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THE PILOT—Souihern Pines, North Carolina
Friday, November 18, 1949
THE PILOT
Published Each Friday by
THE PILOT, INCORPORATED
Souihern Pines, North Carolina
1941—JAMES BOYD, Publisher—1944
KATHARINE BOYD Editor
VALERIE NICHOLSON Asst. Editor
DAN S. RAY General Manager
C. G. COUNCIL Advertising
Subscription Rates:
One Year $3.00 6 Months $1.50 3 Months 75c
Entered at the Posloffice at Southern Pines, N. C.,
- as second class mail matter
Member National Editorial Association and
N. C. Press Association
THE WORD GOES OUT
The Pilot’s Resort Issue goes out to its readers
today. This latest news of the Sandhills, with
its photographs of new homes and familiar
scenes, will travel far; to all the states and on
across the seas, to subscribers and children of
subscribers who want to keep in touch with this
part of the world.
The tale itself is a good American -one: of a
start from small beginnings and a growth,
steady for the most part, in the march of pro
gress. Two wars happened during those years,
three, if one counts the Spanish War, way back
at the start of things, here; we went through a
boom and a depression, and now, are trying to
settle down with the rest of the country to get
along as best we are able, in these rather diffi
cult times.
The record shows that, given the chance, we
shall get along. For we may legitimately have
the faith that comes from knowledge of accom
plishment. During these years many fine things
have come to pass: not the least the achievement
of the building of a good community.
The vision of the founders has come true and
with that coming, another vision takes its place
as we look ahead with hope and confidence to
ward the future; the future of our community,
our nation and the world of which we are a part.
TOWN LIMITS
Now that the proposal to extend the town
limits is to be put to a vote it behooves us to
think seriously about it. This question always
faces a growing town: when shall the building
that springs up all along the outskirts be con
sidered part of the town and treated as such?
Obviously the density of population figures
prominently. A thickly settled district ought
•to be included in the town, but where the homes
are large, with much ground around them, the
case may be different.
In Southern Pines and vicinity are people of
somewhat opposing tastes: there are the ones
who want the trimmings that go with city life,
and there are the others who want pine woods
and soft roads. Yet both these people want a
few basic things, for instance: police and lire
protection, and good water. The Town Fathers
are continually umpiring a mild running light
between these two groups (and, incidentally,
doing a line lair job), and in this matter of en
larging the town they are at odds, for the pines-
and-soft-roads crowd live mostly outside the
limits, and the others inside. If the town limits
are Extended the outside people will catch it in
greatly raised taxes. It will work a hardship
on many of them and it is important that every
precaution be taken to exercise fairness.
It is clear, however, that in return for being
brought into the town, these people will receive
much: reduction of insurance rates and all town
services. Some of these they want very much,
but there are others that they don’t. They have
put in their own water, they have septic tanks,
and they bury their garbage in the yard, to the
vast improvement of the shrubbery. If they
don’t want to come in, they ask, why should
they?
The ones in town have a grievance, too. They
believe that one reason taxes are so high is be
cause those on the outside are taking a free
ride. It is not a case of taxation without repre
sentation, this time, but the other way round:
the representation is there, but the taxes aren’t.
The people outside town are getting all the ad
vantages of living in a town, without paying for
it.
There is another point: it is necessary for a
town to control any dense settlement adjacent
to it for health and safety reasons. Clearly,
here there is need for control also from an es
thetic standpoint, especially at the entrances to
the town. On the other hand, where the land
is comparatively open, it is hard to see any rea
son for taking it in except that of collecting
more t^lxes. In that case, the whole thing might
possibly backfire. If we discourage people from
buying large estates, or drive away the ones
who are already here, we will lose far more
than we gain.
It will be seen that extending the town lirhits
has its complications. Yet we knojy that some
time or other it must be done. The fact that
those whose judgment we have trusted with the
running of our town believe in this move should
be a strong argument in its favor.
DUMP ON THE DUMP
Southern Pines possesses a town diunp. It is
better than a dump; it is a modern, sanitary
trench burying-ground for refuse. There is just
one trouble with it; not enough people seem to
know about it.
