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Page TWO THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 1960 ILOT “Remember, Now, No Rest Stops In The Second Race!” Southern Pines ^ North Carolina “In taking over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We will try to keep this a good paper. We wiU 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 t^ to do it. And we wiU treat everybody alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941. A Terrible Disservice to the State I. Beverly Lake has done his state a terrible disservice in calling for a second primary. Lake is apparently consumed by a desire to be governor at all costs. He is an intelligent man. He knows that his two major issues— segregation and “spending”—are phonies. He can’t reverse the Supreme Court decisions on school segregation. A progressing state must spend and continue to spend to provide the services that its people need. And, of course, both issues are actually in the hands of the General Assembly, not the governor whoever he may be. There are those who say that if Lake were elected governor,' he would soften on both segregation and spending, that he is using them only as stepping stones. The more to his discredit, if this be true. In the meantime the furies will be loosed. A Harvard Law School segregationist like Lake, sophisticated enough to distinguish be tween a campaign issue and reality, is vastly different from the rabble his views will rouse. Nor can he control what they will do and say. And he knows this. Therein lies his shocking irresponsibility in calling the second primary and making segregation its primary issue. We can only hope that the good sense of the majority of the people of North Carolina will prevail and that they will reject for governor a man who, for personal ambition, would risk throwing the state into the turmoil and discord that a race-based campaign would bring. r. Parking Space or Alternate Route 1? The Pilot has never felt very strongly one way or the other about the proposal to have an alternate Route 1 go through town using Pennsylvania Avenue and May Street. This would bring more traffic to the busiest corner in town—which was an argument against it, and it did seem as if most people with sense would have little trouble finding their way as things were now. However, the argument for bringing the motoring public past the Information Center was certainly val id, if this could be managed without undue difficulty. Now the “undue difficulty” has loomed up on the scene and,, for this newspa per, the case was decided. The undue difficulty turns out to be the terms under which the state would consent to the proposal. These are: the loss of 28 parking spaces on Pennsylvania Avenue with parking confined to parallel parking along the curbs. This, we are convinced, would be too great a sacrifice to pay for the, at best, uncertain gain involved. This town simply cannot afford to lose parking spaces. One could well inquire, even: what good would it do to bring people into town if there’s nowhere to park when they get here? The Pilot, which lives on the block in ques tion, is well fixed for its own parking: the yard behind the building is adequate and handy. Just the same, when the A & P was our neighbor there was very seldom a free space for customers. This situation will doubt less return to plague us when the big building is occupied again. 'We feel strongly that the Highway Depart ment has been extremely generous in attempt ing to comply with the request for the Route 1 alternate, considering how much they have done already for the convenience of Southern Pines. They are entirely right, too, we believe, in the terms they laid down for cooperating with the advertising committee and the town on the new proposal. Unless parallel parking were established along this block, such heavy traffic along it as v/ould be expected would create a terrific problem. The resulting traffic snarls, inconvenience, and danger would be out of all reason and inadmissible in a well run town. Much as we might like to ejidorse the pro posal of the local committee, backed by the Council, we cannot do so. We believe the plan should be abandoned. As an alternative we would hope that clear directional signs to the Information Center might be placed on all exits from the bypass. Through this means it seems quite likely that much the same result could be obtained. Beyond the Hodges Most sensible readers of the controversy be tween Governor Hodges and the Ralegh News and Observer will understand that the truth lies somewhere between the extreme points of view expressed. 