PAGE FOUR uirHLANDS MACONIAN THfi fRANKLIN PRESS AND THE HIGHL^ THURSDAY aitii ^x^hlnnits ^^txunxnn Published every Thursday by The Franklin Press At Franklin, North Carolina Telephone No. 24 VOL, LI ^ Number 38 BLACKBURN W. JOHNSON EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Entered at the Post Office, Franklin, N. C., as second class matter SUBSCRIPTION RATES One Year ’ $1.50 Six Months 75 Elight Months $1.00 Single Copy 05 Obituary notices, cards of thanks, tributes of respect, by individuals, lodges, churches, organizations or societies, will be regarded as ad«er tising and inserted at regular classified advertising rates. Such notices will be marked “adv.” in compliance with the postal regulations. This newspaper invites its readers to express their opinions on matters of public interest through its columns. The Press- Maconian is independent in its policies .and is glad to print both sides of any qiuestion. Letters to the editor should ibe written legibly on only one side of the paper and shooild be of reasonable length. The editor reserves the right to rej'cct letters which are too long, are of small general interest or which would violate the sensibilities of our readers. Straw Polls Misleading J^EPUBLICANS are making much of the outcome of various straw polls conducted during the pasit year on presidential prospects, and even some Democra,ts,' taking the pseudo ballots .at their face value, have been misled into believing that maybe Mr. Roosevelt’s hold on the electorate is slipping. In .a cool .analysis of the state-.by-state returns of the major straw polls which already 'have been completed one will find, however, little evidence to support the conclusions that have been drawn by those who have conducted these polls. Republicans who scan these returns critically will find only disappointment, and doubting Demo crats will discover a tonic for their waning spirits. Writing in the August 8th issue of The Nation, Paul W. Ward riddles with holes of doubt the straw vote put out by Dr. Gallup’s Institute of Public Opinion, th'6 Literary Digest poll completed last Ja,nuary and the Farm Journal poll which was started in July. “Though all have ibeen represented otherwise,” comments Mr. Ward, “none of the three (polls) offers much support to the Landan cause. In the most reliable of them all, the Digest poll, nearly 2,000,000 votes were cast, and 62,6 per cenl^ of them were cast in disapproval of the New Deal, which carried only 12 states in this test. But the question on the ballot was so badly phrased .as to open the way for many different deductions, and the voters were ,not given .a chance to vote for or against Roosevelt, who unquestionably is more popular than the New Deal. “The other two polls may be quickly dismissed, especially the Farm Journal poll. It is taken not by mail but by solicitors., and ^licitors are notoriously inclined to lead the voters, especially when they are employed by the type of firm that piubhshes this magazine. The firm is owned by Joseph N. Pew, Jr., oil man and prominent Liberty Leaguer, who bought the Farm Journal out of receivership last October. A 25-cents-a-year magazine claiming a circulation of about 1,250,000, it reads like a campaign pamphlet from the Repub lican National Committee, x x x x x x may .add for the benefit of those who don’t believe in figures yet do believe in Dr. Gallup’s polls, that the latest gave Roosevelt an edge of 2,000,000 in the popular vote but found Landon a six-vote lead in the electoral college. It achieved this result by giving Lan don the benefit of the doubt wherever possible. It conceded to Roosevelt 24 states with a total of 229 electoral votes and to Landon 15 states with a total of 99 votes. Then it proceeded to parcel out 14 doubtful states, giving 11 with a total of 173 voters to Landon and three with a total of 30 votes to Roosevelt. Among the do,ubt- ful states it gave to Landon was Montana. Two weeks after the poll was piubUshed Montana held its primary elections. New Deal candidates won the Democratic contest. The total vote for .both parties was 67 per cent Democratic in the case of the governorship and 74 per cent in that of the senatorship. ,If the disparity between the poll and the Mo.ntana vote holds throughout the poll—^^and primary returns in other states warrant a belief that it does—only four states that Gallup concedes to Landon will actually be found in his column in November; Roosevelt will 'have the remaining 34 and a record-breaking total of 510 'electoral votes.” Mr. Ward concludes that Landon doesn’t have ,a Chinaman’s chance and, by an analysis of many factors entering into the situation de ducts most convincingly that “Roosevelt will carry at least 31 states and poll at least 286 electoral votes, which is 20 more than he needs, and there is a better-than-even chance that he will poll more than 400 out of a possible 531.” The only states safely Republican at this time, Mr. Ward believes, are Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, M.aine, Connecticut and Kansas, which will vote for Landon out of local pride. Roose velt will have enough electoral votes without those of the above states or of any of the following; Delaware, Illinois, M.aryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. But in many of these, Mr. Ward points out, Roosevelt has better than a fighting chance. The most recent Literary Digest poll was not taken into considera tion by Mr. Ward; as it had not started at the time hisi article was published. We will watch with a great deal ofi interest the outcome of this poll. It should prove more reliable than that of last Jan uary on the popularity of the New Deal as the question of the cur rent poll is not so confusing. But wise political observers will draw their own deductions from all unofficial polls, allowing plenty of room for error and taking into full cognizance the fact that no straw vote thus far held “is large enough to reflect anything but the grossest sort of shift in public sentiment.” barton beware, sweet SOUNDING WHISTLES At- a rece.nt convention o SocL, .rF.k»d, g.n«.lly "»■; “not a smgle Quaker h.a relief rolls during the national ‘"SSfextraordinary