North Carolina Newspapers

PAGE FOUR THURSDAY, DEC. 30th, 1943 THE NEWS - JOUKNAL, KAEFORD, N. C. The News-Journal Hoke County News Hoke County Journal Est. January, 1, 1929 Est May U. 1911 By Paul Dickson By D. Scott Poole Consolidated November 1, 1929 Subscription Rates:.. For Servicemen Published Thursdays At Rarford, North Carolina .. $2.00 Per Year In Advance $1.50 Per Year DOl'GALD COXE, Editor-Manager Entered as second-class mail matter at the post office at Raeford, N. C, under Act of March 3. 1870. Invasion General Perhaps no announcement of appointment of a militarv leader to any theatre of this war has met with more wide-spread approval than that of President Roosevelt, in his Christmas Eve talk over the radio, when he confirmed the rumors that General Eisenhower would lead the British American attack against the Germans on the Western front. General Eisenhower, as commander of the United States forces against North Africa, and as supreme commander of the United Nations forces against Sicily and Italy, has gained a world-wide confidence in his ability as a master strategist and. better yet. has achieved an ex ceptionally high regard held for him by the men and officers" who fight under him. That he is determined to do a tough job well and quickly was evidenced by his first official statement after his appointment when he assur ed the world that Germany would be whipped in 1944. That's a pretty big task to which he has assigned himself and the other United Nations' armies, but it's one which every person under these flags wish, and hope and pray will be ac complished. O A Little Story About Pigs Last year, we had lots of feed and a few more than the ordinary number of marketable hogs to supply an ever-growing demand for pork. The farmers who raised hogs in this section did verv well. This year, we have lots and lots of hogs throughout this section and feed is scarce. To finish them off quickly for marketing, many of our farmers have poured feed to them for some weeks. And, as they are about to put them on the Biarket. suddenly there are so many others with" the same idea that the market is closed. Not that every housewife is getting too much pork No. They just haven't any more coupons on tty ?ir ration cards. The farmer must hold his hogs' and continue to feed them. This year the grovOer of the hogs is not doing so well. In fact, he isjlosing money and his 1943 crop of hogs is eatirtg up the feed he might have used to raise the 1D44 crop. Th OPA says: So what? The farmer says: No 1944 crop of pork. j o ; Hoke Crop Tendencies Effprts of the office of the county agent and Hoket Neighborhood Leaders in estimating the planting tre nds here for 1944 appear to show that there will be far more grains and forage crops planted this year than last, but that pork and beef production will be greatly reduced. Mr. Knowles states that every farmer will probably plant his allotment of tobacco plus the 20 per. cent increase allowed this year under the marketing program, and that some will plant more and pay the ten cents per pound penalty. However, in the case of cotton, which is selling farther below parity than tobacco is selling above that fictitious value and takes so much la bor to harvest, it is expected that few will plant more than was planted this year, while some will plant less. Grains and hay crops will probably account for the chief increase in acreage, principally be cause these require less labor for planting, culti vation -and harvesting, and because per acre money returns are steadily increasing. Soy beans have not proved a successful crop with riost farmers in this county and acreages planted to them, despite the great demand for this wonder crop in the war effort, is expected to be njuch lower than 1943. Mr. Knowles states that farmers here general ly are disgusted with the Administration's atti tude toward farm produce prices, particularly since njost of them are below parity and are con stantlyilpeing hedged against by price orders while (fmcessions to labor are " being granted. Farmeijs have opposed the subsidy program be cause ttey believe that they are getting a pretty raw dell from both the farm-labor and the pro duce pwee points of view. It appears that de spite demands for widely varied crop production they ar planting those crops which will produce the greitest monetary return per acre with the least laSor cost. Promises of Federal cooperation in aiding the farmer traduce these varied crops demanded by the warThave produced very little aid. The far mers are finding it necessary to consider every cost angle before selecting crops for production n their jarms. Many of the crops they are ask ed to prod wee were grown here in 1943 at a ter rific loss and the Federal aid failed to compen sate for ir'-re th;:i a fraction of this loss, it is claiineJ.