Page TWO
THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1963
ILOT
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 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. ,
Judge Preyer: Man Of Stature
The Pilot is delighted that Judge L.
Richardson Preyer of Greensboro has an
nounced his candidacy for the Democratic
gubernatorial nomination next year.
Within hours of the annoucement, here
in Southern Pines, we heard both a man
who voted for Sanford and a man who
voted for Lake, in 1960, commend Prey-
er’s move.
Charlie Jonas in reverse.”
If this is a forecast of the breadth and
power of the Greensboro candidate’s ap
peal, the Democrats will be grooming a
champion in the months to come.
Informed opinion in the judge’s native
Guilford County reports that his appeal
there is cutting across party lines in that
stronghold of supposedly burgeoning Tar
Heel Republicanism.
Said the politically precient Greensboro
Daily News (before the candidacy was
definite): “. . . Tar Heel Republicans are
vastly disturbed by the possibile Preyer
candidacy. He is stratetically located and
personally attractive enough to pull a
There is no question that Judge Preyer
is in the race because of his devotion to
North Carolina and all that is best in her
heritage. No stronger evidence of this
could be cited than that he is giving up
a $25,000-per-year, lifetime Federal judge-
ship to make the race—a judgeship in
which he has acquitted himself with dis
tinction, receiving acclaim that would
deter many a man from casting so not
able a post away.
In Judge Preyer, the Democrats have a
candidate whose essence can be summed
up in one word—stature—a quality that
is the very essence of what the party’s
standard-bearer must have for the ’64
campaign and for the succeeding four
years in Raleigh, if elected.
Stature, to our mind, implies integrity
and ability and steadfastness, built
through a lifetime of exercising respon
sibility. From all that we can learn of
Judge Preyer, the word fits the man like
a glove.
Contrast With A Warning
It requires a considerable effort of the
imagination for a North Carolinian to put
himself in the frustrated position of a
resident of one of the Alabama cities
where state troopers, at the command of
the state's governor, have been turning
children way from the schools.
It seems incredible that such a situation
could develop anywhere—and we hope
that it keeps on seeming incredible in
North Carolina.
Governor Sanford spoke in the prevail
ing spirit of this state when he made the
forceful assertion culminating in the
words: “We are against closing schools
by anybody for any reason.”
What a contrast this is with Alabama
where schools have been ringed by troop
ers sent there at the whim of a governor
who is apparently going through the
compulsive motions of a personal drama
he has written for himself and is deter
mined to act out to the bitter end, come
what may!
As Tar Heels breathe a sigh of relief
that there is little likelihood of such af
fliction in this state, there is implicit in
this situation this warning: If Governor
Wallace and Alabama’s closed schools
are what happens to a state that elects
a segregationist to its top office. North
Carolina voters must be very careful
whom they seat at the governor’s desk
in Raleigh.
And So We All Get Blown Up
Senator Goldwater’s proposed formal
“reservation” to the nuclear test ban
treaty^that its effective date be made
conditional on the withdrawal from Cuba
of' Soviet nuclear weapons, missiles and
military personnel — is one of those
exasperatingly appealing and plausible
propositions that won’t stand up under
investigation.
It is a typical Goldwaterian off-beat,
negative maneuver. It would certainly
be rejected by the Senate—a rebuff to
“Americanism” on which the senator can
expatiate from now to eternity.
But just what would happen if the
Goldwater proposal were offically em
braced?
Sen. Mike Mansfield, Democratic ma
jority leader, called the tune:
and the Russians will then ask that
the U. S. withdraw from Greece or
Turkey or Berlin or somewhere else.
And Egypt will ask for an Israeli
withdrawal from Palestine a'nd Israel
will ask for a comparable Egyptian
withdrawal, and Pakistan and India
will ask for a mutual withdrawal
from Kashmir.
“In the end, about one-half the
world will ask reservations of one
kind or another to the effect that the
other half withdraw from the earth.
And since the feeling will be mutual,
we will be back where we started
from—with each half urging the dis
appearance of the other, even though
a nuclear disaster will provide for the
extinction of both.”
