Newspapers / The Franklin Press and … / Sept. 1, 1955, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
Facts Unchanged Representatives of the State Board of Assess ment came to Franklin last week to explain to local officials the tax evaluation placed on properties of the Western Carolina Telephone Company within this county. The substance of what was said was reported in the news columns of last week's Press. This newspaper has called attention, repeatedly, to discrepancies in the State Board's figures. No good purpose would be served by a re-hash of those figures. It is worth noting, though, that the explanation of the affable and, we are sure, conscientious Raleigh men left unchanged certain facts : The board's first evaluation figure for 1954 was wrong; the board acknowledged that by changing it. Its second figure also was wrong; the board ac knowledged that by changing it. And the figure it previously had fixed for 1953 was wrong; the board acknowledged that by changing it. Further more, a comparison of the 1952 figure with the re vised ones for 1953 and 1954 suggests the board also was wrong in 1952. The board's explanation for reduction of the evaluation of the telephone company's properties in this county is: The Macon County figure was too high, while the evaluations in other counties were too low. Thus the board acknowledges that it has likewise been wrong in its figures for other counties. In view of that record, is it unreasonable for local officials to be somewhat skeptical about the new figures? * * * What is the explanation of all these errors? Dishonesty in Raleigh? The answer to that is that the State Board of Assessment is made up of respected, intelligent, honorable men. What, then? The answer, it seems to us, is not far to seek. The hoard is made up of the state commissioner of revenue, the chairman of the public utilities com mission, the attorney general, the director of local government, and the director of the department of tax research. All of these men have other du ties: their work as members of the Board of As sessment, in fact, is incidental. How little time they have to devote to that 'job is indicated by the fact the board's members were unable to find time for a meeting, although there were matters awaiting the board's attention, from November, 1954. to July, 1955. And the board has a paid staff of exactly two persons! (J. C. Bethune, the board's executive sec retary, is paid for other duties: he gives, without compensation, such of his time as he can to as sessment matters.) Thus two and a fraction persons are seeking to appraise the value of the properties of some 400 public service corporations in North Carolina, and then to apportion the value of each among the various counties in which it operates! And the work of these two and a fraction persons is supervised by five public officials who must, perforce, devote most of their time and attention to other duties. Under the circumstances, it would be remarkable if the board didn't, as a rule, just accept the word of public service corporations as to th? value of their properties. And it would be remarkable indeed if some of the 400 public service corporations didn't take ad vantage of the situation. Fullness of knowledge always and necessarily means some understanding of the depths of our Ignorance, and that Is al ways conducive to both humility and reverence. * Dr. Robert A. Millikan 'To Sift Apart' We've heard a lot, in recent years, about dis crimination. We've heard it shouted so much, in recrimation, in fact, that the word itself has come to have an evil smell. , Yet it is a good word; it describes a quality found only among persons of character and intel ligence ; and discrimination is something that is badly needed today. The very fact the word is in bad odor betrays how sadly we lack the quality! What is discrimination? The term comes from two Latin words meaning "apart" and "to sift". To sift apart . . . what is worse needed in today's confused and complex world than the ability to sift apart! To sift the good apart from the bad, the sensible from the senseless, the excellent from the mediocre, the true from the false! Once, much of this sifting was done for us, by carefully erected barriers ; the circle of our friends, for example, was fairly well limited by social dis tinctions. Whatever the weakness of such a system, it had the virtue of relieving us of making every decision, separately, for ourselves. Today, most of the old barriers, of every kind, are gone, or are going; the individual must choose for himself ? must choose his work, his friends, his education, his reading matter, his television show. In fact, unless children are taught discrimination from the very first, they will go through life, as it is today, confused and making decisions and choices hit or miss. Just because we condemn discrimination that is unfair is no reason to damn discrimination, which is a rare virtue. What we need is not less discrimi nation, but more. And, it might be added, what we need even worse than more equality is more qual ity. Others' Opinions Really The End (Jackson, Miss., Daily Newsi The end will come when a Congressional committee is ap pointed to investigate the activities of Congressional commit tees. Definition (Burton Chance in A. M. A. Journal* A statistician is a man who draws a mathematically precise line from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion. Decision Right, But ? (Iowa Falls, Iowa, Citizen) How many people in Iowa Falls have ever heard of "South ern Gentlemen, Inc."