Page 2-C
The Chapel Hill Weekly
Founded in 1923 by Louis Graves
“If the matter is important and you are sure of your ground,
never fear to be in the minority.’’
ORVILLE CAMPBELL. Polisher JAMES SHUMAKER, Editor
Published every Sunday and Wednesday by the Chapel Hill Publishing Company, lac.
SOI West Franklin Street. Chapel HIM. N. C.
P. 0. Box 271 - Telephone SO7-7045
Subscription rates (payable in advance and including N. C. sales tax)—ln North Carolina:
One year, $5.15; six months, $3.09; three months, $2.06. Elsewhere in the United States: One
year. $6.00; six months. $4.00; three months, $3.00. Outside United States; One year, SIO.OO.
Gag Law: Delicate Political Question
The University's assault this week on
North Carolina’s Gag Law was impres
sive in many ways. Taken as a whole,
the case presented by the trustees, ad
ministration and faculty was not a
frontal attack so much as it was a sur
rounding of the problem.
There were appeals based on academ
ic freedom, North Carolina tradition,
freedom of speech, administrative con
trol of the University, faculty morale,
University prestige, the handicap to
faculty recruitment and retention, the
effect on students, and the long-range
damage to the entire State.
Many of the appeals made by
trustees on the floor, in resolutions
from the faculties, and by University ad
ministrators were stirring. The res
olution ultimately adopted by the trust
ees was couched in strong language.
But withal the oratory and the rea
soned appeals to democracy and academ
ic freedom, it became clearly evident at
last Monday’s meeting of the trustees
that the University considers the Gag
Law as much a political question as any
thing else and the keynote of its drive
for repeal or amendment will be gentle
persuasion.
Almost every speaker went to great
lengths to emphasize what a friend
the University has in the Legislature
and that the Gag Law represented only
a momentary and un-considered devia
tion.
One speaker suggested that a small
minority in the Legislature was respon
sible for the Gag Law and had been
able to work its will by selling the ma
jority a bill of goods.
If such were the case, the prospects
for repeal or a substantial amendment
in the 1965 General Asssembly would
be “extifemely bright. Unfortunately,
such is far from the case.
Larry Moore of Wilson, a former
Speaker of the House of Representa
tives, told the trustees an all-out at
tack on the Gag Law would be widely
interpreted as furthering the aims of
Loren Mac Kinney: Vivid Was The V/ord
It is both easy and hard to mourn
the passing of a man like Loren Carey
Mac Kinney —a complexity entirely
characteristic of him. It is easy because
in 72 years he had achieved a rare
inimitability of human value. But at the
same time, it is hard to be doleful about
his death last Sunday because even his
memory, quite aside from the man him
self, leaves you in anything but a mourn
ing frame of mind.
At 72, Dr. Mac Kinney looked a vigor
ous 55, and vigorous is a word you would
quickly attach to him. Vivid is another;
smiling is still another. He had not been
physically vigorous in recent months be
cause he was suffering from paralysis
following a stroke. But he was one of
those unquenchable men whose charac
ters have so many tendrils reaching out
into so many nooks and crannies of life
and the world that the elimination of
one tendril hardly daunts the others.
In away, Dr. Mac Kinney was some
thing of an, iconoclast. He followed his
mind and his heart, both of which were
much too probing to be compressed into
conformity. His mental and physical
muscles flexed in all directions. He loved
to write letters to the editor. The 'walls
of his study were covered with a couple
of hundred pictures of people he liked
anybody he liked, from movie actress
es to his friends’ grandchildren. He lik
ed Gilbert and Sullivan .songs, and could
sing them, he liked limericks and could
recite them, and he enjoyed jokes and
told them well. As a conversationalist,
he could bring out both the best and the
worst in other people both requiring
talent. He loved to argue, too, any side,
Wednesday, October 30, 1963
communism. Mr. Wilson thinks the Gag
Law, at least in part, is good legislation
and he would like to see what he consid
ers the good retained. This seems to be
suggesting that poison be broken down
and its elements neatly separated in
stead of throwing out the whole bottle.
