Wednesday, June 19, 196S

More Clarification Is In Order

The Supreme Court has asserted it is unconstitutional for Bible reading or recitation of the Lords Prayer to be required as the part of the program of any public school in the nation.

Shocking as the decision may be to some citizens, it was not wholly unexpected in light of the decision last year which outlawed the required non-denominational prayer composed by New York authorities for use'in schools of that state.

While the court decision answers one question, its decision raises the next question of whether Bible reading and prayers may be permitted in public schools in any state even though they are not required.

Until that question is specifically answered by the court, North Carolina should follow the interpretation given the decision by Gov. Sanford.

Said Gov. Sanford: We will go on having Bible reading and prayer in the schools of this state . . . Such things are not required in North Carolina schools, feut as the governor pointed out, We

,anier

In

A Familiar Role

By WILLIAM A. SHIRES MESS A couple of telephone calls in early June put State Insurance commissioner Edwin S. Lanier back into a now familiar role of trying to straighten out a tangled mess.

This time it involved hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of $2-per-policy school insurance written to protect 70 per cent of the public school pupils in North Carolina last year.

The ph(Mie calls came from a banker in Virginia and from school superintendent, both reporting that drafts on a Greensboro firm, Summit Insurance Co.. of America, to pay claims on the policies had bounced.

Lanier, busy at the time wrestling with a hard - pressed legislative program for his department, put dowTi the phone and sighed. Then he picked up the phone himself.

LANIER The phone calls furnished just a thread, but it is now being unraveled.

During the short year he has been in office, .Lanier has become the leading sherlock in investigations in state government. He has probed into questionable practices in insurance premium financing, kickbacks, tie-in sales and the insurance point system. He has proposed revisions and tightening up in a number of state insurance laws.

And here, put in his lap during the height of the legislative debate, was a new wrinkle in the far - reaching business of insumce, claims and financing.

Says Lanier, My first thought, my first objective was that we had to protect the children. the parents who bought that insurance, and make sure that proper claims were paid and piomptly.

INQUIRE Lanier s first caU W'as to the president of Summit Insurance Co.. Jack W. Franks of Greensboro, to summon Franks to Raleigh the next day, June 10, for an explanation.

Franks and his brother, an at-tomey, came to Raleigh and told Lanier that funds of the Summit form were being transferred from a bank In Washington. D. C.. to a small town bank at Social Circle, Ga, This, he indicated, may have caused some delay and interruption in payment of drafts.

Lanier, how'ever, ordered Franks to place $300,000 on deposit with First Union National Bank of Greensboro by noon June 11, and to produce records to show this had been done. Franks notified Lanier on June 11 that all but $125,000 had been deposited, and that he was expecting an additional $125,f)00 from sale of Summits health and accident insurance business.

FUNDS Franks said a Wilmington company, had made an offer for the health and accident business. Lanier said. Lanier advLsed the Wilmington firm to place part of the pay

ment, $60,000 in an escrow account until it determined con-dititm of claims.

As a further precaution, Lanier directed Franks to authorize the Greensboro bank to place the Summit balance irrevocably in an account to pay school Insurance claims. He asked the bank to notify him of this amount.

This figure, on June 12, was $119,998.79 with outstanding checks in the amount of $24,-185.13, and not including the $125,000 from sale of the health and accident business, of which $60,000 was to be put in esr crow.

AGENCY Laniers investigation disclosed that the Summit scholastic Insurance had been placed by Walker Insurance Agency of Charlotte. Mr. Franks W'anted to go to Charlotte and get the claims files, but I told him to leave them there, Lanier said. Our interest was in getting the claims paid.

I told him to take his facsimile signature machine and to authorize any unpaid drafts as soon as possible, Lanier said.

Lanier dispatched his chief examiner. Fred Cates, to Charlotte also and Cates reported unpaid claims in the Walker Agency files totaled $289,678.02 with additional clainvs running about $20,000 a week. The claims had been approved and drafts yritten for payment. Lanier said, but the drafts were being held.

PAID These claims are now being processed and paid from the special claims account, Lanier said. Franks, however, has been advised that additional deposits to the account will be necessaiT and Cates said Franks was attempting to secure release of $25,000 held by the Georgia insurance department.

Further, securities totaling the equivalent of $200,000 are held on deposit for Summit by the state treasurer in Raleigh. Lar nier said, and approximately $100,000 of this may be necessary to pay all of the claims.

