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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 9, 1980)
Viewpoint The Battalion Texas A&M University Tuesday December 9, 1980 Slouch By Jim Earle “This is the week I’ve been holding back for. I’m gonna pop out of bed and study, and work, and prepare, and review and... ZZZZZZZ... zzzzzzz.. . ” Political revolution felt in Washington St. By DAVID S. BRODER OLYMPIA, Wash. — Republicans in Washington state act like a lot of little Gene Kellys these days. They are singing in the rain. On election day, they picked up the gov ernorship, a Senate seat and a second House seat — the best day the GOP has had here in a generation. King County (Seattle) Executive John Spellman defeated state Sen. James A£ McDermott, who had beaten Gov. Dixy Lee Ray (D) in the Democratic primary. State Atty. Gen. Slade Gorton defeated Sen. Warren G. Magnuson (D), who had been in Congress for more than three decades. State Sen. Sid Morri son ousted five-term House member Mike McCormack (D), joining Rep. Joel Pritchard as the second Republican in the seven-member House delegation. The man who savored the victory as much as anybody — and who was, in many respects, its author — was former Gov. Daniel J. Evans (R). That it came on a day when another West Coast gubernatorial alumnus, Ronald Reagan, was winning the presidency added the proper touch of irony, because Evans and Reagan are, in many respects, the opposite sides of the Repub lican coin. Just as in the 1964 election offered Reagan his first hour in the national spotlight (as a televi sion speaker for Barry Goldwater), so it laun ched the national career of Dan Evans. In that year of Republican disaster, he was elected as the Republican governor of normally Democra tic Washington. Where Reagan became the standard-bearer for the Goldwaterites, Evans quickly lent his voice to the effort to purge Goldwater’s man, Dean Burch, from the na tional chairmanship and bring the party back to a more moderate posture. At every subsequent turn in the road, Evans and Reagan chose opposite courses. In 1968, while Richard Nixon was moving down the mid dle, Reagan challenged him from the right — and Evans supported Nelson Rockefeller’s chal lenge from the left. In the eight years they were together at gov ernor’s conferences, they were contrasts in both personality and policty. Evans was a staunch defender of the environmental cause, while Reagan ridiculed whose who thought, as he said, “we ought to live in bird houses.” Warped Liberals must learn lessom before it becomes too late By By ARNOLD SAWISLAK United Press International WASHINGTON — Liberals, and to some that erroneously includes everyone whose words regularly appear in print, have been get- Studentsl S Diversity c lie to warn >grty snacl side nee h tehens. However fence hall: y. Mosher titkil Jdtchent way of innovation, either, but after all, that isn’t they might do what the Democratsi[d|it has supposed to be their role. the Republicans took over 60 yearsaproval fro The fact that they have latched on to a old World War I. They looked to the i petor of s liberal Democratic idea for restoring the eco- ties for useful new ideas. Passe sai nomy — John Kennedy’s stimulative tax cut — Those Democrats appropriatedMiip^ 0 a P V T M V* »J M v* 11*1 1 J nj/ \~ / 111 111 f-* M 111 V j 111* ▼ 11 » 11 Vfl 11 y J IV 111 1 laH-slllll^ VI J kl > > V 1 1 1 • VI IV* 11” V- l MW V- VI V 11 * W iV V^ 1—^ *_/ 1 1 1 VVV- 1 V* V **£V jhVl VS£/1 1UIVU MUi « ting an earful of derision from conservatives is no stranger than the fact that the moderate man Thomas’s Socialist platform; feEy was . ^ since Election Day. However, sauce for the goose, etc., and after the razzing folks of the right have had to take in previous Novembers, it seems only fair that they get to do some strutting after their big and unexpected 1980 victory. Actually, the liberals may find this loss and the minority status they will have to assume in Washington come January good if bitter medi- Democrat Carter adopted the same restrictive look at both Ed Clark’s Libertarian monetary formula for fighting inflation as mod- Commoner’s Citizen Party p erate Republican Gerald Ford. (Nor that he got cepts that might really work, the same result: inflation AND unemploy- It also should be noted that the Repj ment ^ with the aforementioned tax cut pi In any case, the liberals certainly did not example, did not hesitate to assimi offer the nation anything it wanted during the once regarded as heresy in theireffoitiI irectoi Koldus t service iroval or < Resi Isorece for their e kitch Someone said recently American political li berals haven’t had a new idea since the Peace Corps. That seemed to be the case with Sen. Edward Kennedy’s ill-fated