This does not apply, or should not, to those
who live in town and whose garbage gets picked
up by the town truck, but the people living on
the edge of town are not all taking advantage of
the town’s dump. Instead, some of them are
taking advantage of their neighbor’s woods. It
appears that if the drive into the town dump
takes them ten minutes and the drive over the
hill to a neighbor’s woodlot takes only five, the
woodlot it is.
Then there is another character who wears
an army uniform or else is a civilian employee
out at Fort Bragg. His daily ride takes him
through a fine stretch of country, with lots of.
thick woods along it. So he carries his garbage
and trash along with him and just throws it off
into the bushes from his car. He might be seen
and caught doing it on the reservation,, so he
does it on the county road before he gets there.
The third type is the handyman of the man
who lives in the country, to whom it is a matter
of indifference, presumably, whether he hauls
the stuff into town to the dump, or not. If it’s
handier to go in the other direction and dump it
in the woods, he does so. He may not even
know whether he is dumping on his employer’s
land^ or on someone else’s, and his employer
doesn’t know anything about it and would be
horrified if he did.
These three kinds of people have been mem
bers of the Sandhills community for as long
as The Pilot can recall. He has loosed a broad
side in their direction almost yearly. And,
though it may do no more good than allowing
him and Ozelle Moss and the hunting people,
who suffer perhaps more than anyone else
from this state of things, a chance to let off
steam, still he intends to keep right at it.
Ask anyone who rides and he will say: “The
woods are a mess. Garbage dumps, litter of
every sort, tin cans and broken glass present a
real hazard to horses and hounds,” and the
horseman’s colleague, who just likes to tvander
over the countryside, looking for birds, perhaps,
or hunting arrowheads or just mooning along
in pleasant solitude, will tell you that many of
his favorite strolls are spoiled by the sight of
rotting garbage lying about.
There is no excuse for this state of things. As
we said at the start, the town of Southern
Pines has a most excellent dump. It cannot add
more than five minutes to anyone’s drive to
haul garbage to it instead of hauling it into
the woods. Not to do so is irresponsible, not to
say downright mean.
This Is The Place: Southern Pines
A SENSIBLE MOVE
The town’s decision to abolish the fee system
by which members of the police department re
ceived remuneration for individual arrests and
court appearances is surely a wise move. It is
in line with practice in the more progressive
towns of the country, and it would seem to be
in line with general good sense.
In fact, in considering the fee system itself, it
is hard to find anything much to say in its fa
vor. Its only excuse for being seemed to be in
its incentive value. But it should not require
special incentives, a bonus of this sort, to influ
ence a police officer to do his duty. He is em
ployed to keep order, to make arrests and to
follow them up in court, if need be. Ii his salary
is not high enough to suit, that is another mat
ter. What he gains in the way of pecuniary
advantage should be irrespective of whether he
makes many or few arrests. In fact, the officer
who keeps such good order that no arrests are
necessary is doing the best job of all, yet, under
the old fee system, he would get less money.
The town board is to be congratulated on hav
ing taken this move. It was made at the sug
gestion of John Ruggles and was, in fact, his
last act before his resignation from the board.
As an example of the sort of service this ex
member might have given the town had he been
able to remaiij on its governing board, it will
surely strike many as definite evidence that Mr.
Ruggles was top commissioner material.
It is to be hoped that the time will come when
he will be able to run for the post again. JVlean-
time, by the abolition of the police fee system,
we are that much better by his brief tenure.
TOWNS WITHOUT PAPERS
It was a significant story that John Lyman,
publisher of the Wallowa (Ore.) Record, hacf to
tell last week. Mr. Lyman declared, “You’ll
never know how much you’ve done for your
town unless your paper is discontinued over a
period of years.”
And, he added: '
'■‘Few weekly editors stop to realize what
their town would be like if it had no news
paper.”
To which we might append—even fewer local
merchants, educators, civic leaders, and just
plain citizens give such thoughts brain space.
Like “democrafcy” the newspaper is accepted
as an inherited privilege—to be appreciated and
utilized as the mood ordains.
But they’ll never give the matter thought
unless somebody reminds them. It is to the
interest of the newspaper to do that. Why not?
Tell them a few of the things Mr. Lyman
learned:
That folks did not know how to spell the
name o ftheir closest neighbor;
That there was less civic and hometown
pride;
That almost as many meetings were postpon
ed as were scheduled because no newspaper
publicized, “the such-and-such club WILL
meet.”
