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Page TWO THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina THURSDAY, AUGUST 9,1962 Southern Pines ILOT North Carolina ‘‘Hurry! Hurry! . . “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. Good News For County Library We are pleased that the county com missioners this week approved Moore County’s participation in the Sandhill Regional Library, along with Richmond and Montgomery Counties. The move, explained in a news story elsewhere in today’s Pilot, makes possible economies of operation and expanded eligibility for state and federal aid funds. The contract entered into ]py the com missioners assures continued supervision of the county library’s operations by a local board, while providing for three persons from Moore to be included on the board of the regional library. For the past several years, annual re ports of the Moore County Library’s operations have shown a steady increase in use. Its bookmoble has become a standard feature of rural living, bringing reading matter to hundreds of homes that would otherwise be without access to a public library. The regional system of libraries has proved its worth elsewhere: it’s not an experimental project for Moore County. A proposal for an agriculture building- library combined structure, to afford much-needed space for the county li brary, now seems even more pressing. The commissioners’ tentative plan for a bond issue seems to be about the only method by which this long-discussed pro ject will ever become a reality. New Hope Dam: ‘Let’s Do Something... ’ When two House sub-corrunittees from Washington held hearings at Pittsboro early this year on Cape Fear River flood control plans, a young Chatham Covmty dairy farmer whose land would disappear beneath the water, if the New Hope “high dam” were built, was a remarkably sensible witness. “Let’s do something,” he was quoted as saying. “Sometimes the waiting is worse than losing your home.” He said he didn’t know which plan for flood control was better—the Army Engi neers’ proposal for the big dam at New Hope or the Soil Conservation Service’s plan for a series of smaller dams on the tributaries of the Cape Fear. But he wanted action—even if it forced him to move. (It must be remembered that all of the landowners displaced by the New Hope dam would be compensat ed—and very likely compensated very well—for their property.) This desire for action, for continuing with the high dam plan that has behind it already years of study and planning and has now been recommended by the ‘The Forgotten Man’ Again Our disappointment in the Senate’s rejection of the Administration’s “Medi care” proposals last month continues to rankle—especially the part that North Carolina’s Senators Ervin and Jordan and other Democrats played in the defeat. The rejection seems especially ignoble on the part of Democrats because the Senators were dealing with the fate of a portion of the population summed up in that still-moving phrase of the F.D.R. era—“The Forgotten Man.” These are the people—for the most part inarticulate, bewildered, fearful and yearning—who have been championed by the Democratic party, to that party’s eternal credit. It is easy for legislators to ignore them, but that is precisely why those legislators who do assume a responsibility for them are acting in the best spirit of American democracy. There is a myth abroad that the nation is rolling in wealth and that nobody is poor any more—and by “poor” we don’t mean destitute and wholly dependent on public or private charity. We mean people who can’t make ends meet no matter how hard they try. There are, in fact, plenty of such people in “affluent” America to day. And a great many of them are in the 65-and-over group for whose benefit A Powerful Voice Speaks Out The Pilot notes with satisfaction that a book by Rachel Carson, named “Silent Spring” and revealing the terrible threat that the indiscriminate use of chemical insecticides poses to all living things, has been chosen by the Book of the Month Club as its October selection, thus assur ing its wide distribution. | Seldom has a volume received such attention months prior to publication.' About half- of the book appeared in June in three long New Yorker magazine articles, arousing, say the magazine’s editors, excep’tional reader interest. Al ready, reports The New York Times in a story starting on the front page of the financial section of a recent Sunday edi tion, the nation’s chemical companies are organizing all-out attacks on the book. Fate seems to have set the stage for , the book’s impressive entry. National in-, terest in drugs and chemicals and their adequate control has been pushed to a new high by the current tragic thalido mide case and other failures of inade quately tested new drugs. The Kennedy administration’s concern with consumers’ rights has made the nation far more alert to the frauds and dangers in things sold to the public’. 