THE ELKIN TRIBUNE
Published Every "Thursday by
ELK PRINTING COMPANY, Inc.
Elkin, N. C.\
THURSDAY, JULY 11, 1935
Entered at the post office at Elkin, N. C., as
second-class matter.
C. 5. FOSTER. -Prwident
H. F. LAFFOON SeereUry-Treaaarcc
SUBSCRIPTION RATES. PER TEAR
In the State ?1.5« Out of the State, S2.W
National*!* Editorial Association
t fa—mfmp £ p • • 1934 ,
When the Door Bell Rings
Your door bell rings imperatively and you
take your time about answering it, wondering
who in the heck's come a-bothering, when they
must have known you were busy. You fling the
dustpan aside, or dry your hands of the dish
water, untie your apron and pitch it in the room
as you pass, and as a precaution give your hair
a few pats, not certain of who or what may be on
the other side.
You open the door and are confronted with
—whattaman! He wears a professional smile
that is at once engaging and you are soon made
to feel at ease and convinced that there is no
need for apologies about the appearance of the
house, et cetera. If it is a "she all this is ditto
but more so.
You thus find yourself in the presence of a
"special representative" of a concern that is bent
on doing you a genuine and very great service,
and you never for once suspect that the bell "ring
er is merely a "peddler" come to part you from
your money by his or her persuasiveness.
You are helpless. You have been busy
with your housework and wondering what you
are going to wear to the party, and there's been
no time to build up sales resistance. On the oth
er hand your visitor is fresh from a company
sales school, where every objection has been can
vassed, where every excuse for not buying is
drilled into this super-salesman, and where he or
she has been coached to the minutest detail in
how to meet your objections. You are impressed
with the smartness of the caller, and a little em
barrassed with your own inferiority complex,
and just to show him or her that you are not only
a good sport and able to buy whatever it is that
you want, but that you are a connoisseur of val
ues—you buy what your visitor has to sell.
Maybe it's a frock, to be beautifully tailored,
just like this, from a swatch of samples, or may
be it's pure silk hosiery that will last a lifetime,
or maybe still it's an egg beater or a cooking pan
or any of a dozen other thingamagigs that you
could buy at the local stores at the same or less
price, and with the further advantage of seeing
what you are getting, trying it. on to see if it will
fit, and raising merry cain with your merchant
if it is defective in any particular.
But you have been caught in a web careful
ly spun by a peddler who thanks you for signing
on the dotted line, much obliges for the deposit
money you hand him and leaves the premises
smiling at your gullibility and credulity and seeks
another sucker—next door.
Granting that the thing he sells is of value;
granting even that you have saved a few pen
nies in the purchase, and that maybe you will
"shine" out in some new dingbat that Lizzy
Jones or Hortense Smith will not be wearing—
will these be the price of your own civic
disloyalty ?
Does this peddler or the concern he repre
sents contribute a penny to the education of your
children through support of the local schools?
Does he help to meet the church deficit at the
end of the year? Does he help-to pay the cost
of police protection, or aid the fire department in
battling the flames when your home is endan
gered ? Does he contribute to the upkeep of the
streets, or the cost of mowing the weeds from
vacant lots that are" breeding places for disease
for your own blood-kin? He most certainly does
not.
This is happening almost every day in the
week here in Elkin and out in the county. And
it is >ust as important that the rural resident
stop and think, as it is for the urbanite. If the
stores in the county are driven to close their
doors, the taxe» they pay will have to be met
from somewhere and the farmer will be the goat
—not the peddler or his concern.
The Tribune feels this injustice keenly. This
paper covets, a period of progress for this city
and section—progress that cannot come without
co-operation and team-work. When merchandise
is bought at a local store, employment is created
for somebody by just that much and your own
son or daughter may be the immediate benefi
ciary. If not some of the money thus spent will
filter back into your own pockets. When it is
distributed through peddling channels, it is a
long, long time coming back.
It is because The Tribune is interested in
correcting this economic error that we are pub
lishing a series of pages dealing with this sub
ject.. The argument advanced is far more in
teresting and embracing than is possible in these
columns.
Won't you do us the favor of reading these
pages as they appear: consider the arguments
with an open mind—and then if your conscience
allows you to heed the siren voice of the peddler
who insinuates his way into- your busy moments,
we'll have nothing more to say.
