Wednesday, March 25, 1964

Absurdity In Their Secret Meets

I Don't Exoect To Be Called, But-

sf^.1'rV/i

It B absurd that a commission authorized by the 1963 legislature to recommend ways in which North Carolina should spend more than a million dollars in an effort to develop space industries should find it necessary to ..consider in secret the recommendations it will make to the governor.

The $1.6 million appropriated for the pur-.pose belongs neither to the legislature, the special commission nor to the governor. It belongs to the taxpayers of North Carolina.

This sum invested wisely to help the state create and attract space-related industries will pay handsome dividends to the state in terms of new industries, new jobs, new payrolls in future years.

?rices, Wages Can Still Saira'.

By JAMES MARLOW

WASHINGTON (AP) The Johnson adrntolstratlon, lacking control over prices and wages, Is trying In a gingerly way to nudge business and labor into keeping them down.

At the same time, President Johnson has urged Ccmgress to vote a |545-mlUion pay raise ior 1.7 million government employes, even 1 the 535 Congress members hesitate to include themselves in the Increase.

Johnson and hia economic advisers, walking tip toe in this prickly field where the government haa no authority to forbid, are not telling business and ltJx>r flatly there should be no boosts.

What they seem to be saying in their anti - Inflation efforts, often using a rather foggy prose, is that there should be no prlcewage increases unless they are Justified.

This leaves the door ajar, although Johnson cant do more than this, since a businessman anxious to raise a price or a union bent on higher wages will always argue a Justification.

This is exactly what Johnson himself does in proposing an increase in government pay. He says failure to increase it would make more difficult the task of recruiting and keeping top flight people in government.

Tw'o weeks ago in Cwigress, the House appeared to be in a rush to raise government salaries, including a $10,000 addition to the 122,500 now paid all members of House and Senate, a 44 per cent Increase.

Every time one of its members sought to block this increase, the House brushed it aside, or rather it did the fast brushing so l<mg as they were not voUng in a roll call where each members vote would be listed by name.

But when a roll call was forced on them, they suddenly killed the whole pay raise notion, for themselves and everybody else, by a vote of 222 to 184.

A few days later, Johnson wrote a letter to House Speaker John W. McCormack. D.-

Mass., proposing the House start all over again and raise government salaries.

He said Congress, hesitancy to give Itself a raise was no reason for not giving the other federal employes a boost.

Every year, one of the most rubbery, vid sometimes most incomprehensible, pieces of

writing is omtained in the annual report <rf the Presidents Council of Economic Advisers, issued in January.

This year the council noted that in the past three years there has been an unusual degree of price stability although a somewhat upward drift In the prices of final purchases.

But, it said, from the beginning of 1962 to the end of 1963, prices had gone up only 4 per cent. It urged stability this year, without saying that there uhould be no increases at all.

It said the administration will not hesitate to call public attentlixi to major private decisions by either bu.slne.ss or labor that seriously overstep noninflatlonary price and wage standards.

It is the responsibility and the determined pujpase of the administration to do all it properly can to promote the right outcome.

Johnson tried to do some of . this promoting Monday in a speech to the United Automobile Workers Union in convention at Atlantic City, N. J. The AW will soon be in new cwitract negotiations with the automakers.

He warned against a price-wage spiral, but explained: This administration has not undertaken and will not undertake to fix prices and wages in this economy. We have no intention of Intervening in every labor dispute.

And while Johnson was talking in Atlantic City the chairman of his eccMiomic council. Walter Heller, was out in Detroit telling the Economic Club there: It would be less than prudent not to keep an eye cocked on the price - wage front."

Strength For Today

By EARI. L. DOIT.LASS 0B8CURE NAZARETH

Someone has said that genius hatches her offspring in strange places. One appreciates this as he sees the little 12x15 foot room which constituted the home of Jesus and the other members of his family for many years.