But he was looking political reality
squarely in the face when he said that
a frontal attack on the Gag Law would
bring in return a frontal attack on the
University.
The political delicacy of the issue is
such that the University must not seem
to be opposing the Legislature but
working hand in hand with the great
majority of the lawmakers to correct
an error committed in haste by a com
parative few.
That is why the trustees’ resolution,
for all its strong language, actually does
ver> r little. The resolution does not call
on the General Assembly to repeal the
Gag Law, or to amend it, or to do any
thing for that matter. It simply calls on
a special trustee committee "to determ
ine and implement measures to remove
this legislative impairment of intellect
ual freedom and preemption of the au
thority and prerogatives of the Board
of Trustees.”
With the next General Assembly fif
teen months away, this is undoubtedly
the politic approach. It will fall far
short of satisfying many opponents of
the Gag Law, and it fell short of satis
fying some of the trustees last Monday
who felt that a stronger stand should
have been taken.
Those responsible for the University’s
approach want a solution rather than an
issue, even at the cost of frustrating
what they would really like to do. This
is a matter of working quietly for what
is politically possible instead of loudly
demanding what would be emotionally
satisfying.
There is, of course, a very good possi
bility that the soft approach will turn
out to be a whisper the legislators can
pretend they never heard. If so, the
hard-nose issue will still be there.
any question. “He could be the devil’s
advocate on anything,” said one of his
friends, trying to estimate the com
plexity of Loren Mac Kinney.
But he was also a simple man, in ways
(which contributes to his complexity).
He was not an active sportsman, but he
liked football. He wasn’t hooked on phy
sical fitness, but he felled trees and
chopped wood. He and a friend, with no
other help, added a study to his house in
Maine. “He was a splendid carpenter,”
said his colleague in the effort. Dr. Mac-
Kinney’s son played football for Har
vard, and the two of them used to pass
footballs around the yard in the late
afternoons.
Dr. Mac Kinney was, of course, best
known for his highly respected scholar
ship in the history of medicine, partic
ularly medieval medicine. But he was
too active to be cobwebby about his
scholarship. He was not the type who
retires farther and farther, year by
year, into a cocoon of conquered knowl
edge. There were too many students
around for that, and too many people
who needed things that he could give
subtle, curve-ball humor; his car for
a fast trip to a hospital; his time, for
students who wanted to understand
more, or who needed more time to un
derstand at all; himself generally, for
everybody from his neighbors to his
grandchildren.
Dr. Mac Kinney had a pet remark his
friends remember him making often
when something nice happened to him.
“Who are we to be thus privileged?”
he used to say, a question that may
well be asked now by those who knew
him.
The Last Rays Os Indian Summer
I Like Chapel Hill
Arriving day after tomorrow,
November in North Carolina is
many things.
It’s convincing the kids to throw
away that Halloween pumpkin or
sneaking it in the garbage your
self.
It’s football coaches being hung
in effigy and, as the Greensboro
Daily News says, “when the frost
is on the pumpkin and the alumni
are on the coaches.”
November is when the fish stop
biting.
, It’s when the winter rye grass
needs mowing every four days
because you put too much .ferti
lizer on it.
1
j —Looking Back—
From the files of the Weekly:
IN 1923
The Easy Way to Own a
FORD
ONE-TON TRUCK
Here is a chance for you to get
started toward greater profits—
or to build up a business of your
own—and it costs only $5 to make
a start.
Everywhere. Ford One-Ton
Trucks and Light Delivery Cars
are saving more than this every
year for their users. So, as soon
as your truck starts running it
will quickly take care of the
purchase price and add new pro
fits as well.
It will widen the area in which
you can do business, enlarge the
number of customers you can
serve—and keep your delivery
costs down to the lowest point.
