PAGE TWO
THE PILOT—Southern Pines. North Carolina
THURSDAY. JUNE 23. 1955
Southern Pine. North Caroline
“In taking over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We wiU ^ ^
paper. We will try to make a little money for all concerned. ® ® jj, ^ everybody
Sion to use our influence for the pubUc good we will try to do it. And we will treat everyb y
alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941.
Where Better Than Southern Pines?
could supply a town of twice our size and which
is already being surveyed for further future
expansion.
3. Many and varied recreational facilities—
specifically golf and riding, that is, the type of
facility that could not normally be supplied by
a college itself and would supplement its own
athletic program. The spectator value of Sand
hills sports events would also be appreciable
for young people in search of wholesome recre
ation.
4. Above average quantity and quality of hotel
and restaurant accommodations for visitors to
students at the college, week-end sports crowds
and so forth.
5 Above average quantity and quality of
rental and other housing for families who might
want to move to the coUege community while
their sons or daughters are students.
6 Shops and stores geared to a resort, as well
as to a local, trade and thereby better able to
meet the specialized demands of college stu
dents.
7. A town accustomed for many years to be
ing hospitable, to making visitors _(and what
are college students but longterm visitors?) feel
comfortable'and at home. ^
8 A cultural background—concerts, art ex
hibits, book stores and a large number of resi
dents, retired and not retired, with an interest
in cultural matters and whose presence would
assure congenial local associations for both fac
ility members and students.
9 The unusual “pleasantness” of Southern
Pines and the Sandhills community physically
public and private landscaping, gardens,
housing and so forth.
10. Law and order. A general atmosphere,
based on actual fact, of security, safety an^
freedom from molestation throughout the com-
munity. .
These considerations are given from tne
point of view of advantages to the college. The
advantages to Southern Pines—economically,
culturally and in other ways, are obvious.
Whatever happens to the college proposal.
Southern Pines can, on sheer merit alone, make
the strongest bid for its site.
Going Slow On Recreation Bond Election
ures on other major expenses that will call for
We can’t think of a better community than
Southern Pines in which to locate the “ideal in
stitution of Christian higher education” which
is envisioned in a proposal for the merger of
three Presbyterian colleges.
The imaginations of local residents have been
'fired by the college proposal and favorable
comments have come from! all quarters.
Come to think of it. Southern Pines might
aptly be described right now as a college town
without a college. If the merger proposal is ap
proved and if the college is located here, we
can well imagine that, after a few years, it will
seem as if the institution had always been
here—so suitable are the physical structure, and
facilities, the type of residents and the general
■spirit cf this community.
Looked at this way, it becomes surprising
that no sizable private school or college has
hitherto chosen Southern Pines for its home.
Already, there is here a tradition, a quality
of community living into which a college could
fit neatly and felicitously. Seldom has a pro
posal dealing with Southern Pines been met
with such universal recognition and approval.
The college proposal is still in its prelimin
ary stages. It appears that consolidation is as
controversial a subject on the level of higher
education as it is with local high school and ele
mentary school districts. The chairman of the
Peace College board of trustees is pointing out
that a majority of that board opposes consoli-
datin of Peace with other colleges. The presi
dent of Presbyterian Junior College notes that
approval has not yet been obtained from the
Synod of North Carolina and that “it may be a
matter of five to 10 years before the estimated
five million dollars needed to construct the
new campus can be secured.”
Several communities other than Southern
Pines are reported to be under consideration as
sites for the college or to be bidding for the
institution with a financial inducement. ■ A $1
million fund is reputedly pledged for the pro
posed institution in Fayetteville.
To our mind, the advantages of Southern
Pines as a site are many and indisputable.
Without scraping the barrel, we think of;
1. Several possible sites, affording potential
landscaping for an unusually attractive campus.
2. A municipal water supply that right now
The town council is acting wisely in going
slow on asking for a bond election on recreation
facilities.
We agree that the people should have a
chance to vote on this matter, but we also be
lieve that other pressing needs of the town
should be made known and the items listed so
that citizens are privileged to see them all in
the perspective of the next 10 or 15 years.
While council discussion so far has been on
the basis of the Recreation Advisory Commit
tee’s reports that lists needs of $250,000, this
figure is admittedly an estimate for the two
swimming pools, two recreation center build
ings and two bath houses that the suggested
program calls for.
