Newspapers / The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, … / Oct. 16, 1930, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
PAGE TWO CHATHAM RECORD O. J. PETERSON Editor and* Publisher SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: One Year Six Months 75 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1930. We see little likelihood of the Senate committee’s finding evidence of any lavish expenditure of money in the senatorial primary, but many an irregularity in registration and absentee voting can doubtless be brought to light. Some folk would steal when there is no necessity for it —-just to keep their hands in. Such irregularities in registration as those revealed by the Graham Messenger as occurring in Graham reflect discredit upon the whole Democratic party, and yet were of little or no avail so far as their ef fects upon the outcome of the elec tion are 'concerned. Recurring to the money phrase, if there was any flush of money in the primary it failed to make a showing in Chatham county. The Chatham Record did not see even a dollar for advertising from either side. Again, absentee voting is forbidden in Chatham by a special act. Neverthe less, Chatham gave Bailey an over whelming majority, and that fact, in a county in which there was no overflow of cash and no absentee votes, should be an excellent criter ion of the bona sides of the elec tion throughout the state. However, | we say let the committee go to it. It will help to have the dishonesty of election officers, howsoever in significant the effects upon the out come of the election, shown up. It is time for trifling with the rights of a single voter, be he the hum blest, to be rebuked. The Nye investigation at Raleigh Monday produced evidence that the boys had spent a number of thou sands without the knowledge of Bailey and his campaign manager, but the committee praised the can dor of the fellows and assured the Bailey management that it, nor any similar management, could be expected to account for funds spent by county committees and individ uals and not reported to the can didate’s headquarters. There is no good reason to doubt that an in quiry into similar unreported ex penditures in behalf of Senator Simmons might not show the same kind of unreported contributions. Fortunately, the Bailey managment did not contest the right of the committee to~ make the inquiry. That would have been a fatal move. The outcome has again justified the old maxin that honesty is the best policy. Mr. Nye manifested a fine spirit. He is every inch a man. If the rottenness had existed, hei would not have faltered. That preliminary statement of his was sufficient to mollify and partisans under circum stances such as those accompanying this investigation just a few days before the election. Nye will go far. That’s a pun; catch it? Miss Elsie Riddick, speaking in behalf of the amendment to allow classification of property for tax ation, points out that solvent credits listed for taxation shrank from $193,000,000 ten years ago to $120,- 000,000 last year, which decline she attributes to a failure on the part of owners to list their solvent credits. But many a credits of ten years ago considered solvent, and even of two years ago, has since lost the element of solvency. Maybe the amendment would bring out more solvent credits, but it seems no time to be reducing taxes on credits, which belong, by their nature, to the well-to-do classes. A man who will lie for two dollars might be jewed down these hard times to SI.OO. So long as there is any taxes on credits at all some people will conceal them. But it is time to put back in the taxable list stocks in foreign corporations. ® See North Carolina lose $25,000 clear-clipping on the state fair this week, despite the fact that T. B. Smith, as manager, will come as nearly pulling it out even as any one could, though he wastes several thousands of dollars on horse races, as he should not. There is no race horse breeder in North Carolina, and we do not need that kind of live at-home industry. But Smith would always have the races at Clinton even if the premium list for agri cultural articles suffered. — The effort at keeping up with the Joneses is sometimes the process of keeping ahead of the sheriff. RECOGNIZING DIFFICULTIES, OR SEEKING A GOLDEN MEANS $ Last week, we undertook to show that, the logical point to start a permanent and universal prosperity is with the multitude .of producers of basic raw materials, particularly with the farm population. To under take to secure universal prosperity otherwise is to pursue a course sim ilar to that of the State of North Carolina for a hundred years with respect to popular education,. North Carolina for a century appeared more concerned with the develop ment of its University than with that of the eilementary schools, on the principle, presumbly, that educa tion would work itself downward. The scheme proved futile. The masses remained in ignorance and the University barely existed. Thirty years ago a new policy came into existence. The emphasis was placed on elementary education, an oppor tunity for the children of the mass es. That policy naturally paved the way for the development of the high schools and the high schools have overflowed the university, with con sequence that the latter has de veloped more within the last two decades than in the previous hundred years. It is now time for a similar eco nomic policy to come into being. Prosperity does not work its way down to the masses any more suc cessfully than did education. And we may readily presume that it would, if given the opportunity, 1 work itself up from the masses to every member of society As shown last week, the first prob lem of the economist and of states men is to find a means of assuring a comfortable living for all* efficient workers on the lower levels, if they may be so characterized. We say efficient, for as the moron can not be developed by the universal scheme of education now prevailing but must become perhaps, a