Page TWO
THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina
THURSDfAY, JANUARY 4, 1962
Q th Pines V North Carolina
-to ,1.1™ ovS TOe"uo, no nh.nge, »0 con»mpl«,e<i. We wlU 0,40 keep tbi, . gojj
„S.i We wS W .0 meke . U.Ue money .« .11 .»ncemed
L occasion to use our influence for the pubUc good we wm try to do it. And we wiU
treat everybody alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941.
Christmas Is A Long Time Ahead
Many must have been shocM to read and with tog
last week about the poor faimly near
Troy who were living in such dire pover
ty. The fact that there was a good deal of
confusion in the account by Reporter
Charles Manning of the Greensboro Daily
News, and that, far from having been
overlooked, the family, as revealed
in a subsequent issue, had apparently re
ceived a big load of Christmas cheer, does
not in any way change the basic picture.
The community and county agencies had
been aware of the need of this family,
and that was good to know. But there is
no denying that dire need existed.
Perhaps some who read about this fami
ly have wondered whether there were
people living in such conditions nearer
than Troy. It must be stated frankly that
many of the facts in this news story could ^ ^ ^
be repeated right here m Moore County. really something to be proud of? Isn’t
it, in fact, time that we spent a little
They think: “It isn’t „
ought to be donel” Even when the Christ
mas baskets have been distributed, a
doubt remains: what about the families
who aren’t visited, who aren’t on any
list? And what, after all, about those who
are on the lists, some of whose names in
evitably crop up year after year? What
happens to them till Christmas comes
again?
In his New Year message. Governor
Sanford spoke with apparent pride of
the fact that North Carolina ranks third
from the bottom in amount of money
spent on state services; these would pre
sumably include the departments of
health and welfare. When we think of
this ghastly poverty uncovered right at
our back doors, the question must arise:
is this record the Governor has mention-
Anyone familiar with the welfare pro
gram knows of such families and a day s
ride through the sandy backwoods roads
of the county or in the outskirts of th®
towns will reveal such conditions. It is
not even necessary for a Southern Pines
resident to go outside the town limits, on
both sides of the tracks, to come upon
unmistakable signs of poverty and squa-
lor.
Among the needy who are visited by
more?
However, in this respect, a large share
of responsibility must rest on the county.
There is a spirit of indifference here, of
“getting by,” that acts as a brake to ac
tion and is, undoubtedly, a chief factor
in the Moore County picture. The so-call
ed “economy” stranglehold on the Health
and Welfare departments results in too-
small staffs, and low salaries which ham-
the Girl Scouts and other civic groups at pg^ recruitment of the efficient and ex-
Christmastime are always some of these
families, often with many chiMren, living
on the bare edge of starvation: mental
and spiritual starvation, as well as physi
cal. Several such were among the families
visited this year; in one especially poor
family with many children, living in a
wretched, flimsy, leaky house, the father
had been out of work for more than three
months.
The fact that these conditions exist so
near the comfortable living and prosper
ous resorts of this county heightens sig
nificance of the picture. The bearers of
Christmas cheer return from their er
rands of mercy filled with dismay, with
perienced personnel needed to carrv out
the thorough, vital program the problems
call for.
Here is where the public comes in. Gi
ven human frailty, ignorance, ill-health,
and the accidents of living, there will pro
bably always be poverty, but there need
not be so miuch and it need not be so bad.
Not if the public wakes un. Onlv when
the general ignorance is disnelled. when
the facts are faced, intelligently and
boldlv, and the present attitude of in
difference—except, of course, at Christ-
ma'^time—is changed to active concern
will this evil be reduced and perhaps
someday eradicated.
Citizen Interest Vital to Government
Is citizen interest in municipal govern
ment decreasing in Southern Pines? The
question is brought to mind by an article
in a recent issue of Public Management,
the journal of the International City
Managers’ Association, which describes
methods by which citizens can actively
participate in municipal planning and
other activities.
Citizen attendance at town council
meetings is certainly lower than several
years ago. This may not mean lack of
interest but only that the council is con
cerned more now with routine business
than in the years when major ordinances
affecting everyone’s property or pocket-
book were being considered. It was grati
fying, a few months ago, to see a large
citizen delegation turn out to protest
a proposed zoning change, at a public
hearing. Whether their contentions were
“right” or “wrong” is beside the point. It
was the interest expressed by this large
group of citizens that pleased us.
