VOLUME
THE
PILOT
NUMBER
Is a Paper Devoted to the Upbuilding of the Sandhill Territory of North Carolina
Address all communications to
the pilot printing company. VASS. N. C.
SEABOARD DOING
GROWING TRAFFIC
Road Has Best Summer Business
Ever Known, and Had Best
Winter Season
BION H. BUTLER
The station agent at Southern
Pines, Mr. Stutz, says the Seaboard is
doing the best business this year that
it has ever done in the summer, and
that the winter traffic was better than
during any winter season in its his
tory. For one I am glad to know it.
It is fashionable to damn the rail
roads, and the Seaboard gets its share
along with the rest of them. But
without the Seaboard it would be a
long hard walk to the places we want
to go from Southern Pines and other
points in the county. It is argued that
we might go in an automobile, but
as the automobiles are brought here
by the Seaboard and the gasoline
comes on the Seaboard, and the other
things come by the Seaboard we wo’jld
miss the road if it should pull up its
rails and quit business.
It is said that 21,000 visitors came
to the winter resorts of the Sandhills
during the past season. How many
of these came in automobiles I have
no idea, but I know that a large pro
portion of them came on the train, and
the train that brought them was the
Seaboard. The other two roads com
ing into Moore county do not carry
many passengers from a distance.
Nearly all winter the trains on the
Seaboard were so full that Pullman
space could not be secured except by
arranging for it several days ahead.
If the business of the resorts increas
es next winter as it has been doing
the road will be obliged to increase
the number of its trains, and that will
be difficult, for already it is a task to
get all traffic up and down the road,
or the scramble for accomodations will
be annoying.
This year the fruit and vegetable
freight from farther south is bigger
than ever. The Georgia and Florida
truck shipm^ts continue to increase,
as they will keep on increasing, for
all down the line more stuff is made
each summer to feed the hungry folks
in the North who are all the time in
creasing in numbers faster than the
farms and gardens up there are in
creasing their food supply. Here in
the Sandhills we are preparing to
dump onto the side tracks at least a
thousand cars more of peaches than
was ever taken away from this sec
tion before, and the Seaboard must
handle the bulk of that probably. The
Georgia peach crop is to be split this
year, and a lot of it is moving by the
Seaboard, as the Southern has the
same kind of an increase in business.
Passenger traffic on the Seaboard is
holding up just like freight traffic, for
the two features of transportation
business run in similar ratios about
all the time.
It is gratifying to see this evidence
of expanding business in the Sandhill
country and on all the length of the
Seaboard road, but there is also the
other side of it. A railroad in a grow-
5rig country is about the hungriest
thing on earth. It is always calling
for something to live on. It may be
able to pay its going expenses, but
that is by no means its principal
troubles. Far more pressing is the
money to permit the extension of fa
cilities for doing business. The Sea
board should be double tracked from
Hamlet to Norlina right away, but it
bas no money, and as an investment,
or any other railroad, looks prom
ising enough to the man with money
to persuade investors to buy railroad
stocks. The price of Seaboard stock
on the market last Saturday was
eleven dollars for a share of the com-
^^on stock, and twenty-five dollars for
of the preferred issue. It has not
paid a dividend in years, and the
bonds of the road have to hustle to
^eet their interest charges. Nobody
■^ants to buy stock in a concern that
can not do better. And that is what
this section faces. The railroads are
criticised without limit, which has no
possible effect. Criticism cannot get
money for them. On all sides new
stations are asked for, and overhead
crossings, and longer siding^ and oth
er things to please the people of the
communities. But the road knows bet
ter how much these things are need
ed for it is in contact with its W"ants
every day. And it also knows that
money is necessary to secure such
things, but it does not know where nor
how to get the money.
Fortunately I do not have to find
the money for the Seaboard, nor do I
have to carry its burdens. It is mere
ly an interesting bit of speculation on
my part as to what any of the big
roads are going to do as their traffic
increases, for there is not a road in
existence that is in shape to handle
its business. The roads are getting
ready to move the twenty-five hundred
cars of fruit shortly, but they are go
ing to flax around while they do it. It
is no boy^s job this year.
