Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / March 31, 1960, edition 1 / Page 2
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'How Many in My Family?—Too Many!' \ EDITORIALS Never Forget That Thkse Editorials Are The Opinion Of One Man, -< ■ ■' —■ 1 And He May Be Wrong. Impartial Reasoning? from tune to tune the Christian Science Monitor, one of the world’s better news papers, runs a page of questions and an swers to help educate its readers. On Match 25lh the Boston paper was asked this question: “What is the basic cause of the low standard of living of the indians in the United States now?” Then for an answer, the Monitor offers an excuse that hardly jibes with its pander ing on its editorial page to the racial issue that plagues the nation at present. This is the answer, in part: “As to the cause of the low standard of living of the indians in the United States, this is basical ly due to the originally primitive culture of the American Indian, the occupation of his land by the white man, and the failure of the latter to provide a full adjustment between the two modes of living.” On the negro probleih the Monitor and its sister papers deny that the negro’s cul tural background has anything to do with the problem, but for the scattered few original Americans they believe “the orig inally primitive culture” is a basic factor. At the time of Columbus the primitive culture of the American Indian was vastly superior to the cultural levels of the Afri can jungle. \ • / yet the negro was imported from sav agery as a slave and in less than two cen turies has been raised to the level of dic tating a majority part of the political affairs of this nation. The Monitor and its other apologists will have to confess more sins of the white man and his “failure to provide a full adjust ment” for the American Indian. . The truth is that Americans of the same profit-hungry breed that imported negro slaves and sold them like milk cows and mules stole the American Indian into pover ty gnd has left him there until this very day. Even those forcefully pushed around in ddans who happened to finally come to rest on tap of great oil reservoirs have been cheated, lied to and robbed to an extent tfaait ought to make every American sick ttf the very stomach. Today we have the red ink out to deplore racial violence in South Africa but for three hundred years we have treated the indians worse. T Common Sense Steps sooner or later me comimon sense steps of Lenoir County’s neighbors may influence Lenoir County into taking a long needed plunge into high school consolidation.' Already Jones County has consolidated both its white and negro high schools and Offers its students'far batter training than (he average rural high school student en joys in Lenoir. Duplin County has made amazing for ward strides in recent years in its high school programs. Now a Craven County committee has been organizeed for con solidation of the high schools in the west ern part of that county. Greene County is in the midst of a building program that will accomplish this same end. Paradoxically, the negro high schools of Lenoir County are already ideally con solidated, and In the four negro high school?’ there is a well balanced course of study that is vastly superior to that in any but one of the county’s eight white high schools. ' An absolute minimum for any high school worthy of the name is a 20-teacher staff. High schools with staffs of six to 12 teach ers cannot possibly give the kind of bourses that are needed in the accelerated intellectual atmosphere of today. The teven white high schools in the \ Le noir county system have a total of 70 teach ers. Grainger High School in Kinston has 38 teachers. 'When each of the county schools has a vocational agriculture, a home eco nomics and a music teacher subtracted 'from their faculties it leaves 49 teachers in the seven rural high schools to teach the basic liberal arts courses in the four gradeh. ' -1 - It is laboring the obvious to say that the most dedicated teachers in the world can not operate efficiently in such an atmos Program Mr M ■■■! — This is the season—which ends on No vember 8th after (be election is over—when countless pious statements and promises ere being made on the subject of the na tional farm program. Nothing basically constructive has been done for the national farm •program since the early New Deal days. Hie pattern with minor improvements along the line was set then by men who realised that national pro sperity cannot exist when or if any con siderable group does not share in <tbat pros perity. Today, as the ratio of farmers to urban dwellers has shrunk to just over 10 per cent farmers and 90 per, cent non-farmers the voice of the farmer in national politics is more largely an echo from the past than a present day force. Big city political bosses, dictatorial labor union leaders and equally greedy industrial leaders cold-bloodedly write off fanner in fluence as a “has been" in the balls of con gress. Unfortunately, they are correct. The few farm leaders left in congress recognize that they no longer can count on big city support. Library Week Tftis newspaper takes a very dim view of “weeks” because the term has beer, work ed to death. Each week of the 52 is de signated for from ten to fifty worthwhile causes. However, since we are in the writing rac ket, and labor in the fond hope that folks will read our Ittle gems of wisdom from time to time we cannot ignore national library week. Despite the fact that there is a great deal of hand wringing on the failure of the pre sent generation to read good books, library statistics in general