Page TWO
THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina
United Nations
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1961
■LOT
Grains of Sand
North Carolina
Southern Pines
“In taking over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We will try to keep this a go^
We™ “ to make a llttll money lor aU coneerned Wh^ver there eceim to
L wcasion to use our influence for the pubUc good we wiU try to do it. And we will
treat everybody alike.”—James Boyd,
* -u, nr—•«
THERE MUST-1
PEON’S
“«S<W5
May 23, 1941.
gf Two
Interest, Apathy and the Schools
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There is much talk about the need for
citizens to take more interest in their
schools; but everywhere, it seems, there
is far more talk than action.
The recently completed citizens study
of the East Southern Pines schools shows
that a large number of local residents
have been interested / enough in the
schools to take part in this study which
is, indeed, a tribute to Southern Pines.
But the study, though indicative in Itself
of citizen interest, revealed also citizen
apathy and ignorance that are, in the
words of the report, “beyond compre
hension.” Some parents questioned did
not even know, for instance, the name
of the superintendent of schools. Many
had no knowledge of or interest in the
schools’ curriculum nor any notion of
parents’ responsibility to work with
their children and school officials and
faculty in a way that would be advan
tageous to the student.
Another indication of apathy is the
poor attendance at Monday night’s
ent-Teacher Association meeting when
the report was discussed and explained
by chairmen of the various divisions of
That parents find it possible to attend
PTA to see Junior dance or sing but wiU
not go to learn about and help improve
what he is taught in the classroom is no
tribute to those parents’ sense of values.
The School Study Group’s report—it
self evidence of citizen interest—is cer
tain to arouse more interest. We hoj^ that
its publication marks the beginning of
an upswing in active parental concern
about the schools.
fi.
Watch Out, Judge 1
Last Thursday morning, Judge
Harry Fullenwider felt a few
hairs turn white—or, so he claims.
It was the day after Recorder’s
Court and the judge was sitting
peacefully at his desk in the Of
fice when a big strange man
came stalking in. He fixed Harry
with what the latter thought was
a highly threatening glare and,
pointing his finger at him, cried:
‘•You the judge who sent my boy
to .jail?”
Harry slid to the edge of his
chair and got ready to duck. Then
the man grinned: “Best thing
that ever happened to him,” he
shouted. “Just thought I’d stop
by and tell you!”
“Th-th-th-thank you, sir!” said
the judge.
Boy On Picnic
fP^
Travel Increase Challenges Sandhills
miW
Travelers spent $408 million in North
Carolina last year, 4.5% above 1959, a
survey by the Travel Council of North
Carolina shows. \
President Lynn Nesbet of Raleigh said
the increase was caused both by new
attractions and highways in the “Variety
Vacationland” State and because “more
people are traveling everywhere.”
The report was presented recently as
a feature of the meeting of the Travel
Coimcil in Winston-Salem, at which the
speaker was Voit Gilmore of Southern
Pines, director of the new U. S. Travel
Service in the Department of Commerce.
Against this background of increasing
tourist volume and dollars. Southern
Pines and the Sandhills open their fall
and winter “season.” The statistics offer
an encouraging stimulus to all local re
sort interests.
Owners of hotels, motels, restaurants
and other travel facilities have been mak
ing improvements in their properties over
the summer, in order to put their b^t
foot forward with visitors who will be
coming to the Sandhills during the com
ing months. Again, The Pilot urges all
resideftts of this area to share the duties
of hosting visitors by keeping their bus
iness property and private dwellings in
good repair, by cleaning up yards and
lots, by planting winter rye grass (you d
be amazed how much winter lawns and
green parkways impress northern visi
tors) and by being prepared to extend a
warm welcome to strangers even if only
casually met on the street.
As we noted in a recent editorial. The
Pilot has sound faith in the future of
Southern Pines. And everyone has a
share in the responsibility for building
that future.
y
SEEKING 'MAXIMUM ADVANTAGE SHORT OF WAR*
Expediency Rules Soviet Policy
Jail Is the Wrong Answer
Joseph C. Harsch, special
correspondent for the Chris
tian Science Monitor, is one
of t^e most respected com
mentators on international
affairs. The following article,
written by him in London, is
reprinted by permission.
The judge leafed back through the
pages of his big book and then he looked
at the man slumped in the chair before
him. , ,
“Will,” he said, “do you know how
many times you have come before this
court on charges of drunkenness?”