- SO, it a Food-Ki. partrr'f.r. down L". ( promiv; thos cr whelhii . 'it much of the effort of the v -wjom program of the De- 'tvre has become bogged ' nt's own mire of half-filled rmer u going to plant only ' -w ill provide the most return, .r the most vital or not. OPINIONS and SENTIMENTS From Other Editors Plain Talk To Women (The Rockingham Post-Dispatch) On Thanksgiving night, a young white girl in Southern Pines was criminally assaulted by a soldier. The following morning, the wife of a soldier was also criminally assaulted as she was on her way to her work in a Southern Pinps store. In each case, the soldier had a knife drawn and forced the young women to leave the sidewalk and go into shrubbery near the streets. A short time before that, a young lady was criminally assaulted in the town of Laurinburg, and another attempted assault occurred there a few days later, all by white soldiers. And now it has come to Rockingham. On the night of December 1st, right here in Rockingham, and within three blocks of the Po lice Station, a white lady was attacked and crim inally assaulted by a young white soldier. The local officers, a State FBI investigator and the Camp Mackall authorities have worked on the case, but without success. The identity of this one beast has not yet been discovered. The Po.st-Dispatch regrets to print this. But we do so from a sense of public duty in the hope that it will serve as a warning to all girls and women to be very careful where and how they go at night. Be careful NOT to go out alone. The streets, especially in the residential and outlying sec tions, are none too well lighted. In every box of eggs, there is often found a rotten one. In everv group of men, there is of ten found a BEAST. There are 30,000 soldiers out at Camp Mackall, and it would be folly to expect every one to be perfect. The soldiers of Camp Mackall are as anxious to eradicate such an animal from from their ranks as our own ci vilians would Be were the criminal a civilian. It is no reflection on our soldiers to give this warn ing. The camp as a whole cannot be blamed for the actions of one or two. So we urge you girls and women not to be out at night unless accompanied by a soldier or civi lian escort. Be careful where and how you go. Danger can lurk on anv dimly lighted street if vou walk UNPROTECTED! O New "Azores" of South Atlantic (The Reader's Digest) An airport gouged out of the volcanic rock of a tiny island in the wastes of the South Atlantic has become an essential pivot for flights that help us win the war. Ascension Island, measuring only five miles by seventies roughly half way between the downward bulge of Africa and the outward bulge of Brazil, and represents a most remarkable bit of American enterprise, guts, imagination and tenacity, in the opinion of John Gunther, noted author and radio news commen tator. He reveals for the first time the hitherto close ly guarded secret of this remarkable airport, "God's gift to ocean fliers," in an article in the January Reader's Digest. Gunther's plane, which left Accra, Africa, in the morning, landed on Ascension Island around noon, resumed its flight in the afternoon, and landed in Brazil that same evening. The trip was comfortable and safe, thanks in large part to Ascension, Gunther. claims. The island's pride is a runway, which British engineers frankly said could not be built. We built it in 91 days, writes Gunther scalloped it out of the side of a rust-colored mountain. We also built hangers, machine shops, barracks, hos pitals, rifle ranges, mess halls, storage dumps, an overnight hotel for air passengers, and all the multifarious paraphernalia a great new airport needs, including even open-air theaters and baseball fields. All this was created on what Gunther terms the loneliest and most isolated place he has ever seen on earth, or water. Except for St. Helena, about 800 miles away, "there is nothing but the vastness, the inconceivable emptiness of the At lantic." He describes it as a water-swept, sun scoured chunk of rock, and says that every cubic inch of food rri.st be brought in, except eggs laid by the thousands and thousands of terns that cluster on the rocks. There is no water on the island, but Gunther says that our chemists purify the sea water and make it fit to drink. Ascension has no native islanders and was un inhabited until the early 1800's, when the British built a cable station there. Today, writes Gun ther, the whole island is swarming with crowd ed activity.