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Page TWO THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 1959 ILOT THE CLOCK OF PROGRESS IS STOPPED* What Killed N. C. Court Reform? 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 M 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. Must We Send ChOdren To Prison? In Moore County Superior Court at Carth age on Monday, two boys, ages 13 and 14, were sentenced to 18 to 36 months in prison for breaking and entering and auto larceny— '■‘prison” in such cases meaning usually as signment to a road work camp. Whatever the circumstances, that is shock ing—yet shock turns to frustrated perplex ity when the testimony in the case is exam ined. It actually appears that the State of North Carolina had no alternative in this case—which leads us to ask if there is not a significant gap in the State's facilities for confinement and rehabilitation of ‘‘incorrig ible” juvenile offenders. The two boys in the case this week had been at Morrison Training School near Hoff man (the younger one had first stolen an automobile at the age of nine and both have long records of various offenses): they left the school—where there is no forcible co’nfine- ment—and had stolen two cars, one in Pine- bluff and one in Aberdeen where they also broke into a bottling company and had done about $500 worth of damage breaking open cold drink machines to obtain about $12 in change from them. The superintendent of the Training School, a man whose .competence and good 3U<i8” ment in his field are generally recognized, admitted in court that the Training School was unable to do anything more for these boys: they were indeed incorrigible. In sentencing the boys, the presiding judge gave them a lecture, telling them that unless, they mended their ways, they could look for ward to spending most of their lives in con finement. Persons in the courtroom say that all the officials concerned appeared to be dis tressed about the outcome of the trial, but could find no alternative. Our question is: shouldn’t there be an al ternative—an established procedure, for such cases? Certainly, there must be more than two incorrigibly delinquent boys in the State of North Carolina, though we suspect that the pair in court this week would head the list. Should there not be some smaller insti tution, staffed by experts in juvenile reha bilitation, to which such young offenders could be assigned? It is hard to believe that any boy of 13 or 14 is beyond redemption; and sentencing boys of this age to prison with adult offenders would seem to be equi valent to sentencing them to a life of crime. From their appearance in the courtroom, these boys seemed alert and intelligent. What an admission it is that all the might and ma jesty and wealth and resources of the State of North Carolina are powerless to heal their wounds of mind and heart and concience and turn them from darkness toward the light! We feel that some more humane and ef fective solution must be found in the case of these two boys—and that some permanent procedure should be established for dealing with other cases of this sort. Welcome, Tennis Players! The Pilot, long an advocate of tennis in Southern Pines, welcomes the young people and adults playing this week in two tourna ments here. We recognize the Sandhills Ten nis Association for sponsoring these tourna ments and we commend members of the As sociation and other persons whose efforts have gone into preparing for and conducting the two events this week. Tennis has always played second fiddle in Southern Pines to the spotlighted golf and equestrian activities, yet we feel that tennis is valuable in rounding out the sports life of the community. While it seems always to be a struggle to keep tennis going here, we think the effort is worth the goal and would not be surprised to see the status of the sport rising here in the next few years. Oldtimers recall the time, 25 years and more ago, when tennis was played at country clubs in the Sandhills and nationally known stars appeared in an annual tournament at Pinehurst. Exactly why tennis on, this scale withered and died in the Sandhills we do not know and, in view of the area’s increasing importance in golf, we suppose no one need mourn. Yet we recall with pleasure those long-a^o tennis tournaments at Pinehurst. We urge readers to help welcome visiting players and show their appreciation for the Tennis Association’s efforts by watching con venient matches of the tournament that be gins here today. A Lesson From The Jitters It is a strange situation when a possible brightening in hopes for peace—because of the Eisenhower-Krushchev visits—give the stock market the jitters and millions of dollars are willed off the value of listed securities, especially those in the defense category. While the drop was not very great and, given the way the stock market operates, was to be expected, the phenomenon has caused considerable editorializing around the country on the matter of national values. The market drop gave Soviet propagan dists a fine opportunity to speak gloatingly of the panic of capitalist munitions makers and warmongers. The market’s reaction to mention of