The Rocky Mount Herald
VOLUME 5, NO. 25
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M raoply Probe Is Broad Inquiry
Into Cause of Poverty Amid Plenty
w inquiry into monoplies pro
jt'ited at the cost off $500,000 is one
of the most far-reaching investiga
tions ever authorized by Congress.
Before it is concluded its sponsors
hfpe to be able to answer queries
'* ,tLit ( haje puzzled many people dur
in;r the past decade: "Why there is
poverty in lac midst of plenty; why
tb >re is hunger in a land of food
si, plußesl"
, t Economic Study.
)n April 29, President Roosevelt
si it a special message to Congress
on monopolies. He called for "a
j? y%>iVug?t study of the concentra
tion of economic power in Ameri
ca i industry and the effect of that
co icentration upon the decline of
competition." Five .days later Sen
ator OUahoney, of Wyoming, intro
• duied a resolution to provide for an
Vx.icittive-legislative investigation
inlp the causes and effects of the
concentration of economic power and
v *,. fitanciaJ control over industry.
Joinaiderable discussion followed
as "to the composition of the pro
posed commission and the control
of funds allotted for the inquiry
Thi President suggested that tho
' fnattar b'e investigated by the Fed
— ert'l 'frade Commission,the Depart
ment of Justice, and the Federal
■Seepritries and Exchange Commission.
Thire was some sentiment in Con
grcte for t an investigation by mem
tion of executive officials except at
the pleasure of the commission. How
evtr, as finally passed by the Sen
ate j the Commission consists of
tw Ivo persons, including three sen
at ,'s, three representatives, and one
» representng the Depart
» me.its of. Justce, the Treasury, Com
jhe cD and Labor, the Securties an-1
Ex hange Commission, and the Fed
era Trade Commission.
F.T.R. Controls Inquiry.
j/onfcidertible argument was also
ha 1 over the disposition of the
SSO >,OOO made available to finance
thej inquiry. There was sentiment
in ihe control of the commission
its |f. Administration adherents
prt'iosed that $400,000 of the
m! ey be , given to the President
to /illocato it. This would permit tho
p/',ident to provide funds to various
de rtments and agencies of the Gov-
in the process of the inves
y U was assailed as a surren-
de&fiy Cttigress of its prerogatives,
bu|,I nevertheless, was accepted.
S'ttator O'Mahoney, in a radio ad
dyii, declared that "the whole eco
ir nSfc sj-itteni lias broken downbe-
we have permitted it to be
privately controlled for the advan
tag of those exercising control in
ste: 1 of seeing to it that it is pub
licl controlled for the beneffit of
He insists " the anomalous fact
» thafstaris us all in the face is that
the'worlcl produces more than
' eno'.gh to' enable everybody to enjoy
ple.'ty, but millions, through no fault
of t'ieir own, are in want and misery.
Brt |d —Far-Reaching
liVestigation of mouoi>ly in this
* couijry and of the concentration
of tknomic jiower is so broad in
its'lpe and so far-reaching in its
" that no one can tell
whV, the inquiry might lead. Tho
C* ission, when formed, will sit
tl*.; :h the Seventy-Sixth Congress,
orVji il January 5,1041. It will make
/ a ii ; report to the next session of
ctl ess, which is the first session
ofltle Seventy-? and make rec
onfciendations for legislation to im
pr| |. existing economic conditions.
/# .i j —————
' critics of tho Admin-
liti ionMre attacking the inqquiry
'oni he ground that it will be"a
Roi an Holiday" for the New Deal
ers vho will take advantage of its
aut jrity to pry into business af
faiij „ harass industry and finance
at iill, and generally disturb tho
conlilence which, they insist, is
wlia the nation needs most at this
time
Jobliss VS. Plenty .... ..
Tie problems to be investigated,
revrivo around the 12,000,000 unem-
ployed in a nation where one-tenth
of one per cent of the corporations
owns fifty-two per cent of tho assets
of all corporations. And where one
tenth of one per cent of the cor
porations earns fifty per cent of the
net income of all corporations. Agaia
while forty-seven per cent of Am
erican families and single individuals
have incomes of less than SI,OOO a
year the one and one-half per cent
of the country's families at the top
of the heap have as much income as
the forty- seven per cent at the bot
tom. What is the cause of this con
dition f
Has Business Worked?
