Newspapers / The pilot. / Sept. 3, 1964, edition 1 / Page 2
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Page TWO THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1964 ILOT Southern Pines North Carolina “In taking over The Pilot no changes sire contemplated. We will try to keep this a good paper. We will try to make a little money tor all concerned. Wherever there seems to be an occasion to use our influence for the piblic good we will try to do it. And we will treat everybody alike.” — James Boyd, May 1’.3, 1941. Humphrey: The Right Choice One consideration overshadowed all others, we feel certain, as President Johnson undertook to choose a running- mate in the November election: which of the available men had in him, more than any other, the making of a President. In Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, he chose that man. Humphrey has a long, solid, productive background as a legislator—an architect of government. He is a man who has grown and mellowed, who can give and take but who has not abandoned his basic ideals, his humanitarianism, his sense of justice. He is vigorous; he is articulate; he has assurance but is not domineering; one feels he knows where he is going. And, blessedly, he has a sense of humor —that balance-wheel virtue which helps so many persons—big and little—to face the ups and downs that plague human beings. The South need not fear Senator Hum phrey. When needled by a reporter at the convention, who asked him if he’d campaign in Mississippi and Alabama, he loosed no diatribe. He quickly, calmly, easily replied, in effect, that there are good people everywhere and usually a Moore Must Work For Unity Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan K. Moore owes it to his party to work hard for unity, between now and November, and there are signs that he is moving in that direction. Though he won in his bitterly contested second primary fight with Richardson Preyer, after receiving the backing of Dr. I. Beverly Lake who ran third in the first primary, Moore should not forget that Preyer was top man in the first primary, that he had the backing of the Sanford administration and that — once the primary fight was over, the Preyer forces deserve substantial consideration. In short, that “little shadow” of today’s cartoon—the Lake influence—must be cut down by Moore to a reasonable size; and the Preyer forces, whose loyalty to the Democratic party is unquestioned. should also be recognized. By refraining from voting against Moore’s appointment of William Webb— who had signed a Wallace-for-President petition—as North Carolina national committeeman, the Sanford-Preyer for ces in Atlantic City, averted an outright Democratic break-up. Corresponding moves toward unity are now most cer tainly due from the Moore camp. The Webb appointment, obviously engineered by the big shadow in the cartoon, was a very peculiar and unwise move. This is not to say that Moore does not owe the Lake forces ample and generous consideration. It is simply to say that such consideration must not be so ful some and over-blown as to create a lop sided party that topples from the broad base on which the Democrats have tradi tionally stood. Cuidepost To Public Thinking The United Nations on numerous oc casions has proved to be a valuable forum at times of international tension (“At least, they’re talking, not fighting . . . ”) This aspect of the UN has usually been seen by the public as a practical matter— a technique, a method to help avert, limit or end armed conflict. But what we often overlook is that the UN, in or out of crisis, is an information center, an in strument from which readings on the international climate can be taken. It depends, of course, on who is taking the readings. So it is always interesting to hear from persons who are close to the UN,, who are presumably in a better poition than an outsider to make an analysis. Following, for instance, is an excerpt from a recent informal report by James Boyd, Jr., Southern Pines native who is consultant on disarmament to several senators and UN officials, including Senator Humphrey, Ambassador Steven son and others: “The UN Secimity Council survived the recent eruption of violence in North Viet Nam and Cyprus with what can only be called ‘flying colors.’ “One thing does seem to be clear: neither the Soviet Union nor the United States wants war. Recently, we both backed off and we both acted with extraordinary restraint, so that today things are definitely calmer. (It is both unfortunate and irrespon sible that the press tends to print screaming headlines to suggest that things are much wbrse than they are.) “'The Red Chinese are a problem, a problem somewhat of our own mak ing, but it is obviously of little use to worry about our past mistakes. What has to happen now is for the United States to realize that Red China exists and that it has to be dealt with. There are some indications that the U.S. is beginning to realize this fact and is taking tentative steps towards some kind of international conference towards bringing peace to Southeast Asia.” The guarded optimism expressed in this report is an attitude that is becoming more widely understood. Surely this at titude, expressed by those close to the UN as well as those close to the Admini stration in Washington, is an important guidepost to public thinking. The deepest sympathy of Southern Pines and this area goes out to the family of C. N. Page, longtime resident and former mayor of this community, in his tragic death when a water heater explod ed in a beach motel last Saturday morn ing. Everyone who knew this kind, good mlan—a man who was hard-working, un pretentious and loyal to his convictions— has in the past few days been brought face to face, with one of the great mys teries of the ages: why disaster sometimes strikes those most undeserving of such a fate. Mr. Page left service in an elected office more than 10 years ago when the mayor-comimissioner form of government in which he had been active was changed to the council-manager form—nor did he seek public office again. Then, though he had formerly owned businesses of his own and was at an age when many men begin to slow down, if not retire, he made an entirely new career for himself in the U. S. postal service in which he worked vigorously and competently, winning great goodwill and admiration, until the Channing Nelson Page ghastly accident that snuffed out his life. “I Have A Little Shadow That Goes In And Ont With Me... ” I meeting of minds, some sort of under standing, can be worked out. His particu lar interest in agriculture, his work with Southern legislators on farm programs that have vastly benefited the South, are well known. An article on this page tells how bus inessmen, who think in a practical way, like President Johnson because his pro gram works: the economy is on the move. Business, to a degree not generally known, also respects Senator Humphrey. The Republican editor of “Forbes” maga zine, a conservative business journal, recently, before the convention, had glowing words for the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate. The growing importance of the Vice President is inevitable: not only as a potential replacement for the President but in his own right, dealing with various Presidential problems, foreign and do mestic, to lighten the tremendous burden on the Chief Executive. It is unfair to the nation to nominate a second-string man for the office. That is a gamble the nation can’t afford to take. The Johnson-Humphrey ticket is a good one, a combination with wide appeal. We expect them to win in November. vIAKe ^/JppoRf A m ■0-m. 'f L A- j Z6C^llGS4tl^ IN NO MOOD FOR SHARP REVERSALS Why Business Likes The President The following cirticle is re printed, in pari, from "For tune" magazine, a publica tion read primarily by U. S. businessmen and industrial ists. Lyndon Johnson as President has achieved a breadth of public acceptance and approval that few observers would have be lieved possible when he took of fice. The usual explanation of John son’s success points out that he is a highly skilled politician. But this is only the beginning of an answer. Political skill has never been in short supply in this na tion. and Lyndon Johnson’s rath er old-fashioned brand has seem ed out of national favor in re cent years. How does it happen that—sud denly—Johnson’s mixture of folk siness, sweet reasonableness, in tense personal activity, concern for the poor, and pro-business preachment seems to be exactly what the doctor—meaning the U. S. electorate—ordered? In par ticular, what accounts for his success with the business com munity? Galling The present wave of business approval of Johnson is particu larly galling to Goldwater peo ple who suspect business of both timidity and stupidity in being taken in by a liberal, a big-gov ernment man. This diagnosis ignores the fact that the business habit of mind is more practical than doctrinal. Business is a living, working part of U. S. life, and as such it is basically sensitive to the exist ing beliefs of the society as a whole and to the practical range of political possibilities. That is why many of those business men who believe there is too much re liance on federal action in this society were repelled by the sheer political impracticality of Goldwater’s opposition to cer tain well-established federal pro grams. Practical? When Goldwater during the New, Hampshire primary cam paign lost votes by seeming to threaten the social security sys tem, some businessmen were bound to wonder if he was prac tical enough to run the execu tive branch of the U. S. Govern ment. Business men sense that the prospering U. S. electorate is in no mood for sharp reversals of policy, that the growth of fed eral power can be checked only gradually and not by a root-and- branch effort to eradicate the last 30 years of political