perma nent inmate of an institution for the feeble-minded, similarly, the eco nomically inefficient, under any scheme, will always be a sufferer or an object of charity. But there are inherent difficulties in applying any scheme that might be devised for assuring a comfort able income for the capable workers in the basic industries, particularly in agriculture. Not only would the efficiency of the individual vary with his natural capacity, but the unevenness of opportunity would present the chief barrier to secur ing a general level of sufficient in come, without producing in the very agricultural realm moguls of wealth, which, as now in other departments of life and industry, would monop olize more than their due share of the world’s goods and become a barrier to universal prosperity. In the Mississippi delta, for instance, is a planter who is now tending 4,000 acres of cotton with fifteen tractors and fifteen negro men; 500 Mexicans brought in from Texas last fad picked the cotton. The difficulty with any policy that should assure a price for cotton that would afford the small grower a living income would make a prince of that delta planter. In fact, he is making money with cotton on a ten-cent basis. Accordingly, any scheme that may be developed to raise the economic level of the less fortunate farmer and of all efficient agricultural workers must include a scheme that will limit the acreage of the prince ly landholder. For as, according to Pliny, “broad estates destroyed Italy,” they are even now ranking along with the other greater handi caps of the smaller farmers, and in practically any phase of farming you may select. Accordingly, if a price level were fixed that would provide an adequate income to the comparatively efficient small farmer, allowing a living wage to all wage workers, the princely growers would produce such an enormous surplus of every crop that the scheme would destroy itself, or if it could continue would produce a crop of millionaires paralleling that of the industries and of the world of commerce and fi nance. Over in Arkansas is a planter cultivating 22,000 acres of cotton, and when hie* turns to the tractor and banishes the mules and the 500 or 600 negro families from his area, he may become startlingly rich at any price of cotton that will allow the average producer to eke out the barest living. Now, it is absolutely certain that prosperity can not generally prevail in even this fortunate country so long as the third of the population engaged in the various phases of farming are gradually being pau perized and reduced to a condition of peasantry. On the other hand, THE CHATHAM RECORD, PITTSBORO, N. C. it is almost as certain that the as surance of an adequate income to the fairly efficient agricultural work er will produce a wave of prosperity which will reach to every sphere of worthy activity in the land. Ne cessarily, then, the problem of eco nomists and statesmen is to dis cover and apply that scheme which will assure) a competence to this basic class of workers and at the same time limit the possibilities of the (land baron’s eclipsing the sun of prosperity thus made to shine upon the homes of one-third of the country’s population. We foresee a greater outcry against a prosposal to limit the ac tivities of the great land owner than against a legal price fixing that would assure a living income to the millions now being reduced to a state of peasantry. Few would desire a communistic policy. But the long-existing policy of dog-eat dog has proved itself a bane to so ciety. In a land where more than enough can be produced for every soul in it, the hogging of the wealth and the resources of the country by the fortunate, the favored, or the relentless and grasping, has re sulted in a continuous state of pov erty among hordes of free Ameri cans, while the few have revelled in excessive wealth. Surely, there is a golden mean between commun ism and the dog-eat-dog system! The laws of the land forbid any one’s making his business or his property a nuisance. Surely, the principle could be extended to ap ply to the man who uses his broad acres, acquired often through, no merit of his own, for the pauperiz ing of hundreds and thousands. This very year, we believe, if it were not for excesses produced by the princely planters, the prices of every staple crop in the country woui’.d assure a fair return to the growers. But when one man may plant 22,000 acres in cotton, another an equal ior greater acreage in wheat, cultivating it with the least possible outlay in wages, and when these “broad estates,” such as de stroyed Italy, are rapidly becoming the fashion, there is no possible means of assuring a living price to the millions of small producers. Then, if the American principle is suoh that it will not permit a limita tion of such monopolization of the business of the peopfe, it is certain that the American principle is either inequitable or that it will thus ap pear to so many ere the pauperiza tion of the masses continues many more decades that something en tirely un-American will sway the masses and produce an anarchy such as the world has seldom seen. With the agricultural third of the people provided an adequate living, the next step would be to safe-guard the efficient workers in the humbled realms of industry, such as the tex tile industries, and when the help less masses have been safeguarded the game wou’d be won and the car of prosperity, of Which we wrote last week, may easily traverse every sphere of society There might be fewer multimillionaires, but there would be multimillions of happy and prosperous agricultural work ers, and of artisans of a thousand kinds. As the universities have been crowded from the ranks of the high schools, so would the ranks of the highly prosperous be swelled from the groups of moderate incomes by the application of more than ordi nary zeal or efficiency in produc tion. And af.l the foregoing is based upon the recognized fact that the world, and particularly America, can, with a just