“We will ask for a reservation that
the Russians withdraw from Cuba
And so we all get blown up. How crazy
can you get?
Those Deadly One-Car Wrecks
A startling September Harper’s maga
zine article, “The Case for Fast Drivers,”
now arousing controversial national com
ment, makes contradictory reading in this
area.
Four Moore County men have been
killed, in the past two weeks, in three
one-car traffic accidents showjing evi
dence of excessive speed, according to
investigating state troopers. 'Three of the
four were in their twenties (one was 40)
and three were the fathers of one to three
children each.
The Harper’s article challenges the
general conviction that speed is a major
cause of highway accidents, maintaining
that over 85 per cent of U. S. highway
accidents are caused by other factors.
The author draws his examples primari
ly from turnpike-type driving in which
it may well be true that sustained high
speed is-much safer than a shifting cur
rent of fast and slow vehicles and where
what he calls “deadly simple slip-ups”
in drivers’ judgment are the true cause
of most accidents, rather than the speed
of the vehicles involved.
A Good Resolution
This reasoning hardly takes into con
sideration a type of accident that seems
to predominate in this area—a type
illustrated by all three of the wrecks that
killed the four Moore County men re
cently. This is the one-car smashup, often
happening with a driver alone in the
vehicle.
Officers’ reports on these accidents
frequently add up to a nightmare of
spectacular driving folly, with speed
■THE central cause of the tragic ending.
(Behind the speed itself, of course,, may
lie such factors as alcohol, emotional in
stability, or sheer youthful exuberance;
but such factors are often nebulous or
inconclusive. The plain fact is that, from
whatever underlying influence, speed it
self did the killing).
The Public Speaking
Questions Asked About
College, School Plans
Many such accidents occur on second
ary roads, winding and narrow, where
the road itself is ample warning of danger
and is actually a built-in control of speed
ing, except for drivers that seem, some
times, almost determined to destroy
themselves. When such drivers do die in
accidents, it is as absurb to say that speed
didn’t kill them as to maintain that not
a gun, but the way the trigger was pulled,
kills a man when he puts it to his head
and shoots.
To the Editor:
Information and discussion con
cerning two recent actions by the
county authorities, both of vital
significance, have for some rea
son, not received the publicity
they deserve.
First, all taxpayers would be
interested in knowing if the an
ticipated leceipts of county taxes
based upon the recent revalua
tion, will equal or perchance ex
ceed those collected in the imme
diately preceeding years, and if
so, how much?
In the absence of any informa
tion whatsoever about this, some
of us are, and I believe justly so,
isuspicious that the confusion at
tendant upon the revaluation and
the readjustment of the tax rate
has served to screen a substantial
county-wide tax increase. At
least in the two special-tax school
districts, though the rate was re
duced, the total take was in
creased, with only the statement
that “we need the money.”
Who doesn’t?
The second proposal to build a
“Community College” has been
m.sre!y that and nothing more.
What are the purposes and
aims of this college? What will it
teach? What calibre the faculty?
Under whose supervision will
it be operated? What will be the
source of funds for its operation?
Will the students be charged
tuition? Will they be transported
to and from their homes? Assum
ing that some will come from
outside the county, will these
counties contribute to the build
ing of the plant? Will a mere mil
lion dollars be sufficient to com
plete this plant? If not , who will
supply the deficiency? Has a sur
vey (not merely a count of heads)
be.cn made of the actual need and
demand for such an institution?
How many students in its area
who want and are qualified to re
ceive a college education, have
been unabie to attend existing
colleges, and why? Will it be
operated upon an integrated ba
sis? This is not a biased ques
tion. Like it or not, its answer
will determine the complexion
of the entire student body.
Concerning the consolidation of
the high schools, I believe the
statement has been made that the
projected four million dollar
bond issues can be financed
without an increase in taxes.
What legerdemain is this? Does
this mean we may borrow four
million dollars; pay say sixty
thousand interest plus two hun
dred thousand on the principal
annually for say twenty years,
and still not raise the tax rate?
If this is correct, then the answer
to my first question will send
shivers down the spine of many
a family no better off than mine.
