':'

PACE FOim

THE DAILY REFLECTOR, GREENVILLE, N. C

Tusdty, February 21, 1961

Tax Hike Should Be On' Broad Base

Any Missile Gap Is Bad

V

It should be evident by now that North Carolina is not going to find any easy way to raise the additional $106 million in tax reveanues Gov. Sanford says' will be needed in the next biennium to finance the proposed school program. ^

It is also evident, we think, that at least a major. part of the new govcmorts proposed school improvement program will be approved by the legislature in spite of the significant increased cost .involved. Such a conclusion is justified/ in our opinion, because of the apparent popular support for improving public education in the nianner Gov. Sanford has proposed.

Estimated budget revenues already made by state officials have included generous evaluations of the increased revenue which may be expected during the biennium from improved economic conditions throughout the state. This means that the additional $106 million in expenditures will have to be offset from new tax sources.

Every proposal ,for increasing taxes is likely to bring objections from some group or some section of the state. It is extremely doubtful that any tax pro-

A Library For iach Lawmaker

By LYNN NISBET

LIBRARY Members of tbe General Assembly have complained tlirough the years about the mass of printed material which they find piled upon their desks every mominjr when they come to the capitol. This material consists of official reports of State apencies and departments. which are required by law to be printed and made available to legislators. There is also a lot of propaganda mixed In with the factual reports sometimes in the same volume and more ofton in side sheets or booklets in which the agency seeks to justify its existence and expansion.

The biggest single contribution to this mass of material Is the , report of the Advi;orv Budset CommLsion. This time that requires four volumes making a pile about four inches high Every legislator needs that report at hand all the time and ne also needs somewhere to keep it other than on the little 26-wide desk The nrooosed new legislative StaJp Building will afford some office space.

The biennial department reports range from saddle-back stapled pamphlets of 12 to 20 pages up to bound volumes of 500 pages or more and over an Inch thick. Put 30 or 40 of the.se on the same little desk, already crowded by the budget books, and it is easy to understand the disgust and protest of the legislators.

Yet the content of these reports with their table.s and graphs constitute a library of authentic information about North Carolina her people, and business, and government, the value of which cannot be computed in dollars. It is material that ought to be preserved In permanent form. Whether It should be printed and generally distributed in the volume customary, is seriously doubted Certainly a whale of a lot of It Is wasted under the present system.

EXAMPLES Take, for example, the biennial report of the Department of Conservation and Development, and the biennial report of the Tax Research Department, which .showed up last week. The C&D report is a saddle-stabled Job of 74 pages: the Tax Research job Is a paper bound book of 400 pages almost an inch thick. Each tells a fascinating story, but one which no member of the General As.sembly can read and digest between committees and regular se.ssions.

Take just one page from the C&D report. It shows that during 1959 there were 348.182 inquiries received from .50 States and 60 foreign countries about North Carolina. That is more than average of I.kH) a day for every working day in the year-Further, it shows where inquir

ies came from. Indicating the degree of Interest in North Carolina throughout the world, as a guide to future publicity planning.

Is the State advertising program justified? Look at the record It shows 37.000 Inquiries from New York, 23.000 each from Ohio and Pennsylvania, with Illinois. New Jersey and Michigan running high. It might be surprising to many* people that nearly 14.000 inquiries came from Florida and nearly 12.000 from California about tourLst and vacation attractions in North Carolina.

A significant phase of the report is the recognition given to cooperation on part of private enterprise, such as the Travel Council of North Carolina, chambers of commerce and local development groups. Whether the problem is industrial development. promotion of travel, or overall improvement in living conditions, the cooperation of these local private enterprise groups is essential.

TAXES The Tax Research Department report is titled Statistics of Taxation." It contains more than statistics, although there are dozens of tables and graphs and comparative statements. The fine print text of the 400 page book give a running .story of the development of the fiscal structure of North Carolina from around $40 million 25 years ago to more than half a billion this year-

There is breakdown as to source of the revenue Incomes. sales, tax. franchise, beverage, intangibles, et cetera. And each of these major source is further analyzed to show amounts paid by corporations and individuals.

The book affords basic material, subject of course to further detail research, for a thesis on taxation. Unfortunately, only a few' members of the General Assembly have the capacity to understand Itand none of ^hem has time to read It.

ANSWERS The point is that very few questions can be asked about any facet of State government that these various reports piled on the legislators desks cannot answer. If and this is a big if the legislators had time to read the stuff. Because they dont have time to read It. and in many cases could not understand it if they did have time, question arises about the practicality of spending so much money for the printing.

