Thursday, July 2, 1970
THE TAR HEEL
Page Seven
Steve Plaisance
Peddlers: Trying To Earn A Living
i
The peddlers on Franklin
Street were banished last week.
Everybody knows that. The
Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen
passed an ordinance on June
22 making it illegal for persons
to "display, sell, rent, offer for
sale, or rent any goods, wares,
merchandise or commercial
products of any kind on the
streets or sidewalks of the
town of Chapel Hill."
But because of the
"asthetically beneficial" nature
of their wares, the "flower
ladies" were allowed to
continue vending, provided
they procure a license from the
town for $10. If this isn't a
clear cut case of
discrimination, then may the
bird of paradise defecate on
my typewriter.
A local Franklin Street
merchant has been quoted as
saying, "We just want to stop
Agnew:
No doubt Vice-President
Spiro T. Agnew is engaging in
very dangerous politics when
he makes remarks that some of
our finest leaders, including the
great Mayor John V. Lindsay
of New York are defeatists and
acting unpatriotic. I think he
has overstepped the boundaries
of even political good taste and
common sense in such
unwarranted attacks.
Sen. George McGovern said
it correctly: "I think he
(Agnew) has done more to
divide and weaken the country,
perhaps than our enemies in
Hanoi have done. He is
undercutting the whole
possibility for a unified
American people. He is a
divisive, damaging influence on
the people of this country."
Why cannot certain
elements in the federal
administration, namely
Vice-President Agnew, insist on
certain a priori facts of life: we
It was Crispus Attacks, a
black man, who died first in
the Boston Massacre. At
Lexington, Concord and
Bunker Hill, blood flowed nd
fertilized the soil for today s
budding cries of hallowed
patriotism.
Continental Congresses met
extolling the virtues of
freedom condoning and
sanctioning the practice of
slavery. The founding fathers,
some slave holders and others
abolitionist, all wore faces of
grief in confronting "What to
do with the African people?"
"Nothing is more certainly
written in the book of fate,
than that these people are to
be free; nor is it less certain
that the two races, equally
free, cannot live in the same
government," said Tom
Jefferson.
these people from pressuring
the customers on the street."
I've been up and down the
length of Franklin many times
in past months and never have
I been "pressured" by street
peddlers. As I remember, they
usually spent most of their
time working, talking to
friends and just sitting around
studying the chicks walking by.
I've never heard of anyone
using the Tijuana tactics of
grabbing customers off the
street.
So, after weeding through
the flimsy excuses given by
area merchants and the B.O.A.
for busting street peddlers, we
come to the monolithic
question: Why not have street
peddlers? Here are some
possible reasons.
What do the street peddlers
look like? Joe College? No,
they're classified as "hippies"
(pronounced "Hee-pees"), part
Peter Brown
Bring On
are not going to win the war in
Vietnam in any traditional
sense. , "
Remember his ridiculous
statements that "The era of
appeasement must come to an
end. . . .", and that our college
campuses are inhabited by a
body of ". . . criminal misfits".
One can only say that the
majority of students have not
been infected by a Communist
virus. Rather Agnew refuses to
see, through his verbose fog,
that these misfits are people he
is sending to fight in a way that
saner folks are trying to stop.
Even when Agnew makes
such remarks in the safe shelter
of cozy Republican dinners
around the country, the press
coverage of his comments
increase his impact among
those who do not understand
the "new Puritanism" on the
college campuses.
Here in North Carolina,
letters poured in to the
"Just Another Dav
Then as now the black man
is not equally free.
Independence celebrations
mean less when one knows he
was classified as three-fifths
man
A bus trip from Durham to
Chapel Hill early Monday
morning was a reminder to me.
A reminder that former years
of slavery have turned into
neo -slavery.
At the crack of dawn a dirty
Trailways tugs out of gate
seven in the Bull City. I, an
unbathed, unshaven and
hungry , student whose car
broke down the night before,
must temporarily "leave the
driving to them."
Every seat is filled. Two
ladies and one man hold
clenched fist against baggage
racks as they earn a chance to
warm-up for the day to
of the great unwahsed, dope
peddlers, derelicts, degenerates,
advocates of insurrection and
revolution. The Chapel Hill
city fathers certainly don't
want this kind of person on the
street as a representative of this
"fair community."
The peddlers represent a
nunace to business in this area
because they sell the same
wares sold in existing stores,
but don't have the added
burdens of overhead and
employee payrolls. The only
costs they encounter are in
materials, and the rest goes to
pure profit.
Chapel Hill merchants are
also scared of what the coming
of the street peddlers
represents an open door to
anyone wanting to sell
anything on the streets, from
rings to real estate. They can see
a trend coming and they're
running scared.
The Hard Hats
university from people who
simply could not rationalize
the frustration on campus and
could not see any reason to
have a strike.
