PA PdtmTHE DAILY REFLECTOR, GREENVILLE, N. C.

Thunday, July 16, 1959

Thursday, July 16, 1969

State Industrial Pace Quickening

Record gains in industrial growth made by North tance among industrial circles. It is. also evident that Carolina during the past twelve months re-emphasizes greater efforts are being put forth not only by the De-

YTCnow, He Might Just Get It!

partment of Conservation and Development, but also by many communities seeking new manufacturing plants, new jobs and new payrolls. Their efforts are more effective than in previous years simply because they have gained more experience in how to sell in-

the progress being made throughout the state as more individual communities set about seeking outside industry and developing home grown industrial plants.

The new record is evidence of rewards being reaped by the state as a whole and its individual com- ugtry on what North Carolina has-to offer, munities as North Carolina surges forward to make , ^ ^

others aware of what the state has to offer. Unless adverse economic conditions crop up in

the nation as a whole during the coming year, there While the total investment made in new and ex- jg jjq reason why North Carolina's record of develop-panded operations during the past 12 months increa^ ment progress should not be even better in the coming ed only $4 million over the previous period to $247.3 year than in the past. The growing interest through-million, there was a much larger gain in the number state in development is apparent on every

of new jobs and the dollar value of new annual payrolls.

During the 4.2-month period which ended' June 80, North Carolina gained 28,512 new industrial jobs for an increase of 56 per cent over the previous 12-month period. The dollar value of payrolls created by these new jobs jumped 60 per cent over that created in the previous fiscal year.

It is apparent from such a rate of gain in industrial development, that the advantages which North Carolina affords industries are receiving wider accep-

pbbyists File,

!3ut Little

se

By LYNN NISBET

SXDE STEPPING Most of the lobbyists are as proficient in sid<hBtepplng the spirit of the law reqnizins reports of expenditures as they are in accomplishing legislation for their clients. Which raises the question of whether the , statutory require-* ment for lobbyists to register and report expenses may not be as sly as that requiring candidates for public office to report canuMdgn expenses, including source of funds and to whom pay-mei^ were made.

The law says that before any person can appear at a legislative committee hearing or talk to Individual legislators in support cf or opposition to prospective legislation, he must register in a special book in the office of the Secretary of State, starting the purpose and terms of his emptoyment. Then within 30 days after adjournment of the General Assembly (which in this case means by Saturday night of this week) be must file a report showing how much money he has spent. His employer also must file a report showing how much was paid to the lobbsrist.

On face of the record that would seem to show who did what for whom and how much it cost. In practice it does no such thing. Majority of the lobbyists are lawyers representing clients on regular retainer fee basis, and working for them tiiroughout the year. Much of the effective lobbying is done before the General Assembly convenes. So the lobbyist, in good conscience and with technical accuracy, just reports that he is regularly employed and no extra expenses were incurred during the session. Of course, in most instances more money is spent for entertainment while the lawmakers are in Raleigh, but where can distinction bt made between a meal bought for a man last fall in Asheville and one bought in Raleigh three months later?

CANDIDATES The requirement for reporting political campaign contributions and expenditures is even more lax and absurd. In the first place, the report is required only for moneys collected mid spent during the calendar year of the primary or general election. If any candidate for Governor. Senator or other office in 1960 can collect enough before December 31 this year to pay the freight, he will not have to report any receipts. If he can arrange advance payment for services, printing or other necessary expenses, or if he can obtain credit so that the bills do not have to be paid until after January 1, 1961, he will not have to report these expenditures. Rumors are current that several potential 1960 candidates already have received and socked away for future use a good many thousands of dollars.

LOOPHOLES - These loopholes In the statutes explain why

lobbjdsts who are known to have spent a lot of money can get by without itemizing expenditures and also why candidates whose activities obviously cost hundreds of thousands of dollars can make, legally and technically honest accounting of only $25,000 or so. - - *~ Ostensible purpose of the laws requiring reporting was to let the public know who paid and who got the money, and how much, to influence legislation and votes in the elections. The laws are so written that technical compliance can be had without affording any real information. The question might properly be asked whether the legislators who sponsored these laws had their tongues in cheeks and fingers crossed, and really knew they -wouldnt accomplish anything of consequence, or if they thought the reports might reveal the real facts. Another question might be whether full revelation by way of reports filed would serve any purpose other than to satisfy idle curiosity.