Study commivslon for at least 20 years have been working on that problem, and no sensible or practical solution has been forthcoming. The departments love to print their reports, even to Illustrate them with pictures; and there are always two or three legislators who Insist on having a bound printed report of his favorite agency.

The Dafly Reflector

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Published Every Afternoon Except Sundmj Estaiblished 1882 DAVID JULIAN WHTCHARD. PubHih Entered at Fost Offloe. OreenvUla, N 0 aa waeoo Ums WM matter.

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pos|il, or any combination of tax proposals to raise the necessary revenue will receive anything, like unified backing withia^he legislature.

It should be evident, therefore, that because of the amount of revenue- that must be raised, 'ftnd because of the methods that are available for raising it, a variety of tax hikes will go into providing the needed funds.

The legislature, it seems to us, should make every effort to spread the tax increases as equitably as possible over the entire economic structure of the state. There will be a certain popular appeal for levying specific taxes on specific items m an effort to raise the revenue. This method might likewise appeal to legislators because taxing of specific items ohen does not cause the furor among constituents that results from taxation on a broad base.

In the long run, however, the increase in tax revenues will come from the pockets of the people of the state. As it bgins consideration of various means by which the revenue may be increased, the legislature must keep in mind that in fairness to all of the people of North Carolina, the total tax burden should be distributed as widely as possible over all the people of the state.

If special taxes on specific items are decided upon, the items involved should be those that are consumed over a broad segment of the population, and the methods of collecting such taxes should be such as not to impose a penalty on a specific group or a specific industry.

As we have said before, the 1961 legislature should not only look for additional tax revenues by seeking out new areas of taxation. It should carefully scrutinize the loopholes in existing tax laws, determine how these can be closed in order to produce additional revenues, and then look for other sources from which to finance increased spending programs.

Demonstrations Are

V.

Cause For Our Concern

The outbursts of 'demonstrations that have taken place in many cities throughout the w'orld in protest to the death of Patrice Lumumba should be of grave concern to the Western World as well as to supporters of the United Nation.?.

If the demonstrations were spontaneous out of resentment for the death of the communist-inspired leader of one faction in the strife-torn Congo, there is cau.'^e for concern. If, on the other hand, the demonstration.? were planned and staged by communists throughout the worldwhich we feel is more likely there is no le.<5S cau.ie for concern.

Such demonstrations were to be expected in Cuba, Moscow and other places under communist domination, for the communist^ were outright supporters of Lumumba, and he in turn was one of them. But for a similar demonstration to be staged in New York, both at the U.N. and elsewhere in that city, is another matter.

Known communists among New York demonstrators seems to justify suspicions that the demonstrations in that city were communist inspired just as they were elsewhere. The fact that the communists are w'ell enough organized in New York to stage such demonstrations on so short a notice should be of grave concern to the American people . . . and to the American government. The incident suggests that communists in the United States are better organized, and perhaps stronger in numbers, than most loyal citizens have believed.

The demonstrations in New York should not lead to another red herring hunt, but it should prompt responsible officials to carefully re-evaluate the ability of communists in this country to stage demonstrations and possibly carry out other activities of similar public nature.

Kennedy Seeking Public SuDDor

^*ught SyndMU. lai

By ALVIN TAYLOR

Valentine For A Blonde

It was Valentine's and there was this cute little brown-eyed blonde who bad practically told me I was to present her with a Valentines box of candy on the day of sweethearts.

So what do you do? Obviously a bachelor like myself couldnt afford to alienate the affections of a little doll such as this. Perhaps it was rather brazen of her to drop such a hint but then she did it in such a sweet way. A man just couldnt refuse. So it was down to the nearest candy bar for me.

May I help you? a clerk asked.

Yes," I said. "Im looking for a rather nice Valentines box.

Oh," said the clerk with a knowing smile. "Someone special?"

"Yes," I replied, rather embarrassed.

"This is a nice selection, she said helpfully' holding up a big red box

Other Editors Saying... Now As To Death Penalty

By JAMES MARLOW

WASHINGTON (AP) President Kennedy may someday get political pneumonia from overexposure in public. But not now. Meanwhile, he I doing a unique job of public relations in the White House.

A presidents popularity is always at a high mark in his first few months. So any danger that Kennedy will wear out his welcome must come later.

