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The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Monday
March 23, 1981
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Slouch
By Jim Earle
“We probably ought to put the kerosene in something be
sides a coffee pot, but I guess it doesn’t matter now. ”
Feeling education’s pincers
Maybe there’s a method in the madness.
That the cost of everything — including
education — is spiraling upward at a dou
ble-digit rate should surprise no one.
The surprise comes when “double-digit”
is translated first into figures like “20 per
cent, ” then into a phrase such as “a $109 per
semester increase. ”
Tuesday, the Texas A&M System Board
of Regents will consider a slate of fee in
creases for the fall semester.
Sidebars
By Dillard Stone
lc
The biggest jump is represented in a 20
percent increase in dormitory room rates,
effective with the fall semester. The
cheapest rooms, in un-air conditioned
men’s dorms, will go up from $219 per
semester to $263; the most expensive, the
Commons halls, will increase from $546 to
$655 per semester.
Reasons? Increased energy and labor
costs make much of the increase necessary.
The other huge slice of the pie is taken up
by the need to pay off construction bonds
sold to finance the two new modular dorms.
At first glance a 20 percent increase may
seem pretty exorbitant. But at second
glance it’s easily justified — to some extent
— by the 14.3 percent legislature-
mandated pay raises and an anticipated 20
percent rise in next year’s utility costs.
At third glance — OUCH! Texas A&M
students are going to get gouged nextya
It’s almost a sure bet the Legislature*
increase tuition by 50 percent, toSf
hour — and there’s no guarantee tk
tion won’t rise by 100 percent, to$!
hour.
Board rates are going up about 9pei
(food costs are going up, too). Thestu
service fee will probably rise by about
percent (remember those services that;
all of us use, but which we all pay for). 1
upcoming one-year increase in thera
going to school next year will probabl]
higher than it ever has before, especiallj
the on-campus student.
It appears as if we may have foundi;
answer to the limiting-enrollmentquestij;
Make going to school so expensive thatoi
a limited number can afford it.
Maybe that’s the method; will them
ness end?
I doubt it.
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Direct approach
for Standard Oil
By DAVID S. BRODER
WASHINGTON — A friend of mine
who owns stock in the Standard Oil Com
pany of Indiana found a letter from the com
pany in her mail the other day. When she
opened it, she extracted not a dividend
check or a proxy form but a letter from the
chairman of the board, John E. Swearing
en, which she passed on to me. Addressed
“to our stockholders,” it was admirably
direct:
“President Reagan has proposed to the
Congress a comprehensive economic prog
ram involving substantial reductions in the
federal budget coupled with tax cut propos
als that are together designed to restore
vitality to the nation’s economy and to
arrest inflation.
“The management of Standard Oil Com
pany (Indiana) wholeheartedly endorses
the President’s program, and I am writing
to urge our stockholders to express their
support for it.
“While the President’s party controls the
United States Senate, the Democratic party
is in the majority in the House of Represen
tatives. Some Congressmen have stated
their opposition to the President’s program
and have been quoted in the press as saying
that it will not pass.”
Then Swearingen talked about the “fai
lures of past programs” and the resulting
damage to the economy, concluding that
“the package President Reagan has prop
osed must be enacted, in its entirety, in
order to reverse these trends and restore
confidence in our economy and in our
country.
“This may not happen, ” he warned, “un
less the members of the House and Senate
are reminded that Mr. Reagan’s program
represents the will of the people. I urge
you, therefore, to write promptly to your
Representatives and to your Senators to ex
press your support for his proposals. The
future of our nation is at stake. ”
That sort of direct and dramatic pleading
is rather unusual in a letter to stockholders.
I do not recall an oil company president
being quite so sure that the election repre
sented “the will of the people” when the
President was Jimmy Carter and the prog
ram involved a windfall profits tax. But the
courts have upheld the use of corporate
funds for the expression of opinions on re
ferenda and legislative issues, and as a bit of
a First Amendment fan myself, I have no
desire to restrain Swearingen’s freedom of
expression.
But if one has any sense of American
history, one has to believe that both the
corporations and the President whose prog
ram they are so enthusiastically promoting
are on somewhat shaky ground.
Ronald Reagan came to the White House
probably less beholden to big business than
any other Republican President in this cen
tury. Big businessmen came rather late to
his cause, and only after their original heart-
throb, John B. Connally, had demonstrated
he had less appeal in the polling-places than
in the boardrooms. As a consequence, big
business probably contributed less to
Reagan’s campaign than to any previous
GOP nominee. And the votes that put
Reagan in office obviously were not cast, for
the most part, by the John Swearingens of
this country.
But Reagan’s budget and tax plans and his
efforts to reduce government regulation of
business have been embraced so passion
ately by corporate America that there is an
almost automatic suspicion that the Reagan
program may have been designed with big
business in mind.
One has to wonder how helpful that will
be to Reagan in the long run. Americans
have learned to view skeptically the prom
ises of big government, but that does not
mean they are prepared automatically to
accept political instruction from big busi
ness.
There is also a bit of a risk for business in
this arrangement. Reagan’s supply-side
economics is a theory of uncertain validity.
