To the Editor:

I pray that your readers are not as callous as the managing editor of a widely circulated North Country daily newspaper, who recently wrote that the St. Lawrence County Board of Legislators "needs a sharper focus" regarding the deterioration of the graveyard at "the old county home" on Route 68 near the village of Canton.

I am dismayed, disturbed and disappointed that anyone in such a responsible position would, in reference to plans by a St. Lawrence University professor to exhume and dismantle, chip, chop, grind, saw up, examine and analyze the human remains in the "classic paupers cemetery" (his description) containing the graves of "long dead poorhouse residents…many of them…immigrants" (again, his description), find fault with "at least four legislators (who) have raised objections to the plan, on the basis of respect for the dead."

Yep. I kid you not! He chides our elected legislators for their concern about this project "on the basis of respect for the dead!" The justification for this callous disregard for the mortal remains of deceased North Country poor people is that "the plan would have no cost to St. Lawrence County." Such a vulturous justification for graves desecration is shocking! I am not some sort of religious zealot railing against "science." I am an academic and historian by profession, and have the greatest respect for research.

But not at the expense of those rightfully "resting at peace" in the "paupers cemetery" on the riverbank. I hope that "rest in peace" is not solely for the deceased rich of St. Lawrence County!

This is not, as that commentator characterized it, a "benign proposal"—it is graves desecration. Would you volunteer your ancestors for the same?

I call upon our county legislators to reject this proposal—and find a more dignified manner to remedy the apparent problem of gravesite river erosion.

Andrew S. Szarka

Massena