Page TWO
THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1957
Southern Pines
North Carolina
“In taking over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We will try to keep this a good
paper. We will try to make a little money for all concerned. Wherever there seems to be
an occasion to use our influence for the public good we will try to do it. And we will
treat everybody alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941.
Highway-Prison Separation
One matter coming before the General As
sembly that will convene in a few days is sep-
£u-ation of the prison system from the highway
system—a matter in which this newspaper
has taken an interest for some time and
which we believe to be in the best interest of
the state.
In a report to the Governor, made late, last
year, a study committee composed of the
chairman of the State Highway and Public
Works Commission, the chairman of the Pris
on Advisory Council and the Director of Pris
ons concluded that separation is “feasible”—
if accomplished in accordance with several
proposals that the committee listed.
Among these proposals are; that, the legisla
tion become effective July 1 of this year; that
a separate Prison Department be established
with jurisdiction over prisons, but not over
other parts of the correctional process; that
a State Prisons Commission be set up and that
the responsibilities of the State Highway and
Public Works Commission respecting prisons
be limited to: employing male prisoners for
road work (as many as can be “economically”
used); and purchasing prison products meet
ing standard specifications.
A 1957-59 budget assuming that separation
will take place has already been prepared.
Although, as Hugh Haynie’s cartoon on this
page indicates, the proposal is fraught with
problems, it seems likely that the Assembly
will authorize at least the basic changes out
lined in the study Committee’s report.
Those persons who have been thinking of
highway-prison separation in terms of “get
ting the prisoners off the roads” need not be
downcast that all road work by prisoners will
not immediately cease, under the proposal as
it now stands.
The plan of the study committee, as noted
above, includes employment of some prison
ers on road work, so far as they can be “'econ
omically” used—but that “economically” is a
very important word, for it is an established
fact, borne out in the experience of other
states, as well as North Carolina, that road
work is more effeciently and economically
performed by professional forces, skilled in
the operation of machinery and trusted to use
these machines, than by prison labor which
is, for the most part, of a very low order of
skill and reliability.
Prison camps would continue in operation,
under the committee’s proposal, but would
become more and more centers for vocation
al rehabilitation, as contrasted with their
present status as barracks for road workers.
And, of course, there are numerous other pro
posals for continued improvement of prison
administration and personnel.
We are most encouraged by the study com
mittee's report and we urge the General As
sembly to give it careful and sympathetic
consideration. The report’s proposals lead to
an important turning point in the ecbnomic
and humanitarian progress of the state.
Eisenhower and Dulles
The tide of criticism of Secretary Dulles is
approaching flood proportions. Objections to
the administration’s Middle East policy reso
lution have been almost shelved as the heat
is turned on the Secretary of State. Just about
every leading Democrat has fired his broad
side. 'ifet Senator Saltonstall of Massachusetts
says he is certain the President retains full
confidence in Dulles.
Which leads to the ever-constant wonder
ing: does the President know what’s going
on? Does he know the full story of the Dulles
leadership, or lack of it? Does he read the
papers, the remarks of leading, reliable
writers and commentators? He didn’t read the
“brink of war” article in LIFE: has he. read
Harsch’s article about him in Harper’s? How
much does he know?
Does he understand that Dulles is asking
the people to give to him powers beyond
those of any other president in peacetime?
Does he know that, however great may be the
people’s devotion to him, however much they
may believe in his sincetity and idealism,
they are rapidly losing faith in the man to
whom he entrusts the making and the carry
ing out of foreign policy?
The faith in President Eisenhower seems to
flourish and, so long as he confines his
speeches to idealistic truisms with which no
body could possibly disagree, that faith will
probably continue. There is no doubt now in
, the nature of the man, -but there begins, we
believe, to be doubt as to how much he is
aware of the facts of life, the life, right now,
of the Middle East policy and the words and
actions of his Secretary of State.
Discipline Problems In The News
School disciplinary problems, which have
inspired considerable comment in North Car
olina recently, are nation-wide and even
world-wide in scope.
Last week, at Mount Vernon, N. Y., a city
court judge upheld a teacher’s right to slap a
child in maintaining discipline, quoting the
Bible to back up his decision. The case in
volved a 35-year-old school music teacher and
a 12-year-old boy.
Said the judge: “It is the thought of the
court that the teacher must be supreme in the
classroom like any other person placed in
authority. Instruction can only be properly
and successfully given by one who has the
authority over his pupils and who has their
respect. The teacher is vested with the right
to give orders and as a concomitant of the
same, he should have the sanction to enforce
them.”
