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Page TWO THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1960 ILOT “Anyone Can See Communist Prestige Is Scraping The Bottom!” Southern Pines Y 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 there 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. Adlai Stevenson: Man of Integrity The Pilot welcomes Adlai Stevenson back to the Sandhills after an absence of several years—years of crucial import to the nation and the world. It is gratifying that these years, though Mr. Stevenson was denied the Presidency, have brought him new stature in the leadership of his party and in guiding and inspiring the political and moral thinking of great numbers of people in and out of politics. It would be sentimental to say that Mr. Stevenson has served his party better as guide and prophet than he might have as office holder. We supported him for Pres ident in 1952 and with added enthusiasm in 1956. Again this year, he was our can didate for the nomination at Los Angeles where the ovation given him in the con vention spoke the esteem of millions of Americans who warmed to that dramatic moment in the proceedings. Yet, though he lost two Presidential elections and this year’s nomination, there is about Mr. Stevenson no sense of having been beaten. This is true because he is a man of integrity, a person very much himself, loser or winner, not swayed by winds of acceptance or rejection, because he knows who he is and what he believes. He is the same man on the rostrum as a Presidential candidate or in the gymnas ium of Southern Pines High School, where he will speak Saturday. He is un touched by the capriciousness of “popular ity.” He is impelled to speak the truth as he sees it, not for any esteem or gain it may bring him, but because he believes the nation and the world are in peril. It is interesting to measure the oppon ents in the current Presidential race against the Stevenson position. Mr. Kennedy, of course, is the “heir and executor of the Stevenson revolution,” as pointed out in a quotation from Dr. Schlesinger in a separate item on this page —the “revolution” being the definition and passionate concern that Mr. Steven son has given to domestic and foreign is sues during the past eight years. The clarity and conviction with which these issues have been articulated are not the utterances of a beaten man; they are above and beyond the man and, as presented by Senator Kennedy in his vig orous campaign, are kindling new fires in the hearts and minds of the American people. Moreover, we feel with Kennedy, as with Stevenson, that win or lose, the con victions will remain, the concern will not fade away and that he will continue, no matter what the outcome of the election, as a spokesman for people and challenge, as against property and complacency. It is difficult, on the other hand, to imagine Vice President Nixon as his par ty’s prophet and guide over a considerable period of years. Picture him, for instance, as twice defeated for the presidency and then defeated for the nomination on a third try. Is it conceivable that he would emerge from this ordeal, this shattering blow to ambition and self-confidence, more dedicated, more enthusiastic, more cheerful than he had ever been—as has been the experience with Stevenson and would, we also feel confident, be the trend of Kennedy’s career should he undergo the same series of rejections? No, Mr. Nixon the opportunist, the seek er of approval, the reverser of convictions, would not appear to be capable of lasting such a course. One would more likely ex pect to find him salving his wounds in a chairman of the board’s swivel chair. It is our profound hope that if Senator Kennedy wins, Mr. Stevenson will be ac corded due recognition by appointment to such a post as Secretary of State or ambassador to the United Nations. But whatever the outcome, we can be confi dent Mr. Stevenson will remain most wonderfully himself and that, as such, his place in the annals of honor is secure. Two Chinese Firecrackers With the third of the great debates, the campaign started to boil. The agent of this sudden heat? Mostly, it seems, the appear ance of those two small islands, Quemoy and Matsu, “on the horizon,” Mr. Nixon might say, while Mr. Kennedy would counter; “you mean just across the har bor.” These Chinese firecrackers have sput tered often, generally whenever the Sino- Soviet bloc felt like distracting, confusing, and in any way upsetting the equilibrium of the United States. For them they are of prime nuisance-value. Not so long ago, it will be recalled, they featured in black headlines in conjunction with a speedy sailing of the 7th Fleet in their direction. This time the fuse was set off by a re porter’s question to Senator Kennedy and it looks as if their nuisance value would have wider coverage. To the point perhaps of seriously influencing this critical elec tion. At the mention of the islands—to de fend or not to defend—both candidates headed out on slender limbs. The vice president went out much farther than his opponent before he scrambled back lack ing a few buttons and suffering