Newspapers / The Franklin Times (Louisburg, … / Oct. 16, 1969, edition 1 / Page 4
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The Fr53 Pwfcl>?htd !??' ? Tw??4?y A Tkv't4?y Times lfM| AM Of PrcNktM Cl?rt| .Your Award Winning County Newspaper LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENT Call It What It Is Its been said that free speech is the right of every American so long as it does not give a person the right to yell fire in a crowded theatre. The right of free expression is basic as long as such expression does not pose a threat to others and to the security of this country. There are quite a few Americans who should feel proud of themselves today. They sold out their country yesterday. In the pretense of free expression, they aided and abetted a known and sworn enemy of the United States. And they did this knowingly. They could have no doubts about it. They cannot later claim that they were misled. The Communists proclaimed" throughout the world their whole hearted support of the so-called Peace Moratorium. While funeral services were being held for 400 South Vietnamese slaughtered by the Viet Cong, Americans sang "Give Peace a chance."' These dead were on our side. They believed as we believe. They knew better than most what com munism can do. The over 40,000 American dead were shamed as hippies and intel lectual cripples read their names as if in mourning. Newspapers referred to these unAmerican Americans as ob serving the Moratorium as a day of mourning. Bosh. These people mourn only for themselves and only because they are afraid they might be called on to serve their country. It is time for responsible journalists * to call this type of thing just what it is. Treason. Pure and simple. Like it or not, this country is at war and aiding and abetting the enemy is treason. It has always been and by any other name or pretense it is today. Who do these people think they are. Are they so closed minded that they believe that a college degree or a professorship or even passing the ad mission tests to become a student makes them wiser or more qualified to decide the fate of this country than those who offer their lives in its defense? Peace? Who in Heaven's name doesn't want peace? Do these people believe they have a monopoly on this? Surely a well financed longbeard, riding in a plush modern automobile on a good modern highway, eating from the plush table and riding high on the staff of life can be no more interested in peace than the wife of a serviceman? How do these people propose to know more of what war means than the widows and orphans? Peace? What do they know? But one hopeful sign came from yesterday's fiasco. It was a monu mental flop. Dispite all the TV cove rage and the newspaper devoting half an issue to picture the bums lying spralled out on the grassy campuses, long hair and all, it was still a collossal flop. This is the good part. So they had a day off from studies and a few feeders at the public trough-pro fessors, paid from the tax till -took the occasion to spout off. What else is new? That thousands-yeah, even mil lions, of Americans- true and blue burned their headlights and flew Old Glory at full staff to show not these dirty beatniks, but the whole world, how this country feels. Not new, really, but reassuring. We may yet re-establish this nation's greatness. The brave might not have died in vain in Vietnam. The Moratorium might have seen to this. Great Society Lives On Lexington, Va. News So you think your taxes are too high? Here's one reason: It's costing the American people over $1 million a year to keep ex-Pres ident Lyndon Johnson in the style to which he accustomed himself while serving his country. $1 millions year. For a po' boy who was admittedly broke when he wrangled a Congres sional seat from his fellow Texans, Lyndon's done all right by himself. His wife's small inheritance was used to buy a radio station which received such favorable treatment from the Federal Communications Commission during the years Mr. Johnson served in the House and Senate that the John son fortune is now estimated in excess of $10 million. As an ex-President, he received a pension of $25,000 a year. Add to that another $22,000 a year pension for his service in the Congress. The taxpayers are paying $454,981 in annual salaries for a staff of em ployees and consultants for Mr. John son in addition to the salaries for a dozen Secret Service agents assigned to the Johnson ranch. In nearby Johnson City (popula tion 385) there is a new $500,000 Post Office building under construc tion. The building was required ac cording to a White House memo, "to meet the growing needs of the postal service in the postal area served by the Johnson City post office." The Philadelphia Inquirer recently made a list of other Johnson expendi tures in Texas. There is that $12 million Johnson Library under construction at the University of Texas. Upon Mr. John son's recommendation, the building will house a replica of the White House oval office, in addition to a 100-seat auditorium and a 206-seat lecture hall. . * While waiting