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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 1957)
* % 18,440 READERS THE BATTALION Vote AGAINST Compulsory Insurance Number 226: Volume 55 Accused Killer Faces Second Trial for Life Ronald Edward Menter, 22, accused murderer of Aggie Senior Jan David Broderick, and the object of a three-day search which finally ended in New Jersey, faces the second trial for his life as counselors go through the pre-trial ordeal of picking a jury in Polk County. The case, clouded by both the defense and prosecution asking for a change of venue/ came to court yesterday before Judge Earnest Coker of the Ninth Dis trict Court in Livingston. Menter’s first trial ended in a hung* jui-y after 34 hours of de liberation last June 9. Broderick was found, still breathing, suffering from a bullet wound in the temple, in a road side ditch near Hempstead, Dec. 31, 1955. He died before help could reach him and never re gained consciousness. A search immediately began for an unknown person believed to be driving Broderick’s car. Sheriff’s officers and posses combed thick woods of surround ing counties but to no avail. Men ter had slipped through the cor don of officers and finally made his way to the East Coast where an alert State Police Officer ar rested him while he was trying to sell the radio out of Broderick’s car. Unable to answer questions about the driver’s license which he had taken from Broderick he blurted out—“I killed that guy in Texas.” Yesterday lawyers had approved only two members of this the newest jury in the Menter trial. The state has used up eight of its challenges and the defense three. A special venire of 200 men and women has been called to serve for the trial. COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1957 Price Five Cents Truman Jones Presents Talks A simple method for the design and control of the concrete batch will be presented by Truman R. Jones Jr., associate research engi neer, Texas Transportation Insti tute, A&M College, to the Ameri can Institute in Dallas, Feb. 25-28. His talk will deal with practical solutions for the most common problems encountered in concrete work. Most frequent problems are in batch design, handling, placing and finishing of structural quality concrete made with uncoated ex panded shale and clay aggregates. Senators Distribute Insurance Pamphlets EDITORIAL Despite the smoke screen of respectability thrown around the proposed compulsory insurance plan being pushed by the Student Senate, several major shortcomings are ap parent. • The program is compulsory. • Only about 60 per cent of the students will benefit from it since only those paying the student medical fee can join the program. • The Student Senate has offered only a compulsory plan which does not give the student body the privilege to choose between compulsory and non-compulsory. • The plan is only half of what we need since it covers only accidents and has no provision for the many illnesses that so often require treatment above that offered by the College Hospital. • Many students already hold insurance plans. They should not be forced to buy another. • The plan offers only nine months coverage. • College officials have interfered and have allowed the insurance salesman to help senators sell the idea. • The college could operate the program which would exist only as a service to students rather than reap profits for an insurance agency. Supporters of the compulsory plan say it is the only way. Yet the salesman was heard telling the president of his company they (the company) may need the figures for non- compulsory insurance if the students did not accept the com pulsory idea. Naturally they want the plan compulsory. It means more money for them. But what we as students want is as complete a plan as possible that does not exclude or limit its field of assistance, not one that cannot stand on its own feet and has to be com pulsory to exist. Larry Piper, senate president, gave such a policy to The Battalion. It is printed in today’s insurance story. Saddle, Sirloin Club Weather Today Flans Stock Entry C. S. Spotters Scan Area Skies For Aircraft College Station Ground Ob servers came out in large numbers Sunday to the patio of the Memorial Student Cen ter to search the skies for pos sible enemy aidcraft, T/Sgt. John L. George, commander, Sub detachment 2, Ground Obseiwer Coi’ps said yesterday. “Approximately 60 planes were spotted and reported to Houston Air Defense Filter Center,” he said. “None were enemy aircraft, of course.” George said Ken S. Hallaran, post supervisor and owner of the Radio Shop in Bryan, opened the post at 10 a. m. He and his two oldest boys began the watch, he said. Mrs. Homer Adams, chief ob server; Mrs. Percy Goff and Mrs. Dorthea Temple were on duty at various times during the day supervising the alert, the sergeant said. George says the local watch was part of an alert which covers points over the state. “San Antonio and Corpus Christi Air Defense Filter Centers are on 24-hour, 7-days-a-week alert in the event enemy bombers using the jet stream come across the North Pole, aci’oss the Pacific and into Mexico,” he says. “Then the planes would turn north and into Texas.” He explained that the jet stream is a narrow path of air which moves at varied altitudes at speeds of from 175 to 225 miles per hour. “An enemy plane could use this air current to increase their speed as