What is unique is that he is trying to establish as much personal contact as possible with the people on TV, before news cameras and in public statements. No matter what his purpose. he Is also providing an education in the presidency

Last week, for instance, TV showed him in his office conferring with his budget bureau aides and talking on the phone during the Congo crisis with Ambassador Adlal E. Stevenson at the United Nations.

Sunday the New York Times' magazine section had four pages of pictures of Kennedy, at work In the White House with his assistants, advisers and department heads.

He already has had four televised news conferencei, three of them live.

There was no TV in President Roosevelts time. He couldnt get around muoh because of his confinement to a wheel chair. His only direct contact with the masses was as a voice over the radio.

Thus he had to depend mostly on the magic of his voice to create a sen.se of hinuself. His new.s conferences, whlcli he u.s-ed for all they were worth to get his Ideas acio.s'. appeared only in print.

President Truman completely lacked a dramatic .sense.. He, top. had to depend on news con-'ItMeiices and almost entirely on radio to reach the public directly.

President Eisenhower had TV,

which he u.scd from lime to time to make statements or explanations. Otherwise, his public appearances were mostly on Journeys or on TV news conferences shown hours after they occurred.

Any sight of Eisenhower in the White House was usually formal.

Kennedys attempts to make the country conscious of him as an individual and as a president parallels in a way the public appearance technique he used when he represented Massachusetts in Congress.

When he ran for the House he used neighborhood receptions to meet a lot of people personally at one time. He did the same on a atatewide scale when he ran for the Senate.

Por some years before he sought the presidency he was forever moving around to meet people. Individually or in groups, to establish personal contact and build an Image of himslf as a man for the White House.

He is not running for anything now. But he is tr^g to establish himself clearly as a leader, particularly when dealing with Congress. If he can line up wide public support, his task with Congress will be easy.

In addition, his activity gives a sense of movement, which is important for him to get across to the vast and slow-moving government bureaucracy.

Kennedy is said to have been greatly impressed by Richard E. Neustadts acute book. "Pres-idenfial Power." He has brought the Coliinihia profe.*<.sor into Ills camp as an ailvlser on government.

Neustadt went into great detail on a president'.^ public relations and their importance in doing his job. He said: "If he would be cTfcctive JJiard-ian ol public standing he must be effective as a teacher to the public.

(Charlotte Newa)

The diminishing resort to cap-itl punishment in North Carolina pointedly suggests that It is time for a careful assessment of its worth. The Harris-Anson biU soon to be Introduced in the General Assembly offers an occasion for the assessment. It should be grasped.

Over a term of years, North Carolina has gradually sidled away from the execution of criminals. No one has been executed since 1958. Over a long term still, the state has stricken from the list of capital offenses many crimes now classed as mLsdemeanors. It is difficult to believe that men were once hanged for them. Today, only first degree murder, rape, arson, and burglarly remain capital offenses for which the guilty may be sent to the gas chamber. But in recent years the General Assembly and the state supreme court have further gloved the vengeance of society by providing (since 1949> that juries may recommend mercy in first degree convictions in all four categories. Lately, the Supreme Court has emphasized the laws meaning by holding against solicitors who put execution to juries as the purpose of the court.

These facts suggest North Carolina Is progressively avoiding the use of her gas chamber. They suggest, more than that, that societys attitude to capita! punishment is fluid, changing, perhaps even confused. Certainly many Tar Heels would urge the abolition of capital punishment on moral grounds alone, arguing that it Is not for society to take a life, or that an execution is society's confession that it has no hope of rehabilitating its worst criminals.

Whatever the moral arguments, the General Assembly certainly can call on a mountain of evidence on the question.

Prison wardens, penologists, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists have worked hard gathering information. On several points they reach identical conclusions which are sustained by fact:

Execution Is a class punishment in the main. The typical executed criminal is poor, uneducated, a laborer, in most cases a Negro. Between 1909 and 1954, Negroes formed over 70 per cent of North Carolinas death-row inmates. In part the figures reflect the larger incidence of Negro crime; but also In part they reflect that a capital criminal who is ,rich or influential has a better chance of escaping the death penalty.

It is not proven by any concrete, measurable statistics that the death penalty "deters capital crimes.

Capital punishment Is a punishment in which males are discriminated against. Only six women have died in Raleigh for capital crimes since 1909. From 1909 to 1954. however, 654 males were executed. (On March 21, 1916, then Gov. Locke Craig commuted the death sentence of a woman whod chloroformed her husband. "Humanity," he explained, "does not apply to woman the inexorable law that it does to men.)

