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Page TWO
THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina
THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 1965
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 ^
an occasion to use our influence for the public good we will try to do it. And we wiU
treat everybody alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941. ^
Off To A Good Start
The Good Neighbor Council named last
week to promote understanding between
the races in Southern Pines got off to a
good start Monday, members reported,
with the naming of an executive com
mittee and sub-committees to consider
problems in job opportunities, public ac
comodations, health, education, recrea
tion and crime.
While the council will no doubt prove
invaluable in helping this community
“peacefully meet the demands of the
time” (as one of its members described
its task) it does not, and cannot, shoulder
the burden of responsibility that devolves,
in this time of Negro unrest, upon church
es, civic clubs, school officials, profess
ional organizations, and most of all
perhaps, on citizens as individuals. This
newspaper should be included on the
list.
James Reston of The New York Times,
who is extraordinarily adept at catching
the tempo and temper of American life
in any time of crisis, calls the Negro’s
drive for first class citizenship the “cen
tral domestic issue of the age.” And he
points out that unless the citizenry of
this nation becomes involved in the ac
companying moral crisis, legislation alone
cannot be successful in assuring pro-
. gress toward the Negroes’ goal or in
preventing further discord and violence.
It is essential, therefore, that residents
of Southern Pines not view the Good
Neighbor Council as the representatives
or substitutes to whom all involvement
and moral decision can be relegated.
The time, of course, is late, late, late.
If the necessity for involvement and
moral decision had been much more wide
ly sensed by white America in the past,
we would not now be talking in terms of
crisis. The proposed sweeping federal
civil rights legislation that can be viewed,
in part, as threatening private property
rights might never have been necessary
if the issue of discrimination against
Negroes in a dozen different connections
had been widely apprehended years ago
as the moral crisis it is. Like a neglected
illness, the Negro’s revolt against racial
discrimination has broken out now with
a virulence that only chronic festering
could have produced.
Millions of white Americans—and we
don’t know by any means that they are
all living in the South—apparently still
have trouble in grasping, intellectually
and emotionally, the perfectly resonable,
essentially simple, routine desires and
demands that are the cause of all the
Negro marching, praying, demonstrating
and the rest. Negroes only want to be
treated like anybody else and have assur
ance of the everyday acceptance accord
ed any sane, ordinary person in the course
of daily living.
The making of this point—the compre
hension of the simple, blessed, noble fact
of plain acceptance within the framework
of law and responsibility that affect idl
Americans—is all that the Negro asks.
Viewed thus—stripped of all custorn,
myth and prejudice—it seems fantastic
that special legislation would be needed
to assure a way of life that, every school
child is taught, is the birthright of us all.
No law, no Good Neighbor Council can
open the windows and let the fresh air
and sunlight of this great truth into the
hearts and minds of the people of South
ern Pines or any other community. We
must all do it for ourselves, some of us
against deeply powerful forces ingrained
over a lifetime of thinking and feeling
differently.
This is the task. As guide, interpreter
and practical negotiator, the Good Neigh
bor Council is the key agency. But all
other organizations and individuals must
do their part.
Well Done, ‘Miss Flora!’
In designating Friday “Flora McDonald
Day’” in Moore County, the county com
missioners called attention to a remark
able career of public service—30 years as
home economics (formerly home demon
stration) agent by Miss Flora McDonald
of Carthage, who will retire July 1.
A gathering of co-workers. Home De-
Unfortunate Bill
It is too bad that the General Assembly,
in the pressure of the closing days of the
session, approved after little or no debate
a measure that would prohibit a “known
communist”—whatever that may be or
however that status might be determined
—from speaking at any state-supported
educational institution.
Our disapproval does not imply that we
would like to fill the lecture halls of
state schools and colleges with com
munists. We simply believe that schools,
colleges and universities should be cen
ters of free expression and that no harm
could come to North Carolina, its institu
tions or any of its citizens if one of the
world’s millions of communists were al
lowed to air his views.
The bill is an insult to the intelligence
and patriotism of educators and students,
with no more real meaning than a law
barring left-handed, red-haired persons
from the halls of learning.
monstration Club members, county of
ficials and friends of “Miss Flora,” to be
held tomorrow night at the courthouse
in Carthage, will, we are sure, be a lively
and interesting occasion. The hospitality,
good cheer and fellowship which have
marked the Agricultural Extension Ser
vice program for women since its begin
ning will no doubt be much in evidence.