Michaelangelo was the son of a poor farmer. John Wesley was born and brought up in an obscure rectory at Epworth. England. Abraham Lincoln was born In a log cabin. The people 0 fhlgh social standing and great wealth have sometimes contributed leaders to the worlds life, but not often. Greatness more often comes out of a humble home than out of a palace. In our civilized and democratic countries, true worth has an opportunity to manifest Itself and reap its rewards. Even in backward countries.

people of ability wQ rise to tlie top if they render a service of which their fellow mea can avail themselves.

(ki some quiet larm, a deliverer of our nation, a preserver of all we hold dear, may now be laboring, in some tenement, the greatest poet or musician of the coming decades may now be striving to keep body and soul together The child dressed In cheap clothing who waves a flag and cries lustily as the President drives by may someday be President himself.

Origins mean little. If we have power, purpase Insight, and human affection we may go to greatness from a slum, from a cottage, from a village. a city, a, barren w'a.ste of farmland.

Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? It did.

The Daily Reflector

INCORPORATED

Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday kistablished 1882 DAVID JULIAN WHICHAKD, Publisher

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MEMBER ABBOCIATED PRESS The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to use for pubU-catlon eil news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited to this paper and also the local news publlibeo herein. AL rights of puMleatton of special dispatches hers are also reserved.

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All advertising copy must be received at least one day before iblicatloD data.

But the people of the state are entitled to more information than just being told that this recommendation or that recommendation has been approved spending a portion of this sum. They should be entitled to open access to the meetings of the commission in which various proposals are discussed. Th^y should be given information by the commission on its reasons for making whatever recommendations it decides to make to the governor.

It is to be expected that the people of North Carolina will have more than a passing interest in any public program in which they are investing more than a million dollars. It is to be expected too that special commissions connected with the expenditure of such funds would w^ant to make every effort to keep the people of the state* informed as to why their money is being spent in a specific manner.

The commission, in our opinion, would serve the purpose for which it was appointed much better if it adopts an open door policy on its considerations rather than making its decisions and then merely informing the public its money is being spent this way or that.

r

D

me FreDarea

And Unready

(Editors note: The following is the final in a scries of three articles discussing higher education in North Carolina, written by Dr. William C, Archie, director of the State Board of Higher Education, substituir Ing for William A. Shires.)

By WILLIAM C. ARCHIE Director, N. C. Board of Higher Education

At one university in our slate, every student meets Freshman English the basis of all his other learning bead on.

He hears weekly lectures in depth on various phases of lit-rature, frpm well known experts in the field. In a group and mainstreams of literature, and composition once a week. Instead of a third class period, he meets his English advisor alone, for a 20-30 minute analysis of his weekly paper.

By years end, this Freshman has at least glimpsed the peaks and mainstreams of literature, with the help of the department's best brains: he has exercised his own thoughts and communication skills In f r e e discussion and regular composition; and, in the stimulating friction of a continuing, one-to-one debate, he has sharpened his ideas, his work and his wits.

In another North Carol 1 n a coUege. the Freshman is lucky if he gets a nodding acquaintance with literature, or stretches his ideas and skills by more than a whit. With an Inarticulate crowd of 25-35, he meets the same professor three times every week. He sometimes hears one lecture and, if there is time, some discussicm of literature and composition. Because the faculty have found that their students cannot or will not write papers outside, he must spend his second period on composition in class.. But many cannot finish one paper in one period; hence, the third precious hour is too often used up the same w'ay

By exam time, this Freshman unless he is exceptional -- has done little, if any, independent thinking, had scant exposure to literature. What is much worse, he has gained little skill in his native language the basic tool without w'hich he can never become an articulate member of society.

. . .THE POOR GET

POORER For years, colleges all over the U. S. have deplored the poor preparation of most freshmen, especially in English. Too many colleges have been forced to give remedial English courses as a stop-gap.

The North Carolina English courses cited < and they are real) reveal only one facet of an all-permeating contrast in every area of strength. The tragic gap between the strtmg-est and weakest of our Institutions for higher learning is cwnpounded by irony and paradox: students who need least help go to the strongest, best-supported colleges; those students and colleges that need most help usually get the least.