OLD TIMES Your reporter has had occasion recently to dig into some old records in the State libraries. He found that the laws enacted by the General Assembly of 1842-43 are all contained in OM book about half an inch thick. That compares with a book nearly four inches thick for the 1957 laws and the 1959 volume will be almost as big.

The 1842-43 General Assembly convened early in December and adjourned late in January also contrasting with the Febru-ary-June sessions now. The legislative journals for that session show that the Legislature was in session until five oclock Saturday, December 24, 1842, and convened again at 10 o'clock Monday morning, December 26. In other words it took only one day off for Christmas and that was Sunday. Can you think of modem day legislators doing that?

Another interesting sidelight is that the 1942-43 General Assembly established three new counties Catawba, McDowell and Union. Bills authorizing these counties were ratified before Christmas of 1842, but in each instance the acts really establishing the counties were not raUfied until January, 1843. County courts were established and for all practical local purposes the counties were functioning before the end of 1843. But it was eleven years later, or the convening of the Legislature in 1854, before any of the three counties had a member in the House of Commons (the former designation of the House of Representatives.)

Numerous inquiries have failed to discover the reason for this lapse. Most reasonable explanation is that even 117 years ago there was trouble about redis-tricting and reapportionment, and that election of representatives had to wait until after the census of 1850.

hand. Each year more communities join*the competition to attract new industdy. At the same time they become more conscious of their respective potential for home-grown industries. ^ -

The total result of this is that North Carolina is moving into high gear in its development program from the community level through the state level. More progress is being made in the Piedmont than in the Coastal Plain or Mountain regions of the state. Yet, the Coastal Plain and the Mountain sections are gaining development savvy with each passing month, and they are placing more emphasis on their efforts in that direction. Furthermore their development potential is greater simply because they are just beginning to scratch the surface.

As the state-wide pace toward greater economic development quickens it becomes more apparent that those communities which sit back and watch are going to be left in the backwaters and eddies of the rising economic tide flowing over North Carolina. Only those which make diligent efforts to keep pace are going to ride the crest of the current to economic levels.

The new records of economic development achieved by North Carolina in the past 12 months

should present to every community large and small p -pipvvr cpTri T'P\T'7 a new and greater challenge to intensify its own devel- Uy UUIM oL/XlijlllirslZi opment pace during the year ahead.

Did He

Do All

Once It Was Dry Lane.

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The Daily Reflector

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By JAMES MARLOW

WASHINGTON (AP) President Eisenhower has been in a philosophic dilemma in trying to get the steel industry and the Steelworkers Union to reach a contract agreement and avoid a strike.

He has a basic philosophy of minimum government interference in private business. But he did interfere in this case to some, degree.

Now, if there is a prolonged strike affecting the whole economy, he faces this question: Did he do enough, soon enough?

He has been anxious, because of the need to consider the whole economy, to avoid any more inflation. Living costs already have risen about 10 per cent since he took office in 1953.

Because so many other industries depend on steel products, the steel Industry is vitalto the whole economy. If the industry raised its workers pay and then raised prices to make up for this extra cost, then other industries, forced to pay more for steel, would raise prices on their products.

The unions, whose members had to pay more for what they bought, would want higher wages. In short: a new wage-price spiral.

Eisenhower, fearing the effect on the whole economy If steel wages and prices shot up, cautioned the industry and its workers last May 5, the day the steel union and the industry began negotiations on a new contract.

He said "the United States cannot stand still and do nothing" if they push wages and prices up in an inflationary swirl. He urged both sides in the steel business to show good sense.

He said the American people couldnt stand by and see themselves hurt.

When a strike began to look Inevitable, two senators, Jacob K. Javits, a New York republican, and Stuart Symington, a Missouri Democrat, suggested Elsenhower call both sides the White House for a confer ence.

Eisenhower rejected the idea, arguing the results would be more hurtful than helpful If the government interceded directly and tried to apply political or other pressure.

But the fact was he had al-. ready intervened on May 5 and had applied presidential pressure to both sides to be careful. In doing so he had singled out one industry on which to apply the pressure.

There were other steps he could

have taken but didnt because, perhaps, he was being guided by his philosophy of minimum government interferences.

He could have taken the drastic step of using the Taft-Hart-ley Act to delay any strike at least 80 days. He" could have taken the much milder step of asking both sides to let federal mediators help them reach a settlement.