a few scratches. Nixon ducked for shelter un der the Administration’s coattails; Ken nedy claimed he’d been there all the time. At that moment it seemed to viewers per haps lucky that the Senator does not know how to laugh, also that the contes tants were 3,000 miles apart. There was “blood in th’eye” of both. Finished debater that he is, Nixon was quick to fall back on tried and true—to him—tactics. Promising in ringing tones not to surrender “an inch of free terri tory,” he threw the works at Kennedy implying that the former PT boat captain was soft on communism. Kennedy contin ued to state that he was sticking by the Administration in not extending the West’s commitments to Chiang. It is a measure of the equivocal stand taken by the Administration that either of the candidates’ positions seems appli cable to it. Washington states that it must be free to defend the islands “if the at tack on them preludes an attack on For mosa.” (To which the bewildered citizen can only ask: “how would they ever know?”) As for the candidates, the fact remains that Kennedy is for disengagement, if possible, from these two islands which have been adjudged by every expert, in cluding the President, to be indefensible; Nixon by his ringing words about the “area of freedom” appears committed to their defense, no matter what. 'That’s the way things stand, but it’s doubtful if they’ll stand so long. That is, unless the rules of the debate are chang ed and hot questions, like these firecrack ers, are ruled out. It would seem that this is a possibility. These two young men ob viously crave to fight out this matter of the islands but, as obviously, they can’t. They are under wraps, quite unable to de velop the lines of thought, the plans each may have for handling this critical prob lem. Furthermore it is a critical problem and these are critical times. Nothing could be accomplished by fur ther debate. Except one thing: and that has its great importance, too. Bringing the campaign to this high boil has already re vealed more than either of the other de bates showed of the personalities of the two candidates. Sharpened conflict lights up their qualities, both good and bad, brings out more clearly their ideas. It has already wiped some of the TV make-up off Nixon and shown up the falsity in his sappy appeals to sentiment. It has sub mitted to more rigorous tests the facts and the views that Kennedy pronounces with such aggressive intensity. It will make it easier for the voter to choose his man if the debate proceeds un- . der the present system with the questions coming, high, wide and not so handsome. But is it such a good idea? A Scot‘Retires’ In key with his life and personality, Edwin T. McKeithen’s retirement from his long years of service at Moore Me morial Hospital was accomplished with little fanfare. That has been the way with everything this quiet, studious, modest Scotsman does. And the emotion with which his friends and colleagues saw him leave was deep and sincere, but, as he would wish, kept firmly in hand as they presented him Saturday with their token of “appreciation of dedicated service.” Moore Memorial Hospital was “Moore County Hospital” during most of, the twenty-nine years he served it, and re mains thus in most people’s mindsv Edwin McKeithen saw it grow from a small building with a minimum of personnel to its present 135 bed capacity. During much of that time, his was the guiding hand and when the years brought heavier duties and edged in on the energy to cope with them, he did what less modest men might have shied away from: he stepped a few rungs down the ladder to carry on for his beloved “Moore County” in a position less taxing though still of much responsibility. His hospital will miss him, miss him sorely. He served it with complete devo tion and in so doing he served Moore County well. That Edwin McKeithen will keep right on serving his county is as certain as the Scottish heritage that makes him the way he is. Already folks are beginning to say: “Maybe now he’ll have time to go on with that History of Moore Coimty.” Maybe? That’s not a word this Scot is familiar with. Stevenson Points the Way "To a considerable degree the transformation of the Democratic Party (since the Truman adminis tration) was the work of a single man—Adlai Stev- enson. "In his eight years as titular leader, Stevenson re- newed the Democratic Party. His conviction that affluence was not enough for the good life, his con tempt for complacency, his impatience with cliches of the past, his demand for new ideas, his respect for the people who have them, his sense of the eoni- plexity of history and the desperate need for leader ship set the tone for a new era in Democratic politics. "Historians may well regard Stevenson as the Fromi: "Putting First Things First" NEW PURPOSE, NEW POLICY I believe the United States is ready for a new awakening and the achievement of greater goals. Within it are the moral and ma terial elements of new purpose and new policy. It is the task of leadership to marshal our will and point the way. We had better start soon for time is wasting. From: "Businessmon Who Think