Newspapers / The Franklin Press and … / June 29, 1960, edition 1 / Page 2
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?be iftwi&Iitt mid ?hp Higljlanite Utanmiatt \ WEIMAR JONES Editorial Page Editor WEDNESDAY. JUNE 29, I960 ELECTION POSTSCRIPT Character Of A State In an editorial June 16, this newspaper com mented that however much North Carolinians might agree with the views of Dr. I. Beverly Lake, then campaigning on a segregation platform, "most voters are opposed to Dr. Lake for gover nor ... It enough of them vote, he will not he the nominee . . . The state's whole history points to that conclusion." That was not a political prediction, growing out of a .knowledge of the then current public opinion; The Press had no facilities for gauging North Car olina public opinion. It was, instead, a simple statement of faith in the character of North Carolina; the people of this state being what they are, the result seemed in evitable : For North Carolinians are a middle-of-the-road, prac tical, down to earth sort. As middle-of-the-roaders, they almmt never have followed an extremist ? even an ex tremist who expressed their own beliefs. As practical realists, they are sore to ask not only bow Dr. Lake, as Itntaor, could improve the situation; they are sure to aak, too: "Might not his nomination and election serve as a challenge to groups Hke the N. A. A. C. V. . > . ?" finally, as down to earth folk, they have . . . wisdom about this problem ... ) Having lived with the problem a long time, the average Tar Heel, white and black, is wise enough to know it can , not be finally solved by logic alone or by law alone. He knows ? because he has proved it, over a period of dec ; adeo? that great progress Is possible under conditions and laws far from Ideal. On the other hand, the past six years i have shown that relations between the races can seriously worsen under what was intended to be a better law. He knows, in short, that neither the laws nor the conditions are Uoely ever to be ideal. He must make-do, as he has in the put, with laws and conditions as they are. It's a ' human problem, so any final solution must come not i chiefly from the head, but from the heart. ! but, bat far from least, he senses that there has been too much talk about this thing . . . What is needed now is time ? yes, and QUIET. It is those Tar Heel qualities of moderation, practical common sense, and an earthy wisdom that explain Dr. Lake's resounding defeat. More significant, Dr. Lake's defeat is convincing evi dence that the essential character of this state is still what it always has been. In an age of conformity, North Carolina re mains unique. In an age of terrifying problems, it continues to approach its problems in its own dis tinctive way, and to find its own distinctive solu tions. It is that, rather than the immediate effects of last Saturday's election, that is cause for rejoicing. So long as there is such evidence of sturdy char acter, there is boundless hope for the future. Problem Of Garbage Garbage disposal is becoming a major problem everywhere. We here in Macon County may have to take a new look at the problem one of these days ; for while there is garbage disposal service for1 the family living in Franklin or Highlands, there is no such service for the family living out side the towns' limits. What is the rural dweller to do with his garbage? Once the lowly hog (or chickens) served as a gar bage disposal plant. A growing number of rural families now, though, have no such animal coopera tion. A few, a very few, take the easiest, and worst, pos sible course. They simply dump their garbage on a roadside, or even on the property of others. Sheriff J. Harry Thomas has had a few complaints to this effect. Quite naturally, they are emphatic com plaints. Such garbage dumping is a violation of state law, and the sheriff has no intention to neglect his duty to enforce the law. He has. however, a con structive suggestion, True, the man in the country doesn't have any garbage service; but, by living in the country, he avoids paying the town tax that provides such service. It's up to him, therefore, to invest a little money, in lieu of town taxes, to provide his own garbage disposal. Sheriff Thomas suggests a sizable hole in the ground. fie emphasi/ci tha' su' h a hole can prove an excellent investment ; he knows, from personal ex perience, that decayed garbage is the best possible fertilizer for vegetable gardens and flower beds. Even tin cans, given time, will disintegrate and enrich the soil, he's found. k Strange Bedfellows Only 15 years ago, Russia was our ally in the war against the hated Japanese. Last week, the U. S. Senate ratified a security pact with