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THE uajet KETLECTOR, greenVH-tJC, If. C

Wednesday, September 9, J1959

Wed&esday, Sfeptember 9, 1959

Another One"'Down The Drain

New Emphasis On Boating Hazards

Everybody kiiows that, boating has become im-portent in holiday^and recreation activities of Americans. The number of small boats has increased by leaps and bounds in the past few years.

Looking over the Labor Day accidental death toll it was a shock to find that boating has become of sufficient import to command a new and special category at least in the Associated Press classification of . accidental holiday deaths.

So far as we know the Labor Day tabulation of deaths by the major news agency was the first time " ;uch importance has been accorded boating. Previously the death toll for news purposes has been divided into three classifications: traffic, drownings and miscellaneous. The Labor Day toll this year showed four classifications: traffic, boating, non-boating drownings and miscellaneous.

Though final figures on the holiday accident toll will not be completed for several da^s yet, the record so far shows that upwards of 30 people lost their lives in boating accidents during the noliday. The final figure on the holiday boating toll probably will run less than half of the total number of deaths resulting fi-om drownings and other water accidents, but the change in tabulating the toll indicates the increasing safety problem that confronts holiday boaters.

North Carolina, with its new boating regulations that will be in effect before another summer season, has taken a positive step toward promoting better boat-

The Diagnostic ?ress Clinic

: By LYNN NISBET

WHAT S WRONG? Some 200 working newspaper and magazine people gathered at Chapel Hill last week for the annual ^ews and Feature Writers Conference. It was a diagnostic clinic seeking to discover what Is wrong with the business, rather than a mutual admiration society. The discussions adduced evidence that Tarheel writers have a lot of ailments, some contagious, nearly all infectious, but none so serious that a little careful attention cannot cure.

Governor Hodges was given top billing on the program to tell what he thinks is wrong with newspaper writing. He foUdwed a panel discussion conducted by Mrs. Prances Gray Patoon, Jonathan Daniels, Manly Wade Wellman and George Scheer. Consensus was that perhaps just plain carelessness is the worst ailment. Not only In the matter of choice of words, sloppy sen-* tence construction, bad spelling and puncutation, but in failure to get all available facts.

Governor Hodges dealt mainly with political writing. He complained that often reporters state as fhctual truth only one side of a controversial issue, without adequate checking or attribution as to source of information. This leads to bias, conscious or otherwise, and sometimes to injection of editorial comment in the narrative. He deplored the pla39Qg tip of sensational new over more constructive matttr in newspapers, but conceded that is more In the field of editorial management than in writing.

W^n he had concluded his talk and had answered a number of questions he was as obviously nervous when Jonathan Daniels got the floor. Daniels said he thought the Governor had been vwTTldnd and very helpful, and the audience got a big laugh when the Governor raised his hamls and with a broad smile shouted. have lived to see the day.

PANEL The panel participants also found that careless-ness'is a major disease. Some of them thought laziness might be a better word to describe the trouble. The diotionary isnt used enough to find the appro-priate word, and there is too little regard for grammatical construction. There was some discission on that point, since the lules of grammar are determined by usage, and therefore change from time to time. Common usage also changes the meaning of words and brings new'ones into the vocabulary--some of them admittedly objectionable to the purists.

Stemming from basic carelessness or laziness, especially In feaCire story writing, is the *copy-cat* proclirity. Mrs. Patton said she thinks the Civil

War and segregation have been over-worked as feature topics. (There are others who think that de-bunking and canonization of historic characters has also been overdone.)

CLARITY Out of all the discussions came the conclusion that accuracy and clarity are the most important facets of a news story, only slightly less important for feature articles. Accuracy is a fixed pole, a determinable factor. Clarity is variable. What is clearly understandable to one group, or in one section of the country, may be entirely meaninglessor have a different meaningsomewhere else.

The *gobble-dy-gook of government bureaucracy is an unin-intelligible to the average citizen as is the jargon of skidrow, or the phrases that come out of science laboratories. While terms have to some degree become interchangeable it Is easy to envision the riots that might occur if the sports writer and the society editor switched jobs and took their working vocabularies with them.

