The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, October 25, 1982, Image 1

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    Battalion
Serving the University community
1.76 No. 39 USPS 045360 12 Pages
College Station, Texas
Monday, October 25, 1982
Reagan, O’Neill duel
Reveille
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by 2
United Press International
SHINGTON —President
n and House Speaker Thomas
II dueled over unemployment
id the economy Saturday in stern
jtlpnal radio speeches that launched
eiinal phase of the 1982 political
.mpaign.
Ke
t Virginia by i
ie physicist
s by 1
by 5
(tv by l
sol bv
eagan, leader of a Republican
artv trying to defend its congres-
Tal and gubernatorial seats, urged
listeners to ignore “political fairy
I,’’look at improved inflation and
terest rates statistics and stick with
-S program for economic recovery.
|Stay the course?” O’Neill asked
iletorically, repeating Reagan’s favo-
t|(:ampaign slogan. “That is unfair,
"p-ica needs a change.”
phe Reagan program is not work
ing because the program is not fair —
and, just as important, because the
people themselves know it is not fair,”
the top-ranking congressional Demo
crat said.
Reagan makes a five-minute radio
address each Saturday, but it was the
first time O’Neill delivered the Demo
cratic rebuttal.
O’Neill one-upped the president
by releasing his “response” three
hours before Reagan spoke. But a
White House spokesman said Reagan
did not listen to his adversary.
The speeches — Reagan’s live from
the Camp David presidential retreat
and O’Neill’s taped in Boston Friday
night — turned out to be as heavily
partisan as expected, with election
day only 10 days distant.
The president accused his critics of
trying to “obscure the issues and ex
ploit them for political gain,” and he
attacked “the doom-peddling argu
ment that there is no end in sight for
this bitter recession.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet,
but we’re getting there,” said Reagan,
proudly citing reductions in inflation
and interest rates, record activity in
the stock market and growth in hous
ing and car sales.
“It’s been a long, hard fight, going
on for much longer than the last two
years, and it isn’t over yet. But thanks
to your faith and courage and your
ability to see the truth behind the poli
tical fairy tales, America is on the road
to lasting recovery.”
O’Neill attacked the unemploy
ment situation and said the economy
“is not only stalled; it is starting to
slide backwards. Instead of 13 million
new jobs, there are 13 million jobless
— and more and more are joining the
jobless rolls each week.”
“Do these officials who speak so
easily about risingjobless figures real
ize the horror that lies behind those
figures? Do they understand the un
happiness they are causing, the loss of
self-respect they are inflicting?” asked
the Democratic leader. “For the good
of our country, we need to find out
what is wrong with current economic
policies and we need to set those poli
cies right.”
by 1
MO
Ski Appait]
Rental
icket
oungstown’s steeling itself
or more economic troubles
United Press International
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — It
once a thriving factory town, its
|>nomy as solid as the steel rolling
J of the mills that poured fire anti
imoke into the gentle hills of north-
“asiern Ohio.
gput in the last half-decade, almost
II of the mills have closed and
'oungstown has plunged toward bot-
om. Many of those who have watched
be slide fear the worst is still ahead,
atest government figures showed
, in August, 51,600 workers were
mployed in the two-county region
ounding Youngstown — a jobless
of 20.9 percent, highest of the
on’s 80 metropolitan areas.
I'he people on the street knew it all
along.
“When I first came here in 1950,
this was a bustling town,” said Dr.
Robert Parry, a physician who per
forms physicals on jobless workers
who come to a local plasma center to
sell their blood.
“But in the last two to three years,
since the steel companies have gone
down ...” he said, his sentence trailing
off.
“You could spend a whole day
shopping here at one time,” he said.
“But there arejust so many businesses
that have closed down — service
stores, specialty shops. The whole
downtown has lost a lot of good busi
ness.”
It’s about to lose more. The down
town branch of Higbee’s — one of the
city’s two main department stores —
will close Oct. 27, eliminating the jobs
of some 115 clerks, managers, jani
tors and stock people.
“People in this area are used to bad
cycles,” said Dr. Anthony Stocks,
chairman of the economics depart
ment at Youngstown State University.
“But I’ve been here 12 years and this
is the worst I’ve seen.”
Things might even be worse than
they appear. The official jobless fi
gures understate the actual number
of unemployed by as much as 10 per
cent, said Dr. John Russo, director of
Youngstown State University’s Labor
Studies Program.