A high percentage of murderers executed have no criminal records. They are denied the chance of rehabilitation.

The General Assembly faces a choice.-It can shunt the Anson-Harris bill aside, content to accede in the present trend of abolition by evolution. Or It can hear it carefully, mindful there is no reprieve for aji innocent person unjustly executed, and that the public attitude is changing. Surely capital punishment is a question serious enough to be grappled with, and to be grappled with in an atmosphere free of hysteria and misinformation.

I frowned. "No," I answered. "She would like something a little more frilly."

Then the clerk showed me a pink box with a lovely artificial orchid on its top- That was it. Just what my gdrgeous girl would want.

The clerk wrapped it up and, like millions of other boyfriends and husbands on Valentines day. I sauntered around to see the girl.

It was just what she wanted. Those beautiful brown eyes lit up and, with a figurative blush I must admit, there was a kiss that made it all worth while.

You know, I heard later that she told her parents, "Uncle Alvin is a nice boy."

My brown eyed, blonde niece, Kim, has learned at least one thing in her short four years on this earth. That Is how to wrap her red-headed bachelor Uncle Alvin around her little finger.

But I like it.

Your columnist was talking to a friend last Thursday. I had the greatest sympathy for him. The deadline for purchasing license tags had passed the day before. This friend had taken his car out without the new tags. The result was a patrolmans siren and a ticket for drivliig with expired license.

Then a little light blinked on in my head. I had bought my license early to avoid the rush-But. somehow, installing them had slipped my mind,

I hotfooted it home, dug the new tags out and went to work.

ODinions

"n Brief

Old Dobbin had his faults, but no one was ever pinned In the wreckage of a buggy and burned to death.Greensboro iGa.) Herald-Journal.

Dignity is the opposite of loudness and common behavior. It is a quality which prevents an Individual who possesses It from intruding, Hertford County Herald.

The phone bill comes one time, the utilities bill at still a different time in the month and now the department stores are sending bills out on a staggered basis. Its getting hard, anymore, to tell when the first of the month is." Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat.

Tuesday, February 21, 1961

-T-

Really A War On UF'

By GEORGE E. SOKOLSKY

Copyright, 1961, King Features Syndicate, Inc^ ^

When Adlai Stevenson accused Soviet Russia of making war on the United Nations, he stated in precise terms what the Congo situation really amounts to. It must have been a shock to Stevenson to discover that he, the darling of the Liberals, was not immune to insults, demonstrations and abuse. *He wiu nessed what a Soviet inspired attack can be.

Why the demonstration? Were these New York demonstrators, or those in Moscow or Belgrade or Warsaw Lumumba partisans?^

Obviously, these were Communist activities, organized as a phase of the effort by Soviet Russia to desLcDy the United Nations, which, however weak it may be. has interrupted the Soviet conquest of the world for Marxism. What Russia demands is the resignation of Dag Ham-marskjold. Secretary-General of the United Nations and the substitution of a three-man secretariat, one to represent the Western powers, one the Soviet powers, and one the "positive" neutrals. As the world is now organized, Soviet Russia could, on many Issues, thus have a two to one vote, take over the United Nations and destroy it.

Patrice Lumumba may have been a patriot or a shnook. The Russians regarded him as their man, one of a number of African leaders underwritten by them. He was killed in the course of revolutionary action. During revolutions men get killed. They also kill. It will be Soviet strategy to make a martyr of Lumumba, perhaps to be worshipped as a saint. -

I witnessed this type of activity in China where everything was, sometime or other, tried. Whereas Dr. Sun Yat-sen was a patriot and was the founder of the Republic, he was not in his later 3%ars, regarded favorably by most Chinese and he lived in a self-imposed exile in the French Concession. Then he made a deal with Adolf Joffe, and Michael Borodin and General Biuecher-Galens were sent to China to help Dr. Suir make another attempt at revolution. On March 12. 1925. Dr. Sun died in Peking. Immediately the machinery was put into motion to transfix him into a deity. A mausoleum was built in Nanking on a high hill. I have forgotten what the exact number of steps were to reach the top I believe it was 108. As one climbed up, it felt like a million steps. Weary, out of breath, one reached the tomb, bowed three times before a phi-tograph and returned to Earth ennobled. Anvone who refused to climb those ceremonial steps was a hated enemy of China.

