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• . _ f . ?-'v,2a DEVOTED TO THE CIVIC, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF ALLEGHANY COUNTY Volume No. 14. GALAX, VA. (Published for Sparta, N. C.) Thursday, Jan. 19, 1939. • Number 35. 1 1 TtiniGgg&gwa ——w———— »i—■ nn i iw-> -m CONGRESS SETTLES DOWN PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE ABOUT DEFENSE PLANS ARMS COSTS YOU $10.54 WPA NEEDS FUNDS HOPKINS DEFENDS COURSE GIVEN NEW TASKS AMBASSADORS TALK WAR GROUP OPPOSES ARMS BITTER BATTLE ON SPAIN By Hugo S. Sim*, Washington Correspondent The Seventy-Sixth Congress is slowly settling down to the real work' of the session. Few definite trends are positively apparent and while public interviews give an inkling that the congressmen have ; made up their minds to take charge of legislation and to direct the policies of the Government, it i is too early to be sure that this i will happen. ---- Reaction to the President’s ad- I ■dress on the state of the union ! has been good, although some critics find fault with the Chief Executive for attempting to link domestic reforms with national preparedness. The portion of the presidential message that related I to the condition of -world affairs | gnd> the necessity for' the United i States to arm itself to meet pos-! sible eventualities« caused consid- j ■erable dispute, although there is1 a determined group of congress-1 men definitely opposed to any large-scale expenditures for the! Army and the Navy. In the air, j it seems, there is general assent j that the aerial fighting arm of | the United States must be. greatly j enlarged. The. President’s annual message | on the budget, taking up the fis-1 cal affairs of the nation for the j year which will begin on July 1, j next, indicated the spending pro- j gram in the 1940 fiscal year. Of i a total of nine billion dollars, i recovery and relief were alloted $2,266,165,000. An indicated deficit of about $3,326,000,000 is foreseen, making the tenth Fed eral deficit in a row. This com pares With a deficit of $3,972, 000,000 estimated for the pres ent year. These deficits are fore cast in spite of the increased revenues expected to result from better business and, by the end of 1940, the Federal debt is ex pected to reach an all-time high of $44,458,000,000. Some indication of the Admin istration’s defense plans came from the Army and Navy section of the budget message. This car ried total national defense expen ditures of $1,319,558,000, an in crease of $309,351,000 over the previous year. Altogether, about I twenty-two per cent, of the esti mated receipts from all sources of revenue will be used for defense. It figures down to about $10.54 for every nian, woman and child in the country. These figures do j not include any sums recommend-1 ed by the President in his special i message. - I In the budget estimate submit- [ ted by the President, $720,987,-. 403 .represents the regular naval j estimate, an increase of almost j $162,000,000 over the present | year. Three items largely ac- j count for the increase—a $116, 000,000 increase for the con- j struction of new vessels, a $26,- j 000,000 increase to the Bureau of Aeronautics of the Navy De partment for strengthening of the aerial arm, and a $9,000,000 in- j crease to provide 448 more of-! fleers, 1,000 more Marines and an additional 5,000 enlisted men. In cluded in the estimate is money for the construction of two larger " battleships, probably of 45,000 tons; two more 6-inch gun cruis ers of 8,000 tons each; eight sub marines and eight destroyers, two small seaplane tenders, one re pair ship and the completion of another carrier of larger size. The regular budget figure for the military establishment is $461,710,990, plus $20,700,000 of contract authorizations, and $8, 594,000 of Public Works funds for housing of veterans. This figure is slightly under that of the present year’s total, but is oxpected to be increased sharply by special provision for additional anti-aircraft guns and the con struction of many new airplanes. The President’s special message, asking for $875,000,000 supple mentary appropriatioft to carry the WPA to the. end of the fiscal year, met with some resistance on the part of congressmen who an nounced that the sum would be trimmed. With more than 3,000, 000 wwkers on its rolls, the WPA has become an object c* controversy, with heavy fire di rected to its participation in politics and a stout counter-charge being made by a group, headed by the mayors of large cities, who insist that it must be con tinued without curtailment. (turn to page four, please) A bill to abolish j the “gas chamber” j ! was turned down ! •—by a House legislative! committee in Raleigh Tues day. Capital punishment and highway diversion oc- j cupied the North Carolina legis- j lative spotlight