'While it cannot be hidden that nearly twice as many people left North Carolina in what the N & O called the “doleful decade” of the 1950’s than in the previous decade, yet it is also clear that the industry-promotion cam paign with which the Hodges administration is associated has resulted in jobs for thousands of the state’s people—100,000 in the past four years, the governor said. Again, if, as the N & O asserted, the ad ministration’s “glowing reports of what we are going to get have run . . . far ahead of the facts,” so, too, the newspaper, in its recent comments, has resorted to intemperate lan guage. It is ridiculous to deny progress in North Carolina during the past 10 years, be cause the state’s rate of population growth has slowed down.' What neither the governor nor the N & O has told us—and we don’t even know whether this is known Or can be found out—is who the people who left North Carolina were and why they left. Somebody, indeed, might take the bull by the horns and ask if a great proportion of the persons leaving have not been Negroes and if that be true, no program of industrialization would have made one whit of difference so long as the Negro is systematically and uni- N & 0 Controversy Missions of Mercy Army and Air Force Personnel from nearby Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base moved out last week on missions of mercy to earth- quake-stricken Chile where thousands of per sons have been killed and many more injured. The missions are a dramatic episode in the peacetime lives of the military people concern ed. They are also iij the best tradition of American assistance in time of need. One can imagine, for instance, the gratitude that is at tending the arrival in isolated areas of Chile of the helicopter ambulances from one of the units sent from Fort Bragg. The helicopters—new turbo-jet craft design ed for just such a mission as that in which they are taking part—were flown to Chile in big Air Force planes. Another' detachment of the helicopter ambulances was flown from Fort Meade, Md. Preceding the helicopter units to Chile was a field hospital unit from Fort Bragg along with 18 communications men and six linguists. :0)Rt p/rsT I i CUp If?/ ■■ ■ f t'Y - ‘v AN AWARD-WINNING CECIL PRINCE EDITORIAL A Southern Century? versally excluded from engaging in or even training for skilled and semi-skilled industrial work. It is for jobs like this, or the hope of them or the hope that at least their children may get such jobs, that Negroes leave North Carolina and the South. What a vast boost it would be to the econo my of this and other Southern States if the young people, white and Negro, from displaced farm families or from hundreds of little towns that offer them little or nothing to inspire their ambition, were given an opportunity for industrial or trade training that would, later, bring them incomes allowing them a better standard of living! The vocational or industrial colleges now being set up over the state are, of course, a step in this direction. Perhaps the doleful out-migration of the fifties might not have been so heavy if such schools had been set up a decade ago and certainly not if tjiey were open to Negroes. The whole South has sapped its prosperity and lost ma'ny thousands in population be cause of its refusal to accept the Negro in in dustry and train him to take a place there. And the best Negroes—the smartest and the most ambitious—are the first to go. Many other factors, of course,'are involved in both the governor’s and the News and Ob server’s points of view. But we wonder if both are not overlooking a problem that neith er the governors rose tinted glasses nor the News and Observer’s gnashing of teeth will lessen or take away. from other Fort Bragg units. The hospital unit can be set up for 400 beds in the field. Another one of these units, too, was sent from Fort Meade, Md. Six doctors and 33 Army nurses are among the personnel flown to Chile from Fort Bragg. Big trucks, already loaded with rations and medical supplies, were flown to the stricken areas. Undoubtedly, lives are being saved and vast amounts of suffering eased becatise of the American units. New shocks in Chile since their departure mean added work for them. Certainly these missions will tend to build good will toward the United States in South America. The missions form a rare adventure for the young men and women from Fort Bragg and Pope AFB—something to tell their grandchil dren about, just as the arrival of the North Americans and the performance of their tasks of mercy will no doubt long be recalled by sur vivors in the mountain huts of Chile. The recent death of 37- year-old Cecil Prince, assoc iate editor ot the Charlotte News, has shocked and sad dened North Carolina news paper people and his many friends and readers outside the profession. One of the most promising careers in Tar Heel journalism was tragical ly cut short. Not long before his death, an editorial by Mr. Prince, "A Southern Cen tury . , received the an nual award of Sigma Delta Chi, a national journalistic fraternity. The editorial, a challenge to every Southern er, follows: A shirt-sleeved -man plods through the sandy loam of north Florida’s slash-pine country to the porch of a white frame cot tage. He extends his hand to a man waiting there. Each man squeezes three times with the thumb on the ridge of the other’s hand, twisting back ward slightly as he does so. “Ayak?” one of thetn asks. “Akia,” responds the other. Two members of the Ku Klux Klan, unknown to each other, thus establish kinship in the “In visible Empire.” To them, “Ayak” means, “Are you a Klansman?” and “Akia” means, “A Klansman I-am.” It was as if the shadows of history had receded and there reincarnated in the bright sun light of the New South, was some half-forgotten