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We are gravely disappointed<br />

with the actions of Illinois Rep.<br />

Paul Stone, D-Sullivan on bills that<br />

deal with student needs.<br />

As a member of the House<br />

Higher Education Committee,<br />

Stone voted against bills that would<br />

place student representatives on<br />

the <strong>University</strong> Board of Trustees.<br />

And this week, Stone was instrumental<br />

in killing a bill which<br />

would have allowed the sale of<br />

liquor in the Illini Union. In the first<br />

committee vote , the bill was<br />

defeated six to five. One legislator<br />

was going to change his vote, which<br />

would have allowed the bill to pass,<br />

but Stone called for a quorum.<br />

Some committee members had left<br />

the committee chambers since the<br />

first vote, so a quorum was not<br />

present and the bill failed.<br />

Although Stone was technically<br />

correct in asking for a quorum<br />

count, there is a long-standing<br />

custom that the proper time for a<br />

quorum count is when a bill is first<br />

voted on, and committee members<br />

may later change their votes even<br />

Stone's record disappointing<br />

if a quorum is no longer present.<br />

Stone's action kept the vote from<br />

reflecting the true sentiments of<br />

the committee, and resulted the bill<br />

being killed through parliamentary<br />

trickery.<br />

The reason for Stone's actions on<br />

these two issues is clearly the opposition<br />

of the <strong>University</strong>, which<br />

strongly opposes having liquor sold<br />

in the Union (although it has a<br />

special-interests bill pending in the<br />

General Assembly to allow it to be<br />

sold at the Levis Faculty Center )<br />

and wishes to keep students off the<br />

Board of Trustees, preferring to<br />

deal with them through powerless<br />

committees and professional flak<br />

men.<br />

We would remind Stone that<br />

many of the votes that elected him<br />

last fall came from the large<br />

student population in Champaign-<br />

Urbana, and that his primary<br />

responsibility is to his constituency,<br />

not the special interests<br />

located in his district.<br />

And we would warn students to<br />

take note of this example and not<br />

follow the habit of blindly voting<br />

Democratic in local elections, as<br />

they have shown a distressing tendency<br />

to do in recent elections.<br />

Although we do not condemn<br />

Stone completely as a state<br />

legislator—we support, for example,<br />

his bill to increase the financial<br />

aid benefits made available in<br />

Illinois—we suggest he compare<br />

the number of votes the <strong>University</strong><br />

administration can cast with the<br />

number students control the next<br />

time he considers taking a stand<br />

like those he's taken in the last two<br />

weeks.<br />

Ed Epstein /On Nixonian gobbledygook<br />

I promise to try to be fair , to respect the<br />

man's lofty position and all that.<br />

But , still I must confess that President<br />

Nixon has me confused. I have subjected<br />

myself to the ordea l of wading through his<br />

two most recent statements on the sordid<br />

Watergate affair and find- myself left with<br />

more questions about who did what and<br />

when than before I started .<br />

The President's first statement on April<br />

30, in which he axed his Prussian guards<br />

Wright<br />

We are glad to see that Joe Blaze,<br />

director of parking and transportation,<br />

has agreed to reconsider<br />

his plans to build a bicycle<br />

parking lot on the south end of the<br />

Quadrangle, and we hope he will<br />

make a sincere effort to find<br />

another location for the lot.<br />

The Quad has already been<br />

greatly reduced in size by the fencing<br />

off of the north end to allow<br />

grass to grow back, and is now<br />

barely large enough for the number<br />

of people who wish to use it during<br />

good weather. We would think that<br />

Haldeman and Ehrlichman and excommunicated<br />

John Dean, was a masterpiece<br />

of political mumbo-jumbo. In his little<br />

speech "from my heart" Nixon placed the<br />

blame on everyone else, but graciously accepted<br />

the responsibility for himself.<br />

Now, you may ask, and you should, just<br />

what does this mean? Well, if you did ask<br />

you wouldn't get an answer because, you<br />

see, the President has more important<br />

things to do, like rehearsing the Marine<br />

* iWJtl HWS TO SC05B HM/KWte TH^I^<br />

Keep bike lots off the Quad<br />

maintaining the quality of one of<br />

the few pleasant places on this<br />

campus would take priority over<br />

building another parking lot . \<br />

A number of alternative<br />

locations have been proposed for<br />

the parking lot. Even if none of<br />

them prove to be completely<br />

suitable, we strongly urge that they<br />

be used instead of the Quad. The<br />

<strong>University</strong> will always need space,<br />

particularly in the central Quad<br />

area, and if the principle of using<br />

Quad space gets started now, we<br />

Band in the "Internationale" in preparation<br />

for Big Leonid's big visit.<br />

At the time of that speech Nixon left the<br />

impression with his audience that this was<br />

his final, definitive statement on the matter<br />

that "has claimed far too much of my time<br />

and my attention."<br />

But, things being what they are in the U.S.<br />

of A. the President recently found it<br />

necessary to issue another, longer tract ,<br />

which (will surprises never cease ) actually<br />

can easily foresee the day when it<br />

will be completely used up by<br />

parking lots , sidewalks, and<br />

buildings.<br />

At an institution as enormous,<br />

complicated and impersonal as the<br />

<strong>University</strong> of Illinois, a line has to<br />

be drawn between fulfilling the<br />

physical requirements of the institution<br />

and fulfilling the spiritual<br />

requirements of its students. We<br />

feel that line should, be drawn<br />

clearly and irrevocably around the<br />

Quad.<br />

said something. It told us that at heart<br />

Nixon is really a junior G-man and J. Edgar<br />

Hoover, in his closing years, was something<br />

of a civil libertarian.<br />

It seems Nixon wanted to improve<br />

domestic intelligence operations just after<br />

the college campuses blew up over his invasion<br />

of Cambodia . His plans included<br />

authorization for bugging and "surreptitious<br />

entry," or breaking and entering, or<br />

how about just plain burglary, which Illinois<br />

law says is good for not less than one year in<br />

prison. It also seems that Old J. Edgar, who<br />

according to some recent* reports, was<br />

slightly gaga during the last few years of his<br />

omnipotent rule of the FBI, regained<br />

lucidity long enough to kill off the plan.<br />

And, as we travel along the twisting route<br />

of Nixon's pronouncement, we learn that a<br />

special group was formed in the White<br />

House to stop leaks to the press and that<br />

other nasty group, the public. Cleverly<br />

called the "plumbers," these fellows undertook<br />

the patriotic effort to burglarize<br />

Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Apparently<br />

President Nixon wanted to convince<br />

the public that Ellsberg was not only a<br />

traitor but also a screwball.<br />

All these are pretty minor when compared<br />

with another revelation from Nixon.<br />

"Elements of the early post-Watergate<br />

reports led me to suspect, incorrectly, that<br />

the C.I.A. had been in some way involved,"<br />

his speechwriter wrote.<br />

Now as an innocent, young American I<br />

would like to know why on earth the CIA, the<br />

FBI, the Committee to Reelect the<br />

President, the Women's Christian Temperance<br />

Union, the Audobon Society or the<br />

Marching Illini should bug and burglarize<br />

the headquarters of the Democratic<br />

National Committee. And I would like to<br />

know why the President thought the CIA<br />

might be involved in such a crime.<br />

These questions might even provide Nixon<br />

with enough material for Phase 3 of his explanation<br />

of his. involvement in his<br />

Watergate affair.

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