Page Two The Chapel Hi Weekly LOUIS GRAVES Editor JOE JONES Assistant Editor SUBSCRIPTION RATES Ins id* Ornate County. Year *2 (6 raos., sl-5«; 3 mas-, $1) Outside Orange County. Year S 3 (6 mimu, $2; 3 mo*., $1.60) Foreign (by the year). Mexico and South America. $4: Canada, $6; Other Countries, $3.50. ir.lrrri a* m«m< ■**'*• fetoruacr ® ItSi, at ’lt* pwtoffK* «t Chap* Bit. North Carolina itaAe* Cb* a® B* 7 * 6 t. l*t*- Delayed Action on Clean-L'p The Raleigh News and Ob server declares it to be a Demo cratic responsibility to clean out completely all officials whose standards of private honor in the public sen-ice are not above sus picion and beyond reproach, and goes on to say: “Fortunate ly, there is evidence that this is being done. Ali the disclosures so far made and all the investi gations now - going forward have been under the direction of Democrats.” This seems rather too gentle toward the Democratic admin istration. Os course the official; investigations have to Ire “under the direction of Democrats;”! thfs is routine, because the Democrats an in the majority in Congress and therefore have the committee chairmanships and a majority in every com mittee meml>ership. Rut much of their investigating activity has been the result of prodding by Republicans inside and out side of Congress as well as by non-partisan critics. The man who deserves the main credit for digging out the facts about corruption in the Internal Rev enue Bureau, the worst corrup tion yet revealed in all the in vestigations was Republican Senator Williams of Delaware. On the same page with the News and Observer editorial here quoted is the statement by Drew Pearson: “Most of the Dem leggers haven’t been moved against more vigorously, since they have supplied, themselves, * the evidence of their guilt, has ■ been a puzzle in North Carolina ' for a long time. i Ghoet-Writing The comedian, Milton Berle, . was recently sued for $250,000 . by a woman named Anita Rod dy-Eden. She claimed (1) that . he had engaged her to write a , novel bearing his name as au thor so that he would "gain fame ■ in the literary world;” (2) that they were to share the profits . equally; and (3) that Mr. Berle refused to have the completed novel published because an at , tempted suicide by Joyce Mat thews, his former wife, paral leled a situation in the book. The New York Times tells of the dismissal of the suit by Supreme Court Justice Morris Eder. The most interesting thing about the judge’s decision is that he based it not only upon facts relating to this particular suit but upon the nature of ghost-writing in general. For another person than Mr. Berle to write a book that would carry his name as author, wrote the judge, was a “deception,” was “void and unenforceable as a gainst public policy,” and was “a scheme concocted and de vised by the parties to foist de liberately a fraud on the pub THE CHAPEL HILL WEEKLY, CHAPEL HILL, N. C. lic.” He said the ultimate result of such a scheme would be to “extract from the public the cost of the book by means of decep tion.” In giving this opinion the judge raises questions as to the ethics of what has become a well recognized profession and one practiced on a large scale. If ghost-writing is as bad as he says it is, then not only the ghosts but also many eminent persons who connive with them —industrial leaders, generals : and admirals, diplomats, even Presidents of the United States —are pretty bad characters. In recent issues of the highly respectable Saturday Review of Literature are these advertise ments: “Ghost-writing articles, theses, books, speeches.” .... “Ghost-writer wanted to assist on novel.” “Writing book, play, story, thesis, article? Style-improving, editing, criti cism, collaboration, research, translations.” These are just three examples. The SRL has been carrying advertisements like them for a long time. A ghost-writer is now more commonly called a ghost. And in fact ghost is the older term. Who invented it, as meaning a person who .writes something that another person signs, does not seem to be known. Ido not find the inventor named in any of the reference books I have consulted. Perhaps a good many people will he surprised, as I was when I looked it up, to learn how old the term is. The Oxford Eng lish Dictionary, defining ghost' a.