Monday, September 11, 1967

In The Interests Of City Taxpayers

IF CONGRESS WANTS TO DO SOMfTHNG--

Ceirtainly Greenvilles City Council had no thought of discriminating against its largest tax*-payer in passing a reasonable ordinance which will require future installation of utility lines underground.

What the Council obviously had in mind was providing an ordinance which would be in the best interest of all its citizens and taxpayers, large and small. By approving the ordinances recommended by its Planning and Zoning Commission, it did just that.

It is regrettable if Carolina Telephone and Telegraph Company, whose vice president emphasized to the Council that it is Greenvilles largest taxpayer feels the new ordinance is discriminatory against it. What is mora regrettable, however, is

the implication that because the company is the citys largest taxpayer, the Council should follow its recommendation rather than that of the Planning and Zoning Commission.

The Council has a responsibility to its huge corporate taxpayers. But it has just as great a responsibility to its smallest taxpayers, and even to its citizens who pay no taxes at all.

The Council, in our judgement, acted in the best interest of,the city, its citizens and its future in adopting the ordinance which will require expansion of utility lines underground in the future. The ordinance may not be to the liking of the city's largest taxpayer, but that does not mean it is not in the best interest of all its other citizens, corporate and individual.

Dividing Poin On Calendar

By WILLIAM A. SHIRES

Reflector Ralei^di Bureau

RALEIGH In many ways, much begins with September. It is a dividing point on the calendar, because for every beginning there must be an. ending and they coincide.

There is almost as much of this ending and beginning in September as in June or January, and it is more pronounced.

Its back to school and classwork for children and young people, for all the teachers, principals and professors Involved in the business of ed-ocation, regarded dollarwise and otherwise as the single most important activity with which the public and the state of North Carolina is concerned.

And its back to work in factory or office, in laboratory, library or laundry after the Labor Day holiday. Vacations and weekend beach trips and fishing excursions become a memory.

Everything Picks Up Summer slides slowly into autumn. A seaion ends ind another begins. The tempo of most everyday, non - leisure type of activity picks up. Political activity included.

On the political scene, the pluse of excitement ind interest begins to throb. An election year lies ahead and in the past four years ago, for example September has marked its beginning. In September four years ago, two major contenders for the Democratic nomination for governor announced their intentions and another bowed out.

May Be Later This time, politically, while certain things appear well advanced, otiier developments may come later it is an unusual situation.

In a sense, some things look-faig toward 1968s state elections are further advanced than at the same time four years ago the probability of the candidacy of Lt. Gov.

Robert W. (Bob) Scott for governor on the Democratic ticket, and possibly a choice between two or more appealing Republican hopefuls.

The dramatic, the unexpected plays a part in politics, often a significant one. Political strategists know this and feel that correct timing is important. They will thrust and parry, hoping to draw an opponent out prematurely. This sort of game appears to be going on now in North Carolinas political circles although everyone professes to know who the principals for 1968 will be. Do they? The element of surprise remains a factor.

Behind The Scenes

Behind the scenes meanwhile, the states political pot is warming up.

It is almost time for definite decisions on the part of many hopeful candidates. Some may wait, but many will be making up their minds about next years political intentions within the next few weeks.

If a major campaign one for statewide officeis contemplated, organization and planning must be completed within the next few weeks. Delay beyond this will be costly because other campaigns are in advanced stages, even though unannounced.

Books Are Entered

More than fifty books have been entered in competition for four awards presented annually by (be North Carolina Literary and Historical Association each December, according to the association's secretary, Dr. Christopher Oittenden of Raleigh.

The four awards are the Mayflower Cup for non-fiction, the Sir Walter Raleigh award for fiction, American Association of University Women for juvenile literature, and the Roanoke -Chowan award for poetry.

The list of entries thus far is am<mg the largest for any year to date, and more entries may be received. To be eligible for any of the Culture Week competitions, a book must have been published between July 1, 1966, and June 30, 1967. The author must have maintained either legal or actual residence in North Carolina, or both, in North Carolina, or both, in North Carolina for three years preceding the entry date.

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An Important Test Of Future State Action

The move to test the constitutionality of North Carolinas Industrial Development Financing Act will have an important bearing on future state action in providing financial assistance to new industries.

