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PAGE TWO THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina FRIDAY, MAY 21, 1954 ism Southern Pines North Carolina “In taking over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We will try to keep this a good paper. We will try to make a little money for all concerned. Where there seems to be an occa sion to use our influenoe for the public good we will try to do it. And we will treat everybody alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941. The Majority Decides For All The Supreme Court decision banning segrega tion in all the schools of the nation comes as no surprise. Thoughtful people everywhere rec ognized that it was inevitable. Not only be cause of the several decisions during the past few years pointing strongly in that direction, but because of the growing recognition that segregation in any respect creates a class sys tem, and that is contrary to the Constitution and to the spirit of America. It makes no difference whether, if the “sep arate but equal” arrangement had .been truly carried out, as it was not, both educational sys tems it created were not only satisfactory but perhaps better than what may*’come, the prin ciple is the thing that counts. The priiiciple, that under the Law, all American citizens are equal, that class does not exist in this country, that principle has been vindicated and restated by the Supreme Court’s decision. The Court has very wisely granted a consid erable amount of time between the announce ment of the decision and the time when it is to' go into effect. In the interim arguments against it will be heard. There is no chance that they will bring about any change in the ruling, but what this delay does do is to give a little time to those who are faced with the colossal lask of carrying out the merging of the two school systems. That it is indeed a colossal task goes without saying. From the practical angle alone the dif ficulties are immense, while from the human angle they seem almost insuperable. But there is the now established fact that this great change must be faced and the problems it cre ates must be solved. In that effort, several things will help. One will be the determination of both races that the good educational system that now exists shall not suffer. That is a stake of supreme value . to all. It is essential that the standards of edu cation for the youth of the nation, who hold the future of the nation in their hands, shall not be allowed to drop. Another thing that should help will be the parental bond which this change should create between those of both races. For, to both, their children are precious. It will be their first de sire that the children shall not suffer any more than can"possibly be helped; that any bitterness engendered by this change shall not react on the innocent. In all this working out of a program present ing difficulties that look to be almost insuper able, the white majority, who must lead the way because of their majority status, will, we be lieve, find staunch and able help from the Ne groes themselves. They well know that upon them may depend the Outcome and no one real izes better than they the importance of cooper ation. The attitude of James Hinton, South Caro lina president of the N. A. A. C. P., points the way for his race, a way which, we believe, will be earnestly followed. Mr. Hinton said; “Negroes, though happy, are most mindful of the seriousness of the decision. They will welcome the appointment of a committee com posed of both races to sit down and work out plans for the best interests of all of the citizens of South Carolina.” We believe that those words would be echoed by Negro leaders all over the South. The spirit they express can be a powerful factor in bring ing order cut of the confusion, dismay, and doubt that, we had best recognize, is in many hearts, among both white and colored. For this is a change brought about through the force of a court decision. It is the will of the majority in this democracy, being imposed on the minority. That minority was, we believe, slowly but surely working towards this same decision, but there will be the human instinct to resist this sudden push; there will be the human reaction, bound in many cases to be deep and possibly violent, against a forced reversal of long and deeply-held tradi tions. It would be unrealistic and foolish not to recognize the difficulties that lie ahead. May the South’s proud independence of thought and act find, in the challenge presented by this court decision, the shining opportunity to demonstrate, as a guiding light for this nation and these times, its deeper’ and unshakable re liance on the democratic faith. May it lead the way in a new dedication to the wisdom of the Founding Fathers who embodied in their Con stitution the spiritual laws upon which this na tion stands. Something To Be Learned From Defeat The shock of the tragedy of Dien Bien Phu is subsiding. As this country puUs itself togeth- e;r, trying to prepare for what the results of that defeat will be, it would be a good idea to try to assess what happened and what ought to be done next. Can anything be learned from this series of ghastly blunders? For one thing, it looks as if the bi-partisan consultations between the administration