CAPITAL REPORTER ^ * /<«♦(/ ‘ ■ - Raleigh.—Rural schools will be opening in a couple weeks, and the State had made big plans to provide around 1,000 new school buses. Most of them will be ready. But a lot of school kids will ride * to school in old, ramshackelty buses because one firm—Hackney Brothers of Wilson—has not de livered new buses. The most ironical thing about the fight over giving school teachers a chunk of the $13,000, 000 (surplus or cash balance, take your pick) is that nobody in the legislature thought there would be one when they passed that little section known as 20 1/2 of the appropriations bill. That s the little piece of fancy writing that says teachers should get a retroactive pay raise last June 30 “if there was a surplus.” In fact, the only speculation was as to how much of a deficit the State would have at the end of the 1949-50 fiscal year. Now the teachers—particularly the N. C. Education Association— claim there's a $13,000,000 surplus. * Assistant Budget Director Dave Coltrane calls it “cash balance" and says it'll be needed to bal ance the budget for the current •year. In January 1949 the current fiscal year’s estimated income was fixed at $129,000,000. Appro priations for 1950-51 are $142 000 - 000. When the advisory Budget Commission met with the Gov * ernor last week, it stuck to the nearly two-year-old estimated in come of $129,000,000—despite in dication of much more—and a greed unanimously that there was but some $850,000 surplus and that wasn’t enough to pay in multiples of two percent” as the law stated. The six-man budget commission is forty-two anti-administration. if Senators Edwin Pate of Laurin burg and Grady. Rankin of Gas t»nia, and Representatives Frank Taylor of Goldsboro and Garry Moore of Wilson generally are classed as Scott opponents. Ap pointees Harry Caldwell of Greensboro and Alonzo Edwards of Hookerton are pro-Scott. Before the meeting, the Gover i nor said he would stand by the Advisory Budget Commission's | decision. , The decision was unanimous that there was not enough sur plus to pay the teachers. What isn t generally known,' is that Taylor-—always conservative set the pace. He always has been a watchdog on the State’s spend ing He could have waged—and perhaps won—a fight to give the teachers the $6,000,000 they claim they should get now. And it's pos sible that such a move would have caused a deficit by the end of the year, which would have necessitated an across-the-board salary cut for all State employes and, incidently, made Governor Scott rather unpopular—to say the least. But Taylor thought more of the State’s credit than that—and much as he might like to see Scott embarrassed, acted as he did. His action could possibly cost him the speakership of the 1951 House, if the teachers put enough pressure on their own representa tives. And the teachers are hot about it—at least the NCEA itself is ; Mrs. Ethel Perkins Edwards, the I NCEA executive secretary, says NCEA is not planning a court suit. They have asked the gov- ! ernor and Advisory Budget Com mission to reconsider their action, however, and have called on At torney General Harry McMullan for an opinion on the legal aspects of the case. Actually, the whole thing is the governor’s baby. The law says the Advisory Budget Commission is just that. He can overrule the commission any time he sees fit,, although governors usually don’t. Once more, Kerr Scott’s on the hot spot—a situation that, must seem normal to hint by now. The State Highway Commission expects to have 40 percent of the secondary road-buildings program completed by September 30. If that happens, it will mean that six months of work have seen more than 2,000 miles of rural roads paved and another nearly 3,000 rmies stabilized under the $200,000,000 bond program. Anc it will bring the total of second ary roads paved under the Scott Administration to approximatelv 3.500. Even the pigeons on Capital Squaie are suspicious these politi cal days. A car backfired the oth er afternoon and several hundred of the birds took to the airways immediately. They circled the Capitol for several minutes before deciding that they weren't caught in a Scott and anti-Scott cross fire, then settled back to mooch ing peanuts from passerby. * * * % Remember the "road of the 99 fords”? It made the headlines less than a year ago when red-headed, big-hearted Miss Nora Edmonson —teacher in a one-room Watauga County schoolhou.se—waged a one-woman fight