FACE POUKTHE DAILY REFLECTOR, GREENVILLE, N, C

Thursday, December 17, 19S9

Thursday, December 17, 1959

Christmas Displays

Pointing Out The Fault Might Help

Few people like to have their faults pointed out to them by others particularly in public and particularly by outsiders.

It is not surprising therefore, that there may be in Eastern North Carolina some resentment about the statement made by Gov. Hodges in Smithfield that some sections of this part of the state are being hampered in their economic growth by petty jealousies and lack of cooperation.

Even though it is human nature to resent having one's faults called to his attention, more often than not such faults cannot be overcome until they are called to the attention of the individual. The same thing may apply to this area of Eastern North Carolina.

To deny that petty jealousies exist between communities and counties of this area would be like poking our heads in the sand to avoid a frightful sight. Certainly they exist, and the sooner we recognize them, the sooner a genuinely cooperative spirit can be developed between the communities and counties of the area toward economic development the sooner this handicap will be overcome.

Gov. Hodges, in his address at Smithfield, cited the futile attempts to establish a regional airport in this section of the state as an example of the handicap petty' jealousies and lack of cooperation have handed Eastern North Carolina. A regional air facility to attract adequate air service to the area was, and still is, in our estimation one of the great needs of the area; but lack of cooperation between communities of

State Will Have iarlier Pay Day

By LYNN NISBET8

PAY DAY The monthly pay day for regular salaried State employees is the 25th. Custom has been to pay oif in December on the 20th. This year the 20th falls on Sunday, and Saturday is a non-work day for the State. Checks will be handed out Friday, the 18th. Christmas holidays will begin Thursday morning.

State officials are making much of the liberal "four days off for Christmas. Actually the workers get only two days, because they are not scheduled to work Siturday and Sunday, anyway.

The State offices have had a Christmasy look all this week. Many of them have* little trees, and departmental parties have been the order. CAD folks staged a real party at Scandia Village Tuesday night, and were happy to have Director William Saunders with themhis first outing after a seige in the Moore County General Hospital. The Department of Agriculture has a big rotating tree in the lobby. Their party will be Thursday afternoon. and as usual instead of exchanging gifts among the personnel a collection is taken and the proceeds donated to some worthy purpose.

FEUD The feud between

the Carolina Motor Club, which distributes State automobile license plates on commission basis, and the N-C. State Motor Club, which opposes the practice. goes on apace. The current issue of N.C. States Motor Club News, leads off with advice to car owners about how much easier it is to order the tags by mail from Raleigh than to stand In line at a distributing office. The 1960 tags go on sale January 4 and must be displayed on cars by February 15.

OUR BOB Former US. Senator Robert Reynolds passed through Raleigh the other day at the wheel of big station wagon decorated with the picture of horses head and lettered the Reynolds Ranch, Asheville, N.C. "Our Bob" looks as young and frisky as he did when he retired from the Senate in 1944. He says he is taking It easy on his mountain top farmwhen he isn't gallivanting around the world,

ELECTIONS - The City of Raleigh is getting ready for a bond election in February to provide essential services to outside areas to be brought into the city next year. The proposed annexation will add some 14,000 people, bringing the capital city population well above 100,009 possibly nearer 110,000. Tentatively scheduled for early February, that will be the fifth election held In Raleigh within 12 months^including the regular municipal election last spring, the statewide capital improvement bond election, another mu

nicipal bond issue and county school bonds.

Sec. 28 of the Declaration of Rights in the State constitution reads: "For redress of grievances. and for amending and strengthening the laws, elections should be often held

The State Itself and most of counties and municipalities in it have been zealous in complying with that constitutional provisionwhile oft times ignoring other mandates. Many people believe that the undue frequency of elections account.s in large measure for the small turnout of voters. Less than 20 percent of the eligible potentials participated in the recent Wake county school bond election, less than ten percent of eligibles voted on the statewide bond issue.

COMMON DATE Tuesday after the first Monday in November of even numbered years is the common date throughout the United States for the election of members of the Congress, and for President and Vice President every fourth year. Majority of the States elect Governors and members of their legislatures on the same date, even though some of them elect in odd numbered years.

Nearly all municipal officials In North Carolina are elected in odd years, most of them in May or June. Ail county officers are elected in November in even years, along with members of the General Assembly and State officials. County officials generally take office on the first Monday in December: State officials generally on the first of January following their election, and legislators upon convening of the General Assembly. Frequent variations occur in the date of assuming office due to peculiar circumstances. Some municipal officers take over the day after their election, some on July 1.

