EDITORIAL & FEATURE PAGE
Let's Hope Sornething Cpmss Of It
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Chapel Hill News Leader
Leading With The News in Chapel Hill, Corrboro, Glen Lennox and Surrounding Areas
VOL. II, NO. 92
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1955
An Opportunity for the State
all sides r' ises a demand that, the
next piesideni of the rnisersity he an ex
perienced edncatoi' and administrator.
Agreed.
Ihil an elTicient educator and administra
tor cannot be expected to he also tt 'food Ic”-
islaiix c rrcf'ent. money raiser, loltbs ist. ;md
jjiiblic relations director.
It will be a mercy to the next president
ir he is relieved of the task of goim^ to Raleigh
csery fwo \ears teith his hat in his htind.
The Tnieersity ;tnd the other State-sup
ported schools oiighi to dr,aw their lintincitd
sustenance irom ;m established lund or estab
lished system that \sill endure and can be
counted on. regardless of persomililies in
prcsidenti.al chairs.
.\Ioreo\cr, the Tui\ersity president ought
to be able to obserxe methods and carry f)ut
policies tvithout being obliged to keeja one
eye on the legiskature.
rite necessttrv funds ought to be tnailable
dcxnite his possible errors and shortcomings.
()thert\ is the students, and through them the
•State, will be punished for the faults of an
indi\'idmd.
The president ol' the Tnixersity is too im
portant :i fi'.>aire to be degrttded in any aspect,
tvheiher ;iv Raleigh or elsewhere.
Me ought to be free to function as educator
.and ,ad!ninistrat;>r. II tiny otber ttisk is ituposed
upon him. ids primar)’ responsibilities can
not be fully met.
The Slate of .North (anolina note has an
opl)ortunits- to free its Tniversity president
Irom undesirable tasks and enttuiglements
rhe State should mttke the most of it.
Breakdown at Geneva
■['he failure of the (.eneva tonference tvtis
due to more than one factor, but as it appears
fiom this distance, it hinged ujton one nasic
situation:
Russia holds Kasi (lermaiiv. ThtU is its
biggest diplomatic asset, its ace in the hole,
;md its chief trading point. The 'W'estern .Al
lies wanted to gel Russia out of there. Rus-
siti's reply rsas:
■'.All right, ^\■e'll get out—for :i price', \\diat
is your offer?'’
.At that point the conference was bound to
break down, for the .Allies had no oiler, f he\
could only wrtip the.ir robes sirtuously
iiround them and go home in a dudgeon.
It needs no diplomat to see that (Icrmtmy's
dixided cemdilion is a threat to [teace and ;m
open inx itation to a tuiclear rvar. .A fornnd-
tible peojrle like the (Germans cannot forexer
be kept split doxvn the middle—not any more
than the .American people could be kept di-
x ided bx' the .Mississippi \’;dlev.
i () siilxe pride, e;u h side xvill noxv furious-
Ix bknne the other, aird there will be solemn
"re-aitprtiisttls", ;i rattling of xyeapons, anti
all that. Ifut no progress xxill be made, f inal
ly another coiderence xvill be ctdled. Rut it
xxill end the sa'ine way unless it results in
genuine horse-trading, and an exchange of
(juifl for (]uo.
The danger is that in tlieir di.sgust xvith the
bdlure ol dijtlomats to get restdts, the people
on both sides will throw the situation iirto
the, Innids of the military. AVho xvould stir-
x'ixe? *
The Source Of Secrecy
. . . "the l'.x('cutixe withholds inlorma-
tion not only from the press but lre(|uently
from (longTess itself", said Pat .Monroe, thair-
man ol the Stam’ing Committee ol Corres-
[jondents of the (.or sessional I’ress fltdleries,
in a talk lor the CiNC School of Journalism.
ri'.e battle to break up secrecy in goxern-
ment has been r aged at Raleigh xvith partial
success; it noxv m ;si be rr''nf''rred to A\'a.s!i-
ington bv'- 're there i.-. a growing conijalaint
.•'■nong newspaper corrrespontlents. eren
: ■nong those faithful to the (f(.)P, that the
goxcinmcnt is nf)t oidy su|:)iriessing informa
tion but .sometimes tries tj slant it when
given out.
