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The Fr^Sh Times
Tw?t4?y A ThurMfey fa tuff AM 0? Pf??fc?i? Cw?|
Your Award Winning County Newspaper
LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENT
More Than Social Change
All the frustrations felt by school
boards across the South were wrapped
up neatly in one statement made last
week by an attorney for the Franklin
County Board of Education. Speaking
in federal court in defense of a pro
posed bond issue for school consolida
tion and integregation, E. F. Yar
borough said, "The School Board feels
there is more to operating a school
system than social change."
No one expected a federal court to
listen to this statement and indeed,
this one did not. Federal courts and
agencies have refused to hear anything
but race in our schools for many
years.
icnooi ooaras nave Deeri laoeieu
grand rascals and various other less
complimentary names. None have
been given the remotest credit for
endless hours of work and worry and
sacrifice. Board members receive a
small fee for meetings and it is ex
tremely unlikely there is a member
anywhere that serves for the money
involved.
School board members serve be
cause of a desire to help educate the
children of their unit. Today, they
have an impossible job. What's good
for public education must play a small
second fiddle to the mixing of the
races. Social change is foremost in the
minds of the powers that be and lowly
school boards have little, if any, voice
in the matter.
There is, indeed, more to the opera
tion of schools than social change.
The schools are operated to educate
the children of a community. When
anything is allowed to- come between
this fact and its accomplishment, that
thing is wrong. The mechanics of
school operations are staggering.
There must be a place for each and
every child. A qualified teacher must
be obtained and retained for every
classrooom. Transportation must be
found for every child. Safety and
comfort and a healthy atmosphere
conducive to learning must be main
tained.
The Congress should have given a
great deal more thought than it did to
the 1964 Civil Rights Act and its
interpretation by the courts and gov
ernmental agencies. It is difficult to
realize that any part of the Act was
meant to hamper efforts to improve
education. Yet, this is exactly what
the Act has done.
It has stressed only social change
and in the name of social change,
school systems have been disrupted,
teachers are leaving the profession,
parents are dissatisfied and children
are getting a less effective education.
It may be possible to have social
change and improved education at the
same time, although this is doubtful.
The point is that the former is over
shadowing the latter. Indeed, it is
being allowed to completely destroy
educational improvements in school
systems caught without funds to fi
nance both at once.
There is, indeed, much more to
operating a school system than social
change. In the years ahead, this nation
is going to find this out and the cost
to today's young people and to the
generations of tomorrow is going to
be a high price indeed.
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
I've Had It...
By Bob Roberts of Station of KVI, Seattle, Wash.
I here s something that needs to be
said about this country. And since no
one seems to have the gumption to say
it, I guess it's up to me.
I have had it up to here with
persons who are trying deliberately to
tear my country apart. And it's way
past time to throw at me that tired old
wheeze about being a Flag-waver.
You're damned right I'm a Flag-waver,
and I got the right to be the one the
hard way.
I have had it with pubescent punks,
wallowing in self-pity, who make a
display of deploring their birth into a
world which ? to use their sisy expres
sion ? they didn't make.
Well, I didn't make the world I was
born in either. And neither did the
men I know who are worthy of re
spect. They just went about and made
something out 01 ,t.
The
Fr
n
Times
Established 1170
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by
CLINT FULLER,
Manactnc fcdltor
ELIZABETH JOHNSON,
Business Manager
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Upon Requeet !
The men I grew up with were
fetched up in a logging camp. They
were the immigrant sons of every
cast-off race there is. And they didn't
. have a hell of a lot of knowledge at
home to start them off, either.
But I can write you a song about
the son of a Po Valley coal miner who
became a nationally-renowned
physicist; about doctors, lawyers,
teachers, foresty specialists, conserva
tion experts, and men of the cloth ?
in the Seattle-Tacoma area ? who
came out of that logging camp. And
about the son of a Danish mechanic
who is one of the best friends I've got.
So don't give me your whining,
whimpering, self-pitying clap- trap
about how this country is letting you
down.
I have had it with hippies, brainless
intellectuals, writers who can't write,
painters who can't paint, teachers who
can't teach, administrators who can't
administer, entertainers who fancy
themselves sociologists, and Negroes
who castigate as "Uncle Toms" the
very men who have done the most to
demonstrate to all of us the most
important quality in America ? indivi
dual enterprise and responsibility -
Or. George Washington Carver, Archie
Moore, Bert Williams, Booker T. Wash
ington, Roy Wilkins, Justice Thurgood
Marshall, Duke Ellington, Count Basie,
Nat Cole, the Mills Brothers, and their
father, and many more.