Remind them, too, that civic leadership faded.
People would get ideas, express them, forget
them. No newspaperman was around to quote
and support good projects.
Simply: the people had no voice.
But—
At the same time as you tell your folks what
they could miss—be sure they aren’t missing
anything now. —Publishers, Auxiliary
Strutheis Burt believes
that Southern Pines people
are intent on "making a liv
ing in order to live, instead
of living in order to make a
living." That is the way it
was when he lived here and
that's the way it will be, he
hopes, and we hope,-4vhen he
comes back. We repeat: when
he comes back. It is a phrase
frequently beard in the
Shndhills: ^'wben are the
Burts coming back?"
The Pilot welcomes to
these columns one of South
ern Pines' best friends and
most distinguished citizens.
He writes like a man who has
been too long away and we
hope he will remedy that
oversight soon. We all read
his books, we read his poetry
and his articles. . . but we
want to see him.
by Struthers Burt
Time travels fast, and keeping
pace with it, step by step, is for
getfulness. And so this annual
number of The Pilot seems a
good place in which, for a mo
ment, to arrest time and recap
ture memory.
But about a'rresting time and
recapturing memory there is al
ways this; invariably standing out
from whatever background you
choose to remember are the fig
ures of men and women. Friends
who are dead or still living, an
occasional pnemy, chapce ac
quaintances. The human mind is
so constructed that it is almost
impossible for it to remember a
scene, a place, an incident, a
The “book-writing Burts of Hibernia” are on their way home
from Wyoming, where they have spent the summer at their ranch
a^ Morans. Struthers and Katharine Newlin Burt have been winter
residents of Southern Pines for many years, during which their books,
magazine articles and short stories have placed them at the top among
contemporary American authors.
series of events, without some and what he does and thinks
personality in the foreground.
And this is natural and just. Men
and women make events and
places, and the particular spirit
and atmosphere of the period in
which they live. A nation, a town,
a countryside, are the sum total
of the people who live in them.
No matter what science and in
creased knowledge may say, for
all practical and spiritual pur
poses, man is still, at least to him
self, the center of the universe.
MANNERS ON SCHOOL BUS
A judge indicated the other day that he thinks
the drivers of tractor-trailer trucks are not ex
hibiting enough concern for other vehicles on
the 4iighwajt, and promised that he would lend
his efforts to “stop this business” or reckless
ness by the truck drivers.
Any move toward greater safety on the road
is a worthy one. The statement that truck driv
ers are more reckless than the drivers of cars
is open to question. But there can be no ques
tion of the greater need for safety on our high
ways, and we hope the judge will broaden his
efforts to include all elements of traffic in his
campaign. —^Raleigh News and Observer
The Pilot takes special pleasure
in welcoming back to these pages
Wallace Irwin, who filled the
Pilot’s Sandbox in a labor of
weekly love that kept his fellow-
townsmen’s spirits high during
tough days. He got nothing for it
but a load of gratitude and the
fun it surely brought him. For
you can’t make such good fun
without having a lot yourself.
Perhaps, during Mr. Irwin’s ca
reer, as humorist (“Letters of A
Japanese Schoolboy”), light verse
topflighter, and novelist, that has
been his motto. Southern Pines
is fortunate to have his fun and
his good sense and good citizen
ship living right here.
by Wallace IrwJn
The mocking bird, who has his
office in a magnolia near the
Seaboard station, seems, to sing
prettiest a minute after the trains
go by. He warbles for the benefit
of newcomers a selected lyric of
praise, “This is Southern Pines,
stranger. You’ll never want to go
back!”
To the colored boy who helps
with the baggage I once said,
“That bird certainly has a va
riety of tunes—catbird, thrush,
robin.” “He certainly do,” said
the boy. “He never seem to have
any ideas of his own.”
In praise of Southern Pines I
have no ideas of my own, either.
I’m only expressing the senti
ments of our happy colony. Are
we contented cows, chewing the
cud of placid self-satisfaction? I
wouldn’t say that. Perfect bliss
might be monotonous—i¥ lanyf-
body ever found it. Now and then
we take a swig of panther milk
and relish a family quarrel. But
those affairs, the few that I have
witnessed,' usually end in a' love
feast. We’re Southern Piners to
the last longleaf needle, and we
just naturally like each other.