At this stage of discussions, there is no com
mitment to a $250,000 recreation proposal. That
is simply a figure from which to start figuring.
It might be that the voters would reject a pro
gram of that scope but would accept a less ex
pensive alternative. Faced with a suggestion
that has, according to the Recreation Advisory
Committee, wide public backing, the council
no doubt would rightly feel obligated to call
some kind of a recreation bond election. Fig-
bonds—which are to be provided by the city
manager at the July meeting—must certainly
be taken into consideration in deciding how
much to ask the people to vote on now.
The council has been told by the city mana
ger that Southern Pines faces large expendi
tures in the water, sewer and street dep^t-
ments. A town hall-fire house-jail building is a
much needed faciUty. But many citizens,
especially those of West Southern Pines, are
calling for more recreation facilities.
The five men who sit aroimd the table at
town hall want, we feel sure, to do what the
people want done at this financial crossroads
in town planning. The people, individually and
as organizations cr civic groups, should let the
council know what they want.
The council’s problem at this time is not to
have to decide what will be done, but only to
decide on what and when they will ask the
people to vote. But there is no use presenting
for an election questions that are, to begin with,
unacceptable to large numbers of voters.
That is why citizens sliould now take the op
portunity to make their opinions known to the
council.
We’re Too Casual About Firearms
The trial and sentencing to prison of Richard
Kluckhohn must have caused many a fancier
of firearms to realize the lurking menace of his
weapons. If such be the case, the strange Ra
leigh tragedy—in which a woman on the street
was killed by a bullet from a pistol fired out of
the young man’s hotel window—^may have serv
ed a constructive purpose, as accounts of the
affair went out over the nation on the press
service wires.
From the three-year-old who struts the
streets wearing six-shooters so realistic in ap
pearance that every now and then a faint
hearted bank robber uses one of these “toy”
guns instead of the real thing, to the sensible
grown man who carries firearms in his automo
bile or luggage in anticipation of some vague
emergency when he figures he will have to
protect his life and property, we are entirely
too casual about firearms.
It is a great American tradition for the ordin
ary citizen to be allowed to_ possess firearms,
although it is a rare Occasion, now that we are
no longer living in a frontier society, when he
actually has to use a rifle, shotgun Or pistol for
anything more than sport or amusement.
We can see no earthly reason why Richard
Kluckhohn, a representative of a publishing
firm whose business contacts were with such
notably law-abiding persons as college.profes-
Grains of Sand
'The Second Greatest Danger'
Individual Being Squeezed Out?
(From a recent speech, by
Adlai Stevenson before the
General Federation of Wom
en's Clubs at Philadelphia.)
If I were asked what the
greatest danger is today in the
conduct of democracy’s, affairs 1
suppose I would think first of
war—but second, and immediate
ly, of a very different kind of
thing—of what seems to me the
possibility that we in America
are becoming so big, so organized,
so institutionalized, sO govern-
mentalized—yes, and so stand
ardized—that there is increasing
eagerly, desperately, for the gi'eat
new thoughts which came from
Einstein and Oppenheimer aboul
the relativity of matter, but their
views on the relativity of men
were suspect and unsafe. V/e
seem to realize too little that the
same kind of thinking which split
the atom and is now controlling
the virus which caused polio may
be needed to teach us how to
control the use of the atom and
to stop the virus which causes
war.
Our recent inclination to turn
upon our thinkers, to sneer at in
tellectuals and to hold them up
to ridicule, to suspect, denounce
time which bade us love and trust
one another—and accordingly re
spect each other’s freedom.
Yet to sp4ak of peace in terms
of the demands of lasting free
dom, to speak of it as members
of the human race, is to think to-
far beyond a stalemate of
arms, a cease-fire, a treaty. Peace
means today facing squarely into
the deadly, hypnotic eye of the
hydrogen bomb—^facing it
and finding the answer. And
tRere is only one sure answer.
Another Revolution
Glass Near Railroad
Barefoot .boys with cheeks of
tan had better avoid the path
along the south side of the rail
road, between Pennsylvania and
New Hampshire Avenues. About
the place where the short-cut
paths cross from East to West
Broad, there is considerable
broken glass—or there was last
week-end when we crossed that
way. i
Origin of the glass, it appears,
is wine bottles that are thrown
into the shrubbery between West
Broad and the tracks—a bottle
dump that is rivalled only by The
Pilot’s parking lot as a favorite
disposal place.