I've had it with those cerebral giants
who think it's smart to invite drug
advocates to lecture in their class
rooms, and with teaching curiosities
like that one in the Mercer Island
School District who invited a Black
Power spokesman to dispense a lecture
on Flag-burning.
I've had it with people who are
setting about deliverately to rip up
mankind's noblest experiment in dec
ency.
And I'm going to tell you some
thing. If you think you're going to
tear down my country's Flag and
destroy the institutions my friends
and members of my family have
fought and died for, you're going to
have to climb over me first.
And, buddy, you'd better get up
awful early in the morning.
** '
"Well, I'll Be Darned! It Was Already Unlocked."
ENSLAVED CAPITOL
CALLS FOR SUCCOR(S)
JOHN J. SYNONm
ONE RECENT day, Washing
ton's afternoon newspaper. The
Star, ran a pitiful advertisement.
The ad disclosed the utter bank
" ruptcy of the Democratic and
Republican administrations of
these 35 years past, our years of
decline. It was a full-page spread
headed, "An Appeal to the 200
million people in this great na
tion - all of whom own a share
- ofWnMn??- ? ""
ini* IS IUC Wd> U ttwiu.
? For weeks now, even the
heavens have been weeping at the
tragedy that has befallen this
once-proud city.
? Where are the tourists?
? Where are the shoppers?
? Where are the, school chil
dren who came by the tens of
thousands to discover their heri
tage?
? But most important - where
are you?
? All 200 million of you. Why
are your voices stilled? Isn't this
your Capitol City, too?
? Don't you know, or don't
you care that the stunned and
shattered business community is
afraid to act?
? Don't you know, or don't
you care that the stricken and
heart-sick residents are afraid to
act?
? Don't you know, or don't
you care that many of your fellow
Americans are afraid to open
their doors at night; afraid to take
public transportation at night;
afraid to stroll the streets at night;
afraid to do little else but scurry
from home to office and back
again as quickly as possible?
? Of course you care!
? Then where is your storm
of protest? Your outrage? If you *
fail to voice your concern soon,
your share of Washington, D. C.
will be worthless.
? Our mayor talks.
? Our police officials talk.
? Our Congress talks.
? Our President talks. But they
have failed to dispel the current
climate of fear.
? It wasn't too long ago we
flew our flags at half-mast. Unless
you insist upon action now. we
may have to do it again.
? It is only fair to tell you ?
your nation 's capital is dying .
*****
THAT WAS the ad, all of it.
It was signed by some outfit
called The Committee for a Safer
Washington, made up, in part by
the hand wringers whose stores
lie in ashes.
? ? ..??. ? ?? *???>? .?vnc
horse chestnuts, pleading for the
rest of us to come to their succor.
They call us to action though
they themselves continue to sit,
afraid, by self admission, to do a
single thing in their own behalf.
They sit there moaning, under' a
white-capped, black pyramid that
the old toad, Earl Warren, did so
much to fashion. The pyramid
that Lyndon Johnson and his
minion, Hubert Humphrey, have
done so much to cement into a
permanent state of affairs. They
sit and want others to rescue
them; they bleat as sheep in a
pen. And if you go down the vot
ing list of that soul-black town
you will find 99 per cent of them
voted, repeatedly, for jitst what
they are getting. Where were they
when the country needed them,
when that nefarious Civil-Rights
bill was under consideration?
Where? Coining nickels is
where.
*****
BUT WE are coming, anyway,
y'all, hear? We are going to help
you overcome. We are going to
trample out the vineyards where
you have stored the grapes of
wrath.
You don't deserve succor but
we are coming anyway because
we are better men than you are.
Leading our parade of libera
tion will be a graceful, fearless,
brilliant man whose clarion call
should vibrate even the chords
of your mind. We are going to
free you, money grubber, just
rest easy in your self-wrought
chains a little while longer - until
November. Listen for the tune,
"Dixie".
A Car Note
Retailers in all sections of the na
tion are now offering to install aircon
d it ion in g equipment in automobiles
for some *150, or less in some cases.
