NEWS CONFERENCE 703

who are involved in transit planning seem to believe that a lot more
will be accomplished if we continue the personal involvement of the
decision-making components in the subdivisions.

Q. Leaving all the regulations in the Public Service Commission?

A. Yes. On taxes let me add one more thing. I happened to notice
in the paper this morning that Delegate Sarbanes is asking that the
tax reform that's been studied exhaustively by the Hughes Committee
be overturned, so to speak, and the money allocated in certain specific
directions. I don't believe that this is in the interest of the State. I
think that to take this tax money and legislatively channel it the way
that Mr. Sarbanes is trying to do abrogates the function of the Gov-
ernor. The Legislature, under that bill, would be deciding exactly
how much money to spend and in what area to spend it. Someone
asked me what I thought of that bill and my first reaction was that
it was a Sarbanality.

Q. Governor, there's been a report of a coalition of the Baltimore
Senators granting an amendment to the public accommodations bill
that would permit tavern owners to refuse service to Negroes. Do you
have any comment on that?

A. You know how I feel about public accommodations. I thought
that any talk about going backwards in that area was a retreat into
the Neanderthal age. I can't see any reason, under any circumstances,
for giving any consolation or hope to a retreat into the past in the
area of public accommodations. The fears that were expressed in that
area were proven to be absolutely without any foundation. All that
reconsideration of these matters does is create hostility on the part of
minority citizens and I think it ought to be laid to rest.

Q. Would you throw the full weight of your office behind any at-
tempt to defeat such an amendment?

A. I would put the full weight of my office behind any attempt that
would be directed to removing equal access to public accommodations.
I don't think I said that right. I am against attempts which would
make public accommodations non-accessible to all people.

Q. You must have been pleased, Governor, to hear that Governor
Rockefeller would be a candidate if drafted.

A. I wasn't surprised.