North Carolina Newspapers

Page Two The Chapel Hill Weekly Chape] Hill, North Carolina 12G E. RoM’in»n TebpKonr 5M271 or MM Published Every Tuesday •nd Frida? Bv The Chapel Hill Publishing Company, lnr LOub Gaavn Contributing Editor . Joe Jokks • Managing Editor Bnxv Afthvr - Associate Editor Chvck Associate Editor Ottvn.Lt Campbe- General Manage* O T Watkins Advertising Director . Charlton Campbel: Mechanical Eupl. l.r-.ierec reconr.-clast rr.HUe: ?et>niar> ff*. IRZi. al l ie .postoffic* a". Cnape; HUi North CAmlin* under the act of -March 3. . subscription rate*. Ir Orange- County, Year tAM (6 months $2.25. 3 months. fl'.Ml Cluvsid* of Oreng* County by the Year State of N C... W. »r.d S < Other States and Ilist. of Columbia 6.00 Canada. Mexico, South America TOO 1 Europe 7 ' M ' Hospitals- Run for the Benefit of The Patients: A Good Objective >lv most important activity when 1 was on tour last summer and fall was, of course, sightseeing. A less import ant. incidental one was going to news stands where I could buy American newspapers and magazines. There were f these. ■ n 1 could find the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune, the inter national edition «f the New York Times (printed in Amsterdam and distributed to other cities by plane), the Saturday Evening Post, and the New Worker. One day I bought the October Ist issue of the Post and read the leading article in it, entitled, “Are, Patients Human Beings?” The subtitle was: ‘‘Smart hospitals are junking tradition al but•boneheaded customs like 5 a.m. reveille and payment in ad vane* Bt sult: Patient- get well faster and don't , go home mad.” One of the persons quoted in the ar ticle was Anthony J J. Bourse, admin istrator in the Stanford University Ho spitals in San Francisco for twelve years, later executive director of the Hospital * Couhc: iof Greater ew or} and a recent prey dent f the' American Hos pital Association. • ■ i de admin istrators have been given'ample advi< e from their customers, ranging from j po litely phrased suggestions to sizzling denunciations. One patient spoke for * many his brethren when, in an artich published in a leading hospital journal, he castigated drawn-out admission pro cedure- and asked, "Do wv have to be thrut-fourths dead before you're willing to dispatch us at once to our rooms and get thr neCe.-ary details later ' - Other patients., Mr. Rourke told the Post writer, have bitterly assailed such items as poor coffee, lukewarm food, the lack of essential privacy, noisy corri dors, extreme restrictions on visitors, awkward room arrangements, inability to find oyt what was happening to them, nurses who don’t come when called, thoughtless or rude admission clerks, the use of the standard wall color known commonly as hospital huff and sometimes as pale nausea yellow, and especii ent and apparently sacred custom of awakening patients at five or six o'clock in the morning. am reminded of the article in the Post by J have just rear] in the latest issue of ‘‘The Bulletin,” published by' our University of North < jirolina School of Medicine in cooperation with thr- Whitehead Society and the Medical Foundation. This article is by Irving - f’arlyle, prominent attorney of Winston- Salem, former president of the N. < Bar Asocial ion, former State Senator, I and one of the leading advocates of the Good Health Movement in North Caro lina, One passage in Mr. Carlyle’s article reads as follows: * “The general citizen wants and ex pects the atmosphere of the medical center to be one of kindliness and while a patient there he expects t.o be treated as a human being and not as a part of the documentary evidence in support of a scientific theory. He will rebel against being treated as just another guinea-pig. The state of his health is a Very personal matter to him and he ex pects to be treated at the medical een ■ ter in a very personal way arid with a I very special care. He believes very I strongly that in the patient the medical I center^-should move, live and have its I being.” V I The patients’ experiences described ■ in the Post recalled to me one an ac -3 quaintaflee of mine had when Tie wont M to a hospital after he had suffered a serious thrombosis. No time should have been lost in getting him to : bed. but instead of being taken there im mediately he had to stand up at a counter for several minutes and gi\e various, biographical and financial de ’ tails for,a clerk to enter upon a filing card. Various practices just-as’stupid and inconsiderate as this are recalled by mama yierson who has been a. hospital patient. I hear rejiorts of Utter jierformance in the last two r three years. 