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Friday, June 27, 1952 THE PILOT Published Each Ttidm ^ THE PILOT, INCORPORATED Southern Pines, North Carolina 1941—JAMES BOYD, Publisher—1944 KATHARINE BOYD ■ Editor VALERIE NICHOLSON Asst. Editor DAN S. RAY General Manager C. G. COUNCIL Advertising Subscription Rates: One Year $4.00 6 Months $2.00 3 Months $1.00 Entered at the Postoffice at Southern Pines, N. C., as second class mail matter Member National Editorial Association and N. C. Press Association ‘“In taking over The Pilot no changes are con templated. We will try to keep this a good paper. We will try to make a little money for all con cerned. Where there seems to be an occasion to use our influence for the public good we wm t^ to do it. And we will treat everybody alike.” —James Boyd, May 23, 1941. The Real Danger During past times of alarm, when the interna tional situation has suddenly worsened, this newspaper has preached calmness with almost monotonous regularity. Today we begin to won der if calmness was the word. What we should have stressed was self-control, for calmness, such as we see about us now, that approaches blindness in its heedless apathy toward events of ominous portent, is dangerous medicine. We are being told daily that the Russian air force far surpasses our own; that we have bung led things in Germany so that it is touch and go whether We can hold the West as our ally, due largely to our indifference, the near East is an other powder-keg that may burst at any minute; most alarming of all is the threat of an atomic war. Atomic weapons are being discussed with a casualness that strongly suggests that immedi ate use of these weapons of horror is most prob able. At home, controls .are being dropped, strikes go on, civilian goods are soaring in quantity and price; the bitter political campaign in which the country is-involved is monopolizing all thought and action, raising far more heat, for instance, than the grim war in which our troops are en gaged. This is a poor preparation for what lies ahead. Whether it be the present state of uncertainty, going on and on, demanding more and more of us, straining our economy, lowering our mate rial standards, dividing our people, testing to the breaking point our powers of control, or whether it will be the ghastly war we dread; whichever it will be we are in a poor way to cope with it. We are walking on the crust of a volcano and mighty few of us seem to know it. Not even the neys of Russian planes over the'United States and this week’s report of the extension of the Korean operation with the bombing of Manchu rian industries, a step which, it had been forci bly argued, might be the spark to the fuse of all-out war, seems to rouse this country from its absorption with its own little existence. Talk to almost anyone about o«r troubles and, nine times out of ten, you will be told that cor ruption in government, communism in the for eign service, the administration’s weak attitude towards labor, or the “welfare state” are the, real menace. This is childish folly of the most dangerous and selfish kind. The menace is war. WIe should face it and face it now. The danger is that in our absorption in our own selfish interests we shall fail to back' to the full the international machinery upon which peace depends; that we shall fail to build up our forces to support it. The danger is that we shall falter in the role of courage and sacrifice on which we are em barked. It is time we woke up and realized it. his successor. Mature and experienced judg ment is another basic need. Beyond these are the intangibles of character, and it is here that the endorsement of a big vote may make all the difference. The office car ries a heavy load of responsibility. A solicitor must be ready to stick his neck out a long, long way. Though most of his cases will involve shady characters of one sort or another, every so often there will come before him a citizen of standing who has somehow gotten tangled up with the Law. This is the time when a solicitor needs to feel that he went intO' office with a lot of good people behind him. They put him there because they trusted him to uphold the law, come hell or high water, come the big man with influence or the little one without. When cases come before him i\ is in the solici tor’s power to decide whether or not to prose cute. The decision calls for human understand ing as well as judgment. Into recorders court, come those who have committed their first of fense against the law. Whether that first offense will be the last or, instead, the initial step on the downward path to crime may well depend on how the solicitor handles the case. Such crit ical human decisions call for a man of mature , outlook and experience. For our vote, the office calls for the elder of the two candidates. Lament Brown. Not because of any slightest drawback in the other candi date, but because we feel that Lamont Brown has the maturity needed for the job, and he has well and often demonstrated his unselfish will ingness to w'ork for the public good. - But whoever we elect Saturday, may we give him a big vote. His task is not easy. It is im- * portant that he take office with the encourag ing, strengthening hand of the people on his shoulder. NO. 10 AlW* AW Do You Know Your Old Southern Pines Second Primary Alert A second primary such as we will