North Carolina Newspapers

ifte ftonWin Wit## and ?hp Highland Ularmttan WElMAli JONES Editorial Page Editor THURSDAY, APRIL. 81, 1960 LET'S SCRUB Saturday Night Bath What Franklin needs is not one hut 52 clean-up weeks in the year. One, though, is a good start ; and Mary or W. C. Burrell deserves the whole-hearted support of citi zens in the effort to give this town a good, old fashioned Saturday night hath, conic next week. Municipal officials here in recent years have shown increasing evidence that they are becoming clean town-miiided, and we're sure the town itself will set the example for individual citizens. Clean streets and sidewalks, cleared vacant lots, -straight ened and re painted traffic and street signs, and a dozen other civic improvement's that require little more than determination such things are s'llre to make an impression on the average man and spur him to clean up his own back yard. Let's all pitch in and give Franklin a real fact washing next week! We'll he surprised at how much better it'll make us feel about our home town. Aiding Federal Aid North Carolinians are accustomed to thinking of theirs as. one of the poor states. ? It is 011 that assumption that so many Par Heels favor federal aid, including federal aid to eduea tioii; Because we are poor, we'll get help from the rich states] So runs the argument. Well, i t seems we've been deluding ourselves. For recent figures from Washington show that wTiile North Carolina ranks 15th among the slates in the amount of tederal aid received, we rank 10th in the amount o! taxes paid to the federal govern tnent. v r Thus, if federal aid is to he hascd on need ? and surely there is nb other fair or, sound basis for ap portioning it among the states? North Carolina, instead of being helped by states richer than it is, will help states poorer than it is.'. There probably are fields and cases in which a valid argument can be made for limited federal aid ; and in those fields and instances. North Carolina should carry its share of the load. V Today, though, the federal government is giving aid in almost every field to every state, rich and poor. The amount of federal aid to .state arid local governments in 1959 was double the total for the first vear of the Kjsenhower administration, and nearly triple the yearly average for the second Truman administration. If that tr^-nd continues, how long will it be In fore we are sending all our money to Washington, to have it dribbled back ? less the Cost ol adniinis tration ? Happy Omen i ' American big business, sometimes .credited with being infallible, isn't always that. It hasn't been long since the big auto companies in this ooilntry stuck their noses high m the air at the mention of the small foreign-made cars some Americans were buying. The Detroit magnates dis missed the "compacts" as "a passing .fad". Now nearly one fourth of all American made 1 autos are the little fellows. Happily, that fact points another moral: Amer ican big business, if not always wise, at least is quick to adjust. Tor I'Yanklin, maybe there's a happy omen in all this. |l and when all the cars parked along Main Street are the "compacts", it will have the effect of doing easily what otherwise could be done only with great difficult) substantially widening that street. The things that will destroy America are prosperty-at-any price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.? Tljeodore Roosevelt. LETTERS About A School Band Editor, The Press: In a recent issue of your paper the question was posed as to whether your high school should have a band. I don't know whether you read the enclosed clippings, but it is most interesting, and to some, profound advice. As you see. it is not on the pros and cons of having a band, but the point of interest is that it is mentioned by Dr. Bestor among ?hurdles In the path of a real education. FRANKLIN F. WHITE Miami, Fla. (EDITOR'S NOTE: The newspaper article Mr. White in closed quoted Dr. Arthur Bestor, professor of history at the University of Illinois, in part, as follows: "Let's not worry too much about catching up with the Rus sians. "First let's raise our educational standards to those of Eng land and France. "In England they feel that learning is important. No bands or dance programs. Drivers classes' are left to the parents. "In the U. S. we treat education like a medicine, something that must be endured and made pleasant. "We seem to have overlooked the fact that reading itself can be interesting, that wisdom is a privilege for its own sake and that the cultivated mind Ls its own reward. "Put Latin back. Granted that it Is difficult. We should have at least one language that requires wrestling with! "Anyone who knows Latin learns the principles of grammar, the ability to analyze and, what is very important, the basis of all the romance languages ") That Burningtown Road Dear Mr. Jones: Would you kindly permit me to come to the support of the plea made by Lester Crawford