Thuniday, June 28. 1962

A Focal Point Of Argument

T f (I

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North Carolinas compulsory liability insur-'from liighwa^ accidents. It has, nevertheless, afford-ance law will be the focal point of another contro- ed the people of the state far more protection than versy in the 1963 legfaleture as it has been since they ever had before. -

H ws fim considered by the lawmakers. It may be that some provisions of the law need

As has been the case in the past, there will revising,'that some changes need to be made to likely be a concerted effort on the part of some* provide better protection with the elimination of opponents to have the law killed entirely. In the some of the red-tape. But when the legislature interest of the people of the state and for Ihe protection of the people who use the highways of the state, the law should not be killed without some adequate substitute being provided.

Since it has been on the Jbooks of the state, the compulsory insurance law has provided the citizens of the state considerably more protection than they had before. It has not proved a cure-all for the risks run in highway travel, nor has it given a 100 per cent guarantee against all damages resulting

injunctions Have Unique Roles

First The Head, More Later

By WILLIAM A. SHIRES FUNCTIONS There Is no queatian but that the State UUli-tiea Commission functions in a quasl-Judicial or seml-judlcial capacfty. tt Is set up that way.

Andlthls has brought criticism that u presently constituted, the Utilities Commission is not aa cloie to the public as it was Intended to be, that it Is too alo(g. There is cnticism that the public is not adequately represented in utilities matters.

One recommendation in a recent report by Prof. J. C. D. Biateie of the University of North Can^S' was that the Utilities Commission be more aggressive in looking after the general public In utility problem areas, wlthmit waiting for the affected parties to crane seeking relief.

Blaine also declared that the Independence of the Utilities Commission be guarded and that It be given a cleared picture of Its scope and responsibility.

MODERNIZATION - He said there is a growing need for unification, clarification and modernization of the state public utility laws. He said these statutes craitain certain obsolete provisions and vague and Inconclusive statements of policy.

Blaine recommended, for example. that the rate-making rule now in effect be repealed and replaced by a new rule based on the so-called end-rcsult principle laid down by the U. S. Supreme Court in a federal power commission case in the 40s. The present rate-making rule employed by the North Carolina Utilities * Commission dates back to 1899.

The newer principle, Blaine said, would permit greater flexibility in rate cases and would not commit the Utilities Commission to rigid procedures in determining fair and reasonable rates.

QUESTIONS Similar questions of authority and Umita-vtions of power of the Utilities Commission are raised frequently. In a case involving a request of Greyhound Bus Corp. for the Utilities Commission to set a basis for its establishing separate ticket facilities in union bus stations, arguments revolved largely around the legal, statutbry concept of a union bus station and whether the Utilises Commission has Ifte uUiofyTd make rules and regulations governing them other than what is specifically prescribed In the law.

Was the Utilities Cranmission, for example, correct in amending its regulations last October to permit establishing of sepa";^* rate ticket facilities? Greyhound argued that it w^as. and that in effect its authority to do so had been upheld by the courts. The oppraients. principally Carolina Coach Co. and Queen City Coach Co., contended that the Utilities .Cranmission had no such power.

SETTING The five-member Utilities Commission C(mi-ducts its hearings with decorum; quiet dignity and in a setting which befits ^ high tribunal.

Its hearing chamber? in the State Library building are richly-ornate, with blinds drawn to

shut off the heat, glare and noise from Fayetteville street three stories below. It is illuminated by the pale light of clust-

S of old-fashioned globes sus-nded from the \-ery high lite and gold ceiling. '

. Other circles of light gleam from the ceiling itself onto the' beige carpeting and dark green walls.

The commissioners sit behind the long, carved mahoghany bench on a raiLsed dais at one end of the room. This is backed with heavy red and tasseled draperies hung from a mahoghany comice faced with syinbols of Justice. They sit in high-backed swivel chairs with green leather eushirailng.

The acustics are poor and the witnesses and attorneys use microphones.

JUDICIAL Commissioner R, Brooke.s Peters stated the view earlier this year that the Utilities Commission was established as a court of recdrd by statute and that concept must be followed, compete with precise attention to judicial rules of evidence.

Governor Sanford earlier this year told newsmen he could not intervene in the Nantahala Power case because cases pending before the Utilities Commission were similar to cases before the Superior Cpurts and out of his jurisdiction. Sanford later modified this hands-off position in the Nantahala case. Other goveniors have instructed the attorney general's office to interviene in certain utilities cases.

The State Supreme Court deals with the Utilities Commissions decisions, orders and actions in precisely the same manner that it does those of the Superior Courts.