Start now toward the ownership
of a Ford Truck or Light Deliv
ery car—use the
Ford Weekly Purchase Plan
$5 Enrolls You
Under the terms of this Plan,
we deposit this money in a local
bank at interest. Each week
you add a little more—this also
draws interest. And in a short
time the truck is yours to use.
Come in and Jet us give you
full particulars.
STROWD MOTOR CO.
IN 1933-
Armistice Day Parade
‘'There is to be a big parade
in Chapel Hill on the morning of
November 11, the 15th anniver
sary of the day when the Armis
tice ended the World War.
“L. J. Phipps, commander of
the local post of the American
Legion, is directing the arrange
ments.
"The parade will form on West
Franklin Street, and the route
It’s thinking about going to Flor
ida for the winter because it’s
Indian summer in North Carolina.
It's hot oatmeal tasting good
for breakfast.
It's hog killing, backbone and
crackling bread one morning and
“skeeter” killing the next.
It’s when long underwear is a
necessity in the morning and a
nuisance in the afternoon.
November is the closing of the
tobacco markets and the open
ing of toylands.
It's Santa Claus and Christmas
trees appearing before Thanks
giving and the Pilgrims.
of march will probably be down
the street through the business
section, around the corner at
the President’s House, along the
Raleigh Road, into the campus
at the east gate, and up Camer
on Avenue to Memorial Hall.
The Armistice Day exercise in
the hall will begin at 10:30 . .
IN 1943
From Chapel Hill Chaff:
"Rhodes Markham, the Negro
man-of-all work at the W. C. Cok
er home, has a terrapin for a
pet. After he named it Jimmy
he learned from the hatching
out of a gang of little terrapins,
that Jenny or Jemima would
have been more appropriate, but
he held to the original name.
Jimmy’s home is in the grass
near the garage. She starts out
early every morning and crawls
a distance of about fifty yards
to the little tool house and gen
eral utility building where Rhodes
makes his headquarters. This
trip is for the breakfast he has
taughfher to expect, bits of meat
and other things suitable for a
terrapin. When she has eaten
her fill she goes back home.”
IN 1953-
Peter Garvin
Library Will V*
Be Dedicated
Monday Night
"The dedication of the Glen
wood School’s Peter Garvin
Memorial Library will be held
at a meeting of the school’s
PTA . . . Monday. Robert B,
House, Chancellor of the Univer
sity, will make the dedicatory
address. The presentation of the
Library will be made by Harold
Weaver, chairman of the trustees
of the Peter Garvin Library
Fund, and the acceptance will
be by C. W. Davis, superinten
dent of schools. The Rev. W. M.
Howard will deliver the invoca
tion.
"The Library is a memorial
to the son of Dr. and Mrs. 0.
David Garvin who was killed
in an accident in 1951 when he
was nine years old . . .
By BILLY ARTHUR
It’s United Fund leaders plead
ing that quotas be met.
It’s children bringing home their
report cards which show progress.
Or, lack of it.
It's persimmons ripening and
Pete Ivey, Bugs Barringer, Burke
Davis and John Parris telling
how to make persimmon beer.
November is a reminder that
the Uth is not a celebration of
the end of the war to end all
wars.
It’s the opening of the quail,
rabbit and deer season and a re
minder that people who look like
quail, rabbit and deer will live
longer if they’re careful when
they commune with nature.
It's the philosophy of Ike Lon
don's Richmond County colored
friend, who said, "In the spring
I’se an optimist, the summer a
pessimist, but, praise God, in the
fall I’se a possumist.”
It's leaves to be raked when
there's sewing and darning to be
done.
It's azaleas to be mulched and
bulbs to be planted for spring.
It’s treating chapped hands
from working in flowers, and yet
it’s said November has a “Na
tional Save a Wife Week.”
November is when a fat turkey
or hen should roost higher or
make itself scarcer.
