North Carolina Newspapers

lire $TKtcklin |m? .??i ' atti* dJw Btliglilaixfcs (j!ik?:jmrait Bound at Post Offlot, Franklin. K. C- m moomd c Publlabad mry Thursday by The Franklin Pianklln. N. O. BOB 8. SLOAN . . t. P. BRADY News Editor mSB BBTTT LOU FOOTS Offloe ? ^ OARL P.CABB Mechanic ? " * PRANK A. 8TARRBTTB . Shop I DAVID H. SUTTON i B. W Hl'l'l'lNOTON SUBSCRIPTION RATES Outbids Macon County One Tear *3.00 Ms Month* ????????? l.TO Three Monthe 1.00 1MSXDK MACOH V/WUPTi One Te*r $tM Six Months I TS Three Months" 100 . AUGUST 19, 1954 Not So Poor 1 Most persons think of the mountain counties of Western North Carolina as extremely poor. So much has been said about it, in fact, that most of us who live in this area are inclined to think of our selves as just this side of the poor house. I Well, maybe we aren't rich, as compared with some other areas; we do have our economic prob lems ? makfe no mistake about that ! But the comparative poverty that once was the rule in this area has become almost the exception. If you doubt that, consider this : The people of Macon County have a reservoir of wealth in U. S. Savings Bonds alone of two and a third million dollars. The figure was announced by Walter P. Johnson, state director of the Treasury's savings bond program, at a recent meeting of the Franklin Rotary club. Two and a third million dollars ! That's an aver age of about $150 for every man, woman, and child in the county. And that doesn't take into account cash savings in other forms ? and ownership of homes, farms, and businesses, not to mention automobiles, wash ing machines, and the ottr<fr work-saving gadgets ihat have become common here. Could It Be? A $100 reward has been offered by the State Board of Examiners in Optometry for the arrest and conviction of any house-to-house salesman of ready-to-wear glasses. "Such methods endanger the public welfare be cause there is never an examination for disease", explains Dr. P. N. DeVere, president of the board. But is an optometrist qualified to give an "ex amination for disease"? Could it be that what the good doctor really had in mind is contained in his further explanation, that the door-to-door salesmen of glasses "are not licen sed optometrists"? Could it be it's the optometrists he's seeking to protect? Same Old Rule "You wouldn't think of doing it around your own home, but if you are an average picknicker, tourist, ?or. week-end vacationer, you sometimes forget and ?discard an empty beverage bottle or a sharp-edged metal container in some public place where the next visitor may become a victim of your thoughtless action", says the Institute for Safer Living. And what about the .picknicker or vacationist ?who, if he doesn't actually endanger the life of the next person to visit the spot, destroys its beauty and usefulness by leaving it looking more like the town garbage dump than a picnic area? In this, as in every other area of human rela tions, there is no substitute for the Golden Rule. And in this case, as the Institute points out, it is ?very simple to observe that rule. It suggests : "Consider your neighbor ... Be sure to take along a bag or carton for carrying all refuse until it can be safely and properly disposed of." Racial prejudice in the South is on the decline. Meanwhile, prejudice about racial prejudice in the South grows apace. The Asheville Citizen refers to Herbert Hoover as "one of our greatest living ex-Presidents". .Since Mr. Hoover is one of only two "livingex Presidents", we nominate The Citizen's expression as a model of care in avoiding over-statement. ? Letters TOURIST LIKES IT HERE Dear Mr. Jones: I would like to comment concerning your "Btrlctly Personal" column (August 5 issue). You were "speaking of quality", re ferring to the comparison between the commercially baked bread and your own local bakery. After reading your note and the letter on the same page by J. L. West, Jr., on the same subject, we ? my wife and I ? drove In and shopped at your local bakery. We bought a couple of loaves of their hot French bread ? It smelled so good that we had to sample it ? we found it so delicious that we had to go back and buy another loaf, a pie and some of their very won derful pecan roll. The baker was so very accommodating. ? I spoke of wanting bakery baked hamburger rolls for a special party Sunday evening, the following day. I gave my order Saturday at 10 a. m. and picked up 5 dozen special rolls at 5 p. m. the same day. I would like to see that service equalled ? no matter where you have been living, no matter fhe size of the city. I am a summer tourist, from St. Petersburg, Fla., and I will be here only about a month each year. I would never have heard of your fine bakery except for your editorial page. By the way, we shop In Franklin and we like it, and just for the record, in this, our first week, we have made purchases In 17 concerns: three grocery stores, two butcher shops, two service stations, one garage, one vegetable shop, one laundry, one dairy, one drug store, two 5 St 10c stores, one Hardware store, one bakery. And the kids went to the local movie house. And we will be here three more weeks! Your people are courteous and helpful. We like it up here. Yours truly, Gneiss, N. C. PAUL KANISS. Others' Opinions w DESERVING (Asheville Citizen) Tourist business up 20 to 30 per cent over last year in the first few days of August has