Newspapers / Brevard News (Brevard, N.C.) / April 8, 1921, edition 1 / Page 2
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FMDAY, APRIL 81k, 1921. THE BflEVARD NEWS, BK£VARD, N. C Lucky Strike cigarette t toasid c. Jri^*jL.n/%ca^C^7haee^^^ B. DEAVER ANSWERS ARTI CLE IN THE CHRISTIAN HERALD. Following is An Answer to an Article Written About the Southern Mountaineers, Appearing in the Christian Herald. simple title to the home where he found her. and is not too poor to buy a mail box. The whole article of this Mr. Price is a belabored effort to ridicule, criti- cicc and hold up to public contempt and scorn, a noble and pure blooded people, and puts into her mouth ex pressions that a Mountaineer never used, and attributes to her character- Lrtics that a Mountaineer never ac> tulred. About this “Queen”, whom ! 0 has so designated in a spirit of ir onical indifference, he weaves a story ?f abject poverty, ifrnorance and stu- ■^idity, and cries out to the world, be- liold I have found tho real represont3- ivo of tae Mountaineer! He has nnde a wonderful discovery and V.ould report iir.mcdiately either to the Smithsonian Institute or the Bur eau of History. Gibbon and Ridpath have nothing on the versatile doctor ’ rice, and I really expect him to an- "Qunce very soon +he authoritative 'covery of the missing link between the man and the monkey. What’s to hinder his inquisitive mind from thus functioning? Now it may be possible that the wise doctor in his :>xtonsive travelling may have fallen among the “huckle berry” pickers of New York state. I do not know. But I do know that he knows about as much about the language and cus toms of the Mountain Folk, as a bull frog would know about the music of The Author Will Also Send It To The Christian Herald Foi* Pub lication: I have just read a part of an article on the Mountaineer folk of the Sou thern Hiffhliinda — cspccially those in the Brevard, North Carolina sec- Mountaineer who had been ''out to see the World”, and came back hotne and proceeded at once to cut some openings in his windowless house so that he might enjoy the proper ventil ation. However, as soon as the young man had gone, we are informed by the doctor, that his family immed iately boarded up'the window open ings witl^ the remark, “What’s the use -of having these holes to let in the wind”. His character is purely a creation of the imagination, and never had any more existence in the Mountain country than did Eurydice have in Hell. Neither did any Moun taineer ever use the expression quot ed above. They would never use the word “of” as Mr. Price has used it. In fact they would not employ the phrase at all. Furthermore, there is not a mountain home in all thir country without windows or window openings; all of them are not fitted with glass sash, some are provided with “shutters”, but they all have win dows nevertheless. I am a mountain eer myself and have never had any occasion to be ashamed of it. I have been iA their homes — hundreds of them — and have never seen any such “cabin” as this writer describes. But to proceed a little further; this eminent doctor informs us that the mountain folk rarely build permanent homes, and he quoted one as saying: When I move all I hatter do is to Spheres. For instance he says that \ and put out the fire.’ nothwithstanding her pitiful ignor ance of trains, au'o:nobiIes, pianos, cLc., “Ma” McGn}:?. inimediai ?ly re cognized the function cf a camera and at onec wanted her “like ness took”. Now “Ma” McGaha never said “liiieness” nt all. I uoubt j \oyi all ho would have said all if s-ho said anything', but if .^hu' did | KTTwnroT.1 T3 • n. r. 1 picture . Porl'aps tne cx-j the truth is, he never used the expres tion — writtan by Wiluard Pricc, and \ ijrcs.sion is just a published in your periOLlical. The i cones of what the per-n-bu:a.;n^- Mr whole article, in so far as it attempts pj.;ce heard from some stre-t urchin-^ to portray the typical Mountaineer is of London. You see there ig no wav This is another expression born of the doctor’s excited imagination. No mountaineer ever used the word “hatter” as used in the above sen tence. It is not his language. If he had attempted to use the express- I “jrot-cr do”, or “h?fter do”. But a :^ro:;s iajustice, and a labored insult to every man living in these hills. Mr. Price does not even knew the lanp;- uajLTo of our people; he could not pat^s a simple examination in the kinder garten department of the Mountain eer’s dialect, and the woeful iirnor- auce he displays in attempting to de- ficribe their customs and character istics is really appalling, when one coHTiideri he is professing to picture for the readers of a great Christian paper, the types, customs and charac- eri.