For many years past, this coun
ty has financed its schools on a
pay-as-you-go basis. The accom
plishments during that period are
surely needless of apology. Will
the substitution of this crash pro
gram guarantee better teachers,
more practical and better taught
curricula, and graduates who can
read, write and figure better
than the current production? Or
will these plants be merely an
other group of buildings to which
one may point with either pride
or derision, depending upon his
appreciation of beautiful archi
tecture—whited sepulchers; mon
uments of folly? Verily as a
noted educator once said, “a col
lege is a log with a student on
one end and Mark Hopkins on
the other.”
and national indebtedness—all
merely in order that we may
have today what we may perhaps
pay for in the sweet bye and
bye, and the devil take the hind
most.
Could not little Moore at least,
distinguish itself, not for its prodi
gality, extravagance and ill-ad
vised spending, but for a sensible,
safe, sane and conservative policy
of continuing to live within its
current means?
Or is that too much to hope
for?
These arguments might be ex
tended indefinitely but to con
clude and make them short, the
county commissioners, the board
of education and particularly the
newspapers of the county have a
duty and an obligation to the
public, to present, even at this
late date, these matters in full
and unbiased detail so that the
electorate may have an oppor
tunity to consider and discuss
them before being asked to vote
upon themselves this additional
and not insignificant burden.
To date, I maintain, this has
not been done.
R. E. WICKER
Pinehurst
But, if these plants must never
theless be built, can this not be
done better by applying the two
hundred and sixty thousand dol
lars annually, directly to their
construction? Surely with that
sum available, one plant can be
built each year, and when that
is done, the people could then, not
twenty years later, demand an
immediate reduction in their
taxes.
It is sometimes said that Moore
County and North Carolina en
joy an excellent fiscal position.
As entities, this may be correct.
Nevertheless, combined as we are
into a federal government, we
ar.3 rapidly, and at an increasing
rate, approaching national bank
ruptcy. Yet there is no halt—
nay there is a vast and continu
ing increase in city, county, state
LOVE AND CONCERN RECOGNIZED
(Editor's Note; The Pilot
has relaxed its usual length
regulation for letters, in or
der to permit publication of
the above letter in full, be
cause of itsi pressing public
interest. A number of Mr.
Wicker's questions, particu
larly as to the Community
College, have been answered
in various reportsi appearing
in the county's papers over
the past few months, but we
agree that full answers to all
Mr. Wicker's queries are in
order at this time and The
Pilot will print answers, to
the extent that they can be
obtained, in a special feature
on this page next week. We
have been informed that the
county board cv( education is
planning a public informa
tion program on both college
and school proposals, in ad
vance of the $4 million bond
elections to be held October
29.)
John XXni: FriendAndBrother
Opposition To Test
Ban Treaty Advocated
(Reprinted from
"Christianity and Crisis")
How can we account for the ex
traordinary impact that Pope
John XXHI made on the entire
world during his relatively brief
pontificate? Historians will not
record many tangible “accom
plishments” during his reign,
save for the convoking of the
Second Vatican Council and a
number of encyclicals, notably
Mater et Magister ano Pacem in
Terris. These, to be sure, ar.s im
portant and lasting contributions
to Roman Catholic Christendom,
but they are not enough to ex
plain the loss that all men feel in
Pope John’s death.
A New Tone
By Catholics h.3 will be re
membered both for injecting a
pastoral quality into his pontifi
cate and for his efforts to bring
the Church “up to date.” Non-
Catholics will remember him as
the Pope who set a new tone in
the non-Catholic world.
Like many residents of this community,
we have been distressed and saddened by
the recent drowing of a child in drainage
water that had collected in the municipal
swimming pool under construction in
West Southern Pines—an accident that
took place when there were no workmen
at the site. A photograph taken soon
after the drowning showed no barriers,
warning signs or other devices installed
there for the protection of the public.
We are gratified, therefore, that the
town council, in a resolution adopted this
week, directed the town manager to make
certain that all future contracts for
municipal construction contain an assur
ance of proper warnings and safeguards
at the work sites.