VERNACULARThis point is well illustrated by a story which Justice William Rodman of the Supreme Court tells about one of his trial cases. He was defending a railroad against a suit for heavy damages claimed by a big lumber company which* charged that a disastrous forest fire had been caused by sparks from a locomotive. The lumber lawyers relied strongly on testimony of local witnesses that they had seen lumber employees put out the fire. which they alleged that the railroad engine had started. When they had completed their direct examination. the Yankee lawyers sat back with complacent smiles waiting to see what the railroad could do aboutt hat evidence.

Rodman knew his country, its people and the vernacular. By a few incisive questions on cross examination he established that the witnesses had seen lumber employees carelessly let a campfire spread into the woods. He won his case, because he knew that In Eastern North Carolina that (whether still true is not known), to start a fire meant to put it out, and to stop it meant to die it out. The complacency of the visiting lawyers was quickly replaced by discomfiture.

Much of the misunderstanding among nations, and between sections of this country, stems from the fact that words and phrases have different meaning when taken out of relationship to the community in which they originated. Admittedly that makes for lack of clarity. Question remains whether responsibility rests chiefly on the writer or the reader. That is wholly a matter of viewpoint.

The Duly Reflector

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ing safety. Other states which have not yet adopted their own programs will come under the new boat safety program recently approved by Congress. These new programs, adopted because of the increase in the number of small boats and resulting boating accidents, will in part provide for greater boating safety.

It is a fact, nevertheless, that boating is becoming a more popular and a more dangerous sport. The death toll taken in boating accidents is rising and will continue to rise unless those who participate in that form of recreation exercise greater caution.

The very fact that boating accidents have suddenly become a new major classification of holiday death statistics should make pleasure boat operators aware of the increased dangers they face in pursuing that pleasant pasttime.

O o

Actions Of Red China May Bolster An Ally

It must come as a shock to Prime Minister Nehru and other government officials of India to be the targets of Communist tactics which have been used before on other nations and in which India took Red Chinas word for what happened at face value,

Tiiere have been cases in the past in which India seem to uphold Red Chinas assertions that aggressive action had been taken against her before she moved troops to capture neighboring nations or territories. Now India finds herself at the other end of the gun with Red Chinas assertion that India violated the Tibetan border before Red China troops moved against Indian outposts.

The present crisis between India and Red China probably has given Indian officials a much more realistic look at Communist tactics than they had previously. It is quite probable that Indian officials realize now that they were gros.sly misled by Peiping statements concerning the causee,of other military outbursts in As^a, by Red (jhinese complaints against U. N. forces during the Korean truce, and by other incidents in which India took the side of her huge Communist neighbor.

India is now learning first hand some of the bitter lessons which other nations of the free world learned long ago in dealing with Communist nations. There can be no doubt that India will emerge from the present crisis a much stronger ally of the other free nations of the world than she has been in the past as she tried to observe neutrality in her dealings with Communist nations and free nations.

Running Out Of Time In Long Steel Strike

The current steel strike has now become the longest of its kind in history and there appears no immediate hope for settling the labor dispute which has idled well over half million people and cost the econ()-my mere than a billion dollars in lost wages and business.

Stockpiles of steel which had been stored in anticipation of the strike have been depleted rapidly in the 57 days .since the huge mills were idled. With each passing week more workers are b^ing laid off in industries which depend on steei because they lack the raw materials with which to work.

Losses which are being piled up day by day while the strike continues will not be made up. They are los.ses in wages, sales and production not only for the steel companies ^nd their employees, but for other allied industries and businesses of all kinds which participate in the turnover of dollars that come from the production of steel.

While we do not pretend to understand all the complicated ramifications involved in the strike, signs are beginning to suggest that the major parties involvedthe Steelworkers Union, the steel companies, and the governmentall have about reached the end of their preconceived period of passively waiting for a break in the deadlock. It is time for all the major parties involved to undertake positive efforts to bring to an end the costly shutdown of the basic Industry.

Demos Didnt Deally Growl .

McNftught Syadicek, ta

Bv DON SCHLIENZ

Got A Lift Out Of Pink

It can be said that a glimpse has changed my whole point of view about pink dresses . . . which means nothing to anybody else. But theres a sort of half-baked story behind that which goes on to show how years and years of likes or dislikes can be switched in seconds.

In mine eyes, pink dresses have always been fine for very little girls; but once out of the baby stage, pink wasnt for anybody.