BURNED BY GASOLINE
Gasoline caused a serious accident
early Sunday morning when Orville
Gilbert attempted to start a fire with
the dangerous explosive. Young Gil
bert lives with his wife and baby on
a farm near Southern Pines and is
employed in one of the local garages.
When the flames came in contact with
the gasoline, trouble resulted of so
grave a nature that the life of the
young man in a serious condition. The
burns over his body are of severe
character. After the accident he
started for help in his automobile un
assisted. In his painful condition he
lost control of the machine and turn
ed it over on the way. He was later
rescued and taken to Aberdeen where
medical aid was given.
The trouble with having a “Father’s
Day” is that he would have to go
around next day and pay for the pres
ents the family gave him.
A Detroit man dropped dead in a
garage. He must have found that
they had fixed his car when they said
they would.
SEN. SMITH SAYS
CO-OPS WILL WIN
Farm Bloc Leader Tells Southern
Belt Farmers to Stick by
Association
At the largest mass meeting of to
bacco farmers held in North Carolina
this year, United States Senator E. D.
Smith, told members of the Tobacco
Growers’ Co-operative Association
from the South Carolina belt that the
associated farmers of the tobacco and
cotton co-operatives may look, next
year for 75 per cent payments on de
livery to their association, if the bill
which he has introduced to help fi
nance the marketing associations be
comes l£^v^ at the next session of Con
gress in Washington.
A barbecue at Chadbourn, where the
merchants and Chamber of Commerce
turned hosts to the farmers of Colum
bus and adjoining counties on the
meeting day of the Columbus County
Unit of the tobacco association, last
Tuesday, became a huge affair, featur
ed by the roasting of twenty-two pigs
and several beeves, a fiddlers’ conven
tion, at which old time tunes were en
joyed, and a reunion of the co-opera
tive farmers who met from North and
South Carolina. But the feature of
the day was the prophecy by the vet
eran leader of the senatorial farm bloc
that before the expiration of their
present contract members of the to
bacco association will receive 75 per
cent of the value of their tobacco up
on delivery and far more from it than
they could hope to gain without or
ganization.
Senator Smith earnestly warned the
farmers to continue and fulfill the suc
cess of co-operative marketing they
must do their share in signing up and
delivering enough tobacco to the as
sociation to make the volume of the
product guarantee a control of the
price. “We must have a majority of
the product,” he warned the farmers,
(Continued on page 8)
FRIDAY, JUNE 20,1924
ARTHUR NEWCOMB
A SANDHHl FACTOR
Important Agency in Creating a
Confidence Among People in
This Section
For several years the name of A. S.
Newcomb has been rather conspicu
ous in the Sandhills country, com
mencing with the time nearly twenty
years ago when he appeared as an in
surance and real estate agent in
Southern Pines, and continuing until
he sold his business at Pinehurst a
few weeks ago. Newcomb came to
North Carolina from Maine, where he
had been a newspaper man. He be
gan to mix in things in Moore county
when he arrived, and has kept on mix
ing in larger and larger circles all
the time, and now when some folks
think he has quit business he is more
directly concerned in an indirect way
than probably he has been at any oth
er time.
From now on he will likely attend to
his own business instead of doing
work through his agency for others,
for Jie has gathered up considerable
stuff of one sort or another here and
elsewhere to be looked after, and he
is about at a point where he is in a
fair way to be of more use to the
country than ever. Newcomb has al
ways been a hopeful and confident
chap. He has been a prophet of real
values. In the past when town lots
were selling in Southern Pines for
not much more than the price of a
postage stamp it was Newcomb who
insisted that as long as the owners fig
ured their lots worth so little prospec
tive buyers w^ould accept the price as
about right. Newcomb bought cheap
lots frequently, and sold them to folks
he led to see greater value in them.