'The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, with head- quartCTS in Rome, has called for an in-J ternational conference of experts to study, reports the Associated Press, “whether^ man may be poisoning himself to death’ in his attempt to kill insects.” And others with knowledge are speak- C NEWHOPEi PAM .mjBCT a.: -P.^V Corps of Engineers and approved by the Bureau of the Budget, is almost uni versally expressed by civic and political leaders and by the press in the Cape Fear basin. Congressman Cooley, in whose district the dam site lies, is the outstand ing opponent of the big dam, as depicted in Bill Sanders’s cartoon on this page. While we respect Mr. Cooley’s loyalty to the opposing Chatham County residents and his convictions about the smaller dams, we aren’t convinced that there is enough additional merit in the SCS plan to warrant the additional years of study (plus a doubtful approval at the end of all that effort) which the SCS proposal entails. The need for improvements to provide for flood protection, water-quality control and recreation in the Cape Fear Basin was described by the Army’s district engineer as “immediate and urgent.” We see the New Hope high dam as an essenti al first step in that program—the only step that can be taken without a delay of many years. ’if" T MORE OF us MOST CARE America The Partly Beautiful the Administration’s Medicare plan was conceived, becadsfe thousands on thou sands of them who can eat and pay the rent or taxes face a shattering experience when illness strikes. They cannot pay for the hospital, nursing and other medical care they need. In the world of the American Medical Association leadership opposing Medi care, Americans do not seem to resemble such unfortunate persons. The AMA’s United States seems to be populated by people with plenty of money who are quite able to dash off checks for hospital and nursing care (as well as, of course, to their physicians) and by a few others who are certified welfare cases whose medical bills are paid by charity funds. The doctors’ enthusiasm for private hospital and other medical insurance ap pears to ignore that • a vast number of persons can’t afford to pay the premiums —a matter that insurance companies have not yet been known to overlook. Economic and social justice is presum ably an American goal—certainly it is an avowed guidepost of the Democratic par ty. Congress, most especially the Demo crats in Congress, must approach further government-aid medical care plans with that inspiring thought in mind. ing out. The director of Duke Hospital’s famous Poison Control Center, at Dur ham, notes in a UPI story that “it is well to consider that if insecticides are bad for bugs, they are also bad for humans” and that “annoying summer-time bugs could indirectly result in human death.” William Longgood’s hair-raising book, “The Poisons in Your Food,” revealing the presence of many harmful chemical additives or pesticide residues in almost every type of food available to the public, has just been reissued (it was first published in 1960) in a Grove Press paper back and is getting wide news-stand dis tribution. Against this background. Miss Carson’s book seems assured of an exceptional readership, especially in view of the ac claim given to her two books published in the 1950’s, “The Sea Around Us” and “The Edge of the Sea,” volumes that proved her not only a trained biologist but also an eloquent writer with an almost mystical sense of the beauty, mystery and unity of life. To those of us who for 10 years or more have been warning the public of the hazards of modern chemical insecticides (a case in point is our opposition to the Southern Pines municipal spraying pro gram which we believe to be as dangerous as it is disagreeable) it is tremendously gratifying to know that some one of l^ss Carson’s prestige as both scientist and writer is marching with us. From The Chrislian Science Monitor There are two things to say about the official United States’ effort to stimulate tourists from Europe. One is nice. The other is not, nice. Criticism first. The United States is not a very attractive place for tourists today. Its cities are dirty for the most part. They are littered and un kempt. Hotel expense is often ex orbitant, driven high by the new habits of domestic expense ac count travel. Service is too fre quently surly. Trains the visitor takes and the railroad stations are sometimes impressive. But before long he finds himself in the shabby surroundings and the motheaten schedules of a decay ing and frustrated enterprise. Long sections of roads and highways are an offense to civic decency. They are tourist traps, cluttered with far too many hawkers of all sorts frantically outdoing each other in vulgar ap peal to the dazzled and endanger ed driver. Look hard at the towns these roads lead to; look at them with the eye of a European visitor. How