But we still believe all doorbells ought to be
governed by a slot arrangement, so they wouldn't
ring without a toll.
One of the main things to remember is that
the car to watch is the car behind the one that is
in front ojf you.
THE ELKIN TRIBUNE, ELKIN. NORTH
Working A Good Thing Overtime
States needing money to balance budgets or
to meet other obligations are falling over them
selves to embrace the sales tax as a means to
that end. In North Carolina it was inaugurated
and hitched on to the schools to make it senti
mentally popular; in Indiana the-income from it
is earmarked for the unemployed in the same
sugar-coating process.
But "wherever it is once employed it sticks
because the collecting' agencies find it easy pick
ings. Here in North Carolina determined men
went to Raleigh confident in their strength to
lift the tax from the shoulders of the poor, but
they came away with the pitiful tale that it had
been hoisted onto everything they buy except
milk. And it has been maneuvered around into
a duplicative toll that digs deeper into the pockets
of that unsuspecting group that numerically
makes up about nine-tenths of the citizenry—
a group that is thus hamstrung by its own in
difference and inability to organize as others are
organized.
It is duplicative in that when the farmer
sells the butcher a toll is taken; when the
butcher sells the meat to the cafe the latter pays
the sales tax; and when the individual orders
pork chops or a mess of chitlin's he's got to pay
his State for the privilege of eating them. Now
ain't that sump'n. Is it any wonder that bud
gets can be balanced and governors strut their
pride in a "successful administration" ? .
In New Jersey the consumers have started
a strike on the sales levy. Patrons of restaurants
refuse to pay the tax when levied on their bill
for eats, holding that it is an unwarranted and
unconstitutional duplication o£ taxation.
In Arkansas, where the merchants were
commissioned to collect the tax without pay for
the service, as is 4;he case in North Carolina, they
have refused to mark the tax in their sales prices
and haye pledged that they will neither collect
it from their customers nor pay it to the State
from their own pockets.
As a state impost the sales tax is only about
four years old in this country, yet in that time
29 of the 48 states now use it in one form or an
other, and in 19 of the 29, the toll has been in
creased as the authorized, levies expired.
The sales tax we have with us because the
corporations and big property owners pulled the
wool over the eyes of farmers and others and
made them think that by the elimination of the
15-cent property levy all would be a gravy train.
But it hasn't been. That 15-cent property levy
had to be replaced, and the big boys saw to it
that they have little or no part in the replace
ment because they do not buy across the counter
—not much. And when the farmer sells a hog
and takes his dollars to the store he should not
forget that he is one of the goats.
Industry In Surry
Figures appearing in the University News
Letter and compiled by S. H. Hobbs, Jr., ranks
the various counties in the State according to
value of factory products, and it is interesting
to note that Surry county occupies eighteenth
place from the top. However important in
dustrial counties are omitted from the table for
the reason that if data were released it would
be possible to calculate approximate figures for
the respective major establishments. If these
counties were included, Surry would be a bit far
ther down the list, yet still above some of her
important neighbors. Wilkes occupies 24th place,
Alexander 49th and Yadkin 62nd.
The thirty establishments in Surry covered by
the figures, employ 2,614 wage earners, with a
total of $1,406,682 wages paid; the cost of ma
terials, fuel and electricity, consumed by these
thirty plants is given at $3,038,433; the value of
products in 1929 is set at $9,298,226, and for
1933, $6,626,589. The census covers only those
plants with output above five thousand dollars
for the year 1933.
Commenting on the data shown in the table
Mr. Hobbs says: "North Carolina has suffered
an unusually &rge loss in number of factory
establishments. However, in wage earners,
wages paid, cost of materials, and value of pro
ducts, the state did not decline as much as the
United States during the depression years from
1929 to 1933, inclusive. In fact our industrial
plants held up remarkably well, compared with
the nation as a whole."
Misuse of Wealth
The late Margaret McDermott, 65-year-old
Chicago spinster, included in her will stipulations
for a $25,000 trust fund, for the benefit of "Pet",
her white Spitz dog, the money to be used to
keep the pup in the home of a woman who loves
dogs and has no children.