LICENSE Summit's license to do business in Georgia was revoked by Georgia Insurance commissioner James Bentley earlier this year. Bentley said the firm did not meet requirements of the Georgia law.

The North Carolina law requires $200,000 capital and $100,-000 surplus for each line of insurance written. The securities on deposit with the state treasurer fulfill the capital requirement but Lanier said the question in the present law is how much surplus must be maintained at all times. The firms license in North Carolina is up for renewal on July 1.

Franks is also a principal In the National Money Order Corp. which was plagued recently with bouncing money orders. His financial interests also include various enterprises Including a finance firm.

The Daily Reflector

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Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday Establi-shed 1882 DAVID JULIAN WHICHARD, Publisher

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do these things because we want to.

Prayer, reading of the Bible, and acknowledging the being of Almighty God are as much a part of the American heritage and the democracy of the United States as the constitution which the Supreme Court has interpreted. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence which set the stage of the building of the American democracy acknowledged God.

Each house of Congress opens its daily sessions with prayer. Those who make up its membership, and those who hold pubjic office from Washington to the smallest hamlet, acknowledge God in the oath of office to which they subscribe. Even those justices who make up the Supreme Court swore by God to fulfill the duties of their high position.

In God We Trust is inscribed on the legal tender issued by the government and the same phrase is inscribed over the rostrum of the Speaker in the House of Representatives.

If the required reading of the Bible or recitation of a particular prayer in schools is unconstitutional, are these other references to God, also required by law, unconstitutional? If it is unconstitutional for a state to require Bible reading and prayer in its public schools, it is also unconstitutional for teachers, as employes of the state government, to super\ds such activities even though they are not required by the state? Is it constitutional for the Senate and the House of Representatives to use tax funds to employ chaplains for their respective bodies, or to appropriate funds to pay the salaries of chaplains in the armed forces?

This most recent decision o f the Supreme Court with respect to the separation of church and state has accepted wdth relative calm in Congress and throughout the nation. We seriously question whether its full import has not been overlooked by those citizens who feel it deals only with required' Bible reading and prayer, and does not have a bearing on permissive acknowledgement of God where government functions are concerned.

In the absence of further clarification of this point by the Supreme Court, the Congress should take advantage of the avenues open to it to bring about proper clartfication.

United States Moving On A Different Path

The Soviets new space spectacular, a woman cosmonaut as part of a two-shot space team, has opened the door for a great many I-told-you-so comments from those who have advocated the United States sending a woman into space.

To these people there is probably little consolation in re joiners that the United States probably would have had the first woman in space if it had pointed its program in that direction. Such assertions fall into the same category as explanations that the L^nited States has not emphasized in its space program the first, the largest, the showiest.

It must be recognized, however, that the United States, in contrast to the Soviet Union, has appeared more content to probe with more complicated devices, compile more complete information and move more cautiously with its manned s|iace flights. In the long run, the quality of such a program may be expected to pay important dividends to the United States . . . and to the women astronauts who eventually will be aboard-U.S. space vehicles.

Cannot Impose ^feliaious Belief

By HENRY HOWARD

Names Ready For Use

By JAMES MARLOW WASHINGTON (AP) In this country where people have different religious beliefs and some have none, no state can impose any religious belief or exercise in the public schools.

Thats the short of the Supreme Courts historic ruling Monday outlawing the reading of the Bible and the Lords Prayer in public schools as a religious exercise.

This goes even if students, W'hose parents object to the religious exercise, are excused from taking part.

But the court, whose majority opinion was written by Justice Tom Clark, did not say the Bible or religious history could not be studied in public schools as part of a general education program.

Under the Constitution, Clark said, a state must maintain strict neutrality on religious matters, neither aiding nor opposing religion.

Another Justice. WWUUam 0. Douglas, agreeing with Clark, put It this way:

Through the mechanism of the state unless It is banned all of the people are being required to finance a religious exercise that only some of the people want and that violates the sensibilities of others.

The court had been working up to this dbcision and almost reached it, but not quite, last year in the case of New York schools where the Board of Regents had recommended the recital of a 22-word prayer at the start of each school day.

The prayer, which had been drafted by the board itself, said: Almighty God. we acknowledge our dependency upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.

