Newspapers / The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, … / April 10, 1930, edition 1 / Page 4
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PAGE FOUR CHATHAM RECORD O. J. PETERSON Editor and Publisher SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: One Year $1.50 Six Months 75 THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1030. WE MEET AN OLD FRIEND The editor of The Record was delighted to meet his old friend Mrs. James Hiekerson here at the U. D. C. conven tion. When the writer taught at the village of Rondae, on the Yadkin, 35 years ago, three of the Hiekerson boys were pupils of his. The'young est, Felix, has long been a professor of engineering at the University, and it was he who did that fine engineering job on the highway from Chapel Hill toward Pittsboro. Mrs. Hickerson’s husband, much older than she, struck us as an image of Oliver Cromwell, and when we think of that great soldier and statesman, the figure of Dr. Hiekerson arises. By the way, the old Hick erson home on the Yadkin was the homestead of Col. Cleveland when he fought at King’s Mountain. Later he moved over into Pickens coun ty, S. C., where he grew to giant proportions, weighing several hundred pounds. Mrs. Hiekerson now lives with Felix at Chapel Hill. _i_ _<s One of the penalties of Rowing older is the news of frequent deaths of friends. Scarcely paper ar rives without telling of the death of some one whom w r e have known many years. All the grown folk we knew when a child are gone almost to ja man and .woman. But we had in mind to mention the death of our good friend Council Wooten, Sf Mt. Olive, formerly of Le mnr county. He has passed jset the age of ninety, yet was sprightly and cheerful the iast time we saw him. He was a scholar and a gentleman of the old school. He was at the time of his death the old est surviving student of Wake' Forest College. He was an uncle of Dr. J. Y. Joyner, and \ he has told this writer howj Dr. Joyner’s mother was seek- j ing refuge from the Yankees, in eastern North Carolina upon , the Yadkin river when Dr. i Joyner was born, and that ac-' counts for the Y in Dr. Joy-; ner’s name—named for Yad-i kin river or Yadkin county.! Recently it was our old friend j Rev. Frank Wooten, of the same fine old eastern stock, | that passed. <§> It is a little difficult to sympathize thoroughly with a boy w T ho is so smart that he heeds no warnings. The Bible says that h& who is often warned but hardens his heart shall suddenly be destroyed. One can blame men who sell or give boys liquor, but the boys themselves are fools to be led into temptation. A boy at 14 years of age should have sense if he ever is to have any. The next time a Pittsboro boy goes to Sanford or any other town and gets arrested for having whiskey, we hope his parents and friends will let him soak in jail for a few days before they bond him out. If a chap knows so much that he will not take advice, let him be thoroughly convinced that he is not as smart and as big as he thinks he is. The sooner he is convinced that his pa rents and friends know more than he, the better it will be for him. The warnings cer tainly had been sufficient for even the smartest of alecs the ten days previous to the escapade of the youngster in mind, and though we are re fraining from mentioning his name here, he may be sure that thousands of folk in Chatham county already know that he is a little fool and needs to be trailed till he can not sit down, and the same is true of the chap that had to be hauled from the school house dead-drunk. The boot leggers can not sell or give ■ liquor to k i>py that has the -right kind of sense. I CONTROL OF WHISKEY EACH COMMUNITY’S CONCERN O-i This writer is confident that he has lived under as many kinds of attempted control of the liquor business as any one in North Carolina, and he has, ► come to the conclusion that the soberness of a community absolutely depends upon the sentiment prevailing in that community and upon the ac tive participation of the pa rents and citizens in genei al in instilling fear of the drink habit into the minds of the children, and in unhesitating participation in bringing law violators into the courts. You may have national, state, county, and local prohi bition laws, but unless the 1 community itself compels ob servance of these laws and fosters a healthy temperance sentiment, the community will ' be cursed by drink. There is no use worrying about the en forcement or the non-enforce ment of the national prohibi tion law. If the sentiment and the courage of the community are right, the boys find girls of the community will likely be saved; if they are not, no number of laws, apparently, can save them. Forty-five years ago the people