Page Two
‘ The Chapel Hill Weekly
Chapel Hill. North Carolina
f lJf E. Rosemare Telephone SF-12T1 or fc 4sl
' :
* Puhh-hed E'erv Toewl*? and FruU;
‘ B» TV Chape! Hill Pnbltehmr Company, In*
*
* Lons Graves Contributing Ednor
Joi Jones Managing Editcr
BniY Aethvr _ Associate Editor
Oevita Campbeu. Genera.’ Konc^e*
C T Watkins .. Acvmiszng Director
Chak-Ton Camfbeh Mecncnica'. Supi
Erlerec se'-onc-".*** r ir.r Ff! '3 i«i~ a:
tr* postcfiirt a*. Oiape H*l. Nu*!r. C-frrobrit under
tr* a:- of l It?.-
SUBSCRIPTION KATES
lr. Ctrar.pt County. \ ear $4-00
it months $2-25 , i month? 12.50'
Out-.at of Orangt County t> tne \ tar
Start of 5 C, \t. ar.c it C.
Other State? anc In*t of Coiun.t.t E-0C
Canada Mexico. Souls. America 7.W
~ Europe TM
The Proposal That the Democrats Hate
A Celebration of Their Victory
A dispatch from WasringTon brings
the news f an interesting suggestion
by Senator Humphrey **f Minnesota. He
hat written a letter t a. members of
the executive comm.ittee ' i the Demo
cratic National Comm ”.ee, proposing
that tr.e Democrats have a great Vic
tory Bal. at the opening cf C-ongre--
Boon after the end of the year.
As I see it. tire obvious comment
upon that is: “Why not'."
For. the Democrats won an impor
tant Viet ry in tine recent election when
they cincr.ed their contro. of Congress,
keeping' their 49-to-47 margin in the
Senate (wmch. though smail, as just as
good as a 10 or 20 margin would be as
authority for then t tak< charge of
organizing that body; and increasing
their margin in the House of Represen
tatives from 30 to 34.
A good deal of attention has been
given to the fact that while the Re
publicans won the Presidency the Dem
ocrats won Congress, but even so I
doubt if the "Democratic victory has
received the emphasis it deserves:.
Specially when you think of it in
connection with the future. This: year
is the f:rst in mors than a hundred
years when Congress was. won by one
party and the Presidency waa won by
the other. There is little doubt that
in the mid-term elections two years
hence, with tr.e Republican candidates
| having no Eisenhower coattails; to rang
on to, the Democrats will get a still
larger .eac in Oj.ngress. And what a
big advantage trey w.U have in the
next eii-c’.ion on a nat.cnal scale, that
of I 960! Tr.e Repuo .oans haven’t a
ciianoe of having tr.er a 'candidate for
President with anywhere near the popu
larity of Eisenhower. Tr at is to hay,
they w. D w.thout the -oie asset they
had for winning the Presidency this
year.
Nixon is tai/.ed a Dost as the most
likely Republican candidate- in 1960, and
I doubt if there a political observer
in the country of any standing who, if
asked his opinion, wouldn’t s.ay that
the Democrats could wipe up the floor
with Nixon. I have, rr.yself, never sym
pathize! with the abuse that the Dem
t ocratic sj/jkesmen have poured on him,
and believe he may corne into much
better favor with the public than he is;
, now’, but I do not foresee his becoming
the really popular candidate that the
f Republicans; are going to need.
/» AH in all, the Democrats: have gour c untry h;.-'
harmed as we! a- helped by the word
‘democracy'. That chameleon-..ke w rd.
which means so many d:fDrer.t thing"
to so many different people f witness
the interpretations the Russians put
upon it’/ ar .uses emotions everywhere.
We Americans would iav down our lives
f r the meaning which we devoutly be
lieve in and value. We ought to lay
if not our at lea-* a good
barrage against the twisted meaning
ar. - : rr isuse * f . t that threaten" to WTecx
the quality of our ecucatior.
' ‘Democracy is fundamentally a po
ut. ca: term, applying to political units
or gr ~p" f human be.r.g- We follow
democratic principle--. I r o;»e, in the
gov <-rr..merit of our nation our - late, our
•- • ■ ag ir w hich I
j.vi- But when we begin to apply ‘de
mocracy’ in the fields of education or
--or' lar.-hip grave per;.- descend upon
}. a
Li
One of these peril" the fetish of
tr.e majority vote. In operating any
political government we have to depend
upon a vote to determine what policies
ar*- to be adopted, what persons elected
to represent v- and carry out those poli
cies The majority, under limitation"’
impo"*ed by the Constitution and the
courts, must determine these things. It
is a convenient way of setting political
action. We have not been able to find
a better one.
