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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 1964)
■ .. . ■HMmnnMgR! Page 2 THE BATTALION College Station, Texas Friday, November 20, 1964 CADET SLOUCH by Jim Earle GUEST EDITORIALS House Seniority Rule Blamed For Inaction Collectively, the United States House of Representatives is supposed to represent the will of a majority of the Amer ican people. The gains scored by the Democratic Party in the recent election would seem to indicate rather clearly that most Americans favor the program outlined by that party in the campaign and want to see it implemented or carried out. But the gains are less meaningful than they seem be cause the will of the majority frequently does not prevail in the House. Very often it is thwarted and twisted because of the practices, rules and procedures under which the House transacts its legislative business. As a practical matter, it is necessary for most of the actual work on legislation to be handled by committees, and these small groups can be domi nated or ruled tightly by a single man or a small clique that agrees with him. The key then to mak ing the House truly representative lies in the choice of the members who make up these committees and particularly, those who serve as chairmen. It is here that the most pernicious obstacle is en countered, the House’s long established seniority rule. Be cause of it, the chairman may or may not be in accord with the views of a majority of the members of the House or a majority of the American people. Under the seniority rule, majority committee members are advanced on the basis of time they have served in office. As someone has said, all it takes to become a committee chairman is to live long enough and keep getting re-elected. Because of the one-party system in the South, Southern congressmen long have enjoyed greater job security than most of their colleagues, and as a result, a disproportionate number of committee chairmanships, particularly key ones, now are held by Southerners. On a great many major issues, their views do not coincide with those of a majority of the American people or a majority of the House members. Yet to a large extent they can dictate, shape or control legisla tion simple by reason of the positions they hold. It is hardly surprising that in the wake of the Nov. 3 election, there should be a renewal of de mands in congress, especially among frustrated lib eral elements, that something be done to reduce the power of committee chairmen, and fcnake them more subject to party discipline. Rep. Richard Boll ing of Missouri, for one, has proposed a revision of the House rules to give the majority'•party more control over committees. He would have the speaker name all committee chairmen as well as all majority members of the Rules and Ways and Means Commit tees, subject to ratification by a caucus of all ma jority party members. His plan is to modify but not eliminate entirely the seniority^ system in selecting committee chairmen. Honor Code Study Shows Doubtful Results ‘But yesterday was clear as a bell!’ By Intercollegiate Press Ashland, Va. — A four-man faculty committee in the Divi sion of Language and Literature at Randolph-Macon College ap pointed last spring to “study the effectiveness of the Honor Code” on this campus, according to a report released here recently, did not consider it to he the commit tee’s responsibility to define in words which all will accept what an Honor System is supposed to be. Their discussions brought them to the conclusion that it is easier to observe qualities of a true Honor System than to analyze just what the sytem is; and that a successful system is more de pendent upon the corporate at titude of the gentlemen who establish the compact as students and faculty than upon the status which it has on paper. Committee findings: 1. The Honor System does not operate in the secrecy which is a basic safeguard for all its participants. 2. Student leaders have been re ported in The Yellow Jacket (stu dent newspaper) as expressing doubt whether they would re port violations. 