The Times from Shreveport, Louisiana • Page 11

09 i FIXTT VI SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1996 11 A Doonesbury BY GARRY TRUDEAU Shreveport Journal The Shreveport Journal is now an Independent editorial page published Monday through Saturday under an agreement between the Journal and The Times. Its views are independent of those on The Times editorial page. Journal editorials represent the opinion of the publisher and editors of the Journal. Signed opinions are the views of the writer. OKA, BOYS ANP GIRLS, Letters to the editor are welcomed at P.

O. Box 31110, in Shreveport, La. 71130, The Journal's telephone number is 459-3365. The Shreveport Journal, founded in 1895, is locally owned. It was published as an afternoon newspaper until March 30, 1991.

WE'RE GOING TO TAKBA QUICK i gather, from your non- mnoo A 1A I JL I RESPONSVENESSTHATOUR fj SURPRISING, a JS1' itfe FRJENP CHASE HASNT BEEN OFCOURSB, MB GET UP ON H5Y, AT 7 RJN5IN67DO MANYBEUSWfTH GIVEN THE. TUB WRONG I LEAST I (MIT A I I HIS ANTI-QJN70N HARANGUE- II TRASH HE 9PE0FTHE v- MAPEW. MINUTE. i 2m. jmMgBfS HAS TO 8EPTOPAY! Jr AGAIN! 1 Publisher Charles T.Beaird Editor Jim Montgomery Editorial Writer Tim Greening Rodney runes THE E-MAILBAG: journalpaol.com EDITORIALS WHIPPING BOY? Video poker is part of gaming development Is there any real question as to whether gambling has become a significant industry for Shreveport and Bossier City, not to mention the rest of Louisiana? For more than 20 years, Louisiana Downs has been an important and welcomed institution here.

Bingo and "casino nights" have been popular fund-raising events for years for area groups and churches (some of which now, ironically, are opposing gambling as "bad" for us). The people of the whole state voted to amend the constitution to allow a statewide lottery. And with the beginning of riverboat casinos just over two years ago, the industry took a real leap the boats alone employ more than 6,200 people in Northwest Louisiana, with employee payrolls of more than $93 million a year. With that sales of housing, autos and retail goods have spurted. Local governments are collecting revenue they'd otherwise have to tax citizens to get.

Polls show area voters are likely to approve keeping the riverboat casinos in Tuesday's local option elections, and we sincerely hope that turns out to be the case. Ignore the Addicts, Vote for Gambling I hear that the current increase in riverboats has increased the number of gambling addicts, and thus, should be voted against. Poor little babies. These innocent individuals are being preyed upon by the big mean gambling industry. Having lived a previous life of virtue and character, these individuals have become gambling junkies.

My decision on gambling is not going to be based on what it does to a minority of weak people. Even though I don't gamble, I have no problem voting to allow those adults who want to the opportunity. And as long as the surrounding states keep gambling illegal it will be a strong financial asset to Louisiana. So make sure you vote in favor of freedom. Vote for gambling.

You can "bet" I will. JAMES BURIAN Shreveport Bible: Trust God, Not Lady Luck As election day rapidly approaches, Christians must look at gambling to determine the ethical and moral implications of our vote. This must be determined by the principles of scripture and God's attitude toward gambling. Searching the scriptures, you will not find the word "gambling" in any translation that I know of, but will find the following verse in Isaiah 65:11 "But ye (are) they that forsake the Lord, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that number." The Hebrew words translated "troop" and "number" were names of the heathen gods Gad, god of fortune or giver of good luck, and Meni, god of fate or bad luck. The sin that these people committed was trusting in luck rather than God.

A careful reading will make it clear there are numerous Biblical principles which indicate gambling is an evil to be avoided because: 1. It is a disregard of responsible stewardship; 2. It involves a chance of gain at the expense and suffering of others; 3. It is inconsistent with the work ethic of scripture, and; 4. It tends to be habit-forming.

As my Christian brothers and sisters step into the voting booth Tuesday, I pray that they will take into consideration what tne scriptures say before they vote. JAMES G. JONES Shreveport Reject Gambling Before Too Late One of the networks did a piece on Atlantic City after 20 years of casino gambling. For those who think gambling is the saviour of Shreveport-Boss-ier, I'm afraid it was a little disappointing. The city hasn't flourished and grown.

Quite the contrary. It continues to decay, and maybe at an accelerated pace. Those of you who are so pro-gambling wouldn't believe this to be so, but look at our area. All our city fathers' attention is on gambling. They are letting industry slip through their fingers.