1 am glad the 'hospitals , ar* displaying a (barer inderstanding of the attitude they -Tv uld have toward patients and that they are coming nearer to being the place Mr. Carlyle pictures as an idea! ‘‘one of kindliness, w here a patient expects to be treated as a human being arid not a- a part of the documentary evident* in support of a scientific theory.’—EG. The Christmas Slaughter (N»» York Hrrald Tribune! Death in any holiday season is always doubly {Kiignant, and never more so that at 1 ' • tma th< tjmi '■ he< r and hope. The death toll which has just been chalked up on the nation’s high ways is nothing short of horrible. The final figure will not b« known for s/tru* time. for. there are those who will die tomorrow of today's injuries. But the ultimate ' toll will b* heavy, even a record, .according to those who study the grim statistics'. And though joy and contentment should be universal, today sorrow and bitterness engulf the Christ? mas spirit in hundreds of h.orne through'Kjt the land. Jf there were signs of any abatement of .these regular holiday tolls, one might reluctantly accept them a.- part of the price to be paid for tin- universality of highway travel. After all, no nation in th<‘ world approaches America either in the number of automobiles or the number of people who enjoy their use. Old concepts of travel 'knd transpor tation- have had to be completely re ed with many of the changes oc ■ rr in j I ( -a i . I n rn a cases highway- planning and building has not caught-up with the power and l*opularity of today 's cars. And in some cases the motorists themsektare hard put 1 o measure up to the potential of Jheir intricate and powerful ma chines. - Yet it remains a.- true of today’s cars as of practically every form of trans port devi.-ed by man that caution and common sense will prevent all but a small proportion of accidents. The stories told by the survivors of acci dents are nine times out of ten the stories of rules, broken, or warnings ig nored, or chances taken. And 'most un fortunate of all is the fact that a small proportion of reckless drivers can create havoc far in excess of their own num bers, bringing disaster upon others as well as themselves. j The one hup* for an amelioration of the situation seems to lie in the growing uneasiness and concern over the periodic death list. Eventually thi.- must surely bring about* irresistible pressure for a tightening of traffic laws and the irn position of more severe penalties upon violators. Safety devices are already be ing introduced by the auto rrianufactur ers lit grow rug' numbers. But most im portant of all is the likelihood that the horror of these repeated tragedies is being hammered into the public con sciousness. Some day all these factors are bound to take effect. Unfortunately-? ' they will never erase the tragic record of Christmas, 1955. The House That Henry Ford Built Henry Ford was 40 years old before he “really began to make money. Jl*. was 52 when hr l startled the business world by announcing that he would pay his workers a minimum of $5 a day. Ford started his company with $28,- 000, mostly borrowed. A Detroit bank er who put up $10,500 in 1910 sold his stock back to Ford twenty years later for $26,250,000. The others did just as well, proportionately. Right now, for the first time, the company which he formed in 1902 and which is still all but the private domain of his descendants has just disclosed its financial status. Its assets amount to $2,500,000,000. A Presidential Crown of Thorns Ezra Stiles, President of Yale Col lege 1788-1795; “A hundred and fifty young Gentlemen students are a bundle of Wildfire not easily controlled and governed "--and at beßt the Diadem of a college president is a Crown of Thorns.” . . THE CHAPEL hUi. WEEKLY * Former Airplane Mechanic ( V/. H. Ray, Chapel Hill's Assistant Fire Chief, Remembers Service Plants Blaze as the Most Dangerous He Has Seen B> !,yn Orr-rman t At* istant Fin Chief W. H. Ka> it lanky and personatle « x- Mari' * whose interest* have raided fmm airplanes to j imii ’tv has been serving nhapt Hill now f'»r about 10 , y.t-ar "Yi'U might say J’ve • b**en with ‘he fir» department long •enough to sei de.'