3. Similarly, some faculty mem- Sound Off T A strong case can be made for a change, but the chances of anything’s being done are not very bright. Similar pro posals frequently have been advanced in the past, and nothing has come of them. For one thing, any attempt to effect a change easily can be made to appear to be an attempt to “purge” particular individuals. It then becomes a matter of personalities rather than principle. But the fact remains that so long as the present senior ity rule prevails, there can be no assurance that the House of Representatives actually will be representative, as the Founding Fathers intended. The Houston Post Editor, The Battalion: This is in reply to Mr. Benson, who considers himself a leader. Like Mr. Wilson, I am a grad uate student who did not do any undergraduate work at A&M. This is beside the point. Never in my life have I heard an or ganized yell directed at the offi cials of an intercollegiate con test, until the Arkansas game. The official had to make a judge ment call. The Aggie defender went for the ball, missed, and fell into the Arkansas receiver with his hands. It was unintentional, but according to the rules, it is still pass interference. Granted, it came at a very inopportune time for the Aggies, but those are the breaks of the game. If you are such a good referee, Mr. Benson, why aren’t you getting paid for it? If tradition includes being poor sports, you can have all your tradition, Mr. Benson. In the third quarter, when play was stopped by the noise from the stands, the other yell leaders tried to quiet the crowd, but there stood Sportsman Benson, egging them on in direct defiance of the pleas from the officials, the pub lic address announcer, and even the Aggie players. This show of stupidity on your part was fur ther mirrored in your letter. You missed the whole point of Mr. Wilson’s letter. He wasn’t knock ing your tradition, he was knock ing your sportsmanship. In your letter, Mr. Benson, you made it sound like the policemen were occupied the entire evening throwing drunks out of the Ark ansas section. I was sitting (ex cuse me (standing) next to that section, and I saw only one man escorted from the stands, and he didn’t look very drunk. Before you start hauling out other peo ple’s dirty linen, you better make sure yours is clean. One more thing — Wilson and I, and all other graduate students who are not graduates of A&M, are students here now, we paid to get into the games, and what goes on there is part of our bus iness. NAACP Leader Hits FBI Ed Durall Graduate Student it HOUSTON <A>) — Mississippi NAACP leader said Wednesday Federal Bureau of Investiga tion agents in Southern states are generally not in sympathy with civil rights. “I’ll go further than that. J. Edgar Hoover himself is not in tune with civil rights,” said Aaron Henry, a Clarksville druggist. Henry, here to address the Houston Pharmaceutical Associ ation convention, made the re marks in an interview with news men. He said the feeling among Negroes and civil rights sym pathizers is that FBI men would be reluctant to take legal action ag-ainst “their friends” in local police departments. “This accounts for their inept activity,” he said. “Now, they can find a pumpkin containing microfilm on a 40-acre farm of Whitaker Chambers that convict ed Alger Hiss, but they can’t find the murderers of three boys in Philadelphia.” Editor, The Battalion: Tom Matthews, ‘65, seems to have some strange ideas about the Corps and about A&M in general. Ferreri’s Triangle Restaurant Friday’s Featuring Our FISH SPECIAL All the fish you can eat for $1.00 at 12:00 noon and from 5:00 p. m. to 8:00 p. m. Book Your Banquets and Special Parties Early. Accommodations From 10 to 200 Persons THE BATTALION Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the student writers only. The Battalion is a non tax-supported, non-profit, self-supporting educational enterprise edited and operated by students as a university and community news paper and is under the supervision of the director of Stu dent Publications at Texas A&M University. Members of the Student Publications Board are James L. Lindsey, chairman : Delbert McGuire, College of Arts and Sciences; J. A. Orr, College of Engineering; J. M. Holcome, College of Agriculture ; and Dr. K. S. Titus, College of Veterinary Medicine. The Battalion, tion, Texas daily except Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, a ber through May, and once a week during summer school. student newspaper at Texas A&M is published in College Sta- inday, and Monday, and he holiday periods, Septem- Henry was referring to the dis appearance and deaths of three civil rights workers in Mississippi and the failure so far to appre hend any supects in the case. Henry, a member of the board of the Mississippi NAACP, said the most important goal of civil rights workers in Mississippi was full suffrage for all citizens. He said at present only six per cent of the Negroes quali fied to vote are able to register in his home county because of a Mississippi law requiring a vot