-rics of a jrreat, pure - blooded people. To begin with, this ver:atile Globe ti’otter and observer of many peoples (he savs he has traveller! very exten sively and observed rather closely) finds in the very heart of the back woods the real queen of the Moun taineers, whom he design?tes as Queen Hester McGaha. Now this queen Hester, as he calls her lives less than five miles from Brevard, N. a beautiful and thriving town of some two thousand souls. She is not a product of the mountains, and is in no sense, typical of those people usually referred to by the theoreti- the Fathe oi controlling the mental gymnastics of a man like the doctor. Ho's like the provorbial Irirhman’s flee, “now you got him and now you ai^it.” Having finished with his Queen Hosier and her “Ma”, ths inquisitive Do -'or a?ks this remarkable question: “Who are these people cast high and ;’.ry upon ionesome mountain tops by he pea of civilization, like castaway on remote islands?” Well, I think T can tell him so that he w'ill not for- <-':3t it. They are the purest blooded Anc'o Soxons on the We&tern Hem- :re. and fear no one except the God of Heaven. For Him-they have a deep and abiding reverence instilled from childhood. It does not matter how much a Mountaineer may :L'in, ho i'? never troublei! with thoughts of infidelity and skepticism. In the storms that beat about his mountaiti peaks, and the wild lightning leap ing from crag to crag, he sees the power and might of God, and in the voice of gentle winds that whisper through sleeping valleys, and the fern bonding by the brooklet’s side, he feels a touch of the loving tenderness r of his people. His mentril rocrudes- I gion, because it would have been un- nibu,aL, n}.- Mr. , true, and the mountaineer is not in the habit lying about his own people, or anybody else for that matter. A big majority of the mountain folk are home ow^ners, not renters. Their homes are poroianent, and in hund- of instances children are living cu" ill-' v.’rv soo!: their grand father ■n '’r. I and built his home. They ■ 1;'-^; migratory than any people I know of. I Build Now-Buihl Wi Wood Spring and the home building idea have ever been **Tied Up in One!” Thz desire to build is the most natural and worthy of all human impulses, for shelter for yourself and loved ones is second only in im portance to food, and without shelter American climatic conditions • make living uncomfortable, if not impossible* Lumber is NOW the Lowest Priced Construction Material in the World Today so lumber prices can now no longer be said to be a bar to building. Lumber has taken the price decline side by side with farm products, and thinking in terms of what the farmer produces it is as easy to buy as it ever was. Many of you need that new home, and need it badly—then there's the matter of possibly a larger barn and many other farm building needs, which doing without cripples your farm activities and makes life full of discomforts and inconveniences. What^s the use of doing without what you need—why put off such things as the building of that new sleeping porch that will do so much to give you the invigorating sleep which produces a fresher mind' and a more vigorous body and keeps you during the hot weather that will soon be coming? Stop taking:; things for granted, come and talk over building with us and let us tell you what actual conditions in regard to building costs really are. Now, there isn^t a single good reason for the man who plans to do the work himself putting off any kind of building or building improve- i m .ni; for in our opinion, lumber prices have struck bottom! uz have an opportunity to show you our collcct'on of pictures and plan3t and suggest ways and means by which you ca^n Build ^OW with the Greatest Economy. Come and talk it over—we^Il make you glad you did. Miller Supply Comp; cal uplifters as “Mountaineers”. She , .