Oh I made no big issue out of it . . . have even mumbled some kind of assent (with fin

gers crossed) when pressed for some kind of comment about a pink sweater, pink blouse, pink something-or-other. But my heart wasnt in it . . . and the attitude has prevailed a long time: ever since the first occasion someone thought to ask me what I thought about clothing colors.

Then, this past Sunday morn there was this Vision in Pink walkingno. floating is a better worddown Evans street.

For one of the first holders of the merit badge in girl-watching, I didnt do well at all.

Other Editors Saying Twist In Political Action

By JAMES MARLOW

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Democrats could have roared like Tigens. Instead they just mooed. President Eisenhower kept them cowed all year.

Thanks to the 19.8 electiorus, they took over the Capitol with the biggest majorities in both hou.ses since early New Deal days. But they became pretty much yes-men for the President.

From this Congress now reaching an end Eisenhower got so much he wanted that he probably wont complain. There are five explanations for this getting the opposition party to eat out of his hand:

1. His unexpected, aggressive leadership.'

2. The new Republican leaders in both House and Sonata.

3. The Democrats' failure to act consistently a,s a party. When it suited them. Southern Democrats split off and teamed up with the Republicans.

4. The Democratic leader.s Sen. Lyndon John.sun and speaker Sam Rayburn. both of Texasare conservative, middle-of-the-road managers without fire.

5. There were no sting^ing issues except one which ELseii-hower fa.'-hioned into a club for hitting the Democrats: inflation.

Instead of showing a diminishing interest and influence- as might expected of a president finishing his second and last term Eisellhower became increasingly active.

Individual Republicans in Congress may disagree with Eisenhower. as they do. Blit the Republicans m a party took a tre-mendoas beating in the 1958 elections while fjsenhower remained enormou.'-ly popular.

' Without him. they had no policy of their own. To light

him in 19.)9 might have meant worse disaster in the 1960 elections. As a group they have gone along with him this year.

At the start of this Congress Republicans in the House dumped their leader of 20 years the 74-year-old Joseph W. Martin of Massachusettsand put in his place Charles Halleck, 59, of Indiana, a much more active man.

In the Senate Everett Dirksen of Illinois, a bu.sy kind of man, wH.s chosen to replace Sen. William KnowTand of California, who left the Senate in 1958.

Halleck and Dirksen, particularly the former, worked hard to keep the Republicans solid with the President and. when they could, to get Southern Democrats to go along with them.

It was a potent combination. Eisenhower vetoed seven bills which Congress passed but ,he didnt like. The Democratic-i*un Conare.ss never once was able to gather enough votes to override him.

Enough Southern Democrats always shifted over to the Republican .side to uphold the Pre-.sident on hLs vetoes.

It was a shift of Southern Democrats to the Republican side in the House, which enabled Eusenhower to get the tough kind of labor control hill lie wanted. Johnson and Rayburn and most other Democrats would have settled for a milder one.

These Southern Democratic shifts demonstrated what has been plain for a long time: That the Democrats cannot make good on a promise to perform as a. single party, that some-t.nic.s'8rc three parties. DcmorTat.s, Republicans, \ Southern Drmocrals.

Tlierr were few rnmlional or Continurd On Page &

(Hertford County Herald)

A dramatic twist in Congressional action may be the opening chapter in a new book about Southern attitudes on civil rights.

The question to be answered in the new book: what means more, the economic lifeblood of the South, or to posture with traditional attitudes about the civil rights question?

The action was taken by a group of the so-called Northern liberal group of Congressmen. This group, w'hich includes the backers of civil rights legislation, had seen its efforts go to naught again this year when Southern Congressmen united with Republicans to knock out civil rights in exchange for votes on the labor bill issue. It was the old familiar story of the coalition Democrats, Southerners who traditionally join with the GOP to swing the balance of power in Congress.

So the Northern liberals tried some of the same strategy. TTiey joined the GOP to knock off some farm legislation which was being pushed by no less a Southern Democrat than North Carolinas Harold Cooley. The farm legislation w*as beaten.

Northern Congressmen said they would continue to do the same. After years of being beaten by Coalition Democrats and the GOP, they had suddenly learnea that the same gambit was open to them.

Now, the question arises: will the Southerners bow to this and become more amenable to civil rights legislation? Will they swap favorable farm legislation for some laws on civil rights? To the Northern Liberals, civil rights legislation is just as important as campaign material as farm legislation is to a law

maker from Dixie. As both know, the legislation in both fields is apt to be mostly politically-inspired as its effect is likely to be more short term and politically expedient than it is long range or statesmanlike.

