‘Why must everyone
in class sit in chairs?’
By CAROL JONES
Battalion Staff Writer
Traditional liberal thought of the 1960’s
favored federal supervision and regulation
of welfare, education, unemployment in
surance and free enterprise. Now, the lib
eral scorns these ideas as much as he once
supported them, said Frank Mankiewicz,
Wednesday night’s Political Forum
speaker.
Mankiewicz was Senator Robert Ken
nedy’s press secretary from 1966 until his
death and was the national political director
for George McGovern s presidential cam
paign in 1972. After observing Richard
Nixon for many years, he has written two
books, “Perfectly Clear: Nixon from Whit
tier to Watergate and “US vs. Nixon.
Mankiewicz is also an attorney and a jour
nalist.
Mankiewicz said the liberal thought of
the ’60’s was directed to help the laborers
and workers. But, he said, the regulatory
agencies that liberals thought wovdd retain
competition, now are run by the businesses
they regulate.
Under President Lyndon Johnson, a
federal education act set aside millions of
dollars to improve schools but, Mankiewicz
said, the schools are no better and appa
rently the act did not help.
The tax laws benefit the rich and the rich
actually pay less income tax, he said, and
half the taxable assets goes to the Pentagon
budget. He said the military establishment
is enormous, swollen and out of control. He
said there are more generals today than
there were during World War II. Man
kiewicz suggested cutting military expen
diture and directing funding elsewhere.
He suggested the government should help
a company financially convert from making
missiles to maybe, transit systems. He said
this would require more workers, increas
ing employment, and it would help prevent
the creation of dangerous weapons that
pressures the use of them.
Mankiewicz says liberals today want to
see programs to benefit consumers. He
said they look for less government regula
tion and less bureaucracy to increase com
petition.
The generation of Watergate and Viet
Nam taught us about the dangers of big
government — that it can become a crash
ing burden to its people, he said, so today’s
liberal is looking toward non-commercial
values and quality of life.
President Ford’s tax program proposes
cutting taxes by $28 billion if Congress will
Frank Mankiewicz
cut spending by $28 billion.
Mankiewicz said liberals should actually
support the program because it represents
what they believe.
Liberal thought on education today is
considering alternatives to the present sys
tem, Mankiewicz said. Why, he asked,
must we base the school year on the ag
ricultural year and why must we have clas
ses conducted in a room with everyone sit
ting in a chair?
Che Battalion
Vol. 69 No. 27
Copyright © 1975, Th«* Battalion
College Station, Texas
Thursday, Oct. 16, 1975
Texas
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge
Leon Douglas lashed out at his colleagues
in an opinion Wednesday, saying they were
stretching logic on behalf of defendants in
circumstantial evidence cases.
His latest dissent was precipitated by a
majority decision reversing the murder
conviction of Manuel Cardenas Gamboa,
sentenced to 13 years by a Houston jury
in the shooting death of his sister-in-law.
In Houston, Exxon cut its prices by a
penny per gallon and some independents
are now selling auto fuel for as little as 47.9
cents a gallon.
Exxon cut its prices in what the company
called a change to reflect the competitive
situation in the market place.
A privately owned P5I crashed near San
Angelo Wednesday killing its Canadian
pilot. It was part of a flight of four enroute to
San Angelo after participating in a Confed
erate Air Force air show in South Texas.
A second P51 in the flight was also miss
ing Wednesday night.
National
The intensive manhunt in Salem, 111. for
five escaped Marion Federal Penitentiary
inmates was abandoned Wednesday with
all but one of the fugitives back behind
bars.
Sen. Richard S. Schweiker, R-Pa., said
in Harrisburg, Pa., Wednesday that the
Warren Commission report on President
Kennedy's assassination is about to collapse
and said his subcommittee on intelligence
is looking into three separate conspiracy
theories.
The Watergate Special Prosecution
Force said in its final report Wednesday
that before the country is faced with
another scandal like Watergate, Congress
should decide if an incumbent president is
vulnerable to criminal indictment.
In a report published Thursday in the
New England Journal of Medicine, Har
vard Medical School researchers say that
marijuana is far more effective than any
other drug in relieving the vomiting and
nausea that plagues thousands of cancer
patients undergoing chemical therapy and
should be considered as a treatment for
such side effects.
John Henry Faulk told a University of
Texas Law School audience Wednesday
that he thinks the Communist-hunting
group that blacklisted him in the 1950s had
aright to warn people about him.