He did neither. Yet a steel strike. If prolonged, might hurt the economy worse than inflation, for it might turn it into a spin at the very time It was bouncing back from the 1958 recession-

A long-drawn-out steel strike would force other industries, dependent on steel, to lay off workers.

There seems to be wide agreement that a strike of short duration might not be too generally troublesome because so much steel was produced earlier this year In anticipation of a strike.

The talks droned on. After two months of talking and no results, the strike was to start July 1. Again Eisenhower intervened but still only mildly. He asked both sides to skip the strike date and keep talking.

They did but again the deadline for the strike was reached, w'ith both sides reconciled to a shut-down. Then late Tuesday Eisenhower asked both sides to let federal mediators step in and work with them for agreement.

This move could have been made weeks ago. Neither side has to accept any recommendations the mediators make, yet both will be under tremendous pressure to accept, since the mediators represent the government and the public.

So all through this picture Eisenhower, who is reluctant to interfere in private dealings, has been interfering but not enough to prevent the steel industry from reaching the point of a strike.

Quote...

Our government was based on a spiritual concept not a material concept. Yet unprecedented material progress has been made here. The reasons are plain. The man who is individually important as a citizen is * the man who becomes economically important as a worker. He is the thinking man, the doing man. He is the antithesis of the regimented man." Beaver Dam (Ky.) Messenger. '

Son, I can remember when all this was dry land.

Yes sir, a rnan could walk all day without getting his feet wet. And dust? You wouldnt know about that, but we had it . . . real dry and powdery. It would kick up fine when you were just poking along; and on unpaved roads a wheeled vehicle could stir up clouds of the stuff.

Of course there was some disadvantage. You couldnt catch fish off your front porch, for instance.

In those days it was even regarded as unusual for babies to be born v/ith webbed toes; and a derogatory remark of the times was "he doesnt know enough to get in out of the rain."

Again, that wouldnt mean anything to you, because every

body goes out in the rain anymore.

By golly, you used to see householders trimming grass in their yards; and then they had to buy water to sprinlde it to keep it growing.

And farmers, who used to grow their crops in well-drained fields, would dig wells or make ponds so they could irrigate thejp. In those days they werent worrying about price supports for, or varieties of, seaweed.

They even talked of water shortages. Sometimes weeks would pass without any more than a heavy dew during the night.

People complained about it, just like they complained when the rains first came.

Before all this started there

Other Editors Saying... Cottonindustry Dilemma

(Rocky Mount Telegram)

Cotton and textiles face a dilemma that seems impossible to resolve. Cotton growers, finding the market at home less lucrative, naturally want to get a portion of the world market. But selling American cotton on the world market is difficult because of the price differential. Foreign cotton is much cheaper than the U.S. product. Therefore, in order for cotton growers to push their order for cotton growers to push their product on the world market, the Agriculture Department plans to offer raw cotton to foreign buyers at 8 cents a pound below the domestic pricethe price which cotton manufacturers in this country must pay.

This compares with a six-and-half being offered foreign buyers now. This cut-rate export price has been set in an effort to put U.S. raw cotton on a competitive level with cotton produced by other countries. Even with the current six - and- half-cent reduction, exports of American cotton during the season ending Aug. 1 are expected to total only 2,8(X),000 bales compared with 5,700,000 bales the previous season when the U.S. price was not undercut.

But what effect will this have on American textiles? Well, the domestic textile industry argues that such sales efforts may be well and good for growers, but they give undue advantage to

textile competitors abroad. Why is this? The textUers say the 8-cent subsidywhich the export price offer actually iscreates an unfair and impossible situation for domestic textile makers who are already hard pressed by competition of textiles made by cheap foreign labor.

Too, foreign textile makers now have an advantage in price of the raw material as well as in labor costs, and as a consequence, they are able to undersell U.S. textile firms not only in world markets but in the U.S. as well. Members of the U.S. textile industry resent the fact that they are required to compete on the home market with manufacturers who are supplied with U.S. cotton at a much lower price.

It may seem ironic, but many U.S. manufacturers may feel obligated to- set up new plants abroad, rather than in this country, so that they too, might get the advantage of cheaper cotton and cheaper labor.