Japan in the cold war against the hated Russians. It is true that Japan, meanwhile, has become a democratic nation. But Russia was no less a ruth less Communist dictatorship when we called her friend and ally than she is today. International, as well as national and local, poli tics makes strange bedfellows. Those Census Figures Most Press readers probably will agree with the view, expressed by Mr. Joseph J. Wilson in his welcome letter on this page, that a too-rapid popti lation growth is undesirable, highly undesirable. A population boom may prove as disastrous as a business boom usually does. Most of us here in Macon County would prefer a modest ? even a tiny ? rate of growth to growing too fast. Even a population loss may be preferable to a population explosion. All that, however, does not change the fact that what has been happening, population-wise, in this county calls for careful analysis. When any county loses 8 per cent of its population in a 10-year peri od, that isn't something just to be brushed off. When the net population loss, added to the exreess of births over deaths, shows more than a fifth of the population exported since 1950, it is a matter for concern. And when that happens in a place as attractive as this one, surely something it wrong. In a situation like that, hadn't we better do some careful looking to try to find what is the cause? The Press, which already has explored the situ ation from several angles, plans to continue to do so. Meanwhile, it would welcome the views of other readers on this matter of importance to us all. LETTERS Is Chivalry Dead? Dear Weimar: I hav? Just read your Strictly Personal column In The Press of June 23rd and I want to compliment you on the article. The method of listing admissions to our local hospital has been similar to those you mentioned and It has been my pur pose to call this to the attention of the administrator. There is another tendency which has grown more and more prevalent as to addressing married ladies. I note that so many men address ladles only by their given name, even though the person has been known only a short time. I wonder if this is for lack of courtesy or for the purpose of Impressing others with Intimacy? It is so rare these days to note that a gentleman tips his hat to a lady and it would seem that chivalry is rapidly disappearing, if such attitude and actions continue, the result will ultimately be a crude, coimmon and repulsive atmosphere. Sometime ago In a crowded place with no vacant seats avail able, a gentleman arose and offered his place to two ladles who were standing and one of them was overtieard to re mark: "Chivalry Is not yet dead In the South." DOVER POUTS Burnsvllle, N. C. Can Grow Too Fast Editor, The Press: As a regular reader of The Press, I have been noticing of late that you are doing a lot of crying because Macon County and Franklin lost population In the decade ending this year. (Franklin Showed a slight population gain, the county as a whole lost ? Editor.) Dry your tears, because that's why I like Franklin, and why I hope to build a shack In that neck of the woods in the near future. This town. Plant City, known as the world's largest winter strawberry and vegetable market . . . also known for phos phate industries, citrus and vegetable processing plants, plus many smaller industries moving In all the time ? has doubled in population during the time your town and county were >sing a few people. New subdivisions, with box-like row houses called "modern", are going up all around town. The trees are being cot down, swamp* and bayheads, natural watersheds, are being drained to make more room for more box-like dwellings, that sell anywhere from 10* to 20 thousand dollars. Even good orange groves are giving away to new subdivis ions, while many berry and vegetable growers are going into the cattle business. And there are some big ranches in this county. We have a new wlndowless, air-conditioned city hall, a new recreation center, a new sewage disposal plant, and barrels of money is now going into new paved streets, sanitary sewer lines, additional water mains, gas mains, and what have you. The hammer and saw are heard on all hands amid the roar of trucks bringing In and taking out commerce of various kinds. Hundred-dollar lots are now $5,000, and building materials cost more than gold. Naturally, taxes are heading skyward, and all other costs are headed in the same direction. We are required to pay $1.25 per month' for garbage collection, 50 per cent of our water bills to pay for bonds, another 10 per cent for the general fund, and heaven knows what else. Oh yes, there is a city 10 per cent tax on electric and phone bills. Yes, we are