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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 10, 1974)
Today in the Bait More BVDC p. 3 Basketball p. 7 Specialty team p. 8 Che Battalion Weather Fair to partly cloudy and mild Thursday and Friday. Easterly winds 5-8 mph. Both days 86°. Low tonight 63°. Vol. 68 No. 23 College Station, Texas Thursday, October 10, 1974 AN ARTISTIC FLOURISH changes this window in one of the dorm rooms in the Corps area into a series of pictures that are lighted from the outside. (Photo by Will van Overbeek) Briscoe may require reasons for UT firing AUSTIN, Tex. (AP)— University of Texas Chancellor Charles LeMaistre refused again Wednes day to detail reasons why he fired UT-Austin President Stephen Spurr, saying he is acting upon legal advice. LeMaistre’s brief one paragraph answer to a special investigating committee of the UT-Austin faculty came after Gov. Dolph Briscoe said he was prepared to force LeMaistre to reveal his reasons for the dismis sal if LeMaistre did not act voluntar ily. Briscoe said he had conferred with other top state officials and was convinced that he had the power, under the state constitution, to re quire any official of a state institu tion to make a written report on any of his actions. “I must advise you that the situa tion surrounding my original deci sion not to release a bill of particu lars related to my removal of Dr. Spurr from his administrative re sponsibilities as president of the University ofT^xas at Austin has not changed, ” LeM,aistre said in his let ter to the Special Committee of the Faculty Senate. He said his decision was based on “legal advice.” Three other University of Texas regents, who did not accept the spe cial committee’s invitation to ap pear, sent letters saying they could add nothing to the reason for Spurr’s dismissal. “It is doubtful that further discus sion would serve any real purpose at least on a unilateral basis, ” said re gent Ed Clark, Austin. “I think your request for information should have been made to the board of regents who acts on all matters by majority vote. I want to hear what other members hear together.” Allan Shivers, former Texas gov ernor, said he had nothing to add to his original statement that LeMaistre said he had “an increas ing lack of confidence” in Spurr’s administrative ability, and “I felt in view of this statement that the chan cellor should be supported and so voted.” Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson sent word from Virginia, where she is visiting, that she had nothing new to add. She enclosed a copy of her orig inal statement that she abstained in voting on Spurr’s dismissal because she did not have “enough facts to approve and sanction the chancellor’s action.” Spurr sent the committee a letter from Baltimore, Md., where he is on a vacation. He said he thought the “burden of proof of justifying a summary and immediate dismissal lies with the chancellor and the board of regents.” However, he listed a number of reasons he said LeMaistre had given him orally the day of the firing. “To the best of my recollections, the allegations dealt with my man agement in the fall of 1971, of the pre-game football receptions, my failure to relieve one of the execu tive officers from a major portion of his administrative responsibilities, my alleged failure to force the elimination of discriminatory in stitutional ‘weights’ in the Texas index used by the Law School Ad missions Committee, my alleged failure to move fast enough into the field of energy research, justifying the uses of the available fund, speaker policy, staff antagonism to the Ex-Students’ Association, prog ram development at the Marine Science Institute at Port Aransas, staff unhappiness at the McDonald Observatory, pre-medical advising and a poor presentation of the institution’s budget to the Legisla tive Budget Board staff.” Spurr’s letter also repeated his original comment that he felt Re gent Frank Erwin Jr. had a part in the dismissal. “If again I were to identify the single point when Mr. Erwin turned against me, it was when Dean Page Keeton refused to admit a friend of Mr. Erwin to the Law School and I supported the action . . . Immediately thereafter, I began to gather from remarks made to others that my days as pres ident were numbered, Spurr said. Spurr said in his judgement, the underlying reasons for his dismissal were, first, “my independence and vigor in pressing for what I believed to be right in the inner councils of the system” and, second, “my un compromising insistence that the fundamental decisions on academic matters should be made primarily by the faculty and academic ad ministrators at the campus level. Mills stand-in says Surtax may be extended WASHINGTON (AP) — An inflation-fighting income tax sur charge may have to be levied for at least