rVfday, February 22, 1063

First Things First Should Apply

111 coiisicieiiiig hih\\i> nialtei, legislatoii> made for adequate sustaining^ funds for the current should put first thinp first. system. If at the same, time the legislature could

Highway Commission Chairman Merrill Evans provide funds for an amount df highway addition^ has asserted that more sustaining revenues for state ea^h year, the bond issue would not be necessarv highways is more important now than another $200 at all.

million bond program for paving more miles of Certainly the legislators should give careful

roads. . consideration to the merits of making the needed

It. as Chairman Evans declared before the improvements to highways on a pay-as-we-go basis House Roads Committee, the commission already is before jumping headlong into another major bond facing a financial problem, in maintaining highways issue program. Chairman Evans has set the stage as they now exist, that problem should be resolved for such consideration in his appearance before

Walking Champ of the Administration

before another huge highway bond program . launched by the state.

It is important that North Carolina take reasonable steps to construct new higJiways__aa-.tIiey lueded. It is even more important, however, that Hie state keep in good shape th highways it already has. Obviously, it would be foolish for the state to undertake a $200 million bond program for new construction, unless adequate provisions are made to take care of maintaining the present highway system as well as the miles that would be added to the system.

appearance before the Roads Committee.

We trust his words have not fallen on deaf

eais.

Must Be An End To Accepting The Abuses

The United States must not tolerate incidents such as the attack this week on a shrimp trawler

Should the legislature choose to make the ^^e b'lorida Straits by Cuban-based MIGs.

suggested new highway bond i.ssue the paramount road question, it would, in our opinion, be putting the cart before the horse. Provisions must first be

Of

Heart tilities

By WILLL\.M A. .SHIRES

RATESIt is evident early hi the 1963 session of the General Assembly that much of the complaint and criticism about North Carolina's public utilities laws centers around utility rates and regulation.

It might be said that this is at the heart of the matter, although not all of it by any means.

The first utilities bill.s introduced deal specifically with the practice of putting utility rate increases into effect under bond. There has been controversy about this for years, and rate schedules put into effect under bond and on short notice have been and still are being fought and argued in the courts.

Thus the first bills of the ses-6ion on utilities matters served at least to single out this particular practice for immediate attention.

DISPUTEThere will be other utilities laws, policies and administrative practices which will come under fire.

There is a great deal more Involved one way or another. In a fai'-reaching dispute about utilities, both public and privately owned. All together, utility law revision and overhaul is an is.sue which will command prime attention and a lot of time, study and debate before the session ends.

There are three separate sets of recommendations covdring the entire field of utility law which will come before the legislature before long. And there Is very keen interest in what the General Assembly will do.

VIEWS In the meantime, sharply opposing views on the matter of "putting rate increases into effect under bond have been brought to the forefront.

As now written, the law permits a utility company to post a bond and put an increased rate schedule into effect immediately and without waiting for final approval of the State Utilities Commis.slon.

This is defended as necessary to protect utilities investment during lengthy periods of time before the Utilities Commission can act. If the Utilities Commission later rejects the increased rates, or modifies the schedule, the bond guarantees refunds to the customers.

Almo.st every type of major utilitygas, electric and telephonehas used this bonded increase device. Objection,'i^have been frequent, sometimes biller.

In the recent Nantahala power dase affecting a large part of western North Carolina, op-

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me Debate

ponents charged that the rate increases put into effect under bond were excessive, that they worked dire hardship on cu.s-tomers and created an economic drag on thg region.

BILLSThe first two utilities law proposals introduced in the legislature sprang directly from the Nantahala dispute.

These were identical measures by western North Carolina legislators to halt the bonded rate increase practice entirely.

Then a down east Senator who owns a power and light company in Hyde County offered another approach, one w'hich is patterned closely after recommendations of the General Statutes Commission in Its proposals for utility law revision.

This bill, by Sen. P. D. Mid-gett of Engelhard, would do two things.

One. it would limit rate increases under bond to 24 per

cent. The General Statutes Commission put this limit at 20 per cent.

Secondly, Midgetts bill w'ould require a six months notice before a firm could impose a bonded rate increase. The bill specifies 150 days, but the Utilities Commission already requires 30 days, making a total of 180.

MIDGETTMidgett feels his bUl is fair and reasonable and that it would provide adequate s^eguards. He opposes doing away with the bonded rate increase entirely.

