Newspapers / The State’s Voice (Dunn, … / Aug. 1, 1935, edition 1 / Page 8
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Is Honesty Becoming A Forgotten Virtue? ? It is grievous to realize that one , _ out of .every hundred adults . in . North Carolina has been in prison _ the past year. If the figures dealt only with people from 18 to 30 years of age it is probable ihat they^ would show that one out of eve^ry fifty has been imprisoned. And if they dealt only with males between the ages of 18 and 30 they would probably show that one out of every >• thirty has been in prison. This is a situation that calls for character* building in the homes and in the schools and upright examples on the streets, in business houses, and in the fields, by all people of sound seinse and any idea of morality. Take, for example, the attempt af that man Parker up in Wilson county < to grow fifty acres more tobacco than his contract calls for and one can see how far-reaching example may go. He had been a commissioned of the county and is a man who should be an example to all his neighbors. Yet his tenants and their families see him openly trying to cheat all other tobacco growers. For the prices of tobacco are what they ar© because of the reduction of acreage. His poor neighbor might be glad to have the chance to plant one more acre of to bacco, but is forbidden to do so. Yet the man who should be the greatest moral force in the community would have set all such men an example which they would, in many cases, have followed if he had gotten by with his wholesale roguery. It is to be hoped that the number of . North Carolinians going to pris on will be increased by one, and • % that this man who would by his example lead all his neighbors as tray and who by his . chicanery . v*1 wbuld make a pile of money at the grower* will be that one. With a continued progress'vc in crease in the number of rase: -* in the state, it seems that the tin.c will come only too soon when honor is a forgotten virtue in North Caro lina. Another of the Pages Answers Final Summons. Walter Hines Page, scholar and statesman, was first of the five stalwart brothers who have played so important roles in North Caro lina and in national and interna tional affairs, to answer the eternal summons. Robert N., business man and congressman for agveral terms, laid down his life’s burdens less than two years ago. Frank ^Page departed only a few months ago. And now Henry A. Page, possibly the most intellectually vigorous .of, them all, though never aspiring to nor attaining any exalted public position, lies as I write at his home in Aberdeen, awaiting the funeral service and burial which are to follow within two hours. Only J. R. Page of the five notable brothers noW survives. It was the writer s privilege to serve as county food administrator under Mr. Henry A. Page, state administrator,during the war period, and thus I first met the man whose vigorous course as a member of the legislature for three terms I had not known because of my absence from the state. As food administrator Mr. Page took his orders from Mr. Hoover and ordered them executed without quibble, and thus they went through. As stated sometime ago when Mr. Hoover had express ed fear that Americans would lose their liberty under* the new deal, there was never a more unnecessary Or more autocratic decree than that cotton ginners should double or trebble their -ginning prices; but Mr. Page ordered the prices raised as decreed by Mr. Hoover and we county dictators put the order through. And I recall that C. 31. Vanstory, who died only ten ar twelve days ago, was one of the 100 County food administrators, and at the general , meeting in Ra leigh I first met that stalwart also. That was probably in the fall or winter Of 1917. . The intervening period has serv ed to turn the hundred-and-one of the most vigorous men,' men in the very vigor of full mental as well as physical maturity into an aging group from which one after another is being plucked by old Father Time. While those two of the hundred and-one were fighting their losing battle with angina pectoris, the writer was fighting his own battles with the hag, but feels that the odds are still tin his side for the time-be ing; I should like to see a list of the hundred cumty food administrators who met Henry A. Page at Rhleigh that day for-instructions, for I can name very few of them. I-know Attorney Stacy of Luuiberton was one, but I do not recall who was the administrator in Harnett coun ty. It would be interesting to see how many of -the hundred-one-one have already passed and are on the other side where there are no wot-, ries about food.' Those jobs were the one-dollaf a year kind of jobs, and even the dollar was- not forth coming; Accordingly, Henry Pagje assumed a considerable responsi bility and spent much time during the war without cost to the- govern ment. North Carolina has lost one of its strongest and most -energetic characters in the death of Henry A. Page. His body will lie in the cemetery at old Bethesda chfircbi where the bodies of so many of the makers of North Carolina 'lie.r Quiescat in pace.- - - ; The Blood Sucker* ■ Should Be Destroyed* J Developments in the investigation of the expenditures of holding cont panies in the recent fight to elimi nate them by 1942 reveal conditions that, uncorrected, will do more to produce a revolution in this coun try than all the 30,000 communists reported by a Soviet agent to dwell in the United States, ■ The death decree, it will be recalled, was beat en in the house by a very large vote. The difference in the house ~ bill and the senate bill lies chiefly in the placing of the burden of proof. The senate bill decrees the! death of all holding companies that do not prove their necessity; the house Dill allows the elimination of those com panies that are proved to be un necessary. The revelation of recent days indicate that the surest way to kill the bad ones is to pass the senate bill. Such companies as have a real reason for existence and are not mere parasites snouia De auie to prove such status, and live. The testimony thus far revealed by the congressional investigation of ex penditures in the campaign against the passage of the administration measure, requiring elimination of all unnecessary holding companies by 19'42, is sufficient to prove that some qf the holding companies are outright blood-suckers and have had no quibbles about the means used to defeat the administration meas ure. Thousands of fake telegrams were sent congressmen as one means of fighting the bill. And now '.t is revealed that the rake-offs by some of the companies are going by the millions' into the accounts of a few higher-ups in the organiza tions. Yet there are doubtless nec essary and honest holding compan ies; but it begins to appear that they