and Congressional leaders of both parties, that were routine procedure in the Truman administra tion, were being renewed. That is good news. For another, less important by far from one sense but vitally important from another: per haps this crisis will point up the need for an overhauling of American intelligence. For part of the trouble seems to have stemmed from faulty intelligence, with newsmen giving more accurate reports of the situation than the pro fessionals. Less than two months ago, it will be recalled, the administration was saying that aU was going well in Indo-China and there was no cause for alarm, this at a time when correspon dents were warning of the rapidly approaching crisis. What happened recalls something of the same sort in the Korean War: when General MacAr- thur’s faulty intelligence drew him into the fatal march to the Yalu and one of the worst defeats suffered by Allied troops. It seems to be a habit of the Western generals to underestimate the strength of the enemy, both from the angle of materiel and strategy. That is a mighty dan- School Bus Safety Problem The Pilot agrees with Judge J. Vance Rowe of Moore County recorders court who made this suggestion from the bench at Carthage last week: “. . . That the safety of children riding in a school bus warrants the presence on the bus during each trip of a monitor or teacher or some person other than the bus driver to keep order among the children, so that the driver may be free to devote his entire attention to driving the bus.” In making his suggestion. Judge Rowe render ed a verdict Of not guilty in the case of a school bus driver charged with careless and reckless driving resulting in an accident. The driver tes tified that his bus ran off the road as he was looking in the rear view mirror. He was at tempting at the time to get children in the back of the bus to close some windows that one or more of them had opened. He added the infor- The County Home Problem gerous fault and it is to be hoped that Dien Bien Phu will be an object lesson that will be taken to heart. This ties in with the need to keep the people better informed. If the administration had de cided to move troops in, as, according to all re ports, they were very close to doing, the people would have been totally unprepared and caught off balance. The resulting shock to morale might have been extremely serious. Lastly, this crisis has thrown into sharp focus the impossible situation foreseen by the op ponents of the Bricker amendment: how can a nation act as an international power if no plans can be made in advsmce, no decision taken with out long consultation with Congress? Nothing short of bombs dropped on this country would be enough to galvanize the Congress into imme diate action, yet it is clear that in many cases only immediate action taken long enough in advance might avoid a final show-down. Here is the greatest difficulty of the present system under which the Administration is try ing to work, made far more difficult by the deep cleavages within the Republican party. The nation needs leadership, which the govern ment, as things are now, is not in a position to give. Secretary Dulles, we believe, did the best he could at Geneva under impossible circum stances, but it would have been a good thing if the President, instead of congratulating him so fulsomely, had admitted the fact of his in ability to do more than he did do, and taken a public resolve to make a fresh attack on the problem of United States foreign relations. mation that the children on the bus sometimes become unruly and that he has to keep order on the bus, in addition to his driving duties. From this information and from his know ledge of other similar cases that had come to his attention. Judge Rowe rightly concluded that it is too much to ask a student bus driver to oper ate the bus and keep order too. While the acci dent in the court case last week was not serious, it might well have been more serious. Anything that diverts the driver’s attention from his main job is a threat to the safety of the children. There ought to be an adult on each school bus when it is transporting students—or if not an adult, a student capable of commanding com plete respect and cooperation from the older as well as the younger students. If students had to be used as monitors, penalties for misbehavior on a school bus should be set up and the moni tors should be given authority to invoke these penalties. Kids and Dogs Cute to see all the little kinder garteners, over in West Southern Pines, line up to peer in the car at our Cricket. Cricket peered out at them and they peered in at her. Everybody wagged tails and smiled, so to speak. Both sides loved each other. The children had such nice manners. Mrs. Parsons, their teacher, called two little boys over and they bowed politely and shook hands and told their names. What can be better for little tykes like that than learning nice manners along with their ABCs and finger-painting! Be a good thing if “manners” could be taught all the way down the line, and a special diploma handed out at the end. Speaking cd Manners Speaking of that kind of thing. Dr. Benjamin Swalin was telling us, when he was here, about an experience he and Mrs. Swalin had on an ocean liner which was carrying a heavy complement