in the April 7 Press for some attention to be given to the road serving the people In the Burningtown Valley. He might have been directing his com plaint to the wrong authorities, but I happen to know that re quests for relief have been made to the State Highway De partment a number of times in the last several years. The representatives of the Highway Department will tell you to see .the County Commissioners and when you go to that body, they tell you to go to the State. It is like a continual "rat race" with the officials who are supposed to look into the complaints apparently giving the people a run-around. What Lester Crawford wants, and what the other citizens in Burningtown Valley want, is for someone who has the authority to get action on the deplorable situation to give them some attention. I don't know any other body with more authority to do this than the officials that are elected to look after the welfare of all the citizens of Macon County, meaning of course, the County Commissioners. I believe if you realized that these people apparently have been given the "brush off" by those who are supposed to look after their road interest, that you would agree that it is not out of order for them to appeal to the persons they help to elect to represent them when they need help in dealing with the Statei As a non-resident of Macon County, but a frequent visitor, and one who is most deeply concerned with the development of the entire county and in all of Western North Carolina, I should like to get my two cents worth before the officials oT Macon County, and also before the North Carolina Highway Commission, concerning this pitiful makeshift of a road .over which hundreds of thousands of (Jollars worth of government forest products are continually being transported The heavily loaded trucks keep the road cut up until it is almost impass able a large part of the time. Frequently as much as three or four months elapse between times that the road is ma chined. I firmly believe those people in Burningtown Valley are being neglected in the distribution of the State road funds for Macon County. J B. RAY Charlotte, N. C. About The Cemetery To the owners and those interested in Woodlawn Cemetery: We have made arrangements with Mr. Homer Coggins to keep the lots at Woodlawn Cemetery moWed. He makes no DO YOU REMEMBER? Looking Backward Throufh the Files ol The Pre* 65 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (1895) Corn planting has commenced Mr Bragg Higdon, of Ellijay, smiled on our town last Thursday. Presiding Elder T. E. Wagg came in froim his work Monday at noon, and will at home a short while Members of the Building and Loan Association will please remember that dues must be paid in on the last Saturday in each month. We learn that five young men in cartoogechaye township were bound over to the Superior court for rocking some other young men on their way home from church, after night ser-' vices. 55 YEARS AGO <1925) Attorneys Andrew Gennett, G. Lyle Jones, and Snead Adams, of A>*heville. and McKinley Edwards and S. W. Black, of Bry son City, are attending court in Frarlklin this week. 15 YEARS AGO (1945) , Mr. and Mrs. J A Vinson, of the Scaly section, have three sons and a si>nJin-law in the armed forces. They are Pvt. Daniel Vinson, Pvt Atlas Vinson, Pvt Jesse Vinson, and Pvt. Frank Carpenter. Total collections from the 1943 Red Cross War Fund Drive have now reached $9,889, or more , than three thousand dol lars over the $6,700 quota. 5 YEARS AGO . ' (1955) B. L. McGlamery was elected president of the Franklin Parent-Teacher Association Monday night definite promise as to how long lie will stay. The price that we will pay Is $3 per lot per year. He will begin mowing the perpetual care lots at once, and will begin on those lots that are not under perpetual care as he Is paid (or keeping them. We have arranged with him (or those who wish their lots kept up to pay $3 per lot to Franklin Cemetery Association, which we will pay to him In six equal monthly In stallments. We are doing this as a matter of convenience to the lot owners. Remittance should be sent to Franklin Ceme tery Association, Box 108, at Franklin. Please pay by check so you will have your receipt. If you prefer to make your pay ments in cash, such payments may be made at Room 29, Bank of Franklin Building. Miss Ceclle Gibson is acting as treasurer, and It Is requested that remittance be either mailed or brought to the office as we cannot accept them when out side of the office. Of course, each lot owner has the privilege of employing whom they wish to keep up their lots. However, all machin ery out there is owned, not by the Cemetery Association, but by the caretaker himself. The caretaker has been instructed that if he mows lots not under perpetual care and before the annual fee has been paid, that he does so at his own risk. Mr. Sprinkle acted as caretaker for so long that he knew pretty well who would and who would not