well as their range,” he says. George says the Ground Observer Corps would be the only way an alarm of enemy attack could be re layed to Defense Bases if an at tack would come from Mexico be cause there is no radar system on this border. Another alert of this kind will be held next month and in months to follow, he says. Talk by AIM Exec For the first time since its organization members of the Saddle and Sirloin Club at A&M will have a group of animals entered in the Houston Fat Stock Show. “There has been speculation among members of the S&S Club for some time, and among the former students, as to just why someone from A&M didn’t enter a ‘show string’ in the annual stock Ag Singing Cadets Visit SMU Friday A&M’s Singing Cadets will flood Southern Methodist University’s McFarlin Memorial Auditorium with song Friday night when they present a concert sponsored by the Dallas A&M Mothers’ Club. Proceeds from the concert will go to the Mother’s Club Scholar ship Fund. Leaving A&M at noon Friday, the 60-voice group will follow-up Friday night’s performance with an appearance in Longview Satur day night at 8. They will leave Dallas for Longview that morning. Officers of the club are Charles Jenkins, president; Ed Burkhead, vice-president, Bob Surovik, busi ness manager; Jimmy Boyd, re porter-historian; and Clem Sherek, librarian. The group is under the direction of Bill Turner and ac companied by John Good. shows over the state,” said Ralph Terrill, chairman of the stock com mittee. “Late last semester we (club members) got these three sheep and will enter them in the Houston Show.” Due to not getting plans ready in time the Club will have only three sheep to enter in the show. They will be entered in the Medium Wool Fat Lamb classes. The boys in the club plan to use these three animals as a start, and next fall will have a complete string of animals including cattle and swine to enter in several of the state shows, Terrill explained. Working with Terrill on his committee are J. C. Bullard, Hib- bert Beck, Curtis Van Zant and Jimmy Butler. Hudson Glimp, freshman student from Burney, will show the Club’s animals in Houston. Glimp showed the Grand Champ ion Ram and Ewe at this year’s Fort Worth Show and club mem bers are depending on him to show their animals with the same re sult in the Houston show. Glimp will be in charge of com- pletirig the finishing work on the animals after they reach Houston. He will be competing against his own family in the show as his parents and sister have animals entered in the same events. The animals from A&M will be judged Feb. 27 and 28 and will go on sale Mar. 1. Skies will be partly cloudy to day. The temperature at 10:30 A. M. this morning was 63 de grees yesterday’s high and low readings were 80 and 56 degrees. Jackson Martindell, president of the American Institute of Manage ment addressed a special open-to- the public session of the Executive Development course here this after noon. His subject was “The Job of the Personnel Administrator.” tt* M SADDLE AND SIRLOIN CLUB will enter this year’s Houston Fat Stock Show with the above entries. (1. to r.) Martin Graham, Hudson Glimp, Joe Van Zandt and James Taylor are members of the committee which is fitting the sheep for the show. Glimp will show the A&M entries in the show. —(Photo by John West) Non-compulsory Policy Revealed By LELAND BOYD Campaign literature is due to be funneled to all dormi tories this afternoon in a drive to “inform students all about the Senate’s Compulsory Accidental Insurance,” senate lead ers indicated yesterday. Mimeographed pamphlets explaining what the senate considers to be “the best plan we can get around here” were to be circulated to as many students a senate delivery service could muster. From the beginning of talk about compulsory insurance at A&M, senate leaders have moaned “nobody knows any thing about it.” It was for this reason they called off the first referen- ♦'dum scheduled to gauge Ag gie sentiments. But if everything runs along smoothly this time, the vote will come tomorrow. Voting boxes will operate at Sbisa Mess Hall from 8 .a. m. to 7:30 p. m., Duncan Mess Hall from 11:30 a. m. to 1:15 p. m. MSG from 8 a. m. to 5' p. m. and Col lege View Quonset Hut (where rent is collected) from 8 a. m. to 5 p. m. For unexplained reasons mention of what could be done to get away from a compulsory insurance law was left off the senate’s pamphlet. Senators say a non-compulsory policy would cost about $15 a school year. But a brochure ob tained from Senate President Larry Piper describes a policy which would not be compulsory and cost only $5 a semester. The brochure says this $5 plan was adopted at a university with 6,000 students. Even though the policy was not mandatory, 92 per cent of the student body partici pated. For $5 a semester the students were insured against not only ac cidents but also sickness and surgery expense. The policy would pay up to $200 for ap pendicitis operations, $50 for tonisilledomiesi ailji other ex penses for the operations on the policy schedule. A complete schedule of payments was not included in the brochure. A provision could be included in the policy to extend coverage to summer school students. No provision to cover summer students is included in the com pulsory plan offered by the senate. Why about 1,200 day students are excluded from the plan is another phase not fully explained in the senate’s publicity. Senators