FACULTIES Take faculties, for Instance. The number and kind of doctorates they hold (especially the Ph.D.) give one meaningful yardstick of their quality.

At our strongest public Institution, the teachers have four times as many, proportionately, as those of another college at the other end of the scale. Further, in thase Institutions with the better trained facul-les, learning conditions are Invariable better for both students and faculty.

STUDENTS In general, the best prepared students go to the strongest colleges, and vice versa.

This is bonie out in North Carolina over tl)e past three years by scores on the uniform college entrance test. The Scholastic Aptitude Te.st (Sat) has a possible range of 4(K) to 1600; nation-wide norm runs about 1000, (Its Important to remember that 400 is absolutely rock bottom; it means nothing more than the students signature on the test.)

How do our public colleges rank? They fall into three groups- at the top. three ha\e consistently .scored near or above the national norm: last fall, their combined average was 1050. Combined scores for the 15 senior Institutions have shown an over-all rise, with strongest gains In the middle group. Since 1961. tw-o colleges jumped their class average by nearly 1(X) points each. The bottom group has made the poorest gains. Their 1963 fi-esliruejo

classes scored about 600 over-all-accombined average 300 points below all the rest.

What do these figures mean? The SAT score cannot, of course, give a total picture of student ability; a combined measurement of verbal and mathematical skills, it aims to show the students progress in mastering these basic learning tools. Scores ranging from .550 to 650 fall about 400 points below- the national norm clearly not a promising basis for coping with college work.

^ It ha.s been pointed out and rightly that SAT's ver-bal-math score.s do not necessarily reflect scholastic aptitude, so much as cultural background. Obviously, many of our college freshmen are culturally deprived.

These ambitious students come from all areas and races of the State. Somehow breaking through walls of disadvantage, they deserve applause for aspiration and drive. They must be subjected to the frustration of being suddenly thmst into a book jungle, to compete with classmates several years ahead.

On the other hand, to continue neglecting the weak e r colleges where they can compete Is unkind and unprofitable, both to these aspirants and to the States economy.

It is sad enough that on the national scale, all our tax-supported southern colleges fall short. It is appalling that within our own State, the cmtrast between have and have-not colleges is so sharp. The plain fact is that, year after year, we have given too little support to all our colleges and by far the least to those that need the most. By all means, we must Invest even more heavily than we have up to now in our State University, and other leading Institutions on the educational frontier.

EXPENSIVE ECONOMY -But the most expensive way to run our higher educat i o n system is to maintain the travesty of under-investing in those at the bottom.

These are the colleges with the weakest faculties, the poorest libraries and the least money which take on the' heart - breaking job of trying to educate students W'ith two strikes against them at the start.

All our public colleges send our graduaes to teach future generations. And under the present system, many take with them the cultural poverty from which they came. Unless we take decisive steps to break the cycle, they will >pass It (HI.

The poverty In our midst b(gh cultural and economic is a bitter, tragic fact. It is a problem we must lick. It will take massive effort, but the results can be massively rewarding. By lifting the lower levels of a .society, we cant help but lift everj'one in it.

DIVERSITY AND EXPERIMENTATION - By upgrad-.Ing all from the ground up. we can greatly enrich the range of educational diversity. And to realize our goal of an appropriate education for every Tar Heel, it will take every kind of college we have.

The diverse character of our institutions public, private, church - related, large and small Is an essential ingredient in the pursuit of excellence: the best quality education each individual can use. For this reason, the importance of private colleges In the U.S.. cajinot be over - estimated. Their role as innovators in blending Christianity and culture, as pace - setters, as pioneers in imaginative experimentation, is indispensable. Inter - disciplinary programs for all. and special programs for the academically talented, are Increasingly common In our non-tax-s u p-ported institutdons.

Public colleges, too. are cutting bold new paths: our lead-tag educators realize that these guided years, more than ever before, must be not the end of education but the beginning of lifetime learning.