As for several years, I visited Dr. Sun early every afternoon,

I know that he would have deplored such hocus-pocus. But it was of enormous propagandlstic value, just as it has been of considerable value to the Chinese Communists that his

widow, Mrs. Sun Yat-sen, threw in her lot with them rather than with Chiang Kai-shek to whom her sister is married.

Thus are gods manufactured and it is quite possible that Lumumba may have -the same fate, but this does not bother the Russians, who while materialists and rejecting the

eternal life, have Lenin and

Stalin on display as ghosts, to be marched before by troops and others on May Day and other festivals. It Is a kind of ancestor worship and does influence the minds and emotions of people.

President Kennedy Is apparent-Ij surprised that the Russians, while making overtures to end the Cold War, are actually precipitating a Hot War in Africa. He said;

"I find it difficult to believe, that any government Is really planning to take so dangerous and irresponsible a step.

The objective of Soviet Russia is to unite the entire world in the Marxist concept of life. Then there will be universal peace. To a Marxist, it Is not absurd to take advantage of any opportunity that offers Itself. It has been Marxist strategy since the London Congress of the Russian Social Democratic JParty in 1903. It was Marxist^strategy in 1917 when Bolshevism took over Russia. It is Marxist strategy today.

There is some blind spot in the American psychology that (Continued on Page 6)

Faults In Minimum Waae Hike

By ELMER ROESSNER The increases in the minimum wage proposed by President Kennedy have three faults:

1, They will work to decrease employment Just when unemployment is our greatest domestic problem.

The proposal Is to Increase the minimum, now $1 an hour, to $1.15, $1.20 and $1.25 in three annual steps. It would also extend coverage to 4,300,000 workers in large retail and service establishments.

If the weekly minimum wage is increased from $40 to $46 a week, nobody knows how many me.wngers, citodian.s, handymen and others would be laid off. And If the inerea.se is enacted during the present level of unemployment, many employers will be templed to replace aged or afflicted employees with younger, healthelr and smarter workers.

The mmimA

to large retail and service establishments will also affect un-countabl* young people who

are working In supermarkets and shopping centers part time at less than present mnimums. If forced to pay $1.15 an hour, many of these employers will let the kids go. DIFFERENTIALS AFFECTED

2. The increases will affect wages in all brackets.

The Federal minimum wage was established at 25 cents an hour in 1938. Since then, every time it was increased it served to push up wages of the more highly skilled. When a sw'eep-ers pay was Increased from $30 to $40 a week, the handcart pusher who had been getting $40 a week naturally thought that he was entitled to $r.fl or $.'>3.33 a week.

Nor were the effects limited to those in neighboring brackets. When the sweeper got a $10-a-week Increase, the punch operator getting $75 reasoned that he should get $85 or more,

Tliese sympathy rycleAMje Very real. At the* present time the Warehoite and Mall Order Employees Union, now in an or

ganization campaign. Is offering employers in the Chicago area a contract that provides that if the Federal minimum wage Is increased, all employees shall be given pay increases in the same proportion. Under the Kennedy proposal, they would get a 15 per cent increase the first year. PACKS INFLATION IN

3. The automatic Increases over three years strengthen the rhythm of inflation that has been weakening the dollar for the last quarter century.

Every year without exception wage rates have risen; without exception they have forced pricey up, nullifying at least part Of the Increase.

By voting three annual Increases. the Congress would be guaranteeing three more years olL wage-price leap-frogging.

All wages would eventually go up (except for those who were dropped from payrolls), all prices would go up, the putph.as-ing power of the dollar would fall proportionately and, eventually, our gold position would

worsen.

It is regrettable that soms people cannot demand mors than $40 a week for their labor. Nevertheless, it is true that some people are worth 48 times niore a week than another. And Mr. Kennedys salary is about 4 times the wage of the man paid the current Federal minimum.

GIN HOLDS LEAD OVER VODKA Blends are the drinking mans favorite tipple, according to Business Weeks annual survey of the pop-skull market. In 1960, blends had 31.6 per cent of ths market, a small drop from i$59 aud a big drop from IMS when 66.2 per cent of all liquor oon-sumed was blended.

. Other percentages of the 1960 market: straights. 36.0; gin 9.1; Scotch, 7.9; vodka, 7.7 and Canadian, 5 2, The remaining 12 6 per cent, tpcluded ^

sake, ng ka pal. cognac, other brandies. Irish whisky and other distillations.