North Carolina Newspapers

a democrat fcY BY Htrai HUNTING COHPAMT. INC. IIVERS, ?, PUBLISHER 'T!\ Weekly Newspaper l_ fm br the late Sabot C. Vim, if. Hi SOBSCBIPTtON BATES ' jg j -'/y nths, II JO; four month*, $1.00. Outride Watauga Ceonty; Om year. ft.00; ate months, S1.7B; four North Carolina ? ? NOTICE TO OLD, ea well aa dMH I ?* the poe (office at Boom, N. ft, aa aeeood class mall matter, under the act of Congreaa of March S, int. MEKBEB NATIONAL EDITORIAL ASSOCIATION North Carolina press association *123 S% tales tax to be added on It la important to mention the Your Home Town Needs You ' Now that the tobacco market if .going merrily 011 with sales fetching good prices for the golden weed, and with the Christmas parade all over, and the first visit of Santa Claus dispensed with, Christmas shoppers are beginning to get down to business with their gift lists, and their pencils and their budget figures, and to actually make plans for the festive season, all the way from Utoele Zekes necktie to what sort of fowl will grace the big platter when all the folks gather in for the visiting and the feasting and the fellowshipping. Boone was not built by the business men along the street in the strictest sense, but the business district was fashioned from the enterprise and the hard work of all the people of the community and of the county and the entire trade area. Everyone who's trad ed with us and with the storekeeper, the grocer, the druggist, the automobile dealer, and all the rest has contributed his share to the erection of the buildings, and to the burgeoning growth of the shopping district of his home town. Through the efforts of all these peo |Ue, Boone has developed the outstand ing business district in this section. This year, as perhaps never before, the lines of gift merchandising are the largest and most comprehensive in the history of the thriving little metropolis. Friendly, courteous salespeople will take care of your Christmas shopping needs at com petitive prices, and will be glad to see you. We have always felt the community is your town as well as ours, that it was built through your efforts as well as through the efforts of those of us who toil along its Street. In trading at home, we are merely investing in the future of our community and our county and the fringes beyond, which prosper and succeed in direct proportion to the suc cess which is achieved in the county seat. Our local business men sustain every worthy project, contribute to all public purposes and provide a merchandising service they ask you to use. Visit them often. Trade at home and help build your own community and county. Americanism A great American is usually describ ed by the politicians at a big pow wow 88 one who's contributed vastly to the fortunes of his own political party, while at the same time, gathering some fat on his own ribs. Others view him as simply one wjio was born in this coun try, but the Retailer comes forth with the following which is pretty jood^ we think Me ytH* for the government <b balance the budget and then take* the laat dime he haa to make the dpwn payment on hit car. He whip* the enemy nations and then gives 'am the shirt off his back. He yells for speed lavs that wiU stop fast driving, and then won't buy a car if it won't make 100 miles an hour. An American geta scared to death If we vote a billion dollars for education ? but he's cool as a cucumber when be finds out we're spending three billion dollars a y?*r for smoking tobacco. He gripes about the high prioe* of the things he has to buy, but gripe* still more about the low prices of things he haa to sell. He knows the line-up of every baseball team in the American and National Leagues ? and doesn't know half the words in "The Star Spangled Banner." An American will get mad at his wife for not runntng their home with the efficiency of a hotel, and then he'll get mad at the hotel lor not operating like a home. Hell spend half a day looking for vitamin pills to make Mm live longer? then drive 90 mile* an hour on slick pavement to make up for the time he lost. An American is a man who will fall out with hi* wife over her cooking and then go on a fishing trip and awailow half-fried potatoes, burnt fiah, and .gritty crtsk water coflee made in a rusty gallon bushet and think it is good. An American will writ hard on a farm so he can move into town where he can make more money so he can move back to the farm When an American is in his office be talks about baseball, football ar fiahing? whan he is out at the gmei or on the creak bank, he talk* about busine**. He i* the only fellow in the world who will pay 00 cents to park ws car wnue ne eau ? 