Newspapers / Zebulon Record (Zebulon, N.C.) / Jan. 23, 1953, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of Zebulon Record (Zebulon, 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
Two The Sin of Omission Bv Thurman Sensing Southern States Industrial Council It is with some temerity that I take a text for this arti cle, but I do so with the full consciousness that so far as lam concerned ana 1 think it is true of most of us —it does us all good once in a while to hear repeated some of ihe fundamental truths by which we live. I shall therefore u e as my text the words of Jesus when He said, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” We all know how true these words are and we all pro fess our comple f e belief in them, but at the same time most of us are very apt to forget them in the busy trans actions of our daily lives. As we seek to increasingly accumulate material goods in this world, we need to repeat to ourselves every so often the old expression, "You can’t take it with you.” We need to fully realize that there is no need of saying, as someone who inordinately loved his material goods said, “If 1 can’t take it with me, then 1 just won’t go” because we are all going! It is the lot of some people in this world to accumulate a larger than average share of material goods or occupy a greater than average oosition of influence. What we also need to remember is tnat even though we attain this status by our own individual efforts which is usually the case and which is entirely to our credit there still goes along with it a responsibility of leadership that cannot be ignored . if we are to fulfill our obligations to the cause of humanity. The French have a phrase for it, “Noblesse Oblige.” It means that those who have been fortunate enough, in one way or another, to attain positions of leadership have a moral obligation to accept the full responsibility of that leadership. That responsibility extends to the members of our families, to our friends, to our employees, and to the pub lic generally. More than that, it applies to ourselves, and as we consider our responsibility to ourselves, we would do well to remember Shakespeare’s admonition, “To thine own self be true, and it follows, as the night the day, that thou canst then be false to no man.” This responsibility of leadership is nothing new; it has existed since the days of Adam. We must accept it or our Eves shall have been wasted and shall simply have been “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” The wise men down through the ages have realized the obligations that rest upon persons in responsible positions, i would remind you 6f what some of the wisest of them have said through the years: Plato expressed it long ago, when he said, “The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs, is to be ruled by evil men.” Then along came the Apostle James, who expressed it another way, “To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is a sin.” Dante, by the time if the Twelfth Century, put it a lit tle more pungently, “The hottest places in Hell are reserv ed for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” Another six hundred years went by, and we hear Ed mund Burke saying, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing ” And then less than a hundred years ago, our own Ab raham Lincoln said this, “To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men.” Men of leadership in a free nation must accept their full share of the responsibility for preserving this freedom, else they don’t deserve freedom and will eventually lose it. Think on these th'ngs, for, after all, as the old proverb said long ago, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” The president of a large bank always wore his hat to cover up his bald head. One day in his office, he met the janitor, an old timer with the bank. “Say, Bill,” the presi dent said jokingly, “you’ve been with us thirty years. Why haven’t you ever taken out an account with us?” “Because, boss,” the janitor replied, “you always look like you’re going some place else.” The Zebulon Record Entered as second class matter June 26, 1925, at the post office at Zebulon, North Carolina, under the act of March 3, 1879. Member of the North Carolina Press Association. BARRIE S. DAVIS Editor JAMES M. POTTER, JR Publisher FERD L. DAVIS Fifth Wheel Published Tuesday and Friday of each week at Zebulon, Wake County, North Carolina. Subscription rate: $2.00 a year. Advertising rates on request. The Zebulon Record Right in the midst of North Car olina’s “June in January” weath er that really reminds me of April (but I’ll string along with the ra-* dio announcers) J&ck and I receiv ed a letter from a classmate of mine who is now living in Alaska with her soldier husband. Para graphs of general interest I am quoting below. “No matter what the tempera ture is, activities continue in full force. As for the temperature, for the past three or four days it has been -30 degrees and below. Once or twice it got up into the 20’s but not often. Last night it was -44 degrees when we went visiting next door. Wasn’t half as cold as T expected. Os course, you aren’t supposed to stay out over 15 min utes at a time when it is this cold. Sunday when we went to church it was -37 degrees ... It is okay if you are here in the summer, but to come in the mid-winter would be hard.” “We are now settled in a six room apartment here on the base. It is government quarters and the only things we have to furnish are sofa, bed, lamps, rugs and cur tains. The furniture is really quite nice.” “The other night we picked up Salt Lake City (on the radio) and just about all the big cities along the coast. Surely made home seem closer.” Mrs. Clifford Foster, Jr., who wrote the letter, is the former Alice The need for the rural firetruck in this community brings to mind the story about the farmer who wished to insure his barn. “What facilities have you.” ask ed the insurance man. “for exten guishing a fire out here on your farm?” The farmer pondered a little while. Finally he answered. “Well, sometimes it rains.” • A paper salesman came into the shop the other day with a look of awe spread over his face. “This must be a rich man’s town,” he said, “because I just saw a traffic jam on the street out there and six out of the seven cars were Buicks.” We told him that our friends down at Gill Buick Company were good at making this community Buick conscious, and he agreed. Behind the Business Scenes By