In a demotratic republic the jxeojtle must
rule, accordto a basic .American precept.
Rut if they rtile xvithout proper information,
they are likely to acconijdish ruin rather than
rtile..
Drive Like a Maniac
By Mary Frances O. Schinhan
More than 2 xveek.s hax'e gone by
since that .Friday. Cold statistics
shoxx' that even more people xx'ere
killed on North Carolina high-
xx’a,xys than the weekend before.
But go back to that Friday.
This wa.s not even Friday the
J3th. It was .just an ordinary Fri
day that meant the end of the
xx'orking week in a lot of offices
and other places. A young mother
got home from work that after
noon, and pretty soon her hus
band got home,, too. Their oldest
little girl, almost two, wa.s so ex
cited, not only because it xvas
fiat time of the day to see her
parents, but because they xvere
going to take her baby sister
xvith them on a trip to
see grandmother and grandfather.
They all did a lot of scurrying
around, for thei’c xvere so many,
ncce.'dtie.s to pack into the brand
nexv .station wagon, especially
witli all those things for the
baby. Just before starting out,
they fixed a sort of mattress in
the back for the big girl and
they put in ."omo beloved toys.
might have been a man from
Mars, but it shattered all the
senses all at once with the crash
ing glass, the crumpling metal,
the human sounds. It was a man
in a truck rushing madly from a
s’de road, and when there was
that cieadly aftermath, just a
short lull, he had fled from the
scene in panic, and some other
people xx'ere standing mutely
around. The young mother lay
in some brambles and. start
ed to scream for her husband,
and when there was no an.swer
she staggered from the brambles.
If she hadn’t tried to walk she
wouldn’t have had to see the
crushed form of her big girl xxdio
had been thrown from car....
back under it again. The screams
went into the night, and then a
friend, a patrolman, came and
did all he could and all he had to.
trolman told the friends that this
night’s was the 2.5th fatality in
that county this year and he,
hardened as he was supposed to
be in his busines, xvas getting
sort of unnerved. He xx-as getting
a growing feeling of helple,ssness.
Tixerc was another patrolman,
back in Alabama. The friends
remembered him saying, solemn-
ly:
“You’ve just got to drive like
everybody else on the road is a
maniac!’’
* * tf!
It xva.s dark and cold outside,
but it was still early in the even
ing. The lox'ely new station xvagon
cruised along comfortably, and
it xx-as co./y inside .for the little
family. The young father had
been drivin,'g carefully for almost
fifty miles noxv; he was doing
everything he was supposed to
(a wifne,''S behind later said
this was ^:o). all the more so
for carrying little, trusting chil
dren in the back.
The next morning some friends
from Chapel Hill went down to
the ho.spital in this other town,
just to be with the three survix'-
ing members of the little family
and to try to help xvith some of
those nasty details. The young
mother and father xvere hurt, but
the baby seemed to be all right.
The grandparents had managed
to get to the hospital by driving
all night.
The friends began to ask ques
tions, WHAT’S WRONG’? Night
mare after nightmare, and it’s
getting xvorse. What do xve do
more of, worse? Do we drive too
fast? Do xve drive too slow'? Do
we get in such a hurry w'e forget
our sense, or do we just forget
our sense the minute we get be
hind steering wheels? What about
the incredible rudeness on the
road? Do xve let people drive
when they’ve been drinking? Do
xve let people drive xvho are too
sick? Do xve pass on all the blind
curves and hills? Have we stop-
cd all signalling?
There xvasn’t even any warning.
This thing came from somew'here
and blasted the xxhole family into
space and then onto the hard,
cold pieces of ground. It could
have been an atom bomb; it
A nurse said you certainly got
to know a lot of people from
other places, that is, if you could
talk to them. When you’re hurt
and shocked and dazed, nothing,
else in the world matters, but
there are still those details to be
taken care of. The trouble you
can get involved in just w'ith
smashed fenders, when you have
to get witnesses, or look at in
surance. or think about a laxx'yer!
