*
ESTABLISHED JULY, 1836
j TRENA P. FOX, EDITOR * PUBLISHER
MISS. ZOE YOUNG. ASSOCIATE EDITOR f
THURMAN L. BROWN, SHOP MANAGER
ARCHIE H. BALLEW, PHOTOGRAPHER & PRESSMAN
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY BY
YANCEY PUBLISHING COMPANY
SECOND CLASS POSTAGE PAID AT BURNSVILLE, N. C.
THURSDAY, NOV. 30, 1967 NUMBER THIRTEEN
SUBSCRIPTION RATES $3.00 PER YEAR
OUT OF COUNTY $4.00 PER YEAR
Scene From Top O’ The Hit!
By: Jack Kelly
Another Thanicsg.ving Day haa
come and gone. The one just
passed was the 104th successive
one. You probably thought it
was older than that. In one way
you are right and in another,
and proper one, you are wrong.
True, the f rst Thanksgiving Day,
allegedly, commenced in the
days of our Pilgrim Fathers but
they didn’t make it a yearly
occurrence. Also, in those days
it was only observed in Yankee
New England and poss.bly in a
wee bit of the South.
One hundred and four year*
ago, the then President, Abe
Lincoln, in the mdst of our
greatest War, decided that
things were in real tough ihape
but they possibly could get w >rse.
Therefore he decided to a
Proclamat on ordering a Day of
Thanksgiving to the Almighty.
He established the last Thursday
in November as the date. L:n
coln knew his power but, unlike
■cme of hit successors, he d ! d
aot over-est mate it. Somehow
or other, Lincoln never confused
Irmself with God. His Prnc'n
mat on was so worded that th«
various Governors of the States
could (and did) issue a s ! m lar
Proclamation, and the Holiday
was established Nationally.
Who knows what effect this
f rst proclamation had upon the
great conflict? How manv peo
ple paused on that day and gave
thought that despite the fact
they fought against each other
because of viewport, they c~uld
yet pause to ce’ebrate a com
mon heritage: offer r. Thanksg'v
ing to God Jo'ntly with the : r bro
thers. Less than two years later,
the War had conceded.
Each and every President s:n
ce Lincoln has conf'nued
Proclamation. On’v one of them
got out of line: Roosevelt.
From the of the
common man, FT>R made two
H'storical mistakes. He tried to
P*ok the Srnreme C n »rt and he
tried to change Thanksgiving
Day. People are funny. They
wiu fouuw a leauer. ’iney wJI
r»p up tne countryside. They
w often do w.ld, wooly, crazy
things, as tfiey follow their ac
. copied leader. However, there !a
a imit to ther docility. Leaden
never gauge that limit. Leaden
always try for that one nun
step. That is the time that the
people halt the onward rush. Of
ten, they change ther leader.
History refen to this action at
progress. FDR waa quite a lead
er. Twee the peopie rebuffed
him. Yet they kept him as their
leader. They also kept their
Court and ther Thanksgiving
Day sacrosanct.
Numerous recorden of Hie
tory, if not Historians, have ac
counted for Rooeevelt's attempt
ed change of the Turkey Day a*
an attempt to help bus ness.
Claimed it would have allowed
an extra two weeks for people
to do their Christmas shoppng.
It didn't work when FDR tried
it The Nation had two Thanks
giving Days that year. The Fed
eral cne proclaimed by the Pre
sident and the proper one, de
clared or proclaimed by the var
ious Governors of our. States
True, this year’s holiday waa
not the “last” Thursday of Nov
ember, but, you see, people are
reasonable; apd they recognise
that only a tr pk of the calendar
esusexf the last of the month to
faß-"6n a Thursday. Therefore,
no complaint was filed *or ob
jection made when President
Johnson procla’med the ted as
Thanksgiving Day. This fact
must have appeared noteworthy
to the President. He has not
done too much recently that waa
not subject to comp’amt. He pro
bab’y kept h’s Anvers crossed
until the polls came in.
The year’s Holiday finds our
Countrv again engaged in a
C'vil War. A strange C'vil War.
Not a Civil War that involves
the potential overthrow of our
own Form of Government, as the
term impl es, but a Civil War in
volving a strange country and
people unheard of not too many
years ago by most of us.
The rightness or wrongness of
our posit on in the present con
flict is not to be discussed in
th s article. However, since Lin
coln inaugurated Thanksgiving
dur ng our own Civil War, who
is to say that he did not consid
er the fact of a civil war more
than its location as the import
ant reason for a pause >n peo
ple’s thinking, to give thanks to
a c-mmon God, Poss'bly, a
cease-f re for our Thanksgiving
Dav might be as fru'tful as the
contemplated pauses ftr the up
coming Christmas and New
Year’s Hol'days c'mtemp'ated.