? This is not the name of a new distillery specializing in bour bon whiskey nor the name of the group promoting the coun try club in some of our deep South states. On the contrary it is the name of a group (and there are other similar names in various parts of the south) which has come into existence following the Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in our public school systems. "Southern Gentlemen, Inc." Is an organization existing in many com munities throughout the South of persons whose pigmentation happens to be light rather than dark and who are dedicated to the proposition that the Supreme Court decision will not become the law of the land. This organization, and its counter parts operating under various other names, is prepared to use whatever means may be required to prevent the providing of common school facilities for both white and colored children throughout the southern states. Leaders in these groups say that desegregation may come, but they add significantly "not in our time." It is not for us who are so far removed from this problem to take a holier-than-thou attitude and condemn without reservation those persons who associate themselves with these groups. The Supreme Court decision was right. It is the only decision that a Christian democracy can live with. We must move toward that goal steadily and unswervingly. There is no place In our democracy for second class citizens. Nevertheless the existence of such organizations as "Southern Gentlemen, Inc." indicates the seriousness of a social problem that will not be cured overnight nor by the edict of our highest court. It will take time and patience and understanding and com promises ? all of which are basic Ingredients of democracy. STRICTLY PERSONAL By WEIMAR JONES What is the function of our public school system? Most of us have thought we knewi Most of us have taken it for granted that the primary purpose is to teach children how to use their minds, and to give them sufficient skill in use of the basic "tools" ? how to read, how to write, and how to work with figures ? so that they can, with time and effort, become reasonably well balanc ed, intelligent, informed human beings. Wasn't that what you thought? Well, it seems you and I were wrong! I was told so, at a meeting of weekly newspaper editors I attended recently in Illinois. One session was devoted to dis cussion of the public schools, and inevitably the talk shifted from such things as buildings and enrollments around to what the schools are trying to do. Two educators present, pre sumably authorities In that field, agreed on the answer: The emphasis, they said, has been taken off of scholarship and placed on personality. The schools are seeking to turn out good individuals instead of ed ucated ones. It is important that the chil dren's personalities not be dam aged, so those who attend school and expend a reasonable amount of effort must be pro moted, whether they have or have not mastered the subjects studied. And, at the end of high school, they must be grad uated. On the last point, the educa tors remarked, there's an ec onomic factor of importance. Today nobody can get a good job without a high school diplo ma, so it's unfair to the child and to our economy not to graduate all who spend 12 years In school. It wasn't put quite as bluntly as that; but there was no ques tion but that that was exactly what these school men meant. And they didn't appear to ap preciate a couple of questions that came from their news paper audience: "If that's the way it is, does a high school diploma mean anything?" And "How can you turn out good individuals, if you teach them there is no such thing as fail ure? ? aren't their personal ities going to get badly dam aged when they find how badly you've fooled them?" This view of what the public schools are for is not excep tional; because, when I men tioned the incident to an edu cator from another section of the country, he smiled and commented; "And they didn't admit it ? they boasted about it!" ? ? * This story, typical, it seems to me, of mountain humor, came my way the other day. The incident Is said to have occurred here in recent years. Woman customer, entering independent grocery ; "How much are your pork chops?" Independent grocer; "Forty five cents a pound." Customer: "Why, that's too high; they have them for only 35 cents at the chain store." Grocer: "Then, madam, why don't you buy from them? Customer: "They were out." Grocer: "Shucks, lady, we sell 'em for 15 cents a pound, when we're out." CLEANING UP DON'T THROW THOSE AWAY NOW; I'LL LOOK AT 'EM LATER Louis Graves in Chapel Hill Weekly We were talking about the way things accumulate in a home, and Clarence Heer said in a plaintive tone of voice: "I'm always resolving to get .rid of a lot of stuff but never can make up my mind what to throw away." Millions of men and women have been confronted by this problem and I dare say that nobody has ever attacked it with firmer resolutions, or come out of it with less suc sess, than I have. I have many boxes, wood and cardboard, filled with old let ters, photographs, business doc uments, sections of magazines and newspapers, miscellaneous clippings, and souvenirs such as play and concert programs. Only three or four days ago I came upon one of these boxes, which have Increased fright fully in number through the years, stopped the work I was doing, put the box on the bed beside me, and began to go through the contents with an iron determination to throw them ail, or anyhow most of them, into a trash basket. Presently, when I had got rid of two or three pieces, albeit with painful doubts as to whether I should let them go or not, I was deeply immersed in a magazine article which I remembered having kept with the purpose to use it as a text for some sort of piece of writ ing. i had tucked