When you have demolished lives,
it's just something else! The Pa-
Here’s something for sure! Mil
lions of dollars go into trigger-
powered motor vehicles (have
you driven one ol tho^se new cars
and felt the poxver?) Maybe there
are a lot of people who have no
business getting their hands on
one of these cars.
Have we looked, lately, to see
xvho are driving the buses, the
trucks? Why do xve send cars to
the university with the students?
Do xx'e take away a driver’s
license and then give it back,
over and over again, when any
body could know that it’s only
a matter of time before this driv
er xvill kill somebody! AYhat’s
wrong with the laxv?
-Return of a Drai
til
Letters to the Editor
Wa/t Partymtller m Yoyh Gazette & Daily
HEEDLESS ONLOOKERS
To the Editor:
In your story, “Wreck On
Strowd Hill Disrupts Power In
Town,” which appeared in the
Nexvs Leader November 7, there
is good material for an editorial.
I couldn’t help but be mildly
shocked xvhen I looked, at the
picture that show'ed the croxx'd of
onlookers standing in close range
of the fallen power lines.. Any
one of those lines could have
snapped loose and “whipped”
back into the crow'd since they
were still under stress. I don’t
believe these people knew or
stopped to consider the potential
danger that the high voltage
wires held for them.
It disturbs me to knoxx' that a
crowd of people xvho are under
no chaotic stress themselves will
show' such utter disregard for
their personal safety. I can’t help
but wonder what our masse.4 are
going to do if and when they are
involved in a major disaster. Such
incidences serx'e to remind me
what a big job lies ahead of all
of our local Civir Defense pro
grams.
Herman Norman
■ Durham, N. C.
Jew and Gentile
in
South
N'c\vsp;iper.s are oi'teii criiici/.ed lor bids or
itiacc uracy in printing the nexvs ol the dav,
but il the most important sources ol inlorma-
tion. such as those at \\'ashington, are silent
or poisoned, the ellects xvill be lelt in exerv
periodic;il that records the goxernment’s do
ings.
^\'here lies the ultiimite blame?
Mimroe has ai-i ansxver:
"1 xvould put a lot of the blame on the
people xvhom you xoters send to (iongress.
Traditionallv. there's been ;i ‘lixe and let
fixe' arrangement between (iongress and rhe
Kxex iilivc Departments on tills subject. '\'our
elected representrnives make the laxvs and 'set
the tenor' lor bureaucrats to folloxv. It is
grimly amusing, then, for CongTess to yell
■foul' xvhen the Execufix'c xvithhoUls informa
tion nut only from the press but frecpiently
from (iongre.ss itself".
{Harry L. Golden in Commentary)
There is very little real anti-
Semitism in the ' South. There
is even a solid tradition of phi-
lo-Semitism, the explanation of
xvhich lies in the very character
of Southern Protestantism it
self—in the Anglo-Calvinist de
votion to the Old Testament and
the lack of emphasis on the
Easter story which has been so
closely connected with European
anti-Semitism.
Nevertheless, segregation of a
curious sort betw'een Jew and
Gentile does exist there. It is
confined to the cities and lar
ger towns, and to precisely those
middle-class and proprietary
circles in which Jews and Gen
tiles have an identity of inter
ests—“Friction occurs,” Shmar-
ya Levin used to say, “xvhere
planes meet.’”*
Every evening, in the larger
communities of the South, a curi
ous transformation takes place
in the relations of Jew and Gen
tile. During the day, associations
may have been genuinely cor
dial, even close. But -when the
sun goes down, there is a tacit
agreement to go their several
xvays. Rarely, indeed, does a Jew
visit a Gentile home. Hardly ev
er does a Gentile pay a visit to
the home of his Jewish acquain
tance.