Shortly after th : «s Thanksgiv
ing Dav, our Country’s prpu'a
tion reached 200 mil ion. That
is a lot of prayer potential. Pro
bably the 1 out of e”ery 400 who
found himself : n Viet Nam Pt
this date prayed a little more
sincerely than those cf us who
were irrre fortunate and gather
ed in family groups or other
friendly assemblages for ce’e
bration. Since no “pull” exists
en the crowded c~nd tion of the
“prayer lanes” from the var
ious places of assemblage to the
Heavenly Thrcne, we will never
know for certain which area had
the biggest “rating” fer that
24 hours. However, I feel that
many of our leading Clergymen
will agree that the liklihood of
the normal channels being as
crowded as Vet Nam Special
from our boys over there was
very slim indeed. Lots of Chur
ches I passed did not appear too
crowded. Matter of fact, I forgot
to visit one myself.
*• •>:• *
K\<t\ <la\ i- Chri.-tmas to the
P'TMih who rt-n-ivo- I ,S. Sav
ing- ISoikls. In m-voii war- ho
"ill ro.oivo *1 for , w . n s;j U)U
|>'i\ out now lop hi- !•; Ihnnk
End ol 101 l and |nst before winter begins.
Let’s All Fight
For Safer
Highways I
By: Cpl. A. C. Gray
I have just celebrated my 20th
years as a traffic officer ... I
have many memories, pleasant
memories of joyful occas.ons,
happy outings and above all my
many friends.
But, I also have horrible mem
ories oi terr.ble incidents ...
the unpleasant duty of deliver
ing death messages, the broken
hemes, the weeping of mourn
ers in our churches, and the
means of the dying on the high
ways.
I remember walking among
the dead along the railroad
tracks, with an arm in my hand,
searching among the bod es to
find one with a miss’ng arm. . .
an upturned face in the roadway
and the rest of the body a dis
tance away . . . cutting torches
sparkling in the night, cuttng
the twisted metal away from
mangled bodies . . . playing
with a two-year old girl in my
heme on Sunday and seeing her
in her coffin on Wednesday . . .
searching the roadside after a
wreck and finding the upturned
face of a 17-year-old boy in the
beam of my flashl'ght, his body
down in the ditch . . . pulling
six teenagers from the wrecked,
half-submerged vehicle in the
tadlwaters of Lake Lucy, four
dead and two cripp’ed for life . .
two small boys siting on the
shoulder of the road crying,
and tears streaming ofhvn
their face, their father ly'ng on
ore side of them dead and their
mother on the other side dy'ng.
I remember standing in the
center of the roadway crying,
the body of a little f^-ur-year-old
g'rl in my arms, her golden
hair flowing in the w«nd, her
blood running down and drip-
P ! ng off the end of mv elbows.
Yes. six feet and 200 pounds of
TOUGH COP crying unasham
edly and I looked up to God and
I praved, “Oh, Lord have
mercy.”
These horrible incidents, all
tn’e, and many, manv others,
d'd not hanoen on battlefields
of lands. Tbev hnnoened
vn'tWn a few mles of tfw* ci*v of
Henderson . . . Here in North
Carei'na.
V 0,,. THE PFOPfi?!, fipv;
TP** OKT,Y0 K T,Y OVER
rtop tt» WP MTPPO Vh"g
pf’mvttrt tv (Tight FOR
SAFER HIGHWAYS'
Aomsmor
f£OPINON
SOUTH BOSTON, VA., GAZ
ETTE - VIRGINIAN: “A young
person today, dissatisfed with
school and anxious to get out
and work for the money he
wants, is heading down a dead
end street if he pursues his
dreams without a high school
dipkma. He finds out too late
that the job he longed for will
be at best a dull, d rty one with
little opportunity for advance
ment. Or, the jobless rate of 13
per cent for school dropouts sud
denly becomes very real to him
as he observes that he doesn’t
have the ticket he needs to get
through the employers’ doors. .
For many of these young people,
there s still time. They can go
back and finish high school. For
d hers, it is too late. ... The
education they get now charts
the course not only for their in
dividual lives but for the wel
fare of our country in the com
ing decades.”
• O •
JACKSON, MO., POST & CASH
BOOK: “It’s not a pretty seme
to come upon, shattered glass,
twisted metal, oozing oil and
gasoline, moans of pa n and the
flowing of a man’s life-blood
don’t give you a comfortable
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4th PRIZE five Pinking Shears
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TODAY. i _
o„ e , A ' ,me «
I OEFINI-rF. V . !
; I.IMITt l. ' C.UV •; • ■(,
m rami y-rmr*- ■
feeling. How can dr vers be
made to realize that a bit more
cauticn, a bit more k'ndness, a
bit more courtesy and a lot
more decency would put an end
to many of these scenes.”
•• • •
LITCHFIELD, MINN., RE
VIEW: “another example of the
government’s inconsistency can
be n r ted at the Tennessee Val
iev Hvdr-'e'ectr c plant where
because of greater costs of m
eraticn the government is boost
in? power rates 7 to 9 per cent. ,
Private business feels the in
crease in operation (costs) just
as much as the government. One
would think and expect the gov
ernment to set an examnle of
huld ng the line rather than hik
ing it up and at the same time
denying private business the
same privilege.”
• •
ODESSA, TEXAS, AMERICAN:
•- -a recent rummage for
something In the back of a desk
drawer turned up a letter bear
ing a first class mail stamp
priced at three cents. Know
what the date on the slamo
was, 1957.”