of young folks. Among them were two soldiers, returning from serv ice overseas. He was struck by their fine appearance, neat and polished up, and by their reserve. They kept themselves aloof from the others, and after Dr. Swalin had gotten to kndw them a bit, he asked them why. They were reluctant to speak but finally they burst out with it: they couldn’t stand the looks and sounds of the young people around them. “They make us al most ashamfed of our country,” they said. Why, in what way? Because of their messiness, their sloppy appearance and sloppy ways; never changing for supper, never even tidying up duripjg the day; because of their noisiness and lack of manners; because of their rude and overbearing self ish attitude towards the rest of the people around them. Fact was; the two young sol diers had just nothing 'good at all to say for their civilian con temporaries. Dr. Swalin had to admit the val idity of their criticism, at the same time wondering what had made the two different. Was it army discipline? Was it their foreign service that had matured them and given them a new slant on values? Could it be the contrast they found between the American youth and the foreigners they had been associating with? It makes you think. Behind the Behinders Chat about tax listings at a council meeting, not long ago, brought out the fact that Mrs. Blue, county tax lister, has long felt that a thorough smrvey of county tax listing would reveal many inaccuracies. Tom Cunningham said that if it compares with town tax listings he was sure she was right. For instance, he said, it has been found that one out of every four cam was incorrectly listed town. We have a feeling a hired hand to make that survey might well save the county most of his pay in the taxes he would pick up. Here’s something that the voters might well get behind. That is, behind Mrs. Blue who is behind the commissioners who should be behind the folks who are behind or out of line in their listings. The Cats Of Halteras Reading about the wreckage washed up on the beach by the re cent hurricane recalls the wild tales Ben Dixon MacNeill used to tell about the Cats of Hatteras. The former columnist for the Raleigh News and Observer is now a permanent resident of the windswept sandbank regions. As he told it, there is a most un usual cat population inhabiting those parts. The breed, he said, is large and powerful and also of strong character and great dig nity, or at least of personal inde pendence, rare even among cats. And in appearance the Hatteras cats show a fine far-flung variety of shapes, fur texture and length, and coloration. In fact, said Ben Dixon, traces^ of almost every kind of cat breed could be noted in the over-all population that went by the name of Hatteras cats. And Ben Dixon told why. He said that, for years and years, and aeons, most likely, cats had come ashore at Hatteras. After every big storm—and there are a lot of big storms rolling up on that coast—wreckage from the ships that stranded on the shoals and foundered would come floating in and, clinging madly to spars and pieces of broken oars and decking, would come cats. Hating the water as they did and horrified as they mtjst have been at the destruction of their ship world, they nevertheless kept their cat heads and, hanging on grimly to a thin edge of this one of their nine lives, they made it to shore. Ben Dixon claimed, in fact, that Citizens Ask: *What Can We Do?^ Pilot Suggests Committee Survey Since the appearance of the article on the County Home, in the April 30th Pilot, this news paper has received many com ments on the situation the article described as well as requests for more information. A citizen writes: “Is there some thing we can do about it as resi dents of Moore County? Is it the fault of the Commissioners and if so can’t we elect men who have more of a social conscience? I’d like to hear more about this and hope the Pilot will run another article soon, telling us what we citizens can do.” Another speaks of the strain on the county finances placed by the present system and says: “Why has this been allowed to run on so long? The federal program of Aid to the Totally Disabled and the Old Age Assistance grants was put into effect in 1935. If a conversion to a privately-operated home had been made then, think how much money that would have saved the county!” Another says: “It is not right that bedridden people should have no nursing care. Surely with such a large sum expended on the Home, there should have been enough to pay for practical nurs ing care. I hear that old deaf and dumb man, Mr. C., has improved wonderfully since he was placed in the Pinehurst Convalescent Home. But what about the oth ers?” Facts Not Refuted The facts as outlined in the Pilot article speak for themselves. authority. There is. little doubt that the commissioners, under whose direct jurisdiction the County Home operates, must be aware of the questions occupying the minds of Moore County people, questions that, it would seem, are not new to a good many who have had contact with the sit uation. “It has been going on a long time,” is a frequent com ment. As this newspaper pointed out in a recent editorial, it may re quire definite citizen action to persuade the county authorities that it is time to do something about