The hope of a final social
“rapprochement,” a Treaking
down of the curfew' barrier, may
explain the early enthusiasm of
Southern Jews for the Nation
al Conference of Christians and
Jew's, This hope was never rea
lized. The Gentile member made
it all too clear, by attending its
functions always alone, even
xvhen thq invitation specifically
included his wife, that his in
terest in the project was purely
civic. In the Southern tradition,
the presence of the wife at an
occasion is a symbql of the social
union of the participants. By, the
same token, when on rare occa
sions a Jew was invited to meet
with his daytime Christian collea
gues for civic reasons (polio drive.
Community Chest, credit associ
ation, Chamber of Commerce, Ro
tary Club, politics), the invitation
W'as for himself alone—never did
he bring his w'ife, nor w'as he ex
pected to.
There are Jewish merchants
xx'ho have had pleasant personal
relations xvith Gentile colleagues,
associates, and competitors for
fifteen or txventy years without
ever meeting the wife.
The small-town Southerner
takes it for granted that to be a
Jexv is to be a religious Jew, that
his friend the storekeeper fully
possesses that Hebraic tradition
handed doxvn through the cen
turies for which the Southern
Christian has so deep a respect.
As the Jew in a small Southern
town goes about his business of
selling dry goods or ready.-;t^.
wear clothing, he raely suspects'
the sybolic role he enacts for the
Gentile societv roundabout liimT-. ■
Chips That Fall
he represents the unbroken tie
with sacred history and the pro
phets of the Bible, he is the “liv
ing 'witness” ' to the “Second
Coming of Crist,” the link be
tween the beginning and the end
of things.*
This has placed a burden upon
the learning and piety of the
small-toxvn Southern Jexv that he
is not alxvayS able to support. It
has caused many a Southern Jew
to reexamine those religious val
ue's xvhich he had w'ell-nigh aban
doned. -A Protestant clergyman or
a Sunday School teacher w'ho
knows the Tenlateuch by heart
will stop by the store to ask his
opinion on some fine point of
Biblical exegesis. Needless to say,
the visitor often goes away xvith
something less than a' complete
answer. I know merchants who
travel fifty and ' sixty miles a
week to attend a Jewish adult
group—“so I can give these peo
ple some kind of answer!”
APARTNESS
Yankee Influence. And yet it is
precisely in Charlotte, North Car
olina, that we can observe apar
theid as between Jexvs and the
xvhite Gentile middle class, in
fixed operation. It is not of anti-
Semitic origin necessarily, and in
part its is a Northern impor
tation.
In Charlotte the “resticted”
residential area was unknown
until a few' years ago. Its emer
gence coincided with the city’s
growth from 80,000 in 1930 to
160,000 in 1955. Northern capital
had a large part in this growth;
the city tqday contains nearly
450 branches ahd xx’ji'ehouses of
national business concerns.
With this development of
Charlotte as an important dis
tribution center came a tremen
dous influx of representatives
and managers of the national
concerns. They introduced a so
cial pattern they had worked out
for themselves in the North—
country club society, and restrict
ed residential areas.
The country club and the re
stricted area were never part of
upper-class Southern tradition.
The old families lived in baronial
isolation among lesser neighbors.
The mark of social distinction in
the “old” South xvas membership
in an “Assembly,” or in one of
the societies based on national-
religious origin—the Society of
St. Andrexvs (Scotland), St. Ce
cilia (Huguenot), and St, George
(England). Introduction of coun
try club society was a successful
attempt by the Northern new
comers, and the Southern nou
veau riche in alliance xx'ith them,
to bypass the requirement of
birth (“Who xx'as her family be
fore she married?,”) which the
Southern agririan aristocracy im
posed. * *
It xvas inex'itable that the Jews
of the South, belong to a single
proprietap' class of^ small capi
talists—feady-to-wear,' - credit
jewelry, textile manufacture and
di.stributtiojiD. .Rxtile machinery,
l)i.sc'ii>s.si()iis as to a iicxx
I’XC president often bring
up the name of "Old Ooxei-
iior" David 1.. Sxvain, xvho
had tfie lon.gest stay in ollicc
—'{2 years, ending soon after
the (iixil AVar. He xvas gox-
ernor ol the State helote
coming to C.hapel Hill. He
xvas regarded as U' politician
rather than a scholar, and at
first the faculty did not lax'or
him. Rnt he xvas a good ad
ministrator, carried out a
mi Id,and conciliatory ptdicy.
and the lacidtx xveut to work
under him very contentedly.