growing . . . but we are having to pay for it. We need new schools and hundreds of additional classrooms, but there is no money. Result: Double sessions in all schools for the upcoming term. What's true of Plant City is also true of Just about every other section of Florida. The recent census showed that Cal ifornia gained more population in the last decade than did Florida, but the figures also showed that Florida is growing at a faster rate than California. It Is my belief that Franklin will profit, In the long run, by losing a few people and by not growing too fast. Friends of ours, Mr. and Mrs. Earle Youngblood (he is a retired banker from here), built a nice home In the Culla saja community last summer, and are there right now. Mr. and Mrs. Ted Covington will build this summer. We had spent summers in W. N. C. for many years, mostly at Hendersonville, Fontana, and Chimney Rock, where we owned a cottage many years ago. We found Franklin last summer through the Youngbloods, and we liked it very much. Mostly because It's still a "country town," and because "progress" Is not moving at such a fast pace. With Florida growing at such a fast clip, W. N. C., of course, will get more and more summer people, and as more people find Franklin, the more that area will grow ? at a slow, natural pace. It seems to me that the downtown area of Franklin should be preserved much as It Is at this moment. I don't believe a new, modern courthouse would look well in such surround ings. To my way of thinking, it would be better if the court house could be done over to make it safer and more modern Inside, and more efficient and more pleasant, of course, for the workers. I never see Franklin mentioned In papers In this area as I do such places as Hendersonville, Asheville, Waynesvllle, and many others. Perhaps you need a more aggressive chamber of commerce, and need to do more outside advertising. Anyhow, though, any way you cut it, we like Franklin and the fine people we met while there' last summer. We hope to spend August and September there. JOSEPH J. WILSON Plant City, Fla. DO YOU REMEMBER? ? ? 65 TEARS AGO THIS WEEK (1895) June bugs are junlng with their annual usuality. Blackberries will soon be ripe, and the crop is abundant. F. S. Johnston, esq., went to Jarrett's Station on business Thursday and returned Friday. The clever drummer, Monte L. Oudger, has been with us again, and became a subscriber to The Press. Mr. R. J. Roane, of Bushnell, came up last Wednesday to spend several weeks with Macon relatives. 35 YEARS AGO (1925) The municipal power dam on the Little Tennessee River Is expected to be completed In a little more than a month. 15 TEARS AGO (1945) Lee Guffey, secretary of the Franklin Chamber of Com merce, was among those attending a meeting in Asheville in the interest of the tourist industry. ' 5 TEARS AGO (1955) The highest honor open to the state's 460 Future Farmers of America chapters this year comes to the Franklin chapter. Barring bad weather, the 1 9.42-mile link of US 23-441 In Jackson County will be ready for paving by the last of Aug ust. Frank Dean has been Installed as commander of the local American Legion post, succeeding John L. Crawford. i WHAT' I. L happen to our jobs * Ever - Growing Flood Of Foreign - Made Goods Is Pouring Into U. S. Washington (Mo.) MTSSOURIAN ?uu IC- dim 111(11 C UUUSUinei liUUUH is pouring into this country every day. This trend can lead to only one thing ? more jobs for foreign workers and fewer and fewer Jobs for American workers. This Is a very serious situation, as we have pointed out before, and' it is certainly not getting any bet ter. In fact, It is getting worse by the day! It Is almost as common to find foreign-made goods in American stores today as It Is to find Ameri can-made goods. Oo into any store you wish. Many of the articles you find In the dime stores are made In Japan, or Germany. OO into Jewelery stores. Most of the watches are Swiss make. Oo Into clothing stores. The salesman will tell you this or that article Is maae 01 imporwa laDrics! And then go Into a large shoe store ? the salesman vlU take special pride in showing you a foreign-made shoe, and tell you how much more comfortable it is. and the fine leather from which it is made. The chances are the very leather from which it was made was produced right here in this country in the form of hides! And so the parade goes on and on ? more and more foreign made products coming in every day to be praised , and sold over the counters of American stores! We are informed that German wire workers make barbed wire, ship it to us across the Atlantic and sell It in Pittsburgh for t40 a ton less than barbed wire can be made in Donora, Pa., a