Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 1

no Evening ZETTE NINETY-FOURTH YEAR, No. 24 RENO, NEVADA, THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 19GS PHONE (702) 323-3161 10 CENTS Re Ga Legislators Set Record: $185 Million 15V MORTON L. ALT'MAN Associated Tress Writer Nraring the end of the legislative evarla lawmakers approved today a record 1 million budget to oX'iate tlie state lor the next two uai.s. It represents a per cent increase in spending compared to the last two years ami is S.5 million more than asked In Cow Paul Laxalt when he presented his executive hndget in Jannaiv. The action came idler Sen.

Clilf Young. R-Reno, im.siiccesslullv attempted to amend the appropriations act by asking that a state coml administrator be provided, a (Turn to Page 2, Col. 4) Expense Account Unconstitutional, Says Dickerson committee to be appointed to settle the dispute. "I am one of the proponents of the bill," said Assemblyman Austin Bowler of Las Vegas. (Turn to Page 2, Col.

1) April Showers? Yes, but the Snowy Kind! Tourist flocking to downtown Reno Wednesday night weren't greeted now fluttering in the spotlights atop Harolds Club. picture of a wet Reno arch with (Gazette Photo by Harry Upson) Spring Garden? Cover It Tonight! I got snow instead, as shown in this Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, the snow level on Donner Summit is 112 Echo Summit had 20 inches of fresh snow. South Lake Tahoe received 12 inches, Truckce 13 and Blue Canyon 10. Chains were required on most Sierra roads during the night, Got a Reno area residents should protect gardens and blossoming plants tonight, the weatherman says, because there is going to be a "hard freeze." A clearing trend following the storm should drop the temperature to 22 degrees in Reno and Carson City tonight. Low Nixon Asks Hike In Postal Rates Flood Damage At $100 Million Atty.

Gen. Harvey Dickerson said today a bill to give legislators an out-of-session expense allowance is unconstitutional. Dickerson said he will attack the measure in the courts if it is approved by lawmakers and signed by the Governor. "This violates an article of the Constitution which prevents legislators from getting a salary raise during their term of office," he said. He said lawmakers are disguising the bill by calling it an expense allowance.

"That's a patent subterfuge." (Turn to Fage 9 for Letters to the Editor which refer to Reno Evening Gazette editorials on the subject.) The bill was stalled Wednesday by disagreement in the Assembly. A conference committee report has recommended that lawmakers receive $200 a month for expenses when the legislature isn't in session. Legislative counsel Russell McDonald told the Assembly that Dickerson gave the go-ahead in 1955 to a measure raising per diem pay for legislators. LONG TIME AGO' "I don't remember that," said Dickerson. "That's a long time ago." Assemblyman Mel Close, D-Las Vegas, said he talked to Dickerson today and asked about an official attorney general's opinion.

"He (Dickerson) said he wasn't going to give an (official) opinion, just a press release," Close said. The Attorney General said he would not tell the Governor to veto the bill if it clears both houses. "I'm not going to interfere." He said he would seek a court injunction to block the state treasurer and controller from paying out any funds for the allowances if the bill passes. Both Houses approved the bill but held up final action when Laxalt said it must be Tightened. Some lawmakers agreed to cut the proposed expense allowance from $300 to $200 a month and suggested the allowances must be approved every 45 days by the Legislative Commission.

The conference report said the allowance items must be itemized and included as part of the Commission's minutes to open them up for public inspection. 'STAMPEDE But the Assembly refused to adopt the conference committee report, permitting another he said. "But when the stamps first went into effect I can remember four guys who went ahead and bought them and within a year they'd all been arrested." Treasury Department figures show sale of stamps in 1968 produced $416,000. The 10 per cent tax levied against gambling operations produced another $4.5 million most of it, presumably, from legal gaming in Nevada. by mild, balmy, spring weather.