have on Saturday, calls for special exertion on the part of the voters. With some there may be a cer tain inertia: the big excitement, they feel, is over: they can’t be bothered to go and vote again. Here, in this local election, any inertia may be offset by the rivalry that has grown be tween supporters of the two candidates pitted against each other in the run-off for solicitor. In either case, the duty of the voter is clear: to rouse themselves, study the record and vote. The position to be filled by Saturday’s local election is important and the man who will be elected should have the satisfaction of feeling that he takes office with the support of a popu lar vote. Those who previously voted for Harry Fullenwider, especially owe it to the two men in the run-off to let them know how they stand. As to which candidate to choose in the county contest, it is rumored that some supporters are offering arguments based on geography: “he is a Moore County man” or “he is from Aber deen” or “Southern Pines.” There doesn’t seem much sense to that. In point of fact, both candi dates are Moore County men and we can’t im agine any magical quality that would make a man a better solicitor just because he lived here •instead of three miles farther down the road. Or vice versa. The thing to do, we submit, is choose the man for his qualifications for the job, and that means you’ve got to think about the job. First of all let’s not minimize its importance: the administration of justice in Moore County may be strongly affected by the personality and ability of the solicitor in recorders court. Lay men can hardly judge which candidate may have the best knowledge of the law: both these men are graduates of good schools: that is all most of us know. But there is a good deal more besides pure law to this job and some of it a layman can pass on. Dignity of presence, for instance, and facility is the use of the English language: these are two qualifications possessed in high degree by the present solicitor: we should look for them in Three Boys In last week’s Pilot appeared a story that, we believe, ranks with the best this newspaper has published. Not surprising, not really out of the ordinary; just something to think about and be thankful for and proud of. The story was about three boys. They have just graduated with honors from their chosen institutions of learning and somehow they seem to symbolize what’s best in America; what’s best in. Southern Pines. Because of course they are Southern Pines boys; which gives the story that good local angle. One boy is going to be a doctor, one a minis ter, and the last, who won honors in economics, is probably headed for a life of usefulness in that field. That is one of the most interesting points in the story: the profession that each has chosen. It looks like a pretty good combination and perhaps they should team up, the economist to cope v/ith the ills of the world about us, the doctor to tend men’s bodies and the minister to tend their souls. Such group practice might work a power of good. We’ve had outstanding young men graduate from cur schools before and go on to further honors, justifying the hopes of parents and friends and the sacrifice and work that went into their education. Billy and Lewis and John are three more, and surely among the best. We feel we are expressing the feelings of their hometown folks as we wish them good luck in what may lie ahead. More Space For Tourists At a recent meeting of the board of adjust ment, the remark was made that Southern Pines badly needs more accommodations 101“ tourists During the past years we have lost two large hotels in ihis section: The Pine Needles and The Highland Pines. The remaining hotels are book ed solid early in the year: it is undoubtedly true that we need more rooms in Southern Pines. But here’s the difficulty. 'The way the town is zoned at present hotels can only be built in the business district. That means they must be within a few blocks of thb railroad and that’s something few hotelmen are going to think well of. In the first place, the noise will drive guests away, in the second, most visitors who come for reasonably long stays, who are the sort of peo ple we hope to attract here, want a place with some grounds around it. They cOme to enjoy the South and the outdoors and they aren’t at tracted by city surroundings. And, in the third place, downtown is sort of awkard to get to from the through route. We feel that this need, for more hotel and even over-night rooms, is obvious: the question is, what can be done to improve the situation? There are places in the residential district that would seem ideally suited for this purpose. A change in the zoning restrictions would have to be made. That would involve, it seems to us, carefully drawn restrictions on signs, lights, parking. 