But some people dont believe in God. Others, if they do. prefer to pray some other way. The court banned that prayers as unconstitutional. The opinion then was written by Justice Hugo Black.

He said for the school board to require recital of its prayer violated the first section of the First Amendment which declares, Congress shall make qd law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

In that case Black put the emphasis on the first part U the amendment establishment of religion and not the second part. But that amend

ment prohibited Congress from passing a law respecting establishment of religion.

How then could Black say the states cant pass such a law?

Because the 14th Amendment makes it apply to states, too, by saying, No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. The religious privileges are guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Black reasoned: the government has no power to prescribe by law any particular form of prayer which is to be . used as an official prayer In carrying on any goveniment -sponsored activity.

He said: Neither the fact that the prayer may be denominationally neutral, nor the fact that its observance on the part of the students is voluntary, can serve to free it from the limitations of the establishment clause.

But he was talking about a prayer written by a school board and imposed on the students.

He didnt answer this question: What about schools that require Bible - reading or recital of the Lords Prayer every day but excuse children whose parents dont want them to be a party to it even though they only have to listen and dont have to say anything?

Mondays decision was on two cases involving exactly that problem: one from Pennsylvania, one from Baltimore. In e a c h case the court called the practice unconstitutional under Hhe same establishment clause of the First Amendmit.

If a state is going to compel student participation in some religious project like studying the Bible as history the court said the primary effect must be one that neither helps nor hinders religion.

Clark said the purpose of the First Amendment is to "secure religious liberty in the individual by prohibiting any invasicxi thereof by civil authority.

He added: It Is no defense to urge that the religious practices here may be relatively minor encroachments on the First Amendment. The breach of neutrality that is today a trickling stream may all too soon become a raging torrent.

In the relationship between man and religion, the state is firmly committed to a positMi of neutrality.

^Lookout For That Satellite, Youre Going Entirely Too Fast, Tighten Your Orbit, Watch TTiat Curve.. iSS U.C

Facing Nemos

By JAMES CHAMBERLAIN

Copyright, 1963, King Features Syndicate, Inc.

The spectre that is haunting the Democratic Party as the rar clal issue crosses the Potomac going north has hardly been mentioned in the open by election strategist, but it is something that calls for the highest political skills if it is to be exorcized between now and 1964.

The spectre in question involves the ec(k<<Lnics of the Northern Negro who is looking for upgrading in hte job. Gen-eraily speaking, this Negro is not a skilled man. When you call the plumber or hire an electrician, it is a virtual certainty that a white man will show up and ii he brings an assistant to carry his tools the color of the assistants skin will be white, too. In all the traditional crafts there is little more than token integration, and in the father and smi unions the color line is drawn as part of an aclent monopoly.

In the mass industries It is somewhat better: Negroes work on the production lines of Detroit. Indeed, old Henry Ford started hiring them long before he would let an industrial unionist inside his plants. But even in the industrlkl areas of Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois, there is a problem posed by the nature of linmigratlon from the hilly and often highly prejudiced regions of the back . country South. The anti - Negro red necks have come north, too.

To be sure, the Republican politicians must declare themselves on race Issues no les.s than the Democrats. They must balance on a tightrope on the States Rights Issue simply because they belong to the party of Abraham Lincoln, who overrode the States Righters in his day. But the Republicans dilemma is as nothing when compared with the Democratic Partys dilemma, not only In the South but north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Making a pitch for the votes of the common man. the Democrats of the North have carried off many a triumph by putting the labor vote together with the so-called ethnic v t e. When the race issue was mo.st-ly a question of providing relief for Negroes or putting them on political payrolls, there was no searing conflict between the labor vote and ethnic consideration. However, now that the Northern Negro has declared himself, through such organizations as the Urban League, a.s being unwilling to wait. the issue between tw'o tradltional supports of the Deocratic politicians is joined. The tight craft unions must be prepared to give scope to Negro apprentices. This is the crux of the situation and it Ls not going to be dismissed easily.

If the Negro Is to escape from this business of waiting, he must be able to earn real money. The business of busting a recalcitrant white block in a good residential area Involves more than an abstract possession of the civil right to live anywhere. It Involves a quite mundane down - payment on real estate. And to make a down-payment, one must have more than a hold carrier income.

