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Page TWO
THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina
■LOT
North Carolina
We will try to keep this a good
Southern Ptnei
“In tjir.ing over The Pilot no changes are contemplated.
paper. We will try to make a little money for all concemt:^. treat everybody
Lh to use our influence for the public good we will try to do it. And we vnli treat everyuouir
alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941.
“Well, Here’s The Milestone—Now What?”
Seeond Thoughts On Pennsylvania Avenue
In an editorial on this page last week,
back-handedly approved, or seemed to apff
prove, the destruction of those trees which are
said to stand in the way of widening Pennsyl
vania Avenue from Bennett Street to the new
thruway. ,
Convinced last week that the street must be
widened if it is to carry satisfactorily the
thruway traffic entering town,, we perhaps
gave to readers the impression that The Pilot,
ever a staunch defender of the trees and natural
beauty for which Southern Pines is famous,
was acquiescing entirely too amiably in plans
that will remove, according to town hall, “most
of the trees” on this stretch of street.
Again let us say: the town should save every
tree it can on Pennsylvania Avenue. This may
mean building sidewalks around some trees or
even—and we can think of worse things to do
making a somewhat narrower street than is
contemplated.
Present plans call for a street as wide as
Pennsylvania Avenue is between Bennett and
Broad St., a total of 80 feet, including park
ways and sidewalks. In this block, the width
amply allows diagonal parking on each side
with two lanes of traffic in the center. If par
allel parking ’were used along the proposed
wider street from Bennett to the thruway,
could not the street itself be narrowed a few
feet to save some of the trees? If such narrow
ing would actually save some of the trees, we
think it should be considered.
As a matter of fact, until there is extensive
business development along this street, is it
allowing a width of 40 feet of roadway space,
thus permitting two free lanes of traffic moving
in each direction? If business developments
come later, off-street parking could be provi-
ded. ■
Then, even with 10 feet on each side for
parkway and sidewalk, the entire street would
be cut from 80 to 60 feet in width. While we
realize that grading operations will cause the
loss of some trees, it would seem that an addi
tional 10 feet on each side would permit others
to be saved. .
The argument used by town hall to justify
the widening and tree cutting—that this will
be the main entrance to town from the thru-
way—is exactly the reason the street should be
kept as attractive as possible.
Newly planted trees might be impressive in
20 or even 10 years, but how Southern Pines
will look to those entering it in the neirt 10
years is also important, for practical business
reasons as well as general esthetic considera
tions.
The Pennsylvania Avenue interchange area
at the thruway offers a particularly dreary
and ugly landscape to the traveler. It would
redeem this unfortunate situation somewhat
if motorists could turn in from this tp a Penn
sylvania Avenue that is not shorn of all large
We are well aware that grading, curb and
gutter, storm sewers and sidewalks for the
heavy’pedestrian traffic to West Southern
Pines must necessarily spell doom for some of
the trees. But more than a casual effort must
be made to save other trees that apparently,
with some adjustment of the plan, could be
saved.
necessary to provide parking space at all?
Couldn’t parking on the street be eliminated,
Pearsall Plan Approved — Now What?
For better or worse, the Pearsall Plan- extreme segregationists, encouraged
whi^h this newspaper opposed—is written into
state law. approved by a majority Of the voters
of North Carolina.
And, as in Hugh Haynie’s cartoon on this
page today, the racial segregation problem in
the public schools still presents itself, as it
did before Saturday’s referendum on the en
abling constitutional amendment, in the form
of a question mark.
Will the Pearsall Plan “save our schools,” as
the slogan of its proponents proclaimed, or will
it inflict a patchwork of disrupted, inadequate
or, at worst, non-existent public education over
the state?
Will its pattern of complicated evasivenes
discourage Negroes from attempting to enter
white schools or will it provoke, through the
hostility that Negroes see in the Plan, even
more attempts at integration than would other
wise have been the case?
Will the people, on edge and uneasy abodt
school integration, strike down all attempts
of Negroes to enter the schools or will they,
when faced with the choice of some integration
or loss of their schools, accept a measure of
integration, as they can choose to do at any
step in the Pearsall Plan’s blueprint for proce
dure by school boards or in the courts?
Will the Plan, as its more liberal supporters
averred, deter the more rabid segregationists
in the General Assembly from attempting to
enact legislation that is even more resteicting
and more “unacceptable to Negroes? Or will the
at the
state’s favorable response to legislation that is
basically hostile to Negroes, attempt to amend
it into an even more powerful weapon against
integration?
