Page Two
The Chapel Hill Weekly
Chape! Hill, North Carolina
IJ* E. Roewearr Telephone 0-12T1 or
Peblwtwd Every Toends? «nd Friday
By The On pel Hill PeMwhmg Company, It
Lons Goaves Contributing Editor
Jot Joves Managing Editor
Billy Afthc* Associate Edito*
Or.TLLI Cavpwl-L Genial Manage*
O T Watos JKive-tirmc Dr-ect or
Fwc Dale Crculatwm Manager
Charlton Campbell Mechanical Supi
r«: At Mcood-cteM Frontarj m *>
Irx partofi'.sr *: Chape HiL Non;. Carc-ho*. and*#
tft« a s . a! Mir; 3 IrY
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
It Orang* County, Year ICO©
It month# 12-25. ■' month#. 51.50>
Oat*of Orange County by the b ea*
State of N. C- Va.. ar.c S C *-&<•'
Other State# ano bit", of Columbia 60©
Canaoa. Mexict, South America T OC'
Europe V " M
Case- of Negligence
The taie# of deatr />r. the fr *r.t
page of your newspaper —< f death in
automobile and airplane accident.-, in
ship and tram wrecks, in cave-in- and
bridge and building c iliapse.-. ir, hurri
canes and fiood.-. from fire, from dr wn
ing, from the murder u# acts of vicious
and irresponsible men and women—all
these, frightful as they are. follow so
steadily upon one another, become such
routine ii Kir r< ading thst after a
moment of horror we pa-.- or, to other
part# of the paper or to absorption in
our own tasks and pastime- Nobody is
to be blamed for this. i* i- not ir. hu
man nature to be deeply grief-stricken
about the trouble- <•{. people who ar*
strangers and far away. But now and
trier, one of these chronicles has in it
ar. element of tragedy a p ignanc;. that
make- it linger in the mind.
.such was the article aoout the hon
eymooning couple. Mr. ar.d Mr- Or* r.
A. Pruitt, who were g'-.r.g from ir.ar
lotte to Ashe - ..be las* W«-dnesday by
airplane to vi-it the yr;d*\- parents.
M rri« ir s th Cai
fore they had planned to go by b-s,
but 1 n • th< bu
tickets na ; lan< Then th< t had tran ■ -
1 erred from. th*.r ' r-t-ch - r. j .a.’.* to
amithef lhat would get then to Ashe
•• .!.*• sooner.
About * wei.ty minutes, on’. <4 Char
lotte Pruitt go*, p and won’ to th* rear
of the plane to get hi.- wif* a drink
of water, She ne.er saw him again.
What hap;>-neu .*. a- that he opened the
ooor into the open air when r.e thought
he was opening the door into the men's
room. He f«-l; C.OOO feet and hi- isoy
was found near th* /-.or. C march ceme
tery .- ix miles .north of Shelby.
At her parents' home in Asheville
the heartbroken bride said: “We were
having the time of o ,r lives. New lives
and starting all over. We d been laugh
ing and I know e.erybody knew we’d
just been married Oren said he’d be
back in a minute. J heard a shoosh, the
wind screaming in bom* body said the
door had blown off. I was afraid to
look back there A stewardess came to
my -eat and sat down beside me. 1 knew
then.”
b'onsideripg all that airlines do for
the safety of passenger*** it seems in
credible that any line could fail to take
such an obvious; precaution as to mark a
dangerous door so as to distinguish it
from a safe door. Such marking to pro
tect people’s lives has been required by
law at exit doors in theatres for gen
erations. Surely nothing could be sim
pler than to put a red light on a door
leading to the open air and beside or
under the light some such warning as
DANGER—DO NOT OPEN. If Pruitt’s
death was due to failure to do this, i
call it criminal negligence.
The day after I read about this fatal
fall from a plane I read about the kill
ing of six children by a cave-in in an
excavation of an expressway. It oc
curred in a crowded section of Brook
lyn, and the cries of the children who
barely escaped brought a crowd of peo
ple, including parents, brothers and sis-
Iters, and friends, running to the scene.
