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WASHINGTON (AP) — Saying
icrica’s debt to military men and
men doesn’t end the day the uniform
mes off. President Reagan signed leg
ation Tuesday giving veterans a Cab
inet-level voice for the first time.
“I’m saying to all our veterans what I
to new Cabinet members: Welcome
ard!** said Reagan, the self-pro-
imed enemy of an expanding federal
government, who once suggested abo-
Hhing the departments of Education and
t Energy.
■Sitting under a sparkling autumnal sun
in front of a columned building of the
National War College at Fort McNair,
tlf president signed into law the bill cre-
jng the Department of Veterans Af-
Jrs, effective March 15.
[Spokesmen for veterans organizations
applauded the elevation of veterans is-
s in the councils of government, but
ted that the legislation offers no in-
gttases in compensation or im-
vements in health care.
Cooper T. Holt, executive director of
the Washington office of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, said he recalled the day
federal agencies and merits being put on
par with other Cabinet departments.
There are some 27 million veterans
“I’m saying to all our veterans what I say to new Cab
inet members: Welcome aboard!’”
— President Reagan
— last Nov. 10 — that Reagan signaled
he had accepted Cabinet-level status for
veterans.
“There were several of us over there
at the White House, and we came pre
pared to make a case,’’ Holt recalled in a
telephone interview. “But when he
came in, he apparently had decided
against some of his advisers, and he said
he wanted to do it. ”
Supporters of the legislation had ar
gued that the Veterans Administration al
ready has the fifth-largest budget among
and 49 million dependents or survivors,
although only about 2.5 to 3 million of
them rely on Veterans Administration
services on a regular basis. The agency
has a $30 billion budget, and it will dis
burse $14 billion in income maintenance
and $626 million for education and reha
bilitation assistance this year.
Reagan said the bill gives veterans
what they have deserved so long — a
seat at the table of our national affairs.
Flanked by leaders of congressional
committees on military affairs, and ac
companied by Defense Secretary Frank
C. Carlucci and Adm. William Crowe,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he
said: “I’ve said before that America’s
debt to those who would fight for her de
fense doesn’t end the day the uniform
comes off. For the security of our nation,
it must not end.”
The House and Senate, paying elec
tion-year homage to veterans, had both
given overwhelming approval to the bill.
Among other things, it will place a secre
tary of veterans affairs on the Cabinet,
create the position of deputy secretary
and as many as a half-dozen assistant
secretaries.
“I don’t expect that it is going to pro
duce any miracles,” said H.F.
“Sparky” Gierke, national commander
of the American Legion.
Gierke said that despite the creation of
a larger agency, with another layer of
high-ranking assistants, the measure
would not consign veteran’s problems to
a mammoth bureaucracy.
Vain tiffs get
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■ ATLANTA (AP) — Forty-nine
civil rights activists who were pelted
pth rocks and bottles when they
rched into virtually all-white For
syth County were awarded nearly $ i
llion by a jury that found the Ku
lux Klan responsible.
■ A verdict unsealed in U.S. District
Sjourt on Tuesday also found 11 indi-
Tduals responsible for attacking the
activists, who marched into the
unty north of Atlanta on Jan. 17,
1987, and were met by the counter-
Jmonstrators, many of them KKK
rubers or sympathizers.
The jury reached its verdict Oct. 5,
Of-:|but Judge Charles A. Moye Jr. or-
ired it sealed to give those who
Texas A::! brought the lawsuit time to decide
down itsxBrether to join Atlanta City Coun-
sablotivHman Hosea Williams, who wanted
:ry Bernai;ito drop it. ...... .
Williams, who helped organize the
rch and was among those who
Jed the lawsuit, urged toward the
end of the trial that it be dropped be-
se it would impoverish the fami
lies of KKK members.
iHe said Tuesday he would not take
i the pt any money from the settlement.
Aggies■“Irregardless of the court’s deci-
lion, my decision not to accept one
single penny of my white brothers’
and sisters’ possessions is a matter of
inscience,” Williams said. “It is
o stooping lower than the KKK
and other white supremacists to take
away from them their hard-earned
tnhtcrial possessions, simply because
they brutalized us in responding to
the sicknesses of our capitalistic so-
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In a letter Williams sent his fellow
irehers during the trial, he said he
had “talked” to slain civil rights
leader vlartin Luther King Jr. and
King had told him “Jesus wanted him
icd not to sue the Klan. ”
16-13 si®
want to tai
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about iu!i'
longest®iip|State Rep. J.E. “Billy” McKin-
; ney, who had opposed Williams’ ef
fort to drop the lawsuit, said Wil-
jliams’ “religion and communication
Iwith the dead should not interfere
(With our constitutional rights and jus
tice.”
Wage, benefit hikes
drive up payroll costs
WASHINGTON (AP) — Wages in the past 12 months have
risen an average 3.9 percent, while private employer costs for
benefits have soared 6.7 percent — more than double the pre
vious year — largely becausee of increases in Social Security
taxes, the government said Tuesday.
The combined effect of the pay raises and higher benefit
costs have sent total employer costs up 4.7 percent in the 12
months ending Oct. 1, compared with a 3.4 percent rise in the
previous 12-month period, the Labor Department said.
Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, has
risen by 4.2 percent over the past 12 months, the government
reported last week.
