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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 29, 1965)
• Columns • Editorials • News Briefs Che Battalion Page 2 College Station, Texas Friday, October 29, 1&65 • Opinions • Cartoons Features For Amendment 1 The excellence of higher education in Texas hinges, in part, on the passage of Amendment 1 to the Texas Constitution Tuesday. How can higher education be upgraded if there is no room for college students to study and live? This is the problem the amendment attempts to solve by providing funds for state institutions of higher learning in Texas to build for the future. Overcrowded classroms and dormitories are the rule rather than the exception in Texas colleges and universities today, with more than 160,000 students) seeking diplomas. More than 335,000 students are pre dicted for these schools in 10 years—a 110 per cent increase. If the institutions are to adequately accommodate this increase, they must have money. And thao is the purptse of Amendment 1: To provide funds for educational growth in the state. Opponents will argue that ad valorem taxes will soar if the amendment passes, but such as far from the truth. True, the proposal would add five cents ad valorem tax per $100 evaluation or an additional $5 l /2-6 million additional tax revenue. But this figures to less than 60 cents per capita increase, or $2.40 for the average family. Surely, education with all its benefits— better jobs, less poverty, more technological advancements—is worth the price of six packages of cigarettes. Unanimous Choice Ranger must be the unanimous choice for a new mascot. Having heard no opinion to the con trary, The Battalion assumes that the campus dog and unofficial mascot is every body’s candidate for the high positilon. Ranger himself has issued no comment yet, but The Battalion has noted that the former presidential candidate has been continuing his politicking this week with the public. At last account he was preparing a whistle-stop tour of Kyle Field during the A&M-SMU football game. I Mortimer's Notes I FOR THE RECORD: The Aggie uniform that Corps members have displayed on recent trips to Fort Worth and Dallas has caused confusion in some parts. . . . One cadet, upon visiting Carswell Air Force Base for dinner during the Fort Worth Corps Trip, was asked, “What are you in—the National Guard?” . . . And another Aggie in Dallas was approached by a young girl who so candidly put the question, “What ARE you?” . . . Later another woman asked him,“ Where are you from—South Oak Cliff?” (Dallas High School) . . . But perhaps the most confused was the man who asked an Aggie after the parade in downtown Fort Worth, “What is this—ROTC Day or some thing?” . . . For a good laugh, read the ABC’s of Draft Dodging in this week’s Newsweek. ... Remember, Tuesday’s the day to vote. . . . The 10 constitutional amendments have been explained in The Battalion, but just reading them isn’t enough. . . . Perhaps you’re one of those who is completely fed up with the bulky constitution. ... But your dissatisfaction won’t help correct the situations that the amendments will change.... So, poop yourself up on the issues and vote Tuesday. . . . The Great Issues Discussion Series will have a hot local topic for consideration next Wednes day. . . . Second of the discussion meetings, the subject will be “Corps-Civilian Relations” and will include a six-man panel of cadet and non-reg leaders. . . . The meeting will be at 8 p.m. and will contain only constructive discussion. . . . Trouble-makers are urged to stay at home. . . . See Ya ’Round—Mortimer. 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 enter prise edited and operated hy students as a university and community newspaper. Members of the Student Publications Board are: Joe Buser, chairman ; Dr. David Bowers, College of Liberal Arts; Dr. Robert A. Clark. College of Geosciences ; Dr. Prank A. Mc Donald, College of Science; Dr. J. G. McGuire, College of Engineering; Dr. Robert S. Titus, College of Veterinary Medicine; and Dr. A. B. Wooten, College of Agriculture. The Battalion, a student newspaper at Texas A&M is published in College Station, Texas daily except Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and holiday periods. September through May. and once a week during summer school. The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in the paper and local news of spontaneous origin published herein. Rights of republication of all other matter herein are also reserved. Second-Class postage paid at College Station, Texas. MEMBER The Associated Press, Texas Press Association Represented nationally by National Advertising Service, Inc., New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. News contributions may be made by telephoning 846-6618 or 846-4910 or at the editorial office. Room 4, YMCA Building. For advertising or delivery call 846-6415. Mail subscriptions are $3.50 per semester; $6 per school year; $6.50 per full year. All subscriptions subject to 2% sales tax. Advertising rate furnished on