for a road building job that would end the isolation of 23 families in that Dan'l Boone country. Miss Nora—who doesn't admit her age but is "74 if she's a day", according to sehoolkids she taught —is a retired Georgia school marm, Last Fall she took over the one-room school in Elk Val ley. There used to be a road through that section. It wasn't much of a road It was possible in good weather if you had a high-wheel ed car that could drive through the 99 fords of Elk Creek. In 1940 Elk Creek went on a rampage, and when the old gal simmered down there just wasn’t any more road. After it was forgotten by the Highway Department until Miss Nora came along. The 23 families in the area were isolated. A trip to nearby Tripp lett was an occasion. You had to CAN’T TAKE IT. Claude Rains, as a weary Alpinist, in “The White Tower," gets sympathy from Valli because he can't make the grade. The RKO Radio thriller filmed on Mont ttlanc in color by Techni color, presents Glenn Ford and Oscar tlomolka as the co-stars, with Ted Tetzlaff as director. have an old gray mare or mighty ! good knee action to get anywhere.: The kids had towalk to school some of them as much as six or seven miles. They had to cross over wobbly foot-log bridges But they came, and Miss Nora taught them. Last October 27, Miss Nora wrote a letter She asked Kerr Scott if he didn’t think there should be a road to every school Scott did, and lie began to write some letters. Eighth Division Highway Commissioner Mark Go forth o! Lenoir put on his walk ing boots and made a personal inspection His answer to the gov ernor was that “conditions are much worse" than Miss Nora had said. By December 2, work on the road of the 91) fords had been started. It now is almost finished, and will be completed by the time school opens But Miss Nora who at 70-odd was young and spry enough to hop across rickety foot-logs won’t be teaching her 22 young sters this fall. They say—now I that she's “too old." i It seems the Lower Elk School is being absorbed in another one Inf those consolidations The kids will be picked up by school buses and driven over the new road j without the 99 fords to sniney new brick buildings a far yry from their one-room shack df last I year. I Reports reaching here indicate that Miss Nora stepped on quite !a few toes when she forgot red | tape and went to the governor i with her road problem. Technically, she wasn't fired She just wasn’t re-hired for the coming year It seems the folks I that get things done invite a kick in the pants from the stand-pat ’ tors. But up in Elk Creek valley where the new road of 99 lords has ended a 10-year isolation the mention of Miss Nora's name will tiring big smiles for many years to come And she must have a wonder ful feeling of satisfaction, despile the raw deal she was handed. Put this down as something to remember come January 1 and legislature 'Governor Scott will ask the General Assembly to do some thing about two things stream pollution and highway safety Outside of that he'll tell the lawmakers to do anything they want to, but be sure they find the money for it Stream polution will be the mher one project for Kerr Scott Cleaning up the streams will help bring in new industries, v Inch must have clean water; it w 1 aid the dairy industry, be c. s e 1 le cannot i sc polluted s >am. t. r drink.n : purposes un • i our Grade A milk regidatiuns; ; ad it will help preserve fish and g mu', both of which arc killed 1 v the polluted water On the highway safety side, the gt venor may recommend a sim phfieri motor vehicle inspection la.w. The hopped up death toll ,i our roads shows a need for lefinite action In addition, he tv.ay request an expanded high way safety education program. And you definitely can count Mi a Scott request for at least 100 more highway patrolmen. More patrolmen arc needed on the primary highways, and the gover mr would like to see patrolmen m the secondary roads not now patrrilled at all Nobody's hoarding these days, they're just buying up stuff to "keep the hoarders from getting it.” A quick check around Raleigh brought tins picture: Restaurant operators being told by their state organization to "raise prices or go broke." Their food costs arc jumping- up If) to 20 percent in the last month and a half. One said he wished ol’A would come back. "If they don’t do that, or stop the whole sale price boosting. III have.to go out of business " This same man said the better rosturunts are keeping