Will the Plan, as Governor Hodges believes,
be found constitutional upon testiijg in the
courts or will it eventually have to be scrapped,
forcing the people of the state to adjust them
selves to another and, we would suspect, more
tolerant course of action?
One constant factor remains, in North Caro
lina and everywhere, in dealing with the school
segregation problem: there must be a continuing
effort toward racial understanding on the part
of both white and Negro persons.
To the extent the Pearsall Plan lead* white
people to believe they have assured eternal or
even long-abiding , segregation in the schools,
they are being deluded. The Supreme Court de
cision stands. The aspirations of Negroes for
public recognition of J;heir equal rights under
law in public matters are not diminishing.
It now behooves all of us—school officials and
patrons and all citizens—of both races, to ques
tion and examine critically our notions about
each other, to strive to find points of agreement
rather than points of conflict, to renew our de
devotion to public education, to resolve to keep
our schools open even at the cost of some com
promise with rigid convictions, to eschew vio
lence of any kind and to strive for the wisdom,
tolerance and understanding without which
human beings can never live in harmony and
mutual respect.
Encouraging Outlook For Prison Changes
Proposals put before the Advisory Budget
Commission last week 'by the North Carolina
Prisons Department assume a coming separa
tion of the Department frofn the Highway
Commission. There was talk, too, of gradually
decreasing the number of prisoners working on
the roads and increasing their employment in
forestry, farm and other projects. All this is
encouraging.
Those who have expressed dissatisfaction
with the State’s prison system, particularly the
use of vast numbers of all sorts of prisoners
for highway work, should now enlist wide
spread public support for the proposed
changes. Because, of course, there will >be no
changes unless they are authorized by the 1957
General Assembly.
Having side-stepped the prisons issue in
1955, despite well presented pleas for action,
the Assembly can hardly ignore the matter at
its next session. Last week’s presentation to
the Advisory Budget Commission of a plan that
assumes the long-discussed separation shows
that there is considerable confidence in favor
able action by the legislators.
A point made last week by Prisons Director
William F. Bailey puts the separation proposal
in a light that should inspire wide backing. He
referred to “the inequity of requiring one seg
ment of our population (taxpayers who support
the road program) to carry the tax responsibili
ties for a government function which should
be borne by all segments of our taxpaying citi
zens.” .
This is a valid appeal, affecting mi|lions of
STATUS OF TEACHER CHANGED
Parent Used To Hold Hat In Hand
Some .months ago, in his na
tionally circulated and admired
publication', “The Carolina Israel
ite,” Harry Golden heaped scorn
on’ the “letting them do what
they want” trend in education
and had a few kind words for
old-fashioned discipline and cur
riculum in school. The Pilot re
printed that stimulating article.
Recently, in the same publica
tion—a 16 page newspaper that
he writes in its entirety and pub-
'lishes once every two months
Mr. Golden followed up with a
piece headed: “Once The Parents
Were Afraid of Teachers. Now the
Teachers Are Afraid of Parents.”
Here it is:
acquired a special status, so why
give him financial security too.
Since the teacher is paid out of
tax funds there is no way this can
be resisted, except to be on spe
cial good behavior when the
groups come a-visiting. Luckily
we still have Free Enterprise so
that many creative people can
remain privately employed or
self-employed, and .keep the
doors closed to intrude^. If all
creative people were paid out of
taxes you would have a “Parents-
Writers Association,” a “Parents
Composers Association,” and a
“Parents - Artists Association.
Now wouldn’t that be ducky—
and how they’d love it. -
THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 13. 1956
^Silence Area^
Between Races
Hurting State
(The lack of f^ank and open
communication ' between
whites and ^egroes, reflected
in the fact that there was no
Negro member of the State
study commission that formu-i
lated the Pearsall Plan, has
been frequently mentioned by
The Pilot in the past year as
one of the unfortunate devel
opments since the Supreme
Court school segregation de
cisions. In an editorial this
week. The Saiiford Herald re
views some of the background
of this situation and calls it
"among the bitterest fruits of
the Supreme Court decision."
The editorial follows.)
Governor Hodges revealed over
the weekend that, at the time the
10-member Pearsall Commission
was chosen, he attempted to or
ganize a committee of Negroes to
advise it. Earlier he had consider
ed naming a Negro to the Pearsall
Commission itself but had come to
the conclusion this would be un
wise.
