Newspapers / The Franklin Press and … / Oct. 23, 1958, edition 1 / Page 2
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Che JflraitJcIni ^rrss ntti* Che ^tgklanfr* ^nrmtintt Moood class mall prtfllegv authorised at Pranklln. N. O. Puolished every Thursday by The Franklin Press Telephone 24 Established tn IIM ai The Franklin Press Member N. C. Press Association. National Editorial Association. OwliMi Press Photographers Association. Charter member. National Omsference of Weekly Newspaper Editors. BOB 8. SLOAN Publisher snd Advertising Manager WmiMAR JONES Editorial Editor J. P. BRADY News Editor MBBL ROBERT BRTSON Office Manager MBS. BOB SLOAN Society Editor CABL P. CABE Operator Machinist CBABI.K8 WHITTINOTON Operator PBARK A. STARRETTE Compositor Q. B. CRAWFORD Pressman MOWARD JOHNSON Sterotyper B CLEVE KINOSBERRY Salesman BAV1D SUTTON Commercial Printer SUBSCRIPTION RATES Insids Macon Countt Outside Macon County One Tear . . | . $3 00 One Year ..... $3 50 SB Months 2.00 Six Months .... 22.5 Three Months . 1.25 Three Months 1.50 Two Years 5 25 Two Years 6.25 Hirce Years 7 50 Three Years 9.00 Dollars And Sense Some interesting and pointed questions about the reliability of federal statistics on per capita income are raised by The Tarheel Banker in a piece re printed at the bottom of this page. They are ques tions, incidentally, this newspaper has raised re peatedly. The bankers' magazine, it seems to us, makes the point so well it needs no elaboration. There are two other points, though, that might well be made: 1. Income, per capita, is not an intelligent index; for it tends to show not how much workers earn, but how many people work. Thus, the per capita income obviously is higher in the states where a larger proportion of the women work. In other words, if every North Carolina mother of small children were working on a job outside her home, this state would have a much higher per capita in come ? hut does anybody think it would be a better state? Or we could raise our per capita income by repealing our child labor laws and putting all the children to work in factories. The only really intel ligent index of economic progress in a state is the income per worker. 2. How important is per capita income? Even if we assume the statistics are accurate and that North Carolina is near fche bottom in per capita in come. So what? To be sure, certain physical things, bought with dollars, are neccssary. But do we measure civilization in terms of dollar income or of such things as character and citizenship, kindliness, the intelligence to use leisure well, and useful and happv lives? Would anybody pretend there is a neccssary relation between dollar income and these intangibles? Suppose, to take an extreme example, the average per capita income in the United States were $U>)0 a week. Would North Carolina be dis graced if it had less? The question is not how much is Coined, but is 'it enough for a good life? N. C. And Virginia North Carolina's attorney general, Malcolm Sea well, has been forthtight in .stating his views on the segregation problem. He has said the Supreme Court deci>ion is? "the law of the land", and must be obeyed; He has said that repeatedly, and with no strings attached to the statement. I'or a puMic official to so speak takes courage, and nobody, no matter how much they may dis agree, can fail to admire such courage. But Mr. Seawell .spoke once too often, the other Jay, when he attacked the approaches of both Ark ansas and Virginia to the problem. After all, he is an official of this state, and it is little, if any, of North Carolina's business how the other states meet the situation. That appears to have been the attitude of Gov ernor Hodges ? who last summer appointed Mr. Seawell, following the resignation of Franklin's George B. Patton. The governor was prompt to disavow this latest Seawell statement; and was quite correct in so doing, it seems to us. At best, the criticism was gratuitous and unnec essary. At worst, it was not too far from the' pot's calling the kettle black. Because North Carolina's Pearsall plan is hardly |?erfect enough to put us in position to throw stones. It is yet to run the gauntlet of the U. S. Supreme Court. And as for our self-righteous attitude about it, the I'earsall plan has the appearance of an expedient ? a way to comply with the letter of the Court's ruling on seg regation, with the minimum of compliance with its spirit. "What is so rare as a day in fune", wrote Lowell. But what about a day in October? Add simihes: A? obsolete as a hickory switch in a school room. "No Fighling Here, Anyone! Hi! 