Page Two
The Chapel Hill Weekly
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
ISC E. I— 17 Telephone *-l?71 or MCI
Pnbit&Wd Etwt Tneaday and Friday
By TW Chapel Hill PoWishin* Compan*. Ik
Lons Graves Contributing Editor
Jot Jojcxs Managing Editor
Billy Arthur Associate Editor
Chuck Hauser I Associate Editor
Or'.tllt Campbell Geuerai Manager
O. T. Watkins Advertising Director
Fred Dali Circulation, Manager
Charlton Campbell Mechanical Svpt.
taterec a* »e«m<J-tlaoi mitier February St ISSt. ■>
the potiottic* at Chape. H.L North Carolina under
the act of March 1, IB7S
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
It Orange County Year C4.OC
*(C month* J *.2. r ; £ month*, JI M* 1
Outside of Orange County by the Year:
State of N. C., Va., anc £. C —. C. 60
Other State* and Hist, of Columbia 6.00
Canada, Mexico, South America V.OO
Europe
Mr. Rfibins Teeters Between Yes and No
To Invitation to Authorize Research
Into Family**. Armorial Bearings
By Sidney Swanr Robins
A day or so ago, my attention was
called to an advertisement in a pood
magazine offering to search out, verify,
and provide a coat of arms for whoever
sent in the right amount of dollars. Os
course I am thinking of joining the
procession, only ] have a few confused
ideas which need to be sorted out first.
The Encyclopedia says that King
Henry V (Shakespeare's Prince Hal)
prohibited from assuming armorial
rights or bearings all persons who had
not borne them at the battle of Agin
court or got their excuse for not being
there accepted by him. In after years
for a long time coats of arms signified
military leadership oil an hereditary
sort; or went with a iamily's preten
sions to inherited gentility if not no
bility. In England, as elsewhere, there
was a system of heraldry which col
lected and filed and protected shields,
bearings, charges, even bar Ministers,
and all the rest of it. While a few church
people had insignia they used on seals,
or over a gateway, the notion that the
mass of the common people owned ar
morial bearings would have entirely
.spoiled the game. In fact that notion
may be a recent American one.
The question arises, then, bf who are
the common people in the hereditary
sense of it.
Well, many of us had supposed that
Smith was the commonest English name
in the United States. But at the time of
the First World War it was: reported
that the draft had turned up more John
sons than Smiths, with the Joneses I be
lieve running third.
Johnson is one of the class of sur
names based on given ones: Adam-spn,
David-son, Jack-son, John-son, Richard
son, Robin-son, Robert-son, Thom-son,
William-son. Dr. Kemp P. Battle once
told me that this class of names had been
shortened in many places to Adams,
Davis, Fredericks, Higgins, Jacks, Johns
or Jones, Peters, Richards, Robins, Sim
ons, Williams, and so on. This ought to
be the biggest class of down-to-earth
common names; and of common people,
if it is at all hereditary with the name.
One thing the poorest man of the poor
always had to leave his son was a given
name.
Next to this class perhaps (I do not
know) might come the people surnamed
for some trade or skill: Barbers, Bak
,-ers, Cowherds or Cowards, Farmers,
Goldsmiths and Smiths, Miners, Potters,
Porters, Shepherds, Wrights, Wheel
wrights and so on. 'These are the people
that got named because their ancestors
were skilled workers or artisans. In so
far as they have more dignity and it
can be inherited, it is the dignity of
skilled labor over against unskilled.
I guess the next largest class to these
must be those who got their names
from some place where they lived, or,
like the old woman who lived in the
shoe, just dwelt: P'ields, Hills, Marshes,
Glens, Forests, Littlefields, Ponds, Pitts,
Johnstowns or Johnstons, Thorntons,
Washingtons, Chathams, Cunninghams,
Grahams, Winninghams, Church-hills,
Berkshire's, Lancasters, and the like. If
a family got named for a big and im
portant enough place, thatAvas honor
ific. So here in some instances we may
be on the borderland of what used to
be considered the gentry. But we are
still some distance from the Howards,
Montmorencies, De Veres and Windsors,
who may have got knighted or more
than that by William the. Conqueror.
