Priday^ November Z2, 196S

s Its Priority Targets

A few weeks ttirpe^re^ that Republican

strategy in North Carolina gave top priority to efforts to capture the executive mansion in 1964. Noy that top priority appears to have shifted efforts to hold the two GOP congressional seats from this state after next years election.

This apparent shift in strategy-at least on the surfacesuggests to us that Republicans who were

doing most of the talking about capturing the chief ejcecutive post in North Carolina were not those who

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.. ruck industry

Bv WILLIAM A. SHIRES

AKERS The $10 blllion-a-year U. S. trucking ind u try which has just climbed into first place amq|p the nation's common carriers is electing a acholarly. soft-spoken North Carolinian to lead it in a year of crisis.

The giant American Trucking Association (ATA) elected 56-year-old John M. Akers of Gastonia its new president at ATAs annual convention in Miami Beach.

Akers election comes at a time when the industry is stirred by proposed new federal legislation in the field of Ji-terstate commerce and by rumblings from around the labor bargaining table. ^

There are very grave problems facing the industry. Akers said in a telephone interview from Miami Beach. There is a great concern about them." But Akers expressed faith and confidence in the vigor and vitality of the industry.

VIEWS Weve had problems in the past. Weve been able to overcome them. There is reaswi to believe that satisfactory solutions can be worked out." Akers said.

We have a very dynamic Industry and a very vital one. he says. "It will face the problems and there is no cause for alarm.

Specifically, Akers says, there Is legislation pending bef o r e Congress which wiU have a very important bearing on what the future holds for the trucking industry. This legislation, dealing with rate, area and commodity regulation, could "result in chaotic condition, Akers said.

We dont want to go back to Hie days (rf the jungle prior to regulation of the industry. he said.

The Industrys labor problem centers mi forthcoming negotiations with James R. Hof-fas powerful teamsters union. Hoffa has said he will seek a .national trucking industry three-year contract. Most of the Industrys labor contracts expire next February.

This (A course could have a very drastic effect on the entire industry, Akers says. Labor costs now average 55 cents of each trucking revenue dollar, and what they will be in the future depends on the outcome of Uiesc negotiations.

PHILOSOPHY Akers wears a Phi Beta Kappa key and looks more like a college professor than the hard-driving head of a $25 million a year trucking business, Akers Motor Lines Inc'., which operates in 13 states from Masaachusetts through Georgia.

Actually, Akers, son of a Presbyterian minister, began his career as a teacher after graduating from Davidson College In 1928. He taught for two years in Charlotte and became dean of boys at Piedmont Junior High. Then he returned to his studies, getting a masters degree in economics at the University of North Carolina and a teaching fellowship while working for a doctorate at Duke University. He completed classroom work for a doctorate In economics at Princtori in 1934.

His philosophy, developed in his early years in college and at his first pre-college job, of TT .

delivering laundry bundles at 50 cents a day in Blackshear, Ga.. is a simple one.

Ive always felt that anything worth doing at all is worth doing well, he says.

CAREER Akers worked as a tax consultant for the Council of State governments and later with the WPA in Washington before joining the struggling trucking firm founded by his brothers in 1932. Akers became vice president and general manager of the firm in 1937.

The line had 12 pieces of leased equipment and about 50 employes and was losing money. We ran in the red that first year, Akers says. But we rolled up our sleeves and worked. I remember working 18 hours a day, seven days a week and we gradually got on our feet. In 1938 the firm was in the black.

Last year, the firm of which he became preisdent in 1955 had 1,800 pieces of equipment. 1,700 employes and returned a profit after taxes of i one million dollars. I

Offices and headquarters are in Gastonia, but the central operation is on a 40-acre site, the Akers line break point just off Interstate 85 at Charlotte.

FIRM Akers over-the-road drivers have an average tenure of 10 years and the films executives have averaged 15 years with the company.

It has an outstanding employe relations program and safety record. Akers employs a fulltime chaplain for his firm to serve the men and their families at the 26 Akers Motor Lines stations.

Akers father, the Rev. W, W. Akers, retire^ from the ministry after serving churches in Kentucky. Georgia, in Ltn-colnton, N. C., and Charlotte and became the chaplain for the trucking firm operated by his sons.