two years instead of just the single year proposed by President Ford, the acting head of the House Ways and Means Committee said Wednesday. “We re not going to come out of this economic crisis—and we’d bet ter recognize it—in one year. It is going to take longer than that, ” Rep. Al Ullman, D-Ore., told reporters. Ullman presided in the place of Chairman Wilbur D. Mills, D-Ark., as the panel opened consideration of the proposals advanced by Ford a day earlier. Mills had not been seen at the Capitol since an incident early Monday in which police say a woman bolted from his car and Senate vote tables football ticket limit By TERESA COSLETT Staff Writer A resolution limiting the number of football tickets students could purchase was tabled and referred to the Student Services Committee Wednesday night. The resolution was presented to the Student Senate by Barry Brooks, SG vice president of Stu dent Services. It would limit stu dents to buying three student tick-i ets and three date tickets. A motion was made to set the limit at a total of 20 for home games and eight for away games. The Se nate took no action on the motion. The motion to table Brooks’ re solution was made after several senators said they needed time to present the issue to their con stituents. Brooks said the Student Service Committee will meet to discuss the resolution after Yell Practice next Malpractice allegations answered St. Joseph Hospital and Dr. Leon W. B. Rasberry, a local private prac titioner, have denied the allegations in a $1 million malpractice suit filed by a Hearne couple, following the death of their son. The hospital filed an answer in the district clerk’s office Friday. Rasberry answered the suit Wed nesday morning. The suit, filed in district court on Sept. 27 by Gary and Carol Broadus, alleges gross negligence by the defendants and uncontrol led, unsterile conditions in the hospital s delivery room while Mrs. Broadus was giving birth Jan. 6. The suit charges that the baby was allowed to fall on his head onto the delivery room floor. He died 23 hours later at Texas Children’s Hos pital in Houston. The suit asks for $500,000 in ac tual damages and $500,000 in puni tive damages. A hearing date on the suit has not been set. Tuesday. A resolution by John Nash, SG vice president of Academic Affairs, substituting a lottery system for the present seniority system in buying football tickets was read for the first time. (See SENATE, page 3) jumped into a pool as other riders scuffled. Mills was said to be one of those involved. The panel first heard Treasury Secretary William Simon present the administration’s case for the new taxes. Ullman agreed that the President has “given us a format and I think, because the country is in trouble, it is our responsibility to . . . get it passed this year.” Ullman said the nation will not be able to do the things “that have to be done unless we raise some revenue. At this point, it appears that there is no way of raising the required amount of revenue unless we get some kind of surcharge, putting the heaviest possible burden on the corporate economy . . . and also on the higher bracket earners. Simon suggested that the com mittee handle the tax proposals through separate legislation instead of putting them aboard the general tax revision bill on which the panel has been working for several months. Ullman disagreed. “I feel very strongly that the American people are going to insist upon tax reform if we gre going to pass a surcharge. My feeling is that you are not going to get a surcharge unless you get the whole package. That’s my position and 1 think that of the committee, ” Ullman told reporters. Simon, however, said the Ford' administration wants to “take a rifle approach to tax reform proposals, rather than the shotgun approach that is taken in broad tax reform. In limiting the number of proposals, we had hoped for very fast passage. ” Ford called for a one-year, 5 per cent surcharge on all corporate earnings along with similar levy upon individual income above $7,500 and family income above $15,000. Businesses would get a break, meanwhile, in the way of boosting the investment tax credit from. 7 percent to 10 percent and allowing deductions for dividends paid on preferred stocks. Game time set It’s official now- —Texas A&M and Texas Tech will collide at noon Saturday in their nation ally televised Southwest Conference football game. Air time on ABC-TV is 11:30 a. m. with the game starting 30 minutes later. An overflow crowd of 51,000 fans will jam Kyle Field which seats 48,000. More than 19,000 student tickets were sold. It’s the first Aggie home sellout- —other than for an A&M-Texas game- —since the 1956 TCU contest. Settlement delayed on Library Club Flood control still problem for apartments near creek By ROSE MARY TRAVERSO and HAZEL CAMPBELL