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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 10, 1977)
Page 2 Viewpoint The Battalion Texas A&M University Wednesday August 10, 1977 The General dffliyatuscmue- “There aren't men like that any more. ” That’s how a student described Gen. James Earl Rudder. And she’s prob ably right. Men from all over America are gathering here tomorrow to pay homage to Gen. Rudder. Those men are the surviving members of the U.S. Army Ranger battalions Rudder commanded during World War II. They’re going to hold the memorial service for Rudder that they could not when he died seven years ago. It’s a good day for us to do the same, to pay our respects to the man who brought Texas A&M from the college he knew as a graduate in 1932 to the university it is today. Earl Rudder had enough careers to satisfy several men. Career Army officer, commissioner of the Texas Land Office, rancher, businessman. State Democratic Party committeeman, university administrator and eventually president of the Texas A&M University and System — Rudder did them all. But it was not that he did them, but the way he did them — with the determination, courage and energy not only to succeed, but to excel. While he was president, Texas A&M became a coeducational university, abolished compulsory military training, more than doubled in size, initiated the building program that continues today and added five academic colleges within the university. If Gen. Rudder had one fault, it was that he worked too hard for Texas A&M. Let’s not forget that tomorrow. — L. R. L. Congress wallowing in waste By DAVID S. BRODER WASHINGTON — Congress has gone home, hut the memory lingers on. Some complained that the lawmakers have done too little to warrant a month’s vacation. But in truth, the story of this Congress is, as usual, a saga of wretched excess. Not in the big things like the energy program, although some will complain that any program in which James Schlesinger requires 19,000 helpers is at least 18,999 times too large. No, it is in the little things that Con gress’ rampant reflex for redundancy shows most clearly. Take the Senate ethics bill, or as it is modestly styled, the Public Officials Integrity Act of 1977. This concoction consists of several hundred variations on the Ten Com mandments, to be enforced by an Office of Government Ethics staffed by “Ethics Counselors, who will supposedly guard against conflicts of interest by government employees. One would think that might be suffi cient, but not for Sen. H. John Heinz III (R-Pa.). Heinz proposed that, in addition to all this formidable bureaucracy, there should also be an Advisory Commission on Ethics. Heinz’ rationale was that “since in this bill we do call upon Congress, the execu tive branch, the Civil Service Commission and the Attorney General. . .to construct and enforce the code of ethics, it seems to me we need periodically someone who is in a position to be totally objective about how well our ethics laws will work.’’ He might have borrowed the words of Nikita Khrushchev’s favorite proverb, that letting government officials check the ethics of other government officials is too much like “letting the goat guard the cab bages.’’ But being in Congress, Heinz ac tually said (I am not making this up) that “the reason we need. . .an independent Advisory Commission on Ethics is because we do not want to be in the position of the fox doing oversight on the chicken coop. If the senator talked to farmers about foxes “doing oversight” on their chickens, they would think he was talking dirty. But that sort of language passes for communi cation in the Senate, so, sure enough, it voted to give us an Advisory Commission on Ethics to help the Office of Govern ment Ethics improve on the ethics of pub lic officials. Wretched excess. Take, as a second example, another commission already in existence: the Commission on Administrative Review of the House of Representatives. Just before the August recess, this body came out with a valuable 110-page report that is a gold mine of hard-to-get insights. In its pages, one can learn, for example, that “a Member’s legislative role is signifi cantly affected by his or her committee as signments, and Members of the House generally develop expertise in those areas relating to their committee jurisdictions. ” In addition to such gee whiz items as that, the report, entitled “Background In formation on Administrative Units, Mem bers Offices and Committees and Leader ship Offices, ” provides an exhaustive list of the organizations that have sprung up in the clubby atmosphere of Capitol Hill. You can find them described on pages 45 to 48, from the Democratic Study Group to the Hispanic Caucus. And, if you are forgetful, you can find them again, in al most identical terms, on pages 93 to 97. Wretched excess. Which brings us, inevitably, to the re port of the congressional Commission on Federal Paperwork, entitled, “The Role of Congress in Limiting and Creating Pa perwork.” In 49 pages, the report proves quite conclusively that Congress is more adept at creating paperwork than it is at limiting it. The reason it takes 49 pages to make this rather simple point is that the authors of this report, like their colleagues on the Administrative Review Commis sion, apparently believe nothing is true unless repeated three times. On Page 5, we learn that “the pa perwork trail leads in many directions, but ultimately it comes back to the door of Congress. On Page 9, it develops that “as the nation’s lawmaking body, the Con gress is responsible for many information requirements directly specified in legisla tion or derived from regulatory systems by delegation. Consequently, the Congress is a contributor to paperwork which in many instances is excessive.” On Page 47, the amnesiac