Tuesday, stealing! the center of the stage from the J joint budget committees, which ! continued grinding away on the state’s proposed $154,000,000 tax spending program for the 1939 41 biennium. Bcith in a committee meeting | and on the floor of the house,1 the capital punishment question !' played a major role. Following a lengthy hearing on i a proposal that the state swap j its lethal gas chamber and return j to electrocution as a method of executing capital offenders, a j House judiciary committee voted : to pigeonhole the measure. A few moments later the House 1 received a bill from Representa tive Ropw, of Lincoln, to abolish j capital punishment in North Caro lina. The measure stated that1 all crimes now punishable by1 death should carry life imprison- j ment terms, instead. Opponents of highway diversion ' lost their second skirmish in as | many days when the Senate de- j cided to vend an anti-diversion j measure to the. finance committee, i instead of the roads committee. j. Legislators generally conceded , that the roads committee would ■ have been sympathetic to the anti diversionists. The finance com mittee, on the other hand, is un- , derstood to favor the transfer, if , necessary, of funds from the high. ; way to the general fund. Two highway safety bills were ' introduced in the senate today1 < by Senator Corey, of Pitt. One 1 provided for the addition of 80 men to the present state highway i patrol staff of 120, and the other prescribed a mandatory prison . sentence of 60 days for persons convicted twice of drunken chiv ing. Capital punishment, highway diversion and highway safety were major points of Governor Hoey’s biennial address to the lawmak er's. The Governor advised the legis- ’ lature to study capital punishment; from two angles: First, whether j asphyxiation is more humane than | electrocution; and1, second, wheth- j er the sentencing of capital fel ons to death or life-imprisonment should be discretionary with judg-; es. At present, the death sen-1 :ence is mandatory in first-degree crimes. The Governor’s message placed j the Chief Executive on record1 as j opposed to a constitutional amend. ' ment banning diversion, and ad-; '■ located the addition of 50 menj to the highway patrol. AH but one member of the! rouse judiciary committee voted | against the bill of Representative j Vogler, of Mecklenburg, to scrap | the gas chamber and return to j electrocution. A fight on vice in Kansas City i has been launched —under the direction of Governor Lloyd C. Stark, of Mis&ouri. The word went around the city Tuesday night for the gambling, spots to keep their doors locked, for the strip tease dancers to keep their clothes on and for the bars to close promptly at 1 a. m., as state laws say they must. It was an unusual situation— one brought about by a series of gambling house raids Monday night—in a city that has been wide open for years. Gambling equipment was part of almost every night club, as were the strip-tease dancers to keep their It was the latest step in the bitter fight bewteen Governor Stark and Boss Thomas J. Pen dergast, once close friends but now outspoken enemies. Their clashes have become fore frequent lately, foreshadowing an ultimate show-down that might possibly come while the grand jury is in session. Work is rapidly going forward on the WPA sewer —project for the Town of Sparta, which will cost $45,000. Ap proximately 150 men have been assigned to this project, and they are now busy digging the ditches and laying the sewer line. A sep tic tank will be constructed on state property, nea^the State Prison Camp. The Virginia Machinery and Well Company, of Richmond, Vir ginia, is now engaged in drilling the two 300-foot wells, which will supply Sparta with water Bonds for this WPA project have been sold, and it is expected that work on the water lines will begin at an early date. Regulations of traffic have but one purpose —on any highway and that is the safety of these using the highway, it has been pointed 'out recently by National Park Service officials. The Blue Ridge Parkway was iesigned for the pleasure of the notoring public and to make ac :essible to them the beautiful i views and mountain scenery that i s not generally found along the j -oute of the ordinary highway, i rhis Parkway road differs from j ;he regular public highway be- i muse it is not designed to take j ,’ou from one town to another ! iver the most direct and least j ixpensive route, nor is it design- j h1 to carry great volumes of I ■ommeueial traffic at high speed >etween such points. The Park way motor road was planned pri narily so that the public could :njoy the natural scenery with* >ut encountering commercial traf-; ic hazards and unsightly road- j iide developments. For those who wish to drive j he Parkway at this time it is | accessary