will have to be prepared to prove themselves such in order to survive. Under the revelations of the last fortnight it is difficult to see our own congressman -voting again' against placing the burden of proof: upon the holding company that would survive as a necessary insti- ^ tution. - ■ - The Four Billions ^ v Will Be Spent. " * - ' Wages of ordinary laborers under the WPA program in Harnett and 65 other counties 'without a town of 5,000'inhabitants will be at the rate .of $19 a month. If Dunn had had a hundred or two more inhabi tants in 1930 it would have meant higher wages for every WPA work er in the county during the spending of the four million work-relief fund. . Well, hardly that, for the spend ing is going on, while no $19 a month job has been given out in the county. The money will be spent and you may be -sure of that. First, up at Washington there had to be a big boss with big salary. He must have a young army of helpers on tne spot. Then, there must be about fifty state and colonial superintend ents appointed at big salaries* Each of these must have his assistant with salary running into the thou- _ sands, and a'little army of office helpers at good salaries. There come _ next the district superintendents with salaries of $4,000 _ to $5,000. There are eight of these in North Carolina, probably 600 or 700 in the whole country. Each of these must have his assistant with* a sal ary still running into the thousands, ' and each, must have a contingent i of helpers in the office and in the held. The little bosses*for the vari • ous jobs must be appointed. Up to now nobody has, been.taken front tHe relief roll for a $19 job. The big salaries are rolling along; the relief -roll is -feeding from the free; . . public trough or not feeding at all. But by the time frost'.falls per haps the $19 men will be getting on the job. But the four billion will be spent, you bet. But wasn’t that what it was appropriated for? What matters it if those who are rich or had other paying jobs get the cream of it? Aren’t they the folk ? What difference does it make if the 75-cent a day men never get to work—they are only poor trash —none of them fit for the salaried jobs! A Milepost in American Banking Adoption by the Senate of an alter ed version of the omnibus banking bill passed May 9 by the House of Repre sentatives presages practically certain enactment at this session of a law which will mark a turning point in American finance. Just as the establishment of the Federal Reserve System was a major event in the development of a national banking system, this act will be signifi cant as giving it a more unified com mand and more definite direction. -Where the existence of the reserve sys tem operated to keep the banking world on a more even keel during storms and “money panics” which had occassionally occurred before, the leg islation nowf making is expected in some degree even to prevent these storms and to set -up an authority which can exert some influence to ward smoothing out business cycles. Thus it concerns the welfare of everyone in the United States, how ever humble, for all are affected more or less by the sweep of depressions and booms, whose force, it is hoped, may now be somewhat checked. How effective this restraint will be must depend on the wisdom and cour age of the Federal Reserve Board that is to be newly constituted under this bill. Just how it is to be constituted depends on whether Congress ultimate ly adopts the Senate or the House ver sion of the measure. In this and a few other respects the extensive changes made by the Senate, largely 1 at the instance of Senator Carter Glass, are important. WONT TOOT OWN HORN Tom Proctor Who as president of Proctor-Barbour Co., of Fuquay Springs, is due much credit for the remarkable record ol his firm in the last few years. He finds time for a loc of other pursuits, too. By either draft the bill would cen tralize the monetary authority of the United States in Washington in a much greater degree than heretofore and to that degree remove it from New York. But the Senate measure would give the reserve board a great deal more independence than the Ad ministration bill voted in the House. It would proyide for bipartisan repre sentation, longer terms, higher salaries, require that at least two members "oe persons of. tested banking experience,’’ and would omit the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency from the board. All of this is significant, particular ly the-last item, from the fact that if the Eederal Reserve Board is really to be a kihd of economic supreme court worthy to .wield a tremendous power over tne ^usiness activities of the country it should be as fully eman cipated from the political interests of whatever Administration may be in power as it is from the financial in terests of privately owned banks. In one or two other respects the Senate bill safeguards against amise of the reserve system by the Treasury, one section requiring that reserve .banks shall purchase Government se curities "only in the open market,” so that they may not be forced to finance a federal deficit by direct purchase of bonus. The very important ‘‘open market policy”—the question of whether re serve bank’s shall buy securities and so expand credit, m shall sell them and so deflate it—would be placed in the hands of a special committee of the seven members of the Federal Reserve Board plus five representa tives from the twleve Federal Reserve banks. This and the resene board's proposed power of requiring smaller or larger reserves to be maintained bJ member banks constitute the main weapons for control of credit. It 13 vital that they be exercised in the in terest of the whole country and no in that of a political or a financial group- • ... xet it is also essenuai — powers should be exercised and n0 be allowed to lie dormant. ^ jj larger gold supply in the In1 e States than in any other nation—ap proximately 40 per cent of the voi , total—and with an unprecedented ume of Government bonds extant as basis for bank credit, the credit in 8 tion possibilities latent in the Ainei can situation once recovery gets "n' ’’ way are simply stupendous. ■In these circumstances strong 8 ^ thority is going to be necessary m P1® vent a repetition of the 10-9 ,u ^ on perhhps even a ntfore .tragic sta Either the House or the Senate provides Some such authority, bin letter provides it in a much nmie sirable form, and it is to he 10 ^ that the report of the conference mittee between the two hoiw> ' follow the Senate form.—( cxi» Science Monitor. Lord, grant us grace to love T >® rhat glad of heart and glad o 8 It last we may sit high or lo" Sach In kis place.
The State’s Voice (Dunn, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Aug. 1, 1935, edition 1
8
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