'J'here is no reason why an attractive well-run hotel would be an objectionable neigh bor, but a motel with neon lights, tourist homes with big signs on the parkways and cars parked all over the place, would be the ruination of a neighborhood. That sort of thing is, of course, what is feared in the suggestion that May street be opened for tourist homes. This attractive thoroughfare used by so many travellers, is undoubtedly one of the town’s best advertisements. The board is right in rejecting any idea of letting down the bars to ordinary commercial enterprises. Yet there are parts oi May street that, we believe, would not be hurt at all with a few attractively planned tourist homes. We do not suggest the motel type, rows of rooms each with its indivi dual entrance and parking space, and its neon signs. At all costs we ought to keep such things off May street, but establishments of the coun try home lypfe could hardly do much harm and might do a lot of good in offering lodging to the many wlio have now to be turned away. Here, it seems to this newspaper, is a spot where some careful thought and planning might well be applied by those interested in the prog ress of the town. The Public Speaking There they are: a charming elderly couple standing in front of their pretty vine-covered house in Old Southern Pines. Who are they? Which house is it? Is it still here? We feel sure some of our readers will recognize an old friend holding that parasol, ready for use against the Summer sun. As for the dignified gen tleman beside her, he must have been a very distinguished citi zen of the early days, one of the town fathers, no doubt. Will somebody tell us? PICTURE NO. 9 To the Pilot. There is some doubt as to the date of your plate No. 9 though it is assumed to have been made about 1916-17, before additions were made on the Pennsylvania avenue side which do not show in the present picture which only shows the then front of the build ing. It was erected in 1904, by D. F. McAdams and known under his name until its purchase by Frank Welch in 1919. Following his en largement of the building iq 1923- 24 it became known as the Belve dere hotel. On that frontage the stores housed many business ven tures including Hayes’ News De pot, Mrs. Hayes’ Shop, Tots’ Tog gery,. and Poe’s grocery. The corner store was at once leased by the Flint and Saddle- son Pharmacy which became the property of R. E. Wiley (Mayor of Southern Pines 1910-1914) in 1905 and carried on as the Broad Street Pharmacy by R. L. Hart following Dr. Wiley’s death in 1922. Hart moved to his new building in 1926, the store then becoming Mrs. Welch’s Gift Shop, until the erection of her present quarters in 1948. Mr. Welch sold the hotel Grains of Sand There is a What-is-it out in our I prize. It was a good guess, though, woods. Every morning as the sun W'ould you have come any closer? starts to come up he begins his j -phe correct answer is 1789. (We morning greeting. We say “he,”jhad to look it up!) but how do we know even that it is a “he”. Except that there is a certain methodical regularity to his tootling. Always on schedule he is, out there among the trees. And he might even be an “it” There is an odd banjo-twang thump in his morning carol. The visiting foremen had a big day in Southern Pines last Wed nesday, and the whole town en joyed having them here, we be lieve. Our fire department did a grand job of “hosting” the Sand hills Firemen’s association—the lump m lus U1VJ1A11116 J11U3 firemens What is it? Well, it sounds like gjuge 1938, when Aber- 1 • A.* « A1 J<vm««%*4-_ a combination of bird-frog-squir rel, with that banjo string thrown in. The thought conjures up a picture of a creature too horrible to dwell on, but the sound he makes isn’t horrible at all. It’s rather pleasant, perky .and yet lilting and contemplative. You imagine him perched on a limb or squatting on the rim of the pool, thinking of fat worms, (or, of course, it could be nuts) in the dewy quiet of the morning, gaz ing in a state of drowsy rapture at the yellow eye of the rising sun, and then going “twumph- kong-yip.” If it weren’t for the last syllable it would certainly sound most like a frog, but who ever heard a frog yip. It could be a bird except for the slight cough effect of “twumph”. The kong sounds like a lyrical soprano caw. We tried to stalk the creature. We followed the sound through the trees but as soon as we got close he stopped. And we must admit that as we neared the queer note our enthusiasm began to fade. The thought of coming upon a frog with a bushy tail and wings, playing a banjo was too much; before breakfast like that. Crazy With The Heat? The heating system of Emman uel Church believes in being ready. You never know. The Great Day might be a-comin’. The weather might change. Just to make sure it would be plenty warm in case we got one of those cool spells we used to hear about long, long ago, some time early Sunday morning the thermostat jogged itself on. Harry Menzel's face when he felt the radiator in church Sunday morn ing was something. The senior warden made a dive for the ther mostat in double time and the fiery furnace subsided to zero. Local Shadrachs, Meshaqhs, and Abednegos came forth unscathed. “Let it first blossom, then bear seed, then ripen,” said the phi losopher, but Nature thinks other- ■wise on occasions. She kicked over the traces in a big way this week in the garden of Robert Mc- Fadden of 400 West Pennsylvania avenue. Going down to inspect his stand of corn, Robert was amazed to discover a stalk that had flowers, and an ear of corn growing together. He brought it in to show the Pilot, for which we are grateful. The thing is lovely: a branched candelabra of long green leaves and in the center is the ear of corn, topped by a tuft of dark corn silk and framing the ear, like a bouquet, are branching stems of corn blossoms. It is rarely beautiful; stylized. Nature at her loveliest . . . and