PERSON COUNTY TIMES
A PAPER FOR ALL THE PEOPLE
J. S. MERRITT, EDITOR M. C. CLAYTON, MANAGER
THOMAS J. SHAW, JR., City Editor.
Published Every Thursday and Sunday. Entered As Second
Class Matter At The Postoffice At Roxboro, N. C., Under
The Act Os March 3rd., 1879.
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THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 1941
Zeal And Prudence, Person Style ..
On August 18, 1941, two days after the Person
County demonstration against law and order which
must go down in North Carolina history as the “Cy
Winstead” affair, President Roosevelt, in a message
addressed to the 48th annual international police con
ference at Buffalo, N. Y., said that the “internal securi •
ty of the United States is dependent in large part on
the zeal and prudence of law enforcement officers”.
It must, we think, be in retrospect a source of com
fort to Sheriff M. T. Clayton, to Chief of Police Robin
son, and to those other officers of County, City & State,
including Jailer A. M. Long and the Highway Patrol
men, that they were on Friday night and Saturday
morning able to perform their duties as they saw fit,
regardless of the then and now divergent opinions as
to just how far zeal went in defiance of prudence.
Cost of that zeal, as related in dollars and cents
damage to the court house by those who smashed win
dows with bottles and shot (as has been observed by
other editorialists) was as nothing in comparison with
the sacrifice demanded by those who thoughtlessly
wrecked vengeance upon the court house walls because
they could not otherwise get at the man accused of a
crime regarded in any locality as infamous.
Citizens whose pride in their County’s long history
caused them to wince at the unfavorable publicity re
sulting from, last week’s demonstration of mob-spirit
cannot forget the shamefulness of the spectacle, but
they can be thankful that} Sheriff Clayton and those
with him had full understanding of their sworn duty
to up-hold the laws they had been delegated to enforce.
II
Not yet fully investigated is the CCC angle of the
affair, in which it is alleged, with apparent truth, that
an undertermined number of Negro youths in the Camp
banded together with certain others of their race and
attempted a demonstration march down South Main
street. Likewise not fully reported upon are other dis
orders on the “Hill”, a Negro section never known as
an abiding'place of law and order. Also not solved is the
early morning attack upon a newsboy. But as much as
' these incidents may have distressed law-abiding citizens
they were but surface manifestations attendant upon
larger disorders at the court house, and will be judged
as such by right thinking citizens, both white and
Negro.
United States Army officers who came here the
the first of this week have promised a full investiga
tion of the participation of any and all CCC boys in the
Saturday morning uproar. The officers have also prom
ised disciplinary measures against any and all identifi
able CCC boys who may have joined in the melee.
It would, therefore, seem fair and proper to await
the results of this official investigation before passing
judgment on the group for acts committed by a part of
that group. This is said with full appreciation for prompt
response made by investigating officials after local citi
zens appealed to the Governor for said investigation,
since it must seem to conservative citizens as a blot up
on CCC that a few boys of the corps should bring
upon their entire organization a local reputation for dis
orderly conduct approaching insubordination.
111
Further consideration of all sides of the Friday-
Saturday demonstration should bring out the fact that
most questionable feature, damage to the Person Court
House, was the work of boys and young men not pri
marily activated by desire to harm Sheriff Clayton or
his fellow officers. Sane observation would indeed go a
step further to show that the mej| and boys who broke
windows and doors were not deepy concerned with get
ting the man whose alleged attack instigated the eleven
hour period of near-mob violence. That there were in the
crowd men who were so concerned we will not deny, but
these men were not among the indiscriminate shooters
and bottle-throwers who damaged the building and on
the side took potshots at the innocent and hamless au
tomobiles of the officers.
It should also be said that use of tear gas, as of
fensive as it was to the would- be-mob, was on basis of
effectiveness perfectly justifiable, since it held at a dis
tance persons who, under other more primitive rule of
gun or club would not have escaped bloodshed. Person
County, too, should be appreciative of prompt and effi
cient cooperation obtained from Durham police and from
State Highway Patrolmen, articularly Lt. A. T. Moore,
whose early morning door-step exhortations in, favor
PERSON COUNTY TIMES ROXBORO, N C.
of the American way, coupled with the appeal of Repre
sentative Burns, did much to dissolve what was left of
the crowd.