Greatly," BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT In America, more is spent per liead on fidvertising than on edu cation. A starlet can earn in a month five years’ salary of a schoolteacher. Shining new cars stand beside gutters often choked ■ with the refuse of a careless, wasteful people. Multiply your own instances. In fact, as Profes sor Galbraith has reminded us, the. private sector is so well stock ed that we have had to go to un paralleled lengths of persuasion to keep goods moving and per suade the public to develop wants they never knew they had. It seems a little .ludicrous to hand over such vital human needs as security, education and a wide range of welfare services to the public purse because they are so vital, and then proceed to starve them simply because they are public. I am not saying, of course, that all government spending is good. What I am saying is that most of it is good, and that you will not find all the extravagance on the public side by any means. . . Another ideological blinder which limits our vision and sharp ly reduces our ability to make sound, objective decisions is the old, familiar refrain that any gov ernment supervision spells “so cialism” and the :||-uin of free en terprise. ' Socialism is the public ownerr ship of the means of production, and no one is proposing that. But as we use the word, it seems to be any government authority we do not like. Of course, things we like—tariffs, subsidies, mail con cessions, support prices, tax write-offs, depletion allowanced and government aids to particular groups—are rarely denounced as “socialism,” except perhaps by the group’s competitors. A farsighted government policy, designed to strengthen our coun- ' try, improve our education, re build our cities, extend our serv ices and ensure a steady growth in our productive capacity, far from being the enemy of private true victor at the Democratic convention. He had remade the Democratic Party and largely in his own image, even if he was not himself to be the benefic iary. More perhaps than either of them fully realizes, Kennedy today is the heir and executor of the Stev enson revolution." —So writes Dr. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Harvard professor and historian. To illustrate the leadership and guidance Mr. Stevenson has been giving the party, several quotations appear below from speech es made no longer ago than 1959 and collected in his recently published book, "Putting First Things First, A Democratic View." (Titles over the quota tions arq The Pilot's). ' "1 fice the world’s needs mafy dic tate. And, if we must always tnink in terms of contest with the Soviets, let us bear in mind that the ability to create the good life lor the greatest numbers will be decisive. . . ' , We can use our wealth, our ca pacity, for some vision of truth, some ideal of brotherhood, or we can imprison ourselves within the selfishness of our own concerns and the limitations of a narrow nationhood. This is the .dimension of our crisis. ADLAI E. STEVENSON enterprise, is the precondition of capitalism’s successful competi tion with communism. It is the ally of free enterprise because it creates apd maintains the climate within which individual initiative can flourish. . . Government is the indispensable ally of individ ual enterprise. Prom: "Our Broken Mainspring" THE MORAL CHALLENGE I doubt if any society in history has faced so great a moral chal lenge as ours, or needed more desperately to draw on the deep est sources of courage and respon sibility. Ours is the first human community in which resources are so abundant that almost no poli cies lie beyond our capacity for purely physical reasons. What we decide to do, we can do. The in hibitions of poverty—lack of re sources, lack of capital, lack of power—do not hold us back. We can accomplish what we aim at. Thus, perhaps for the first time in the world, choice, not means, ends or instruments, are deci sive. . . In a free society there is no other alternative but to tap the vigor, the faith, the imagination of the people themselves. . . We are not going to be stirred to action by our own needs. We are the cushioned, the protected, the fortunate minority. It is not the measure of our morals or the lesson of our history to be spur ted on only by fear of Russian encroachment. What we have done has largely been from this motivation, and it has left us on the defensive. Our hope is to ac cept the implications of our own faith, to make concrete the image of brotherhood which we profess, to sef to work to express our dedi cation in whatever effort or sacri- From: "Putting First Things First" BEGINNING OF WISDOM To me the two most dangerous realities we now face are' the mul tiplication of nuclear weapons and the disparity in living standards between the rich nations and the poor. I suggest that we must meet these crises of our time in four major areas: First, we must end the growing gap between wealth and poverty. In doing so, we must, in the next place, create new su pra-national patterns and institu tions of cooperation. Thirdly, as long as nuclear weapons exist, the danger of their use