Mr atauga Democrat Independent Weekly Newspaper published in 1888 and Published for 45 years by the late Robert C. Rivers, Sr. ;HED ON THURSDAYS Subscription Rates . Year ?1.50 Months .75 ^jr Months .50 utaide N. C.. 1 Year $3.00 in Armed Forces, year 1.50 Payable in Advance 1 Notice to Subscribers la requesting change o I address, it if important to mention the Old as well as the NEW address. R. C. RIVERS, Jr. - Publisher Cards of Thanks, Resolutions of Re flect, Obituaries, etc., are charged qr at the regular advertising rates. atered at the postoffice at Boone, C., as second class mail matter. basis of our government being the ?Ota Ion ot the people, the very first ob ject should be to keep that right, and were It left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers. or newspapers without gov ernment. I should not hesi tate a moment to choose the latter. But I should mean that every mai should re ceive these papers end be capable of reading them." 1 ?Thomas Jefferson. THURSDAY, NOV. 22, 1945 To Hw People of thii Community Ttka a tip from your favorite re tail merchant. His Chrttmaa count Ma art stocked for tba first ttroa IMS with commodities yoa dreamed about in the darkness of war. And yet ha and his employees will go the limit to day in telling you for your own good to buy "something else" first. A a a war win thrifty American you need not be told that the name of this prod uct ti Victory Bond, that It can never be worth less than Jou pay for it, that It will return 14 for every 13 Invested When held to maturity 10 years Tieooe, that it is your personal servant at the same time It is serv ing your country's current needs, that it will assure you not only a merry Christmas this year but help to make Christmas merry In the rears to come. Tour merchant knows a great product. That's why ha Is putting every effort to stuff the Christmas stockings of this com munity with extra Victory Bonds. THE EDITOR ACKNOWLEDGING A LETTER Once a year the Watauga Tuber culosis Association appeals to resi Iejktl i of this community to help fi ance its work through the purchase (ft Christmas Seals, its sole means of gupport, j Buying these Seals is a painless ttiethod of assisting a worthy cause. Most of us welcome the letter which arrives in November with sheets of the seals and we are proud to use these seals on our holiday mail. * But some of us are careless We mean well ? but we forget to ack nowledge receipt of the seals by sending a check in payment for them. Good intentions are not enough to keep the organized fight against tuberculosis going. If the association is to continue its work, it must have funds. And if it is to have funds, then we must answer that letter and answer it with a check. THE CLOUDS HAVE LIFTED During the war we were able to find a lot of things to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day. We were (hankful that our country was not Suffering as were other countries of {he world. s In most homes our thankfulness pver such physical comforts was Overshadowed by our fear for loved Ones overseas, our extreme consci ousness of the empty chair at the Thanksgiving dinner table, and our {iread of what the future might bring. J Thin year we can celebrate ^Thanksgiving with real sincerity. Even those families who still have Bons and daughters in faraway places can thank God that the shoot ing is over ? that their loved ones, if hot already home, will be home poon. The clouds that have darkened our Thanksgiving celebrations have disappeared. This is the Thanks giving we've been waiting for. GMC EMPLOYEES GO ON STRIKE WEDNESDAY Detroit, Nov. 20 ? Authoritative sources close to high ranking offi cers of the United Auto Workers said tonight that a general strike of 325,000 General Motors corporation employees is to begin at 11 a. m. Wednesday. The strategy of the union, it was I learned, presumably would be ' to make no announcement in advance of the actual walkouts but an offi cial statement would be issued once the strike was "in effect." The most abundant foods in De cember will be turkeys, chickens, carrots, cabbage and wnite potatoes. "We Have a Solemn Duty..." TO OUR WOUNDED. ? The Victory Loan affords the people of a (ritcfu Ballon an opportunity to show by action their thankfulness to oar disabled soldiers. It is this Victory Loan which shall help to make it possible to hospt talixe and rehabilitate them, so that they may take again their rightful placet In society. We cannot fail? ?a must not (ail ibess heroes of out. THE EVERYDAY COUASELLOR Rev. HERBERT SPAUGH, D. D. "Wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Thus the Bible describes a true marriage, made and blessed of God. Sadly, we must ad mit that not all marriages are bless ed of God. It is difficult to believe that a hasty marriage performed