One of the remarkable features of this
work that has accomplished wondep over
the past several decades in improving the
quality of rural living in Moore County
is that the women involved have had a
good time doing it. And we credit Miss
McDonald, whose characteristic facial ex
pression is a smile, with setting this tone
for the program many years ago.
There’s not a single aspect of rural
home life that has not been touched and
bettered by the Home Demonstration
program—diet, food preparation, furnish
ings, personal appearance, intellectual in
terests, pride in home or rural communi
ty and many more. Moore County resi
dents with long memories can testify that
not only change but a veritable revolu
tion has taken place in these fields.
The Pilot joins the many, many friends
and admirers of “Miss Flora” in gratitude
for her years of work and her notable
achievements and wishes for her the
best of everything in the years to come.
Too Much ZIP For The Season
We wish the Post Office Department
had sprung this “ZIP Code” business on
us at a more propitious time of year.
If the news had come on a sparkling
October day—maybe on a late Friday
afternoon while packing fishing tackle
for a weekend beach trip—we would have
been better able to cope with the depress
ing knowledge that more numbers had
been thrust into our life.
As it was, ZIP Code swam into our ken
on a hot AND rainy Monday morning
and we were forced to contemplate the
translation of the delightful name, “Sou
thern Pines,” which we pen so proudly
and happily on return addresses, into
“28387.” On top of mulling over the town
and county tax rates, worrying about
what the Internal Revenue computers
are conniving as they mess around with
our Social Security number, wondering
if we’ve made another disastrous $100
error in keeping up the check book
balance and watching the super market
cash register take a big bite out of the
weekly pay envelope, this turning of
Southern Pines into a number by govern
ment fiat, like something the witch did
with her magic wand in a fairy tale, was
almost too much.
still in Southern Pines, whatever the
number might be.
Is this treason? We’re going to try. We
really are. We’re going to ZIP our num
ber in return addresses and ZIP every
body else’s number on outgoing mail.
We just wish the dogwoods were in
bloom—or soipething—to cheer us up
while we do our duty.
Raising High Hop es
A few nights later we woke up in a
distressing pre-dawn hour and realized,
with a thud, that we couldn’t remember
our ZIP number. However, a Seaboard
freight making a terrible racket up the
grade from Aberdeen assured us we were
The new Pope Paul VI has begun his
reign in a manner to assure the admirers
of the late John XXIII that Vatican lead
ership will continue in those fields that
embody the deepest concerns of a yearn
ing and anxious humanity—the search for
peace; individual dignity (especially as
expressed in social justice); and the
Ecumenical Council pointing toward
Christian unity.
Some observers have predicted that
Paul VI will exercise, along with the hu
man warmth of John XXIII, a keenness
of intellect that may be even more in
evidence than was this quality of his
predecessor. Certainly both the qualities
are amply evident in the first utterances
of the new Pope.
The election of Paul VI — superbly
qualified to maintain the moral prestige
of the Vatican in this groping, insecure
mid-20th century—^raises high hopes in
all persons of good will.
Don’t Think He Realized Who He
Was Dealin’ With!”
,1 'I
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RESEARCH IN ANTHROPOLOGY CITED
Race Differences-'-Facts And Myths
In the following letter ad
dressed to Sen. Allen J. El-
lender of Louisiana. Freder
ick Osborn oȣ New York City
—who has had a long associa-
tioi. with the Sandhills—dis
cusses facts and myths of race
differences, as brought out
both in his work as a re
search anthropologist and in
his Army service.
A retired major general, he
attended Princeton Univer
sity with the late James
Boyd of Southern Pines—
novelist, poet and former Pi
lot editor—and has visited
here frequently over the
course of many years.
The letter was made avail
able to The Pilot for publica
tion.
Dear Senator Ellender:
I have been for years a Re
search Associate in Anthropology
at the American Museum of Nat
ural History, with race differ
ences as a particular field of in
terest.
My concern has been with her
editary differences, that is to say,
with differences in the frequency
of genes which are the bask units
of heredity and which make for
different capacities for growth,
including differences in physical,
mental and emotional growth.
