U.S. not fit to live in, says emigrant couple

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 1

U.S. not fit to live in, says emigrant couple

Mr S. Pfiffner and his wife, Jan (above) from Texas found life in the United States so unattractive because of pollution, social unrest and a growing lack of job opportunities for the young, that a year ago they decided to live in another country. ;

He and his wife said that hundreds of young Americans thought the United States was becoming a place not fit to live in. “We worked and saved for a year. We read all we could about other countries. We chose New Zealand because it is remote from trouble centres, has a low population, high food-growing capacity, a stable Government, no racial strife, and little pollution,” Mr Pfiffner said. “Hundreds Of young people in the United States fee! the same way we do. Most of our friends in Texas want to leave; but they haven’t got the money. New Zealand is one of the few attractive countries that people can go to and work,” said Mrs Pfiffner. She is a commercial artist,

aged 22. Mr Pfiffner is 23, and a welding equipment repairman. His family have been in that occupation in Texas for three generations. “We decided when we got married that we were going to leave the United States; and we worked with that objective in mind for a year. The longer we stayed the more we wanted to get out,” Mr Pfiffner said. "When we left three weeks ago it was being announced that the San Francisco Bay was so polluted with mercury that people should not eat fish from the bay more than once a week . . . and pregnant women should not- eat the fish at all.

“San Francisco Bay commercial fishermen have been catching shrimps and oysters from the bay and estuaries for centuries. Now the industry is ruined.” “Just before we left,” said Mrs Pfiffner, “it was reported that a solid blanket of smog lay from Boston to Cuba—about 2500 miles of black cloud above the eastern seaboard. It was reported that the cloud might not move, but obviously it has or it would have been repotted here.” Mr Pfiffner said that restrictions imposed on the economy by President Nixon’s administration often meant that young persons with university degrees, especially in science and technology, could not get jobs in which to apply their knowledge.

alone on the streets in Dallas. “The police in America don’t like the young. If you wear your hair a bit long, if you are black or a Mexican, the police just pick on you and intimidate you. They have clubs and guns, and the Administration is on their side,” said Mr Pfiffner. “There is so much talk of revolution among the young people in the United States that it is frightening. Hundreds of young people there, like ourselves, feel that America today is a good place to get out of,” said Mrs Pfif-| fner.

... move to save jobs

A friend who had obtained a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at a Texas university and who had moved to California had looked for a suitable job for a year. “We met him before we left. He had gone for a job washing test tubes, but a Ph.D. graduate had beaten him to it.”

Mrs Pfiffner sajd that she was frightened to go out

(N.Z. PA. -Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Nov. 20. The United States Defence Secretary (Mr Melvtn Laird) will urge the Senate today to restore military budget cuts to avert a loss of jobs in vital industries. More than s2oom was cut last month from the defence budget ,by the House of Representatives, which approved an appropriation of $66,700m. Mr Laird, who is seeking to have $1360m restored, warned in a New York speech on Tuesday that otherwise bases would have to be closed and people laid off.