Without some such provision, he says, a utility might be prevented indefinitely from obtaining relief necessary to avoid financial disaster. Lengthy hearings and delays before the Utilities Commission would have the effect of blocking needed relief for long periods, months and years.

On the other hand, he says, the 25 percent limitation and six months notice period provide adequate public safeguards.

Midgett's bill would amend the present statute relation to rate schedules being put into effect under bond.

COMMITTEES-Presiding officers of the House and Senate expect to have most of their committee assignments complete before the end of the week.

Action has been taken both by the ruled committee in the Senate and the Legislative Building governing commission to set up legislative library facilities in the new State House.

A Senate rules change was adopted to set up a new joint legislative libraries committee which ostensibly would be in charge of the new facility.

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By DON SCHlTeNZ

It should so inform the Soviets and the Castro regime in no uncertain terms, and it should stand ready to retaliate immediately if such incidents occur in the future.,.

In the face of .evere provocation time and again the United States has refrained from taking direct military action against Cuba. It may be that the Castro regime and the Soviet .strategists who are plotting the course of that regime are taking for

granted that no provocationhowever serious-_

will cause the United States to answer with military force.

President Kennedy .should make it clear that the United State.s will not continue indefinitely to answer only with words abuses by communists based in the Western Hemisphere.

The situation with respect to U.S.-Cuban relations may be expected to continue with one crisis after another until the communists understand that the United States intends to stand firm its deter mination to defend its own right and those of othev*

Latin American nations. The communists will continue to probe, hoping to find a weak spot, so long

as they think they can get by with it. __________________

President Kennedy should inform them flatly ''riters and publication.s that such probes must .stop immediately And tb*^ much. . .

United States mu.st stand readv to back up its words

vvHL or.Gnn TLof 1 b /'R ii-s UUIUS foresight, devotion to duty,

action. That is the only kind of language the high sense of honor and per

sonal dignity, his burdens, his sacrifices and heroic stature that we are prone to forget he was of flesh and bone, blood and sinew. . .who ate. drank, .slept. rode. breathed and dreamed just as we.

A public relations writer (promoting the wines of a distant state I calls attention to some of the personal traits less well known to his admirers of today; slanted, of course, to include his tastes in wine. Some of this you are welcome to share on his birthday.

It is recalled, for instance, that if Vou arrived late for din-

Washingtons Birthday

On this day there are few aspects of the life of George Washington which are not recalled by a multitude of teach-

Soviets seem to understand.

Problem

lo ine

British

ner at the Washington home, you could expect to eat a cold meal because your host, sir, had a cook who never asks whether the company has come, bur whether the hour has come .

Early arrivals could count on convenient decanters to which the\- might help themselve.s without foiTnality.

And the writer sa'>s today'.> wine .^nobs would be riiocked to learn that Washington drank ports and sherries with his meals. They are now con.sid-ered more suited as appetizers

social entertainments and great attention was given to such matters.

Washington Is biographens credit him with a great belief in temperance. He and the public men of lus time, being aristocrats, frowned on dnink-aifb.

It vas common for country gentlemen then to spend a fourth to a third of their bud-get.s on wine cellars, which, Ixcau.se they raised nearly all of their own requirements, was not a.s mucli as it would sound today.

Brcattsr--of-tht* impoitattcr at-

Gifted And No Giftec.

By JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

Copyright, 1963, King Features Syndicate, Inc.

There is a great controversy brewing in educational circles these days about breaking the grade barriers. Dr. Harry Anderson, a director of undergraduate studies in the School of Edudidion of Boston University, has just issued a call for lettrig exceptions cMdren move ahead of their more sluggish contemporaries at their own pace, studying such thinys r<h algebra and geometry in the early grades and otherwise developing potentiS to the utmost. On the other hand. Dr. Prances Ilg of the Gesell Institute considers that practically all children tend to be pushed ahead too fast. Overplacement, she says, is far more frequent than underplacement. Ive listened to both Dr. Anderson and Dr. Ilg, and have noticed that both of them can support their contentions with statistics and case histories. When Dr, Ilg says that even gifted children, if forced to associate with those older than themselves, can encounter baffling emotional problems, I can believe that she is right. But what If all children, the gifted and the backward aUke, were to be given successful Instruction in reading and writing in kindergarten and pre-klnder-garten years? They would then be in a position later on to mo\ e rapidly ahead as clas.s units without worries about breaking barriers or being over or under placed.