Os course there seem to have been top
clans of even some of the top-names.
the Johnson tribe, I saw the other day a
Johnson coat of arms, with a knight’s
casque at' the top and a lot of other
fixings. You might think that these
hereditary distinctions are at least
threatening to penetrate ' towards the
bottom of the pile. Certainly they are
spreading out. And this is not to say
that some of the Johnsons have not
done mighty well since other matters
than charging around on horseback with
a spear have, come to the front. One of
them compiled a famous dictionary!
By the way, we believe most of the
Joneses belong to the Johnson tribe,
too. although a few of them may be
Jonah sons. That spreads them out quite
a lot more.
Lest anyone should think I am taken
with a jealousy of the Johnsons in this
matter of coats of arms, let me say that
not too long ago I had a direct letter,
out of the blue, from one of these firms
that discover and guarantee and paint
up and provide such things for a sum,
who point-blank offered to sene the
Robins family in that wav.
1 threw the letter in the waste-basket,
partly for fear lest the armorial bear
ings might present too much difficulty.
The only thing I could think of myself
that seemed at all appropriate would be
a robin-redbreast, on a field not azure
but ploughed, proudly holding a fat
worm in his bill. Robin Hood and his
bow did not even occur to me: there are
too many Robins back there.
But since noting the Johnsons have
arrived, I may think it all over, recon
sider. and just leave the bearings, crest,
and whether the animai is to be a uni
corn or whatever, to those who better
understand the whole matter as it ap
pears to latter-day heralds.
Payload to Gloom
The radio and the jukeboxes current
ly appear to be freewheeling the listen
ing public straight down the gloomy
road to acute melancholia under a sway
ing payload of despairing ditties. Cases,
in immediate point are “Sixteen Tons,”
which only recently reclined into the Hit
Parade’s past at the very moment, co
incidentally, that its author went ber
serk in California and committed, among
other breaches of social decor, the
scarcely pardonable act of pistol-whip
ping his wife; “Chain Gang,” a moody
chant, orchestrated in the background
with slowly throbbing drums, which
brings sharply into the mind’s focus
those dreary brown trucks filled with
state prison camp inmates one sees
trundling up and down the highways
bearing their cargo to labor over a re
calcitrant culvert or to a session of
grinding down North Carolina’s topog
raphy into a few miles of well-graded
thoroughfare; and “Mabelene,” a rather
desperate ballad popular at the end of
last summer dealing with an uncoopera
tive Cadillac and expressing to a fault
the owner's anguish over the unrelia
bility of his machine —“Mabelene, whah
cain’t you be troooo?”
In view of this present penchant on
the part of popular song-breeders to
produce songs only rivalled in their
morbidity, in our opinion, by the musi
cal moaning of a Russian in the most
misanthropic of collective moods, we
think it probable that more topics be
sides poverty (“Sixteen Tons), crime
(“Chain Gang”), and mechanization
(“Mabelene”) will eventually succumb
to membership in the languishing ranks
of this popular musical purgatory. Next,
we foresee, will come the Integration
Blues; for all we know, its lamenting
cadences may deplore the situation from
either point of view, white or colored.
Further, some bright-eyed and black
minded wag will no doubt scratch off a
soul-rending, tear-jerking (and pre
written) eulogy for Ike, since a common
opinion is that, should he win the next
election, he won’t live through his term.
Thus we have brotherhood and politics
dealt with. Finally, what with the cur
rent bond-floating and town-versus
county-taxes issues now being booted so
concernedly from camp to camp within
Orange County, locals rnay well wind up
discovering that they have harbored
within their very nest the viper who, we
predict, will originate the “Taxation
Dirge.”
Under these deadening influences we
can visualize a sharp nationwide up
swing (with a doleful, doleful down
beat!) in the frequency of dementia
praecox. Anybody care to hold a wake?
—J. A. C. D.
Jefferson, writing to John Dickinson;
“I am tired of an office where I can do
no*more good than many others who
would be vlad to be employed in it.”
THE CHAPEL HILL WEEKLY
| . On the Town j
I By Chock Hauaer .
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION for the Advance
ment of Colored People has long been an object of scorn
among those Southerners who are fearful that their
“way of life" is being endangered by carpetbaggers and
meddlers from the North. It has been a target of much
unfair criticism and many unjustified charges, such as
the familiar one that it is Communist-dominated.
In the past I have tried to look at the NAACP as an
organization which, although it made many human er
rors. was sincerely trying to improve the lot of the
Negro race. I cannot so picture it any longer. It has
become a vocal instrument second to none in the nation
.in its blind accomplishments in inspiring race hatred
and racial violence.
