Scandal erodes privacy

An individual's right to privacy is well established in American law and custom. How one conducts himself in private life is generally acknowledged to be a private matter, of no business to anyone else.

This idea of personal freedom is now questioned, and it is nothing short of disgraceful that the questioning results from the alleged behavior of persons who above all else are are expected to protect American ideals and institutions.

Here we refer to the growing number of members of Congress who are caught up in continuing reports of sex scandals.

Three weeks ago it was Rep. Wayne Hays, D-18, of Flushing, O., accused by Elizabeth Ray of maintaining her as his mistress on the public payroll at $14,000 a year. Next it was Sen. Mike Gravel, DAlaska, identified by Colleen Gardner, another former congressional aide, as a participant in a sex party on a houseboat owned by Rep. Kenneth J. Gray, D-Ill. Additionally, Mrs. Gardner said she was paid $26,000 a year in a congressional staff job to have sex with her boss, Rep. John Young, D-Tex.

The congressional picture appears more sordid when Mrs. Gardner says in Washington that male members of congressional

staffs have told her they have been pressured by congressmen into engaging in homosexual activities. Also, when a complaint is filed in Salt Lake City against Rep. Allan T. Howe, D-Utah, on the ground that he solicited a sex act for hire from two policewomen decoys posing as prostitutes.

It remains to be proved whether stories which so far involve but a handful of members of Congress are true or false. But awful damage has been done to the reputation of the entire legislative branch of government.

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The members now must work to erase the stain and stigma individually, by avoiding associations which might be future cause for personal and governmental embarrassment; collectively, by investigating the allegations made to date in an open, thorough and full manner. In the latter instance there must be a clear determination of how public matters might be affected by legislators' behavior in private life.

If Congress cannot do these things, there is scant hope for regaining lost public respect and trust. Without this, there could be even less regard for legislators' own rights to privacy and, in time, less regard for the same precious right of all other Americans.