Battalion
Cloudy
and
warm
? le * J
earn £11. 67 No. 112
College Station, Texas
Thursday, April 20, 1972
Friday — Cloudy in the morn
ing with rainshowers, thunder
showers. Southerly winds 10-20
mph., becoming partly cloudy in
afternoon. Notherly winds 10-15
mph. High 83°, low 69°.
Saturday —< Partly cloudy.
Westerly winds 10-15 mph. High
79°, low 53°.
845-2226
Smith will veto
tax bill moves
by legislature
the punctured victim. The Aggie Blood Drive continues
through Friday in the basement of the Memorial Student
Center. (Photo by Mike Rice)
’LL LIVE. Missy Leonard does strange things with
a Jace after donating blood to the Wadley Blood Bank
JjClkllas. Nurse Zola Rutherford lends a helping hand to
^MMurtry comments
cl Film - makers are thinking harder
r"- •
JM Bommenting that “going broke has been good for Hollywood,”
on Larry McMurtry told an audience Wednesday that “financial
V^yeuliies have forced film-makers to think harder and work more
^^Tlptively and creatively.”
|||jWcMurtry, whose novel “Horsemen Pass By” was filmed as
oil rid” in 1962, is the author of the highly successful new film “The
ill it Picture Show.”
Hollywood has changed enormously in the last 10 years,
GJlurtry noted in his comparison of the filming of the two movies. “It
10/|jmuch more exciting place for a writer to work now than it was in
conomic pressures are responsible for the changes, he said,
that “Hud,” starring Paul Newman, Patricia Neal and Melvin
is, was a typical “star system” Hollywood production,
financing for the $4.5 million “Hud” was obtained on the
of Paul Newman’s box office appeal, McMurtry explained. “No
fT/would h ave l oane( l that much money for the film on the basis of
jjyj bojok, author or director.”
omi;! Claiming that much of the money spent on “Hud” was wasted,
T^Xiurtry said the actual production value of the film was about $1
...pion. approximately the amount spent to film “The Last Picture
mi
Costs for “The Last Picture Show” were kept down through the
use'of much smaller technical crews, fewer high salaried “stars”, shorter
shooting schedules and by cutting out such luxuries as individual rental
cars for the use of movie personnel on location.
Commenting that film-makers often seem to be in awe of writers,
McMurtry said he was treated with great respect when he arrived in
Hollywood as a 22 year-old author of a successful first novel.
“They seemed to feel they had to treat me with kid gloves, but I
was a very junior instructor at TCU at the time and was just glad they
were making the film.”
Despite his success as a screenplay writer, McMurtry said he still
feels the novel is a more satisfactory media for an author to work in.
“A novel is something I can do in the whole,” he explained. “This
can never be the case with film where the writer must always enter into
collaboration with others.”
McMurtry, a native of Archer City who now resides in Wash
ington, D.C., added he preferred novels to films for other reasons as
well, including the novelist’s greater freedom “to create a world not
structured by time limits” and the fact that an unsuccessful writer can
always write another book while the moviemaker who fails will
probably not get another chance.
AUSTIN UP) —Gov. Preston
Smith, enmeshed in the fight of
his life for re-election, promised
Texans Wednesday night he
would veto any tax bill passed
by the legislature in the coming
special session.
“I will present a budget that
will require no new taxes, and I
will use every available author
ity of the governor’s office to
insure that such a budget is
enacted by the legislature,” Smith
said in a statewide telecast over
19 stations.
He openly used the no-new-
taxes pledge as a vote-gettinq de
vice for the May 6 Democratic
primary.
“If you do not want higher
taxes, and if you do not want to
give the legislature a blank check
to spend more of your money,
then you should vote for Preston
Smith,” he said.
The telecast was paid for from
his campaign funds.
A gubernatorial veto could be
overridden by a two-thirds vote
of the House and Senate.
Even though he might lose the
primary, Smith still would be
governor and have his veto au
thority during the special session.
Estimates of new taves that
would be required to finance the
state budget for the fiscal year
beginning Sept. 1 have been in
the neighborhood of $150 million.