In the nature of things, the po-Utlclfin who is competing for the Negro vote cant transform waiters and hod carriers into skilled electricians and plumbers and linotype operators in a few days. The politician can only guarantee that Negroes will be hired on government projects. True enough, he can persuade the business man to give jobs to Negroes provided they have the ability to do the work. But business men cant throw skilled jobs to Negroes when hypocritical union apprentice practices stand, like so many silent Governor Wallaces, In the way.

This pervasive problem of riding the Negro ethnic horse and the balky craft union horse at one and the same time is the problem of the hour. It Is not an immediately pressing problem for the Republican Party for purely fortuitous geographical reasons. The Republicans, in the North, happen to draw their prime sustenance from the suburban districts, where the race problem does not yet obtrude. The Negro, when he has earned some real money, will be moving to the suburbs, and when he gets there, the Republicans will have to (Continued on Page 5)

Franchisers Watch Carvel Case

Those whose business It is to round up different names for each- new crop of whirlie-girl-les were Johnny-on-the-spot again last Saturday when the 1963 hurricane season officially opened.

It was nothing new. They always manage to produce a slate of fresh names for fresh storms. And in time aplenty before the first boiling lady breaks out of her tropical stall and heads northward to make her rounds.

Naming the hurricanes ever since they began hanging girlish handles on the wind-and-rain monsters is sort of taken for granted every year by those of us -who go about our business and then take time to

huddle in comers periodically to watch the hurricanes roar by.

This season was no different. We went about our business and took the naming of 1963 s stormy gals for granted. When the season opened, the namers were not caught napping. They furnished a fresh list:

Arlene, Beulah, Cindy. Debra, Edith, F ora, Ginny, Hannah. Irene, Janice, Kristy, Laura, Margo, Nona. Orchid. Portia. Rachel, Sandra, Terese, Verna and Wallis.

Twenty - three fine names for our visitors this year. The aptness of those names could scarcely be argued, except by flesh-and-blood girls with the same names. And that's probably the case every year.

Other Editors Saying... On To The Moon

(Rocky Mount Telegram)

While former President Elsenhower has stated publicly that the government is nuts to spend $40 billion on a race to the moon, the end of Project Mercury means full steam ahead for Gemini and other programs aimed at landing American astronauts on the moon. The announcement was made in Washington last Wednesday that Mercury officially was terminated.

The decision means it will be at least 18 months, under the present schedule, before Cape Canaveral again experiences the excitement surrounding a manned space launching. But work has already begun; Mercui-y Control Center, heart of manned space flight operations, is . being modified and expanded for Gemini. Famed Atlas launch pad No. 14 jumping off place or orbiting astronauts will be altered to handle Atlas-Agena rockets which will be used as target vehicles in Gemini.

What is the U. S. position in relation to Ru.sslan progress in the race to the moon? It is doubtful if anyone really knows the status of the Soviet space program. But one thing we do know; they are much further al(Hig with their earth - orbit program than we are. A logical conclusion would be that they are ahead of us in the moon race; Just how far ahead is conjecture.

Eisenhower is one member of the minority opposed to the moon program. Anybody who would spend $40 billion In a race

to the moon for national prestige is nuts, he said recently. Well, it isn't purely a matter of prestige; it's almost a question of necessity. Security questions are involved, all tied to the moon and who gels there.

Military potentials to be reared by the first nation reaching the moon are almost unlimited. We could not allow the Russians to assume control of the moon and make of it another Red bloc satellite. It would put the West in a precarious military position.

Eisenhower is correct, in one .sense, when he says such a race is a matter of prestige: propaganda value of such a feat would be tremendous for the nation first attaining that goal. But of course there's more to it than just prestige and propaganda.

There are some who opposed the termination of the Mercury Project. The a.stronauts themselves were disappointed. One argument for an additional Mercury flight was that it would help fill the long gap between now and the attempted moon shot, and would maintain public interest before the first two-man Gemini mission.

But another Mercury flight would only delay Gemini. The Mercury first team is needed to get a lagging Gemini moving and a second Mercury team wouldnt do for another Mercury ride. The Mercury team will Immediately begin concentrating on Gemini which Is already one year behind its original schedule because of money problems.

But there is a question to be raised. Why should the namers list so many? Do they think we'll have 23 hun icanes to contend u-ith this season?

Probably not. In going about their naming duties for which they are duly paid, I suppose they probably feel that the public should get its mcmeys worth.

