Saturday, August 17, 1974
THE MCHIGNDAIL
Page Three
Ford finishes
:initial week in
office; meets
labor leader
WASHINGTON (l') Completing his
first week in office, President Ford
searched for ways to cut federal spend-
ing yesterday and received without com-
ment a labor leader's suggestion that
he freeze prices and wages to shock
Americans "back into reality."
Ford held separate meetings with hold-
over economic counselor Kenneth Rush
and budget officials after the Oval Office
meeting with Teamsters President Frank
Fitzsimmons, the second labor leader
Ford has conferred with in four days.
AS FORD'S first-week anniversary
passed, there were these other develop-
ments at the White House:
--His new lawyer, Philip Buchen, re-
layed a decision that Richard Nixon's
tapes and documents will remain in
White House custody until Watergate
legal issues are resolved.
-Ford rounded out his press staff,
AP Photo naming Justice Department information
officer John Hushen as deputy press sec-
retary to Jerald terHorst. In addition,
two Ford vice presidential aides, Paul
. District Miltich and William Roberts, will be
(nee trial.
iracy and blended into a staff of five holdover
Wounded Nixon administration spokesmen-James
Holland, Larry Speaks, John Carlson,
Case completed
American Indian Movement leader Russell Means leaves the U. S
Court in St. Paul yesterday after the defense rested in the Wounded K
Means and Dennis Banks, co-defendants, ar on trial for larcny, consp
three counts of assaulting federal officers during the occupation of
Knee in 1973.
Soul City may hold key
to interracial community
Fitzsimmons
Tom DeCair and Andrew Falkiewicz.
-Ford met with his first visiting chief
of state, King Hussein of Jordan, and
arranged to host a White House state
dinner in the King's honor last night.
-Presidential spokesman terHorst
said Ford's vice presidential nominee
probably will not be announced until
next Tuesday or Wednesday. He repeat-
ed that Ford had not yet made up his
mind, and Ford himself told a question-
ing reporter as he left his suburban
home that "I haven't been thinking about
it."
The meeting with Fitzsimmons follow-
ed a Tuesday session with AFL-CIO
President George Meany, a frequent and
harsh critic of Nixon. In contrast, Fitz-
simmons was a strong Nixon supporter
and told reporters he intends to give
Ford "the same cooperation" he gave
the now-resigned chief executive.
Talking with newsmen on the White
House lawn after his 45-minute Oval
Office meeting, Fitzsimmons said Ford
had no comment on his advice that the
nation needs to be "shocked back into
reality" on the economic front with a
"complete freeze on all prices and
wages," including interest rates and
dividends.
Fitzsimmons said he also suggested
that price rollbacks might follow a wage-
price freeze, and again said Ford listen-
ed without comment.
SOUL CITY, N.C. (P)-Ribbons of red
clay rutted by car and truck tires meet
atop a gently sloping hill on the plains
'of North Carolina's Warren County.
Where the roads cross, a highway mark-
er reads: "Soul City."
The simple sign stands as a symbol
of transition from the days when Warren
County was a center of slavery to the
time-still in the future-when Soul City
will be real: a self-sufficient town of
50,000 planned by blacks as an inter-
racial community,
SIX YEARS IN the making, Soul City
today is 5,200 acres of rolling meadow-
land, broken occasionally by tree groves
and by mobile homes parked in clusters
or alone.
These are the temporary homes and
offices of Soul City's first residents, 225
people in all. They are the staff that is
building Soul City, and their families.
Their leader is Floyd McKissick a bald-
ing six-footer whose name is famous in
civil rights. McKissick, now 52, resigned
in 1968 as national chairman of the
Congress of Racial Equality to return to
his native North Carolina and develop
Soul City.
Most of McKissick's closest collabora-
tors are blacks from the civil rights
movement, But he also has recruited
21 whites and three Indians on his staff
of 60.
"WE HAVE BROUGHT together black,
white and Indian here," says McKissick.
"We find that they agree 90 per cent of
the time and just by working together,
you can destroy five per cent of their
differences."
Construction of the first permanent
building is to begin next month. It's to
be a factory shell called "Soul Tech I."
McKissick says he already has a com-
pany under contract to occupy the fac-
tory and employ 350 people-the first
step toward self-sufficiency. He won't
name the company.
Once the factory shell is started, con-
struction of permanent homes and a
shopping center is to begin in the fall.
"PEOPLE SAY Soul City is idealistic,
and it is," McKissick admits. ". . . but
I believe we at least can organize a
city free of racism, with job opportuni-
ties and a happy society."
Toward this goal, McKissick founded
Floyd B. McKissick Enterprises, Inc.,
whose principal function is the construc-
tion of Soul City at a final cost of $90
million. The U.S. Department of Housing
See DEVELOPER, Page 9
Fleming to head bond drive
By ANDREA LILLY
University President Robben Fleming
announced yesterday that he will serve
as chairman of Gov. William Milliken's
steering committee backing a $1.1 bil-
lion transportation bond issue on the
November ballot.
Fleming urged citizen support for the
proposal authorizing the sale of bonds to
upgrade the state's transportation sys-
tem. He said the proposed 1S-year con-
struction program would provide an es-
timated 10,000 jobs and bring in a con-
siderable amount of federal "matching"
funds to a state that "gets less trans-
portation money per capita than any
other urban state."
THE FUNDS will go toward passenger
and freight railroad service, a mass ur-
ban transit system, Great Lakes ship-
ping, and research on future means of
transportation.
Fleming argued that "this program is
not just 'for Detroit' or 'for the Upper
Pennisula,' but rather 'for all of Mich-
igan.' . . . No region of the state can
afford to ignore the benefits of an up-
graded transportation system."
Programs to be financed by the meas-
ure include: $450 million for a southeast
Michigan urban transit set-up, $362 mil-
lion for upgrading passenger rail and
intercity bus service, $100 million for air-
ports, $50 million to expand Great Lakes
port capacity, $20 million for research
and $25 million to hard-surface over 65
miles of roads.
Other committee members include
Henry Ford, chairman of the board of
Ford Motor Co., Leonard Woodcock,
president of the United Auto Workers
and William Marshall, president of the
Michigan AFL-CIO.