Passed by the recent General Assembly, the act provides for issuing tax-free revenue bonds to finance buildings and equipment for new industries moving into the state. Since interest on the bonds will not be subject to state or federal income taxes, it means that private industries, in effect, will be subsidized by low interest loans on new plants and equipment.

While a majority of legislators approved the measure, most said they objected to it in principle. They reasoned, however, that since some 40 other states were using such bonds as inducements for new industry. North Carolina must also have them to compete for economic development. Several spokesmen for proponents of the measure said at the time it was before the legislature that they would work for repeal of federal regulations which provided a tax-exempt status for such state and local government bonds.

It is not likely that the state courts will find the new financing measure unconstitutional. The fact that this type of industrial financing has become so widespread across the country leaves little reason to think North Carolinas courts will rule the law authorizing the bonds unconstitutional.^

On the other hand, it is time, we think, for those spokesmen of a few months ago to begin making good on their pledge to diligently seek repeal of federal provisions which give the bonds their tax-exempt status.

Memory, The Best Garden

Bumble

By ART BUCHWALD

ncle Johns Cabin

By HAL BOYLE

NEW YORK (AP)Memory is the best of all gardens.

Therein, winter and summer, the seeds of the past lie dormant, ready to spring into instant bloom at any moment the mind wishes to bring them to life again.

Protected from the buffeting of new snows and fresh rains, those timeless flowers dwell serenely in the fair weather of the soul. Only the killing frost of death itself can tumble their unforgettable beaut-

ty-

How fares your own inside garden? It is well stocked with flowersand perhaps a few thistles, tooif you can look back and remember when

Strength For Today

By EARL L. DOUGLASS BALANCE

To what extent do we weigh the actors of every situation and make our decision on the basis of sound judgment? Now, cut that out, you keep saying. Isnt it bad enough to have failed as often and as completely as I have? Why do you keep rubbing it in?

Nobody is trying to rub anything in, but simply to say in plain understandable terms that it always pays to weigh the possibilities positive and negative, encouraging and adverse of every situation. Examine the mistakes you have made and the chances are that you made them because you acted precipitantly. You threw up a job and went forth to get something better, feeling that you would have no t ouble in doing so. You flung an angry word at a friend, and the relationship of years either came to an end or lost Its lustre. You decided that in marriage there were certain things you would not put up with, so you began looking up plane fares to Reno and Mexico City.

Wait, is the word to ponder. Did you gain anything by telling a friend what you particularly disliked about him Have you made your home more happy by blowing your top and tearing your hair?

There are times Arhen we have to act quickly, but these times,-yery seldom arise in life. Most of the time it is profitable to balance the pros and cons of every situation.

In the days before hippies, only children went barefoot along city streets.

One of the biggest problems in juvenile delinquency was keeping kids from raiding watermelon patches at night. The kids all thought the watermelons were guarded by irate farmers carrying shotguns loaded with bacon rind that would burn your skin off.

Hair dyes were so awful that you could tell at a glance whether a blonde was real or a product of the local drugstorea henna blonde.

Only chemists had heard of plastics.

HAL

60YLB

CHICAGO - The New Left just held a meeting in Chicago and set back radicalism by 20 years. The original idea of the meeting was for it to help unite all the left-wing organizations under one banner and start a third party to defeat President Johnson in 1968.

But before anyone realized what was happening, a minority of militant black power delegates took over the conference, and the majority of white delgates found themselves giving in to every demand made of them by tiie likes of Rap Brown, Floyd McKissick and James Foreman.

The black power people told the white delegates either to see every issue the Negros way, or they could go to hell. Instead of fighting back, the white leftists caved in and adopted every black power proposal from the boycotting of General Motors to

condemning Israel for fighting a war against the Arabs in the Middle East.

This seems to be a reverse form of Uncle Tomism and many of tite white radicals are now being called Uncle Johns, because of their kowtowing to the militant Negro leaders.

Its a pitiable sight to see. Honkie, the black man says, do you know who the worst enemies of the black people are?

We are, boss, the white liberals.

And do you know why? Oh, I wish I did. I wish I did.

Because youre always trying to undtfitand us. Cant you get it through your dumb head that we dont want to be understood?

