Carolina Watchman Published Every Friday Morning By The Carolina Watchman Pub. Co. ~ SALISBURY, NORTH CAROLINA E. W. G. Htiffman.^President SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Payable In Advance One Year_$1.00 6 Months_ .50 Entered as second-class mail matter at the postoffice at Sal isbury, N. C., under the act of March 3, 1879. The influence of weekly news papers on public opinion exceeds that of all other publications in the country.—Arthur Brisbane. POPULATION DATA (1930 Census) Salisbury _16,951 Spencer _ 3,128 E. Spencer_2,098 China Grove_1,258 Landis _1,388 Rockwell_ 696 Granite Quarry___ 507 Cleveland_ 435 Faith _ 431 Gold Hill___ 156 (Population Rowan Co. 56,665) FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1935 TREE MONTH It is one thing to quote Joyce Kilmer and sentimentalize about trees that lift their leafy arms to pray. It is another to come to their rescue. April is a month of Arbor Days in the states. It is a fitting time to assay America’s first serious movement to reforest naked waste land and eroded hillsides. According to Charles Lathrop Pack, president of the American Tree Association, last year saw more than 85,500,OOP trees plant ed on 84,000 acres of state forest land, and some 78,000,000 trees set out in 77,000 acres of national forests. This year there will be many more state plantings and at least 150,000,000 trees started growing in national forests. spring plantings along tne shelt er belt” project alone will aggre gate 2,000,000 trees, a small begin ning compared with the 10-year program for this magnificient ad venture in soil saving and water conservation. FERA also is financ ing tree-planting projects for high ways and city parks. The chief factor nationally in forest rebuilding is the Civilian Conservation Corps, which last year tripled normal plantings in national forests, and will do much better under the new enlarged pro gram. The states have piled up cre ditable records. New York with 40,000,000 plantings, Wisconsin with 11,000,000 new trees, and Michigan With 12,000,000, led the states last year. Encouraging as are these projects it is equally important that private timberland be protected from de struction. The conservation of timber on the privately owned three-quarters of our total forests should be assured. Stricter conser vation between the Government and the industry is required. A MATTER OF DISCRETION Members of the President’s fami ly inevitably occupy a very deli cate position. Their activities are certain to be watched with keen interest. Partisan critics may be expected to publicize every act of questionable propriety and to im pute improper motives to transac tions that are at most merely in- 1 discreet. To avoid unfavorable j comment of this kind a son of the , President must hold himself aloof from positions and associations out 1 of which any possible suspicion may ’ ( grow. It is impossible, of course, for < members of the President’s family to hibernate on a desert island dur ing his term of office. Nor is it fair to ask them to forego remun eration for work they may be well qualified to perform. There are, however, certain positions from which any close relative of the President should be excluded by dis cretion if not by precedent or law. In this category must be included all lobbying jobs and others in which political influence might be employed. The reason for observance of a high ethical standard in this respect is obvious. No one supposes that any President would be influenced to favor some special interest re presented by a member of his fam ily, even if some member should be so injudicious as to discuss his personal interests at the White House. But Government bureaus, corqmissions and members of Con gress often find it difficult to as sume an impartial attitude when a member of the President’s family is known' to be interested in the subject before them. Two of President Roosevelt’s sons have been named in congres sional discussions of political in fluence during the last fortnight. In neither of these cases is it even suggested that they solicited favors for firms they represent. But thC| Senate Munitions Committee has shown that the name of James Roosevelt was used in soliciting contracts for the construction of two Navy destroyers. Unpleasant incidents of this kind can be avoided only by complete aloofness on the part of the Pre sident’s kin from the arena of poli tical influence. TODAY AND TOMORROW —BY— Frank Parker Stockbridge JTOPIA . . . More’s book One day last week Pope Pius XI lid two things* He denounced all aersons who seek to bring about ivar, and he approved the canoniza :iqn of John Fisher and Thomas More, two Englishmen who were beheaded in 193 5 by order of King Henry VIII, because they set the authority of the then Pope above that of the king. i imagine liic x upc & uciiuiieia cion of war may have a powerful effect in Europe, but I am wonder ng whether His Holiness did not imile inwardly over making a saint jut of Sir Thomas More. It seems io appropriate to these times, when :he whole world is experimenting with new schemes of government designed to make everybody happy, :o glorify the author of the first modern schemes to do just that. "Utopia,” Thomas More’s descri ption of a mythical island where a perfect system of government was n force and all human relations were adjusted and regarded so that chere was no poverty and no unhap piness, was the most sensational book of its time. Published more chan four hundred years ago, it itfected the political thinking of generations of Englishmen. Its title ias come to symbolize the ideal iocial state, or rather the dream of in unachievable ideal of perfection. I think Thomas More will be re membered longer for "Utopia” than is a saint of the Catholic Church. * * * HAMMOND ... at 80 Forty years ago a young Amer can mining engineer was sentenced co be hanged in South Africa. He lad taken part in a raid by English idventurers against the government JL Lilt L/ULLil vJUULll -TXXIlC