Newspapers / The Franklin Press and … / March 19, 1959, edition 1 / Page 2
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?hp Highlands Marmtian WEIMAR JONES Editorial Page Editor THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1959 CAN FILL A NEED A New Start Under new management, the Farmers Federa tion will try again. In fairness to James McClure Clarke, retiring head of the Federation, it should be remarked that he inherited most of the problems that have beset the organization. For Macon County, there is keen personal inter est in the fresh start. The new general manager, Joseph Iligdoit, is a Macon product; a former long time official of the Federation, he is a brother of Lyman and Frank Higdon and Mrs. Albert L. Ramsey. Bruce Bryant is the new treasurer. And J. M. Baby is a director. There are good reasons, though, that go far be yond personalities, why a^l Western North Caro lina should be deeply interested in the Federation's making a go of it. First of all, little farmers all oyer this area ? hundreds of them? have money in the organiza tion ? money put into it not primarily as a business investment but as a patriotic duty; in many cases, these purchases of stock represented sacrifices made in order to help a ^regional enterprise the farmers hoped would help everybody. Even more important, there is real need for a true farm cooperative in Western North Carolina. And it is reasonable to believe the chances for suc cess and usefulness are better as a strictly Western North Carolina organization. That way, its activ ities can be tailored to the peculiar agricultural fieeds, problems, and opportunities of this moun tain region. Take Michigan . . "Give us enough industry, enough' pay rolls, and everybody will have jobs; then all our- problems will be Solved." That is the plaint of towns all over North Caro lina. It is the cry of our state government ; we ha,ven't enough state tax money for our public schools and our colleges, we are told in Raleigh, because we haven't enough industry. As an illustration of all of this,' take the State of Michigan. How many is it that are unemployed in that "highly industrialized state? was the last figure hundreds of thousands or a million? In any case, the Michigan state government is dead broke ? in part because of heavy insurance payments to the unemployed. In "Lansing, they face a deficit of 11(1 millions, and they haven't bad any money for their state- universities since last November. Kven the state government is still managing to operate only because big business heeded <iovernor Williams' plea that it pav its taxes in adv-aiue.' ? 1 Now. nobod'. who is bom ? : v.otdd ait -nipt to ' argue that Mi' h vair is in ,t n >nb'e M>le! \ because it is iii<l- ? ,i i :? ! i the other, hand. riobimK who i> holiest v.. ? i ' < 1 : ? to ;ii i; ? thai 'ein,, inuuXl rial ixed he'it i i i Von ?;> ' it:..; :n ;? j:j in. h's jli ? 1 , i.rv of a'! .1 he I'.i'jjs in .ol'iv basket". . l.i'k v one erop. co! i :iiv, or onrcrop |o.uri-t<, or one crop : any t'h.hi'j el- ?. i'n<hi,sir: is' woiiibjinul when ii s booiiihig ; it's terrible, when i i>n't. And N o\v Hawaii Until Alaska, it li.nl la-en 47 year's since a new state h?td been admitted into the Union. Now Hawaii, eight inlands in the far Pacific ahout one eighth the si/e of North Carolina and with a population about one seventh this state's, is to become the 50th state-. Like Alaska, it will take i t > place in the Union with the same vote, in the U. S. Senate, as such big states as New York and California. What will the effect be? W ill these far off new ? states tend to bring radical doctrine into our Con gress, especially the Senate, and tints tend to undermine American tradition.-? That coijjd happen, for undoubtedly they will, bring to the U. S. Capitol in Washington new ideas and new approaches tp problems. It would be our guess, though, that these new stales, like mrist new citizens of foreign birth, will treasure the Amer ican heritage even more for having waited so long to become a part of the Union. Beyond that, maybe they'll bring with them some fresh air, some new ideas about how to apply the basic .principles of democratic government, as written into the U. S. Constitution, in a brand new age. Same Old Human Nature M.uch of what children learn in school about his tory is wrong, it sometimes seems. Take that little matter of the right of a state to secede from the Union. We'd always understood that was a Southern doctrine, or at least that it had become a distinctively Southern doctrine by the middle of the last century. Well, just to keep the record straight, here's what happened in Albany, N. Y., a hundred years ago last month ? only two years before the out break of the Civil War. It is reported by the na tional Civil War Centennial Commission in a chron ology it has compiled of events immediately pre ceding that war: "New York State Anti-Slavery convention meets in Albany with ?addresses by Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison in support of doctrine of state independence and in advocacy of disunion. Resolutions were adapted denouncing the Union as 'a covenant with Death' and 'an agreement with Hell'." Secession, that is, was right or wrong, depend ing on who advocated it, and why. Such an attitude .sounds as modern as yesterday's newspaper. Hu man nature doesn't change. That Picture Again When was the photograph made that we repro duce each week, as an illustration for the Do You Remember? feature on the editorial page? We raised that question several weeks ago, when the picture first appeared on this page; and while several persons have shed light on the question, nobody has