peace, while not in our opinion of any great significance, has brought many people out of the rut of unrelieved “defense thinking.” Commentators on the market, in deed, have attempted to allay fears by point ing out the vast potential for American bus iness and enterprise in peaceful projects, re vealing the bright destiny the nation would face if by some miracle the huge millstone of defense spending were removed from our necks. Actually, defense spending income, vast though it is, is a relatively small proportion of our national income. We by no means have to choose between guns and butter. If the stock market dip has made us re alize that peace is the greatest goal of all— and also a goal compatible with national de velopment and prosperity, those millions wiped from stock values will not have been lost in vain. Essence Of America Looking ahead to Premier Krushchev's visit to the United States, The New York Times asks and eloquently answers the question, “What is the essence of our society, of our civilization?”—the quality that we would most hope the Soviet leader could grasp while he is in this nation. Still Dangerous The tragic death of electrocution of a 13- year-old Robbins boy serves to remind us of the lurking danger in the great force—electri city—which we have harnessed and use so casually every day. The I(obbins accident was of almost a freak nature: a lamp fell into a tub in which the boy was taking a bath. Now that most bath rooms have wall switches, there are many fewer accidents involving electricity. When people used to stand up in bath tubs to switch on overhead or wall fixtures with metal pull chains, there used to be many more such ac cidents. Yet instruction as to the dangers in elec tricity should be a primary item on the ed ucational agenda of parents. Happily almost disappeared, too, are the old socket type of base plugs—the kind with a little hinged cover. Mothers in those days lived in terror of a crawling child putting his fingers in one of the sockets. Equipment manufacturers and builders, co operating with electric power companies, have done much to take the danger out of using electricity, yet there is still danger and child ren should be taught very carefully how to avoid it. The Times does not think that the abun dance of our material wealth will be very impressive to the premier, nor is it that es sence we would like to make clear: “But the essence of America is not its wealth. We were far poorer than we are today in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, yet increasing millions flocked here from foreign soil. There was not an automo bile or a television set or a refrigerator in our entire land when Emma Lazarus, seventy-six years ago, captured some of the essence of our nation in her immortal lines for the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, /Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” “America is a nation of men and women who yearn ‘to breathe free.’ If he could only understand this. Premier Krushchev would know more about the essence of America than all the physical eyidence of our wealth could ever tell him. From pioneer days the American dream has always been of a nation whose members decide their own fates and who are subject to no arbitrary power that stands higher than the law or public opinion. It is no accident that our Constitution provides for a government of checks and balances, that our corporations are hemmed in by anti-trust laws, and that a struggle now rages about what limitations should be placed on the leaders of our powerful labor unions.” It is all this that makes the American way of life better, in our convictions, than the Russian. It may be too much to hope that Pre mier Krushchev will ever begin to under stand this, but we hope that somebody will try to put it across. Believing that the propos als for court reform in North Carolina—a program that was killed in the 1959 General Assembly—should be kept before the people of the state. The Pilot is printing ex cerpts from a recent speech of J. Spencer Bell, chairman of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Committee on Improving and Expediting the Administration of Justice. In the'first portion of this speech, appearing on this page last week, Mr. Bell told, about the four-year study of the state’s courts, made by the committee with the assistance of hundreds of lawyers; and the committeeis recommenda tions to improve the quality and efficiency of justice by setting up a state-wide uni fied court system administrat ed by the Supreme Court of North Carolina, to fix re sponsibility and authority for the courts’ operation. Mr. Bell also pointed out that the proposals killed by the Gen eral Assembly were in the form of constitutional changes which ultimately would have been voted on by the peo ple of the state. A second excerpt appears herewith, to be followed by the concluding portion next week: The record does not prove that the re-apportionment issue was introduced into , the Constitution for the sole purpose of killing the court program. The record sel dom proves these matters beyond dispute, but Senator Jolly, who introduced the amendment,, and Senator Warren, who