Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / July 20, 1967, edition 1 / Page 3
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THE TRAGEDY OF APPOMATTOX I JOHN J. SYNONi xnere is a phrase of Shake speare’s that plays in my-miild: “The evil that men do lives after them”. I write of the tragedy that was Appomattox. And however unfashionable it may be to recall that mournful day, the fact stands: It would have been better — perhaps, for both sidei — had The South won its independence. Appomattox was more than a matter of physical exhaustion. That sort of thing can be, as it has been, overcome. What went with the wind when Lee said goodbye was the Southern way of life — and that can never be recaptured. Therein lies the tragedy. The 19th Century North, be it remembered, measured an indi vidual’s worth by money earned or owned. It gave little value to things of the mind; recall Icha bod’s social position. The fehr in tellectuals clustered around Bos ton represented nearly all there was in the Way of culture, north of the Mason-Dixon. That this is so is seen in what grew out of the muscular vigor of the industrial, mercantile sec tion of the nation. Its 19th Cen tury personality is remembered by the phrase, Robber Barons. Such were the people who mark ed the land, who made of Chica-' go the hog butcher to the world, and of Wall Street the repository of the nation’s wealth: Armour, Cooke, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller, Drew, Huntington, Hill, and Harriman — and a host of others. They set the tenor of the times, the Rob ber Barons. The one thing that made Northern men different, one from the other, was money. One’s position in life was gov erned so, by one’s “success”. None of which is to say the South was an Athens-like land of erudition. It was not. The bulk of Southern people, in the 19th Century, as the bulk of 19th Cen tury Northern people were poor and unlettered. That isn’t the point. It is this: In the ante-bellum South, a per son’s position in life, his rung, was determined not by his mon ey but by his “breeding”, and his > breeding was not confined — as is the literal definition of the word — to the identification of his forebears. Jefferson Davis, as true an intellectual as this na tion ever prddiiced, came from a so-so' family. Judah Benjamin, “the brains of the Confederacy”,, was at Jewish immigrant who, following his escape to England, became'the foremost attorney in the British Isles. Edgar Allen Poe was the son of an itinerant actor. ‘ No, position in the South was due to cultural attainment. The libraries of the great planters, those still extant, bear testimony to thgt. That of William Byrd, a 4,000-volume collection, was the largest in the colonies. But learn ing, per se, was only part of it. Equal stress was laid on honor, fidelity and virtue, on manners and beliefs. It was the combina tion i of all these factors that I9|)a the Southern “qantleVnnn” greater than the world has ever known — and it was destroyed. As I say, therein lies tragedy. - True, out of this nation’s wealth has grown a culture, one of sorts. Even so, what impresses us, today, about a painting by Cezanne or an Epstein bust is not so much the turn of the art ist’s hand as the price the object brings at Sootbby’s. The Ameri can culture, true son of its fa ther, has money as its life’s blood. What I would say is this: Life in these United States, since 1865, has been dominated by the dollar. Out of the dollar has come what we are, a degenerat ing nation: Dollars, We are now learning, cannot solve spiritual, ethical, or moral problems. Had the South won its inde pendence, the flourishing cul tural bud that was Dixie, today, would be as . dominant in the land of Lee as the dollar remains north of the Potomac. As culture grew out of the dollar, in the North, so, it is reasonable to be lieve, wealth would have grown from Southern manners. And a land grown great on spiritual, ethical, and moral values might, in this time of uncertainty, serve as a guiding hand — North and South, alike. As it is, the remnant of the Southern way of life that still exists, as flax among thistles, is lampooned by the Philistines who have no understanding of the worth of manners or morals, or very little. They have even less appreciation of the mean ing deep in the phrase, he-is-a man-of-honor. They abjure the common civility inherent in “sir” and “m’am”, and look up on a vibrant love of country and a fear of God as somehow square, even subversive. It is a sad thing. How well Shakespeare knew the world. "Music Man" This Week at ECU Summer Theatre Meredith Willson’s spectacular Broadway and motion picture hit musical, “The Music Man” open ed a nine-night run Monday, July 17, at the East Carolina University Summer Treatre. “Music Man,” the third pro duction of the 1967 season, will be the first production of the Summer Theatre to run on Sun day night (July 23). Another hit musical, “South Pacific,” will al so offer a Sunday night per formance on July 30. The two popular musicals are expected to be the top attractions of the 1967 season. “Music Man” is the second musical of .the season. Last week’s production of “How To Succeed in Business Without Jeally Trying” was rated juest critic Beverly Wolter ‘witty ... satirical . illed evening.” With book, music and lyrics >y Meredith Willson, “Music dan” opened on Broaway on lecemiber 19, 1957. It was im nediately acclaimed by one crit c as “one of the best musicals >f our time.” Tickets remain for all por tion is avaife A -<.