.rlop from almost a volunteer outfit to a jaying one.' he said. Mr Ray. father of t’WC teen ag< girls, a native of < 'hap* I I H.il in! attend*"! f'hapd Hill srhools before he decided to become ar, airplane* mechanic when the University began its pre flight trait ng during the early forties “During (L* t!mt ‘ 1 ri ve d on | a farm near here and also work*-*! f ir Strowd Motor Com- t hen was . the- Marine; f< r about two arid a half year*-.” Upon his return to < hajx-i Hill in 1540 after serving in the South Pan Sic, Mr Ray _•.tried ttie fm- department. At that time, tie -aid, the fire department r.oi.-isted of three Chapel Hill Chaff (Continued from nage 1) W hat turn*my thought.- ’■< tennis wa- Walter EaUm's r»7,r.ng me aimut f hafiel iJii! * . , , , , Wrot* years ago,” h< said one day "two weeks ag- when the temj - erature was way below free/ ing, “that you •- od play teri ni.s here on Ct.i-.Mma.fc Day Well, after hr thstl weather turned warm and on Christmas Day the mercury went up to 75. Messrs. Jordan, Cowden. Mcfiintj arid the jun ior McCinty fiayed on the Jordan court ti.at afternoon and my nephew Pembroke lines, and- J wint uji to get some snapshots of ern to show Mr. Eaton When photographs «<f the j myers had been taken, I r.aui ’ one r.f t.h<** "Hand n.'e ay 1 . that racquet ... et mi trj a swiiig.' I too, my star,ir on th< serving'hr,* tossed the bail up. and wu g at it J would lik< to be at • to report ».o>rung woi tl.a> I knocked l! into till net OI ovei the hack-tofi Hot wf hafifn-ii *;<]• was tliat tile b.ei* t*-H on the ground at my /*■• t br-i-auv 1 iniased it ait.uj-o t.li* i J related this nil st ilt in a ,* tter ■to rny fr ien*l Viv at .Manning of Creenvji • S 1 who was champion in noth states ni li>23, and In K'plied “Youi report on your attemp' t.o show how w< ’ you roiiid still serve a tenni tiail maki in*- feel better In a lull in . game 1 was looking at la-t .-urn im-r somebody told the com puny what a wonderfuJ play er I was and gave me a big build up by reciting my record I in great detai.b i» offght to * have known enough to keep**' stiJJ, but i borrowed a racquet and a i.ail to' show ’em how to nerve. The result was dis graceful. i swung twice and missed the damned ball both IJUK-S ” (ias aud Morals m (The Greensboro liaiiy News) “Tiie most lateresting thing n* the W- stern Hemisphere of Wonderland,” said Alice to the Mad Hatter, “is the charming British signs at the petrol booths.” “No ..child,” said the Hall “Those yirc not British at ail, but American, and in this place they'are called filling stations, and petrol i, INiowu as gas. fine.” ■ “How strange,” Alice said. "But why are they written just so like* 2<i and nine jience ? ” t “Why, they mean 2h and ■* nine-tenths of a rent per gal ion, child.” “And why, pray, would they make the ‘2<i' so terribly, i\i ribly large, and write the 'nine’ in such a tiny way that one cKn scarce see it?” “Well, it is a custom of the country,” said the Hatter. “A curious one. I believe this is not a very moral countryvL “Whatever leads you to say such an ugly thing of our . , kind hosts?” “‘Weil, it’s plainly, true if petrol is 26 cents, why don’t they say so? And if it is 27 cents, couldn't they'" say as nuu«h, rather than hiding the •aid .cent in the little tenths? It’s , dishonesty and an out rage.” “But everyone in America understands: Every soul who drives a motor knows the figure is hidden." . —“Then it ’ is all the more hideous," said Alice. “The pe trol people are deceiving the motor car people, and all of "w :r7 *nr%' —Photo by Lavergne U H. KAY men am! two trucks. He and Chief J > Boone have seen the department grow to seven firemen and three trucks, Every f : reman remembers one blav.c of his career which seems ,to him to have been f Like t kapel iilil A reader writes: “Regardiifg your quotation from a Mr. W harton concerning whistling girls, ]& me say that the idea that whistling is un-ladylike went out about the time his grandfather died in 1902. “The version I have heard for 60 years is: ‘Girl- who whistle and hens ihat crow Make their way wherever they g<i.’ j “Jf you had ever hear*) a girls’ choir in a whistling -ong, you woulri prontrunce it delightful. “Teach Annis Lillian to whistle her songs and you 1 will he charmed. It is a beautiful accomplishment. An alto and soprano whistling duet should not be* compared t<; a boy’s'’’loud and raucous whistle—or the wolf call '4 4 c 4 * I hav* too much trouble presently teaching Annis Lillian what little I know about verb tenses to under take instruction in how she should purse her lips to whistle. And I’m about to surrender with the con ■ lotion that p.re-ibly Annis Lillian gets along well enough to be let .alone. For instance, she says, “Yesterday 1 cutted out a paper doll and putted it in my room.” 1 know what she means; and mi does everyone wlii) hfar> her.; so why try to confuse her now with encouragement to omit “ted”, when more than half the words in her vocabulary are so aimed in the •a.