- Several thousand American troops are garrisoned there, and are officially consider ed a task force. Officers and men wear steel hel mets always, and, accri ing to the article, every eventuality is kept in nnd, even the possibility of a landing attack by Axis submarine. Gunther found morale on the island first class, despite the fact that Ascension is the loneliest and most inaccessible spot any American troop are called to serve in. O Amazing Insularity (Wilmington Morning Star) New York Newspapers Mature the fact that three women are operating buses in Brooklyn. The trio has completed a six-week training japun s3dUM snq je sjb Sisqjo ajqx -asjnoo constant observation of supervisors and when they are considered sufficiently skilled will be given regular runs. This may be big news in the great city but is old stuff here. Women have been operating buses in Wilmington lo these many months and doing a good job too. It is hard to convince a Gothamite that every thing worthwhile does not actually have incep tion within their borough confines," but it is true nevertheless, and the fact that they can't believe it merely proves their insularity. News Behind By PaulMallon Released by V.Y.slfrn Nrw.p.per Vnlun. MISMANAGED ECONOMY BRINGS COM I SION APLENTY WASHINGTON. The peculiarities of what can happen to plenty in a managed or mismanaged economy, surh as the government has under taken in the war (leading to short ages at the dinner table when a rea sonable plenty exists on the farms) can best be illustrated by what is happening in hoj;s. Lately, hogs have been rushed to packing houses so fast that experts term the condition "panicky." Kven light-weight piers and young sows have been pushed to market nt an alarming rate. There are se'-eral reasons. The shortage of feed, the di:"icul ties and cost 'of lurm lubcr r Tac tically forced the iarmer tu soli 'viore than he otherwi-o wouH. f'tder there cc nd:tio-s. he eo-jh! be expect ed to cb nothing else. Yet this p'vPtiful supply is not all going on to the consumers either in the army or out of it. Storage figures in the packing trade indi cate large quantities of meats are being held back under government direction under a policy similar to that which has also caused the hold ing back of stocks of butter. Presumably, the government wants to accumulate supplies for the future when the natural reaction to the current panicky packing busi ness w ill result in shortages of sup ply. Only a portion of the plenty, there fore, is reaching the public, and even this portion, as every consumer knows, seems to be largely of an inferior grade and quality. The best cuts just do not seem to be avail able. Some of the supply, no doubt, is go ing into the varicolored markets. There are many other phases of han dling between farmer and consum er. In all the various phases of this management, plenty is dissi pated before it reaches your eye, or even the grocery store. 1 OTHER PRODUCTS ALSO Precisely the same conditions are true of beef, and the same results are evident in dairy products, al though brought about by an almost opposite situation. There, a good common grade milk cow can bring over $200 in the pres ent market against S7S to $35 before the war, because of the restricted price of butter and milk, and the shortages and costs of both feed and labor. Pure-bred milk cows are bringing enormous prices, varying from $700 to $1,000. These cows are being bought up by dairymen looking to the future with an idea of breeding. Yet shortages prevail in all the varied products. It never seems to come out even. If any human set out to create a shortage in a time of plenty, he would have encountered far more difficulty in accomplishing it than the manased economy has been able to do while striving in the opposite direction. ' The setuD was suouoscd to nro- vide us all with a fair share of what is left after army needs, but it has run contrary to human nature and natural laws and has wound up a rather mangled economy. Certainly no one will contend it has provided equal distribution. To me it proves, at least, that managed economies are impossible. CONVERSION OF INDUSTRY WILL BE DIFFICULT Peacetime business conversion