ACTIVE Akers has been active in the trucking industry for 19 years, He is immediate past president of the N. C. Motor Carriers Assn., served as ATA state vice president from 1945 to 1954, as ATA treasurer from 1954 to 1962 when he was elected first vice presid e n t. and as a member of the finance and administrative committees, on the ATA industrial relations committee and as its 1962 chairman, as chairman of the ATA safety and operations committee and as director of the ATA operations council.

He is president emeritus of the Carolina Transportation Assn., which handles labor contracts in the Charlotte area and has numerous non-trucking business interests.

STATE Akers was one of the 68 North Carolina buslne.ss-men who went on the industry-hunting caravan to Europe with Gov. Luther* H Hodges in 1959 and Hodges later appointed him to the state board of Conservation and Development. Gov. Terry Sanford reappointed him for two years and last July named him to another four year term" on the C&D board. He participated in another caravan to Europe last

are most instrumental in formulating- the partys policies in the state. It suggests to us a recognition on the part of GOP leaders that while .that party has significant strength in some areas of the state, it has not yet developed the state-wide offices.

The best GOP hope for electing the governor of the Tar Heel state next year was in Rep. Charles Jonas. When the veteran Congressman finally an-, nounced he would run for re-election to Congress, rather than for governor, the hope rapidly faded. Hasty efforts to get Rep. James Broyhill to move into the gubernatorial contest died aborning. Like Jonas, his position was that he would prefer to run for re-election to Congress.

It is not likely that Tar Heel Republicans will be able to come up with a gubernatorial candidate whose name is nearly as familiar to voters of the state as that of either of the GOP members in Congress. Thus thfr biggest guns of the Republican party in the state will be tied up in congressional elections a year from now. Because of this, the priority for funds and campaign effort will have to be focused on these Congressional seats rather than the contest with Democrats over the governors post.

The Democrats should expect a vigorous effort from Republicans to win the governorship next year, but that race will not have top priority on the Republican campaign list in North Carolina in 1964.

Beware, Futur Ones

May Fire Back At You

By JOHN ABNEY

World s Mos

n

i hankless jod

There was a news story recently about the man who in a sudden outburst hurled an earthenware jug into his television screen.

It was news all right. But why? The mans name was Brown, but that was insignificant. What about the television program he so abruptly, and effectively, halted? That dodnt make the news either. What about Mr. Brown himself? Was h^^trying to catch a few winks? Was he trying in vain to read? No

matter. Thats not the point.

And its a good thing. Because no such details were, reported in the account of the TV set assault. The news report related the incident, quoted Brown as claiming loudly he was glad he had found a very good turn-off knob, then quit. Enough said.

'So what makes that glimpse of human nature newsy?

Consider this^ It is a vivid warning fof' thosie

with an occasional yen to pitch a jug or something

through the TV screen. It reminds that breed that technology hasnt yet slowed to a walk for their convenience. And it wont either. |

So prospective jug-pitchers, beware! Because one day before long, somebodys going to market a TV set fully capable of firing one right back at you.

MEXICO CITY - Ask the first little boy you see in the street what he wants to be when he^growa up and he will Immediately tell you a fireman, a rich man, a circus acrobat or perhaps a psychiatrist.

But does any little Ingratc ever say, I wan5 to be a weatherman?

Never. And it is this abysmal disregard of Mie of the worlds most thankless Jobs that often causes strong men to lie on the kitchen floor and shed bitter tears.

Cambodia Sees

Struggle Lost

BY JAMES MARLOW

WASHINGTON (AP) For this country South Viet Nam has been a cork in a bottle, preventing communism from spilling into all the southeast Asian peninsula. The cork Just got tweaked.

Cambodia, next door to Viet Nam, has canceled all American help. It will almost cer-taninly now depend more wi Red China, giving communism a foot in the door even wider than Viet Nam.

Cambodia is in the very heart of the peninsula, bordered by Viet Nam, Laos and Thailand.

Southeast Asia, and perhaps all Asia.

year.

Akers wife, three daughters, and his three biu^iness-partner brothers were on hand in Miami Beach for the Akers family reunion on the occasion of hi.s election to the ATA presidency.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Cambodian leader, has said he is convinced the Communists already have won the battle for Viet Nam and feels his own neutral country will eventually fall to communism.

His attitude* and his refusal to accept any more American guns or money are a searing reminder the United States is living on borrowed time In

The Red Chinese, trying to catch up with the 20th century and still lacking nuclear weapons, have so far avoided a showdown with this country in SMitheast Asia by not intervening directly.