tell listeners that day students can sign up for insurance if they first pay $10 to the College Hospital for the Medical Services Fee. Then the day students, who are just as susceptible to accidents as other Aggies, could shell out $1.55 and be allowed to have the insurance, the senate salesmen/ argue. * Senate leaders are hush-hush about what non-compulsory surance would cost for A&M. They maintain that they did a lot of study before settling on the present plan, but know only that “it will be too expensive” if the plan is not compulsory. Monday night, the insurance salesman who sold the senate com mittee on the plan called the Hous ton Office. He asked the president of Universal Security Life to start figuring on costs for a non- com pulsory plan. “If this thing don’t go the right way when the students vote on it, we are going to need to know what it would cost,” the salesman told him. Yesterday morning the salesman phoned Paul D. Conner, legal ad visor to the Texas Board of Insur ance Commissioners in an effort to clear up worries about whether one policy would be void because of another policy. Senator Joe Ross quoted Conner as saying: “. . . An individual’s original policy must pay off as long as you (See INSURANCE, Page 2) Bridge Players Set Competition In Tournament Aggie bridge enthusiasts match wits with students from more than 100 U.S. col leges in the 1957 Intercolle giate Bridge Tournament next week, according- to Mrs. Gladys Black, local tourney sponsor. Mrs. Black says a minimum of 16 students from each college must compete for a school to quali fy in the competition. Bridge hands will be sent each participant during the week of competition. The hands will then be sent to Geoffrey Mott-Smith, contract bridge authority, for scoring. ‘As yet we haven’t picked the, Aggies who will play the hands,” Mrs. Black said. “They should be chosen by next week.” C. C. Nolen of the University of Texas, Tournament Committee chairman, says campus, regional and national winners will be picked by Mott-Smith. Two national championships will be awarded. One trophy will go to the col lege of the pair scoring highest on the East-West hands. Another trophy will go to the college of the North-South hand winners, said Nolen. Winning colleges will have cus tody of the trophies for one year. Each of the. four individual win ners will receive a smaller cup of his own, he said. Last year Harvard and Dart mouth walked away with national honors. About 1,770 students from 87 colleges entered the competi tion. Crackdown On MSC Thieves Hits Snag Attempts to halt what is apparently a theft ring oper ating in the Memorial Stu dent Center hit a snag yester day. In the second day of cracking down on the petty thieves who are busily snatching articles left on coat racks, officials questioned a suspect caught in a trap much like the one used in apprehending a freshman civilian student Mon day. Yesterday, however, the suspect denied the charges. Since no evidence could be found, officials deemed the suspect “not guilty”, showing the traps are not fool proof and can lead to embarrass ment. A freshman was nabbed Monday when he lifted a marked ED tackle box from a coat rack in the MSC. He admitted having stolen several other books recently and a bicycle last semester. No action had been taken against him yesterday. Wayne Stark, director of the MSC, said there was evidence of a theft ring, although probably not organized, at work. He added that several other students were possibly connected with such a group. Though many thefts of books have been reported, Stark realises in most of the cases missing books are merely a result of misplace ment. At the same time, he added, thefts were often not reported. In the future, students are re quested to report missing articles to Stark if the owner is reasonably sure they were stolen. He empha sized that goods missing for some time should be sought at the main desk, as they could easily have been misplaced. Stark urged students to put their names on their belongings, whether they be books or field jackets, with indelible ink. “With out this identification, stolen goods are as good as lost,” he said. W* Betsill And Adair Head Combat Ball Plans got underway for this years presentation of the Combat Ball last night as Jerry Betsill and Thomas Adair were named co- chairmen for the event. Scheduled to take place March 15, Betsill and Adair named heads of the various committees to work with them in setting up the Ball. Other chairmen serving on the committee are J. O. Koehl, guests; Gilbert Stiele, programs; Dale Elmore, finances; Jimmy Dellinger, sweetheart; Gene Jameson, dance and John Rinard, decorations. College Teachers Meet Tomorrow Local chapter of the Texas As sociation of College Teachers meets tomorrow afternoon at 4 in room 107 of the Biological Sciences build ing, according to Loyd Keel, presi dent. Stewart Jernigan will summarize a preliminary report on the “Task Force” on the Economics of College Teaching. Keel said non-members of the group were invited to attend the meeting. Aggieland Pictures Juniors in A Chemical; A, B Composite; A,B Athletes; Maroon Band and White Band will have their pictures made for Aggieland ’57 at Aggieland Studio Thursday and Friday. Pictures will be made from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Class A winter uni form must be worn with first ser geants and all staff juniors wear ing garrison caps.