to use every means j possible to safeguard- them against! iccident. In addition to certain1 :echnical reasons this speed re-1 itriction of thirty-five (35) miles j per hour has been placed on the I Parkway traffic at this time ber! ;ause the curves are unmarked,! ;he shoulders especially on fills lave not sufficiently settled and ire still soft, the centerline stripe has not been placed, guard rails have not been set up, and ;he banks through cuts have not men sloped to their final position which will allow proper sight listance. These factors should >e considered if one has a tend ency to want to “step on the ;as" in places where it might ook safe to those who have not ;onsidered the absence of these lafety provisions. A wholesale and retail Shell station has been constructed —in Sparta recently, on the site >f the old baseball diamond, and j ;he official opening of the' service i station will take place on Satur- j lay, January 21. The station is i inder the management of R. W. j Jolvard, and is operated by Bob Nichols. On the opening day one can of Shell Spot Remover will be given free with each purchase of five ] gallons of gasoline, and one Me-1 Claren tire, of any size, will be jiven free with each purchase of :hree automobile or truck tires. Shell certified rest room facili :ies, for both men and women, lave been provided for the con venience of the public. White Tollett was executed Wednesday, Jan. 11, in Nashville —Tenn., for the dynamite deaths cf three small Elizabethton, Tenn., jirls. Unwavering in his insist ence that he was innocent, Tol lett, who was 28 years of age, walked to the electric chair. Attorney Boy C. Nelson, of Elizabethton, whose wife is the former Miss Alene Cornett, of Spring Valley, Va., daughter of Gllenn C. Cornett, now of Fries, assisted in the prosecution during the trial of the bombing cases. Tollett was sentenced to die in connection with the blasting of the home of Harmon Gouge near Elizabethton last January which tilled Gouge’s three small daugh ters and injured his wife. I Rose Queen And Her Court -- i ... i i ■■■■■■i ii ■■■■■ ■■■■ !!■ iBiinMTimnninMM1 I As ADEN A, Cent.—Rose, tournament Queen, Barbara Virginia Dougall (center) and her Court make their official appearance in their coronation gowns, at Pasadena, Calif. Left to .right (stand ing).- Gladys Hadley, Eleanor Wennerberg, Queen Barbara Virginia Dougall, Bernice Mongreig, Peggy Lynn Ingham; (seated, l.-r.): Peggy Lou Anderson and Roberta Scott. Howard Help was taken to the penitentiary —in Richmond, Va., Tues-: day to await electrocution for the ihurder of Chief of : Police Posey Martin, of Galax, which occurred on Febru- j ary 21, 1935. The date for Delp’s ! execution ip to be set soon by ! Judge John S. Diaper, Pulaski, i Va. The journey to Richmond was completed Tuesday, after an over night stop had been made Mon day night in Roanoke. The prisoner was confined in the Roan oke City Jail Monday night. Delp was one of 13 prisoners trans ferred from the Roanoke jail to th£ state prison. The condemned man was taken to Roanoke Monday night from | Wytheville, where he was taken | last Friday from Southwestern1 State Hospital, Marion, wheie heJ had been confined since shortly! after his conviction, and where i psychiatrists in recent months' had adjudged Delp as being sane. The prisoner was removed from Marion to Wytheville by State Trooper Ira Ratliff, Marion; Sheriff W. C.- Ward, of Grayson County, and Deputy Sheriff Hut ley Hall, of Grayson. The trip to Roanoke was postponed Friday ! and the prisoner placed in the : Wythe County Jail, in Wythe ville, because of icy roads. Delp was recently denied a new I trial by the Virginia Supreme J Court of Appeals. Prentice Cooper | became the new j Governor of Tenn. —Monday when inaugural ceremonies were held in, Nashville. Cooper became the 38th chief execltive of the Volunteer state amid oratory and acts which served to fan the flames of Democratic strife that marked the administration of the retiring governor, Gordon Browning. Extending his best wishes to the new governor, Browning, nevertheless, utilized the solemn inaugural ceremony to fire a part ing shot at political dictatorships. It was clear to his listeners that he referred to the potent political ‘organization at Memphis i headed by Democratic National j Committeeman Edward H. Crump, i In his turn, Cooper expressed j belief that his party again was j united, but when he had com-! pleted his oath he immediately signed a commission appointing a successor to U. S. Senator A. T. Stewart as district attorney gen eral at Winchester. Stewart, who teamed with Cooper in the Democratic pri mary, delayed taking his oath un til after Cooper’s inauguration in order that the new governor could appoint his successor. Browning named Tom C. Kelly, of Jasper, to the