Newspapers / The Franklin Times (Louisburg, … / Sept. 18, 1969, edition 1 / Page 4
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The headline reads: President With draws 40,000 Troops From Vietnam. The thought persists: 30,000 have been withdrawn before. The 30,000 who have been sent home in boxes. Care we really imagine the magni tude of the suffering 30,000 deaths have brought the people of this coun try? Before midnight tontght 19 wives or mothers will get the word- he's dead. He isn't coming home. He isn't ever coming home. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. He may be a fuzzy chinned young ster, fresh out of high school. Or he may be a college man. A farm boy. A ! promising doctor. A minister. Or may be he was none of these. Maybe he would have been a bum. But this / LOCAL EDITORIAL COMMENT We Kid Only Ourselves should have been his privilege. He should have been given that oppor tunity. And when circumstances dictated that the United States could not afford the luxury of giving these young men a choice in life, surely this country owed them a reason in death. And now that over 30,000 have given their lives for whatever lame excuse the existing administration might have given at the time, how can we, in good conscience, give up the fight? How can we gradually surrender to those who killed so many of our own men? How can we sit at a table and talk peace with men whose coun trymen are slaughtering Americans by the hour? Americans are sick of the war. That's what is being said. Every public poll tells how large the percentage is of those wanting to get out of the mess. Political pressure abounds for some solution to the war. Have we found the solution? Is the solution surrender? Troop withdrawal carried to its ultimate goal will get us out of the mess alright. Surrender is one way to end-for now -involvement in South east Asia. But we will never again be able to call ourselves a proud nation. There is nothing special about surren der. There is nothing special about dishonor. There is nothing special about betrayal of our deffd. The McDowell News of Marion, North Carolina reported recently of the arrival home of a dead soldier. The News reported that the casket was not draped with the flag, although an accompanying soldier wanted to pay his comrade, this honor. When the plane landed, the cheerful and alive passengers strolled off the plane in the bright sunlight of a free America first. After they were gone- and only after the hero's body was taken off the opposite side of the plane and taken through a side gate. Has this country stooped so low that dying for it is no longer an "in" thing? Does it have to protect the people from the distressing sight of a hero returning to the land he loved? When did we reach the bottom? When did the people tell our leaders that this is their will? 'Where have t|ey gone- the men who put first thtfigs first? It' is well and good that American servicemen return home. Never has there been a war that men did not long for home. Nor has there been one that those waiting at home did not long for their return. Vietnam-at least in this respect - is no different. The difference lies in the attitude of the leaders of this country. The last four Presidents are guilty. Each has continued the faked-up state of emergency which gives to them the powers to cause the deaths of 19 men a day. There has been no national emergency save that which we face for the lack of leadership. Our troops were ordered to Vietnam not by the Congress as called for in the Constitu tion but by an ever- increasing power grasping executive branch. Most agree that we should never have gone into Vietnam in the first place. And we shouldn't have. But, we did. And we committed over half million men to the fight. And over 30,000 of them have died. Many of them have died in recent months because we did not halt the war in the early years. After eight miserable years of fighting, we are no nearer to victory than when we started. The United States almost single-handedly whipped Japan and Germany in far less time. And they had a head start. Our leaders have never wanted to win. They have been satisfied to play world politics and now appear ready to throw in the chips. Just how many more young Americans are to be sacrificed has not-and will not--be announced. But quietly and tragically, an officer will tap oh an unsuspecting front door with the word. He'll do this 19 times today. And with the withdrawal of another load of troops, the numbers will likely increase. If North Vietnam wanted peace, it could have had it years ago. If it was sincere in it's negotiations in Paris, the war would have been over last year. If it appreciated the bombing lull, it would have slowed the pace of the fighting. We need today what we have needed all along. We need to say to the enemy we are through playing your game. Unless you agree to a cease fire and an honorable end to the hostilities by a certain date, we will win this war. We need to tell them and to show them that the mi gh test nation on earth will not fall to a second-rate power. We need to tell the world that while we want peace, ours is not a peace-at-any-price policy. In this manner we can save some of the values for which 30,000 Americans died. Anything less and we kid only ourselves. The Frsgplin Times PvWtM !?