request. Address: The Battalion, Room 4, YMCA Building, College Station, Texas. GLENN DROMGOOLE Sound-Off Editor, The Battalion: On behalf of the University of Arkansas stu dent body, I welcome the Corps and other Texas A&M students to Arkansas and to the Arkansas- Texas A&M game in Little Rock on Saturday night. Most UA students are planning to make the weekend trip to Little Rock for the game. This certinly is indicative of their respect for the Aggies as a challenging football team. We are proud of the Razorbacks and know this will be another exciting game. We invite as many of you as possible to come. We also invite you to engage in the activities in Little Rock in conjunction with the game. Mac Glover, President Associated Students, UA 1 ★ ★ ★ Editor, The Battalion: I don’t think The Lettermen had a legitimate gripe about Aggie reaction to their performance last Friday night. They were received as well or better than any group I have seen since Justin Wilson. The majority of Aggies react to everything in a conservative manner whether it is good or bad chow at Sbisa, the laundry eating up a new shirt, Randy Matson winning a silver medal, a winning or losing football season, a flush letter or prac tically getting run over on the way to 8:00 class. Very few react personally in public which may or may not be good. Non-reaction does make life easier and requires less adjustment to fit life out of school. Carl Lahser, ’66 ★ ★ ★ Editor, The Battalion: I feel it necessary to reply to a comment made in “Mortimer’s Notes” on Oct. 22 concerning the Great Issues Committee charging 50 cents for students who have already bought student activity cards. The price structure for this series is 50 cents for A&M students with activity cards and also for public school students, which means that the activity card is not entirely useless at the Great Issues events because it still brings its holder a 50 per cent savings. Students without activity cards are charged one dollar. But to go further into the question, why is this charge necessary? Great Issues is a student- operated, non-profit organization which presents the Great Issue Series, The World Around Us Series, The Dicussion Series, Space Fiesta and co sponsors the speakers which appear at A&M for SCONA. But even a non-profit organization must pay its bills—such things as honorariums to speak ers, publicity, etc. It is true that the Great Issues Committee receives slightly less than $5,000 from the Student Activity fee of which $3,800 goes to pay the men who speak at the Great Issues events. This leaves very little to pay for inrcreased pub licity expenses and printing costs, etc. Of course, the Great Issues Committee could drop part of it program or lessen the quality of its speakers; but as students, the members of the Great Issues Committee felt that the rest of the student body would rather have the best we could obtain. Therefore, it is necessary to charge a nominal fee to activity card holders for two of our five series. This fee is less than that paid by other students or by the general public, and the speakers for the Discussion Series, Space Fiesta and SCONA are still free. Tom Tyree, Chairman Great Issues Committee ★ ★ ★ Editor, The Battalion: Recently I received a letter from my dad in Viet Nam asking that I help start a magazine sending project for the men over there. He said servicemen are starved for reading material. He asked for everyone to collect magazines suitable for men, place them in a cardboard box, mark the box “Magazines for Servicemen in Viet Nam” and send it to: Transportaetion Officer Military Sea Transport Service U. S. Army Port of Embarkation Oakland, Calif. Please, Aggies, join with men in this project for our men. Thank you. -Barbara Boyette, North Texas State ★ ★ ★ Editor, The Battalion: I attended the Baylor-Texas A&M football game last Saturday and was one of the many who was impressed by the conduct and attitude of the Fighting Texas Aggies. I crave ya’ll’s undying spirit, and no matter what rank Texas A&M re ceives from the conference, you’ll still be big number one in the hearts of many! Thank you. Betty Hess, Baylor Sophomore ★ ★ ★ Edittor, The Battalion: I must commend you for your support of our servicemen in Viet Nam by your telegram. It is such action that upholds my high regard for Texas A&M. As a woman, I cannot bear those who display their cowardice, as though it deserves merit, by demonstrating against the policy of the United States in Viet Nam. As an American citizen, I can only look on these so-called men with shame and disgust. Thank you, Texas Aggies, for being the out standing men you are. Virginia Eve Barnes CADET SLOUCH by Jim Earle Lani Presswood State Schools And Religion “We have a good chance of heatin’ them! After all they haven’t been tested yet! At the time it seemed an accom plishment to beat TU, but now we realize that anybody can do that!” Just exactly where religion fits in at a state-supported college is not the easiest decision an ad ministration has to make. Most of the uncertainty about