Page 2
Viewpoint
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Tuesday
October 4 f 1977
i
Senate ‘too casual’in confirmations
By STEVE GERSTEL
United Press International
*, WASHINGTON — Bert Lance, that
I'genial free-wheeling financial whiz, has
I'made a mockery of the Senate.
l' Through his own failings, Lance has ex-
“*posed a very serious flaw in the way the
»*Senate handles the confirmation of presi-
^dential nominations.
'* As Sen. Abraham Ribicoff, D-Conn.,
I 'describes the process, the Senate too often
' •confirms in a “casual fashion.”
*1 Lance, Ribicoff said, is just “one exam-
‘■'.ple of a much larger problem. The present
► 'process of confirmation all too often in-
!> volves very little process.”
** And Sen. Charles Percy, R-Ill., said the
*' Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
Washington Window
* had “failed to do what we should have
* done in January: thoroughly review Mr.
\ Lance’s qualifications.”
* Ribicoff is chairman and Percy the rank-
► ing Republican on the committee which
I recommended last January that the Senate
* confirm Lance as budget director.
* Yet, neither Ribicoff, Percy nor other
* members of the committee should be
- faulted. They were the victims of a built-in
- system.
* Despite an increasing awareness in the
recent past that appointments should be
more closely scrutinized. Senate commit
tees still are pretty cavalier about handling
nominations.
There have been exceptions of course.
When Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefel
ler were nominated to be vice president,
they underwent the most rigorous investi
gations by both the Senate and House.
The Senate is also most careful in sifting
the backgrounds of nominees to the Su
preme Court, which are lifetime appoint
ments. It was this type of probe that
doomed the nominations of Clement
Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell to
the high court.
And the Senate Commerce Committee
is sitting right now on the nomination of
Florida’s Donald Tucker as vice chairman
of the Civil Aeronautics Board. There
were widely publicized conflict of interest
allegations against Tucker. A grand jury
dismissed those charges, but which may
still sink the appointment.
But those are the exceptions and never
is the Senate more likely to rush through
nominations than when a new president
presents his cabinet for review. That goes
double when the incoming chief executive
and the Senate are of the same party.
There is an overwhelming inclination to
give the new president the men and
women he wants around him and to accept
the pre-nomination ivestigation by the
FBI and the new team that they are fit to
muster.
That’s why the Governmental Affairs
Committee didn’t know much about
Lance’s financial dealings except that he
seemed an eminently successful banker.
Ironically, a month after approving
Lance, the same committee proposed the
creation of a new office, which would con
duct an independent inquiry on all ap
pointments and give its finding to the
committees which handle the nomination.
Yet Ribicoff, Percy and Sen. Jacob K.
Javits, R-N.Y., did not introduce the legis
lation until Sept. 8, well after the Lance
affair had exploded.
It is possible that if such a unit had been
in existence in January, the full scope of
Lance’s financial affairs and activities
would have been available to the commit
tee.
That information might or might not
have blocked Lance’s nomination. But it
would have saved President Carter and
the Senate a certain amount of embar
rassment.
British study suggests direct relation
TV seems linked to teenage violence
By GODFREY HODGSON
International Writers Service
LONDON—What is the connection be
tween television and teenage violence?
Quite a lot, according to a study of British
viewing habits recently completed by an
American research specialist here.
The study, pursued over a period of six
years by London professor William Be-
Ison, is currently stirring up a good deal of
controversy in British media circles. Pre
dictably, several television executives are
skeptical of the report while psychologists
support it.
One question being posed here amid all
the fuss is whethei' the Columbia Broad
casting System, which financed the study
at a cost of $29,000, will take its conclu
sions into account as it contemplates its
own television programming in the United
States.
The study emerges at a time when
British television audiences are being in
creasingly exposed to a number of Ameri
can shows that play up violence, such as
“Kojak” and “Cannon,” which are im
mensely popular here.
British television programs are now be
ginning to emulate the U.S. product with
considerable success. One of the big hits
here at the moment is “The Sweeney,”
whose title is derived from the Cockney
term for the Flying Squad, Scotland Yard’s
legendary team of crime busters.
Like its American models, “The
Sweeney” portrays cops who are difficult
to distinguish from crooks and who behaye
as brutally as their criminal adversaries. It
is also wildly unrealistic, featuring London
policemen toting guns, which they do not
carry.
But “The Sweeney” is eclipsing the
more traditional British brand of crime se
ries, which are long on social realism, are
set in authentic locations and depict the
police as imperfect yet essentially benevo
lent guards of troubled but basically de
cent society.