reader is jogged with the reminder that, “The Con gress, as the maker of the nation’s laws, ultimately stands responsible for a vast amount of the paperwork that is generated in the federal government.” And on Page 49, the dogged reader is rewarded by a final paragraph reporting, in now-chummy fashion, that “The Congress — let’s face it — is a vast paperwork mill. ” "he (c) 1977, The Washington Post Company U.S.A., Japan share problem Free abortions to poor women? By ATSUKO CHIBA International Writers Service TOKYO — American and Japanese so cial attitudes are strikingly different in many ways, but they seem similar in re spect to abortion, which is almost as touchy an issue here as it is in the United States. Within certain elastic limitations, abor tion has been legal in Japan for nearly three decades. Curiously enough, it was made lawful here during the U.S. military occupation period, long before it became permissible in America, largely because it appeared then to be an answer to Japan’s potential population explosion. But here in Japan, as in the United States, government funds are not readily available for abortions. Here, like in America, the women who can least afford to have children are those who cannot eas ily avoid unwanted births. This leads to many bargain operations by dubious doctors, subjecting women in the lower income brackets to greater risks than wealthier women. According to the 1948 law abortions are allowed for women who can demonstrate that the child might inherit a physical de formity or mental illness, that their health is endangered by pregnancy or childbirth, that they are victims of rape, or that they lack the economic means to raise children. The last of these conditions is open to the most liberal sort of interpretation, since it is difficult to verify the living standards of the candidates for abortion. Taking advantage of this, more than 650,000 Japanese women had legal abor tions last year. Considering the difference in population, that is close to double the percentage of American women who had abortions. Educated estimates are that the actual number of abortions performed here an nually is about two million. Most are not officially reported. These estimates also suggest that one out of every six married Japanese women has had at least one abor tion. . Health insurance, provided under gov ernment auspices, does not cover most women who have legal abortions for eco nomic reasons. This, the authorities ex plain, is because poverty is not a medical problem. The costs of abortions here naturally vary according to the competence of the physician and the quality of the hospital. A legal abortion performed within three months of conception usually runs about $160. Abortions in later stages of preg nancy are more expensive. The law pro hibits abortions after the seventh month. Women able to have the abortion legally are well treated. They are first diagnosed by a doctor who is required to offer them the choice of giving birth. The husband’s approval is also necessary, but this a for mality. Women who undergo the opera tion in this fashion remain in the hospital for a half-day and are advised to return for examination. But not all women have abortions under such ideal circumstances. Young single girls who become pregnant, for example, are often ashamed to ask their families for money. They sometimes borrow from friends to seek cheap operations. They also go to illicit doctors, whose technique and equipment are poor. In some instances, poor women unable to afford the price of an abortion give birth to babies they either abandon or kill. But such cases are relatively rare. Conservative members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party tried in 1974 to seal the loophole granting women the right to an abortion for economic reasons. They argued that easy abortions would stimulate sexual promiscuity and they were supported by some religious factions. But the proposed legislation was de feated, mainly due to the opposition of both women’s liberation groups and medi cal experts who argued that stricter regu lations would promote more dangerous il legal abortions. The rather large number of abortions performed here stems from the fact that, for a modern society, Japan is compara tively behind other countries in its view of contraceptive methods. The use of uterine devices was legalized only three years ago, and birth control pills are outlawed. The Ministry of Wel fare, which must approve such products, contends that they are unsafe. Some specialists claim that there is a lobby which opposes the pill to protect the interests of abortionists. Until contraceptives are more widely used, there will continue to be many abor tions, both legal and illegal. And this, in cidentally, is as much a responsibility of men as it is of women. (Ms. Chiba writes on social issues in Japan.) Letter to the editor The fireman’s side “THIS IS MY SECRET SHORTCUT FOR GETTING READY FOR FINALS! ALL I HAVE TO DO IS KNOW AIT TBUCF U DUTZ T TT ES AND I DON’T HAVE TO STUDY FOR \ M s AT ALL!” Editor: In response to D.C., K.W., J.W., G.S., Z.M., T.V., J.C., D.D., B.N., J.N., T.M., B.C., P.E., B.L., A.C., J.S., M.R., S.D., F.M., B.R., K.R., M.B., T.S., C.W., C.C. and their collective comment about the “Firefighters’ overabundance of attention towards females: Were you all writing in to complain or brag? Names withheld by request — B.C., B.S., M.S., R.C., N.E., J.G., S.C. Editor’s note: The letter above is in response to a let ter to the editor The Battalion carried Aug. 1, in which a group of women com plained about the behavior of firemen at tending the annual Fire Training School at Texas A&M. In that letter the women said they had been “verbally slandered, visibly assaulted and insulted by lewd and provocative gestures” from firemen. We continue