For one example, the "Suicide 50 top honors course at Chapel Hill for several years has dem<istrated the fruitfulness of giving special attention and responsibility to the most able student.s.

A brand-new instance Ls the just-approved, unique program Ashevllle-Biltmore College will start next fall. Offering both speed-up and an inter-(Continued on Page 5)

By ALVIN TAYLOR

Watchina In SDrinatime

Its springtime when a dozen or more observers gather around the old Jail to watch demolition underway.

Many a man would liked to have come through that roof, says one, as a giant crane drops a heavy weight to crack through the reinforc e d concrete ceiling.

He's not doing It right, says another, If hed knock that beam out the whole thing would go. The big crane raises the weight again and it crashes downwell away from the big beam.

That jail is more solid than the new (me will be, another comments. Plaster, cone rete and steel rods tumble to the floor.

Things are going so well, hes going to move over and bust down the courthouse when h finishes here, cackles another, Hie big weight comes down with all its force and a

little more of the old jail is gone forever,

Those wreckers really know w'hat they are doing, says another as a big hunk of ceiling falls the two stories to the floor.

Nearby the grass is a little greener. Tiny buds are on the trees. That very first faint touch of lazy spring is in the air.

ago who would w-ring a chickenor ducks neck without feeling one bit sorry for the fowl. We suppose we are just growing soft hearted.

Druggist Russell Cowan says he got a call from the lady the other night who had a duck with a broken leg. Seems the duck w as making a lot of noise and she wanted something that would put the fowl to sleep and quietly out of his misery.

Cowan says all he could suggest was a few drops of para-goric to ease the duck's agony and then seeing a veternarlan the next day.

It all caused us to wonder what happened to the sturdy Pitt Countians of a generation

Then there was the local man who called the phone company to complain that the phone bell was too loud and to ask that a repairman tone It down.

Isnt there an adjustment on the botton, the lady who to<A the call asked.

No, lady, the man replied. This is a pre-war phone. Pre-World War I.

Other Editors SayirxQ.

A Computer For Casey

(Richmond News Leader) The current issue of Sports. Illustrated carries a startling account of the researches of Eamshaw' Cook Into percentage baseball. Mr. Cook is a retired metallurgist, mathematician, and baseball fan, who now lives in Baltimore. This summer he will publish a book on his findings. It may rock the baseball world.

We gather that the book will be crammed with tables along this line:

CHANCES OF SCORING

OUTS.....0.....1... 2

At Bat .1589 .1140 .0684

Prom 1st .4276 .2871 .1391

From 2nd .5976 .4505 .2561

From 3rd .6972 .5355 .3153

From such a table, the astute manager may discover thiU the sacriftce bunt is an old wives tale. Mr. Coin's advice is unequivocal; Never sacrifice, he says. The chances of scoring from first with n(Hie out are .4276 and from second with one out .4505 an Improvement of only .0229, or about 2 per cent. Considering that the very worst batters find some way to get on base almost 25 per cent of the time, the out is w^asted.

Mr. Cook has some even more revolutionary advice about pitchers. His 750,000 calculations over the Past ten yeacs persuade him that It is madness to let the typical pitcher bat for himself. He would start a reliefer the mound and let him go the first couple of Innings, pulling him the

first time he is scheduled to bat. A starting pitcher then would replace him, and continue for perhaps five innings more; he would hit for himself only if his team were more than two runs ahead. Another reliefer would finish up.

We are bound to say that some of Mr. Cooks advice has a ring of absolute soundness. His scheme for pitchers might demand a larger mound staff than most clubs can carry, and its universal use would destroy one of the games greatest thrills the no - hitter. But the figures on sacrifice bunts appear unassailable.

What fascinates us most In all thks is the vision of Casey Stengel or Yogi Berra of Leo Durocher putting the Cook theories to work. There would have to be a digital computer in every dugout, and ma J o r league clubs would have to employ mathematicians as they now employ trainers. In any douWful situation, the pitcher would be flashed a signal to stall for a minute or so, hitching up his pants or pawing at the mound, while the manager ran through his book (rf equations. A run-of-the-mine infield-er would be traded off any day. with cash, for a good man from IBM.

