Daily hansan
61st Year. No. 59
Lawrence, Kansas
House Passes Education Bill; Called Big Step
Wednesday, Dec. 11, 1963
WASHINGTON — (UPI) - School aid supporters, after years of defeat, celebrated their first big victory today in their campaign to put federal dollars to work for American education.
The breakthrough, hailed by backers as the greatest in a century, came late yesterday with Senate passage on a 54-27 vote of a $1.2 billion "Bricks and Mortar" college construction aid bill.
THE MEASURE, passed by the House Nov. 6, authorizes direct grants and low interest loans for the construction of classrooms, libraries and laboratories.
President Johnson hailed the Senate's action as a "major step forward . . . this Congress is well on its way to doing more for education than any Congress since the Land-Grant College Act was passed 100 years ago." The bill was expected to be ready for his signature by tomorrow.
Advocates of federal aid to education expect to win another long battle before Congress goes home this year. House-Senate confeerees yesterday agreed on a $1.5 billion measure that would add more money into existing federal aid programs for vocational education and college student loans.
THE COMPROMISE college aid bill was hung up in the Senate because of a dispute over the vocational school measure. The controversy got so hot last week that at one point Sen. Wayne Morse, D-Ore., chairman of the Conference Committee, told his colleagues it appeared there would be no school aid bills this year.
But President Johnson moved into the situation during the weekend with calls to key members, and agreement was reached
Student aid was left out of this year's college bill but the church-state issue still plagued it. Sponsors put limitations on use of the money, however, to guard against the use of federally-financed classrooms for teaching subjects with religious overtones.
A COLLEGE construction aid bill similar to the measure passed yesterday almost got through Congress last year. It floundered at the last minute on the united opposition of Republicans, to a new student assistance program, and of southerners, to direct federal grants for private and church-connected colleges
Lectures Made More Graphic
A small scientific demonstration in a large classroom is often lost to the students sitting on the back rows
But a KU professor has devised a simple, inexpensive way of making a demonstration as graphic as if it were done on the student's desk.
CLARK BRICKER, professor of chemistry, is assembling the equipment for a method of overhead projection which carries every detail of a demonstration. All that is necessary is a good projector which takes vertical slides and a few small pieces of demonstration equipment which Prof. Bricker is now assembling.
The whole thing, except the projector, can be carried in an attache case from lecture to lecture.
Prof. Bricker said the effect is much better than if the demonstration were done in a large test tube. Every detail of the demonstration can be seen.
AND, THE EQUIPMENT is so portable that it can easily be shared among staff members so long as lectures do not overlap.
Electrolysis and precipitation, for example, can be seen by everyone in the room, Prof. Bricker said.
SLIPPERY AND WET-Students, not used to the slippery walking conditions, balance precariously and reach for the rail as they go down the steps to Malott Hall. A buildings and grounds workman shovels to remedy the situation.
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Inconveniences, Spirit Arrive with Snowfall
A new way of walking hit the campus last night.
It is now time to trudge and sludge through the first snowfall of the year. Boots have been added to the daily dress of heavy coats, gloves and sweaters in the campus-wide effort to combat the cold and snow. NONE HAVE an extra pair
"ANYONE HAVE an extra pair of boots? Left mine at home."
"What do you mean, extra? I don't have any. Left mine at home too."
Busses were overloaded as students shirked from the cold and wet of the snow. Women on the bus going on campus from Hashinger Hall had to get off the bus at the bottom of Neismith Road hill and got on again at the top of the hill.
NO LONGER can students step off in a brisk pace from class to
Cleaning sidewalks may be a constant chore for the next few days. The weather bureau has predicted continuing snow in eastern Kansas through Wednesday night, with an accumulation of four to six inches of snow by tomorrow morning.
clas. They must tread with care avoiding slick areas of the sidewalk. Until the walks are cleaned off the pace will be up and down instead of forward and onward.
WITH THE possibility of a white Christmas more plausible, Christmas carols rose to new heights of popularity last night. "It just makes me feel like Christmas. You can't play carols when it's 70 outward."
And the most important thought of the student thinking of home and Christmas—"If I can just get that darn bus."
Miners Still Rebel; Leader Terrorized
LA PAZ, Bolivia—(UPI)—Terrorists attacked the home of Bolivia's labor minister with dynamite and bullets today shortly after the government gave rebellious tin miners a 48-hour ultimatum to release 17 hostages, including four Americans or face military action
A stick of dynamite, commonly used in mining operations, was thrown on the doorstep of Labor Minister Anibal Aguilar Penarrieta at dawn and two shots were fired into the house.
THE MINISTER, brandishing a sub-machine gun, ran into the street in his pajamas to return the fire, but the assailants fled in an automobile. No one was injured, and damage from the attack was minor.
The government's tough warning to the rebel miners was issued by Defense Minister Gen. Luis Bidagain.
NEW VIOLENCE THREATENED with announcement by the Bolivian worker's central which rebel leader Vice-President Juan Lechin heads that it would stage an anti-government demonstration in La Paz tomorrow.
Foreign Minister Jose Velarde said, meanwhile, the government appreciated a U.S. aid offer but did not need help—"neither arms or munitions and much less, personnel."