#'? TiwWit A Thur?tt|i lir??n AM Of Preefckw CwM; Your Award Winning County Newspaper Thursday, September 18, 1969 Chicago Tribune Apologizes To Dixie John J. Synon Here is an interesting ed itorial from The Chicago Tri <> " "Dear Dixie: ' "dan you possibly find it in your heart to accept our sincere apology? "When there was nice riot ing in Uttle Rock, Arkansas, we were convinced that the cauaa was callousness. Our public officials and our press in Chicago insisted that the only reasons for Negro rest ivenees were your sepegated schools and your stubborn Governor. We in Chicago with integrated schools and a very lH>eral Governor are now writhing with agony of race rioting. And as we seek to set our house in order, we hope your headlines will be kinder to us than ours were to you. "And when a Mississippi . Negro boy was found drown ing, we in Chicago called this the inevitable result of a * white supremacy tradition. ! Now a Negro girl, 14, and pregnant has been shot to death on the front porth of bar own home In Chicago ? and we are confused and ashamed - and frightened. "What are we doing wrong J that has made eight square ^ miles of our city a battle ' ground? Help us, if you can find it In your own heart to f help. ^ "And Alabama, when your State police were photo - graphed subduing rioters with * night sticks. Chicago bold "i| faced, front pages condemned you for indefensible bru t tallty. Now Illinois State 4 police have resorted to ar mored cars and cracking skulls and shooting to kill. "Your Governor has al leged that 'Communists are Tormenting this strife.' We scoffed. "Now 13 Negroes on Chi cago's west side have been charged with plotting treason. We are sweeping admittedly Communist literature from our littered streets. Forgive us for not knowing what we are talking about. "Georgia, when you were photographed in the act of turning back crowds of marching children - we could not control ourselves. The very ida, the Chicago press editorialized, that youngsters should be considered a menace sufficient to justify the use of tear gas. "Now in our own asphalt jungle, we have seen Negro youngsters of 9, 10 and 11 years advance on police with drawn guns or broken bottles screaming, kill Whitey! "And we used gas and clubs and dogs and guns and God forgive us, what else could we - do? Can you, Georgia, forgive us, too? "We tried the patience we had preached - honest we did. We tried so desperately that seven policemen were shot the other night, two of them through the back. So, in the end, we resorted to methods more brutal than yours. But, dont you a ee, we had to. "Dear Dixie, perhaps we have not yet learned to appre ciate what you have been trying to do to defeat revolu tion - but for whatever be lated comfort it may be, from our glass house we will not be throwing any more stones." in ' >| O 'I Well siree, Mr. Chicago Tri bune, that's real noble of you, the mea culpa bit. And we do accept your apology aa sincere. And there, sir, you are forgiven. But there is more to it than that. There is this new word we have learned, "repa rations." You know, like the $6 billion or so the blacks are demanding of the churches for the past "mistreatment" of Negroes by whites; that sort of reparations. You admit to having maligned us, and you have. And you promise not to throw any more stones and for that we thank you. But are you going to sit quietly in your glass house? The brigands are on the march, you know. How many Chicago policemen dead; seven? And two shot in the back. Wont you lend your weight to the good fight; be ing passive wont get the job done. You ask us, the injured party, for help. Try thia: Help yourselves. Specifically, lend your editorial weight to Stan ford University's Dr. William Shockley. For some years now, this Nobel Laureate haa been beseeching the National Academy of Sciences to make a study of racial differences, and all he ever gets back la his own echo. That would help Act lone, as they say, speak louder than words. ?* The Fra^k|in Times Established 1870 - Published Tuesdays li Thursdays by The Franklin Times. Inc. Bkkett Blvd. Dial GY6-3283 Louisburg, N. C. CLINT FULLER. Managing Editor ELIZABETH JOHNSON, Business Manager NATIONAL EDITORIAL Advertising Rates Upon Request ASSOCIATION I960 SUBSCRIPTION RATES In North Carolina: Out of State Ona Yaw, $4.64; Six Months. $2.83 On* Year, $6.50; She Months, $4.00 ThiM Months, $2.06 Thraa Months, $3.60 Entered at second dau mail mallet and pottage paid at the Pott OfTfcc at Louhburg, N. C. 27549, PRIZE-WINNING PICTURES 6y Catherine Leroy, a French free lance photographer. show a Navy Corptman working with a dying \hrine during the heat of battle in Vietnam. The series, u'liich teas distributed by the Auociated Press and won the Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service in Journalism 1 ward and the George Polm Memorial /t ward of Long Island University, shows: 1( BEYOND HELP 1 Navy corps man tries to bandage a dying LIS. Marine as their companions swarm over Hilltop 881 in hand-to-hand combat with entrenched North Vietnamese. The hit. near Khc Sanh at the Ijaotian border of South Vietnam, was attacked and taken by Marines of Coif Com pany. Second Battalion. Third Marines. 