They Snow fell Wednesday in the mountains, and continued this morning in the Sierra and the Reno area. Parts of Reno had as much as two inches of snow. Norden, 7,000 feet up on Donner Pass, had 21 inches of new snow. According to the De Gaulle's Last Week In Office? PARIS (AP) Indications are mounting that this may be President Charles de Gaulle's last week in office. The 78-year-old French leader has said he would resign immediately if the referendum Sunday votes down his proposal to transfer some of the central government's powers to regional administrations and reduce the Senate to a consultative role.

The newspaper Figaro published a poll today showing that for the first time since De Gaulle made his resignation threat, opponents of the constitutional changes outnumber supporters 53 per cent to 47 per cent. As recently as March 31, polls showed 56 per cent planned to vote yes in the referendum. Kerkorian Sued For $10 Million LOS ANGELES (AP) Kirk Kerkorian, Las Vegas hotelman and financier, was sued for $10 million in federal court Wednesday on claims he defrauded buyers of the Bonanza Hotel. said that decision neutralized the Internal Revenue Service in that phase of the racketeering battle but said other parts of the new measure "will get the IRS back into the battle against organized crime." The officials didn't say how the proposal would get around the high court decision. It won't apply to government-operated sweepstakes such as Scattered Violence In Ireland BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) Scattered violence punctuated an uneasy quiet in Northern Ireland Wednesday night after the government agreed to the Roman Catholic demand for universal suffrage in local elections.

Shortly after midnight saboteurs blew up an unguarded water pumping station near Belfast airport. The blast reduced water supplies to the capital, where water already is being rationed because of two pipe explosions last week. Late Wednesday night a Catholic school in Tirgavel was damaged by a fire bomb. The Catholic Civil Rights Association, which has campaigned for six months in the streets for "one man, one vote," announced it was trying to call off all street marches and demonstrations for the next few days to tighten discipline among its followers. Index 2 Sections 40 Pages SECTION' ONE Crossword Puzzle 8 Deaths 16 Editorials 8 Sylvia Porter 15 The Doctor 17 Weather Table 2 Women's News 13-20 SECTION TWO Amusements 32 Ann Landers 34 Classified Ads 35-39 Comics 34 Earl Wilson 34 Legal Notices 35 Local, Regional News 21 Markets 35 Sports 26-29 Television Log 34 Win at Bridge 34 REnO EVENING gazette A Sneidel Newspaper, Member of Associated Press.

Second Class Postaqa pa.d at Reno, Nevada. Published Wee, days by Reno Newspapers Inc. 401 West 2nd Street, Reno, Nevada. 89504. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Horn delivery by carrier salesman, 60 cents a week; by motor route and carrier delivery outside Reno, $3 a monthj by mail in trt State of Nevada and Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, Sierra, Inyo, A'pine, Mono and Nevada counties and the Lake Tano area in California, $22 a year; by mail to all domestic points outside the above, areas, $26 a year.

Address P. O. Box 280. Reno. Nevada, 19504.

Other rates upon request. Chuckli A man has less courage than a woman. Imagine a man with 13 cents in his pocket trying on seven suits in four dilfercnt shops. but most restrictions were removed by noon today. Chains were still required on Highway 50 over Echo Summit, however.

A snow slide during the night closed the Lake Tahoe West Shore highway from five miles north of Tahoe Valley to Bliss State Park. eastern North Dakota, western Wisconsin and all but the southwestern edge of Minnesota was $109.4 million. They added that $7.5 million for emergency dike construction prevented an additional $145-million loss in these areas. The Mississippi crested at 21.5 feet Wednesday at Prairie du Chien, without incident. Crop damage rose in California's San Joaquin Valley as snow melting from the Sierra Nevada covered 75.000 acres of barley, cotton and safflower.

Hughes Given State Approval For 6th Casino Howard Hughes was granted permission today to take over his sixth Las Vegas gambling casino. The billionaire industrialist, however, retains his position as the third largest casino operator in the state, behind William Harrah of Reno and Del E. Webb, hotelman and contractor. The state gaming commission approved the application of Hotel Properties a Hughes firm, to operate 26 gambling games and 401 slot machines in the towering landmark hotel. this to the Supreme Court to get Nevada exempted," he said.