Some of the other questions to be
answered, if possible, according to
proponents of the inquiry, are
whether corporations use their
reserves to keep business going in
depressions, who owns the big cor
porations, why the output of steel
can drop seventy per cent and prices
remain almost stationary? Do bank
ers direct corporation policiest How
industrial production can drop forty
per cent, throwing millions out of
work and yet prices of finished
goods fall barely six per cent!
It is safe to say that the work of
the Commission will involve -a
thorough study of tho economic
set-up of the nation. Moreover, its
revelations may prove to bo tho
most sensational in many years of
congressional inquiries.
PWA Ready to Speed Many Projects
In Fight to Revive Fading Recovery
The 1938 Relief-Recovery appro
priation will revive the Public Works
Administration, which is already re
ceiving a flood of applications from
local communities anxious to take
advantage of the loans and grants.
PWA Versus WPA
This will, naturally, lead to re
newed discussion as to the advan
tages and disadvantages of the PWA
and the WPA. The discussion, of
course, has not been settled. It may
be admited, at the outset, that tho
WPA program is more direct in its
distribution of funds and that the
money that it dispenses gets into
general circulation faster. At this
time, however, the PWA has nearly
2,800 projects already approved and
left over from the earlier program,
which would mean greater prompt
ness in construction work.
Under the former PWA program,
which started in 1933 some 10,474
non-Federal projects were carried
out at a cost of $2,777,000,000. The
national government supplied $852,-
000,000 and the applicants put up
$1,925,000,000, although $790,000,000
of this money was borrowed from
the PWA itself.
Must Apply Early.
It is possible that tho new pro
gram 'will be almost as large. How
ever, interested sponsors of projects
should note that all applications
must be filed by Sept. 30th., the
work must be underway early next
year and be substantially completed
by a given date. This is why Secre
tary of the Interior Harold Ickes, ad
ministrator of the PWA, has urgod
prospective borrowers to get in their
applications early.
Besides tho hundreds of new ap
plications already received, others
are coming in daily. Moreover, a
check-up on prior applications shows
that about eighty per cent, of them
are still alive and to be pushed. Com
munities wanting projects can apply
to the seven regional offices, located
in New York, Ch'icago, Atlanta,
Omaha Fort Worth, San Francisco
and Portland, Oregon. These offices
will examine the applications in final
form and send them to Washington
where they will bo further checked
before going to the President for
final approval.
What Will Be Done.
Based on its past experience the
PWA has worked out percentages
by types as to the number and costs
of projects likely to be constructed
in tho new program. Here is what
tho figures show:
(Continued from page one)
ROCKY MOUNT. NORTH CAROLINA
Little Girl Left
On Front Porch
Threc-Weeks-Old Baby Found On
Porch of Local Resident's Home
Only one candidate is on the list
to receive a box of cigars as result
of the Father's Day stork derby
promoted by the Rocky Mount Ju
nior Chamber of Commerce—and
that candidate hud not applied
either for the cigars or the baby.
Jasper L. Cummings, president of
the Junior Chamber and sponsor of
the stork derby, who offered last
week a box of cigars to the daddy
of each of the first five white ba
bies born here on Father's Day, an
nounced today that the only "bless
ed event" recorded here on Father's
Day involved a foundling left on
the porch of a Rocky Mount home at
3 o'clock Sunday morning.
Cummings said today he had re
ceived no claims for the five box
es of cigars. He added, however,
that he intended to award at least
one box of cigars and said that he
was qualifying J. D. WSnstead, Jr.,
a member of the Junior Chamber on
the porch of whose home the found
ling was left, as a winner in the
stork derby.
Police were continuing their inves
tigation today seeking to learn who
abandoned the child, a three-weeks
old baby girl.