er to satisfy a circuit clerk’s ques tion about any section of the state constitution. ATTENTION ALL HOME TOWN AND PROFESSIONAL CLUB REPRESENTATIVES The hometown club and profes sional club section of the “Ag- gieland” staff has announced that the last date for scheduling club pictures for the “Aggie- land” will be 18 December, 1964. Pictures are to be scheduled at the Student Publication Office, Y.M.C.A. Bldg. The final day for having the pictures made will be 1 March, 1965. Please make arrangements to have your pic ture scheduled before the dead line. Dave Baker, Section Editor Mike Rosbury ATTENTION All civilian dorm counselors and officers Sure, there are a few men in the Corps who need a uniform to make them feel as tall as anyone else on this campus, but why not let them have their day ? This is probably the only chance those few will have to be some body big. They’ll take that Ag gie uniform off one of these days and find that they have to make it on their own record not on the uniform’s or on A&M’s. Those few are insignificant, however, compared to the number who will continue to be a credit to their uniform. But don’t call them all “Boy Scouts” because of- a few, or you’ll be guilty of the same mis take Captain Sanders made when he called all civilians “dead weights and not Aggies.” Mr. Matthews, can you hon estly charge the Corps with full responsibility for the crude lang uage used on campus? I can’t, because five semesters in the Corps and one and a half as a civilian have convinced me that the blame can be spread evenly over the majority of the student body, Corps and Civilians alike. Maybe we’re in a rut. Surely there is a better selection of scapegoats available than just the Corps or Civilians. Let’s look somewhere else, the administra tion, the profs, the Board of Di rectors, the roommate, or as a last resort, ourselves. Thomas P. O’Brien, ’65 PALACE Brc*an 2’$$79 NOW SHOWING CiimiftScoH • Coioi ii De Lm QUEEN DOUBLE FEATURE Kirk Douglas In “THE RACERS” The Bowery Boys In ‘HOLD THAT LINE’ bers have lost confidence in the system, and are no longer will ing to use the legal procedures through which the system func tions. 4. There is ample evidence of cheating by students in at least two classes en masse, with stu dent bystanders not acting to re port violators. 5. Some recent actions taken under the present system have, this committee feels, had a detri mental effect upon the morale of both students and faculty mem bers proportionate to their degree of contact with the system and their observation of the present application of the Honor Code. The faculty committee’s con clusion is that the Honor Code is seriously in need of reevalu ation and restoration on the basis of its “original status.” “Sports Car Center” Dealers for Renault-Peugeot & British Motor Cara Sales—Parts—Service “We Service All Foreign Cars” 1422 Texas Ave. TA 2-451' Minlct/lrl Supply 'plduAe. I'/toMce^- •923 So.ColUg* Ave-BrycmJcjfej cm/m NOW SHOWING FAIL SAFE TONIGHT 11:30 P. M. Late Show Frollic IF YOU HOWLED AT “NOT TONIGHT HENRY” YOU’LL ROAR AT “EVERYBODY LOVES IT” OUR LATE SHOW FROLLIC “No One Under 16 Will Be Admitted” CIRCLE LAST NITE Peter Sellers In “SHOT IN THE DARK’ & James Bond “DR. NO” OUR SAT. NITE BIG 3 1st Show 6:30 p. m. “FBI CODE 98” 2nd Show 8:30 p. m. Chuck Conners In “GERONIMO” 3rd Show 10:15 p. m. Tony Curtis In “PERFECT FURLOUGH” FRIDAY 7:30 P. M. 1 Jerry Wald’s production oi 1 %HeMiNGWaYS Adventures oF we LlO A1DUNG ClNIEMASgO^e COLOR by DELUXE OirWtU U, "'VV * Martin Rin A.E.Hoicm And “WE’VE NEVER BEEN LICKED” The Movie That A&M Made Famous! Starring Robert Mitchum & The Fightin’ Aggies! SATURDAY 1:15 P.M. •nm+rim, Fi “WE’VE NEVER BEEN LICKED” SATURDAY MIDNIGHT MOVIE ALSO SUNDAY 5:30 P.M. a mazing ^ ci g a MBERT MITCHUM : _ 41 r* . in ,he fighting QUIT JURGENS annals of the r r CZiisien/i/v.ScopE CORRECTION Thursday, November 19, 1964 Battalion SAFEWAY AD Should Have Read SUGAR 5-Lb. Bag 19? With Purchase of $2.50 or More (Excluding Cigarettes) AM lat lee GIRLS POWDER-PUFF FOOTBALL GAME Falcon High School Girls Team BEATLE-ETTES vs. SPRAY NET DEMONS Sunday, Nov. 22nd, 3 p.m.-Bronco Field-Bryan, Texas Queen Crowning and Other Half-Time Activities Children Under 14 - 25c — 14 Yrs. and Over 50c Ref res hments Aggies Cordially Invited Some rthoritii Ejects inth ai bnferen at A&M. general er Qua strial i JDr. Er I A&M s< P° thi s an I bays : M cont A pap ^.v nig] ' ra ftsm Clar ent for e Partm Jtilities, tionshi "d Cor Three Rented j e annus * Societ y sessi ‘birday. A total tyartme eteorok meet 11 Brya toald V Charle at.