office last week. A court struggle may ensue. LOBBYISTS WERE BANNED —from the floor of Pennsylvania legislature Tuesday night. Burnet Mayhank was inaugurated Governor Tuesday —in Columbia, S. C., with a keynote that “we must go forward” After Burnet R h e t t Maybank, scion of Charleston aristocracy, be came the chief executive of the Palmetto state, the first to con gratulate him was Olin D Johns ton, the former cotton mill boy from the Piedmont, whom May bank succeeded in the governor’s mansion. A crowd estimated at between 10,000 and 15,000 saw the 39 year-old former mayor of Char leston take the oath of office be fore Chief Justice John G. Stab ler on the broad steps of the his toric state house-j He was the first resident of his city to as sume the governorship since the Civil war. Maybank saw “our primary problem” as financial and called emphatically for "a sound fiscal policy” and “a sound tax struc ture” so that “we can go forward with our program to bring new industries” into the state. “Until we put our financial house in order we are both wast ing and losing time in attaining our desire4 end,” he said. Appealing for an end to “preju dice and sectional ill-feeling with in the borders of the state of South Carolina” because “we owe it to ourselves and our children to unite for the common good. . ,” (Turn to page Eight, please) Pennsylvania and Texas maugurated new governors —Tuesday, | in Harrisburg and Austin, respectively. In Texas, W. Lee O’Daniel was inaugurated, and in Pennsyl vania, Arthur H. James took over the reins of government. O’Daniel, flour salesman, poet, radio singer and song writer, stood on a goal line in his State University’s football bowl and became the 34th Governor of the Lone Star state. The 48-year-old mill executive, his goal attained by wooing votes with a fiddle band screeching “Please Pass the Biscuits Pappy,” droned his oath and set a new course with: “I pray that glamour and color will be eliminated from our legis lative sessions and that seriousness and dignity will reign supreme.” Inside the stadium O’Daniel was a study in dignity. He stood on a rostrum with five former gov ernors and told his people he came to them “untarnished politi cally, and by the grace of God, I hope to remain forever in that category.” He pointed out the richness of the state's natural resources, and stressed again his campaign plank- of industrializa tion of Texas. Thousands of school children joined in when he concluded his address, turned to his hillbilly band on the platform with him, and asked for "Beautiful Texas,” the song he composed. Pennsylvania will be put (turn to page five, please) i Many Students In The State Have Gone on Record Against Increased Rates Of Tuition —at the three units of the Greater University of North Carolina. More than 2,000 students at the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina, Greensborq, during a mass meeting Tuesday night, passed a resolution requesting the legislature not to increase tuition fees at the college. The three units A million WPA 1 workers will ! be laid off —in the opinion of President Roosevelt, as expressed Tuesday, if a proposed -cut in appropriations is carried through, but his estimates were disputed immediately in influen tial congressional quarters. If the cut becomes effective, the Chief Executive said, the WPA will have to lay off a million or more 'relief workers by June,!. Chairman Adarris (D., Colo.), of J the Senate, subcommittee in char jge of relief appropriations told reporters that the chief execut ! ive’s figures “conveyed an inacc urate impression.” he said no more than 600,000 need be drop ped from the work relief rolls, j The controversy arose from i the fact the House last Week cli ped $150,000,000 from the $875,-; 000,000 appropriation which the j president had requested to keep j WPA ^ going from February 7,j when''its present funds are sche-: duled for exhaustion until the j end of the fiscal year on June 30. i Adams, with obviously strong bac-. king in the Senate, favors the cut. ! At the close of the day of reli-; ef hearings, in which he had a; run in with David Lasser, presid ent of the Workers Alliance- Ad ams explained his version of j what the c' . would mean. Natiny .bat it takes' $62 to! keep or ,-elief worker on the rolls j for a month, he said that dividing the $150,000,000 cut by that am-j ount and then spreading the fig- • ure over the period of four-mon ths, February 7 to June 1, would | mean an “average reduction” of j sprue 600,000 workers. “How does the president get; his figure, then?” a reporter in-j quirad. Adams shrugged his shoulders, i “I’m just telling you the facts,” he replied. In answer to continued quest- i ioning by reporters, Adams con-! I ceded, however, that if it is the! i plan to keep the present WPA ■ enrollment