It can only ne a matter of time before the* belligerent Chinese feel strong enough to try to drive American power and influence out of Asia altogether.

Meanwhile It can use what is obvious and comes handy, like subversion, various pressures and even local Communist guerrillas to avoid a direct confrontation with this country.

I am not speaking of the amateur forcaster who relies on persMial discomfort for his predictions. The man who says, My corns are killing me so It will rain tomorrow, and of course It rains. Or the lady whose ankles swell and that night the whole city is caught In a low pressure area. Or the man who complains of a severe pain somewhere else and and his wife tell him, Get off that bnAen glass youre sitting on, silly.

In order to appraise the efforts of skilled, profession a 1 weathermen more accurately, I paid a visit recently to the observatory here. And as soon as I walkd In and said, Good afternoon. How is everything? the weatherman began glancing quickly around at his instruments.

Then he said there were scattered clouds somewhere, the wind was from the northwest at six knots (up to 10,000 feet and then it switched to the east blowing at two knots) and finally I had to Interrupt him with the story of the tiras a

bull butterfly attacked me In the garden.

Of course, the real reason fw my visit was to find out when the rainy seascm would end this year. Guide books state that It ends officially on October fourth (any rain after that date is imofficlal and not recognized by the tourist iHir-eau).

Such delicate matters cannot be approached too aburptr ly, however, for weathermen are proud and sensitive. Therefore I began by asking to see the Instruments and you would never believe all the devices science has created to try and out-guess nature.

There is this fountain pen suspended by a piece of string and It writes all sorts of things about earthquakes on a roll of paper. Then they have barometers which tell how much pressure the atmosphere Is exerting on you. And several types of therometers, nMie of which seem to agree so it is necessary to add up all the degrees and divide by 13 to get the temperature.

And in every corner of the observatory there are teletype machines and radios (also messengers running frantically to and out with telegrams from all parts of the country) which keep a constant flow of weather information coming in to be processed and woven Into rugs.

Just like the bureaus we have In the United Staes, the weatherman said, which sounded a little discouraging.

At any rate, after we had become friendly enough to criticize our wives while chatting. I asked him the questic. . .

When wm the rainy season end.

He looked like I had used Indecent language In the presence (rf his mother but called his a^istants and they began analyzing reports, A high pressure area herp. Another close by. No clouds over there. The machines registered 45 degrees P. in the mountains. A ballOMi they sent up tht morning disappeared and had not been

seen nor heard of slnc. >

The weatherman worked It out with his slide rule and shouted happily, Tonight! Tha rainy season ends t(Hilght. Tomorrow will be beautifully clear, temperature In the higb sixties and no more rain. The following day a tremer dous storm blew In and we had a deluge that lasted six hour^ But since no one else seemed to care, why shcwild I?

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7he Word In

7he Corridors

Public Forum

To The Editor;.

Quote

Tbe Daily Reflector

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Barbers in some Northern citie.s are considering charging $3.50 for'a haircut. Theyll get only egoists for customers. The rest of us dont figure we have a head worth that much. Lexington Leader.

For the United State, which for years had its hand full trying to achieve effective an-ti-Communi&t resistance in embattled Viet Nam, the years ahead seeifi sure to hold more critical, dismal, unhappy days.

Just this week President Kennedy in Florida said the American states must be ready to go to tbe aid of any Latin-American government requesting help against a Ccxnmunist takeover.

When this country fcela so strongly about preventing communist penetration of this hemisphere. it is not unnatural the Red Chinese feel the same way about Western penetration or interference in Asia.

What it is doing: trying to bolster antl-Communist or neutral Asian regimes to prevent a Red takeover.

What hope of success can it have in the long run?

Probably only this: that ?er-haps the Red Chinese Communist government will s<Kneh<)w collbse or that, over the fii-, tervening years, it can be In-* duced to let Its neighbors work * out their destiny In their own way.

At the moment both seem like forlorn hopes.

The Progressive Citizens wish to take their Hs^ts Off to certain men of this city that gave leadership, service, showed foresight and Integrity In acting to ward off what might have been a catastrophe when Pitt County was used as an overflow point for demonstrators in the Williamston Incident.

That incident could have snowballed into a demonstration that would have never ended.

These men are representative of the kind of leadership Greenvilel is hungering for. and they are members and represent such organizations as the N. C. Joint Cbuncil on

Health and Citizenship, the Inter-racial Committee, East Carolina College, Progressive CJitizens Council and the CJity Police Department.