The NAACP has become intolerant and vicious-in
its fight against intolerance and viciousness. By so doing
it has lost many of the middle-of-the-road white friends
and defenders it once Had in the South. With the inte
gration controversy becoming more explosive daily, the
NAACP will probably never be able to win back those
former friends who have been disgusted by its excesses.
Take the Autherine Lucy case as an example. When
Miss Lucy was suspended from the University of Ala
bama. she charged that University officials in effect
conspired with the mob to create such conditions that
her own safety could be used as an excuse for the sus
pension. The University then quite properly expelled her
for making serious, unsubstantiated charges against its
officers. Her statements were probably written by Thur
good Marshall, chief counsel for the NAACP, and/or
Arthur P. Shores, her Tuscaloosa attorney who received
his pay for handling the case from NAACP funds.
I thought this turn of events —and again I wish to
say that 1 consider the University of Alabama fully
justified in expelling her on disciplinary grounds—
would teach the NAACP a lesson. I thought it would
teach the organization that moderation is a good thing,
and angry charges and unsupported statements do
nothing but create ill will. The NAACP had engaged in
a practice which it consistently condemns in the white
man, and it had received its just deserts.
But did this teach the NAACP a lesson? Hell, no.
Take a look at these newspaper reports on events which
occurred after Miss Lucy’s expulsion:
On Saturday morning, the Associated Press carried
a story on the confirmation of Senator James Eastland
of Mississippi as chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
The committee handles civil rights legislation, and East
land, of course, is an outspoken foe of integration.
The AP reported that Clarence Mitchell, Washing
ton director for the NAACP, made the following state
ment: “The Senate of the United States has just voted
to put an accessory to murder and treason in its most
powerful judicial position. With the exception of the
two senators (Morse and Lehman) who opposed this res
olution, all others who were present when the vote
was taken are guilty of looking the other way when a
mad dog is loose in the streets of justice.”
Two days, later Mitchell made the following com
ment in reference to the Democratic Party: “If they’re
going to keep a stinking albatross like Senator Eastland
around their neck,, they’ve got to kiss our votes good
bye.”
Now I have no patience with demagogues like Sen
ator James Eastland of Mississippi. I think the Senate is
guilty of sacrificing common sense on the altar of tra
dition in falling in line with the outdated seniority
rule and confirming his chairmanship.
But I have even less patience with the intemperate
language of the NAAGP’s spokesman in his references
to the Senator. If anything, Mitchell’s remarks would
put me-in a position of defending Eastland, and that is
a position that does not sit well on my stomach.
Some day the National Association for the Advance
ment of Colored People will learn that it can never
advance anything hut bitterness and hatred by its use
of unfounded charges, reckless name-calling, and un
restrained mud-slinging. But I am afraid that by that
time it will be too late.
Chapel Hill Chaff
(Continued from page 1)
might have been so devoid of
conscience as to raid your pile.
This crime has been committed
many a time against an inno
cent newcomer*
What started me on this line
was the following passage in a
letter 1 got yesterday from
Nell Battle Lewis:
"When my father was a stu
dent in the University, just be
fore it was closed by Recon
struction, he roomed in the Old
Last. He often said that the
fireplace in his room was the
best he’d ever seen. So, for the
sitting-room at Cloverdale, our
home—in the country then—to
which we moved from North
Wilming-ton Street in Raleigh
in my early childhood, he got
the measurements of that Old
Last fireplace.
"The Cloverdale sitting-room
fireplace, build according to
those measurements, substanti
ated ail his claims for its mod
el. It was the best-drawing
fireplace I ever saw. Jo Ches
hire was so impressed by it
that he had the fireplaces in
his house in Cameron Park
made according to the same
measurements, and when 1 built
my house on St. Mary’s Street
I used the same for the fire
place in my living-room. It car
ries on the good l ' tradition,
though with oil heat I don’t
use it much now. While an
open fire is mighty pretty
cozy, it's u lot of trouble.
"Neither Jo nor I can re
member the number of the
room in Old East that Father
had.”
* • •
Few of the people in Chapel
Hill who read the poem, “lies-
HiiyiiiiiMfa
will know that it is by Mrs.
Wyncie King, for it is pub
lished under her maiden name,
Hortense Flexner. Mr. and Mrs.