He was not only the presi
dent xx'iih the longest term
hut the ugliest. The students
called him "Old \Varping
Rars" and such like, hut in
time he.xvon them oxer also.
His Liter years were sorroxx'-
fill. I lis family life xvas tragic,
the Oonfederate goxernment
tried to take his students
axvay, and his d.'V'ighter m;ir-
ried the commander of the
invading Federal caxalry
■'(xvhv ha.s-■ HoJIyxvoo.ch ue.ver
caught mp xvith this ro
mance?) .And to crown all,
his loxed Tniversity xvas forc-
ihly closed hv the renegjule
governor at Rtdeigh. Finally
there xvas a i-exolt against his
old-fashioned xvavs and a de
mand for a nexv curriculum..
He xveut exery morning to
visit the grave of an unfortu
nate datigfiter. Death came
to him gently, and xv;i.s wel
come.
★ ★ X
W'e must learn to he on
our guard against putting a
pistol to every xisitor's head
and forcing him to say how
much he likes Thajtel Hill.
J here are only about six ad-
jet tixes of the highe.st praise.
W hen they are used up, mo
notony sets in, and there
might he prayers that some
holfk x'isitor, prodded into ir
ritation, xvould hire a xvheel-
ed loud-speaker and speed up
and doxvn Fn nklin and Rose
mary streets telling the com
munity xvhat he thought of
it,
ir ir
Carefully .conducted inter-
x'iexvs and statistics show that
more xisitors xvould like C.
Hill, X.C.. and the South if
it xvere not for grits and pot-
litpior.
1 he.se txvo dishes are es-
.seniiallx Southern and re-
(jtiire that the consumer he
t-o the immner horn. 'Faste
lor them cannot he acquired
except through ho-vear resi-
By DON C. BARRIE
An entrepreneur of the first
magnitude brought an annual
production to Chapel Hill a few
w'eeks ago with little fanfare
and practically no advance pub
licity.-The piece entitled ..AU
TUMN was an .instantaneous suc
cess, and many road-, companies,
simultaneously, are playing to
standing-room-only everywhere.
This current production is with
out doubk superior to that of
last year. An entirely new' and
richly talented cast have outdone
themselves in a most rewarding
performance. It is inspiring to
see such good work, and we feel
that the high standard should set
a nexv mark for the aim of Chapel
Hill artists.
The plot xvas similar to that
already done in the past, but the
nexv costumes, the incredibly su
perb direction of Mrs. Nature,
the manv subtleties of stage bus
iness w'hich she lavishly injected
xvith a master hand have so re
vitalized the cliche with a totally
new and vigrous life that it is
acceptable as “original.”
The technical staff, too, come
in for a share of praise for their
excellence. The set. the decor,
the lighting, everything down to
the nroos is uncannily right.
The Producer promises that
the forthcoming production, Win
ter. w'ill be of the same high
calibre.
"y that yo^
What is important about this
drama, and the thing most per-
Today's
By DORIS BETTS
One Southern author w'ho has
a good , many friends in Chapel
Hill 1.S New' Orleans-born Harnett
T. Kane. Last season he did a
non-fiction light anthology, brief
accounts of Civil War spies entit
led “Spies for the Blue and Gray.”
The book had a sizeable success
and at last report xvas scheduled
for- -Broadxvay stage treatment
a la Oklahoma. ' '
. After ..thaTbook was published
b}'. Haiio'ycr House, Mr. Kane xvent
tO; Europe .for .the summer, did
some- work 'for Holiday Magazine,
■and borrowed and expanded some
previously gathered material. The
res  t of that expansiion i£ a
new' novel for Hanover House en
titled, “The Smiling Rebel,” a
book of fiction based on the life
of the glamorous Confederate
SPY, I^lle Boyd. He ought to
hax'e-a-sizeable success with this
one, too.