As you know, it was thought
by many people until sonie time
after 1900 that blood was the car
rier of heredity, and if two ^o-
ple of different types had chil
dren, the children would be of
mixed blood. Now we know that
heredity is transmitted by some
50,000 genes which are separate
entities, and transmitted sepa
rately, each affecting a different
aspect of development, and most
of them widely distributed among
the different races. As for blood,
the same types of blood are found
in varying frequences in each of
the races; there are Whites with
•‘A” blood, and “B” blood, and
“O” blood, and Negroes with each
type. If you should have a trans
fusion, and are, for instance, type
“A,” type “B” from your White
neighbor would probably kill you,
but you would be quite safe with
a transfusion of “A” blood from
a Negro.
We have made exhaustive
studies on the genetic capacity
for intelligence of Whites and Ne
groes, and we can find no differ
ences in average genetic capaci
ties; intelligence is something that
develops only in an environment,
and relatively slight differences
in tbs environment greatly affect
the development of intelligence.
The difference in the average en
vironment of Negroes in this
country as compared to the ave
rage environment of Whites is
wholly sufficient to account for
the known differences in their
average developed intelligence.
During the last war, I was in
charge of the Information and Ed
ucation Division of the Army and
Air Force. When, in 1943-44, for
tbs first time General Eisenhow
er sent Negroes in as infantry re
placements, to fight alongside
White combat troops, without seg
regation, we interviewed all the
company commanders (White),
both before the colored men
came in, and again after they
had been in combat. Before they
had been in combat, the officers
thought the Negroes would not
fight well and would spoil the
morale of the companies they
were assigned to. After combat,
the officers said the Negroes
had fought well and their spirit
had raised the morale of the
companies they had been in
combat with. This was a tre-
The Public Speaking
Local Residents Willing
To Unite Their Efforts
To the Editor:
People who have chosen South-
•srn Pines for their home are very
fortunate. Southern Pines is not
only a Mid-South resort where
nature provides a temperate cli
mate the year long, it is a resort
where the people also provide a
temperate climate the year long.
Southern Pines provides a kind
of atmosphere that is hard to
equal whether one lives in Cali
fornia, Alabama, New York, or
Europe. Such an atmosphere is
possible because the people are
willing to unite their efforts and
work out a better way of life for
all citizens.
AWAKENING SPARK
Laws just or unjust may gov
ern men’s actions. Tyrannies may
restrain or regulate their words.
The machinery of propaganda
may pack their minds with false
hoods and deny them truth for
many generations of time. But
the soul of man thus held in
trance or frozen in a long night
can be awakened by a spark
coming from God knows where,
and in a moment the whole struc
ture of lies and oppression is on
trial for its life.
I believe that much of the un
derstanding and good will which
exist in Southern Pines is due to
having had over the years The
Pilot to inform the public and to
help influence their thinking.
REV. J. W. PEEK
Southern Pines
-WINSTON CHURCHILL
Bus Speeding On Midland
Road Noted By Motorist
To the Editor:
Daily through every media we
sire being reminded about '‘safe
driving,” speed limit observation,
safety belts, new legislation with
severe penalties for drunken
driving, and fines paid for viola-
Sign of Summer
There haven’t been many signs
of suiter Jately but there was
one big bright one last week.
This was the car of the Misses
Allen of Candor, filled to the
brim with the most gorgeous
glads you ever laid eyes on.
You know sununer’s here when
those girls come to town.
Names
“Crab-grass” is what we caU
that ornery stuff that spreads its
many legs like a crab and comes
pushing up everywhere that it
isn’t wanted. It seems the British
have something that must be a
good deal like it. They call it
“squitch-grass,” or just plain
“squitch.”
Here’s what that fine British
writer and countryman, John
Moore, says about it:
“The word is a corruption of
‘quick’ and it refers not to rapid
growth but to tenacity of life. In
fact, we use it just as the Apostles'
Creed uses it in that phrase which
had a certain strangeness when as
children we had to learn the
Creed by heart. ‘From thence He
shall come to judge both the
quick and the dead.’
“We had to be told that it
meant ‘living’ and later we met
v,rith the same usage in ‘quick-
thorn’ in hedges.
The quickthorn is called so
because it is deathless and inera
dicable. Cut it, plough it, dig it,
let the beasts grEize it down to
the very ‘quick’ yet it will spring
up again as soon as your back
is turned. It once composed the
forest floor of England and if
some plague were to wipe out
all Englishmen it would do so
again, marching out from the
hedges to fill the fields between
them, splitting open the tarmac
roads, butting its way through the
empty houses, toppling over the
decaying furniture within them.
