4The Dally Reflector, Greenville, N. C.

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U.S. Serious On Withdrawal

There can no longer be any doubt that the United States is serious about withdrawing most of its troops from Vietnam. ^

'President Nixon announced in a nationwide address Monday night that another 50,000 troops will be pulled out by April 15. It is the thfrd withdrawal since Nixon took office and if it is completed on schedule the American troop level in Vietnam will have dropped by 110,000. There will be 432,500 U. S. troops there by April 15.

The president recognized that unusual activity by the enemya winter offensive, perhapscould upset the schedule for peace withdrawals. He warned North Vietnam that he will take strong and effective action if he finds that increased enemy action jeopardizes our remaining forces in Vietnam.

There is apparently some risk of this because the president reported, Enemy infiltration has increased substantially. It has not yet reached the point where our military leaders believe the enemy has developed the capability to mount a major offensive, but We are watching the situation closely

Shortages Due Inventory Tax

ItvWII.I.IAM A.SIIIUKS

KAI.KKiM - A record Christ mils buying season is at its heiuhl across North Carolina these days. But late shoppers and after-Christmas bar^iain hunters may find thing's pretty scarce for a while.

As store shelves and counters, showrooms and warehouses are cleared they are not Ix'inn replenished and won't be. At least not immediately.

Also, not alj of the joods and stock lH*ing removed from retail trade-Iiterally bt'iiifi moved-will find their way to Santa's sack or household pantries for the holidays.

Much of ii, non-peri sha bles and slow selling item.s. will wind up in a warehouse or for sale in another state.

Inventory It will be mid or late January before an abundance of goods reap-jK'ars.

WILLIAM

SHIRES

Stocky rooms and display counfers in many cases will remain relatively bare and business will be slow both in retailing and manufacturing.

This condition traditionally exists until after the deadline for listing tangible property, goods and raw materials, for inventory tax purposes.

Under North Carolina's revenue laws, local lax jurisdictionsthe counties levy an inventory tax at ad valorem property tax rates, and realize some $15 million a year from it.

Reduce When this January deadline approaches many merchants and manufacturers try to cut their inventory as low as possible. The idea of course is to avoid insofar as possible the tax which has been called a deterrent both to business and industrial growth.

In one town last week the manager of a small drive-in market was removing large amounts of non-perishables, canned goods, soap powder, lotions and the like from his shelves and packing it in

cartons for shipment.

Kxcept for the*^ most popular sellers, he was leaving only a couple of cans and boxes of each product.

"We've been advised to cut out inventory by 25 to 30 per cent. " he said. "Were a small. independent o|K*ration. If we re stuck with a big inventory it (the tax) will eat up all the margin we've made."

On Raleigh's Downtown Boulevard. a large automovile transport truck which could haul a dozen new cars moved into a dealers lot with only one new car aboard.

Resist ~ For years there have been pleas from busine.ss and industry and ffdhi the states industry hunters of the Commerce and Industry division for repeal of the inventory ta.x.

But the pleas have fallen on deaf ears in the legislature Ix'cause of opposition from the policially-powerfull N.C. Assn. of County Commissioners. The argument has been that unless an alternative source of revenue is provided, such a tax is necessary to maintain local governments on an even financial keel.

Study The 1968 state Tax Study Commission delivered an "indictment " of the property tax as a whole and coupled this with a recommendation that more than one new sources of revenue be made available to local governments.

It recognized that if "property taxes become much higher, the pace, of economic growth, including industrial development will be retarded."

This commission pointed to "complexities" in the property tax structure, difficulties in administration on a fair and equitable bases. It said the property tax does not "even approximately reflect ability to pay because it is levied at the same rates on income-producing and non-income producing property.

It said relatively few types of property have a readily determinable market value. Inventories of merchandise for sale do have a reasonably precise market value, as does money and slock in corporations.

More careful study is needed, it said, and the 1969 General Assembly agreed.

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to see whether it could develop to that extent.

In his talk the president war^ that he was allowing sufficient time in the new withdrawals so that he would have the flexil^ility to assess and adjust to any Communist offensive and still meet his deadline.

So it is clear now that American policy calls for steadily disengaging from Vietnam. It is a policy that began with the halting of the bombing of the north before Johnson left office and it would take a major change in the war, or something that drastically changed American public opinion, to reverse this trend.