“The peril is: that this useful dew e
for settling political matter- comes to
be regarded by people at large with a
kind of superstitious reverence, as if a
majority vote could settu the truth of
a theory or proposition,.n the field of
scholarship or education A few mo
reen’.-’ serious thought will con vine*:
anyone that even the most august con
vention, the wisest meeting of the Par
ent-Teacher As-v.-iation, or of the
American Legion, even of the Senate
of the I.’nited States, cannot by major
ity vote determine the truth or the
falsity of, let us say, the latest Einstein
theory. That has V. be decided in the
long run by the innumerable tests of
time and experiment. Even for ques
tions far J< • abstruse and complex than
the Einstein theory truth or falsity
must be weighed and determined by the
politically indifferent scales of time
“To a lesser d»-gree this is true not
only, of the* scholar's search for
but also of matters of ed u* ationai
Vet we have to settle a jrood many ques
tions in schools and colleges and uni
versities, important questions of educa
tional policy such as the requirements
of the curriculum, by a majority vote
of the faculty under the safeguards of
parliamentary law. Yet. we should never
forget that this cannot possibly estab
lish their verity or wisdom; the de
cisions should always be open to later
reconsideration and further discussion.
In the fields of scholarship and edu
cation it is also important to remember
'hat popular opinion polls or the major
ity votes of school hoards, trustees, or
legislative l>o*L/-" cannot determine the
ultimate value of the research project
or the educational method or aim. Even
Research f'oun'-ils, though they have to
decide what projects to aid, cannot real
ly determine this.
“I was immensely impressed in my
youth by that remarkable book ‘The
Life of lyouis Pasteur,'by Valery-Radot.
The early portion tells how the young
Pasteur sjsnt the first years of his
scientific re-earch studying racemic
acid, the peculiarities of the left-handed
and right-handed crystals of racemic
acid. Nothing could more foolish
to the average citizen than to have a
promising young man waste his time in
this obscure and apparently useless re
search. And yet, from adding to
man’s total knowledge of truth, Pasteur’s
researches in the long run were to have
stupendous practical value, saving the
lives of thousands of human beings and
billions of francs for the silk industry
of France.”—-L. G.
A liberal is a man who is willing to
sper\d somebody else’s money.—Carter
Glass.
THE CHAPEL HILL WEEKLY
CHAPEL HILL CHAFF
■»
(Continued from page ll
per. which was standing on its handle, described a line
pointing downward through the North Star to eight on
an imaginary clock dial in the heavens. The lights
.’■played in an area below and be:ween the two “dippers”
(ur-a nay r and ursa minor). In measuring the spatial
extent of the illumination I observed that it covered
generally a -kv area equal to the size of my own hand
held up broadside, palm outward, at a handbreadth from
my nos*.
“Gradually now, the red--uffused area became
barred with vertical rays of a lighter hue, which, fading
away towari the top. resembled the effect produced by
sunlight sh.ning through brol ■r. clouds. The color of
these ray- r bars varied fitful I;• from white light to a
’very paD apple-green tint, and the intensity of the light
als? deeper.“d and waned from one second to another.
(The most impressive thing am -t this phenomenon, to
me. is the " Cotie. shimmering alt - ration in shape, color,
and brighw-ss which occurs continuously.) This rest
less deeper, rg and fading is hardly rapid enough to be
called flickering: it probably suggests nothing so vivid
ly as the m m.ing and going of • .ushes on a human face.
Even the r/r is similar: scarlet with just a trace of
blue interfused. The peculiar bar-like rays would be
come \: • :b> by degrees as if < merging through a mist,
although *r< atmosphere wa- perfectly clear; then, as
unaccountable they would di.-mp'ar. leaving only the
redr.<--. Th-re was still no trace ' f dawn by five-thirty,
when the whole spectacle had almost faded away.
“The ma.esty of the scene was enhanced by the
pn ■ • • ft - , very large bi ght n rning stars ir the
eastern sk;. one about twenty degrees and the other
per hap- forty above the horiz r They were evidently
the planet- ’Ar.u- and Jupiter for they did not twinkle
but shore w.th great br hi lance, the moon having gone
down some time before.
"Undoubtedly the chill, dry weather (near freezing
at the i, accompanied by an unusual transparency
of the atmosphere for several days past, favored obser
vation. A friend of mine had mentioned receiving with
incredible clarity, the evening before, several far-distant
radio broadcast".