^de of moral and domestic life is is a graduate of the cotton mills of ^ clean and wholesome, and if practis- South Carolina, where she and her ^y some of those “eddicsrfel”’ but- 'Ma” spent the greater part of their existence. She can also read, since the cotton mills school took enough interest in her to see that got much of Mr, Price’s ‘‘eddication*'. aii-'’ untrue that this royal Queen tcrflies of society that live in aur cit ies, our civilization v/ould be a purer on"', and our criminal courts wosrid cake a vacation. Another thing, t&e- word of a Mountaineer is his bon.<4. fie nev r breaks it. If he violates Doctor Price says that he found :o many children in tBtese mountain homes that the parents could not find enough names for then*, and were therefore compelled to calf the young est child, w'ho was more than eight months old, simply, “The Last Un.” Now that is another one a£ the doc tor’s mental gymnastics originating doubtless in a passionate cfesire to make ft readible article. If he will come down hei*e and really learn so^mething of the etymology oiir names, words and phrases, fie will find that we have more pure E^glisE and Bible Christian names thain- any people he has ever seen. The ridicu- hwfc thing about hds asaertion con«iern- ing the “Last Ua”, however, is, that while he takes pains to portraj th„ parents of “Last Un” as grossly ig- noraut, and unabl<e to rsad and write, he has the mother diligently seairh- ing a seed catalogue three times for a suiteble nacoe i&r this last child of her aiSiection,. aaid Jiaidin.g: a debate with her son and “the old man” over the f«ur syllabled' “j"awbreal<er” chryi^aKthemur., as <o whetfier it had enougir. «upho«S' to lait t&e occasi«n; Now if the member could nat read or write, vsiiy in tie world was she lock ing thr«ugh a seed eatalffgne for a ], A. MILLER, Manager. BREVARD, N. C. He^tur, created by Mr, Price’s fer- | javr, i;nd he does occasionally, the vid imagination, and falsely held out! sheriff Toes not have to go after him Bs typical of the Mountaineers, never ' fWp jsse comitatus. Just sen;£ . _ , . _ ^ . . , .Lu 0. t- ^ . name. a«J them aelacitona: Sfiatt no CJB8E saw a train or a piano, and that she word hat you expect him in town ^ .li • i- r ^ 11 , , , V J' ^ I. UJ . except a thin - Upned professor could wore a home spun dress woven by on a certa n day to arrange his bond- ^ 2,, , . 14. j. .V 1^1. I,- u “ •>' 1 ’^‘pronounce? N« they do liWkt have to herself from the wool of a sheep which „nd he will be there. I have known , j ^ ^ , , , oi. T 1 J 4-v ^ , search seed catalogues fornames for she sheared. She has heard the t^cm to go to prison without an offi- Thev learned whistle of the train hundreds of times ^er But they will fight, yes, to be ' u -4. * V. u 1. I5UI, lucjr & , jf . many simpfts' and bfiaiaeiful caoes can ,t from her home; sho has they do .t fa.rly and l»ok ; gible, and fficir folk l.re, heard pianos, organs, vio-, their antagonist squarely m the face be™ handed* <Eown from , . , ij f while it is going on. i^enerktfan to £3£mera£i<iii. Nei'ffler :«vl:oail-, I suspect she could get as, hits quick, hard, anH rtra-htj^_^ ^ easy” as tffre d»2tor informs us. choose it for its- simplicity, its _ , ^ V ,^.,.-*..1, its meaning, its identity, parents ever ov/ned a sheep; I know people are honest to the very Done. 1 they never sheared one and w’ove the . xh?ir homes, cribs and barns go un- | FurtliEEHier^ ffias qhebz& traveledau^- woo! into cloth. I know those people locked, and are unmolested. They * *s: aet cawtent t» picture the and I did not acquire my knowledge ■jieen the r'eep of the unafraid, and | tnountain foljv as coaEc and pitifully in a thirty minute visit for the nur- - ^adways and trails of their j ignorant, but ascribes ^ > them a moral pose of writing some lurid article homeland In safety and peace of j and domestic rfegeixracy that couid Election that would excite the pity and com- ^ miseration of some benevolently in-1 dined souls; neither did I visit her and have her sit on a steer that I might take her photograph for public exhibition, as the royal Queen Hester of the Southern Highlands. This •would not have been playing t>.