This makes an interesting contrast
with charges by automobile manu
factures? ?h ich are more than double
in most cases, or triple in some.
The same obvious excess profit
eering is continuing in the field of
car radios and has recently been
imitated in the field of safety
harnesses. (One rnvesligator reported
a major manufacturer charging buyers
$2B extra for harness equipment
. bought in Europe for about *5.)
There is currently nothing the
government, or even the buying
public, can do about excessive
profiteering on automobile extras.
Vet the automobile is no longer a
luxury but a necessity.
This is afield where congressional
investigation, and greater publicity
? of the facts, might bring about reduc
tions in exhorbitant charges as
a result of the pressure and indig
nation of public opinion.
i
OME
THINK
"OF it..:
by
frank count
"Say, Mister . . . ain't you a county commissioner"?"
"Well, yes ... I am . . . and I'm glad to see you . . . how's
, your crop coming? . . . and how's what's-hername . . . your
wife . . . never can remember her name ves . . . that's it
, ... and you got . . . let's see how many children now . . . yes,
that's right . . . yes, sir . . . I'm sure glad to see you . . .
"Well, Mr. Commissioner ... 1 been
aiming to come see you . . . you see. we
got this little piece of dirt road runs right
in front of my house and I been wonder
ing if maybe you couldn't help us get it *
paved ..."
"Let's see now . . . you live down
there . . . Well, let me ask you something
. . . What do you think of where the
School Board wants to put that building?
"What building . . . what you talking
about? I ain't heard nothing about it . . . Guess it's alright if
you say so "
"Well now . . . you like an intelligent fellow . . . surely you
know that them school people want to ruin the looks of the
hill . . . they want to block out the whole business and make It
impossible to ever build anything else up there . . . don't you
know that?"
"Well, yes sir. I guess you're right. I ain't heard nothing
about that . . . But my sister and her husband live down the
road about a quarter mile and they're wondering too if you
can help us get this little strip paved ... it ain't much ..."
"Now let me see if I understand you right .... You say
you think if we let the School Board put that building where
they want it ... it will ruin the looks of tho hill? I want to be
sure I get that straight . . . 'Cause some folks will be asking me
about it ... Is that what you said?"
"Weil, naw, sir ... I didn't say it . . . you did . . . What I
said was that I've got this little piece of road that needs
paving . . . gets awfully dusty this time of the year . . . and
mud in the wintertime . . . man, you can't hardly travel . . . "
"Well , . . just a minute now . . . Let's Uk< one thing at a
time ... 1 thought you just told me you didn t like where the
School Board wanted to put that building and now you
say you didn't?"
"No, sir. What I said was that 1 hadn't heard nothing about
it ... I don't even know what you're talking about . ?. . What I
said was that my sister and her husband they got five
kids . . . live down the road from me ... "
"Just hold it a minute. You know being a county
commissioner ain't the easiest job in the world ... We got to
">ake dpo'cioric pv?rv day . . . wp 'cm for ' ou . . . and we
v. il them other
departments ... it ain't easy . . Some folks think we got a
gravy train . . . they think all they got to do is ask . . . and
Where's the money coming from? That's what we always got
to watch out for . . . where's the money coming from
"We want to do what's right . . . and w< >nna do what's
right ... all we 'want from you private citizens is for you to
tell us what you want us to do . . . We want to do what you
want us to do . . . Now, I'll ask you again don't you think we
ought not to allow the School Board to put a building on that
pretty hill .... and mess it up . . . Hadn't you rather see us
buy a little piece of land and put it somewhere' else . . . where
it won't be seen? Hadn't you . . . just ansv. ??. that ..."
"Well, sir ... if you say so ... I still say, I don't know what
you're talking about ... but I guess it's alright . . . you ought
to know what you're talking about ... I ain't heard it
mentioned before . . . Guess it ain't no usf f Iking about my
road until you get that business straight, is it':'
"Later, boy ... see me later. Got to make a phone call "
"Hello ... I got one. Yes, sir . . . maddest man I ever
saw . . . he says no, sir don't let 'em have it . . . put that
building someplace else . . . that's what he said". How many
you got?"
Attitudes & Platitudes Jerry Marcus
I ? ?I
"It hod power brokti, powor window*, power toots ami o |erk
bohfnrf the powor it*f|nj|."
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