The police estimated at 5,000 the num
ber of spectators around the rim of the
excavation and on the roofs of the sur
rounding buildings. Policemen and fire
j | men worked for hours to get to the
it children. The use of machinery would
have been dangerous, so all the dig
* ging had to be done by hand. The at
| tempts at rescue went on for hours.
Police orders put the excavation off
limits for children immediately after
work on it began several weeks ago, and
| policemen chased children away again
v and again, but there are many holes in
the enclosing fence and the ramp for
About the Choice of Books
(B» Sidney Swain R#>*>in»i
An unforgettable piece of advice
from Horace Williams, long teacher of
philosophy at the Hill and a philosopher
in person to hear many people tel! it.
was "to deal at first hand with great
men." This advice has come to seem in
creasingly appropriate in a:, the recent
years since the swelling spate of new
books from the press ha~- been or..
“Don't read books about Shakes
peare. read Shakes pear* Dor. t read
hi-* ries of philosoph; read P.ato.
tot It Hegt D• • ■ aspiring
;*iograpr.ie; of Washing* n. Frank;:n.
Jefferson until after yhave consulted
the original sources of :.gr.t and lead
ing in person. Havt c-or.: -nee ir. y *r
wr; mind and dor; : plaj around with
the second-hand me:.. G t the very
p wer-house itself, put y->ur he&a in
v. .-,* re the lightning has been flashing
a long time and see i ‘ y>u don t get a
.-park yourself That .- the way (>*d
Horace wouid talk t * r.i- class.
Sometimes, by talking endless.y
: , graj • ■ as M< rlt
"Gladstone." or Beveridge's “John Mar
sha!;.’ e*r Allen’s **Ph;l ;r - Brooks, he
did get his student? ad w *rked up * j
-. . . migl * ca! • ■ 1 !-ha
books. But perhaps he thought of J' hn
Morley. Senator Beveridge and Alex
■ er V. G. Allen as grt at men tht r
selves.
();,*- thing .- c* rta.t: ;f the variou*
kind- - f of th- M *nth. and all
the familiar way- of choosing our reaa
irg for us. out 'f boo * - . ust come pant
ing off the pres.- had been as developed
in his day as in ours, they would have
been objects of the most w ithering scorn
he could command. H- would have said:
"Whv let seme bod v else prescribe read
ing for you? You ought to be able to
f.nd the right books * r read for your
-e!f te ’ter than some commercial agent.
And why not r-ad book? that you know
fire f.rst-line materia. for the human
race’ If you think you have a mind, ypj
can at least treat it ha.f're.-pectfully.”
N< doubt th*- 0 i Mar. - view on
-orn* n'fAa repre-er.* :;.g new fields in
.-* ;<n* * or new kmd- of ;y**’ry or 1 it
* ra’ .r* , and or, their authors, would
haw been too ran w. Horace was a
man of many prejudice-. <■*.-;, if they
v,. r* '*.* salien’ and atr*--ting kind that
r t;’ : words fr-m y*-tt,ng past your
• ar-. A soon as yo, could free your
. * from him, y< 1 wo Id o*- prepared to
*r.nr. The real question alxjut hi- ad
. I*•<-, provided we do any general read
ing at all and have not succumbed to
teievir-ior: or .-orne other s
agent of intellectual fodder, is whether
v. * incline to just follow fashions and
tr. to “keep up with the Joneses” in
w hat we read.
Hail to those makers of “pocket
books” who are U-ginning to reprint
the classics I They are widening every
body’,- choice beyond the range of the
best-.-eller lists. And deep respects Uj
the cult of the Hundred Great Books 1
They seem to bring an atmosphere of
silence with them, causing the noise of
those rolling presses to retire into the
distance.
1 know t-wo villages where local
groups, speared by recent college grad
uate-, struggle through the winters
with a set of The Hundred Great Books
that has been made available in neat
packet. One town is Old Plymouth, of
the Pilgrims; and the other is this Con
way where we now live. How many do
you know? I wonder if they have to
read the Hundred in a prescribed or
der ?
The other day I walked into a real
estate office and hailed a young woman
who is a leader in the local group.
Asked how they had been getting along
through the months of snow and cold,
she said the going was rather terrible.
Books were over heads. Minds were get
ting snarled.