peculiarest. Mary Frederick, of West South ern Pines, came mighty close to winning a cash prize from ^ radio quiz program Wednesday morn ing. . . She received a phone call from Sam Beard’s “Time Out program over WPTF, Raleigh, and the question asked was, “When did North Carolina enter the Union?” Mary’s answer was 1800—^not quite right, so she didn’t get the deen and Southern Pines depart ments were hosts together. In 1938, as this year and last. State Fire Marshal Sherwood Brock- well was a speaker, and he has very likely spoken at all of their conventions,, or most of them a real friend of the firemen. The town appreciated that the program was dedicated to Tom C. Vann, that jolly and sparkling personality, longtime member of the department whose sudden death in May of last year is still grievously felt. Also, on a page of their pro gram, the local firemen paid hon or to a group of charter members “and others who have faithfully served the Southern Pines Fire department through the years, and whose loyalty and devotion to duty have been in keeping with the highest traditions of the serv ice.” These were: R. W. Tate. F, H. Wilson, H. N. Cameron. P. E. Kennedy, S. T. Dunn, Bryant Poe. Dante Montesanti, E. J. Davis, P. V. Hatch, and N. E. Day. A highlight of the proceedings was a demonstration of Carthage’s brand-new “high - pressure-fog” fire truck, in which water is con verted to a fine mist, coming out of the hose nozzle as a steamy white column. Size of the colunin can be varied so that it is a thin snowy stream or a spreading fan. In tl^e demonstration the mist, shooting high, made rainbows in the sunshine all over New York avenue near the park, where the demonstration was held. Not only does the fog, or mist; put out the fire but it str-e-e-etch- es the water in the tank. recorders court. Three townships are involved, Cary, Meredith and House Creek. Brown ran second to the incumbent, Henry H. Sink, in the May 30 primary. Don’t forget to vote Saturday! Remember, only about half as many people generally come out for a second as for the first pri mary—^so your vote counts twice as much. This is supposed to be Cleanup Week. How about getting a little political cleanup? Oh, we aren’t suggesting anything very drastic; no Justice Department scrub- down; nothing like that. What we have in mind is easy. Let the political candidates go around and take down their signs and the pic tures that glare from telegraph poles, trees and billboards, at the wearied voters. Everybody’s tired to death of them and they mess up things. Time they were cleaned up. When the Carthage firemen first got their new truck two or three weeks ago, they held a test of its powers on a little old shack across the street from the Lang home, in the county seat. U. S. Commissioner John A. Lang, who served the town as city clerk and in numerous other official capa cities over the years, watched with interest from a window. They set the little old shack afire, with oil to make it burn better, then just let it burn and burn The firemen fooled around the place, shooting their ' fog every where but on the fire, while the building burned right on down to the .ground. Mr. Lang fumed, “If that’s the best they can do, I don’t think much of that new truck! Waste of money! What’s the matter with those firemen, anyway? Why don’t they get to work?” It was found out later, of course, that the test was a techni cal one, and that after a certain stage in the proceedings it had been successfully passed on all points. The firemen then found it simpler to let the shack burn up than to finish putting it out and have to clean up the debris. Another solicitor’s race, besides the one to be run off in Moore county Saturday, is of interest here. Allen W. Brown, who returned to Raleigh last year after prac ticing for a time in Carthage, is in a runoff for solicitor of Cary to Greensboro interests in 1944. The two stores next to the drug store were leased to the then Postmaster B. F. Leavitt-, and con- 4 tinned to be the post office under Postmaster J. N. Powell (1912- 1915), A. S. Ruggles (1916-1924), the office being then moved to the Pennsylvania Avenue side by Mr. Powell who held the office until his death in 1932. Following the shift of the post- office quarters the two stores had many occupants including the Red Cross and C. B. Eaton’s nov- ^ elty store 1910-1912. The little shop now occupied by Mrs. Burns was originally the entrance to the upper floor of the building and was in turn the real estate office of Shields Cameron, Garland Pierce and John S. Ruggles. The next building was the I. L. Hamlin residence, which was moved from the comer to make way for the McAdams building. Now known as the McDermott building it also housed many ten ants until its purchase by Miss McDermott in 1917. Presumably the next building is Dr. Mudgett’s second office and was razed in 1923 to permit the erection of the present Mudgett building. Dr. Mudgett using the McDermott building during the erection of his new office. Complicating the identification is the fact that there was another building in there known as the ‘Photograph Studio” by its many proprietors from 1913 to 1931 when it was torn down. The original unit of the South ern Pines hotel was built in 1887 by the Page family and had many additions under various owners and proprietors including L. T. Smith (Mayor of Southern