The steep increase in benefit costs resulted primarily from a
rise last January in employers’ Social Security tax rate from
7.15 percent to 7.51 percent, the Labor Department said.
It also cited large increases in health insurance costs and
lump-sum bonus payments from profit-sharing arrangements,
which are now calculated by the government as a benefit
rather than a wage. In the 12 months ending October a year
ago, benefits costs rose only 3.1 percent, but they went up 6.7
percent in 12 months ending Oct. 1.
Non-union employees continued to get larger percentage
pay raises than union members — a trend begun in 1983 -—ex
cept for blue-collar workers in manufacturing.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said wage rates among
union members rose an average 2.9 percent in the past 12
months, compared with 3.9 percent for non-union workers. In
the previous 12-month period, union wages rose an average
1.7 percent, compared with 3.8 percent for non-union em
ployees.
“This pattern reversed when limited to blue-collar workers
in manufacturing,” the bureau said, with wage increases in
the past year averaging 3.2 percent for union members and 2.8
percent for non-union workers.
For the first time, the government also is comparing total
compensation increases between union and non-union work
ers to account for the lump-sum arrangements.
With those benefits included, employer costs rose the same
4.5 percent among union and non-union employees, the bu
reau said.
John Zalusky, an economist for the AFL-CIO, called the
statistics ‘‘refreshing.’’
“They’re beginning to show in fact what is really going on
out there in the world,” he said, “but there still is a good way
.to go.”
For example, Zalusky cited the last round of steel-industry
contracts in which the union conceded pay cuts to companies
then operating at losses in exchange for a share of future prof
its or stock transfers if no profits occurred.
“The statistics are now picking up the profit distributions
but not the stock transfers for what essentially is a debt owed
workers,” he said. “In the future I expect them to start put
ting in the value of stock ownership plans and in the distant
future retraining funds, such as those negotiated with the auto
companies. ’ ’
Despite the disparity in percentage wage increases in recent
years, unionized workers continue to make about 35 percent
more than non-union workers — an average gap of $123 a
week in 1987 compared with a gap of $119 in 1986 — accord
ing to government data.
Rescuers work to recover
Manila shipwreck survivors
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Res
cuers said Tuesday they had found only
15 survivors from the 500 people on a
ship sunk by Typhoon Ruby, which hit
shore with 140 mph winds that flattened
thousands of homes and took at least 97
lives.
Darkness and bad weather forced an
overnight suspension of the search for
survivors of the Dona Marilyn, which re
placed the Dona Paz on the Sulpicio
Lines run between Manila and Tacloban.
The Dona Paz sank last Dec. 20 after a
collision off Mindoro Island and more
than 3,000 people perished.
More than 100,000 Filipinos were
made homeless by Ruby, which was re
ported in the South China Sea late Tues
day, heading west with top winds of
about 100 mph.
In suburban Manila, U.S. and Phil
ippine helicopters rescued hundreds of
people stranded on rooftops and in trees
by the flooding Marikina River.
Coast Guard officials said the 2,845-
ton passenger liner sank Monday in the
Visayas Sea about 300 miles southeast of
Manila.
It was carrying 451 passengers and 60
crew members from Manila to Tacloban
on Leyte Island when it radioed a distress
call, Sulpicio Lines general manager
Carlos Go said.
Lt. Rey Esguerra of the coast guard
station in Cebu said rescuers had found
11 survivors on Maripipi Island and an
other small island, and four people were
found alive in the water.
Officials reported 25 people missing
because of Typhoon Ruby at Cagayan de
Oro, a coastal city on Mindanao Island,
and 15 unaccounted for after a crowded
bus plunged into a swollen river Monday
in Antique province.
Floods on Luzon and other islands
caused landslides and washed away
bridges.
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THE WASHINGTON INTERNATIONAL STUDIES CENTER
STUDY IN
OXFORD, ENGLAND
Academic Program
Several colleges of Oxford University have invited The Washington International Studies Center
(WISC) to recommend qualified students to study for one year or for one or two terms. Lower
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U.S. college in Oxford. Oxford colleges are accredited by the U.S. Dept, of Education to
accept students with Guaranteed Student Loans. Multi-national student housing and social
activities are offered, and cultural tours are conducted by WISC. A special summer session is
directed by WISC.
INTERN IN
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Pre-professional Program
The Washington International Studies Center offers summer internships with Congress, with the
White House, with the media and with think tanks. Government and Journalism courses are taught
by senior-level government officials, who are also scholars, and by experienced journalists. All
college students with a 3.0 GPAor above are eligible.
For further information, please write or call:
WrtSC
The Washington International Studies Center
214 Massachusetts Ave., N.E. Suite 230
Washington, D.C. 20002 (202) 547-3275
Lunch Buffet
(11-2 Daily)
Dinner Buffet
(5-8pm Daily)
Gourmet Chinese Food, 18 items
All you can eat with Ice Tea
Pacific Garden Chinese
Restaurant
Between Chimney Hill Bowl & The Hilton
Dine in only, with coupon
One coupon per person per visit
Not good with any other coupon
Valid Oct. 26-Nov. 1
College Republicans
Aggie G.O.P
Presents Candidates
For
Railroad Commission and
State Board of Education
Tues. Oct 25
8:30 p.m. Rudder 601
For information call David Shelton 696-2664
Pfea
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