Where children are involved, it is, as
was pointed out in one comment at the
council meeting, practically impossible
to afford them absolute protection:
“They’d climb a 12-foot fence if you put
one up around the work.”
But the council’s resolution will tend
to make everybody—the public, officials,
police and the contractors themselves—
more conscious of hazards around con
struction work, in an effort to prevent a
repetition of the recent tragic occurrence.
He was supposed to be a “caretak
er pope,” an interim appointee un
til th e Church could decide on a
course for the long future. “Care
taker pope indeed!” one of his ad
mirers recently remarked. “He’s
taken more care of the Church in
four years than anyone else has
in four centuries.” The care he
took was to thrust the Roman
Church into confrontation with
the non-Catholic world, and more
particularly non-Catholic Chris
tendom. And the love and con
cern with which he did this is
what endear his life and memory
to those not in communion with
the Holy See.
Pope John did not initiate the
ecumenical concern within Cath
olicism that is now so wide
spread, but he gave his blessing to
the forces already at work.
Through the creation of the Sec
retariat for Christian Unity he
placed them centrally within the
structure of the Church’s life—
a factor more important than
most non-Catholics may realize.
olic Christians but also in his final
encyclical, Pacem in Terris,
which iJi a precedent-establishing
move was addressed to all men of
good will, not only to those of his
fold. That so much has happened
in such a short time to improve
the climate of understanding is
something for which we must
give major credit to Pope John,
though to be totally accurate we
would have to assign the reason
for this, as he would have done,
to the Holy Spirit.
Renewal
He beckoned the Catholic
Church to move out toward the
separated brethren as far as she
could in fidelity to her own con
victions and to engage in that re
newal which is always the
Church’s task, though Christen
dom is loath to engage in it. . .
In Pope John XXHI we have
heard the voice of the Good
Shepherd, solicitous for those out
side as well as insid.3 the sheep-
fold. Roman Catholics have lost
a Pope; we have lost a friend and
brother. —R.M.B.
THE PILOT'S EDITOR DISCOVERS:
Echoes Of Scotland In Maine
To All Men
It was Pope John also who gave
wide currency to the occasionally
used phrase “separated brother
en.” For him the noun rather than
the adjective was basic. He gave
evidence of this not only in his
personal relations with non-Cath-
RESPONSE
In times like the present, men
should utter nothing for which
they would not willingly be re
sponsible through time and eter
nity.
— ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The liberty - loving people of
the United States must ask their
Senators to vote against ratifica
tion of the nuclear test ban treaty.
PAT VAN CAMP
Southern Pines
Skunk Crisis ^
“Well, we had our first real
skunk crisis yesterday,” writes
The Pilot’s editor from Maine.
“It will be some time before we
forget it; for more reasons than
one.
“This place is alive with all
manner of varmints: skunks,
coons, porcupines, noisy red
squirrels above and skittering
chipmunks below. The last time
our Dog Tuffet was here, two
years ago, she tangled badly with
a porky, emerging witli a bunch
of quills in her poor nose and
chest. It took a wild ride to the
vet some fifteen miles away, and
an anesthetic to get them out.
This time: no quills but it was
the onlookers at the skunk drama
who needed the anesthetic.
“It started with a great hulla
baloo up at the cook-house:
shouts, yells, tuffet roaring like
a lion. Everybody ran.
“Luckily, and contrary to their
usual tactics, the skunk didn’t
stand his ground, but made a run
for it through the high grass and
dove under the boardwalk lead
ing into the kitchen door.
“As the skunk dove under and
then turned to fire, Tuffet jump
ed up on the walk. So there was
the skunk letting fly with all he
possessed and there was Tuffet
raging up and down over his
head. Ther seemed no way of
terminating the marathon. Mirac
ulously she was out of his range
of fire, but nobody could go near
her. Eventually, Tuffet’s roars
grew fainter, in company with
the desperate onlookers, or per
haps the skunk ran out of ammu
nition. Anyway, she suddenly
heeded the yells of her People
and took off for home. . .
“Sh.9 was stopped and
thoroughly examined, as you can
imagine, before she was let into
the house. Thanks to the board
walk she had come through com
pletely unskunked.
