The Nation: Perk's Implausible Poll

On moral matters, few politicians match the fervor of Cleveland's three-term Republican mayor, Ralph J. Perk, 63. Last month he had 70 city sanitation workers deliver questionnaires on pornography to 260,000 local households. Hizzoner's avowed aim: to establish a community standard on obscenity, in line with the 1973 Supreme Court ruling on the need for local criteria for jury decisions in obscenity cases.

Last week, with Perk looking on and a miniskirted aide posting results on huge blackboards, 85 municipal workers tabulated responses from 13,000 questionnaires—a return of 5%. Results? An overwhelming 11,625 said that persons engaged in child pornography should be charged with a felony. By 10,549 to 1,503, Clevelanders also said that materials catering to homosexuals, sadists and the like should be banned.

Most professional pollsters, jurists and prosecutors in Cleveland dismiss Perk's poll as far less than objective. Among other things, the mayor prefaced his questionnaire with a plea "to have evidence to present in court which will make it unlawful to peddle obscene material in Cleveland." Perk, not so incidentally, plans to run for re-election in November.