Considering the number of work
ers who have left the area, as well as
the “underemployed” — those work
ing only part-time — the real jobless
rate could be as high as 30 percent,
Russo estimated.
How much higher could the num
bers go? Russo doesn’t like to specu
late.
“The entire economy is in a long
term crisis,” Russo said. “This could
be our generation’s Depression.”
During the Great Depression, at
least one person in four couldn’t find
work and he notes: “I think we’re fair
ly close to that now.”
He said he expects the economy in
Youngstown “to keep going down un
til we finally find equilibrium at a very
low level.”
slaff photo by David Fisher
New friends
Matthew Swick gives Jackie Sherrill a smile as he learns how to
“Gig ’em”. Matthew is the poster child for the Spina Bifida
Association in the Bryan-College Station area, and is the son of
Leslie and Debbie Swick of Bryan. Matthew will have surgery
Wednesday to correct the congenital birth defect.
Senate constitution
vote on Tuesday
Agency suggests traffic death toll
rop due to economy’s current state
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The recession
ft all bad news: the highway death
so far for 1982 is down more than
12 percent from last year and govern-
teiitanalysts suggest the drop is due
|the sagging economy.
Preliminary figures gathered by
Transportation Department’s Na-
jnal Highway Traffic Safety Admi-
Itration show 28,872 people killed
in the first eight months of 1982 com-
|red with 32,860 deaths during the
same period last year.
"The period of January through
August. 1982 shows a larger than ex
pected reduction, an average of 12.1
percent,” the agency staff reported in
a memorandum to NHTSA Adminis
trator Ray Peck.
“The reductions in recent months
from the corresponding 1981 figures
are most likely due to the changes in
driving patterns brought about by the
current state of the economy.”
The preliminary estimate for the
month of August was 4,165 traffic
deaths, 15.3 percent lower than the
same month last year. The total of
45,299 killed during the past 12
months reflected an overall decrease
of 9.8 percent over the preceding
September-August period.
“Our analysis people are still work
ing on why,” said agency spokesman
Hal Paris. “There are a number of
factors involved, but one of them is
probably the economy.”
One 'explanation offered for the
continued decline in fatalities is that
people are driving less because of
tight finances.
The fatality rate per vehicle miles
of travel also dropped, from about 3.8
per 100 million miles traveled in Au
gust 1981 to 3.4 per 100 million
traveled this past August.
Regional trends, based on monthly
reports from the states, appeared to
bear out a relationship between areas
where the recession has hit hardest
and greater reductions in traffic
deaths.
The farm belt had the sharpest re
duction in traffic fatalities during the
past 12 months — 20.7 percent. That
was followed closely by a 19.5 percent
reduction in New England.
The South from Louisiana to New
Mexico showed the smallest reduc
tion, 0.7 percent, followed by the
Southeast with a 4.5 percent decrease
during the 12-month period ended in
August.
by David Johnson
Battalion Staff
Texas A&M faculty members will
have a chance to discuss the proposed
constitution for a faculty senate dur
ing the steering committee’s open
meeting at 3 p.m. Tuesday in Rudder
Auditorium.
The committee will answer ques
tions from faculty members about the
constitution at the meeting.
An election will be held Nov. 9 to
ratify the constitution by the faculty.
Ratification of the constitution is the
first step in establishing a faculty sen
ate here.
A majority of the voting faculty
members must vote for ratification.
In addition, the constitution must be
ratified by the University President
Frank E. Vandiver, System Chancel
lor Arthur G. Hansen and the Board
of Regents.
Absentee voting for the constitu
tion will be November 2 through
November 5 in 204C Sterling C.
Evans Library. Faculty identification
is required.
For the regular election, polling
places will be in the Academic and
Agency Building, Langford Architec
ture Center, East Kyle, Harrington
Education Center, Kleberg Animal
and Food Science Center, Sterling C.
Evans Library, Veterinary Medicine
Complex and Zachry Engineering
Center.
The proposed constitution will
establish a unicameral body com
posed of of faculty members, retired
faculty members who teach on the
campus and full-time lecturers and
instructors. Under the proposed con
stitution, the senate will be an advis
ory body for all policies dealing with
academic curriculum, instruction,
standards, as well as policies gov
erning the hiring and retention of
academic personnel.
