Newspapers / The Pilot (Southern Pines, … / April 28, 1960, edition 1 / Page 2
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Page TWO THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 1960 4 OS 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. Wherever ifhere seems to be an occasion to use our influence for the public good we will try to do it. And we will treat everybody alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941. Mass Insecticide Spraying-Ugh! In raising its voice against mass spraying of insecticide throughout Southern Pines, for the past several years. The Pilot has apparent ly adopted an extremely unpopular cause. Every time we write an editorial about this wholesale blasting of noxious vapor on pleas ant summer evenings, officials at town hall tell us that people call up and say, “Don’t you dare stop it. It’s the best thing that the town ever did..” There have bepn a few stalwart backers of our point of view who have made themselves known. If there are others who agree, we wish they would step forward and speak their minds—to the Pilot and to the town council who could put a stop to the practice. The spray—forced under great pressure from a motorized machine that sounds like the approach of doom and is in itself an of fense against the quiet nighttime of our pleas ant town—is composed of a poisonous chemi cal in a fuel oil base. Why human beings should voluntarily choose to breathe such a substance into their lungs is a mystery. A more serious mystery, we’d say, is what these chemical insect poisons do to the human ^ body. They have not been in existence long enough for the effects of repeated contacts to be known. W’e feel like a guinea pig in a lab oratory cage when the spray machine arrives. Aside from the health question (the effects of oil vapors on the lungs of infants and in valid persons might also be investigated), we despise to have the scents of night flowers, the calls of night birds, and cries of children play ing hide and seek in the twilight so rudely violated. Doesn’t anybody agree? Progress in Humane Slaughter Nation-wide interest in humane slaughter ing methods resulted in federal legislation which makes humane slaughtering compul sory after June 30, for all companies selling to the federal goveniment. As the deadline for the change approaches, we call this fact to the attention of readers who expressed their approval of this news paper’s efforts on behalf of the humane slaughtering law, at the time the matter was brought before Congress. The new law, of course, will not apply to many meat packers and we see little hope of making humane slaughtering operations universal until such laws are adopted at the state level. We are pleased to note that five states now have their own laws regarding humane slaughter' and others are currently reviewing proposed legislation. Extent of the need, especially in the South, can be seen from the fact that this week we received an announcement from a well known Virginia packing company, stating that “the first humane slaughter installation in the en tire South” is being put into operation there. If this quotation is correct, persons interested in the welfare of animals, throughout the South, have their work cut out f6r them in the future. The Virginia company, which specializes in pork and ham products, is using the carbon dioxide immobilization method of slaughter. It is interesting pow proud the company itself now appears to be over, the change and how the company states happily the change is even to its financial advantage; “It eliminates needless livestock suffering, improves products, creates economies and gen eral benefits for both packers and consumers, and provides safer, better working conditions for those engaged in the slaughtering opera tion.” If all this is true for one company, would it not be true for the many others throughout the South, to which this one enlightened Vir ginia company is the exception? It’s not too soon for North Carolinians in terested in animal welfare to start planning efforts to bring this matter before the 1961 General Assembly, with a state humane slaughter law as the goal. Upcoming School Board Appointments The town council will be required soon to fill two vacancies as a result of expiring terms on the Southern Pines board of education. The recurrence of these school board ap pointments—putting the council in a position that involves very difficult choices in a small town where everybody knows everybody else and friendships are widespread—offers one of the strongest a»guments for an elected school board. Now, for instance, people are telling council members—and with justification, it seems to us—that there should be some younger per sons on the school board, parents with chil dren in school. Yet the incumbent board mem bers, who are presumably candidates for re appointment, have a record of long and con scientious service. While it is true that simply being a parent does not qualify one to be a member of a board of education, it does seem that parents can keep in closer touch with the student side of school life—a side from which a significant view of a school’s operation can be obtained. Purpose of this editorial is