Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 16, 1979)
Viewpoint The Battalion • Texas A&M University • Thursday • August 16, 1979 Carter says ‘don’t By HELEN THOMAS United Press International WASHINGTON — In his first two years in office. President Carter said re peatedly that he had restored trust and confidence in government. But in the past few weeks he has been struck by what he calls a “crisis of confidence” in the land. When he first came into office. Carter believed the national trauma of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal were history and the country had survived with hope and optimism. Lately, he has changed his tune. But says there is no “identifiable” reason why a “malaise” has hit the country and he be lieves it is unwarranted. And he disagrees with critics who blame him and question White House leadership. Here is the question that was put to Carter during an interview with out-of- town editors recently and excerpts of his answer. Question: “Mr. President, one of the topics you have touched on in your historic address to the nation had to do with na tional confidence. I am wondering if you still feel that you can provide that confi dence. The polls have been brutal with you. It is perhaps the key issue in many peoples’ minds, confidence in the White House, confidence in the administration, confidence in Washington. Answer: “I think the lack of confidence is very broad. There is a lack of confidence of people in themselves. There is a lack of confidence in what their quality of life will be in the future compared to the present and the past. There is a lack of confidence in many institutions. The press and the Congress are two, by the way, that are lower than confidence in the White House. And there is a lack of confidence in the president which does concern me very much. “I believe the absence of confidence is unwarranted. Our nation is prosperous. Our nation is at peace. Our nation has a fine prospect for the future. Our nation is the strongest on Earth economically, militarily, politically. Our alliances with our friends around the world have never been stronger. We have excellent and im proving relations with the developing na tions of the world. “We have the highest reserves of energy of any nation on Earth. I think we have 24 percent of all the energy reserves known to mankind, whereas the OPEC countries all put together only have less than 5 per cent. “So there is no real identifiable basis for worry’ an absence of confidence. But it is a fact that the people have not only lost confi dence in themselves now and in the fu ture, lost confidence in the institutions, lost confidence in our government, the free enterprise system, the press and so forth, but they have an increasing inclina tion toward divisiveness.” Furthermore, Carter said, “This is the first time in history that I know about when our country has been faced with dis comfort or inconvenience or more tangible and far-reaching adverse impacts on human life, without having at the same time a threat to our nation that was cohe sive in its implications. ” He said this was not true during two world wars and the Great Depression when people were bound together with a common threat. In his first campaign for the Presidency, Carter did not project a vision of lower expectations, particularly since his pre decessor, Gerald Ford, was holding the line against any new initiatives on the domestic front. But in his campaign for reelection — which to all intents and purposes is now under way — Carter will have to defend his own record, which he told the editors is a “good” one to run on. He also will have to lay out a blueprint for an America somewhat in retreat. But opposition candidates are bound to make their promises for a golden future this time around, and will blame Carter for the current state of the nation. Battling big business Union mergers newest trend By DREW VON BERGEN United Press International WASHINGTON — Organized labor, faced with growing industry conglomer ates and declining legislative power, is merging its forces to shore up the battle against big business. The recent merger of two of the largest unions in the food industry — the Meat- cutters and Retail Clerks — into a 1.2 mil lion United Food and Commercial Work ers International Union highlights an at mosphere of unity prevailing in the union movement. Since the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations merged in 1955, the AFL-CIO has pro moted the concept of linking affiliates. Forty-one such mergers have occurred in the past quarter century, changing the face of many of labor’s top organizations. Prospects for more mergers appear likely. The trend goes beyond the needs of in dividual unions to the heart of the 13.6 million member AFL-CIO as the prime representative of organized labor. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Lane Kirkland, the heir apparent to President George Meany, said he did not know of any mergers that did not benefit all con cerned. “All of the unions involved are stronger, more efficient and more effective in the workplace, at the bargaining table, in the legislative halls and in the community,” Kirkland told the founding convention of the UFCW. Kirkland said such mergers were neces sary to ward off attacks on the union movement: “Right-wing, anti-democratic forces, aided and abetted and bankrolled by corporate America, are engaged in what amounts to a holy war to destroy our unions, undermine our nation’s laws and roll back the gains that workers have made,” Kirkland said. Frank Pollara, a leading AFL-CIO offi cial on mergers, said economics of collec tive bargaining and organizing nonunion workers necessitates mergers. “A small union is at a tremendous disadvantage," Pollara said. “It costs money.” The largest union in the nation, with about 2 million members, is not in the AFL-CIO. The Tea msters union was ousted from the federation in 1957 be cause of corruption charges. Two more non-AFL-CIO unions — the National Education Association and the United Auto Workers — follow as the sec ond and third largest in membership. William Wynn, head of the new UFCW, believes both the Teamsters and UAW should be welcomed back into the federation. In fact, he believes the Teamsters never should have been ousted. While collecting organized labor into one affiliated federation may boost its lob bying clout on Capitol Hill and at the White House on national and international issues, more attention is being focused on merging individual unions for day-to-day operations and collective bargaining. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, with about 1 million members, has been suc cessful in growing to the sixth largest union using merger as a major tool. On the horizon are several more joint ventures, some in the final process of merger, and others just in the talking stage. Th e most advanced involves the 13,000-member Wood, Wire, and Metal Lathers International Union joining the 775,000 member Carpenters union. A referendum of the Lathers member ship will be held July 28, then the merger is scheduled for completion at a conven tion in Atlanta in August. The Lathers are faced with modern day technology that many unions — particu larly those in the construction trades — see cutting into their membership. Lathers installed the wooden slats and later metal mesh on which plaster was applied to make the walls and ceilings of most.old buildings. With the advent of drywall construction, the trade dwindled. “We are proud of our craft, our skills, and the long history of accomplishment,” said Lathers President Charles Prodeur in urg ing the merger. “But we have to face reality. Our basic trade, which was founded on the use of lath and plaster, has all but disappeared.” Another new merger involves the UAW and District 65, a 35,000-member inde pendent union that includes such diverse workers as university employees, lawyers, editors, factory workers, and direct-mail companies. The Autoworkers executive board has approved accepting District 65 Letter to the Editor as an amalgamated local union. Leaders of both groups were among the early partici pants in civil rights demonstrations in the nation. Several other unions are also con templating merger: So long A&M, thanks Editor: Well, my day has finally arrived (gradu ation) and so I take this time to reflect on my college journey. It was the hardest thing I ever undertook, trying to obtain a mechanical engineering degree at A&M. All I can say is that A&M is a great place to be from. For all those crybabies who didn’t make it, my heart bleeds for you. It took me 5 years to finish, mixed with a year and a half of work experience. I want to expecially thank Ned Walton, assistant dean of engineering and the entire M.E. faculty. Believe it or not, I learned a heck of a lot from those guys and I’m proud to say I m a Texas Aggie. In closing, I want to thank God, my family and friends for put ting up with my determination to succeed. Highway 6, here I come! —L.B. Tate, ’77 Cabinet arrangement may be unproductive By DEAN REYNOLDS United Press International WASHINGTON — Will the adminis tration’s health package have a better chance to clear Congress now that Joseph Califano has departed as secretary of health, education and welfare? Probably not. Patricia Harris, who has just assumed command of the nation’s largest agency, will become the administration’s chief legislative lobbyist for such things as the hospital cost containment bill and national health insurance. Can she make a difference? The answer again is, probably not. Based on Mrs. Harris’ comments as she takes over from Califano, she and her pre decessor share the same philosophy about health care and hospital costs. GROUf*' NtWElX. ^ OfinAUGNSTAFTf G&E6, &TRO£>tokI So, there will most likely be no change in intensity when it comes to pushing the