Meanwhile Park View Hospital was
serving in its traditional role as
parent in loco parents, labeling the
foundling "Miss P. V. H." if the
child's parents are not located she
will probably be given a name to
fit the initials, like one of the
foundling predecessors whom Park
View Hospital attaches named "Pa
tricia Virginia Higginbothom."
Eventually, if the foundling's iden
tity remains unknown, the Nash
county welfare department will put
her up for adoption.
Retailers Renew
Sales Tax Fight
W. F. Dowdy, New Bern, To Head
Merchants; Dowell Reelected
Secretary
Blowing Rock, June 21.—The
North Carolina Merchants' Associa
tion today closed its annual conven
tion after passing a resolution de
scribing the State's sales tax as "a
crushing and entirely unjustified
burden upon the poorer classes."
'The 200 delegates, representing 83
counties, resolved to petition Gov
ernor Hoey to use his influence in
repealing the tax. The association
said the tax was established as a
temporary measure and now, with
a $1"),000,000 surplus in the State's
Treasury, there was no longer any
need for the merchants to act as
collectors.
Officers elected and installed were:
W. F. Dowdy of New Bern, presi
dent ; O. A. Swaringen of Concord,
first vice-president; W. R. Sellers
of Burlington, second vice-president;
Willard L. Dowell of Raleigh, exe
cutive secretary; T. ('. Hinkle of
Lexington, treasurer; and R. B.
Tomlinson of C'ary ; a field secretary.
Durham was chosen for the 1039
convention.
The host city cup, given to tho
local association showing the great-1
est milenge attendance, was won by
New Bern. The president's cup was
given to Thomasville for the largest
percentage in membrship increase.
Henry R. Dwire, director of pub
lic relations' at Duke University,
told the merchants that "the modern
business man wos forced to run iis
fast as the dickens to stand still.''
"In this modern day of quick
changing ideas and scentific develop
ment where methods are progres
sing every hour, there are bound
to be depressions," he said.
Swaringen presided at today's ses
sion. Roy A. Palmer of Charlotte;
gave a demonstration using a modeh
store- front. He spoke on "Newl
Lighting Ideas for Building Sales.''!
Dr. Archibald Rutledge, author
and student of wild life, addressed
the Morven High School graduates
in Anson County on the apprecia
tion and conservation of wild life
at the recent commencement exercis
es.
Enjoying a Joke With His Majesty
RlPpli Bp BL BH 11
King George VI enjoying a joke with Air Vice Marshal E. L. Gossage
(left) and Capt. A. H. Orlebar of the royal air force (right), during »
•top on his flying tour of tho air stations at Northolt, Harwell, Upavon
and Thorny island.
The June German And Its Antiquity
There has been much discussion of late as to the June-
German and its beginning. Since there appeared in the pa
per an article some time back in which the writer in de
scribing the grandeur of the June German and its fine fea
tures, and as an old time expression has it: "when the
scribe got in his weaving way he went off into realm of
imaginative discussion and said the June German had been
an annual affair for 58 years." After anything gets to be
25 years old it is very easy to say 50 after fifty,, 100.
When an individual gets to be worth a hundred thousand
dollars it is just as easy to say he is a millionaire. We no
tice from the papers a statement which is credited with
having come from J. P. Bunn, head master of dancing in
Rocky Mount, "That the first dance he ever remembered in
Rocky Mount was 48 years ago and that it was part of the
festivities of the fair, and that this dance was held in the
autumn perior and not in June, but about the year of 1900,
or 1901 the Carolina Cotillion Club was organized and held
its first German in July and later changed it to June."
According to our information it has been held with fair
regularity since, only a few years having been missed.
There was no regular dance held until the organization of
the Carolina Cotillion Club. Some statement has been
made that Thomas H. Battle was first president. Tnis ac
cording to our information is not true. While Mr. Battle
was one of our finest citizens and a most outstanding lead
er of all good works of a public and civic nature, state, mun
icipal, and church, he was never classed as a dancing man
and so far as we are able to learn never danced, but we are
informed that he was always most liberal to the dancing
group when they were short of funds and made generous
contributions. The June German has enough age, its fame
has spread about and it is hardly necessary to undertake
to boost its age 20 years. Sometimes in describing wine one
of the most necessary requisites is that the wine be
fine, and immediately you give it age. Probably this was
in the mind of the writer in writing about the June Ger
man.
