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PAGE FOUR THE FRANKLIN PRESS AND THE HIGHLANDS MACONIAN THURSDAY, FE&. 11, mi Cks JfcastUttt fttss nxtit Sits iigltlanits ffinzmiirax Published every Thursday, by The Franklin Press At Franklin, North Carolina Telephone No. 24 VOL. LII Number 6 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 Eight Months .., ...r. ........... $1.00 Single Copy .05 Obituary notices, cards of thanks, tributes of respect, by individuals, lodges, churches, organizations or societies, will be regarded as adver tising and inserted at regular classified advertising rates. Such notices will be marked "adv." in compliance with the postal regulations. The Supporting Evidence (Continued from Page One) them to you and not to some one else. You know me well enough to know that 1 do not do business by means such as sending tele grams to other parties. As long as I am County Commissioner of Macbn County, I intend to try to take care of the County's busi ness as 'best I, can and not meddle with the other fellow's business. Any legislation that will save Macon County money, suits me. As I have said above if I think any of your legislation is not for the best interest of the people, I will talk to you, and not some one else. Tom-Bryson and George tell me that you assisted them in every way possible in regard to the re-financing of the County debt, and I want youl to know that I appreciate the interest in this matter on your-part,; and I think it means more to Macon County than any other matter which can possibly come up. If any further communications come to you which are supposed to be signed by me, please absolutely disregard them unless they bear my genuine signature, with which you are acquainted. With kindest regards, I am C. L. Blaine Franklin, N. C. February 1, 1937 Could This Be Called Forgery? v Mr. R. A. Patton, House of Representatives, Raleigh, N. C. Dear Mr. Patton: Upon receiving your letter of February 5 we proceeded to investi gate .your charge , that names had been Jorged to telegrams and pe sponsored by you. titions sent to Raleigh in opposition to some of the legislation It was a rather difficult matter in that your accusations were as hazy as they were serious. We gathered, however, that your "forgery" reference applied to the placing of Mr. C, L. Blaine's name to a telegram from the County Board of Commissioners to Senator Kelly E. Bennett in regard to the Jailor's Fee Bill, which since has been enacted into law. To clarify the matter, we went to see Mr. E. B. Byrd, chairman of the Board of Commissioners, who gavq .us a very frank explana tion of how Mr. Blaine's name came to be on the telegram. On January 20, Mr. Byrd informed us, the board held a called meeting. Mr. Byrd and Mr. C. A. Bryson were present, but Mr. Blaine was not. The Jailor's Fee Bill came up for discussion and Mr. Byrd and Mr. Brysori decided to send a telegram to Senator Bennett asking him to" hold up the measure in the Senate. They wanted to investigate the merits of the bill before final action was taken on it. They thereupon dictated a telegram to the senator re questing him to stop passage of the measure and directed that the names of the three commissioners be placed on the telegram. "We had no intention of going over Mr. Blaine's head," Mr. Byrd told us. "We were sending the telegram in behalf of the board, not as individuals, and we did not want to slight the absent member by omitting his name. It is true that Mr. Blaine did not sign the tele gram. For that matter, neither did Mr. Bryson and I. We merely authorized the telegram to be sent. No one tinder took to duplicate Mr. Blaine's personal signature." ' In view of this explanation, Mr. Patton, it appears to us that the Ed Byrd has given a frank explanation and, in the light of this ex planation, we hardly believe anyone would regard him as guilty of forgery. It was all open and above board, and we do not believe a jury could be found that would construe such action as fraudulent. Unfortunately, your letter was so broad in its accusations that the x impression is left that forgery has been committed on a wholesale basis. Yo,u leave a question of doubt over the names of all those who have written letters or signed petitions opposing your legislation. Wc believe that fair-minded citizens will agree with us that you owe an explanation, if ,not an apology, to these individuals. For instance, a letter to Senator Bennett protesting against the Jailor's Fee Bill has been published in this newspaper and The Asheville Citizen , above the purposed signatures of Sheriff A B. Slagle, Ras Penland, Harley R. Cabe, W. D. Barnard, C. M. Moore, R. S. Jones, Gilmer Jones, J. R Morrison, J. Frank Ray, Dr. W. A. Rogers and C. F. Moody. ; . i , : .: : , 1 , Do you mean to infer that any of these signatures were forged or unauthorized? If so, which names were forged and by whom were the . forgeries committed? Do you think that any of the long list of names signed to the petition- urging the retention of George Carpenter as a justice of the peace were forged or unauthorized? Do you know of . any other letters, petitions or telegrams sent to Raleigh in regard to your legislative measures which bear forged or unauthorized signatures? If you do, you should, in all fairness, be more specific in your charges. You made the statement in your letter that "petitions and telegrams It's Qoing c&o $e A Long "War by a. b. chapin sent t, Mr! Bennett were acts committed by one who is supposed to be a man of better judgment, if not of better principle." s To whom are you