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Jftnnklitt -jjlrrsa nnb Ott jHigJtlattits j! ftatxmratt Entered at Post Office, Franklin, N. C.. as second class matter Published every Thursday by The Franklin Press Franklin, N. C. Telephone 24 AUGUST 18, 1955 A Fine Start A community that can put on two such worth while events (the Franklin Centennial and last week's county fair) in a single season has some thing-. That was the comment of a loyal if only summer resident. The Macon County community has proved, he added, that lack of size is no bar to achievement. To which we voice a fervent amen. As this is written, figures are not available on the number of fair entries or on the attendance. But again, size is no final criterion. Judged by qual ity, the fair was highly successful. Many of the entries were eye-opening as revealing what can and is being done here ; and the originality and skill of execution that w*ent into some of the booths and many of the exhibits of hand-work were enough to make anybody proud to live in Macon County. This year's fair, of course, was only a start. Next year's, it is reasonable to hope, will be bigger. We won't worry too much about that, though, if the fair continues to get better. Incidentally, this community's versatility and cooperative attitude were demonstrated in the mer ger into a single, well balanced whole of such diver gent projects as the fair proper, the Franklin Gar den Club's flower show, and the Macon County FoLk Festival. Governor Hodges' Speech That was a remarkable speech Governor Luther H. Hodges made last week. It was significant for what it said ; but it may prove to be even more significant in other respects. Discussing the segregation-integration problem, the North Carolina chief executive said, in sub stance: Let's do, voluntarily, what the Supreme Court has said we may not do, by force of law. Does Mr. Hodges propose to defy the Supreme Court? On the contrary, the words of a great and revered jurist, Judge John J. Parker, of the U. S. Court of Appeals, suggest that the governor's pro posal complies with both the letter and the spirit of the high court's decisions outlawing segregation in the public schools. Governor Hodges quoted Judge Parker's recent statement that the court "has not decided that the states must mix .persons of different races" or "de prive them of the right of choosing the schools they attend. . . . All that it has decided is that a state may not deny to any person on account of race the right to attend any school that it main tains. ... If the schools are open to all races, no violation of the Constitution is involved even though the children of different races voluntarily attend different schools, as they attend different churches. "Nothing in the Constitution or in the decision of the Supreme Court takes away from the people freedom to choose the schools they attend. The Constitution, in other words, does not require in tegration. It merely forbids discrimination." The heart of Governor Hodges' speech was an appeal to Negro citizens to cooperate with the state in working out a system of voluntary segre gation. He cited the Negro's progress as cause for race pride. He pointed to Negro teacher employment ? segregated North Carolina employs live times as many Negro teachers as non-segregated New York, though the Negro population of the two states is approximately equal ? as a practical advantage of the segregated system. And he praised the two races for working together, as separate groups but side by side, in good will. Then he said : In spite of this outstanding record of good race rela tionships here in North Carolina, we are being made the the object of a campaign by an organization which seems determined to destroy our interracial friendship and di vide us into camps of racial antagonism. This organization is known as the NAACP and, apparently is the declared enemy of the principle that the Negre race can take care of its own children as well as can any other race. Al though this group avows that the end it seeks is equality, its leaders have obviously convinced themselves that you are not capable of assuming equality. A race which can achieve equality has no need to lose itself in another race. Yet, that is what the NAACP would have you do ... In short, this organization would destroy your identity as a rare ... I believe . . . you have and will continue to offer convincing proof that you do believe yourselves capable of developing your children within the framework of your owi racial culture. * * * Any stigma you may have felt because of laws requiring segregation in our public schools has now been removed by the courts. No right thinking man resents your desire for equality under the