THE DANBURY REPORTER
Bfetahliahed 1872 Volume 66
A Slant On the Times
FRUIT OF THE FIFTH COLUMN
"Yes, G— d— you, you ought to have to go. I
hope every G— d — ship the United States sends
out will be sunk before it gets half way across."
Will Baker and Mrs. Baker have contributed a
fine boy to the service of his country. They love
him and are very proud of him. He is a splendid
strapping fellow, about 20. He is a creditable
part of that ever growing magnificent army
now building to crush Hitler before he crushes
our country, and to keep him from invading the
fair land which is our home.
No doubt it was quite disconcerting to Willie
and Mrs. Baker to be handed such a violent and
unkindly expletive as the first paragraph above,
which was occasioned only by Willie's remarking
that this war is a terrible thing, and that before
it is over he himself might be called on to "go
across."
This reply to Willie's observation came, look
you, from a citizen of Danbury or near Danbury.
Back in the hectic 1860's a band of merrie gin
tlemen operated out of the woods of Stokes, Sur
ry and Patrick counties under the leadership of
Scott, a half negro. These fellows were very re
tiring in their hfebjts, not to say exactly modest,
btft they only came out In the open when all the
men of the counties were absent with the Army
of Northern Virginia fighting with Lee and
Jackson the invaders of our Southland. The
farms of Stokes and Surry and Patrick were
tenanted by the old men, women and children,
and when all was quiet, the buccaneers issued
forth to rob old man Charlie Moore at Moore's
Springs of his two or three horses and encourage
his negroes to leave; to tote off Dr. John Pepper's
meat over on Neatman creek; to steal old man
( Buck Neal's wheat at Meadows, which later some
1 of them living near were made to tote back and
beaten as they toted. Emboldened they some
times left the mountains to raid Maj. Anderson's
Corn at Pine Hall on the Dan bottoms. One Sun
day morning they broke and scattered old Mrs.
Christian's dishes at Westfield because their
sacks were too full to carry them away. Years,
later Mrs. Christian recognized one of her plates
at a place and accused a (by that time a ''respect
able") man present at the gathering.
"Oh," he said, sort of laughing like, "them
was war times then.* •-
The old lady replied:
"If you were rogues then, you are rogues now."
In the latter part of 1864 Scott was run down
and hung by soldiers home on furlough. His fol
lowers were absorbed in the tri-counties.
The Citizen who insulted Willie and Mrs. Baker
and who uttered such traitorous remarks against
his government, should not be condemned too se
verely. He is only a symptom. He is grossly igno
rant to think that way. Ignorance nurtues vic
iousness. Maybe he is a reversion to the typo
above depicted of the 1860's. Maybe he is a blath -
erskitish offshoot of Scott's knaves. The leopard,
you know, rarely changes his spots.
More probably this Citizen is a victim of delu
sion, of studied misinformation, of distilled mal
ice and prejudice of our local Fifths who laugh
when an American ship is sunk and who delight
when the crowd is right to criticise everything
the war administration does and to prate on its
'mistakes. Quislings, seditionists, traitors —or
what have you? The blatherskite, easily suscep
tible by his ancestral trends, easily becomes a
Danbury, N. C., Thursday, Jan. 29, 1942 * * * *
foul mouthpiece of the disloyal advice received
from higher up. He is a rotten apple from the
tree of Fifth Columnism, and an innocent dis
penser of Axis propaganda.
God help the man without a country. He is little
better than the toad that feeds on the foul vap
ors of a sewer ditch, and too sad it will be for him
ivvhen he tries to live respectable when the boys
come home from their fight to save this Christian
and democratic civilization, to hold our homes
and our liberties. Better had he be hanged and
quartered and his carcass thrown into the sea
than to stand in the way of the storm now mut
tering with its zigzag lightning on all frontiers
i of our awakened homeland.
I
The fathers and mothers of America are sacri
ficing all that they hold most dear and that which
is more precious than all other things combined,
even life itself. Stand in the way, discourage and
demean if you like, but beware of the retribu
tion which broods and will rise on its wings of
fury in the days to come.
In this most solemn hour of the nation's peril
it is the patriotic duty of every true American to
encourage, uplift and cheer rather than instill
fear and doubt into those who are making the
sacrifice. Those who sow the seeds of distrust and
disloyalty deserve and wilj receive that wither
ing and everlasting contempt-which is the por
tion of traitors to their own land and country.