HUH*
1 used the word culmina’.on n what I wrote last
week about Archibald Henderson’s career a- the bi
ographer of George Bernard Shaw. Now he uses the
same word in a far less agreeable -ens:e In a note to me
he speaks of his “almost unbelievable epistolary activi
ty' 1 for fifty years and says: it ha" been “eventually tes
tified to by the bursitis.”
Anybody who has heard bursitis described by a
person who ha- been attacked by it knows it is extreme
ly painful and naturally suppo «-s that a victim would
be eager to find any way to be freed of it. So, when
Mr. Henderson mentioned his bursitis: to me a couple
of weeks ago and his mention of it was a bitter male
diction I a-k«-d him: “Why don’t you.do your writing
■on the typewrit* r?” For I kr#w that the arm and finger
movements: required for typing were not the sort
that caused bursitis.
11::- reply was that h<- never had been able to learn
to compose on the typewriter. When he had tried it, he
said, the buttons, the key- and all the rest of the ma
chinery staring him in the fan- had blunted hi;-:
thoughts.
“The trouble is,” I said, “you quit trying too soon.
A little while longer at it and you’d have found it com
ing easy and you would have gone through life saving
yourself a lot of time and trouble and a lot of bursitis ”
Then, to give pres:tig*- to composing on the type
writer, J reminded him that. Woodrow Wilson had mad*
a regular practice of it. But of course he knew this: ai
ready and there was no use of alluding to it, When a
man of Mr. Henderson’s years and experience, and u*
cess at getting people to read his letters and answer
them has mad*- his choice between typing and penning
or \a nciling you are wasting words to try to change
1 this choice. You might as, well just end your effort bv
saying U mean to yourself, not aloud) : “Oh, well, if he
likes to have bursitis better than he does to take my
advice, to hell with him.”
Wh<-ri I quoted to my wife what Mr Henderson had
said in his talk with m<- and in his later note, -h<- said:
“Hhillips Russell doesn’t compose on the type
writer, either.”
This reminded me that Mr. Russell had on*-e told
me about some sort of unusual method he had followed
ifi his writing. I had forgotten what it was, so I tele
phoned him to ask What h<- does 1 never heard of an /
writer's doing before.
“When J am working on a book,” he said, “I use
three fountain peris of three different, shapes and
change from one to another. That keeps my finger
from getting set in one fixed grip and 1 believe explains:
why 1 don’t, have cramps, bursitis, or any other such trou
b!<- from my w-ritirig.
“After a pen-and-ink manuscript with pen-arid ink
corrections is finished I type the whole thing off. Then
1 make more corrections in pen-and-ink,’ and then 1
have a professional typist make the final copy.”
But in his newspaper writing Mr. Russell does all
his composing on the typewriter.’
Relativity in Geography
By Sidney S**»irn Kobirih
My newspaper was telling
the other day of the Russian
soldier just arrived In shat
ter* d Budapest and Koirijc
around a?kiritf for the “canal,
canal.” It seems he was look
ing for the Hi»ez canal and sup
posed it was somewhere in
B ti da pest.
That is not too much of a
story alongside the whopper
they used to tell when I was
at the Hill, about the man up
in one of the western-most
counties getting elected to the
legislature and preparing for
a sea-voyage on the supposi
tion that he had to cross the
Atlantic to get to Raleigh.
And neither one of them is
any bigger yarn than the true
one I have to tell about the
man who did most all the house
moving around Asheboro in tto
days of my youth His name
was Winborrie Connor and he
was popularly dubbed “Wid”
Connor. H* was a Confederate
veteran. After the Civil War
he went west for a while; arid
when he came back he report
er! numerous adventures, among
them "digging coconuts out in
Wymaho.” He stoutly main
tained that the earth was flat,
and his clinching argument was
that the Bible spoke of the
winds coming from the “four
corners” of it. How/could it
have four corners if it was just
a ball? I myself once argued
with him on that, declaring
that men had actually sailed
around the world. “Oh. pshaw,"
said he, “they git up by that
f ■ ' .exmu -i
From Our Files
I ,ii. ’ .. u r- '1
. 5 Years Ago
A highly favorable review of
-Manly Wade Wellman's new
boon f r JuvenileSj ‘‘The Haunts
cf Dr wrung Creek.” appears
in the November 10 issue of
the ’’The Saturday Review of
Literature.”
Noel Houston has written a
play based on Richard Bissei ‘s
novel, ‘A Stretch on the
River," ar. i has signed a con
tract with Jose Ferrer for its
pro&ikti n.
10 Years Ago
The trustees of jh.e estate
cf the .ate William H. Ackland
have decided that the money
left ty h.m /estimated at 11,-
3957/00; for the erection and
maintenance of an art museum
in the South will come to th»-
University here.