“But for some time we shall be
entering the cook-house from tba
other side.”
To the Editor:
Is there some deficiency in the
thinking processes of the Ameri
can left-winger that renders him
or her incapable of understand
ing the true nature of the Com
munist Conspiracy? Or does it
just seem that way because the
goals of the so-called Liberals
and the Communists are practical
ly identical?
If someone had the time to go
through the back issues of The
Pilot, how many editorials would
they find that made Communism
look like our enemy? How many
cartoons would be found poking
fun at the pretensions of the lead
ers of this world-wide threat to
our hard-won freedoms or show
ing Khrushchev as the incredibly
depraved butcher he is, no mat
ter how many times W. Averiil
Harriman embraces him?
Bright Spots
For newspaper readers and TV
viewers who like to find little
gems of incongruity or absurdity
beneath the surface of the raging
news, the past week has been re
warding.
There was, in one of the state
papers, a' reprinted article about
Governor Wallace of Alabama,
written by a newspaper editor
friend. And guess what? It said
the governor is so sensitive, so
sympathetic that he can’t stand
to shoot birds or deer and can
only just bring himself to eat a
steak.
The article didn’t mention
what happens to the governor’s
sympathy and sensitivity when it
comes to human beings of darker
skin who ask no more than to be
treated like anybody else.
Also this:
Senator Goldwater pushed
back the frontiers of liberalism
about a hundred years in a TV
interview Tuesday.
Readers may recall that the
senator, a few months ago, call
ed Lincoln Steffens, the “muck-
raker” of the early 1900’s, one
of the few recent liberals he
could name, implying that there
hasn’t been much in that line
since Steffens and Teddy Roose
velt.
In the TV interview, the sena
tor revised this opinion. He re
ferred to Thomas Jefferson as
“maybe the last of the liberals
Today Frenchman’s Bay, here in Maine, has looked like
a Japanese print. The mountains stood out deep grey, almost
black at times, against a steely sky; the Bay itself was a sheet
of burnished steel. Towards sunset a little breeze crept over
the water, ruffling its surface here and there, in darker strokes
of the brush. A gleaming “slick” spread its arrow-shaped
pattern with the point straight at the ledge where the gulls
roost. Every now and then a gull or a wide-winged black
cormorant would fly in, following the line of the slick, close
above the water. Even when the sun was dropping low behind
the overcast, there was little color, but a only strange invisible
brightness in the air. Now, a bit later, a few of the smallest
low clouds have caught the summer light and, to the south,
way across the water, the sky behind the black mountains has
turned coral pink.
Who next, as Goldwater moves
back through history?
Oliver Cromwell, perhaps?
Kids Go, Too
GRAINS likes the way mem
bers of the N. C. Horseless Car
nage Club (see story elsewhere)
take their children along on their
tours and conventions. Numerous
children were with the group
convening here over the weekend,
the youngest, who attended ban
quet, sight-seeing excursion and
all events, only three months old.
THE PILOT
Published Every Thursday by
THE PILOT, Incorporated
Southern Pines, North Carolina
We were talking to a Scot from Edinburgh, the other
day. A most interesting man, he is financial adviser to the
British delegation to the United Nations. He remarked on how
much this Frenchman’s Bay, into which Sorrento Point stretch
es, reminded him of Scotland.
“This bay is so like some of the sea-lochs that lie along the
west coast of Scotland,” he said; “the same colorings, the rocks,
the cold, icy sea, and the way the hills of Mt. Dessert rise
right up out of the water.”
1941—JAMES BOYD—1944
There must be many among the local people around these
parts who are of Scottish ancestry, though right around Sor
rento the names are mostly English. But we recalled the thrill
we got once, over in Scotland, on that same west coast, to
hear a fisherman speak of the cormorants as “shag,” the same
name as is used around here.
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.
Then there’s the word “gorm,” used in both localities to
describe an awkward, fumbling person. A Maine fisherman
sailing with us one day shook his head over a friend of ours
when he grabbed the jib sheet instead of the main.
“Ain’t he a gorm in a boat, though!” he exclaimed.
—KLB
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