2( SILENCE AMID THE SOUNDS OF WAR - As the battle for Hilltop 881 rages around him. the Navy corpsman listens in vain for a heartbeat. 3( HE'S DEAD! - The Navy corptman looks up in anguish. His efforts had failed. He now finds he is caught in crossfire of North Vietnamese machinegunt on HiU 881. 4( DIVES FOR COVER - The Navy corptman dives for cover, leaving behind the Marine he can lielp no longer. Come To Think Of It By Frank Count Long about this time ever year, some folks go off to college to git a education. Now, I think that's fine for them that needs one. But I told Melvin the other day he was wasting his money sending his boy off for a education. He cpuld a got one right here. I aint knocking all that stuff you can't git 'cept at Chapel Hill. I know blame well that youngins are learning things over there they cant learn here at home. I seen boys that aint never had a drop of likker in the house and right off they learned to drink like folks. Then I seen some didnt know no better than to git a hair cut every couple a weeks. They went off to school and right off they found out you dont have to git a hair cut. Some of them learned they dont have to take a bath. Most all of them found out their maws and paws wont educated. Well, they may be learning all these things from them big books, but you cant beat learning some common senae. And If It's something common you wint to learn, there ain't no place like the country store ever night after supper. Of course, you got to go ever night. Miss one and you have to drop back a class. But it's kinda like drinking water from T*r River, once you do, you keep going back for more. Rob Blind was telling one the other night about a Sheriff-he didnt say what county. Rob said this fellow he knowed was making a little moonshine. There be was firing up kettle when he noticed somebody come up behind him. He didn't bother to turn around. Rob said the man thought it was a neighbor who sometimes helped him with the still. '"You making llkker", the sheriff asked. "Aint making water", Rob's Mend said. "Going to sell it?", asked the sheriff. "Aint gonna gire it away", the man replied looking around. He seen it was the sheriff. "Great day in the morning", the man said. "It's the sheriff". "It ain't the preacher", the sheriff said. "Gonna take me to jail", asked the man. "Aint taking you to church", said the sheriff. I asked Zeke Potter what he'd do if he suddenly found a million dollars. I just asked to git something going the other night. Zeke said he'd stop working and fish much as he wanted to long as he lived. Bout that time Melvln spoke up and sakad If I wanted to know what he'd do if he had a million dollan. I didn't want to know-not really, but I let on that I did 'caw* I k no wed he was dying to tell me. ' 1 Melvin said, "Frank, if I had a million doUara, I'd keep farming til I used it up." While we was mulling over Metvint answer Claude Whlpper come In. Now Claude could be a absent minded profaaaac if he'd a ever got out of the third grade. One time Claude forgot to leave school when the beO rung. He stayed put 10 the next morning and when the bell rung to take In, Claude took out. That's one of the reaaona, he couldnt git to the fourth grade when us bright onea did. Rob was trying to wait on Claude and everybody was waiting so's we could git on with the conversation. Wont ?o excuse for Claude coming to the store In the first place. He k no wed we was setting around dlacuaalng the newt of the day. He could a waited til the next day. He didnt ham to haw no light bulbs juat 'cause It waa night and hla*n waa burned out. i \ Well, it took some time and Rob Finally come back and set down. "Sell Claude the light bulbs?", I asked tame at anybody would aak a fallow how's busineea. "Naw", said Rob. I could tell he waa a mite disturbed. "Why coma?", I asked. "Frank, you ought "n to aak such foolish stuff. I vast nearly half hour with Claude and you know why he didnt buy them bulbe. He couldnt remember whether the fellow on TV told him to buy them from his tavorite dealer, his neighbor hood dealer or his friendly dealer, and since he wont sure which one I waa, ha decided to go home and watch television In the dark." You go t to admit. You dont git that kind of stuff at Carolina
The Franklin Times (Louisburg, N.C.)
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Sept. 18, 1969, edition 1
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