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Page Two THE PILOT—Southern Pines. North Carolina THE PILOT Published Each Friday by THE PILOT, INCORPORATED Southern Pines, North Carolina 1941—JAMES BOYD, Publisher—1944 KATHARINE BOYD • Editor VALERIE NICHOLSON As^. Editor dan S. ray Gener^ Meager C. G. COUNCIL Advertisuig Subscription Rates: One Year $4.00 6 Months $2.00 3 Months $1.00 Entered at the Postoffice at Southern Pines, N. C., as second class mail matter the system went into effect. Without any hedging, he announced at the August meeting of the board that dif ficulties he had foreseen had failed to comfe to pass and that he had become “convert- 0d. ” Being able to admit that one was wrong is a rare quality, pot only among town commissioners but among all sorts and coi> ditions of men, and also women. We fmd it refreshing and encouraging, and are glad to find it on our town board. Member National Editorial Association and N. C. Press Association “In taking over The Pilot no changes are con templated. We will try to keep this a good paper. We will try to make a little money for all con cerned. Where there seems to be an occasion to use our influence for the public good we will tir to do it. And we will treat everybody alike.” —James Boyd, May 23, 1941. He'll Do It Better This country is deeply fortunate, as has already been pointed out a good many times, in this year’s election for the presi dency. It is very seldom that a nation has two equally fine men running for that of fice and to have those two men of supreme ly high calibre in ability and devotion to the welfare of the nation, at a time when the need for able and devoted leadership is so great, makes this election outstanding in the annals of our history. . Another remarkable point is the similar ity of the difficulties with which both can didates must cope. Both men have a split party behind them. They must try to unite their parties and that involves a precarious balancing job for each one. Stevenson has to convince the liberal independent voters that he will do a thorough cleanup job on corruption in the government while at the same time holding the support of some of the people he is going to clean up among the working professionals of the party, in cluding the president. Eisenhower is in much the same boat: he must win the liber als and the internationalists, but if by so doing he keeps a lot of isolationists and die hard reactionaries of the Taft-MacArthur faction away from the polls he will lose the - election. , . . -4,. But of course the most obvious similaritj^ of all is the platforms and the candidates aims. Eisenhower’s Ten Points, as given to the VFW convention, could be Stevenson s Ten Points with little change. Some people might say, then, that a vot er might as well decide between the candi dates by the toss of a coin. We cannot agree. The fact that both men and both parties endorse the same aims is a sign of the unity of the country behind the policies that have beep pursued during the Demo cratic administrations. Is it wise, then, to turn to the other party if we want these aims to continue to be carried out in practi cal accomplishment? But it will be argued that one of those aims and a most important one is the clean up of corruption in the government. Will Stevenson accomplish as much there as Eisenhower might? There is truth in the old adage that a new broom sweeps clean, but if the broom is wielded by ^n amateur, a man who has never had experience in such a job, that’s something else. A brooin may be ever so new, if the backwash that follows the sw^ep brings refuse in its wake such as the elevation of Senator McCarthy and his ilk to positions of greater authority, we will be little better off and perhaps much worse. _ It was demonstrated in the Republican administrations that followed the Harding era of corruption that a determined party can do its own house-cleaning. There is a moral cqmpulsion in such a situation that can bring about greater results than any outsider could accomplish. In Governor Stevenson we have a man who has clea^y shown his fitness for this very task. He entered the political scene in Illinois the leader of a reform movement that attacked Democrats and Republicans alike. He did not pull his punches for anyone. Grafters, crooks, scalawag politicians in or out of the Democratic party had short shrift with him. He has shown that he can do what needs to be done. So here we are with two good men, pro fessing much the same aims. Doesnt a - voter’s choice depend, then, on which one he thinks is most likely to be able to accom plish what he wants to do? Will it be the general whose whole life has been spent in military service, living on the security of army pay utterly inexperienced m the complexities and problems of ordinary life, a brilliant general and, with the weight of the United States behind him, an able ne gotiator with foreign powers, but an im- known