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4The Dally Reflector, Greenville. N. C.Wednesday, April 22.17

Responsibility Of Individual

Today Earth Day is being observed on the nations college campuses and in high schools. It is symbolic of an awareness that has spread throughout the nation of an environmental threat to life itself on our globe.

Already the emphasis is on reducing the amount of air and water pollution and the huge mountains of trash which are destroying our environment.

Laws are being passed to require industries to control the emissions into the air and water which in some highly populated areas have already destroyed streams and lakes and polluted the air.

The automobile is recognized as one of the major polluteres in heavily populated areas and the law will soon require even more stringent controls of exhaust fumes.

While we might all be in accord with the laws which require industries to control their oollution. every individual citizens should also recognize that he, too, has to make changes in his way of living if we are to preserve our environment.

All of us have a committment to see that our streets, highways, public parks and places and even our own property is kept clean and orderly. This means that we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of throwing out paper and bottles and cans along the highways and streets. It means that trash cannot be thrown on the ground in parks and public areas.

We are also going to find ourselves paying the price of cleaner air. Autos with exhaust controls are going to cost more and each of us will have a

Impressions In

The Albemarle

Todays guest column was written by Loyal Phillips, Manager of The Sunday Advance, Elizabeth City, N.C.)

By LOYAL PHILLIPS A couple of years ago when I moved here I knew only two things about Albemarle.

My early history books brought me the story of Virginia Dare and The Lost Colony. On several Miami to Boston cruises I learned firsthand why Hatteras is Called The Graveyard of the Atlantic.

I did not know about the beautiful blue Sound and its many scenic and functional inlets. It was news to me to find that scientific cultivation of a million rich flat acres has made this one of the worlds best agricultural areas. Large, well-kept farm houses surrounded by ultra modern agricultural machinery reflect a fusion of 19th Century customs with the automation of the 1970s.

In many respects each geographical section is different. However, we can truthfully say that the Albemarle is unique. Historically rich Edenton, conservative and colloquial Perquimans: quaint but

noisey Pasquotank and tourist-oriented Dare complete a kaleidoscope of varied communities and customs.

My glance at twilight down Elizabeth Citys narrow Poindexter Street with its antiquated buildings gave me a false impression. Instead of being a depressed area, Poindexter s good shops are well-patronized by customers who arrive in Cadillacs or Continentals, as well as by Shanks Mare from Southern and Roanoke Streets.

One of the pleasant surprises for the newcomer is provided by the areas restaurants. From Edenton to Hatteras, it is easy to find wholesome, tasty food, diversified menus and extremely low prices. Another never-to-be forgotten surprise is the amazingly warm ocean water is September on the Dare beaches. Its difficult to realize that September swimming is more comfortable at Nags Head

than at Jacksonville, Fla., 600 miles to the south.

Other interesting first impressions of unique customs are these: Girls in their late teens shopping barefoot in downtown department stores. Waitresses wearing starched, neat whites always with a smile and an alert customer interest up to closing time! Mature waitresses addressing top executive and community leaders by their first names. Courteous well-poised policemen who speak pleasantly to strangers on the street.

The most law-abiding Negro community, with fewer Saturday night stab-bings and bar-brawls; th so called cotton-field dialect has all but disappeared in this are.

In view of the apparent good feelings between the races it was a big surprise to find here an active Klan composed in part at least by stable and affluent old settlers with long records of compliance with our laws and conventions.

Just one unpleasant first impression lingers with this newcomer. I refer to the existing complacency regarding the low living standards of the area.

Not enough people seem to be genuinely concerned about better highways, better vocational schools or better jobs for our people.

Opinions In Brief

Some of the officials responsible for enforcement of law have seemed overpreoccupied in recent years with concern for the rights of defendants in criminal procedures, as related to the rights of those injured or suffering property damage from the action of the criminal. Fort Stockton (Tex.) Pioneer

The strongest m^n on earth is he who stands most alone. Henrick Ibsen.