been able to pin-point the year. Well, quite by accident, we ran across some thing the other day that comes close to pin-point ing it. In looking through old issues of The Press, in search of something else, we found this editor ial comment in the issue of April 1, 1954: Two items in last week's 50 Years Ago section of "Do You Remember?" mu?t have brought up, out of the depths of memory, a lot of pictures of the long-gone past for old-timers. One told of The Press' moving into the east side of the Higgins Building . . . In other words, a week before that comment appeared ? that is, in the issue of March 25, 195-1 ? there was a 50-year-ago item to the effect The Press had moved into the Higgins Building (that's it, in the picture). That would have been in March, 1904. The photograph, then, was made not earlier than that year. M If, and how much, later,' we still don't know. Tale Of 3 Towns (Sylva Herald) There is a marked difference in the attitude of merchants and business men In the three "triangle" towns of Sylva, Bry >on City and Franklin. More often than not. when you ask a merchant in Sylva and Bryson City "How is business?" he im mediately begins a hardluck story of how rotten business is, and that very day he most likely has had one of the best. N'jt so in Franklin ? the average merchant over there will V>r i". "about how pood business is. Why the difference in atti tude in the three towns and who gains and who loses? It id '.tit wellke that the person, if a stranger, asking this que ' .011 has in mind locating a business or industry in th ; commlinltv. The answer given in. Sylva arid Bryson City will .?urely run him away for good When he gets to Franklin and !?? r the other story and attitude of the people- he will prob ably say, "This Is the community I am looking for." See what we mean?" The Retailer, published monthly by the N. C. Merchants Association, for February belles the "bad business" tale, and gives the figures of sales taxes paid, with Jackson county showing a 2.71 per cent gain from February, 1958, through January, 1959, over the same period of 1957-58. January, 1959, sales tax collected from Jackson county amounted to $14, 274.74, against $13,870.17 for January, 1958. Let's give the questioner the true picture and facts about our town and community and maybe he will locate here and help make good business better: Discrimination And Housing (New York Times) The unhappy picture of housing discrimination In the New York metropolitan area brought out by two days of hearings by the Civil Rights Commission can hardly come as a surprise to anyone. Yet this evil is no less evil because it has long existed among us. It may be an old story that the Civil Rights Commission brought into the open, but the fact that the matter has been brought so sharply to public attention may help to dissipate the complacency which mere habit and cus tom so easily Induce. The picture, of course, Is not all black. As Father Hesburgh noted, efforts to check such discrimination In this area are being made by both legal means and by the actions of many voluntary groups. Yet It would be Idle to pretend that enough is being done. Nor is it any consolation to know that the problem is a national one rather than being confined to our own area or to a few regions. We have made great progress in Improving relations among people of different national origins, religions and colors, but we have not made enough progress. Obviously there is much educational work to be done in this field, and right here in our own neighborhoods. Scenic Detours / (Greeley, Colo., Booster) Sometimes things won't go along as you want them to go, but don't worry too much about it. Some of the best scenery Js along the detours. DO YOU REMEMBER? Looking Backward Through the Files of The Press 65 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (1894) Baseball is taking a rank hold on the average Franklin youngster. Farmers are very busy sowing oats and getting ready for pitching their crops. Mr! J. G. Slier has moved his steam saw mill about four miles from town into the Sugarfork section. Many people believe that peaches blooming in the light of the moon cannot be killed. If that holds true, we will have an abundant crop this year. 35 YEARS AGO <1924) A Study club has been organized here, with the first subject to be f ivies. Officers are Mrs. Sam L. Rogers, presi dent; Mrs. Sam Franks, vice-president; Mrs. E. J. Pipes, cor responding secretary; Mrs. John Wasllik, Jr., recording secre tary; and Mrs. George Dalrymple, treasurer. The season's first cooperative carload poultry sale will be held April 9. 15 YEARS AGO (1944) News has come of how three cousins and another Macon County boy met in far-off Honolulu on February 20 for an evening together. The cousins were Gilmer Crawford, who gave the dinner party at Mawana Hotel on Wakiki Beach, George Bidwell Sloan, and Tom Slagle, of Cartoogechaye. The fourth in an from here was C. S. Brown. 5 YEARS AGO (1954) 1 Surfacing of the Franklin-Cowee Cap highway is expected to start in April. An early morning fire Tuesday gutted the 34-year old. tinder-dry old Franklin High School building. Damage is esti mated at $125,000. A wise man Ls never less alone than when he is alone.? Jon athan Swift. .?/ i.