fo^k are a survival of another era Thej, co ceive It their duty to exc themselves from the ^ suits of pleasure,” and asked help to keep up on the .automobile. Benjamin Frank lin, who lived among them and wd a close student of their habits, nas left ,us many reasonable sayings, such as the following. “Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship. “B,uy what thou has no need of and ere long thou shalt sell ne cessities.” . . . “Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee.” ... -Um- gence is the mother of good luck. ... “A child and a fool imagine that twenty shillings and twenty years can never be spent.” In a letter to Mme. Brillo.n, writ ten while he was representing our country in France, Franklin told how as a small boy he received a pocket full of pennies as a birth day gift. On his way to the toy shop he met another boy who had a whistle that charmed him. In a great hurry, young Benjamin offer ed all his pennies for a similar whistle, only to learn, cn his re turn to the house, that he had paid much more than the whistle was worth. “I conceive,” Franklin wrote, “that a great part of the miseries of mankind arc brought upon them by false estimates of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.” Quakers cling to the old-fash ioned notion that hard v.'ork, living within your income, and a sturdy self-respect are highly valuable spiritual possessions—much too val uable to be traded for any sweet- sounding whistle. WHENCE COME IMMORTALITY A dinner wasi held the other night at which a bronze medal was presented. The dinner was a simple affair, in the grill room of a mod est restaurant, down below the street level; it was inexpensive be cause the people who gave it were mostly artists; they constitute what, is known as the Institute of Graphic Arts. The medal was pre sented to J. Thom.son Willing. “So what?” you probably say, “There are dinners every night, in every ^ restaurant, and who cares ? Who is J. Thomson Willing?” He began life as an artist but, because he had talent for directing and encouraging the work of oth ers, and a fine instinct for the proper arrangement and balance of art .and type on the printed page, a newspaper annexed him as art editor. Subs'eq,uently Willing was lured to New York by a great litho graphic house, and later he moved on to a group of national maga zines. It was during the days of his magazine activities that I came to know him. We had been together only a few days when I noticed something strange about his office. It seemed to be .always full of people. I asked him about It and he blushed a httle, and said: “Every year a lot of young artists come to New York T sorT of 'mSg ComUL^'e' m a while I am rewarded by mak ing a real discovery.” Around the table' nn • , '^'as presented were some iL Th « Amer- Thomson^ when they were" yM^f’^n cases he was the first to a kindly hand anfut r ^ couraging word. He has no wealth; he ha.; nr, fame beyond the limits nf profession. But his lifp -n r the lives he has Vipln j «»t they. ‘ I,' “ liv« TM, is iLonS": ' (Copyright, K. F. S) Night Automobile Accidents Ser mil Traveltrs Itis, Ct, I /Last* year during daylight there were 14,000 fatal automobile acci dents as against more than 19,000 during dusk and darkness. But total accidents in daylight exceeded the nuiDber during dusk and darkness by more than 130,000. The fatal accident record during dusk and darkness, in proportion to all accidents in such periods, was 92 per cent greater than the daytime experience. The tremendous loss of life during hours of darkness con stitutes one of the strongest argu ments against the present-day prac tice of driving too fast, ft way to explain the Mgli death per accident at nijl by the fact that many opei at speeds during darknes! not permit them to stop j range of the illuminatioj by headlights. Under si( tions lives are crushed oiili the unexpected happte highways must be illumiB the lighting of streets imp drivers must remember ai the warning: WHEN T1 GOES DOWN, SLOW DO PARK TRAVEL ISINCPSING Great Smokies Park D raws 125,672 Visitors In August ASHEVILLE, Sept. 16,-An esti mated total of 125,672 visitors from 46 states, the District of Columbia and Canada entered the boundaries, of the Great Smoky Mountains Na tional park during the month of August, according to J. R. Eakin, superintendent of the park. The August park travel was 24.3 per cent greater than the total for August, 1935, and 42 per cent of e visitors came from states other than the neighbor states of the na- tonal park Tennessee and North Carolina. Ihe August total, which vs a suibstantial increase over Hever’f' is be- rrl. substantial in- tlif n during 1936 over toW 1 f year. The estimated wIT . 5(»,000 and natlnafirrk " and“or?J’'" September afk National elsewhere in a7 equal and brillialice t to havf- the' a-V * known the slopes"of’tt'f at ele,a,"„ ‘ravel and i!! within the nark completion beauties of the’ 7 of the vishor T, ’ " the autumnal , f "ticipated 'that the August lead follow travel " 0,1 “• “p new Smokies. ' ‘he Great Food Fads Usuall) More Harm Than Most food fads are ignorance rather than a of foods and the requii the human body. No well inform'ed per advocate the absurd & mended by self-styW and “professor.s” who theories to give outoriv promote the sale of cert; foods.” This is the opinion of Sherwood, of the N. C. ■ experiment station, who pie to use common se“ ing and to shun food fa would the plague. The public has beco conscious during (hf and people fall quacks who talk glW hydrates, proteins,^, and vitamins. Dr. Stiw"' Since most of their based on an element o is obvious to the pu ' tinned, the popular teM suppose that 'every make is also true. Every time the mo.nkies with the hu® Sherwood declared, ^ harm than good. He would have pW that white bread is proteins and carboliy never be eaten at | e that certain so-called are essential to he, happiness, the doctor He added that he J ring to reputable P y eticians who recomW ^ people who cannot es or who are in foods. But these recomn' based on the needs o ual, and are made who know what about. The faddis, hand, usually for all people.

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