I dont think I am being foolish in making this suggestion, for I have been keeping labs for three years now on an experiment being conducted by Dr. Omar Khayyam Moore, a Yale sociologist, at the Hamden Hall Country Day School in Connecticut Beginning with hi.s own daughter Venn when she wa.s 3 years old. Dr. Moore has been putting kindergarten and pre-kindergailen young.sters into quiet little booths where they have been allowed to play unln-nibuedly With elertric typewriter- When I fir.st watcKed 3-year-oIds and 4-y'ear-oldi king at bevboards back in

BOYLE

IAP)One

of

By HAL

NEW YORK lifes little ordeals is the problem of ice cubes.

Looking back acrass my cross-gained past, it is no trouble at all for me to see why I changed from an eager, hopeful youth into a sour and cynical curmudgeon, aged before his prime.

It was ice cubes that did it. It seems to me that I have spent the best years of my life dealing with ice cubes.

It didnt seem to be much of a task to my father. When he wanted a lemonade, he chip -ped his requirements from a large chunk of ice in the ice box. Or he could cool his drink with the water that collected in the pan underneath the ice box.

Then along came civilization and with it the refrigerator.

It is perhaps unwise to claim that our family had the original American refrigerator. But it is certainly true that we got the worlds laziest one and the worlds noisiest.

Clank, clank, clank! There never was a secret drinker in our home. The neighbors had no need for a hearing aid.

First a man would develop a thirst. Then he would adjust the gears of the refrigerator. Three days later the ice was ready.

Naturally, by then the ice tray was stuck to the bottom of the freezing area.

But that wasnt really too much of a worry. You could either try to pull out the ice tray by main force, or to wedge the tray out with a table knife. At least you had a choice.

Once you removed the ice tray from the refrigerator, the task became much simpler. All you had to do then w'as to get the ice cubes from the ice tray.

We employed one of two sim-Ple techniques. We could bang the ice tray against the sink, or hold the tray under the hot water faucet.

Then a couple of fragments of tired ice would tumble out. We would put this small crystal reward into the guests glass. After a preliminary sip, he would sigh and say, My. that tastes good. But could I have a mite more ice?

Those were in the old days. Since then, of course, we have

Strength For Today

bought a new automated refrigerator.

There is no trouble at all in removing the ice tray. And the ice cubes are separated only by a plastic material. AH we have to do is bend the plastic, and out pop the cubes.

The trouble here is that you cant tell where the ice cubes will squirt. Since we got our new refrigerator, our plastic ice shooter has stnick down w ith flying ice one fine old lady and two innocent children in the building across the way. The lawsuits are still pending, and we have asked for a change of venue.

The best solution we have found for the ice cube problem is to join a club which once a year has cut-rate round trips to England.

We fly withour guests to jolly old London, and take them Into the nearest pub.

Americans. I presume, says the host.

Yes, Americans, we a.ssure him.

Now you wouldn't be expecting ice in your drinks now, Would you? he inquires despondently.

Yes, indeed, we tell him firmly.

Well, since the Engli.sh never throw anything away. he searches around in his cup-board-of-before until he finds a few ice fragments left over from the Elizabethan era and plops them into the glasses. The result: a perfect drink.

Since we lent the problem to the British, we have had no more problems with ice cubes.

Opinions '.n Brief

The great man liked claret. With nuts, after dinner. . and today clarets are regarded as a fit companion to the meat cour.se. 'All this Is on the word of another writer: my ta.stes run to coffee, tea and milk.'

But in early America wining-and dining were the principal

Other Editors Saying... Revising Our Tax System

tached to a wine cellar, it wa.-no unconunoii thing to give sp<-cial meiitioh of them in one s last will

A.s to the distribution of Washingtons wines. Maiiha Washington s will directed that a pipe of wine if there \x one should go to a grandson. George Washington Parke Custis. The pipe referred to is a large wine cask with a capacity of about 126 gallons.

Granted, there were many more important facet.s to George Washington than hi.s

Some psychiatrists grow fat. For one thing, they realize that a child not properly di.sciplined in his formative years will grow up to want a reserved seat on the couch. This keep.s the wheels of cau.se and effect moving.Orlando 'Fla.) Sentinel.

(Rocky .Mount Telegram)

The matter of a tax cut has been much in the public spotlight in recent months. Most of the debate has centered on the question of whether such a tax reduction is needed, and what it would do for the economy. Little has been said about the need for improving the tax system itself.