BUS In the bus case, the Utilities Commissioners wondered whether the dispute might not be settled by agreement, or by use of the provisions for a board of directors to settle such controversies about union bus terminals.

The case involved union bus stations at Raleigh. Charlotte, , Asheville and Fayetteville, and the parties indicated they could nm agree . .f

If a board of directors for union bus station administration is InsLsCed u^n. Greyhound served -notice that there Win be rnore troubles. It argued that it might . be further discriminated against in provisions that each company-with anv intrastate certificate , have one vote.

In Charlottes case. It said, it would be outvoted three to one by^companies in the Trailways ^ystem. In Winston-Salem, it said, Greyhound has 95 per cent of the business but would have only an equal voice with the one other firm holding an int^astate certificate there.

Thus Greyhound came before the ' Utilities Commission with its new i^tition. It put the commission in the dilemma of not knowing whether it has the power to act on the request nor whether its earlier action on a relatively simple thing like separate ticket counters in union bus stations was, after all. lawful and within its jurisdiction.

comes to consider such changes as may be proposed, it should be careful that efforts to wreck the compulsory insurance idea <fonot succeed. They owe that to the citizens of^North Carolina.

Although opponents of the present law alreadj^ have mouhted.-a campaign pointed tow'ard doing away with the4a-w when the 1963 legislature meets, they so far have not offered a substitute that would give reasonable protection to the people w ho use the highways of the state. They have focused attention on the fact that automobile insurance rates in North Carolina have gone up considerably since the law became e/fective. The insinuation is that the compulsory law is the reason for the higher rates and that without the law insurance rates in North Carolina would be considerably lower. In considering such an argument the people of the state should not overlook the fact that neighboring $tates which do not have compulsory auto liability insurance laws have insurance rates now that are higher than those in North Carolina.

The increase in traffic accidents, the increase in cost of damages resulting from accidents have been the primary factor in the increased cost of insurance coverage in this state.

Since it has been in effect in North Carolina, the compulsory auto liability insurance law has proved to be of great merit. It may need revising to some extent to make it better, but the people o' the state sorely need, and we believe they are entitled to, the protection it provides them.

He Can Serve Best If

Public Informs Him

%

W. A. (Red) Forbes of Winterville who won the Democratic nomination Saturday for Pitts seat in the House of Representatives, has issued an appeal which should not go unheeded by the citizens iike*"that,*"r'd

"It looks like It was drawn by a one-eared elephant with a French accent In the South Seas. ,

"If more people bought things

of this county.

In his initial statement following Saturdays election, the newiy nominated legislator asked that the people of the county contact me on issues that come forth in #he 1963 General Assembly so I can

"The further you stand from it, the better It looks. .

"I dont like it. .

And there we were, taking In lU these interesting comments being made about a realistic _ , , , , stl life painting, which to us

get their thoughts. That s the only w ay to represent appeared to be very simple-and the people. iree from controversy. T.here

^ ^ . * .r/.. . , was not an abstract brush stroke

The statement w'as not unique for an official in the entire picture.

elected to public office, but it is the kind of state- Yet, it launched controversy

ment that so often is disregarded by citizens as have made Helen

nr u .T 1 1 i. X- Of Troy blush with envy. All

months go by. Members of the legislature particu- did was buy the thing, and

larly find it difficult to know exactly w'hat their having no place to put it. rest-

constituents are thinking on matters W'hich come ^-gainst the wall in the

before the General Assembly in Raleigh. During the ^,mSody came by and want-se.ssion they manage at best only to get home du^ipg ed to know what "it was. weekends, and usually this short period does not critically

permit them to take a satisfactory public opinion baUnce^

I oil on matters pending in the legislature. The person who had the most

If citizens of the coiinty make it their purpose voracious criticism was sick for

to keep thvr representatives in Raleigh informe:! d ot^'hisha?p

tongue. Yet the picture and we

have remained as we were -undaunted and as determined as ever.

Finally, the uproar dying down somewhat, we announced that we paid $25 for the thing, a tale which was bravely upheld by the womans editor who has better taste than the others. She liked the thing.

Xhis new announcement brought even more furious cri-tlcLsm as we had anticipated, and the chief critic who later got sick said that we were nuts if we paid over $1.50 for the painting.

Thats when the story started spreading about our purchase and new people began to sw^arm into the newsroom to see what foolish lark had been embarked upon and w'e told them proudly the big whopper about the price tag, knowing they already thought we were a little tctched in the head. The whole affair had got so out of proportion that somebody even asked what the picture was we mean, what the artist had palhtd.