referring, Mr. Patton? You certainly cannot have, in mind Ed Byrd. His integrity has never been' reproached anl he enjoys the full confidence of the people of this county. You say that you "have the utmost confidence in the honesty, and integrity of the citizenship of Macon County x x x x x that they stand for an honest and fair-square deal, and since the day' has come that a part of our Democratic organization and a part of our Demo cratictoff ice-holders show by . their acts that they oppo'se fair and honest legislation ; then I, for one, shall not stop and shll lead the fight to purge our party of any such unfair and dastardljt conduct." Again, Mr. Patton, to whom are you referring? On tile face of your words you are making serious accusations against of race-holders of your own party office-holders, by the. way, who in every instance - were accorded much larger majorities than the margin Of) 120 votes by which you carried the November election. If you are in a crusading frame of mind, why not devote your ef forts to a more fertile field? For instance, you might accomplish some good by working, for repeal or the absentee ballot. We , note you have introduced a bill regarding the absentee, but we think that if you investigate similar measures you. will find that instead of correct ing abuses of absentee voting they have only resulted in, greater abuses. Your bill, we are inforrned, would prevent recall of an absen tee ballot once it has been signed and delivered to election officials. Would not ' this . make it possible for an enterprising, though un scrupulous, candidate to "sew up" an election days before the polls even opened ? . . j If you want to do your party and your constituency a fine service, Mr. Patton, forget about amending the absentee ballot law and, in stead, work toward its repeal. ' ' . And, too, if you are' a believer in local self-government, which should have the ardent support of every good Democrat, don't try to usurp the powers of local elective officers. But your ambition seems to ""be pointed in an opposite direction. We see that you are not satisfied in meddling with jail management, and the system of drawing juries, but that you also are undertaking to appoint tax assessors and per sonal property listers. A statewide measure rightfully places this responsibility in the hands of county commissioners. Could it be that our commissioners are not to be trusted with such matters? If not,' why not introduce a bill to abolisrV the Board of Commissioners and assume their duties yourself? By the way, we have failed to receive a reply to our letter of last week. Scores of our readers have tAld us that they were anxious to hear your answers to the questions i propounded; Our offer to print your reply still holds good. Sincerely, . Blickburn W. Johnson hranklin, N. C, February 11, 1937 back across the opean alone. For a couple of days t was depressed. Everything I caredi fqr was behind me. Then one day the, wireless spoke. i . "Have arranged three important . appointments for you," my partner wired. "Best wishes. Please con firm." Immediately "came a feeling of re-. lief and cheer, "I have work to go back to," I exclaimed. "Work . is"" f waiting to keep me alert, a little, worried and on my toes." WORK MUST BE FOUND : America's most Important task is to work out some economic system by which , we can provide honest jobs for all the people all the time. Every man and , woman is entitled I to the glorious self-respect which cornes from being able to "say : "Tlhank God, I have a place, 1 am needed." I say this because once I left myilfamily in France atfd started WORDS AND THEIR INFLUENCE Words are mysterious and awe inspiring.' We shoot them into the . air, either by tongue or pen, and most of them perish. But now and then some stray sentence drops in to a mind that remembers it, and :. :n. . u.. is 1UUUC411CU uy ii mr many years. speeches have run ( in and out of my brain " leaving little trace.. Yet, here are three quite casual remarks that I Remember: . , 1. Said the . late Talcott Williams, in a talk which I; had with him immediately after my graduation from 'college : , "Never forget the old saying of the Jesuits, 'A great deal of good can be done in the world if one is', not too careful who gets the credit'." 2. Said a prominent business man when I was blue and discouraged because the first concern for which I worked had gone busted : "You are very fortunate to have had a severe disappointment while you. are still young. The men to be pitied, are thoie whose dissapoint ments come in middle life, when it is too late for them to start over again. A disappointment in youth is merely part of the hardening process." 3. Said my friend Robert Upde graff: ' : . "Never grumble about your prob lems. They are responsible for' the"" greater part of 'your income" Of the three bits of wisdom this last has done me the most good. Whenever T think I am having a tough time I remeember that jobs with no worries carry small pay. Ifs because I have larger troubles, that I draw a larger income. None of these three friends prob ably gave his remark a second thought. But I have never forgot ten them. And I now pass them ' along. Ninety-nine out of every . hundred readers will nav no atten- non. nui some day, fifteen years from now, somebody may say: "I read something bf yours a long1 time ago, and it gave me a fresh idea." That's the marvelous thing about working with words. (Copyright, K. F. S.) II..: '...v.:":.. -V
The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.)
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