Never Forget That These Editorials Are The Opinion Of One Man
____ And tie May Be Wrong
In 14 More Years
In just 14 more years it will be 1984,
and unless there is a major change in
the direction of American politics the
year 1984 may verywell surpass the
novel “1984,” which chilled millions of
readers back in the 40’s.
Orwell’s frightening study of the all
wise, all-powerful government called
“Big Brother” was terrifying in print. It
will be worse in practice. And the
thing that makes it far worse is that
it will be accepted; if briefly.
Fresh from a, victory for freedom in
the postwar publication of “1984 very
few who read its prophetic pages thought
it possible that such.a valiant people
would, or could, possibly surrender so
quickly and so suddenly that which they
had so recently repurchased at such
a high price.
But in 25 years Americans have ex
changed some very precious parts of
their birthright for a very thin bowl
of governmental gruel, and as with Or
well’s “Big Brother” it has all been
done in the sweet name of “the general
welfare.” A common phrase of this sell
out has been “common good”. This
leaves no room for the uncommon, the
rare, the talented, the courageous.
Ungraded schools today are a com
mon community pride, rather than the
“honor roll” of not-so-long ago. Students
for a Democratic Society (SDS) bas re
placed Phi Beta Kappa as a campus hon
or. Football — a herd game — has re
placed baseball — an individual’s game
_ as the national pastime.
Escapism has replaced individualism.
More and more of our youth are hiding
behind beards, or a drug-filled fog.
The arts have deserted talent and are
rewarding gimmickery, or pornography,
and occasionally both.
But nothing is permanent in politics.
The Romano gave the simple mobs the
circus instead of bread and raised de
bauchery to an art form. Marie Anton
Inette said, “Let them eat cake.” Hitler
hypnotized the gentle Germanfolk into
werewolves by telling them how super
they were, and by throwing the Jews
to" the “lions” of scattered concentra
tion camps.
AH of these political Elysian Fields
have one major thing in common: Their
brevity.
They do not last because they over
look the hungers and passions of that
lonely individual, who eventually reach
es the decision that one day of free
dom is worth a thousands years of
slavery. > ■> .
Another Reform
Some of the bright little bureacrats
around Raleigh have persuaded men
who ought to know better that there is
nothing right with the present state gov
ernment and all that is needed to make
things perfect is to reduce the number
of departments of state government
from the present 317 departments to
about 17. There hasn’t been so much
horse manure around Raleigh since the
horse show last fall.
First off, this fiction about 317 depart
ments of government is not a damned
lie, nor a half truth, but is a statistical
sliglit-of-hand act. True there are a lot
of names in the state directory of such
exotic groups as the State Agricultural
Hall of Fame, the Air Control Advisory
Commission, the State Arts Council, The
Armory Commission, the Museum of
Art Commission, The State Art Society,'
The State Cancer Study Commission, The
Governor Caswell Memorial Commission,
The Civil Air Patrol, The Edenton His
torical Commission and on and on and
on.
Since the Council, of State has bristled
against this intrusion into its affairs,
and 'the governor and his computer op
erators have agreed to steer dear of
those agencies there are only a few
areas in which logical consolidations,
oan be made without vastly increasing
the cost or lowering the service levels
of the agencies involved.
There is no suggestion b^ the supports
of this “reform movement” that any
■MHL. 4b ri? -li >;
called “The
Exactly
...has forbidden!
This, like many another, effort of
ithe government is based in serious
good intent, but in complete ignorance
of practical facts of, life. When any work
group is foreed to accept conditions con
trary to its wishes the results are inevi
table: .Less work, higher costs and dis
content.
This Philadelphia effort specifically is
to force more Negroes into construc
tion trades. This kind of federal “help”
has already hamstrung many 'industries
and lowered the level of efficiency while
increasing the cost. '
The Negro who permits himself to
be used in this Jrind of sociological ma
nipulation cannot possibly win. Every
thing that goes wrbng on any job on
which Negroes are being used against
the wishes of the majority is going to
to be blamed on the Negro. He will
be the scapegoat for every kind of
white laziness, ignorance and meanness.
And it is equally true that if the sit
uation were reversed and Negroes were
forced to accept white workers on jobs
previously confined to Negroes the
white worker would become the scape
goat. This is not right, but it is the
hard truth.