25oent sandwich. An American likei to cuaa hla government but gMs fighting mad if a foreigner doei it. We're the country that haa more food to eat than any other country in the world and more dieta to keep ut from eating it. We're the most ambitious people on earth, and we run from morning until night trying to keep our earning power up with our yearning power. ,.J|Ve're aupposed to be the mo.t civilized, CfcrUtlap nation on earth, but still can't de liver payrolls without an armored car. Ia America we have more experts on marri age than any other country in the world ? and more divorces. But we're still pretty nice folks. Calling ? person "a real American" is the best compli ment we can pay him. Most of the world is itching for what we have ? but they'll never have it until they start scratching for it the way we did. Carolina Progress The current issue of We The People, official publication of the North Caro lina Citizens Association, presents some amazing facts concerning the progress the Tar Heel State has made in recent years. North Carolina now has more than seventy-one thousand miles in its high way system, over which bus and truck lines serve adequately the producer and the consumer. Thirty railroads operate 4,400 miles of track, and six commercial airlines provide air passenger service throughout the State. Tar Heels are using 1,150,000 tele phones. A dozen television stations, and 140 radio stations operate within the State. There are forty-seven daily news papers and more than a hundred non daily papen. Agriculture in North Carolina is now ? billion dollar business. Writes About The Editor (Bob Saunders ? Charlotte Newi State Editor) Back in 1871 a schoolboy wrote an es *ay which appeared in The Virginia Free Pteaa of Charles Town. The essay was entitled "The Editor " It deserves to be reprinted here, and without any more comment, here it is: "The editor is one pf the happiest animals in the known world. He can go to the draw afternoon and evenings, without paying a cnt; also to inquests and hangings. "He has free tickets to picnics and strawberry festivals; gets wedding cakes Mat to Mm. and some times gets a lick tag, hut aot often, tor lie can take things hack the next iarae, which he generally does. " * V' J - ,?h "I never knew only one editor to get licked. His paper busted that day and he couldn't take nothln' hack. "While other lotka have to go to bed early, the editor cm tH up late every night and see aM that's going en. mW iwf'sw . ?r , "The boys think it's a great thing to sit up till 10 o'clock. When I am a man { mean to be an editor, so I cai stay out nights. Then that will be grand. "The editor don't have to saw wood or do any chopping except with his scissors. "Railroads get excursions for him, knowing if they don't he'd make 'em git up and git. "In politics, he don't care much who he goes for if they are on his side. If they aint, he goes for 'em anyway, so it amounts to nearly the same thing. "There is a great many people trying to be editor* who can't, and some of them have been in tlw profession for years. "They can't see it, though. "If I was asked if I had rather have an education or be a circus rider, I would any, let me go aad be an editor." A-men. n? How Sotatrs /w From Early Democrat Files Sixty Years Ago December 5, 1901. The news from Washington is very 'encouraging to the establish ment of the Appalachian Park and Forest Preserve. The North Caro lina delegation in Congreaa will work actively and earnestly for its establishment and will be Joio ed by delegations from other Southern states. Mr. Wilson, Sec retary of Agriculture, is one of the most enthusiastic advocates of the park and says that the plan will certainly be adopted If the Southern Congressional delegation press the matter. In his report to Congress Mr. Wilson says: "The region containing the proposed Appalachian Forest reserve was examined in cooperation with the U. S. geological survey. The forest of 9,000.000 acres was mapped and the land classified and a careful study was made for the purpose of a Rational Forest Preserve. The creation of such a reserve is in my judgment, urgent in order to maintain a greatly repaired sup ply of timber and provided natur al reservation ground which, with the exception of the Adirondaks, will readily be accessible to a greater number of people than any other forest region in the United States. I believe that theae con siderations render the