We recall that the St. Louis Browns once hired a psychologist, to no discernible ava 11, the better to analyze their ailing batters. Maybe an expert In calculus would do better. But well still bet cm the Yankees, Its the percentage.

State Investigators are to be commended for cracking what they call a pig rustling ring. As for the method the rustlers usedgetting the pigs stupified on corn liquor to render them docile dont knock it till youve tried the haiA. Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser.

When a w-oman lowers her voice it is a sign she wants something. When she raises it, It is a sign she better get it.-Belleville (Kans.) Telescope,

i hey

Have

Ort Linkletter of TV fame has developed a fascinating portion of his program by interviewing kids.

The other day he was asking a group of children if they .recognized the names of famous persons. For Richard Nixon they might reply no; for Elizabeth Taylor, yes, and so on.

Well, one little youngster was asked to identify Barry Gold-water.

Barry, who? the kid replied.

Hmmmm. Must be from New Hampshire. Or maybe the child Is far advanced for his years . . .reflecting what his genera- tion might reply 20 years from now.

Opiniona

H Brief

The Chicago Daily News quotes teachers there as saying the assaults can be dated A.B. after the boycotts. They report tension and hate among their Negro pupils and and terror for their own safety. Its the same story in New York. Students have been fired by a spirit of resentment, rage and rebellion all the direct consequence of nonviolent holy wars In the streets. Montgomery (Ala.) Journal.

Fo Do I

By JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

Ckpyright, 1964, King Features Syndicate. Inc.

% When the marching and demonstrating are all done, and the Negro has been accorded the full protectcm of the Bill of Rights, what then? He will have to face up to the problem that is everybodys the old, old problem of wresting a living for himself in a world that still pays, its most deferential re^)ect to that ancient folk wisdom, the Lord helps those who help themselves.

In the current superheat e d climate of opinlixi, it is bard to get this Idea across without incurring the susplci<xi l CORE and other fighting Negro organ-izatl(ms that (me is a supporter of what is contemptuously dismissed as Uncle Tomlsm.* But this is an unjust conclusion, for I think the Negro ought to go all out to compel the trade uni(ms which persistently discriminate against him to open their doors to all comers.

Beyond this, the happiest thing that any Negro can do is to support the evidence th^ his particular ethnic group is Ju^ as capable of creative development as any (^her minority that has made a place for itself in the American world. In the rise of the Irish, a moneymaking Jospeh P. Kennedy had to come before a John F. Kennedy. Fortunately for the Negro's future beyond the civil rights watershed, some Negroes are proving the case for their creativity at the very moment.

I think, for one instance, of Mallie Robinson, the mother of Jackie Robinson, the epoch-making athlete who was chosen by that practical evangelist Branrh Rickey, to break the color line in major league baseball, Mallie Is a great woman. She Is currently engaged in promoting a centeimial celebration of the birth of Georgs Washington Carver, the Negro genius whose work with plants and oils created the strange new science that goes by the name of chemurgy. Carver was bom a slave in Missouri toward the end of the dvll War. Somehow he got an education and a degree of Master of Science. Without any millions to back his research, he learned how to turn peanuts into such things as plastics, synthet i c coffee, paper, and insultat In g materials. He devised formulas for making paving blocks out of cotton, breakfast foods out of the sweet potato, face-powders out of common clays. He made billions of dollars for other people, but nothing much for himself. Thomas A. Edison tried to hire him at a big salary, but George Washington Carver preferred to stick to his homemade laboratory in the South.