president’s programs. So far, that intensity has produced little. Much of the congressional bleating that accompanied President Carter’s dismissal of Califano was seen as hypocritical. Many of the congressmen who professed to be outraged by the firing were the same ones who were working behind the scenes to gut the very legislation Califano was push ing. Hospital cost containment has yet to come up for a vote in the full House or Senate. It has been weakened by the House Ways and Means Committee and hasn’t even made it to the half House Commerce Committee from that panel’s subcommit tee on health. In the Senate, two committees also had to pass judgment on the bill. One, the Labor and Human Resources panel, passed it. The other, the Finance Commit tee, killed it — not exactly a clear show of support. The proposal seeks to put a cap on the annual increase in hospital costs. The ad ministration first proposed a 9.7 percent ceiling, then raised it a bit, and now it sits around 11.6 percent. As inflation con tinues and the calendar marches on into fall, that ceiling may go even higher. The bill would also carry standby man datory controls for those hospitals that re fuse or are unable to keep their costs within that ceiling. The Ways and Means Committee watered that idea down con siderably when it decided a one-house veto could thwart any presidential move to impose those mandatory' controls. The question, then, is what difference can Pat Harris make? The answer is, prob ably very little. Her appointment or, more accurately, Califano’s ouster, could even hurt the ad ministration’s proposals. If Califano was anything, he was well-connected on Capitol Hill. He is, after all. a Washington veteran — unlike his former boss. No one really believes that if Califano had wanted the department of education idea to die, it would have survived in spite of him. A congressmen reportedly told the former secretary that one negative phone call from Califano could have finished the bill. The bill may be finished anyway, but that’s another matter. News Capsules STATE Galveston fire slows ship traffic Five men working on a barge-like overwork rig in Galveston Bay escaped without injury from a fire that threatened 13,000 gallons of diesel fuel and slowed ship traffic. Chief Petty Officer George Blocher said the fire started about noon Tuesday on the platform one mile east of the ship channel and 15 miles north of Galveston. Within minutes, Blocher said, the Coast Guard had two utility boats pump ing water on the blaze and it was extinguished within two hours. Hie fire started in a “mud tank,” which holds a drilling compound. No reason for the blaze was given. NATION Just say ‘tannic acid, beertender Miller Brewing Co. has told the government it doesn’t think Anheuser-Busch should be allowed to call its beers “natural” when they are made with things like tannic acid and chemically treated beechwood chips. In the latest round of a continuing regulator}- agency war between the nation’s top two brewers. Miller fired off statements from three nutritionists saying Busch’s use of the word “natural” is deceptive. Busch’s “highly processed, chemically modified and treated beers do not come within the accepted defini tion of‘natural, ”’ Miller said in a memo filed with the Federal Trade Commission. Miller, No. 2 brewer in terms of sales, has been at war with Busch for some time. Earlier this year Miller told the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Busch should not be allowed to call Michelob Light a “light” beer when it contains 134 calories. Miller’s “Lite” beer has 96 calories. Earlier, Busch had complained to the FTC Miller was promoting its Lowenbrau beer as “imported” when in reality it was all made in this country. Miller later dropped the imported claim. Slain FBI agent Oliver buried FBI Director William Webster and agents from throughout the Midwest were among an overflow crowd in Metropolis, Ill., that paid final respects to Johnnie L. Oliver, their colleague who was gunned down in Cleveland. The Rev. Don Young, pastor of the Bible Baptist Church at nearby Paducah, Ky., eulogized Oliver Tuesday as a man “who stood in our place. He stood for what is right. Nearly 300 mourners crowded into the main chapel at the Aikins-Farmer Fu neral Home and into two adjoining rooms and the foyer. Oliver, 35, married and the father of three small children, was shot to death last Thursday in Cleveland as he and five other agents attempted to arrest a federal fugitive, Melvin Bay Guyon, 19, of Chicago. Guyon, the prime suspect in the shooting, is the object of a massive search by the FBI as well as state and local authorities. Guyon is wanted on kidnap ping, rape and armed robbery charges in Chicago. ‘Robber priest's trial continues A hardware store owner Wednesday became the third person to testify before a jury in Wilmingotn, Del., that a Catholic priest used a pistol to rob a store. Carroll Reynolds reiterated