These are the facts the U.S. government must face. Foreign labor, much cheaper than American labor, has for a long time provided a headache for U.S. trade in world marete. The government wants to help cotton growers, but by doing so may be injuring the markets of domestic textile manufacturers. What to do, so as not to help one whUe hurting the other? That is the dilemma faced by the U. S. government.

was a growing tendency among the people to buy boats. Youd see them everywhere (even In the dry weather), on trailers in carports, or driveways or backyards; theyd tie them down where the riveer used to be and up and down the coast. Ever since, it has crossed my mind again and again that this was a sort of psychic portent of the coming times.

I guess the most water people had to deal with in the old days was when Noah was floating around in his ark. It only rained for forty days and nights, that time; a pretty good guUey-wash-er, but it didnt last.

So they all got used to seeing the sun all day, or most of it, and the moon and stars were pretty at night. Some nights the sky was so clear you could see beyond the moon into the darkness of nothing, . . it made one feel kinda small. Things are cozier, now.

Of course, they say this weather is just a "phase" were going through, but I wonder. The weather forecasters went out of business some time ago, too much of the same thing, day after day. Hardly any demand for them once the weather settled down into a sort of rut.

But if it should change, and It fairs off. you might find conditions a little strange at first. A person can learn to live on dry ground and under clear skies day after day.

War Is

;i3eally A Bore

By HAL BOYLE

NEW YORK'' (AP) Curbr stone comments of a Pavement Plato:

It is sometimes said that the world win never have true peace until a way is found to make peace as exciting as war.

But war. at least as seen by the men who fight it, is only rarely exciting.

For every moment of bright danger the ordinary soldier faces. he undergoes 10,000 moments of boredom. For every hour of action he can remember, he can recall at least one hundred hours of waiting.

Excitement comes to the soldier but spasmodically. War to him is more often endless monotony. War is dust and rain and mud and noise. W is thirst and hunger and heaf and cold and dirt and flea bites and loneliness. And always the soldier is bored more often than he is either brave or afraid.

No. war isnt terribly exciting. If wars were fueled only by excitement, they would all bum out in a month.

Perhaps the most awful fact of war is that it makes everybody feel more important than he does in peacetime important not only to himself but to others. Therein lies wars terrible glamor.

Suddenly everyone is wanted. Suddenly everyone has a job to do. Suddenly everyone is needed and has a place in the national effort.

The bugle blows not for a few but for all. It summons them out of themselves and aims them toward a common goal.

Retired men are called back to their old Jobs. Girls and wives go into the factories and earn more money than they have ever seen before. The kids go around town picking up scrap metal. Even dancing is patriotic if you dance with a boy going away.

There is something for everyone to do. And even if you cant do anything you can help by doing without something. You can eat less meat, use less gasoline, give up chocolate bars for the duration.

No wonder illness falls off in wartime and the populations health Improves. People have no time to pick their mental sores and worry themselves sick.

Everyone feels a foot taller. Actually, everyone is drunk in a sense. For no wine or liquor ever bottled is as intoxicating to' the human spirit as its embarkation on crusade, the loss of one-self in the immensity of a common purpose.

War not only affords people a way to find themselves by losing themselves. It brings home to them, as nothing else seems to do, how really dependent men are on each others help.

This is best seen, of course, on the battlefield itself. In combat the members of a platoon must fight together or they will all surely die or be captured. They forge a loyalty to one another they have never know before, and will never quite know again.

But all the rest of their lives they wUl miss that unit loyalty.

That is the true problem of peace to find a way to make people feel they are just as important to each other, - just as needed by each other, when the guns are silent as when they roar.

When mankind realizes it Is eternally mutual, the loyalties of peace wjU make the loyalties of war unnecessary.

Opinions In Brief

There is evidence that an evolution is taking place in the Soviet Unionthat the present leaders, with their dreams of world conquest, are pot in step with the younger generation, who are not interested In conquering the world and who do not believe the musty claptrap about capitalist Imperialism." Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.

free. Individual enterprise, even Its laws are stacked against him." Socorro (N. Mex.) El Defensor.

Maximum taxes, forced by inflation and defense needs, form the lower Inescapable jaw of economic pincers against which the small businessman is being squeezed to a gradual despair. ... a hopeless feeling that instead of being the land of the

Record albums are now sold complete with a baton and instruction book, so the purchaser can conduct the orchestra. Baseball tickets have for years come equipped with a license to manase tie team." Jacksonville Tlmes-Union.