the amr quality food hut are raising prices If the prices on the menu arc the same as they were a couple of months ago. he said, you can lie sure that quality of the food has suffered. Office supplies—One salesman said folks are buy inn "enough stuff to run them for a couple of years." Outfits usually giving a $25 order now are buying in the hundreds of dollars class. Groceries From all over the State it's the same story, folks are loading up on sugar, canned goods, processed meats. One clerk here said folks who never bought out of this store more than two to five pounds of sugar a week now are staggering out of his store with 50 or more pounds of the sweet stuff. "Makes you ashamed of bein' a human," he said. Florists supplies Wholesalers are being swamped One Pied mont North Carolina florist -us ually a few-dollar-ut-a-time buyer -recently sent in tin order that included S250 worth of ribbon. Incidentally, the cost of ribbon is going up. It's made in North Carolina, sent to New York and given a new name, then sent back at twice the cost. And that's another thing We talk about "living at home", yap about bringing new industry to North Carolina and the South. And our manufacturers are cur petbagging us to death. It looks a little crazy to mb you have to buy something made in North Carolina out of New York. In addition to the middleman profit you have to pay, you're nicked for the freight there and back North Carolina and the South will never gel out of their eco nomic hole until manufacturers build up their own sales and dis tribution systems. We’ve got to stop handing out southern cash to Yankee middlemen especially when those dollars could so easi ly be kept at home. Well known fact: Governor Scott says more telephones is one of the greatest needs of rural North Carolina. He said it again at the recent Farm and Home Week at N, C. State College l.dtle known fact: Forty-two scars ago the president of Farm and Home Week made the same almost identical statement. That man was R W Scott, the gover nor's father. It sounds unbelievable, but I'm told that there are less telephones i in rural North Carolina today than there were 42 years ago The motor vehicle registration mark in North Carolina for the first half of 1950 reached 1,036.811, says the North Carolina Depart ment of Motor Vehicles. NOTICE OF SAI F Under and by virtue of the power of sale contained in a cer tain Deed of Trust executed to the undersigned Trustee by It L Fate and wife, Dulah Pate, to Wheeler Martin, Trustee, dated January 24. 1947, of record in the Register of Deeds Office in Martin Countv in Book 0-4, page 122. to secure a < ertain note of even date therewith and the stipulations in said Deed of Trust not having been complied with and at the re quest of the said holder of the note, the undersigned Trustee, will on the 25th day of Septem i her, 1950. at 12 o’clock noon, in front of the Courthouse Door in Martin Countv. offer for sale to the highest bidder for cash, the following described land: A lot or tract of land on the South side of Main* Street in the Town of Williamston, N C, ad joining the lands of L P Martin and beginning at a point .'10 feet from tlie center of the pavement ot Highway No 94, or Main Street, it being a point (it) feet from Fred Chessons Northeast corner, thence along Main Street or Highway No. 64, 60 feet to a stake: thence South 90 deg 15 min Fast 180 feet to ;f stake; thence South 59 deg. 45 min. West 60 feet; thence North 30 deg. 15 min. West 180 feet to the point of beginning on Main Street, or 1 lighway No 04, Dated, this the 8th dav of Aug ust, 1950 WHEELER MARTIN. T rustee au 24-31 se 7-14 Visit Ileili" anil Meyers Williatmtnn for thr uBpsI Buys In Furniture" TlobXcdsuL' TRUCKS b^\ Best for stopping... Smooth, sure stops are yours with a Dodge "Job Hated" truck . . . thanks to extra-large braking area. The driver has full control of brake action, because of “equal pressure” design of service brakes. These famous hydraulic brakes are easy to adjust, too. POWER: • • . t great truck en ■incs-cach “Job-Rated" lor PLUS power. ECONOMY: . . . priced with the lowest. "Job-Rated" for de pendability and long life. BIGGER PAYLOADS: . . . carry more without overloading axles or springs because of "Job Haled" WEIGHT DISTRIBU TION. EASIER HANDLING: ... sharp NOW! cyrol FLUID DRIVE! Available on all 1 3j- anil 1 ton models. Reduces wear, lowers upkeep costs. 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