At any rate, we didnt pay $25, obviously, for the thing;

Other Editors Saying...

r.f their thinking on legislative matters, it is much easier for the legislators to .reflect the preferences of their respective counties by their actions at the capital.

Pitts new legislator has asked for cooperation frorn the people of this county, and the people of 7\ 1\/Ti^ r ri

the county can be of-'S^ice to Rep Forbes and to iiyLliil iVl U.LIL1 y ii ly VV LJ.Lvui the county by j^p<r^rating in the manner he has re queued.

ustice

By RAYMOND J C.R0V4XEY

WASHINGTON <AP* How Is By ron R.* t Whizzer > White, our newest and youngest "<43' member of the Supreme Court, panning out?

To make a risky judgment on the record thus far. he is going to be no flaming liberal, no social reformei: type like, for example. Justice William Q. Douglas. Nor a right winger, either.

As befits a former Rhodes scholar, he has been doing his

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home w'ork and his opinions are \ sued for damages for violation meaty, whether or not you agree, of a no-?trike agreemthtonly with them. He is riot afraid to their unions may be .sued. speak up in the awesome pre- % He said It w long-standing scnce of his elders. federal policy not to penalize

Take Monday, when he wrote members for a unions trans-a dissent gravely telling a rria-jority of the justices they w-ere wrong.

At issue was a California law aimed at narcotics addiction.

This made it a crime to be an addict. It provided that a convicted person must be stowed away in county jail for at least 90 days, whether or not he ever applied the needle to his arm iri California or committed any antisocial act there.

The court majority held this was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution. Douglas, concurring, wrote a lengthy opinion stressing the idea that an addict is sick. He recalled the old days when the insane were sent to the whipping post, or into dungeons, or even burned at the stake.

But White took the majority, including Douglas, to task, on the ground that it had broken a "wise rule of not deciding constitutional questions except where necessary.*' He disputed the contention that California tried to punish the defendant in the case, one Lawrence Robinson, for being sick.

There iwas no evidence at all, he wrote, that Robinfon had lost tlie power to control his acts.

California has another law, a, civil statute, providing hospitalization for addict.? who are so far gone that they have lost self-control.

White said the defendant was an "incipient aildlct, a redeem-jle user of narcotics, and the slate chose th send htti to jail for 90 days rather than to attempt to confine ihim by civil proceedings under ^another 'sta

tute which requires a finding that the addict has lost the power of - .self-controt.*

Re.spectfully, White told his elders they should not wTite into the Constitution their , own abstract notions of how to handle the narcotics problem.

Besides this dlssenl. WhiTe ha.s written three majority opin-ion.s since he went on the Court April 16. Perhaps the mast important held that a labor unions officers and members cannot be \ on the sole request of Greenville. Kinston did- not join in any such request. We are ad-

(Kinslon Free Press)

'file Greenville-Pitt County Aviation Authority is making a renewed effort to get the CivU Aeronautics Board to approve and authorize what the Pitt County group calls an area airport. The CAB has been investigating the matter for about two years and only recently ruled against the plan and authorized the Piedmont Airlines to expand its seiTice. This expansion went into effect and operation today (June 25).

> Gieenvill has enlisted the help of Governor Terry Sanford. He is said to have written a letter to the chainrjan of the CAB asking for a study to be made in the matter of an area airport vvhich would serv Greenville. Wilson. ^Rocky Mount. Kinston, Tarboro and other Eastern Carolina points. Tlie Governor apparently acted

gressions.

"Where the union has inflicted the injury, he said, "it alone must pay. ^

This could hardly be classed as a-conservative stance.

So it is hard, yet. to fit White Into any labeled pigeonhole.

When Felix Frankfurter first went on the Supreme Court he was variously described by his friends as a liberal and by his critics as a radical. Now he is known as one of the courts conservatives.

Which proves, perhaps, that everything is relative. Or maybe it proves that labels do not mean much. ^

Ooinions

'n Brief

If the possession of alcoholic beCerage by a teenager were made a misdemeanor the job of patrolling the highways would be made easier. Hartford (Conn.) Courant.

vised that neither Wilson nor Rocky Mount did.

The Governor apparently W'as not appraised of the fact that the CAB has just finished its last study of the proposal ior the so-called regional airport and ruled against it.

Greenvilles contention is that a central airport which would be located within a 25 mile radius of the principal Eastern

Carolina cities, is needed. As has been pointed out many times in these columns, Stallings Air-base, Kinston, is within two miles of the exact get^raphic center of the Eastern third of the State. Incidentally it is as close to Greenville as any of the proposed area sitesapproximately 25 miles distance from Greenville, tinder the present schedules there are two flights daily east and west and two north and south through Kinston. Greenville travelers can get as good and convenient service through Kinston as they could in any new area airport.