Aware had a perfect right, in my opin
ion, to say I was a sorry radical, not that I
was a Communist, and they didn t call me a
Communist, he said.
World
It appears that California has won the
promotional and legal battle, and the chili
champions from throughout the nation will
he brewing their tongue-burning concoc
tions in Roseamond, Calif., instead ofTer-
lingua, Tex.
A suit to stop the move was dropped
when a district court judge in Austin re
fused to accept a boiled chicken and two
cases of pinto beans in lieu of a $300 bond.
Panel discusses
traffic changes
By LEE ROY LESCHPER
Battalion Staff Writer
Students riding motorcycles on campus
in the future may benefit from at least one
additional parking area specifically for
motorcycles, the University Traffic Panel
decided Wednesday.
In other business the panel considered
an additional parking area for day students,
heard results from two bicycle studies, and
discussed several street modifications.
Motorcycle club representatives prop
osed a number of new motorcycle parking
areas to the panel before panel member
Don Woods suggested the area ultimately
approved. The j^roposed area would extend
along the east side of Spence Stieet near
the Zachry Engineering Building in the
area of diagonal parking spaces presently
blocked off by construction.
The Traffic Panel serves as a committee
under Vice President of Student Services
John Koldus, recommending action relat
ing to on-campus traffic problems. The
motorcycle parking area proposal goes now
to Vice-President Koldus for approval,
panel chairman Vergil Stover said.
Environmental Action Committee
(EAC) traff ic chairman Tim Rose presented
the panel with results from the EAC -
League of Women Voters bike survey
taken Sept. 30. The survey showed that
over 10,000 bicyclists and 9,000 pedest
rians entered or left the campus between
7:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. that Tuesday.
(see Panel, p.3)
FGCj LI Staff photo by Kevin Fotorny
One of the last remaining shows that students are not the
plants in the front of the Reed only ones annoyed by the con-
McDonald Services Bldg. struction on campus.
Even John Denver did it!
Marijuana users often only warned
By JIM JAMES
and
DON ILOFF
Battalion Staff Writer
“If you see me tonight with an
illegal smile.
It don’t cost very much, yet it
lasts a long while.
Please tell the man I didn’t kill
anyone.
I was just trying to have me
some fun.
—John Prine
Texas law provides for up to 99 years in
prison for possessing over four ounces of
marijuana. For possession of two to four
ounces, a conviction provides for a sen
tence of not more than one year in jail and
a fine of $2,000. Two ounces or less of
marijuana can bring the possessor up to
180 days in jail and a fine of not more than
$1,000’.
The sociological aspects of being con
victed can be equally intimidating, yet
estimates are that over half the college
age students in America have tried mari
juana at least once. Even one of the presi
dent s sons has admitted using marijuana,
and the paradigm of the all-American kid,
John Denver, has admitted using hashish.
This dichotomy, of the law on the one
hand, and societal standard on the other
has reached Texas A&M.
A student will only face a warning if a
drug usage report is channeled through the
Student Affairs office. If, however. Univer
sity Police receive a complaint or a tip, the
student will probably face criminal charg
es. Both University Police and Student
Affairs are organized under the broader
umbrella of Student Services.
Dr. Charles Powell, Director for Stu
dent Affairs, said that resident advisers are
instructed that if they suspect a student of
using drugs, they are to confer with the
student and ask him to quit using it. Hiss
assistant, Ron Blatchley, however, said
that if there is pretty positive proof of drug
usage, his office calls Campus Security
such call had been made this year.
without warning the student, though he^
said no such call had been made this year.
Linda Anderson, an R.A., said that her
instruction had been to use discretion in
the matter, but if the RAs knew of a stu
dent using marijuana they were to warn
them. She went on to say that if the stu
dent failed to heed the warning, the pro
cedure was then to call on the area coordin
ator who at his discretion might call police.
“No, their job is to enforce all the laws,
ours is to help students stay out of trouble,
said Powell about the discrepancy between
University Police’s and his office’s policy.
University Police officials for many years
didn’t prosecute possession of alcoholic
beverages charges against minor students,
opting instead to have the student pour out
his illegal spirits, said an investigator for
the police.
At the University of Texas, said Univer
sity ofTexas at Austin police captain Jimmy
Reed, an in-room bust for marijuana posses
sion has not been made this year and he
couldn t recall any in the past two years.