The majority of students are
not bank burners, bombers,
arsonists, Communists, pinkos,
or even any longer liberals. The
student now emerges as a
frustrated adult, and that is. an
understatement. He may be a
"criminal misfit" in the
Vice-President's eyes; but he
has no control over the fact
that upon completion of a four
year education which instructs
him in American values, he will
be sent halfway around the
world to participate in a
genocidal war.
Agnew is a mockery of the
First Amendment, and if he
has not been muzzled, he
should be.
The power of his remarks
has been underestimated, and
one realizes it only when the
Cureton Johnson
come mopping, sweeping,
walking, walking and . . . They
got on last.
Forty-six, 47, 50, 52.
The number increases as
Chapel Hill draws near. No
more space to pack the people,
but up the steps they come to
journey to Chapel Hill. One
more stop and we'll have to lie
in the aisle and sing songs to
forget the stuffiness. The more
on board means greater profits.
Two white beings are
present. One situated haughtily
in the first seat where the
breeze passes him and into the
nostrils of those behind. The
sight to the rear is only visible
through a mirror above the
driver's head. But the mirror
can't reflect invisible people.
And the driver? Well, he sits
all fat, sloppy and Klanish,
driving his whip into the
These are quite probably
the major reasons for the ban
on peddlers, with exception of
personal reasons and vendettas
which can't be seen on the
surface. It is obvious, by the
actions of the B.O.A., that the
concepts of private enterprise,
economic freedom, and the
rights of the individual are
sadly neglected in favor of
protecting the local mercantile
minority.
What about the peddlers
themselves? In the eyes of local
merchants and the B.O.A.,
they're a bunch of kids on a
lark, trying to pick up some
extra money while they loiter
around the street. But from my
personal experience, they're a
group of people trying to make
a living, like anyone else. They
have special skills which allow
them to make their own
products, so they employ these
skills to support themselves
hard hats begin to march in
counter protests. Certainly
students have tarnished their
own image through careless
and irresponsible acts of
violence. But their primary
demand is a simple one: end
the war in Vietnam at any and
all costs.
If all those who
acknowledge this are defeatists
then we are exactly that. But
please don't bring on the hard
hats. Their real ire should not
be with the student, but with
the administration which uses
them for political expediency.
UNC graduate William
Shirer, author of "The Rise
and Fall of The Third Reich,"
points out in an excellent
interview (Chapel Hill Weekly,
June 21) how one can
unfortunately compare
Agnew's appeal ad hominem to
the frightening and effective
propaganda machine of a rising
Third Reich.
For Africans'
passengers first gear, second,
third ...
"What a damn way to start
a Monday," someone mourris.
"Any day is ruint the way
this mutha drives." answered a
young man sporting tennis
shoes and a brown lunch bag.
The slave ship (15-501)
pulls into the awakening
"Village"; past church steeples,
white columns and brick
sidewalks. A seven till four
shift at the hospital; a morning
and afternoon in Old East
being greeted by smiling pale
faces. "What's hap'ning, Willie
old boy?"
During the 1776 revolution,
65.000 slaves were lost to the
British as refugees, fighters and
informers. About 5,000 fought
during the summer. And
ever one knows how hard it is
to get a job here.
So we are still left with the
question of why shouldn't
peddlers be allowed on the
streets? 1 can see no rational
reason. It is true that the
sidewalks shouldn't be
crowded with hawkers of all
kinds of merchandise, but I see
nothing wrong with a person
selling on the street wares ho '
himself has made.
And as far as the. flower
ladies are concerned, they
should be treated as any of the
other street vendors, not given
special privileges because of
their traditional position in the
community.
As one of the street
peddlers recently said. "We just
want a fair deal. We figure that
whatever goes for the flower
ladies should go for us too."
That sounds like a
reasonable request.
Agnew has taken the liberty
of lumping Senators Fulbrighl.
McGovern, and Kennedy,
former Defense Secretary Clark
Clifford, ex-Ambassador
Averell llarriman. and Mayor
John V. Lindsay into the
category of "summer soldiers
and sunshine patriots." (These
being the words of Thomas
Paine about those who
remained loyal to the king
during the American
Revolution.)
One should not dismiss the
words of the vice president, for
he has a great increasing
following. But his tactics are
antithetical to many student
desires to reopen channels of
communication, to work within
the sty stem.
Why must it bo that those
who look to Washington for
leadership in this time of crisis
are met with ill begotten
invectives from Spiro T.
Agnew?
for-America's birth. Who was
right?
A stone caught in the
grooves of the back right tire
whispered kill, kill, kill on
every rendezvous with the
pavement. With each rough
change of gears from the
Mississippi looking driver. I wa.
reminded that Richard Wright's
characterization of Bigger'
Thomas Xaliic Son) was part
of me.
So July 1th is the birth of
America to some citizens. To
Africans it's another day. A rest
between Friday's and
Monday's bus rides.
What will be done? Who will
sMze the time?
Power to the people.