Then, too, they probably Imor pine the sudden chaos and confusions that would result if a season should produce more hurricanes than the list of names could cover. Nobody, they reason, wants to operate under the pressui-p Q( cpming up with a fresh name for a lady visitor who's already on her way.

They flgtQ-' urtlier than that; Nobody wants an anonymous hurricane prowling around.

But the list of names announced Saturday demonstrates an unavoidable flaw in the hurricane - naming business. The alphabetical system for keeping track of the different storms is a relentless one. Some letters are difficult to stretch Into girls names.

You noticed that the 1963 list stops after Wallis. There are no names for X, Y and .Z It would probably be a brain - racking chore to supply names for the last three letters for one season, let alone year after year. . .

We hope, though, that It's a moot point. It Would take a professional pessimist to insist that arrangements should be made for 26 hurricanes In one season.

We like Instead the idea of allowing the ^hurricane - namers to stop after Wallis or Wanda or Wilma if they want to.

We share their hope that we wont have to deal with the likes of Xanthippe, Yvonne or Zelda . . .ever.

Opinions '.n

Everything considered you are probably safer if you stay Inside in your air conditioning and let the weeds, bugs, wasps and tetanus achieve their own balance of nature Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel.

One of the finest things , this legislature has done was to kill the ill-advised measure which would have permitted restricted driving permits for persons who lost their licenses because of drunken driving. The Raleigh Times.

By ELMER ROESSNER

Franchisers of the United Stated are closely watching a new action brought by the Federal Trade Commission against Carvel, The charge, which may eventually be brought up to the Supreme Court, endangers the present operaticms of more than 300 companies that license others to use their names and their ways of doing business.

These companies are in a great variety of businesses, from frozen dessert stands (such as Carvel) to restaurants, motels, hamburger stands and scores of others.

In general, each company has developed a tested way of doing business. 'Then each licenses other enterprisers with certain mnimums of capital to use the name, designs, trademarics, and usually, the services of the parent company.

Getting a license from Carvel or from Howard Johnson or one of the motel licensees requires more than a Bull Durham bag of small change. Some

licensees must pay several thousand dollars for a franchise, agree to invest up to $1(X).(X)0 or more in a plant, and then promise to pay royalties that may run even higher.

The FTC has charged Carvel Corp., of Yonkers, N. Y., and several affiliates, with illegally lessening competit ion through numerous restrictions placed on franchised soft 1 c e cream dealers. Thomas and Agnes Carvel, heads of the company, are also named.

Now the Carvel organization does almost exactly what hundreds of other franchiders do and that is the reason other companies are interested, as deep as their pocketbooks, in the Carvel case.

The PTC complaint alleges that the Carvel franchise agreements provide that dealers may purchase products only from Carvel or designated source; that they prohibit dealers frwn selling merchandise not authorized by Carvel, and fordfe dealers to purchase unnecessary or

undeslred equipment.

HOW CONTRACTS ARE ENFORCED

The PTC also charges that Carvel forces dealers to comply by (1) threatening them with cancellation of their franchises if unauthorized products are sold, (2) maintaining a system of surveilUnce to check M1 the sale of unauthorised products, (3) maintaining agreements with dairies and other suppliers, requiring them to sell products with only the Carvel name In certain areas, but not to tell outside those areas, (4) threatening legal actitm against oier auppllers who try to sell products to Carvel dealers, and (S) maintaining agreements with suppliers to fix prices paid by Carvel dealers and to provide Carvel with commissions, overldes and rebates.

Other franchisers employ some of these restrictions. They Insist they are necessary to maintain the value of their -enslng agreements.

They pose this Question; "fiui>-

pose Carvel Is forced to sell a franchise to a man who doe.s not meet Carvel standards; suppose he waters the already soft ice cream, suppose he does not maintain sanitary conditions, and suppose he puts in a line of liquors?

WHATS THE CONTROL

Suppose just one such case occurred, then the resulting publicity and word-of-mouth reports could cripple the Carvel organization.

n the PTC theory Is sustained, then every franchise system operating today will face the POBSlUUty that one bad apple, one spy or one bubblehead ctmld wreck the entire chain of franchised stores, shops and accommodations.

If any franchiser forces licensees to buy machinery they do not want, he should be called before the bar. But a Carvel stand that wants to sell fresh strawberries on the side ought to be allowtd that right of free enterprise, and the FTC should astablish that right