The Daily Reflector

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committment to keep the devices in woridng order. The high powered car, that currently has so much appeal, may be on the way out since the pollution potential is more. It may be that in heavily populated areas use of public transportation wiO be necessary to cut down on the number of autos entering the cities.

Cleaning up the environment is not somebody elses job. It doesnt belong exclusively to" government or industry. All of us are guilty and all are responsible for seeing that the sources of pollution are eliminated.

Regional Planning Is The Logical Answer

Multi - county regional planning areas for t^ state will be announced soon, according to G. Irvin Aldridge, director of the state Department of Local Affairs.

If we are to create life - enhancing surroundings in both the cities and the suburbs, the first requirement is the power to plan and implement programs which encompass the total problems of the metropolitan regions, he said.

Certainly there must be planning if North Carolina is to avoid the problems which have beset other highly populated areas. Too, often the needed planning cannot be done by individual municipalities or even by individual counties. Thus there is a need for logical regions to plan for industrial development, creation areas, highwaj^ and general devel(^ment which will best benefit the people, who live there.

The sooner such planning as this gets underway the better it will be.

Uprooting The

VC Chieftains

By ROWLAND EVANS and ROBERT NOVAK BEN LUC DISTRICT, Long An Province, South VietnamThe only way this interminable war can be truly ended is by the constant repetitim of a small but immensely meaningful episode that took place one recent afternoon in Ben Luc district, an erstwhile hotbed of Communist insurgency.

Acting on an informants tip, national police cornered Vietcong querrillas in two concrete bunkers built into the dike of a rice field. Coming to the polices help, two Popular Force platoons assigned to the district surrounded the bunkers.

,After a brief fight, the Vietcongthree men and three womencrawled out to surrender.

The women were unarmed, terribly afraid, and later said they had been forced to become Vietcong nurses. The men were armed to the teeth, clothed, and much the worse for the wear after being pummeled by police. Unimi^essive thou^ they lo(*ed, their capture sent Col. Tu, the province chief, roaring down the road to Ben Luc district to cwiduct the interrogation.

The police knew they had big game when they noticed their prisoners wearing K-47 Chinese pistols, status symbol of the Asian Red bigshot. The suspicion: the men were members of what Americans call the Vietcong infrastructure (VCDthe Communist government running the war in the countryside. Interrogation confirmed that all three were in the VCI, one of them finance and economy chief for sub-region III.

What makes captures of this kind so important is that the VCI, far more than the fighting guerrillas, constitutes * the heart of the Communist insurgency. Even though erstwhile Vietcong strongholds such as Long An province are now physically controlled by the Saigon government, true pacification is impossible while the VCI survives.

Thats why the fact that Communist combat forces

have been pushed out of most South Vietnamese populated areas does not really mean the country is pacified. Tlie VCI has just gone underground to await better days, perhaps after all the U.S. troops are gone. In that sense. South Vietnam will always be at war until the VCI is eliminated.

Herein lies a basic reason for residual pessimism in Vietnam despite incessant setbacks suffered by the Vietcong guerrillas. By any objective standard, the rooting out of the VCI (called the Phoenix program by the U.S.) is going badly. Although the VC gnerrillas are cut to shreds, the VCI in large part endures.

Figures for Long An ^ province indicate that the capture of three VCI in Ben Luc district which we xrit-nessed is all too rare. While 629 VCI in this province are listed as killed or imprisoned. South Vietnamese intelligence has the names of 839 still at large and contends the true figure may be 154 (althou^ U.S. officials feel that estimate is ridiculously inflated).

Actually, nobody knows that much about VCI. Picking them off is like shooting a moving target while bhnd-folded. From the intefligence raster of Long An province VCI, we picked one name at random: Phan Van Be. provincial party secretary. We were informed he has not been sighted since Feb. 3, 1969.