intact through the I months of February and March1 then in order to spread the $725,-: j 000,000 appropriation over the j four-month period, a drop such as; j that mentioned by Mr. Roosevelt j would be necessary. The president’s estimate was a j drop of 1,000,000 to 1,250,000 i by June 1, if Congress provides no more than the $725,000,000 j voted by the House. He added I that since an average of 3 1-2 | persons were dependent on each | relief workers the cut would af I'fect 4,000,000 to 5,000,0Q0 peo j pie. Sen. W. B. Austin jhas received several committee posts —in the House of Representatives' in Raieigh, where he is now at | tending the 1939 session of the General Assembly. Senator Aus 1 tin represents the Twenty-Ninth ' Senatorial District of North Caro lina, of which Alleghany County ; is a part. i The Senator that represents I Alleghany County has been made a member of the following com mittees: Appropriations; Claims; Corporations; Counties, Cities and Towns; Education; Election Laws; Institutions for the Deaf; Journal; Judiciary No. 2; Libraries; Min ing; Public Roads; Senatorial Districts, and Trustees of the University. Senator Austin did not get a chairmanship of an important committee, but it has been point- j ed out that, in the Senate, the committee chairmanships are gov erned by the rule of seniority and go to the members who are the older in point of service. oi me Ur rearer university are me university proper, at Chapel Hill, State College, Raleigh, and the Woman’s College, Greensboro. The girls at the Greensboro branch of the state university, representing practically every county in the - tata, also asked the General Assembly to make ade quate appropriations to give young women of North Carolina a uni ver.-i vJm education equivalent to that ^offered women of other tateg: Students repre- -nting many of the self-help gi-Dups on the cam pus, other- representing depart ment.--, some speaking as the mem ber of a family sending several children to state institutions, -poke spontaneously and to much applause against the proposed 100 per cent increase in tuiti-on which they claimed would1 handi cap the’ girls least able, to pay for their education. THE TIMES is in receipt of a letter from Dale Gambill, a •indent at State College, Raleigh, from Alleghany County, which letter is accompanied by a copy of a letter which has been gives to all students of State College, to be sent to their parents. The letters are in regard to the pro posed increase in tuition rates. The. letter written for the par ents, relatives and friends of the students follows: January 13, 1939 To Parents, Relatives and Friends of Students at State College: Unless action is taken at once to restore to the State Budget the cuts in educational appropri ation as recommended by the Budget Commission to the 1939 General Assembly, students at Chapel Hill, State College, and the Woman’s College will be fac er! with a $50 increase in tuition, next year. This means fifty ad ditional dollars out of your pock et, and so we appeal to you to act immediately. This is a mat (Turn to page Eight, please) Frankfurter and Murphy received Senate approval —Tuesday in Washington, D. C. The upper house of the nation’s legislative body confirmed President Roose velt’s nomination of Flank Mur phy to be Attorney General over the bitter protest of a tiny minor ity which insisted that, as Gover nor of Michigan, he had “con doned” the sit-down strike and “set aside the law’’ on behalf of sit-down strikesr. The vote was 78 to 7. Just previously, the senate ap proved the appointment of Felix Frankfurter to the supreme court. This action, which placed an outstanding liberal and stud ent of the law upon the nation’s high tribunal, was taken without discussion and without a single negative vote. Meanwhile, it became evident that Republician senators were al most a unit in opposing the con firmation of Harry L. Hopkins, former WPA administrator, to be secretary of commerce. Adminis tration leaders were confident, however, that more than enough Democrats were backing the Hop kins appointment to assure a favorable vote. The senate commerce commit tee which last week questioned Hopkins severely on charges of politics in relief, planned to vote on the nomination Wednesday. It was scheduled to reach the senate today (Thursday.) SIX NEW BOOKS WERE PRESENTED RECENTLY —to the Sparta Public Library. All of these books are “best sell ers,” having been chosen as “Books of the Month.” Approximately 600 books were circulated in the town and county, and in the schools, during the month of December, according t» the librarian, Mrs. Lola White.
The Alleghany News and Star-Times (Sparta, N.C.)
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Jan. 19, 1939, edition 1
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