Several months ago Mr. Hodges
informally discussed at the North
Carolina Editorial Writers Con
ference his inability to obtain can
did advice on school matters from
Negroes. His remarks at that time
were amplified by Thomas J.
Pearsall, chairman of the State’s
current advisory commission on
education who also headed the 19-
member study committee chosen
by the late Governor Umstead.
The original committee included
two Negroes—each the president
of a State-supported college.
Both, said Mr. Pearsall, were de
nounced frequently and brutally
by other members of their race for
cooperating with the whites. ',He
had no doubt, he solemnly added,
that this abuse contributed to the
death of Dr. F. D. Bluford, of A&T
College, one of the two commit
teemen.
Mr. Pearsall disclosed also that
he had sought the counsel of Ne-
It is not only that teachers are
underpaid, but also they are in
terfered with by the “outside” , .
that forces them into becoming groes in the Rocky Mount area,
quasi-politicians, and smothers where he has lived aU his
^ ^ - ■ the attempt to form a statewide
the desire in them to learn to
communicate. The academy is
gone, even though the British re
main encouraging. We had it once
but lost it. The day is gone when
a teacher was proud of his profes
sion through an inner sense of
accomplishment. On the one side
we have teachers who know less
than the pupils and on the other
side we have good teachers who
are being driven to other fields to
escape the intruders and to earn
a living.
the state’s citizens, and is a point of view that
should enlist the support of many to whom the
previously stressed arguments—^rehabilitation
and efficiency—may not have seemed impor
tant.
The plan discussed by Mr. Bailey, it should
be noted, does not contemplate taking prisoners
off the roads at once. In fact, it was stated that
as many prisoners would likely b6 worked on
the highways in the biennium, after separation,
as were before. However, an official of the
Prisons Advisory Board, who was present for
the hearing, said he anticipates that the num
ber working on the roads will decrease grad
ually. Development of income from prison
farms and forestry and industrial operations
would more than offset, he estimated, Ihe loss
of income from the Highway Commission.
More than a year ago, the prisons director
told editors at a state-wide preSs meeting that
building roads with prison labor is not good
economy. Unskilled hand labor takes longer
than skilled work with machines. Prisoners,
generally speaking, don’t do as good a job as
free persons.
The aim of the proposed change in the pris
ons system is not simply to use general fund
money instead of highway money, but, ulti
mately, to cut down the very high percentage
of TGpoaters in the North Carolina prison pop-
ulatibn. Working prisoners on the roads pre
cludes to a great extent any effective rehabili
tation program.
We urge our readers to get behind the sepa
ration proposal.
Every few months the teachers
around the country are annoyed
with organized visits by all sorts
of groups of “parents” and “civic
leaders.” On such occasions
teachers are brought together
and told what to wear and how
to conduct themselves in front of
the guests.
Part of System
This is part of the story of our
present-day education, the four-
year high school course which
qualifies the kid to enter the state
college where he promptly starts
a new two-year course of
what they call “remedial English”
learning to read and write. It
is part of the system of “letting
them do what they want.”
I cannot reconcile these high-
school courses in “cherry pie
making” with the principles of
John .Dewey, the education phil
osopher. In a fine pamphlet by
Lois Meridith French of Newark
(N. J.), State Teachers College,
“Where We Went Wrong in Men
tal Hygiene,” Dr. French says
that “John Dewey himself in the
later years of his life made vari
ous attempts to explain that he
never meant his progressive edu
cation to turn out undisciplined,
children.”
I do not believe that the idea
in education of learning by do
ing, that it will harm rny psyche
to suppress any emotion, was
ever a part of the philosophy of
John Dewey. I think it would be
better if we went back to the old
system when the teacher sent for
a parent and he stood in the hall
way with his hat in his hand
waiting to be interviewed, and
maybe a little scared about the
whole thing, too.
A Special Status
This is all of one piece with the
fact that the teachers are so bad
ly underpaid. The people of the
commercial society are no fools.
They understand perfectly well
that there are a few people, who
because of their careers, have no
frontiers in the social structure.
These are the teachers of course,
and the creative people. The fel
low in' the commercial society
understands this very well. The
first thing he does when he
makes a lot of money is to spO'ii-
sor something which has in its
title the word. “Education,” “In
stitute.” or “Cultural.” He feeN
that no matter how little the
teaclier gets, he, the teacher, has
It Wasn't The Shock
When the constitutional
amendments election returns
were being compiled at the sher
iff’s office in the courthouse at
.Carthage Saturday night, Clliff
Blue of Aberdeen—who is editor
and publisher of The Sandhill
Citizen as well as Moore Coun
ty’s representative in the General
Assembly at Raleigh—called
Magistrate Charlie MacLeod who
as usual was presiding over the
collection of returns at Carthage.