Jt i'-okr as if Caro ina will
have what the spirts writers
/■ail a " -light edge” in the game
with Duke tomorrow.
15 Years Ago
D-keV. undefeated team beat
Carolina, JO to 0, last Saturday
at Durham.
An opportunity to make
Christmas gift- do double duty
prov.ueu by the British War
R<-..•■( Tf.::ft Shop, where at
tractive gifts are now on dis
' The prof on the sal/
< f ti./--*- ar*.' /•• will be u-ed
for tr* re.ief of d'--titute fami
lies. ir. England.
there North Bole and git turned
around and corne back.’ 1
If or.’/- of us are getting
a li’ve better ir, geography
than rr. -t of us - r id
wi- now cover by auto at sixty.
Ore leaves oof account the
a.rplar.e, to keep from getting
dizzy over thus ; rogre -,ve di
m.riution of *,ur favor;*/- plane’
The other reason is t.haat,
what for war ar.d one thing
arid another, the boy. arid girls
are now making trips a:! over
the worjd am) ir, great num
ber , o that the home folks
are bound to gel a urr.i whal
-* ■ imaginary and more real
. ’ n< count of the far p,a< e
1 her *- 1 - a.o old t fir in tp. ; r.
■ ortra-i r. New Han, p - r. ire
whose rock - and gra.i »tarv«-d
or emaciated several f.,n ..* ,
and wool/1 bet ter /-hooiing
*o.e >,f 1 r./- boy- now l .l, a
mode-t. gio/i-i , !ri.a/i ab- it
r,. ■ nepbi wo he aid on* o!
tnern*was at In* Mil acte,-*-tt
Institute of le. bnology
ihring v. hat 71 I >■:>• r. r.g
‘town t >,< i * “ A rul w bat , !b*
*,t tii-i <1 mi g ' " Asheboro b/re in Ka-updph
< builty, North * ai'ilina t*. find
himself a wife
That, was a good move but
all the same our old world is,
getting 100 small | 4 doesn't
take the son of a prophet to
till how Daniil Boone would
have felt about ' What people
think they an- doing is “gel
| ting there" faster; what ihey
are really doing is jamming the
ends of the earth together arid
destroying the rnysti* romance
of the far places. Os course
the recourse left is. /«, dream
of the moon and Mars, and of
learning to rocket thither. God
save us vision ami mystery and
hope!
But if there is. anybody who
thinks he ran travel any fur
ther iri a day than my grand
pa and 1 traveled when he
hitched old Frank to the car
riage and drove us to Greens
boro to see Barnum’s circus
the day after, maybe he ig
ding himself. He doesn’t go fur
ther; his world is just fifteen
times smaller than my grand
pa’*.
Dutch Were Out-Traded
From an article by Weimar
Jones in the Franklin Press:
I had never been further
north than Washington, and I
especially looked forward to
gp ■■ f WAt o'hapo*l Hill
The other evening when I put Anils Lillian to bed,
she strutted down the hall singing, all the
girls away . . ta . . ta . . ta . . da . . da . . keeping all the
girls away.” )
Surprised, I asked where she learned that.
“Don’t you know?” she asked. “That’s the tele
vision commercial for Wild Goose Cream Oil.”
* * * *
That s about like the story of the lad who cama.
home from school one day with “1776“ pinned across*
his shirt front. When his mother asked what that
meant, he grumbled: “You don’t know any more than
the teacher. That’s what she wanted to know.”
“But what does it mean, son,” the mother persisted.
“That ,-tands for the ‘Declaration of Appendicitis’,”
he replied proudly.
* * * *
And another: Marjorie was enjoying with her
grandparents a rare treat of home-made bread. The par
ents little realized what an impression such delicious
bread made upon the child, who was accustomed to the
store-bought variety she got at home. But they did that
night, when she was repeating the Lord's Prayer and
asked: “And give us this day our daily home-made
bread.”
* * * *
But, getting back to my family. The Missus had
tried to get me away from the Redskins football game
on TV to do a bit of yard work. Yet, she failed.
“Why is it you don’t want to help me around the
house, like the other men do in this neighborhood?” she
asked.
So I told her: “Honey, I’ve tried to be good to you
and help you the best I can. I’ve tried to be a good
provider and bring home the wherewithal to do things
with, and all I ask of you is that you take care of the
house and the children and the yard. That’s all.”
“All!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, all,” I said, “unless you want to take over
some of the other responsibilities.”
.So, I picked myself up off the floor, dusted myself®
off and struggled to get to the living room to lick my
. wounds.