Pines 1895-1896), W. F. Giles, D. F. Mc Adams, J. L. Pottle 1908-1913. It was bought by the Harringtons in 1924, and was under the manage ment of Frank Harrington when destroyed by fire May 18, 1931. To save space I have not listed all the names of the many busi nesses once housed in these struc tures. The picket fence does help in dating the picture as many former station agents Of the Seaboard were active in planting and pre serving what were known as the Railway Parkways. CHARLES MACAULEY Looks at Books By CONSTANCE FOSTER People are talking about . • • Good books to take along on their vacations. Packing is al ways a problem and the first one I’m going to suggest can’t exactly be tucked in a corner. It’s a big book, all of 675 pages, but that means you won’t need any others to last out your two weeks at the beach or in the mountains. It means, too, that you get your money’s worth. Moreover a re cent poll of book reviewers all over the country gave The Alex andrians the second highest num ber of votes for good summp reading. So let’s take a look at it. The Alexandrians, by Charles Mills, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, $4. A century is a long time. Yet Anna Redding lives to help cele brate the centennial anniversary of the little town in Georgia which her father helps to found. The story moves along in time se quence from 1839 to 1939 with flashbacks now and then to sharp en the reader’s perception of the town and its characters. Gradual ly a revealing picture emerges of life in the South, both jaefore, dur ing, and after the Civil War. I found it far more accurate than “Gone With The Wind” because it stresses the little everyday in terests and concerns rather than the dramatic ones. Not that there isn’t plenty of excitement, too. There’s Francis Stewart who kills a man in a duel but manages to conceal it and go on to become a success; an attempt to unite the townsfolk in a revolt against the Yankees; rather fre quent adulteries and' suicides. And there are more fascinating char acters than I’ve run into in any recent book. The town’s intellectual, Mrs. Thompson, wears a huge hat on her death bed because the light hurts her eyes and she wants to finish the book she is reading. Lily Redding fakes insanity in or der to continue the family tradi tion of at least one lunatic in ev ery generation. As a central thread, tying the decades togeth er, is the majestic presence of Anna Anderson Redding who helps to preserve the commun ity’s original standards and keep time from changing things too much. Thete’s humor here, too, as in the elaborate church wedding where everybody except the min ister is av/are that the ceremony is one of necessity rather than choice. But Mr.' Mills is more of ten ironic than amusing. He deals with big issues as these are ex perienced by little people,—love. truth, religion, death. Here is the very stuff small towns are made of. Here are the major concerns of life itself. Can you place mon ey above honor and still keep the faith? Is “business as usual” com patible with the good life? What sort of religious belief best ad justs a man to the universe? AU these themes unify* the hectic go ings-on of a hundred years. Men come and go but their fundamen tal dilemmas remain the same. The skill with which the author handles them makes this a fine book. The Marcaboth Women, by "Vi-* na Delmar, Harcourt, Brace & Co., $3. Ruby was a cheap little tramp. But she was young and beautiful which seems to be a fatal combi nation in any century. Not that it got Ruby into anir trouble. She was too dumb. But her advent into the closely-knit Marcaboth^ family as Simon’s second wife was in the nature of an atomic explo sion. Simon was fifty and Ruby had her twentieth birthday on the day the story opens. His matri archal mother, Zeda, expected family birthdays to be celebrated with her but stubborn Ruby is determined not to go. It takes a second diamond bracelet from Simon (the first was a birthday gift) to break down her resistance. But the dinner is a fiasco. Zeda has licked other problems in her long, tough career. But when her new daughter-in-law uses the fab ulous golden goblet, traditionally presented to a new member of the clan, as an ash-tray for her cas ual cigarette, Zeda realizes the hopelessness of the situation.' Yet this little vixen, greedy and already unfaithful, has a lesson to teach all the other Marcaboth wives. The rest of them have al ways kow-towed to family tradi tion. Vassals and slaves, they live in a feudal relationship to their over-lords, Zeda and her sons. Only Ruby, ignorant as she is, has the courage to be her real self and remain in control of her life. Her unconscious example gives Enid, Judith, and Solime the courage to turn over a new leaf and set their own lives in order. As the novel ends, night has fallen. All the others who are involved in the conflict are lying awake, deep in thought and plans. Only Ruby is sound asleep. She is asleep because she had nothing to think about! Like the little furry animals of the woods. Ruby knows how to look after herself— and survive. But without intend ing to at all, she shows the other three daughters-in-law how to survive, too.
The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.)
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June 27, 1952, edition 1
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