this subject dates back to Amer ica’s traditional sensitivity about separating the church steeple from the smoke-filled room. As a result, universities began developing with exactly opposite viewpoints toward religion. The church-endowed schools taught all their courses on the assump tion that their particular faith was the true one. On the other hand, the tax-sup ported schools too often took an ostrich-in-the-sand aproach to the question and chose to merely ig nore religion, or to pretend that it didn’t really exist. This is the non-controversial path, the easy path . . . and also the least enlightened path the state schools can follow. Why the least enlightened? “Religion is one of the dimen sions of human experience that The Great Pumpkin Rises Out Of Halloween Mystery Out of the deep, dark shadows of the night rises a dark myster ious figure. Is it superman, the moleman, or the legendary Dra- cula? No, it’s the Great Pump kin. He’s come to present goodies to all of you good Aggies and off hand, I can hardly think of many who will qualify. I, myself, plan to go in seclu sion this weekend hoping he might overlook by past record. I sug gest a few of you do the same. If you decide not to take my ad vice, at least lay off the drink ing, smoking and swearing. Why only tonight on my way to the news hall I ran into one of the Great Pumpkin’s assist ants. He obviously was out scouting around searching for good Aggies for he lit up like a candle as I approached. I realize that many of you mqre scientific students do not believe in the Great Pumpkin. You’re probably the same ones that insist that there is no Santa Claus. Those unfortunates are the ones that believe the only miracles are free weekends and winning football teams. But I firmly take a stand that they are wrong. There is bound to be a Great Pumpkin. Think about it fellows (and fellowines), if a four year old kid as smart as Linus believes in him — he must be right. Schulz has created a monster in his comic strip “Peanuts.” He has taken a four-year-old who should be in the peak of his childhood playing cowboys and Indians, and turned him into a Beethoven-loving genius. Who can have a normal childhood and like Beethoven? Anyhow, this near-genius has invented the Great Pumpkin and I hope that millions will flock to his support and create a na tional “Pumpkin” day. There is a reason for this for I see no excuse to pass by a chance for a present. Presents are the basic idea of Linus’s concept of Hallo ween. Actually I sometimes suspect Schulz invented Linus’s wish for gifts because of an unhappy child hood of his own. Imagine him around the fireside on Christmas day with nary a package under the tree. No wonder he invented the Great Pumpkin to bring gifts, hoping no doubt to make up for his own unhappiness. Linus is actually Schulz there fore, and Charlie Brown plays the part of the Great Pumpkin (with that round head how can he miss. Therefore Lucy must play the Great Pumpkin’s daughter and probably drives a corvette and continually tries to get in the Lucy’s favorite pasttime is foot ball which means she obviously has never been at A&M. Peanuts likes football too, but my hero Linus takes the cultural side of life and spends his time develop ing the traditions of the United States. History shows that Santa Claus was begun by a character named Beethoven. Peter Rabbit came from Mozart, and Thanks giving’s Gobble, Gobble from Bevo. Like those same hero’s come Linus and his hope of Hallo ween, the Great Pumpkin. Now I realize this is all non sense for you more sophisticated, scientific-minded students, but try letting your hair down just once. It’s fun — just forget about those two quizzes you flunked today and get in line for an unscheduled meeting with the Great Pumpkin. Minnesota Roger Bloomfield is construct ing a car in the basement of the student union at the University of Minnesota. He is presently putting a fiberglass body on the car. It resembles a Corvair Mon za GT, an experimental car. What is so unusual about this? The real question is how will he get the car out of the building when the work is completed. It will not fit through the doors. Houston Students at the University of Houston are tired of promises of a good football team. Some of the disgrunted fans took it upon themselves to hang Coach Bill Yeoman in effigy. When safety and security pat rolmen arrived early Tuesday morning to raise the flag, dum mies were already in place atop the flagpoles. The Cougar football team is 1-5 in what was to be their best sea son in years. Oklahoma Dr. Elroy L. Rice at Oklahoma University just can’t keep a dry office. The first flooding occurred last summer when a plug was left out of a drain pipe. Following a heavy rain, Rice found two inches of water in his office. About a month ago, when the cage washer on the ninth floor of the Botany Microbiology Building was operated, the office in the building was again flood ed. Then on Oct. 22, the pipes on the fifth floor of the building all started leaking at once. The water traveled through the hol low