Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / April 15, 1971, edition 1 / Page 1
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SOME OTHERS HUNG . copies of two documents that had been hanging in the court room of the court house for the past 10 years. As one result of that one of the lawyers last Monday called on the board of county commis sioners and exercised his con cern rather heatedly and then that night in solemn convoca tion, and with little else to do the bar association unanimously adopted a rather lengthy reso lution, which had as its first “whereas”: “Whereas, it has come to the attention of the Le noir County Bar Association that the Lenoir County Board of Commissioners, by motion unani mously passed on January 5, 1971, caused to be removed from the Lenoir County courthouse court room the framed edition of the Magna Charta and the Bill of Bights.” And with two or three other qualifying whereases the bar as sociation resolved, unanimously, Lenoir requesting that commissioners direct that the framed copies of the Magna Charts and the Bill of Rights be returned to their proper place in the Lenoir County Courthouse to be there retained on public display. . Since I am one of the county commission members who voted to take these documents down and one of those who is now be ing asked to reverse a decision of just four months ago let me give a-hill view of myself on this tempest in this legal teapot. I was one of those sidewalk superintendents who looked on with amazement and pride some 30 years ago as the Lenoir Coun ty courthouse was built, and mar velled at the beauty of its de sign and the tender loving care its architects, Michell Wooten and John Rowland, lavished on their first major public build ing in Lenoir County. Like most others I looked with awe and pride on the unbeliev able beauty of the courtroom and the specially cut panelling which came by special freight car all the way from the west coast. First, the court room was not designed to serve as a gallery for portraits or the hanging of facsimiles of historical docu ments. It gave me a very severe pain when they began driving nails in these irreplacable pan els and hanging cheap copies of poorly framed documents and only because they had been framed in his dying years by a fine old gentleman, Judge Henry A. Grady, who puttered away his last few years in a lit tle woodwork shop at his home hear New Bern. Rather than say “No” to the old man this abuse of the court rootn panelling was entered upon and there, grossly out of place, completely out of the reading range of any one, too high to be seen, but just hang ing there, they remained for 19 years. Then in January the board of county commissioners was asked to hang a portrait on these walls and I expressed the view to the board that I have expressed =THE JONES COUNTY NUMBER 46 TRENTON, N. C., THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1971 VOLUME xvm Fearless Fireman? Herbert A. Toler of Wallace Road just north of Kinston was charged with public drunken ness, resisting arrest, assault on an officer and malicious damage to private property early Sat urday morning. He was found sitting in front of his burning trailer home at 3 a.m. too drunk to fight fire but not too drunk to fight officers. Damage to the trailer was estimated at $2,500. BRONSTEIN GETS AWARD Monday night Saint John’s Masonic Lodge presented Dave Bronstein with a special award which commemorated Bron stine’s 50 years as a Master Mason. Long Time Jones Teacher Retiring Lillie F. Me Daniel, a veteran of 39 years service teaching in Jones County Public School, has announced that she intends to retire at the close of the 1970 71 school year this summer. Commenting on her long years of service to Jones Countians, Miss McDaniel stated, “I have enjoyed working with the many fine students, teachers and ad ministrators in Jones County throughout the years. I wish only the best for the Jones County Schools in the future.” Miss McDaniel will be missed by the two generations of Jones Countians that she helped ed ucate. Car Hits Home In Lenoir County At 8:30 Sunday morning Mrs. Inez Overton of Moyock lost con trol of her car, went out of control for an estimated 650 feet before plowing into the home of Mrs. Eliza Hill on Highway NC 55 about 17 miles west of Kins ton. Mrs. Overton and her 15 year old son Claude both suffered serious injuries and narrowly es caped death since their car caught fire with the impact and but for quick action by people in- the neighborhood and the Seven Springs Volunteer Fire Department the fire would have destroyed the Hill home. Damage estimated at the time here; that to me it was unalter ably wrong to mar the panelling of the courtroom with any other hangings, and that I as a party of one would like to see the two items hanging there removed and put in a more logical place. The board unanimously agreed and the two documents were taken down. Now after four months the bar members have missed them, and what’s more after 19 years they didn’t even know what the documents were. Actually, the documents were copies of the Declaration of In dependence and the Magna Carta. Yet the bar association wants the bill of Rights and the Magna Charta rehung. This will be difficult, as this date, since Judge Grady did not frame the first ten amendments to the con stitution for us while he was puttering away in his woodwork shop in those twilight years of his long and useful life. So much for that, already Com missioner Ike Whitfield has cut anud rim, as usual, and he’s rea dy to rehang whatever it is the bar association wants rehung. I Eight Cases Heard In Quiet Session Of Jones Court Last Friday eight cases on the calendar of Jones County Dis trict Court were cleared in one of the quietest sessions of re cent months. Robert Hill Jr. was ordered to pay the costs for malicious dam age to private property, a nol pross was entered in the charge of not having his car inspected , against William D. Moore. Edward E. Carter and Anna Q. Metts were each fined $25 and costs for driving without a license. Judge N. Kornegay paid the costs for driving on the wrong side of the road, Thomas Pen nington and William G. Kor negay each paid a $5 fine and costs for speeding and Rudy C. Shephard paid the costs for speeding. to the home of $2000 may be on the low side since closer examination revealed that the house was knocked off