ns
Food figures challenged • . . Supermarkets speak out
WASHINGTON (AP) — Execu
tives of four of the nation’s largest
supermarket chains challenged Ag
riculture Department figures on the
amount of the family food hill that
goes to the wholesaler and retailer.
They said Tuesday that govern
ment figures shpw middlemen tak
ing as much as 50 percent more of
the meat dollar than they actually
do.
To make their case, later chal
lenged by some of the congressmen,
three of the executives disclosed de
tailed elements of the costs and prie-,
ing of their meat departments.
Government and private groups
have been seeking those figures for
more than a year.
“We have bared our souls,” de
clared David B. Sykes, vice presi
dent of finance for Giant Food Inc.,
at the end of a packed 4 y2-hour hear
ing on meat prices.
The executives from Giant, The
Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.
(A&P), Safeway Stbres Inc. and The
Kroger Co. all stated that, if their
meat departments were not the loss
leaders of their food chains, they at
least have showed no net profit this
year.
They flooded the House Agricul
ture Committee’s domestic market
ing and consumer relations sub
committee with cost, price and
gross margin statistics, charts and
tables in support of their conten
tions. But their accounting methods
often differed from USDA’s for the
same series of figures. Occasionally
the statistics were presented in
comparisons of different subjects.
The executives stressed these
points in their testimony and re
sponses to questions:
—That US DA figures on price
spreads are outdated, do not reflect
actual marketing activity and show
the middlemen taking as much as 50
percent more of the meat dollar
than they do in reality. USDA
economists attribute to
middlemen’s higher costs and pro
fits 84 percent of this year’s rise in
over-all food prices.
—That “margins” and “spreads’
are taken to mean profits alone,
when they actually mean just the
difference between what the
supermarkets pay the wholesale
packer for meat and what they
charge consumers for it. That differ
ence may not even cover all of the
increased costs in the meat depart
ment, much less net profit, they tes
tified.
—That they are selling more and
more beef, promoting it more and
relying on other departments in the
store to carry the losses of the meat
counters as a whole.
Battalion
Today in the Batt
Photos p. 3
Stores close p. 4
Commissioners . .p. 5
Wednesday, November 20, 1974.
Revote required
on referendums
By TERESA COSLETT
Staff Writer
The Judicial Board unanimously
declared the results from the six re
ferendums on amendments to the
student senate constitution void, in
an election appeals case Tuesday
night.
The referendum was on a sepa
rate ballot from the candidates in
the freshman election. Results from
voting on the referendum had not
been tabulated.
The referendum will be voted on
again during freshman election
run-offs Dec. 5.
Plaintiff Douglas Winship
brought the case before the Judicial
Board because a notice of the re
ferendum wasn’t run in the Battal
ion early enough.
Under university regulations, the
election board is required to an
nounce elections in the Battalion 10
class days prior to the election.
Referendums are mentioned in
the ratification and legislative arti
cles of the student senate constitu
tion but not the university regula
tions.
Student body president Steve
Eberhard represented the defen
dant Susan Warren, election board
chairman. Eberhard asked the
board for a summary judgement say
ing the election board was techni
cally right but that he supported
running the referendum again due
to a light turnout.
Winship said such a summary
judgement would satisfy him.
Also representing the defense,
John Tyler, student vice president
of rules and regulations, said he took
personal responsibility for not mak
ing election regulations clearer on
referendums.
But overturning the results
would set a dangerous precedent,
said Tyler. A referendum and elec
tion are different by definition.
Winship said the two were the
same under the regulations.
After deliberating 30 minutes in a
closed session the board upheld
Winship’s appeal on the ground that
the university regulations do apply
to referendums.
Fears overload
on li
ent"
lry
jrfi
John Tyler, student vice president of rules and regulations,
defends the constitutional referendum run last week. Judi
cial Board members from left to right: Shannon Walker,
Congress told
Governors want
Don Hegi, Chairman Jerri Ward and Sam Walser. (Photo
by David Kimmel)
RHA refuses appeal board
economic program
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C.
(AP) — The nation’s Democratic
governors urged Congress on Tues
day to enact a broad economic
program—including wage, price
and profit controls—unless the rate
of inflation subsides substantially by
mid-1975.
They watered down a resolution
calling for “immediate action on
controls because of opposition from
most members of a panel of experts.
Only 14 of the 32 Democratic-
governors and governors-elect who
gathered at Hilton Head for the
three-day Democratic Governors’
Conference remained for Tuesday’s
final unanimous voice vote on the
economic resolution.
The group voted 8-6 against
eliminating any reference to con
trols and then agreed 7-6 to take out
the plea for action now.
Chairman Wendell Anderson of
Minnesota said the resolution had
strong support from the governors
who left before the vote.
The r e s ol u 11 on d e cl are s tfi a t
“strong, immediate steps are re
quired” by Congress to deal with
the economy and the energy situa
tion and urges tax reform, limits on
oil imports and authority for gas ra
tioning. It also called for the dismis
sal of Agriculture Secretary Earl L.
Butz.
The action was overshadowed, in
terms of importance and long-range
impact, by continuing controversy
over Monday’s move by the gover
nors to compromise on a key provi
sion in a proposed party charter and
thus avert dispute at next month’s
Kansas City mini-convention.