Staff Writers No effective controls have been found to prevent future flooding of Wolf Pen Creek, which caused more than $6,000 damage to the Monaco I apartments on Sept. 13. The flooding was due to backwa ter caused by blockage of the creek, said George R. Ford, city engineer, Wednesday, adding plans to clean up the creek are scheduled for the immediate future. “The banks of the creek are so steep that the job will have to be done by hand,” he said. “It’s not a cure all, but it would certainly help.” “You don’t know what it’s like to step out of bed in two inches of water,” said Ricky Ware, a Monaco resident, recalling that Friday the 13th. “I waded in knee deep water out to my car. The water was four inches above the crack at the bottom of the door where water flooded the inside ruining the carpet and ball bearings on my wheels.” One resident, who requested not to be identified said, “The smell was so horrible. We couldn’t sleep here and had to go to a motel. ” She said she didn’t expect to get any type of deduction on this month’s rent, be cause it was considered a temporary inconvenience. Their lease states any temporary inconveniences will not be reason for rent not due on time. “We are not responsible for the situation of the flooding, ” said Eb- becke. “It was an act of God.” The local Army Reserves have volunteered to help clean the creek but their offer will not be accepted if city employes are available, Ford said. Water detention ponds for the TAMU golf course have also been proposed but would offer only min imal relief to the problem, he said. The water from the creek flows to a concrete culvert under Texas Av enue and is built to handle 2,100 cubic feet per second of designed rain (rainfall with a probability of occurring once in 50 years). The structure did not prevent flooding, said Ford, but channelization is not “the complete answer. He plans to “leave nature in its original state and work around it.” Presently there are no means to prevent future flooding of the Monaco apartments, which are built on a flood plain. “I would not begin to know how to deal with that at this point in time,” said Ford. Ebbecke said damaged carpeting in the apartments has been re placed, however, individual resi dents are responsible for their per sonal belongings which included stereos, automobiles, clothing and furniture. Jackie Heyman, co-chairman of the Student Government’s Fair Housing Commission, said no com plaints have been received by her group from the Monaco residents. Since flood insurance became avail able in the College Station area dur ing the past year, it is now the individual’s responsibility to insure their belongings,! she said. mm. By JACK HODGES Staff Writer The Texas Court of Criminal Ap peals Wednesday overnded a mo tion for a re-hearing of the Alton A. West vs. The State of Texas trial, an obscenity case which will affect pending litigation against the Adult Library Club of College Station. A three-judge panel in Houston is awaiting final word on the West case in order for the state to clarify its definition of obscenity. That clarifi cation will help them rule on its con stitutionality in regard to a consoli dated case which involves the Adult Library Club and 14 other business establishments in Texas. The Adult Library Club had been closed after police raids and county court orders for about a year. A fed eral district court in Houston issued a restraining order last month fre eing it and the 14 other businesses from having any action taken against them by the state. The West case originated in 1971 when West was convicted in Lub bock County Court of exhibiting obscene materials in the city of Lubbock. The decision was ap pealed to the Texas Court of Crimi nal Appeals, which affirmed the lower court ruling. A motion was set for a re-hearing on Feb. 17 of last year but was overruled and ap pealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In light of the Miller vs. Califor nia case and related obscenity cases the Supreme Court sent it back to the state for further investigation on Nov. 6, of that year. Like the Miller case, the state’s definition of obscen ity was considered too broad and general by the high court. The obscenity law under ques tion, Art. 527 of the Texas Penal Code, expired Jan. 1, 1974, and a new law with minor alterations was put on the books. The Court of Criminal Appeals on Feb. 13, re-affirmed its decision against West. The case went back to the Appeals Court for another hear ing which was denied Wednesday. FLOODING RESULTED in the need for massive repairs to apartments in the Monaco I complex. Carpeting had to be torn out and replaced because of water damage. The pool was filled with debris from the overflow of Wolf Pen Creek in September and had to be cleaned and have the chemicals re-added. (Photos by Chris Svatek)