short distance from Pittsburgh. Many Donora workers have already lost their Jobs as a result of this. Paul Harvey, a Chicago wlrter. says Swiss generators "can sell for hundreds of thousands of dol lars less than the product of high salaried American electrical work ers. And so thousands of American electrical workers find themselves with high salaries. BUT NO JOBS!" In the fall of 1958 Russia de livered 9.000 tons of steel to the port of Houston. Tex., for $40 a ton less than American steel! A company In Texas bought $13 million dollars worth of benzine from Russia for 6 cents a gallon less than the same pro duct could be made and sold by neighboring plants In Missouri, i Kansas and other midwest areas, i Many of the printing presses sold In this country today are Im ported from Germany. Most of the sewing machines we buy today are made In some foreign country. And then there are the little foreign cars. Last year European manufacturers sold around 600.000 of them in this country. And In 1960. In spite of our new small American-made cars, the European manufacturers expect to sell 700.000 to Amercian users! The threat from European countries Is not new. We have al ways had it. But we protected the American worker with hiRh tariffs so that the products we imported from other countries had ; to sell for about the same price is similar products made in this i country, where living standards are higher and living costs greater. But high tariffs are no longer the answer. We are no longer able to shut ourselves off from the rest of the world. We are a part i of the world ? and we must live i in it. trade with it, and be good I neighbors. But, it seems, we could i be good neighbors without con- i tinulng to pour millions and mil- 1 lions of our tax dollars into these i competing foreign countries in the form of "foreign aid." , We have reached the time when 1 we had better start taking care t of ourselves, and look after our t own economic security. If this i trend of foreign imports continues q in the next few years at the same t rata it has been stepped-up in the a last few, we may eventually end c up being nothing more than sales- p men for foreign products! t STRICTLY PERSONAL 4 By WEIMAR JONES All across the land, there are growing evidences of a feeling of confusion, of doubt about the wis dom of many of the things we are bringing about in this nation. Especially, there is questioning about whether much of what we call Progress really is good. It Is not clearly defined, this feeling; few seem sure they know what is the matter; almost no body seems sure of what we ought to do in place of what we are doing. More and more people, though, feel lost, and are trying to feel their way in the dark. Typical is a passage from a per sonal letter i received the other day from a friend In middle North Carolina. One who has actively promoted most of the develop ments we usually associate with progress, he is a man who travels widely and observes closely. Here are three sentences from his letter; "I don't know how it could be done, but somehow the gospel of progress-at-any-price needs to be counteracted. "We also need to re-deflne, in some human terms, what progress is. I'm not sure that I even know, but I'm pretty sure that some of the changes being made in the name of progress are repugnant to me, and, I think, harmful to all of us." I* ?* * In this space last week, I paid my respects to the current prac tice of calling a married woman by her given name; of referring to her not as Mrs. John Smith, but, on any and eevry occasion, as Mrs. Mary Smith. I said the practice Isn't a good one for the simple reason it isn't the best method of identification. I poked fun at hospitals as having taken up this ignorant and silly custom. Well, quickly, before somebody calls my hand, I hasten to add that nobody could follow this fad more fanatically than members of my own craft, newspaper writers. The middle of last week, for instance, an Associated Press dis patch from Washington reported that "Mamie Elsenhower-" was out of the hospital. Now "Mamie Elsenhower's" one and only claim to fame Is that she is the wife of the President. She was In the news because and only because of that fact. Why not, then, identify her in the most obvious and direct fashion possi ble, by calling her "Mrs. Dwlght 1 Eisenhower"? Yet that item, six paragraphs long, never once said she was Dwight Eisenhower's wife. It never once, in fact, came right out and said in so many words that her husband wa6 the Presi dent. True, It said she had returned to the White House. That hinted at who she is. But "Mamie Elsen hower" might have been the wife either of the President's brother or of the President's