of Sampson county were rapidly becoming sober. Os the boys of our own age we knew scarcely one that would even go on “grog row.” With a dozen saloons in Clin ton, we never knew a school boy to need discipline for drinking. It had been differ ent Three half-brothers of the writer had grown up earlier and had no scruples against drinking. The next two and this writer and 5 his full-brother had grown * up un<ier the growing sentiment against drink and avoided the barrooms. There was no block ade distillery in the whole section. From 1898 to 1901, ; the writer was principal of North Greenville Academy, a Bap tist school located half way between Hendersonville, N. C., and Greenville, S. C., but in South' Carolina. The dispen sary law was in force in that State. ' In addition, the school area had been previously in corporated against whiskey. ' Yet tie principajyof the school had to take a personal hand |in keeping the community from being overflowed with J liquor. He found a distillery ; between the school build ing and the old * community | church, just a mile apart. Yet | the pupils of the school, many ;of them grown boys, were j sober, despite the fact that Isome of them came right out lof the “dark corner,” the most noted blockade district lin South Carolina. The com- I munity was becoming sober, I despite the continuance of the old blockading set of their manufacture, the product of which was largely carted off to Greenville. Not one case of discipline for drink did we have in three years. Those boys simply did not drink. They had been taught that it was hazardous, and the liquor man was looked upon as an outlaw. Later, the writer taught, and . conducted a paper at Lumberton, under the jug law. Hamlet at that time filled the jugs. We helped kill the distillery business at Hamlet, but ultimately the writer had to take a personal hand in drying Lumberton (for the time, by getting proof of sale against a soft-drink place.) In Louisiana, just 17 years ago, we taught in Louisiana MORE ABOUT MEDICINAL LIQUOUR Without a legal means of securing medicinal liquor many bec o m e dis pensers, and necessarily buy ers, of blockade liquor, and there Is danger that every jail where confiscated liquor is kept will become a liquor dis pensary for medicinal pur- I poses, - and then easily for other purposes. The illegal handling of liqpor by physi cians would not be so bad if all physicians were non-drink ers themselves, and if they observed the decencies in get ting the liquor they dispense. When the State tries to THE CHATHAM RECOUP.’ PITTSBORO, N. C. College, the infant Baptist College of that State. It is in Pineville, just across the Red River from Alexandria. , Pineville had three saloons, one of them in sight of our own door; the city of Alex andria had, maybe, thirty or forty, only a mile from the college. Yet there was not one of the college boys known to be drunk during the pe riod we remained there, and Pineville was a sober com munity. In 1917, the writer re turned to ~ Clinton and was soon convinced that the whole county was being demoralized by whiskey from blockade distilleries, though for that first year the officers had not captured a single one. The Sampson Democrat started a fight against the evil. Mayor Grady, now Judge Grady, co operated. Things got hot; the county officers got busy. They had to. But it is hard to stop a runaway horse. Now we are here at Pitts boro, in a county where the officers have been exceeding alert. Yet the worse condi tions have prevailed recently that we have ever known. Never before have we known the boys of fourteen to eigh teen years of age to be so generally debasing themselves with drink. Never before have we known a sixteen year-old boy to have to be hauled away from school dead-drunk, nor a sixteen year-old boy of a good home arrested in a nearby town for driving a car drunk and for possession of liquor. Yet. we have more law than ever, f ore—so much, indeed, that half the mature people of the county have probably violated it by making medicinal wine or b u ying or transporting whiskey for medicinal pur poses, and have thus become largely indifferent to the en forcement of .'it in its im portant particulars. We are back to our first proposition. If the people of Pittsboro or of any other Chatham county community wish to save their boys and girls, it is up to their own personal behavior and efforts." A boy in whom has been in stilled a dread of the ruinous stuff is safe anywhere, in 99 out of a hundred cases. Also, despite all the laws and the best efforts of the' officers in a county this size, whiskey will be available to those who seek it unless the citizens de termine in their hearts that no favor shall be shown to dealers and that such