to urge residents of Southern Pines to think about the matter of school board appointments and to commu nicate their thoughts to the council. We are certain the council wants to name a school board that the people of Southern Pines want and they w^ll not know what to do un- Polio Season Ahead Efforts are being put forth by the State Board of Health to prevent last year’s high poliomyelitis death rate in the youngest age group, birth through five years. Dr. Fred Foard, director of the Division of Epidemiology, is asking local health direct ors to alert all persons who work in pre-school clinics or conferences to emphasize to parents the importance of immediate vaccination of this age group. The highest poliomyelitis death rate during 1959 occurred in this birth through five years age group, according to Dr. Foard. He is rec ommending that definite arrangements be made with parents to take their children to the family physician or the health department for immediate vaccination. The year 1959 ended with 313 cases of poli omyelitis reported, 279 of which were para lytic. Already two paralytic cases have been reported as originating in 1960. As the summer “polio season” approaches, we again urge parents to emphasize for their children the health regulations that were rec ommended for the prevention of polio before discovery of the Salk vaccine: personal clean liness, avoidance of excessive summer fatigue and chilling while swimming or after exercise. ’These basic precautions should not be neg^ lected, even though children have the pro tection of the vaccine. less they hear from a considerable segment of the people—and that means before the council’s next meeting May 10. It happens that the National School Boards Association, with delegates from 50 state asso ciations of school board members, is meeting this week. The Association, in connection with this meeting, sent out explanatory material to newspapers which said, in part: “No other country in the w.irld has a comparable system of citizen control of education. Approximate ly a quarter of a million Americans serve on school boards—for the most part without pay and as a public service. They come from every walk of life, doctors, dentists, lawyers, mer chants, bankers, housewives, and just plain people. . .” School board members, the Association points out, are the connecting link between the public which supports our schools and the professional educators who administer the schools. The Association then quotes as follows from a publication of the American Association of School Administrators—a quotation by which the people of Southern Pines could be guided in advising the council now about school board appointments here; “School board members represent the peo ple who own and support the schools. They form a grass roots organization which is clos er to the people than any other form of govern ment. They voice the wishes and aspirations of the parents and the children. 'They spend the local taxpayers’ money, and are respon sible to their neighbors for the action. They are trustees of a great public responsibility. . . as representatives of the people, they are the first and last word on the scope and operation of their schools. . .” Where’s Spring? As we gaze out into 90-degree weather a blazing sun and trees almost in full leaf—little more than a month after the ground was cov ered with snow—we wonder what happened to Spring. Always inclined to be elusive, erratic and deceptive in this climate. Spring took a detour around the Sandhills this year We think we! remember what she looked like in former years, and we might have caught a glimpse of her this year, with a snowball in one hand and a daffodil in another—but the chann of Spring in the Sandhills, when she sometimes stands still for days and turns on us the radiance of a sweet, lazy smile: that didn’t happen this year. More’s the pity—^but welcome, Summer. ’Tliis is >vhat we dreamed of when the ice and snow were upon us, wasn’t it? Let’s go swim ming. “HeUo, Mom? We Won 1 Think!” sm pH;.: ' The South^s Choice Now that the 1960 Civil Rights Bill appears to have reached, or virtually reached, its final form, it is time to look at the measure both in the light of what it will do and what effect it will have upon future civil rights legisla tion. The i)ill as it now stands is con fined almost entirely to the right of all citizens to vote. ’That right is set forth in the 15th Amend ment to the Constitution as fol lows; 1. The rights of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account, of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. That seems to settle any ques tion of the right of Congress to act and the report of the Civil Rights Commission that not a single Negro is now permitted to vote in some Southern counties seems to settle the fact that there is “abridgment” of the right in some sections of the South. Look Out, Motivational Research! (E. A. Resch in The Chatham News;) When the Ford people suspend ed production of the Edsel car, an experiment that cost them $250,000,000, I was reminded of having read the background story of the car’s birth. Much of the car’s design, price class, color and horsepower came about from “revelations” of an organizationn of motivational re searchers, a fancy-dan name for people who delve into the pub lic’s hidden desires for products that range from tooth paste to, as ih this instance, automobiles. I have no arguments with these guys. They make fancy sal aries as consultants to business. And if business wants to spend its money on such conclusions that a man is going to buy a car becaus.3 he hated his drunken father it is not for me to argue. I do, however, harbor a contin uing resentment at being categor ized to a degree that some people think I can be impelled to buy something for reasons unknown to me. Had I decided to buy an Edsel it would have been because I liked the looks of the car, consid ered it a good value and, above all believed that the dealer from whom I bought it would be reli able in servicing it. I don’t like to learn that I am being manipulated. It scares me. I have visions of buying all sorts of things I don’t need simply be cause someone has discovered a mysterious “something” that will impel me to do things I don’t particularly want to do. The Edsel car was a good one or so I have been told by people who bought it. I don’t remember, however, having been told that anyone bought the car because it satisfied some hidden desire hav ing nothing to do with driving a car. If motivational researchers are crawling all over the place in an effort to manipulate people’s buying habits there are sure to be some gosh-awful products offer ed the public. I plan to be On guard against buying any of them. Wouldn’t it be feomething ter rible if we bought things only be cause we were possessed of some psychological quirk that we didn’t know we had? I prefer to believe that the Ed sel died because the Ford people found themselves with too many cars in their line and a growing preference for small cars among those people who had been long accustomed to buying the regtilar line. We’re already in too much of a rush towards conformity and togetherness. I don’t want my emotions scrutinized do a degree that I’ll join in without really knowing what I’m doing. A quarter of a billion dollars is an expensive price for failure. I have an idea, however, that the Ford people will go back to rely ing on their engineers and mer chandisers for future guidance. Along with a little vocative help from the average consumer, that is. Mark Twain’s Black Years (From The Chapel Hill Weekly) Mark Twain died in 1910 at the age of 75. All his acquaintances, and all the persons who have written about him, agree that in his latter years he was unhappy. In a survey of his career and a critique of his work in the New Yorker (issue of April 9), Dwight Macdonald writes: “There is something about those last black years of Mark Twain’s life. His personal disasters coincided with his growing pessimism about America.” The latest - of Twain’s writings of any consequence was “The Mysterious Stranger” . . . “It is an even grimmer parable than Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels,’ in which the satire was restricted to mankind,” says Macdonald. “Twain’fe target is cosmic. Satan is the book’s hero.” Addressing the young boy na- rator, speaking Ihrough Satan, THREE STEPS The New York Mirror sent an investigator to a camp where convicted juvenile delinquents live and work out their terms. Interviews with these boys pro duced three steps which, accord ing to them, would have kept them out of trouble: 1. Firm and fair discipline re garding habits, hours and friends. 2. A happy home of which they are a respected part, and into which they can proudly bring their friends. 3. Instruction in how to make a living and get along with other people—that is, preparation for the basic economic relationships of adult life. Mark Twain says: “You perceive that you have made continual progress. Cain did his murder with a club; the He brews did their murders with javelins and swords . . . The Christian has added guns and gunpowder; a few centuries from now he will have so greatly im proved . . . his weapons . . . that all men will confess that without Christian civilization war must have remained a poor and trifling thing. . . In five or six thousand years five or six high civilizations have risen, flourished, commanded the wonder of the world, then faded out and disappeared; and not one of them except the latest invented any sweeping or ade quate way to kill people. They all did their best—^to kill being the chiefest ambition of the human race . . . but only the Christian civilization has scored a triumph to be proud of. Two or three cen turies from now it will be recog nized that all the competent kill ers are Christians; then the pagan world will go to school to the Christian.” “When he wrote this,” says Mr. Macdonald, “Mark Twain was thinking of such toys as the Gat ling gun and the Maxim rifle. And his prediction that it would take ‘two or three centuries’ for Chris tian civilization to perfect its mass-killing techniques was just ten times too optimistic. Before Twain had finished ‘The Myster ious Stranger,’ Albert Einstein had published the equation from which the atomic bomb was to be created. It would be an interest ing exercise in historical imagina tion to think of