Roorbackei's Ride Again
READER'S RETORT
4
Campus roorbackers arc begin
win it) appear on the political
front as elet tions approach.
A "roorback" for the benefit of
tho.e uninitiated in matters politi
cal is a jK)litical lie, an old
American tradition. It all started,
so the history books say, in 18 i t.
In that year a wing newspaper
ran a letter from a reader contain
ing what was supposed to be a
quotation from a book by a man
called Roorback. The book was
supposed to have saitl that an Eng
lish traveler discovered 43 slaves
branded with the initials of the
Democratic candidate, James K.
Polk.
Like most falsehoods perpetuat
ed in the name of political cam
paigning, t the original roorback
was unfounded and was exposed.
The real book quoted didn't even
mention candidate Polk.
Perhaps so much political ex
perience has made us sophisticated
about lies in politics even though
we -don't tolerate them in other
phases of life. Those candidates
now who are doling out unmiti
gated lies and e know of some
may get by with their roorbacks,
but. as the original one was dis
credited, we are certain the mod
ern liars will be straightened' out,
too.
To The Thickening Center
Alter a week or so of tossing the
polished political '.apple of farm
legislation back ' and forth, IT. S.
Senators finally gave up their
pitch and toss. With marked an
Vi'Mi. Senator Everett Dirksen of
Illinois pronounced the proposals
"so beautifully complicated that
not even Solomon could adminis
ter it." Debate has abated; but the
problem of the small farmer, the
small farmer who was and would
be the paragon of Jeffersonian de
mocracy, has not abated.
North Carolina with more
small farmers than any state in the
union has a particular stake in
farm debate. The small farmers of
this state, as can be readily under
stood, do not care about the slip
pcrv words of Senator Dirksen, or
about the Mormon steadfastness of
Era Taft Benson, or about the
Dmocrats latk'of persistence for
rigid parity supports. They want
something done. They want it
done now. They need money.
Their income is declining, and un
less something may be done im
mediately about the. shrinking
farm pork barrell, they will have
to move. 1
The Governor, and several state
editorial writers, think that added
industrialism is the answer. 'Erne,
North Carolina can use more
heavy and devcrsified industry.
Iut is heavy iiulus try, which can
suck small farmers up into its lu
crative a 1 regimenting maw, the
w ise answer to the farm problem?
rcilups'wc have mistaken the real
issue of the farm probem. Perhaps
it is not so much an issue of whe
ther to industrialize, or whether to
subsidize farmers on a rigid parity
basis. Perhaps, as the brothers Al
sop suggested in a recent column
which bit to the polished apple's
tore the real issue is whether we
tan afford to keep or to discard
the small American farmer. In
this interpretation, the problem
becomes more than economic or
political. It becomes; moral, and
constitutional; it becomes one
which concerns the root and gut of
American society, and only in ulti
mate impact the political de
moctacv and the capitalistic econ
omy erected atop that society. The
Alsops put it this way:
In the end, no doubt, the real point
will have to be recognized: That
family-sized farms have a very great
social value which makes a national
investment to sustain independent
farming 'a paying proposition for the
long term. When that time comes, a
distinction will somehow have to be
made, between the big operators who
have no claim to national support
and the family-sized farmers who
still constitute this Nation's roots in
the American soil, over-urbanized as
v.c unfortunately are.
A good case can be made, as the
Alsops make it. for the social value
theory. They point to the decline
of the Roman Empire, a case more,
moot than most, since Gibbon
with tongue far acheek labeled a
rising primitive Christianity the
abortive force, and St. Augustine
countered with the theory that the
Wrath of God. had been visited on
the pagan Romans for their sins.
"The decay of Rome," the Al
sops say, "quite certainly began
when' the hardy farm citizens
whose valor had made Rome
great ceased to be able to maintain'
themselves and their families by
farming their small, holdings . . .
The family sied farms were swept-"
ed away . . . for vast, consolidated,
slave-operated, absentee-capitalist
holdings which were the equiva
lent in those days of what we now
call industrial ied farms." It was
"the beginning of the ending" for
Rome: and "when the little farms
went, it was as though the nation's
healthy roots in native soil were
stricken and withered; and in the
end the nation was stricken too. . ."