Youve got to give us time. 'Thats all we ask for.

Its too late, boy. The on-

ART

BUCHWALD

Other Editors Saying Suspicion In Secrecy

When you went for a Sunday drive, the children in the back seat made a game of counting the number of white horses they saw on the farms. Now they could ride all day and never see a one.

Bluebirdsa lovely sight-seemed almost as commc: in the country as pigeons in the city. Today many a person old enough to vote has never seen a bluebird in his life.

There were more American homes with outdoor plumbing than indoor plumbing.

If you were too sophisticat-to believe that the stork brought babies, you were told either that they grew in cabbage patches or that the doctor found them on tree stumps in the woods.

In most U. S. business offices the secretaries neatly pinned papers together instead of using paper clips.

Falling elevators and runaway horses killed more people each year than automobile accidents. That was way back when folks laughed at the phrase 23 Skidoo. Bashful lads in the prairie states dreamed of growing up and going to sea because, it was thought, sailors have girls in every port.

It was somewhat unusual to reach maturity without, somewhere along the way, having learned how to milk a cow.

If a fellow lost his button-book, he couldni put on his shoes properly in the! morning.

A bir front porch was an essential of any home that (Continued on Page Five)

(Raleigh News & Observer)

It can be depended upon that the Moore administration will get the Drivers License Division through the current budget period, although it already is operating at a deficit on appropriations made by the last session of the legislature. And it probably can be depended on, too, that the Governor will straighten out the current fuss over some $465,-000 appropriated as extra reserve to the Highway Commission, but intended by gentlemens agreement for the Drivers License Division.

What there can never be public assurance about, however, is the propriety of the legislatures subcommittee on appropriations secretly handing out or squirrelling away money as evidently happened in this instance. Not only was the highway budget reserve fund increased by an extra $465,000 for this fiscal year, another $439,000 extra was added for the second year of the biennium. The appropriations, agreed to behind closed doors, were not acknowledged on the

floor of the House and Senate. Indeed, the full Joing Appropriations Committee was not even let in on the matter. To say the very least, the fact that nearly a million dollars of public money can be appropriated without four - fifths of the legislators knowing about it is an indictment of the ap-pro{M:iatiOTs process.

Of course, there is no secret about how this secrecy works. A select group which m u st get the job done is empowered to shape the budget. That task seems usually to require all but the last two or three days of the legislative session. Then with both time and tempers short, items in the budget are not really debated and understood, they are rubber-stamped.

In the present Instance there should be concern over whether the State Highway Commission or the Drivers License Division gets the money secretly appr(^riated to the commission. 'There ought to be much more concern that the money was even appropriated without the public and m o st legislators knowing about it.

ly thing we can do with you now is to burn down your house.

I was going to suggest that myself. But I want to do more for you than that. Could I take you to lunch?

I cant afford to be seen having lunch with you, boy. Ive got my reputation to think of.

Of course you do. Im sorry for getting out of line. I should know my place by now. What can I do to show my devotion?

Well, we really dont give a damn one way or the other, but if you want to get involved you can support our program.

Of course I will. What is it?

Impeachment of the President, free guns in the ghettos, the abolition of the Supreme Clourt and the overthrow of the U. S. government. TTieres nothing in there couldnt support.

But lets get somet h i n g straight, boy. This is our show. We dont want you stealing it away from us.

I wouldnt do that, sir. Say, if you wont have lunch with me, would you consider breakfast?

Its too risky, boy. I like you personally, but if Im seen with you. Id never be able to explain it to my people. You understand, dont you?

I do. I do.

As a matter of fact, I shouldnt even be talking to you.

Please dont reject me. The only thing I cant take is rejection.

Get off your knees, boy. Youre embarrassing me. Ive still got this other shoe to do.

Well, hurry up and finish the shine. Ive got to go back into the meeting.

iraae

Affair

By ROWLAND EVANS and ROBERT NOVAK

WASHINGTON One clue to why President Johnsone program for expanded East^ West trade is dyii^ can be found in the monumental bureaucratic bumbling in processing just one application for an export license.

The license would have permitted export to Communi a t Poland of a Worden -type gravity meter used for geodetic measurements. Arg u i n g that su(* a meter could help Soviet Russias guided missile trajectory, foes of East-West trade display the fact that the Commerce Department at one point approved this license as proof positive of the dangers to U. S. security inherent in President Johnsons trade policy.