by some civil official under the sudden impulse of emotion has the blessing of God. Such marriages are not often enduring. In a true marriage which results in the birth of a child, the two be come one flesh in the new life of the child, but there is more than that. There is the death of two selfish attitudes. The one seeks the desire of the other. Instead of two desires there becomes mutual de sire. There is no place for selfishness in a happy marriage. I come back to an old theme of mine ? there can be no truly happy marriage without God in the center. Looking over the many cases of domestic unhappiness which have come to my study, I can recall none in which selfish desires of one or both have not been predominant. Even where there are children in the home, their welfare is forgotten in the clashing of selfish personali ties. A man and a woman who are uni ted in holy wedlock, "for better or worse," can live together in hap piness and without friction if they have a will to do so. A man or woman who wants to continue to live his own life without due re gard for the other, should remain single. Marriage is a serious business. If it is entered into with the blessing of God and the church, it is a holy contract, "not to be entered into lightly or unadvisedly." The hope of a peaceful world depends upon peaceful homes. A marriage promotes the merging of two physical beings, it must pro mote the merging of two personali ties, so that the twain become one in body, mind and spirit Only in this way can true happiness be found in marriage. My "Ten Commandments for a Happy Marriage" will be sent upon request and a self-addressed stamp ed envelope. These rules in form suitable for framing will be sent upon receipt of ten cents and post age. CHERRY URGES CITIZENS TO BUY CHRISTMAS SEALS Governor Cherry has called upon the citizens of this state to buy and use Christmas seals during the weeks between Nov. 19 and Christ mas, "to help make possible the complete eradication of tuberculosis in North Carolina." The North Carolina Tuberculosis Association, which is conducting its annual seal sale between Nov. 19 and Dec. 25, uses 95 percent of the seal funds for a North Carolina health program. Cherry said. Tuberculosis as a communicable disease took 57,000 lives in America last year, the governor 3aid, and may possibly increase in North Carolina as it has already in Eu rope. He added that the people of North Carolina can help to prevent such a situation by supporting this 39th annual Christmas seal sale, which, he said, makes possible a health program designed to protect North Carolina from the spread of this public enemy. The GI soon learned to use ele phants as skillfully as natives in the China-Burma-India area. Soldiers May Reinlist Within 20 Days and Retain Their Benefits Lt. John L. Lindsay, commanding officer of the U. S. army recruiting sub-station, Lenoir, calls special at tention to the fact that veterans be ing discharged have but 20 days aft er their discharge to enlist in the regular army and retain their bene fits due them. He urged strongly that all veterans think seriously of the offered advantages before too late to complete enlistment. After 20 days, he pointeu out, a veterans loses full benefits of the opportunities offered. For the benefit of those when just discharged, and who must make an immediate decision, Lt Lindsay re viewed the main provisions of recent regulations: 1. Enlistments for one and a half, two or three years are now autho rized! 2. Men re-enlisting retain their present grades, if they re-enlist within 20 days. 3. Up to 90 days' furlough, de pending on length of service, with furlough paid to home and return. 4. An increase in the re-enlistment bonus to $50 for each year of active service since bonus was last paid, or since last entry into service. 5. Option to retire at half pay after 20 years' service ? or three quarters' service. All previous ac tive federal military ervice counts toward retirement. 6. Family allowance for the term of enlistment for dependents of men who enlist or re-enlist before Julv 1. 1946. 