Citizens have served and are serving on
advisory boards and commissions in Sou
thern Pines—some appointed for special
purposes, others continuing and now in
existence as part of the machinery of
town government, such as the Parks and
Parkways Beautification Committee, the
Planning Board, the Zoning Board of Ad
justment and the Advertising Committee.
It is this sort of citizen participation, the
magazine article points out, that can be
of benefit to a town.
It is notable that West Southern Pines
residents show a steadier interest in gov
ernment than residents of the East side
of town, so far as attendance at council
meetings is concerned. At many meetings
of the past year or two, a Negro delega
tion has been the only group in the coun
cil chamber, reflecting perhaps the quite
unusual Southern Pines custom of nam
ing a Negro member to each of the town’s
advisory boards and commissions.
If some of the local dog owners who
now find some objectionable provisions
in the town’s new dog control law had
been at the December council meeting
when the law was read, debated and dis
cussed, the council might have had the
benefit of their thinking before, not after,
the ordinance was adopted.
Southern Pines citizens are generally
pleased with the quality of their munici
pal government, but it would be healthy
for both citizens and council to have
larger attendance at council meetings.
The council should remain alert to op
portunities to use capable citizens for
volunteer work in the public interest and
to seek the advice of informed citizens in
special fields of municipal action.
The Only Adequate Solution
The Administration’s proposal to fi
nance health care for the aged through
the Social Security program (estimated
to cost each worker covered by Social
Security 25 cents per week during his
'working years) is well advocated by
Senator McNarhara in an article appear
ing on this page.
With Congress reconvening soon and
the medical care proposal appearing, in
the Senator’s words as “one of the major
items of unfinished business,” The Pilot
renews its endorsement of this health
care program.
According to the “Democrat,” a national
publication of the Democratic Party, the
American Medical Association spent more
than twice as much money in lobbying
in Washington in the first six months
of 1961 as any other organization or
group—and these expenditures were
almost exclusively devoted to opposing
President Kennedy’s proposal for medical
care for the aged through Social Security,
^‘Sorry, Sir, But The Patient Will Probably Live
rh
# ■
'-.'Si'
Editor's Note: This cartoon, drawn by Bill
Sanders after last year's White House Confer
ence on Aging, in which strong support was
expressed for medical care for the aged through
the Social Security system, is equally applicable
now, with Congress due to reconvene January
10, having the medical care proposal as one oi
its major items of business in the coming sess
ion and with the American Medical Association
renewing its campaign of opposition to the
plan.
THROUGH SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM
Health Care for Aged Advocated
By Senator Pat McNamara (Democrat-Michigan)
Chairman. Senate Special Committee on Aging
right to interpret the President’s proposal
as “nationalized medical care” or “an at
tack on free medicine.” As Senator Mc
Namara points out, there is nothing in
the proposal that involves government
employment of doctors or government
ownership of medical facilities.
The AMA contends that voluntary in
surance programs, the federal Kerr-Mills
Law and the charitable work done by
doctors can solve the problem of medical
care for the aged.
It is obvious that old people with ex
tremely limited incomes can no more af
ford to pay for expensive health insur
ance than they can for the medical care
itself. The Kerr-Mills Law, adopted in
1960, was functioning in only 17 states at
the end of 1961, and, where function-
One of the major items of un
finished business facing the 87th
Congress when it returns to Wash
ington on January 10, is the en
actment of an adequate program
of medical care for the aged. This
health problem reaches into every
community in the United States.
President Kennedy and the
Democratic Party are clearly
committed to the Social Security-
approach. When it became ap
parent that there would be no ac
tion in the first session of the 87th
Congress to provide medical care
for the aged, I expressed concern
over this development to Presi
dent Kennedy. I was heartened
by his response that he intends
to recommend that this matter be
given “the highest priority” when
Congress returns.
The Senate Special Committee
on Aging, of which I am ch-nr-
man, assembled a wealth of sta
tistical data on income and health
problems of the 1614 million
Americans who are 65 years of
age or older.
These facts completely refute
the arguments of those who op
pose medical care on the grounds
that, (a) it isn’t needed, (b) pri
vate health insurance can do the
job, and (c) existing Federal pro
grams are adequate.
Discriminations
The committee report proves
conclusively that private health
insurance plans discriminate
against persons 65 and over by
generally forcing them to pay
higlier premiums and offering
fewer benefits in return than are
available to younger .persons. It
further relates that of those aged
persons without insurance, 50 per
cent would like to get it but can
not, either because they cannot
Efford it, or because they have
been refused as “bad risks.”