\'i> ()/? out; oU'X ' 1 Character Of North Carolina Is Revealed By Its Constitution (EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr. Snider was a member of the commission which recently sub mitted to the General A-ssetnbly a proposed new North Carolina Constitution. ) W. I). SNIDER In Greensboro Daily News To a Governor and General Assembly asked to study and adopt it. a constitution ? even a new one ? may seem an im personal document. Yet to those who had a hand In putting it together it becomes in retrospect highly personal. For on close examination a constitution ? If it is a good one ? contains most of the hallowed law and lore of a state or nation. Its language, carefully legalistic, tells much of democracy's experi ence ? its trials and errors. It sets forth that delicate balance of powers designed' to avoid tyranny and at the same time promote effective Korernment. A constitution, in Judge John J. Parker's definition, lias tvio functions: (1) To protect the rights of the individual from en croachment by the state; and 1 2 > to provide a framework of govern ment for the state and its sub divisions. To study North Carolina's pres ent constitution, framed, in 1868 largely by carpetbaggers, scala wags and newly freed slaves, is to delve deeply into the lifeblood of the Old North State. What is the history of this phraseoldgy? Why did a particular segment of language come down unchanged? How well has that section served? Even more, such study becomes a liberal education in the heart and mind of North Carolina. How did she come to be the way she 1*? ? ? ? One observes, in the first place, that North Carolina is fearful of a strong executive. ? Written through her various constitutions are strong safeguards against executive tyranny. , How much does this stem from North Carolina's experience with Governor Tryon and the early British rulers? Probably a great deal. For the state never came under the continuous control of great landholders ? like Virginia or South Carolina. The small inde pendent farmer, owning his own land, thinking his own free thoughts, is more the symbol of North Carolina than the lord pro prietor or the landed gentry. This fear of a strong executive, then, stems from strong inde pendence of thought and action. No machine and few political or ganizations have held sway from Sligo to Rainbow Springs. The people like fresh air. They have been urged to give their Governor veto power and the right to serve two terms in succession. But Tar Heel history shows that even the need for efficiency in government has not changed their minds on that point. The contemporary Constitution al-Commission pondered long and hard on these things. It decided that even if all the . other states of the Union like the veto. North Carolina may not. Independence is no unusual thing. Much of the strengthening of the chief executive's power has, of course, come in through ths back door. As director of the bud get and dispenser of powerful pa tronage, the Governor wields wide influence. The Constitutional Commission of the '30's battled in vain on the "short ballot" (making pres ent elected constitutional mem bers of the Council of State the personally appointed cabinet of the Governor i. That battle, vigor ously opposed b^ Attorney Gen eral Brummttt. finally broke the back of the earlier Constitutional Commission. Us provisions never reached a vote of the people. Recognizing the temper of North Carolina on that issue, the contemporary Constitutional Com mission rapidly dismissed the idea. , For the same reason it did not (to as far as the Bell Court Study Committee wished in centralizing all housekeeping powers of the judiciary in the State Supreme Court. There was a feeling that North Carolina still needs strong , Ifleiihoiights .Of,.1/ Study checks and balances. The courts should not be placed beyond the reach of the people to change them, if necessary ? even In ex change for all the efficiency in the world j ? ? ? What of the issue of legislative tyranny? Or what is less shame ful but little less disturbing, leg islative lassitude? North Carolina has known plenty of that. Its Legislatures have no? been as despicable as the Nashville Tennessean describes the Ten nessee Legislature to be: "In six weeks the only thing it has done is prove its own uselessness." Nor has it been completely split by urban-rural hostility, transform ing it into an armed camp. For this North Carolina may be thankful. Tlit answers to those deficien cies plainly observable, in our General Assembly lie in endow ii;<; the body with a greater sense of the significance of its own power, a sense of pride in its achievements and shame that it often fails to do its best. r STRICTLY PERSONAL By WEIMAR JONES He doesn't know It yet, but an other fellow Is writing most of this column for me this week. And he's a man I've never met! But he talks my language; In fact, If I didn't know better, I'd have said he'd listened In on what goes on here at The Press office. What follows Is by E. E. Kauf fold, writing In The Dodge (Neb.) Criterion. It came to me via an other newspaper, which got it from still another newspaper which undoubtedly got It from still another. This piece, that Is, has been the rounds, and it de serves to have been; because the fellow who wrote it knows his country newspaper ropes ? and has been on 'em, plenty of times. If you don't believe that, just read what he says: I was reminded of all this when a man said to me: "I wish you hadn't printed that picture of my daughter. It was a poor one and didn't look like her at all." 