It's relatives eating up the
Thanksgiving turkey you’d hoped
would last three meals, includ
ing turkey hash.
It’s women wearing little boy
britches instead of skirts on warm
days.
And it’s women wearing long
black stockings that make them
look as if they're in mourning
from the waist down.
It’s adopting a needy family for
Christmas when you wofter if
it should not be your own.
November is subscribing to
magazines through the junior
class to pay for the senior ban
quet next springs
It’s buying Christmas cards
from one little fellow and apolo
getically turning down another
who also wants to make some
money to buy his mama a Christ
mas present.
It’s Christmas lights strung
across streets but purposelessly
hanging there till after Thanks
giving.
It’s wrapping up children to go
outside only to have them stay
no longer than it took to bundle
them, and then have them come
back inside to be unwrapped and
suddenly decide they want to go
outside again.
It’s the beginning of colds, run
ning noses and trips to the doc
tor.
November is building a huge
fire in the fireplace and discover
ing you’ve forgotten to open the
draft.
It’s waiting till the end of the
month to start your Christmas
list and then wishing you’d start
ed a Christmas savings account
last January.
Yet, November in North Caro
lina is simply wonderful!
BILL PROUTY
How long will it be before it
rains real rain again?
The soft drizzle which fell here
through most of Monday night
and into Tuesday morning lent
premature hopes that the long
drought was at last at an end.
By mid-morning Tuesday the
overcast coming from the west
had broken up into sky-rimmed,
off-gray patches which anxious
ly nudged the solid dark rain
clouds toward the east.
Radio weather reports audibly
confirmed these visual observa
tions: The big drought was with
us still, and there was no im
mediate relief in sight.
You know, we urbanites, liv
ing in small cities with their
plentiful water reserves, their
paved streets and, their flow
er and shrubbery-watering facil
ities, have almost forgotten the
real curse of droughts. Oh, we
commiserate as best we can with
our farmer brethren, whose
crops are withering under the
summer’s rainless skies, and we
listen with considerable atten
tion and some trepidation to re
ports of the tinder dryness of
the forests surrounding our
towns, and during long drawn
out droughts, we reluctantly
submit to the inconveniences
of voluntary water rationing,
such as limited car washing and
no grass sprinkling.
But do you remember when,
your city was a town, or a vilj
lage, and a drought was some
thing else again?
Our Town was just like yours
was during those summer and
fall droughts back in the 19205,
when the roads were unpaved
and the water supply was either
from wells or from water sys
tems which depended upon small
creek dams and tiny reservoirs.
After a week or two with no
rain there was dust, dust every
where. You could even taste it.
In our old ißaibee House home
in the middle of Town, you
could dust the furniture in the
morning and it would be cover
ed again by afternoon. You
could smell it in the boxwood
A Letter T>-The Editor
To the Editor:
Many of us on the University
Library staff are shocked and
saddened by the sudden death of
Professor Robert J. Getty last
Thursday night. Mr. Getty was
well known to us as one of our
most constant patrons in the Lib
rary among the faculty. We would
see him about four days a week
all the years he was here, either
ordering or checking on both old
and new books for the Classics
Department in our Acquisitions
section, or taking out many per
sonal loans at the Circulation
Desk, or just browsing studious
ly in the Stacks. Through his rare
kindliness and solicitude for peo
ple, and with his vast scholarly
interest and knowledge of books,
he became one of the Library’s
best faculty friends.
Never to be forgotten will be:
his unique way of speaking in a
slurred Irish-British accent and
j the happy lilt of his voice; his
old-world type of gentlemanly
courtesy; his quiet, dignified
manner combined with an out
going friendliness, a ready smile
and a youthful sense of humor;
his obvious sincerity, his real en
thusiasm and his love of beauti
ful things; his steady but kind University Library
1 ' -
Aid For Forgotten Vice
The Norfolk Virginian Pilot
Poet Archibald MacLeish was exulting the other day
in Bogota, Colombia, that at last he had found a land
where poetry was appreciated. In Colombia, it seems,
the streets ring with rhyme, laws are written in iambic
pentameter, and every man is his own versifier. Mr.