law. At the same time, no right thinking man would advise you to destroy the hopes of your race and the white race by superficial and "show-off" actions to demonstrate this equality. Only the person who feels he is inferior must resort to demonstrations to prove UmU he is not. A person convinced of his own equality, of his own self-respect, of his own raoe respect, needs no demonstrations to bolster his own convictions. Nevertheless, the leaders of the NAACP would urge you to make such demonstrations by refusing to attend schools in which the teaching personnel are members of your own race. Already this (roup is urging lawsuits and petitions for integration in the face of the decrees recently handed down by the Federal Courts in South Carolina and Virginia which make it clear that integration is not required by law and that more time .will be needed to deal with the problem. The policies formulated by leaders of this organization tend to create the only kind of situation in which an organization such as it is can survive ? that is, one of distrust, antagonism, resentment and confusion. If the leaders of the NAACP ever allow you to make it clear that you have faith and confidence in the ability and compe tence of your own schools and your own teachers by re fusing to demand admission to schools attended by white children, the principal reason for the existence of their organization in North Carolina would end. Of course, their leaders realize this and so in the interest of preserving their NAACP organization, if for no other, they will, so they have declared, try to push you into lawsuits over school admissions. They will thereby, if they are successful, force you into repudiating your own schools, your own teachers, your own race. Now let me put the issue to you . . . purely on the basis of your own self-interest in your own children. Put on this basis, your problem and the problem of your true leaders is this: How can you get the best education for your chil dren? Can you do it by mixing them in the public schools through force of law and risking the abandonment of the public schools? Or through having them attend separate schools by choice? If the choice is for voluntary separate school attendance, you can count on at least as good an education for your children as they are getting now. If our past experience is any teacher, your schools will become progressively better as facilities are increased and teaching improves. On the other hand, if your answer is integration by force of law with the attendant risks, nobody knows how much education the children of either race will get. How good the schools will be or whether there will be any schools are matters dependent upon human reactions which no one can foretell with certainty. Certain it is, however, that the white citizens of this State will resist Integration strenuously, resourcefully, and probably with growing bitterness. Resistance will take the form of delay of every kind so long as possible. And how long will that be? That depends on many factors including the judges and the determination and resourcefulness of both sides. Our his tory shows how difficult, if not impossible, it is to change by court rulings long established customs. When the law runs up against human nature and the popular will, some thing has to give, and not infrequently it is the law which is changed or modified, as in the "noble experiment" of prohibition. Abolition of the public schools and their replacement to a most uncertain extent by private ones is a last-ditch and double-edged weapon. If that weapon is ever used in North Carolina, its result will be appalling in ignorance, poverty and bitterness. Generations of both races will suf fer by it immeasurably, and it is likely that the Negro citizens will suffer most. * * * And so my earnest request of you Negro citizens of North Carolina is this: Do not allow any militant and selfish organization to stampede you into refusal to go along with this program I am proposing in the interest of our public schools; take pride in your race by attending your own schools; and make it clear that any among you who refuse to cooperate in this effort to save our public school system are not to be applauded but are to be con sidered as endangering the education of your children and as denying the integrity of the Negro race by refusing to remain in association with it. Is such a program good or bad? We fail to find anything in it that warrants the bitter condemna tion it has received from some .sources. It would seem to warrant a trial ? if for no other reason, as a means to ease the transition from segregation to the greater and greater integration that seems ultimately inevitable. But is the governor's plan