What it really proves is something quite different. It shows the Commerce Department bureaucracy, never renowned for efficiency, is simply not organized to administer East - West trade. And this constitutes one more affliction bestting the Johnson program ofvbuilding bridges^ with Eastern Europe, already in desperate condition becausa of Vietnam.

The gravity meter story began Oct. 6, 1966, whe.i an exporter (his identity shielded by Federal regulations) requested a license to export a $10,-200 meter to the Institute oi Geodesy and Cartography in Warsaw for the purpose of charting Polands Karst Mountains. Although a routine case that did not attract the attention of Commerce Department policymakers, the application inexplicably lingered in the departments Export Control Office. Not until Feb. 1, 1967, was it approved.

Two weeks later, on Feb. 16, the Export Control Office suspended its action of Feb.

1 and asked for the return of the license. In explanation. Commerce Department bureaucrats told us that certain mysterious intelligence data had reached the department.

Actually, that itftelligence data amounted to merely a report from sources e 1 s e-where in the Administration that the Warsaw Institute might not freely distribute throughout the West the geodetic information obtained by using the meter. Although the Export Control Office had spent four months studying the application, it immediately suspended its decision. 0 n ce again, high - level officials in the Commerce Department were not consulted.

What followed was an unexplained, interminable period of stalling during which the Export Control Office neither killed nor reinstated the license but kept it suspended in a state of bureaucratic limbo. That impasse ended in June when an aide in the office of South Dakotas Senator Karl Mundt, checking export license requests, spotted the gravity meter a p p ro v a 1 of Feb. 1.

Republican Mundt, an effective foe of East - West trade, wrote the Commerce Department June 6 charging that the Worden type gravity meter was not obtainable behind the Iron Curtain and, whats more, could help Soviet missile trajectory. Mundt made public his charges, and conservative writers and journals took up the chant. In the face of this heat, the uniden-

(Continued On Page Five)

Mflation Sure To Spur Mergers

By ELMER ROESSNER

The wave of mergers will increase, rather than diminish.

The basic reason is growing inflation: recent inflation and the prospects of even more inflation to come.

One of the greatest hedges against inflation is common stock. But an even taller hedge can be a whol com-, pany or working control of it.

Until recently, the major cause of mergers has been diversification. A company making auto replacement parts might, for example, be interested in taking over a peanut butter company on the theory that if conditions changed so that it could not successfully buck competition, peanut bui-ter sales would likely continue unaffected.

Now the benefits from inflation, added to those of diversification, double the incentive

to merge.

How It Works ^

A few mergers today are completed by the payment of money, but most erf them are handled by an exchange of stock. A company with a large block of treasury stock on hand, for example, may be unwise not to seek a merger. The treasury stock may result in larger dividends because it is not necessary to divide earnings with a companys own treasury, hence there is more for other stock holders, but it is not earning anything for the company. But using it to buy another company, through an exchange of stock, may bring in a new source of dividends.

Further, the'smaller company the bride in the proposed merger may have difficulty in raising money for expansion, or may be uncer

tain about its future marker. Merged into a larger corporation, the company is assured of funds apd know-how for growth, and its stockholders get shares of a market-tested stock, probably listed on an exchange.

BLMRR

ROESSNER

Other Business Expectations

Here are more things that can be expected In business:

More price rises: The price rises this week and last may be small and few compared with what lies ahead. As stated here Friday, inflationary presures are building up

and their effects on prices may be greater than previously predicted.

More Japanese color TV: The Japanese, whose cheap labor has enabled them to snatch a large share of the American market for transistor radios and small black-and-white television sets, are about to r^eat with small color TV receivers. They have already gained a foothold making sets for aome ef the largest chains, whidi the which the chains sll under their own very AoMriean names. But Die tales ere etus-ing the Japaneee to plan an invasion undv naiBii tomeae in Nipponese eleetraoles.

No TV-X-ray adlsn: Witti time short, it appoffs uolilte-ly that Congress will take any action this year on a number of bills setting up federal standards to regulate X-ray emissions from color televls^^ ion sets.

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