I was going to say that it’s a
matter of climate. But I’ve lived
in California long enough to shun
that dangerous word. Down in
San Diego, for instance, they soil
you climate by the square foot,
and every time you see a wonder,
like an elderly gentleman on a
racing motorcycle, they break out
with the sad refrain, “It’s the cli
mate, brother! In a climate like
ours. . .”
Climate, undoubtedly, first pro
moted the Sandhills. Somebody
thought of it as an ideal place for
invalids. Then along came the
athletes, big and husky as Paul
Bunyan jr., to brush aside the
weaklings and shout, “Let’s play!”
Golfers and horses, they say, step
higher here than anywhere else
on earth. The pine-blown atmos
phere is so elevating that I some
times wonder why the airborne
troops at Fort Bragg need planes
at all.
Like the mocking bird who
meets all the trains, I’m merely
echoing the sentiments of others.
And if I’ve referred to Southern
Pines as a resort for athletes
rather than for invalids, I must
amend the statement. I’ve done
my share of world - wandering in
the past 20 years, but I’ve never
enjoyed such perfect health as
I’’ve enjoyed right here (Irwift
touches wood, saying this.) A few
years ago Tish and I went to
Arizona to relieve my bronchi
tis—and I was taken, off the air-
conditioned train with a sharp
AUTHOR
forms the world he lives in. Each
of us, every day he lives, is con
sciously or unconsciously, form
ing and adding to the traditions
and conditions under which the
future must exist.
Each of us is an ancestor.
WALLACE IRWIN
attack of pneuihonia. New York,
of course, isn’t healthful for any
body but a river catfish; you don’t
breathe the air there—^you eat it.
Several years ago Tish and I got
to Java, ahead of the Japs, and
although the Dutch realtors were
“poosting” Batavia as a healtn
resort, we lived in aromatic
steam,,as comfortable as a boy sit
ting on a kettle in which Aunt
Annie is stewing spiced apples.
Down in Summerville, S. C.,
they warn the motorist not to go
a mile north of Monck’s Corner,
as you’ll plow right into a snow-
;^torm', sure as shootin’i Down
there. Southern Pines is regarded
as a surburban addition to the
North Pole. Myself—like those I
echo—I enjoy our playful and in
frequent flurries of snow, that
never seem to mean business and
melt away'while you’re looking
at them. When first I came here
I was made hgppy one spring
morning when I saw yellow daf
fodils nodding their heads above
a light sheet of feathery white.
Being what we are—oh. Won
der Race, ye Southern Piners!—
we don’t kid ourselves about tem
peratures, as Southern Califor
nians do. We don’t think we’re
really heating our houses with
electric gadgets that have the
stove-power of 40-watt bulbs. We
have furnaces, and during the
short cool season—as a retired
Long Islander I won’t say “cold
season”—^we turn them on, and
feel smugly superior to people
who think they can warm their
living rooms by blood pressure.
We’re cosniopolitan, in a good
sense. There’s nothing synthetic
about our friendliness. When you
come down from the North the
Southern Piners are glad to see
you back—or if they’re not, they
don’t tell you about it. 'When the
stranger comes to .town we don’t
line up with hypocritical glad
hands. But we do what we can
to make him comfortable. And
that’s why so many gas-driven
nomads, on their trek toward the
Equator, pause in the middle of
Route 1 and say, as once the Ir
wins said, “By gosh, we’ve found
what we want!”
But whoa! Why am, I telling
Southern what they al
ready knovr by heart—and can
say twice as well as I can, if
they’ll only speak up? .
I would like to talk a little
about Southern Pines as I first
knew it some thirty years ago,
and as I watched it intimately for
more than two following decades.
I wish I could still ■'watch it in
timately, and could still live there
during the winters, and could still
be as much a part of the life of
the town as I once was, but many
things have happened' to prevent
that. I must content myself with
memory. The memory, however,
is rewarding, for Southern Pines
was—and I imagine still is—as
wise, as far-visioned, as civilized,
and as interesting a small place
as I have ever seen, and I have
lived in rpany different parts of
the world. It was a curious place;
an exceptional place; an exciting
place; a meeting ground of va
rious regions and cultures which
had settled down together in the
lovely Carolina sunshine with
amity, tolerance, and a pretty
general desire and intention to
make the town an incomparable
place to live.