many of them have lost their link to the village green? How many are dreary and don’t know it or don’t care? It sounds harsh to say these Ithings. But Congress has just raised the budget to advertise the pleasures of American travel to Europeans. To Europeans, who come from coiuntries where towns and cities are generally immacu late, where travel is very cheap by comparison even in good ho tels, where service has a person al flair, where flowers and parks and gardens are everywhere, where public services and public transport are in general much better than in the United States. Certainly Europe has its scars and its shortcomings. But this broadbrush comparison istiU stands. Europe cultivates indivi duality and the graces of exter nal life. Americans, in externals, are going through a period when they provide, admitting the ex ceptions and admitting a good trend tward change, standardized hotel rooms, standardized foods, standardized service—a vast im personality about the daily busi ness of traveling which supports the impression that Europeans care and Americans don’t. There are nice things to say, too, far more than there is space for. The American social scene takes the European by stunping sui5>rise. It has, with the usual exceptions, a wondrous sense of equality as between people of all conditions. Its people are now reaching out for culture, the arts, education, civilized v^ues—the whole people and not just the privileged classes. There are magnificent sights, beginning with Manhattan itself and spreading outward to the spacious skies and amber fields of grain, to purple mountain majes ty above the fruited plain. And there is a spirit in America which already is swinging it through this difficult period of transition and will redeem its -congestion in su perficial things. It is the spirit of buoyancy that regards every obstacle and every evil as some thing to be conquered and not submitted to. These are qualities and trends that the European will want to examine. We jiust wish he didn’t have to wade through so miuch that is disorderly and untidy on the surface to get there. It is time for Americans to take pride in their surroundings again. ‘ If enough of them start to care, and to speak up, the rest wiU fol low. So will the Europeans. THE PRESIDENT'S NEW POLICY Revitalizing Foreign Service By ALISTAIR COOKE If the lights are seen to be burning bright in the American embassies around the world it will be because President Ken nedy has spoken. If these mid night sessions are followed by an unnatural blizzard of invitations from the Ambassador to native professors, concert pianists, mem bers of the TUC, Dr. Leavis, or even nuclear pavement sitters, it will be because the Great White Father of the White House has so commanded. (These suggestions are made merely by way of fa miliar examples; Britain is for tunate in having Mr. David Bruce as a dazzling exception to the rule the President is talking about.) At the end of May, President Kennedy gave a talk to 1,000 members of the Foreign Service. His text was marked “secret” at the time but the White House has now released it to he published in the current issue of “The For eign Service Journal.” It is, in the apt phrase of one old-time diplo mat, “quite a text.” Briefly and bluntly, it tells the Ambassadors and their retinues abroad that they are living in the past, that they don’t know their jobs, that they tend to pass the buck to a few over-burdened men in Wash ington, and that they traditionally WE MAKE HISTORY The tragedy of our time is not so much the malice of the wicked as the helpless futility even of the best intentions of “the good.” There are war-makers, war cri minals, indeed. They are present and active on both sides. But all of us, in our very best efforts for peace, find ourselves maneuvered unconsciously into positions where we too can act as war criminals. For there can be no doubt that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, though not fully deliberate crimes, nevertheless crimes. And who was responsible? No one. Or “history.” We cannot go on playing with nuclear fire and shrugging off the results as “his tory.” We are the ones concerned. We are the ones responsible. His tory does not make us, we make it—or end it. —THOMAS MERTON In The Commonweal encapsulate themselves in the es teem of their own social types and form American compounds abroad like snug islands in the alien deep. The President began by bruis ing them where they live: “In stead of becoming merely experts in diplomatic history or in cur rent clippings of the ‘New York Times’,” he said, “now you have to involve yourselves in every element of foreign life— labour, the class struggle, cultural af fairs, and all the rest—attempting to predict in what direction the forces will move. . . (you) must know every important facet of life in the United States, with particular regard to the great re forms of the thirties, the