will be as difficult as the conversion of industrial plants to war. The prob lem of every individual plant will differ in some respect. Best picture of the situation has been presented by Chrysler's president, K. T. Keller. He showed the George committee that Chrysler has converted 16.000 of its 20,000 tools to war work, and to day has 19.227 tools owned by the government. These government tools will have to be cleared from the plant before Chrysler can start to make automobiles again. Then what to do about the tools? Tl.cy cannot all be converted to nuto use, but he said Chrysler would buy some, andhe government may vv.sh to use others in arsenals. Ob viously, the government is going to become involved in the greatest second-hand industrial junk business of all time. Certainly, this situation calls for a clear, immediate declaration of pol icy and the beginning df tremendous detailed work of handling individual plant problems. While WPB hat eaperts with bet ter knowledge of conditions than any one els?, much better than the army ani navy, for instance. Mr. Baruch probably will recommend creation ef aa overall body rather than desig nation of any specific bureau Only extremely feneraliied rulea can be laid down, however, in view of the variety of conflicting situa tions in plants. If the problem ia meeaed up by bad tnanageincril, it will dangerously accentuate unem ployment difficulties, force contin ued rationing and delay our return to normal. FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF mm i.A'. ' ',:i 4fi ff.j- a lot quicker and easi-fe$ er if you do vour part w ontne Home I-rant ty biiyinq more War Boaip; - "" Im workina in a MrPuntV f fliiirArl nnf I "rtilM mil ' WAoOHdSltinl may be my bur AS 'CI vvi f. M AC rVff fc' rill i . j . - is ix. i m " r' vf rr' POOLE'S MEDLEY By D. SCOTT POOLE A friend, not a native of the South, asked me a few days ago, why the people of this section wanted fireworks displays at Christmas instead of on the Fourth of July, and, I could not explain why. However, it has been a custom in this section to fire guns, fire crackers, and other loud stuff, at Christmas. The sleet stepped traffic in the hill country, and accidents occurred in some localities in this section of the state. But I have seen it only rain in Raeford. Then get on a train, and from Montrose to Aberdeen the trees would be heavily laden with ice. A man named Louder, was postmas ter in Fayetteville, and as I was small for my age, he accused McKenzie, the contractor, of sending a child with the mail. On that January I secured an af fidavit that I was 16 years of age, and entitled to be mail carrier. The regu lar carrier was sick. As I rode along the road that morn ing between Longstreet and Fayette ville, limbs of trees, heavy laden with ice crashed all around me, but I went steadily cn. Occasionally a whole pine, as large as they grew, fell just behind me, or just before me or along side me, but my self and horse escaped unhurt. There has not been a heavy sleet in this section since Januray 6th, 1876. On the night of the 5th of that Janua ry, I spent the night at Argyle postof ftce, (Longstreet church) enroute to Fayetteville with the mail and Wed nesday, January Sth, it poured rain all day, and it frozed as fast as it fell on the trees, none on the ground. I arrived in Fayetteville at 11 o'clock A. M., carried the mail into the post office, went and fed my horse, and . looked around awhile. At 1 P. M. 1 j presented myself and my affidavit, nn : and gbt the mail pounch dnd started on the return trip. Postmaster was mu rtbling something ab. ut perjury, or some other unnecessary complaining. As I reached the foot of Haymount, I met a terrific thunderstorm, and the heavieEt kind of a rain. The water was ' almost strong enough to sweep my j horse from under me, and the flat lands for some mile- out ..f Fayette- I carried the mail on the first week j ville were ponds ot water three or in June, 1874, for brother John, who j lour fc'et deep. was carrying it for M. G. McKenzie, of Clark's Mills, 46 miles west of Fay etteville. and John had to Help father in some heavy work I could net do, so I was mail carrier "protem" as it were. The woods all over ih: linqleaf pine section looked like nov . '.l.?red lands, with the heaps f Ki.v.i le tops. How I ani my horse es.a;'i d 1 (continued on Page Sight) OUR DEMOCRACY -1 e.CitL, 4C &K H . y- by Mat J xcmJUm "-time fot . an n iflniuaf Income $9 ane s7 0 1 cnnnual Income twij U pat mk'Mn'lWs, f - i cccounfc