Still Pawing the Ground!
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Never Forget That These Editorials Are The Opinion Of One Man
__ And He May Be Wrong
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Sad Commentary
It is a rather sad commentary on our
times that many have taken hope from
the news that the rate of crime has in
creased less in the past year than in the
previous year while still showing an in
crease over that previous year.
Last year the rate of crime increase
■was about 16 per cent. This year it is
put at about 11 per cent. But that 11
per cent is over the 16 per cent of last
year.
This is surely not a decrease. One
has to be hard put for good news to
yiyggify this as good news but many
commentators in and out of govern
ment are classifying it thusly.
Good news would be a drop in the
crime rate over the previous year. . v
not an increase.
Good news would be when the rate
of crime increase fell below the rate
of population increase. In the past 20
permissive years the rate of crime in
crease has been almost lfto per cent
greater than the rate of population in
crease.
This, of course, has come at a time
when there has been a national mania
for not punishing those who commit
crimes. More concern and far more
money are being spent today on the
criminal than on his victim. No one
suggest that a person beateta. by a mug
ger and robbed perhaps of his life’s
savings be rehabilitated, but the mug
ger is instantly surrounded by do-good
ers who generally have access to the
public treasury and also nurse a com
his fault that he committed such a bru
tal crime. But the poor child who was
raped, if she survived, has little but
cynical snickers /to ease the damage to
her body and ipind.
On that day when a majority of the
courts of this nation returns to the sim
ple philosophy of punishing the guilty,
not rewarding them; that is the certain
day on which the crime rate will begin
to fall. There is no substitute for punish
ment of the guilty to curb the low in
stincts of that criminal minority who
prey upon society.
Cause For Concern
It is to be hoped that experts are
viewing with too much concern the, leaf
blight that has hit the nation’s corn
crop this year and that the damage "is
not so severe as many fear.
However, it is impossible to show too
much concern for the overall com pic
ture in our nation since corn is the
absolutely fundamental basis of the af
fluent American society today.
True, com only comprises about five
per cent of the total farm sates in an
average year but the things that com
produces are a percentage of considera
ble different flavor: Hogs .10.0 per cept
of total farm income, cattle and calves
7.3 per cent, dairy products 7 per cent,
poultry and eggs 22.7 per cent, which
added to the five per cent corn repre
sents comes to about 53 per cent of
total farm income in an average year.
So it does not take a certified agron
omist to understand the magnitude of
any peril that threatens any c
some people wit »
ip many more.
undisputed Champion of the Eastern
North Carolina Farm Economy.. Today
meat reigns supreme with the combined
income from hogs, beof cattle, poultry,
md milk considerably higher than
from one-time King Nicotine.
This farm revolution has seen thous
ands of field hands .displaced, leaving
empty houses on nearly every farm and
crowded shims in nearly every town big
enough to have pretensions of being a
city.
This has been costly in human fac
tors, costing these displaced white and
colored farm families their long-cherish
way of life; which in most instances was
not much above^ a scant existance. And
now it is costing those who were not
so unfortunate in vastly expanded wel
fare costs, and there is no early end
in sight to this pair of price tags worn
by this farm revolution.
But on the plus side the overall farm
economy is much better than when all
the hopes and fears of the farmer and
those he supported were tied to that
single slender tobacco twine.
Today farm income is spread over
the entire year instead of a few hectic
wedks in late summer and early fall, and
tbits has raised, not only the economic
well-being of the farmer but has chang
ed his cultural practices — some to
the bad but most to the good.
The tobacco hand who feasted for a
brief few weeks at selling time and “fam
ined” the majority of the year was a
burden to himself and the community,
since by force of circumstance he could
be nothing more than a pessimist.
The meat economy is no bed of roses
either but 'beside the tobacco hand the
meat farmer is so much better Off that
comparisons seem trite and almost im
possible.
for boubom whisky, which also owes a lot
of its potent potability to this same
crop.
And there is one further considera
tion that some city dwellers and their
elected representatives ought to derive
from this situation: That spending less
thqn one per cent of the gross national
product to stabilize the overall farm
economy is a very low price for in
surance of the high-on-the-hog eating
habits of Americans.
It is a chilling consideration to note
that there is less than a one year supply
on hand of any of the most basic farm
commodities in our nation. Yet there are
still many who support the stockpiling
of endless years of materials for mili
tary usage and preach loudly hoW ridi
culous it is to support the same prin
ciple for even the most basic of military
supplies; which, of course, is food.
(But then the farm constituency is
not so big or powerful as the labor
Unions and the great industrial, com
plexes of our nation. A country — like
ever hastily glued together for the gov
ernment of people. There are other
countries who have copied our consti
fion of Independence” borrowed from
Thomas Jefferson and his editors of
1776.
But so far none has been able to
duplicate the American System. And
hone is ever likely to copy it because it
is people, not rules and regulations that
make a system what it is, or is not.
This reflection comes r to me from
editing the article from the “Atlanta1'
magazine this week, about Kinston's
Felix Harvey, a man who is the chief
executive officer of a bfliion dnjUar
corporation in Atlanta, still chief execu
tive officer of numerous large — but
notso-large-as-Atlanta — local business.
And yet Felix has found the time and
the intellectual curiosity to deeply in
volve himself in the once-mundane af
fairs of the Kinston School Board, and
more recently in the bitter political
struggle that has crept into our educa
tional process.
Perhaps there are other countries
where men equally as busy and com
parably as important as Harvey do sit
themselves down to the minor problems
of their community when they could
just as easily stand aloof and let those
community problems stew in their own
juices. V
But Harvey has a deep sense of con
cern about the community in which he
and his family have lived and prospered
these many generations, so he takes the
time between Atlanta and London and
Amsterdam to make every effort to do
what he can, to keep the schools a
working public organism.
And this involvement becomes even,
more unique when one stands aside and
considers that Harvey has been voted
down on every single important issue
that has come before the board in the
past year.
One can appreciate the very busy
and very important personage taking the
time to “run” a local governmental unit,
but with Harvey’s recent track record
his is merely a voice of opposition to
some of the foolish things he feels bis
colleagues on the school board are un
necessarily engaging in. A lesser man
would have turned in his badge long
ago and left the school problems to"
those more inclined to the lock-step of
modem conformity.
You see, it takes unique men and
women to create a unique system of
government and the first requisite of
this uniqueness is having the courage
to stand and fight for what one believes
to be right, even when he’s being beat
en every day in every skirmish. It’s
to be a winner. And Harvey very
sly is a winner by every yardstick
People are