One of the strange things about Mr. Bunn's statement
is that he is willing to admit that he is forty-eght years
old. Something that we never thought he would admit.
Big Pay, Public Service
Small Pay, Relief
The large amounts of money appropriated by Congress
from the United States Treasury upon the request of the
President of the United States was intended to give relief
Ito those suffering from want and hunger and we have
nothing but the highest praise for the President as the
distribution of this money must of necessity rest upon oth
ers designated by the and in most instances he
has left it up to Senators, Congressmen, and Governors.
While much has been well spent yet we can not close our
eyes to the facts that much has been misspent. There arc
many in this country hungry and have been denied help
while others not in need have received large salaries. We
believe the old people should have their pensions when they
do not have property and others regardless of what their
ions and daughters may have.
One of the axioms of the ages has been a father or moth
-2r can take care of ten sons and daughters but ten sons and
daughters cannot take care of one father and mother.
We print below an editorial appearing in the Courier-
Journal, Raleigh which carries facts worth consideration
for here in our own mist we have the same conditions
existing. People of large finances and large government
salaries permit members of their families on relief.
POWELL'S FOLLY
Quite a furore in local dailies the past few days over
discovery that Charlie Powell's mother has been i*e
ceiving about $21.12 a month in a sewing room at
Oxford. Mr. Powell is chairman of the North Caro
lina Unemployment Commission at a salary of $5,500
a year and the papers profess horror that he should
allow his mother to go "on relief."
Mr. Powell's mistake was in not getting his mother a
job thafc paid S2OO a month instead of $21.12. Moth
ers and wives of other high salaried persons have
these good jobs and nothing is said about it.
For instance: The mother of the solicitor of this ju
dicial district is superintendent of welfare for Wake
county at a salary more than ten times that drawn
(Please turn to page four)
[DAY, JUNE 24
Urges Cooperation
of Business Government
New Move Made
For Probe
Alamance Delegation Gives Lucas
Papers Dealing With Request
For Check
Burlington, June 21.—Action for
a check of primary voting in cer
tain precincts of Alamance County
—rejected once by the county board
of elfcctions—was revived today.
An Alamance County delegation
went to Wilson late this afternoon
and filed with W. A. Lucas, Chair
ma of the State Board of Elections,
pkltpers dealing with the primary.
Lucas did not reveal the nature of
the papers, but said that he would
make a statement tomorrow after
examining them tonight.
Precincts involved in the new ac
tion were not disclosed, but it is
thought that they are those about
which complaints were made to tho
county board just after the primary
on June 4. The previous protests
were dismissed when only two of
four complainants appeared before
the county board. The wards pro
tested in which irregularities were
alleged were North and West Bur
lington and North and West Gra
ham, four of the heaviest-voting pre
cincts in the county.
At the same time, the county
board declined to follow a recom
mendation of H. J. Rhodes, chair
man of the Democratic County Exe
cutive Committee, that a recount of
all ballots be made to clear up ru
mors of irregularities.
in connection with the new move,
Chairman Lucas notified Worth
Thompson of Graham, chairman of
the Alamance board, to im{>ouiid
ballot boxes in some preceincts.
Charges in the fiiot instance were
of a general nature: that tho count
ing was slipshod; that in some in
stances ballots were removed from
the boxes, which resulted in disputes
latir as to whether they had been
counted; and that in some cases
tabulating was done by persons oth
er than i-laction officials.
Dates Are Jiven
For Spring Hope Fair
Spring Hope, June 20.—i)at s for
the 1938 Spring Hope cimmunity
fair were announced this weik by
Fair President Hobart Brantley', as
follows, September 2li through Octo
ber 1. The fair will be held this
year on the L gi.jn's newly purch
ased plot of 'and abmit one mile
from Spring Hope on Highway N'o.
>• I towards Raleigh.