*■? LTV VIEWPOINT Religion and Government a coupie ot tne more proxrun , ent national news magazines have devoted a considerable a mount of space during the past few weeks to comments by first one “modern” theologian and then another who seem determ ined to break down such re maining faith as exists among the people. For the most part, these theologians are connected with colleges and universities; some even hold posts on the campuses of divinity schools. One of them, in a speech in the mid-west, ridiculed most of the Ten Commandments, de scribing them as out-of-date and not applicable, as he put it, “to the mores and stresses, of mod ern times”. Sin, he contends, is relative, and depends upon the situation. The emphasis is on man, and what he wants to do — not on what he ought to do or aspire to be. This is dangerous business, and the greatest regret is that such wide circulation is being given to such utterances hy men who not only defy the very con cepts of the teachings of Christ, but who do so under the pre tense of serving the religious neeas ot tne people. For there is not much differ ence in what they are saying and the declaration of the first Russian cosmonaut upon his re turn from a flight into space. This communist cosmonaut, Titov, sneeringly said: “Some people say there is a God out there but, in my travels around the earth all day long, I looked around and did not see Him. I saw no God or angels. I believe in man, his strength, his possi bilities, and his reason.” We remember thinking at the time: How silly can a man get? Who ever suggested that God is an entity to be seen by an athe istic earthling who, by his very nature, refuses to see? But there is a great deal of the Russian cosmonaut’s kind of thinking being spread across our own land — and by a distress ingly large number of men who call themselves clergymen. We fell to thinking about the swift dissipation in America of our allegiance to the fundamen tals of this country. There isn’t any question about where the fidelities of our Founding Fa thers lay. Time and time again, each of them — all of them — emphasized • an acknowledge ment of the dependency of this republic upon Christian pre cepts. “The liberties of a nation cannot be thought secure,” they said, “if we remove the only firm basis — a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God.” But isn’t that conviction be ing removed, step by step, day by day, in our time? Benjamin Franklin was not re garded particularly as a religion ist in his time. He was’ not even an active churchman. But during the Constitutional Convention, Feed Your Dog This Nourishing and Economical Dog Food. ^Parrott Bros he arose one day to make a com ment that ought to serve as a warning to all of us. Let us quote precisely what Dr. Frank lin said: “I have lived, sirs, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. If a sparrow can not fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that a nation can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sirs, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it’. I firmly believe this;” Benjamin Franklin said, “and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in (our efforts here) no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confound ed, and we ourselves shall be come a reproach and byword to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, de spair of establishing govern ments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, wars and con quest.” So spoke Benjamin during the time of the drafting of the Con stitution. What he was saying was that if America — either then or later — turned its back on the source of all of its bless ings, it would be an invitation to ' destruction and failure. i Could it be that today, nearly i Your Medicine Can Cost You Less Have Your Prescriptions Filled at MEDICAL CENTER PHARMACY 905 N. Queen Street Kinston, N. C. WE WELGOME CHARGE ACCOUNTS WE KEEP INCOME TAX AND INSURANCE RECORDS __ Walter p. Johnson. R. ph. Frosty Mom Meats Inc. “Helping to build a better Livestock Market for Eastern North Carolina” Top prices paid for Hogs & Cattle Daily No Commission Charge No Waiting 360 New Freshmen Attend Summer Orientation at ECU About 360 of next fall’s fresh men attended the fifth two-day segment of this summer’s pre-en trance counseling program at East Carolina University. They came from 17 North Caro lina counties, Hawaii and the District of Columbia, and 15 oth er states — Alabama, Connecti cut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Mis souri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. Freshmen from Lenoir Coun ty are: Bernard Hines Arnold, Kathryn Elaine Baker, Johnnie Prank Braxton Jr., Dwight Fred Brick Buck, William Colon Byrd, Carolyn Yvonne Davis, Treva Man Denmark, Diana Lou Dunne, Walter David Ezzell Jr., lohn William Farabow Jr., Scar lett Marlene Forsyth, Ann Eliza beth Kinney, Joan Marie Kivett, Dorothy Carol Lang, Frances <ee, Randy Ray Moorehead, Beck layne Noble, Edward Hillery Stroud Jr. Elbert West Owens lr., John Walter Owens, Lois Fean Utley, Robert Elliott Whit ey, and Brenda Joyce Pelletier. 200 years later, the people of America are being persuaded by alse prophets to turn their >acks on the principles that de serve to survive? It’s worth hinking about, isn’t it?
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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July 20, 1967, edition 1
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