what he and Mark Twain might have had to say to each other if, by some odd chance, they had ever met.” Despite the facts, however, the bill was fought tenaciously in Congress by nine Southern States —notably North Carolina and others where Negroes are allowed to vote freely in almost all pre cincts. If North Carolina will extend the conditions which obtain gen erally to every precinct, this State will not be affected at all by the 1960 legislation. And if other states will do the same thing, they will only be bowing to the inevitable. The debate showed that the greatest objection to the legisla tion was the fear that it might lead to more drastic legislation later. Whether or not that hap pens will doubtless depend upon the reaction to the 1960 law, in the South. The South now has the choice between acquiescence in a statute wnich deals with a clear constitu tional right and obstruction of that law. If the law is obeyed, a strong case can be made in the future against more drastic and more doubtful civil rights legis lation. But if the right-to-vote law is met with obstruction or vdiolesale evasion, the passage of more drastic laws seems certain in the light of overwhelming ma jorities against weakening or nul lifying the pending bill. —Raleigh News & Observer Crains of Sand Rumor One of the ‘ town’s old-time Democrats slipped into the Pilot office the other day, with a con spiratorial air. He sidled over to us and whispered, “There’s a ru mor going around that the Re publicans plan to draft Eisen hower to run as vice-president with Nixon.” Having thus struck his blow for Democracy, he slipped away, chuckling, leaving us to ponder the quixotic “rumor.” Symbol of Love? The British, supposedly staid and stolid in the business world and immune, we would think, to such American advertising tech niques as “motivational research,” continue to amaze us. \ For instance, the British Tie Manufacturers Association called in a psychologist to find out what sells ties. Replied the psychologist: “To a woman a tie is a symbol of love. When a woman straightens a man’s tie or tightens its knot, she is, in fact, finding satisfaction in a substitute for caressing.” Therefore, continued the re searcher, women buy most of the ties and give them to men. We must say the reasoning here is not altogether clear, but it seems to be that buying these “symbols of love” gives the women a sort of vested interest in subsequently straightening them or knotting them. As the owner of a British neck tie bought 25 years ago and still giving good and enjoyable serv ice (to us and to any eager female tie-straightener who comes along), we think we could have told the Tie Manufacturers Asso ciation what sells ties: pleasant, subdued patterns and good long- wearing material. But that an swer, of course, could not have inspired newspaper headlines, as the answer of the psychologist did. Dissenting Opinion ^ When the United States Su- ^ preme Court ruled recently that if a railroad was forced into wasteful practices by the Norris- La Guardia Act, it should take its case to Congress, not to* the courts, tlie decision meant prac tically nothing to us. But we were tickled by what Justice Tom Clark said in his dissenting opinion. He said that the paajority opinion was like the (||^ suitor who, seeking the hand of a young lady, was told by her to “go to Father.” ‘But as the parody goes,” wrote Justice Clark, “She knew that he knew her father was dead; she knew that he knew what a life he had led; and she knew that he knew what she meant when she said, ‘Go to Father.’” Squirrels and Wires ^ Squirrel haters will be pleased to know of another indictment against the little animals that we have heard described by a par ticularly violent squirrel-o-phobe as “rats with bushy tails.” According to Carolina Power and .Light Co., squirrels along with lightning and tree limbs, head the list of trouble makers on _ CP&L lines. (This announcement * was made some time ago but we haven’t had the heart, to talk about line trouble until a decent time after this winter’s "ice and snow storms.) Squirrels, it seems, seek the warpith of a transformer, make connection with a wire—and, bang!—there’s a dead squirrel and the lights go out. Manufacturers, however, have 4' developed a squirrel-resistant transformer with an insulated cover. Several of these are now in service on CP&L lines and are being watched with interest by the company’s technicians. The PILOT 1941—JAMES BOYD—1944 Katharine Boyd Editor C. Benedict Associate Editor Dan S. Ray Gen, Mgr. C. G. Council Advertising Mary Scott Newton Business Bessie Cameron Smith Society Composing Room Dixie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Jas per Swearingen, Tholnas Mattocks and James C. Morris. Subscription Ratos: Ono Year $4. 6 mos. $2. 3 mos. $1 Entered at the Postoffice at South ern Pines, N. C., as second class mail matter. Member National Editorial Assn, and N. C. Press Assn. Published Every Thursday by A THE PILOT. Incorporated Southern Pines, North Carolina
The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.)
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April 28, 1960, edition 1
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