ustxtxb_obs_1968_06_07_50_00012-00000_000.pdf

Texans and the Record Washington, D.C., Austin The gray pages of the Congressional Record, that journal which records the words of the nation’s lawmakers, at times yield some illumination as to the characters of certain of the gentlemen of Congress. One recent instance in point is this episode involving Houston’s liberal Cong. Bob Eckhardt, who spoke out for student rights in an incident that was unreported in the Texas press. In May the house was considering extension of the national defense student loan program. Cong. Louis C. Wyman, New Hampshire, offered an amendment that would withhold loans from any student who “willfully refuses to obey a lawful regulation or order of the university or college which he is attending or at which he is employed when such willful refusal is certified by the appropriate university or college authority to have been of a serious nature and contributed to the disruption of university or college administration.” The ensuing discussion of Wyman’s amendment concerned the recent disorders at Columbia University, where students for several days took over the administration building and impeded the operation of that school. Eckhardt then was recognized. “Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition … … I am not so old as not to remember 12 The Texas Observer Little Ned’s Renaissance INS APERS OSTERS AINTINGS AMPHLETS APERBACKS ERIODICALS ATHFINDERS LUS ARAPHERNALIA Roy Dugger, Prop. i la razes unida! 427 N. 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I can imagine some situations that existed then, quite different from the situation at Columbia, which would be covered by this same amendment. “At that time an editorial was printed in the Daily Texan called ‘Leeches Don’t Like Light.’ It attacked a local politician. It was considered that this was so disruptive of the university and its administration that the regents passed a rule, just as this amendment would . envisage, making it a violation of, the university regulations to print any remark in the daily newspaper of the University of Texas that would in any way disparage officials of the state of Texas, thus strictly restricting the students of the University of Texas, it seems to me, in an entirely wrongful manner. “They felt strongly that this type of editorial would disrupt the administration of the University of Texas. “Now I point out to the members here that what is attempted to be done is to create thousands of tribunals who, on the basis of their own prejudices, may determine what is disruptive to a university. This is not submitted to a court. It is not tried in a hearing. It permits no attendance of witnesses. It simply permits the predilections of the administration of an institution to determine whether a worthy young man without the money to pay for his own education may go to that institution,” Eckhardt said. Wyman asked Eckhardt if those who run a college were not in the best position to judge whether a student has disrupted that institution. “My answer to your question, sir,” Eckhardt said, “is: No, that the predilections of those who preside over that university’s management ought not to be in a position to judge whether or not they want a particular student to go there.” Cong. Frank Thompson, Jr., New Jersey, then recalled that “I had the privilege of going to a college or university dominated by the great and wonderful North Carolina Baptists, Southern Baptists in fact. That university or college would still today by its standards consider it to be a serious disruption of the aims and objectives of the university if students were to be caught playing cards or dancing.” Eckhardt then concluded his objection, “I would like to say further, if this amendment were passed, it would lead toward a disparity of treatment between those citizens who are attending a university and are poor and can attend only be Personal Service Quality Insurance Alice Anderson”Bow” Williams INSURANCE & REAL ESTATE 808A E. 46th, Austin, Texas 465.6577 cause they can get aid under this bill, and those who are attending the university and who can pay their own way without this assistance. “If we make second-class citizens of those young people of the United States who seek the programs afforded by this Congress, we do a great disservice to the entire structure of our educational system in America, because we tend to select those who are tractable. “If one is guilty of a crime, let it be proven in court and let him pay the penalty prescribed for it. If he be guilty of an infraction of an institution’s rules let his case be heard and decided absolutely independently of whether or not he is a recipient of federally provided loans or benefits. If the offense is sufficiently serious, he may be expelled, regardless, of his financial ability to attend college without financial assistance,” said Eckhardt. The amendment passed by 306 54. Among those voting no were Eckhardt and Henry B. Gonzalez of San Antonio. Voting yes were Texans Jack Brooks, Omar Burleson, George Bush, Earle Cabell, Bob Casey, Eligio de la Garza, Clark Fisher, Abraham Kazen, George Mahon, Wright Patman, J. J. Pickle, Bob Poage, Joe Pool, Bob Price, Ray Roberts, Richard White, Jim Wright, and John Young. Not voting were John Dowdy, Graham Purcell, and Olin Teague. OTHER RECENT items, as reflected in the Record’s pages, include San Angelo Cong. Clark Fisher’s rising to support the remarks of South Carolina’s Albert W. Watson about the Poor People’s Campaign. Watson said he believed the communists were greatly interested in the campaign, an opinion based largely on the fact that officials of the late Dr. Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference had conferred with officials of the Southern Conference Education Fund, most notably Carl and Anne Braden. Watson said the Bradens are communists. Fisher rose to “commend [Watson] for the very excellent address that he has delivered …. [E]veryone sympathizes with the plight of poor people. …. [Watson] has provided documented evidence pointing to possible communist connection with the march. Only recently a map charting the course of the ‘March of the Poor’ was published in the communist publication, The Worker. It traces the routes of the marchers from Jackson and Marks, Miss., Memphis, Chicago, and Boston. This may be called a coincidence,” Fisher concluded, “but it serves to confirm the active interest the Communist Party, USA, has in this invasion.” There are other recent tidbits: Dallas Cong. Joe Pool’s telling about the recent job fair sponsored by local businessmen in his home city, at which some 3,500 youths from low-income families found .0 7,,,,,t ,