for the Johnson City Post Office to be completed, the Government has spent $10,418 to refurnish the basement of the Johnson City Bank for Mr. Johnson's use, and added $59,850 for administrative equipment. The equipment includes one $10,155 typewriter, two others cost $7,210 each, $5,890 worth of dictating and transcribing equipment and a $445.50 "destroy it" waste basket which shreds paper for security reasons. There also is a $159 stapling; machine.and an envelope opener which cost $245. In addition, Mr. Johnson maintains an office in Austin which costs the taxpayers $148,550.31. His personal stuff includes three assistants at $28,000 a year each, $24,000 a year for Walt Whitman Rostow, who served as his foreign affairs adviser -and $24,000 a year for a personal photographer! Also, we taxpayers paid for a 6,300-foot blacktop airstrip on the Johnson ranch, an airstrip big enough to accommodate jets. Mr. Johnson's "Great Society" is a thing of the past for the American people. But for Mr. Johnson, It will last for a lifetime. Old Slogan, New Version If you put off until tomorrow what you should do today, there'll probably be a higher tax on it. ? The Office Economist. The Frajjjyin Times Eatablhhad 1870 ? Publlthrd Tuaadayt & Thuradaya by The Frunklin Timet. Inc. BIckattBlrd. Dill OY 6-3283 , Louliburg. N. C. CLINT PULLER, Managing Editor ELIZABETH JOHNSON, BuaiiMaa Manager NATIONAL EDITORIAL Advartlaing Rata* ASSOCIATION Upon Raquaat W-? 1969 SUBSCRIPTION RATES In North Carolina: , Out of Stat*. On. Yaw. $4.64; Six Montha, 82.83 On* Yaw. 86.60, Six Montha, $4.00 Thiw Montha, $2.06 Thr?t Montha, $3.60 Entered as aocond dau mall matter and pottage paid at the Pott Office at Lou tabu rg. N. C. 27549. 'I'm Gettin' A Very Lonesome Feeling' ,o,v\>M6 t/.$ WHAT OTHERS ARE SAVING Alarming School Decisions Viewpoint by Jesse Helms One fundamentally depressing aspect rises above all others in the alarming school decisions rendered by federal judges Alger non L. Butler and John D. Larkins. And its significance runs beyond any political, social or emotional question in the now-chaotic school situation in Warren nd Halifax coun ties. The real calamity is that two federal judges, born and raised in a state where freedom in America was given birth, should so casually and so unhesitatingly strike down, without so much as a passing glance, the one basic element of liberty-freedom of choice. Freedom of choice is no mere cliche. And one need not asign evil motives to observe that any man who would deprive another of his freedom to choose is striking at the very meaning of America. That fatal mistake having been made, the remainder of the way towards a captive, controlled society be comes only a matter of time. It is the stuff upon which dictatorships feed. The Butler-Larkins decisions, then, must be viewed for what they are-a fearful step beyond the point of no return. These two judges, notable citizens as they have been, turned their backs on the single most impor tant bade right of their fellow citizens. Freedom of choice was struck down with such finality, and with such force, that other men of power hereafter will feel little restraint in improvising the law to fit what ever objectives they may have in mind. It cannot be suggested that the Halifax and Warren school plans, rejected by the federal judges, did not afford all students Aid their parents-of both races-an equal opportunity to choose. Judges Butler and Liurkftu, in fact, made clear that their objec tion to the school plans made by the two counties, and approved by the state legisla ture, was that whites and blacks alike did not choose to go to school together In large enough percentages to satisfy the judges' idea of what the individual citizens should have chosen. In the Butler-Larkins view, therefore, the two counties should be forced to compel a greater degree of Integration. That was the effect of the court orders, signed by both judges. And In the process, other important principles were ground underfoot-among them, the right of local communities to operate their own schools; and the right of the state legislature to designate and delegate local responsibility. It is interesting, by the way, that the two federal judges have created a number of contradictory conditions. Neither Judge But ler nor Judge Larkins ventured to declare unconstitutional the actions of the state legislature in setting up separate school districts in the two counties. Therefore, the school districts still exist under state law and, as such, own property. But the judges have ordered the two counties to use school property which the counties do not own. Moreover, as matters now stand, school officials in the districts apparently are for bidden by court order, to continue their legal efforts to defend their position in an effort to retain the rights and authorities granted them by legislative act and public referendum. In effect, they are being denied their right of appeal. So, at a time when it has become federal government policy to provide every mur derer and rapist with free legal services, the duly-elected