Defination of a happily married man: A guy whose personality remains unchanged whether his wife Is with him or not."Carlsbad Current-Argus,

Credit Also Expensive Luxury

Strength For Today

By EARL L. DOUGLASS ITS NOT TOO HARD TO DO A picture appeared in many newspapers recently which was both pathetic and inspiring. It showed a little girl suffering from muscular dystrophy seated on a burrow. She had been selected as the Burrow Queen. Anything but the quiet burrow led carefully about would have been an impossible steed for the little tyke with braces on her legs. But why should she not hsv et belng^^nc:)^'

some kindly and discerning person asked. Queens of all kinds are chosen and their pictures appear seated tm horses, o elephants. in automobiles, beside airplanes. Why not a queen sitting stiff-legged on a burrow as it is led about the ring and the crowd giving the queen and her

steed a big hand?

God bleas these people who think up kind things to do. God bless the imaginative kind of folk who turn from the crowd when everyone is cheering and think of the silent sufferers to whom the great world pays little attention. William Booth of the Salvation Army turned away from the organized church to think of the derelict to whom no body paid any attention but the policeman, who had no home but

A consecrated teacher took frustrated, bitter little Helen Keller to her heart rqany years and made her into one of the great women of her time of all time.

God would seem to have a very special love for those who remember the uniemembcred.

cr

By ELMER ROESSNER

Credit is a good thing a blessing to many. People today are enjoying much goods and many services they might not even havef,. creamed about if they had waited to save up the purchase price.

Many, if not most, couples would be dead before they owned a home of their own if they waited until they had the full payment. And If they were saving the full payment, by the time they had $13,000 the price would go up to $14,000. And by the time they got that, with current rates of inflation, the price would be $15.000.

That truth applies to autonjo-bUe.s, household appliances, fur- '

for the benefits, just as they pay for the benefits of a dozen eggs. SOMETIMES LISTED, SOMETIMES HIDDEN

And it is consumers no one else that pay for the benefits of credit. In some cases, this Is obvious. In buying a car from a reputable dealer, the customer gets a statement showing what the charges for credit are. In buying on a revolving credit account, or in making purchases on some installment plan, the customer is usually told what the charges for credit are.

But in many cases, the customer is never told; often he or she thinks there Ls np charge for credit. There always Is.' If it is

per cent. In addition, they have bookkeeping-, collection and other office costs, and the cost of defaults. So they have to charge more, perhaps 12 to 24 per cent. A typical charge on a revolving credit plan is 18 per cent.

NO AVERAGE FIGURE

There is usually no interest on 30-day charge accounts, but stores that grant them must add a little to their price level. Costs of credit range up to 24 to 30 per cent or more on family loans.

Average figures are not available. But the mean is probably above 15 .per cent.

The latest Federal Reser\-e figures show that a total of $4,0.53.000.000 in credit was "ex-

clothes on the buyers back.

This stuff, credit, is so wonderful that it Is of great value. And things of great value, even pore air and* clear water, cost.

The big fault with the vast credit operation today is that so many people do not - understand that they are paying

in the price.

Merchants can no more afford to give away credit than a corn-r butcher can afford to give away steaks.

Credit costs them money. They have to finance it with money borrowr'^ from a bank or a factor, aoU I hey pay from 6 to 18

that of all the goods and service bought in May, more than $4 billion was in installment payments, loans, credH-card chargm, charge accounts or corner-store tick.

Thats an average of more than $48 blon a year. This figure does not include amounts owed on mortgages, stock traos-

acUons and the like. It includes only consumer credit for goods and services.

It means that, if the average intcrest-plus-service charge is 15 per cent, the public would have had $7.2 billion more worth of goods for the same money If it had paid cash.

If the average cost of credit it only 10 per cent, the potential gain would have been $4.8 billion. If the average cost is 18 per cent a not unlikely figure the public lost $8.6 billion in extra goods and services.

That's an oversimplification, of course. Obviously, the public, didnt have cash for all its purchases; if those who had cash had spent it. the pattern of pur-icfeaia JaeftA,

A, sudden cut-back In credit might result In unemployment, and 80 on.

Bt'it is important Ip-rwpg-" ^

nlze the fact that modern American services, packaging, precooking, portionizing, delivery and all the other things we get for our fait money.