Corooral punishment is forbidden in New
York City, as it is in North Carolina, but New
York State law, which applied in the Moimt
Vernon case, 'says that it is not unlawful to
use force “when committed by a parent or
teacher in the exercise of lawful authority
and the force or violence used is reasonable
in manner Or moderate in degree.”
The judge cited these words from the Book
of Proverbs:
“Withhold not correction from the child, for
though thou beat him with a rod he shall not
die. Thou shalt beat him with a rod and de
liver his soul from the nether world.”
Also: “The rod and reproof give wisdom,
but the child left to himself causes shame to
his mother.”
In North Carolina, The Greensboro Daily
News quotes a Guilford College student from
India Who points out that discipline is much
stronger in the schools of her native land than
in the United States and that penalties for
miscreants range from standing in a corner
to public whipping.
The News cites with approval The San
ford Herald’s musings on the problem, to the
effect that a teacher
“. . . must have the right to refuse to al
low in his classroom any student who has
failed to heed last chance warnings. This
will not only protect the teacher’s peace
of mind and allow other students to con
tinue their studies properly, but will
awake'h a parent to his duty to discipline
the child himself when the school and the
teacher announce they are no longer will- »
ing to try.”
The attitude summed up'by the Herald is
the heart of the discipline policy of the
Southern Pines city schools, as recently re
formulated and sent home to each parent.
Under this policy, after other efforts to dis
cipline a student have failed, a child can be
suspended from,school attendance and “shall
not be readmitted until he and his parents
agree in writing that he will abide by all
school regulations.”
Certainly, the Southern Pines High School
discipline case, wherein a faculty member
was arrested on complaint of parents for an
alleged assault on a student, has roused this
community to the duty to discipline children
and young people at home. The Southern
Pines policy rightly emphasizes that the pa
rents have primary responsibility.
As the quotation from Proverbs indicates,
there is nothing new about discipline prob
lems, nor need this community feel that it is
alone in facing them in the schools. But the
various crises here and elsewhere beneficially
wake us up and refresh our thinking on the
subject. I
Welcome, Rotarians !
The Pilot welcomes -to the Sandhills the
hundreds of Rotarians and their wives who
win be at the Carolina Hotel in Pinehurst for
three days, starting Sunday, for the confer
ence of the 281st Rotary District.
Members of the Southern Pines Rotary
Club have worked hard and long on plans for
this meeting and it appears that these many
Tarheels will be afforded a very pleasant and^
rewarding stay in the Sandhills.
We hope that the visitors will roam around
a bit while they are in this area and will see
Southern Pines and other .places of interest.
They all come from North Carolina and many
of them no doubt know this section well, but
we are always pleased to see the Sandhills
make new friends.
We cannot help but wish that the head
quarters of the conference could be in South
ern Pines, as it might well be if there were
sufficient accomodations for such a group
here.
Construction of the new National Guard
Armory, to begin soon, will provide in South
ern Pines a meeting place that will surpass
any now available in the Sandhills. It may
be that cooperative action by existing South
ern Pines hostelries, together with any new
facility that may be built here in the future,
can attract and entertain, with the needed ac
comodations, more and larger groups than
any which now use Southern Pines for a
meeting place.
“Have A Seat I’ll Be Willi You In A Minute”
ifi:
t f/
^■74^.1
h
U/-
ass—
A New Highland Pines Inn?
Simplicity, Charm Recalled In Long History of Old 'Country Hotel'
We first saw the big longleaf
pines the winter of 1915 and we
first saw them, shining in the
warm sun, from the terrace of the
Highland Pines Inn.
Perhaps that is one reason we
have such a lonely feeling when
we look at that empty space on
the skyline of Weymouth Heights.
There are the two white cottages;
there are the familiar Japanese
print silhouettes of the pines and
then—nothing. Where the long
white facade used to. stand, with
its taU white columns, its touch
of the South, of gracious living,
now—nothing.
The home of hospitality, of fun
and frolic, the scene of many a
social function and of countless
small friendly gatherings, is gone.
This is a serious loss.
It is a loss from a financial and
economic' standpoint. It is a loss
from a social one: it is a loss sim
ply as a welcome reminder of for
mer days of more leisurely living,
perhaps even of better times,
more relaxed, more conducive to
thought and the charm of easy
companionship: When people had
time to sit in the sun, time to talk
of cabbages and kings ... or the
League of Nations or the goofiness
of the Charleston or the grue
someness of the Prohibition era.