At the same time the gradual withdrawal is a tricky job. At all cost American troops who are still left in Vietnam must be protected from being overwhelmed by enemy forces. Hopefully the original objectives of our intervention will be carried out; that is to leave South Vietnam in a strong enough position to protect itself from being swallowed up by the communist.

Only time will tell how successful we will be in these carefully planned moves. But there is no question that the Vietnam war is gradually coming to an end for American fighting men.

Full-Time Legislator Appears A Certainty

Lt. Gov. Pat Taylor has said the state must begin thinking about a unicameral legislature and election of fulltime legislators if North Carolina is to handle the urbanization problem coming its way in the near future.

It seems to us almost a sure thing that Legislators will receive full time salaries and devote most of their time to their duties in the future. This will mean greatly increased staffs and far greater cost of government.

We would think a while before approving of a one-house Legislature, however, since in the bicameral system one house acts as a check on the other. We can agree with the lieutenant governor, though, that vast changes will come soon in our Legislative system and the planning must begin now.

Pacification Is Vital Factor

.. 'i'' -i f'; J

By RDWI.ANDEVAN.Sand ROBERT NOVAK

WASHINGTON-The most revealing evidence of President Nixon's backstage battle against over-optimism on the Vietnam war is a confidential order just sent to Saigon for a province-by-province evaluation of the U.S. pacification program.

The source of that order: Dr. Henry Kissinger, national security adviser in the White House. Moreover. Kissingers National security Council staff has assembled experts from the State and Defense Departments to go to Vietnam and help with the evaluation.

Council staff has assembled i*xperts from the State and Defense Departments to go to Vietnam and help with the evaluation.

This unannounced survey indicates that despite the Presidents announcement Monday night of another major J. S. troop withdrawal (at 50,000, the laigest yet) both the P'esident and Kissinger are wary about getting lulled into false optimism by exaggerated reports from the field.

In short, the White House is .seeking to maintain a healthy skepticism about progress in the interlocking programs of pacification (an essentially political program to free hamlets and villages of Communist influence) and Vietnamization (an essentially military program of South Vietnamese troops replacing Americans).

What is known inside the White House as the Rostow syndrome haunts the Presidents top advisers.

That syndrome, which permeated the Lyndon John.son White House during Walt Whitman Rostows tenure in Kissingers present job, was built on a seemingly endless series of charts and graphs ordered by Rostow to prove that the U.S. was winning the war.

But beyond their fears of infection by the Rostwo syndrome, White House security aides are more restrained about Vietnamization (the process of turning the war over to the South Vietnamese) than the programs author. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. They believe the pacification program is absolutely es.sential to Vietnamization. Thus, if the Kissinger - ordered evaluation produces bad news about pacification, Kissinger might try to reduce the speed of future U.S. troop withdrawals below Lairds contemplated pace.

Nearly all confidential reports now coming into the White House from civilian pacification experts contain good news. Moreover, Mr. Nixon received a highly optimistic appraisal from Sir Robert Thompson, the famed guerrilla warfare expert who pacified Malaya for the Briti.sh, when he stopped in and saw the Presicient on Dec. 3. Thompsons estimate that the U.S. had at least a 50-50 chance today of expelling Communist influence from the countryside fits in with confidential findings.

Local elections of hamlet chiefs, a good indicator of government control, have increased in one of the four (Continued On Page 5)

t

Strength For Today

SPIRITUAL POWER

The grace of God means the graciousness of God. This graciousness is not just an attitude which God maintains toward his creation. The grace of God is a spiritual power continuously at work on the world and its inhabitants if we wouid have it so. Into the midst of this busy world of ours, humming with activity, a subtle, persistent and overwhelming power is at work. This power is the grace of God. If we allow ourselves to be guided and controlled by this power then we are sure that come what may our lives will be significant and in the highest sense of the term, successful.

This does not mean that we have to be ultra-pious, sanctimonious, always thinking and

A Visit From Saint Mixonlas

By JAMES J. KILPATRICK

Parole Is Offered South

By a vote of 208 to 203, the House last week offered a guilty South a chance to get out of jail on parole. If the Senate goes along, by approving the administrations version of a new voting rights law, it will be up to Southerners to show the country they have cut out the unfunny business.