"The whole purpose of the tax is to fight illegal crime which we are not." A Washington area man who runs an illegal bookmaking operation asked how bookies like himself could be induced to pay $1,000 when few of them pay the S50 fee. "Hell, I'd pay $5,000 for a stamp if they'd let me alone," temperatures will be from five to 15 at Lake Tahoe. Patches of morning fog are expected in the Reno-Lake Tahoe area Friday. The storm which brought the cold snap dropped from two inches to almost two feet of fresh snow on parts of Western Nevada and the Sierra. He said higher rates would help achieve two important goals: Control of inflation by bringing the federal budget into better balance and improvement of the postal service.

If approved it would be the fourth postal rate increase since 1958 when the rate went from three to four cents for a letter. The price went up one cent in 1963 and again Jan. 7, 1968. Although he called for higher rates, Nixon stated: "This administration is determined that the cycle of greater and greater postal deficits and more and more rate increases will be broken." "The only way to break that cycle is through effective, long-range reforms in the way the postal system operates," he added. "Some of these reforms can be implemented by the postmaster general, others will require congressional action.

We will be submitting specific proposals for such reform to the Congress within the next 45 days." Nixon gave no hint whether he will favor the much-discussed suggestion that the Post Office Department be turned into a public corporation. to the Supreme Court as "unconstitutional." If they do, it won't be the first time the occupational gambling tax has been there. The Court ruled early last year that an illegal gambler couldn't be convicted for nonpayment of the tax if he claimed that by registering to buy the tax stamp he incriminated himself. Justice Department officials WASHINGTON (AP) President Nixon appealed to Congress today for a penny boost in the cost of mailing most letters and promised to outline a major overhaul of the Post Office Department within 45 days. In a special message, Nixon proposed increases in rates for first-, second- and third-class mail that he said would yield more than $600 million in the fiscal year starting July 1.

The first-class letter rate would be boosted one cent to seven cents and stamps for postcards would cost six cents, effective July 1, under his plan. Airmail rates now 10 cents would not be changed. Without these and other pro-posed increases affecting newspapers and magazines and the bulk mailings often termed "junk mail" Nixon said the Post Office Department's deficit In the coming fiscal year would approach $1.2 billion. Weather Reno, Sierra-Tahoe: Partly cloudy with scattered showers today. Clearing and much colder tonight.

Strong northwesterly winds today, decreasing tonight. Weather table on Page 2. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Damage in part of the Midwestern flood zone was placed at more than $100 million Wednesday as Illinois and Iowa braced for the approaching crest of the Mississippi River. The flood threat appeared to be over for Minnesota and Wisconsin, and officials were optimistic that damage in Illinois and Iowa would be minimal because of flood preparations. Flood threats continued in New England and the Far West from heavy rains and melting snows.

The Army Corps of Engineers said damage for northern Iowa, Bandit Routed By Barrage Of Eggs ST LOUIS (AP) A 70-year-old St Louis man drove off a would-be bandit with a barrage of fresh eggs Wednesday night. Police said Glen Mellon reported that a knife-wielding man in his early 20s approached him in an alley in the rear of Mellon's home as he was returning from a store. the New York and New Hampshire state lotteries. In Reno, North Swanson. owner of the Reno Turf Club, said the proposed federal wagering tax stamp along with the 10 per cent wagering tax was conceived originally a punitive measure rather than a revenue producer.

"It's obvious that we. the legal gamblers in Nevada, will have to get together and take Nevada Gamblers Call Nixon Plan Discriminatory WASHINGTON (AP)-Nevada gambling interests are complaining President Nixon's program to fight organized crime discriminates against persons engaged in lawful betting operations. Bookmakers in Nevada said a proposal, backed by President Nixon, to increase the federal occupational tax on wagering from $50 to $1,000 was unfair and Indicated they may fight it up.