Which is all right, if that is the way the
Chicago lady felt about dogs as compared to hu
man values. It was her money, and if she would
rather see "Pet" kept in splendor and ease while
little children clamor for bsead and clothes, it is
her legal right so to provide—but riot the moral
right.
This is only one of the many instances of
the misuse of wealth, and it is the combined total
■of the whole that aids in the crystalization of
sentiment to scramble the wealth structure so
that human beings may have more than an equal
chance with dogs in the benefit that .wealth
brings.
We yield to no one in a greater love for a
faithful dog, and when we pass on we'd like to
know that old "Useless" will not suffer for ac
tual dog needs—but not twenty-five thousand
dollars worth.
That's a bright idea the Italians have to
strewthe African sands With acid that will burn
the bare feet of the Ethiopian soldiers to the
bone. The foot is the*most vulnerable point of
the colored man's physique.
, Romantic couples ought to put off their
spooning until July 15,-ifor even then the man
in the moon will not, be looking.
"I WANNA GO HOME" by A. B. chapm
CARRY A COMPLETE
LINE OF SUPPLIES
Elkin Lbr. & Mfg. Co.
Will Also Aid In Get-
FHA Loans
The Elkin Lumber and Manufac
turing company is carrying a com
plete supply of building materials,
including everything that goes into
the construction of a building.
In addition,, company officials are
also giving all help possible to those
seeking to build their own homes
with funds obtained under the Fed
eral Housing Administration.
It was pointed out that all that is
required to get a loan under the FHA
is that the person seeking the loan
own a lot. The FHA, if the loan is
approved, will then loan up to 80
per cent of the value of the lot and
house that is to be built.
Anyone desiring an FHA loan
should call at the office of the Elkin
Lumber and Manufacturing com
pany for complete details and all
possible aid in getting the loan
I through.
DRESSES THREAD
SILKS AND LINENS lllJfe T1 400-Yard Spools of Sewing
%■ ■ f f Thread. 4 Spools for—
All must go! Your oppor- in I I I -
tunity to save at this great- W "
ly reduced price , WKk ,
Women's Work Work
SHOES SHOES SHIRTS
A special feature and they
In Wh^ e ? nd ? pn S 2 For Men " Ml leather - See are sure selling. Full cut.
ors. Must go! Reduced _ K .„ • „
for clearance! this shoe before buymg. only _
$1.44 $1.49 39c
East Main Street , Elkin, N. C.
The
FAMILY DOCTOR
(By John Joseph Gaines, M. D.)
DIRT
We family doctors,' who wind our
living "out among the sticks," some
how form a very" close acquaintance
with the dust to which we all some
day must return. This letter may
be of more than passing interest.
Dirt is regarded as the chief ene
my of our great hospitals; every ef
fort is directed here to the extermi
nation of every atom of, possibly,
germ-infested dirt. But we country
doctors find means of getting along
with ft!
I remember once taking care of a
very malignant case of small-pox;
it was in the squalid quartet, and, I
do not remember of having encoun
tered a filthier case! The old rag
ged quilts and greasy blankets were'
not changed or aired for six weeks;
the room was a north-east exposure
where the sunlight was practically
an unknown quantity. The patient
was filled with the venom of the
hideous disease; he did not look like
a human being.
My visits here were very circum-
Thursday, July It, 1935
spect indeed; I did not remove my
overcoat nor did I trust myself in one
of the ricketty chairs —I delivered
my message and medicines stand
ing. I sprayed myself with formal
dehyde before leaving the room.
This man made a most marvelous
recovery; he simply had the consti
tution to "best" all the infection.
He has lived at least 25 years and is
in perfect health today.
Japanese dead are buried
their heads toward the north, hence
it is considered by the living to be
unlucky to sleep with their heads
in that direction. On journeys some
carry a compass, in order to get
their bearings at bedtime.
But this is not by any means an
argument for carelessness in treat
ment; we shall go on guarding
against all chance of infection with
all our souls and bodies. That the
dirty patient gets well sometimes
is more a matter of luck than in
telligence.
If the courts keep up their work,
the Congressional "joint select com
mittee on the disposition of useless
papers in the executive depart
ments" will be about the busiest out
fit in Washington. Piles which
have accumulated in connection with
the NRA must be sufficient to make
several trainloads.