House cuts Wescoe Hall
The Kansas House of Representatives Tuesday passed a motion deleting Wescoe Hall from a bill which would allow for the levying of bonds to cover building costs for campus construction.
Wescoe Hall was one of three buildings cut from the bill. The others were to be constructed at Wichita State and Fort Hays State College. All three were to be partially financed by increasing student fees.
The motion, which passed 51-49 was made by Rep. Rees Hughes, R-Pittsburg. He said it was a policy
matter and that he was opposed to establishing a policy of using student fees to finance general use buildings at state colleges and universities. He also made the motion to eliminate from the bill a power plant and science building at Wichita State University and a health, physical education and recreation facility at Fort Hays State College.
The Senate approved the bill in its original form, and the bill will now go before a compromise committee between the House and Senate for further discussion.
This is the final week of this year's legislative session. If the bill is not
passed by Friday, a special student referendum election on Wescoe Hall would be a possibility in mid-April, said David Awbrey. Hutchinson senior and student body president.
The students will not get to vote on the Wescoe Hall referendum in the regular elections March 17 and 18, Awbrey said, because of the pending bill in the legislature.
Awbrey said the ballots go to the printer today, and because of the possibility that the bill would eliminate student financing, the referendum will not be on the ballot.
David G. Miller, Eudora junior had turned in petitions with more
than 1400 valid signatures to force the referendum.
Those legislators who were in favor of the student financing said that the action could cost the state $3 million in federal funds.
Unless a building is built in the next 3-4 years, said Frank Zilm. St. Louis, Mo., senior, the University would be out of classrooms. The University is now using 89 per cent of its classroom space with enrollment expected to increase by 7,000 in the next 10 years and more space will be needed to keep up with the people, Zilm said.
Weather
Travelers warning today and tonight . . . Snow spreading eastward this foreoon and continuing this afternoon and tonight . . . creating conditions hazardous to travel. Snow accumulating one to three inches by daybreak Thursday. Continued cold with 10 to 20 miles per hour north to northeast winds today and tonight. Thursday.
--one enemy suspect and murder of a second during interrogation after the My Lai sweep. The two victims are the same Medina is charged with killing.
PARIS—France officially demanded today the end of all outside intervention in Laos and announced its readiness to help reestablish peace in the Asian kingdom.
The French cabinet issued the call for the cessation of foreign interference after today's cabinet meeting chaired by President Georges Pompidou. It demanded that peace be restored in Laos on the basis of the 1962 Geneva agreements guaranteeing Laotian neutrality.
NFO burns potato crop
AMERICAN FALLS, Idaho—National Farmers Organization members Tuesday began burning an estimated five million pounds of potatoes in an effort to jack up prices.
The "potato bake" brought the total amount of potatoes burned in Idaho in the past week to seven million pounds.
80th Year, No. 96 The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas Wednesday, March 11, 1970
Army charges five with murder
WASHINGTON (UPI) — The Army in a surprise move Tuesday brought four charges of murder against Capt. Ernest L. Medina, the company commander during the alleged My Lai massacre. Medina has denied seeing, ordering or hearing reports of a massacre.
Charges also were filed at Ft. McPherson, Ga., against four other military men, including an Intelligence officer, bringing to 10 the number charged in connection with the March 16, 1968, sweep in which scores of South Vietnamese villagers are alleged to have been killed.
Medina, answering reporters' questions before television cameras at the Pentagon Dec. 4, said:
"I did not see a slaughter and none was ordered by me or reported to me. But it is possible that it could have taken place. I did see some civilian bodies. They were among the 20 to 28 civilians I reported had been killed."
One of Medina's platoon leaders, Lt. William L. Calley Jr., will be court-martialed starting May 18 on charges of premeditated murder of 102 civilians at My Lai. A squad leader there, S. Sgt. David Mitchell of Ft. Bliss, Tex., faces a court-martial on charges of assault with intent to murder 31 civilians.
A special subcommittee formed by the House Armed Services Committee, meanwhile, reported that because of legal action under way, it could not ascertain publicly whether a massacre actually took place at My Lai.