Crossing the tracks recently we
saw one of the small fry involved
in some complicated personal
game. He was snapping a cap
pistol and breaking wine bottles
against the steel-tired wheels of
1 railroad baggage wagon. This
accounts for at least some of the
broken glass in that area.
Rain In The Night
Sunday night was a blessed
one for farmers and gardeners in
the Sandhills. With rain in the
offing and never falling in any
appreciable quantity all day Sat
urday and Sunday, the skies
cleared • at bedtime Sunday and
most of us longing for rain went
to bed thinking that the clouds
had been driven off and that the
longed-for rain was lost for may
be another dry and worrisome
week.
Then, in the night, late, the
rain came—a steady, solid, heavy
lasting downpour, a “real soak
er.”
For the farmer or gardener—is
there anything more wonderful:
to wake in the night to the drum
ming of needed rain—rain that
was given up for lost at bedtime.
There was no thunder and
lightning. It was an April rain
falling in June.
Then, in the morning, the sun
was shining on the wet earth.
Gardeners and farmers become
poets at moments like these,
could they write down the thank
fulness and joy that a night rain
brings.
sors, and who presumably could travel from
city to city in the daylight at his own con
venience, should have been lugging a deadly
weapon around with him.
Since the ill-fated shot exploded from the
hotel window, no doubt this same sentiment
has crossed the mind of Richard Kluckhohn a
thousand times. Why did he have the gun with
him? Why did he pick it up? Why did he pull
the trigger? The questions are unanswerable.
There was absolutely no necessity for what
happened.
If his appeal fails and if he goes to prison,
Richard Kluckhohn will have ample time' to
ponder the folly and futility and dire destruc
tiveness of his firearms hobby. Whether or not
he ever goes to prison, he will live the rest of
his life with the knowledge that a gun in his
hands took a fellow human being’s life.
We can’t help but feel that there will be
more repentant Richard Kluckhohns and more
tragically dead Miss Bernice Seawells unless we
become more personally responsible about fire
arms. Encouraging three-year-olds to pretend
to kill each other with their magnificent plas
tic weapons is a poor way to start raising a
generation that relegates firearms to their prop
er place in a generally law-abiding civilization
in which' it is pretty certain that there are no
hostile Indians hiding behind the trees over
the hiU.
ardized—that there is increuawig to riaicuie, w «w**«w***^
danger that the individual and and require oaths cf them, is not
his precious diversity will get'
squeezed out completely.
Freedom — effective freedom-
does not exist as a formula which
can be written out by some and
then used by others. The term
itself is used as an argument fci
everything from absolutism to an
archy. Freedom' is not what the
government does. It is not some
thing that is either won or lost
in the world’s capitals or on its
battlefields, or that can be pre
served by law—except for a mo
ment or two jn history’s expanse^
In Minds and Hearts
The freedom that counts is sim
ply what is in the minds and
hearts of millions of people. It is ^
nothing more than the total of the
feelings of people as they are ex
pressed in the way we, the peo
ple, deal with our own families
and our own neighbors and as
sociates. 'This is freedom’s hope
today on the other side of the
iron curtain. And, paradoxically
it is part of freedom’s danger here
at home.
If we could only realize that all
freedom really amounts to is the
way we think about and treat a
non-conforming neighbor, a dis
senting teacher, the minority
view among us, people of differ
ent races and religions, people
from the other side of town—then
citizenship might become more
meaningful, and freedom infin
itely more secure. ^
We applaud in the fields of
Sherhff As Censor
The General Assembly’s comic
book censorship law, designed to
eliminate scenes of murder, sex
and mayhem in lurid “comic
books,” hasn’t caused a a ripple
of activity in the office of Moore
'county Sheriff C. J. McDonald
who has not yet been called upon
to wield the blue pencil.
The law, passed over protest of
a few legislators who' saw a
threat to freedom of expression in
state censorship law of any
. a .
Tliis scientific revolution in designates the sheriffs of
ADLAI, STEVENSON
just an attack on their dignity
■ and freedom as individuals. It im
pairs, too, our hopes for the en-
jlarged freedoms for all of us
which could be the product of
their unchallenged right to dis
sent and to explore. It seems sc
wrong to take a gun this way
and blow out our brains.