and in Lenoir County in particular argue that more people are reading more good books now thanaever be fore. * Certainly, a majority of the population does not engage in worthwhile reading, but it never has. There is always the desire to get culture in synthetic dosage; in Read er’s Digest format; but Sven more there is the simple laziness that prohibits the ma jority from any kind of intellectual exer cise. Reading is a great pleasure, if you love it. But if one has not developed the taste it is a dreadful bore. Librarians, and editorial writers as well would perhaps serve the library cause bet ter if we referred less frequently to the uplifting intellectual side of reading and placed first emphasis upon pleasure. There is some book—good book—in some field that will give pleasure to everyone who can read. Visit your library. Be frank about your-* self. Admit you haven’t read a book in ten years, or twenty years and ask the librarian for a book that might give you some plea sure. If the librarian is worth his keep, or her keep she will be able to discover, for you a pleasant relaxation that will stimu late your imagination and take your mind off yur own troubles for a few hours. Of course, if you have no troubles of your own; you can read sqme political work and acquire some worries. phere. True, Grainger High School in Kinston also has teachers who are not basically contributing to the liberal arts curriculum. Choral and orchestral music directors, vo cational and home ec courses and a full time physical education director but even after these cultural and physical additions to the city high school staff are subtracted there is still left a sufficient faculty to as sure a competent course of study in math, science, English, foreign languages and history. i JONES JOURNAL JACK RUDER, Publisher Published Every Thursday by The Lenoir County Neiws Company, too)., 408 West Vernon Ave., Kinston, N. C., Phone JA 3 3375. Entered as Second Class Matter May 5, 1948, at the Post Office at Trenton North r'oonlin n — a. _ a _*• _A «nnn Carolina, under the Act of March By Mail in First Zbne—$3.00 pe iareh 3, 1879. 10 Per Year. The laziness of madame housewife and the growth of processing industries be tween the farm and the dinoer table have combined with such national news media1 as “Life” to erect the myth that the farm er and the> government farm programs are responsible for the high price of food on be table. * Farmers have yet to develop a hog that is all pork chop and ham, and there is con-' saderaUe to a beef besides T-Bone and filet mignon. Yet the spoiled American public has enough money in its pocket to indulge its. taste ard so the cost of food stuffs is high. The family budget would not suffer so drastically at the grocery if the family menu were the same it was 20 or 30 years ago. The budget cuts are cheaper by far, by comparison today than they were a genera tion ago, for the simple reason that none but the welfare client is interested in the less expensive foodstuffs. If the nation wishes to enjoy its steak and strawberry diet it must pay directly at the grocer or through some kind of sub sidy. In eating as in dancing; somebody Ini'7 to pay the caterer. PmOHAL PAM6MPHS 8Y JACK RIDER Any grammar school child with £ fair un derstanding of arithmetic can understand that there ultimately must come a time in the future of tlus planet when some kind of birth control must be put into use. Either this or death control. The earth is not growing larger, and there are only so many square feet of space, and even, if some magic method of feeding the multi tudes could he found there would ultimately come that time when there would not be standing room. Perhaps we should leave the problems of the future to the future, and treat it as the past, something immutable. But I happen not to be one so fatalistically inclined-. We who inhabit this earth now forcedly have a great deal to do with what the world of our descendants will be like. Wars, famines and epidemics have his torically been the governing forces of popu lation. Radioactive fallout may provide this sterilizing influence in the not too distant future. The laws of nature are rigid, and one juggles these laws at great peril. The recent national squabble about birth control, and the continuing pig-headedness of the Catholic Church on this basic prob lem sum up to a degree the ignorance that prevails on this subject. There has to be, and I believe there is, a sane,middle-point somewhere between the reckless propaga tion of the species supported by those op possd to birth control and the cold-blooded eugenical exercises in human breeding toyed with by Hitler. Inevitably, when the subject of birth con trol is mentioned a majority of people drag out their pornographic vulgarities and at tempt to “crack wise” about some aspect of the problem. Of course, The Catholic Church does not oppose birth control by continence, but does frown on any me chanical or medical prevention of unwanted children. This, to me, seems to be a' “strain ing over a* gnat” kind of attitude. Medical science seems to me to hold the answer to this problem, but even if and when the perfect contraceptive is invented it is useless unless it is used. Then ««»=* come either the long arm of the jaw or the stubby hand of education. Today, to say that a couple applying for a marriage license would be told, “Von can have only two children!” seems completely out of this wnrht Hht _._
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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March 31, 1960, edition 1
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