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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 30, 1974)
Today in the Batt Athletic fee notes p. 2 Bus route changes p. 5 tJT holds A&M p. 8 Che Battalion Weather Fair and mild Wednesday. Part ly cloudy Thursday. Today's high 72°. Tomorrow’s high 73°. Vol. 67 No. 339 College Station, Texas Wednesday, January 30, 1974 d s 0 >1 > NOTHING UNDERNEATH the masking tape John Hollaway is pulling off Sbisa Hall. He and fellow-worker Peter Adams are merely patching leaks, from a 12-foot high scaffold, in the old building. The masking tape is applied to bricks prior to caulking. (Photo by Gary Baldasari) MSC grass use inHonse’posit Personal choice Teague to run for 16th term lain Local Congressman Olin E. ’eague has announced that he will run for re-election to the Sixth Congressional District. ^ I Teague was elected to the 79th J [Congress and has served ever :«ince. ? Teague assumed the chairman ship of the Science and Astronau tics Committee with the advent of the 93rd Congress. Under the rules of the House of Representa tives Teague had to give up the irmanship of the Veterans Af fairs Committee, however, he re- . mains on that committee as its A H ra ^ n ^ member and is chairman ^ of the Subcommittee for Pensions and Compensations. T e a g u e's ! other duties in the House include the powerful chairmanship of the Democratic Caucus. The caucus | chairman is included in the lead ership of the House and it makes im! Teague their representative on the National Democratic Commit- idemiC |v Teague serves on the House ! Committee for Standards of Offi cial Conduct and is a member of course 1°^ House and Senate’s Technology Assessment Board. I “I am presently focusing my ef- dies | forts towards the passage of a solar-energy bill that should help in solving the long range energy I crisis,” Teague said. University National Bank "On the side of Texas AAM.” Adr. Long-standing tradition knelt before the altar of inevitable change last night as the Memorial Student Center Executive Committee voted to leave use of the grass around the MSC up to individual discretion. The MSC grounds had previously been considered a memorial to Aggie war dead and use of the grass, or even walking across it, was forbidden by policy. Adherence to that policy had become noticeably less strict in recent years. The decision may have gone against overwhelming student opinion. Randy Ross, Senate representative, said, “The Student Senate talked about this last semester and 95 percent were ^n favor of memorializing the grounds, with the underlying factor of not walking on the grass understood.” Professor Robert Rucker, landscape architect, said, “There shouldn’t be grass that students can’t walk on around campus anyway.” After lengthy debate, the committee voted 11-3 to open the grounds to use. Currently much of the grounds is torn up by construction in the area. IN A CLOSED SESSION later, the committee dismissed Arts Committee Chairperson La Tonya Perrin from her position. Perrin was attacked for not handling her programs, mostly films, through H. W. Gaines, MSC coordinator of programming. Detractors charged this lack of communication led to poor publicity and a lack of information to the proper outlets. Perrin told The Battalion she found out the meeting would consider such allegations less than an hour before the meeting began. She was dismissed by a 12-0 vote, with Don Webb, MSC president, abstaining. In other action, the committee: APPROVED THREE SPEAKERS for Great Issues. Joachim Schelien, a German journalist, will speak on European-American affairs Feb. 7; John J. McKetta and Thomas Halbouty will give opposing views on the energy crisis in the noon lecture series. William Kuntsler, the controversial lawyer whose scheduled SCONA appearance has been canceled, was suggested as a speaker. GI chairperson John Hoover said Kuntsler had been rejected as a choice before SCONA invited him. VOTED TO UNDERWRITE the Spring Leadership Trip against the wishes of student members of the committee. The trip will expose student leaders ahd four students from each college to a metropolitan city’s entertainment at a minimum cost. Participants pay $30 for a $125 weekend. President to be subpoenaed in California burglary trial LOS ANGELES <A»)_John D. Ehrlichman asked Tuesday to have President Nixon sub poenaed as a material witness in Ehrlichman’s burglary and conspiracy trial. The judge agreed to issue the unprecedented order. Superior Court Judge Gordon Ringer ruled that President Nixon is a material witness in the California case against Ehrlichman and two other former White House aides, Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy and David Y oung. Ringer said he would authorize a subpoena commanding Nixon to appear at a Feb. 25 pretrial hearing and at