Congressman Basil Whitener of the 11th district several years ago proposed, but did not follow through to effectuate the idea, that all regular municipal elections should be fixed for the Tuesday after the first Monday in November of odd years, just as State and county officers are elected In even years. Advance nominating primaries would be held at appropriate times, but the real election would be the fixed date every year. Logical extension of the Whitener idea would be to schedule elections on bonds and other special issues on the same date.

One big election day every year, and on the same day every year, a date that citizens could fix in their minds and remember to observe, would go a long ways toward Increasing participation in elections. In event of real emergency the people could be alerted for special elections, and might b expected to turnout better than 20 per cent of voting strength. ______

the area prevented its being realized. Gov. Hodges further added that lack of adequate air service in the area resulted just last week in the decision of a large nationally known industrial firm not to locate a new plant in this part of North Carolina.

With great empha.sis being placed on the ec<> nomic development of Eastern North Carolina, it is only natural to expect that keen rivalries will be present between communities competing for the economic growth. In the sense that such rivalry makes each community in the area put forth extra effort to keep ahead "of its neighbor, the rivalry contributes to the development of the area as a whole.

But when communities allow petty jealousies to stand in the way of cooperative understandings which will be in the interest of the area as a whole, it becomes an entirely differentand unwholesomematter.

If Eastern North Carolina would look at itself objectively, it would have to admit that petty jealousies do exist between our communities. They have been there for decadesin some cases maybe generations and chances are they will continue to some degree for a long time to come. Once we recognize that they exist, however, and set about in a positive manner to overcome them, the area as a whole probably will be much better off.

The fact that Gov. Hodges has called this fact to our attention might prompt the area to take another step in an effort to overcome its petty jealousies and bring about better cooperation for the economic development of the area as a whole.

Farmer In The Middle, Taxpayers Pay The Eill

Were it not for the seriousness of the situations, one might be amused by the running campaigns between Secretary'of the Health, Education and Welfare Department and Secretary Benson of the Department of Agriculture.

For the past few weeks now, it seems. Secretary Flemming has been finding a connection between cancer and certain farm commodities and so informing the American people. On the heels of at least two of these announcements Secretary Benson has announced a counter campaign by the I>epartment of Agriculture to insulate farmers from monetary losses because of the announcements by Fleming.

First it was the pre-Thanksgiving cranberry hassel in which Flemming pretty well knocked the props from under the nations cranberry market. It took only a few days for Secretary Benson to come forth with a high-powered publicity campaign from the Department of Agriculture encouraging Americans to buy uncontaminated cranberries and thus prevent a complete collapse of the market.

More recently Secretary Flemming shocked the poultry industry with the announcement that perhaps one per cent of the poultry production, treated with stilbe.strol, might contribute to causing cancer in humans.

It didnt take long for Secretary Benson to announce that the Department of Agriculture would buy up all poultry treated with the hormone, although so far as we know the Department hasnt yet said what its going to do with the poultry.

How long is this game going to continue between the federal departments in Washington? And to what lengths will it go?

In spite of these unanswered questions, at least two conclusions appear fairly safe: 1. The farmer is caught in the middle: and 2. The taxpayers are paying the bill on both ends.

The Daily Reflector

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nis Lumps, ioo

By JAMES MARLOW

WASHINGTON (AP)-John L. Lewis was a mixed-up gaint.

He was a monument in American labor. But there were times when he acted like a man two Inches high. He hade normous successes, abysmal failure. He was hated and he was loved.

He was a liberal and a conservative and a colossal egotist who had to be humbled in public. He was a great actor and a great ham. He could make the English language eloquent. and very corny too.

He was in the main stream of history, as the leader of labor in the 1930s, but there were times when he swam against it. For instance, in 1940 when the country was preparing for war and he turned isolationist.

He was a torrent of restle.ss-ness who has settled, as he nears 80, into tranquility. No one ever fought American businessmen harder. But he wasnt against them. He was a free enterpriser, .too. He Just wanted more of their profits.

He had daring, courage. Imagination when lesser men around him quaked with timidity. Yet, il he couldnt have things his own way, he wouldnt play.

He started as a boy in the mines, to become one of the moving forces in labor. Still, under his leadership his coal miners union was a dismal mess before It became a huge success.