Smith’s veto last year of ap
propriations for the next fiscal
year made a special session,
which the governor is expected
to call in June, mandatory.
The governor said in his taped
television address that he prom
ised last year he would propose
a budget for fiscal 1973 that
could be financed from existing
taxes.
“My fellow Texans, Preston
Smith will live up to that com
mitment,” he said.
“There will be no new taxes
signed into law by Preston Smith
during the next special session.
. . . This is a commitment to you
and a friendly warning to the
legislature. No new taxes will
be acceptable and no new taxes
will be signed into law,” the gov
ernor asserted.
Smith compared his position
with what he said were the views
espoused by his three main oppo
nents, Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, Rep.
Frances Farenthold and Dolph
Briscoe.
Barnes and Mrs. Farenthold
both think higher taxes will be
necessary, and Briscoe has had
little to say on the subject, Smith
said.
“It is clear from the positions
and non-positions of the other
candidates that they have no
stomach for a tough, belt-tighten
ing approach to state spending,”
he said. “They intend to make no
real effort to hold down spend
ing or taxes.
“They unfortunately find it
easier to say ‘yes’ than to say
‘no’ to the never-ending requests
which obligate and over-spend
the taxpayers’ money.”
The governor told his viewing
audience that he had saved them
more than $140 million this year
by forcing the legislature to drop
plans in 1971 to pass an increase
in the gasoline tax.
“The gasoline tax increase was
nearly as distasteful to me as was
the extension of the sales tax to
groceries and medicine which Ben
Barnes pushed through the Texas
Senate, a tax which might have
been adopted if it had not been
for my opposition and that of the
majority of the people in Texas,”
Smith said.
He referred to a 1969 confer
ence committee proposal to im
pose the sales tax on food. Smith
told the 10 House members and
senators on that committee that
he would sign the food tax bill
if it were passed. Senators ap
proved the measure, but wide
spread public outcries forced the
House to kill it.
If you pass this bill, I will
approve it,” Smith told the com
mittee.
The governor also said he has
always recommended budgets that
were “significantly lower than
those finally enacted by the legis
lature.”
Smith said that once an appro
priation bill is passed at the
special session, he would open the
session to other subjects.
He listed a statewide food
stamp program, childhood devel
opment programs, repeal of a law
requiring independent braking
systems for trailers.
Rucker discusses environment on campus
The lighting situation of the
Zachry Engineering Center is a
“fiasco,”’ said A&M Landscape
Architect Robert Rucker Wednes
day in front of Sbisa Dining Hall.
In the 45-minute question-and-
answer session sponsored by the
Memorial Student Center Recrea
tion Committee, Rucker sought to
clarify issues concerning the cam
pus environment.
Chinese short on curiosity, Kalb
m
h
uriosity isn’t killing the China
gon, according to CBS news-
a| Bernard Kalb’s Great Issues
sentation Wednesday,
eaking in the Memorial Stu-
ntl Center Ballroom, Kalb said
Brican reporters who accom-
nied President Richard Nixon
hina were surprised by the
11 disinterest in American
his isn’t unusual for the
ese,” said Kalb. “They have
eat tradition of being pre-
-fl. igllpied with themselves plus a
WjUgie in doing things for them-
oomjJ ?es without the help of out-
WE
give
ccording to Kalb, reporters
been “China-watching” for
rs trying to observe changes
reactions in the Chinese
le, He cited power purges,
aganda, and the recent
ge in attitude toward the
. as reasons for this watchful
iThere have been opportunities
China and the Soviet Union
'oice disapproval of the bomb-
of North Vietnam,” he said,
it the Chinese ping pong team
kept its rendezvous in the
ited States to help preserve
re rather than working
eugh the narrower spectrum
supporting Hanoi.
China realizes that with the
ssians knocking at their front
with ballistic missiles it
ds a friend to help calm Sino-
'iet relations.”
ialb commented that China’s
ital city, Peking, is not the
odachrome slide” many people
ke it to be.
