to exercise these options, they could lose millions and spend the rest of their lives eking out an existence on Social Security payments.

As for quiet evenings at home, this over-stressed, over-worked minority must gear up for formal dinners, charity banquets or meetings with other CEOs who will want to do nothing but talk shop. Oh, the food may be passable, but think of having to endure all those lobster, steak and champagne dinners night after night. No wonder this minority is doomed to a future filled with corrective heart surgery and strict diets.

The average CEO last year got a pay increase of 54 percent, but this was so insignificant a factor in the Gross Domestic Product that no one in Washington paid the slightest attention. The average worker got a four percent salary hike in 1996 and the bells and whistles in Washington went into overtime. The Fed raised interest rates, Clinton warned against inflation and the stock market dropped like a rock. This just demonstrates who's really important and who's been relegated to insignificance in the national economy.

It's time to stop this hateful discrimination. A good way to start would be to take your favorite CEO to lunch. If his country club will let you in.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.