Bui a nonprofit re.search organization has come up with the recommendation that the government needs a major overhaul of the tax system rather than any shot-ln-the-arm tax cut. Tnx Foundation. Inc., whase stated purpose is to help develop more efficient govera-ment at least cost to the taxpayer. said tax cuts without matching reductions might .stimulate the economy temporarily, but would not justify big and endless deficits. We say Amen to that.

Repeated federal deficits ^vill discourage any progress toward tax modernization. If there were ever a vicious circle, says Tax Foundations report, it w'ould be one of rising federal expenditures. which discourage the tax reduction that would'^help the economy grow.

Several basic principles have been proposed by the foundation to serve as guidelines in in judging proposals for tax change. First, the system should bring in at least enough revenue to pay expenses, except during recessions, without burdening business .so heavily that the economy is kept below full employment.

Second, the tax burden should

be distributed to meet generally accepted concepts of faime.ss. Differences in taxation should be related rea.sonably, not arbitrarily, to circumstances which occasion the differences in burden. Third, the tax laws should be devi.sed to keep at a mini-]num obstacles to the efficient optmation of the economy, and tax changes should .seek to reduce the costs of administration and compliance.

In recent days various groups and member.s of Congress have taken shots at the Kennedy program. Last week the AFL-CIO and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. both of which want a tax cut. split along expected lines. Labor wants more reduction for low - income groups. The chamber said more relief should go to high - Income persons and corporations.

Some kind of tax cut will likely be approved by Congress. But .some Democrats fear the administration will have to pay a high price scuttling of some of the Kennedy spending programs they favor.

A tax cut Is always appreciated by the people who stand to gain the most from it, of course. But a tax cut also brings about consequences some not always good. Tax cuts mean reduced revenue; thus if spending Isnt pared to coincide with reduced revenue we see deficit spending bigger debts, more red ink. If that Is the consequence of tax reduction, we belif'vc most responsible citizens w'ould rather forego the benefit they would personally derive from such a cut.

GEORGE

taste in wines and his cellar.

This was impressed upon me. back in my school days, when the order was passed to memorize an outline of the George Washington Farewell Address. My teachers and iheir superiors, were all agreed it was a noble document, and maybe some of its qualities would imbed in our unwilling and probably weak minds.

Today I remember none of it. . .only the ordeal which literally lasted for weeks, and the minor miracle of its not turning me again.st the Father of Our Country.

But I will remember, and perhaps you too, that George Washington relished claret and nuts after dinner.

Someday Ill have to try it.

Happy Birthday, up There, George.

Tifil, the test.s were Interesting. The kid.: quickly got on to th iKl.that the marvelous electric tov in front of them had some purpo.seand Dr. Moore ;ind hi.s wife .stood ready to .'Ip into a booth and give a < urioiis child a lift towards '-pclling .simple words like 'laf' and dog

A year later I w-ent back. The class of twenty had become a class of forty-five. The twenty pre-kindergarteners of the year before with nine school months behind them, were really rattling off meaningful sentences, doing first and second grade work at ages of 4 and 5. There was one pert youngster. Lisa W., who. 1 she had been in the kindergarten in aity ordinary school, would have still been playing >vith blocks. Lisa was operating her electric typewriter by tlie touch system. With the typewriter keys painted red, green, white and purple, and her fingernails decorated with matching colors, Lisa played a game of hitting the keys color for color. I watched her during her first session of copying out of a book without looking at the keyboard as she typed. She made vefy few mistake.^ although she confessed to her teacher that some times I have to look at the keys. Then she read her story back to the teacher.

Just the other day I retuni-ed to watch Dr. Moores pupils for a third annual checkup. The bright I.Q.s" were making phenomenal progress. Little Venn Moore, now 7 years old, and Jeffrey Batter, age 6. were editing a school paper, run off in Thermofax. which Is published once a month. It contains stories real stories batted out on the electric typewriter by students who would have still been struggling with the alphabet and with simple sentences like Oh. oh. see the dog, if they had not encountered Dr. Moores methods. There are many interesting things about Dr. Moores school. To begin with, he has electric typewriters that talk back to (Continued on page ten)

Tax Break If Water Deductible

By EARL I-. DOUGLASS FATHER OF HIS ( OUNTRV

Every year on this day we should remind ourselves that George Washington was one of the most significant figures in history, and that we in the United States owe him a debt politically that w<' can never repay.