MacLeish finds all this heady stuff.
“Someone told me once,” he repeated for the North
American press, “that if you need a poet in the United
States, you go to the FBI; in Argentina you go to the
intellectuals; in Colombia you go to the telephone di
rectory.” Mr. MacLeish concluded none too happily that
in the United States the writing of poetry is often re
garded much as a vice that is better overlooked.
It is all too true. Mr. MacLeish might perform a serv
ice for his native land by asking for help from Colom
bia, perhaps in the name of the Alliance for Progress.
We do not need shipments of poets from Colombia, heav
en knows, but we could use some technical knowhow on
the care and feeding of the ones we have at home. Per
haps one Colombian senator would be useful to teach
some of our own the brevity that is the soul of poetry
as well as wit.
But, Mr. MacLeish might like his native land less
for all this. It is not true that one must go to the FBI
to obtain poets in the United States. Some the Certi
fied Poets can be obtained at the White House now
adays. It is as a Certified Poet, as a matter of fact, that
Mr. MacLeish is in Colombia. Sec. of the Interior Udall
brought him along just to prove we had one.
In Colombia, the secretary of the interior probably
writes his own.
bushes, which would powder like
a puff if you bumped into them.
It covered the leaves of the
trees and the grass turned gray
ish-green.
And after a month of rainless
skies the creeks were at a gur
gle and the water from your
kitchen tap came in an ever
thinning trickle, and finally you
began boiling all your drinking
water before you drank it, as
an extra precaution against
dreaded typhoid fever.
And now the old Model-T street
watering truck had given up its
hopeless task and the young’uns
plopped barefooted up and down
Franklin Street, fine dust ally
ing with their feet and sticking
all over their sweaty bodies.
And back home again where
footprints followed them across
the open front porch right into
the house and onto the rugs and
floors.
And finally the youngsters got
so they didn’t even care about
playing anymore, and adults
would gather around in serious
groups, asking each other if it
would ever rain again, and com
ing to the dire conclusion that
indeed it might not. Tempers
became edgy, faces drawn and
apprehensive', nerves taut, and
souls all but dehydrated.
And then came the rains!
And with them, uplifted and
grateful faces, and bounding
creeks, and fast-running water
taps, and filling wells and flow
ing springs, and rain-dappled
1 dust turned into mushy mud,
and the young’uns ran out into
it all to see if it was really true.
Have you ever known the
gloriously fresh odor of falling
rain as it washed away the
pungent lingering odor of dust
from the air, and erased the
gray from the green leaves, and
trickled unabated down a joy
ous upturned young face?
If you have, you will under
stand how soothing were the
soft sounds of Monday night’s
long night’s long drizzle, and
how glaring were Tuesday morn
ing’s bright blue skies.
look right into your eyes, and
the feeiing he Igave of his per
sonal attention to each indivi
dual or subject at hand. In the
physical bulk of this large man
there was the grace of something
soft and light and tender, which
he never tried to hide.
I have been personally fond of
Mr. Getty for years and he would
always give a jaunty wave if he
did not have time to stop and
talk. Last Thursday afternoon’he
did have time and stopped to
talk with me for about ten min
utes. He had been interested in
my vacation trip to New York in
September and I had brought
some of my color photographs to
show him. He slowly examined
and commented enthusiastically
about each one, and he particul
arly liked my pictures of the
bridges. He said that he hoped
to go back again someday soon to
see them and he talked of other
world-famous bridges, some of
which he had seen and some he
yet hoped to see. That night he
died suddenly of a heart attack
—a very young man at heart, de
spite his 55 years. I miss him al
ready.
Myra Lauterer
Circulation Desk