-1 t• ■f ■< We got around to reminiscing the other evening about my elementary, school days, and how 1 almost dro\e public health nurse.- nuts. . It all started with a sore throat and mother jirescribed a morning gargle' of warm salt water. That happened to be on th* day w,e kids were lined up for examination, and*-one of the nurses [siked a piece of lumber in my mouth, pressed down my tongue- and murmered, “White patches, diphtheria. Go home.” Mother'didn’t believe 1 had diphtheria, and < ar ried me to the family doctor, who didn’t Think so either. But the health department decorated the house with- a yellow-sign aud sai*Ld t*. have an anti toxin. 1 got it, and it nearly RilTeii me. 1 didji’t have it. Due other time, the nurses nteasuml and'weighed us. I measured about three feet tall and weighed about 50 pounds, and the nurse, after ‘looking at her little-*printed sheet, hung around mv neck a red card which announced that 1 was 25 pounds over weight for my size. from then on, I delighted in being rough tin them. Whenever they d conn- into the classroom ami ask those who drank a pint of healthy milk a day to hold up their hands, 1 d keep mine down. But when they wanted to know who drank nasty old coffee, J_’d stand up in my seat, wave my hand and tell them how much J weighed. “Children should never drink coffee,” the nurse would counter. Then, 1 d say: “My grandmother raised 12 child ren, and. the lirst solid food they got was soakie bread. And J still have soakie bread every morning.” Boakie bread I had, too, until I got old enough to feel that it wasn’t gentlemanly to dip my biscuit in the coffee. * * * * >s ' . If those New Year resolutions which meet an early death had to be burned, the fire department would la 1 overworked issuing permits January 2. * + * * Best advice at this season is don’t let your swear offs wear off. •**- them know it well. This is a whole country trying to per suade itself that it is paying 26 for 27 cent petrol. 1 believe 'Jifcherwise, they would conclude they could not afford it. Why on earth cannot they be can did?” “Child, you must not babble nonsense. Can you not see that we are now in an advanced part of the world where Busi ness comes before Candor?" "I beg -your pardon-/' said Alice, much abashed. “You must’remember that one-tenth of my questions are quite be yond my control.” the most dangerous, Mr. Ray admitted His.,s'.the blaze that burned out the top of the Uni versity Service Hunts building in the late forties. “The people in the building didn't know the place was on fire until uft<-r we arrived and the roi f had almost caved in,” he said. “But everybody got out all right. “We were called to investi gate what seemed to- every body else a fire in a chimney,” he -a.! “2 he i eople on t• 1 second floor didn't know that the. entire attic was burning.” “It was a cold day. sieeting and ranking,” hi said. “\V# were able to get It under eon trol in about an hour Most of the damage from the fire waa confined to the attic.” Mr. Ray also does another job for Chapel Hill, that of plumbing inspector, which, he said, amounts to part time work. H*- and his wife, formerly Edith Diggs of Facrington, live at C Justice Street. Then two daughters are Virginia Browning ' IS, and- Bert.*,., Louise, 11. Before the bridge was built, Uncle A domra m ran the ferry at Coon Ktvier Crossing. The fare was five cents. One day ■Bhrimp Patter wanted to cross. But he had only three cents. Un<Tg' Adpniram chewed on it for a while, then an nounced his decision. “If a man ain't got but three cents, it don’t make no difference which side of the, river he’s on.”—Stanly News & Press “It takes a mighty conscient ious man to tell whether he’s tired or just lazy.”—Keller’s Kwickiea On the Toirn I By Chuck Hauser " ~tir-<rr.n-mti .itr 1 PEOPLE IN PUBLIC LIFE often have sensible and reasonable justification for making “No com ment” statements when asked for their opinion on public issues in their field. Sometimes, however, they make themselves look either downright silly or ex ceedingly stupid by refusing to express their views on something which is a matter of public interest. I don’t mean for the above comments of mine to reflect directly on Gordon Blackwell, a member of the Chapel Hill School Board, but ] wish to use Mr. Blackwell as an example of a ridiculous extreme in this “No comment” business. rhe action of the state’s Advisory Committee on • Education in recommending suspension of activities of similar committees on the local level has been a subject of many thousands of words of copy in the state press for the past week. Yet when Lyn Overman, our reporter, called Mr. Blackwell and asked him what he thought about the situation, he made the following statement: “Yoy can put me down as ‘no opinion.’ ’ Which prompts me to ask Mr. Blackwell, who, as a member of tin- School Board, is a public official: Why, Mr. Blackwell? Why is it, even if you don’t cart? to express your opinion, that you apparently have none? * * * * I STOPPED IN AT SUTTON’S drug store the other day for a quick bite to eat before 1 dashed out to Raleigh-Durham airport to meet a plane. The fastest sandwich in prospect seemed to be a hot dog, and that’s what I ordered. “All the way?” asked the pert young thing be hind the counter. "No,” 1 said, "not all the way. 1 don’t want onions.” She mumbled something that sounded like they didn t have any onions or didn’t like onions them selves, and then “ie asked me again, "You want it all the way?” “No onions,” I insisted. “We don’t put onions on them anyway,” she said, distinctly this time. "You want it all the way?” 1 gave up. After all, 1 had a plane to meet. “Yes,” I surrendered. “All the way.” { * * * * AN ANONYMOUS POSTAL CARD (it was signed Noblesse Oblige > which arrived in the mail from < harloti e shortly* before < hristmas bore a clipping of a recent Weekly headline and a message. The head line, from the story of what we called the “Great Pop corn fire,” read as follows: “The Kids Were Disap pointed It referred to the fact that the children who went to the tire looking tor free popcorn didn’t get any. Here’s the message from the card: . “How did they manifest it? By bleating? Or do only lambs bleat? 1 believe that a paper published in a l Diversity village is-under a special obligation to manifest evidences of at least resjiectable learning; tliat not so to d*i reflects on the Uni. and*on the State that supports the U. (in this instance). I am not it graduate of Chapel Hill, neither is either of my children; but J am taxed to support the U. of N.” In answer to the reader’s questions, 1 would point out that riot only lambs but certain types of people often Meat. I believe it is fairly, manifest (to use a word with which our correspondent seems overly im pressed) nowadays that the word “kids” may be used colloquially to mean children—and is so authorized by modern dictionaries*—just as we use terms such as “youngsters,” ’ “young’uns,” “small fry/’ etc. Used m its literal sense, a "kid” is a baby goat, and has nothing to do with a “Jamb,” which is a young sheep. W e want reader “Noblesse Oblige” to feel free to bleat to the Weekly any time he feels we have dis graced the l niversity and undermined the English language. • I HE i AROLJNA COFFEE SHOP reports that at hast one University student was well fed BEFORE he went home for the Christmas holidays. The sub ject of the report—a skinny fellow about six feet fall walked into tin- restaurant and ordered break fast on the last morning of the University’s fall teim. And what a breakfast he ordered! I welve eggs, scrambled; six strips of bacon; <‘igbt pieces of buttered toast, accompanied by four containers of jelly; three cups of coffee, one glass <<t water, and a large serving of grits. * * * * JIIF NEW ToRK TIMES, which always manages to“urn up with something fascinating sandwiched in between all the gray matter, published a report recently irom Lakin, Kansas, having to do with the troubles of newspapermen. 1 be editor of the Lakin Independent, a fellow named Monte Canfield, was getting his front page on the press in «i f us i so he could dash off to a newspaper convention In the process of transferring the front page form—a metal framework which holds the type together-to the press, e dropped it, and headlines, news stories and a- ot\e-you crashed to the floor of the printshop in an unholy scramble. v line pSthe'/Z ~™ l 7 went '» " otl < »nd, line by but there wl J K ’ '! a,i see ™d to make sense .Lp S.tTr c/f lrdrr l’or T oVtr - Thia did "? lines in a b„x atfhe *V P ™ ted lhe extr * nounced (o hia readers that he Z , '’ aKC and m ' * see who could p“ the j‘„es d '" g “ Co , ntMt corrfuS/Sed" 1 " '* for c„rrectXwer“he KEBAB-BUFFET EVERY SUNDAY Tuesday, January 3, 1956