♦ * ♦ *
The person who attempts to flatter you is either a
fool or thinks you’re one.
* * *> *
When one becomes a man, he puts away childish
things. But some men marry and accumulate them.
Book Reviews
By Robert Bartholomew
( A J'JAIN I.ITTI.E AX. By
James .Street. J. B Lippincc&t
( o Philadelphia 377 pp $3.95.
Little Ax Towbridge, 15 arid
fresh out *if military school,
follow: hi.- father, Big Ax,
off 4| . war He ,-,<*-? him die at
hiioh, where, of 73,000 men
,ri Mm- and gray, Little Ax, in
gray, i.- probably the youngest,
• •itainly the smallest.
Spurned by the Confederate
A.iiuy, but determined to serve
ti./- cause of the South, the
youthful warrior places him
"••if m command of a group of
under-age ruffians:. Captain
Little Ax whips the ragged in
■o t-iil crew into tough maraud
er young faces with cold
iiearts, soon known far and
wide as the Cradle Company.
f rom the action filled pages
/ me/ges n hardened young man,
worthy of a commission iri the
Confederate Army
The book has this, among
other, information on the au
thor, “For several years prior
to his death in 135-1, he lived
in * 'impel Hill, N. C, where he
concentrated on collecting ‘good
comrades, good tobacco and
goo*l stories’"
* * t
IHL HALLOWED GROUND.
By Bruce Gallon Doubleday &
Go, Inc. Garden Gity, N. Y.
437 pp $5 95.
"The Hallowed Ground” is
tin- story of the Civil War a--
seeing New York city. We
didn't leave the train there,
but we saw a lot of it, none
tbele.s. And my considered
judgment is that the shrewd
Dutch who bought Manhattan
Island from the Indians for $24
were out traded!
Even if eveiybody there were
rich, even if everything in the
city were beautiful, even if the
streets were jraved with silver
and all tin- buildings were of
solid gold, 1 wouldn’t give $24
for it, now. Because it appalls
me to think of human beings
so crow/h-d mile after mile of
apartment houses, stuck close
• together, reaching into the sky.
Htaiting with Baltimore, in
fact, an the train hurried
through one city after another,
I was depressed by what 1
saw, one slum after another.
The sameness, the drabness, the
ugliness, left me with a sick
feeling in the pit of my stom
ach and a great pity for the
people wiio have to live there.
vr—£>
THANKSGIVING DINNER
at the
RANCH HOUSE *2 5 °
CHILDREN UNDER 12 HALF-PRICE
SERVING FROM 5-9 P.M.
Friday, November 23, 1956
seen from the Union side. For
the first time the author has
written a hook that deals with
the enti/e scope of the war,
from the months of unrest and
hysteria that led to Fort Hum
ter to tin* days of tragedy and
hope that followed Appomat
tox.
The end paper in the front
of tin- hook is a map of the
Western Theater, including
North Carolina. The back of
the book has a map of the
Eastern Theater.
Mr. Cation's other books for
adult readers are “U. S. Grant
and the American Military
1 radition,” “A Stillness at Ap
pomattox,” “Glory Road,” "Mr
Lincoln's Army,” and “The
War Lords of Washington.”
Mr. Cation is winner of the
Pulitzer Brize ami the J 954
National Hook Award for “A
■Stillness at Appomattox.”
As a working newspaperman
for almost 20 years, hi* has
written for tin- Cleveland Plain
Dealer, tin* Boston American,
and the Cleveland News and
served during World War 11
as Washington correspondent
for the NEA Service. He is
now editor of American 11/-ri
tape, the distinguished rnaga
/.ini- of Airier nan history
- • •
MIRACLE IN THE MOILS' \
TAINS By Harnett T Kane
with Inez Henry. Douhleday *
Co., Die New York 320 pp,
$3.95.
No woman in the South or
any other part of the nation
had a life like Martha Berry’s.
Horn to plantation wealth, she
refused to ignore those living
in the mountains who had less.
A
Il all slutted one Sunday
afternoon at a cabin near her
home when she met three
grimy little hoys who told her
there was no Sunday school in
their community. This was the
beginning of Martha Berry’s
Georgia school.
Out of the log cabin has
grown the Berry School, one of
the most distinctive educational
institutions in America. Its
campus is the largest in the
world, 30,000 acres of forest,
mountains, fields and lakes.
It is about the size of the
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
Most of the buildings have
been put up by the boys them
selves and they have built most
of the furniture. The girls
learn homemaking, milk the
cows, do weuving and help keep
the buildings in order.