Yes. we salute these brave souls In times like these they have demwistrated that Better World Begins With Each Individual they did what they could individually and collectively, and they also demonstrated they are lifters not leaners, and first class citizens.

May this kind of acticm inspire us as individuals and as organizations to do likewise.

The Progressive Citizens' Council Roscoe Norfleet Chairman

ODinions In Brief

We dont doubt the United States and Russian spacemen will eventually fly into space together. What concerns us Is which will be the captain. Sioux City Journal.

tial treatment by their Communist captors during the Korean War. How quickly we forget. Chattanooga News-Free Press.

Ten years ago the U. S. Army revealed that more than 6,000 American servicemen had been murdered, tortured, starved or subjected to other bes-

Autumn is over, and no long-.er swirling from the tree branches are the leaves and effigies of unsuccessful football coaches. Augusta (Kansas) Gazette. - ...

By JOHN CmMBERLAIN

Copyright, 1963, King Featres Syndicate, Inc.

It was a high school guidance counsellor speaking on the subject of school dropouts. He had attended a meeting of guidance counsellors from all over the New England area, held In H a r t-ford, Conn., and he had been impressed more by what he had heard tn the corridors than anything that had been said officially.

The official attitude Is, of course, that droupouts are to be deplored. And the usual answer to the problem Is that there ought to be a law compelling all teen - agers to remain in high school until they have received diplomas. How else, so the official line runs, will teen - agers be rendered capable of hold i n g jobs In an economy that requires less and less crude muscle power as It becomes more automated?

This lumping of all dropouts into one category, said the dissident guidance counsellor. obscures all the difficulties. It keeps people from breaking the problem down into Its components. The truth is that it is not even necessarily a good tiing to keep everybody in school until the arbitrary age of sixteen. Some people only learn to become mature through experience. It does no good to force such boys and girls to remain In school, which Is a place that perpetuates Immaturity by taking away from kids the necessity of making their own decisions.

The dropout problem, so the dissident guidance counsellor continued, has two salient phases. There is one group of kids who range from average to excellent In intelligence. They quit school because they are bored, or because their parents dont care, or becau.se they sec chances to go to work and earn money. These kids should be kept *ln school by persuasion, if possible. But if a boy quits school at the age of sfacteen for a job or decides to go Into the armed forces before he has a diploma, and ' then discovers through experience in the real world that he wants to go back to school for more education, wh:^ should

It be considered a calamity that he dropped out as a teen-ager? His experie nee may have been the very thing he needed to bring him to a mature comprehensirai of th value of an educatii.

The secOTid big group of dropouts,so the guldanc# counsellor went on, consist of kids who, in the old days, belonged to a category that was never considered to bo high school material. In th effort to keep such kids in school after the age of sixteen we now provide all sort of special courses.

The diplomas they get art meaningless save for tho. fact that personnel director in Industries tend to acce Pt them at face value and henc may discriminate against Intelligent dropouts who might actually do a better job if they could only get themselves hired. The members the seo- ond group of dn)outs are th low average boys and girl who. from junior high school years up to the age of six* teen, are carried al(Mig tn special courses, in shop work and the like, without ever getting any real bwieflts from th teaching. To them, school has always been a place for failure. They break the machines, they get their hands cut, and they do a lot of harm to the real students by taking up the teachers time.

I realize, said the gul(!U ance counsellor, that to analyze the problem is not to solve it. Maybe we need some sort of work group* approach to the situation you know, a revival of the con-" servation conw Idea. In. any case, theres o sense In be-' Ing pressured by the government into accepting the polnl of view of the employment agencies. They want to keep kida In school just to get them off the job maiket. This is th truant officers way of looking at things. The routbe truant officer doesnt care whether the school is able to do anything for a kid or not.

Well, I havent solved tht problem, ccmcluded the skeptical guidance counsellor. But you cant push on a string, and you cant force anybody* to be mature by keeping him from getting his nose rubbed in experience.

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Strength For Today

BY EARL L. DOUGI.ASS

SONG IN OUR HEARTS

Serve the Lord with glad-, ness; come before His pres-with.singing.*!.,. jLPsalm.

100:2).

God wants our life to be a joyful song; not a dirge. He has given us beautiful music to accompany His words of revelation, and if we will but listen In the quiet of dally devotion, If we will but summon up our faith to understand unseem things, we willknow this to be true.