its foundation. I will make this one small concession: if a committee from the Kinston Arts Council will make a complete study of the courtroom, take a good look at the two gifts of the late Judge vGrady, and also consider the size portrait the lawyers want to hang in the courtroom of Judge Vernon Cowper, I will be happy to accept whatever recommenda tion that the Arts Council Committee will come up with. To me the matter of lighting, the matter of being positioned so the public can view them and the matter of what damage the panelling will possibly suffer are all items that would have to be considered carefully, but if the Art Council Committee took all of these factors into con sideration and then recommend ed the rehanging these items I will vote to have it done. But just a petition from the bar association whose member ship didn’t even know what doc uments were there after 19 years will not move me into any sud den action on this or anything else. One Probate Action During the past week Jones County Court Clerk Rogers Pol lock reports his office has re ceived for probate the will of.; Furney Wilder, under which Wilder's estate with an estimat ed value of $6,650 is left to his son Aaron of Scotland Neck, who was also named executor with out bond under terms of the will. Most of the holding was in ' real estate located in Jones County. Airman Daugherty Gets Top Award Airman First Class Glenn P. Daugherty, grandson of Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Heath of Route 1, Trenton, has been named Out standing Airman in his unit at Tan Son Nhut AB, Vietnam. Airman Daugherty, a security policeman, was selected for his exemplary conduct and duty per formance. He is assigned to a unit of the Pacific Air Forces. He previously served at Hollo man AFB, N.M. The airman is a 1969 graduate of Jones Central High School. APRIL 15th: DAY OF ANGUISH, ANGER; FRUSTRATION, FEAR; GUESSING & GRATIFICATION by Jack Rider In Eastern North Carolina April is the most beautiful of all the months, with azalea, wisteria, dogwood and endless other beau ties perfuming the breeze and delighting the eye. But a few years back some grudge around Washington de cided to make the federal tax payer happier by postponing for one month that deadline with the “Infernal Revenue Service.” And with that decision the in come tax filing deadline was moved from its most fitting time in the “Ides of March” to the, beauteous season of April And here it is; time to con fess enough to sound honest and cheat enough to stay sol vent It is the season of great panic in the land, and those poor souls who earn their bread by .. out one received his “W-2” form and was then ready to begin filling out the lines on that ac cursed tax form. Refunds, if any, will come back more quickly to the early filer, and there will be no last minute reduction in the rate, or in the penalty to be paid if one in that last hectic few hours goofs and puts the right figures on the wrong line, or visa versa. But what we do; rather fear ing to put it all down on one piece of paper for the IBS to see, and doubt and nag about. This year a new “simplified” form was issued to the Ameri can taxpayers, and it was as complicated as the confusing form of the year before and the year before. The “simplificity” of this form has given rise to a new business in the land, or a flock of new businesses. They are loosely “tax preparation compa from one ckroom of such as road village across the land. This year one of the biggest of the national chain stores, Sears Roebuck, got in the act and opened offices in 600 of its stores, where for a fee they will attempt to “simplify” the simple form. Obviously millions of taxpay ers who want to be honest, but want all the loopholes they can possibly enjoy turn to these agencies each year. One such soul in the person Of an anonymous Atlanta, Georgian this year turned to not one, but five of these compa nies (including two of H & R Block) and two visits to the IRS itself and as most any taxpayer could' have told him in the be ginning: He came up with seven different answers. This “Mr. Atlanta,” who for understandable reasons prefers to'remain anonynous reports on Us trial and tribulations in this week’s issue of “The National Observer’ in which he confesses he had a gross income in of $10,318.80, plus a reim tt tor moving from Ids of $8,843.89. In his seven efforts to be honest with the tax man and careful with his money “Mr. At lanta found a range of $793.04 in the answers he received and paid out $119 to the five com panies who gave him these ans wers, and of course, got his two different answers from IRS agents “free”. Sears Roebuck hit “Mr. At lanta” the hardest blow by tell ling him that he owed an extra $141 to the federal tax collec tor, for which sad news he was charged $15. The highest fee for this “ex pert” service was charged by C & M Company, whose “expert” charged him $31 to tell him that he had a refund of $652.04 com ing to brighten his summer va cation time. On his first visit to the IRS office “Mr. Atlanta” was told that he was due a refund of $466.10. Understandably a trifle confused by this time, the tax payer went to another IRS agent for a last check and this time was told that the accurate refund he is due Is $400.94. And, $0 of this mind yon was ■**>*•'* .V: just on the subject of his fed eral tax liability. The spread for “Mr. Atlanta’s” state tax program was almost equally un equal. No two of the five profession al services came up with the same state figure, and he was told his refund from the State of Georgia tax collector would range from $55 to $181.04. Even Sears told him he had $111 re bate due from the state tax col lector. So armed with seven “export" opinions, each of which was fill ed out in the presence of a re porter who went along to “help" his friend, “Mr. Atlanta” ap proached April 15th with the same dilemma of all the rest. The best guess is that close to half of the nation’s 77 million income tax payers turn to some kind of “expert" for help with filing their tax return. The reason is fairly simple: no one trusts the Internal Rev enue Service to give them a square deal, so they spend their money looking for someone who will, for a fee.
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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April 15, 1971, edition 1
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