If its promise of abudance proves empty,
and produces only higher unemployment,
deficits and inflation, then the adverse reac
tion could engulf not just Reagan and the
Republicans but the business institutions
which asserted that “the future of our na
tion” requires that the program be enacted
“in its entirety.”
But it may be that Swearingen is simply
trying to revive the tradition of public per
suasion that has been part of Standard Oil’s
history since the days when that fabled pub
lic relations man. Ivy Lee, undertook to
improve the image of its Rockefeller
founders.
WOOTEROTO
QUimjEL
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The
Sharing the grief at Taps ceremony
In the biography of the Rockefellers by
Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Lee —
the ex-newspaperman who, among other
things, suggested that John D. dramatize
his philanthropies by handing out dimes —
is quoted as telling a group of executives:
“Crowds are led by symbols and phrases.
Success in dealing with crowds. . . rests
upon the art of getting believed in. We
know that Henry the Eighth by his obse
quious deference to the forms of the law
was able to get the people to believe in
him so completely that he was able to do
almost anything with them. ”
Perhaps the latter-day Standard Oil ex
ecutives believe the same thing.
Editor:
For the first time I went to Silver Taps, it
was for a young 28-year-old philosophy ma
jor who have been riding his bicycle at night
and was struck and killed by a motorcyclist.
1 arrived at the Academic Building at 10
p. m.; all lights in the area were out except a
few from Academic. Students began shuf
fling in about the same time I did. I stood by
a woman who I learned was the mother of
the young man. She asked me if I knew her
son. I answered no, I did not. Other than
the shuffling of feet, silence was in the air,
being pierced only by an occasional dove
fluttering out of the trees and the call of a
flock of geese flying north. I was also im
pacted by the effect of the silhouetted, bar
ren, yet sap-filled tree branches that
reached up into the black of night. Then
chimes rang out with renditions of “Nearer
My God To Thee, ” “Onward Christian Sol
diers,” and two other hymns. Faintly I
heard the cadence of a marching group, soft
commands, then a resounding thump as
footsteps hit the sidewalk in unison.
Another. And another. I counted them, ex
pecting them to stop at 28, the age of the
young man, but they continued for at least
26 more steps. Then soft commands:
“Halt,” “Order Arms,” “Left Face,” “Open
Ranks,” “March” along with several others.
Then “First Platoon, Ready, Aim, Fire.”
The night air was shattered with a volley of
rifle fire: doves again fluttered into the air.
Then, “Second Platoon, Ready, Aim, Fire”;
another volley of fire, and another and
another. The mother wept silently. Then
Silver Taps by a group of buglers playing in
unison. Once, twice. At that moment a stu
dent behind me fainted, hitting the side
walk with a quiet thud. A final Silver Taps.
With a hust the crowd dispersed at which
point I reached over to touch the mother.
She had come from Dallas for the cere
mony, would spend the night alone in Col
lege Station in her anguish. But she was not
alone at Silver Taps. At least 500 students
and staff joined her.
John Shirk
bers of the Dr. UL Society of Theologv
(DUST), would like to point out that
although Scott McCullar’s humor is sonK'
what (exclusively) unusual, the themesaif
not necessarily so obscure as to be unpalat
able or incompatible with the essence^:
The Battalion. Recently, McCullar’s ever
present illustrations have become the ohi
jects of ridicule by certain segments ofth(
A&M student body and subsequent
lion readership. Dr. UL respectfully sf
gests that those persons who have voiced
criticism either develop a viable, interesi
ing alternative or cease to read the columa
Dr. UL would like to point out, logically, n(
one is currently forcing these critics to read
the feature to which they so vehement!'
object. Furthermore, our Society makesita
point to read McCullar’s inspiration
Warped is DUSTed
Editor:
In defense of “Warped,’
we, the mem-
The Dr. UL Society of Theology (DUSI)
M.D. Edwards’S!
G.O. Pearse ’Si
J.P. O’Leary ’S!
Warped
By Scott McCullar
The Battalion
MEMBER
ISPS (Mo
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Congress
Editor Dillard Stone
Managing Editor Angelique Copeland
Asst. Managing Editor Todd Woodard
City Editor Debbie Nelson
Asst. City Editor Marcy Boyce
Sports Editor Ritchie Priddy
Photo Editor Greg Gammon
Focus Editor Cathy SaathofF
Asst. Focus Editor Susan Hopkins
News Editors Venita McCellon,
Scot K. Meyer
Staff Writers Carolyn Barnes,
Jane G. Brust, Terry Duran, Bernie Fette,
Cindy Gee, Phyllis Henderson,
Kathleen McElroy, Belinda McCoy,
Marjorie McLaughlin, Kathy O’Connell,
Richard Oliver, Rick Stolle
Cartoonist Scott McCullar
Photographers Chuck Chapman, Brian Tate
:i60
The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper fci
students in reporting, editing and photography classes
within the Department of Communications.
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should be directed to the editor.
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Columns and guest editorials are also welcome, and are
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Address all inquiries and correspondence to: Editor, Th'
Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843.
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ty administrators or faculty members, or of the Board of
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