However, threat of an imminent armed clash between the army and the rebellious miners dissipated somewhat with announcement of a "truce" between the opposing factions.
The army command at Oruro, where the government has been massing troops, said forces sent out to cut off the rebel elements at Catavi, where the hostages are being held, had been withdrawn. In exchange, rebellious minors called off a "show of strength" among peasant supporters in the Bolivian highlands and agreed to resume work at unaffected mines.
THE REBELS seized the hostages, including the Americans, last Friday to force the government to release three communist labor leaders being held on murder and fraud charges in La Paz.
Correspondents were allowed to visit the hostages in Catavi yesterday. They found them in good spirits and generally well treated despite some discomfort and the unmistakable danger of their situation.
The Americans, with a Dutchman and a German, have been held since Friday in a 12-by-18-foot room in a mine-union library in Catavi.
THEIR CAPTORS apparently are feeding them well—dinner last night consisted of soup, steak with mashed potatoes, salad and coffee and they have chessmen, checkers and playing cards to help pass the time.
Eight miners armed with rifles stand guard outside the door. Women who do housekeeping chores for the captives carry sticks of dynamite with them wherever they go.
Vice-President Juan Lechin, boss of the tin miner's union and author of the current crisis in Bolivia, told a $2\frac{1}{2}$ hour press conference in Catavi that the foreign hostages must be kept in close confinement to protect them against miners infuriated by the movement of government troops to Oruro.
Although the Americans were calm about their plight, the Dutch hostage—Cornelius Bloot, manager of the Catavi tin mine—was furious about the situation.
"IM A FRIEND of these people!" he said. "How can they commit such an outrage?"
Sixteen Bolivians seized as hostages are being held separately from the foreigners. Three Canadians in Catavi are not in confinement, but they have been ordered not to leave town.
Lechin accused one of the hostages, U.S. labor information attache Thomas M. Martin, of "interfering in Bolivia's internal affairs" by trying to persuade miners to join the COB union federation, which operates from La Paz.
ALTHOUGH BROADCASTS over the miner's radio had exhorted members of Lechin's union "to repel the forces of (President Victor) Paz Estenssoro"—presumably meaning the union is mobilizing its militia—there was no evidence of military activity visible in Catavi.
Sinatra Jr. Returns Home Unharmed
WEST LOS ANGELES—(UPI)—Young Frank Sinatra Jr.'s kidnappers turned him loose unharmed today after the youth' talked them into getting him go before they knew 240,000 ransom had been paid by his famous father.
"He talked that guy into turning him loose, that's what he told me," aid the security guard who picked up Frank Jr. shortly after he was released near his mother's home.
The 19-year-old Sinatra was kidnapped at a Lake Tahoe Resort last Sunday night.
Frank Sinatra Sr. held an impromptu news conference outside his first wife's palatial hilltop home in Bel-Air in predawn darkness to describe the return, only minutes before, of his 13-year-old son.
"I'm sorry," were the boy's first words, his father said. He added the boy appeared unharmed although 'he hadn't eaten much.'
SINATRA SAID he had talked with Frank Jr. twice during eight
telephone conversations with the kidnapers in the two days.
The first call was to his motel in Reno, Nev., where he kept a tense vigil.
"They said they had the boy, and, bang, that was the end of the conversation," the senior Sinatra said.
He said he believed seven or nine persons were involved in the kidnapping. He said he talked to the same kidnapper each time, a man whose voice led Sinatra to believe he was in his early 20s.
SINATRA SAID the ransom, collected from several banks yesterday, was paid in $100, $50, $20 and $10 denominations.
He said the money was left in a piece of luggage at the U.S. Veterans Hospital on Wilshire Boulevard, not far from where the Sinatra home is located.
Twice during the night Tuesday, he said he left his former wife's home to answer telephone calls in separate Los Angeles area service
stations. He also left to pick up the boy but couldn't find him.
Frank Jr. was picked up by a private Bel-Air patrolman, George C. Jones, 50, who found the youth walking along a nearby Beverly Hills street and took him to his mother's house in the trunk of his car.
As he drove by the hordes of newsmen waiting outside the home, he said: "Any news yet boys?" Then he drove the hidden youngster on to his family.
and was forced to take sleeping pills to keep him groggy.
Jones estimated Frank Jr. had walked about two miles from a freeway junction where the kidnapers let him out.
"I HEARD someone call and stopped," Jones said. "I backed up to see who it was. I almost gave up, when I saw this fellow. He was walking in the middle of the street. I recognized him, but I didn't believe it."
Jones said young Sinatra told him he was blindfolded most of the time
"He was scared at first," Jones said of Simatra's first few hours with the kidnapers, "but later Frankie said, they were more scared than I was.
"One fellow chickened out and ran off," the patrolman quoted the youth as saying.
As he left to return to the house and his son he turned, smiled and said: "Tomorrow is my birthday and its the best present I could get."
THE YOUNG Sintra was kidnapped by two men from his motel in Stateline, Calif., directly across the state line from the (Harrah's) Club where he was appearing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, the same band that gave his famous father his big start toward fame.
"He said he's been in more automobile trunks than he's ever seen in his life," the elder Sinatra quoted his son. "I understand that to mean that "they transported him in trunks," he added, smiling.