shall be ostracised from decent so ciety. When barrooms ex-* isted, there could be a check on the youth. Minors could be kept out of the barrooms. But now 7 a parent does not know where his* child will run up with the stuff. Hence, the necessity for eternal viligance, for a general cleaning-up, for a more earnest teaching of the danger of drink. With 564 out of. ,900 University students who voted in a recent questionable professing to drink to some extent, it is clear that the average boy ' is not safe under prevailing conditions. The writer has raised only one boy, now a full-grown man. He has prob ably had hundreds of chances to drink, but his early train ing and common sense have saved ’ him from the curse. Finally, check smart alecism ( in your boy at its earliest ap pearance. A smart alec is in imminent danger. Hickory oil is good for that dangerous disease. Utand so straight that it : girls drinking. It is not conceiv- Hector. Shall North Carolina have legal or illegal dispen saries for medicinal liquor? Positively it now has the lat ter. It was not a mere hy pothetical we asked two weeks ago about getting liquor for a hospital patient. A half dozen people violated the law in that case, but for one we see no escape from that means or one worse. If a 19-inch snow is a rec ord breaker for Chicago, one can more readily conceive the unusualness of that 24- to 30- inch snow we had here three years ago* March 2. SOME NEWS AND COM MENT It i1? gratifying to see the banks of Chatham county pulling through safely while manv banks of other sections of the State are suffering from frozen ‘assets, frauds, robberies, etc. It is true we have had one small bank failure, but even the Bank of Bonlee has been reorganized and is doing business at the old stand. Chatham has been hit oftener by bad crops in recent years than possibly any county in the State; yet we have seen comparatively few business failures, and there is not the howl from the county that comes from some which have had several fair crops during the period of Chat ham’s stress. The condition speaks volumes for the econ omy and industry of our peo ple and for the managements of the banks. * * * Carl Goerch reports a shower of" mud from Wash ington, this state, Monday afternoon. The air was full of dust and a shower came up, bringing the dust down as mud and making cars and suits look as if they had been spattered from a mud hole. * * * Now it is stated that a kind of bacteria has been dis covered that will make oil from cocoanuts, cotton seed, etc., without all the trouble of present methods. The process is comparable to the making of alcohol in fermen tataton. * * * Senator Simmons is hopping all over Raskob for contribut ing to the association against the eighteenth amendment. But so long as Senator Sim mons is bold enough 1 to speak for the amendment, it is clear ly safe for the time - being, since that gentlemap is sure to be no pioneer in any kind of reform. Prohibition was largely established in North Carolina before he was known to lift his voice in its behalf, and if the law should prove a failure, it is 1 quite certain that he would never dare say so till the majority of the people had been convinced of the same. It will take as much courage for the North Carolina' politicians to sug gest a v change in the prohibi tion laws as it did for them to approve such laws in the first place. At present the prohibition law is a fetish among the politicians of North Carolina, and if changes should be found to be needed, the propaganda for such changes would have to come from such bold spirits as moved for prohibition. The real friend of temperance wants the thing that is best for the people, and if one thing is found not to be best, he will seek something else. Os course, judgments may be mistaken. - But you may count upon Simmons to be firm for the status quo so long as ths£ itself is not wobblying. There fore, the eighteenth amend ment may be considered firm ly tied down. * * * The philosopher and states man Ghandi of India has led a number of volunteers to the sea to violate deliberately Great Britain’s law against making salt: His purpose is to induce the people of India to disobey the laws of the Empire, and as there are three hundred millions of inhabi tants in that vast empire, it is evident that Great Britain could not cope with them. It would seem at a glance that the salt laws of India are more cruel than the tea laws preceding our Revolution. Before you kick anvbodv for wanting to see changes in the prohibition laws, do your own part to make prohibition of some value. The prohibi tion law was conceived as a means of saving the young people from the temptation of drink, but we are almost sure that this is the first