Corpus Christi Caller-Times from Corpus Christi, Texas • 18

WEDNESDAY MAY 28 1969 LETTTIEIHIS From Oar Headers Texas Lobby Ethics Laws So Weak They Arc Useless Swimming Pool Workers Underpaid Editor the Caller: An open letter to the City Park and Recreation Department: It is most regrettable that during this period of Inflation and high cost of living that a living wage cannot be paid to employes of the city working as lifeguards cashiers etc at the local swimming pools Certainly minimum wage should be paid but a $105 sure by Sen Charles Wilson of Lufkin moved anywhere near a chance for final passage As the sporting saying goes just wait until next season-or session Rep Rex Braun of Houston says that then he will introduce a bill for full disclosure by legislators and other public officials of all sources of income But it would take an unforeseen blast against public apathy to get anything like that approved Nevertheless stricter lobby-control and official-ethics laws working together are essential to better state government And we agree with the Texas University government professor Wilboume Benton who wrote in his definitive Its Government and that lobby control law in Texas will ever be very effective" unless all legislators required to make public the sources of all their monthly and yearly income" problems are gaining priority over overseas military commitments in claims on not unlimited American resources Secretary Rogers nevertheless reconfirmed the provisions of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization SEATO was formed in 1954 by the United States Britain France Australia New Zealand Pakistan the Philippines and Thailand It was a side provision of that treaty contemplating agreed help to the nations formerly in Indochina (Cambodia Laos and Vietnam) that was used when the US went into Vietnam but without British and French agreement Then Secretary Rogers went on to Tehran to reconfirm US cooperation with CENTO This is the mutual defense and economic development agreement formed by Pakistan Iran Turkey and Britain in 1959 after Iraq with drew from the old Baghdad pact The US has bilateral military pacts with the three Near East CENTO members including Turkey and have become more friendly with the Soviet Union The United States also has military pacts in various forms other than SEATO with Australia the Philippines South Korea and Japan The extent of our commitments to Malaysia Burma and India are more vague There has always been a hesitancy to draw any line in the Far East where our national Interests are so vital as to justify military intervention and where they only merit aid short of force Such a line has been viewed as inviting aggression on the other side (former Secretary of State Dean Acheson was blamed for the Korean War for drawing the line off the Asian mainland) However the line should be clear in our own policy councils and Secretary Rogers' latest tour has apparently contributed little to such clarification US Defense in Far East: Where To Draw the Line? While considerable public attention is focused on officials' ethics at the federal level it seems pertinent to review the status of ethical conduct law in Texas' state government That status even putting it chari ta-bty is a rather sorry one After a wave of scandals in the mid-Fifties especially the widely damaging one involving legislators and the insurance industry the Texas Legislature in 1957 passed a lobby-control law and a financial-disclosure law for legislators Viewed as weak when passed they have in practice proved ineffectual MTie lobby-control law requires registration of lobbyists and regular reporting of expenses with rather stiff penalties for noncompliance However the law is so applying only during sessions and to to influence legislation with loopholes even that only a fraction of lobbying activity is disclosed or influential spending reported -The financial-disclosure law requires legislators to report only a controlling Interest in any business regulated by the state Even so most legislators simply Ignore even that toothless requirement though a few do fully honor its intent Gov Preston Smith recommended that the Legislature this session set up an autonomous state ethics commission to draft a conduct code for all state officials and employes but it was not even seriously considered Two senators and three representatives introduced ethics bills but only one a relatively mild mea per hour is ridiculous This Is of course personal grievance but one I have heard reiterated by others many times over My son had to seek employment elsewhere because of the small compensation received even though he would have preferred to work at the pools I honestly expect no action to be taken but it seems Improper that such unfair practices are permitted to continue and possibly If the taxpayers make themselves heard something will be done After all the city officials take good care of themselves Shouldn't they at least show a little concern for those that are dependent upon them for fair wage? While the NLxon administration is working through the Paris peace talks to extricate the United States from the Vietnam war intervention Secretary of State-William Rogers has just completed a Far and Near East tour apparently reconfirming US military commitments stringing from Turkey to Japan Tills may be designed as US assurance to allies that Vietnam peace negotiations if successful will not mean they will be abandoned to Communist expansionism threat in Asia But it also points up how difficult it is going to be to untangle the multiple treaty maze in that hemisphere drafted during the partomania era of the late Secretary of State John Foster Dulles Though reportedly