I
Page TWO
THURSDAY, JULY 14, 1960
ILOT
Southern Pines
North Carolina
“In taking over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We will try to keep this a go^
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. '
Action Called for on Precinct Lines
We hope that the county commissioners will
see fit to recommend for action by the General
Assembly the redrawing of township lines,
where necessary to make sense out of the few
places over the county where precinct and
township lines are at variance.
Except where township lines are involved,
as we understand the regulations, the county
board of elections can redraw precinct lines,
to make possible the efficient pperation of the
elections machinery.
The division of Southern Pines precinct into
at least two precincts is much to be desired.
There are many more than the recommended
number of voters in the precinct,- making
voting cumbersome and vote-counting overly
long and difficult. But it would be a mistake
to divide the present large precinct unless
some action is taken to coordinate the precinct
line with the McNeill-Sandhill township line.
These are drawn in such a manner that
many persons in the Southern Pines commu-
ity and even some within the Southern Pines
city limits have to go to Aberdeen to vote in
county, state and national elections. In a poll
conducted by the town council, a large ma
jority of the persons in the affected areas in
dicated they would prefer to vote in Southern
Pines.
After the results of this poll were in, the
Southern Pines council invited Aberdeen
town officials to confer with them on the
matter, but such a conference has not taken
place. Actually, of course, the matter is not
a municipal, but a county affair. So far as
the poll was concerned, the Southern Pines
council merely acted as a coordinating agency
for the purposes of the poll. Neither the local
nor the Aberdeen municipal board is vested
with any authority in the matter—so we see
no reason why the county commissioners
should not proceed to make the necessary rec
ommendations as to re-drawing the McNeill-
Sandhill township line, to be followed with a
coordinated change in the Southern Pines-
Aberdeen precinct line.
The impression is that political leaders in
Aberdeen precinct are loath to lose the South
ern Pines community voters in the precinct,
though we have never understood why this
relatively small number of voters is valued
so highly.
Certainly, it would seem that what the
voters themselves want to do would carry
more weight with the county commissioners
than what Aberdeen precinct politicos want
them to do. And the voters themselves, or at
least a large nun:;ber of them, want to vote in
Southerp Pines.
Dr. Hugh Bennett and the SCS
TT ^^4. 4.u.« +^104- soil <
^he death of Dr. Hugh Bennett, the North
Carolinian who headed the U. S. Soil Conser
vation Service for many years, took place last
week, less than a week after agricultural lead
ers of this area had observed the 25th anniver
sary of the Upper Cape Fear Soil Conserva
tion District which includes Moore, Lee and
Harnett Counties.
Dr. Bennett was one of those men whom
destiny seems to provide at crucial moments
in history. His obituaries said that as a boy
near Wadesboro he had seen valuable topsoil
washing away into the Pee Dee River and the
land exhausted by long years of one-crop cot
ton farming. It was then that he determined
to do something about it.
Looking back, which is easy, we are now
appalled at the rank disregard for natural re
sources which was the fruit of the 19th cen
tury’s exploitation of a continent—and it was
still in the 19th century when the boy near
Wadesboro had his vision of his life’s mission.
But the vision was useless without an attack
on the problem that would be nation-wide and
backed with the vast resources of the federal
government. And that support was not real
ized until the progressive first Roosevelt ad
ministration was formulating its-program of
national development in 1933. It was then
that the greatest soil conservation program
the world has ever known, directed by Dr.
Bennett, was launched.
The fruits of that program are apparent in
almost every county of the nation—in green
fields where once dust blew, in better crops
produced on better-managed land, in healed
gullies, in clearer streams and in an under
standing of and responsibility for the land, on
the part of millions of persons, in and out of
agriculture.
In the 25 years of the Moore-Lee-Harnett
District’s work, we have a close view of the
numerous accomplishments of the Soil Con
servation Service and the farmers who cooper
ated with its technicians either in making
complete “conservation plans” for their farms
or in working with the SCS on such projects
as the hundreds of farm' ponds that dot the
countryside in this area to provide drainage,
conserve water, make irrigation possible and
provide recreation for farm families.
The Pilot welcomes an opportunity to pay
tribute to the dedicated life of Dr. Bennett
and to the SCS supervisors and technicians,
as well as cooperating farmers, who have
brought the benefits of conservation to Moore,
Lee and Harnett Counties in the past quarter-
century.
Keep Minds Open on Prison Reform
J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bu
reau of Investigation, recently sent out a
statement to “all law enforcement officials”
in which he cites “one of the most disturbing
trends I have witnessed in my years of law
enforcement—an overzealous pity for the
criminal and an equivalent disregard for the
victim.”
