Newspapers / The Franklin Press and … / Dec. 17, 1959, edition 1 / Page 2
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and Highlands fflanmiatt WEIMAR JONES Editorial Page Editor THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17. 1959 . . . Or Do We? As part of the effort to meet the Russian chal lenge, the 1958 National Defense Act set up the federal student loan fund .program. It seeks, through loans, to make it possible for bright stu dents who lack financial backing to attend col lege. Now a dozen of the nation's biggest universities and colleges have withdrawn from the program because the law requires an applicant for a loan - to swear to his beliefs. The colleges take the posi tion the requirement of such an oath is repugnant to the basic idea of education, since education means freedom of the mind; they argue such an oath will screen out no Communists; and, since everybody isn't required to swear to his beliefs, they insist the law discriminates against a single group ? poor students. Under the law, a loan applicant must swear he does not believe in, support, or belong to any or ganization that believes in or teaches the over throw of the government by force. Under this law, the colleges well might have added, George Washington, John Adams, Benja min Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson would have heen barred. They not only believed in the over throw of the then government, but succeeded in do ing it ! Aside from the question of principle, it seems to us the oath does not make sense for a purely .prac tical reason : If we believe what we say we believe, the Communists and others dissatisfied with our form of government are the very ones we ought to be trying to educate, the very ones we ought to encourage to go to college. For we in this country believe in the free ex change of ideas; we believe, in such an exchange, that truth always triumphs ; and we believe the truth is all on our side. We believe, therefore, we have nothing to fear in the realm of ideas. Or do we? I A Fine Performance Some r/X) or 7(X) persons jammed the Franklin Methodist Church Sunday night for Handel's "Mes siah", presented by the combined choirs of the four Protestant churches here. And the crowd, many of whom ,had to stand, was, not disappointed. It was a fine performance, a credit* to this community. It demonstrated not only that there is musical talent here but also that people! from throughout the counts- appreciate good music. Less obvious was something else. The members of that big audience could have stayed comfortably at home and heard music, .via' radio or television or record player, that, since it would have been professional,' would have been technically more .perfect. That they didn't is explained only in part by the fact this was a local performance, presented bv local talent. Equally important was the personal element. The audience could feel the presence and the emotions of the performers; there was a rap port between musicians and audience that is nev/er quite possible with a program that is broadcast or recorded. That is why a local performance of this kind always is popular, why we should have more such programs. And the size of the crowd demonstrated something that has long been apparent ? the great est civic need of -this community is an adequate auditorium. Friendly Criticism Public transportation is important to all of us as individuals, and to the nation. For that reason', the letters on this page from Mr. Barnett and Mr. Chambers are doubly welcome. While the "Strictly Personal" piece they refer to was critical of some of the methods of rail and bus companies, the criticism grew out of the hope and the conviction-that they can, with imagination, so adjust to changed conditions as to be able to meet competition and stay in business. Incidentally, the Tallulah Falls Railway is not excused from taxes because it is unprofitable ? many businesses and individuals have to pay taxes on property that is not profitable; because it is in tfW. " fVAC? POfi?*fDG? HOT? P?4C? PQQfitD6? COLO..." receivership, its taxes are deferred. The fact that it is not paying taxes gives the public an additional reason for being interested in it's intelligent man agement. We'd like to see the T. F., as well as other rail roads, prosper. Mr. Barnett's letter lends weight to our suggestion that, with a different approach, it might. ' . . . Burning Bright' There is a fascination about lighted candles. A festive dinner table, when it's candle-lit, pos sesses a distinctive glamour. And what is more beautiful than a lighted candle in a window, seen from a distance! At Christmas, candles are- especially appropriate. We moderns, though we have retained our love of the candle, may have forgotten what our grand parents knew ? how to handle it safely. And as the Christmas season approaches, it is worth remind ing ourselves that what makes the candle glow is fire; and fire, always dangerous, is doubly so in this age of plastics and flimsy curtain and other materials. If you're going to have lighted candles in your home or church this Christmas, be careful where you put them ; keep a close eye on them ; and never go off and leave them burning. Otherwise, what should be a season of joy may become one of tragedy. LETTERS 500 Ride Excursion Train Editor, The Press: After reading your "Strictly Personal" article on trains, in the December 3 Press, I am taking the liberty