the County Home. We are confident that if a delegation went before the commissioners urging action, their plea would receive earnest consideration. It seems to us that it would be a good idea to follow the plan which was apparently used with effect in Nash County. There, the commissioners appointed a com mittee to study the matter, mem bership, we believe, included sev eral citizens as well as members of the board. The committee vis ited homes in other places and made a careful study of the whole question* then came back with their recommendations. This would seem to be an ex cellent idea and would in sure full consideration ' given both to the welfare and to the financial aspect of this mat ter. It has the advantage, too, that a study is a neutral, imper- sO'nal business and should not And it should be noted that they I arouse antagonism from any quar- have not been refuted by those in! ter. ■ Editorial Policy Explained Readers Must Sign Letters About Editorial Policy Now and then it is in order to remind readers that The Pilot does not print letters to the editor that are not signed by the writer of the letter. On request, the writer’s name will not be used, but The Pilot must know the source of the words it places in print. This is normal procedure with all news papers. ' Last Friday we received, with a brief note signed A SUBSCRIB ER, a clipping from the Charlotte Observer —the clipping being a letter a woman in Charlotte had written to that newspaper praising Senator McCarthy. SUBSCRIBER asked that The Pilot print the en closed letter. The letter does not appear on this page today because: 1. Wo do not know who SUB SCRIBER is. 2. We are interested in letters written to The Pilot, not letters written to the Charlotte Observer. If SUBSCRIBER admires Sen ator McCarthy, a letter expressing that admiration and signed by the writer will be printed by The Pilot as willingly as would a letter ex pressing lack of admiration, al though The Pilot’s own editorial position is definitelySvith the lat ter viewpoint. Actually, a letter enclosing a letter presents a peculiar problem —one which calls for discussion in order that readers may better understand what may sometimes appear to be the mysterious vag aries of a. newspaper editor’s de cisions. SUBSCRIBER’S brief note was addressed “To The Editor,” in dicating that the communication was intended as a letter. Conceiv ably, we could, if we had known SUBSCRIBER’S name, lead off with the brief note and follow with the letter the Charlotte wo man wrot6 to the Observer—all of it then becoming a letter from SUBSCRIBER. We would hesitate to do this, however, because the reprinted letter is second-hand material that has already been published and. though SUBSCRIBER apparently agrees with it, the words are not really those of the writer of the letter to The Pilot. Both freshness and originality would be lacking. SUBSCRIBER might well reply that The Pilot frequently prints items on its editorial page that have been printed before and might wonder what is the differ ence in this case. The difference is that The Pilot reprints on its editorial page pre viously published items that are in line with its editorial point of view—a privilege that is custom arily and properly assumed by all newspapers. Therefore we could not in good conscience simply print the Charlotte letter as an editorial page feature that would then falsely indicate The Pilot is in sympathy with its viewpoint. ,If the Charlotte letter had at tacked McCarthy skillfully and eloquently, so that we thought it worthy of reprinting because it was in line with The Pilot’s ap proach to the senator, we might well have used it independently as an editorial page item. Is this unfair? Of course not. Editors, like all workers in what ever medium of creation or pro duction, must be free to exercise judgment and selection when the quality and meaning of their fin ished product depend on that judgment. Apart from signed letters or other signed items—such as the work of a by-line columnist—all that appears on an editorial page (that is, a page of opinions) is con strued to reflect the convictions and policy of a newspaper. Such selection of editorial page material would indeed be unfair if opinions differing with the edi torial position of a newspaper were totally excluded. But they are not. SUBSCRIBER is free to address to The Pilot his or her own letter about Senator McCarthy or any other subject he or she chooses. If the words are not libel ous, obscene or profane, they will be printed by this newspaper and will appear on the editorial page. by the time they had gotten in fairly close, many of the cats had mastered the principle of sea borne locomotion pretty well and, chin resting firmly bn their pieces of life-saving plank, the cats kick ed themselves gallantly along, maneuvering a way through the tumbling surf to the sandy beach. As the ships they had cruised on came from many lands, so did the cats. There were short-tailed Manx cats, tortoise-shell pussies from Devonshire; there were London alley cats and cottage tabbly- cats. There were long-haired Angora and Persian pets, very drippy but ferociously determined to save their royal persons for more dish es of thick cream. There were Raoul and Pierre and Alphonse, the great boulevardier Toms of the Paris