blocked the third reading of a separate bill dealing only with the courts, well knew that the identical re-appor tionment proposal had been voted down by the people in 1954- The fairest thing that can be said was that they were perfectly willing to jeopardize the court program by insisting that it be tied in a package with the discredited re apportionment provision. Dubious Honor On the floor of the Senate, Senator Warren charged that Governor Hodges and I had kill ed the court bill, but the record does not bear him out. If we are to believe the reports of all of the daily papers of the State which had reporters present in the House, the good Senator left his place in the Senate, took a seat beside Mr. Kerr in the Hoj^se and supported him in amendments whose sole purpose was to gut the court proposals, and this even after the re-apportionment pro visions were imbedded in the proposed Constitution. The papers reported Senator Warren, in a speech to the Rotary Club in his home town of Washington, N. C., as saying that he was glad that he had fought the proposals of the Committee. Well, I’m glad the old gentleman is glad—whether he wants the credit for killing the bill or whether he wants us to have the dubious honor is not something that I am going to spend much time worrying about. For the time-being the bill is killed and that is what is import ant. For the time-being the clock of progress is stopped. In J. P. Courts For each of the next two years, more than 88,000 citizens will ex perience North Carolina justice in the J. P. courts- Many of them will appear before men who can hardly read or write, and 99 per cent of whom have no legal edu cation whatsoever. All of them ‘Say, Those Local Officials Down There Are Serious About That Law-And-Order Stuff” ‘^°yfRMOR must find an accused guilty or they earn no fee. Are the distinguished Senator and his supporters glad to have the honor of perpetuating this system? For each of the next two years, ,between six and seven hundred thousand citizens of our State will experience North Carolina justice in the so-called police courts where you and the ladies in your family who violate the traffic regulations of the State will rub shoulders with the alco holics and the prostitutes who regularly frequent these places— courts in many cases organized and oriented to the task of mak ing money—not rehabilitating criminals; courts where the costs collected exceed the expenses of operation by more than three- quarter-million dollars; courts which rarely provide the consti tutionally guaranteed right of jury trial to the poor wage earner who cannot afford the expense of attorney’s fees for appealing to the higher courts where his rights are better protected. I trust these facts, too, make glad the heart of the distinguished Senator and his colleagues who killed the court bill. Literally thousands of our citi zens—^rich and poor alike—stand by helpless while the Superior Courts of this State continue to procrastinate while witnesses dis appear or die and memories grow cold. Justice will be denied be cause it will be delayed until many will settle for a fraction of their loss. Our figures indicate that over 114,000 man hours will be lost by witnesses forced to attend court to testify in trials which will not take place because some lawyer, or court attendant or judge wasn’t where he should have been. Surely this wiU please the good Senator and his colleagues. Now in all seriousness, of course I do not believe these dis tinguished gentlemen actually want these things to happen, but they will happen. Nor did these distinguished gentlemen come forward with one single construc tive suggestion to prevent these things from happening. (To be concluded next week) Quit Fussing About The Old Folks! The Rockingham Post-Dispatch notes that the physician writer of a newspaper health column suggests the foundation of a “So ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Aged Parents by Their Loving and Over-solicitous Chil dren.” And the Post-Dispatch continues: Do we hear applause from senior citizens throughout the land? Every doctor, every writer on health has received hundreds of queries like these: “My 80-year- old father has had a slight stroke. Shouldn’t he give up his evening highball?” “My elderly father has high blood pressure, but he won’t give up his pipe.” “I’ve tried to put my 75-year-old mother on a diet but she won’t cooperate.” “I want to buy my parents a retire ment home in Florida, but Papa insists on staying in the old homestead where he strains his heart shoveling snow and chop ping wood.” Papa may like to chop wood. Boy, The Fallout Is Terrific’ lie likes his pipe, his apple pie even, perhaps, an occasional glass cf beer. If he wants to chop or smoke or eat or drink himself in to an early grave at the age of 80, who has a better right? But his children want to treat him like a child. Elderly people will, of course, feel better, avoid minor illnesses, and be able to do more if they follow the basic rules for healthy living. A regular checkup by the family doctor and reasonable at tention to his suggestions is wise procedure. But no amount of fussing by the younger genera tion will help. It