to maintain that some firemen did get out of line in their behavior, but that those firemen were in the minority of the 2,000 attending the school. Top of the News Local Firemens schools end Friday The Texas Engineering Extension Service is conducting two con current training sessions this week, one for Spanish-speaking firemen and one for municipal inspectors. The two schools combined have some 500 participants. Training sessions will be completed Friday. Engineers to discuss hydraulics The national meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers begins today at Texas A&M University. The theme of the 25th Hy draulics Specialty Conference will be “Hydraulics of the Coastal Zone” and is expected to attract more than 200 experts in this field. The featured speaker will be Dr. Hunter Rouse of the University of Iowa. His address will be given at a banquet Thursday night in the Memorial Student Center. State Escapees recaptured Three inmates escaped from Walker County jail Monday afternoon but were captured 25 minutes later, authorities said. Sources said the men broke out at 3:25 p.m. after attacking a jailer. The inmates took the jailer’s car but were found after wrecking the automobile on Highway 75. Authorities said the three men will be charged with auto theft and escape. State to push energy savings Texas has been selected as one out of 10 states to participate in a pilot project designed to encourage energy conservation among homeowners and small businesses, Gov. Dolph Briscoe has an nounced. Briscoe said the 16-month project, funded by a $1.1 million federal grant, will offer energy saving techniques coordinated by Texas A&M University’s Center for Energy and Mineral Resources. Nation Grounded tanker afloat again Cocaine use increasing Rep. Lester L. Wolff, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, has said that cocaine is rapidly catching up with marijuana as the most popular drug among students between the ages of 13 and 18. A stud^y by the committee of New York City schools showed that cocaine is “the recreational drug of choice for millions of Americans,” Wolff said. Wolff blamed the rise in its popularity on police concern for heroin. Panama Canal Treaty negotiated U.S. and Panamanian negotiators are working on a new treaty that will give both nations joint control of the Panama Canal until the next century. There is a rush to come up with a mutually acceptable treaty draft since the six-month appointment of U.S. negotiator Sol Linowitz expires today. The major problem in the negotiations thus far is reaching an agreement on how much the U.S. will pay for use of the canal. Arab peace vital to U.S. Peace in the Middle East is necessary because another oil embargo would be a war the United States cannot win, Wayne Swearingen, a member of the National Petroleum Council said Monday. “We ha ven’t enough oil to fight a conventional war,” Swearingen said. The country is in a state of crisis because it has not recognized politically that the era of cheap energy has ended, he said. World } Swimmers give up channel try Rough water in the English Channel forced Americans Stella Taylor and Jamie Stewart to abandon their attempts to become the first women to swim the 21 miles between Dover, England, and Calais, France, both ways nonstop. Stewart gave up her effort in the water after about eight hours and Taylor after about 10 hours. Both women have swum the channel one way. Catholics object to Queen s visit Roman Catholics protesting Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee visit to Northern Ireland blocked streets with bonfires and clashed with police in Belfast and Londonderry yesterday. More than 40 vehicles were reported hijacked and set ablaze in Belfast. The Queen arrives today for a two-day visit, her first to Northern Ireland since 1966. 10 A Norwegian tanker that ran aground off Miami with 4,000 tons of explosive gas aboard has refloated itself after 500,000 gallons of the ship’s diesel fuel was removed to lighten the ship. The tanker Bow Elm was en route from the Netherlands to Houston. Capt. Jan Johnsen of the Bow Elm said the explosive gas cylinders were not endangered by the grounding. Johnsen said the grounding was caused by a nagivational error. >e Chr State b t to im lin insi costs B ehildb douh istie s: _'g to ernity jeies.” Most gn le mati [per cei lered her thai lore |eai ter Uniti JUSTIN re than J6, who eriencei Me au ICounci taring 1 orted a r e proce Probati hcil saic had t enile au 'olice d cent oi iaining tacial a; other s he coun rrals di school withju t were < The Battalion Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or of the writer of the article and are not necessarily those of the University administration or the Board of Re gents. The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting enterprise operated by students as a university and com munity newspaper. Editorial policy is determined by the editor. LETTERS POLICY Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words and are subject to being cut to that length or less if longer. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit such letters and does not guarantee to publish any letter. 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White, Man B* v Steve Cf Bernard Gor, Betsy ^ Reporters Toumonava Photographers The Battalion is published Monday through Friday from September through May except during exam and holiday periods and the summer, when it is published on Mondays and Wednesdays. Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester; $33.25 per school year; $35.00 per full year. All subscriptions subject Student Publications Board: Bob G. Rogers, Chd* Joe Arredondo; Tom Dawsey; Dr. Gary Halter; ft W. Hanna; Dr. Charles McCandless; Dr. Clinton A ^ lips; Jerri Ward. Production Coordinator: W. Scott