Edwards Opens Local Campaign Headquarters

              U. S. Rep. Edwin Edwards
. . . opens local campaign office
Edwards Opens Local
Campaign Headcioarters
By J. L. Wilson
Of The Times Staff
U.S. Rep. Edwin Edwards of
^rowley, a candidate for the
office of Louisiana governor in
the Nov. 6 Democratic primary,
bpened his Shreveport campaign
headquarters Tuesday pledging
support of the proposed North-
South Toll Road and making
LSU-Shreveport a four-year col-lege.
Edwards also voiced support
of a "total LSU medical com-plex"
in Shreveport.
A Dixieland band, young girls
in mini-skirts and bowler hats
and handshaking marked the
ceremonies at 404 Milam.
Edwards also made a whirl-wind
s p e a k i n g tour of the
Northwest Louisiana area Tues-day
afternoon, a d d r e s s i n g
groups in Vivian and Bossier
City.
In an addres to the Bossier
City Jaycees at the Amber Inn,
Edwards called for revision of
the state constitution, including
drafting of a new system of
government for the state.
E d w a r d s said the current
system of government in Loui-siana
is "fraught with tempta-tion"
that results in widespread
corruption.
He said under the Louisiana
Constitution, there are 267 sep-arate
budgetary agencies, com-pared
to only 40 budgetary
agencies in most states. He said
only eight states have more
than 100 such agencies.
The gubernatorial h o p e f u l
said there is no coordination
between the many agencies of
state government.
He said of 14 state agencies
involved in rehabilitation, none
is responsible for rehabilitation
of juveniles.
Edwards said 29 agencies are
assigned polution control re-sponsibilities,
but asserted: "I
don't think any of them are
doing a good job."
He said the state agencies
also have 1,113 separate bank
accounts, which he said in-creases
the danger of misuse of
state funds. He said he feels one
agency should be designated to
pay all state employes.
He pointed out that three
years ago the Louisiana Depart-ment
of Highways was found to
have 1,000 employes more than
allocated by law.
"One fiscal agency should be
handling funds," he said.
Edwards said such reform
could "remove the temptation
for fraud and misrepresenta-tion"
and decrease the "high
incidence" of corruption in state
government.
T u r n i n g to education, Ed-wards
called for emphasis on
vocational training in public
schools in the state.
He maintained that a high
percentage of students graduat-ing
from Louisiana high schools
go into vocational and technical
trades though their education is
designed to prepare them for
college level work.
He said emphasizing vocation-al
training could reduce crowd-ing
in classrooms and reduce
the n u m b e r of high school
dropouts in the state. He also
c a l l e d for modernization of
existing vocational training fa-cilities.
Edwards cited Louisiana as
"the only state in the nation
that is still married to a trade
school concept that was modern
and popular in the 1930s."
Turning to the state's growing
crime p r o b l e m s , Edwards
called for treatment facilities
for drug addicts. He said drug
traffic is a "fact of life" in
Louisiana with an estimated
10,000 addicts residing in the
New Orleans area alone. He
said elimination of the drug
problem could save $1 billion
per year in Louisiana by elimi-nating
crimes that addicts com-mit
in order to buy drugs.