Neenah-Menasha Northwestern (Newspaper) - January 24, 1974, Oshkosh, Wisconsin Edition of the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern JL M IJ J W Associated United Press International year Oshkosh Wis Thursday January 24 1974 34 Pages 154 Economy cor buyers may face bigger price togs DETROIT AP The big three auto makers are ing millions of dollars to meet American demands for small cars and that money could come out of the consumer's pocketbook The economy car buyer could be faced with -a bigger price tag General Motors Ford and Chrysler are converting a five plants from big car to small car production and increasing the capacity of car assembly lines We're moving as fast as we humanly says Ford President Lee We'll make more smaller this year than last and we're converting our plants at enormous cost We're facing one hell of a crisis says it's costing Ford million to convert each of two plants in Wayne Mich and Chicago to smaller car assembly General Motors and Chrysler declined comment on their conversion costs but GM Chairman Richard Gerstenberg has said conversion is a big piece of GM's billion tal expenditure program for 1974 said Ford would be ready to turn out two million small cars in its 1975 model run about 80 per cent of its total production Ford's Mustang II was the only small car introduced in the 1974 model year Chrysler which converted its Newark Del assembly plant to compact production this month says small cars now make up 56 per cent of its capacity General Motors traditional leader in the big car field and hardest hit by layoffs due to slumping big car sales is converting one plant to intermediate models and another to compacts this month In 1973 GM had 23 per cent of its production in small car lines Spokesmen would make no estimate on 1974 ures Auto prices have already been boosted twice during the 1974 model year The first came during the late summer startup of 1974 model production when with Cost of Living Council proval GM boosted prices an average of Ford Chrysler and American Motors The auto makers said that increase was to cover the cost of safety features and optional ment made standard The second boost came Dec 10 when the auto industry was freed of price controls in return for an average wholesale price increase Chrysler Ford and General Motors upped the price on compacts by and posted smaller increases for denly hard to sell big cars While Chrysler declined such a promise GM and Ford pledged not to raise prices again unless forced by unforeseen major economic events The costs involved in converting production to meet the demand for smaller cars would seem to fit that criteria Congress may act quickly to cut oil firm tax breaks Not much time left Heavy flooding along the housing development with a shaky hold which is not ex- to last very long Wirephoto in Oregon ed away a strip of land along its banks leaving this cabin in a President continues to vow fight WASHINGTON UPI For the ond time since Congress President Nixon has vowed to a group of House members that he will wage an all-out battle to serve out his re- maining three years in office Sonny Montgomery D- Miss who was among a group of Democratic House members who met privately with the President quoted Nixon as saying it would be unthinkable that he would voluntarily step aside It's unthinkable that I would re- sign I'll fight it right down to the Montgomery quoted the dent as saying Nixon was scheduled to meet today with Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield who has so far refused go along with some other top crats in urging that Nixon resign or be impeached The White House meeting with the Democrats followed by a day a similar gathering of 18 House Republicans One of them Peler H B sen R-N -J said Nixon told them he would overcome his problems and remain in office ing to Frelinghuysen the President told the There is a time to be timid There is a time to be conciliatory There is a time to fly and there is a time to fight And I'm going to fight like hell The two meetings were the first op- Nixon had to talk with a large group of House members back from a Christmas recess that allowed congressmen to test voter sentiment on impeachment Although presidential Press tary Ronald L Ziegler said Tuesday that Nixon was not giving any thought to resignation he like other White House officials generally declined to respond to questions about ment saying il was a matter for the House to decide The House Committee investigating possible grounds for im- and a vole by full House could come by the end of April Nixon speech to concern state of the presidency By WALTER R WASHINGTON AP The State the Union in 1974 will have a good deal to-do with the slate of the presidency Spoken or unspoken that will be a major concern when President Nixon addresses a joint session of Congress next Wednesday night The traditional ceremony of a State of the Union address cannol obscure the fact that the same Congress may be voting within a few months on impeachment proceedings against the President Meanwhile the Senate Wa- tergate committee plans six more days of hearings on the financing of tion campaign And the case of the erasure in a key White House tape recording is before a federal grand jury Against the background of those problems and more the style and substance of Nixon's address may be crucial as he seeks to repair the ravages of Watergate The White House says Nixon now will concentrate ois ing ahead But the past will not go away A backward look to the one year ago trates what has happened Then the