pay him, but this new man has not had this experience and will expect to know that the money is put up before he does the work. I know all this sounds very blunt. On the other hand, the caretaker has a large family to support. In this connection, please allow me to respectfully urge all those who have not placed their lots under perpetual care, to do so immediately. We understand that it may be more con venient for a great many people to pay a small amount each year, than to pay down $100 per lot and be through with it. We had just as well face the fact" that the time will come to all of us when we can no longer personally see to it that our lots are cared for, and if we can no longer do so, who will, if the lots are not under perpetual care? To those who are not in the position to make the deposit of $100, we will arrange for them to accumulate it through the Building and Loan Association at a given rate per month. Just think this over. You, personally, may have no interest in your resting place after you are gone, but your friends and relatives will. There is no more trying time to anv indi vidual than when he or she finds it necessary to place at perpetual rest some person who made up a part of their lives. It certainly softens the blow if the surroundings of that rest ing place are made as beautiful as possible. Respectfully, TRUSTEES FRANKLIN CEMETERY ASSOCIATION By: Gilmer A Jones Formula For Prosperity (Santa Monica, Calif., Evening Outlook) The preservation of a modern healthy railway system, able to earn a profit and make constant improvements in its serv ice, is very much In the national interest. We would like to see action by the Congress to remove some of the tax in equities of which the roads justly complain, and permission granted them to provide services by truck, airplane and barge on the same terms as their competitors. If these things were done, and if some of the featherbedding practices could be ended through agreements with the brotherhoods, most roads could become prosperous again. Unfavorable Publicity (Waynesville Mountaineer! Almost daily, we hear rumors of growing resentment on the part of many people at the unfair publicity given some parts of the mountain area at the time of the deep snows. It is true, that the situation for some families became acute during the heavy snowfall, but no doubt the true facts were .ballooned many times over by some who wanted to get a sen sational story or broadcast to the world. Life Magazine did a eood job of ridiculing the area, as they headlined the story, "Snowbound backwoods gets help." In the article mention was made of "Backwoods shanties-- iso lated shacks." What Life Magazine did not say was that local people were prepared and ready to take care of the situation here in Hay wood. Unfortunately they were by-passed. There were local members of the Haywood Defense unit with large ? bulldozers already loading on trucks set to go to the area and open the roads; the Rescue Squad was also packed and ready to move. These organizations would have gone about their work quietly, efficiently, and without the fanfare of publicity that accompanied other agencies. _ Many people in other parts of the nation reading the stories which hit national publications do not know the difference between what they read and the fact that the area is not made up entirely of "shanties and isolated shacks." Perhaps We have learned an expensive lesson ? to can on our own folk for assistance first, and be spared: the embar rassment which the area has suffered because of the unfav orable publicity. Between Court Decisions 8 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) The University of Illinois has displayed sound judgment in reinstating Edward Yellin in its graduate college despite his conviction for contempt of Congress. For Mr. Yellin was un fortunately caught between two Supreme Court decisions. In 1958, prior to winning a mechanical engineering fellow ship grant at the University of Illinois, Mr. Yellin was ques tioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee at Gary, Ind. The witness had been a member of the United Steelworkers union some years before, and the committee asked questions about communism in the union. Mr. Yellin refused to answer on the ground that the committee was in fringing upon his freedom of speech and thought without legislative purpose. Later, he signed a University of Illinois affidavit that he was not a Communist. Mr. Yellin was cited for centempt of Congress in the sum mer of 1958. He was not indicted, however, until the late sum mer of 1959. A few weeks ago he was convicted in federal dis trict court at Hammond, Ind. His case will be appealed. Those are the barest facts of the case, but it is the timing that is. important Why was Mr. Yellin cited for contempt but not indicted for another year? The ansjwer is that the' witness based his refusal to answer committee questions on the 1957 Watkins case. There the Su