“ ‘Quick’ comes from Old
English ‘cwic’. ‘Wick’ is another
version of it. In parts of England
they’ll say: ‘Wick as a cricket.’ ”
If that isn’t a perfect descrip
tion of crabgrass^—a polite des
cription!
mendous surprise to the Army;
most of the officers had previ
ously thought that Negroes were
not good in combat. This experi
ence was an important factor in
the complete integration of Negro
with White troops which took
place not long after.
It may be possible that in their
present condition in this coun
try and in Africa, Negroes have
less capacity to govern than
Whites. But we Whites, with our
superior education, long experi
ence in government, and train
ing for leadership, are not doing
too well, witness the present
troubles; who can say that given
education, experience and train-
ijig equal to ours, the colored peo
ples will not do as well?
Most people in this country
feel strongly about these matters;
as strongly perhaps as those in
the North felt about the libera
tion of the slaves during the Civil
War. But this time the over
whelming majority is for change
in the status of the colored peo
ples. We can only hope that you
and other leaders of the old
South will see the inevitability of
this change, and not take a futile
and rather inglorious stand try
ing to hold it back, like King
Canute or the late unlamented
Governor Wallace.
FREDERICK OSBORN
Major General,
A. U. S. Retired
tions.
However, it has been my ob
servation for some time that the
speed limit laws set for automo
biles and trucks do not seem to
to apply to common carriers such
as public buses.
Specificially, I have been con
cerned with the excessive speed
employed by the Trailways buses
up and down the Midland Road
between Southern Pines and
Pinehurst for some time.
Big Arguments!
Had a chance to talk to Ralph
Page in Aberdeen a few days
after that Community College
meeting in the Carthage Court
house, a month or so ago. Found
him excited over the idea as he
recalled the days when his father,
Walter Hines Page, was one of
those leading the fight for better
education in North Carolina.
Said Ralph; “Those were the
days for Big Arguments! The
Aycock - Mclver - Dabney - Pa.ge
War against the Confederate
brigadiers and ‘Mummies’ and the
work for the successful develop
ment of the public school system
and the A and M College generat
ed considerable excitement during
my youth.” Ralph chuckled. “Tlie
Aberdeen family were perpetually
upset,” he said with his impish
grin.
And now we’re still working
for education, still having argu
ments, and still—let’s underline
that—planning to succeed.
Wise Words
From Dr. Dallas Herring at the
same Carthage meeting.
“Think about the value of
education and what the lack of
it can lead to . . . the Nazis, in
their highly taught technicians,
had the most perfect war machin
es in the world, but they had no
knowledge of the past, no know
ledge of history. It could have
told them that their methods
never had worked and never
would.”
Muck Is British For Manure
Sir Francis Bacon was a practi
cal man. Like most Englishmen,
he knew about country things as
well as The City and the Bank
of England. He put it neatly on
both counts.
Said he: “Money is like muck;
no good unless it be spread.”
Incidentally Bacon has just had
a grand new book written about
him by Catherine Drinker Bowen.
As you may read in The Pilot’s
book review column today.
THE PILOT
As an example of my concern,
yesterday, Thursday, June 20,
1963, at exactly 4:34 p.m., E.S.T.,
a Trailways pasenger bus pro
ceeding East to West on Midland
Road passed me at such excessive
speed and without warning (ap
proximately 500 yards West of
Radio Station WEEB property)
that, after speeding up myself to
55 miles per hour, I could not
even obtain the bus’s license num
ber. In less than 20 seconds, this
bus was out of my sight and
such performance would indicate
speeds in excess of 70 miles per
hour—IN A 45 M.P.H. ZONE.
This road is rarely patrolled by
the polios in spite of these speed
violations and in spite of the ire-
quency of accidents along this
three-mile stretch.
Published Every Thursday by
THE PILOT. Incorporaled
Southern Pines, North Carolina
1941—JAMES BOYD—1944
Katharine Boyd Editor
C. Benedict Associate Editor ■
Dan S. Ray Gen. Mgr.
C. G. Council Advertising
Bessie C. Smith 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, Clyde
Phipps.
I am sending a copy of this let
ter to the Sheriff’s office.
ROBERT C. FISHER
Box 710, Midland Road
Pinehurst
Subscription R^ttes
Moore County
One Year $4.00
Outside Moore County
One Year $5.00
Second-class Postage paid at
Southern Pines, N. C.
Member National Editorial Assn,
and N. C. Press Assn.