IV
In final estimate, those citizens who think that they
were fortunate because they slept through the “Cy
Winstead” affair, must in our opinion, wake up to real
ization that the demonstration, in addition to causing
visible damage to a building regarded as a citadel of
democracy, came close to destroying tw<f decades of
conscientious effort to rebuild that racial confidence
which whites and Negroes must have if they are to live
and work alongside of each other.
That this confidence was not shattered is cause for
public thankfulness in Person County, a thankfulness
which the County must share wtih the whole State that
Sheriff Clayton’s determination to keep the law, and
keep it without injury to his fellow citizens, kept from
the County, the State and the Nation any further record
of a particularly savage form of blood-shed.
There are among us conscientious citizens who
would like to see the demonstrators brought to public,
trial: there are others who aver that public trial for so
many presumably unidentified persons is, an impossi
bility, but our own judgment is that desecrators of the
Court House, whoever they may have been, will soon
enough and in their own good time come to punishment
through a sense of shame for doing under cover of dark
ness and mobbishness that which they would not have
dared to have done at high noon as individuals.
Next test of gentility will come in October when
Winstead is returned for trial, and without in anyway
being boastful, Sheriff Clayton has said that he, too,
will be here then. For him and for the stand that he has
taken, no other tribute than decent order will be requir
ed.
Not Half-Bad Night
f
Greensboro Daily News
“It was the worst night in Person county history,”
Sheriff M. T. Clayton is quoted as saying in comment
on the threatened lynching by a mob of 500 of a negro
charged with attackingi a young white woman. “The
damage to the jail alone,” adds the sherriff, “certainly
is above $1,000.”
The which damage we regret greatly, Sheriff Clay
ton; but you are wrong and strenuously so when you
speak of it as “the worst night” in the history of your
county. That 500 of your fellow citizens gathered in an
effort to intimidate you and take the law in their own
hands is bad, it is true; but your own courage and re
sourcefulness in defeating their purpose, to our way of
thinking and that of hundreds of thousands of law-a
biding North Carolinians, make the night, instead of
the worsK in Person’s history, a splendid example of
faithfulness to duty.
There have been too many negroes—most of them
perhaps guilty, but we fear an occasional innocent per
son—lynched in North Carolina because sheriffs did
not dare refuse to accede to the wishes of a mob. You
received, it is true, prompt assistance from the state
highway patrol and the Durham police department; but
it would not have been sent you if you had not called
for it, and your prisoner would in all probability have
been taken away from you if you had not acted so in
telligently.
The damages td the jail may be easily repaired;
money couldn’t make amends to your self-respect and
that of the state had you failed to protect your prison
er from the mob.
And if any of your own cltohes were torn in the
ruckus, give us a chance to pass the hat. All of us who
believe in law and its enforcement owe you something
on account.
Our manners to you! and in the event there should
be a recurrence of attempted mob violence within your
jurisdiction, we trust you will paraphrase Admiral Far
ragut, “Damn the damage to the jail and its furnish
ings !” and drive straight ahead.
Gang Impulse
Durham Sun
Our reaction comes a little tardily, perhaps, the
subject having been pretty well worked over; we have
been out of the harness for a few days and this is our
first opportunity to talk about promiscuous tossing of
pop-bottles. We saw by the papers during the past week
that the pop-bottle attained considerable notoriety here
abouts.
Local fans by direct action expressed their displeas
ure toward a baseball umpire, an umpire who apparent
ly was quite correct in his decision, who could honestly
have made no other ruling! and who was indubitably
(since it is his living) trying to do his best, just as the
bottle-tossers endeavor to earn theiii own bread and
butter. In Roxboro, otherwise good and law-abiding cit
izens (admitting a sprinkling, perhaps, of “skins” and
enemies of law and order), carried away by their rage
against a suspected rapist, in their frustration, riddled
the glaziery of the Person Courthouse.
The baseball spectators who threw the bottles ob
viously did not stop to think what their own feelings
would have been had one of those bottles struck the
umpire on the head and killed him—as one might easily
have done. In Roxboro, the mob did not stop to reflect
mobs having no intelligence —that the courthouse was
their own property and that their bottle barrage was
not injurihg in the slightest the target of their wrath.
Such demonstrations represent the gang impulse,
the casting off of all self-restraint, the reversion to the
barbarism which still lurks within us. All of us, on oc
casion, give way to unwise, ungoVerned anger. We have
to school ourselves, day by day, to think before we act
and to act intelligently, at the prompting of the intel
lect rather than at the prompting of the beast.