The crowning contradiction of his life came Tuesday w hen-after announcing he would retire next month from the presidency of his union the coal operators expressed their deep, sincera regret.

No group ever had a more wretched record of mistreatment of labor than the coal barons. But in the end Lewis made them see the light with a result unbelievable 20 years ago.

His miners are on the top-rung of labor, in wages and benefits, and relations between Lewis and the operators are now so. well adjusted there hasnt been a big strike in years.

Lewis had his bad days. When he became head of the miners at the end of World War I, there were* 400,000 in the union. The number dwindled so badly in the 1920s that by 1933 they were down to 150.000.

At times Lewis seemed carried away by his own strength. He

HERE^^OMEO THE ^EA^ONS CREETIK6 CAM>i

we've BeeN CeTTING.

THE4E ARE THE APPEALS FOR

By ALVIN TAYLOR

Can't Always Be Choosey

Even the underworld has the Christmas spirit, if police complaints are any Indication.

Saturday a news item stated that thieves had entered local grocery. Missing were six hams, three shoulders, 30 pounds of sausage, cake salmons, milk, chewing tobacco and a quantity of cigarettes.

Monday another news item appeared reporting that intruders had entered a Greenville seafood store. Missing from this place of business were 13 points of oysters and as mall number of fish.

So there you have two Christmas dinners.

Now we can go along with ham, shoulder, sausage, cake, salmon

and milk for Christmas dinner, even if the traditional turkey does happen to be missing. We suppose the cigarettes would go well after the meal, although we would have to put off use of the chewing tobacco until a later date.

But that second menu oysters and fishjust doesnt strike us as something wed like to have on Christmas day. Dont get us wrong. We like oysters and we like fish on any day but Christmas.

Oh well, when you pick up your groceries after store hours, we suppose you just have to take whats available.

Christmas spirit seems to be enveloping local people earlier than usual, if our memory of past Christmas seasons serves us correctly.

It seems that trees and other home decorations were going up a little bit sooner than usual and that gift shoppers were crowding the stores earlier.

People talking Christmas sooner this year, or so it seemed to us.

But when you forget such things from year-ti>-year and next year we might think the same thing.

Other Editors Saying Promotion Is Needec,

pitted it against the government more than once. President Wilson forced him with an injunction to stop a strike he called in 1919 before World War I was officially ever.

He struck again in World War II. But he suffered his greatest humiliation in 1946. He defied a court order against a strike and for this he was fined $1,000 and his imion 3Vi million dollars.

With the help of his eyebrows, which he could raise and lower like a stage curtain. Lewis could look thunderous with an anger which he could turn on and off like summer rain.

A conservative Republican, Lewis supported Calvin Coolidge in 1924, Herbert Hoover against Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. But he switched to Roosevelt when the New Deal, through the NRA and the Wagner Act, gave labor its greatest break and biggest government help in history.

He became a liberal among liberals in 1936 when, in gratitude. he backed Roosevelt. But he turned conservative again in 1940 when Roosevelt refused to coddle him. Lewis came out for WendeU Willkle.

This was whenh c made his greatest mistake in self-evalua-tlon. He threatened to quit as head of the CIO ii Roosevelt won. His reasoning was that the President couldnt be re-elected without labors help.

This was like saying a Roosevelt, victory would be a repudiation of Lewis. He matched his popularity against the Presidents.Roosevelt won and Lewis quit.

When the New Deal came to the help of labor. Lewis saw the chance to organize the millions of unorganized industrial workers. The AFL. selfishly Interested only In craft unions, wouldnt buy Lewis plea for Industrial organization. He quit'the AFL and formed the CIO.

The drive that followed, and its success, was the greatest in American labor. But when Lewis quit the CIO after the 1940 election, he wenti nto a kind of backwater of labor history.

He remained as head of the miners. He was still a driving force. But he was no longer leader of the broad labor movement. ,

He was one of those extraordinary men who, in every generation, rises to shape the destiny and direction of tiie nation.

(Henderson Dispatch)

Decision of Tobacco Associates to open an office in Europe in the spring is a step in promotion that is greatly needed. At least it can be given a trial to determine the results possible from such an undertaking.

In the last referendum, growers approved an Increase in the acreage levy of ten cents up to the figure required, not to exceed one dollar per acre, for expanding sales activities of Associates. That should yield adequate working capital to support the European sales office. It is in line with moves by other private interests to expand their sales abroad.