cafes, and the sleek little grey Minettes of the country town groceries. There were sinuous Siamese cats, their blue eyes blazing; there I were the kink-tailed cats of Mada gascar, the tiny Paraguayan cats who weigh less than three pounds, and the disgustingly hairless mousers of Mexico. There were Abyssinian silvers, Manel, the' Asiatic desert cat, and jungle fe lines from India. \ And among the descendants of all these wrecked survivors is something so strange, so unearth ly that it must, say the authori ties, trace right back to Pasht, the goddess cat of Ancient Egypt. Thinking Of this great washing- up of cats on the shores of Hat teras is to agree that the possibili ties are endless and easily account for the remarkable breed that, ac cording to Ben Dixon, now prowls those wreck-strewn sands. Of course, he said, the first thing the cats aU did when they hit shore, as soon as they got their breath, was to start fighting. . . or other activities of a somewhat similar (for cats) nature. Mrraow—Scat! Other Counties' Experien'ces So perhaps one answer to the request of the reader who wanted to know: “what can we do?” would be: urge the Commission ers to inaugurate such a study. Meantime, in this issue the Pilot is re-printing an article telling of the experience of Nash County, now in possession of two newly- established boarding homes. We believe our readers will find the article extremely interesting and informative. Further information, along the same lines, was gleaned by this reporter from a recent conversa tion with the editor of the Frank lin Times of Louisburg, A. S. Johnson, Jr. Franklin County recently closed its old County Home when the new Benjamin Franklin Boarding Home was opened. The new home has been in operation only a month so “It’s really too soon to tell about it, for sure,” Mr. John son said, “But so far everything is just fine.” Mr. Johnson said that, in their case, the reason for the change was entirely financial. “Our old home was well-run,” he said, “ex cept that it was costing so much to run. By having the private home we take advantage of the Aid for Totally Disabled and Old Age As sistance funds. The cost to the county has been greatly reduced.” Poor House Stigma Gone The Louisfcurg editor was espe cially enthusiastic over the effect of the change on the residents. “The old stigma of the County Home, or the Poor House, is gone,” he said. He pointed out that the boarders received their checks directly and with them paid their own expenses. “They seem to feel much more self- respecting,” he said. “The atmos phere of the place is quite dif ferent.” Mr. Johnson said there were other boarders who paid all their expenses or part of them, but all were treated alike. The same people run the new boarding home who were previously in charge of the Nash County Home. Mr. Johnson gave a tentative fig ure of 50, fo'r number of inmates, and stated that he thought the change-over, in alterations of the old building, had cost between two and three thousand dollars. The Franklin Times had backed the change, the editor said,. and “the Welfare Board pushed it through with the strong coopera tion of the county commissioners.” A recent issue of the Raleigh News and Observer carried an article on state-licensed boarding homes, in which the author, Sim mons Fentress, had this to say about the Moore County situation: under the subtitle “Moore Resists Trend:” “Moore County seems a county which should become the next to close its county home. There are only six people in it, and last year the county home cost Moo^re $12- 500. There is little to relieve the drab dullnes of the place. The six residents have no television, no radio, no games or recreation, not even an assembly room or a sun porch. There is no nursing care. Conditions there have lately be come the subject of adverse com ment in the local newspapers. “For several years the county commissioners have been petition ed by both local and State welfare officials to try the boarding home idea. So far they have resisted the efforts. “ T have realized all along,’ says Mrs. Walter Cole, the welfare su perintendent, 'that we could care for so many more people, and more adequately, in boarding homes. But I haven’t been able to get the county commissioners to see that. We can place the six there in hoarding homes. I believe we ought to close it. “ ‘I’m not against county homes. If you are going to have a county home have one that will care for people—give them nursing care and a little recreation, some little incentive.’ ” The PILOT Published Every Friday by THE PILOT, Incorporaled Southern Pines, North Carolina 1941-^AMES BOYD—1944 Katharine Boyd Editor C. Benedict News Editor Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr. C. G. Council Advertising Mary Scott Newton Bu^ess Bessie Cameron Smith Society Composing Room Lochamy McLean, Dfexie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Jasper Swearingen Subscription Rates: One Year $4. 6 mos. $2; 3 mo^ $1 t Entered at the Postoffice at South ern Pines, N. Cm as second class mail matter Member National Editorial Assn, and N. C. Press Assn.
The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.)
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May 21, 1954, edition 1
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