The sorry figure in the chair slumped
lower and painfully shook his head.
The judge heaved a sigh: “I don’t know
what to do with you,” he said. “I’ve done
everything I can to keep you off the
bottle; I feel almost as if I’d adopted you
by now.”
In the end the judge did the only thing
he could: added another thirty-day sen
tence to the long list under Will’s name.
Will’s case—or Jim’s or Tom’s or many
another’s—is an example of a tragic pro
blem. It is widespread in this state, as it
is in many others, the terrible problem
of the degeneration of human beings
through addiction to drink, and the great
difficulty of doing anything much about
it, especially under present laws. It is
this problem of the confirmed ‘public
drunks” and their overwhelming numbers
in the prison system, that has prompted
Governor Sanford, as noted in the press
this week, to suggest the establishment of
rehabilitation programs in the state pn-
In cooperation with Alcoholics
sons.
Diplomats of both East and
West have been prudently silent
about the substance of the several
talks held between thenl since
they me.t in New York in mid-
September.
But it is clear there must have
been some promising ground un
covered in United States Secre
tary of State Dean Rusk’s explor
ations with Soviet Foreign Minis-
t.;r Andrei A. Gromyko. Mr.
Rusk would not have proposed
having Mr. Gromyko go to Wash
ington and presenting him to
President Kennedy without some
reason to believe that some
points, at least, were sufficiently
Outdoors in October
The series of cloudless, mild days with
which the Sandhills was blessed over the
Anonymous, a plan has been formulated mature to justify presentation to
to set up counseling units in the prisons, the President,
while at the same time courts will be ””-'•
urged to make greater use of the parole
system for such offenders.
Both these steps could be beneficial
weekend-and up at least untU this is among young and fi^^t offenders but it
being written Tuesday—cast a kind of
magic spell upon this area.
The golden, early-autumn light tell
kindly on the land as it lay balanced be
tween summer and fall, creating a quiet
expectancy. People shared the mood of
Nature. There were leisurely street-com
er conversations among persons standing
in simlight at last not too hot for comfort,
yet warm enough to be felt, it seemed,
clear into the marrow of the bones. “Too
pretty a day to go inside,” was the fre
quently heard, utterly inadequate des
cription for the dreamy glory of simply
being outdoors.
Pity the people who could not or did
not go into the woods some time during
these magic days. Luminous, dappled,
hushed, fragrant—the woods surrounded
the visitor, dominating all the senses, cut
ting him off from everything but their
warm, bright world.
So must the ancients have felt in a
forest peopled in their minds with deities
—spirits of tree and water and animal,
all personifying some mystery, some
idea applicable to human life. In the
glowing stillness of the Sandhills woods
this week, one felt close to revelation. One
almost listened for a voice that would
speak some truth that one had until then
felt vaguely but not quite known.
But no voice speaks. A squirrel chat
ters, out of sight down the slope—startling
as a machine gun. A breath of breeze
stirs the yet-green leaves of a tall oak
against the bluest of skies, picked up in
a moment bv the burnished dogwoods at
a lower level. At one’s feet, a beige cater
pillar with big black tufts of hair, fore
and aft, inches its way on some import
ant errand along a twig.
Leaving the woods is like closing a
door on a restful, well-loved room. But
the woods visitor, like the caterpillar, has
business elsewhere. The spell, like all
spells must be broken, the dreamer must
wake.
But everywhere the sun is shining and
there are many more things to see.
would seem likely that they could give
little help, with the best will in the
world, to such as Will, who make up the
great load of this burden: a burden to
the state, to their families and friends,
and, certainly, to theniselves. For these
there is a far more basic need to be met.
The fact remains that none of these people
should be in jail at all.
According to Judge Fullenwider, who
must conduct the weekly struggle with
such unfortunates in the local recorder’s
court, the basic overriding necessity is to
keep these people out of jail and, instead,
place them where they can be properly
taken care of. This means the law must
be changed to allow a judge to commit other than institutions to be over
an alcoholic to a suitable institution. At thrown when possible and used
present the only way such an individual when they cannot be overthrown
can go to a state rehabilitation center is
voluntarily, or through petition by
The mere fact of the White
House meeting is enough to tell j
an anxious world that the experts
of East and West are on ihe
threshold of negotiation.
If 43 years of life on the same
planet with a powerful Soviet
state have taught the West any
thing, they should have taught
that Moscow does not make trea
ties or enter into agreements with
the West for simple love of peace
or from any desire to establish
permanent good relations with
tHe West.