quantity as a civilian leader. Gr will it be the man who has been a civilian like the rest of us, a businessman, taxpayer and voter, who has had wide experience m different branches of the government, and who is now the great reform governor of a great state? , , , Put that way . . . and how else can it be put? . . . the answer seems obvious. No. 18—Do You Know Your Old Southern Pines? '.’j Friday. August 22, 1952 Tale From Scotland The story of The Appin Murder is famil iar to every member of the Stuart clan in Scotland. In fact, it is said that the name of the man who shot Colin Campbell of Glenure, “the Red Fox”, as he was called, is known to every Stuart, and is passed on from father to son with an oath of silence that has never been broken. There may be Moore County Stuarts, or Stewarts, as some spell it, who know the tale; perhaps some of them have even taken that silent oath. But to all Scots here or in the High lands homeland, the tale is a fascinating and exciting one. _ It forms the basis of the plot of Steven son’s “Kidnapped,” that marvelous story, required reading for anyone with a drop of Scots blood in his body. But it is no tale of fiction. The Appin Murder was real, through and through, as real -as the on the scaffold of James Stuart of the Glens, tried and convicted by a packed jury of relatives of the dead man, and most cer tainly innocent of the crime. A good account of ^e murder was print- 4ed recently in the N. ’Y. Herald Tribune, on the anniversary of the date it occurred. We have’a feeling there will be some Moore County Scots who will find it interesting and we reprint it below. To us, and others who have made recent trips to that coun try, and have driven through the dark larch wood of Lettermore on the steep side of the Lynne Loch, the tale is forever en thralling. The Appin Murder On an evening just two hundred years ago Colin Campbell, the Red Fox of Glen ure, was shot from ambush as he rode through the Wood of Lettermore in the West Highlands of Scotland. The identity of the man who fired the short from the hillside above the road never been re vealed, although it is said to be known by certain close-ihouthed persons now living in the vicinity. Today, however, the chief interest in this murder of long ago is not so much the mystery involved as the fact that it forms the plot-basis of Robert Louis Stevenson’s great novel “Kidnapped. ’ The Appin Murder, as it has come to be known, was part of the bitter aftermath of the ill-starred rebellion under Charles Ed ward Stuart, the Young Pretender, in 1745- 1746. By 1752 most of the Highland chiefs who took part in it were either dead or m exile, their titles and lands forfeited. The wearing of the kilt and the possession of arms were interdicted. The whole region was nominally controlled by British regi ments, but it was far from pacified. Thous ands of clansmen had been harried from their homes, many of them forced to emi- grate to America, and on no clan had the hand of the English and their Campbell al- , lies fallen more heavily than on the Appin Stewarts. Colin Campbell, who was King s Factor in their district, with a detachrnent • of soldiers riding some distance in his rear, was on his way to dispossess Stewarts from ■ their farms when he was killed. Suspicion, that amounted almost to a cer tainty in the minds of the authorities, im mediately centered on tiyo persons, James Stewart of the Glens, half brother of the clan captain in exile, and Alan Breck Stew art, whose life was forfeit for desertion from the British Army and who was secret ly in the country at the time. James they seized and hanged. Alan slipped through all the traps set for him and made his way to France. Of the two, James was almost certainly innocent of any part in the der. Alan was not by any means in the clear, but Alan was a small man and Colin’s lawyer, who saw the murderer, described him as a big man wearing a black coat v/ith m.etal buttons and carrying a fowling piece. Of course, there was no lovable, some times bumbling David Balfour, of the ten- ' der conscience, concerned in the actual af fair, and Stevenson for reasons of his own places the date of the murder almost a year earlier than May 14,1752. Alan Breck, car rying a long fishing rod, wa$ assuredly in the wood on that fateful evening. He may, indeed, have drawn the soldiers away from the man in the black coat by exposing him self on the hillside as is set forth in ‘ Kid napped.” From then on, the description of the flight in the heather, with David and Alan pursued by the soldiers, is pure Stev Poor James of the Glens was tried at In- verara, the Campbells’ head place, with eleven Campbells on the jury of fifteen, and with the Duke of Argyle, chief of the Campbell clan and Lord Justice General of Scotland, on the bench. As David Balfour aptly remarked: “James was as fairly mur- dered as though the Duke had got a fowl- ing piece and stalked him.” R.P.L. Here ’tis: “Had a nice chat with the edi tor. He was interested to hear of The Pilot. On g«ing out he gave me a copy of his paper. I opened it outside in the car and then darted back in to show him a col umn about Lewis Hodgkips’ ordi nation—clipped from The Pilot (and written by KLB). “Oh,” ohed he, “are. you THAT Pilot?” I didn’t ask him how many Pilots he thought there were in South ern Pines (I’d just given him my address)—but I wtent up several miles, obviously, in his estirnation when he heard I knew the Hodg kins family. “Everybody in Ellsworth knows the Hodgkins farhily,” he said. “Southern Pines, too,” I said grandly — and nobly refrained from crowing over the fact that we have ’em now.” This picture should be easy to identify, with its old-timey “well house” in the back yard. Perhaps some of our Pilot readers have stopped there for a cooling drink and a friendly chat in the shade of the tree. Could be that the pointed roof doesn’t cover a well—just a little summer house. Who can tell us? We’d like to know the what, where and whose of it. The Public Speaking ON PICTURE NO. 17 Dr. G. G. Herr identified last week’s old picture No. 17 as the old Webster house, now owned and occupied by Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Gifford, at 280 West Connecti cut avenue. That’s fine—except that Old Picture No. 15 was thus identified by Charles Macauley. The two houses shown ^ are very much alike, and could be two different views of the same one—except that one shows two chimneys, the other only one, and we are forced to believe they are different houses. Mrs. C. L. Hayes thought No. 19» was the Grout home, not the Web ster. Which is which? worth American, weekly newspa per. But let’s have tlje story in her own words, without any of the old “it’s a small world” busi- Drs. Neal and McLean VETERINARIANS Southern Pines, N. C. RE: PICTURE NO. 15 To the Pilot: With all due respect to Mr. Mac auley who is usually correct, he is “way off base” in regard to Old Picture No. 15. This is definitely not our house, which he said was built for J. C. Webster in 1902. Our house has no gable, the .roof is nearly flat, only one chimney on the main part and no bay windows. It does have a glass enclosed porch on the side and an octagon shaped porch on the corner. This picture shows five win dows on the upper side while we have only three and f9ur on the upper front where we have only two. When we bought the house, the roof was covered with the original cypress shingles, while the. house in the picture apparently has a metal roof. I am inclined to agree with Mrs. Hayes that it is the old Grout home on North Broad street, but it just possibly could be the house upon the hill formerly owned by Mr. Tracy. J. B. GIFFORD. Thousand Island Park, N. Y. To the Pilot: This question of seeing flying saucers has mushroomed into a clamor whose extent is sufficient to render dispassionate judgment difficult. I have never chanced to “see one” myself, but the follow ing limited attempt at analyzing these phenomena might neverthe less be made. “Flying saucer,” properly defin ed, is just a name we have applied to a type oi thing or observation we do not yet understand; and it appears that most spectators, in my opinion, have allowed irra tional thinking to creep in and to result in exaggerated ideas about what they saw. Indeed, a graph plotted by the Air Force showing the varying volume and chrono logical periods (and another show ing the locations) in.which sincere spectators of these.things have written to the government or the military about them since January 1948 when “Project Saucer” was organized, alone would signify that waves of fad and fancy— rather than accurate observation and sound judgment—had been the causal nexus of it all. The multitude of references in the ma jority of these letters, pertaining to the saucers’ apparent diameter, distance and speed, would be further evidence, because it is not possible for one person (or a group) to ascertain any of these three factors from one position any more than it is possible for a casual observer to describe the size of the moon in other than purely relative terms. , The atmosphere alone is a huge amphitheatre where many varie ties of natural phenomena do take place, including some that are not presently understood. The pres ent “mania” of flying saucers might well be caused by bona fide natural phenomena; but the com paratively voluminous observa tions of such phenomena in our country at present are more the result of a constant increase of in terested observers, good and bad, than of an increase of “saucers from Mars” or atomic discs from Russia. A summary of a report of pre liminary studies made by the Army Materiel Command, in fact _ revealed that all the information which had at that time been pre sented in “Project Saucer” on the possible existence of space ships from another planet or of aircraft propelled by an advanced type of power plant were