challenge of Presi dent Carter, which left behind a lot more clever bumper stickers than original suggestions for dealing with national or international prob lems. The conservatives haven’t done much in the 1980 campaign. After all, if Kennedy couldn’t to power. It may not have beenlostoMyersion < sell Democrats on wage and price controls, how century GOP that it owes its ven'esJo drafting could he expect to win over the country at the Whigs, who could notandwouldi jpms, each large? And if Carter savaged Ford in 1976 for with changing times and circumstan »veovenai producing high prices and scarce jobs, how ofco the Democratscan^fcS. could he expect to he re-elected on an even , e „ f s trying , 0 deci d e 4, E, ” worse record in the same areas in 1980? for £ hat happened to them in Mufitt tha?, it’s a good bet that it will happen totluM in the in 1982. And il that doesn’t teachiRen for t thing, by 1984 they maybe al)]etort;® cme res Republican performance of 1964. Now both moderate and liberal Democrats are going to have the time and should have the motivation to look for some better ways. Just in case they wonder where to find them. Reagan drew headlines With his oratorical thrusts at big government in Washington. But it was Evans — who was as influential with his colleagues as he was unostentatious with the press — who led the governors into a coalition with mayors and county officials that lobbied effectively for revenue-sharing and bloc grants. The 1980 Republican triumph in Washington state was due more to the legacy of Evans than the coattails of Reagan. Reagan carried the state with a 49 percent plurality, while Spellman, Gorton, Morrison and Pritchard won with 56, 54, 57 and 78 percent margins, respectively. The four Republican winners here are mod erates in the Evans tradition — men who, like their mentor, have often found their toughest tests in surviving the attacks of Reaganite con servatives within the Republican party. Evans, an engineer by profession, was elected to the legislature in 1956 and helped bring Gorton and Pritchard into the legislature two years later. Morrison came into the state house of representatives in 1966, when Gorton was the Evans-backed majority leader. The Evans organization also helped Spellman defeat the powerful conservative faction in his race for King County Executive in 1969. And now in 1980, Evans has seen all four of them move into positions of greater influence. As for Evans himself, after 12 years in the governorship, he “retired” in 1977 to the pres idency of Evergreen State College here. It is remarkable and exciting and controversial cam pus, which was created during his governorship and has won, after only a decade of life, a na tional reputation as an innovator in liberal edu cation, environmental sciences, and the prepa ration of students for public-service careers. Even a short-time visitor catches the enthu siasm among its students and faculty for the challenges of public policy and politics — the very qualities that Evans communicated to his own associates in public office. No one can guess what the ultimate impact of the men and women of Evergreen will be on politics and government in the Northwest. But looking at what Dan Evan’s disciples have just done in the election of 1980, one can guess that, over time, his influence may match or exceed that of his more famous and conservative neigh bor to the south. It’s your turn Bonfire does more good here at A&l , DenaTi Editor: This is in reply to the letter by Sam McClatchie regarding the Aggie bonfire. Mr. McClatchie, I can certainly agree with your sentiments on conditions in the Third World. It is a terrible shame and something should be done about it. However, consider the wood used in the bonfire. Had we not built a bonfire would any of that wood have gone to aid any of those people? It is hardly probable. It would have been bull dozed to clear land or possibly sold for firewood in some middle-class home. We are fortunate to live in a country where we do not have to fight daily for survival. We live in a country where we can afford to enjoy what to others would be a sinful waste. A bon fire would look no worse to those people than candy bars, teddy bears, movie tickets, or paying for pet food. There is much that needs to be done in this world. In response, Americans annually donate more to charity and relief aid than any nation on earth. Maybe we can and should do more, but our bonfire is not taking food out of anyone’s mouth. It would be hard for a non-Aggie to under stand our attachment to this bonfire tradition. But, corny as it may seem, it really does sym bolize our love and devotion to this school. And I believe that, without a doubt, that wood does more good in our bonfire than it would