time in the 150-year history of this old town when a school boy had to be hauled off from school dead-drunk, while sev eral others can be proved to have been drunk outside of school, not to mention the formerly unheard-of thing of girls drinking. It is not conceiv able that any decent man wants to see the nation be sotted. Therefore, it would seem an injustice to charge a New Yorker, for instance, with disregard of decency in advocating a change in the ‘laws. For if things have come to the pass they have here in Chatham county, where, by general consent, we have the best enforcement officers to be found almost anywhere, what do you suppose are the conditions in New York? So soon as liquor drinking be comes more dangerous under prohibition than under the old regime, there will be no rea son why the laws should not be changed. On the contrary, there would be a good reason to change them if the evils of drink were only on a bal ance with those of old times, for it is easy to understand that a Raskob might conceive of the hundreds of other crimes growing out of boot legging as worse than all the evils ever laid to liquor per se. It is a good time to be careful in imputing wrong mo tives to the other fellow. We are beginning to see what some communities have been up against for these past ten years. Indeed, there is no tell ing what would be conditions here if prosperous times- had prevailed. Hence, it is up to the people as a whole to make prohibition a success, if they would not see it become an absolute failure, or worse. The Record is ready to help clean up Chatham county. Hither to, we have felt that our ex cellent officers were holding the evil under fair check, but it is now evident' that they need more help than they have had. Seven hundred square miles of territory is too CTpSr . W ' : a BRINGING THINGS HOME . , ... . . : ~ -/ .1 ♦* * - 8 * • **' •. «• • “That lecture* tonight was wonderful. It brought things' Home to me that I had never seen before,” said Mrs? Highbrow. Her hubby replied: “That’s nothing. We’ve got a pup that does the same thing!” These horrid men just won’t be serious. Yet with all their faults, most, of them have a real aim in life. They “josh” a good deal, , but they love their home folks, work hard, save carefully, in order to maintain that home comfortably. They are doing their best; if in addition they keep their surplus funds at a reliable bank like ours. - % ~ • ”*• \ i '» * THE BANK OF GOLDSTON HUGH WOMBLE, Pres. T. W. GOLDSTON, Cashier GOLDSTON, N. C. V J f — ; —————v Lee Hardware Co. 5 . 1 • i.. . , Headquarters for Fanning Tools, Implements, Mill Supplies, Builders’ Supplies, Kitchen and Household Hardware See Us for Roofing and Paints Chatham Folk are invited to make our store : « .. • , ...... •, 9 , headquarters when in Sanford THE LEE HARDWARE CO. Sanford, N. C. i y !i/y; ' . J m *. y w 1 • CUT COFFEE COST IN HALF • You get as many cups from one pound of “Gold Ribbon” Brand Coffee and Chicory as you do from two .pounds of ordinary coffee, because it is Double Strength. Cut your coffee bill in half by using “Gold Ribbon” Blend one pound lasts as long as two pounds of ordinary coffee—and you pay no more! ' ' t I HBpold Ribbon — THURSPA\, APRIL TO jS* large an area irx liced wgys CUT SALARIES W onder why Brother 77« continues to insist upon dollar cut m all teachers’ / aries? A percentage cu t •' the fair thing. A ten-A/ cut wouldn’t hurt those a month sons of his, but wo“ U M dig like forty into the sa i!! d of an eighty- or ninety doll/ teacher. Make it ten per c !?/ and then the big-salaried f \i will feel the cut, and the ft will be larger. We old-tinfi teachers had our income in conformity with the times But teachers are not the only ones whose salaries should be mad to conform to the times. T^ 6 state’s statistics, published bv the Conservation Commission last week, show that Chatham county farmers lacked is cents per capita of farm pop ulation of making anythin? above board in 1928. It fully as bad last year, and not much better for the sev eral bad crop years that Chat', ham has had. As one farmer says, let the salaries be low. ered now and when the peo ple get rich they can be raised again. Some of us who might guarantee to teach for years a class composed of members of the great major, ity of the teaching profession in the State have worked and felt well paid for fifty dollars a month and supported a fam ily, and did about as much work as the average two teachers have to do now.. Truth lies in a hog head, not in a well- —French proverb.
The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, N.C.)
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April 10, 1930, edition 1
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