purchasing by the Federal Government of the propped reserve in the Southern Appalachians desirable in every way. It seems that our railroad news la rather a mixed lot these days. Laat week is was given out from Winaton that -the Seaboard Airline bad purchased the road from Bris tol to Mountain City and that the Co. would at once get to work on the Trans-Appalachian road from Butler. Tenn. via Coffey's Oap to Morganton. But now the Bristol Currier says that if any such deal has been made it is unable to get any news leading to it. Such is the niws, however. John Hodges brought to this of fice an ear, or ears, of corn that is quite a freak. It consists of one mother ear around which are nine other* equally well developed. Sheriff Baird pays us to say that the people had just as well pay their taxes now and save cost as to wait a little later and put him to the trouble of levying. He pro poses to have the taxes a* soon as they can be collected and the best thing our people can do is pay them at oncc. Thirty-Nine Years Ago December 7, 1922. Once again the sonorous voice of the big lumber mill at Shulls Mills can he heard at 6 a. m. each morning, meaning that the plant is a fa In in opera ties after a sus pension of many months. This Is good news, the Usd we not to print, for It means thst a large number of man have rammed work and that the money paid out by the Corporation means much to the people in this section. Mr. and Mm Tracy Council are at home to their friends in their beautiful new bungalow. The last rain has gotten our highway muddy (Deep Gap) in some places where the gravel was not put on. but where the (ravel was put on it Is holding up well. Mr. Audle PresneU took a large load of evergreens to Butler. Tenn. on Wednesday. He Is doing a good hnstness in this line and over grew are bringing a good price. Boace has again gotten out of captivity, by the way it seems to flow out of Deep Gap and other points alone the Wilkes line. A good citizen over there aayi, "I guess 50 gallons a day goes by my house." Where is the prohibition officer? Asleep? Nothing would be more apprec iated by that friend of yours now living possibly in some other state, than a year's subscription to the Democrat, their former home pap qst. Send It to them for a Christ mas present. Advertisement: We print ever thing but money and postage stamp*. Rivers Printing Co. Fifteen Years Ago December S, 1940 The burley tobacco season open ed Monday with sales in the No. 2 warehouse of the Mountain Burley Corporation where 220,218 pounds was sold by R. C. Coleman, who > states that the better grades of " leaf brou^ prices ranging in the high fifties while a considerbale portion of low grade leaf brought less than the floor prices and was taken over by the Commodity Credit Corporation ... On Tues day the first sales were held at the new Farmers warehouse. There MJOO pound* was (old accord in g to Mr. Steve Taylor, who waa highly pleased by prices brought by the high quality leaf. This to bacco brought SO to 58 cents but the low grade lagged and the gov ernment purchased 94,000 pounds after the price offered was below the floor. ? Born to Mr. and Mrs. Stacy Bingham at Watauga Hospital a son on December 1 which has been named James Lewis Bingham. Mr. and Mrs. C. B. Angel were Aihner guests Thanksgiving day of Mr. and Mrs. Hale Vance. Irvin Berlin's "White Christmas" has definitely joined the proces sion of Christmas music. Lest we hesitate to admit so recent a crea tion to our inner sanctum of cherished traditions let's see how old some of our Christmas favor ites really are. Dicken's "Christ, mas Carol was written in 1843. Samuel Clement Moore wrote "The Night Before Christmas" in 1822. W. C. Dobson dispatched the first Christmas card in 1846 and the first Christmas tree was set up in 1604. Just One Thing By CARL GOEBCH A latter came in the other day from Miss Mary Greaham of Beau laville, North Carolina, aaking how the expression about "eating crow" originated. I reckon everybody knows the meaning of the term ? Jt meant to retract, or take back something, or change your view point. For example: I lit of people had to eat crow in connection with the recent bond election. Well, I couldn't answer Miss Gresham'a question, a* I called on Mrs. Margaret Price at the State Library to help ma out. She did a lot of hunting around and finally found an item about it in an 1888 issue of the Magazine of American History. It'a a colloquialism which originated in the United States, and here's the story about it. An American crossed the Niagara