And indeed Die world owes him the same, for he was instrumental in establishing a form of government which nation after nation has tried -sometimes not too succes.sfully -- to adopt and make operative. He has been the inspiration of millions. Yet Ijecause he was reseiwed in demeanor, quiet and taeiturii, I..* do, .s not .stand out on the pages of history with brilliance. Even during his lifetime rids closest filends never presumed to take any friendly liberties with him. No one biit the members of his own family ever appeared to have calk'd

him by his first name. Men trembled in his presence, not because Washington himself wanted it that way, but because lie had about him a dignity and nobility of bearing that even men who had stood in the presence of kings had never before seen in any man.

He rejected the erowii at Newburg. Had he accepted it, he would have woni it with as much ea.se as if he had been born to the purple. About the time Washington became President, poor King George III was being put into a straight-jacket and thiust into what we would call today institutional security there to remain the rest of his life.

Georgp Washington was an uncrowned king. He had an unusual capacity for making money and died a wealthy man. He knew much sorrow and dlsap-pointrinenl but world - wide honor few men have ever experienced.

By ELMER ROESSNER

An enormous tax break for farmer.s will result if higher courts uphold a decision of Federal Jfidge Joseph B. Dooley, sitting in Amarillo, Tex. Judge Dooley held that farmers can claim an income tax depletion allowance for/ irreplacea b 1 e ground water used to irrigate crops.

The decision was made in the case of Marvin Shurbet of Petersburg. Tex., who contended that water is a mineral and should be subject to a depletion allowance. Depletion allow-ances range up to 27'- per cent for oil and ga.s producers.

If the Dooley ruling Is upheld, it is probable that other farmers will demand deductions for depletion of minerals in ihe soils. This will involve some intricate problem.'^, however. bee au.se some of tlie minerals are replaced witli (hem-it-al fertilizer.s, and Tarmers outlays for fertilizers are 100 per cent deductible as an operating expense.

However, trace elements are not always replaced and some soils become exhausted despite

fertilizing.

If the higher courts agree with Judge Dooley, farming may become as attractive as oil - well drilling to those in high income brackets. For this reason, the Treasury is expected to fight the West Texas decision to the Supremo Court if necessary.

tax, trading stamps are in the same category as a .selling or advertising c(xst and not deductible.

INTERNAL REVENUE RULING HITS TRADING STAMPS

Merchants who give trading stamps cannot deduct their cost from the retail price of a taxed aiticle in computing the excise tax, the Intemal Revenue Services ruled 'Rev. Rul. 63-5.)

The IRS said that the percentage cost of trading stamps is normally about 2 per cent. (Actually it Is more when costs of bookkeeping, advertising, pilferage. etc. are included.) The question, the IRS said, w'as wlie-thcr in selling an article for $20 plus tax, may the retailer deduct 2 per cent of that price, or 40 cents, and compute the tax on the basis of $19.60?

No. the IRS concluded. While costs of transportation, delivery, insurance an^ instalation are excludable in fixing the excise

OPPOSITION SWELLING TO JFKS GIVE AND TAKE AWAY

Senator Kenneth Keating (R.,-N. Y.) while favoring an income tax cut, has joined those opposing the floor under itemized deductions propased by President Kennedy.

Im ail fur a rate cut as a stimulus to the economy, but the economy won't be helped if you can't deduct your full mortgage interest, credit charges, state and local taxes and charity payments, he stated. This plan would, in fact, crimp home ownership and instalment buying and make charity cases out of many chaiities. It would also hit you with double taxation . , .To me. it's a refined form of juggling the books the taxpayers pocket books.

The propu.;al i.s double jaxti-tion in this way: If a home-ow'ner pays $(M) city taxes and his total itemized deductions are reduced by 25 per cent, he

would deduct only $600. TTiere-fore, he would be taxed at his top income rate on the last $200. which he had already paid

in taxes.

The February Morgan Guaranty Survey, published by the Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., said. Taxpayers In the middle and upper brackets, haring hopefully noted the Administrations repeated emphasis on the importance of encouraging investment, perceived with dismay that the Presidents bill W'as a two-handed creatureone to give relief and the other to take away and that the subtracting hand was to be especially busy with them.

TARIFF COMMISSION TO HOLD HEARING ON CAN ADI-AN WHISKEY

The Tariff Commission will heai- evidence for and against Increasing the tariff on Canadian w hiskey in Washington Pebruarv 26. Publicker Industries has complained that Canadian imports are endangering the domestic liquor business and wants tariffs returned to about $5 a gallon instead of the present late of slightly over $1.