Such demonstrations of the inability of man to
govern himself strengthen the wide skepticism that man
is fitted to govern his affairs. They strike heavily at the
theory of democracy since they challenge the ideology
that popular government is most likely to be sound and
considerate government.
Still Time To
Dust Cotton
For Weevils 1
North Carolina farmers may
still have time to protect their
1941 cotton crop from the worst
infestaion of weevils in years, if
the cotton is growing vigoriusly
and there are sufficient squares
and bolls to make dusting with
calcium arsenate practical, is the
report of J. O. Rowell, Ertension
, While infesation is spotted,
varying from farm to farm and
from field to field, over most of
the state, Specialist Rowell de
clared, boll weevils are more
numerous throughout the cotton
belt this year than at any time
in a decade or longer.
Mr. Rowell says that since each
cotton field is an individual prob
lem, the grower should examine
his field frequently and if boll
weevils are present, should begin
dusting with calcium arsenate
promptly.
The State College specialist de
clares that, growers who make
an effort to protect their crops
by dusting generally fall into one
of the three groups listed:
1. Those who examine their
fields frequently and apply cal
cium arsenate dust promptly and
in profitable amounts;
2. Those who examine fields
but put on too much dust.
3. Those who stop dusting too
soon allow weevils to destroy
most of the late squares that de
velop in August and September.
Proper dusting methods may
be learned from county agents of
the North Carolina State College
Extension Service.
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Penalty On
Excess Cotton
Set at 7 Cents
The U. S. Department of Ag
riculture has set the penalty rate
on 1941 cotton marketed in ex
cess of the farm marketing quota
at seven cents a pound, Tom
Cornwell, Cleveland county cot
ton farmer and member of the
state AAA committee, announc
ed.
The 1940 penalty rate on ex
cess cotton was three cents a
peund. The 1941 rate was provid
ed by Congress in an amendment
to the Agricultural Adjustment
Act of 1938. This legislation jet a
basic cotton loan rate at 85 per
cent of the parity price and pro
vided that the penalty on mark
eting excess should be one-half
the loan rate.
In view of the cotton parity
price of 16.49 on August 1, the
loan, rate for 7-8 inch middling
cotton is 14.02 for gross weight.
Thus the penalty rate, which will
apply to all excess cotton mark
eted this year, will be seven cents
a pound, Mr. Cornwell said.
The Cleveland county fanner
reminded that while the penal
ty rate has been increased just
four cents a pound for violations
of marketing quota provisions,
the loan rate has been increased
by more than five cents a pound
—from 8.9 cents in 1940 to 14.02
this year.
Cotton growers who knowing
ly exceed their acreage allotments
may receive givernment loans at
v. rate of just 60 per cent of that
offered to growers who planted
within allotments. The 60 per
cent loan will be available only
on that portion of the crop which
is subject) to penalty, however,
Mr. Cornwell added.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 1941
Legal Notice
NOTICE—RESALE OF LAND
By virtue of the powers con
tained in an order of the Super
ior Court of Person County in the
Proceedings entitled W. T. Pass,
Executor of J. C. Pass, vs. Etta
Jones Chambers and others, I will
offer for sale at public auction
to the highest bidder for cash at
the Court House door in Roxboro,
N. C.: on
MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 1941,
at 12 o'clock, M.,
the following described tract of
land lying and being in Mt. Tir
zah Township, Person County,
North Carolina, and bounded as
follows:
On the North by lot No. 4, pur
chased and owned by H. O. Eakes;
On the East by the new road
leading from Roxboro to Moriah;
On the South by the lands of
R. A. Peed;
On the West by the lands of
Robert Duke; and
On the Southwest by the lands
of John R. Jones, and being lot
No. 3 in the division of the tract
of land owned by the estate of J.
C. Pass and known as the Latta
Place, and containing 26.6 acres
more or less, as shown by Plat
of W. R. Cates, Surveyor, dated
April 5. 1941. This Is a resale of
said lot ofj land by reason of a
10% increase bid having been
put on the former sale, and the
bid at this sale will begin at
$247.50.
This sale will remain open ten
days from the date of sale for an
increase bid, and the purchaser
at said sale will be required) to
make a cash deposit of 10% of
the purchase price on the day of
sale.
This 9th day of August, 1941.
W. D. Merritt
Commissioner.
8-14-21
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