Reynolds Knight Self-service, night shopping and suburban stores were the big top ics of discussion at the just-ended convention of the National Retail Dry Goods Association in New York. While most attention was devoted to the problems of the big department stores which sell most merchandise, some of the sugges tions advanced were of the kind useful to merchants of every kind and size. Self-service, if limited to things about which there can’t be more choice than is indicated by the price tags, was proposed as re leasing scarce sales help for ex plaining and demonstrating goods where decisions are more compli cated. This would mean putting stockings, for example, in packets of one and three pairs, in racks, and moving the stocking to the blouses. PECK ORDER UPSET Sociol ogists have had lots of fun with (Potter Patter- Collier of Raleigh. Lt. Foster is a native of Burlington. • Last Friday I was very pleased to find in the Record a column written by one of the young peo ple in the community. It has been my belief that teenagers should report their own activities and ex press their opinions in the local paper. Ever since I can remem ber the News and Observer has had student reporters from all the Raleigh High Schools. The society page of that same paper has car ried “The Younger Set” every week since Julie Fulghum started it in 1949. For many years a week ly paper in Culver, Ind., permitted p group of high school students to edit one page at least once a month. That page was more or less a school paper within a community paper. Now I’m not suggesting that the Record adopt the policy of the N&O, the Culver Citizen, or any other paper. However I am try ing to point out that young people can make important contributions to their local newspapers. The January 16 Record was a better than average issue because it con tained “Teenage Chatter” written by Katie Joyce Eddins. • Gladys Jones tells me that Lou Ellen was born on the same day as R. H. Herring. This is a rath er special coincidence since Gladys and Haywood are the first couple Seen and Heard When a reporter on a mid-west ern daily was sent out to round up opinion of the man on the street concerning the modern woman, the first person he queried on the sub ject was a man who had just pass ed his 101st birthday. “I’m afraid I can’t be much help to you,” replied the centenarian regretfully. “I quit thinking about women almost two years ago.” • Met a friend on the street the other day and told him how sorry I was for his wife the other Sun day when she had a terribly cough ing spell in church and everybody stared at her. “Don’t be too sorry,” the friend replied drily. “She was wearing her new hat.” • If you think the bathing beaches are crowded in the summer, just take a look at some of the bathing suits. “peck order” in the barnyard, since they observed that one hen is able to peck all those “below” her No. 2 pecks all but No. 1, and so on. As if to provide much-needed re assurance of the superiority of hu man beings to other animals life, the Sheaffer Pen Company has systematized the claims of its em ployees to parking space, so that there need be no battling over the peck order of fender-fighters. The oldest-on-the-payroll dri ver gets the parking space closest to the factory door at the Sheaf fer Pen Company’s Fort Madison plant. In case of a tie, the man who brings other employees with him gets a closer spot than the one who drives alone, and the man who drives every day gets a break over the one who uses his own car only in bad weather. Each of the 522 lots has an em ployee’s nameplate. It’s expensive, but the company says it’s worth it. Friday, January 23, 1953 married by Rev. Herring to have their fir- t child on his birthday. • If you have trouble keeping Ju nior in his high chair you might try the trick I use three times a day: strap him in with a web belt. Web belts, which are worn by the National Guardsmen (and others) are washable and can be purchased at a war surplus store for practi cally nothing if you don’t have an extra one around the house. The one I am using is 33 inches long and should be several inches long er for easy fastening. • An English teacher of mine who dearly loved the works of Edgar Allen Poe insisted that the most beautiful words in the English language are “cellar door” if you are able to disassociate them from their material counterpart. Mr. Poe probably would agree with her since his writings show par tiality to the letters I and o. If he liked any letter better than those two, it must have been u, the saddest letter in the alphabet. It was during a study of Poe that I began forming mental pictures of people’s names. There is one per son in Zebulon whose name is un usual and very lovely to me. Every time I think of her name I see in my mind ivy leaves against a background of polished wood. Sim plicity and gracefulness character ize the picture as well as the name —lvy Wood. You can bet and win that Reddy Kilowatt himself is no more sold on the merits of Carolina Power & Light Company and “private pow er” than is Ralph Talton, mana ger of the Zebulon office. It was reported to us, although the reporter is noted for prevarica tion, that a Wakelon first grade teacher read her pupils some nur sery rhymes last week. Then to find out whether they had been paying attention, she asked them questions concerning the rhymes. “Why did the cow jump over the moon?” she inquired of an overalled farm pupil. He answered quickly: “Probably because the milker had cold hands.” Remember the March of Dimes. Give liberally. BUILDING OMEN Lumber prices in the Pacific Northwest are rising in advance of their custo mary seasonal upward move. At a time when there is much dispute over whether the million-and-more pace of home building of the last few years can be kept up in 1953, this is a vote of confidence in pros pects by the contractors them selves. Not oply have prices gone up farther, sooner and faster than most observers expected a little while ago, some sellers even re fuse forward business at today’s prices, hoping the spring rise will come on top of the present one. Rough framing lumber has had more of an increase although from a lower base —than has the more expensive kind which goes into outer siding and trim. This is the traditional sequence; the house must be framed before it can be finished outside.
Zebulon Record (Zebulon, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Jan. 23, 1953, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75