workable: This news paper finds itself skeptical. Segregation, it seems to us, is one of those things that must be maintained intact if it is to be maintained at all ? there must be no hole in the dyke. The limited experience we have had al ready seems to support that view ; because, usual ly, when an avenue previously closed has been opened to Negroes, more and more of them have entered it. * * * The importance of Governor Hodges' speech, though, may not lie primarily in whether his pro posal is a good or bad one, or whether it is work able, or even in what the speech said. It is quite possible the future may prove its real significance lies in how it was said, and in who said it. A reading of the full text reveals it as a care fully thought-out appeal to reason. There is a notable absence of bitterness, and it is phrased, on the whole, in temperate language. And persons who heard it delivered report that, while the gov ernor gave evidence of deep earnestness, he spoke calmly, without other emotion. The speech thus was a temperately worded appeal to people's rea son, to do something that is within the law, and that, the governor argued, is for the best interest of all. That is rather a new note in the segregation integration debate. And who made the speech? This was not a Gene Talmadge speaking. For Luther Hodges is no demagogue. Xor is he either an ignoramus or a fool. He is. first of all, a hard headed business man whose training has taught him to view things realistically, to see a situation as it is; but a business man whose record shows him to be both enlightened and progressive. He is, second, a man of remarkable honesty and great courage. He is, finally, the respected governor of a state that has long been recognized as liberal in its racial relations and that has rarely gone in for extremism. In short, here is an intelligent, capable executive, the respected head of a state that is neither unen lightened nor reactionary, appealing to people's reason ? not their emotions. And he says some way must be found to avoid integration. The how and the who of this speech, in other words, inevitably raise the question: Is the determination to halt integration spread SoM* fORWT WDUSTR?*S IM SOUTWEASTtRM STATES CLEAR AMP PLAMT SMALL flHCltt* OF LAMP OJ -meiR TRte fiWM* 1& fWA** FOOP FOR WILD TURKEy Ak?P <**#? Maw* *AM6fUV itxes. * WfTW A "TOTAL VUATCR AREA Of NEA*L>> 80 WARE MtltS, ARE FAMOUS FOR "THE FI6MTIM<S <^UAL?T/ OF THEIR SOOARC-TAIL trout _^==_: r"T Mnar yWl- Souseey district <3ETS its kiaaac F*OM A CXJICM WORD MEAHIH6 farm. IT amf BACK TO Ttte putcm FARMERS WHO SFTT1EP amh?attaM INLAND -THREE CENTURIES A <SO. &/" HE OOU61AS FIR PiywOOP IMtHWTR/ imp rrs eeeiNMihie 5o V6AR* ASO VJttffJ ?SHEET? OF FIR VEHEER WERE <31UED TOOrrMER "fo AMKE PANELS FOR AM EVHIBrT AT| THE 1905 WORLD T FAIR IM PORTIAMP, ORB. ing from the extremists, where everybody expect ed it, to the moderates ? where nobody expected it? Recent history lends importance to that ques tion ; it was just such a spread of opposition, from the extreme fringe to the center, that some twenty years ago signaled the beginning of the end of another part of the Constitution. L. B. Phillips Many qualities endeared L. B. Phillips to vir tually all who knew him. One of them was his good natured ? never cruel ? jesting. The closer the friend, the more often the jest ? usually spoken with a perfectly straight face. Another was his loyalty. Beneath these and other traits that made him likable lay something deeper, .something that com manded respect. For Louis Phillips was a man of integrity. It so permeated his whole nature that it literally could be felt by even the chance acquain tance. Here was an honest man. What higher praise could any man deserve? Others' Opinions Ike And Adlai (Ipwa Falls, Iowa, Citizen) The pundits who make a living speculating at length for the metropolitan newspapers had Just as well put their crystal balls In the attic. Because the period of speculation is all over. When President Eisenhower, without ceremony or tears, ran out on Dixon-Yates and tossed Oveta Culp Hobby overboard ? all In the same two-week period, the signs were unmistakable. He didn't need to tell anyone that he was running for a sec ond term. That was perfectly obvious. His dramatic radio address to the nation delivered Just an hour before he boarded the plane for the Geneva conference only further confirmed the already established fact. F. D. R. couldn't have done it better. Yes, the President is running. So, too, for that matter is Adlal Stevenson. And unless all signs fail, President Eisenhower is likely to defeat Stevenson even more soundly than he did four years ago. You simply can't beat peace and prosperity ? even when the