Religions greatest heresy is the disposition of some to believe and teach that God w*anU His followers to be long-faced and solemn. God wants our faces to shine with the light of g)adne.s. He wants our households or step out into the world of biisiness, Industry and Teaming with souls that are peaceful and with hearts that

are brimming with joy and confidence.

You may call such statements mere chatter or pious platitudes or words without mean-Jng. Let.us..not make a giat mistake at this point, for if we fall to realize that God wants -us to be happy and is determined to make us as happy as w'e will permit Him so to do. then we have made a fatal mistake for a mLs-tage such as this means edath to happines.s, purpose, and real achievement.

God stands ready to give us more gifts than we are willing to receive. Circumstances never create happiness - or destroy it. We make ourselves happy and keep ourselves happy if we face life with a spirit of realism, and the first tnith to realize is that G^d want iLs to be glad, to be happy, to have a sOng in our hearts.

By ELMER ROESSNER

Automation is a cure to modern society, George Meany, president of the APL-CIO, told the organizations

fifth btwrnUl convention,-

There is no element of blessing In it. . .Unless we wake up and do something about it our whole system as we know it today will go down the drain as a result of the automation and the unemployment it is creating:

... What Meany .did not say was , that it was the AFL-aO and other labor organizations who have brought forth automation.

In the competitive, free-enterprise system, cost is the sole factor in determining whether any process is to be automated.

The principal element of cost is labor. In many case^, labor is the sole factor. ^ ARE MACHINES CHEAPER?

Machines automating any process are expensive. Whether such machines are to be bought is never decided by whim of management. The sole determinant i.s whether the machines are cheaper than the wages of the workers It

displaces.

This determination is inexorable. When wages exceed the cost of automation equipment, a company has no -choicT- Th"gaaongMnent mcty have great humanitarian feelings; it may dread to fire faithful employees; it may prefer the old ways of doing business. But unless it changes to the less costly way. the entire business and all, not only part, (rf its employ e e s ^wiU, .go.. dom, Mr. MewX. drain.

Taxes, Incidentally, are another labor . cost factor. The management of a com p a n y may pay property taxes on an automation machine. But It does not have to pay any social security, unemployment or , workmens compensation taxes. It does not have to an-ploy bookkeepers and accountants to manage withholding taxes. It does not have to bear the cost of a grievance apparatus to settle disputes between machin and management. Machines may have the equivalent of sick leave, but they get no paid vacattou, no re-tli-ement benefits, no senioiity Increase.

RISiNG WAMM .

BRING AUTOMATION

But the biggest factor in increasing automation is the rising level of wages, due almost entirely to Meany, his organi=

ttion.-othep-ttniop and. Fed-eral and state governments, which increasingly set mni

mums.

Wages have been steadily rising in recent decades. Some

of the increases have only office

set effects of Inflation: As Barry Goldwater will probably ...get 'around .to telling .4bi. public one day, the -Fedral government^ In failing to control inflation, has generated more strikes than Meany and James Hoffa together. Workers have struck for higher pay simply to maintain their standard of living with shrinking dollars.

On the other hand,'many of the wage Increases represent actual gains tn true buying power. And when these real gains make automatitm cheaper than men, automation takes

over,

AUTOMATION SAVES FOREIGN TRADE If it were not for automation, most of our foreign trade would fade away. When Amer-wages aiw sr ncKicir.,kisl

er than foreign wage that

American products cost mor than good made overseas, first we lose our foreign markets.

I In maM)' part'Of

ioa, Afriea 8nd~ur^-we ~sn unable to lay down steel, for example, at price that com-

..^pete. with Germany, Belgium and Japan. Second, when for-eign goods are cheap enough to allow a margin for shipping, those goods Invade the American maritet.

._.Xoday many kinds oiXoreifiE-steel' are being delivered at American ports cheaper than American steel companies can manufacture them. American steel companies are trying to ioWer their costs by ad(n?ting more and more automaton. Men are thereby losing Jobs. But if our steel companies did * not adopt automation, even more jdbs would be lost.

We cannot Ignore unemplo^ ment caused by aut<miatlttu We cannot dismiss it by saying. The workers brought it on 'themselves; they priced themselves out of the job mar

ket." American ingenuity, lil^*^" ver enough to advance autdma- *

tion, must also be clever enough to solve unempl!-

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