emphasizing that US domestic Complaint on High Repair Costs tv'" WMw- JOSEPH KRAFT Latest of Grave State Force Misuse Editor the Caller: I recently took my stereo amplifier to be repaired as I had lost the output to my right channel The circuitry to be checked involved about ten transistors and associated components I provided a schematic and in an effort to save time tried to tell the repairman where the solution WAS I spent a few years in the Navy working In electronics and I admit I know what might amount to a bit leu than a drop in a bucket but the problem was simple and if I would have had some test equipment I could have fixed it myself To make a long story short three weeks and $30 later I retrieved my stereo When I questioned the high price of sound I was told the technician had trouble finding a bad resistor and wasted a lot of time (and my money) If I'm paying (or professional time I would expert mistakes to be at his own expense especially at $750 an hour Then I made the mistake of questioning the price of the replaced resistor as It was a simple carbon type that cost between 12 and 25 cents at any electronic supply This is what I was told: sell it for $150 and if you can get it for 25 cents why didn't you buy it and put lt in That amounts to between 600 per cent and 1200 per cent profit for that little part Did you ever wonder about the cost of other parts? There 1 little recourse as the law requires payment for services rendered I am registering a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and wish any and all others who feel they are being had by the high price of repair would do the same A WEIS MAN The application of so much force has brought the students together in almost unanimous opposition to the authorities Last week 15000 students as against 10000 in the best days of last year's Vietnam protests and about 5000 in the prime tit the FTee Speech Movement of 1964 -declared themselves in a referendum More than four-fifths called ter withdrawal of troops and reopening of the park BERKELEY Calif to says one of the feigns protesting students have put up here on the campus of the University of California And while the comparison with the Soviet rape of Czechoslovakia is farfetched the sign is not all Mack humor For the latest battle of Berkeley is an event far more grave than generally supposed particularly back East where it has been grossly underreported What Is happening here signifies a major intensification in the academic civil war and a crushing loss for the dwindling band of moderate men holding the ing naked bayonets manning machine-gun emplacements and moving around In heavy weapons carriers Police from Alameda County Oakland and other bay area forces have been brought up tricked out in helmets and flak jackets Photographs show them firing with pistols and with shotguns loaded with buckshot One apparently innocent bystander has been killed About a thousand students have been arrested and roughly handled At the Alameda Comity prison farm in Santa Rida hundreds were held for several hours face down on an asphalt pavement before even being Rep Record Praised Included In that overwhelming majority are every campus organization from the rah-rah boosters to the left-wing hippies Particularly bitter are the stu- Editor the Caller: For the political record of Rep Frances Farenthold For LULACs District XI Secretary Afcert defense of her actions WILHEUONA MUMFORD narrowing strip of ground that booked among them a reporter who fit the past have been is the middle for the San Francisco Chronicle Invasion of Churches Intolerable deliberately moderate in their politics Charles Palmer a senior going on to the Yale Law School and retiring head of the student government who spent most of the past year combatting leftwingers is a good case in point used to think it was stupid and offensive to can the cops Tigs' he said for the rest of my life when I see a blue uniform I'm going to feel Helicopter surveillance of the campus has been constant and because of the damage they might do to the choppers kites according to the students are not allowed to be flown In Berkeley In the most dramatic episode heavy tear gas was released over the campus without warning and in a manner so indiscriminate that the gas enveloped the university hospital and a wading pool as well as the demonstrating students The bare bones of the latest conflict are simple A group of students and local hippies built a on an unused piece of university land University authorities to assert their title fenced off the plot and brought force to bear Rut the amount of force has been absolutely staggering More than 2500 troops of the National Guard have been bivouacked on and around the campus They have been carry- Editor the Caller: It is reprehensible that churches in America can be and are being invaded by self-chosen egotistical black militant individuals demanding huge monetary payments from these worshipers for some vague alleged complicity in the abuse of these ancestors long ago Note must be taken that most of these money-seekers are not descendants of Negro slaves To even consider these extortion demands made under direct or implied threats of violence and destruction would be a cowardly admission of an untrue and impossible guilt it would perpetuate this proposed larceny The enormity of such a ridiculous accusation is cunningly planned to gain publicity and perhaps some fractional acquiescence by force of shock alone Lawlessness when inflicted upon an established and reedgnized religious group and particularly when perpetrated within a House of God during divine service is intolerable and should be punished without hesitation! Our US attorney general should art at once LOIS