The blatherskite who listens to seditious talk
and who lends himself to the propagation and
dissemination of Axis doctrine should be put in
a detention camp for the duration with a taste
of Gestapo treatment. i t
Hitler's slaves rise at 4 a. m. under a cat-o'-nine
lash and drive steel all day to make implements
to murder free peoples; their diet is turnips and
dingy water, and their nether anatomy smarts
all day long as they wield the sledge.
At last the weary body is pitched into a trench
and covered by oblivion.
BANISH THE BATTLESHIP— THE
SKY'S THE THING
It costs $75,000,000 and takes nearly three years
to build a battleship that a bombing plane can
sink in 15 minutes.
Up to date America has 16, England 13 and
Japan 11 of these capital ships. The United
States has plans to build 16 more.
Recent events in the Pacific have shown that
the airplane is the master of the battleship.
Let America spend no more money on the huge
fortresses which are too slow for the modern
tempo of war. Concentrate on flying fortresses
which are now producing such fine effects
against the yellow rats of Nippon.
Build more and more and yet still more of the
deadly bombers until American and British air
superiority smashes all opposition on all of the
seven seas.
AND THIS IS THE NEWS TO NOW
If the radio service continues to improve, it is
only a question of time until it will furnish the
public with news as early as the daily newspaper.
Business men who pore over the morning paper
at breakfast could save time by waiting for the
announcers who will serve the same news
throughout the day.
Editorials
Published Thursdays
THE STRONG POSITION OF THE FARMER
Compared with that of everybody else, the posi
tion of the farmer for the duration of the war ap
pears to be exceptionally favorable.
High prices for food and other commodities of
the farm are certain. A farmer who goes in for
all kinds of produce, may be assured of easy liv
ing for his own household, while there will be a
strong market for his surplus. This will include
bread and meat, poultry products, milk and but
ter, fruits and vegetables, as well as all kinds of
stock forage.
The farmer must experience difficulties in the
production of his crops, and he must be prepared
ior high and higher taxes, but all in all, amongst
all the businesses, trades and professions, and
! the labor organizations, he will be the luckiest.
ANNIVERSARY
In case you didn't know about it, last Sunday
was the Danbury Reporter's birthday.
If a cake had been baked for the occasion it
would have required 70 candles, as we were born
January 25, 1872.
Our old-time friend J. J. Priddy, now passed
over, told us that the first issue was printed in a
room in the old court house. The event must have
been considered momentous with such a judicial
setting 1 . Vox populi evidently had to do with the
nativity. _ .
At the time Danbury was only a small town,
having- the court house and jail, a tavern, 3 bar
rooms and a few residences.
The county was of course yet undeveloped. The
culture of tobacco was in its infancy and produc
ed but little revenue. It was mainly used for
chewing or smoking in a pipe.
Great forests of virgin timber skirted the
streams. Wild turkey and wild cats were plenti
ful. Newspaper subscriptions were paid in turn
ips. We imagine grandpa threw in a few pills if
you paid in advance. Many people were doubt
less yellow then as now.
The Reporter was a small paper not quite as
large the Winston Journal, but very large for
its size.
There were no automobiles and the highways
were free of honk-honks, just like they soon will
be again. Strange how history repeats itself. The
only rubbei 4 then was a few necks stretched
when a stranger came to town.
The old files are mostly missing but we gather
a few incidents. A constant subscriber over on
Snow Creek paid up for his paper every time he
got drunk. The old subscription books show him
paid up 46 years ahead. As he left no heirs his
subscription was finally stopped.
The people came to town every Saturday to
fight, mostly by fist and skull. There is a story
(that one citizen who kept his hog- pen in the
northwest corner of the square fatier.- v his old
sow on fingers, eyes and ears left by tlu» Satur
day evening melees.
The paper lived on somehow to see Stokes grow
and blossom into one of the best counties in
North Carolina, and with a population of a type
that will compare favorably with any in this or
any other state. The Reporter hopes it has been
of some use to them in their evolution.
And *n place of the old ramshackle court house
eounty seat of Stokes can boast of one
of the laigest and most modern temples of ius
tice, surrounded by a town of intelligence, char
acter and culture.
* * * * Number 6,620