'Em Again, Dickieboy" Gnashing Of Teeth Down in Greensboro, a group is seeking a writ of mandamus to compel the city council to call an elec tion on the question of putting fluorides in the city water system. In an election on the same question, a few years ago, the voters turned the proposal down. We do not pretend to know the merits of the de mand for, an election. Furthermore, it is none of our business whether such an election is held or how, in case it is, Greensburghers vote. We find ourselves wondering a little, though, about this matter of fluorides. Nobody, it seems, claims artificially administred fluorides are actually necessary to health: the most that is claimed is that they are desirable. We wonder about the wis dom of forcing something that is merely desirable, even by majority vote, in the face of bitter opposi tion. After all, many things are desirable ? church attendance, for example. We wonder, too, about the economics of putting fluroides in everybody's water ? their washing and bathing and industrial use, as well as drinking, water- ? \vhen it is admitted its value in preventing tooth decay applies only to children. After all, many persons still consider castor oil highly de sirable for children. But would anybody recom mend putting it in the public drinking supply just to make sure the children get it? Ugh! Th^n there's the great principle of class legisla tion. We raise the banner of that growing minor ity ? those who have dentures, and who surely would be paying for something that could hardly benefit them. Some day that group might become a majority, and the rest of us might find ourselves paying for something highly desirable for them ? the powder that'.s supposed to hold the dentures* in place! There's going to be a lot of gnashing of teeth, real and artificial, we suspect, before this thing is settled. Fair Question (Mattoon, ill., Journal-Gazette) Car salesman to prospective buyer: "Before we enter Into a discussion as to whether the car's got what It takes, would you mind if I asked whether YOU'VE got what it takes?" 'In City Class' (Sylva Herald) If you have spoken of Franklin, capital of Macon, just across the Cowees, as a town In the past, you are going to have to change your language, for Franklin is now in the "City" class. Who s^id so? No other authority than the sprightly Franklin Press, which came out last week with a front page streamer, "City Mail Delivery In Franklin is Approved". Congratulations, nel^tibors. To secure this service has meant hard work, and your 'l2oos Club deserves the recognition it is getting in the matter. Letters Missing Link Editor, The Press: I am back again asking for a line in your paper, and my subject is roads and a missing link. We would like to see the missing link in the road across Tellico Gap, which would link Burningtown and Tellico up with the Nantahala section. It would make our dreams come true to see the missing link of only a few miles repaired, and the state has ths shop to re pair it with. Then we would have a near way to Franklin. The Nantahala Power and Light Company needs it and the Forest Service needs it, but nobody needs it worse than Nan tahala. I believe the Forest Service would help to build it. Tl'e grade is most of it very good. The W.P.A. widened a lot of it, which of course is a big hflp, and there is only a short link which would be to gravel. Let's get those two communities linked together. There is an old saying that "you can't live without neighbors". Let's get the missing link in the chain connected!. What would .make us any happier than to connect our communities together! The right-of-way will give no trouble, as it is already on the state maps. I am asking this in behalf of those neighboring sections which have had many dreams of the missing link. J. R. SHIELDS Nantahala. I honestly view the Supreme Court with its present mem bership and predilections a greater danger to our democratic form of government and the American way of life than all forces aligned against us outside our boundaries. ? Justice M. T. Phelps of the Arizona Supreme Court. 'CAN T EA T STA T/ST/CS ' Figures On N. C. Per Capita Income Are Misleading Tar her I Hanker One of the most disconcerting reactions we've noted recently a mong Tar Heels came In the wake of last month's announcement by the U. 8. Department of Com merce that the per capita Income In North Carolina ranks third from the bottom In the United States. Some of the brethren became almost hysterical, somewhat like the Irish mother of two children up In Boston who decided to have no more children because she had seen some statistics showing that every third baby born last year was a Chinese. Governor Hodges said the Com merce Department's report was a "blow to the solar plexus." Our newspapers sadly concluded that the state apparently Is going on the rocks. Nobody, far as we could tell, was willing to use any great degree of logic. Instead, most of our newspapers and many of our public officials appeared to be underwriting the Commerce Department's unstated conclusions that North Carolina is In serious economic distress. The Charlotte Observer, which certainly should know better, came forth with an editorial headed, "The State's Place In Poverty." The editorial was un