Page 2 THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 22, 1975
Is college rivalry going too far? Poor old ‘Suiiy
Editor:
Late Sunday night my girlfriend
had missed her ride back to Baylor
University. I didn’t have a car, so I
went to a friend s to borrow one. He
knew some people there and
wanted to visit, so all three of us
went.
After arriving in Waco around
10:40 p.m., we were driving
through the Baylor campus to the
Ruth Collins Dorm. Almost to the
dorm, we were stopped by about a
dozen male students aimed with
baseball bats and axe handles. (Ap
parently, decorated bats are a tradi
tion during their football season.)
Part 2 of 9
They spotted the A&M parking
sticker in the comer of the back
windshield and stopped the car.
They asked what we were doing
there, if we had paint in the car, and
if we had put dye in their fountain.
They took the gas cap off the car, but
we pleaded with them and they re
turned it. During this entire inter
rogation they kept insulting Texas
A&M.
Then a silver Grand Prix ( 75)
drove up beside us and someone in
the car yelled “Where are those
guys from?”
“A&M,” said one of the batters.
“A&M sucks!” they replied.
This remark was just a little too
much and my friend who was driv
ing came back with “Baylor sucks!”
The Grand Prix started chasing us
and our friend was unfamiliar with
the campus. He turned down a road
behind a dorm and the next thing
we knew, we had been chased onto
a practice baseball field. We tried to
find an exit, but there was none, so
we circled back to # where we had
come in. By this time they had
ceased chasing us, so we parked the
New charter’s legislature
Associated Press
AUSTIN — Seen and heard in
the Capitol — so often that it has
become trite — is a quotation re
ndered 109 years ago by an obscure
New York judge.
“No man’s life, liberty or prop
erty are safe, he said, “while the
legislature is in session.
That could be the slogan of the
forces arrayed against passage of Ar
ticle III of the proposed Texas Con
stitution. Probably the most fre
quent attacks against the entire
document, in fact, are those that
appeal to distrust of the legislature.
Such an apprehension was Gov.
Dolph Briscoe’s chief reason for op
posing the new constitution. He
singled out its provision for annual
sessions of the lawmaking body.
“There is absolutely no doubt in
my mind but that annual sessions of
the legislature will sharply increase
state spending, said Briscoe,
whose chief policy has been “no new
taxes.”
Backers of the document, how
ever, say the anti-legislature appeal
is demagogic. They say the new
document will put the legislature on
a modern, businesslike footing and
make it more responsible and better
able to deal with problems before
they grow into crises.
Article III—paired with the
executive article on the Nov. 4
ballot—spells out the legislature’s
duties, powers and limits.
Its most controversial feature
would wipe out the 19-month gap
between regular legislative ses
sions. Lawmakers Would convene
for 140 days in odd-numbered years
and hold 90-day sessions in even-
numbered years.
Other innovations in the article
would:
—Remove the $7,200 legislative
salary limit. A salary commission
would review lawmakers’ pay annu
ally and recommend a ceiling,
within which legislators would set
their own salaries.
—Enable the legislature, by peti
tion of three-fifths of each house, to
convene in extraordinary session to
consider overriding vetoes signed
by the governor after a regular or
special session.
^Allow lawmakers to handle
time-consuming organizational de
tails such as adoption of rules and
election of officers before the start of
a regular session. They could meet
after the general election in
November to do this.
—Require single-member House
districts, something the state will
have anyway after 1976 by virtue of
court decisions and legislative ac
tion.
—Sharply curtail the legislature’s
ability to pass bills, local, which ac
count for half of a session’s output.
Sen. Peyton McKnight’s “Citi
zens to Preserve the Texas Con
stitution” opposes the new docu
ment and talks against annual ses
sions and legislative salaries more
than any other issue.
“My experience has been that the
more they meet, the more money
they spend and the more taxes we
have to pay,” former Gov. Preston
Smith is quoted in one of
McKnight’s press releases.
Smith said he always had opposed
annual sessions—not mentioning
that he opted for annual budgets in
1971, vetoing one year of the gen
eral appropriation bill and calling
the legislature back in 1972 to do the
job over with more up-to-date re
venue information.
“If you like what Congress is
doing to the country these days,
you’d love a Texas legislature that
sits every year,” said another
member of McKnight’s organiza
tion, Brazoria County Commis
sioner Joe Brigance.
Forfner Rep. Wayland Simmons
of San Antonio said it was a mistake
to let the legislature draft the con
stitution in the first place. “If this
passes, I assure you that the legisla
ture will at least triple its own
salaries within 12 or 14 months,” he
said.
Worrying over business opposi
tion to annual sessions, Speaker Bill
Clayton suggested that legislators
might limit the scope of the 90-day
session to fiscal matters.
When Atty. Gen. John Hill said
this could not be done, Clayton
promised that at least “as long as I
am speaker, the even-year em
phasis will be on appropriations and
budget matters.”
Common Cause, the self-styled
public interest lobby, said oppo
nents of the legislative article fear
that annual sessions will put special
interests at a disadvantage.