Slowly the area is becoming a gambling-based economy. A base of thisi kind is like a house built on an unstable foundation. It's here today, but might not be tomorrow. Looking at Atlantic City, every mayor since gambling was legalized has been indicted for fraud. The casinos are very greedy.

They bus their customers in, put them up in their own hotels, feed them in their own restaurants, get all the money out of them they can, them bus them back out. The end result is that they haven't spent a penny outside of the casinos. As a result, the city slowly starves to death. Twenty years from now Shreveport-Bossier and Louisiana will be poorer as a result of gambling. Now is the time to get rid of it, because tomorrow will be too late.

J. METCALF Bossier City White House Is The Real Horror Read with interest the Joumalpage's version of "The Horror II." I think The Horror III is even scarier. Records mysteriously appearing and disappearing in the White House. Six months of a log being spirited away by a ghost. Nine nundred files appearing by magic.

The assistant secretary of Commerce being carried off by a witch and phoning in from the witch's lair. One thousand dollars turned into one hundred thousand with the wave of a Tyson Chicken wand. The taking of Vince Foster records by an elf after his death. Our president saying "you may think I raised taxes too much, well it may surprise you to know that I think I raised them too much also." This is the scariest of all, as undoubtedly the devil made him say that, and who wants the devil controlling our president? There are many other strange things that happen in the haunted White House. Who was the hobgoblin that ordered the travel office firings? What spook hired Livingstone? The skeletons that are in this spooky house are enough to scare the bravest soul.

GEORGE HAWTHORNE Shreveport Denial Stormed tfeMg. KITCHEN WW f7TVA THE fiANDf! So why, in the context of this new and growing industry, single out one form of gambling to be the whipping boy in Tuesday's election? That is what video poker has apparently become as this region struggles to accept the totally new business of gambling while holding onto its traditional opposition to such things. But video poker, too, has a case to make. In fiscal year 1996, it paid more than $170 million to state and local governments in taxes and fees, and it, too, has provided employment in hundreds of small businesses where video poker revenue has made the difference between profit and loss. It is also no, small part of the picture at Louisiana Downs, where revenue from video poker goes to improve purses and assure the continuation of quality thoroughbred racing.

It, too, has become interwoven with the other economic threads of local business. Video poker is simply another kind of gambling, no better and no worse than others. It should be viewed, we believe, as a part of this area's overall development as an entertainment center, and approved to continue. illnesses among Desert Storm veterans. She shared some of her work at home with her husband, who started his own unofficial investigation at the agency.

He found scores of cables between military posts, some confirming that the Iraqis had chemical weapons on the battlefield and others confirming that commanders were warned that such weapons had been detonated near their troops. When the Eddingtons shared their information with their superiors, it was categorically dismissed and both experienced hostility and career backlash when they pressed on. Both have since resigned from the CIA in disgust. These are serious charges raised by the Eddingtons, especially coming on the heels of recent information from the Czech military that U.S. commanders repeatedly ignored warnings of the presence of chemical agents during Desert Storm.

The pattern of revelations strongly suggest the Defense Department knows more than it's letting on. The Pentagon needs to end this disservice to its troops and to the nation before the scandal grows. COLLEGE 1811. Private academies were entitled to a per-student stipend under the law of 1811, a system which continued in effect until 1845. Caddo Academy at Greenwood and the Academy of Claiborne were both founded in the 1830s as those areas began to grow in population.

Minden Female Seminary opened in 1842, later becoming Minden Female College, one of the state's top women's schools in its day. At the same time an academy for boys, beginning at high school age, was also established at Minden. In the late 19th century the two merged but soon fizzled out, victims of the popularity of public education, which was a new phenomenon in the 1890s. Homer College at Homer (which is named for the Greek poet), was incorporated in 1855 and had the authority to accredit both bachelor's and master's degrees. Operating under the aegis of the Methodist Church, Homer College survived the Civil War but closed its doors in the early 1880s.

In Keachi (the traditional spelling of the town's name), a planter, T.M. Gat-lin, donated land to establish Keachi College in 1856. Operated by the Grand Cane Association of the Southern Baptist Church, Keachi College was chartered as a coeducational institution but ended up functioning solely as a New evidence continues to shatter the Pentagon's five-year denial that it. had knowledge of U.S. soldiers being exposed to dangerous chemicals during Operation Desert Storm.