KENNY TEXANS IN POLITICS Veto Special Session Weapons of Governor 7 THOUGHT VD DELIVER IT BY HAND YOU KNOW HOW THE MAILS ARE Perhaps saddest of ail is the position of the responsible men supposed to run this university Charles Hitch president of the whole California university system and Roger Heyns chancellor here at Berkeley are supreme examples of the new breed in college authorities They are not so much academicians or fund-raisers as experienced and canny politicians skilled in accommodating a wide range of conflicting interest groups Both men understand that coddling left-wingers and hippies could set in motion against the university a wave of right-wing ti fl 1 cl tl III ti tx tl li ii a Vi tl ti tl ii tl si SI El II a TOM WICKER Okinawa Key Military Base But a Political Time Bomb reaction Accordingly they have along with Gov Ronald gone which allows B52s to take off for the Okinawan bases as for unimpeded for bombing attacks ip Japan By GARTH JONES Associated Press Writer Texas governors are apt to complain that the state constitution leaves them practically defenseless before the big gluts of Legislature Actually the state's govern on hafe a gun on each hip to fight off legislative attacks the veto and the special session And both are very powerful has been 28 years since a Textfs Legislature has overridden a gubernatorial veto Generally speaking a gover-norgets wnat he asks in special session which a lot of times is what he fails to get in a regular session Reagan and his increasingly conservative board of regents in applying disciplinary sanctions to unruly students In the past through elaborate procedural maneuvers Hitch and Heyns were able to Isolate the troublemakers And thus they held faculty support for disciplinary Anything leu might topple the Sato government and whether or not the premier fell his Liberal Democratic party would be greatly weakened for the 1970 TOKYO Okinawa Is a dream it could not be better if Curt LeMay himself had selected the site and arranged the conditions Within a radius of 1700 miles existing American aircraft can reach any Asian nation with which the United States has a Biblical Rule on Hair Length Editor the Caller: To the student from Kingsville who wanted to know what people had against long hair on men: I can't answer for everyone but the church that I go to has the Bible for our beliefs Read for yourself I Corinthians Chapter 11 Verses 3 to 15 It is also Just as wrong for a woman any woman to have short hair Some churches think a woman can cut her hair and wear a hat scarf or something of the sort for a covering But really according to that scripture those things are not coverings The hair Is a covering What reason these other people give you I Just don't know because if it Is wrong for you to have long hair it is just as wrong for women to have bobbed hair Note that scripture says if she cuts her hair she might just as well shave it In God's sight it Is all the same This is to the one who answered Stevenson's letter who signed LLof Alice Sorts left out some of it didn't you? be fair to this boy with long hair According to the Bible he is wrong but so Is every woman who has short hair EC Political View of Tax Money Editor the Caller: I came across some passage in a long forgotten book In American history This man concluded a speech to his fellow citizens by saying: to them is nothing but trash when lt Is to come out of the people But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving and many of them sacrifice honor integrity and justice to obtain You could call this Tax ERNESTO MORALEZ Jr (Kingsville) 1968 special session bill for the second-year financing A recent study by Fred Gantt Jr professor of government at North Texas State University torial powers shows that Gov who is an authority on guberna-Jim Hogg vetoed additional staff for his office A governor's veto during a legislative session can be wiped out with two-thirds vote of each house but a veto alter the session ends is permanent Of 936 vetoes under the constitution of 1876 only 25 have been overridden Passage of the one-year appropriation gives Smith the obligation to call special session at any time he chooses to provide for the second year of the state's fiscal year A veto of the one-year bin would give him an obligation to call one or more special sessions to provide for the entire two-year period Since the state operates on a cash Metis at least the first-year financing would have to be voted by this Sept 1 the start tit the fiscal period in Indochina and which permits the though the fact is never to stockpile nuclear weapons on the island This freedom of action is at elections If those elections then the heart of the trouble Actual- brought a coalition of leftist par-security agreement including ly the reversion of Okinawa to 1 1110 Pwer which is regard-Thailand and could also cover Japanese administration is con- here as a live possibility the every important area of main- ceded in principle by everyone Japanese-American security land China The real problem is whether the treaty and the American pres- Yet unlike Taiwan Okinawa Okinawan military bases will wee in Japan would be placed Now the string has run out on that technique Gov Reagan and the regents have the initiative Liberal Demo- i far enough out to a to give hareV in great Jeopardy frSifrfUnn hv fpnrimT iu defenders sufficient "reaction they will be governed by the Even the frontiftlon by fencing off the against attack from China same conditions that now apply crats who generally support tne or Korea With no mountains to American bases In Japan security treaty remained in Sldustrial smoke' snow nd newer once Okinawa bame Elv almost never any fog Okinawa nuclear