The vote came after a bitter debate on the liberals proposal generally to extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As the law now stands, the South might be released in 1970 on a plea of good behavior; the liberals would deny parole and extend the

prison term to 1975. This is what the fight is all about.

Fashioned as a weapon against racial discrimination, the 1965 act combined rifle and blunderbuss. It was good law and bad law wrapped in a curious package. In the pragmatic view, which is the view of Congressman William Mc-Culloch of Ohio, it was the most effective civil rights act in history." In the constitutional view, which is the view of Congressman Walter Flowers of Alabama, it was one of the most discriminatory and prejudicial laws ever enacted

Public Forum

TO THE EDITOR

We read, with great concern, your Sunday edition, front page report, on the plight of the current United Fund Campaign.

I have been concerned about the poor showing of Greenville and the County in general over the past six years when it comes to supporting the many Agencies of service so vital to a good community. Do the folks who hide from this solicitation each year think that there are substitutes for such services as the Blood-mobile of the Red Cross, or the help to needy families of the Salvation Army, or the Pitt County Association for the Blind or the Pitt County Mental Health Association? Are there really good substitutes for the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts or the services to our sons or family in Vietnam such as the U.S.O. provides? Our taxeshigh as they may

beare not giving the assist to your fellow-man that these Agencies provide. Ask some of the Gulf Coast people how valuable and necessary was the help they got from the Salvation Army and Red Cross in the hurricane earlier this year. I hope we do not have to have the same type disaster to prove to our Pitt Countians that it is vital to keep these Agencies in business.

Due to a lack of enough workers you may not have been contacted this year by the Pitt County United Fund and you may want to give. Please call Mr. Joe Tripp, United Fund Executive Director, at 758-1604 and he will see that your gift is picked up. Or mail your check to Pitt County United Fund, P.O. Box 298, Greenville, North Carolina.

Sincerely,

Jack Bircher

in the halls of Congress. I will buy both those opinions.

May I speak as a Southerner to these matters? The Fifteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution in 1870. It was short and to the point. One section prohibited denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race. A second section gave Congress power to enforce the amendment by appropriate legislation.

Southerners are supposed to be great constitutionalists. Any child could interpret that amendment. Yet for nearly 100 years, from 1870 to 1965, the South persistently, pervasively, and hypocritically violated this part of the Constitution. We of the South were guilty as sin. and the 1965 act was a justified verdict against us.

As such, the act was a punitive act. The trouble was (and this was one of the blunderbuss features) that the statute was clumsily geared to its own obsolescence, and, second, that the act trampled vindictively upon ancient principles of our law. Key provisions of the act were triggered by the low vote cast in the South in 1964; to extend these provisions and inferences to 1975, which is part of the liberals proposal, is absurd. And to extend the part of the law that compels the seven affected States to come to Washington, hat in hand, whenever they wish to make the slightest change in their voting laws, is a degrading assault upon the federal structure.

The liberals position, sad to say, rests on a solid foundation of demonstrated

(Continued On Page 5)

Broken

Gift To A Bride

By JEFFREY D. ALDERMAN Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) - The giant casserole dish was only three months old, and my wife had often said it was one of her favorite wedding presents both for sentimental and dec()rative reasons. The girls in her office had all chipped in to buy it.

We were married in September and just recently moved into our new apartment. I was budding some shelves in the kitchen and pul the casserole on an end table to gel it out of the way.

I also moved a lamp out of the way. Reconstructing the diasas-tcr later, I figured that the lamp cord got wedged uiider a leg of the end table. When I went to replace the lampCRASH!

1 fell the tug of the cord and turned just in lime to see that sacred dish fallbut not in time to do anything about it.

My wife had left for work. Should I hide it and hope she wouldnt notice? No, shed be sure to mi.ss it.

Maybe I could wedge all the pieces back together, then the next time she picked it up, she would think she had broken it. No. Id never gel away with that. Id just have to face up to it.

1 picked up the pieces, left a note telling her what happened and went to work myself.

I entered our apartment that night with head bowed. My wife was in the kitchen.

Sorry about the casserole dish. Ill..."

Dont say another thing, Joanne interrupted. It could have been me just as well as you Well have to replace it, of course.