of sending you some snapshots (one is reproduced here ? Editor) of the last steam passenger train run in the state of Georgia. I would not have been on the train, if I had not bought an Atlanta Sunday paper, while in Franklin last summer. In that paper, I read that the Atlanta chapter of the National His torical Railfans had arranged with the Seaboard to run an excursion from Atlanta to Athens by diesel, and from Athens to Gainesville to Athens by two 40-year old, hand-fired steam locomotives, with six-chime whistles and plenty of steam. I figured my work schedule ahead and found that I could make the trip. I was interested mainly in having my 10-year old son have a trip on a steam train. He collected cinders in a bottle like rubles from the Gibson mine. I believe some of the cars came out of museums. The windows and screens of these old cars? all In excellent condition? lifted easily, and I found the cars more livable than the air-conditioned ones that run out of ice and turn into ovens. > When Seaboard hought the short line between Gainesville and Athens, they converted to diesel locomotives and have six steam locomotives at Gainesville. I overheard railfans saying the Seaboard would junk them or give them away, If some city wanted them for exhibition. I believe the Atlanta chapter of the Rallfans had to guar antee the Seaboard $4500. The fare was $9 per person (Includ ing children i. There were 500 or more on the train. Seating limit was said to be 600. L. P. HARNETT St. Petersburg, Fla. Another Viewpoint Dear Mr. Jones: I can sympathize with your predicament about train and bus schedules from Franklin to other places, but I think you would have an entirely different viewpoint if you were asso ciated with either the bus company or the railroad. Passenger service never was a .paying business for the rail roads and the bus company isn't going to operate where it doesn't pay because their passenger business has to pay. With the railroads receiving the trucking competition that they do, they have to cut corners to stay In business. You mention the Talhilah Falls line never paying any taxes. TaDulah Falls Railway would have been out of business a long time ago If It hadn't been for pressure brought on them by people like yourself. Why they should be taxed when they are forced to stay In business I don't know. Have you checked with Capital Airlines about their trans portation between Greensboro and Asheviile? I think you would find It a great deal simpler. The airlines have replaced the railroads on most of the passenger service. If you do not choose to use the airlines when they are there to be used, and can give you all of the service you ask for, it seems to me you have no complaint to make about the other services. Finally, Mr. Jones, you should live in Highlands where they dont have even a bus schedule. OVERTON 8. CHAMBERS Chicago. Then And Now (Windsor, Colo., Beacon) Twenty-odd years ago the Public Works Administration was paving streets in Greeley tor a cost of less than $15 per homeowner. At the same time, though people didnt have much money, what they bought they paid (or. It was the ex ception to buy something now and pay later. There was a great deal of pride in being able to keep one's head above water. The 20 years which followed were full of upheaval ? wars and long shortage of household goods, then the atom bomb, the end of the war, the Immediate cashing in on U. S. bonds for cars and appliances, and when this surplus grew small, the increasing popularity of installment buying. Now, when people have more money than ever before, few people seem to care about keeping their heads above the water. Today's philosophy is, "Buy now, pay later." Spending has reached a sort of fever pitch; people who find they are happier doing without material things than going into debt are reactionaries ? perhaps even dangerous to the continua tion of "progress." Now we're paying about ten times as much for the same paving ? and also for newsprint, and groceries, and most other things we have to buy. And what we can't pay for, we charge. The Traffic Disease (Huntington, N. Y., Long-Islander) Detroit has created a syndrome which none of Its models has ever been designed to cure. Even this year's "compact" cars do nothing to cope with it ? In fact, they make It worse. Automotive engineers and car designers should begin to give it some thought. The Detroit syndrome changes even the meekest of us into different and horrifying specimens of homo sapiens the min ute we get behind the wheel of an auto. No matter the make of our car, the moment we turn the key in the Ignition, every other person in a similar position becomes our personal enemy. The road, which, the moment before we entered the car seemed a public facility, to be equally shared by all, suddenly becomes our very private possession. No one else has a right to It, unless they're behind us ? way behind, with no Inten tion of passing us. No other car on the road is driven by a human. All of them, naturally, are piloted by lunkheads, idiots, roadhogs, cowboys and fools. All of them that Is, but ours. Some of these assorted specimens sit In side roads and wait for us to come along, whereupon, at the very last minute, they pull out directly In front of us, go two blocks at twenty miles an hour, and then make an unexpected left turn without signaling. Others, in stead of waiting for us to go majestically through when the