4

-4-

Nominal allies have become at least temporary opponents as the benefits and dangers of running and not running are argued with at least as much heat as light.

The question takes on a special urgency because of what is at stake next year - not electing a black person president, but rejecting the president more hostile to our concerns than any other.

For three years we've lived under an administration run by an amiable incompetent, the architect of avarice and social policy.

When he first took office, we were fearful -- today we know what real fear is.

Then, we thought our civil rights were in jeopardy -- today we see them swiftly slipping away.

Then, Reaganomics was an unproved economic theory -- today it remains an unproved theory, but its application threatens to make the depression look like a Sunday school picnic.

From Buffalo to Gary, the United States is in its worst depression in 50 years. Plants are closed daily, shifts are laid off.

Eighty-eight percent of black youth are jobless in Gary; 83 percent in Riverside, California; 80 percent in Youngstown, Ohio; and 79 percent in Montgomery, Alabama.