Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / July 3, 1969, edition 1 / Page 2
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'UJULL EDITORIALS Never Forget That These Editorials Are The Opinion Of One Man ___:__ And He May Be Wrong The Cosa Nostra Most of us in smalltown America feel that we are .beyond the reach of organ ized crime. Nothing could be less true because the cost of crime dips into the pocket of every American no mat ter where he lives. The extortion, hijacking, official cor ruption and equally fixed gambling that one too easily associates with the big cities also reach into the tiniest hamlet. This summer we have seen how nerv ous the commissioners of professional football and baseball can become over any relationship any of its membership may have with organized crime; and well they may be. The great White Sox Scandal in base ball more than a half-century ago left an ugly scar on baseball that is still very well remembered by all who love the game. of a pass. A crucial fumble may be a terrible accident or a serious crime. Nobody can possibly know except the involved. Faking in baseball or basketball is far More recently a series of basketball “fixes” has ruined the careers of greedy young men who swapped their integrity for a sorry mess of criminal potage. ----- until now football — which is by far the easiest game to fix — has es ..*• caped exposure, but it is too much to except that the hot breath of this same irindi of greed has not been felt in this aport, and especially at the professional level. Nobody can know whether a coach is calling the best play for a given flHnaftnin, or that ^ quarterback is throw ing passes just beyond the reach of bis receivers, or that a receiver slows not to be within reach All of which makes it an utter neces sity that everyone connected with the sport keep themselves in the position or. Caesar’s wife. That is all that has been asked a Joe Namath, but he thinks he is gooc enough to thumb his nose at the pro fession that has made him a millionaire Namath is very likely to learn thal those who made him can also breal him and when this is done his shad] associates will throw him aside like i wet cigar, butt, and he’ll deserve it, too To Be Expected Some people in very high places arc shocked to the delicate ends of theii manicured cuticles because there is ae cumulating a mass of evidence to sup port the premise that some doctors arc thieves. v There are theives in every occupa tional group, and doctors never have been any" exception to this ugly fact oi life. But when the federal government op emed the taxpayer’s treasury to the doctors with socialized medicine it wat very quickly learned how a small pei cent of doctors could give all the resl a very bad name. ' A recent North Carolina candidate foi governor, Dentist Reginald Hawkins oj Gharotte, still stands accused of gyp ping the taxpayers out of a very large slice of money for work be was sup posed to have done on i cWdren- ■ The Rocky Rood . JSfelson Rockefeller has now travelled The Rocky Road to not-much Latin American romance and neither he nor the nation nor any of the countries he has visited has benefited. First, and perhaps last: If permanent U. S. embassies and over-sized staffs in all of these countries cannot supply the president with information oh' the needs and the overall political situation^ in their respective countries no single man, however brilliant, can do the job on such a whirlwind basis. ' Personal diplomacy has never been very successful and in South America it has been disastrous. For a long time United States politi cians have exhibited a misguided pa ternalism toward everything “South of the Border”. Some guilt complex has stirred them to “help” our poor neigh bors in Central and South' America. The absurdity of this noble effort is reflected in the fact that Central and South America enjoy an abundance of natural resources that in most senses equal and in many instances surpass those of our own end of the western hemisphere. They have oil, iron, limitless water power, fertile soil and manpower. They lack political stability and with out political staibilty it is impossible to intelligently exploit the good things they have in such rich abundance. And! no amount of North American prayer or money is going to suddenly change this situation. First there are too many countries. Second there is too little transporta tion. Great plenty in one corner of a nation and starvation in another are a . reflection on this lack of roads, railroads and utilization of available waterways. The United States neither has the power nor the duty to attempt to do ! for people what they will not do for : themselves. Brazil has 3,286,647 square miles compared to 3,615,211 for the United States and that includes 586,400 square miles in Alaska. Brazil’s popula tion is just 81,301,000 compared to more than 200 million in the United States and Brazil has more natural resources : than the United States. in the millions of dollars. And how is this possible? It came about in this simple fashion: Some noble practitioner of the medical art sitting behind a desk in Washing ton decided that it would be improper to fix fees, and the taxpayers wound up with a “guideline” (oh hated word) which permitted doctors to charge “reas onable fees.” Which is about like per mitting lawyers to specify their fees for particular jobs, after the job is completed, and never before. Obviously a fee that is reasonable to one doctor might ibe exhorbitant to an other. Even between honorable doctors there is room for debate on this diffi cult point. But then when the natural thieves of the medical trade move in the time for debate ends because they not only charge fees that are far out of line, but they also file for fees, for work they have not doneou; patents they have not Been. And when a situation ties an unscrup ulous doctor to an equally larcenous =s= - PERSONAL 1 PARAGRAPHS BY JACK RI0ER It’s funny how an inexact choice of word or phrase changes the entire .sense of what one is trying to say. Such an instance happened week 'before last in a brief note I had about a Kinstonian being turned loose on a technicality af ter once being convicted of possessing marijuana. To close that item I added this para graph: “Speight’s court - appointed law yer, Harvey Beech, is a member of the school board, who Recently made a speech to a Parent-Teacher group on the threat of marijuana to the youth of our county.” Last week we published a letter from Harvey in which he went to some length to point out that I had inferred a lot of things that I never intended to infer. I’ve known Harvey since he was not as high as the soda fountain in his Daddy’s shop on North Street, and I was hauling Coca^olas in twice each week. I know he is a hard-working, in telligent citizen who has a large vested interest as well as an overall cultural interest in making his home town a better place. Here’s what I Mended to convey with that paragraph: That because of absurd technicalities that have been raised by the supreme court, which pertain to * search warrants and to the right of every criminal to have a taxpaidl lawyer to defend him, Beech was forced to rep resent a man charged with a crime that Beech recognizes to be a serious threat to our youth. I could have said all that, but I was in a hurry trying to fill up a hole on the front page. And even my wife agreed that Harvey had a perfectly legitimate gripe. But that doesn’t mean Harvey was too right, 'because she sel dom agrees with anything I write, and less that I say. To make it perfectly' clear: I was not criticizing Harvey for doing what a judge ordered him to do. I was not criticizing him for doing everything he could do once he was ordered to do it. To half-heartedly represent a client in many instances is worse than not to rep resent him at all. . . and Harvey is one of Kinston’s 'better lawyers, who keeps up with what the courts are doing and once he saw the search warrant did not comply with the most recent ruling about search warrants he would have been derelict to not use this to free the man he was ordered to defend even if he knew the man was guilty as hell. Harvey in his letter raises the point that the defendant had loaned his car to another man aud it was possible that tiie other man had left the mari juana in the car. The only poiht this raises so far as I’m concerned is: How in the hell did this man rate a court appointed, tax-paid lawyer if he could afford the exhorbitant costs of operating; an automobile today? JONES COjUNTY JOURNAL Jack Rides, Publisher Published every Thursday by the County News Company, Inc, 605 North Her -fTfetrit'lto. • *» in advance. Seeotad elan postage paid! . <3111 m
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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July 3, 1969, edition 1
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