The Pilot, apparently because it is on an
FBI mailing list for certain releases of general
interest,' received one of the statements, with
out further explanation.
Mr. Hoover sees a “dangerous tendency” in
theories and systems designed to make
“sweeping changes in our established methods
of dealing with the lawless. . . There can be
no law and order,” he writes, “in a society
which excuses crime on the premise that the
perpetrator is ‘sick’.” He scorns an unnamed
prison official’s as.sertion that inmates are not
in prison to be punished but to be treated as
sick men and that all criminals are mentally
ill. Law enforcement, Mr. Hoover concludes,
“must take a strong stand against perverse
pity for criminals and its resulting dangers.”
Mr. Hoover’s point of view is based on the
premise that fear of punishment is the greatest
deterrent to crime—a premise that we would
say is open to question. He also is on danger
ous groimd, we think, when he equates a
recognition of criminal behavior as mental
iilnpss with placing “concern for the criminal
above the welfare of society.”
It should certainly be assumed that persons
proposing treatment of criminals as mentally
ill persons—which after all is not such a
violently revolutionary notion—are not more
concerned with the criminal than with the
welfare of society.
It is precisely because the conventional con
ception of imprisonment as punishment has
failed so miserably to control crime that those
persons most concerned with the welfare of
society are seeking to find more effective
methods of dealing with law-breakers.
What worries us most about Mr. Hoover’s
letter is that—given the prestige he and his
agency command in law enforcement circles—
his rejection of change and experiment in
treatment of criminals will serve to freeze
existing, conventional thought on the subject
among law enforcement people. While officers
ai-e concerned with arresting criminals, and
not so much with what happens to them after
they are sent to prison, it is common sense
that everyone dealing with criminals should
be encouraged to view experiments in hand
ling them with open minds, at least until the
evidence, pro and con over the cou'rse of years,
is in.
There may well be dangers in the trends
that Mr. Hoover cites, but we do not believe
these dangers justify shutting ^,he door on at
tempts to make imprisonment a more enlight
ened and effective technique;
Campbell’s Fund Drive
Friends of Campbell Cyollege at Buies Creek
in Harnett County have organized a Moore
County area fund drive in connection with
the movement to make Campbell a four-year,
senior, accredited college.
In less than a year since the drive to expand
Campbell College tegan, about half of the
$2 million that is the drive’s goal has been
raised. Persons attending a meeting held here
last week were dinpressed with the zeal and
determination mat the project has inspired
in President Lyslie H. Campbell, son of the
founder of th^ college, and others associated
with the undertaking.
While Campbell is sponsored by the Baptist
State Convention, the college has always cor
dially received students of other denomina
tions and sdes itself, now and in the future, as
making possible college education for many
young men- and women who otherwise would
be denied that privilege, especially young peo
ple living, in Eastern North Carolina. Its
notably low fees are evidence of the concep
tion. With the proposed enlargement of the
student tiody and conversion to a four-year in-
stitution,tcampbeil will be greatly extending
the amount and quality of its service.
All friends of education can give their best
wishes to the Campbell project and many will
no doubt want to contribute financially to
help it /through to completion as soon as pos
sible. ,
“IVe Got A Mind To Cut This Umb Right
Out From Under You!”
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N. C. TREADS MIDDLE GROUND
Out of Poverty Came Strength
When WilUam D. Snider,
associate editor of the
Greensboro Daily Ne-wrs.
spoke before the Sandhills
Kiwanis Club recently on the
topic. "A Ten-year Program
for North Carolina," there
was much favorable comment
from club members. The Pilot
has obtained a copy of Mr.
Snider's address and will re
print portions of it over the
next few weeks, starting
herewith:
North Carolina history got its
start in 1584 when two English
explorers named Amadas and
Barlowe in a beautiful work of
fiction described that part of
North Carolina which they saw;
to wit, Roanoke Island, as “the
goodliest land under the cope of
iieaven.” •
, Since then, for almost 400
years, millions of Tar Heels, and
adopted Tar Heels, have risen to
second the motion.
North Carolina is a pleasant
land surrounded by ocean, moun
tains and 49 outlying states—and
I don’t want to hear anybody say
that no state can outlie North
Carolina.
North Carolina was settled by
proud, independent people—most
ly English, Scots, Scotch-Irish and
German. A good many of them in
the beginning fled from the patri
cian states of Virginia and South
Carolina to escape debtors’ prison
or find a new home in this land
locked wilderness. Colonel Byrd
of Virginia said North Carolinians
were lazy and no-count, but most
Tar Heels never took a Byrd’s-
eye view of things from that day
to t!:is.