River and waa caught hunting on the property of an Englishman. The Englishman was mad. The American had Just shot a crow. Pointing to the dead bird, the Englishman ordered the hunter to eat it. I don't know whether the crow was cooked or not, but any way the American was forced to comply. The news of this little episode gained considerable circu lation and the hunter was teased quite a lot. One day, while he waa being kidded about It, someone a*ed him bow he had liked the diah His answer waa: "Well, I managed to eat it, but I can't say that I hanker a'rter it." So that'# the story of bow the expression originated. A friend a f mine used a word in conversation the other day that I bad never heard before ? delight some. Dictionary, however, says that it is O. K. And I remember once when Colonel William Joyner waa ap pearing, before the Appropriationa ? Committee during a aesaion of the General Ataembly, be used an ex (Cession which Is somewhat dif AFTER ANOTHER ferent*from the one I've always heard. A* a general rule, people My: "On the money I make, it la dif ficult to make both ends meet." Bill expressed it this way: "On ^ the money that these people make, it is difficult to make buckle and tongue meet." A friend told me this little rtory on the street the other day. A tourist going through Minne sota met with a alight accident. Unable to find his monkey wrench, he went to a farmhouse and in quired of the Swede owner: "Have you a monkey wrench here?" "Naw," the Swede replied. "My brother bane got a cattle ranch over there, my cousin got a sheep ranch down there; but too darn cold here for monkey ranch." We know that for years you probably have been worrying about how the size of shoes ? 6, 8, 10, 12, or whatever it may be ? has been determined. A friend of ours re cently brought a clipping from a trade Journal which gives the ex planation, so from now on you can quit worrying. Here it h: "Why do we have shoes in IS sizes? Because in 18M Edward II, sn English king, decreed that three barley corns from the center of the e?r, placed end to end, equalled an inch. By eareful measurement it was found that M barley corns, end to end. equalled the length of the loagect foot. Since the longest ' foot measured 13 inches, this foot was eallad sis e IS. and other slaes were graded down from the long est normal foot at the rate of S sices (or S barley corns) to an inch Thus each variation between half-sizes and full sixes represent one-sixth of an In oh ? -the variation between full sites being one-third of an inch. The width of the shoe was determined in units of one sixth of an Inch." G STREET By ROB MITERS i?s Opening., I lights Shine Again The Christmas lights, which had been all but a thing of the past of late years, wore turned on Saturday to illuminate Um Ciwiatmss trees through the business district, and to provide bright accompaniment to the gayest Christmas open ing spectacle the Street has witnessed. The parade with Miss Watauga County, and Hiss North Carolina, with Fred Kirby and with all the professionally built floats, with the bards and the blare and the brightness, provided a grand spectacular, while Good Saint Nicholas, rotund and happy, and ageless, dipped into his bountiful bag and passed the goodies to the children. And the people came by the thousands and it rained, and all the streets of the community were blocked by the bumper to-bumper traffic, in some sections of the town cars were left in private driveways and even on the lawns of house holders, and the pedestrians jostled each other in happy sardine fashion as the rain continued and the darkness came. We've never developed the capacity to estimate a crowd of people. . . We've leaned to the notion that most such ap praisals are little more than starry-eyed guesses, and have little statistical accuracy. . . . But we'd venture the chimney corner opinion that there were more people in Boone last Saturday than have been here at any one time during our stay on the Street. ? Other great crowds we recall came in a day when auto mobiles hadn't contributed vastly to the congestion. . . . Like when the college campus was jammed with folks who'd buggied and walked in for- a big get-together after the Armistice was signed to at least slow world-warring. . . . And when the multitudes came in 1922 for a Fourth of July celebration which didn't jell at all, due to the fact that the day came a-raining, and the deluge never let up . .or again in 1932 when the Bob Reynolds barbecue took place, also in a steady rain on the John F. Hardin farm . . . when a heap of folks were hungry, and "Happy Days" was the theme song, and the folks aimed for the man with the dead legs and the golden voice to lead them Into greener pastures. ... It was a great crowd and there have been other gatherings which brought the people to Boone in prodigious numbers, but we'd venture that for many years to come talk of the multitudes will date back to the 1961 Christmas opening. , And we enjoyed a new happiness that the lights are back. . . We still cling to Santa Claus and the reindeers, right down to the one with the glowing proboscis, and have never lost all the excitement of the fireside at dawn, which crested during the years when the golden haired youngsters messed the place up no end, and the rafters echoed to the childish shrieks. . . . And we always add our voice to those who've been pleading to return to the bright lights and the parade, and the warm-up to the Christmas season. . . . Not that we aim to promote the commercialization of the birthday of the Prince of Peace ? not at all ? hut we think the Baby can be seen easily through the greens and the tinsel, and the colored lights, and in the bright eyes of the little children and in the smiles of those' who are going about their shopping, and in the added warmth of the neighboring, and in the heightening of the Spirit of Christmas, which we've always wished might endure. ? * * * * At Raodm . , No Pad, No Pencil Miss Watauga County, charming and beautiful, enthusi astically acclaimed from her vantage point on a beautiful float. Miss North Carolina follows as the guest of the reigning local beauty queen. We enjoyed A session with Fred Kirby of WBTV fame, who's known locally for Ms promotion of Tweetsie, and as a matter. of fact, the entire area. ... A Charlotte native, Fred and his horse^dlico have buQt up an immense follow ing among the children with their afternoon western show t which is aimed at the juveniles. . . . "I'm always hap$v because it seems I always find myself in such good com pany," philosophizes the cowboy star, "and the only reason I'd like to live to be 300 is that I so dread to leave the little children. ... I love them so much." . . . And give us a man who loves the youngsters, and who esteems horses and the rest of God's creatures, and we'll bet our last rumpled green . (Continued on page three) Uncle Pinkney (MacKnight Syndicate) I see by the papers where a official of the Treasury Depart ment claims it would b? food fer the country if we'd cut ia half the inheritance tax on all eatate worth $10 million or more. He allows as how it would bo a "incentive to frae enterprise." I'm strong in favar of K, Mis ter Editor. I remember hack in IBM when Cal CooUdge come up with a idea called the "flex ible tariff fer helping the little feller. My memory fits a little hazy after 93 year but seems like I recall we got a little relief on such Items a* gooee feathers, paint bwahcs. axe handles and sheep dip. If I recollect right, this is the last time u* little fei lers haa had ai*r reductions Starting at 910 million is a little high up on (ha hog, but H could be the beginning of a trend. By the end of this cen tury the Congress might gtt down to the one-gaHus boys, gtt It so's a farmer or rancher eouM put his cemetery lot and front yard in the Soil Bank and git his fertili ser at coat through the United Nations When T brung these 4*6 tid ings to the feller* at the country store Saturday night moat of 'em took a dim view Of the (UuttiOQ. HIS PALAV ERIN'S Ed Doolittle, fer Instant, claim ed everbody in Washington did ? heap of popping off when the Congress was out of town. It don't mean a thing, allowed Ed, and he said he wouldn't be sup rised, afore them Congressmen git back to Washington, to see Bobby Kennedy issue ? procla mation abolishing poverty. Zeke Grubb said he was special doubt ful of anything that come out of the Treasury Department. He fifgert that any Gurernment agency that has to have a barn yard full of high officials and a pasture fall of clerks to keep track of them cheap dollar* Bint to be trusted on long-range fore cast* at the *10 million level. Speaking of Washington, some of the feller* was wondering If them junketing Congressmen and their wives and kinfolks would git back home in time fer Christ mas. Bug Hookum said he was mighty mad at Elizabeth Taylor fer apologizing to some of them Congressmen when they visited ber studio In Rome. She claimed lb* reaaon she didn't com* out to rest 'am waa becauae ate didn't know tney waa there. Lie, at least, w*s worting, claimed Bug.