Purohas'> of this site, containing
approximately eighteen acres, was
recently made from R. I. Mitchell of
Bunn by fho local Vester-Whcless
American Legion Post No. 91, annual
sponsors  f the Spring Hope fair,
who fe't that their five-acre plot
wag nad' (|iiate to house the grow*-,
ing fair displays another year. On
account of the initial purchase
price, most improvements will ne
cessarily be postponed until anoth
er year, however, they do plan to
enclose the land 'villi wire and in
stall water this smrititr.
At their last meeting, the Legiop
rpensoring group votvd to offer the
Parent-Ten her Ass cj.it lGC of School
District Xo. 11 the privilege of help
ing as co-sponsors of tho fair as
they did last year.
Members composing .the 1938 Fair
Association are: Hobert Brantley,
president; Hubert B. Bergeron,
treasurer; Ralph A. Hales, secre
tary; Paul B. Cone, C. S. Bunn, R.
V. Rich, J. T. Matthews, Joe B. Den
ton, Malcolm R. Hinton and Richard
Abernathy, directors.
NOTICE
Those desiring to subscribe to The Rocky Mount
Horald may do so by sending sl.os with nara« and ad
dress to The Rocky Mount Herald, Rocky Mount, N. &
Name
Tow® Stake Roate No.~_
SI.OO PER YEA*
Aboard the 8. S. Reliance, en
route to Nassau, June 20.—President"
Prank P. Spruill of Rocky Meant
today urged members of the North
Carolina Bankers Association to
show a "more cooperative spirit"
toward government lending agencies,
in a speech at the association's
42nd aunual convention, being hold
on shipboard.
Bankers, he said, should support
tho government, and in return, the
government should "do its part to
yjard giving business a ffair and
just opportunity."
Nine Recommendations
Spruill urged cooperation with the
federal government in a nine-point
platform of recommendation, pre
sented ta the association.
Other planks urged that:
The banker's conference be con
tinued; work to reduce "excessive"
bond rates be continued; bankers
take a more active part in govern
mental affairs; senior bankers take
more interest in the work of the A.
I. B." the farmer be assisted in
"placing liis problems on a mora
business-like plan" and that work of
the State and federal departments
of agriculture and 4-H clubs be en
couraged; a vote of thanks b© ex
tended the Federal Bureau of In
vestigation for "splendid work done
in North Carolina," the business ses
sions of the convention be increased
from two to three days.
"The headaches and pains of 1331
and 1932, while behind us are too
i fresh ill my mind not to be grate
| fill for an administration whirl
showed me the light, eased luy pains,
and protected my depositors " Spru
ill said.
"When we needed help, and all
of us needed it, we r'led und as
sistance was giv n," the a ■ o.'i" tin
president continued. 'Non re go
well but what we r -ded a do.'.or,
and while we may not ne d rt.su
iar visits from the doctor now,
f, for one, am thankful for wha.t
has been done f r us.
No business, no government, nc
party and none of us will be suc
cessful without the full support and
cooperation of one another. Coop
eration on the part of both is what
we need. In fact, we need more
cooperation on the part of business
with city, county, state and th»
United States governments."
Rocky Mount Man
Named Official
Of State Group
R. S. Oliver of Rocky Mount, sales
Manager of the Planters Cotton Oil
and Fertiliser Company, was elect
ed vice chairman of the North Car
olina Cotton Seed Crushers Associa
tion in a meeting at Myrtle Beach,.
South Carolina.
C. B. Ragan was reelected chair
man of the group, it was stated in
an Associated Press dispatch.
The South Carolina, association,
meeting simultaneously, elected W.
T. Mikcl! of Columbia president
and Edgar Lawton of llartsvillo
vice president.
Local Resident
Dies Here
Joe Arlington, 44-year-old local
railroad shop employe, died at 1
o'clock in a local hospital after a
lingering illncs.
Funeral services were conducted
at 4 o'eloelf from the home at 733
Long street. Rev. W. H. Skeels, pas
tor of the yniversalist church, con
ducted the ceremony,. and burial
followed in Pine view cemetery.
He is survived by his wife ac I
children and oth"r relatives in tho
city.