largely conjec ture. ' Notwithstanding the above, I know of one or two read«rs of these mysteries who are even of the opinion that when “Project Saucer” was disbanded in 1950 (for lack of satisfactory evidence) it actually had on its hands a host of real cases and so thought it had better go “underground” from then on. On the other hand an informed report is to be found in the July Readers’ Digest, where there is a listing of a variety of ‘flying saucers” which have been seen by plenty of responsible eyes during the past eight decades and more. I hope we do find out before long what these “flying saucers” really are, but the evidence to cjate (greatly diminished in value a week or two ago by those ex periments of an Army scientist at Fort Belvoir, Va.) is far from suf ficient to hint that Martians, for example, might be swooping to ward Earth, and then within hail ing distance turning around again without doing anything more than tipping their war helmets! WM. ED COX, JR. drains of Sand "I Was Wrong" Congratulations to Southern Pines Town Commissioner C. S. Patch, Jr, who spoke right up in town board meetmg the other night and very frankly said, “I was wrong. Commissioner Patch did this in making a motion to retain the one-way traffic sys tem on Broad street as a permanent im provement, recognizing that it has success fully passed its trial period. He was the one commissioner who voted against installation of the system last April, disapproving at that time not of giving it a trial, but of the time and manner in which it was to be done. He was outvoted and A recent national poll indicates that po litical parties, civic organizations, and newspapers that have been urging all Americans to register and vote may have the cart before the horse. Nonvoters, this poll indicates, have no interest in government, khow nothing about candidates, and seem to care less. These people have nothing to contribute to democracy by registering and voting. Any campaign aimed at “getting out the vote might be more successful if directed to ward getting all voters interested in gov ernment, elections, and' issues. How to do that is something else again. Our good friend General Bill ) Gross, up at USAFAGOS, is hurt ing because we said last week a home had been leased for him by the Air Force. He wants it known he’s paying his own rent. It seems there’s an allowance for living quarters for the com mandant—that much we knew. What we didn’t know, though, says General Bill, first honorary citizen of Southern Pines, “That doesn’t begin to cover it around here!” He thinks, though, pur idea was a darned good one, and wishes the Air Force thought so too. Those enjoying the Will Rogers picture this weekend, with Will Rogers, Jr., in his first acting role portraying his famous dad, may remember—some of them—per sonal appearances WiU made in the Sandhills in tlje past. Theater Manager Charles Pic- quet brought him to the Pinehurst theatre three times, back in the 1920’s and. 30’s, at $2,500 a (;hrow . . : and say^ it was cheap at that. Crowds flocked from everywhere, and once so many seats had to be put on the stage to accommodate the crowd that Will could hardly get around. Charlie was worried lest there were too many,' and asked, “Should I take some of ’em off?” “Heck, no,” said Will, “just so long as I’ve got space to throw this lariat.” He’d arrive, just be fore the show was due to begin and walk right out front and start talking, without a sign of pre pared script—and what he said was always timely, about that day’s happenings, and the town he happened to be in. It’s sad about the young folks growing up now, who don’t re member Will. There’s no person ality today who fills the niche he did—acting as entertainer and public conscience at the same time, a critic afraid of nobody and nothing but criticizing without malice, and with a laugh. Katharine Boyd, the Pilot’s edi tor, who is vacationing in Maine, writes that she called on the Ells- HAVE YOUR CLOTHES CLEANED niET D. C. JENSEN Where Cleaning and Prices Are Better! PHILCO Home and Commercial Air Conditioners Complete Installation and Service on all Philco Appliances TELEVISIONS—all sizes RADIOS—Combination. Portables STOVES—all sizes REFRIGERATORS FOOD MIXERS FOOD FREEZERS, Combination 1 Television Day and Night Service Television Sales & Service FREE HOME DELIVERY SERVICE (within city limits) -on- BEER AND WINE From 7:30 a. m. till 11:30 p. m. One Bottle to Two Cases Phone 2-6572 NORTH SIDE SERVICE STATION Southern Pines, N. C. Cars Picked Up. Serviced and Delivered PRIVATE CLASSES FOR GIRLS EIGHT TO TWELVE YEARS Complete Elementary Course with French and Music Individual tutoring also arranged. MRS. MILLICENT A. HAYES (Formerly The Ark) SOUTHERN PINES, NORTH CAROLINA
The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.)
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Aug. 22, 1952, edition 1
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