Govern Woos Middle America in Dorchester

Senator George McGovern (D.S.D.) took his campaign to the lower-middle class and its pocketbooks Monday when he came to Dorchester to unveil his plans for a cut in property taxes.

The speech was McGovern's third major one in the campaign and is coupled with his two earlier proposals, a $30 billion cut in defense spending and tax reform and income redistribution.

McGovern delivered his speech in the wood-floored living room of Mary Houton of 6 Pearl St. Houton's home was chosen because she was getting "reemed" by property taxes, according to press secretary Kirby Jones.

As a color picture of John F. Kennedy smiled down on the couch where McGovern and Houton sat, the candidate told the 20 newsmen and TV technicians about his plan and Houton's tax situation.

"My plan has three purposes in mind," McGovern said. "It would relieve property tax payers by increasing Federal assistance, it would increase total funding for education, and it would equalize the standards of education regardless of a child's neighborhood." He said that his proposed cut in defense spending and closing up of tax loopholes for the rich would make possible the property tax cuts.

Houton, a 42-year-old widow, makes $115 a week as a housekeeper at City Hall, and brings home $85. Fourteen per cent of this take-home pay ($619) goes to property taxes, while McGovern claims that persons in Milton, Lexington and Concord pay only two per cent of this figure and get better schools.

McGovern is considered by many to be too liberal to get the nomination, and Monday's address appeared to be his first attempt to attract the average American fed up with taxes. He also made a pitch to the growing group of voters angry about busing when he told a WHDH-TV reporter later that his tax proposals would make busing unnecessary because schools would theoretically become equal.

At the Houton home, one newsman asked McGovern if he was seeking to upstage President Nixon, who is about to unveil a national value-added tax. "I think Nixon's value-added tax is a disaster," he shot back. "It's another name for a sales tax, which is the most regressive of taxes."

In scattered questions about his campaign afterwards, and in particular about a Boston Globe survey which showed him trailing Senator Edmund S. Muskie (D-Me.) in New Hampshire, McGovern questioned the accuracy of polls in primaries and said he expected to do better than 18 per cent.

Edward T. O'Donnell, head of National Students for McGovern and now working full-time on New Hampshire at the Harvard office, said that his candidate has just opened 14 new offices in New Hampshire. A court decision last week will allow New Hampshire's college students to vote in the primary, and O'Donnell reported that his organization is busing 300 student canvassers up to New Hampshire each weekend