The Hodges party touring Europe last month was given a sobering example of the competition other countries are offering to American flue-cured tobacco. In Stuttgart. Germany, the Tarheels were told of a sale of Rhodesian leaf in the amount of some hundreds of thousands of pounds at twenty-nine cents per pound. Comparable American tobacco, although admittedly of better quality, was offered at seventy cents.

A German spokesman commented that "The Rhodesians are just waiting for you flue-cured growers to get yourselves out of business; then theyll raise the prices, but they will put you out of business first. He added that "the only answer to the flue-cured area is greatly to increase production and sell competitively. He said further and plainly. "You are pricing yourselves out of business the way it is today.

Thats plain talk which will be ignored only at the peril of our Southern tobacco agriculture. A Tobacco Associates office in Europe could be effective to an extent in offsetting this threat. But the selling agent there cannot cut prices. He must drum his leaf at the level fixed in this country.

Nobody wants to see tobacco prices reduced here. But the hard cold facts must be faced. Growers are being urged to produce a leaf of the highest quality. But a differential of thirty cents a pound in favor of the Rhodesians can hardly be overcome by quality alone, European consumers will willingly sacrifice a degree of quality if the product can be had at only a little more than half the price of the American crop.

Growers here are gladly going along with the increased assessment in the hope that it will provide the answer to their problem in the export field. It should help. But suppose it should not prove to be enough. Then something else must be tried. In the end it might be found that prices are so high they cannot b overcome in competition.

This is, of course, but one area where Americans, in their desire for higher and still higher prices and incomes, are actually pricing themselves out of world market. If we must learn the hard way, then thats the situation that will have to be confronted.

All of us will do well to think on these things. It is not a mere threat: Its a stark reality that we are up against.

Former staffer Jimmy Ellis, who has gone on to the land of the grey flannel suit, wrote a long letter the other day taking members of the Reflector staff to task for not answering his earlier letters.

It loooked like his former coworkers would take out time to drop him a line and say howdy do, said Ellis, who is now with the American Cotton Manufacturers Institute, Inc. in Charlotte.

Editor David J. Whichard decided to do something about the situation. He picked up a post card, wrote "howdy do on it, signed it and sent it off to Charlotte.

Today the card brought a reply from our former colleague.

You would be amazed at how comforting it was to learn that you are (1) still living, (2) sufficiently strong enough to say to the lost and hopeless, "Howdy Do, and (3) solvent enough to to be able to afford pen. ink and postage in these trying times.

The letter carried an executive type signature: "Jimmy.

Opinions

'n

Wives Have A

Secret

By HAL BOYLE

NEW YORK (AP)^-Curhstone comments of a Pavement Plato:

Wives live from 5 to 10 years longer than their husbands, and old maicls outlast old bachelors by at least the same margin.

Science is still considerably puzzled by the reason for this:

It isnt satisfied with the ordinary mans explanation, which is: "Men die sooner because they work themselves to death trying to please women by earning enough money to buy them what they think they want.

What is the real reason women are more durable than men?

One answer may be that women have two great secret weapons in the battle of life. They are self-respect and common sense. Men have these qualities, too, but not in so great a measure.

Let us take up self-respect first. It is a quality absolutely essential to human survival. Any human being without it withers and dies.

A girl Is taught from birth to respect and take pride in herself, and she will cling stubbornly to this feeling against all the buffets of this world. She is helped perhaps by the smug knowledge that she is the reservoir of posterity. ^

A man doesnt have quite this same indestructible sense of worth and merit. His self-respect is a more fragile thing. So is his pride. If he sets himself too high a goal and fails to achieve it, he often gets a feeling of disillusionment and general worthlessness that hastens him to an untimely end.

Let us now consider common sense. The average man feels this is a quality he has in abundance and few women have at all. Actually its the other way around. Its the women who have it and the men who dont.

This is best shown in how the two sexes deal with one of the greatest problems of lifethe need to compromise. Life is, indeed, one long compromise.

Men rarely have the common sense to face up to this inescapable fact, because they are- romanticists by nature. Women, being realists, do face up to this fact.

Think it over. Isn't the real reason women outlive men because they have these two great secret weapons of successful livinga greater self-respect and more common sense?