Economists, some of them, con
cluded long ago that economic ills
are ultimately psychological in
part and beyond that, moral, and
personal. They grow out of the
fibre of individual citizens. Know
ing that, will we continue to press
the small farmers off their land in
desperation know ings that their
only path can lead to a crowded
Urbania?
. That prospect shocked 'Jeffer
son, wht) had seen the rise of top
sided industrialism in Europe. It
would shock Frederick Jackson
Turner, who theorized that an
opening frontier, acting as "safety
valve," had pushed the US to its
power.
It would shock the liberals who
cry out against Conformity, stagna
tion, and regimentation-of thought
in American society and are yet
willing to consolidate the farms
into a mechanized lump. It shocks
all whose parents and grand par
ents were able to see that the soil
has more power than the economic,
who are able to see over the cramp
ing samehess of sandlots and tree
less citv streets. '
Robinson Jeffers' "Shine, Per
ishing Republic" carries the Jef
fersonian message picturing
America as a dying meteor, settling
"in the mold of its vulgarity, heav
ily thickening to empire ..." He
goes on: .
. . . Protest, only a bubble in the
molten mass, pops and sighs out,
and the mass hardens ...
But for my children, I would have i
them keep their distance from the j
thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the
cities lie at the monster's feet
there are left the mountains .' . .
Dr
Refutes
Editors: .
Professor George's explanatory letter in a re
cent Daily Tar Heel offers a welcome opportunity
to examine some arguments,, commonly raised in
making comparisons of culture. He says that the
Negro has not been shown to be inferior to the
white race but that the former lacks the latter's
drive for progress. His major premise, however, is
that the white race has shown a stronger capacity
to'create a presumably better civilization than the
Negro. My remarks will not discuss segregation but
. i f
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DocHrnnG
propose to examine critically this premise.
- 1. Assuming that certain features of culture,
whose benefits 'we in Europe and America enjoy,
occur more frequently among Caucasoids than Neg
roids, is there' any way of proving from this mere
correlation that 'such aspects of culture are the
result of innate drive? Crediting races with' dif
ferent innate drives to achieve civilization or prog
ress is not different from asserting that one race is
superior to another. The racial inferiority of th
Negro (orany.race allegedly lacking innate drive)
- - 1
'Have No Fear, Madam, I'll Save Your Child'
Dusty Pages Solicited
We were accosted in lUngham
caverns yesterday by the English
clepritment's Miss Jessie Rehder,
who administers the University's
Putnam Prize Contest. Putnam's
oilers each year a handsome prize to
The Daily Tar Heel
The- official student publication of the
Publications Board of the University of
North Carolina, where it is , published
daily except Monday and examination
and vacation periods and summer terms.
Entered as second class matter in the
post office in Chapel Hill, N. C, under
the Act of March 8. 187C. Subscription
rates: mailed, $4 per year, $2.50 a se
mester; delivered, $6 a year, $3.50 a,se
mctcr. Editcr3.-L0UIS KRAAR, ED YODER
short
, for-
the best publishable manuscript by
a student or faculty member at the
University. P,ut this year. Miss
Rehder says, entries-are scarce with
the deadline fast a-cominkg.
Doris lietts, the talented
story writer of Chapel Hill
nierly ol Woman's College,
Greensboro, gained nationwide lit
erary acclaim two years ago with her
book of short stories,. The Gentle
Insurrection. That collection, com
pared by some with Kipling's Best,
woik the University Putnam
Award. The Putnam Prize, then,
is not to be sneezed at. It is' open
to all who have manusc ripts, either
dusty or fresh, lying around.
Ye writers, fictional and gen
eral: Why hide your lights under
a bushel?
'
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AND PIE A LA MODE
Romulo Likes An Early Start
is once more asserted even though it has just been
denied. Is not a glaring contradiction apparent in
such reasoning?
LEARNED OR INBORN? . .
Of course, the drive could be regarded as
learned and not as an inborn motivation. In that
case' it becomes meaningless to speak of a danger
t& civilization lying in race mixture. However, a
drive to build civilization by itself will be of little
use to a community which is isolated from all possi
bilities of borrowing traits of culture from other
communities. Comparative anthropological research
indicates that a large part of any group's culture
is not derived through domestic invention but rep
resents the product of diffusion or borrowing. For
a fuller account of such a nonbiological explana
tion of cultural differences the short phamphlet
by Michael Leiris, Race and Culture, published by
UNESCO may be recommended. Copies are avail
able in the Book Exchange at 25 cents.