The Kinston Airport (Stallings Field), represents an expenditure of some millions of dollars. Kinston and Lenoir County have no inclination to put up any additional money for a so-called area airport. As far as we know neither has Goldsboro, Rocky Mount or Wilson. ^

The Governor was ill-adyised in writing a letter purporthig to represent all of Eastern Carolina. when Greenville alone was the sponsofi^^e evidently did not know that the CAB after a long and exhaustive study had just approved the new and extended service.

If Greenville will stop trying to muddy the waters and make use of the service now available to its travelers it will help the entire situation a great deal.

Quote

A United Nations report Indicates the worlds population has now passed the three billion mark. Now if everybody will just contribute $100 each, vve can pay off the national debt. Jacksonville (Fla.) Times-Unlon.

jOCUSt

Of The

arth

By PATRICIA MOORE

Our Critics Runneth Over

and It Is a simple picture of a tea kettle and a disposal pitcher nearby, with a book in the foreground. We frankly liked the colors.

Our husband upheld the purchase by saying it had interesting psychological symbols, and besides all that, whatever price had been asked would have been worthwhile, since that picture has untold value as a conversation piece.

Strength ;-or Today

By EARL L. DOUGLASS GOD OF THE HILLS AND VALLEYS

We speakof a persrai "called to the ministry. Usually, however, we do not speak of a person being called to the law, or to any of the other professions, or to business, or to farming, or to house work. Yet we should.

For if God guides some men into the ministry, He guides others into types of work for which they are particularly suited. The matter of choslng ones life work often appears to be only a matter of responding to necessity or stumbling upon a job by accident. Yet if we look more deeply we see that the hand of God Is ln__every-thlng, Can a woman be called to be just a housewife and nothing more? Do you mean to say that there is providence in those circumstances which lead a woman to a washin^fia^chine, or a kitchen range? Precisely.) The disposition to divide life off Into areas, to say that God rules some and we rule others, is a great mistake. God rules them all. We may not be conscious of His ruling, but we should be. In fact, we are not wise until we are conscious of His continual guidance.

God has a plan which Involves the smallest detail of your life and. mine. There is nothing too insignificant for Him to notice. He is both the God of the hlllsand the God of the valleys.

It is well for all of us to think of ourselves as being called. .

By GEORGE E. SOKOLSKY

In the struggle for existence, Man has reduced mountains, harnessed streams, emptied forests of trees, created deserts and destroyed men and animals. This has often been called progress.

I like diit roads and said that I would fight hard to prevent anyone from putting a black top on my dirt road. Said another. "You cannot stop progress. But if spoiling the beauty of a rural scene is progress, let there be no progres-s. For who can fail to be moved by the pussy-willow emerging in the Springtime or the old-fashioned lilac growing alongside a stone wall or the smell of the Earth after a Spring rain?

Of course, there are some who are moved by nothing but a belly-dancer and we must leave such to Senator McClellans Investigators. For the question of demand and supply enters here; if there is a demand for bums to satisfy bums, there 'wl un-

Soubtedly be a supply. Life is ke that and no legislation has yt been discovered to impose morals or even a sense of decency upon those who prefer vice and hooliganism.

Among the progresses made over the centuries by man hM been the extermination of wild life throughout the world. This process Is continuing in many countries not only because man needs to eat flesh but because, since he can afford it. shooting wild animals who have done him no harm and whose life is as valuable as the shooters. This is called sport and is quite a business for those who engage -

In it. -

Besides, we use all sorts of poisons to kill bugs and parasites. And the poisons are eaten by birds and animals and then they die. And if enough of them die, there will be no pollination of plants and we shall die on our petard. Farmers have learned aU about that and some are returning to the organic habite of their ancestors. When the earthworm disappears the product is not the same.

The American whooping crane, the grizzly bear and the rhinoceros are in danger. The World Wildlife Fund reports that 200 species of birds and mammals have been exterminated directly or indirectly by man. And the report says that they can never be re-created.

If this is progress, we do not need progress. If Man in his march toward a higher xivili-zatlon, needs to destroy everything that is beautiful and unsynthetic upon this Earth, then he is as savage as those tribes that killed their aged to make room for the new-born.

Progress is a wonderful thing but when, In a world of overproduction, human beings stan e and animals perish for lack of water, we have learned little more than Marco Polo knew.