If Professor Belson’s findifigs are accu
rate, these programs and the American
imports like them are contributing signifi
cantly to teenage violence in a country
where the average adolescent is estimated
to watch 25 hours of television per week.
Starting in 1972, Belson interviewed
1,565 London boys between the ages of 13
and 16. He al so interviewe d th eir
mothers, and he controlled for no fewer
than 227 variables, such as family income
and whether the boys had been breast-fed.
Belson says that he devoted this ex
traordinary amount of time and energy to
the study because of his sensitivity to ar
guments of British television authorities
that it was impossible to isolate the influ
ence of violence on the tube from other
social influences.
He found that nearly one out of eight
boys interviewed had committed ten or
more serious acts of violence within the
previous six months. These acts ranged
from knocking another boy off a bicycle to
attempted rape. Interestingly, Belson dis
covered, there was a direct correlation be
tween viewing and committing violent
acts.
His conclusion, therefore, is that televi
sion has altered the propensity to indulge
in violence. Or as he put it: “It looks as if
television has in duced of bfoken down the
inhibitions against being violent which had
been built up in the child by parents and
other socializing influences.”
Belson is backed by the weighty pre
stige of Sir Martin Roth, head of the
psychiatry department at Cambridge Uni
versity, who has categorically stated that
“children exposed to scenes of aggressive
and violent conduct exhibit an increase in
such behavior as opposed to those not so
exposed.”
Also behind Belson is Milton Shulman,
the Canadian-born television critic of the
London Evening Standard, who has been
contending for some time that British
standards have been declining as a result
of imports from the United States.
But Belson has come under fire from
television managers like Monica Sims,
who is in charge of children’s programs for
the British Broadcasting Corporation.
“If social scientists seek to blame teen
age violence ore.,television,” she argues,
“they must also gfve credit to television for
inspiring children to behave thought
fully.”
Her thesis is echoed by the govern
ment. A Home Office paper repudiating
Belson said: “Social researach has not been
able unambiguously to offer any firm as
surance that the mass media...exercise a
socially harmful effect dp thaf they do not.
If film violence can occasionally trigger a
violent response, it must be a quite un
predictable response and confined to
rather unusual individuals.”
Since CBS underwrote Belson, it is fair
to surmise that the debate that has been
raging here will spill into the United
States, where the same issue has ap
peared. The British concerned with the
subject, consequently, are waiting for
American reactions to what is, in effect, a
worldwide problem.
(Hodgson writes for the London Sunday
Times and anchors a British television
show.
Letters to the editor
Silver marijuana leaves aren’t illegal
Editor:
I am writing in regard to an advertise
ment that ran in the September 27 issue of
The Battalion. In this issue the High Style
Co. of Albuquerque, New Mexico ran an
ad promoting the sale of jewelry in support
of legalization of marijuana.
In this advertisement, found on page six
of The Battalion, several implications
were made as to the approval of the open
use of marijuana. I am in support of the
first amendment to this country’s constitu
tion as much as the next person, but when
people exploit their personal freedoms to
an excess and to a personal advantage,
such as to literally encourage breaking a
written law of this country, I am afraid it is
indeed a sad state of affairs.
I’m not saying that I am a totally close
minded individual, but when a University
of high repute like Texas A&M allows such
Slouch
by Jim Earle
Congratulations
ALMA &
JARVIS
MILLER
a clandestine operation to publish such
material encouraging the use and sale of a
potentially dangerous and presently still il
legal drug, I am afraid it might be time to
throw in the towel.
It is sickening to think that this news
paper would lower its standards to ap
prove such an ad. The advertising
standards and morals of this country are
indeed alarming and such things as ad
vocating said illicit affairs certainly do no
thing to sustain an already faltering na
tional character.
I just hope somebody sooner or later
will be able to see their way clear of such
an unscrupulous mess before The Battal
ion becomes nothing more than radical
progaganda.
I direct this letter in particular to the
editor in charge of advertising, who should
be more efficient in screening the appli
cants for advertising before allowing them
to promote their products in The Battal
ion.
—Kevin Fox ‘80
Editor’s note: Mr. Fox, you make some
assumptions and draw some conclusions
that are false.
The Battalion does have advertising
standards for legality and decency which
every' advertisement must meet before
being published. Advertising Manager
Polly Patranella has been doing that job
probably more years than you’ve been
alive. When we do accept an ad for publi
cation, it’s published as a message from
the advertiser to our readers, without any
endorsement from the Battalion.