weapons and of often- ully Japanese the Sato govern- fiords the best flying con- s've military operations without mcnt WOuld have no legal power ffi ditions in the Pacific the prior consent of the Japa- to Igree t0 mililary conditions dissidents to shut These two powerful weapons the veto and the special session are readily available and waiting for Gov Preston Smith as he faces Lt Gov Ben Barnes and Speaker Gus Mutscher in a shoidown over the one-year vs two-year spending bill duel is Smith's desdrfytion of his weapons Bhrnes and Mutscher say Smith will not veto a one-year MIL but aides keep hinting will Smith says legislators will not find what he will do until some tlmd after a following the mandatory June 2 dost of the regular session trying down the university as in the past but against an overwhelming major P1 teng Heading rate tor tea many tetter ara WMWlcaliaa Ta ka pekliitod letter i vntar'a Mgaatera tem at tataptoa iwmto? Name nm paMteataa and topi lltoMiai aa raweaeRU raaaail Pimm Ma tefira wto al a Aapayawn It has even better deep-water government ports than the home Islands of Japan and because the US beated is Japanese and took administrative control of Okinawan nationalist and pad-after World War II fist sentiment that when Foreign there are no legal restrictions Minister Kiichi Aichl leaves this on the military operations that week for talks in Washington he ask the can be launched from this re- Is expected to be picketed by amendments markable base firebrands who do not even want to negotiate on the issue No wonder then that the Okinawa's militant Reversion American military think Okina- Council which demands Lpn( wa is the greatest thing since diate total and unconditional re-Hannibal discovered the ele- (political jargon for phant American control of the the actual removal of the bases) Wand is nevertheless a politi- has passed a formal resolution im university officials new a far f1 tomb ticking away at against the Aichl visit and the mutant Japanese official put lt wider range of alternatives than Jhc heart of the Japanese-Amer- one planned for next fan by Pre- ntrol of the Island is proposed' lean security arrangement which in turn is the central pil- for that particular Island that the treaty would not permit elsewhere in Japan Hence if Washington will not agree to Sato would have no Choice but Diet to approve to the treaty for and that too would open the treaty itself to abrogation or more radical amend- That would be a far higher price to pay than yielding some degree or military flexibility on Okinawa After ail as one lm- are presently available They should not have to surrender to micr Sato In this kind of climate Japa proposed to be returned not to an enemy but to an ally and since the Corpus Chris ti Caller PuttMied each week pay rawfcvay Cor pm Chrtiti Co Saturday and Sunday adllteni: Tha' Car put Saund claw pettaga pate 1 Carpua Chrittl Ti morning axeapl Saturday at Tam 71401 by Tna CVbtl Lewer Mter-TImee Subliming Caller -Tim iiiitiiiiaiiiiii Edward Hartt Sobtrt Jackson i Glitort Vattari John Stalilngi 0 The 1871 constitution says no one but the governor can convene a special session and he alone can specify the purpose of the session If and when the governor thinks there is time for other legislation to be considered In a special session after the primary aim Is accomplished he can name other subjects for debate This power to a special session gives the governor even more power than he would have in a regular session where his legislative messages are often Ignored And a governor always knows something that legislators don't know If he does not like the product of a regular or special session he can swing his veto Gin and call another session on sown terms baboggtoooagoagooaatgaoogggooga iiaiiimiiaiiMMiiaIM(ldIMMlt( PuWHhtr Editor MonogiM Edlit Artvarttelng Dltocfor i CloMflad Circulation iiaaiainniiiai oaoddoadg I Clarxnc Trot Ion Jomn Wtwon Jam Cartou Production Manouar rninp Gnyor Public Hrtlm itorntor Of Tto Aunctatad Prm Tha Anoclatad Praia It antltlad -clmlvaiy la tea um tot puteicaiian al all local ntw printed In tela nowa-paper a wall all AP ntw dnpatche Since the appropriations bill wan not passed 10 days before the end of the session the governor has 20 days after June 2 to give his answer or he can let it become Ww without his signature If Smith does not veto at least some of the appropriations bill It will be highly unusual After the 1067 session Gov Joint ConnaHy vetoed $32 million out of the one-year appropriations bill then eliminated $13 million by veto out of the lar of the US position In the nese political analysts insist that bases are there in large measure to protect that ally it would make little sense to cling to freedom of operations on Okinawa at the cost of the alliance itself te Ntw Vork Tima Niwi Sarvlca radicals and hippies But neither should they have to go along or be willing to go along with men who have as little sympathy for the life of the mind as the governor of California A FuMhhara Hall Syndicate Pacific and East Asia For that reason the military may well have to relinquish what many prize most about the Sato must come home from Washington with both a specific date for reversion (sometime in 1972 or 1973 apparently would MTEt: nlng and Sunday 11 mmth U)j month ii 1 mantel i I month ifjj Dolly iCnlter nr until and Sunday 17 monte 174 tnontln 111 I monte 1 month It Dolly (Colter nr Time only) 11 month HI mantM 11SS 1 monte liti! I rnanlh SMI iSffl i month Hi I monte II PTi av CAbRlER: Cdlter dolly and Sunday cant a week! Time dally and Sunday emu week mam Ing gyaning and Sunday 71 am Okinawa American free- suffice) and condi-dom of action It la that freedom that Is the same rules 4.