I risked quipping that was the way
it ought to be, unless maybe there was
a question of which famous book to
read first. The musicians and artists
are all calling for toil on the part of
those who want to appreciate music and
art just a little. Shall our minds demand
themes and arguments that we do not
have to live with a while before we get
a clue or they begin to come unsnarled?
Shall we read only what we can under
stand?
trucks has to be kept open.
While the policemen and firemen
were digging away with shovels and
with their bare hands, people shouted
the question: “Where was the watch
man ?”
There was no delay in starting an
investigation; the Brooklyn prosecuting
attorney was prompt to arrive with
THE CHAPEL HILL WEEKLY
Bob Ruark’s Tribute to 0. J. Coffin and Phillips Russell
Robert Ruark, the famous
novelist and newspaper eolumn
ift, studied under O. J. Coffin
anc Phillip# Russell as a journ
alism student at the Univer
sity here. When he heard that
Mr Coff;n and Mr. Russell had
retired this summer from the
University faculty he used
th- m as a subject ir. one of his
-yndicated columns. He sent a
carbon of his manuscript to
hi# old friend, Walter • Spear
man. also a member of the sac
- •• • L’niver ty‘* School,
if Journalism, along with a
ncte asking Mr. Spearman to
have it published n the Chape!
H.il paper?.
Ir, h.- note Mr. Ruark. who
lives ir.- FV.amos, Spain, said,
ir. part. ”J just found out
about Coffin and Russell re
tiring. and na-tened this piece
into pr.r.L I enclose a carbon,
anc it wou.-d g.ve me great
; leasure if you c uld get it
printed .r. Chape! Hill a# some
sor. of a g*>odbye present. I
fee- ■ a cent U these old
ix,y# that I want them to know
about it. They haa more class
a teacher.- than haif the edi
tors going."
Mr. Ruark's column follows:
It wa- J 2 years ago this
week when I was shoved, a
ruffled fu-ugang. from the
cory nest of learning into a
wor.d wr.ifh evinced no particu
lar interest m now I intended
to eat. Er.- .ft. to say. 1 miss
ed very few meals early on,
and for some time have fed
h.gr. - n tne hog.
I take no. credit; the credit
is due to two gentieme-Ti who
were formally pa-t-red last
week by the University of
North 1 arolina, after about a
h-ndre/j years of combined ser
vjr*. The names are Oscar Cof
f :.. known a.- .'kipper, who ran
•he Journal.-m School, and
Phi..R.--*.. who looked af
ter creative writing. If you
think this .- going to be an
.1. *-r.*:n.er.ta. piece, -top here.
|H i lAUv Chapel Hili jj|
By Bill* Arthur
Add things 1 would have liked to have done: Call
Bill Cherry while he was vacationing in Nassau and
teJl him HLS account wa;- overdrawn.
* ;C 9 * *
Sol Lipman cam* into th< 1 offee Shop the othei
morning looking for hi.-'•brother Jack who had just
come up from Carolina Beach.
“Have you seen th*.- ’Big Fisherman’ today?” Sol
asked.
* * * *
*
Joe Bobbin.- tells why he ha so t had a vacation in
more than 40 years.
“When i fir-1. went to work,” Jo*- said, “I took a
man’s place who had gone on vacation. When he got
back, they put him on another job and let me keep
his. Then, another man went on vacation, and I got
his job for good. In 14 months, I had J1 promotions to
better jobs, aJI because folks went on vacation. And
J made up my mind J was never going to Lake one,
because someone might come in and while I was away
do a better job than J, and keep it. So I don’t want to
go away and take that chance.”
n * * »
We went in Danziger’s the day Erwin was to get
married. Dad E. B. Danziger was®.all dressed up, and
we kidded him about it.
“First time in my life I ever changed clothes three
times a day,” he replied. “And all because I’m getting
rid of a son. IBooks like he could go on away without
my having to change clothes, doesn’t it?”
• ♦ * •
Noel Houston has been putting a prime coat of
paint on bis house preparatory to giving it a real going
over. *
“Hard job?” he ask* <l, repeating my question.
“No, not half as bad as J thought it. was going to lx*.
It’s only twice as hard.”