Two former Central Intelligence Agency analysts said in Wednesday's New York Times that the government has documents showing there may have been as many as 60 incidents of American soldiers exposed to chemical agents during the Persian Gulf war. Patrick Eddington, who worked in the CIA for eight years before resigning last month, had the job of analyzing satellite photos of the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm. He said it was obvious even before war broke out that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons on the battlefield and intended to use them. Once fighting began, he said his office received several reports that the Iraqis did just that, but that his superiors told him to ignore them as false alarms. As reported in The Times, two years later, Eddington's wife Robin also a CIA analyst began working for a Senate panel to investigate reports of mysterious MANY A THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST ERIC J.

BROCK It may come as a surprise to some that prior to the Civil War there were a considerable number of institutions of higher learning in this region. Colleges and universities are nothing new to the area. In the antebellum days the Northwest Louisiana area boasted Mt. Lebanon College, the North Louisiana Collegiate Institute, Homer College, Mansfield Female College, Keachi College, Minden College, and other private colleges catering to the sons and daughters of planters and well-to-do merchants. Though some of these made it through the social and financial upheavals of the Civil War, few survived into the 20th century.

Perhaps the first college in the region was the Academy of Natchitoches, founded in 1819 and a recipient of public funds set aside for educational purposes in Louisiana beginning in HAS COME AND GONE HERE WTO THE FBI. cobs Street. Others were Caddo Academy, a boys' prep school of the 1870s and '80s, and its companion, Shreveport Female Institute. They were located next to one another on Crockett Street between Market and Edwards. Another girls' school of the era was the Kate Nelson Seminary at Grand Avenue and Texas Avenue.

St. Vincent's Academy was founded in 1869, and from 1938 to 1942 offered college diplomas. Centenary College is the only antebellum school operating in Shreveport today, though it didn't move here until long after the war had ended. Founded as an all-male college in Jackson, in 1825, it became a Methodist school in 1839, suspended classes for the duration of the war, then reopened. It became co-educational at the turn of the century, and relocated to Shreveport in 1908.

Numerous other colleges too numerous to name here also flourished in Northwest Louisiana after the Civil War. but few survived the Depression and fewer still survive to this day. As noted, though, many of the region's modern institutions of higher learning have roots stretching back to the late 1800s, and a very small handful go back even further. Erie J. Broek is a Shreveport historian.

1859 (it became LSU in 1868). Little known is the fact that one of that school's first presidents was a young professor named William T. Sherman. Sherman later said he loved his life in central Louisiana and would have liked to have stayed on at Pineville had the Civil War not intervened. Of course, today, he is known for his role as a leading Union general who led the devastating march across Georgia, and for his brutal occupation of the South.

In Shreveport, Samuel P. Helme organized a preparatory school for girls called the Moss Side Institute in the 1850s. Cottage Grove Seminary opened in north Bossier Parish in 1857. Red Land Seminary in Bossier Parish opened in 1859, about the same time as Bellevue Seminary in Bellevue, then the seat of Bossier Parish. Fillmore Academy opened in 1864 near Haugh-ton but lasted less than 20 years.

None of these schools was long-lived. Mansfield Female College, which opened in 1856, survived as late as 1930, however. Among the many post-Civil War schools in the area were Shreveport University (1868-1874), a Baptist college located on Texas Avenue near the present site of the main post office, and The Thatcher Institute (1867-1896), a male prep school located at the southeast corner of Southern Avenue and Ja preparatory school and college for young ladies. During the Civil War its building was used as a Confederate hospital. Unlike many area private schools which did not survive the War, Keachi College reached its peak enrollment in 1891.

In 1914, however, a mixture of circumstances forced its closure and in 1928 the old building was replaced by a new high school for Keachi. That building today is empty and derelict. One of the most important, albeit short lived, area colleges was Mt. Leba- non University in Bienville Parish. 'Founded in 1853, it closed its doors in 1863 when all its students (it was an all-male school) went off to war.

Unsuccessful attempts were made to reopen the university after the Civil War, but in 1899 the old buildings were restored and reopened as Mt. Lebanon College under the auspices of the Louisiana Baptist Convention. In 1906, however, when Louisiana College opened at Pineville, Mt. Lebanon closed its doors. Its bell was given to Dodd College in Shreveport in 1927 and hung in the belfry of Shreveport Hall (now Dodd Hall of First Baptist Church School) until Dodd College closed in 1943.

Today the bell is at Louisiana College in Pineville. Pineville was also the first home of Louisiana State University, founded in.