- “one who secretly does artis tic or literary work for another person, the latter taking the| credit,” shows that the Pall Mall j Gazette spoke of “a sculptor’s; ghost” in 1881 ; and the same pe- [ riodical, in 1889, said that ttyQKi were “American millioffnftlji who make no secret about tbetjrj /hosts,” mentioning one of these millionaires who “advertised for a private secretary whose chief j duties would be the writing of i all his speeches.” In the Supplement to the OKI) l a l.'lth volume published some j forty or fifty years after the G volume) ghost is given as a verb, with this definition: “to do literary or artistic work for another person.” The fact that the word “secretly,” used in the G-volume, is not part of the def inition in the later volume, is ‘evidence of how commonplace land taken-for-granted ghost writing has become. In publish ing and governmental circles it is an ordinary thing to hear so and-so (a writer) referred to as the ghost for so-and-so (a financier, or a government offi cial, or maybe an actor or an athlete or an explorer). There is a wide variety in ghost-writing. Probably the most disreputable form of the practice is the writing of theses for students to turn in as their own. No doubt this kind of fraud has been perpetrated in an amateur way, one student acting as ghost for another, for hundreds of years, but now it has been professionalized and commercialized, as witness the advertisement quoted above. Often persons who have had interesting experiences, worthy of being related in a book or a magazine, are without writing ability. So, they get their ex periences “put into shape” by persons trained for that sort of work. These persons are not al ways ghosts. A ghost does not appear by name at all; when he performs, the only person who appears as uuthor is the person who has employed him. But sometimes the employed writer appears as collaborator, in which case he is not a ghost. The Sat urday Evening Post hax always made it a practice to publish the name of the man or woman whom it assigns to do the writ- ing for a person who has a story to tell but does not know how to tell it. A case in point is the recent serial telling of the im prisonment and release of Rob ert Vogeler by the Communist government in Hungary. Leigh White appears in the Post as Vogeler’s collaborator. Unitarians to Meet Sunday “Liberty to Know” will be the discussion topic at a meeting of the Unitarian Fellowship at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, December 9, at the home of Phillips Russell at 300 Chase avenue. The dis cussion will be led by Mr. RusselL Visitors are welcome, and any who wish rides should call Mrs. Edith Duerr at 2-2286. The Chapel Hill Unitarian Fellowship was organized last month at a meeting at the YMCA. The speaker was Munroe Husbands of Boston, director of fellowship units for the Ameri can Unitarian Association. Those present adopted by laws, which included the follow ing statement of purpose: “The purpose of this Fellow-ship is to bring religious liberals into clos er acquaintance and cooperation; to encourage individual members to express freely their beliefs, so that the total group shall be en riched ; and to further participa tion in advancing truth, the democratic process in human re lations, and brotherhood undi vided by nation, race, or creed.” Membership is open to all who an- in general sympathy with this purpose. Literature Group to Meet The Community Club’s litera ture department will meet at 3 o’clock next Thursday after noon, December 13, at the home | of Mrs. J. A. Warren at 301 Hillsboro street, with Miss Sally i iPleasants and Mrs. Philip Young Up co-hostesse*. Mrs. June C. Fox jWfll read ftuth Sawyer’s | Way to Christmas.’ FREE FREE FREE 17-Inch Table Model CROSLEY TELEVISION All you have to do is come in and register. Drawing to be held «r Monday, December 24 3:00 P.M. at GOLDSTON GROCERY & MARKET Carrboro, N. C. Hugh Nanney, Mgr. E. T. Vickers, Market Mgr. Chapel Hill Chaff (Continued from firtt pmge) tinction; it is the other way around: he gives distinction, and prestige, to the derby. I asked Jack Lipman, the men’s clothing merchant, yes terday if he knew- anybody in Chapel Hill who wore a derby. “Not anybody who wears a real derby,” he said, “but Carl Dur ham wears a sort of semi-derby, the Homburg. It is soft on top so that you can crush it in.” The most famous Homburg in the world is the one that has won its fame from being worn by Anthony Eden. He is ex pected to visit Washington with Prime Minister Churchill before long, and then the population of Christmas Greenery For your Christmas decorations, we have a variety of native North Carolina greenery. THE CAROLINA FLOWER SHOP Opposite the Post Office Henderson St. Phone 4851 Old-Fashioned “PFEF FERNUESSE” (Spiced Honey Cookies) 1 lb 75c o IMPORTED CHOCOLATES • LINDT • DROSTE • TOHI.EK and .... Mr. D’s own delicious candy DANZIGER’S OLD WORLD RESTAURANT C ANDY DEPARTMENT Friday, December 7, 1951 the capital will be able to com pare the Homburg bought (no doubt) on Bond street, London, with the Homburg bought in Chapel Hill by the Congressman from the Sixth District of North Carolina. At Legion Department Meeting Paul Robertson recently went to Elizabethtown to attend a meeting of the executive com mittee of the North Carolina De parment of the American Le gion. Attended by about 75 Le gion officials from throughout the state, the meeting was held at the home of the Department Commander, Lewis Parker. The program included a picnic dinner on the lawn of the Lewis home.