wise, not In what It said, but In what it failed to say. But. The Observer was not alone. Many another newspaper followed the same line. We've done a lot of traveling around these United States, and nowhere have we seen a better place to live than North Carolina, < We wouldn't swap our state ? nor its standard of living ? for a dozen states exactly like the i one which leads the list In 1 statistical per capita income. < The Department of Commerce ' statistics are fallacious because the departments only measure- i ment .of Income, and thus llvlnH I standards, Is the total number of < cash dollars earned within a i state's boundaries, divided by the < number of people. Including women and children with no dol- : lar Income. i The statistics, (or example, do not show how many hundreds of : thousands of North Carolinians i live on farms and grow most of ] their food. Remember: North i Carolina has more families living i on the farm than any other state i except Texas. i If the breadwinners of these families worked In factories, as , the breadwinners In the so-called high per capita income states do, and had to earn dollars for their eggs, chickens, vegetables, meat and milk, we'd be a heck of lot higher up that statistical per capita Income ladder. But our people wouldn't be nearly so well iff ? and they wouldn't enjoy life nearly as much. That's Just one example of how llstorted the statistics are. But In pointing to the distortion, we lo not contend that there Isn't -oom for Improvement In North Carolina. Of course there is. But our improvement should be actual rather than statistical. You can't eat statistics. North Carolina, naturally, has Its problems. Every state does. One of oar big problems right now is finding an eventual sub stitute for tobacco in our econ omy. We'll solve that problem ? md we'll solve It without poverty :rawling across the countryside' North Carolinians, by and large, ire not wealthy. Neither are they tenerally poor. Rather, our people ire hard-working folks of mod irate means who enjoy life as fully as any people on earth. We want things to be better, of course. And they will be better. Jut things will improve a lot aster If we don't sit around wrlng ng our hands over a lot of mls eading statistics. Our place In x>verty is In the minds of those vho don't bother to see the forest 'or the trees. Their vision has wen impaired, perhaps, by read ng too many statistics that Just lon't make sense. STRICTLY PERSONAL By W F.I MAE JONES If this little story has a moral. I don't know what It is. I pass it along simply to illustrate how your mind, sometimes, will trick you. I have, it seems to me. more than my share of experiences that are embarrassing or funny, or both. And in the field of public speaking, I thought I'd made every blunder possible, in the scores of talks I've tried to make during the past 15 years. Well, I was wrong. There was a brand new one I hadn't made ? until the other day. I'm told many people have the same experience, occasionally. Since misery loves company, I take comfort in that. At the time, though, there was no comfort, from any source. I was to make a little talk at a meeting down the state. The subject -was one I'm supposed to know something about, the weekly newspaper. And because that's a subject I'm so full of. I was afraid I might talk too long. So I prepared this talk more carefully than any I've ever foade I knew exactly what points I wanted to make, and arranged them In logical order; I knew exactly what Incident I was going to use to Illustrate each point; I knew exactly what words and phrases I was going to use to make each point. I spent days ; preparing that talk, and I've never known one better. < But when I got up to talk, what happened? I You think you've guessed It? Well, IH bet you haven't; you ? wouldn't guess this could happen ? to anybody. My mind went blank. ^ I couldn't remember what I | was supposed to talk about, much ] less what I was supposed to say. j I couldn't remember a single one of those points I had carefully . selected. I couldn't even remem ber the opening sentence I'd so painstakingly worked out. At that moment. If anybody had asked me my name. I doubt If I'd have re membered that. A complete blank! I Just stood there! At last, I knew I must say something: so I stammered that I was glad to be there. There was another pause. Then I said it was a pleasure to be there. Tere was another pause I had to do some thing about; so I said I was happy to be there. (Three bald-faced lies in a row! I'd have given any thing I possessed to be some where else.) That seemed to pretty well exhaust that subject. So I turned to their inviting me. I told them t wanted to thank them for In citing me. I said I was . grateful [or it. I added I appreciated it. And that was about as far as [ could go on that straw. I still couldn't remember a ilngle point, a single sentence of vhat I'd planned to say. Sudden y, though, I