experience. Business men could hardly fail to applaud Johnson’s association of budget restraint and a tax cut. Indeed he has gone further than any recent President—inclu ding Eisenhower—in praising the contribution of business men to the general well-being of this so ciety. The millions who heard his March 15 television interview are not likely to forget a moving The Public Speaking It is our understanding that the water heater that exploded was one of a de fective type that has taken other lives as well—an almlost incredible engineering failure in this mid-20th century, after the hazards of steam have been known and successfully dealt with for over 100 years. The public has every right to be angry at this outrageous situation which has now been brought heart-rendingly close to us, in personal terms, here in the Sand hills. The Governor and others have issued warnings about the defective heaters. Some companies that have marketed them have called in each unit sold. Any one in doubt should have gas or electric water heaters checked by a competent serviceman, as many people have already done. Let us hope that aU this will prevent additional accidents. But it is a bitter thought that Chan Page and others had to die before the public’s protection could be assured. Loyal Democral Says He Disagrees With Letter To the Editor: Writing letters of this nature is not something I do very often. Nonetheless, it would seem that the time has come when I can hold back no longer. I merely want to say that I thoroughly disagree with the contents of a letter to the editor published in last week’s Pilot from my son Thomas, now a res ident of Florida. I might add that I am proud of the fact that I am an active, loyal, lifetime Democrat and proud of the record of my party. JOHN S. RUGGLES Southern Pines Goldwater Supporter Replies To Editorial To the Editor: Re your editorial of August 27, “Goldwater and the Sotuh,” are you really so naive as to think that all people who support Sen ator Goldwater are doing so only because he voted against the Civil Rights bill? If so, you had better do as you bid others—^re view your facts. Senator Goldwater gave good, sound reasons for his “nay” vote even though “liberal” and “radi cal” columnists refuse to take cognizance of those reasons. I feel that even though the Civil Rights law contains some good sections, there is much that could have been left out or improved upon. This does not by any means make me avidly anti-civil rights. Many of my good customers and friends are Negroes, but this does not mean that I have to support all parts of the Civil Rights law. All through your editorial, your choice of words is a disgust ing display of your antipathy to any “conservative” who holds views other than those you hold: Goldwater’s “sly eagerness to stir and foment the divisive, ex plosive race issue”—“Goldwater . . . has pitched an appeal to re actionary, irrational elements in the Southern mentality. . .”— and your reference to white-col lared Southerners who “quote Barry devoutly over their mar tinis.” I do not consider myself in the reactionary, irrational class and THANKFUL We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres or a little money; and yet for the freedom and com mand of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, out life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation. —SENECA Grains of Sand passage, spoken in tones of deep conviction: “I am so proud of our system of government, of our free en terprise, where our incentive system and our men who head our big industries are willing to get up at daylight and get to bed at midnight to offer employment and create new jobs for peo ple. . . ” How long has it been since any U. S. President said that? American business would have to be a lot more narrowminded than it is to withhold applause from a President who not only praises the enterprise system but who frequently acts as if he meant what he says about it. Less Divided 'The “secret” of Johnson’s suc cess with business men and with most other segments of the na tion is derived from one of the most open and obvious facts about American life today. This country, feeling the challenge of thousands upon thousands of new problems and new decisions ahead, is no longer as sharply divided as it was on the class and doctrinal disputes that arose in the ’30’s. The broad principles involved in those disputes will never be irrelevant to a healthy U. S. so ciety. But a politician who can apply principle in the form of a tax cut or a railroad labor media tion is going to have an increas ing advantage over one who can more brilliantly expound “liber al” theory or “conservative” the ory. I do not happen to be a white- collared Southerner sipping a martini, but I do support Barry Goldwater. If I ran my business on the deficit-financing plan which our government now uses, rather than on conservative, sound busi ness principles, I would not be long in the