prosperity tends to get pretty thin before it gets out to the nation's farmers. Which it is certainly doing these days. Able And Fair-Minded (Waynesville Mountaineer) Officers and the court cut a wide path in liquor traffic here, as five persons were given sentences last week on charges of possessing liquor for sale. Judge Dan K. Moore, in passing sentences on the five, fol lowed up the sentiments of the recent reports of the grand jury in asking that bootlegging be curbed in Haywood county. Judge Moore expressed his feelings in the matter which showed he too was disgusted with the way some of the con fessed sellers of liquor had been doing. We concur in the sentiments expressed in the closing mom ents of court here Friday afternoon of the manner in which Judge Moore conducted the court. We feel that North Caro lina is fortunate in having a man like Judge Moore on the Superior Court bench, and the more we see of his courts, the greater admiration we have for his ability and fair-minded ness. Poetry Editor EDITH DEADERICK ERSKINE Weaverville, North Carolina TO A NEW BABY Sweet, so sweet against my heart, The precious weight of you ? So cuddly-warm ? I hold you close And love you through and through; ' i ' In all the treasure life can hold There is no dearer bliss Than laying on your downy head A mother's reverent kiss. BESS HINES HARKINS News Making As It Looks To A Maconite ? Br BOB SLOAN There are many types of Christians In my opinion. Franklin lost one In the death of L. B. Phillips. Mr. Phillips was a man who put his philos ophy of life Into being through action rather than words. His philosophy was Service and True value. He worked all his waking hours, not for the monetary re turn, but be cause he, sub consciously, I think, had a driving desire to be doing things for people. The charges he Sloan made for his work, were very low. His judgment on a piece of machinery was regarded by many as a guarantee of its soundness. Yes, in my mind L. B. Phil lips possessed the characteris tics of a Christian to a greater degree than many who sit on the front row In church. * * * I do not believe that the peo ple of Franklin realize quite what It would mean to them if half of the tourists who stop here each night could be per suaded to stay another day and night. Look at It this way. Approximately one hundred cars stop here each night. They will certainly average two per sons to the car. Chamber of Commerce surveys and other reports say that a tourist spends $20 on the average each twenty-four hours. Due to the reasonable charges here, let's assume that they spend $10 each twenty-four hour period they are In Franklin. Unless my arithmetic is way out of kilter that is $2,000 a night. It sure looks to me like it would be worth the merchants or the town itself spending money to put some attractions here that would keep those people extra time. It's funny to me we raised $30,000 to help bring Burlington Industries (which is a fine thing) here, but I doubt that you could raise half that amount to spend for attractions to keep the $1,000 a night pay roll here that I am writing about. Do You Remember? (Looklnf backward through the files of The Press) 50 TEARS AGO THIS WEEK Misses Alice and Lizzie John son, of Hall Moon Island, Tenn., arrived Thursday evening to spend several days visiting their sister, Mrs. J. A. Munday. The American Mineral Com pany has fitted up an office and workshop in the Munday Brick Store building. ?Mr. and Mrs. J. M. L. Mc Cracken and Mr. and Mrs. Pink McCracken, of Haywood Coun ty, were here last week and purchased a farm in the Ing ram settlement and will become citizens of Macon County. 25 YEARS AGO Mr. Bonnie Berry, of Atlanta, is spending two weeks vacation with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. L. A. Berry. The Hon. Josiah Bailey, on his visit to Franklin Saturday, was accompanied by Mrs. Bail ey and two of their children, who had never before visited this portion of North Carolina. Mr. Hall Swain, of Durham, was a week-end visitor at the home of Mrs. W. W. Sloan. 10 YEARS AGO Mrs. Zeb W. Conley left last week for Wilmington, .Del., where she plans to spend sev eral days visiting her daughter, Mrs. J. K. Hunter, and .Mr. Hunter. Miss Louise Corbin is attend ing Knoxville Business College, where she is enrolled in the secretarial course, it has been reported by Mack R. Cameron, editor of the Knoxville Business College Review. Mr. and Mrs. Howard Valen tine and son, of Winston-Salem, are here for a visit with Mrs! Valentine's mother, Mrs. C. C. Cunningham.
The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.)
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Aug. 18, 1955, edition 1
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