In this case, the ad contains nothing il
legal. It is an ad to sell jewelry. Period.
Yes, jewelry shaped like a marijuana leaf
is legal.
Your reference to the First Amend
ment is intriguing. Types of wearing ap
parel similar to the jewelry in the ad have
been successfully defended in court as a
form of free speech protected by the First
Amendment. Your reference to the Uni
versity “allowing publication of such an ad
suggests that the University should have
the power to control what does and does
not appear in the Battalion. Believe it or
not, Mr. Fox, the Battalion is protected
by the First Amendment. The editors and
advertising manager control content.
You suggest that this six column inch ad
represents a Battalion decline into "radi
cal propaganda.” There were 1134 col
umn inches in that particular newspaper.
Would you call that a radical takeover?
Story confusing
Editor:
The article in the Battalion on Sep
tember 30 entitled “Libraries Curriculum
Collection Disappears” is somewhat mis
leading. The story begins talking about the
Serials Purchase Program and then
switches to the Curriculum Collection
without differentiating where one stops
and the other begins. My prior statement
about no volumes being removed from the
shelves relates directly and only to the Se
rials Purchase Program. In that regard my
statement is correct and can be verified if
anyone would care to do so. The proposed
Serials Purchase Program is still under
discussion by the ad hoc committee
chaired by Dean David Maxwell.
The 1600 items that were refereed to in
Ms. Huddleston’s article were all in the
Curriculum Collection; none related to
the Serial Purchase Program. By no means
has the Curriculum Collection disap
peared. It still contains most of the state
adopted textbooks and a good representa
tion of curriculum guides.
It should be noted that the items re
moved from the Curriculum Collection
were removed in the period of October to
December, 1976. It should also be noted
that discussions were begun this last
summer with the College of Education to
develop a policy statement defining the
Curriculum Collection with a view toward
developing a more extensive resource of
curriculum materials.
Another aspect of Library operations
which should not be overlooked in this
matter is that items are continually re
moved from the Libraries’ collections.
This includes items which are mutilated or
lost, and for which the Libraries is unable
to find a replacement copy for purchase.
If any faculty member or student would
like to discuss either of these matters or
obtain additional information, they should
feel free to contact me at the Evans Li
brary.
Irene B. Hoadley
Director of Libraries
Top of the News
State
Pot plant grown by Davis child
Before she was murdered, the 12-year-old daughter of Priscilla
Davis was custodian of a four-inch marijuana plant growing at her
mother’s Fort Worth mansion, Dana Arnold, a teen-age friend of the
child testified Monday. Arnold, 15, was the best friend of shooting
victim Andrea Wilbom and niece of Stan Farr, who was also killed in
the August 1976 assaults at the Davis mansion. Arnold s testimony
was in contradiction with that of Mrs. Davis, who testified that
marijuana “was not permitted in my house. Despite objections from
prosecutor Joe Shannon Jr., District Judge George E. Dowlen al-
lowed defense attorney Richard Haynes to question Arnold about the
plant. Arnold testified that she saw the plant twice and it was not
hidden from view in the mansion.
Carter’s plan needs ‘companion
President Carter’s plan for restricting border traffic and the hiring
of illegal aliens might reduce the size of the illegal alien problem, but
it does not recognize the underlying cause of aliens entering the
United States, Texas Attorney General John Hill said Monday. Hill,
in an address to the Southwestern States Conference on Crime and
the Border, said that Carter’s plan treats the symptoms and not the
causes of the illegal alien problem. In order for an American program
to work, the Mexican gorvernment must create a “companion” pro
gram which will remove the push of economic underdevelopment
which is driving unemployed Mexican workers from their native
country, Hill said.
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A five-man, seven-woman jury today begins hearing final argu
ments and likely will begin considering verdicts in the trial of two
Houston ex-policemen, Terry Denson and Stephen Orlando, charged
with murdering a drunken Mexican-American prisoner. Joe Torres
Jr. was allegedly beaten for insolence following a barroom arrest and
then pushed into Houston’s Buffalo Bayou where he drowned May 6.
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Nation
Elvis buried in family cementery
The bodies of Elvis Presley and his mother, Gladys Smith Presley,
transported in two white hearses and escorted by white limousines
and police cars, were transferred quietly Sunday night from a ceme
tery to burial plots on the grounds of the Presley mansion. Shelby
County Sheriff Eugene L. Barksdale said the bodies were buried in
the garden with the singer’s father, Vernon Presley and members of
the immediate family were present. But Presley’s former wife, Pris
cilla Beaulieu, did not attend the ceremony. The private cemetery, is
located south of the mansion and cannot be seen by anyone outside
the stone wall that encircles the grounds.