North Carolina was often called
the “vale of humility betwe.an
two mountains of conceit.” Most
' Tar Heels were notorious for os •
ing too proud to be proud. The
late William T. Polk put it this
•vvay; we indulged in a genteel
hind of poverty which made us
loo proud to hide a patch on bur
britches. We didn’t brag about
our ancestors nearly enough to
suit Charleston or Richmond, and
we had a motto which seemed to
suit our spirit: “Esse Quam
Videri:” To Be Rather Than To
Seem.
We were poor in North Caro
lina in the beginning—oh, we
were poor. They called us “The
Rip Van Winkle State.” We had
no oil wells, no lucrative natural
resources, no heavy industries and
on top of that we were landlock
ed by mountains and ocean. Wal
ter Hines Page once said that
“enough brains . and character
have been wasted in North Caro
lina in the last 100 years to have
managed the civilized globe.”
But even in that sometimes
debilitating poverty lay the spark
of an Aycock, a Mclver or a Gra
ham. There was no shame in our
poverty. Seventy-five years ago
Senator George Pendleton of
Ohio delivered a speech in Char
lotte in which he paid a magnifi
cent tribute to North Carolina of
that day;
“Without great cities or uncul
tivated wastes, without an ev-
cess of riches or degrading pover
ty, she has provided a university
for the education of her sons, and
has always known how to tread
that middle ground of dignity and
of honor and of self-respect with
out which no state is permanently
DUilt.”
The same is true today—al
though much of the poverty has
disappeared. North Carolina still
has no predominant city—despite
blustering claims of Greensboro
and another unmentioned city to
the southwest.
Wise Tar Heels know that
Mecklenburg and Guilford do not
by and large lead in Raleigh. Only
an occasional easy-going Pied
mont legislator, like Guilford’s,
manages to get on the inside of
the ruling hierarchy.
I think some of our poverty and
unpretentiousness—not carried to
an extreme—has been a healthy
thing in North Carolina. Poverty
—if not all-consuming—makes
for character; and much of North
Carolina’s rock-ribbed indepen
dence springs from' an absence,
until fairly recent years, of too
many material blessings. You see
this in the strong faces of moun-
taiti people or men of the Outer
Banks. They are self-contained—
solid as the ihountains or persis
tent as the sea, with a certain
look of eagles about them that
clotlies, fine or shabby, cannot
change.
So, too, has North Carolina
managed to “tread that middle
ground of dignity and of honor
and of self-respect”—which is re
flected in what we do politically.
North Carolina has never tolera
ted the demagogue who marched
up and down the Deep South, col
oring every issue with the sick
ening taint of racism.
North Carolina has kept an
honest and respectable state gov
ernment—usually high above the
caliber of our neighbors. Ask any
man who does business with the
State Government. No sales ex
ecutive needs to indulge in the
old payola or slip through the
back door. '
The State’s Missing Children
(From The Smithfield Herald)
Somewhere in North Carolina
there are 51,933 missing children.
They were lost somewhere be-
tv/een the first grade 12 years
ago and the twelfth grade this
spring. No hue and cry has been
set up for them. No private de
tectives have been called in to
find them. Neither the FBI nor
the SBI has been put on their
trail. No “Child Wanted” posters
with their eager faces have been
tacked up in the local post offices
across the state.
In fact, most of us never knew
they were even missing until Dal
las Herring, chairman of the State
Board of Education, made a spech
recently to celebrate North Caro
lina School Week.
Mr. Herring pointed out that
North Carolina had 45,519 mem
bers of the twelfth grade in its
THE MAGIC HINGE
(The Raleigh News & Observer)
The “magic hinge” is a rare
innovation said to correct faults
in a golfer’s swing. If y'ou hook or
slice, the hinge is broken. It re
mains intact when you go down
the middle. In fact, it is averred
that unless you learn to hii the
ball straight, you may not get off
the first' tee.
Many golfers will give the
same welcoming adoration to the
“magic hinge” that catfish and
collard eaters used to bestow on
possum and coon time. However,
flawlessly played golf is bound to
lose some of its charm.
Andrea del Sarto was. called the
“flawless painter.” But as Brown
ing’s poetic study suggests, per
fection can reach the proportions
of vacuity. Many artists and arti
sans are lapideries who polish and
repolish their work until no life
is left in it.
public schools this year, most of
whom were graduated and will
move on to college or to jobs. But,
added Mr. Herring, when this
year’s twelfth grade students
hopefully started out in the first
grade, they numbered 97,452.