Cliff wanted to get returns for
his paper and for those who had
gathered at the Citizen office vO
check up on how the voting was
going.
Now it happens that one pre
cinct Spencerville (Westmoore
community of upper Moore
County), cast a very heavy vote,
232-34, AGAINST the amendment
that would provide expense and
travel aUowances for members of
the General Assembly. It was
the only precinct in the county
to vote against this proposal
which also met a favorable re
sponse over the state.
Magistrate MacLeod was read
ing the county returns over the
telephone to Cliff. Immediately
after he read the pay increase
amendment returns from Spen
cerville, the phone went dead!
When connections were finally
established, Charlie was relieved
to hear the Moore representa
tive’s voice as strong as ever on
the end of the line.
“Cliff,” Charlie chided, “I
thought’ you’d dropped dead
when you heard how they voted
in Spencerville.”
Cliff’s reply was not recorded.
The reason the phone went
dead, it was learned later, was
that, just at that moment, some
body in the sheriff’s office step
ped on the phone cord in such a
way as to break the connection.
power of attorney conferred by
her husband.
The vote was 27 against the
amendment and 21 for it.
■ “It looks like those fellows ,in
Spies just don’t trust their
wives,” was the comment of one
courthouse observer.
Someone else speculated that
the voting ran: 21 husbands
against the amendment, 21 wives
for it and six bachelors j-oining
the other menfolks to defeat the
proposition in that precinct.
parallel commission. ' He called a
meeting of them on quick notice.
Nevertheless, he asserted, by the-
time discussions began, the Na
tional Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People was
in charge; no proposal was put
forward that was not a part of the
N.A.A.C.P. line. Other attempts
at obtaining Negro cooperation,
Mr. Pearsall said, came to ruin
upon non-compromising minds.
We cannot interpret these expe
riences of Governor Hodges and
Chairman Pearsall. We do not
know whether the refusM of Ne
groes to confer freely with them
and their associates was sponta
neous or organized. We do not
know whether the Negro people
subscribe to a policy handed down
from the N.A.A.C.P. headquarters
or whether the N.A.A.C.P. reflects
a determination that has its roots
in a million shacks in segregated
districts.
But we know this: that the
breakdown of communications be
tween the white and Negro people
in North Carolina and throughout
the South is among the bitterest
fruits of the Supreme Court de
cision of May 17, 1954. There can
be no real peace in our region un
til the lines are restored.
OLD T.EGENDS RECALLED
Neighbors Feud Over Rooster
Another Rejection
Spies precinct, also in upper
Moore, distinguished itself by be
ing the only precinct in this
county to vote against the
amendment that authorizes "
By CARLTON MORRIS
In Gates County Index
From the time Peter denied
Christ three times, the crowing
of a rooster has had special sig
nificance to men. Over the years,
many myths and legends have
sprung up about this, bird.
My own mother would dis
claim any belief in superstition
of any kind, but would invari
ably remark that company was
coming, if the old red rooster
came to the door and crowed.
Funny thing about it was, com
pany almost always showed up
right after the old bird sounded
forth his clarion call. As a
youngster, I enjoyed visitors for
I had none of the extra work
connected with their visit and I
loved to hear the old rooster.
Many are the tales told of
hearing a rooster crowing at
midnight. Sounding forth in the
middle of the night, he is be
lieved to be a harbinger of sad
ness and death, but he also crows
at dawn which is emblematic of
hope and life.
Once I saw two neighbors be
come enemies and refuse to
speak to each other because of
an old rooster. Both lived in the
city and one had a pupov while
the other had a rooster. The man
who owned the pupov broueM
about the whole trouble. His
little dog was sick and in the
dog hospital for a number of
home and put him down in his
back yard. His neighbor’s rooster
came over and sailed into the
puppy fore and aft. The dog s
owner picked up a stick and
clobbered the rooster then and
there. He took the old bird, much
to the delight of the folks in the
neighborhood who had gardens,
and carried him over and tossed
his carcass on his owner’s porch.
“Here’s your rooster,” he said.
And that was, the last word
they ever spoke to each other.
The PILOT
Published Every Thursday by
THE PILOT, Incorporated
Southern Pines, North Carolina
1941—JAMES BOYD—1944
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