Mr. Kane was born ijj Louisiana
in 1910 and now lives on Freret
Street in New’ Orleans. He has
done a number of books on Louis
iana.::a number, of books of semi
biography of Southern women
(Mrs. Jefferson Davis. Myra
Clark Gaines, Dorothy Dix, Mrs.
Robert E. Lee).
He comes at this one w'ith the
formula already working as to
what makes a successful bio
graphical nox'el, and “The Smiling
Rebel” shofild sell xyel}, especially
among.. Southernors and his regu
lar readers.
Belle Boyd, sometimes called the
“Cleopatra of the Secession” w'as
the most glamourous spy of the
Civil War. Most of her sister
spies were fiftyish and fanatic;
but not Belle. At seventeen, when
her career began, she was not
only pretty but bright - spirited
and witty.
A recent letter from Mr. Kane
describes his new heroine thus:
“The book is in the style, I sup
pose, of The Lady of Arlington
and Bride of Fortune, but Belle
is a far livelier heroine than I
ever had. She was a career girl
before we had them, a glamour
’girl-with brains ... as meek and
mild looking a miss as ever sold
a regiment down the river. She
eavesdropped on military confer
ences, rode past sa
night, and once ran
battle with word
Jackson which
course.”
“The book,” (he
its climax in Nt
Belle sailed from
a secret Confederal
met trouble. A Uni
sel captured hers,
over the commande
over to the Southi
said, quite a girl!”
Mr. Kane has' broiijliti;
enthusiasm to a listitstiiji
a romantic character, Hf i
tells a good story, i
times one could wish tot
more depth and charadu
is to ask more than Mr. Kii
chosen to deal mth. As ill
tells a readable and ■)
linffi
story, and “The Smilini
w'ould make a highly ti!
ing movie.
Chapel Hill News l!
Published every ,
Thursday by the Newt to
Company, Inc.
Mailing Addreis:
Box 749
Chapel Hill, N. C
Street Address-Main
Carrboro'
Telephone: I
Phillips Rassell
. £1
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L. M. Pollander
E. J. Hamlin _
Robert Minteer-
' SUBSCRIPTION
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Five Cents Per CiPl
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at the postoffice
N. C., under the ad ®
VI
chemicals, cotton waste, mefal'
scrap, mill agents, jobbers,
xx'holesalers and traveling sales
men—should similarly try..to,
align themselves with the ne.w
society. It was part of their effort
to win the prestige that ordinar
ily folloxvs wealth, and also to
break with their imigrant past.
The new society would seem to
be the American group or class
to which they naturally belonged.
From the old aristocracy, with
its fourth-generation require
ments, they were naturally bar
red, -though hardly more so than
the “common people” of the
South, or the newly emerged
middle class. For wealth played
a small part in the self-consti
tuted aristocracy of the South;
birth, so-called, was everything’.
denct'.
Taiulid iicxyconieis xvill oc-
c.'i.iioiiaHv ex]xi'ess ait abate-
iiiciit of the ]>rejiidice aoain.st
,!:>rif.s as taken xvitli red gravy,
hut onianders having their
first taste, ol pol-liqnor have
heen .seeii .to-' rn.Minctively
jnisli Jtahk their chairs and
.stiijpriiss a'.heartlelt grimace.
Flteif suffering will not he
prohjitged. Pure pot-liquor
is dying ..()tit, and its a.s.soc:-
iated’^.h'ornbread i.s rarely to
he hrcl in a tooth.some lorni
except in the nnsjtoiled coun-
trxside.
turkey
platters
Italian potteU'' '
painted tui’ks) on
only
-y
IICKO^D
home' of choice charcoal
STEAKS — fIaMING SHISKEBAB —p ^