'It took us one hour to drive
the eighteen miles from the air
port to Peking and during that
time we saw many villages on
the road, but very few people,”
said Kalb. “The people in these
are held together by a Mao-atti
tude which is stark, regimented,
and poor.”
The idea of the poorness^of the
Chinese people was a thought that
stuck with Kalb as he traveled
through China. He noticed, con
trary to his earlier ideas, the
Chinese were rich by their stand
ards, which have progressed by
leaps and bounds since the Com
munist takeover in 1949.
“Who has won since the Com
munists took over?” Kalk asked.
“It would have to be the peasants,
the 600 million people who were
nowhere before Mao came into
power.”
Although Mao Tse-tung has of
fered the people a menu with a
“choice of food,” he hasn’t given
them one for thought, said Kalb.
He continued saying it was amaz
ing the amount of things achieved
from the chaos that used to be.
“It was discouraging for some
reporters to visit Peking Uni
versity, once the greatest uni
versity in China,” he said. It has
been reopened after being shut
down for several years after the
takeover but only three courses
are being offered in Chinese
history, for example. We have
more in American colleges today.”
Kalb said human contact be
tween the Chinese and non-
Chinese is a businesslike relation
ship which is extremely insulated.
The Chinese may seem self-suffi
cient but actually they like the
look of the Western countries, he
added.
The trench that was once Mili
tary Walk is going to be turned
into a bigger and better mall
then presently exists around the
library, Rucker said. Although
he defended the construction of
the newly proposed parking lot
because it will be hidden by an
“earth sculpture,” Rucker at
tacked structural motifs of other
buildings, calling one a “bastard
oriental” style.
The landscape architect cited
the work done in the Law-Puryear
quad as proof that his organiza
tion is responsive to the student-
interests in the environment. The
residents “agreed to police the
area themselves,” noted Rucker.
“We always want student input
but it is difficult to get. One stu
dent will be real active but when
he leaves there is no one to take
his place,” Rucker emphasized.
“We used to have the Student
Senate’s Environmental Aware
ness Committee meeting every
month but then the chairman
graduated.”
All of the construction on cam
pus has halted any landscaping
for the present. “They’ve torn
up the front lawn of the MSC
three times during the past twb
years,” said Rucker.
A&M’s soil is a big problem,
noted Rucker. “We hauled in soil
from the Brazos River in some
places.” The site for the campus
was chosen because “if an agri
culture student can grow a plant
on this land, he can grow one any
where.”
12 Vanity Fair finalists
to contend for 1972 title
Twelve finalists have been selected to vie for
the title of 1972 Vanity Fair announced Joe Ar
redondo, chairman of the selection committee.
The finalists are Virginia Ehrlich, Sara Hedrick,
Martha Logan, Mary Kay Maedgen, Karen McKeel,
Barbara Louise Neely, Anne Seifert, Jane Shortby,
Candace iSliber, Lynn Svoboda, Eileen Urban and
Margaret Wagner.
Three alternates were also chosen. These are
Becky Myers, Donnelle Atkinson and Susie Heller.
The finalists were chosen from 47 entries by a
fourteen member committee. Final selection of six
Vanity Fair winners will be made by the people
at the Student Publications Banquet April 28.
Legislation to end the Vietnam war
exemplifies Democrats’ determinism
Bernard Kalb
WASHINGTON tff) — House
Democrats, spurred by the re
newed U.S. bombing of North
Vietnam, Wednesday moved to
ward their strongest action yet
on end-the-war legislation.
At a party caucus the Demo
crats set the stage for adoption
of a resolution calling for the
fixing of a date to end U.S.
ground and air involvement in
Indochina, subject only to the
release of American war pris
oners.
Opponents succeeded in delay
ing final action Wednesday, but
the party leadership promptly
scheduled another caucus for to
day, although the caucus normal
ly meets only once a month.
Antiwar Democrats expressed
confidence their resolution will be
adopted if a majority of the 256
House Democrats show up so the
caucus can function.
University National Bank
“On the side of Texas A&M.”
—Adv.
'DC