OUR POINT OF VIEW
EDITORIALS
Danbury Reporter
Published Thursdays at Danbury, N. C., county seat
of Stokes county, having been entered as second
class matter at the Postoffice at Danbury, N. C.,
under act of Congress.
ESTABLISHED 1872
N. K. PKPPKR, Publisher
Danbury, N. C., February 16,1939
BANKING FACILITIES FOR A
COUNTY-SEAT.
Danbury is probably the only county
seat in the State of North Carolina with
out banking facilities.
The people of Danbury, some 300
souls, together with the citizens
living in a large scope of con
tiguous territory, numbering into thou
sands, must go 10 miles to the south, 32
miles to the west, 22 miles to the north,
or 25 miles to the east —to get change,
cash a check, obtain a loan or deposit
money to transact their financial affairs.
This means great inconvenience, de
lay, expense and risk.
These people have endured this situa
tion for nearly NINE YEARS.
Do the people of Danbury and com
munity deserve this discrimination in
these modern times when every com
munity in the State enjoys the conven
ience of close-by banking facilities?
At the county seat of Stokes there are
located the offices of the Sheriff of the
county with its multiplicity of cash
transactions; the Clerk of the Court,
handling many thousands of dollars; the
Register of Deeds, daily visited by
throngs of people with important trans
actions; the county auditor, the county
agricultural agent; the superintendent;
of schools; the welfare and relief office
and headquarters; the administrator of
seed and fe* d loans extended Uy
federal government; seven attorneys
at-law; one or more physicians; a high
school and its faculty; a newspaper and
publishing plant; 3 filling stations; 2
garages; five or six mercantile stores;
one or more cafes; several hotels, board
ing houses or apartment houses; the
postoffice; the jail; one furniture manu
facturing establishment; several con
tractors and builders or engineers;
three churches with their religious or
ganizations; other smaller industries or
trades. Nearby and a part of the com
munity, a CCC camp of more than 200
patrons of the Danbury postoffice; a
State and federal park with its many of
ficials and attaches, patrons of the Dan
bury postoffice; nearby the County
Home, and closely by the State high
way camp with an investment of more
than $40,000; also one of the largest
and best equipped funeral and burial
associations in the State, carrying up
wards of 7,000 members.
Yet all this community, not to men
tion several thousand citizens within a
radius of several miles of Danbury, are
without—and have been without for
nearly nine years—banking facilities
which other sections of the State en
joy.
From six to eight terms of court per
year are held at Danbury, the county
seat of Stokes; regrflar monthly meet
ings of the various boards, State and
THE DANBURY REPORTER
federal, are held; special meetings oc
cur almost daily, attended by throngs of
citizens.
The need of a bank at Danbury is ur
gent. v
Shall we have one?
KEEPING HISTORY INTACT
From indications everywhere wild to
bacco production will romp throughout
all the belts this year, and in all its sinis
ter aspects.
Raleigh, N. C. State College exten
sion experts say reports point to a gen
eral heavy increase of acreage and a
bumper crop.
Fertilizer companies report they have
sold twice as much plant bed guano this
year than last.
The Danbury Reporter has interview
ed many Stokes farmers. Practically
every one admits his acreage will be
much larger than last year, some as high
as 100 per cent
Many new tobacco barns have been
built. Much new ground is being clear
ed, many old fields reclaimed.
All this points to lower prices for the
great staple next fall. The law of sup
ply and demand—which is unvarying
like the tide that eternally laps the
shore—is flouted. No one is so blind as
he who will not see.
The majority of Stokes county tobac
co farmers favor curbing uncontrolled
production t which history shows brings
disaster to the farmers. Uncontrolled
production means lean warehouse bills,
and a strangled profit.
But there were enough malcontents
to defeat the will of the majority, thanks
to the liberality of the crop administra
tion which required a two-thirds major
ity before imposing restrictions on the
farmers.
The public has recently been reading
the learned lectures of Mr. W. R. Petree,
a leader in thought and action in Mea
dows township, Stokes county. He is a
bell-wether among the farmers, and
when he takes snuff many of them
sneeze. Mr. Petree rejoices at the "vic
tory" of the non-conformists. He ex
patiates on the evils of control as com
ing from a "bunch of Washington poli
ticians" (meaning the agricultural ad
ministration) who have, he says, "prac
tcally bankrupted the government."
Mr. Petree's readers would no doubt
be much edified if he would publish the
total proceeds (per acre) of his own to
bacco crops for three or four years im
mediately prior to any effort that was
made by the "bankrupters" of the gov
ernment to help the cause of the tobacco
farmer. And then furnish, comparative
ly, the total receipts (per acre) from his
crops of tobacco for the years immed
iately following the "bankrupters' " ef
forts to raise prices. Say figures for
1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, then follow
with figures for 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937,
1938.
Mr. Petree will no doubt be pleased to
have this opportunity to demonstrate
the "soundness" of his position—that
the more eggs the old hen is allowed to
lay, the higher price her fruit will com
mand, and he will also have a fair chance
to dispel the generally accepted theory
that he is animated far less by a sincere
solicitude for his neighbor farmers than
by his political prejudices.
U. S. SENATORS
Our "most potent, grave and reverend
seigneurs" they are a marvelous
bunch, don't you think?
Often as silly as school boys of the 7th
grade.
Who will say that it is not indeed for
tunate that there as as few jackasses
in the dignified chamber as Clark of
Missouri and some others who have
been pushing a motion to make public
the government's innermost secrets re
garding its foreign policy and prepara
tions for national defense? Thus to
furnish foreign hostile capitals with in
formation and advantage, to our nation
al discomfiture in case of war.
Is there an unsophisticated member
of the North Carolina legislature with
as little sense?
Then take the case of the President's
appointment of a judge in Virginia
whose eminent fitness was everywhere
recognized, but who was turned down
by an overwhelming majority of the
Senate on the ground that he was "per
sonally obnoxious" to Glass and Byrd,
two of the most blatant obstructionists
in the Senate simply because they hate
Roosevelt.
PARK ANDCCC CAMP IN DANGER
The public spirited citizens of Stokes
county will be seriously concerned over
the danger now threatening our CCC
camp and the State park adjacent,« Un
less the legislature appropriates $45,000
for the maintenance of the CCC camps
and the completion of the four State
parks, one of which is Hanging Rock
park, the CCC camps may be removed,
and this will mean the parks cannot be
finished, at least this year.
Hanging Rock park is said to be one
of the most favored parks of all the fed
eral and State parks in any of the states.
In the future it is destined to be a
most valuable asset to Stokes county.
The government has spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars in building it. It
will be little short of a crime for the leg
islature, which has appropriated $250,-
000 for advertising the State's resources
and attractions, to fail to save the parks.
Up to this time the legislative budget
committee has refused to appropriate
the CCC and park money.
WANTED—A BUS LINE
A daily jitney or bus service from
Stuart, Va., to Winston-Salem and re
turn, via Lawsonville, Danbury and
Walnut Cove is a business investment
that will pay big dividends.
This is needed. It will be patronized
by people without automobiles and by
peop?e with automobiles, who will find
it will be less expense to ride the bus
than take the responsibility of using
their own machines.
GOLD STAR SUBSCRIBER
' »• —*
P. H. Young of Sandy Ridge was in
to see the Reporter Monday. Mr. Young
is 86 years of age, and is the Reporter's
Gold Star subscriber, having been a pa
tron of this paner since its first issue, •
Jan. 25,1872,67 years ago.
If anv nfiwspaoer in North Carolina
can beat this, please report.
THURSDAY, FEB. 16, 1959
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