rotting bulldozed in a field or being sold for firewood at a 7-11. R. S. Hilliard ’82 We re losing the T Editor: It has recently come to my attention that Texas A&M is losing a very old tradition. We are losing the Block T. Since the early part of this century the popular logo for Texas A&M has been the Block T. But in recent years it has been gradually pushed aside for the new aTm. The aTm logo first gained widespread popular ity during the Gene Stallings years. He re placed the numbers on the football helmets with an aTm. This change met with little notice despite the fact that lettermen on the team are inducted into the “T” Association and awarded a Block T, not an aTm. Looking back through old Aggie yearbooks, the football coaches like D. X. Bible, Homer Norton and “Bear” Bryant are all seen wearing the customary baseball caps with a large Block T emblazoned on the front. You don’t see the new aTm caps until the 1960s. To this day you still see remnants of the Block T on the campus: Reveille’s monument at Kyle Field is a large granite Block T, members of Corps Staff still wear maroon battle scarves with white Block T’s on the front, and the traditional reservi ' ton's fina’ Also on By Scott McCullar HEY, I'XUST REAUZEP, been waiting TO SEE "BEING THERE* ANP JT5 IT NEVEK ARRIVE P. V£ COME TO THINK OF IT, "SOMEWHERE IN TIME" PI DAT EITHER.) "CLOSE EA/C00NTERS* ONLY came as a Midnight and matinee How COME WE'RE ALWAYS STUCK 5ETWEEN MOVIES THAT HAVE ALREADY LEFT THE BIG CITIES, AND MOVIES THAT MAY NEVER GET HERE AT ALL? signature of the Aggie Band is tliefa# ching Block T. Even the offici university bears a large maroon B say more? This was all brought to my attentiontf when I attempted to buy an A camp with a traditional Block T. i be found. Not at the MSG, not town, not even at Old Army Lous! I asking for much. All I wanted was like the Aggie Baseball Team wears, hundreds of hats in dozens of styles) one, down to the last, had thenewaTf| looking. Coats, jackets, windbreabs, thing had the new “amended” Block!)! it’s meant to distinguish us fromcTiU 1 and countless other.) I couldn’t evea T-shirt, they were all aim shirts, Have I uncovered a conspiracy? Hu sipper infiltrated our ranks with thep»( getting the Aggies to abandon their i which rightfully belongs to Texas $ state’s oldest school? I doubt it. But It time we drag the old school letter or' attic, dust it off, maybe use a little Bn* it and put it back where it belongs. Pete Normand ’71 iUirerm ipus, b 'uimittef Wciate < Tonigh diristm The fir: The Battalion ISPS 043 360 MEMBER Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conurcs Questions or comments concerning any ettori*’ 1 should be directed to the editor. Editor Dillard Stone Managing Editor Rhonda Watters Asst. Managing Editor Scott Haring City Editor Becky Swanson Asst. City Editor Angelique Copeland Sports Editor Richard Oliver Asst. Sports Editor Ritchie Priddy Focus Editor Scot K. Meyer Asst. Focus Editor Cathy SaathofF News Editors Lynn Blanco, Todd Woodard StaflF Writers Jennifer Afflerbach, Kurt Allen, Nancy Andersen, Marcy Boyce, Jane G. Brust Mike Burrichter, Pat Davidson, Cindy Gee Jon Heidtke, Uschi Michel-Howell, Debbie Nelson Liz Newlin, Rick Stolle Cartoonist Scott McCullar Photo Editor Pat O’Malley Photographers George Dolan, Greg Gammon, Jeff Kerber EDITORIAL POLICY The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper op erated as a community service to Texas A&M University and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or the author, and do not necessarily repre sent the opinions of Texas A&M University administrators or faculty members, or of the Board of Regents. LETTERS POLICY Letters to the Editor should not exceedMwttkit and are subject to being cut if they are longer. Th'rf* - ' reserves the right to edit letters for style and length^ make every effort to maintain the author's intent E*- must also be signed, show the address andphnneiwnlf writer. Columns and guest editorials are also welcome, W 1 ' subject to the same length constraints as letters, rf'’ inquiries and correspondence to: Editor, The Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, CollegeSl^ 77843. The Battalion is published daily during Texas AM 4 spring semesters, except for holiday and examinalionf' Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester, $33i5p«' year and $35 per full year. Advertising rates furnish quest. Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonakll' Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 7'843 M0 M \A Roll or FRI Bl Fll United Press International is entitled exdusivel' |l! for reproduction of all news dispatches credited toil reproduction of all other matter herein resened Second class postage paid at College Station, TX