it away and forgotten all about it, and now it had a fresh interest. I jerked myself back to the awareness that I had set my self to a task: getting rid of the contents of the box. But the first thing I knew I was reading something else. Then I was debating with myself whether I had better discard one thing or another. All of this had consumed a lot of time and my work for the day was being neglected. The ex amination of the contents of the box was taking a lot long er than I had expected (though why I had expected it to take less I can't imagine, since I had gone through the same routine many times before). Finally I pushed all the things back in the box and said: "To hell with 'em ? I'll look through 'em some other time." ? ? ? As I suppose is true of every household, ours has periodical cleaning-up spasms. When one of these spasms comes on, we say, "First of all, let's clear off the encyclopedia table." This piece of furniture, called, I believe, a cabinet, which holds 24 volumes of the Britannica, stands at the turn of the front hall into the back hall, where it is passed dozens of times every day, and its smooth top is an ideal place to pile things on. Even so. it seems a miracle we get as much piled on It as we do. We feel great satisfaction when we have cleared it off, and declare we are going to keep it that way, but in a few days there is just as big a jumble of things on it as there ever was. I get about a ton of news papers and magazines every week ? well, it seems like a ton ? and there seems to be something in every one of them that makes me want to keep it a long time. They mount into tremendous piles. Now and then I sit down with them, and get rid of a lot of them, but there' are always enough left to clutter up the house. What does the future hold, in the way of the accumulation of all manner of things in the house? No change, is my fore cast. It'll keep on as it is. I am the one responsible. My wife would succeed in making a real clean-up If I didn't re strain her by saying, as we look at some boxful: "No, I don't believe we'd better throw these things away now. I'll look through them as soon as I have a chance." News Making As It Looks To A Maconite ? By BOB SLOAN Concerning the segregation Integration issue, recently The Greensboro Dally News in an editorial said the following: "The task of preserving the schools will be made easier If white leadership will allow ex periments In mixed schools to be carried out in those com munities where such experi ments can apparently be con ducted with some promise of success, without harm ing the schools, In reasonable compliance with the law and In that spirit of mod eration which both races must manifest if the prob Sloan iem is to be worked out at all." That, I think, would be an excellent statement for the state leaders to adopt as the official attitude of the state toward the problem. Governor Hodges has implied he does not agree with the part of this statement which says that experiments should be al lowed in those areas where there is reasonable chance of success. This is bad, I think. Above all else, our state officials should try to be fair in working out the solution to this difficult problem. Particularly is this true for Governor Hodges. It is he who in the interests of har mony between the peoples of our state has called on the Ne groes of this state to volun tarily give up something which the highest court in the land has said they are entitled to. Such an uncompromising stand on the part of the Governor will not cause the Negroes to feel that he is as interested in their side of the problem as he Is his own race's. And after all, he is the Governor of all the citizens of the state. Frankly, as an admirer of Governor Hodges, I have been disappoint ed in his partiality here. Do You Remember? (Looking backward through the files of The Press) 50 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK Mr. R. L. Bryson sold out his store and lot on which it stands to Mr. John Thomas last Mon day morning, and Mr. Thomas is now dispensing goods over the counters. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Roper, of Fossil, Ore., arrived here last Wednesday evening for a visit to relatives. Mrs. Roper is a daughter of Mr. N. L. Barnard. Mrs. J. E. Stevens, of Smith field, N. C., and Miss Mollie Moore, of Rocky Mount, N. C., art visiting Capt. W. E. Mc Dowell's family. 25 YEARS AGO Miss Helen Burch left Frank lin Monday to take up her duties in teacher training at Atlantic, N. C. Mr. David Peek, who has been in California for some time, was on Ellijay greeting his many friends the past week. Miss Mary McNeely, of Ros well and Atlanta, Ga., was the guest of Miss .Myra Stribling last week. 1? YEARS AGO Mr. and Mrs. George B. Perce, of Alburquerque, N. Mex., are here on a visit with their son, Marion A. Perce, and Mrs. Perce, at their home in East Franklin. Mack R. McKinney, of High lands, was listed by The Ashe ville Citizen as among the 27 Western North Carolina soldiers returning from the European theatre on the S. S. West Point last Friday. ? Highlands item. Mrs. F. E. Mashburn and son, Samuel, have returned from Marietta, Ga., where they were visiting Mrs. Edward and .Miss Annalee Mashburn. License Examiner Won't Be Here Next Week License Examiner R. V. Hoop er has announced he will not be available next week (Sept. 7-8-9) to give examinations and road tests. He will be attending a school for examiners in Chapel Hill all week. However, he will be available the following week; Wednesday and Thursday In Franklin, and Friday in Highlands.
The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 1, 1955, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75