Fortunately this racial bias is worse
in the North than in the South. Here
we have been accustomed to working
together'racially since the history of the
South began. We have been separated
Socially, but always yoked together when
work had to be done.
But'in the North the Negro is feared
by people who have never associated
with Negroes. Neighborhoods panic
when even the finest Negro family
moves in. They fear they’ll be robbed
in the night, and their daughters raped
and their sons assaulted. They judge all
Negroes by the criminal element of Ne
gro society that have been turned loose
on all society — hut most largely on
other Negroes — by this pathological
mania to help the Negro.
No law, no prayer, no forced employ
ment has ever raised people . . . and
it will not raise Negroes now. People
rise or sink on their own abilities and
the individual willingness to use those
abilities to their fullest.
department of service will be eliminat
ed; only that many will be lumped un
der one heading for streamlining. And
this is supposed to make those lost
agencies ^nore responsive to the public
needs.
Any citizen who thinks he can exert
more influence on the state school board
than he can on his county school
board has just about enough sense to
vote for the kind of pig that’s in this
poke.
' All this reform will do as we are
seeing now with court reforms is about
triple the cost and add’ nothing — ab
solutely nothing to the efficiency. The
goyernor will just have 15 or 20 more
highly paid jobs to pass out to his sup
ports, but all the barnacles on the bot
tom of our ship of state will still he '
them
The way to effect economies in gov
ernment is for the general assembly to
meet annually and take the time to in
form itself about spending and spend
ing requests and stop acting as a limp
rubber stamp for toe advisory budget
commission, which has the most liberal
spending “conservatives” on its mem
bership of any organisation in state gov
ernment -k r :\ ' .
lease from the interstate commerce com
mission, which announced that the Rose
Hin Poultry Corporation and Quinn
Wholesale Company of Warsaw had ei
been fined $1,000 for violating one
the precious little ICC rule$ by “trans
porting canned goods, catsup and paper
bags from points in Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, Maryland and Virginia to War
saw without there being in force ap
propriate motor carrier authority from
the Interstate Commerce Commission.”'
Few of us have any remote notion
of the petty ash-shifting to which the
federal establishment goes to jack the
cost of living up and to make doing:
business more difficult for those who>
jure willing to work for an honest living..
The Rose Hill Poultry Company has
IOC license to haul chickens, but
does not have license to haul anything
back after unloading its chickens in the
North. ’
Now why do you suppose such a
regulation was ever written? Not to
cut the cost of freight. Heavens No!
But to keep the price of freight high.
The entire federal apparatus is based
on escalation of prices. It’s the only
way government can continue its def
icit financing. Each year every tax
payer has to pay a little more taxes
or the card castle will crumble. / So
empty trucks have to return to North
Carolina.
But you might say: Why doesn’t the
Rose Hill Poultry Company get itself
an ICC franchise that would permit it
to haul canned goods, catsup and paper
bags back to North Carolina? Well, get
ting an IOC license involves an expend
iture of thousands of dollars and several
years of time. Any and every kind of
franchise at the disposal of the federal
government is surrounded by a horde
of inept lawyers, who’d starve to death
anywhere but in Washington. If one
goes before the ICC he has to hire —
at an exhoriritant fee — an ICC type
lawyer, who is generally some hack who
worked a few years in that branch of
government and learned its particular
kind of red tape.
And then there are hearings to de
termine if such a service is needed. All
truckers who already have license op
pose anybody else getting one. This
is natural, atid they are armed with
their ICC-type lawyer . . . and this goes
on for ungodly periods of time. '
Then assuming 'one finally, gets the
federal franchise: He is sunk a sea
of regulations that in turn have to be
“interpreted” by that same Washington
shyster, and if you don’t grease his
palm it’s awfully hard -to get. by bis
friends at “The bureau” who have the
stamp in their hand. If you think this
is an exaggeration I invite you to apply
for any federal franchise that’s on the
■market and find out for yourself. 'I
found out the PCC route, but they’re
all basically the same. ICC just hap
pens to be one'off.the worst.
JONES COUNTY JOURNAL
.. Jack Rides, Publisher
Published every Thursday by the LbNOIE
Couhty News .Company, Inc, 60S North Hcr
ISt”«. NO28S01, Phone JA
3-2375. Entered aa Second Clan
5,1949, at Rost Office at Trenton,
lina, under Ae Act of March
mafi fint Mono $300 per year
*“* Cta&5J‘s jss r