the April 15 trial. Ehrlichman lawyer Douglas Dalton deliv ered the three-page proposed subpoena to Ringer Tuesday afternoon and said Ringer probably would not sign it until the end of the week. “This is prepared right out of the statute,” Dalton said. “But he the judge, said he wants to study it very carefully.” He said the judge probably would send the document by registered mail to the court in Washington after it is signed. The White House declined comment until it receives the order, but a defense attorney said one of Nixon’s attorneys had declined to have the President appear voluntarily and had told him he would advise Nix<^n against testifying. Later White House sources indicated the President would decline to appear personally as a witness. “This will be the first time in history,” Ringer said, “that a state court, exclusive of the federal court, has issued this kind of process directly to a president of the United States.” “The court is persuaded that the honorable Richard M. Nixon is a material witness for the defense. . . . The court will sign and issue a properly prepared certificate . . . command ing the President, the honorable Richard M. Nixon, to testify before this court.” Nixon is sought by the defense to testify about the establishment of the secret White House investigations unit known as the plumb ers and as to what instructions he gave it in regard to an investigation of Pentagon papers figure Daniel Ellsberg. It is the 1971 break-in of Ellsberg’s psy chiatrist’s office that caused the indictments against Ehrlichman, Liddy and Young, and attorneys are seeking to show they are only acting as law enforcement officers in any action they took. Ringer also ordered former White House aide Egil Krogh to testify. Krogh is to begin serving a six-month federal prison sentence next week in connection with the 1971 break- in. He was indicted with the other three in the California case, but was separated from it after pleading guilty to a related charge in Washington. The break-in was carried out by persons hired by the plumbers. Pulitzer poet, Brazil ’77 set Monday night An entertainment double-head er is planned for next Monday night as Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks and the Latin-style sound of Sergio Men- des and Brazil ’77. Brooks will have a free pre sentation of “Pictures from the Ghetto” at 7 p.m. in the Univer sity Center Forum. Monday morn ing she will read at Bryan High School at 9, and she will hold an informal session and a short course in poetry writing at 2 p.m. in Room 601 of the Rudder Tow er. At 8:30 Monday night Sergio Mendes and Brazil '77 will ap pear in the University Center Theater. From the South Side of Chica go, Brooks writes about people she knew and the world around her. Among her award winning collections of poetry are “Annie Allen,” “The Bean Eaters,” and her most recent, “Aloneness.” Brooks has been named poet laureate of Illinois and she has worked as a book reviewer, editor, teacher and lecturer. All these qualities will be explored in her stay at A&M. Mendes has returned to his “original beat of popular tunes with the rythmns of Brazilian music, female vocals and particu lar instrumentations.” A&M booked the group after the release of its newest album, “Love Music,” which is well on its way to a gold record. Tickets for Mendes are avail able at the Rudder Center Box Office. Student tickets are $3 and $4 and non-students can buy tick ets for $4 and $5. Gwendolyn Brooks is sponsor ed by the Black Awareness and Arts Committees and Sergio Men des is sponsored by Town Hall, all committees of the Memorial Student Center Directorate. Exchange closes It may be the first time anyone ever heard of Aggies who didn’t need money. Yet between $1,800 to $2,100 in checks languished unclaimed in the Book Exchange Program, according to director John Tyler. The checks belong to students who sold books through the program. “About 700 unsold books also remain in the Student Programs Office of the Memorial Student Center,” Tyler said. The books and checks must be claimed between 12:30 and 4:30 Thursday afternoon. “We can’t be responsible for the books after Thursday because we won’t have a room anymore,” Tyler said. Tyler said the program had been a success in its first semester, selling about 30 percent of $10,000 worth of books it handled. He explained that a large number of freshman texts, especially freshman English texts which are not being used this semester, had affected program statistics. Tyler brought the book exchange idea to TAMU after learning of a similar operation elsewhere, during a Texas Student Lobby meeting, he said. Gerald Ford to address May grads Vice President Gerald R. Ford will be the spring commencement speaker at Texas A&M Universi ty, according to TAMU President Jack K. Williams. “We are