For if you will read Marco Polo carefully and have before you a map with pins, you will find that many places that he mentioned as verdant and delightful are now in deserts. In_ fact, 1 once calculated that the desert moved about 200 miles south of the Marco Polo Une. That is a man-made desert, because it was man who destroyed the forests and therefore left wild life without protection and food. ShaU man, in the present population explosion, increase the desert areas of this Earth? Even the 17-year locust refuses to come to New York. (

It is something to think about these days as we look to the future. We have, in the United States, been profligate In the destruction of wild life, in use of our natural resources and in the pollution of our rivers, even out to the sea, where oil and other waste materials are being dumped, killing fish and those animals and birds tliat prefer to live in or near water. We do not know what to do with our waste..

When I wa* %boy, the Hudson River was a beautiful stream in which boys swam and men fished. Today, the part of the river which I see in New York, is filthy beyond Imagination. Its color approaches the ugliness of the Yellow River at its mouth,i It carries into the ocean tons of disgusting debris. Has not civilization discovered a better wray of handling mans waste materials than to turn our rivers into cesspools or into carriers of animal-killing chemicals?

Taxes Balkanizing The Country

*,^Whefi ygu are able to hand your friend , a laugh, thats about. the most nleasaWt gift you can offer him.Bartow (Ga.) Herald.

With farming regulations as fantastically complex and inhibiting as they are, before you plant anything it> pays to seo yqur Ipwyer. Except that he m.ght not understand them' either.Wall Street Journal.

By ELMER ROESSNER

State and local government spending is leaping higher, largely because of rising demands for services. People want new highways, new .sewers, more parks, more schools, more cops and fancier street lights. Government employees demand higher pay and in' many political subdivisions they have the political power to^ get it.

One consequence has been the increase in state and local tax rates. Another has been the extension of levies into more fields and the invention of new& taxes. Highly preferred among the latter are taxes that arc not levied directly on voters.

New and extended state and local taxes are balkanizing the United States. CXiriously, in the age when Europe Js lowering tax harriers between countries, the United States is engaged in erecting new ones. In Europe, trade is being promoted; in th United States it is being restricted.

999 SEPARATE TAX LEVIES

In te.stimony before the House Sib''Omm)ttee on State Taxa- " ticn of Interstate .Commerce W'erner N. Datidson, .speaking

for the Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association, reported that his company. Caloric, and its Rupsidiaries file 999 tax returns a year.

The cost of accumulating data and preparing the returns costs $70 a return,' he testified. "It does not include the expense of taxes not recovered through billing to customers, nbr does it cover |he fees we must pay to the many states for the doubtful privilege of collecting their taxes, or the cost of bonds we must furnish to some states to guarantee our perfor-. manee.

In addition, he said, his company must pay interest on funds to meet tax deadlines ^or the r various states before such taxes can be collected from customers.

$9.46 TO COLLECT $1 *

The Tipton, Pa., Industrialist said that in the past 12 months it has cost his company $5.'73 to coHect each dollar of sales tax cjifcted by the state of Ohio, and $9.46 to collect a tax dollar in Maryland. Company tax c(?l-lection costs in other states are comparable, he said. . .

Many taxes are double, Dav

idson said. We buy,paper and other materials for printing of direct mail literature. Pennsylvania has reccmtly determined that this paper Is subject to use tax and has assessed us accordingly, even though under Pennsylvania law direct mail literature,should be exempt from tWs levy.

"The state of norid, under a July, I960 ruling, has forced us* to report the volume of all advertising literature we mail into the state and pay a Florida use tax thereon.

Ohio, he added, demands a use tax on a truck bought and taxed in Pennsylvania. If the second tax isnt paid, Ohio wont permit the truck to be used in that state.

To offset the growing burden of tax fUing and maintaining details in connection with it.

, Caloric receptly Installed a computer, Then it discovered that state tax uthorities frowm on automated accounting systems and insist on "hard copy audit records.

ing less and less like radios, a big battery maker reports after look at the market.

There are radUos made to look like baseballs, it found. Some radios are disguised rS heaiing aids. Others are concealed in sunglasses. Another radio is concealed in a pair of binoculars; still another in a belt buckle and still anotjier looks like a Jewelry case.

Theres a portable radio built Into the handle of a fishing rod: one that looks like a gun and one nested behind a rear-view car mirror,

And It you see a man walking around with an umbrella open ou a sunny day, just assume that the ribs form the aerial' of a radio concealed in the handle. . ,

nvfllRELLA IN THE SUN? JUST GETTING RADIO Small portable radi()s are look-

JAPANE'iE INCREASE EXPORTS OF TOYS^ HERE Importe of .toys, games and dolls from Japan In the first three months of this year were valued! at $i.4 million, an increase ot 23.7 per cent over the same 1961 period, the department of Commerce reports^

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