Indian pot-maker
Rose Gonzales
demonstrates art
By CLIFF LEWIS
About 150 people in a small
room of the Harrison Education
Center watched, but only the eyes
of Rose Gonzales moved. Jo Ann
Moore, a teacher of Industrial
Education, introduced her. “Rose
is a renowned potter, and she’s
‘going with the centuries’. She’s
almost 74.”
“I’m very happy that everyone
is here, that’s all I can say,” said
the Pueblo Indian woman from
San Ildefonso, New Mexico. She
mixed powders of sand and clay
with water, and made a ball of
mud.
Rose Gonzales rolled coils of
mud between her hands. Camera
bulbs flashed, film whirred, and
no one said anything. The coils
were stacked up into dirt-dobber
walls. “I learned this from my
mother and my grand-mother,”
she said.
The people began to talk and to
admire the finished pottery on the
shelf, but only the fingers of
Rose Gonzales moved. The fin
gers pinched and patted, and
guided a piece of gourd over the
damp surface and throughout the
inside.
“This is a remarkable stroke of
luck,” said an Anthropology grad
student. “I’ll probably never get
to see pottery made by prehistoric
methods again.”
A man rolled a piece of unused
mud in his hands, then looked at
the shape on the table in front of
the Indian woman. It had become
a perfectly rounded vessel.
The vessel will be carved and
polished, dried and fired. It will
be two or three weeks before it is
finished. Meanwhile, Gonzales will
be making more pottery. She will
demonstrate decoration Wednes
day, HEC Room 621- 1:30 to 4:00
and 6:30 to 8:30. She will demon
strate the firing process Thurs
day morning at 10 :00 outside the
building.
“After spending weeks on this
piece of art, how can you stand
to sell it?” she was asked.
She smiled. “I make pottery
all the time,” she said.
Weather
Partly cloudy and warmer
Wednesday. High today 77°;
low tonight 62°. Mostly
cloudy with possible drizzle
Thursday morning becoming
partly cloudy tomorrow af
ternoon. High Thursday 79°.
Cbe Battalion
Vol. 67 No. 368 College Station, Texas Wednesday, March 27, 1974
Today in the Batt
“S'/z” p. 3
SG candidates p. 5, 6, 7
{Battalion surveyl
Candidates for student government or other leader- j!;:
ship positions often reach only part of their constituency jij:
$ during the campaign period. jl|:
Consequently, often students go to the polls
I uninformed as to a candidate’s positions on vital campus jij:
I issues. jij:
In an effort to reduce this problem, The Battalion jiji
requests each candidate for student office to answer by j|
Friday a 12-point questionnaire posted in the Battalion jiji
office. Room 216 of the Reed McDonald Services Building. jiji
| Due to space limitations only “yes”, “no” and “no position jjjj
at this time” responses will be recorded. jiji
The results will appear in The Battalion April 2.
Student elections
scheduled April 4
Students are going to have a
chance to exercise their privilege
to vote in the upcoming spring
general elections April 4.
The polls will be open from
8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in eight places
on-campus. Students will need
their ID, activity card and fee
slips to vote.
Positions on the ballot include
all Student Government executive
officers, student senators, Resi
dence Hall Association officers,
yell leaders, class officers and the
Graduate Student Council.
Students will be given the op
portunity to vote for any candi
date on the ballot or vote no-
confidence, a vote saying that the
constituent is not confident in any
of the candidates.
Election Board Chairman Barry
Bowden said that all graduating
seniors will be able to vote for all
positions on the ballot except for
yell leader and class officers.
Bowden said on-campus stu
dents could not vote for off-
campus senators even if they were
planning to live off-campus next
fall and vice versa.
Bowden said that many candi-
University National Bank
“On the side of Texas A&M.”
Adv.
dates have violated a campaign
ing rule and may be subject to
disqualification from the race.
Specifically, he said that candi
dates have been placing campaign
material on the doors and walls
of dorms.
According to the Rules and
Regulations handbook, campaign
material may not exceed 814 by
11 inches and may only be placed
on dorm bulletin boards. Cam
paign material may be placed on
doors with the permission of that
occupant.
‘Students signed an application
for office saying they have read
campaign rules and regulations
in the handbook,” said Bowden.
“All this material must be re
moved by the candidates.”
The eight polling places are the
Sbisa newstand, library, Memo
rial Student Center, Zachry Engi
neering Center, Guard Room,
Krueger-Dunn Commons, married
housing and the Veterinary Medi
cine College.
Candidates that have with
drawn from the race so far are
Susan Fontaine for sophomore
class vice president and Troie
Ann Pruett for sophomore secre
tary-treasurer. Candidate for
senior yell leader Joe Hughes also
withdrew from the race.
BLACK EXPERIENCE IV continues as Dr. Harriet Murphy
(above) gives a slide presentation and lecture at noon Tues
day, to a small audience, and the Sudan Arts Southwest (be
low) acts out the ‘brain-washing of the African people by
white supremacy.’ See related story, page 3. Photos by David
Spencer & Alan Killingsworth)
More AMPI
pay-offs found
WASHINGTON GPl —An in
ternal audit shows that Associ
ated Milk Producers Inc. paid at
least $91,691 in corporate money
to support Hubei’t H. Humphrey’s
1968 presidential campaign, and
$34,500 to his 1970 senatorial
campaign.
