Word: quota
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...campaign had hardly begun when the Republicans were berating the Democrats about a curious issue, one rarely if ever raised in a presidential election. "Dividing Americans into quotas is totally alien to the American tradition," declared President Nixon. "The way to end discrimination against some is not to begin discrimination against others." Contended Vice President Spiro Agnew: "A quota system, regardless of its avowed intent, has no place in a free society." It would, he said, "Push America backward, back into the failures of a bygone era of narrow-minded prejudices and internecine conflicts...
...Quotas? The word does indeed have a sinister, anti-egalitarian ring. Republicans clearly were sounding it to counter the claims of Democrats that their party reforms, inspired largely by Nominee George McGovern, had led to one of the most open and representative national political conventions in U.S. history. The new rules had "encouraged" state delegations to include members of minority groups, young people and women "in reasonable relationship to the group's presence in the population of the state." The Republicans, as well as a good many longtime Democrats excluded in the reform process, considered that political representation...
Once again, as has happened so often in this disappointing campaign, a complex issue was being oversimplified. "Quota" was being used as a code word implying vast sins against democratic ideals, an arbitrary advancement of the have-nots at the expense of those who have worked for their place in society. McGovern declared flatly that he too was against quotas: "I reject the quota system as detrimental to American society. It is both necessary and possible to open the doors that have long been shut to minority-group members without violating the basic principles of non-discrimination and without abandoning...
...plight of the Asians is worsened by the fact that they are not really welcome anywhere. Since 1968, Britain has maintained a harsh quota system to control the entry of East African Asians, even though they are British subjects; at present the number is limited to 3,500 heads of household annually, plus their dependents. Some are legally entitled to go to India or Pakistan, but few are anxious to do so. "Britain may have a million unemployed," remarked an Asian mechanic in Kampala, "but in India they are dying of hunger...
Despite the quota system, the British government is reconciled to the idea of accepting the majority of the expelled Asians-thereby increasing Britain's Asian population from about 600,000 to as high as 650,000. The decision has already raised the level of domestic racial tension. A crowd of angry protesters swarmed on Whitehall two weeks ago, chanting "Keep Britain white!" and "Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate!" Prime Minister Edward Heath courageously insisted that Britain would live up to its obligations, but he plainly hoped that other countries could be persuaded...