Or lots of other things, including
the delights of discovering, as
these visitors sat on the Highland
Pines Inn terrace, such an oasis of
perfection for their holidays.
The era of the League has
changed to that of the U. N., more
hopeful of peace—if it weren’t for
the atom bomb; the Charleston
has become Rock ’n Roll, about
which we do not comment. The
Prohibition era led to money in
the pockets of criminals; whether
to anything else is a moot ques
tion.
But people are still talking
about the delights of spending a
holiday in the Sandhills of North
Carolina.
Has the vanishing of that sunny
terrace and the pleasant inn of
which it was such a charming fea
ture led to the end of an era for
this town? We don’t think so and
neither do a' lot of people.
The question, however, must
be in many minds, although, to
look at it squarely, is to admit
that the Highland Pines Inn van
ished long before it was envelop-
ARRIVAL OF
AGE SIXTEEN
By AL RESCH
ChaHiam News. Siler City
A new era began at our house
last Sunday. Our female Indian
turned sixteen and we can now
look forward to the day when
she will do her own chauffering,
adding gray to what, is left of her
pappy’s hair. The transition from
fifteen to sixteen was no sudden
thing. It has been in the making,
visibly that is, for some months.
How does one know that age
sixteen is approaching? By the
presence in the house of a driv
er’s manual, of course. 'The time
is marked off like no other mile
stone. Attainment of age sixteen
means (but one thing to this gen
eration—the acquisition of a
driver’s permit that makes it pos
sible for its holder to badger the
devil out of parents until there
is no peace at home.
“Teach me to drive and all of
your problems will be at an end,”
says the rising teenager. What
she fails to see or refuses to rec
ognize is that problems are just
beginning. And the Old man
around the house suddenly real
izes that he’ll spend more of his
time afoot than he has in several
years.
The Public Speaking
Likes Editorial
To The Editor:
Excellent editorial re Dulles!
It deserves to be broadcast.
Sincerely,
MARGARET LYALL
Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
All Speeders Should
Get Jail Sentence
To The Editor:
Thank you for “spotlighting”
the proposals for the new high
way laws. As you state, they
should be adopted.
Can the public do anything to
help insure their passage, at least
those of us who are ashamed of
the record of our state in traffic
casualties—^we are very nearly
the worst in the country—and
those of us who would like to
live, and live unmaimed?
I would like to ask this ques
tion: why shouldn’t speeding be
made an offense that calls for a
mandatory jail sentence? In fact,
it seems that any traffic violation
that might lead to injury Or
death should involve a jail sen
tence.
Of course, this is taking for
granted that there is no mechani
cal defect responsible for ein un
avoidable violation. And there
will be less chance of that if the
new proposal for mechanical in
spection goes into effect.
What is so sacrosanct about a
car that its driver should be ex
empt from a jail sentence? Are
we all mesmerized by this auto
age—mooning around in a seH-
imposOd hypnotic trance? Not
able to thiidc straight?
Even when a jail or road sen-
tenfce is pronounced by a judge
in a traffic case, that penalty is
usually not imposed and the of
fender is let off with a fine and
suspended sentence.
■\^at good will it do to in
crease the Highway Patrol if the
offenders aren’t really punished?
It is just plain sentimental guff
to hold that the “youth” or the
ed in flames last Saturday night.
It is now a good many years
since the town enjoyed the attrac
tion of a first-class country hotel.
And we emphasize that “coun
try”, for, out there in what was
then the edge of town and a
stretch of stately woodland, the
Highland Pines was in actuality,
and in contrast with other ho
tels, a country inn, in the coun
try and with all the peace and se
clusion—when a person wanted
it—that only the real country can
give.
Actually, there is no particular
reason to feel that the loss of the
old building changes, in any de
gree, that present situation, for it
has existed for many years. All
it does is to dramatize it. The fire
lit up, you might say, the prime
need of this town, if it is to re
main in the resort field, a field
demonstrably successful only five
miles away, and one that is count
ed near the top in the state’s
sources of revenue.
This town must find another
Highland Pines Inn. It must be
situated, as the other was when
built, near the town, but in the
country. It must be of modern
construction, answering the latest
requirements in attractive living,
but it need not and, we believe,
should not be fancy or “dressy”.
