Never Forget That These Editorials Are tte Opinion Of One Man
This paper has fostmolove for Jimmy
Hoffa and the other thieves who have looted
the men they purport to represent and
through them the public as a whole.
But there are some serious questions that
need to be answered before. Hoffa is sent
off to a long, if deserved term. •s
Is Hoffa any more guilty of thievery than
the executives . of several major companies
who conspired to control the prices of elec
trical generating--'and^; transmission equip
ment?
Is Hoffa any more reprehensible morally
than James M. Landis, who wrote; the se
curities and exchange act and who served
four different presidents in high capacities
and still failed to file an income tax for
seven years ?
Is Hoffa any more greedy than Bobby
Baker, who parlayed his associations in the
senate into a considerable fortune?
Is Hoffa any more interested in accumu
lating a fortune than President Lyndon
Johnson, who has risen from a penniless
school teacher to a multi-millionaire in 25
years although never holding 1 a job that
paid more than $35,000 a year — before taxes
— until President Kennedy was assassinat
ed?
Is Hoffa any more dictatorial than Bobby
Kennedy who spent more than five million
of the taxpayers’ dollars in his personal
vendetta with Hoffa?
Admitting' that excusing one rascal his
crimes because another avoided punishtnent
dor his is no way to implement justice, we
cannot avoid the conclusion that justice will
seriously miscarry if Hoffa is sent to pris
on for a long term for crimes no more seri
ous than those for which men such as th?
electric company executives and Landis tjrew
such pats on the wrist as 30-day jail terms.
Right now both of our major political par
ties are giving a lot of thought to the par
ticular subject of Unity. This, is the sincere
hope of one citizen that neither party is
able to find Unity. And we doubt that either
will.
Unity except in time of war is perhaps
the worst thing that could happen to a
people such as ours. Conformity is for J>ee
hives and socialists states. Unity is not for
men with brains and minds - of their own.
■ Political unity is only another name for
dictatorship. Unity is the thing Russia and
Cuba have.
The recent past has seen American poli
tics drift nearer and nearer to the pitfall of
unity. In national campaigns there has not
been a cry for real change; only a promise
to do the same thing better, or worse.
litre has been no desire to change the
/ play, only the actors.
There is every evidence now that the
people of the country are far ahead of their
“leaders" and that a majority of us really
do want a change.
In three m<Jre short months we will know
if this is right or if the majority of us favor
an all-powerful, all-meddlesome, all-every
thing federal government. - /
The average voter—us included—is tired
of hearing about issues of "grave national
importance,” and haying heard this bleat so
much from the podium pounders w/e hope
that it will not be overworked in; the months
just ahead.
Because it is a certainty, that whether
this turn against federal power takes place
in November 1964 or not it ultimately will
come. We. only hope that we don’t have
to wait another four years for it to take
place.
\
Political War?
There are strawsjn the political wind that
indicate an acceleration of American activity
in Vietnam between now and the November
presidential election.
For nearly three .years now the American
effort in that pint-sized country has largely
and trillion! of
done.
Coming from this
sionary efforts—both
have been empty indeed to a
wars are unimaginably
insignific
pared to those we so-called civilized whites
hatfe, engaged in so frequently and so re
cently.
Obviously the best thing for the African
and the best thing for the world would be
for the outside world to leave them to their
own unrefined forms of savagery, so that
they Could lapse back into the .simple ways
they have followed since long ■ before ' the
dawn of history.
But the world Will not leave these savages
to their own devices. Politics abhors a va
cuum ; especially a vacuuhS that contains
great natural resources. So The Congo and
assorted other islands of savage simplicity
must submit to one kind or another of out
side control.
This is a very simple piece of political
logic, but one that apparently never oc
curred to the makers ofAmercian foreign
policy who presided pver and hastened the
exit of the Belgians from this troubled
sub-contirtent called The Congo.
Why we pay such homage to the “status
quo” in some' instances of colonnialism and
so bitterly oppose others is a question badly
in need of an answer in the halls of our
American government.