Mr. Truman and Mr. Steven-feller is a Republican. But be-son are Democrats. Mr. Rockefeller is a Republican, But being modern liberals all, neither Mr. Truman nor Mr. Stevenson could really quarrel with Mr. Rockefellers political method of settling wage disputes with Government power. Hf- Wall Street Journal.

"Live dangerously! Is advice we don't hear much any more since it turned out there isnt any other way. Asheville Citizen.

Strength For Today

By EARL L. DOUGLASS CONCERNING THE NARROW-MINDED

Who are the most narrowmindedthe people within the church or those on the ouside?

It cannot be denied that there is and always has been a certain percentage of people within the church who might be classed as narrow-minded. The very nature of religion tends to make them so, for religion is based upon conviction and strong conviction sometimes spills over Into narrowness and bigotry. Alter a long experience, however, with church pe(^le, I am prepared to say that probably not more than, one percent of the people within churches I have had an opportunity to observe could be classified as narrowminded.

Outside the church it would be probably the conviction of most unprejudiced observers that there exists a considerable amount of narrow-mindedness. There is an even larger groupo f people who say very little one way or the other but show their negative attitude toward religion by staying away from church. Then there are the dLs-senters who go about like a roaring lion seeking whom they may devour. "Religion Is a phony, they say. The church is full of hypocrites. "I dont need religion to make and keep me decent.

We just fall into the habit of thinking that all narrowmindedness is within the church. But here w'e need to reflect and reconsider a bit.

Giving Inflation Another Boost

By ELM^R ROESSNER

Tb^ Administration, while professing to fight inflation, will give it a new spin next year. By increasing certain charges it will tend to push prices up slightly, heightening the cost of living and thereby adding to the basis on which Tabor will claim higher wages.

These increases arc:

A 17 per cent rise in parcel post rates, already ordered in effect. This will not only tend to increase the prices of all goods sent by parcel post but will also privide a margin within which competitive services can increase their charges.

A cent rise in first-class mail rates, bringing the rate up to 5 cents an ounce. This will require Congressional approv'tl. Washington) reports Indicate the Administration will ask for it next month.

AIR MAIL, MAGAZINES A cent rise In airmail rates, making the rate 8 cents an ounce. This will also require Congressional approval.

A rise in minimum charges for third-class mail (advertising

material). An automatic Increase becomes effective July 1, 1960, but a further increase in both second class (magazines and newspapers) may be asked of Congress.

An increase in Social Security taxes on both employers and employees. The rates, under legislation passed earlier, go from 24 to 3 per cent each on January 1.

A half - cent increase in the Federal gasoline tax. This may be necessary to prevent the Federal highway program from foundering on the rocks of higher costs of labor and materials.

Avoiding Higher Charges

Many businesses are already studying ways to escape the higher parcel post rate.s. Some ways under consideration by sldppers:

. Lighter packaging, to reduce total W'elght.

. Setting up regional warehouse.*! from which goods can be shipped at low local rates.

. Organizing pools with other shippers to create volume to justify truckintt.

. He - examinatioQ of rates

by express companies, truckers, baj-ge lines and other transport industries to make sure each shipment moves at the cheapest practical way.

WHAT MERCHANTS CAN DO

Some ways under' consideration by receivers:

. Organizing pools with other receivers for consolidated shipment by truck. The government has already lost considerable parcel post business to pools based in New York. These transport goods from "drops in New York by truck to merchants in Washington, Boston, Buffalo and other points reached overnight.

. Checking suppliers to make sure they use the cheapest possible transportation, and refusing to pay the excess over the cheapest rates.

. Consolidating orders and reducing fill-in orders, to increase the size the reduce the number of shipments, thereby earning the lowest trucking rates.

. Passing on shipping charges on special orders to customers.

. Re-examining local sources.

which may involve little or no shipping charges.

The other Increases require specialized counteractions. However, there are two steps that are available for every business:

. Writing to Senators and Representatives now, asking them to fight against the governments continual increases in coats of Federal services.

. Planning tactics for increasing prices to cover these higher costs.

NEWS HOTEL OWNERS WILL RELISH The greatest number of complaints about motels today concern lack of courtesy of managers. the American Automobile Association reports. In too many instances, motel managers are indifferent and some-Lme.s rude in their dealings with giie.sts. A take-it-or-leavc-it attitude seems to prevail," said Elmer Jenklrus, AAA national travel director..

Two years ago the chief complaint was about rates; three years ago about poor housekeeping.