“It is easier to operate for a special
interest reason with a session every
two years. It is easier to kill bill-
s ... It is easier to include lan
guage in bills that a representative
isn’t even aware of until he gets
home,” said Common Cause lob
byist John Hannah, a former House
member.
Larry Margolis, executive direc
tor of the Citizens Conference on
State Legislatures, said 140-day
biennial sessions “represent an invi
tation to logjams of legislation, the
hysteria of 20-hour-a-day sessions
and the three-ring circus atmos
phere which prevails at the end of
legislative sessions.”
Robert W. Calvert, former Chief
Justice of the Texas Supreme Court
and leader of “Citizens for the Texas
Constitution, said it makes no sense
to budget two years in advance for a
$6 billion-a-year government.”
Margolis said the lawmakers’
$7,200 salaries are inadequate and
rank in the bottom half among the
states.
“The growing complexities of the
job of legislator and of the problems
of the state which the legislature is
called upon to manage have far out
paced the growth of compensation, ”
he said.
Tomorrow: Changes in the
executive branch.
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MEMBER
The Associated Press, Texas Press Association
Editor James Breed lose
Assistant Editor Roxie Hearn
Production Manager T. C. Callucci
Cits Editor Steve Gra>
Campus Editor Sand\ Russo
Sports Editor Tons Callucci
Photograph) Director Jack Holm
Director of Student Publications: Gael L. Cooper.
only *10
SAT-NOVI
WURSTFEST
Leaving Lot 60 at 1pm
sign up f more info: sec desk RM216MSC
beginning Wed Oct 15
car and took my girlfriend’s luggage
inside the dorm.
All three of us visited inside for
about half an hour before we had to
leave. We had a pleasant visit even
though inside the dorm were more
guys walking around with baseball
bats.
When we were going back
through campus to get back on
Highway 6, we made the mistake of
driving past the same point we had
passed earlier. By this time there
were around thirty guys armed with
bats, clubs, hammers, bottles, axe
handles and mallots.
As we approached the students,
we realsed it was necessary to keep
driving, hoping to avoid any trou
ble, but a Pinto pulled out in front of
us. Next someone took a bat and
slammed it into the trunk. We pul
led to a quick stop and were sur
rounded by an unruly mob (Vig
ilantes). They shouted threats and
tried to get us out of the car. Some
one shouted repeatedly, “I’m gonna
beat your ass in the name of Baylor.
The guy was wearing an Oklahoma
State t-shirt.
Other students were shouting
things like, “Get out of that car!
KNOUJING
HOI) DON'T LOVE
ME, DRWE5
ME CRMHl
“Take the keys!” and “Hit the car!”
They kept poking a baseball bat at
my friend’s head. This time they
had also taken the gas cap for good.
We again said that all we wanted to
do was just to go back to A&M.
After several minutes one of the
students I was talking to convinced
enough of the crowd into letting us
go through, but not without a Baylor
escort. This escort consisted of a red
Pinto and a blue Ford. “Get your ass
out of Waco,” yelled the driver of
the Pinto. We were leaving anyway,
but they thought they had the plea
sure of running us out of town.
Because my friend and I came to
take my girlfriend home during the
week of the A&M-Baylor Football
Game and because we were both
Aggies (and damned proud of it) we
were harassed. I could understand
their wanting to protect their cam
pus, but they had completely gone
overboard with their “fun”, and
they had become a mob straight out
of Lord of the Flies. We heard that
their so-called “Bearicade would
remain on campus the rest of the
week. I hope none of our fellow Ag
gies will have to suffer the same
humiliation we did.
Mark Clark
DO YOU KNOW THAT?
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OF HER/SHE KNEW NOT
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barker
photography
October Portrait
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“QUALITY FIRST”
f Editor’s notes)
Monday night a group of vandals
gave Sully’ a nice fresh coat of green
paint.
Poor old Sully’. I bet people have
been throwing paint on him since he
was first put there. Green paint, red
paint, orange paint, blue paint, you
name it and I bet Sully has had it
thrown on him. You just can’t help
but feel sorry for him.
It also kind of makes me wonder
what thrill people get in throwing (I
guess they threw it, but they could
have just as easily climbed up and
poured it on him with malicious in
tent.) paint on our statue. Then of
course, I never really did under
stand the mind of a vandal.
Be rest assured however that a
vandal is mean to attack a statue
with a bucket of paint. Your average
vandal is probably so mean that he
laughs at crippled people.
But it’s obvious that this van
dalism is tied up in inter-school
rivalries. Although, Cod only knows
what we did to provoke such an at
tack on our poor statue. Maytj
the old philosophy of “Since
can’t beat ’em on the football
on Saturday, we ll paint e»
Monday.”
Now, I’m not accusinganyl
particular, but just suppose il
folks from Baylor who painted
‘Sully’ green. How do you ||
they would like it if we paintedi
bear maroon. (A serious noteb
University regulations call for
immediate suspension of am
caught in the act of vandalir
another school’s property.)Besi
I always thought Baylor pa
were churchgoers and notincli
to smite their enemies’statuesi
green paint.
But all of this discussion isnt
real point here. What is the
point here is that a group of van
attacked our school and that
should consider ourselves a
better than they are and not do
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