THE ROANOKE RAPIDS
ROANOKE RAPIDS, NORTH CAROLINA
THE LARGEST NEWSPAPER IN HALIFAX COUNTY
Member North Carolina Press Association
CARROLL WILSON, Owner and Editor
Entered as Second Class matter April 3rd, 1914, at the post ofti.
at Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, under Act of March 3rd. 1879.
ADVERTISING - PRINTING - EMBOSSING
OFFICE EQUIPMENT & SUPPLIES
IT WILL RUIN OUR SOUTH
• • Senator Lodge, young Republican Senator
from Massachusetts, let the cat out of the bag
when he explained his vote for the Black-Connery
Wage and Hour Bill, buried this time by Southern
ers but due to come up in some form at the next
session of Congress.
With youthful frankness, Senator Lodge says
he voted for that bill because it was what the peo
ple of Massachusetts demanded. It made no dif
ference to him that the people of the South did not
want it, could not want it if the South is to con
tinue to be a factor in the industrial life of this Na
tion.
It is natural and we do not blame the young
man from New England for his self-admitted sec
tional vote. We point out, however, that his ex
planation why he voted for it is the very reason
why we oppose it. This bill, which would help
New England industry, would by the same token
help to destroy industry in the South. Particular
ly is this true in our own textile industry where we
have made the stride we have in the past few years
because we have natural advantages which appeal
to the industry.
This bill would penalize the South because of
these natural advantages and strive to effect the
same thing as a protective tariff for New England
industry.
Wise leaders of labor were not enthusiastic
for the measure because the government is step
ping in and setting hours and wages, leaving very
little left for labor unions to do for their dues.
These leaders also seem to realize that this meas
ure would make it necessary for industry to cur
tail on labor rather than employ more, for some
industries could not keep going otherwise.
Farmers and consumers, particularly in the
South, would suffer because of greatly increased
prices and a higher cost of living without their be
ing aided by the bill.
Farmers of the great South would find that,
under this piece of legislation, which does not cov
er farm labor it is true, that it would be next to im
possible to get labor for planting, cultivation and
picking. For Negro labor is not segregated from
white labor in the operation of the bill and where
are you going to get labor on the farms when the
government says every other industry must pay
a minimum wage of 40 cents per hour?
Trickiest part of the bill is that which would
leave final power and jurisdiction up to a board of
five men, who could juggle wages in this section
of the country or that, even in this town and that,
saying that one industry would be exempt from
the provisions of the law, while a similar industry
in another locality must observe the law. Therein
lies all the dynamite needed for wholesale section
alism, corruption, partisanship and unfairness.
CARO~GRAPHICS — by SX
TRADf
DO YOU KNOW
YOUR STATE ?
N.C. PRODUCES $2,000,000 WORTH Or PUTS
AND SKINS EVERY YEAR
MRS. JAMES COWAN WAS WE FIRST WOMAN
MAYOR OF A HORTri CAROIINA TOWN-1934
PIP YOU KNOW that
A GRAPEVINE ON ROANOKE
ISLAND WHICH SPREADS OVER
AN ACRE OF GROUND, IS SAID
TO BE THE OLDEST AND THE
LARGEST IN THE WORLD
THE LATEST FIGURE* RANK N.C. 513 IN THE U.S.
IN VALUE OF CROP*, WITH TEXAS, CALIF
ORNIA,IOWA & ILLINOIS ABOVE HER
DID YOU KNOW that
MI55 BEULAH10UI5E HENRY,
FORMERLY OF CHARLOTTE, 15
KNOWN A5 THE LADYEDI50N?
5HE HA5 BEEN CREDITED WITH
42 5IXCE55FULINYENTION5
! • THE EDITORS OF CARO'GRAPHICS INVITE YOU TO SEND IN INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT YOUR. COMMUNITY •
The South stands to lose plenty by the bill or
one like it. Republican Lodge is for it because it
would help his New England textiles. We oppose
it because it would hurt ours; hurt not only our
textiles but also our farmers and consumers as
well. We are against it for the same reason he is
for it, only different.
We want to see labor get all that the traffic
can bear; we want to see them working under the
best possible conditions. But a law like this Wage
Hour bill spells curtailment in Southern industry
and eventually few jobs left at all, if Senator
Lodge’s New England mills, under the unfair pro
tection of a Federal tariff, gain back the textile
business now being done in the South.
What good is $5.00 an hour if there is no work
to be done?
PROOF OF THE DIFFERENTIAL
• • Proponents of the Wage-Hour Bill, which
fails to give any differential between North and
South, whites or Negroes, now loudly proclaim
that there is no differential needed; that it costs
as much to live in the South as it does in the
North; that there are no natural advantages in
climate, longer working periods due to milder
weather, less heavy and expensive clothing to buy,
less heavy and expensive food to buy, less conges
tion of population with natural increase in rentals.
Those who have lived in both sections know
that this is. a lot of Baloney. There is a difference,
a natural advantage, which has caused industry to
move South in the last several years and establish
in the South a richer section upon which others not
so fortunate look with envious eyes.
The Federal government is about to officially
sanction this No-Differential New Thought.
We need look no further than this same Fed
eral government to prove there is and always has
been a differential, practised only recently by gov
ernmental agencies.
When NRA was established, this differential
was written into the Federal law and officially
recognized by placing a lower minimum wage in
the South than in the North. This was universally
accepted as a true fact then.
And one need only study the Relief appropri
ations of Mr. Hopkins last year, last month or last
week, to find that Relief money is being poured in
to Northern States over Southern States on an al
most 2 to 1 basis, BECAUSE THE FEDERAL RE
LIEF AGENCIES RECOGNIZE THE DIFFER
ENTIAL and use it as the excuse for larger per
capita appropriations North of the Mason-Dixon
line.
IN WASHINGTON
WHAT
iS
TAKING
PLACE
BY
UNITED STATES SENATOR
0 The first session of the Seventy
fifth Congress is now a matter of
history. During the next few weeks
there will be many reviews of the
legislation enated and its effect on
the daily life of our people. Econo
mists will figure new laws in the
light of the cost to business and
industry. Emphasis will be laid on
total appropriations as compared
with Federal income. And organi
zations and groups will begin to
form their lines to press for more
legislation when the Congress a
gain convenes in January.
0 Few will contend that, from the
standpoint of new legislative ac
complishments, the session just
ended was worthy of great signifi
cance. But it can be stated accur
ately that the session was adjusted
to the needs of our people, with the
exception of the failure to enact '
farm legislation, which is the first
order of business for the next ses
sion.
• It can also be said that the
Congress met at a crucial time in
national affairs. Our people had
hardly absorbed the great mass of >
new laws enacted during the period
of the depression. Recovery was
on the way and is gaining daily.
Thus it was for the best interest
of the country that the Congress a
dopt the trial and error method of
considering legislation. This was
done and it has helped lay the
foundation for the things that con
tribute much to the permanent sta
bility of the country.
• Adjournment found virtually all
members of Congress in agreement
that farm legislation is needed. And
the failure of Congress to put
through quickly some law of a tem
porary character will work out ter
the best interest of the farm popu
lation. It means that members Will
come back with a fresh view of
farm needs, with talks with "dirt”
farmers clearly in their minds, and
with first-hand information on the
actual condition on the farm.
0 Members of Congress are in a
greement that the President’s in
sistence that farm legislation be
taken up as the first thing in Jan
uary is assurance to the farm pop
ulation that the condition of agri
culture is of extreme importance to
the Administration. There is ev
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