When he came to Southern Pines six
ty dollars would buy a fine lot that
maybe could not be bought now for
a thousand. Newcomb is to a consid
erable extent responsible for much of
that advance. He insisted that new
comers would not have a very flatter
ing opinion of a town that was rated
on the basis of fifty dollars for a
building site in a choice location. He
advised to put more appreciation on
what was in the town, if for nothing
else to give the place a financial rat
ing. He set the example by his ow^n
actions, and the success of his argu
ment is one of the surprising things
of the whole Sandhill country.
Newcomb realized one fact about
the price of land that most men over
look. A piece of land is not worth
what the man has it says it is v\^orth,
but what the man who wants it is will
ing to give. Early in his career in the
Sandhills he perceived the big advan
tages this section offers in the way
of climate and location to the stranger
from the less hospitable climate of
the North. When Newcomb found a
man of that kind seeking a home site
in the South he estimated price by the
probable interest the man showed in
the property under discussion, and it
was soon seen that a desirable bit of
ground would sell as easily for two
or three hundred dollars as for fifty
dollars. The first step taken; the
second was a mere matter of trying
out, and before he had worked on his
theory very long Mr. Newcomb dis
covered that the price of a building
lot is a secondary matter to a man
who has found the thing that suits
him. So the thousand-dollar lots came
along and then the whole country
waked up, and it was perceived that
locations here in the neighborhood of
Southern Pines, Pinehurst and vicini
ty were just as salable at higher rates
as they had been at the joke prices of
twenty years ago.
Frank Buchan came along about
this time with the Edgemoore proper
ty, and he sold a big acreage of that
tract at a good figure, so much high
er than it had been held previously
that he put things on an entirely new
footing all over the Sandhill country.
And now that prices have gone away
up from what they were. The selling
values are not regarded by buyers a
bit more objectionable than when
James Boyd bought the whole Wey
mouth estate property, from the vil
lage line of Southern Pines two miles
out to James Creek, for about five or
six dollars an acre, land that his
grandsons are selling for a thousand
or more an acre, and to people who
(Continued on page 8)
IS THERE ANY GOOD IN IT?
Posters announcing the coming
of a vaudeville show to Vass for
a week are on display. We con
sider the coming of this or any
other vaudeville show an unfor
tunate thing for the community.
There is no use denying the fact
that there is a financial depress
ion at the present time. The cot
ton mills are able to run only a
part of the time; the dewberry
and peach men will tell you that
they are seeing the results of the
depression in the low prices re
ceived for their fruits; the busi
ness men in general are feeling
the effects of it. It is up to the
public to spend the money they
have wisely. We believe in amuse
ment of the right kind, but be
fore we invest our time and money
in things of this kind we should
be able to answer satisfactorily
not just the question, “Is there
any harm in it?”, but the more im
portant one, “Is there any good in
it?”
Just now, nearly every child in
the country has money that he or
she has earned in the berry fields.
Invested in clothing or school
books, it would bring pleasure and
profit and help out the weakened
family purse; if not needed for
this, a bank account is a worth
while thing and offers opportuni
ty for much needed lessons in
thrift. There are various ways
in which it could be spent that
would give pleasure indefinitely
instead of for an hour or two, and
that would keep it in the commu
nity instead of its being carried
away by people who have no in
terest whatever in the town ex
cept the selfish one of what they
can get out of it. Let’s bear In
mind the feeling of disgust we
had for ourselves as we walked
away from the Minstrel that was
located on the school grounds a
couple of years ago and that car
ried away such sums of earnings
of hard working people; not that
ft was bad, bttt it lacked so much
of being worth while.
UNION L SPENCE
ENDORSES GRIST
Chairman Local War Board
Makes Plea for Ex-
Soldier
On July 5th the democratic voters
throughout North Carolina are again
going to be called upon to express
their choice for certain offices in which
there was no candidate nominated on
June 7th.
Among the names of those to be
presented to the voters in this second
contest will be that of Frank D. Grist,
of Lenoir, a candidate for Commission
er of Labor and Printing. Much to
the delight of Mr. Grist’s many friends
and supporters throughout Moore
Counity, he carried the County by a
substantial majority in the first pri
mary and these friends and supporters
believe that if his cause and fitness
are sufficiently known to the public
his majority in the primary of July
5th will be greatly increased over
that of June 7jth.