Three representatives of the
AFL-CIO told a group of governors
at a breakfast meeting they had re
servations about the proposal on
grounds it could still permit “im
plicit quotas’ to assure participation
of women, blacks and minorities in
party activities.
The governors insisted they also
opposed quotas and said they would
work to avoid a repetition of 1972,
when virtual quotas for those groups
were acquired in credentials battles
at the party’s presidential nominat
ing convention.
Gov. John Gilligan of Ohio, ar
chitect of the compromise which
would put into the party’s perma
nent charter the rules he helped to
draft for 1976, said he believed the
compromise will be accepted at
Kansas City.
By JUDY BAGGETT
Staff Writer
The Residence Hall Association
(RHA) Judicial Board voted 13-3
against having an appeals board at
Tuesday night’s meeting.
An appeals board would bear
cases of students dissatisfied with
the decision of a dorm judicial
board. At present if a student appe
als, the case goes to the associate
director of student affairs. A student
is judged only once by his peers.
“I think we’ll be overloading our
selves,” said Celeste Noehlman,
Fowler representative. “I don’t
have enough time to devote to it.”
Since many members agreed that
the case load might be too heavy and
time consuming, George Lippe,
chairman of the RHA Judicial
Board, suggested the idea of having
an alternating five man appeals
board. The judicial board has 20
members. Most members rejected
it, saying either all or none of the
judicial board must hear the case.
During the meeting, the board
unanimously approved the by-laws
written by the by-law committee
after one change in the hearing pro
cess. The by-laws will be presented
'to the RHA for approval.
The by-laws stated that all pro
ceedings are confidential. Noehl
man questioned the board’s ability
to close the hearing, citing a recent
case in which a dorm judicial board
had to give an open bearing to a
defendant who requested it.
“You’ve got to give them a
choice,” Noehlman said.
The board changed the statement
to read that all proceedings are con
fidential at the request of the defen
dant. The board was uncertain
whether a closed voting session was
legal. Lippe said he would check
with the student legal adviser.
The by-laws state that- an infrac
tion will be reported by the chair
man or a member of RHA. An in
fraction “can include oodles of
stuff,” Lippe said. He gave exam
ples of water fights and damage to
dorm property. An infraction can be
incurred by either a resident of a
hall or the residence hall itself.
A complaint is submitted to the
chairman of the judicial board or the
associate director of student affairs,
within two class days of the infrac
tion.
A hearing will be set within 10
class days after the report of the in
fraction.
Cases will be decided by a simple
majority of the quorum. A quorum
is two-thirds of the total voting
membership.
The chairman will deliver the
verdict within 24 hours after the de
cision has been reached.
The board has a choice of several
punishments. A students’ weekend
may be restricted which means the
student would have to sign in at the
University Police Station every two
hours from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. The
offender would have to sign in every
three hours on Sunday from 9 a.m.
to 9 p.m.
Also, a reprimand could be given
by the board, with the possibility of
more severe action if violations con
tinue.
The third option is compensation
for damages. A student could be put
on a work detail to compensate for
the offense.
The final punishment is a recom
mendation to the associate director
of student affairs for conduct proba
tion, suspension, expulsion from
the university or removal from uni
versity housing.
The defendant can appeal the de
cision to the associate director of
student affairs within five class days.
Also at the meeting, the board
unanimously approved Lippe’s ap
pointment of Rebecca Grimes,
Krueger representative, as secret
ary.
Companies backed
by Supreme Court
Waiting patiently
Students take it easy after being as
sured by Dr. Charles Powell, direc
tor of student affairs, that those who
had been in line the longest would
retain their rights to the first seats.
Conflict arose Tuesday night among
the almost 200 people waiting in
front of G. Rollie White when it was
discovered there would be six lines
rather than the two which had
formed for tickets to the
Texas-A&M game. (Photo by Jack
Holm)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Out-of-
state companies seeking to enforce
contracts in state courts received a
helping hand from the Supreme
Court on Tuesday.
The court’s 8 to 1 decision in
volved a Memphis cotton merchant
who contracted with Mississippi
farmers in 1971 for 25,000 bales of
cotton.
By the time the cotton was ready
for delivery in 1973, prices had risen
sharply and some farmers broke
their contracts.
The firm, Allenberg Cotton Co.
of Memphis, sued farmer Ben E.
Pittman.
The Mississippi Supreme Court
dismissed the suit because Allen
berg did not have a Mississippi bus
iness license.
The Supreme Court, in an opin
ion by Justice William O. Douglas,
said the firm did not need such a
license because it was engaged in
interstate commerce.
The lone dissenter, Justice Wil
liam H. Rehnquist, said Douglas
appeared to be advancing “the
proposition that trading in agricul
tural commodities, whether wheat
or cotton, is a form of interstate
commerce which may not be regu
lated by the states.”
In other cases, the court:
—Held unanimously that the
government in seeking to collect
withholding taxes from a bankrupt
employer, does not have priority
over former employes seeking their
wages.
—Issued an unsigned opinion re
quiring a lower federal court to hear
the appeal of a Virginia man who
was convicted under a state narco
tics law later ruled unconstitutional.
Ray Hutchison