Simplicity has charms for the vis
itor from the big city. Simplicity,
good Southern food, good service,
a chance for some privacy as well
as for some fun, a chance to
play and a chance to sit in the
sun: these are what the modern
visitor to the South wants.
No amount of renovation would
have been able to make over the
old inn, situated where it was,
into such a hostelry. What we
must work for is the charm of the
old revived in a new setting. May
our recent blaze spark a move to
build such a new Highland Pines
Inn. —KLB
Grains of Sand
Odious Corparisons:
Pilot's Fixe Story Shown Up
On December 18, 1835, there
was a serious fire in New York,
which burned many buildings in
the Wall Street section of the
city. We have in our possession
a copy of the New York Tran
script of December 21, whose
front page is entirely devoted to
an account of the results of the
catastrophe. The 'Transcript had
published, on Saturday, an Extra,
(of which they comment in proud
italics: “Fifty thousand copies
were sold”), but this December
21 issue describes the aftermath
and is “got up with much greater
care and expense.” As contrast
to present-day journalism it
might seem a bit slow? Well,
maybe. Let’s say: slow but sure.
Awfully sure.
In the center of the page is a
sketch map of the area, so the
article itself simply starts off
with:
“Reference To The Map: The
black spot denotes where the fire
commenced. The White marks
show the few buildings that were
preserved.” Then, after a
thorough enumeration of build
ings gone and area covered, the
account goes on;
“The awful calamity with
which this city has been visited
within the past week is still the
topic of conversation amongst all
classes of individuals, and the
theme of comment generally by
the press. And well may it be so,
whether taking into consideration
the immense extent of devasta
tion and suffering which it has
caused, or the importance which
will hereafter be attached to it
as an eventful epoch in the his
tory of New York, alike event
ful and interesting as a record,
with the ruins of Carthage and
Pompeii and the disastrous con
flagrations of London and Mos
cow.”
It looks as if, even in those
days. New York considered it
self pretty hot stuff.
•n.
Gallant Fellows,
Then and Now—
Our volunteer fire chief did
himself proud, we thought, in
the grateful tone of the thanks he
rendered to those who assisted!
the department during the local
conflagration recently. Here’s
how the Transcript handled it:
“The noble citizens of Brook
lyn, Newark and Philadelphia
are entitled to Our special grati
tude. We shall hereafter take oc
casion to notice the exemplary
conduct of the gallant felldws
who have come from each of
these cities fb recruit the forces
of our own brave and intrepid
but exhausted firemen.”
Better bone up on those ad
jectives, Harold, We’re copying
them down for future use our
selves.
“excellent character” of the driv
er should exempt him from the
full penalty of the law. If a driv
er is too young to accept tl)e re
sponsibility of his actions while
driving a car, he is too young to
drive a car.
In a recent speeding case, the
“excellent character” of the driv
er didn’t prevent him from driv
ing 100 miles per hour, but it did
prevent him from paying the full
penalty for his offense. It is a
new slant that recklessness, irre
sponsibility, lack of self-control
and a selfish and complete disre-
gMd for the safety of others are
excellent personal characteris
tics. But so it was decided
What is the difference between
being hit by a black-jack, a bul
let or a car? Only that in the last
case there is no intent to kill.
However, there is no definite in
tent not to kill, when a person is
speeding. Perhaps a vacuum.
WANTING TO LIVE
Southern Pines
The PILOT
Published Every Thursday by
THE PILOT, Incorporated
Southern Pines. North Carolina
1941—JAMES BOYD—1944
They Have It. Too
Virus has always seemed a
ifinH of high-toned ailment. A
whole lot fancier and therefore
more desirable than “the floos”,
whichj it used to be.
But now: chickens have it.
That sure takes the bloom off
it.
The fowls of the barnyard and
broiler palace droop, whine,
(peep), drag around. And you do
just the same thing: shoot them
full of mycins and start the croup
kettle going.
'The medics and pharmacists
will just have to think up anoth
er good name for it or lose out.
Too Lata
Then there was the Army
rookie who, while the rest of the
boys were happily decorating the
barracks - for Christmas, said
sourly, “Phooey on Santa Claus.
Twenty years ago I asked him
for a soldier suit—and NOW I
get it!”
Katharine Boyd Editor
C. Benedict Associate Editor
Vance Derby News Editor
Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr.
G. G. Council Advertising
Mary Scott Newton Business
Bessie Cameron Smith Society
Composing' Room
Lochamy McLean, Dixie B. Ray,
Michael Valen, Jasper Swearingen
Thomas Mattocks.
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