Milken’s Sentence

Milken’s 10-year sentence was justified. He broke the 11th Commandment, the most dastardly crime in our society, that pillar of today’s American ethics: “Thou shalt not get caught.”

If fairness were still an element in our moral code, Ronald Reagan should serve three years of Milken’s term for loosening the dogs of monetary pillage and rape by deregulating and loosening all restraints on banking, stock manipulation and that element of business whose only purpose is making money for the wily few at the expense of labor and basic businesses and industries.

Perhaps a few courageous citizens who refuse to take part in our great democracy by not voting and perhaps some of those who vote but refuse to consider the best interests of all of us might sit out part of Milken’s time for him.

Also we must not shy away from the fact that many of the people hurt by the machinations of Milken and his ilk are, in a sense, responsible for their own undoing. These many, as others like them in the Roaring Twenties, were trying to get something for nothing.

LEON LASKIN

Los Angeles