light turns green, jockey themselves half way across the road so that we have to wait until they complete their left turns before we can go. And still others cut and weave to pass us, or tail-gate us or drive strategically down the middle of the road at some ridiculous snail's pace so we can't pass them. And there's always that unspeakable character who insists upon "merging" first when traffic has to "squeeze". Who does the Idiot think he is, anyway? And the crude brute who tries to back Into the same parking space we're heading Into ? there's another fine specimen for you. You can tell when the Detroit syndrome has reached "its peak ? that's the day you decide there ought to be a law keep ing everybody off the road but you. That's the dangerous day, and if the auto makers don't do something about It soon, everybody will turn Into lunkheads, idiots and fools ? even us! DO YOU REMEMBER? __ Looking Backward Through the Files ot The Press 65 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (1894) A rumor that a panther was running at large in the neigh borhood was confirmed recently by an assault on Lorenzo Boyd.? Cowee item. Three young men were tried before N. P. Rankin, Esq., last week on a charge of cutting bridles and saddles and shaving horses at a social party in Smith's Bridge township one night recently. It is an easy task to size up the principle of a man who owns a good farm and is too stingy to subscribe for The Press, but persists in reading it regularly at the expense of a Negro tenant on his farm. 35 YEARS AGO (1?4> James B. Duke announced in Charlotte December 11 the creation of a trust fund totaling $40,000,000 for educational and charitable purposes, including the establishment and maintenance of a vast educational institution in North Caro lina to be known as the Duke Lnlversity. Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Moore are now at Crystal River, Fla. When Judge Willis and Bill Moore get back to Franklin, the fish tales they will tell will make Baron Munchausen's stories sound like extracts from the Bible. 15 YEARS AGO (1944) Dr. G. B. Woodard entertained the newly elected officers of the Junaluskee Lodge No. 145, A. F. and A. M? at a steak dinner at The Tavern Tuesday" evening. The charter of the new troop of Boy Scouts at West's Mill procpiited at a gathering there last Friday afternoon. 5 YEARS AGO (1954) Stephen A Bundy has been named superintendent of the Burlington Mills' new Franklin plant. STRICTLY PERSONAL By WEIMAR JONES For all our informality, some times we Americans are sticklers for formality. And when we are formal, we are quite likely to do a lot of things that aren't necessary; or, if they are necessary, we do them backwards. And the more un necessary they are. or the more backward our way of doing them, the more insistent we are that the formalities be followed with out the slightest deviation. The perfect example is the way, at any kind of formal meeting, we "introduce" a lot of people ? and always the wrong people. And the more formal the meeting, the more ridiculous the extremes to which we carry this custom. If it's a dinner meeting, of course there's a head table. And who Is seated at the head table? The answer is obvious: People who are prominent in the com munity; if they weren't well known, they wouldn't be at the head table. On the other hand, if there's anybody there almost nobody knows, he's sure to be seated some place other than the head table. Yet whom do we "introduce"? Do we select the person who needs it, the man few people know? Not at all! Instead, we go down the line of well-knowns at the head table and carefully and solemnly tell the audience what they know already ? that this is the mayor and that is the president of the chamber of com merce, etc. (Even In a big town, where these notables may not be personally known to those present, their pictures often have been in the newspapers, so their faces are known to everybody in the audience.) But, slaves to conformity, we feel no meeting is complete with out this meaningless rigmarole of "introducing" those who don't need It. Then there's the rite of "Intro ducing" the guest speaker. Since he probably comes from out of town, it's true he may not be known personally to those in the audience. But are they in doubt about who he is and what he's done and why he was chosen to make the speech? They've probably been told all this at a previous meeting of the organiza tion that's holding the dinner meeting; and if they haven't, it's all been in the newspapers. More over, if he weren't well enough known not to need an intro duction, he'd never have been - asked to come m^ke the speech! Yet somebody is designated to spend 5, 10. 