'Well-Adjusted'?
May I add here just a footnote
of further and not unrelated con
cern about the latter day empha
sis in our schools upon “the well
individual.” I’m not
we ctp^xauLi 111 — adjusted muivinLicii. a
physical science freedom to look | out in favor of the mal-
for new truth. The whole urge adjustment of individuals, but at
there is to do things differently
from the way they have been
done before, to assume that old
assumptions are wrong, to assert
that there are four dimensions
where only three have previously
beeen recognized, to unlock par
ticles of matter, and unleash im
measurable forces—to everlast
ingly probe and penetrate the un
known.
Attitude Different
But in the field of thinking
about social and economic and
political relationships our atti
tude is very different. The work
I of the heretic, the questioner, in
I science is applauded; but in so
ciety it is different. We grasped
the same time over-emphasis or
the “well-rounded,” “well-adjust
ed,” “well-balanced” personality
seems deliberately designed to
breed mental neuters. In actual
practice mental neutrality means
docile support of the status quo.
And when students and teachers
alike are discouraged from a crit
ical evaluation of society, we are
taking a longer step into the Age
of Conformity than we may wish
There is cause for concern
among freedom’s friends, I think,
that faith—the heart and meaning
of freedom—has become less a
part of our everyday life. We pro
fess less, and perhaps share less,
the religious faith of an earlier i man’s freedom
man’s capacity for Self-destruc
tion calls for an equivalent revo
lution in man’s capacity for self-
preservation and the conduct of
our foreign affairs. It will not
do to rely only on the orthodox,
time-tried methods of foreign pol
icy which the great states have
used in the past; for war was one
of these methods; and today eith
er war must become obsolete, or
mankind will.
We can no longer rest con
tentedly on the framework of the
old diplomacy and the old strate
gy of preponderant or balanced
power. We must move beyond it
to the brighter day envisioned
just ten years ago when the^ Nazi
nightmare died and the United
Nations came to birth in San
Francisco amid great rejoicing.
We must resume the attack on the
institution of war itself.
What are the chances that we
may got somewhere at last in our
efforts to prevent a, hydrogen war?
I don’t know. While there are
signs that patience and strerigth
are paying off, I have no illusions
that our search for peace will
succeed easily. Yet, in all con
science, our great nation has nc
choice other than to use its day
of leadership to work remorse
lessly for peace— to do its best to
make sure that the epoch of
American power produces, not
the final earthly holocaust, but
a world of justice, security and
freedom.
Three Cornerstones
Faith, knowledge and peace—
these will be the cornerstones of
such a world. And, of these, none
will avail if peace is lacking, if
an atom split in anger turns out
to be mankind’s last reality.
Here in Philadelphia, the birth
place of American independence,
where the Great Declaration was
signed, just nineteen years ago
Franklin Roosevelt said that this
generation had a rendevous with
destiny-
That rendezvous grows ever
North Carolina’s 100 counties as
the arbitrators of the new comic
book standards—a task we are
sure practically no sheriff wants
to undertake.
A spokesman at the sheriff’s of
fice this week quoted the sheriff
as believing he didn’t think he'd
have much to do insofar as comic
books in Moore County are con
cerned. Dealers throughout the
county appear to be selling a min
imum of the more luri(J type of
book. No complaints have reach
ed the sheriff’s office.
A number of persons we’ve
talked to also expressed the opin
ion that a large part of the worst
type of comic-books are bought
by adults. Many children, we’ve
noticed, pass over “horror” com
ics on the stands to choose stories
that might often be called silly
but by no means disgusting or
obscene^
more urgent dnd fateful.
Armed by knowledge, humbled
by faith, consecrated to peace, we
may yet keep that rendezvous and
Herbert Cutter
Nice to see Herbert Cutter
around town again, here on a
visit. Looking lots better than
when he left, too, when, as you
may recall, he had had several
spells cf illness. We understand
he likes it fine at that wonderful
Elks Home, in Bedford, Va., but
we have missed himi around here
and don’t mind if he knows it.
The PILOT
Published Every Thursday by
THE PILOT, Incorporated
Southern Pines, North Carolina
1941—JAMES BOYD—1944
Katharine Boyd Editor
C. Benedict News Editor
Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr.
C. G. Council Advertising
Mary Scott New,ton Business
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Composing Room
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