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Indira Gandhi arrested
For mer Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was arrested Monday under
the Prevention of Corruption act on charges of abusing her position
during her unsuccessful election campaign. The warrant under which
she was,arrested said she,used her position as prime minister to
secure jeeps for the campaign earlier this year for herself and her
party in the last general elections, which she lost. Mrs. Gandhi said in
a statement that her arrest was a political one, and was intended to
discredit me in the people s eyes and the eyes of the world,” witnes
ses said. A large crowd assembled in front of Mrs. Gandhi’s house,
and Mrs. Gandhi told the crowd, “I can and shall be with you all. So
keep calm and peaceful, but let no person or deed subdue your spirit
and determination. A number of investigations are under way con-
cei ning allegations of wrongdoing during the state of emergency im
posed by Mrs. Gandhi in June 1975.
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U.S.-Soviet statement criticized
The joint statement on the Middle East, issued over the weekend
.y fbe United States and the Soviet Union has provoked bitter criti
cism from Israel and a chorus of praise from the Arabs. The joint
statement, outlining Soviet-American hopes for peace talks in
Geneva in December, only served to provoke a new crisis in
American-Israeli relations. A reference in the three page statement to
the Palestinians legitimate rights,” provoked the Israelis the most.
American officials maintain that American endorsement of this code
phrase in no way signaled a change in the U.S. position towards
Israel s refusal to negotiate with an organization.
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n/ « an u Se Red , Arm r te^orists aboard a hijacked Japan Air Lines
DG-8 jetliner released their hostages Monday and agreed to leave the
plane themselves, the Algerian Press Service, APS, announced two
hours after the plane had landed in Algiers. The plane was flying from
m*ISfh CU \" y 7 a, l Wlt i h 19 remaining hostages on the sixth day of a
marathon hijack that began last Wednesday over India. The APS did
wbUh etlf ^ Whetht ‘ I , ! h , e hi j ackers had agreed to surrender to police or
Save Al ‘ W ° U ^ ^ giVen P ° litical as y lum or would be free to
Weather
Fair and mild today. High 80 with a low tonight of 60. Wind
warnings in effect for area lakes. 30 per cent chance of rain
tonight.
The Battalion
Opinions expressed in Tin- Battalion are those of the
edttor or of the writer of,he article and are no, neceLrihj
those of the University administration or the Board of Re-
dents. The Battalion is a non-profit, self-support inn
enterprise operated by students as a university and com
munity newspaper. Editorial policy is determined by the
LETTERS POLICY
s Jf'T? ‘"I ^ edit ° r * hu , ul ‘ l not excee ‘ l 300 «W* and are
subjec t o betnft eu, to ,/*„ length or less if loneer The
editorial staff reserves the right to edit such letters and does
iwt guarantee to publish any letter. Each letter must In
signed, show the address of the writer and list a telephone
number for verification. w-opnoiu
™ £ ,rre *Pondence to Letters to the Editor. The
fta^:%ex:r^ Reed ^
,i*rr ,,trd "f" nM y '>y NuUoiial Eduuitionul Advor-
A,,^ ’ ,,K “ NtW Y,,rk Ci *y- Ohio*, and Las
iggpS'Sg
Mail .subscriptions arc $16.75 pc,
:-hnol v..,i r vue; no <■ I, *
, ►s•■jjooiis arc *16.75 per semester $3.5 25 .s...
schoo! year: $35,00 pc, ful! ycac Advertising ,^
a|{
nished on request. Address: Tlie Battalion. R'*' 1 ^
Reed McDonald Building, College Station, Texas
United Press International is entitled exclusive;
use for reproduction of all news dispatches civditt ^
Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein
Second-Class postage paid at College Station. T\ " I
MEMBER
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Congress
Editor JainH*
Managing Editor Mary Alice "'<**%
Editorial Director Lee Roy .1
Sports Editor R"' 1
News Editors Marie Homever. UanJ
City Editor Rusts’ U™
Campus Editor hi" 1 T
Copy Editor .... Beth
Reporters Glcnna
Liz N<s*l
Photographer Ken HrfjJ
Cartoonist Doug (:ral 'q
Student Publications Board: Bob G. Hagers. '
Joe Arredondo; Di. Cary Halter. Dr. John V
R,*" Haney; Dr. Charles M,Candles*; Dr '
Phillips; Rebel Rice. Director of Student P"
Donald C. Johnson. Production Coordinator:
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