The panel, headed by Rep. F. Edward Hebert, D-La., said it would focus its attention instead on the Army's handling of the affair to determine whether there had been a "coverup" and whether an innocent soldier had been wrongly prosecuted.
Medina, 33, of Pico Rivera, Calif., commander of Company C of the American Division's 11th Infantry Brigade during the My Lai sweep, was specifically charged with the murder of two unidentified persons "on or about" March 16, 1968, the murder of two enemy suspects—and the maiming of one of them—during interrogation late that day after the sweep, and assault with a deadly weapon against a third prisoner during interrogation the following day.
Medina and the other four charged Tuesday are at Ft. McPherson outside Atlanta, Ga., and are not under confinement.
The others are:
Capt. Eugene M. Kotouc, 35, of Ft. Omaha, Neb., charged with assault, maiming and murder of
S. Sgt. Kenneth L. Hodges, 24, of Dublin, Ga., charged with rape and assault to commit murder.
Private Max D. Hutson, 24, of Attica, Ind., charged with rape, murder and assault with intent to commit murder.
Sgt. Esquel Torres, 21, of Brownsville, Tex., charged with murder and assault with intent to commit murder at My Lai, where two months later he was wounded and received a Purple Heart. There is a separate count of murder "about February or March, 1968" against Torres.
The remaining three servicemen facing possible courts martial are Sgt. Charles E. Hutto, 22, of Tallulah, La., charged with premeditated murder; rape and assault with intent to commit murder; Pvt. Gerald A. Smith, 22, of Chicago, accused of premeditated murder and indecent assault on a Vietnamese woman, and Capt. Thomas K. Willingham, 25, of Allenhurst, N.J., accused of unpremeditated murder of an unspecified number of civilians two miles away from My Lai on the same day.
Charges include printers
By STEVE FRITZ Kansan Staff Writer
Charges that were filed with the University Disciplinary Board will be broadened to include the Black Student Union (BSU) and those individuals who destroyed the Feb. 23 University Daily Kansan and printers employed by the University Printing Service. Thomas E. Sullivan, Kansas City, Kan. junior, said Tuesday.
"I feel that censorship of the Harambee," Sullivan said, "was as much an infringement of free speech and academic freedom as the destruction of the Kansan."
"In both cases there was censorship of a sort; in both cases certain members of the University community set themselves up as judges of what publications the rest of the community should have access to." Sullivan said.
"Both actions, "he continued, "were detrimental to the University as a whole, and both wrongs should be redressed."
There is a connection between both the action of the BSU and the printers which makes it desirable to try them together as part of a single case, Sullivan said.
"I have been advised by my legal counsel," Sullivan said, "that my formal complaint against both the BSU and the printers should be filed with the new University Judiciary, in order to assure jurisdiction over both groups. Therefore, I am dropping my complaint filed with the University Disciplinary Board."
Michael G. Norris, third year law student from Wichita, and Barkley Clark, associate professor of law, are advising Sullivan in the case.
The charges that will be presented to the University Judiciary, Norris
said, will be signed by Sullivan and five other students. The other students are Glenn Holroyd, Kansas City, Kan. junior; Thomas Moats, Kansas City, Kan. junior; James Roller, Bettendorf, Ind. senior; Steven Converse, Kinsely, Ky. senior; and Mark Warren, Kansas City, Kan. sophomore.
We will present the charges to the University Judiciary, Norris said, on March 15 or shortly after.
Norris said, "the Student Senate rules on matters such as this are rather vague; however, we have to be specific in our charges in order to give the parties concerned adequate notice to what they are being charged with.
"We will abide by the policy to give no information that we consider might be misleading until after the formal charges have been filed," Norris said.
William T. Smith, director of the KU Printing Service, said, "The walk out over the printing of the Harambee was not a union activity. There are members of printers unions employed at the print service, but there is not a University print service union.
"The refusal to print the BSU paper," Smith said, "was an act of some of the employees who wanted to find out if they could be held liable for printing the paper."
Harold Fox, spokesman for the printers, said the walkout was a group of individuals who wanted to be sure they could not be held liable, not a union activity.
"I don't see how the two actions can be tied together," Fox said. "I cannot make any other statements," he said, "until I receive an official copy of the charges."