President was the dominant figure even though Democrats controlled Con- gress Now the crucial dict on the future of Nixon's presidency is up to Congress Fresh from his landslide re- election Nixon was on the of- fensive He cast the 1 cy as There is only one place in this menl where somebody has got to speak not for the special in- terests which the Congress represents but for the interest Now after a year of dal Nixon's spokesmen are insisting that he means to serve the balance of his term and will not resign Then he addressed the State of the Union in a series of written statements sent to Congress by messenger Nixon outlined his goals said he believed his second term be the best four years in American Now after a troubled year it is time for another ment WASHINGTON AP Con- gress appears ready to take up promptly President on's request to reduce tax breaks available to U.S oil companies on their overseas production In his energy message Wednesday Nixon cited two such breaks but not a third He asked to U.S may import its doily bread WASHINGTON AP Record wheat exports and a barebones reserve are forcing the Nixon administration to consider importing grain from Canada so Americans can have their daily bread The Agriculture Department says that by July 1 the wheat cupboard will be holding 182 million bushels down from the bushel reserve that had been forecast only last September The latest prediction would put the nation's wheat re- serves on July 1 at the lowest since 83.8 million bushels were on hand in 1947 It would be less the lion bushels held last mer USDA officials say there a bread shortage Agriculture officials also deny bakers that the price of bread could rise to per loaf by next spring because of a short On Wednesday after a new report on the wheat situation Assistant Secretary of culture Carroll G Brunthaver conceded that the supply is being crimped more severely than expected The drain from exports estimated at 1.2 billion els for the year ending June 30 will put further pressure on wheat supplies he said Brunthaver added the smaller reserve increases the possibility of importing wheat or flour from Canada He said President Nixon is likely lo suspend quotas so that flour millers and bakers will have more grain if they choose to buy it USDA officials lowered their be- cause said foreign buyers had insisted upon larger ders than believed probable Exports of 1.2 billion bushels now expected for will exceed last year's record of 1.184 billion Nixon has the lo suspend wheat import quotas pegged al bushels a year bul has a re- port on from the Tariff Commission However Brunthaver in- Nixon may not wait for the final commission re- port due Feb and soon may order a suspension in the quota nate the 22 per cent depletion allowance on foreign tion and to cut the foreign tax credit on such business The credit is the amount of foreign tax they can subtract from their U.S levies Some members of Congress say they also want to nate another tax benefit used by the oil firms This is the so-called in- tangibles the right to de- duct in one year all their ing expenses on a successful well Nixon also asked the tors to ease clean air rules and announced he would budget billion for energy research in the next year He ordered a tenfold in- crease in offshore oil leasing for petroleum development and said there would be les of additional oil and gas pipelines from northern Alaska The President repeated lier requests for mandatory labeling of automobiles and major appliances to show how efficiently they use energy And he quick of an gency energy to authorize gas rationing and other ures The tax issues already have arisen in congressional ings this week Sen Russell B Long Finance Committee chairman said after a hearing before his panel Tuesday that he would be willing to support ing the depletion allowance and intangibles on foreign production Sen Abraham A Ribicoff a committee said the foreign credit has helped the giant oil firms reduce theif come taxes almost to zero The issues are sure raised when the House Ways and Means Committee opens its hearings on excess legislation Feb 4 Long said failure to deal with these issues over years have heavily to the nation's energy plight The Nixon administration also placed export gasoline and other key products men Criticized export of petroleum products energy crisis Meanwhile the American Petroleum Institute reported crude oil imports last week were at their lowest since 1973 25 schoolboys die in fire HEUSDEN Belgium AP Twenty-five schoolboys died during the night in a fire that burned out a dormitory of a Roman Catholic boarding school in this small town in northeast Belgium police say Police said 47 other young boys escaped from the ing The blaze may have been caused by a youngster ing in bed and falling asleep police sources say The the working when the firemen ar- rived Most of the victims were in their beds and apparently did not wake Tip before the flames caught them Police said rescuers found the charred bodies of the children in the ruins of the red brick A window between the and an- exit staircase was found closed It could have as an escape route but apparently no one tried to open it The dormitory building was one of a group of brick con- crete and glass the School of the Sacred Heart operated by the St Francis Brothers One source said there were 225 the the fire did not The dormitory that burned was built in 1926 stories The fire broke out on the top where the boys in cubicles rated from each other by wooden partitions The children sleeping on other