2. Now a more difficult and basic question.
Are we certain that the Western system of culture
is superior to the civilization, say4 of Africa? The
response may be made that obviously a civilization
based on great technological control over nature
and possessing patterns for organizing extraordi
narily large number of people in nations is greater
than one in which man lives in nature and organizes
himself according to mutual respect and personal
knowledge. (Africans, of course, had nations long
ago, hardly all live in villages and clans, and are
not without control over nature. However the over
all cultural emphasis of that continent, at least
where European influence has not been intense,
may be in the direction just suggested.) Consider
the uncertain-ground of such an apparently ob
vious conclusion. The idea of greatness which we
hold may not be obvious to people who occupy dif
ferent vantage points for appraising the meaningful
ness of life or who hold other assumptions regard
ing the role and destiny of man.
SHRUNKEN WORLD '
I am an anthropologist and in this role cannot
be satisfied with measuring cultural creativity
against easy and ethnocentric conceptions of great
ness. Each people is motivated to make its own
characteristic contribution to the bewildering mosaic
. of solutions for living meaningfully. Some people
choose economic growth and material comfort (or,
as the leading article in the February 24 New York
Times Book Review Section suggests, are so or
ganized that their leaders can force them to do
so.) Others pursue roads whose very outline is
difficult for us to perceive ana sympathetically to
understand, so great are our inevitable' biases. Man
lacks a philosophy or religion in terms of which
all of these creations become compatible. It is even
doubtful if such a philosophy can be successful.
Paradoxically we live in. one shrunken world but
cannot find a standard for integrating ways of life
extremely different from our own. Proselyting in
religion or technical development1 constitute the
most common responses to the problems posed by
cultural differencesPerhaps in the western world
anthropology (as a humanistic discipline) in a
small way substitutes for such a philosophy. One
of the tasks we do so imperfectly in anthropology
is to try to overcome our cultural blinders in order
to distinguish at least the gross outlines of diver
gent paths to self-realization.
John J. Honigmann
,By PEG HUMPHREY
General Romulo is a gentleman
who likes to get an early start.
The Philippine Ambassador to
the United States' who embodies
so mueh wit, charm and good
fellowship is the,
epitome of Eas
tern gracious
ness and West
ern informality,
as well as be
ing a well-in-fored
(to make
a great under
statement) dip
lomat and prea
cher of wordd
Each morning the former Pre
sident of the United Nations Gen-
- i ' V
,
L .......
unity.
cral Assembly arises at 6 o'clock,
and has read his three favorite
newspapers by 7 o'clock when
he is ready for breakfast and the
day's business. He admits he's a
rapid reader and cites his three
favorite newspapers as the New
York Times, the Christian Science
Monitor, and the. Washington
Post. "A good way to make me
angry in the morning is not to
bring me the Times,", he chuck
led. He praised the Tirhes for its
comprehensiveness and the Moni
tor for its objectivity.
Throughout their visit in Cha
pel Hill which proved to be a
wet one, the Romulos were spark
ling, cordial, and very stimulat
ing. In regard to the unruly wea
ther, General Romulo confided
Un-American Activities
What happens when a city hds two newspapers owned 'by1
the same, wealthy family has painfully been shown to us this!,
week. We refer to the yellow journalism practiced by the Durham
newspapers in their overplayed coverage of the Charlotte hear
ings. From the size and tone of the Herald and Sun headlines
one would think the House Un-American Activities Committee
had discovered a master plot to make North Carolina a socialist
republic of the Soviet Union. ' - ! '
A banner headline in Wednesday s Sun said: "RED ACTIVITY
IN NAACP REVEALED." Yet the United Press story said no"
such thing at all; there was no evidence saying that Communists
were active in the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People. It is perfectly plain that the headline was political;
that is, it was intended to discredit the NAACP for obvious
reasons. . .
We would be interested In hearing what the ballyhooed finger
pointing in Charlotte accomplished. One man did lose his job,
not because of what he believed, but simply because he was un
cooperative. John V. Myers, a language teacher at Campbell Col
lege, was dismissed when he refused to discuss his religious and
political beliefs. ,
The Un-American Committee has been content to identify
Communist after Communist without ever getting to the vital
question: Do these alleged Communists plan the violent over
throw of the government?