spaces in the wall and ended up in guess who’s office. Dr. Lawrence Rohrbaugh was hit on the head by a waste basket he had placed above the false ceiling in his office to catch the water. He was standing below the wastebasket when it finally could hold no more weight and broke through. Tulan© You think that you have troubles finding a seat in Kyle Field. Students at Tulane Uni versity are heated up about some of the fraternities roping off sec tions for their members. Trou bles nearly came to open violence at the Tulane-Miami game in New Orleans when some of the frat ernity Sergeant-At-Arms tried to forcibly evict independent stu dents. By the way, do you know what Tulane calls their fresh man football team. The varsity is known as the Green Wave. The frosh are known as the Baby Bil lows. Texas Wesleyan From “The Rambler,” of Texas Wesleyan College comes this comment: “The modern woman’s clothes are like barbed wire fence — they protect the property with out obstructing the view. TCU Twelve football players from Texas Christian are taking ballet. The class is a single semester ex periment, the first step toward a goal of at least one year of ballet for all athletes. The pur pose of the course is to give the boys “a better understanding of body and breath control, and to make them more agile.” East Texas A traffic ticket now being pass ed out on the campus of East Texas State lists an offense call ed? “Wreckless Driving.” is tremendously significant, one that every educated man should know of.” These are Dr. James McCord's words, not mine, and they make r a lot of sense. McCord, an East Texas native who’s now Presi dent of Princeton’s Theological Seminary, spoke on campus earli er in the week. One of his contentions was that “Western thought is built on^ three great pillars — Rome r Greece and Jerusalem, and the ex elusion of any of the three re suits in an unbalanced view ol history.” The eminent theologian also noted that religion is the key to understanding many current cris es, in particular the India-Pakis tan dispute and the Vietnam con flict. He believes the Hindu Moslem and Buddhist-Catholic hostilities need to be grasped to gain any real understanding of these international problems. All right now, if all this is granted and we declare that a true education must include in struction in religion, there still remains the question of how to accomplish it in a state univer sity without bringing denomi national wrangles into the pic ture. To solve this problem, McCord offers three alternatives which have worked out well at other schools. The first method is the one now in operation at Stanford. On the Palo Alto campus, there is no formal department composed solely of theologians. Instead, they are assigned to other depart ments closely related to their specialty. For example, a church historian might be placed in the history department while an ex pert in Christian ethics would wind up in the philosophy depart ment. One questioner asked McCord after his speech if he didn’t think the Stanford system involved cer tain complications which would make it unworkable at A&M. McCord’s response was quick and to the point: “I hadn’t thought of Palo Alto as being any more godly than College Station.” Another plan besides the one used at Stanford makes the philo sophy department the focal point of a school’s religious education program. And while discussing philoso phy as an academic discipline, McCord observed: “I would think that the development of a philo sophy department is an absolute must for a university. A uni versity is not a university without strong philosophy offerings and administrative support for them." As a third alternative to the philosophy department and Stan ford method lies the avenue of a formal department of religion. Such a department wouldn’t con centrate on Judeo-Christian spe cialists but would also develop strong faculty representation in the Far Eastern religions. This plan is the one McCord predicted would be the most wide ly adopted by the state universi ties. And why not? By taking a broad and objective approach to the subject, such a plan would in sure a more balanced and com plete education while at the same time avoiding sectarian disputes. If those engaged in charting A&M’s future are really concern ed over this matter, they would do well to give a long, hard look at this third alternative. Increasing acceptance of this plan on our nation’s campuses re flects a more realistic attitude toward religion, an objective ap proach free from many of the historic evils of prejudice and in tolerance. This is unquestionably a healthy and much-needed development But ironically, it appears to be a development resulting not from a genuine searching for truth but rather from a widespread rejec tion of all forms of faith. PEANUTS By Charles M. Schub 1 U $8 IM DEPRESSED... ' LINUS IS MAD AT ME BECAUSE I DON'T BELIEVE IN THE 6REAT PUMPVON V CC-b PONT BE TOO DEPRESSED, CHARLIE BROWN ...BEETHOVEN ALSO HAD PROBLEMS... a 2 .* ... v.. i -- \^> - - T—' 1 - - 5 OJHAT'S THAT SOT TO DO UlTH IT? EDITOR