"Of course, I said, immensely relieved. "Thanks for being so nice.

The next day she had to work and it was my day off. Still fed-ing guilty, I decided that maybe I could salvage the dish by gluing it together. So I got out the cement and tried. Perfect, I thought. I put it on a shelf where my wife would be sure to see it.

Joanne arrived carrying a package.

"What have you got in the package. I asked.

"I bought a new... she paused. I bought a new... er, ah,...dress.

"Oh, I said. Lets see what it looks like. Later, dear, she said, putting the package in the hall closet. Later.

Then, looking at the mended casserole dish, she exclaimed lovingly:

Darling, you replaced the casserole dish for me!

Well, I didnt... I started. What a sweetheart, she glowed. I didnt expect you to run right out and buy another. By this time Joanne was at the shelf admiring the thing.

Dont pick it up, the

glues...

My cry came too late. The

casserole was, .before, ir

pieces on the floor. The onlj

difference was that the pieces were sticky and dribbling (xi the rug.

At first she thought she hac broken a second casserole, but then she saw the glue and begar laughing uncontrollably.

You see, in that package ir the hall closet, was a brand-ne\( casserole, purchased or Joannes lunch hour.

Recent Books For Executives

talking about religious matters. It means that we have to resign ourselves to a spiritual power which is abroad in the world, even the grace (graciousness) of God. Our physical lives are under the continual control of certain powers. One of These powers is gravity, Another is the desire to live and make something out of ones life. Still another is that curiosity which leads us to dig into the future and try to bring its secrets to bear on everything we do.

And if we have a right view of life then we are conscious of the fact that day by day an unseen, divine power is guiding us. This is the grace (graciousness) of God. The life that is not responding to the grace of God is the life without purpose, direction, and real achievement.

By Earl L. Douglass

By ELMER ROESSNER This season is seeing the usual plethora of books for the businessman such as How to Make a Million in Wall Street, How to Make $2 Million in Wall Street, How to Cut Your Losses in Wall Street and so on.

But this year there are

ELMER

RESSNER

three books that, though they do not tell how to get ahead in business, may be a delight and a use for the executive who is more interested in the world about him than in football scores. ^

The first has the frightening title, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1969, published by the Department of Commerce. It consists of 915 pages of

govermental statistics on business and things relating to business, plus notes and appendices.

With this book an executive can whip up a speech on cotton production in the last decade, the number of persons in the teens in 1970 or, as I often do, create the impression of total knowledge by tossing off in conversation or in my column such remarks as, The United States Produced 2,051,000 long tons of bauxite in 1967. Seriously, it has a wealth of statistics useful in charting markets, planning advertising campaigns, or finding where one fits in the entire economy. Its $5.75 from the Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. 20402.

^Words, Words, Words The second book has lessor perhaps morereference to business than the former, depending,on how you look at it. It is "The New American

Heritage Dictionary of the American Language.

It is the latest important dictionary and probably the best. It has all the new words, up to publication date, and many of the old words that were thought to be too gritty for earlier dictionaries. Best of all, it is written in a style that tells it like it is, without pomposity and an apparently sincere desire to inform. It eliminates confusing symbols and abbreviations, and indicates the level of usage of words.

Its consultants included more than 100 literate men, including Bill Vaughan, Hodding Carter. Bruce Catton, Theodore Bernstein and Vermont Royster, who opined, There is no noticeable difference between being hanged and

gung.

V

This army of arbiters was recruited, innoculated and debriefed by William Morris, semanticist, who was editor-

in-chief. Words are the ba (page 99) of this broth (not ii in that sense) of a fellow, co^t $4 million to produc consists of 1,550 pages, and $12.50 at all book stores.

If Its Tuesday

The third book is T1 International Atlas, b Rand McNally, a great bo< for finding where you ha> been, where your wife is, ( where to send a salesman ar it is in English, Germai Spanish and French.

Its another atlas, but^wi! more maps, more indexin and more place names tha Ive seen in any singl volume. Its an atlas in whic the Brisish Empire is r longer pink. Boundarie arent shown by old-fashione color blpcks; instead th colors are used to indical topography. Type is clai indexing accurate, and sqm of the most improbabl places are listed in its 5f pages. Its $29.95 at mo boolnilores.