WATAUGA DEM0CBAT1 An Independent Weekly N?*tptpa EVERY THURSDAY Xfetablithed in 1888 and published for 45 yean by the Ma Robert C. Rlvert, Sr. ? R C. RIVERS, Jr. - Publisher! SUBSCRIPTION RATES IN WATAUGA COUNTY One Year ...... $1J0| Six Months 1.00 Four Months .75 OUTSIDE WATAUGA COUNTY One Year ttN Six Months L M Four Months 1.00 NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS In requesting change of silrtr? it is important to mention the OLD. as well as the NEW ; Cards of Thanks. Resolutions of Respect, Obituaries, etc., arej charged for at the regular adver tising rates. Entered at the postoffice Boone, N. C., as second class mail] matter, under the act of Congress) ot March 3, 18TO. ' ~Th? basic of our imnin?iit being Ow opinion of the people, tin vary first objective should be to keep that right, and were It left to me to decide whether wa should have a govern ? ? without newspapers, or Mings pars without government, I should not fcaaitate a monment to chaoaa Mm lat ter. But I should mean that every man should receive these papers and be capable of reading them."? Thomas Jefferson. THURSDAY JULY 8, 1948. GOLD EH QI.rfrM* Men would not lone live In society wore they not the dupeg at one another. ? La Rochefou cauld. r?.. Though the world contains many things which are thorough ly bad, the worse thine in it is society.? Scbopctihauar. ; , > Society is always diseased, and the best is the most so. ? H. .D. Thoreau. V j ? When a man meets his mate society begins. ? R. W. Emerson. It is not from top to bottom that societies die; it is tram bot tom to top. ? Henry George. legal arMfef. Us all tight to kn* assa'cas-1 ase griaffti bo doused with spirits, anyway. might as wall ??C up a state store . . . offer the double-price bootlegger1 a nee foe bis money . . . and di vert the proceeds from the traf fic to badly-needed ?treet par tag. extensions, etc. . . . There Is llttlo need to protend wo are a d ry community . . . wa are only hiding our beads from the ?vil In the shifting sands of a synthetic prohibition which has reached the local cli max of its long period of utter ineffectiveness. STATE POLICE CAR streak ing through the evening theatre traffic at about a mile a minute with siren screeching . . . should a motorist from a side street have failed to hear the warning, would have been a mighty gory mess . ... Bleary-eyed celebrant halts un certainly on the curb at end of the hot holiday . . . old friends tour the mountains and drop by for a chat . . . trying to coax a bit of dust from an insect powder gun and looking for a flower sack from which to shake the lethal dust .... wasn't any of course. The advent of the paper flour bag. moved from the household one of its moat often-needed nec cessities . . . asphalt coring from the pavement, where it failed to show last year, gives testimony to the severity of the heat wave . . . bird-lovers of community continue to tell us of the clean irweep the cats arc making on the young songsters . . . don't know the remedy . . to own a cat as a household pet is one of our human rights . . . the homeless ones ought to be disposed of . J Little organized support of bird dom, since Mrs. W. M. Burwell left the community . . Monday night a sheet on the f>ed was a mite too much cover . . . cooler Tuesday and overcast skies bring signs of rain . . . when it comes we all go to swearing the place will wash' away . . . the narrow entrance to depot street choked with cabs . . . bus fills up the re maining space . . . the popularity of the Drive-in-Soda Bar next to the high school . . the long lines before the theatre box office, and the brand new, spick and span taxi stand of Letcher Teague on Depot Street. I. ? ? ? A BUNCH OF FOLKS ware doing a bit of tinging oa* day .... jwt ? few at the boys who barf worked up to the be lief that they rivaled MrCor those who "the mm who couldn't ipttk plain ly ... K. was hungaring for "Bringing la tha Shwm' but prounounc*d th# lui word# "thWrM." Th* mas lac of MMmonl* *r?d lb* ga thering. and wiih a cbwchla. "Darned if U don't look aa if tboy an all bar*, but wall ring it any wail" WO PERFECT DEFENSE | The people of the United States should not overlook the tendency of defense experts, in cluding some civilian* as well us [military men, to insist on per fection in much the same sense that there are some generals who would "fortify the moan." There is no system of pre-war defense that will be abeoulutely perfect and it is too much to ex pact the people of the United States to spend billions of dol lars to "defend" themselves against what some of the ex perts think might be a powerful weapon in the hands of the enemy. It is generally assumed that the Arctic region is of vital im portance to the defenses of the United States but the Foreign Policy Association, throush a MAN m THE STREET MIGHT KNOW | It is hardly fair to a politician to go back and quote what he before a convention, especi when he is a candidate and be talking for the purpose of bolstering his wavering ad herents. Nevertheless, it might pay the public occasionally to compare predictions and events, in order to get an idea of the sincerity of public utterances and the correct ness of political predictions. \ These observations apply to newspaper writers, radio com mentators and so-called political prognosticators. Like the sports Writers, who never fail to make predictions .on the probable out come at athletic events, the clan has a habit of laying down very positive conclusions as to what is going to occur and also the rea sons for the occurence. *Vom a more or less serious study of the subject during the past thirty-five years, we have come to the conclusion that most of the stuff that is printed is buncombe. In fact, if we wanted to get an opinion as to the probable out come of the Democratic National Convention, for example, we would have just about as much chance to ascertain the probable course by talking with ten or twenty individuals on the street as by taking the composite corv report by Blair Bolles, says that it is a question whether a bomb laden plane "could regularly at tack the United States across the "Pole and return to its base." It is one thing to assert that tha United States should be on he alert to prevent an enemy power from occupying vital re gions in the Arctic but it is quite another to suggest that we need, in the year 1948, a means of de fense against aerial attacks from far off countries which "might" send their planes via the North Pole. elusions of the so-called experts. NO RIGHTS FOR ANYBODY An organization has been formed to persuade Negro men to go to prison rather than obey the draft law recently passed Dy Congress. The opposition is based on the failure of Congress to eliminate all segregation in the armed forces and the proponents of the movement say that unless Presi dent Truman issues an order prohibiting segregation, that young men* of draft age will be urged to join in a civil disobedi ence movement. We doubt if the movement gets very far. Certainly, there could be nothing more foolish than for young men to refuse to register because they do not agree with all the laws passed by Congress. If every citizen took this view, upon all public ques tions, and reserved the right to determine the laws to obey, there would be no government and there would be no rights for anybody. E. R. P. SHIPMENTS Approved Marshall-plan ship ments, through June 26th, reach ed a total of $730,783,903, as the Economic Co-operation Admini stration neared the end at its first quarter of recovery opera tions. Tot*l shipments approved will amount to about $900,000,000 by the end of June, well short of the $M?0, 000,000 originally scheduled. ? U. S. PAY ROLL When the Eightieth Congress took over in January 1947, there were 2,330,000 workers on the records. At the end of December, 1947, the total had been reduced to 1,909,383, a post-war low. By the end of April, this year, how ever, the figure had risen to X 050,420 and when the 80th Con gress quit, the figure was still rising. " i ? Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1948 ?