'I said: ?Tfn sorry." It wasn't long after that a man complained to me that I was show ing favoritism when I failed to print a picture that he was in terested in, yet printed a similar one of a different group later. I said: "I'm sorry." Another fellow some time later asked, "How come you passed up the story on that particular farm ing activity?" I said: "I'm sorry." And then there's the time the irate young matron called on the phone and in no uncertain tones said that we had misspelled the name of her new baby, I said: "I'm sorry." Another member of the gentler sex called The Criterion one time and informed me that we had omitted a name from her party guest list and that she wanted to cancel her subscription. I said: "I'm sorry." Then I checked the list and found she was a long time In arrears. Still another called one day last Winter and Indicated that we had Intentionally failed to print the story of his vacation. I said: "I didn't know about it. I'm sorry." Then there is the fellow who in formed me that they didn't want the story of their vacation trip printed In the paper "because somebody might steal our chick ens while we're gone and besides It's nobody's business." I said: "I'm sorry." -'And still another told me once that he thought we used "too much of those little social items. They don't amount to anything and nobody reads them." I said "I'm sorry." Then one day. while in our shop to renew his subscription, a man said to me: "We sure like your newspaper. It's so full of news and good pictures, has so many fine departments, so clean and so well printed. No wonder you have such a large circulation." By golly, I couldn't think of a thing to say. I said that man out In Nebraska was writing "most of my column for me this week". But he didn't write it all; for we on The Press would have to modify that last part, about how surprised the editor was when somebody liked the paper and took the trouble to say so. That kind of thing is not un usual with us; not a bit. But let me add, quickly, before I'm misunderstood: The reason it isn't unusual is not so much be cause The Press deserves to be appreciated as because we play to an appreciative audience. Nowhere, I am sure, is there a community where there are so many people so ready to say so many kind things . . .and mean them. That's one of the reasons I wouldn't exchange jobs with any body. Why Have A Speaker? HARRY GOLDEN In Carolina Isrelite Every organization from the women who plan a once-a-week luncheon for the Older Adults to the men who organize the local charity drive insists on a speaker either at the beginning of or at the end of the campaign. Nor can it be just any speaker. Preferably it should be somebody from out of town and the two prerequisites are that he be heard and that he have some sort of impressive title or accomplishment. Now why do they need the speaker? To do good is of Itself, it would seem, an intrinsic inspiration offering in trinsic rewards. The speaker isn't going to contribute money noi ls he going to help make tea for the old people. But speaker they will have. The answer lies in the motive of the people who Join the organi zation. The motive is a compound one. It is not simply to do good. but to do good in some social con text. The campaign devoted to raising money or cheering up antiquarians must also become a social event for those involved. In engaging a speaker, the or ganization knows it must plan a luncheon or a tea or a cocktail party. And this will emphasize both society and common human ity, since people will partake of food together. What the speaker lends the whole thing is sociality. Successful campaigns are never launched in the offices of the fund director, but at the country club. And the old folks don't get cheered up when their welfare is plotted out in the downstairs lobby of the Old Folks Home, but they have a whale of a time when the plan is proposed by a visiting geriatrician who cheers the efforts on. while the hostess and maid arrange the canapes. IT WANDERS Why Does Easter Date Vary? PLANETARIUM TELLS STORY CHAPEL HILL ? Why does Easter arrive this year on March 29? Why did it fall last year on April 6? And Why will Easter not be until April 17 in 1960? In other words, why does the commemorative date of the Resur rection wander all over the calendar from as early as March .22 to as late as April 25? It is uriforunate that tradition of many centuries has prevented the stablization of Easter at some time when the, full effects of a material resurrection of things in nature may coincide with the commemorative date of the Resur rection of Christ. The reason for the wandering date lies in the centuries of differ ent methods of "telling ^time". But it is indeed possible to de termine the exact date of the actual Resurrection and of the events that preceded it, because of the wandering, and the reason for it. In "Easter the Awakening" at the Morehead Planetarium at Chapel Hill, the wandering date is explained. The calculations of time by the historic Jewish calendar and the subsequent Gregorian Reform are detailed in the tenth annual tribute to Easter, and are explained so that even children in elementary grades can understand them. The Planetarium program, which will be presented from now through April 6. also suggests that a revised calendar such as has been proposed for world-wide adoption would fix the date of Easter permanently on Sunday. April 8. That would be only one day removed from the actual date of Christ's Resurrection. Again this year the Morehead Planetarium presents its colorful pageant of the betrayal and trial of Christ, His Crucifixion, and Resurrection. The entire program is of a highly spiritual nature and is climaxed with a closing scene of the Saviour's figure rising from heavens, from where extending arms encompass the universe with blessing, love and a new life. "Easter the Awakening" is pre sented at the Morehead Planetari um every night at 8:30 o'clock and at matinees Saturdays and Sundays.
The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.)
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March 19, 1959, edition 1
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