♦ * * ♦
Joe Jones and I got to wondering the other day
why girls no longer—well, not so often as in the old
days—were named Prudence, Charity, Blessing, Mercy,
Virtue, and so on. Can anyone help us with an answer?
twenty assistants. After examining the
25-foot-deep, 200-foot-square excava
tion, the site of which was composed
of "shifting” soil made up mostly of
clay and sand, he said: “This is not
just negligence—it is criminal.”
The children who were killed, all
under ten years old, had been digging
at a little cave. Other children had been
playing an exciting game of cops and
robbers just outside. Suddenly a chunk
of wall about 25 feet wide buckled,
covering the children in the cave with,
according to the police estimate, “25
tons of dirt, rock, debris, and sand.”
Whether crime was involved in
either of these two tragedies, one in
North Carolina and the other in New
York—the answer to this question will
have to await the outcome of legal
processes. Even then it may be answered
only in a strictly legal sense. We may
all be sure that plenty of excuses will
be made by company officials and
plenty of plausible [’leas in avoidance
will be offered by their attorneys. If
. * V. . ■'* Aw-v 1 .-* -
What Chape! Hill and the
writing trade will do without
these tw-o I couldn’t say. Cof
fin. an old-time practical news
paper hand who used to write
the soundest column I ever
read “Shucks and Nub
i bins” knew more about
the prime- principles of joum
a.:»m thin any city editor I
ever met—and this could be
extended to include the higher
trass.
Phil Russell, a fine biogra
owti right, taught
writing for the love of it.
1 Peering out from under the
•ur.g.ed thicket of his eyebrows,
t.e dispensed an evaluation of
, words which was as fantastic
the one major hair that
■retched from eyebrow to mus
tache. He was in love with
, w rds. and imparted the ro
mance t< his kids.
Possibly the new educators
f, n’t have what the old ones
r.ad. a sense of fellowship with
their students. Coffin and Rus-
I >e.. had a magnificent ability
bestow knowledge without
’ patronage. Coffin was the
< <arir.g house for newspaper
jobs .n the Carolinas ana Vir
, r. a. Russell honed down the
* a material to where Coffin
* „r.d it smooth enough to put
. .canaies on. ana sell it. Neither
wa- a fugitive from commer
. .. work, seeking an ivory
tower. Both were highly suc
f-.--.fu! at their various trades,
.but were infected with an itch
to teach, between them they
pr-ti&bly turned out more com
, petent pros than any living
.-‘Titors of anything.
Coffin, eyegiassed, hawk
s - -ed, sardonic, used to evai
i uate his new students with an
o;-.er to write their own ver
r. of certain biblical pass
i ag*--. just to see if the raw
i wr .ter had any sense of the
dramatic. J remember a rough
i t.rr.e with Abraham and Isaac,
i r.<-w- story.-and on other
* ,r- on.-, have rievi-r i^een
quite certain whether somebody
sold a birthright for a mess
of potash or porridge or pott
age.
Oscar used to read the stuff
you wrote aloud, and tl\£ sar
casm that he could infuse into
a rendition would have earned
him an **asy living on the stage.
The Skipper was rough. Phil
Russell was gentle. They both
managed to achieve the same
thing—a sinse of respon.-ibil
ity.
Coffin made,, us cover courts
and crime. Russell made us
read before we wrote. Both
knew what was wrong with
what we wrote, and told us,
one tough, the other softly.
They worked in cahoot--, in a
benevolent conspiracy against
stupidity.
The Skip got me my first
job over a hooker of bootleg
corn at a final dance, my
senior year. "There's the aw
f Jest job in the world in a
horrible place called Hamlet.
N. C.,” he said. "It don’t pay
any money to speak of. and is
a!v gether impossible. Y -’re
the only one I’ve got that’s
ornery enough to survive it.
It starts Monday. Pa-- the
j-g.” And so 1 went to work.
They were a fantastic team,
together with Wallace Cald
well, who could make ar. lent
hisb ry breath-taking. and
Chick Harland—an archeology
professor whose wit and ieo
tures were so brilliant that 1
actually couldn't rest ur.’.ii 1
found a new pyramid,
which 1 did. just to pay him
off.