King came here last Septem
ber and are living at the Caro
lina Inn. He is an illustrator
and caricaturist. She is a writ
er of poems and stories and has
written several, books for chil
dren. Because she has retired
from the faculty of Sarah Law
rence College in Bronxville,
N.Y., and Mr. King belongs to
a profession that can be prac
ticed at one place as well as
another—"carried around in
the pocket,” as is sometimes
said—they are in that un
tethered condition that permits
them to live where they please;
and their latest declaration on
the subject is that they please
to live in Chapel Hill. I will
report later on whether their
plan is to stay on at the Inn
or to look around for other
quarters. Every summer they
go to an island off the coast of
Maine.
No Thank You, Ma’am
(Goldsboro News-Argus)
When we were just babies,
Mama began to train us in
what was the accepted ameni-.
ties of that day.
For instance, if you 1 were
visiting at the home of a friend
and the Lady of the House
invited you to. have some cun
dy. Or ice cream. Or a cup
of coffee with cake. Good man
ners required that you smile
and say “No, thank you, Ma
tt
am.
If the offer were repeated
a third time, you were free
to accept it with gracious
M^yuluaybi
The \
Roundabout
Paper*
J- A. C. Dunn
We're getting awfully tired
of the political, speech-making
use of the word “task. - ' Now,
now, politicans, don_’t inflate
yourselves and blush a righte
ously indignant red-herring
crimson. You know perfectly
well what we mean by the po
litical use of the word “task":
"The task before us is not one
of self-aggrandizement . .
“Our task may be of gargantu
an stature, but . . "The gruel
ling task we have inherited
may severely try our sinews,
but cannot dismay . . You
know quite well what we mean.
The trouble with “task” is
its transparency. It is obvious
ly a Sunday-meet-and-get-to
gether word, used for public
speeches of the utmost politi
cal importance, and sometimes,
by those solons (another word
we don’t like, but we’re getting
tired of “politicians”) who gen
erally don’t have the oppor
tunity to say anything of any
political importance for any
body but themselves, for
speeches of no particular "pith
and moment.” “Task” immedi
ately conveys a haloed image
of self-sacrifice, dedication, up
rightness, diligence, honesty,
humility, brushing one’s teeth
after every meal, helping old
ladies across the street, and
not picking one’s nose in pub
lic. There is, of course, nothing
wrong with all those virtues,
including the teeth, the ladies,
and the nose; highly commend
able, every single one of them,
and, admittedly, possessed by
many men. But it seems to us
that the men who possess them
don’t talk about them, or they
wouldn’t possess them (this
syntax is getting rather in
volved; perhaps it would help
to point out that “them” refers
to "virtues.” There, now
we’re grammatically vindi
cated); and it also seems to us
• that using “task,” with the
eyes raised reverently (and de
signedly) to God and the
hand extended in the air fox
everyone to see that its owner
is quite willing to have it
stricken off should he stray so
much as a milimeter from the
c truth, indicates a tendency to
talk about one’s virtues. This
is a subtle nuance of language,
but you know what we mean.
We believe that all one really
need do to tell people some
thing is just say it, just say
the words. If one happens to be
writing fiction, a little color
never hurts, but “task” does
not not come under the heading
of color when used for political
purposes. Could the next po
litically prominent man who
makes a speech, say, about in
tegration, instead of winding
himself up in his vocabulary,
just haul off and tell his audi
ence, “Dammit, we’ve got to in
tegrate ourselves. It’s gonna be
a hell of a chore. You know it.
I know it. Now let’s stop all
his bruhaha and fooferaw and
GET INTEGRATED (or, de
pending on the topic of the
speech, Buy Bonds, (j*t () ut
and Vote, Get Out and Stop
Drinking Your Fool Heads Off,
or Go Native).”? Wouldn’t that
be nicer? Certainly it would.
People don’t know what to do
with a silly “task.” What they
want is a plain old dirt-under
the-fingernails JOB and, pos
sibly, though not as often, a
“responsibility.” Some people
will respond favorably when
prodded with a responsibility,
most people will leap like frogs
when poked with a job; few
people, when flapped at with
a “task,” do anything but let
their mouths droop open, thus
providing more real estate for
the flies.
quired to “mirate” upon the
goodness, the coolness, the
quality of whatever refresh
ment was provided.
The Good Ladies of Sweet
Union knew full well this false
pretense in the name of man
ners and modesty, and they
quickly made the offer a third
time and gave you the right
to enjoy yourself.