encouraged Jackson County High landers to jump the gun on neighbors and organize for great er membership participation in 1955. This is sound planning, for it borrows enthusiasm while the bloom is still on the rose. It also calls attention to the work of the Highlanders in an 11-county Western North Carolina area where there can never be too much travel promotion by any and all hands ready to join and haul as one. Every year there are millions more automobiles licensed and hundreds of thousands more motorists vacation-bent. By 1960, according to some predictions taking into account the new quest for leisure occupation and paid vacations, the American tourist will look back on 1950 as a mere shadow of Itself. The Highlanders are on the right road. They need and de serve all the company they can get in the western province of Variety Vacatlonland MAY BECOME A MOSES (Albemarle News and Press) The bright-eyed youngster sat on the bench In the barber shop, waiting his turn in the chair. He was working on a tasty looking cup cake, which he admitted was delicious. Tomorrow would be his birthday, he said, and he would be all of five years old. Someone suggested that he was only a little more than a year away from school, and his bright eyes sparkled as he agreed that this was right. His mother sat behind him, not thinking too much of his future. She was more concerned that the crumbs from the cup cake did not fall on the floor. But what Is to be that boy's future? Will he be a hungry orphan wandering about in a small city that has almost been destroyed by an atomic or hydrogen bomb? Or will he grow to young manhood, only to die on some far-away battlefield Will this nation, as a democracy, survive a crisis which his torians a hundred years ago predicted would destroy us, or will this boy become a slave to Communist masters? If we look toward Washington today, our hearts .and minds shudder at his future. Certainly we can take no hope from what we see transpiring there. Perhaps, however, within the breast of this small lad beats a brave heart that will not quail at the chaos ?f which he will become aware when he reaches young manhood. And he may well become the Moses who will lead us out of the wilderness. There Is no freedom on earth or on any star for those who deny freedom to others. ? Elbert Hubbard. Poetry Editor surril DEADSTOCK ^ w ^ Weavervllle, North Carolina .SUMMER From Review Of The Seasons Note, that In summer, all things measure long. Long dayfe, long shadows and the evening song Of birds. The tanager In high disdain Derides the cuckoo when he calls for rain. Long shadows slant across the drowsy town, Twilight lingers when the sun Is down. MARIE HALBET KINO. Curtain . . . for now ?Ill// PhMo by J. P. Brady Maybe the show still IS going on ? it's over, for the time being:, (or this youngster. The photo has what newspapermen call "human interest" news. Bat it's an editorial, too. The picture, made on a Highlands street the afternoon of the recent "Hillbilly Day", illu strates how Macon County folk, once they go in for something, go all the way. Not only has this boy gone till physical exhaustion overtook him; note the poses of all the others in the group. The camera caught something else, too. This celebration, like the recent Folk Festival here, isn't something people just look at, it's something they take part in. The Diary Of A Plantation Owner'j Wife HOW THEY LIVED IN THE 60's An enlightening and intensely interesting bit of reading is an 111-page book just off the press, "The Journal of Catherine Devereux Edmondson, 1860-61". (Privately printed by Stephens Press, Asheville. Copies obtain able from Mi's. Stephen H. Mil lender, Mebane, N. C. $3.75, postpaid.) Mrs. Edmondson lived in far Eastern North Carolina, but the book is given local interest by the fact it was edited by Mrs. O. Lyle Jones, of Asheville, for merly of Franklin. The docu ment was given by Mrs. "Ed mondson to her niece, Mrs. Jones' mother, and the latter give it to Mrs. Jones. Excerpts from the day-to-day dairy of the wife of a South ern plantation owner, it is en lightening in the vivid way it reveals the Negro of slave days; and, more important, the atti tude of the white man of that day toward the Negro, and his relations with him. Incidentally, Mrs. Edmondson's journal, writ ten at the time of the events chronicled, and without the author's dreaming that it ever would be read by others, rather effectively gives the lie to some conceptions that have become common about the old South. Just why the book, once be gun, Is so hard to put down I still am not entirely sure. Per haps it Is because It is such a human document. The .reader lives with Mrs. Edmondson, really becomes Mrs. Edmondson, as she awaits the outbreak of the Civil War; as she bids her husband goodbye; as she nerv ously awaits news ? always slow and rarely entirely reliable ? about the outcome of military campaigns; as she works in her garden. (Who, today, would have believed any Southern plantation owner's wife ever worked with her own hands!) The book is given punch, too, by the fact that Mrs. Edmond son evidently was a woman of spirit, of intelligence, and of considerable wit. She did not fall to analyze the actions and dissect the motives of the gov ernments, North and South, of generals, privates, and neigh bors ? and, most often of Cath erine Devereux Edmondson her self. There's