The Ff l??>? T ?*W?y A TWAy Times ?? ? -? M ? l>Nk CMf Your Award Winning County Newspaper Tuesday, April 8, 1969 LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENT Price Can Be High ? ng| Franklin County has taken steps to become a participant in the North Carolina plan to combat crime under the federal Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act passed by Con gress last year. Last month, the Board of County Commissioners appointed Sheriff William T. Dement as the county representative on the Planning Board. Last week, Richard Alston, an alert Gold Sand Community resident brought to public attention via a Letter to the Editor published on this page, some of the dangers involved in this act. Mr. Alston's points were well taken. Memories are short and most of us live^with an attitude of it-can't-hap pen-to-me. Nevertheless, one need only take a look at the total mess which plagues the public schools of this country to realize that when dealing with Washington bureaucrats, it most surely can happen to us all. As with many laws passed by Con gress over the years, the stated inten tions of this one appears good. Cer tainly this country needs a concerted effort to curb crime. And many local law enforcement agencies are in need of additional funds. However, if past history is any example, once this law goes to the bureaucrats for adminis tration, Congress might as well not exist. It's been quite a few years since Congress has decided it passed a bad law. Once on the books, laws are seldom repealed. If is not the kind of thing one can say let us give it a try. Once hooked, the die is cast. There is noescape. Several sections of Public Law 90-351 are suspect regardless of what subsequent sections might say. Among them is the fact that the President appoints an Administrator and two assistants. These people will have the power. If a plan fails to come up to their expectations,' they can cut the money off. If the agency wants a hearing, one will be granted by the Administrator. When he rules against the local agency, he will grant a re-hearing. When he rules for the second time, the locals may go before the appeals court. If this sounds at all familar, it is. Just ask any school board member. Then there is a section which says no racial quota will be necessary or any racial balance will be required. This, it seems, is also contained some where in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. One has only to check the Supreme Court rulings to see how that little phrase is being interpreted. When the money is being used to buy equipment or to pay additional officers or to construct a building, it will be almost impossible to allow it to be cut off. Rulings by the Supreme Court on employment practices and use of federal funds will quickly scratch the assurances included in this law. There are many other suspect clauses contained in it. It appears to be the first step in the take-over of local law agencies by the federal gov ernment. It doesn't have to be by force. Under this law, it can come with brain-washing in training courses, with extra and badly needed funds and in many other ways. We would not second guess the Commissioners in acting to have the county included in this federal hand out. We- would only remind everyone that the price can be very high. . Turning Them Loose Newspapers are constantly report ing examples of how judicial leniency continues to endanger the public safety. A recent story out of Washing ton points up once again just how grave the situation has become. The report says that seventy-six of the felonies which occurred there last year were committed by 45 persons already under indictment for armed robbery, but were out on bail, pend ing trial. Chief Inspector Sanford D. Garelik of New York City says: "It is self-de feating, to say the least, to have to arrest the same people over and over again. It seems as if our system of criminal justice is.being perverted into a system of criminal injustice -- in justice to a repeatedly victimized public". A good example is the trial of Sirhan Sirhan. A number of people saw Sirhan assassinate Senator Robert Kennedy. He. himself, readily admits it, but more' time is being spent reviewing Sirhan's past then is being spent with the details of his planning and carrying out the murder of a United States Senator. Nowadays, the stress is on the "why" instead of the innocense or guilt of the criminal. In Dover,,. Delaware a man was arrested last June for indecent ex posure. Bond was set at $500. Two days later a young' girl was kidnapped and attacked. The same man was arrested and charged with the crime. Neither of these cases has ever been tried. The young girl Bbmmitted suicide a few days after the attack. Later an 18- year old girl was ak> ducted at knife point. She managed to escape with just minor injuries. The same man, this time, gave himself up to police. He is now serving a six month term. For what? Not for the kidnapping and assault which led to suicide of a young girl; not for the abduction of the 18-year-old. He it serving time for violation