THE FRANKLIN TIMES
Issued Every Friday
213 Court Street Telephone 283-1
A. P. JOHNSON, Editor and Manager
James A. Johnson, Assistant Editor pml Manager
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One Year $1.50 Six Months . . 73
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Foreign Advertising Representative
AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION ?
Ne.? York City
Entered at the Postofflce at Loulsburg, N. C. as second
class mall matter.
Those citizens of Louisburg who wish to vote 011 the
$18,000 Armory bond issue had better register. Don't
put it off until too late and then euss if the issue carries
or don't carry. By your actions you say you are not
interested, unless you register and vote. Failure to reg
ister might affect your voting in town elections next year.
It doesn't seem that the Burgin-Deane election ques
tion is settled as yet. Another suit has been started, and
the old Chairman of one of the election Boards refuses to
turn over the records. Regardless of the crookedness
found by the State Board they can hardly oust an official
without preferring and substantiating charges against
him. The outcome will be interesting.
The attention of the people of Louisburg and Frank
lin County is especially directed to the advert Useiijent in
this issue of the Seaboard Store Co. Their argument
that people should trade at home if the home is to pros
per is absolutely true, and that every dollar sent away
whether for groceries, clothing/ printing or hardware
or is represented in the sale of crops or banking, detracts
its share from the success or advancement of every in
dividual in the County. The effect of one dollar is
small, but the effect of a million is enormious 011 any com
munity in so many ways it would be impossible to enum
erate them. Let's all take this sound and sane advice
and buy, sell and bank in Franklin County.
THE PUBLIC PAYROLL
There are more than three million persons regularly
employed in full-time public sen-ice in the United States,
according to a report prepared for the International
Management- Congress by Prof. Leonard D. White, form
er member of the U. S. Civil Service Commission. That
number of persons whose salaries are paid by the tax
payers includes Federal, State, county and municipal em
ployees. There are more than 175,000 governmental units
in the United States, each having its own payroll and
power to levy taxes to pay its employees.
Excluding relief workers, the Federal payroll includes
nearly 825,000 persons. New York City's payroll con
tains 96,000 names. The state of New Jersey has about
10,000 regular, permanent employees, and that is a small
number compared with several other states:
The public employees include persons who work at an
immense varity of occupations. Policemen, physicians,
school-teachers, letter-carriers, street -cleaners, engineers,
day-laborers, firemen and hundreds of other specialized
workers are necessary to maintain public order and op
erate the necessary public services in a modern -civilized
nation. Nobody would complain of the cost of such ser
vices if everybody felt that they were always well and
faithfully performed.
That is not always the case. Too many persons, are
on the public payrolls because they are useful to politi
cal leaders.
It will take time, but eventually the fact that a man
or woman is employed in, public service will be suffic
ient proof that he or she is highly-trained and peculiarly
competent for the work. To be a Civil servant should
be a badge of honor, calling for general public respect,
as it is today in England and some other European coun
tries, where patronage is not a function of politics.
THE CONSUMER'S DOLLAR
A question which is often asked but seldom satisfac
torily answered is: "Who gets the money we pay for
food?" The farmer complains that he doesn't get
enough of the consumer's dollar. The retail grocery
and meat market complain that they don't make a fair
profit on the fraction left in their hands after they have
paid for the goods they sell.
The answer seems to be, according to the most recent
study of the facts, that most of the consumer's dollar
goes to the middlemen who move food products from
the farm to the retail store. That includes, of course,
the railroads or trucks which haul the farmer's produce
over each stage of its journey, the costs of warehousing
and of processing at various stages, and of all other
business transactions required to bring foodstuffs to the
place where the consumer finally gets them. This mid
dlemen's spread ranges from 52 cents for meats and 53
for dairy products to as high as 76 for bread and cereal
fkrodueti and 80 cents for canned goods. That the buy
eir of canned goods must pay five dollars for every dollar
t?|t the farmer gets seems exorbitant.
tig department store, the mail-order house, the
ofeain-fltore company, and more recently the cooperatives,
jul repqm# efforts to avoid the high costs of our die
trfbnticri cutout, in' part at least, the midAe
World's Greatest Sea Monster
COLUMBIA RIVER, Ore. . . . The enormous cigar shaped bundle of
logs above is one of the famed "Benson Rafts" which are cargo and
carrier in one, making huge savings for lumbermea. These lumber
rafts now go over l,ipO miles on open Pacific, averaging 7 miles per
day. Each raft carries about 5,000,000 feet board measure ? the
equivalent of 250 houses.
man. With each new type some of the less efficient ?)!'
the older ones have been driven out of business. The
earlier types have nevertheless, persisted alongside the
new.
Retailing and the distribution of goods are so highly
competitive that the answer can only be that our com
plicated system does, after all, meet certain needs, that
people will pay to satisfy them, and that, however large
may seem the cost of getting goods from the producer to
the consumer, that cost is paid primarily for services
rendered and not for excessive profits.
The shortest route from producer to consumer, one
which eliminates the largest proportion of middlemen's
tolls, should be the aim of business and the objective of
all legislation affecting prices. The interest of the con
sumer is, or should be, paramount to alfotlier interests.