We would bet that the Southerners will begin to soften. There is no indication that they, or anybody else for that matter, are thinking seriously about any real statesmanlike solution to the so-called farm problem. And the American courts system is already the final power and authority in the civil rights field with ample means to assure civil rights to all Americans. Thus, legislation in both areas is really nothing more than stopgap or window-dressing. Neither side can lose much, and both can continue to gain political advantage, in getting down together and swapping one for the other.

This would seem to be a fine way to end the continual schism in the Democratic Party over civil rights. Not a very statesmanlike way to do it, of course. But, as we said, no one seems to be the slighest bit interested In doing another really far-reaching job in either the field of civil rights or of agriculture, and. indeed, this has been the history of both fields since the Republic began. Over the long term, the recurring advances in both fields have finally come, not from anything Congress did, but from action, in little bits, on the local level. Civil rights is more an attitude of the individual and lies in the actions of hundreds of individuals farmers, 'processors, exporters, marketeers who would show a willingness to try new methods and make individual statesmanlike decisions.

Not one foggy memory of what the girl looked like; though Id imagine she was fair of skiii and light of hair. Just that vivid picture of pink, moving with a kind of happy, carefree grace in the after-church pedestrian traffic.

It could be that the abstractions of the wearer, wrapped in some pleasing reverie, lent an extra element of lighthearted and enchanting magic to the pink. Whatever it was, the skirt had a swirl when she stepped from a curb , . . the kind of swirl that doesnt go with thoughts on.

Is The Race Going To Be Extinguished By Fallout?, or, How Can I, As A Good Citizen, Combat Inflation?.

The ramifications of the plot are thicker than thus far made out to be.

For in.stance, does a new Sunday ensemble ... in pink . . . induce a jaunty lightheartedness on a sunny Sunday morn? Or does a happy thought give pink an extra glow? (Which come.s first, the chicken or the egg?)

Anyhow, the family chariot was caught up in the traffic flow, and before this girl-watcher (semi-retired) could really get his attention In focus, the pink objet dart w*as out of sight.

Ever since, Ive been telling myself that something like this shouldnt all be spent on one Sunday morning; that it should be spread out over as many Sundays as the weather permits. . . . giving more and more people a lift out of their drab little world.

Opinions

"n Brief

When a woman got dressed up in the good old days, she looked like she was wearing three or four blankets. When she gets dressed up nowadays, she looks like she ought to be wearing three or four blankets. Cincinnati Enquirer.

The popularity of the fllter-tip cigarette indicates that a filter-tip automobile muffler might have a great future in store for it.Louisville Cour-ier-Journal.

Says a scientist: The earth is surrounded by a halo . . . But we cant Imagine why. New Orleans States-Item.

abors

Gn His Sonas

By HAL BOYLE

NEW YORK (AP) Some jobs get harder the longer you work at them, no matter how skilled you become. -

It is that way with Oscar Hammerstein II, playwright, producer and lyracist.

After 50 musical plays and a thousand songs in 40 years, he finds that song No. 1,001 as elusive to pin down as when' he began back in 1919.

Jj

He can be seen striding back and forth on the sceond-floor porch of his 200-year-old Bucks County, Pa., farmhouse.

Im a pacer when I Work, said Hammerstein, who Is writing the last of 14 lyrics for his latest opus with composer Richard Rodgers, the life story of. Maria von Trapp of the famous Austrian singing family.

Its hard work. I walk miles and miles sometimes before I get a phrase.

I dont know of any art form that requires simplicity more than a song doc*. But*you have to wade through a lot of ncai-csscntial detours to get on the right road.

Hammerstein, who started out s a lawyer, jots down words and Ideas on a pad of long, lined yellow paper at an antique stand-up desk.

To turn out a single song recently he used up 100 sheets of paper while working every day for more than four weeks.

At 64he looks a rugged, well-preserved 50he has turned out enough hits to win Immortality. But he says he want to go on writing as long as he can find new themes.

Real showmen are like gamblers, he said. They ride with the good and bad.

Success in the theater is gained by departing from th# beaten path, and this is achieved chiefly by the so-called commercial managers, WTiter.s and actors, he said.