It might have been better if George Washlngt(Mi Carver had been more mercenary: he could have taken the fees offered to him and plowed them back Into productive businesses for his race. What the Negro needs today is more millionaires with a will to deploy their capital constructively. He needs men like S. B. Fuller, who was once a Chicago soap salesman. Thirty years ago Mr. Fuller had nothing save his energy, which he aw>lied to door to door marketing. Today he has nine cosmetic companies, which have an interracial personnel and interracial sales. Some 3,000 people do door to door selling for him, and of these 500 are white. Ironically, the clamor for further Integration of the Fuller companies comes from the whites. The Fuller Products Company recent 1 y bought a milll(i dollar building In Chicago which it plans to turn into a great modernized shopping center.

Mr. I^ller thinks It strange that Nei^oes will invest money in church property but not generally in businesses. He points out that Negro purchasing power adds up to some twenty billion dollars a year. Rightly directed, this could' create a capital of a couple of billion dollars for Negro businesses. This wouldn't be Black Mus-llnlsm, for, like Mr. Fuller, the new Negro commercial enterprises could also hire white people and sell to white people.

Coming back to Mallie Robinson and her George Washing-(Continued on Page 5)

The Boom Can Be Turned Of::

By ELMER ROESSNER

The Federal Reserve can turn off the present boom even more easily than the Johnson Administration turned It on with the tax cut.

It can do this by increasing the discount rate, the rate which banks pay in lx>n'owing money from the Federal Reserve, This rate affects almost even,' other interest rate.

Currently, the rate is 34 per cent. If the rate were advanced to 4 per cent, banks would have to Increase their rates to borrowers and soon all other lending agencies would Increase rates. The rates on mortgages would Increase; the rates at which corporations could get money by selling bonds as well as by borrowing would increase. WHAT WOLXD HAPPEN THEN

If the discount rate were Increased, corporations would take a new look at plan.s for expansion. General Motn-s mU;ht decide to slow dou-n its $2 billion capital spending program scheduled over the next two yesau

If rates on mortgages went up. many families would postpone buying homes. If rates on instalments w'ent up, many customers would lessen or postpone credit buying. And if rates of hite rest paid on savings rose, many people would spend less and save more.

The b(x)m would be slowed down or. if the discount rate went up far enough, it would be over.

If We were having a rollicking boom and more people W'ere at work, even if prices and wagCvS went shooting up, the Federal Reserve wouldnt Increase discount rates, would it?

Dont be t sure. CLEAR-CUT WARNING

On January 22, William Mc-(Thesney Martin. Jr.. chairman of the Federal Reserve Bbard. said;

If a tax cut produces the boom which some of its backers claim for it, if we have a remarkable upsurge in the growth of the economy, and with it a truly substantial increase in the demand for cred

it, thus presenting the possibility of inflation, I would say yes. interest rates could rise.

Some people may find that frightening. With the country moving into one of the greatest booms in history, with unemployment shrinking, with wages and profits rising, isnt it .searey to think that a small group of men can stop It all? Even if prices are soaring, cant such action be dangerous?

In truth, the power of the Federal Reserv'e should be comforting, not unnerv'ing.

The possibility that the tax-cut boom can turn into roaring Inflation is small and remote. Nevertheless, it is real. But this possibility can be checked by an Increase in the discount rate.

It would take w'eeks for Congress to assemble and enact laws to halt nin-away inflation. But the Fed could do It In a matter of hours.

A British pound no longer can be exchanged for s 11 v er coins. Coins are made of an alloy. This, too, may come to pass here.

The price of silver Is now $1.29 an ounce and, if It rises much more, the silver in a dollar may be worth more than 1(X) cents. As that point approaches, the U.S. government will have to replace silver coins with a cheaper alloy, and once more the money and the faith of the U.S. will be debased.

Sn.VER COINS MAY JOIN GOLD EAGLES OF THE PAST

NEW HAMPSHIRE PROFITS DOlBLE ON SWEEP. STAKES The legal sweepstakes in New Hampshire, approved by voters in the recent primar-iea, yields double gain* to the state. R gets a cut out of every dollar spent for tickets. And, since it is illegal to mall tickets, out - of - states who want them may have to travel to New Hampshire to get them, spending m(ey In New Hampehlre hotels, motels, res-tauraota^ad