floors fled by the ing staircase Local authorities the fire caught slowly at first giving off thick fumes that asphyxiated the children and then roaring flames quickly on the wooden panels between the beds Dirk Huysmans a old boy who the school but does not live in gave this account in a inter- It was cafe with friends when we heard firemen from and ingen rushing by them immediately When we ar- rived at the the whole floor of the dormitory was in flame Firemen rushed in: I think they saved about 100 boys were so asleep a told mer that they had awake almost brutally In a few minutes Hundreds of people had arrived including families of children were screaming while break a barrage of state police away from the Some in breaking through brick dormitory young in were many villagers the children to their homes to comfort give a bed About 20 stayed foe the night in the gymnasium Ad m i n i s t ra t i o Consolidation of school funds sought WASHINGTON President Nixon will ask Con- gress in a special education message today to cooperate with the administration to replace the Great Elementary and Secondary Education of 1965 which expires June 30 Breaking from tradition the President is expected to spell out school budget details for 1975 which normally would not be available until his budget goes to Congress Feb 4 The message again will propose the consolidation of more than 30 categorical grant programs for needy Sky lab suffering with faulty gyro HOUSTON UPI Space officials look philosophically at the faltering gyroscope aboard Skylab much like a man with a worn old he hopes il can get him to work just a few more times until he can find something new The lab's vital device one of only two working ones left performed so poorly Wednesday that cheerful engineers ad- mitted think its slowly going through its death throes Skylab 3 pilots Gerald P Carr Edward G Gibson and William R Pogue would be in no danger if gyro quil working nor would have to come home earlier lhan the planned Feb 8 splashdown but re- search work would be sharply curtailed It's like a bearing in your car director Neil chinson said When you first hear il you say der what that Then it makes more noise and you nally discover it's in the right rear wheel and jou say Well I not drive it anymore down to the stage where we're questioning whether we ought to U anymore capped and other elementary and high school children and in vocational and adult education a form of the administration unsuccessfully has moted in the past Gerald Warren White House deputy press told reporters Wednesday that the proposals would follow very closely the lines of Nixon's proposed billion Better Schools Act of 1973 Nixon will commend both houses of Congress for moving toward grant consolidation in pending legislation but will ask for further consolidation still A Senate education supports limited grants dation A House would merge funding authorities for such activities as school libraries books and equipment guidance and counseling nutrition and health dropout prevention and adult education To interest stale and local school officials in grant con- solidation Nixon will propose one-year advance funding for elementary and high school programs The so-called for- ward funding is of vital importance to local school dis- which would the time know during a school year how much federal aid to expect next year for upcoming year often are incomplete when schools close for summer Colder tonight Partly cloudy and colder tonight with overnight lows in the teens Details on page 2 Inside 2 6 12 17 17 19 22 26 26 Want 31 Nixon may amend fax returns WASHINGTON AP President Nixon seems posed to pay California in- come taxes for recent years and might be expected to amend his federal returns for the same years a White House source says Such a move could give on an opportunity to deal at one time with all his tax lems something the While House says he plans lo do The While House source said thai if Nixon files slate for any of years since the 1969 purchase of his San estate he might be expected lo file the ed federal for the same period Although the informant made no such prediction sub- mission of amended federal returns lo claim deductions for stale income lax payments also could be a vehicle for changing other controversial of the U.S Under an amended filing for example could drop in de- for the gift of his vice presidential papers to government Or he could add to his income a capital gain his auditor says he realized when he sold part of the San property to an in- vestment company headed by friend Robert H Abplanalp The Internal Revenue ice and the Com- on Internal Taxation are investigating the capital gains question and the deduction for the gift of pers Sen Russell B Long vice chairman of the joint con- gressional said It looks as though we'll be asking President lo pay more taxes Long said this would be the result of an honest difference of In disclosing his tax affairs last month Nixon said that on the advice of private attorneys he paid no California income taxes he claims San Clemente as his residence In Sacramento Calif e officer of the state's income tax board said Tuesday he expects an early decision on Nixon's state tax status A Nixon attorney has mated the President could owe up to extra in federal taxes should the de- duction for his papers be dis- allowed and he be found liable for a capital gains tax on the San Clemente transaction Meanwhile Rop Bella S Abzug said and others are make him pay baik tlie Treasury of improvements at his homes in San Clemente and Key Fto