Unchanged by success. Hammerstein likes chess, baseball, tennis, a swim every morning, and the pleasures of family life. He and his wife have 11 grandchildren.

His friendliness and tolerant optimism have made him one of the best-liked men in show business.

I recognize the imperfection of life, he said. The most important thing In living is to recognize the imperfection of human beings.

Our assumption that we are more civilized than we really are makes us too disappointed in ourselves. We fight too much to prove that what we dont know is so.

Strength For Today

By EARL L. DOUGLASS REAL ILLNESS Emotional disease.

Some people have just that emotional disease. Such diseases are not caused by germs, they are not contagious, and. for the most part, they do not involve medical care or hospitalization. Yet many a person is definitely sick emotionally. And because he is sick (or she, as the case may be), everybody else in the househoM, the office, the shop, and the bridge club is exposed to this sickness.

The emotionally sick can stir up more perdition within their circles than anyone else excepting Old Nick himself. The emotionally diseased quickly lose their tempers. If they cannot have their own way, they become despondent. Everybody is against themin fact, plotting to rob them of happiness. Nobody can be trusted. .

So reason ttie emotionally diseased. Scores of good people ( scurry around trjdng to please these pestiferous persons. They often give them what they want. They agree with their arguments. They warn everybody not to say anything which will stir up the anger and bitterness of these people. Theyre just nervous, you know.

Oh, are they? Theyre nothing of the sort. Theyre diseased. Theyre sick. They need cure.

There Should Be Plans For Peace

By EL.MER ROESSNER

Most people believe (probably erroneously) that some place in the bowels of the Pentagon there are sets of plans for almost any emergency: there is a complete file of plans for action if Russia attacks, if Eire bombards Belfast, Me., or if Liberia mounts an expedition to liberate Mississippi.

V

These plans, most people assume. include orders for counterattacks, blank contracts for supplies, ration regulations and price freeze orders.

But nobody thinks there is a set of plans for use if peace suddenly strikes, and they are probably right. *

The possibility of peace is slim indeed. There might be a wkr between Russia and China, which would give the rest of the world peace; there might be a conflict between 31st and 32nd degree Communists; there might be a capitalistic uprlsinc in Russia itself (a mast unlikely possibility) and the Communist

nations might decide to live in peace with the rest of the world even more unlikely). UNPREPARED

But 1 one of these possibilities occurred and this newspaper came out with the headline, PEACE DECLARED the nation would be totally unprepared.

A recent Trendex poll showed that many people believed that peace would plunge the country into a deep recession. So it might. Hundreds of thousands would be thrown out of work. Some $40 billion a year in defense spending would shrink to little. Economic panic would seize millions.

Eventually things would straighten out. By spending, say, $35 billion a year less for armaments the government could cut taxes by that amount. That would be tantamount to transferring that much spending back to the taxpayers.

You would have half as much taxes to pay: .von would use the money for more goods and ser-viceS Instead the government

spending part of your income for defense, you would be spending item.s. That would restore prosperity.

PROVED BY GERMANY, JAPAN '

Thats not just theory. Our beaten enemies, Germany and Japan, were forbidden to rearm. The governments ai*e not spending large parts of their peoples incomes for arms, so people are pending more for themselves. Germany and Japan arc both enjoying remarkable booms.

Germanys postwar recovery was much faster than Britains. Germans were putting little of theli* energy and wealth Into military equipment; the British were spending enormous amounts on both.

But io bridge the gap between any cutback of mUitary work and the revival of prosperity, there ought to be a set of plans for Instant use if peacf^breaks out.

They could Include plans for modernizing our highways and adding needed new ones. Se-

that much more for consumer parating lanes in old ones would eliminate head-on collisions, which would save about 20,000 lives a year.

Plans could also Include irrigation and reclamation projects to provide sufficient water, crop land and living space for the multlmillion rise in populaUon ahead. (Nine babies were born while you were reading this.)

Plans could provide for the eradication of trichinae: the development of a cure for cancer, and elimination of smog.

They could provide for a higher level of education for our throbbing millions of young people; there might "even be enough left over to provide decent mail service.

DO YOU PAY FOR YOUB MAGAZINES?

The Gallagher Report, a newsletter published by Barnard P. GaUaeher, a publicatioas broker, says that Life has 7R,65n names on its free list, the SRlurriav Evening Post has 67,230, and Timt has 63,144.