They were education synthes
ized, in its best and truest
sense, and I do hope the edi
tors let ‘.his run long. It is so
seldom a man gets a chance
to make public thank-you to
men who provide the nation
with the best product they can
produce from really awful raw
material. Happy pasture, gen
tlemen, with all. thank- and
much love.
Chapel Hill Chaff
(Continued from page 1)
| ;,*-ai i- ba *-'i on misspelling
i d*--*-rv<- that **■< rnful judgment.
: , a a-rd highly favored
j AaUaj a- a t*-rm of *lt
approval, v.< ild undoubtedly be
a; p i-d ■*.. literary *-rit. <-- to
-of ti.e-e selections made
t,. Mark Twain 1 f*-*-l sure
.try few of the pieces in this
, book, if written today ar.d of
fered to rh<- New Yorker for
I üblication, would be accepted
I -u-pert that a majority of
Mark Twain’.- own twenty
pieces would be "urne-l down
by the New Yorker.
When there i.i talk of th*-
difficulty a foreigner has in
learning to .-.peak and under
stand English, a favorite illus
trative is the varied pro
nunciation of the combined
vowels, ou.
Here a.re five words in which
they have five different sounds:
though, through, tough, sound,
ought. Word-experts in the
University faculty could prob
ably ad*i to the list.
Strangers to our language
are puzzled by hundreds, or
thousands, of its irregularities
and inconsistencies, and some
times they are puzzled by mis
understandings that they cre
ate for themselves. The fun
niest of these that I ever heard
of was one that Mrs. Mary
Patterson Fisher told me that
Ueorge B. Cutten told her
abouL
A foreigner—l don't remem
ber where he came from;
France ? Spam? Jtaly?—once
said to Mr. Cutten: "I don't
want to cockroach on your
time.” When Mr. Cutten ex
plained to him that the word
was not cockroach but en
croach, he threw up his hands
in a gesture of helplessness
an*l exclaimed: “Cockroach!
heneroach! I can never re
member which it is!”
persons who have been criminally negli
gent are freed in court it will not be the
first time such a thing has happened.
But we may at least hope that the
deaths at Zion Cemetery in North Caro
lina and in the Williamsburg section of
Brooklyn will have some effect in in
fluencing persons responsible for hu
man life to be more careful about pro
tecting it.—L. G..
A woman in the midst of divorce pro
ceedings was complaining about the
legal red tape. “Oh,” said her friend,
don’t talk to me about lawyers. I’ve had
so much trouble over my property that
sometimes I -wish my husband hadn’t
died.”—lke London in Rockingham
Post-Dispatch.
The average man’s arm is 28 inches
long. The average woman’s waist is 28
inches. It just goes to show that Na
ture thinks of everything.—lke London
in Rockingham Post-Dispatch.
iral The Weekly Congratulates. . .
The Weekly congratulates Lloyd Senter of Carr
boro. who will become district governor of Lions Inter
national on J-uly 1.
A native of Raleigh, Mr. Senter has been residing
in Carrboro almost all his life. He helped his'father in
Senter Drug Store, attended and was graduated from
Chapel Hill High School and the University here. A
registered pharmacist, he is now issociated with his
father in the store.
Mr. Senter long has been generous of his time and
labors for his community, his club, and his family.
His accomplishments, activities, offices, and services
are numerous and outstanding. ‘Tis no wonder
Carolina Lions recognized him and entrusted the lead
ership of their organization to him.
. . .and The Weekly Asks
Frank Blocksidge and Harvey Bennett think this
probably happened to Y. Z. Cannon. We'li let our read
ers decide for themselves.
A man who went to have his thinning hair cut
with Y. Z. was urged by Mr. Cannon to have his hair
singed—at double the price. “Each hair is a tiny tube
that sort of bleeds at the cut end,” Y. Z. said, “so it
gets weaker every time your hair is cut. But singeing
seals the end, and the hair keeps its vigor.”
“Then can you explain why the hair on my chin
is growing stronger all the time, though each hair has
been cut off every morning for 25 years?”
“No trouble at all,” answered Y. Z. “You just
ain’t the kind of feller that story was made up to tell
to.”
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Tuesday, June 19, 1956