ANSWER: Muhammad Ali cited religious reasons for declining to serve in 1967 when the Army came calling via the draft, and for that highly publicized act, he initially received a sentence for five years in prison, a $10,000 fine and a three-year ban from boxing. You, or anyone else, could have also expected to receive the same punishment for refusing to serve, except the three-year ban from boxing, of course.
However, Ali and many others, especially during the Vietnam War era, were considered conscientious objectors — a term used to describe people who avoided service based on their claim of ethical or religious reasons. Ali was a converted Muslim and outspoken on his feelings toward the war. There were several ways to legally avoid the draft, and Ali appealed his sentence all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was overturned in 1971. Ali was able to avoid prison time during the appeal process by using proper legal channels.
So what kind of punishment did Ali receive? Well, for starters, according to news articles of the day, when he refused induction to the U.S. Army in April of 1967, the N.Y State Athletic Commission and the World Boxing Association immediately stripped the boxer of his world heavyweight title and suspended his boxing license before there was even a trial. Ali was unable to engage in his profession from 1967 to 1970. Then of course, there was the actual trial of the sports celebrity, which very well may have permanently damaged his reputation. For an average American citizen, a damaged reputation may blow over with the next big news headline, but for a sports celebrity, such damage may have incredible financial and emotional impact as people continue to bring it up decades later — even posthumously.
DEAR SUN SPOTS: The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say. Here is some more information about the demise of trolleys that you either didn’t know, or didn’t want to print. In the early ’40s, three big companies — a vehicle maker, a fuel (aka oil company), and a rubber company (Goodyear or Goodrich, I don’t remember) — pooled their money together and with their combined money, bought all the electric public transportation they could in order to sell more vehicles and buses and more gasoline to run the buses, and more tires for the buses to run on. They called the operation “National City Lines.” At least that’s the way it was told to me. That’s all folks! — Charles, Lewiston.
ANSWER: As Sun Spots said in her June 2 column, she could write many columns on the subject of the coming and the going of the trolleys (and the trains, for that matter — shout out to Merle Haggard fans). Thank you for sharing this insight.
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