exists. We must work for a disarmed world under law and organized police power—the only final answer to the threat of annihilating war. And lastly we must extend as far as lies in our power the concept of an open world. For it is in our acceptance of variety and differ ences, harmonized but not sup pressed, that we in our turn work not only with the trend of history but in accord with the ingrained diversity of mankind. Our faith is that in the long contest the to- talitarians will gradually be con verted to our way of thinking rather than we to theirs. Our goal is not just to win a cold war but to persuade a cold world.. . The beginning of wisdom in the West, I think, is to have our own policy—not just a negative policy to stop the Communists, but a creative one that reflects our own yision of a viable world society and our own understanding of the revolutions through which we live. . . Once we know what we want, what our aims are, then we shall have to pursue them by every means with the same resolution and sacrifice that the Communists pursue theirs. . . Too many selfish, thoughtless people prefer the easy option and too many ambitious politicians prefer office to duty. But we can not live by tail fins, TV and a ‘•‘sound dollar” alone. Somehow we must lift our sights to the lev el of the tasks. Grains of Sand Huirayl In Friday’s' headlines: no more Mr. K. Instead: Harry Truman and the Pirates! Even the Repubs cheered! Next? ^ And this week it’ll be: Adlai’s Coming! Hurray and double hurray! How Come. Jumbo? Remember when the Republi cans carried on so about the fact that FDR and Truman had been unable to get Chiang to do any thing and thus had Tost’ China? Wonder just how they them selves would have “saved” it. They’ve been trying for five years to get Chiang to move his troops out of two little islands and they are still right there. High Road vs. Low Road You’re trying to telephone a certain person, who happens to be of the opposing political party— though this has nothing to do with the call. His own telephone doesn't answer, so you decide to try him at his political headquar ters. No listing in the book, so you call INFORMATION. ‘•Not listed,” she comes back. • That I know. That’s why I called you. Can you give me the number?” Wait. Wait. Wait. “I’m trying to find the num ber.” Wait. Wait. Wait. “I don’t seem to be able to find your number. If I knew what it was listed under. . .” Wait. Wait. Wait. “I’m sorry. If I just knew what the listing would be. . . ” ETHICAL PUZZLE: Do you aid and abet the ’phone company in this splendid effort to conceal the whereabouts of the opposing headquarters and keep you from reaching it or do you—in the in terest of efficiency, the need to get at your friend, and just plain exasperation — tell INFORMA TION how to find the number? Come On, Girls! Democratic County Committee Chairman Lament Brown, always good for a lively tale, opened his informal talk to the assembled county Democratic women at Car thage Monday with an appropri ate bit. To illustrate his faith in the in domitable powers of Moore Coun ty women, when it comes to pol ities or most anything else. La ment recounted this story: “I went to see an old gentleman once,” he said, “looking for a copy of a man’s will that had been left in his charge. He started hunting through his papers and finally- I asked him where he’d seen it last. “ ‘Let’s see,’ he said, scratching his head. ‘Come to think of it: my wife had it last.’ “I knew his wife had died a couple of months before and ven tured to say, as a sort of joke: ‘You don’t suppose maybe she could have taken it with her, do you?’ “He gave a kind of sigh: ‘Well,’ he said: ‘she would have if she’d a mind to.’ ” I PUBLIC SPEAKING | Republicans Maintain Fiction They're Democrats To the Editor: Ever since I have been old enough to concern myself with such matters, I have complained about the fact that most of' the Republicans in these parts refuse to admit they are Republicans and prefer to maintain the fiction that they are Democrats, while consistently voting for every can didate the Republicans offer. But perhaps I shouldn’t be too hard on these people—after all. If I were a Republican I’d be ashamed of it too! The only misgiving I have about voting for Jack Kennedy is this—I remember my father vot ing in 1928 for A1 Smith—like Kennedy a Democrat and a Cath olic—and I’ll never forget the mess that got us into! RUSSELL E. POWELL Southern Pines The PILOT Published Every Thursday by THE PILOT, Incorporated Southern Pines, North Carolina 1941—JAMES BOYl>_1944 Katharine Boyd Editor C. Benedict Associate Editor Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr. C. G. Council Advertising Mary Scott Newton Business Mary Evelyn de Nissoff Society Composing Room Dixie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Jas per Swearingen, 'Thomas Mattocks and James C. Morris. Subscription Rates: On« 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.
The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.)
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Oct. 20, 1960, edition 1
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