In addition, only 42 per cent of
retired persons 65 and over have
some degree of medical insurance
—compared with 67 per cent of
the general population.
The study demonstrates another
important facet of the problem,
namely, the lower the income of
the elderly, the more likely they
are to be afflicted with chronic
illness, because they are in fact
living on inadequate incomes.
Few of them have a substantial
backlog of savings.
Also it shows that 29 per cent
of all families headed by persons
of 65 or over have no liquid sav
ings at all, 17 per cent had from
$100 to $500 and 21 per cent had
from $500 to $2,000, while 33 per
cent had $2,000 or more.
Additionally, some 50 per ctent
of families headed by persons 65
cr over had an annual income of
less than $2,830, while 25 per cent
of the total received less than
$1,620 a yar.
Thesd figures so impressively
document the need for Federal
medical care for the aged that the
opposition—The American Medi
cal Association and private insur
ance companies—are, by their
continuous misrepresentation of
facts, in opposing this much-heed
ed health program, committing a
grave disservice to persons over
05 years of age who are, or will
be, in need of medical attention
that they cannot afford.
Scare Propaganda
The AMA’s scare propaganda
of “spcialized medicine” has been
discredited time after time. There
is absolutely no basis that this
legislation would be a step toward
socialized medicine. The program
would be made part of the Social
Security system.
There is nothing in this pro
posal which in any way involves
Government employment of doc
tors, nor for Government owner
ship of medical facilities. Under
the Social Security approach, pa
tients choose their own doctors
and hospitals and there is no
Government control or supervi
sion over the matter in which
medical service is exercised. This
problem of high medical expenses
of older citizens concerns not only
the people involved—who must
finance' these costs on small re
tirement incornes, but also
younger people who are often
called upon to help parents or
older relatives faced with heavy
medical expenses,
wm Win
The need for medical care for
the aged is so obvious and the
system so practical that I am con
vinced medical care for the aged
through Social Security will win
out if the people speak out.
drains of Sand
/
For 'I^e Oldi Year
“Is I not old wine wholesomest,
old pippins toothsomest, old wood
burns brightest, old linen
whitest?
“Old soldiers, sweetheart, are
surest and old lovers are sound
est.”
—J. Webster
And it’s generally the old, OLD
years that seem the best, isn’t it?
Wrong One Way
A fellow driving in from the
country hailed a man he spied on
the street corner to ask the way.
“I’m late getting to this party,”
he explained, “Which way do I go
to get there the quickest?”
The man told him and then
watched with some dismay as the
car turned off going the wrong
way on a busy one-way street.
He hung around to see if any
thing happened and in a short
time here came the fellow out
the same street and driving back.
As he came past the man on the
curb he slowed down and leaned
out.
“Guess I was too late,” he call
ed. “All the folks seemed to be
driving back already so I turned
around and came on.”
Who It Was Was Spooner
Who knows what a “spooner
ism” is?
Probably not many Americans,
but most English people would
know. That’s because the poor
guy who accidentally invented
them was English. His name was
Spooner; the Keverend W. A.
Spooner, and he was Warden of
New College, Oxford.
How he came to invent the
spoonerism was due to the fact
that whei he lectured to the un-
dergradmtes, it seemed his mind
ran alonf faster than his speak
ing apparatus and he’d put the
first lefcer of the second word
that was coming up onto the first
word, aid vice versa.
Like jhis: once during the war
a BBC announcer, all excited by
a Britih naval victory, spoke of
a “paclet bottleship,” instead of a
pocket battleship.
“Sponerism” is defined in the
big ditionary as “accidental or
facetiois transposition of the in
itial leters or syllables of words.”
A f©r prize spoonerisms;
A sbemaker was given a pair
of shes with the request that
they b holed and sealed.
I ar looking for a table about
the sK of this heat.
A fllow who rode a bicycle a
lot ad kept his bike in good
shape but whose friend took poor
care f his, advised him always to
keep‘a well-boiled icicle.”
Grandma Moses: Link with the Land
(From The Chapel Hill Weekly)
Webster defines “primitive” as
“characteristic or imitative of the
earliest ages; crude; simple;
rough; uncivilized.”
This seems to fit Anna Mary
Robertson (Grandma) Moses nice
ly. Her paintings of American
landscapes were certainly char
acteristic of an earlier age, when
holiday brick had not been in
vented and Americans were liv
ing in clapboard houses, when
country people had enough to do
getting stones out of the fields
and using them to build stone
walls without worrying about how
the trees and bushes were arrang
ed in the front yard.