a lot of history in these 1X1 pages ? history de lightfully sugar-coated with a keen Insight into and sympathy for humanity. W. J. STRICTLY PERSONAL o By WEIMAR JONES One of the interesting things about editing a weekly news paper is the letters you get . . . all kinds of letters, that come from almost everywhere. Abusive letters, congratulatory letters, letters discussing the issues of the day, social letters, and combinations of all of those ? not to mention letters for publication. All of them, of course, do not make pleasant reading. Occa sionally, for example, there is a letter calling the editor names. Now all of us, no matter how loudly we may protest to the contrary, covet the good opinion of our fellows; and it isn't en tirely pleasant to learn that one of our fellows has a low opin ion of us ? so low. In fact, that he feels Impelled to take the time, energy, paper, and cost of a stamp to tell us Just how low it is. It isn't pleasant, but even this kind of letter brings a cer tain satisfaction. At least, the editor can console himself, one editorial must have taken a definite stand on a controver sial Issue; nobody ever got riled by a milk toast kind of editor ial ? one that says nothing, and says It beautifully and at great length. And, he can add to him self, since what he wrote made somebody angry, maybe It also made somebody else think ? the chief purpose of editorials. Nor Is It entirely pleasant to get a letter demanding to know "why in the blankety-blank didn't I get my paper last week-?" It Isn't pleasant, but that kind of letter also brings with it satisfaction. At least, the subscriber missed the paper; so he must really read It, and look forward to Its coming. Then there are the confiden tial letter*. Some of them offer splendid suggestions that are most welcome; but a lot of them are along this line: "Why, Mr. Editor, dont you crusade on such-and-such a controver sial issue? . . . but dont dare breathe a word about my sug gesting it! Tou go out on a limb (Is what he means); I'm In business, and cant afford to." (As though a newspaper didn't have a pay roll to meet!) Then there Is an occasional anonymous letter. The most re markable one of this kind came recently. It called the editor of The Press all the names in the book, and then commanded: "Since reference to or quota tion from this communication is forbidden, let It remain anony mous". Let It? How could we do otherwise, since no name was signed! The great majority of -the letters, though, are courteous, considerate, kindly ? and a Joy to read. It boosts one's faith in human nature, somehow, when a read er, sometimes In a distant state, will take the time and trouble to write that the paper is do ing a good Job. It's a kind, thoughtful gesture, back of which there can be no possible selfish motive. It really Is re markable how many such let ters come, over an editor's desk. And many persons, In renew ing a subscription, will simply write a nice little note, saying the paper "Is like a letter from home". One woman, whom the editor does not know personal ly, always sends along with her ?Continued From Pate Two News Making As It Looks To A Maconite ? By BOB SLOAN True Democrats throughout North Carolina must have breathed a sigh of relief the other day when the newly ap pointed Senator Sam Irvin fin ally voted on a critical issue along with his party. Since go ing to the Senate he had so consistantly voted with the Eis enhower administration that many were beginning to wonder if he had been appointed by a Democratic Governor or a staunch Republican, However on the patent issue in the Atomic Energy Commission bill he fin ally came through with a vote which possibly reflects that he is aware of the fact that there are some things which the peo ple through the government should retain some control over rather than leave completely to the exploitation of enterprise on a first come first served basis. There is considerable specula tion on the elections this fall as to who will come out in con trol of Congress. Despite my wishes in the matter I think that the Repub licans will retain control of both bodies ? the Senate and the House. Here are my reasons: 1. The Democrats have not ridden the right horses in their attacks on the Republican ad ministration. They have talked depression. There isnt now and there won't be a depression of serious enough strength to af fect a national election as long as the people of this country Continued on Page Three ? Do You Remember? (Looking backward through tbo (Dm of The Proas) 50 TEARS AGO THIS WEEK R. T. Sisk complains of de predations by chicken thieves of some kind. There will be a social meeting of the Library Club Friday eve ning. A new boy made his appear ance at Charley Cabe's Thurs day. Four boys and four girls is the Cabe crop so far. 10 TEARS AGO Pvt. Wymer J. Gibson, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ben H. Gibson, of Cullasaja, has landed safely overseas, according to a message received here. Pvt. Clyde Southards, son of Mr. and Mrs. Lester Southards, of Franklin, Route 2, is home on furlough from Planelee, New Orleans. Miss Bessie Hinson Hlnes, daughter of Mrs. James A. } Hlnes and the late Mr. Hlnes, of Highlands, was married to Butler Sterling Harklns, of San Diego, Calif., son of Mrs. Charles Patrick Harkins and the late Mr. Harklns, of Superior, Neb., July 29, at Olendale, Calif.