OUR LAG IN RECOVERY
The depth of the world-wide depression which began
in 1929 and affected the economic conditions of every
nation in the world, came in 1932. In that year recov
ery had got well under way in all countries, including
our own, and has been progressing, fairly steadily, ever
since.
The League of Nations compiles economic statistics
for the whole world, with 110 nationalistic or partisan
bias. The reports in the League's Year Book are as
Af&Ej&ji&ld, unbiased mathematics as are obtainable
'artyCvfiol'b. It comes with something of a shick. there
fore, to find the United States at the bottom of the list
of great nations in the degree of recovery from the de
pression.
We were harder hit than any other nation except Ger
many. But according to the League's figures, Germany
has achieved a degree of recovery many times greater
than our own. It is now 24 per cent better off than it
was in 1929, while this country is still 36 per cent worse
off than in- 1929., while this country is still 36 per cent
worse off than in 1929. Japan, Sweden, Great Britain
and Italy are in better economic condition than before
the depression began; Canada has made an almost com
plete recovery and even France, with all its troubles,
has made more of a comeback than we have.
If it were true that the- credit or blame for the well
being of a people depends on the character and wisdom
of government, we would be compelled to believe that
Germany, Italy and Japan have better and wiser gov
ernments than we have. Such a belief would point to
the "authoritarian" type of government as the best of
all for the general welfare.
Few Aihericans believe that an autocratic government
is the' best government. It may be that we are paying
a high price for the preservation of our individual lib
erties. But in Sweden and Great Britain, which stand
close to the top in degree of recovery from the world
depression, the people have not s aerified individual
liberties in any degree.
GIFTS
THAT
LAST
WE HAVE A COMPLETE
LINE.
% EXPERT REPAIRS
FAYNOR'S RADIO SHOP
> REPAIRS TO ALL MAKES
Phone 454-6 Louiuburg, If. 0.
Sell Tour Cotton and Tobacco in Lonitborg ' '
? * - -*?
In No ynccrtain T<>ncs
FIRE HAZARDS
Every home, especially those in
rural areas, should be inspected
for fire hazards during Fire Prev
ention Week, which has been set
for October 9-15.
Doing what can be done, is the
glory of living.
i
CANADIAN EXPORTS I'P
United States agricultural ex
ports to Canada and via Canadian
ports in the first half of 1938
reached a value nearly double thati
of the corresponding period in I
1937.
____ _ __ _______ _________ ___
S'lbscribe t" the Fran&llu Times
PIANO: Due to previous purchas
er's inability to complete contract
we will transfer to any reliable
party for the balance, a beautiful
upright piano or well known make
and fully guaranteed. For infor
mation where piano may be seen,
write Credit Department, Leo
Piano Co., Lynchburg, Va. 10-7-3t
ASCAP "Old Song Week" Proves Old Songs Never Die J
UfkLD SONG WEEK," sponsored by th? Ameri
U can Society of Composers, Authors and Pub
lishers, was recently commemorated by leading bands
and orchestras over the major networks and inde
pendent stations, in motion picture theatres, hotels,
cabarets, restaurants, etc.
Pictured above are a handful of the men and
women, living and dead, whose copyrighted works,
as members of ASCAP, have been made available,
through the .Society's licenses, to enterprises which
perform music publicly for profit.
Public response to the airing of these well-loved
old son$t showed that they had lost none of the ap
peal which was born in them before the days of radio.
Stage" magazine devoted its entire August issue tb
"Pond Recollections" of the old songs.
Composers and authors pictured above are: (1)
Irving Berlin (Alexander's Ragtime Band); (2) Car
rie Jacobs Bond (Perfect Day); (3) J. Russell Rob
inson (Margie); (4) Harry Armstrong (Sweet Ade
JTt uic Feature! 4
line) ; (5) George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue) ; (6)
Geoffrey O'Hara (K-K-K-Katy) ; (7) Fred Fisher
vmicr me eau;; UO) William Jerome
(Bedelia);" (11) George M. Cohan (Over There);
(12) Gene Buck (Hello Frisco); (13) Otto Harbach
(Smoke Gets in Your Eyes); (1*) Shelton Brooks
(Some of These Days); (15) Ernie Burnett (Melan
choly Baby); (16) Jean Schwartz (Chinatown, My
Chinatown); (17) Rudolf Friml (Only a Rose); (U)
Jerome Kem (Ol' Man River); (19) Edgar Leslie
'(Among My Souvenirs); (20) James Thornton
(When You Were Sweet Sixteen); (21) Joe Howard
(I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now);, (22) Harry
Von Tilzer (Wait Till the Sun Shines Nellie) ; , (23)
Giti Rice (Dear Old Pal); (24) John W. Bratton
(Sunshine of Paradise Alley); (25) A1 Bryan (Put
O' My Heart); (26) Raymond Hubbell (Poer But
terfly); (27) Albert Von Tilxer (Take Me Out to the
Ball Game) and (28) Gaa Edwards (School Days).
Phofo Bytuticatr