preme Court held that the Un-American Activities Committee had asked questions not pertinent to a clear legislative intent of Congress. "There is no congressional power to expose for the sake of exposure," the court said. The Government showed no disposition to prosecute Yellin until after the Supreme Court's 1959 Barenblatt decision, which retreated from the Watkins opinion. This time the court ruled by 5 to 4 that the committee's authority was "unas sailable." ? Thus Mr. Yellin is the victim of legal uncertainities left by two decisions, one of which encouraged him to take a position which the second held to be incorrect. At first, the University of Illinois suspended this brilliant scholar and father of three children, but he was reinstated 12 days later. State Senator James O. Monroe of Collinsville Issued a vigorous statement in behalf of academic freedom, and a university subcommittee found that Mr Yellin was ready to answer all of its questions Including those he had refused to answer for the House committee. Under the rules of the McCarthy period Mr. Yeliin might have been dismissed outright. Instead, tjje University of Illi nois deserves great credit for avoiding inflexible judgment of a scholar who claimed freedom of conscience. STRICTLY PERSONAL By WKIMAB JONIS "You can't stop it now." Governor Hodges had been speaking of the progress that re sults from cooperation. But I am sure that he meapt, too, that you can't stop Industrialization. His remark was addressed to those attending that recent East ern North Carolina industrial con ference at Goldsboro. But I am sure, too, that it was meant also for the ears of those who question whether all industrialization ne cessarily is progress. In a sense, the governor is right. You can't stop progress. You can't even stop the change that is anything but progress. You are as likely to halt a trend as you are to stop a river from rising. But you can control these things. You can channel change. If that were not true, then man's situation on this globe would indeed be hopeless. If we tid not believe that, then all ef fort would be vain ? * * What's wrong with industrializa tion? Why are there reservations in the minds of a small but .houghtful minority of North Carolinians about the Governor's program to industrialize every county, every community in this state? Why are men like Dr. Waldo Beach, of Duke University, tt oubled by what they see happen ing to North: Carolina as it be comes more highly industrialized? Well, the first and most obvious thing wrong is that it may destroy the very things that make the South attractive to industry. Sup pose. 30 or 40 or 50 years from now, industry flees from the South as it is now fleeing from the North? The last state of this region will be worse than the first. What is it that brings indHstry South today? Not chiefly climate; and not chiefly air and wat>r as yet unpolluted by industry. Those are important factors; but the thing that every industrialist who has moved South talks most about is the people. Suppose industrialization, in a generation or ' two, destroys the spirit ol loyalty that translates itself into a desire to give a full day's work for a day's pay. Sup pose the attitude becomes that quite common in other parts of the nation ? get the most money possible fcr the Jeast possible work. That could happen; in fact, a few of the more reali ,tic and honest Northern industrialists who are coming south frankly say it will happen. Their higher profits, during the period before it hap pens, they explain, will more than justify the cost of moving South. A second thing that's wrong with industrialization, when it's the indiscriminate, pell-mell kind we're getting in .North Carolina is that it brings a mad rush to the towns arid the cities. That creates not only problems of gov ernment that, so far, have evaded solution elsewhere; and not only such social blights as the slums and the crime that inevitably ac company a too-rapid urbanization. It birngs, too, erosion of individ ual personality. Where does con formity thrive best? In the crowd ed city. And where do you find peisonal independence and neigh borliness? In the little towns and the countryside. Even more im portant. urbanization tends to destroy the tough-fibred character that is the first essential in a democratic nation. It is not true, of course, that you never find it in cities; but it is true that you find it oftener and in greater de gree under rural conditions. The thing that's wrong with in dustrialization, when it means what the term usually connotes ? mass production ? Is that the worker ceases to be a workman, with pride in his skills and his product, and becomes an auto maton. And work ceases to be the blessing that self-fulfillment al ways Is and becomes the drudgery it always Is when the work is solely a means to an end, the pay check. If he is not a slave to his machine, he is to the system in which he is a tiny cog. (Yes. I know we