The estimated tourist expenditure in North
Carolina last year was more than $476 mil
lion dollars, with more than $286 millioij. of
that coming from out of the state. If our
state were not so backward in: providing
such attractions as racing and other sports
i of that nature the income would be much
higher. Florida Finances its government from
taxes paid on racing, cigarets, whisky and
entertainment. ' '
ber One foreign-policy issue Of the current
presidential campaign.
The Democrats beat the Republicans over
the head and at the polls in I960 with the
Cuba situation and since the mess in Cuba
can now ^correctly be called a “bipartisan
failure” it is necessary to find a purely
Democratic fiasco if much mileage is to be
gotten insofar as campaign oratory is con
cerned.
The Democrats, confronted with a first
class fiasco in the comic-opera war in Viet
Nam, recognize that they are vulnerable and
that they need a “victory” over there and
preferably before the voting sheep march
to the polls in November.
The past weekend’s shooting match be
tween an American and several North Viet-.
namese vessels is a prelude to more events,
and- the additional v5,000 American boys re
cently sent to that area has- boosted our
force there beyond the 36,000-mark.
With the military farces now assigned
there by our country there is ample grounds
to soon expect a “victory,” especially when
one considers that the whole country is less
than half the size of North Carolina.
And there will be a few hundred more
empty "hearts in American Homes, whose
sons have been sacrificed in this political
war. V
JONES JOUBNi
i;;. , JACK RIDER, Publisher
Published Every Thursday by The Lenoir
County News Company, Inc., 403 West
Vernon Ave., Kinston, N. C, Phone JA 3
2375. Entered ajf; Second Class Matter May
5, 1949, at th« Pdst Office at Trenton, North
Carolina, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
By Mail in First Zone — $3.00 Per Year.
Subscription Rates Payable in Advance.
Sect
Already the social security tax is gobbling
up nearly 7 per cent'of the gross national
income and with the “benefits’’ now about
to be voted into law it wjU run finally to
more than 11 per cent of each pay check.
It would be simpler if the congressmen
were really interested in helping out the
needy to vote the public at large the same
kind of retirement program they have for
which they contribute no parr of their salary.
This would remove from the hard-pressed
small businessman the need to keep records
withhold money and siidp it off to be wasted
in Washington.
-7!
Few of us would, object to helping the
needy if there were some assurance that
the money taken from us was really all go
ing to the needy, rather than being gobbled
up by the vast bureaucracy that inhabits
the marble jungles of Washington.
At present the/social security administra
tion despite an all-time high-employment is
not collecting enough mone'y to make its
plan actuariaily sound. In brief the billions
bejng collected are not enough to "cover the
billions in “benefits" that a “promising con
gress” has passed out and continues to pass
out. Sound estimates say that as much, as
a 15 per cent social security tax will ulti- !
mately be necessary sinjply to fund existing
“benefits” and each election year congress
men reach deeper into your pocket and-mine
and pass out more “benefits.”
Social security vanishes when the money
collected in the name of social security is
used for general operating expenses of the
government. A much simpler system would
be to collect the social security tax and" de
posit it in a private institution where ,it
could draw interest and be there to the
credit of the person who pays it in.
There are altogether too many millions
of abusive instances in which people pay and
pay and pay social security tax and never
get the first benefit except a $250 burial
payment to their estate. Each person ought
to be. assured that either he or his estate
would get back every penny that had been
paid in by himself and his employer for
him. But the smart boys who dreamed
this. tax would have no part
simple and equitable plan.
The person who pays the tax, trom ms
first job until his death at 64 — before draw
ing a single retirement check — is' robbed.
There is no other way to describe it. And
each time congress turns on its free heart
edness with your money and mine they add
another few hundred thousand “windfall”
cases to the social security burden. People
who pay in foe a few months at the mam
mum rate and then turn around and draw
the maximum benefit for decades. This
^windfall” clause is stuck in to make the
dose more palatable to those who are being
added to the taxable list. \ ~
told that the people who need
would never engage in
security plan. So what:
of system our country
.. to be founded upon. That
each individual has the right to save his
money pr splurge his money and I can see