Newspapers / The Pilot (Southern Pines, … / April 24, 1958, edition 1 / Page 2
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THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 1958 Page TWO ■LOT Southern Pines North Carolina “In taking over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We wU try to keep this a good paper. We will try to make a little money for all concerned. Wherever there seems to be L occasion to use our influence for the public good we wiU try to do it. And we wiH treat everybody alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941. Sen. Scott And the Democratic Spirit lies in the State, was chosen by the Pilot on The death last week of Sen. W. Kerr Scott, after an illness from which he was reported to be recuperating, very unfortunately re- ' moves from the Senate a man we feel was highly qualified to represent North Carolina there—just as he was highly qualified for the many years he spent as Secretary of Agricul ture and for his term as Governor of the State. Senator Scott’s political philosophy was eminently Tarheel and eminently Democratic (big “D” or little, the label suits them both!). He had the native North Carolinian’s sus picion of concentrated wealth or power, of things, methods or people who are too slick, too contrived and too smoothly sweet on the surface. He liked to stir up and dig into things, to find out what was under the sur face and, so far as he was able, bring the truth to light. He lived—and acted as a public official—with a certain zest and gusto that were not dependent on material comforts or the enjoyment of power for itself, but rather seemed to reflect an enjoyment of accomplish ments and of personalities; he liked to get work done and meet and talk to people face to face. We liked Senator Scott’s outspokenness, his disregard of diplomacy if the truth of the sit uation as he saw it, demanded a blunter ap proach. His greatest quality, in our opinion, and the one which writes his name most brightly in the annals of democracy and the Democratic party, was a genuine sense of responsibility to all the people. We think he sincerely believ ed that people should not go unrgcognized, unrespected and unheeded because they haven’t the wealth or power to make their desires known in quarters tending to be un mindful of their needs. This genuine regard for the needs and as pirations of all the people is the heart of the democratic spirit. ! We think that Senator Scott could have defended his Senate seat against all comers and we grieve that he could not live to do so. His hard and deep thinking on national and international problems was becoming more and more apparent as his service in the Senate lengthened. His period of effectiveness and achievement thehe was, we believe, only beginning. His death is a tremendous loss to the State. * * * One of the hazards of weekly newspaper operations—so far as The Pilot and many other weeklies are concerned—is the fact that the printing of each week’s paper begins in advance of the day of publication—something that not many readers know about or under stand. An instance of one of these difficulties is the printing on last week’s editorial page of a cartoon picturing a symbolic battered bill board industry lobbyist wearing on his coat a ‘‘'seal of approval” from Senators Ervin and Scott. The “seal” referred to the fact that both senators had voted against the anti billboard provisions of the new interstate highway bill in Congress. This cartoon, which had appeared several days previously in The Greensboro Daily News whose staff artist' Hugh Haynie, syndi cates his cartoons to other dailies and week- Boys, Bicycles, Civilization, etc We hold that the bicycle is one of man’s "" “Negative, Indeed! I’m Positive You’re Not Negative” Grains of Sand Monday as fitting in with an editorial then being written for last week’s paper. Though ill. Senator Scott at that time was reported to be recovering. His vote on the bilboard provision in the highway bill was a part of his record and we felt that it was no disservice to the senator— whpse stand on other issues we have on occasion praised—to print the cartoon, despite his illness. The Pilot’s editorial page is prepared on Monday and Tuesday and is one of four pages normally printed each week on Tuesday after noon. The page was printed at that time last week. Then, on Wednesday, unexpectedly. Senator Scott died. So The Pilot appeared on Thursday carry ing a cartoon which, because of the senator’s death, might be interpreted as at least in bad taste and at the most grossly disrespectful. Though actually printed two days before, the cartoon appeared to be deliberately or thoughtlessly published on Thursday, the day before Sen. Scott’s funeral. The Pilot asuredly meant no disrespect to Senator Scott. We regret any offense the car toon may have been to readers. Finally, we hope that this explanation, which may seem inadequate though true, will help readers understand that what happened was simply the result of one of the unfortunate hazards of a small newspaper’s m.echanical operation. Sheriffs Race End of filing time for county offices in the May primaries finds eight men out for sheriff on the- Democratic ticket and one Republican. With all that crowd in the running, it appears