A friend was recalling how
he was trained in the same
school down in Pasquotank.
He was courting a girl whose
folks had come to Elizabeth
City with the Coast Guard.
They were gentle and well
bred people, but in their dic
tionary of etiquettf frankness
and truth were paramount.
When the girl’s mother of
fered cake and tea, the Pasquo
tanker, mindful of “his rais
ing,” said “No, thank you, Ma
’am.”
He was lying in his teeth
when he said it for he was
just back from a long hunt
on a cold and windy day and
was simply starving.
So he said, “No, thank you,
Ma’am.”
And the girl’s mother took
him at his word. He got no
tea and cake.
After _ that when he went
jgjjgg: I Like Chapel BUI jljjjjjM
I have a dark blue shirt, which if it were any
bluer would be black. I’ve named it Damon Runyon,
because it’s typical of the shirts of the men and the
period he wrote about, and I wear it every Friday as
a reminder to view the Damon Runyon TV shows that
evening.
* * *
This column is getting up in the world, or in the
heavens, or something. At least, one item of it went
to church last Sunday and was mentioned in a local
pulpit.
It’s cheerful to know that I have finally composed
something inspirational. More than that, it’s a good
deal of comfort, specially for one who has trouble find
ing the responsive readings in the Methodist hymnal.
On a recent Sunday at the Aldersgate Church,
I searched and searched for the page that contained
the reading, and finally located it as the minister and
congregation were about to finish.
I got temporarily confused because in the forepart
of the book, there are no page numbers. The selections
are numbered instead; sometimes there are two to
a page, sometimes a hymn extends from one page to
another. But in the back of the book, where the ritual
and responsive readings are contained, the pages are
numbered. More confusing was the fact that when 1
opened the book, I got in the hymn section. Anyway,
I didn’t get out until it was almost too late.
The answer probably is that I should get better
acquainted with the Methodist hymnal by going to
church more often. I’ll buy that.
But I wish that our good bishops, preachers, lay
men and musicians who selected the hymns for it
had bought themselves something—an old fashioned
song book.
I’ve never liked our new hymnal since it was is
sued for the first time, the second time and the third
time.
About three commissions have had hands in it,
and it seems each one has put in it songs that are
harder to sing, tunes that range from low G to high C,
and with tempos that require five minutes to go from
the first verse through the fourth and amen.
Certainly, the words and the septiment are OK,
but I want to sing. I want to sing songs like “Love
Marching to Zion” and "Love Lifted Me,” and I want to
sing them spiritedly and happily in a tempo that they
should be sung in. But those two, and many others I
could mention, are not in the new hymnal. What I call
good songs—for instance, most of those that Rhod
heaver wrote—are not in the hymnal. No, they are
in the book that’s usually used at Sunday School.
Give me the old-fashioned revival songs, songs
that are happy, that one can bear down on and sing
and not strain and bust a blood vessel trying to reach
and hold high quarter notes for three beats when it de
serves only one.
courting and the girl’s mother
offered refreshments he knew
full well to accept with thanks
on the first offer if he really
desired a bit to eat or drink.
The rule of saying, “No,
thank you, Ma’am” apparently
has gone the way of the dodo
for today’s child.
The other Sunday we invit
ed a 10-year-old miss with
whom we had ridden in an
auto from church to “come
in and have some cake.”
She was deeply thoughtful
for a moment and then said:
“What kind of cake is it?”
it’s nice for children to have
pets until the pets have chil
dren.—Yuma (Col.) Pioneer
« ■" '■ ' 1 ■ ■
HEAR YE...
HEARYE...
-l
3 , % J Ear "Ini.from 1 SIT
INTEREST
ORANGE COMNTY
BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATION
Weat Franklin St. T*l. 9-8761
Friday, March 9, 1956
A four-engine RSD, called
the “Flying Laboratory,” is at
tached to the Electronics Test
Division of the Naval Air Test
Center, Patuxent River, Md.
Electronics Test installs air
craft instruments in the plane
and tests them at altitudes.
The Naval Air Test Center,
Patuxent River, Md., tests all
new Navy aircraft before they
are delivered to operating
squadrons.
Typical American names found
in Antarctica include Mobiloil
Bay, Wallgreen Coast, Edsel Ford
Range, Rockefeller Mountains,
Wrigley Gulf, Beaumont Bay,
Cape Washington, and of course,
Little America.