business world. You don’t even know what Goldwater’s stands on the major issues are, or if you do you would certainly like to obscure those stands if possible. Perhaps you glory in the so cialistic trends of our “good life” in the South and in the nation, but I prefer a return to the free enterprise system, freedom and respect, for the individual, and a strong, respected country again. If that is your definition of re actionary, I am it! JUNE MELVIN Aberdeen (Editor’s note: Of course all people who support Goldwater are not doing so “only because he voted against the Civil Rights bill” —^nor did the editorial say that. Goldwater’s other “stands on the major issues” were not under discussion in the editorial. However the candidate himself is doing such a good job obscuring . those stands that he needs no assistance from us.) TV Close-up Too Close The Times man who covered Attorney General Kennedy’s touching introduction to the film about his brother must have got ten a very queer view of him from the Convention press sec tion. He termed his delivery “im passive.” The clear eye of television showed distinctively that throughout his short address, Bobby Kennedy was close to tears. In fact, the TV watcher felt to the full the indelicacy, the in trusion, of the closeup view of a man near the breaking-point. Comforting A kind Briton, David Mar- quand, reviewing the book, “The Republican Party—185ft-1964,” for the Manchester Guardian, has these reassuring words: “To understand why Goldwater won (in San Francisco) it is not necessary to postulate a vast groundswell of lunacy at the grass roots of America. It is merely necessary to remember the obvious, if uncomfortable, truth that an almost uninterrupt ed taste of defeat is likely to set a party's teeth or edge.” Sing A Song of You-Know-Who Trust Senator Hubert Hum phrey to put a little life and fun into the oh-so-serious Democratic convention. As he rang the changes on the refrain: “. . . but NOT Senator Goldwater!,” he drove the point home with such infectious gay- ety that the whole convention joined in the jingle. That, at least, was a point that must have gotten home, even to the object of it. Boy or Girl? At the risk of disrupting the local market in needles, thread and pencils with erasers, we pass on the following fascinating item from Pete Ivey’s “Town and Gown” column in the Chapel Hill Weekly: “A test to determine whether it’s going to be a girl or a boy is showing spectacular results in Chapel Hill. Mothers who have several children as well as wom en pregnant for the first time are excited about an informal signs- and-portents pendulum of home made manufacture. “Even a few nurses and tech nician in Memorial Hospital are taking a close look at the needle- and-thread, pencil and arm-and- wrist test. “Here’s the way it works: Thread a needle. Then stick the needle into the topside of an eraser on a pencil. Put the other end of the thread around your index finger of the right hand so that the pencil dangles verti cally, with the point of the pencil towards the ground—just like a sword of Damocles. Hold the pencil that way above a woman’s left wrist. She should be holding her arm so that the palm is up. If the pencil, after circling slowly, begins to sway back and forth along the length of the woman’s forearm to her finger tips, the first baby was or will be a boy. If the pencil swings across her wrist, the first baby was or will be a girl. A woman can give her self the test. “The second amazing thing about the test is that women with two or three children al ready can prove the method. For it’s retroactive. It will tell a woman how many children she’s already had, and their sexes, as well as for the children she’s go ing to have in the future. “One Chapel Hill woman who lives in Colony Woods has three children. The first-born is a boy, the second a girl and the third a girl. Sure enough, the pencil swung the length of her ■wrist at first for a boy. Then, without stopping, it began to swing across her wrist for a double period, in dicating two girls. 17100 it stop ped swinging altogether. The husband, who was aiding with the prophecy, said this was a sign they would be having no more children at all.” THE PILOT Published Every Thursday by THE PILOT, Incorporated Southern Pines, North Carolina 1941—JAMES BOYD—1944 Katharine Boyd Editor C. Benedict Associate Editor Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr. C. G. Council Advertising Bessie C. Smith Advertising Mary Scott Newton Business Gloria Fisher Business Mary Evelyn de Nissoff Society Composing Room Dixie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Thomas Mattocks, J. E. Pate, Sr., Charles Weatherspoon. Subscription Rates Moore County One Year $4.00 Outside Moore County One Year $5.00 Second-class Postage paid at Southern Pines, N. C. Member National Editorial Assn, and N. C. Press Assn.
Sept. 3, 1964, edition 1
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