7. Choice of branch of service and overseas theatre in the air, ground or service forces on three year en listments. * The recruiting sub-station in Le noir is located in the postoffice building, open from 8 a. m. until 5 p. m. every day except Sunday, and has a staff of trained personnel to answer any questions you have. MORE FRUITS FOR CHRISTMAS An examination of prospects for fruit for the Christmas holidays was made recently by workers in the federal-state crop reporting service of the N. C. department of agricul ture, and they came up with the as sertion that raisins will be more plentiful than last year, and so will oranges, tangerines, grapes and pears. However, apples will be short. The apple crop this years is only about half of the 1944 harvest, and is considerably less than the 1934-43 average. In North Carolina, the commercial apple crop was 1,782,000 bushels last season, but is only 252.000 this year. The state of Washington, leader in apple production, has a crop only a little smaller than in 1944, but in New York production is only 2,160, 000 bushels as contrasted with 17, 010,000 bushels last season. The early orange crop is seven per cent larger than last year, and the grape crop is somewhat larger. Al though North Carolina leads all Southern states except Arkansas in the production of grapes, it depends almost wholly on California for its Christmas supply. The army has built stills to re claim cleaning fluid with only a 10 | percent loss. In China, more than 500 years ago, a treatise on carbon black manufacture was published. PIE SUPPEH A pie supper and food sale will be held at the Valle Crucis public school on Saturday night, Nov. 24 at 7 o'clock. TODAY and TOMORROW I By DON ROBINSON CABS 254,000.000 Approximately 8,000,000 automo biles, or about 20 percent of our 1941 automobile population, died during the war. The other 23,000,000 to 24,000, 000 cars which we now have have practically all passed their prime, since there are very few of them that are less than four years old. In general, the life of an automo bile is about one-tenth the life of a person. A car is in its prime for the first three years, just as a man is until he is thirty. It begins to get creaky at the joints when it is four to five years old and by the time it is eight or nine it has so rrtany complaints that it spends most of its time in the hands of car doctors. On the oasu- ot ten years being the average life span of an auto mobile, it will be necessary, in or der to return to normal, to replace all of the cars in existence today, plus those which have become cas ualties, within the next six years. That calls for production of at least 5,000,000 cars a year for six years ? which is more cars than have ever been produced in a year be fore. This brief picture of the automo bile situation should make it clear that it is going to be a long time before our automobile population reaches the almost 30,000,000 popula tion of 1941. NECESSITY workan It took a war to make us realize how dependent we have become up on automobiles ? although data on the subject should have made it evi dent before the war that our econo my would fall to pieces if we didn't keep 20,000,000 automobiles in work ing order. Spurred by the war problem, however, the data was all gathered together and these facts were un earthed: seven out of ten people who work use a car to get to their places of employment; 13,000,000 people living in suburbs have no means of transportation available to them other than their automo biles; about 75 percent of factory worjters depend on automobiles to get to work; practically all farmers would be severely handicapped if they didn't have an automobile; and millions of women are entirely de pendent on automobiles for shop ping. OWNERSHIP poor That the people themselves con sider an automobile a necessity of almost as much importance as hav ing a roof over their heads, is borne out by figures on car ownership by income groups. A study by the department of ag riculture showed that in the $2,500 to $3,000 income group the money spent on automobiles was the sec ond biggest expense in the family budget. First came food, for which a family in that income bracket spends an average of $571, and sec ond was the cost of purchase and upkeep of the family car ? an aver age cost of $334 per year These same families spent only $194 for housing. We might argue that the family The Right Spirit Black of small income shouldn't purchase a car ? that it uses up money that should be used for better living. But it's too late for that argument now. Installment sales before the war, plus low prices on used cars, made us a nation on wheels and ? we can't change that without gi gantic revisions in our whole pat tern of living. The only answer now is to make it possible for all of the people who owned cars be fore to be able to get them replaced in the shortest possible time. The FINGER WAVE GOLD WAVE The Latest Permanent No heat, no pads, no weight . . . Just the type for you if you like a real soft natural looking curl. After having had instruction at the state convention in Winston-Salem last week, we are qualified to give you this newest permanent. MAYFLOWER BEAUTY SHOP MR. AND MRS. W. M. THOMPSON Call us for all your beauty needs . . . 32 I Hog Killing Time | We Have the I Anti-Skipper Compound Butcher Knives 1 Sausage Seasoning Meat Cleavers and Saws | Sugar Cure Salt' " Food Choppers 1 Liquid Smoke Scrapers, 25c | Farmers Hardware | and Supply Co; Boone,c North Carolina