obscenity. A grief ago, it would all have been so natural, so understand able, so forgivable. In 1868, of even in the dismal decades that followed, there would have been reasons. There pre no valid reasons to day. , Yet the ritual is repeated in turnip patches and broomsage fields and on bayous and under moss-festooned oaks throughout the South. And so are all of the other rituals that make so many southerners the prisoners of a ter rible inheritance. For southerners, however they may deny it, are still tightly, per haps even inextricably, bound to a deliberate, self-conscious my stique. John Brown’s soul may or may not go marching on, depend ing on which side of the Mason- Dixon line you learned your songs, but the passions it unleash- eded still take their toll 'Why do these bones and dust, relics and fragments of an American Juggernaut, still stir the air of life? The answers lie in a history of human convul sions and awful travail, long re- membered\and long resented. It is what James Branch CabeU was talking about in “The Rivet In Grandfather’s Neck”: “Our actual tragedy isn’t that our fathers were badly treated, but that we ourselves are con stitutionally unable to do any thing except talk about how bad ly our fathers ■were treated.” Then, too, as Marshall Fish- wick wrote much later, to be a Confederate today isn’t nearly as dangerous as it was in the 1860’s. No risk, no marching, no bleed ing. The pose is there for the tak ing. The central tragedy of the mod ern South ■ is that even its best efforts are so terribly tentative. Its leaders often speak grandly of economic revolution and social progress, on the one hand, while pledging allegiance to dusty con cepts of the 19th century conser vatism on the other. If there is any such thing as southern liber alism in the nation today, more often than not it masquerade.s de murely under the label of mod eration. Moderation has its virtues—if the choice is between two violent forms of self-destruction. But, logically, there can be no mod eration on the broad principles involved in the safeguarding of human rights, in the advance ment of elementary democracy, in the promotion of economic pro gress, in the protection and im provement of public education and in the development of the health, mental aptitudes and phy sical vigor of the region’s hu man resources. Only the vibrant qualities of a South that is ex tremely concerned, extremely de termined and extremely enlight ened can I make gains Which are permanent and enduring. Mod eration in these matters has no legitimacy whatsoever. The exciting fact is that this could be the Southern Century. All around us are the resources of social and econoniic greatness —resources which, so far, have been barely touched in four cen turies. There is a compression of human energy within one orbit, a potentiality and vitality of people. Tj'ue enough, the South is brash, sensitive, unsure and provincial. It is an unpredictable and intract able region. But these very qual ities give it an explosive promise unmatched anywhere in America. Together with its rich abundance of untapped resources, its forests, its minerals, its water and its magnificent climate, it offers the promise of unimaginable wgalth and progress. It is perfectly true that human problems are posed here with singular directness and naked- nesSs For better or worse, it is the unique place where the great social dilemmas of our age inev itably take hold of the individual. Furthermore, the South in 1959 is still a pandemonium of harsh voices. But the voices have turned sour. More than sound and fury, the Modern South needs bold and en lightened leadership. More than rant, it needs reason. It needs men to voice its true aspirations and direct its true destiny, men who will not permit American’s profession of faith in equal op- porunity and freedom for the hu man spirit to be watered down, whether in the name of exped iency or the plea of exterior men ace. Nor can such leaders be sat isfied with the knowledge! that progress has been made. Of course, progress has been made. But the distance the South has come must stand always as a re minder of the distance yet to be traveled. Despite the cynics and the hot eyed prophets of disaster, we maintain that southerners will re spond to such leadership, if it .is offered. But there must be a sense of revival, a renaissance of some thing old in new and enlightened terms. The best of the southern tradition must be preserved and the worst discarded. Furthermore, the battle is here. It must be fought here with our own people. The response must come as much from the rednecks and wool hat boys as from the professors and the politicians and the manufac turers of the dominant middle class. 