honored that Vice President Ford will bring an ad dress to our graduation class,” Dr. Williams said, “and we look for ward to welcoming him to the A&M campus.” TAMU officials are predicting a record 2,000 students will re ceive degrees at the May 11 cere monies, including approximately 400 graduate students. THE KEY TO THE ENERGY CRISIS is research, according to Dr. Edward Teller, who spoke on technological solutions to the energy crisis last night. See related story, page 4. (Photo by Rodger Mallison) Educator cites inequalities in higher education AUSTIN, Tex. (AP)—A junior college president told a Texas Constitutional Convention com mittee Tuesday that equal educa tional opportunity should extend to his students as well as to public school pupils. Dr. J. W. Cady of Texarkana College said there are vast dif- Testimony will be taken through Feb. 2 concerning the higher ed ucation provision of the proposed Texas constitution, section 7-10. Persons wishing to appear be fore the Convention Education Committee should contact Dan.. Kubiak, chairman of the education committee at 512-475-2648 as soon as possible to be placed on the agenda. ferences between the kind of education given by rich districts and those without strong tax bases. Taxable property per student ranges from $3 million per stu dent at Western College in Sny der, to $30,000 at Ranger Junior College, Cady said, and tax rev enue varies from $3,000 per stu dent at Galveston’s College of the Mainland to $58 per student at Blinn College in Brenham. “It is obvious we don’t have equal educational opportunity for people who attend junior colleges because of the wide variation in values and taxing effort,” Cady told the Education Committee. The panel is wrestling with a proposal to place in the Texas Constitutional a commitment to “equal educational opportunity for each person in this state.” Rep. Ray Barnhart, R-Pasa- dena, asked if Cady wanted to make the state responsible for providing the same level of edu cation at each of the 47 junior colleges. “No, sir. Complete equality is impossible. I’m saying there should be more effort at equali zation than there is now,” Cady said. But he also asked: “Why should the student at Ranger or Texar kana have less quality of com munity college education than a student at Dallas or San Antonio or Western College?” Mary Levberg of the Texas Civ il Liberties Union said “the full burden of school finances should be on the state.” He endorsed the statement on equal education al opportunity and said it was broad enough to permit some school districts to provide enrich ment from local tax funds. Dr. David Bloch, a University of Texas at Austin botany pro fessor, opposed the views of his board of regents and asserted the income from the Permanent Uni versity Fund should be spread among all senior colleges and uni versities. The fund’s $30 million annual revenue now is given two-thirds to the University of Texas at Austin and one-third to TAMU. Bloch said this makes the state’s other schools “poor rela tions” and works against UT Aus tin “because of its preoccupation with bricks and mortar instead of teachers and students.” Income from the fund now can be spent for limited purposes mainly servicing bonds for con struction of buildings. Oil industry lobbyist Bill Ab- ington urged , the Legislative Committee to reject the Consti tutional Revision Commission proposal that would allow open- ended legislative sessions. “People don’t want a legislature that is in session all the time,” said Abington, one of the so-call ed “Big Four” lobbyists. He sug gested 140-day sessions in odd- numbered years and 30 to 60-day fiscal sessions in other years. Rep. Ben Bynum, D-Amarillo, told Abington there “is talk that big business will oppose” a new constitution, regardless of its con tents. “I think the industry I represent its leadership recognizes the need for constitutional revision ... I think we are good citizens of this state, and we want to have the best government we can have,” Abington replied. The Finance Committee receiv ed a detailed plan from the Texas Farm Bureau for assessing farm and ranch land on its productiv ity. A five-member land assess ment commission appointed by the governor would determine prop erty values, and local govern ments would apply their own tax rates. “If we can make a little money, we’ll cover you up with food,” said Pearson Knolle of Sandia. Speaker Price Daniel Jr., con vention president, reminded the legislator-delegates Tuesday that Wednesday is the deadline for in troduction of proposals. One proposal introduced Tues day, by Rep. Hawkins Menefee, D-Houston, would limit interest rates to 36 per cent per year. He said this already is the ceil ing in 46 states. Texas’ small loans law permits effective rates of 240 per cent per annum on small short-term loans.