can do harm, by making healthy elders into bur densome hypochondriacs. The young people would do better to think about their own old age. How they live, what they eat in the 40’s and 50’s will di rectly affect theiV health in later years. Let them prepare for a healthy old age, and maybe they can avoid the well-meant but un welcome interference of their children. Great Victory A great international victory was fashioned in the strictly American island of Hawaii. The election of Governors, senators, and Congressmen with names such as Inouye and Fong was all that was needed. We ■ need not crow about it in the propaganda mill. The people of many coun tries will get the point without having it drummed into their ears. The Hawaiian elections proved that America is indeed the land of the free and that there is ab solutely no bar to the burgeoning out of the best that is in any man —be his name Smith or Inouye— except in the minds of our peo ple. It proves that education, and the operation of tolerance and American fair play can produce hfarmonious results in relations between people. And it proves a basic thing—^that the ballot box is the ultimate expression of the American Dream and that the most exciting things in American life are apt to happen in the voting booth. —Bertie Ledger-Advance (Windsor. N. C) Grains of Sand Not Guilty Mrs. Dorothy H. Avery, former Moore County librarian who is now living at Canton in Western North Carolina, .-.clipped from a ^ recent article on this page a para graph in which the writer con demns as “mayhem on the lang uage” the use of the terms, “the Rev. Smith” and “Rev. Smith.” Underneath thb pasted-up clip ping, Mrs. Avery notes: “And the very literate ‘Pilot’ is as guilty of this offense as the ‘Podunk. News’! Shame on it!” Begging your pardon, ma’m, ^ but we disagree! The Pilot fol- " lows the custom of the best news papers, a custom approved by Webster’s International Diction ary and also by Margaret Nich olson’s Dictionary of American- English Usage, a book that is based on the classic volume in this field, Fowler’s English Usage. We do not write, “the Rev. Smith” or “Rev. Smith.” We write, on first mention of a min- ^ ister, with his full name, “the Rev. John Smith.” On second mention in the same story, he becomes either “the Rev. Mr. Smith” or simply “Mr. Smith.” The “mayhem on the language” consists in omitting the “the” be fore “Rev.” or “Rev- Mr.” While we would admit an occasional unintentional error or misprint, we do not plead guilty to Mrs. Avery’s charge. < Use Of Plural Something new we learned about “Rev.” from the Dictionary of American-English Usage is how to handle the plural of this abbreviation, as in a list of sev eral clergymen. This may be of interest to readers and serve al so to reduce the dreaded “may hem on the language.” ^ To quote: “. . . Since ‘reverend’ is an adjective (and not, like ‘par son’ in the now disused ‘Parson Jones and Smith,’ a noun), there is neither occasion for nor cor rectness in such forms as ‘Revs.’ and ‘Revds.’; ‘the Rev. J. Smith, W. H. Jones, P. Brown and others’ is the way to put it. If the initials, or some of them, are not known, it should run ‘the Rev. J. Smith, Messrs. Jones and Brown, Dr. Robinson and other clergy.” Confusion Fremk P, Smith of Fairway Drive in Kenwood tells us that he is getting telephone calls in tended for Col. Frank M. Smith of Country Club Drive,' who has moved to Southern Pines since the publication of the most re cent telephone directory and is therefore not yet ^ listed. Frank P. Smith says that when Colonel Smith moved here, this newspaper incorrectly referred to Colonel Smith in a news item as Col. Frank P. Smith and to his residence as Fairway Drive. The confusion about the streets probably arose because the por tion of Country Club Drive on which Colonel Smith lives used to be known as Fairway Road. This item may serve to inform the public of the distinction of these two Frank Smiths: Col. Frank M. Smith of Country Club Drive and Frank P. Smith of Fairway Drive in Kenwood. Just to complicate the matter, there is Father Francis M. Smith, priest at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church (Colonel Smith’s first name, we are told, is also Fran cis, though he is usually called Frank); and the telephone direc tory also lists a Frank E. Smith of North Bennett St. Hail Science! Sometimes, in this age of sci ence, we think our preoccupations in this corner are too frivolous. Do readers know, for Instance, that the force of gravity varies over the earth’s surface: it gets weaker as one travels toward the equator or farther above sea level. A jasvelin thrown in the Pana ma Canal Zone would travel three and a half inches farther than in Madison, Wis. It would travel about one foot farther than at the North Pole. And so forth. Ain’t science wonderful? pilot 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 Dixie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Jas per Swearingen, Thomas Mattocks and James C. Morris. 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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Aug. 20, 1959, edition 1
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