He added that in the near future UT prob
ably would issue tickets, similar to traffic
tickets for any misdemeanor possession.
These tickets wovdd charge the student
with attempting to possess marijuana
which carries a maximum penalty of a $2(X)
(see Busts, p.3)
Speaker appalled
by Briscoe’s stand
The Interior Department is trying to
acquire Matagorda Island off the Texas
coast that once provided a bondring range
for the Air Force and wintering home for
the nearly-extinct whooping crane.
In Ottawa, Secretary of State Henry A.
Kissinger said Wednesday he will not turn
over State Department documents sub
poenaed by a congressional committee but
is willing to submit “a general summary of
views on all subjects.”
In Washington, the House Intelligence
Committee had issued a subpoena for a
memo written by a former State Depart
ment Cyprus chief who alleged that the
government mishandled the Cyprus crisis.
In Dublin, Ireland, the kidnapers of
Dutch businessman Tiede Herrema are
threatening to cut off one of his feet if police
keep insisting on proof he is alive, Herrema
said in a tape-recorded message Wednes
day.
Matching towers
Hartford, Conn, police conceded Wed
nesday that an officer should have been
directing traffic at the corner where Presi
dent Ford’s car was struck Tuesday night
and blamed the failure to assign a traffic cop
on “human error. ”
<
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor
remarried at a game reserve in Botswana
last week in a simple ceremony conducted
by a tribal official.
An almost completed structure
is dominating the skyline at Prairie
View A&M University. Workers
are winding up construction of a
146-foot water tower at the uni
versity.
The new tower will have a
capacity of 500,000 gallons com
pared to the 30,000 - gallon, 100 -
foot tower it is replacing.
Director of Utilities Luther
Francis says the painting of a de
sign on the globular structure, a
design incorporated from ideas
submitted by students, could begin
in about one week.
The $263,000 project is being
constructed by the Houston office
of Chicago Bridge and Iron.
Associated Press
Voting began Wednesday on Texas’
proposed new constitution as suppor
ters and opponents reacted to Gov.
Dolph Briscoe s advice Tuesday that
voters turn down the entire docu
ment.
Secretary of State Mark White said
absentee voting began Wednesday in
all Texas counties for the Nov. 4 spe
cial election and will continue through
Oct. 31.
“I urge all Texans who cannot be at
the polls on election day to vote absen
tee,” White said. “The result of this
election will determine how state gov
ernment will be restructured for de
cades to come.
White estimated only about 25 per
cent of Texas’ 4.9 million eligible vot
ers, or about 1.2 million, would vote
on the proposed new constitution. He
said that was an “optimistic” estimate.
The largest vote concentration is ex
pected in the Houston area where a
hot race for mayor should attract more
voters.
However, Robert Johnson, head of
the Texas Election Bureau, which will
gather unofficial returns of the elec
tion, said he stuck with his original
“shotgun” guess that not many more
than half a million voters will bother to
go to the polls.
Former Supreme Court Chief Jus
tice Robert W. Calvert, head of Citi
zens for the Texas Constitution, said
Wednesday he had no immediate
comment on Briscoe s statement
Tuesday urging defeat of the constitu
tion submitted by the recent legisla
ture.
However, Calvert said a news con
ference would be held Thursday to air
the views of his statewide organization
which has been the leader in pushing
adoption of the new document.
Calvert also announced that the
executive board of the Texas Associa
tion of College Teachers had endorsed
the new constitution.
Sen. Peyton McKnight, D-Tyler,
leader of the opposing Citizens to Pre
serve the Texas Constitution, said he
was “delighted” that the governor “af
ter a long, careful, independent study
of the proposed new constitution,
reached the strong conclusion that it
should be rejected completely by the
voters . . . We have felt all along that if
the people will read and study the
proposed new constitution most of
them will vote against it.”
Speaker Bill Clayton said he was
“appalled at the governor s opposition
... I always realized that he was op
posed to or had questions about annual
sessions. One of the things I think the
governor and others opposing this
constitution have overlooked is that
they are in effect discrediting out of
system of government. If we do not
have confidence in our legislature and
the legislative process then we better
re-examine our whole system.
Rep. Paul Ragsdale, D-Dallas, said
Briscoe’s statement was “a last minute
attempt ... to wreck the constitu
tional revision process . . . apparently
the governor does not realize that
Texas is no longer a rural, horse and
buggy state.”