and duly-authorized school of ficials in two school districts of North Carolina have been denied the right to function, even to continue to hire lawyers to defend their position. ^ The Littleton-Lake Gaston School Dis trict, for example, owns the school building which the federal judges contend that the Warren County school system must use. Warren County does not own the building, and the federal judges have made no effort to take it away from the rightful owners of the property. But, relatively speaking, these are secon dary details which pale in significance to the overriding question: What happens to a citizen's freedom when he is deprived of his right to choose? These are indeed calamitous times when the most basic of man's freedoms is lost among a welter of bureaucratic guidelines, hypothetical percentages, social theories, and Improvised judicial opinions. We would repeat: freedom of choice is no mere cliche; It Is the very key to all of man's freedoms. And once It is lost, it will not be easily recovered. 'COME TO THINK OF IT..." by frank count" It ain't often I git to eat with no illustrious group such as the county firemen but one night not so long ago, I did. I wont exactly invited official like, but one of the members kinda asked me to come. He knowed I knowed a little something he didn't want put in this column so he sorta lefthandedly invited me. He wouldn't a have if he thought he was gonna have to pay for it. But since the organization was paying, he was kinda free with his invitations. "Aint no need to dress up. Krank", he said. "It'll just be a bunch of us fellows eating and laughing and having a good time. Ain't gonna be nothing fancy. Just come like you are." Well, I ought to a had more sense than to believe him in the first place, but I figured he was one of the wheels in the thing and he ought to know. So I didn't git dressed nothing fancy. I just went in my every day overalls I had some newer ones I could a wore but I didn't want to be too dressed up. I didn't want to hurt none of them firemen's feel ings. You don't ever know when you gonna need one of 'em. They looked like a bunch of preachers at a convention of church women. I seen fellows with neckties that I hadn't seen wearing a shirt before. They was bowing at the hips and speaking to one another in a unknown tongue. Man, they talked fancier than 1 ever hear them. Some of them, I knowed could talk better 'n they was. They was trying to impress one another I think. They impressed me. I wished I'd a stayed home or at least wore my new overalls. But the class showed when they brought the food. Some of them was eating chicken with their fingers. I knowed right off they didn't have no learning. The last thing the little woman told me before she'd let me go was to be sure and eat with my knife and fork. I won't setting no recoils with my piece of back but I was proper. I was four pieces behind the fellow next to me, but I stayed with the knife and fork. I knowed how to act if he didn't. I got to admit them finger fellows was having more fun than I was having and they shore got more to eat. I finally give up on the knife and fork stuff when they brought the ice cream and pie. I won't abot to fight that ice cream all over that sauser. I just picked it up and et it. Some of them give me the evil eye but if they could eat chicken with their fingers, 1 could eat my ice cream the same way. It was when I washed my fingers in the water glass that them around me started to cough. Everybody got frogs in their throats at one time. It was eating so fast on them chickens. If them firemen fight fires as good as they was fighting them plates of chicken, the world is safe. They was slapping at them dead chickens all night. Even after the business was took care ' of, some of th&n was still yelling for somebody to pass the chicken. One fellow said he could git potatoes at home so he didn't take no potatoes. I had a good time, After some of the boys took off their coats and loosened their ties -some even took off their shoes - 1 begun to feel more at home. One fellow complimented me on the flowerdy necktie I was wearing with my plaid shirt and blue overalls. He said he liked it. It was prettier than his'n I had to admit. His was solid blue. Didn't have much class to It. The meeting finally broke up after everybody got through praising every body else. You 'a thunk all of tharn was saints. Some of them was, I guessed. Them at the head table had a certain halo look about them. Them at my table musta missed the boat somewheres They looked more like me I thought about offering my sympathies but I decided they just as soon look like me as to look like some others. I shore was glad I got asked. The little woman enjoyed that bag a chicken bones I took home. She et hers with her fingers. I hope I git invited again. Not having to pay is fun. We dumped over the U.S. -*? last year 48 billion cans and 26 billion bottles . . .
The Franklin Times (Louisburg, N.C.)
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Oct. 16, 1969, edition 1
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