The time may come when the
process of evolution will temper
the fanaticism of communism. It
is conceivable that some day
there will be Communists who re
gard non-Communists as human
beings like themselves and non-
Communists states as something
_, or
a near relative. A court is powerless to
act except,to send him to jail for a short
period of time.
Obviously the suggested change is a
matter calling for intensive study. Such
a law would have to be carefully drawn
and as carefully enforced. Furthermore,
if it were put into effect, the ruling would
create a flood of tidal wave proportions
descending on the few institutions capable
of giving the required medical and psy
chiatric care. The state already has some
of the finest in the country in this
category but they woulcibe nowhere near
adequate to care for all the poor souls
now dragging around county jails and
state prisons.
But the difficulties that may be antici
pated in taking the measure suggested
should not overshadow its dire necessity.
This problem of the repeater, the chronic
“public drunk” offender, calls to high
heaven for remedial action. Governor
Sanford is to be congratulated on his
recent move to bring rehabilitation me
thods into the prisons. Better still will it
be if he can go further and get the “public
drunks” out of the prisons and into the
hospitals where they belong.
for whatever purpose they might
momentarily serve.
That time has not arrived yet.
We still live in the era in which
Communists both by precept and
by practice regard imbelievers
.much as each side did in the Cru
sades—as enemies to be destroy
ed whenever and wherever pos
sible.
Moscow’s dealings with the
West still are governed by the
rules of expediency. Moscow will
deal with the West when it serves
Moscow’s purposes to do so—not
otherwise.
The question we must attempt
to assess is whether there are
points in the German crisis which
can be resolved, because it is both
expedient to Moscow to resolve
them and in the interest of the
West to resolve them.
Reason would indicate there are
such points of common interest.
The men of Moscow are suffi
ciently well informed to know
that their cities and industries
would be destroyed in a nuclear'
war as well as Western cities and
industries. It is to their palpable
interest to avoid nuclear war—at
least as long as the West possess
es credible retaliatory power
which at present it still does.
It is to Soviet interest to curb
but not eliminate what Soviets
like to call the “German menace.”
This is presently the strongest
bond between Moscow and the
capitals of the Eastern satellites.
If the “German menace” disap
peared, Moscow would have in
invent a substitute to hold the
Warsaw Pact countries together.
Moscow may not truly fear Ger
many, but Poles, Czechoslovaks,
and the rest actually do and rely
on Moscow to protect them from
the specter large, in their minds
of a revived and reunited Ger
many.
It is to Soviet interest to main
tain the ability to improve rela-
. tions with the West so long as the
West cannot be conquered, or
captured by other means. The
ability to deal with the West is
Moscow’s most effective balance
against Chinese independence
Within the Communist family.
Mr. Khrushchev frequently of
recent years has used the threat
of settlements with the West to
bring Peking to terms.
In other words, so long as there
continues to be a condition in the
world which approximates a fair
ly even balance of power be
tween East and West, Moscow has
reasons for playing power politics
with the West. The game would
end abruptly in a nuclear ex
change—and the Chinese, not the
Soviets, would be the most like
ly survivors. It is to be doubted
that Moscow would seek the de
struction of the West at the price
of China’s survival as the world’s
most powerful state.
He knows more about how to
get where you want to go in the
woods than anyone else. And he
really does know.
He carries the baskets cava
lierly but safely and uncomplain
ingly. He sets them down with
a nice anticipatory clunk.
He spies a caterpillar immedi
ately on arrival at the picnic spot.
Is it the deadly poisonous kind
whose picture was in the paper?
Nobody knows. But everybody
yells: “Don’t touch it!” He does
not touch it Having quite as
much sense as everybody.
He scroimges around and finds
mile-long boughs of dead trees
and whangs them industriously
against live trees. They break
with a shattering crash sending
debris flying. Everybody yells:
“Go away! Farther!” But the de
bris has NOT gone into the picnic.
He conceals any disappointment.
He eats with admirable perse
verance through his lunch, then
lies down flat and gets the hic
cups. Does he recall that with
the Chinese this is considered an
expression of the highest ele
gance and appreciation? It is pos
sible. It could also be possible
that it is the peanut butter, bacon
and jam combowiches.
He would certainly have chos
en a better place to turn around,
when starting back, than the
driver selected, but, (miracle or
good judgment?) he does not say
so.