15, or even 20 minutes "introducing" him ? telling who he is and what he is and why he is there. And though those in the audi ence may never have seen him before, it isn't necessary even to identify him. His is probably the one strange face there. The chances are they spotted him the instant he walked in the door; if not then, they surely did when he was given the place of honor at the head table. But we pretend, until the secret is let out by the "intro ducer", that everybody is in total Ignorance of which one, among all the people there, is the v speaker. ' How foolish all this is came to me the other night as I was introducing Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., when he was the guest speaker at a meeting here. I darned near disgraced myself; be cause I almost laughed, out loud, right in the middle of the most serious part of my introductory speech. Because just then, out of the blue, this thought came to me: "I'm telling 'em which one of ?us, up here at the head table, is Senator Ervin ... as though it's likely anybody in this audience would get us confused and take t me for a United States senator ? and him for me!" (Such unorthodox ideas about all this "introducing" often have run through my mind, but only now am I emboldened to put them on paper. I screwed up my courage to do it, after reading what Mark Twain had to say about his "introductions" when he was on a lecture t#ur. The famous humorist's comments on that subject appear elsewhere on this page.) Letter To Santa Claus fc HENRY BELK in Greensboro Dally News Dear Santa Claus: Please bring Luther Hodges some contemplative quietude. He has been running hither and yon over the state nrd the world so much he needs some rest. Put In Chris Crittenden's socks a note telling him where to find the money needed to build the museum and rest rooms, at the Governor Aycock restoration site. Without these facilities the shrine to the Education Governor is handicapped. For all of North Carolina bring such shame at the cuts in aid to aged and helpless people's checks that restoration shall be made. And can't you give Eastern North Carolina just one big, year round plant for processing, freez ing, drying or preserving its vege tables and fruits. Santas there will be a glass of milk and piece of cake for you on the mantel. Thank you, Santa. TOM TAR HEEL WHEN PEACE WAS SIMPLER Peace, we guess, was - simpler when you could beat swords into plowshares, or even later when artillery shells could be converted into umbrella stands. But what can you make out of an ICBM? ' ? Denver Post Mark Twain On 'Introductions' (EDITOR'S NOTE: Below are Mark Twain's comments on his lecturing experiences and his "introductions" to the audiences. This excerpt is from Twain's autobiography.) "I had pleasant company on my lecture flights out of Boston and plenty of good talks and smokes after the committee had escorted me to the inn and made their good-night. There was always a committee and they wore a silk badge of office; they received me at the station and drove me to the Jecture hall; they sat in rows of chairs behind me on the stage, minstrel fashion, and in the earliest days, their chief used to introduce me to the audience. "But these introductions were so grossly flattering that they made me ashamed and so I began to talk at a heavy disadvantage. It was a stupid custom. There was no occasion for the intro duction; the introducer was al most always an ass and his pre pared speech a jumble of vulgar compliments and dreary efforts to be funny; therefore, after the first season. I always Introduced myself ? using, of course, a burlesque of the time-worn intro duction. This change was not popular with committee chair men. To stand up grandly before an audience of his townsmen and make his little devilish speech, was the joy of his life and to have that Joy taken from him was al most more than he could bear. "My Introduction of myself was a most efficient 'starter' for a while, then it failed. It had to be carefully and painstakingly word ed and very earnestly spoken, in order that all strangers present might be deceived into the sup position that I was only the in troducer and not the lecturer: also that the flow of overdone compliments might sicken those strangers; then, when the end was reached and the remark casually dropped that I was the lecturer and had been talking about myself, the effect was very satisfactory. But it was a good card for only a little while, as I have said; for the newspapers printed it. and after that I could not make it go, since the house knew what was coming. "Next I tried an introduction taken from my California experi ences. It was gravely made by a slouching and awkward big miner in the village of Red Dog. The house, very much against his will, forced him to ascend the platform and introduce me. He stood think ing a moment, then said: " 'I don't know anything about this man. At least I know only two things; one is, he hasn't been in the penitentiary, and the other is (after a pause, and almost sad ly), I DONT KNOW WHY.*" * "That worked well for a while, then the newspapers printed it and took the juice out of it, and after that I gave up introductions altogether. "Now and then I had a mild little adventure but not which couldn't be forgotten without much of a strain. Once I arrived late at a town and found no com mittee In waiting and no sleighs on the stand. I struck up a street in the gay moonlight, found a tide of people flowing along, judged it was on i(s way to the lecture hall ? , a correct guess ? and joined it. At the hall I tried to press in. but was stopped by the ticket-taker. '?'Ticket, please.'" "I bent over and whispered: 'It's all right. I am the lecturer." "He closed one eye impressively and said, loud enough for all the crowd to hear: 'No you don't. Three of you hive got in up to now, but the next lecturer that goes in here tonight, PAYS.' "Of course. I paid, it was the least embarrassing way out of the trouble."
The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.)
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Dec. 17, 1959, edition 1
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