Frank D. Grist has had eighteen
years practical experience as a printer
and manager of a printing office and
is therefore well qualified to properly
handle in an efficient way the impor
tant duties of Commissioner of Labor
and Printing. He has ever been a
loyal democrat and commands the re
spect and confidence of the democratic
party in the State of North Carolina.
In 1922 he represented his County in
the House of Representatives, Lenoir
County having been represented by a
republican in the previous session.
As a member of the General Assembly
he acquitted himself with honor and
was recognized as one of the leaders
of that body. He is the author of the
Veterans Land and Home Aid Bill
which will be referred to the voters of
the State at the November election.
Mr. Grisft is an ex-service man and
has a war record of which any “Red-
Blooded” i\.merican mi^ht well be
proud. At the outln^k of war with
SUBSCRIPTION $2.00
PINEHURST SALE
INVOLVES $7S,000
Massachusetts Banker Gets the
Market Square
Property
A transaction of considerable im
portance to Pinehurst in particular,
and the Sandhill section in general,
was consummated recently when
Charles N. Taylor, president of the
First National Bank of Wellesley,
Mass., became the ovmer of the Mar
ket Square Company property in Pine
hurst.
This comprises the lot ad; *uing on
the north that is occupied by tne Pine
hurst General Office building, and is
now the site of the two brick build
ings occupied by Lewis’s store, the
Market Square Restaurant, Clow’s
Gift Shop and Conant’s Shoe Store,
with apartments on the second floor.
Originally the Pinehurst Bowling
Alleys were located here, but about
ten years ago this frame building was
remodeled into a dwelling called the
Orange Cottage. In 1920 W. C. Petty,
0. H. Stutts and A. S. Newcomb pur
chased the property and shortly there
after Mr. Petty sold his interest to
Stutts and Newcomb, who, two years
ago, removed the cottage to make
room for the blocks before mention
ed.
It is an interesting fact that when
cleared, the land comprising less than
a quarter of an acre had cost Stutts
and Newcomb $7,500, and in 1895
James W. Tufts bought this same land
at the rate of $1.00 per acre. In oth
er words, what cost Mr. Tufts twenty-
five cents cost Stutts and Newcomb
seven thousand, five hundred dollars,
a little matter of thirty thousand per
cent increment. When the new Mar
ket street was opened they refused an
offer of $100 a front foot, which fixed
the value at approximately $20,000.
Now let somebody versed in loga
rithms, integral calculus and the
Einstein Theory of Relativity figure
out how mtich enhancement that
means.
Mr. Taylor, the new owner, is
planning the erection of a new build
ing to occupy the portion of this land
now vacant, and the improvement of
the road and square and completion
of the sidewalks and curbing together
with the construction of a brick build
ing to be used as an engineer’s office
by Pinehurst, Incorporated, in the
rear of the Harvard, all to be com
pleted this summer, will definitely
establish this as the business center
of the “Model Village.”
After the completion of the first
unit of the existing building, Ralph
W. Page and David S. Packard be
came associated with the enterprise,
which was incorporated as the Mar
ket Square Company, with A. S. New
comb, president, O. H. Stutts, vice-
president and D. S. Packard, secre-
tary-treasurer. This corporation will
doubtless continue its activities in and
on adjacent real estate.
Charles N. Taylor has for many
years been identified with the real
estate development of Wellesley,
Mass., and is largely responsible for
the remarkable rejuvenation and im
provement that has occurred there re
cently. He is a very active business
man, and will undoubtedly extend his
operations here in due time. He is a
decided acquisition to any community,
and will be warmly welcomed to the
Sandhill section.
It is understood the price he paid
for his new holdings was in the neigh
borhood of $75,000.
Germany he laid aside his business
and took his stand with the defenders
of his country. Reaching France in
the early stages of chir participation,
he was, after a short time in a ma
chine gun school, sent to the front, as
signed to a machine gun company of
the 1st Regular Army Division where
after taking part in three major en
gagements he was wounded in action
in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. It
was at first thought that he would
lose his eye sight but after several
operations and eight months in army
(Continued on page '8)