Fearing he might forget, he
speaks out on the ride home:
“Thank you very much for a
fine picnic,” he says.
He is a very pleasant boy to
have on a picnic.
Reds and Reds
For these reasons it is a tenable
assumption that at any forthcom
ing summit Moscow will seek to
extract maximum advantage
from the West short of nuclear
war.
The maximum advantage short
of war which it can get is a
chance for Walter Ulbricht to at-*
tempt to convert East Germany
from a Communist disaster into
a Communist success.
This the West is prepared to
grant. It is prepared to go that
far partly because it is the price
for avoiding nuclear war and
partly because the chances are
probably even that as East Ger
many becomes prosperous, if it
ever does, it will become less
Communist and less dependent
on Moscow.
ROLLTOP DESK
HAD ITS POINTS
Reading newspaper headlines
during the past week has been a
mite confusing: trying to sort out
which “Reds” the headline
writers were dealing with—the
Cincinnati sort or the Russian
sort.
Two of these heads rated top
billing in last Friday’s Raleigh
N & O: “Reds Square Series”
and, right beside it, “Red Threat
Stuns Atom Conference.”
Somebody not familiar with
Americanese could wonder what
both or either of the headlines
meant. •
Foreigners, who call all Amer
icans “Yankees,” might well
think that international tension
was the subject, not baseball, in
stories telling how the Yanks are
opposing the Reds. Even the term
“World Series” sounds more like
international affairs than a game.
As for “Red Square”—what on
earth! Why that’s in Moscow!
That’s practically the Kremlin it
self! .
Glories and Fun of Reading
From The Saturday Review
Reading is a habit. Once you’ve
got the habit you never lose it.
But you must somehow be expos
ed to reading early enough in life
to have it become part of your
daily routine, like washing your
face or breathing.
Many an unfortunate grade
school child in our highly season
ed, electronic, picture conscious
age has never been exposed to
the reading habit and cannot,
therefore, read without effort.
Some modern children seldom
if ever read for fun. Like mus
cles that are almost never used,
their concentration and interest
give way quickly. They long for
the automatic, pictorial sensation
of TV (which can be highly in
structive and entertaining at
times) rather than the tedium of
moving the eyes from left to
right, from left to right, on line
after line of unillustrated print
There’s a certain sadness in
realizing that a whopping seg
ment of the exploding new teen
age generation never really reads
anything, unless forced to do so.
Reading is one of the most pri
vate satisfactions. Reading is
completely portable, perhaps the
handiest of all art forms. Reading
offers a tremendous something
unavailable through sound or pic
tures, for reading stirs the imag
ination as nothing else.
Reading is also a communicable
habit; children will read if their
parents always have a book or
two going and habitually devour
newspapers and magazines.
The other media of communica
tion have their sterling qualities
and their place, but let us not for
get that so has reading. We feel
sad when we realize there are
some who do not know its glories
and its fun.
There is much to be said in fav
or of the old-fashioned but nobly
functional rolltop desk. Modern
desks are less bulky, more stream
lined; they have impervious
gleaming surfaces. Modern desks,
however, lack two interesting and
useful features which graced the
old rolltops.
Item: The rolltop itself. This
enabled the weary man, at day’s
end, to close up shop without hav
ing to secrete in locked drawers
whatever papers he sought to
keep from prying eyes. With a
rolltop, he simply rolled ’er down
over the cavern, leaving all in
tact, turned a key and went home.
Item: Pigeonholes. Not as ef
ficient as modern filing devices,
certainly not as neat. But what a
joy—to reach up and pluck forth
the desired envelope or paper
without fuss. Keeping the P'igeon-
hole contents up to date was
something else again. But handy
they were. All of which proves
that newer is not invariably bet-
Wounded Vet'
John Hemmer of Pinehurst,
broken arm still in a cast but
bouncy as ever, after his injury
while photographing the USS
North Carolina ceremony at Bay
onne, N. J., says he told Gov.
Terry Sanford he deserves a Pur
ple Heart as first member of the
“North Carolina Na'vy” to be
hurt in line of duty.
The PILOT
Published Every Thursday by
THE PILOT. Incorporated
Southern Pines, North Carolina
1941—JAMES BOYD—1944
ter.
—Charlottesville (Va.) Progress
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,
Thomas Mattocks and James E.
Pate.
LEARNING
Learning should come in an
offhand, cavalier fashion. An ar
tist, especially, should be able to
go right through college with one
brain tied behind him.
—ROBERT FROST
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