The audit and a lawyers’ re
port, obtained from court records,
show that the giant dairy co
operative retained its ties to
Democrats as it switched its main
support to President Nixon after
his 1968 victory.
The 1968 Humphrey money
went to pay the $15,000 nine-
month salary of a campaign
worker, to reimburse him for
$11,641 in campaign travel ex
penses, to reimburse at least
$54,000 in campaign donations by
a number of individuals, and to
pay miscellaneous expenses of a
campaign rally, a dinner and a
parade, the audit shows.
in Senate
The cost of the elections will be
paid for in part by organizations
other than the Student Govern
ment if the resolution for defray
ing election costs passes the
Senate tonight.
The meeting will be the last
for the present Senate as a new
one will be chosen next week.
The bill calls for organizations
that have candidates on the ballot
to help pay for the running of
the election. Such organizations
are the Graduate Student Coun
cil, RHA and class offices. The
bill is on emergency reading and
will be voted on in room 701 of
the Rudder Tower at 7:30.
Revisions in the student life
Federal law prohibits corporate
contributions to political cam
paigns. Two former officials of
the milk producers pleaded guilty
last January to conspiring to
donate $22,000 to the Humphrey
campaign, and former general
manager Harold S. Nelson was
indicted earlier this month for
perjury because he denied knowl
edge of that donation. The
$22,000 is included in the total
$91,691.
Through a spokesman, Hum
phrey said, “I have no knowledge
of these transactions ... an
organization as large as AMPI
should have had the kind of legal
counsel that would have pre
vented these types of trans
actions.”
The auditing firm, Haskins &
Sells of San Antonio, Texas, said
its accounting may not be com
plete because some canceled
checks from 1967 and 1968 cannot
tonight
regulations will be voted on at
the meeting. The revisions are
on second reading and come from
the Senate rules and regulations
committee.
The resolution to revise the
pass/fail grading system will be
up for final vote as well. The
resolution would change the name
to satisfactory/unsatisfactory and
the requirements would be for any
student who had a GPR of 2.5.
The by-laws of the Student
Government will be scrutinized
when the revisions of them are
proposed. The revisions will be
on first reading and will not be
voted on.
be found.
The audit is attached to a re
port for the cooperative’s board
of directors by attorney Edward
L. Wright, a former president of
the American Bar Association.
The board commissioned Wright
to investigate illegal political con
tributions and other payments by
past officials of the dairy group.
After Humphrey’s defeat, gen
eral manager Nelson decided to
“make peace” with the Republi
cans, according to two officials
quoted in the report. In August
1969, the co-op shipped $100,000
in cash to Nixon’s lawyer-fund
raiser Herbert L. Kalmbach.
The milk producers recently
said the $100,000 was an illegal
corporate donation. The co-opera
tive asked Nixon campaign offi
cials for return of the money,
but have as yet received no reply.
To cover the $100,000 donation
and some other expenditures, the
milk producers used a system of
bank loans, transfers, payments
and reimbursements that involved
a number of Democrats, accord
ing to the Wright report.
Generally, the milk producers
made payments for admittedly
phony lawyer’s fees or public re
lations fees to persons who later
passed on part of the money to
repay bank loans covering the
$100,000 donation. The money
that wasn’t passed on was sup
posed to be used to pay federal
income taxes on the “fees.”
Among those listed as partici
pating in this payback arrange
ment were former Democratic
party treasurer Richard Maguire,
former Humphrey aides Ted Van
Dyk and Kirby Jones, former Lyn
don B. Johnson White House aide
W. DeVier Pierson, Rep. James R.
Jones, D-Okla., and the late Clif
ton C. Carter, who had been
executive director of the Demo
cratic National Committee.
Election costs topic
‘Exorcist’ dwells upon demonic possession, horror
By BRAD ELLIS
“The Exorcist” opens in a hot, dusty
little village in northern Iraq, amidst
the rythmically noisy life of a lot of
human bees busily toiling at simple
tasks.
The cacophony of natural sounds
grates on the audience’s initial calm
and establishes the validity of the Ex
orcist’s accumulated knowledge of mys
ticism and the strange places it comes
in.
Max von Sydow plays Father Lan
caster Merrit, the Exorcist. Jason Mil
ler is Father Karras, a psychologist who
is losing his faith as a result of his
inability to explain to his parishioners
what value their function in society has
to themselves as people. Ellen Burstyn
plays Chris MacNeil, a well-to-do act
ress who lives a god-less life and swears
ironically throughout the film, calling
on God in a rather blasphemous fashion
to get the medical and religious experts
to do whatever is necessary to cure
her daughter.
Linda Blair plays Regan MacNeil,
Chris’ younger daughter, who is posses
sed by the Devil and forced to perform
many impossible, vulgar and offensive
acts. Her actions are so disturbing, the
characters are forced to assume she is
in fact possessed.
THE OPENING sequence is almost
like another allegorical and highly sym
bolic movie. It could, however, be just a
lot of mystic double-talk, but it does
the job.
