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Senate should Change attitude Some members of the USC Student Senate are making a deliberate (and somewhat' successful) attempt to curtail the powers of the president of the student body, Leigh Leventis. In recent weeks, ob vious measures and remarks have been made in the senate which have specifically been aimed to present Leventis in a bad light to the senate. The pity of the situation is these measures have been totally un called for and are merely the result of several senators attempting to shift the real power in the SGA from that of the president to heads of certain committees within the senate, such as the Student Senate Finance Committee. An example of this "power grabbing" is a measure which was in cluded. in the SGA's budget (which took the senate three weeks to pass) which required any item not already allocated in the budget to be submitted to both the Student Senate Finance Committee and the student body treasurer for their approval seven days in advance of the actual need for the funds. (Leventis vetoed this portion, but it was overridden.) This places the control of the purse strings in the hands of the Senate Finance Committee Chairman and student body treasurer. If they do not approve of a project the president desires to accomplish, all they have to do is not approve his request for funds. In running an effective and student oriented administration, the president of the student body must and should have the power to ap propriate funds as he sees fit, without having to obtain "permission" from the Student Finance Committee. This is not to say, however, that he should not be held accountable for any and all the money he (the president ) spends. On the contrary, the president must and should be held accountable for all of the money he spends on his projects, but the Senate Finance Committee should not be the one to determine what projects the president can and cannot have. His accountability for funding should come after, not before, the fact. If it is determined after the fact that he is misusing these funds, then and only then, should the student senate step in and censure him. An attitude now prevails in the senate which virtually has the effect of overriding or being against anything Leventis is for. While the senate should not be'a "rubber stamp" for the president, it shoidd at least make the attempt to cooperate with him. The senate overrode the Leventis veto on the measure we were referring to above by an overwhelming margin. Many of the senators present at that meeting either did not realize what was going on, or did not care. Another slap at Leventis taken last week was the approval by the senate of all committee appointments made by Leventis and approved by the Senate Powers and Responsibilities Committee except one, Leventis' ex-roommate Ray Snyder. Snyder has been requested to appear before the senate for questioning by the senate before they will grant approval of his appointment to the committees. Several members of the senate said they feared Snyder might have too much "power" if appointed to these committees and wanted to know the role Snyder played in the operation of the summer SGA. This is an obvious, meaningless and malicious slap in the face to Leventis and an insult to Snyder. The purpose of the student senate should be to provide a checks and balances system in the operation of student government and to in troduce meaningful legislation on behalf of students. The senate has misused its checks and balances authority and has passed only one or two bills whih have been helpful to the people they are supposed to represent. It is past time for this senate to concentrate on passing meaningful legislation, and spend less time bickering and power grabbing. WNO GAMECOCK "It bs a newspaper's duty Ie print the mews, and raise ben." WILBUR F. STOREY BILL GRANT. EMiav BILL OUTLAW ART FR ANK EmraIs Page Edber Advertlsing Mamager October 21, 1974 TOMMY FOWL.ER Assignmnents Editor TERRY COON Production Manager JACK SOWEL..- - Production Supervisor STEVE PARKER Sports Editor RUSSELL JEFFCOAT__________Chief Photographer DAVID HAVIRD Entertainment Page Editor MOBY SALAHUDDIN Ass. News Editor JIM HIERSH..__---.Ast. sports E4nta LETTERk Homecoming TO THE EDITOR: This letter is in reference to your "insipid" writers Chuck Cromer and Terry Dugas, whose "poor planning and questionable talent" was evident in their fashionable way in giving a truth ful view of homecoming 1974. (Oct. 14, Issue) There were so many falsehoods in their article that it is impossible to cover them in a concise manner. Therefore, we will attempt to cover them in dividually. To start with, the writers statement that homecoming was barely noticeable was probably because the writers were not in attendance at any of the activities as spectators. God only knows where the estimate of 200 people at the "Night of Gold" came from, when in actuality there were over 2,000 people there. Dugas was the only one to show his face all weekend. He was present at cockfest and attended it in a capacity as an employee of sound and lighting. His view of the performance that night was from inside the dugout behind the stages on the field. His crowd estimate was given to him from the. sound man long before the show began. He did not even ask the director for the correct figure, which was well in excess of 4,000, and not 2,500 as reported. So how can these round about town boys make any kind of judgment other than whether they need to shave or not, and that is questionable. We feel, as do most who took part in this year's homecoming, this was the.best and most successful homecoming the school has seen in many years. To belittle such festivities and call them "highschoolish" is only showing the ignorance and prejudice of the so called members of The Gamecock staff. The theme "The Way We Were," was not intended to be nor received as, by the intelligent observer, "a grease hair and bobby sock theme." If Dugas and Cromer had opened their eyes they would have noticed this fact. It was clearly evident at Cock fest and the parade that the theme entailed skits and floats concerned with cavemen, westerns, and other eras. We could go on and on and talk about the collective greek muscle and alumni receptiveness from homecoming, but we know that every organization on campus was asked to participate in the homecoming festivities and that homecoming is geared partially for alumni. All we ask is that our student newspaper not let personal vendettas block the truth from Its readers as was done by Dugas and Cromer. In the future please don't ask blind men for crowd estimates and try attending a university activity before you attempt to cut it down. Those of us who worked so hard to make homecoming a reality this year, do not appreciate the untrue, biased opinions of these writers and the newspaper itse!r BOBBY HARTIN Parade Co-Chairman BOB SWELGIN Cockfest Director Bomb scare TO THE EDITOR: Monday morning, Oct. 14, a female voice called the night garnd ...Homecoming, Campus Opinion at South Tower saying that a bomb would go off in the building at 2:25 a.m. The call came in at 2:10 a.m. At 2:20 a.m. the Campus Police came to the building and pulled the alarm. According to estimates made by several residents, the building was not completely evacuated until 2:30, five full minutes after the bomb would have exploded. As residents we would like to protest the procedure followed by security guards and the Campus Police. The whole affair was assumed to be a prank even though there was no evidence to support the assumption. Why wasn't the alarm pulled when the call came in, not ten minutes later? The city police were not present. Neither was a bomb demolition team. To find the bomb, Campus .Police turned over all the trash cans in the building scattering trash everyehere. If there had been a bomb and if the campus police had found it, what would they have done with it? Flushed it down the John perhaps? Dorm guards should be given a procedure to follow in the event of this type of emergency. The building should be cleared before the bomb is to go off, not after. Residents should be moved from the immediate area. Proper authorities should be notified. Adjacent buildings should also be cleared to protect those residents. A bomb threat shouldn't automatically be considered and treated as a prank. EMILY STRAIT MARGARET WELLS NANCY KULINSKI DEBRA JONES GAIL McCUTCHEON Column provides hearty laugh TO THE EDITOR: I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Bill Outlaw for providing me with one of the heartiest laughs I have enjoyed in years. His reply to the article written by Chuck Cromer and Terry Dugas concerning the recent Homecoming activities must go down in the annals of humorous writing as a classic. As I turned to the editorial page, searching in vain for something The Gamecock's 1k The Gamecock weleemes letters be limited to a single subject and a must be signed with. 'the writers ether aliases will met be used, be withheld if cfrcamstances warrant identity of writers, please Imelmde telephome number where you cam right to edit all letters, aet:Ier es IlmItatioas. Addresi:. Campus 0 Columbia ZMea. Bomb scare worthwhile to read in the Gamecock, I was immediately struck by the name of Mr. Bill Outlaw, printed in large bold type with the title "Columnist" un derscoring his name. Surely, anyone so proud of his name and title must be an intelligent fellow with something worthwhile to say; it would require a great deal of conceit to make such a show and not possess the requisite abilities to back it up. But, alas, such proved not to be the vase. It seems to be Mr. Outlaw's opinion that things would be better around Gamecock Country if only people would go back to "the day we were", con cerning ourselves with the im portant Issues of the day, such as how many people attended Cock fest and the need for greater at tention to be paid to the election of a Homecoming queen. After all, are not high school pep rallies at a university to be ap plauded as an indication of that rare and sought-after commodity, known as "school spirit"? Cer tainly the idea of criticizing the annual Greek and Alumni party Is tantamount to treason. How dare Cromer and Dugas write such rubbish and then have the nerve to print their opinions so as to be put in Mr. Outlaw's eyesight! (I hope ror the sake of the freedom of the press that the Outlaw who wishes to be free of the opinions of others is not thesameBill Outlaw who is listed as the Editorial Page Editor). The climax of the gen tlemen's article was his candid admission to us that he was a member of a fraternity. While I laud his candor, the confession was hardly necessary; Mr. Outlaw's artidle has "Freddy Frat" written all over it. Looking beyond the absurdity of Mr. Outlaws' values, the tragedy of the situation comes to the surface. A vast number of undergraduates students at this institution do not possess the slightest Intellectual interest. This is a party school, they will tell you, and they are proud of it. Until this attitude changes, all the buildings, professors, programs and facilities in the world will not make USC a notable institution of higher learning. W. DAVID AVERS titer policy from readers. Letters should maximum of 30 words. They true name. Pboudomyms or I the writer's name win be .To assist us Ia ver'ifyIng the your maing address and a be reached. We reserve the. iet. bust te meet our space ab., raw... A, ...