^ game fairly. Furthermore, the assertion the tl'is Queen Hester, “cut out her dress bv a homemade pattern becau^- 'le mind. ^ Furth'"more, the Moun|tain folk re ger ous to a fault, and never forsake * betray a friend; they wiH jivide r r last crust v;ith the needy, and tu” no one away who needs shelter < r food. Deception and ouble Tealing is, with them, one of major sins. They are “natural ' ” diplomats, but their diplomacy is Oi the straightforward manly sort, not of the Tallyrand school too fr'e- hai never seen a store patterr ‘ isjquently employed out in the doctor’s wholly untrue. These patterns : ave i “great civilization . They come merch foiT years and are used in almost than any people been kept by merchants of Brevard nearer living up to the Golden Rule far years and are used in almost than any people of whom I have ever every household in this country, the , read; there is not a particle of hyjpo assertion of Mr. Price to the contrary , cricy or deceit in their makeup; toey ■otwithstanding. And his narrative ; look one straight in the eye at all .bout his Queen Hester weaving the | times, and cnnge before no man. cloth for her home made frock car- A pauper — if he cames the manly ries about the same amount of truth- parts — w as ^od to falness as his assertion that she never pered Prince; they would a Pnnw ^t» «iy mail because she cannot read a liar if he mented it, as quick- »d write, and i» too poor to buy a ly as they w6uld a man of the Hills, nutabox. He should have informed And again this' versatile doctor that her father holds the fee- Price calls up an imagmary young hardly be said of a serai-savage. Lis ten to Mm wlaen he seys: *‘In another eablEt too smaBL for its family, the visitor was invited to stay all night. He furtively looked a- round for a bed, and saw none: Hanging on the wall, however, was a mattress; The cabin measuring only ten feet by twelve, was too small to aceomodate a bedstead. When bed time came the chairs were cleared out of the way and the mattress was laid on the flood. The candidates for sleep undressed in the yard, re moving outer clothing only, each one hanging his garments on a separate limb of a cherry tree. Then all lay down on the mattress-crosswise for there would not have been enough room for all lying lengthwise. The visitor lay next the fireplace, then the boy; then a space was left for father who was coming late; then mother; then small daughter; then grown daughter. Six in one bed.” (To Be Continued Next Week) Notice is hereby given that the regular Bi-ennial Election of a Mayor and Board of Aldermen, to s^ve for the two ensuing years, will be held on Tuesday, the 3rd of May next, at the customary polling place «t the County Court Housel and that appointment has been made of F. S. Shufbrd a* Registrar and W. S. Price Jr., and C. £. Oi^ as Judges for said election. All ▼oters qualified to participate in said election, whose nameg do not appear in the municipal registration list of two years ago, must registdr according to law in order-to vote at this election-— The Registration Book will be opened by Mr. Shuford on April 15th and will remain open for seven days (Sunday exclusion) from 9 A. M.. to 5 P. M. Except that on Satui'day, April 16, said book will be open from 9 A. M. to 9 P. M. Satliarday, April 23, will be Challenge Day, when the list of names reg!ster«<l will be opea foUr inspection, and the presence of any name believed to be improperly registered may be challenged by any interested voter—> On Monday, May 2, tjke Registrar and Judges will listen to the evidence for and against such challenge and decide whether such name or names shall be removed ■or allowed to stand. Special notice is given that the registration for the recent national. Slate and County Election of last November does not suffice. All voters whose names are not upon the Town list of two years ago must registeir anew. March 23, 1921. G. E. LATHROP, Clerk fop the Town of Brevard.
Brevard News (Brevard, N.C.)
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April 8, 1921, edition 1
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