His staff members have quietly done constructive work in the city of Washington and in "casework"-helping his constituents solve their own problems with the government, mostly in draft and welfare cases. Along with Sen. Alan Cranston's (D-Calif.) office, they managed to reduce the 15-year sentences of the 27 men condemned in the Presidio Mutiny case.

They, and the 29 interns Goodell had in his office over the summer, have shown the Senator how the younger generation in this country is thinking and feeling. Before he decided to speak out on the war, his staff members and interns argued long hours with him trying to convince him to say something. Many of the staff members have said that it was the efforts of the interns that finally convinced Goodell he had to do something. And, as he often does, he committed himself entirely to a cause he believes in, introducing the Vietnam Disengagement Bill.

GOODELL believes in himself as an educator as well as a legislator. He often says of his speeches in New York State, "I tell people what they don't want to hear." He tells upstate farmers that some of the things students are demonstrating about are important issues; and he tells the students that the farmers' complaints about taxes are equally legitimate.

On October 14 and 15, the Senator will cover almost all of New York, speaking at Queens College, Syracuse University, and the University of Rochester today and Cornell, Fordham, and NYU tomorrow.

SENATOR GOODELL is a man of integrity and principle. He is an intelligent man who could become a forceful liberal leader in the Congress.

But even though his bill to end the war is innovative and admirable, it will lose. And were it to pass both Houses of Congress, we all know Nixon would veto it. The bill is meant to be a forceful gesture, rather than a concrete action-but that fact is the basic problem with the whole system Goodell is working in. The best a man with good intentions can do is make a forceful gesture. If he is lucky, an important bill he has introduced may pass. But then the President must approve it, and a presidential appointed must enforce it. And there are always other projects, like ABM or Operation Intercept, that take finances from the worthiest of projects.

So we continue to send some good men to the bureaucracy on the Potomac, only to see them swallowed up by it. But we still hope that maybe one day we'll send enough to make things change.