'With wise and courageous lead ership, the region can triumph over the cobwebs of pride and prejudice. For the nay-sayers of the North are wrong. The story of the modern South is not that it exists as an enduring embodiment of human wrong but as an endur ing embodiment of human pos sibilities. The possibilities, fully realized, can make this the South ern Century. Chemicals and Our Food (From The New York Times!; In the wake of his efforts to protect the health of the Ameri can people against any potential health menace that may exist in the growing use of chemicals to increase food production. Secre tary of Health,- Education and Welfare Flemming has come un der increasingly sharp attack in recent months. The peak of this campaign was reached when rep resentatives of eleven major farm organizations—embodying essen tially the massive political might of the entire farm bloc—went to the White House and, in effect, demanded that President Eisen hower repudiate Mr. Flemming. It would be unfortunate, in deed, if the President were to give in to this open use of politi cal pressure aimed at curbing a devoted public servant engaged in Grains of Sand ^Ho-hum. . . Beware of the chairman who, ' when called on for his report, starts off with: “Well now—^just briefly. . .” You’ll be there all night. ■Whang! According to hints contained in a recent report from that wonder ful place in New York, the Mu seum of Natural History, putting your collection of ancient musi cal instruments in order runs up against the major argument against ever trying to put your books in order. In the latter case, you simply < put up two books on the cleared off shelf, or at most three—^then you stop, and read for the rest of the day. The museum staff set up two instruments. . . then everybody stopped and played. Starting off with a resounding “WHANG!” on the huge African signal drum. Oh Music, Music! tjjjl Making this compulsion to mu SIC especially irrisistible was the pleasant fact that most of the primitive instruments were for primitive people, (and so espe cially suited to the museum’s primitive staffers? Well. . .) There were rattles made of gourd or turtle shells; h kind of violin with a strand of bamboo raised on a bridge, like a violin A bridge. You hit it and it went “bing.” Or “bong” depending on how big. How hard a hitter you were. There were things you just blew into; others you scraped with your fingernails—if you could stand it—and one played by passing the damp hand softly across the strings: like “Sbush- shush.” Even eggheads of the ^ highest caliber represented in the ^ museum staff could get some where with those. Those Lonesome Blues In the Museum of Natural His tory's collecfion of ancient musi cal instruments, there is a Tibe tan trumpet made of a human thigh-bone, and a drum made from two human skulls. W’hat couldn’t a blues player do • with those! Council Entertainment It's often entertaining at a council meeting. Depending on the things they talk about and who’s there. Bessie Chandler Clark, for in stance. If she’s present, there’ll probably be a lively moment or two. _ One time they were having it W back and forth over zoning for business out her way, and she was crowding them pretty close. John Ruggles put in a mild and it seemed eminently reasonable oar. “Why, Bessie,” he pointed out, “you’re operating a business right there in your back yard.” “Huh,” huffed Mrs. Clark., “Ypu call selling flowers a business? ^ Why it’s just romance.” Whisper from behind us: “Just foolish—if you want to make a living.” It All Depends Mrs. Clark joined in again when a reluctant landowner was being edged iiito voting “right.” “Suppose you want to go on living in your house when the street gets zoned for business,” he asked, “Can you?” W Council: “Sure. You can keep on living there.” Mrs. Clark: “If you can stand it.” But nobody threw ^ything. Throwable objects all fastened down in Tom Hayes’ model town hall, we guess. These modern folks are too conservative. (Or is it just as well?) New Twins Sympathy goes out to the new “Seaboard Coastline” in its at tempt to think up a name for it self. Naturally they’d want to hang onto at least a bit of both the old names, but really now. . .! Isn’t this a bit redundant? How about “Surfboard” or even ‘Roller Coaster”? a vitally important job. The many chemicals used in produc ing our foods today have had many beneficial effects in in creasing output per acre and low ering costs. But the multiplica tion of such chemicals and their uses have raised ever more seri ous questions of the impact up on the health of our people of the residues of these chemicals re maining in the food we consume. Of course, nobody Supposes that the farmers of our nation want to poison our people. And of course farmers eat the same food that the rest of us do. But as the White House visit showed, farmers’ or ganizations tend to {jut more em phasis upon the financial inter ests of toeir members and less emphasis upon, the health prob lem than would organizations representing consumers. The PILOT Published Every Thursday by THE PILOT, Incorporated Southern Pines. North Carolina 1941—JAMES .BOYD—1944 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. Katharine Boyd Editor C. Benedict Associate Editor Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr. C. G. Council Advertising Mary Scott Newton Business 41 Bessie Cameron Smith Society Composing Room Dixie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Jas per Swearingen, Thomas Mattocks and James C. Morris.
The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.)
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June 2, 1960, edition 1
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