forties and fifties, so as to represent the United States powerfully and with vigour.” Such a paragon, with the pos sible exception of the late Lord Bryce, has never appeared in the Foreign Service of the United States or of any other country. But the President feels there’s no harm trying to scare one up, and the crackle and snap Of his talk will certainly shake a lot of cal cium out of the bones of the old- time American Ambassador, who into the Eisenhower era and be yond was too often a superb corn products or paper-box manufac turer with a Hollywood view of foreign capitals and a rough com mand of only one language: his own. When Mr. Kennedy was Presi dent-Elect he warned the service that the reign of such anthro pophagi was coming to an end and that he would shortly ap point more career men. He also advanced the revolutionary pro posal that modest means should be no bar to a man representing the democracy of the United States abroad. Even the enemies of Franklin Roosevelt used to say that at least he would be blessed for hav ing planted three million trees. The foes of John F. Kennedy may similarly admit that he managed to get the US represented abroad by men who knew two languages, had some acquaintance with the native culture, and dined with beatniks as easily as bankers. Crains of Sand Dog Days Again Dog Days news items from The Pilot’s exchange weeklies: “Siler City police officers are searching. for a white man who appeared in the front yard of Mrs. Jesse Harris in Homewood Acres last Wednesday night, in the nude . . . The man stood by the edge of the carport with a towel held in front of his face, peering over the edge of the towel with one eye. . . The towel was taken from the clothesline in the rear of the Harris yard. . .”—The Chatham News of Siler City (Moral: How not to beat the heat these nights. Comment: At least Mrs. Harris knows what happened to her towel.) “Three men were cut at a church picnic near Cedar Hill north of Ansonville Saturday eve ning, but officers have not yet apprehended the knife wield- er. . .”—^The Anson Record of Wadesboro. (Moral: There’s no fight like a church fight. Comment: Some thing to do with the potato salad, perhaps?) “An oak tree beside Fayette ville Street, at the home Of Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie Wood attracted my attention with its very forked leaves. On a lower branch, the leaves were different, not forked like the others. I hated to go into their yard and stare up at the tree, to be sure it was not an opti cal illusion or my imagination so I asked Mrs. Wood to come out and look with me. We found that not only one but two bottom, limbs opposite each had different leaves from the rest of the tree. Can you figure this one out? It’s too old to say that W. C. Willi ford has been down here graft ing limbs.”—From the Rockfish news column in The News Jour nal of Raeford. (Mora?: Look down, not up, when you’re walking along the street and avoid such distressing problems. Comment: Don’t be too sure W. C. didn’t have a hand in this matter. He’s a mighty powerful grafter. On the other hand, how long has it been since both you and Mrs. Wood had your ej'es examined?) Can't Find Their Way? A release from the Fort Bragg public - information office says that the Carolina Motor Club of Charlotte “has just completed helping thousands of Reservists and National Guardsmen station ed at Fort Bragg find the best roads for driving home.” From the conversations we’re had with soon-to-be-released Re servists, they won’t need any marked maps to head them foX home—nor will they care if the roads they’re on are the worst or the best, as long as the roads lead in the right direction. Has anybody ever heard of a released serviceman, heading home, losing his way? That’s one time, brother, you DON’T get lost! You Never Know Wonder how many folks driv ing along Broad Street have look ed at the rear ends of the parked cars and thought about that old Plymouth, parked in the back yard in Brooklyn with more than two million dollars in the baggage compartment. Should the officer who goes around marking the over-long parkers just take a look inside now and then? Just to make sure? After all: you never know. Company Walked In When unexpected visitors ar rived at the home of a fine stout Scots housewife, she was in quite a tizzy. “Och,” she said, telling about it afterwards: “There was I with ma corsets off an’ ma plimsols on, lookin’ a fair disaster!” 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 Mary Evelyn de Nissoff Society Composing Room Dixie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Thomas Mattocks, J. E. Pate, Sr., Charles Weatherspoon and John E. Lewis. Subscription Rates Moore County One Year $4.00 Outside Moore County One Year $5.00 Second-class Postage paid at Southern Pines, N. C. 1 (» Member National Editorial Assn, and N. C. Press Assn.
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