economic system, produce enough- for everybody and to spare. Likewise, it is recognized as a fact that one can not think constructively upon the habilitation (for the word rehabilitation is hard ly justified) of the agricultural and the less fortunate labor groups with out first understanding the difficul ties that confront the would-be re former in those very groups. Com pulsory education had to come to nfake educational advantages uni versal even when the schoods were supplied. Similai'ly, the compulsion can hardly be eliminated from an adequate economic scheme. $ Well, the Record’s date line has sometimes slipped a week, but we believe we have never had the luck of the Sanford Express of last week, to run exactly a month be hind in every date line in the paper. Radio reception gets better in the winter time. The home newspaper is better all the time. ' "SAFELY- ANCHORED FOR ANOTHER SEASON" 0 i —*—j— ~ ■ BILLBOARDS VS ADVERTISING —® “The outdoors is no place for advertising!” With this slogan organized effort is being put forth both nationally and locally against the grow ing menace of the billboard and its kindred which are spoiling the beauty and scenery of America’s high ways. Probably no other civilized country in the world permits its highways and streets to be cluttered up with bill boards and other obnoxious signs in view of passers-by. All billboards are ugly because the idea of the billboard is ugly. The campaign to reg ulate, restrain, prevent or eliminate billboards and other unnecessary “advertising” mat ter is being waged intensely. From the Bureau of Roads of the United States govern ment, down to local civic groups, women’s organiza tions and individual citizens the battle goes on. Evils against beauty, uni formity and safety are being made an issue, and thus can not long endure. America is not only a young country, but a raw country in the mat ter of esthetics. The billboard is not a necessity. It is a sore on the countryside, an eczema infecting our cities and towns. Building “finer” and more “artistic” boards was thought by the industry to be one solu tion to the antagonsim, and did serve for a time to allay esthetic fears. But it has been decided by a growing public sentiment that the more orn ate the structures the more ridiculous they become. The sense of smell has been protected by force of law and public opinion. Unneces sary noises are abated in civilized communities. Many states even prohibit the cut out on the exhaust of an auto mobile. In certain instances the sense of taste comes, in for its share of protection. But the' human eye—rather the mind for beauty—is left to search what it can for hills and valleys, flowers and foli age, for landscapes that please and harmonize with one’s spiritual contact with crea tion. But what about the bill board as an advertising med ium? The words and portray als are not advertising in a true sense. They can not “tell the story”. They are objection able from an advertising standpoint. Readers are not in a receptive mood to be “advertised to.” They dis tract the attention of motorists, which is a factor in accidents. Billboards with objectionable and suggestive matter rear themselves in front of schools, libraries and churches. They are often shields for immoral purposes. They serve no good purpose in the community. Like the saloon, they must go. It will take an aroused i i public sentiment to make i them go. TOPICS Of 5- dicker iff The bootlegger’s slogan: “There’s gold in them thar stills.” Financial experts tell us that if would be a panic. For our part we would rather cut out the luxuries and eat than keep on buying them and starve to death. The Prohibition department is going after the big fellows in the business of making and selling of liquor. If they could catch the lit tle fellows and stop the consumers the big fellows would be forced to quit anyhow. A seventeen year old boy of E. Providence, R. 1., won the Thomas A. Edison scholarship over 48 other contestants. The unfortunate part of the whole affair is that some champion tree-sitter will be remem bered longer and get. bigger head lines. U Doctors in China are paid only I ROOF WITH 1 I SHINGLES THAT | | CAN’T BURN 1 1— ■ 1 6 If you want to make sure that your A K m home investment (and maybe your fam- f&j ily) is fully protected against the terrible fire hazard cover it with Ambler Asbestos i § g Shingles. ' |j £ gS These shingles are made of asbestos fjk adn cement and form an everlasting shingle to defy all the weather elements. 7 P When you are ready to roof or re-roof * , again, let us show this new shingle to you gjl and supply setimates of cost for your SS particular job. Tl 1 3 | THE BUDD-PIPER 1 | ROOFING CO. | E ' ' 1 nl BY DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA m • - Lv il " H THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1 6 , i 930 so long as their patients are kept from having aches and pains. This wouldn’t be a bad custom for our dentists to inaugurate. Home brewing and wine making are not to - be molested by the Government, according to Amos Woodcock, Federal Prohibition Di rector. If by this announcement the Government is lettig down the bars under Prohibition the bars will go back up under Prohibition. It’s pretty hard to pick up a paper without reading of a battle— foreign or domestic. It would be a blessing to the people of China if even the side that is wrong would win and end the war. The only way a farmer can get even with a city motorist and fam ily who have helped themselves in his orchard is to sell them some hot dogs and gasoline before they get away. Mr. Gerard should add to his list of men who rule the country a shorter list of those who own it. I ~ "■ " 1 Dr. Arthur H. London, Jr. WILL BE AT Dr. CHAPINs OFFICE on Tuesday of each week from 11:00 to 12:00 a. m. for the Practice of Disease of Infants and Children BEGINNING TUESDAY SEPTEMBER, 23rd. I
The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Oct. 16, 1930, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75