But though the death of Grand
ma Moses recently (a death as
peaceful as one of her artfully
artless paintings of countrysides)
leaves a gap in the “primitive”
school, her departure has another,
subtler effect. It cuts another cord
between us and the land.
How many people are there
nowdays who have forgotten the
feel of crusty bark? To whom the
sound of wind through hay (the
“grass harp”) is foreign? Who are
lucky if the smell, of wet pine
woods is only a submerged, for
gotten childhood experience? Too
many. Insidious cities have drug
ged our senses and dulled our ^ s
nerves. Urbanization has made 1941—JAMES BOYD—1944
men like potted plants, standing
f-oHrllwl behind insulat- ^afeanne Boyd
helplessly coddled behind insulat-
ed walls, growing peacefully and ”
sometimes productively but lack-
ing something.
ing, requires a h;amiliating “means test'
(essentially the equivalent of a “pauper’s
oath”) to make it applicable to an individ- disease, and the less likely they
ual. The charitable of physicians, are to have medical insurance,
while praiseworthy, niust‘hecessai;ily be
The Public
Speaking
The expenditures listed ($146,894.40) are limited and cannot possibly be adviced
only those directly involving contact with
members of Congress. What the AMA is
spending on its overall propaganda cam
paign against the proposal has not been
divulged.
The AMA has every right to present its
opposition to the medical care plan to
Congress and to the public throughout
the nation but we think the AMA has no
as even a partial solution to so vast ^d
complicated a problem as medical cas
for the aged.
We commend Senator McNamara’s'*
article to readers for careful study and
urge that if they accept the Social ^curi-
ty proposal, they mform their representa
tives and SenaUrs in Congress , to that
effect.
As for the adequacy of the ex
isting systems, it is worth noting
that as of late 1961 only 17 states,
plus Puerto Rico and the Virgin
Islands, had taken advantage of
the limited Medical Assistance for
the Aged program adopted by
(the Congress in 1960.
Vulnerable
This report pin-points the
iked vulnerability of elderly
p lople to the financial impact of
'Abominable and Ridiculous'
To the Editor;
I wish to add my name to the
list of those dog owners who have
conununicated with you in support
of your excellent editorial last
week about the new abominable
and ridiculous “dog law” passed
by our town council.
McKEE DUNN SMITH
570 E. Indiana Ave.
Muslat Personal
Itei from Burke Davis’s col
umn in the GDN; TAR HEEL
NO’EBOOK;
$1 his friends in the Moore
Cunty swamps say that old
tflrded Glen Rounds, the
athor-illustrator of some
^at books for children
(aybody else, too) has got
te largehead after his award
dring Kultur Week, and is
sldom seen speaking to his
d acquaintances among the
lushrats.
Icidentally; Is Burke going to
stE in that Northern mountain of
coceit FOREVER? He is mighti-
lynissed in these parts. Even by
th mushrats.
D»mma
rom a plug advertising a new
riit-wing, Birch-type magazine:
“J you like the America of
Vshington and Jefferson, Madi-
sc and Lincoln, Goldwater and
TUrmond, (stet) . . . this is the
ngazine for you.”
Veil, we like the America of
fe first four but not of the last
to, so obviously this magazine
iNOT for us.
Our advice to the editor^
'hich he must be aching to get)
: Make up your mind. You just
.n’t have it for all those six to-
jther.
The PILOT
Publithad Every Thunday by
THE PILOT. Ineorporaled
Southern Pines. North Carolina
Editor
Associate Editor
Gen. Mgr.
C. G. Council Advertising
„ , , Mary Scott Newton Business
■Grandma Moses didn t pay much ^
attention to perspective and her ■’ -
attention to detail was accurate . Composing H^m
almost to the point of grotesque-Valen,
ness ("crude; simple; rough”). Thomas Mattocks and James E.
But her houses were free of thePate.
impeccability of modern architec- ;—;
ture; like rocks, they had rough Subscription Rates
imperfections. 'There’s a feeling Moore County
of natural tactility about Gremd-One Year_ $4.00
ma Moses’ paintings; they were Outside Moore County
not conceived and executed, they One Year $5.00
just grew. Fortunately, her paint- ~ ~ | ~ ;
ings remain behind, almost as Second-class Postage paid at
good a reminder as she herset Southern Pines, N. C.
that men need not be concemec
with their things to the exclusioi Member National Editorial Assn
of their origins. and N. C. Press Assn.