son. It would not have been unusual for his sister-in-law or his daughter-in law to go to the White House to recuperate, after a spell in the hospital. In fact, since the AP writer didn't bother to put a "Mrs." before the name, she could have been the unmarried daughter ot any one of the three Eisen hower men. It is true. too. that the story, farther down, referred to her as the First Lady. To most informed Americans, that means the wife of the President. But what about the uninformed Americans? What about the newly naturalized Amer icans? What about foreigners visiting m America? I am not suggesting, of course, that this item created widespread misunderstanding. What I am sug gesting is that simply saying "Mrj. , Pwight Eisenhower" would have avoided any possibility of mis understanding. And since it's the job of newspapers to inform ? as simply, as directly, as specifically as possible ? it seems to me that would have made sense. I hardly expect this practice, though, to be discontinued tomor row. For it's became a sort of fetish to refer to a married woman by her given name. And we news papermen, for all our outcries against conformity, sometimes seem the world's most meticulous containers. HOW NORTH GOT AHEAD , Every Yankee Sneeze Reported UNIVERSITY (of N. C.) REPORT The printing press got into Bos ton before newspapers were estab lished in North Carolina, and that is why New England obtained a hundred years' start in informing the world of the surpassing Yankee role in 'the development of America. Historians have given New Eng land disproportionate credit. At the same time the part of Caro linians has been minimized. Preston Davie, New York law yer, so declared in a speech to Friends of the Library at Chapel Hill in April. Though he's not a Tar Heel himself, he's interested in early colonial history with em phasis on the Carolinas, and he has discovered and accumulated rare documents and letters, now in the Davie Collection at ,the Louis R. Wilson Library. Mr. Davie is a descendant of William Richard Davie, "the father of the University of North Carolina" for whom the Davie Poplar is named. "Bvery time a Pilgrim father sneezed, it got into print," said Davie. He said the Battle of Concord and the "shot heard round the world" couldn't begin to comparq in importance to what the Caro linians did at the Battle of Kings Mountain, when they foiled Lord Cornwallis and "broke the back of the British" leading to later surrender at Yorktown and free dom at last for America. WE COULD TELL 'EM Where Are The Pollsters? Huntington, N. Y. LONG-ISLANDER We've been neglected by the pollsters lately. Not even the census taker bothered to ask more than our name, age and country of origin, and It's beginning to worry us. How can this country carry on correctly, how can big business sell its products if they don't know what we think? It seems a terrible waste, especially alter all the effort we've spent thinking up answers. Like, "If X, Y and Z were all running against each other, we'd vote for W". Or "If we had a choice be tween green and orange, we'd take green because we don't like orange, but if we had a choice between orange and blue, then we'd take orange, because g don't like blue either, and why don't you ask us what we do like?" Or, "If we were choosing between a compact car and a foreign car, we'd rather have the money," or "If we could live In the climate of our choice, we wouldn't be living here." Why, we have hundreds of answers which. If only someone would poll us. would give a vivid indication of how America is trending. Think of how valuable It would be to know that we don't watch program X regularly be cause we don't have a television set. or that we're not really In terested In Stereo because we've iust had the house sound-proofed. And surely someone would be more than interested to know that we always order steak in restaurants not so much because we're crazy ibout It. as because we can't pro nounce any of the other items on the menu, or that although we don't know for whom we shail i>ote for President since no one's jeen nominated yet, we do know who we won't vote for if he Is. ? It's answers like these that ?ould change the very course of listory. If only someone would 'ome along with the questions. Vnd If by any remote chance a jollster should come up with n luestion for which we haven't /ei hought up an answer, we could ilways fall back on that classir if twenty-four per cent of the lopulatfon ? "Don't know." which ies up all the loose ends. I
The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.)
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June 29, 1960, edition 1
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