can't have such things as automobiles without assembly line methods. But Goldsboro, say. no more has to become a second Detroit than Michigan one giant cotton farm.) Another thing that's wrong with the kind of industrialization we're getting In North Carolina Is that too much emphasis is put on big ness. Governor Hodges is right, of course, in thinking in terms of industries for Eastern North Carolina that will process that region's agricultural products; such as the corn starch plant for Plymouth. But a single multi-mil lion dollar plant, employing many hundreds of persons, suddenly dumped in a little town like Ply mouth easily may become a curse Instead of a blessing. When you put a single big plant in a little town, first the commun ity, and then individuals in the community, adjust their economies to it; soon, they find themselves dependent on it. The more de pendent they become, the less free they are. And the longer they re main in such economic bondage, the less the will to be free. A big plant sounds wonderful; and it takes less effort to get a Single big one than a lot of little ones. But it's my guess that four plants, each employing 50 per sons. would be far better than a single one employing 200. Ten plants, employing 20 each, would be better still. One thing wrong with industri alization, as we know it today, is that as the worker becomes more and more dependent on his pay check, at the same time he is more and more impressed by the import ance of things, of gadgets, as a standard. The result is a tendency for more and more members of the family to work in industry, so the family can buy more and more gadgets. And so, all over the country, more and more mothers of small children work outside their homes. We look with horror upon the old days when children worked in the mills; but we look with complacency, even with prides upon the new days when children are virtually deserted, as far as parental care is concerned, be cause both parents work. The ex ploitation of the child is present in both cases ? it's just less ob vious in today's system. ? * * Always a little behind the rest of the country, the South usually has adopted new ideas and new patterns of living only after they've become commonplace else where. To be tardy, when such new ideas and patterns are good, is unfortunate but not serious; be cause good things last a long time. But it has been the South's tragedy that it has been late ac cepting ideas and patterns that were bad ? usually it has got around to adopting them just about the time other areas were discovering they were bad and were discarding them. The ills that often accompany industrialization are written large in other parts of the country. Must we, in this, too, blindly re peat the mistakes, that have been clearly proved to be mistakes, in other areas? 1 ; ? ' ' V AND N'OTHIXG HAPl-MiNKD Another Editor Harped S'ANFORD HERALD Sometimes we feel our convic tibns are too strong. Such as our editorial comment on fund-raising in schools. We finally decided we'd say no more. Apparently Lee county wanted it the other way. Along comes Weimar Jones in The Franklin Press, one if North Carolina's finest weekly news papers, to say he thinks a lot more would be accomplished if "you and I" had the courage of our convictions. Turned out he'd harped on the same subject ? but at a P.-T.A. meeting. He said' he sto:d up and said schools are not the place to conduct fund drives. "I said I thought there were two reasons why it wasn't." he wrote. "In the first place, sending a child home for money put an unfair pressure on the parents, and. besides, !s a form of exploiting children. Second, the purpose of the school is to educate, not to run errands for an outside organization, no mutter how worthy." Editor Jones said there was a long, embarrassing silence. Final ly. some young matron chirped, "Let's get on with the business of the P.-T.A.." and promptly changed the subject. Editor Jones said he kept quiet, i 10 years ? in fact, forgot he'd suggested no fund drives in schools. Then he picked up an article in Coronet magazine. "That article. They're Stealing Time Prom Our Schools,' by Phillip Reaves, took the second part of my idea ? the part about its being the job of the schools to educate ? and quoted leading educators all over the country as endorsing it." Editor Jones explained. Theme of the article was every time a school administrator ad mits one type of extra-curricular material into the school, he makes it more dificult to deny some other organization. Added Mr. Jones: "More and more school officials believe the time to close the scho:l door is at the first over ture, however worthy. "My idea. Just what I said, though not so well, to the Frank lin P.-T.A. But it's somebody else who's getting it accepted. All be cause 1 didn't have the courage of my convictions! "How many times has the same sort of thing happened to you?'' Not many. Editor Jones. We did speak - and nothing happened.