did remember that he person who had Introduced ne had said I was going to talk i bout the weekly newspaper. So I said: "I'm going to talk ?bout the weekly newspaper". I mmediately realized that had just >een said by the Introducer, so I ried to put it a little differently; explained a weekly newspaper s one published weekly. That tidn't sound very original or pro ound; so I added, "that's the :ind I work on". That word "work" rang a bell. remembered a sentence, down n the middle of the speech, about rorking eight days a week, on a reekly, instead of five. That got ne going; and I went along fine, or a few minutes. Then I sudden y realised that what I was say ng didn't make sense without YOT COW MILKERS - BUT REMEMBER . . When I become terrified at the ealization that this country now las millions of teenage boys who annot milk a cow, I have to re n ember when I was the same age allllons of boys could not drive in automobile." ? Matador, Texas, 'ribune. what I had planned to u; first By that time my mind vu waking up, so I vent back to the beginning Again I got along fine till I found myself repeating that middle part I'd already said. Once again I hesitated, and once again I was lost. Then the last paragraph, that I'd written out with such care, came to me, and I said It. It was a strong paragraph, and I'd intended to say It with em phasis and conviction. Well, I didn't. 1 didn't because I wasn't sure whether I was going to stop then or go back and pick up some of the things I'd left unsaid; con sequently, I said It lamely. Then I hesitated, trying to make up my mind whether to go back to those points I hadn't made or sit down. I finally decided to sit down. So the speech ended just as it had begun, on a long, embarrass ing pause! Wh# did I do it? I don't know. If I was suffering from stage fright, I wasn't conscious of it. All I was conscious of was blank ness. And all I'm conscious of now is a sense of deep gratitude to learn I am not wholly alone; for I'm told the same thing; happens, oc casionally, to everybody. UNCLE ALEX'S SAYIN'S Human society is suffering acute indigestion from an over dose of science. ? lord Boyd-Orr. How a fool and his money set separated is no puzzle compared with how they ever got together in the first place. ? Traer (Iowa) Star-Clipper ETW'body rnnnln', numio'; nobody rittin' nowhere. Some calls It progress. Feller that's got all the an swers moat glnerally ain't got none of 'em right. Folks is funny about seilin their votes. Some sells 'em straight out fer cash money; others fer a favor ? to thorn, or their families, or some see ond-cousin-once- re moved. DO YOU REMEMBER? Looking Backward Through the Files of The Prta 65 TEARS AGO THIS WEEK (1893) There Is no excuse for any man to appear in society with a grizzly beard, since the introduction of Buckingham's Dye, which colors a natural brown or black. Messrs R. L. Porter and C. W. Slagle left for Washington last week to go before the Senate finance committee as wit nesses in the case of Senator Z. B. Vance against Collector Kope Elias. Mr. Vance opposes the confirmation of Mr. Elias, of Franklin, as U. S. collector of revenue. 25 TEARS AGO (1933) C. H. MeClure, farmer county commissioner, gave an old fashioned corn shucking party at his home near Otto Tuesday night. Three daylight moonshiners on the headwaters of Ellijay Creek outran two deputy sheriffs Jast Friday afternoon, prov ing the old saying that a scared man's legs will .move faster. The deputies, Frank Leach and Jack Moore, surprised the 'shiners while they were 'making a run". 10 YEARS AGO Miss Zena Pearl Rickman became the bride of Clarence E. Brogden In a candlelight ceremony October 19 at the home of the bride's parents, Mr. and Mrs. T. M. Rickman. Miss Ann Teague and Jerry Potts were declared the count/ winners in the Better Farm and Home Methods contest spon sored In this area by the Nantahala Power and Light Com pany, and will receive free trips to Raleigh to compete for area and state prizes. Science For You By BOB BROWN I PROBLEM: Raise water up into an Inverted bottle. NEEDED: Milk bottle, bowl and candle. DO THIS: Light candle, and drop wax Into bowl so candle will stick there. Pour water into bowl, but do not cover candle. Invert bottle over the lighted candle. Water will rise as shown. HERE'S WHY: The flame heats the air in the bottle, driv ing some .of lt^ut. Remaining oxygen is changed by the flame Into carbon dioxide, much of which dissolves In the water, lessening the pressure, which allows the atmosphere to press water up into the bottle. When flame goes out, the remaining gases Inside cool, contract, thus reducing the pressure more and allowing more water to be forced up. Copr. '58 Oen'l Features Corp. TM-World Rights Rsvd.
The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.)
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Oct. 23, 1958, edition 1
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