of parole. You see, he was arrested in 1966 for assaulting and robbing an old man. The Frft^in Times EstablMied 1870 - Published Tuesdays li Thursdays by The Franklin Times. Inc. Blckett Blvd. Dial OY6-3283 Loulsburg, N. C. CLINT FULLER, Managing Editor ELIZABETH JOHNSON, Business Manager Advertising Rates Upon Request NATIONAL EDITORIAL ASSOCIATION . SUBSCRIPTION RATES Id North Carolina: Out of State: One Year, I4.M; Six Months, $2.83 One Y aw. *6 50; Six Months, M OO Three Months, $2.06 Three Months, $3 .50 Emfni - wcond dsn mril mstter sod po.Uat p*d it the Pott Offlcc si LouMwig. N. C. 27549 "LYNDON? IT'S STILL TICKING!" i. l -J fit b i ? ? i- v WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING Frightening Lesson The Courier-Times, Roxboro, N. C. Horrible and morbid as the circum stances may be, there is a lesson for all parents in the tragic kidnap-murder of 13-year-old Jackie Stone of Wallace, N. C. The terrifying fate that befell this innocent young girl points up all to vividly the importance for parents to instruct their children NEVER to al low themselves to be picked up by strangers, no matter what these strangers may tell them. It's easy to rationalize this sort of thing away, to tell ourselves that this is something that happens only to other people in other places, that it would never happen in Person Coun ty. Maybe it won't; we pray God not. But the case of Jackie Stone illustrates that the risk is not worth it. Alert your children to the sad fact that there are bad, unpredictable people in this world. Impress upon them that their getting into a car with a total stranger is an unwise and dangerous thing to do. And when they ask you why, tell them. Tell them that there is a pretty little Easter dress in Wallace, N. C. that will never be worn, that there's a seventh-grade classroom in Duplin County with a vacant desk and that a mother and father who a week ago had three reasons to live now have only two. r Sermon May Not Come The News Reporter, Whiteville, N. C. While talk goes on and hopes rise sky high concerning the building of Soul City in Warren county, nothing has been said and no plans promoted as to how residents of the proposed municipality would be sustained in the matter of maintaining the city and making a living. Have promoters looked beyond Main Street and storefronts and people coming a-shopping on a Satur day afternoon with plans for payrolls to provide the where-with for filling shopping bags? Presently, this second and essential phase seems to be something akin to the country preacher who doesn't " prepare his sermon but waits for it to come when he gets into the pulpit. And what sort of justification is the U. S. Housing and Urban Affairs Department going to find when the appeal arrives for some $30 million to buy the land, put in streets, sidewalks, water and sewer facilities and build ings for businesses and homes? Oh, perhaps they are saying, good jobs with regular work and high pay will come when these, essentials for living and doing business become a reality. But will they? What sort of skills, if any, would residents of Soul City have to offer industry? Corporate wealth is suf ficient all across the land to take a fling at establishing a plant out on the fringes, but the facts of economics coupled with the profit-motive do not indicate industry would be of a mind to take such a shot in the dark. The expected request for $30 mil lion to get the proposal going would be a selling of securities with the government guaranteeing payment if the dare failed. Then What? Thirty millin dollars of taxpayers gone down the drain. This doesn't make sense and any more than other similar ventures Uncle Sam has' jumped into and got his feet burned. Why should not promoters and well-heeled friends, of which there are plenty, put something into the pot to show good will? fc'COME r THINK OF IT..." 'i by frank count I ain't got no objection to spring coming, if it wants to. Fact is. I think it picks a pretty good time of the year to do it. It conies when it just starts to get warm and things are budding and grass is starting to grow and the baseball season is ready to start. Yep. I suspect that if I could chose a time to visit around here, it'd be about the same time of year that spring comes. I ain't got no argument with spring except for what it does to the little woman. It makes her plain miserable. She can't stand it. You'd think she'd like it since she gets cold the last of July and don't get warm until the last of the next June. She always has had a short summer. But just let her hear that spring is here. I don't know where mic gcria iici uuuiiiMiiun. i suic don't tell her. Fact is. 1 tell her very little. I know I ain't gonna tell her spring's here. That's because it makes her so miserable. Not her n exactly. Me. It's me that she makes J so miserable every spring. . . Take last week. And you could have had it. First thing. "Mow the lawn", she says. "Mow the lawn?", I countered. "There ain't a blade of grass within a mile of our yard". There wasn't either except a few sprigs of onions and I tol