very likely that there will have to be a sec ond primary to decide the Democratic candi date.' For nearly three decades, the office of sher iff of Moore County has been so capably held- by Charles' J. McDonald that there has not been a great deal of interest in primary con tests. And Moore has been so strongly Demo cratic in county contests that the general elec tions haven’t attracted much attention either. In looking over the field of candidates, it seems sensible to measure themi against the example of Sheriff McDonald: their interest in and understanding of law enforcement work, their ability to cope with problems in all sections of the county (problems that are likely to be very different in the north end than in the south end); their awareness of the importance of the Sandhills resort interests; their ability to choose good deputies and di rect the deputies’ work; their ability toi, coop erate well with local police officers as well as State and Federal agents and other officers with whom cooperation is required; and final ly their measure of the basic virtues that all officers should have: cool head, courage and plain honesty. The Pilot is attempting to provide for read ers personal information about all the candi dates for sheriff. We think voters should dis cuss ' the candidates, find out all they can about them and try to take all aspects of Moore County and its welfare into considera tion before making their choices at the polls. Muss PRELUDE WITH PARTICULAR CHARMS Spring Pauses In The CaroUnas greatest inventions. During several decades, we have not for gotten the thrill of discovering that, with the same effort that it takes to walk, a boy can get himself twice as far, twice as fast on a bike. With a bike, the long trudge to school mir aculously became a breezy adventure, varied at will from desperate bursts of pedaling to ' a cool, sweet glide, not to mention the skilled arrogance of no-hands riding especially when zipping by a sauntering group of prop erly impressionable girls. In spite of many changes in the mores of the young, most of which we conclude to be for the worse, bicycles, we notice, appear to be holding their own—and we expect that many a boy pedalling down the street is imagining himself at the wheel of a Thunderbird, just as we used to convert our bike in blessed imag ination into a Stutz Bearcat roadster when the occasion called for a bit of compensatory emotionalizing. All these thoughts come to mind as we note in the news that a group of Moore County Boy Scouts are planning to take a 60-mile bi cycle excursion around the roads of the coun ty (three days and two nights camping out for the journey). What could be more fun? But, boys, be prepared for disillusionments at bleak spots on that outing. Was there ever an ache like the tired-legs ache on a long hill while aboard a bike? What a challenge to pride—^not to be the first one to get off and walk! The cavalcade of riders moves slower and slower, front wheels begin to swing and wobble. Faces get red. Grunts are heard. Fin ally somebody gives up and flops off. And at once all are walking, chiding each other as quitters, yet happily sharing the guilt. Then comes the glory of the dash down the other side. Whoops and hollers are in order. The clown in the crowd (bicycle downs are born for their role and always end up with machines to/ match their personalities, such as one with no fenders and a siren attached), as he rushes downhill, hikes his heels to the seat and arches his body in a maneuver that isn’t really very dangerous or difficult (you’ve all done it sometime) but which looks like a mad disregard for safety: he’s expected to show off at such times and all of the group feel a certain pride in his exploits, if there are strangers watching. Just as a bike releases a boy into a faster and more expanded world, so this marvelous machine slows down and contracts the world of a modern, motor-dominated adult. You get there more slowly, but you see more on the way. But an adult on a bicycle has become so rare as to be a curiosity; and we think the world is a poorer place that this is true. Noth ing has so lifted our spirits, our faith in the ultimate triumph of civilized values, as the sieht of a Southern Pines professional man who has taken to riding a bicycle to his office. This is a milestone in the cultural progress of the community. Whether our own legs and wind would stand it, we don’t know—an evasive way of saying we don’t think they would—but we hail with all the fervor at our commnad this brave and sensible gentleman whose well- tailored coat tails we see waving in the breeze as he pedals to work each morning. \ Louis Graves, contributing edi tor of The Chapel Hill Weekly and formerly editor of tha^ news paper, was moved by the arrival of Spring to print and comment on an article by Phillips Bussell of Chapel Hill, who now edits the Weekly’s rival non-daily in the University community. The Chapel Hill News Leader. The original magazine article was published in 1940. Mr. Russell, noted as a biogra pher, was formerly professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina. He has written in many fields and is well known for his interest in birds and other wildlife. In honor of the Sandhills Spring, which we have