before a Superior Court jury testimony he had given in the jury’s absence Monday that the Rev. Bernard T. Pagano was the man he identified in a police lineup as the gunman who robbed Haverbeck’s Hardware in subur ban Wilmington last January. Reynolds said he had police turn the eight men in the lineup to the side so he could see their profile. Only then, he said, was he sure Pagano was the robber police nicknamed the “Gentlemen Bandit.” WORLD Flood death toll up to 15,000 Now that the flood waters that inundated the industrial city of Morvi have begun to recede, authorities have revised the death toll to as high as 15,000. About 1,000 bodies had been recovered from the ruins of the northwestern city by Tuesday and rescue workers said many bloated corpses were still were rotting on streets and rooffops, in houses and temples.“The death toll will be between 10,000 and 15,000,” Vallabhai Patel, vice president of Gujurat state’s ruing Janata Party, told reporters after inspecting the disaster site. Five days after the dam that released the water burst, there still were no reports on casualties and damage from a number of villages downstream from Morvi. Dealer pays $10 million for letters A London dealer has paid more than $10 million in New York for about 3,500 antique postal items in the stamp collection of a retired Wall Street financier. Some letters in the collection — signed by Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln — did not cost anything to mail. The chief executives used their free mailing privileges. “A great deal of taste, a great deal of knowledge and a great deal of money” went into putting together the collection, said Howard Fraser, chairman of Stanley Gibbons International, which bought the collection from Marc Haas. Soviet planes collide, 150 killed Two passenger planes collided in the air over the Ukraine Saturday night, killing about 150 persons including the 17 members of a Soviet soccer team, Soviet sources said Wednesday. The crash occurred near Dneprodzerzhinsk, 500 miles south of Moscow, the sources said. One of the planes was an Aeroflot jet carrying the Pakhtakor soccer team from Tashkent to Minsk to play Minsk Dynamo, they said. The newspaper Pravda Vostoka published a brief article in its Wednesday edition saying only that the team was killed in a crash, but giving no further details. The newspaper’s executive secretary said in telephone interview from Moscow that the story was carried on the paper’s front page. The newspaper does not reach Moscow until several days after it is published. The Battalion U S P S 045 360 FIN; ft LAS’ MSC R FIN.' at L e? ! RES ar u !o> Most e jiinemplo} jolts fro i '1979-80 r I'niversit unemplo; ing- "Basica manent i jidividua tnemplo; Boger M< lege of B “The h especially explained program: rectly car themselv kbh E Prehisl aice was what he looked, r sity resea nncovere port theii The te character similar tc monkeys the sam theory th s much tenetics. Recen honey co of the b vermicul, ment of I issociatei ffid jaw iccommi medical lice. Rice, low anatc Cannon ; thropoloj plained I hals, moi lessor hr diffe than that Dev< methods easily ch the den powerful “Mode antly si lerthals hke his : Neam >round , <0. If m Jtars we Period, ’ermicu flltar a Meander ■all th hr the s Nairobi, ■d Mu: I LETTERS POLICY Letter! 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. Each letter must be signed, show the address of the writer and list a telephone number for verification Address correspondence to Letters to the Editor. The Battalion. Room 216. Reed McDonald Building. College Station. Texas 77843. Hrpresmtcd nationally by National Educational Adver tising Services, Inc., New York City. Chicago and Los Angeles. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday from September through May eicept during exam and holiday periods and the summer, when it is published on Tuesday through Thursday. Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester. $33 25 per school year. $35.00 per full year Advertising rates furnished on request Address: The Battalion. Boom 216, Reed McDonald Building. College Station. Tew “X United Press International is entitled esekondsd 1 ’ use for reproduction of all news dispatches cr$M<< Rights of reproduction of all other matter bet*« Second-Class postage paid at College Stafsoa TT K 4 MEMBER | Texas Press Associatioa Southwest Journalism Centre* 4 Editor KimA* j News Editor Debb* Plfl* J Sports Editor . So*?!! City Editor > j Campus Editor ..BeikW If < Staff Writers Robin Louie Arthur, Carolyn Blosser > k Boggan Photo Editor G*y C.v« Photographer LynsS* Cartoonist Gref ^ 1 Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or of the writer of the article and are not necessarily those of the t University administration or the Board of Regents. The Battalion is a non-fnfk r. supporting enterprise operated b) ** as a university and community uncstgf Editorial policy is determined bytbtti* -