Senators would be limited to two
three-year terms in a nine-year
period. One-third of the senate will be
elected each year. Like the student
senate, faculty senators will be elected
by a place system and must receive a
majority vote. The University presi
dent will be an ex officio member of
the faculty senate.
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Mothers not always the
best parent, study shows
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staff photo by David Fisher
Falling in defeat
The Rice owl, Brad Borg, plays dead in front of the
crowd at Kyle Field Saturday as his team fell in defeat
to the Aggies 49-7.
by Alison Cope
Battalion Reporter
Since the beginning of the 20th
century, mothers have been given
custody of children because courts
assumed mothers were better suited
by nature to care for children. But
Texas A&M professor William S.
Rholes says children of single parent
families generally are better off with
their same-sex parent.
Rholes, an assistant professor of
psychology, said children raised by
the same-sex parent generally have
less anxiety than those raised by a pa
rent of the opposite sex. In a study on
father custody done by researchers
John W. Santrock and Richard A.
Warshak of the University of Texas at
Dallas, boys from father-custody
families show more competent social
behavior than girls in father-custody
homes. Girls in mother-custody
homes are more socially competent
than boys in the same type situation,
the study said.
Like the research done by Santrock
and Warshak, Rholes expected to
find that same-sex parenting is gener
ally better for the child in his re
search. But he said it was hard to
make predictions.
“It was hard to form expectations
initially because there hadn’t been a
lot of research,” he said. “The one
piece of research that had been done
(by Santrock and Warshak) was done
with younger children. It suggested
that social emotional adjustment, in
general, is better when male children
are placed with the father and
females are placed with the mother.
One of our expectations was that we
would find that same-sex parenting
would lessen problems.”
Rholes decided to research father
parenting.
He studied 120 people, mostly
from Texas A&M. Participants were
put in one of three equal-sized
groups: those raised by their father;
those raised by their mother; and
those raised by both parents. One
person from each group matched
characteristics — sex, age they were
left with one parent, etc. — with a
person from the each of the other two
groups.
“We located college-age people
who at some point in their lives lived
with a single father,” Rholes said. “We
matched them with students who had
lived with their mother and found
another group that matched who had
lived with both parents. Then we gave
them psychological tests to to see if
there might be any effects, especially
lasting effects.”
Rholes said he found anxiety was
the main problem in subjects who
lived in opposite-sex families.
“Characteristic anxiety in people
varies considerably in how anxious
they are,” he said. “Our findings were
that children in opposite-sex homes
were somewhat more anxious than
other childern. That was especially
true for girls reared by fathers.”
Several things could explain added
anxiety in females, Rholes said.
“We tend to think that when a girl
loses her mother she loses her prim
ary caretaker and a role model,” he
said. “A boy loses his role model if his
father dies, but he does’t lose his
primary caretaker.”
Research on the benefits of father
rearing has had little impact on the
frequency mothers receive custody of
children, but some states have equal
opportunity custody laws that give the
father a better chance of keeping his
children.
In Texas, it is almost impossible for
a father to gain custody of his chil
dren, Rholes said. A mother must be
proven incapable of caring for the
children before the father is granted
custody.
With more research, fathers may
have greater opportunities in the fu
ture to gain custody, but it won’t hap
pen fast, Rholes said.
“Custody decisions should never be
made in a lock-step fashion,” he said.
“We are talking about cases where
both parents want custody and are
capable of caring for the children. In
many cases the father or mother
doesn’t want custody. In that case,
same-sex parenting would not be a
determinant.”
Around town 4
Classified 6
National 8
Opinions 2
Sports 9
State *. 5
What’s up 8
forecast
Today’s Forecast: High in the
low 70s, lo\V in the high 40s.
almanac
Today is Monday, Oct. 25, the
298th day of 1982 with 67 to follow.
The moon is in its first quarter.
The morning stars are Mercury,
Venus and Saturn.
The evening stars are Mars and
Jupiter.
Those born on this date are
under the sign of Scorpio.
American polar explorer
Richard Evelyn Byrd was born Oct.
25, 1888.
On this date in history:
In 1854, in the “Charge of the
Light Brigade,” some 670 British
cavalrymen fighting in the Cri
mean War attacked a heavily forti
fied Russian position and were
wiped out.
In 1971, the United Nations
admitted Communist China to
membership and ousted National
ist China.