Perhaps I should emphasize the
phrase “to live,” for in Southern
Pines, life seemed to be in its
proper perspective, not the upside
down, cock-eyed, perverse thing
it is in so many places. There
was little of the brutal perversion
of the truth and common-sense
which makes so much of man
kind unhappy. The object of most
of the inhabitants seemed to be
to make a living in order to live,
instead of living in order to make
a living. In other words, life was
the principal objective, as it
should be. This point of view, of
course, makes for tolerance, team
work, a willingness to understand
and get along with other people,
no ihatter how different in many
ways they may be from you, and
the desire to make your sur
roundings as pleasant and useful
as possible, not for yourself alone
but for everyone.
The last desire, put into: action
by common effort, turned South
ern Pines from a sand-dune,
blessed by a magnificent sun but
not much else, into the blossom
ing, flowering, green-shaded
town of today, famous for its
beauty and neatness everywhere.
The same desire meant fine
schools, fine business blocks, fine
private residences. It meant, as
an inevitable result, the bringing
to the town of the best sort of
professional men: doctors, den
tists, and so on. I have never seen
a town where people of all kinds,
with all sorts of varying back
grounds and diverse' private in-
tesest, worked more together,
and liked each other and had a
good time doing it.
Here was a place where two
' very distinct, and still to some
extent inimical cultures, the
South and the North, got on well
in each others’ company, and ad
mired and respected each other.
Where white man and colofed
man admired and respected each
other. Where people from all
parts of the country, and with to
tally different pursuits, came to
gether and settled down, and be
fore long caught the spirit of the
place and began to cohere.
I am not painting an Utopia.
I am talking about a small North
Carolina town as it was, and as
I hope it still is.
Nor am I given to what is
known as “the fallacy of the
Golden Age.” I do not believe the
past is better than the present. I
have read too much history to
cherish that delusion. Past and
present are pretty much the same.
The sum total of human folly and
human wisdom about equal those
Adam and Eve knew in the Gar
den of Eden. About all v/e’ve
learned is to go places faster than
our fathers did, and so far it has
done us very little good. Mean
while, the inescapable fact re
mains that, terrible as the human
race is, and consumed with stu
pidity, it is extraordinary how
wise and good it is, under the cir
cumstances.
Well, as I have said, it was men,
and women, who made this little
Garden of Eden in the sands of
central North Carolina; this small,
green, flowering town. It always
is men and women. I wish I had
the space to describe and tell
about them all; the many dozens;
rnerchants, business men, profes
sional men, gblfers, fox-hunters
peach growers, authors, painters,
for Southern Pines attracted au
thors and painters, and artists of
various kinds, and even those con
centrated and recalcitrant fellows,
the golfer and the horseman, ex
panded in its atmosphere and be
came a part of the community.
The town was the only place
where I have ever seen the last
happen. Golfers and fox-hunters
even sat on the board of directors
of the Chamber of Commerce.
I remember all these people so
well and so many of them were
dear friends of mine. They still
walk in my memory, and I can
hear their voices, and see their
faces, and recall each individual
trait and opinion. Frank Buchan,
fiery Southerner, and one of the
best, and wisest, and kindest men
I have ever known. George Herr,
still alive, thank goodness, and
never too busy to forgo a good
deed or a job ior the betterment
of the community. Charley Pic-
quet, who for years has given
Southern Pines first-run movies.
Will Mudgett. Jim Boyd, out
standing novelist and the wisest
and wittiest Master of Foxhounds
I have ever met. Jackson Boyd,
his brother. Alfred Yeomans, in
defatigable worker for good,
Mary, his sister, Craighill Brown,
Jim Boyd’s wife. I could go on
quite a lot about her if it wasn’t
for the fact that she owns and
edits The Pilot. . . So many fine
people; so many interesting and
congenial ones.
I saw Southern Pines for the
first time thirty years ago. I had
come down from the raw cold of
a Northern March to visit a
friend. The next morning I awoke
to North Carolina sunshine and a
mocking - bird. They were wise
men and women, those very first
settlers who in the early nineties
looked at a pine-barren, and like
Brigham Young when he saw the
Salt Lake valley, said, “This is
the place.”
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PINEHURST, N. C.
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