By the process of subtraction
Mr. Herring discovered that 51,-
933 children were missing when
their class graduated. This is a ,
high mortality rate, especially in
a state which needs an educated
citizenry to bring up its low per
capita income, to raise its stan
dard of living, and to lead it to
ward industrial and agricultural
progress.
This year’s “missing children”
may never be found, but realizing
their existence and determining
the cause of their disappearance
from the public schools may help
us to decrease the number of
missing children in future grad
uation classes.
Truly dedicated to the cause of
education, Mr. Herring was not
content merely to note that too
many children were missing. He
also suggested remedies. One is
to study and revise the school
curriculum to make sure that each
pupil is offered the opportunity
he needs so he will not be dis
couraged and drop out of school.
Another is to provide the neces
sary guidance and counseling to
discover the personal problems
that might make certain students
stop their education before it is
completed. A third is to explore
the family background and situa
tion of students about to drop out
of school and persuade parents to
keep their children in school.
Walter Hines Page once said:
“I believe that by the right train
ing of men we add to the wealth
of the world. The' more men we
train, the more wealth everyone
may create.”
How much are those missing
51,933 North Carolina children
worth? To themselves and to their
state and to its future?
Grains of Sand
Birds and Cats
Now’s the time of year, when
fledgling birds are falling out of
nests, learning to fly, bumbling
their awkwlard way around the
ground and low branches of bush- ^
es and trees. And somebody
points out that this means it’s the
time of year when cat owners
can do the birds (and the bird
lovers) a wonderful favor by
keeping the cats from roaming at
large.
Cat owners may well reply to
this plea: “Just try to keep a cat
from roaming!” But it can be
controlled, to a certain extent. At i
night, for instance, the little birds
are usually pretty safely tucked
away, except for the ground nest-
ers. Unless a cat stays out until
the early morning hours, it won’t
do much harm to the birds at
night.
Once a bird gets big enough to
fly properly, we don’t worry too
much about him, in relation to_
cats. Cats and birds have been
playing this dangerous game for
a long time and, for the most part,
the advantage is with the birds.
More birds escape, leaving a cat
lashing its tale in rage and frus
tration, than are caught, we sus
pect.
But when the little birds are
aiound, it’s another story. With
a clever cat, they haven’t a
chance.
Hence this sporting appeal to
cat owners. Pen ’em up for just a
few weeks now and then turn ’em
loose to nlay the game fairly with
giown-up birds.
New World
The air conditioning system in
the courthouse at Carthage has
made a , new world for summer
time frequenters of that establish
ment.
The system, operating for its
first summer, even keeps the big,
high-ceilinged courtroom comfort
able—though an occasional gnat
still drifts in from somewhere: a
hardy breed, Carthage gnats, from
a stock emboldened and nourish
ed by many years of flying free
ly in and out of the courtroom’s
screenless windows. v
Sales of insect repellant must
have dropped in Carthage stores
since the air conditioning. Wonder
if that little bottle of repellent
that used to be kept in the court
clerk’s desk, to be passed auound
among the judge, solicitor, attor
neys and the press, is still there.
Out-of-Date
Amazing the way certain art
icles that seemingly have a
charmed life hang around public
places, probably because every
body thinks it’s somebody else’s
job to remove them or look out
for them.
In the judge’s chambers, just
outside the courtroom in Carth
age, for instance, there has been
a copy of a May 14 Charlotte Ob
server lying on the couch, having
remained there, so far as we can
determine, since its date of publi
cation.
Likewise, on the big desk in
the room, there is a mimeograph
ed copy of thej Superior Court
calendar for the November, 1959,
term. Everybody, including we
supi^ose the janitor, thinks some
body has left it there for some
reason. So it just stays.
Back in Operation
The town’s insect fogging ma
chine went back on the job last
week, after three weeks of not
operating, while undergoing re
pairs.
It is much less violently ex
plosive now than before its over
hauling—a blessing on the ears
but a mixed blessing, in the opin
ion of this spray-hater, because
it sneaks up on you and you can’t
get the windows closed while it
is st^ll way down the street.
We did not find the insects any
worse while the machine was not
operating than when it is being
used—but this is admittedly a
prejudiced opinion.
The PILOT
Published Every Thursday by
THE PILOT. Incorporated
Southern Pines, North Carolina
1941—JAMES BOYD—1944
Katharine Boyd Editor
C. Benedict Associate 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:
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Entered at the Postoffice at South
ern Pines, N. C., as second class
mail matter.
Member National Editorial Assn,
and N. C. Press Assn.