It is fashionable today, at least in this state,. to condemn a
man without a trial if he is alleged to be a Communist or if he
invokes the First, Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment. With -the
passage of the Smilh Act, Congress tried to curb Communist ac
tivities in this-country. Gestapo-like methods," slipshod investiga
tions and sensational journalism have wrought insecurity end un
necessary harm to innocent citizens. We fail to see the good of
such maneuvers. Duke Chronicle
1 r.
I
j .it r
to me at lunch .that his wife
was mostly concerned about her
shoes. 'She paid $87 for them,"
he Was saying where she nudged
him vigorously in reprimand.
The General managed to pay a
good deal of respect and atten
tion to the students who seemed
captivated by his happy smile and
quick sense of humor. A group
of us were huddled in a corner
of the Morehead dining room
watching him in awe -when the
Ambassador approached and chat
ted congenially about the weather
and other trivial subjects, lie
showed us his gold watch ("which
I only wear with my tuxedo")
and explained that it was given
to him in Switzerland. "I didn't
have to pay for it," he grinned.
HOSPITALITY
Southern hospitality, won the
praise of Romulo. Thursday even
ing after the lecture when he
arrived back in his Carolina Inn
room the general was seized by
an acute hunger for some ice
cream, cake, pie, or cookies. He
phoned room service. "How about
some gingerale?" suggested room
service. Sparkling water and cof
fee were offered. .Realizing they
were prepared to offer nothing
solid, the General agreed to some
coffee. Some minutes laterroom
service appeared bearing huge
portions 'of apple pie a la mode.
BIBLE QUESTIONS
When he climbed back into
his car two hours later he found
a parking violation ticket with
another note which read: "My
future also depends on my nail
ing illegal parkers. Lead us not
into temptation. Motorcycle Of
ficer J. A."
A correspondent tells us of
a businessman who left his .par
in front of a hydrant with this
note attached to the wheel: "I
know I have parked illegally, but
my whole" business future de
pends on my getting , to my of
fice instantly. Forgive us our
trespasses. B. F."
Ctl
Alabama & The Law
' University of Alabama trustees may have hit
on a slick way out of their dilemma concerning
Autherine Lucy. But they and Alabama citizens
generally would do well, to face up to the fact
that in the long run there just isn't any way by
which they can permanently evade their constitu
tional obligations as American citizens.
One . of those obligations is to live peacefully
in an orderly society based on law law as inter
preted by duly constituted courts.
United States District Judge H. Hobart Grooms
was speaking for the whole judicial system and the
whole concept of constitutional government when he
ordered the university trustees to re-admit Miss
Lucy. .
His court, the judge said, would never be used
as a beachhead of defiance of the United States
Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has explicitly
ruled that qualified students cannot be denied ad
mission to the state educational institutions on
account of their race, and Judge Grooms was faith
fully following that opinion in ordering Miss Lucy
reinstated. He did what any conscientious Federal
judge would have done.
In applying to the court for this order, Miss
Lucy had at' first charged the university trustees
with conspiring to bring about the mob violence
which caused her to be suspended. At the hearing,
her lawyers withdrew this charge and admitted
that they had no evidence to support it. Now the
university trustees have seized on Miss Lucy's mak
ing of the unsupported charge as grounds for ex
pulion. Possibly the trustees can sustain the expulsion
wihout coming into contempt of court. But if they
can, still they will not have solved or disposed of
the problem before Alabama.
Sooner or later, if not through Miss Lucy then
through somebody else, the issue must be faced
again. And in the end there can be only one out
come. Alabama, like every other state, will have
to make up its mind to live by law, not by mob
violence; by the Constitution, not by anarchy; by
the - principle of equality before the law, not by
the privilege of bigotry.
It is long past time when the good and progres
sive citizens of Alabama and there are plenty of
them should have set about recapturing the lead
ership of their state "from the fanatics who would
defy law and Constitution. A state which can pro
duce such fine Senators as John Sparkman and Lis
ter Hill, the state of Hugo Black and Oscar Under
wood, unquestionably possesses the human resources
to recover its good name. The first step must, be to
demonstrate its rededication to a society, based on
law. St. Louis Post-Dispatch