been try- in'g to hail suitably on this page through several weeks of its de layed progress but which is now really here, we print below por tions of Mr. Russell’s perceptive look at “Spring in the CaroUnas.” Spring creeps up the Atlantic coast gradually but steadily, un til it reaches the latitude of the CaroUnas where it pauses. The pause comes from the fact that, while the CaroUnas are southern states, they are also mid-Atlantic states and, as such, are subject to, the cold air masses that sweep down from the Arctic just as winter, further south, is loosen ing its hold. Nevertheless, the CaroUnas enjoy a prelude to spring that has its own particular charms. The sun, which has been visit ing below the equator, now rises higher daily, its beams are grad ually shortened; and, although the nights are still chilly, the midday is mild enough to enable the Carolina farmer to shed his coat while he prepares his seed beds. The furrows of the corn and cotton fields now show patches of a lively green that comes from the spreading chickweed which, being a tender plant, must hasten to flower and cast its seed before the rougher and more hardy plants borne pushing in with warmer weather. The birds are now manifestly in better spirits, and the advance- guard of the spring migration is set in niotion. The woodpecker now corned out to drum his matrimonial call on a hollow limb, the flicker sounds his name restlessly, and the mockingbird, who has been morose and silent for three months, goes through a subdued repertoire. The house sparrow shows the way with his bulky nest of straw and chicken feath ers, and the great horned owl lays her eggs in a carefully chos en hollow. Welcome Buds The elms hasten to put out their buds until their heads are shrouded in a kind of brown mist. To the bird population these buds are welcome, for they supply food at a time when the berries and other natural provender, furnished by the shrub, have dropped off or been eaten. Elm buds are a special favorite of the goldfinches, which pay for the feast with their innocent, can arylike ditties. One who watches the tele graph wires and fence posts along the highways will notice yet another sign of spring. This is the new and shining coat of the bluebird. Never was there an intenser, richer blue, but one must bring a glass upon it to ap preciate its splendor. And with this coat comes the blue bird’s warble, artless and pure of dross. Hymm of Praise Down along the streams and watery meadows, the peelers or leopard frogs are well aware of the meaning of a preliminary wave of warmth, for at vesper time they raise their voices in a hymn of praise. One can enjoy spring best be fore spring has come. Anticipa tion enriches the pageant before the trumpets sound. ‘Quit Griping Week* Needed Short of Funds Filing for sheriff in the May primary—or at legist thinking ^ about filing—has gotten to be . kind of a fever in recent weeks. No less than nine candidates, eight Democrats and one Repub lican—have filed, each paying a filing fee of $60. As the deadline for filing ap proached last Saturday, accord ing to a story being gleefully re lated around the courthouse this week, one m,an aspiring to run ( was stating he wished he could run but was short on the filing fee. The fact is, he had five cents. “I’d file if I could just raise that fifty-nine dollars and nine ty-five .cents,” he was quoted as saying sadly. Mocker or Singer? Our favorite bird observer, Roy Parker, Jr., of Ahoskie, whose column we see in the Bertie Ledger-Advance, points out that “birds give us strange.and won derful insights into their human shaped friends.” As example, he quotes this letter he^ received “froih a, successful businessman • whose den wall is a glass window onto a bird-filled back yard”: “Now about the 'mocker’. I just like that bird. The name ought to be ‘singer’. . . Most birds have a song and sing it some. The mockingbird learns them all and sings themi well. He sings day and night with all his might. . . To be sure he appears sort of edgey. That is natural after he has been on, stage givng his best to the world. The poor devil is exhausted and fed up with an unappreciative audience. I don’t blame him. I feel like that my self after strutting all day ‘on stage.’ When evening comes, I feel like letting the corners of my mouth down and to h ^with it all!” That, observes Mr. Parker, is both good bird watching and good philosophy. The Crosseyed Bear There are lots of good stories ' about children’s misunderstand ings of words—after all, before they can read, all they can do is listen and sometimes some words sound like others. Dave Morrah, in his lively col umn, “Nothing Ventured,” in The Greensboro ' Daily News, specializes in this kind of stories —but he manufactures them at will. Latest we heard, and not from Morrah, is about a little boy who came home from Sunday School and, in response to that eternal question of parents “What did you learn in Sunday School to day?” replied startlingly, “We learned about the crosseyed bear named Gladly.” “That’s something new,” said his father. ‘‘Tell us about it.” “We sang a song about him,” the boy said. “ ‘Gladly the cross I’d bear.’ ” Arts of Saving And Making Are Lost (By Mrs. H. M. Cox in The Smithfield Herald) My husband put new batteries in our flashlight and handed me the old ones. “You want these?” he asked. Somewhat perplexed, I answer ed: “What in the world for? They aren’t any good any more.” “No, they aren’t any more good,” he said, “I just thought perhaps you might want to save them for some of the grandchil dren to play with.” I simply couldn’t help from smiling. “Well,” he continued, “I would have given anything to have had them to play with when I was a boy. But I keep forgetting how things have changed.” String, Spools Time turned backward for me then and I thought what a change indeed. Our children played with pretty little boxes, brightly color ed strings, and I would save, the spools, run a string through them and my babies had a play toy. You could also take a broom straw, put a spool in the middle of a short piece, turn up two handles, tie it together, with a string and the child had a nice cart that he could play with as long as it lasted. Oh, the ingenuity of people in the days of long ago, and especial ly of mothers. They saved every thing, made it over into some thing else, and it worked fine, be cause they never had anything with which to do better. When I see babies dressed so ■breath-takingly beautifully,, nowa days, my heart actually aches. My babies wore dark clothes, made out of percale, or often from old shirt-tails. Most mothers worked real hard to have one white dress for Sunday wear and special oc casions. These dresses were made out of plain cloth and usually tucked elaborately across the yoke, because tucks were much cheaper than any bought trim ming. Cobs and Splinters How about corn cobs and light- wood splinters? The corn cobs made houses, the splinters made pig pens and a few grains of corn made the people and the pigs to live inside. I am sure my chil- dreh built a million castles in Spain right in the middle of the kitchen floor before an open fire place. In the back yard, they erected another million toad frog houses out of the clean white sand. Today it is a different story. Everything is either store bought or factory made. The art of sav ing and making went out' of the window when progress walked in the door. That is why the next generation of people will never have any such memories as these at the close of their lives. By E. A. (AL) RESCH In The Chatham County News There’s a special “week” for about everything I know and I have repeatedly written about us being surfeited with them. In fact I remember writing words of commendation once about a sug gestion that what we needed most was a “National Leave Us Alone Week.’! I’m beginning to change my mind. There’s one “week” that I’d like to see established and I wouldn’t care if it, was continued from week to week and that is:, “Let’s Quit Griping Week.” Favorite Subjects We gripe about the weather. It is either too wet or too dry, too hot or too cold. If business is good we gripe be cause it isn’t better. If the Re publicans are in office we gripe because the Democrats are out. Right now everybody is grip ing about business. The other day in conversation with some other business men, I suggested that it might be a ' good idea for us to quit griping. I received ready agreement to my suggestion from one man. But in the next breath he began talking about how bad business has been in recent weeks. Strangely Enough “But strangely enough,” he continued, “my business in Feb ruary was ahead of the same month last year. But I wouldn’t want my competitors to know that.” We can gripe ourselves into trouble. | I am not suggesting that we should stick our heads in the sand in an effort to crowd out news that should be of concern. I do maintain, however, that there is a positive approach that goes beyond the “chins up” at titude. Forspacious The story reminded us that for years we stood up in elementary school (called grammar school in those days) and sang, “Oh beau tiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,” thinking that “forspacious” was one word, an adjective, obviously meaning ex tra-special spacious, super spa cious. Under this interpretation of the song, “beautiful” and “forspa cious” were both adjectives mod ifying “skies.” As a matter of fact, we still think “forspacious” is a wonder ful word—too good to be simply non-existent. A room, can be “spacious” but what a travesty to use this same word to describe the skies over the United States of America! That certainly calls for a stronger word: what better than “forspa cious” to extend the meaning? T h e P I L O T Published Every Thursday by THE PILOT, Incorporated Southern Pines, North Carolina 1941—JAMES BOYD—1944 Katharine Boyd Editor C. Benedict Associate Editor Vance Derby News Editor Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr. C. G. Council Advertising Mary Scott Newton Business Bessie Cameron Smith Society Composing Room Lochamy McLean, Dixie B. Ray. Michael Valen, Jasper Swearingen Thomas Mattocks. Subscription Rates: One Year $4. 6 mos. $2; 3 mos. $1 Entered at the Postoffice at South ern Pines, N. C., as second class mail matter Member National Editorial Assn, and N. C. Press Assn.
The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.)
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April 24, 1958, edition 1
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