Much of what Satan does with Re
gan’s body is understandably in poor
taste, considering that the Devil really
doesn’t give a damn about our sensitivi
ties.
The stories about subliminal scenes
of various horrors being snuck into
this film seems to be true. Occasionally,
one may notice a pale face with dark
recesses against a black background
flash on for little or no reason. It’s
just a cheap trick that indicates the
director, William Friedkin, didn’t have
enough faith in his ability to make a
quality horror film out of the usual
techniques.
The rest of the film is a typical,
competent unfolding of details and in
tertwining of personal motivation. Re
gan’s symptoms become progressively
more bizarre. The possible explana
tions become more limited to the un
natural truth. Father Karras’ despair
becomes deeper until his personal mo
tivation centers exclusively on the only
task he seems to be able to perform
with any degree of satisfaction: exorcis
ing the Devil from Regan’s body. Chris’
hysterics carry the emotional pitch of
the film until she burns out just before
the ritual begins.
There are enough legitimate cinema
tic techniques to account for the tension,
shock, fright or whatever this film
instills. Sharp and startling cuts from
scene to scene accompanied by drastic
increase in sound volume and harshness
do quite well at building tension. Slow,
creaky explorations of dark rooms in
which nothing supernatural is happen
ing add to the mood. The really fright
ening occurances all transpire with a
relatively bright room, event in broad
daylight; a rare technique. There is no
way to escape Regan’s apparent posses
sion when you see the symptoms in the
light.
“THE EXORCIST” is an entertaining
movie, if you can handle it. One hardly
needs to be a “tough guy,” however,
but it should be remembered that this
is a horror film. Seen in the coolly
analytical hours of late morning, the
film evidenced occasional clumsiness of
technique which might not have been
noticed near the end of a hard day.
Persons planning to view this film in
a psycho-pharmacologically altered state
of consciousness, or otherwise suggest
ible frame of mind, would be well ad
vised to hold steadily to their concepts
of what is really real. The events de
picted are mostly plausible enough to
persuade the viewer to accept the out
right fantastic exorcism sequence as
real. From that point it is a downhill
fall to unreasoning fear and psychoso
matic symptoms of possession by the
Devil.
By TED BORISKIE
Anybody who doesn’t believe in mys
tical powers should take a look at the
ABC Interstate Cinema I & II theater
some evening.
Some strange force is drawing scores
of people to the movie house, some
times causing them to wait in cold and
rainy weather for over three hours.
The movie is called “The Exorcist”
and the people merrily plunk down
$2.50 to go inside and get scared out
of their wits.
“The Exorcist,” however, is a multi
faceted film that is not content just
scaring people; it does more.
It makes them vomit.
It makes them faint.
It makes them see psychiatrists.
It makes them go back to church.
Few of the people who braved the
wind and rain and cold Sunday night
to stand in line could come up with
logical reasons for their actions.
“I hear about it on the radio, I read
about it in the newspapers, I see the
book whenever I walk into a store that
sells paperbacks,” said an A&M stu
dent who was cheerfully prepared to
wait another hour for his ticket. “Ev
erybody’s talking about it. I have to
see what it’s all about.”
“Sure I’ll wait,” said a girl, shiver
ing from the cold. “I’ll wait however
long it takes to get a ticket and then
I’ll go in and pass out.”
HER FRIEND, shivering alongside
her, had seen the film two days earlier.
“It didn’t make me sick or faint but
I did get weak,” she said. “I couldn’t
sleep by myself that night. I’ve got a
friend in Dallas who has been going
to a psychiatrist ever since seeing the
movie.
“We’ve sold out every show,” said
Richard McHenry, assistant manager
of the theater. “It gets to a point
where it’s sold out and the people who
didn’t get in just wait in line for the
next show.”
Since the movie was released there
has been a rash of requests for exor
cism, a rite which has not been per
formed in the United States in over
20 years.
Father Raymond Brezna, Associate
Pastor at St. Anthony’s Church in
Bryan, sees the film as beneficial to
the Catholic Church.
“THE CATHOLIC Church comes out
of the movie smelling like a rose,” he
said. “The priests help this girl where
modern medical science was helpless.
‘We have not received any requests
for exorcism but there has been a lot
of interest in the subject.”
He said the movie is driving some
people back to the church.
“People usually convert because of
a change of heart,” he said. “This (the
movie) for some people is something
that is very traumatic.”
“Before we call for the rite of exor
cism, we must be sure we’ve exhaust
ed every normal medical possibility.
“A person who is possessed has spe
cial gifts that a normal person could
not possibly have. We had a posses
sion in Oregon (in the early part of
the century) of a Salvatorian brother
who was a lay brother (had not fin
ished high school). After he was exor
cised he retained a thorough knowl
edge of Greek, Hebrew and Latin and
was schooled in philosophy and theolo
gy. The Devil left these traits behind
after he had left the body.
“The rite of exorcism is very rare
and to tell the truth,” he said “I’ve
never seen it. I mean, it’s not some
thing that happens every day.”
It does happen every day, however,
three times a day at the theater for all
tthose hearty enough to want to watch.