Where is he now? Peihaps over the border in Cambodia with other Communist brass Perhaps underground but inactive. Perhaps just quit

A major reason why the whereabouts of Phan Van Be and thousands of other VCI remains a mystery is the apathy and fear of the South Vietnamese villager. Even though the once substantial support for the Vietcong has all but disappeared, the villager is not about to finger VCI for a Saigon government he doesnt care for all that much and at the risk of deathly reprisal from the Vietcong.

For this reason. VCI in Hau (Gtxitinued on Page 10)

Strength For Today

Hurricanes and Termites

A hurricane can quickly destroy a house; and so can termites. Little by little these insidious insects can eat the , substance out of a dwelling until at last the beams become as.ashes and the house finally plunges into ruin.

Character is sometimes destroyed by the hurricane of great events. Disappointment, financial loss, gross injustice, diease sweep down upon people and utterly destroy eveiVthing they are and have. But people ar destroyed by the hurricane (rf events storms. More often than not, people lose their moral character gradually, unconsicously, over a long period of time, with some evil

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g tfm I. A.

Hermit

Career

Calling

... SALT TAI.KS ...

... PEPPER ACTIONS ...

By ART BUCHWALD

Turning To Ralph Nader

In the beginning God created Man. which according to all the latest birth cootroi statistics was a big mistake And Man said. Let there be lighL and there was light, and Man called this light fire. and at first it was used to warm him and let him cook his food and protect him from the wild animals. But Man discovered fire could be used to burn down a foiest or bwn someone elses hut or tree house or a witch at jtake or soft coal or oil, which made the air tim dark gray and black. And this made Man start to cough and his eyes to ' rim and his sinuses to hurt. And Man finally said, (iod, what are you doing to me? And after made the rivers and lakes and streams and oceans. Man dumped all the refuse from the earth into

the waters and it killed the fish and the plants and even the oxygen, and the waters turned muddy and brown and smelled, and no one could drink from them or bathe in them, or even sail in them. And finally Man shook his fist at the heavens and said, For Gods sake, knock it off. And Man created the wheel, and this was good because Man no longer had to walk through the forests or up and down the mountains or to school. And then Man created the engine which turned the wheels, and Man no longer had to depend on animals to pull him on the roads and paths. And Man called the new creature automobile, and it changed the face of the earth, for Man was forced to cut down the trees and flowers and pour concrete on the land to accommodate the

automobile, and drill into the earth and the sea to fuel it. and sometimes the ocean turned black and the air turned brown, and as the automobile multiplied there was less space to park it, and it was unable to move any faster than a horse, and Man behind the wheel screamed. Good God. am I ever going to get home?

And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the

ART

BUCHWALD

Public Forum

Tothe EdiUr:

Endosed is a copy of the pobcy of Pitt Technical Institute. adopted by the administration on March It. 190. concerning visits of candidates for political office to our campus and buildings.

Political candidates may visit Pitt Technical Institute under the following conditions:

1. That no class be visited or other activity allowed which would disrupt the normal operation of the Institution; 2- That it is understood that any governmental candidate win be allowed the same privilege;

3. That a visit in no way explicitly or inqilicitly indicates that the Board of Trustees or the employees of this In-stitme endorse the candidate for office.

If there has been any violation of this policy by any candidate, it has been without the knowledge or permission of the administration.

We are sure that any deviation from this policy by any candidate was unintended and a result of misunderstanding.

In regard to a staff member talking to classes, I feel that it is the responsibility and duty of the chief administrative officer of an institution to inform all its students about issues of great significance to the institution and to them as individuals.

Thank you for your consideration of these policies and comments. If we can be of further service to you in any way, please let us know.

Sincerely,

William E. Fulford, Jr.

President

cellophane wrapper and the paper plate and the disposable bottle, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy his fo(xl all in one place and he could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use. And pretty soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles, and there was nowhere left to sit down or to walk. And Man shook his head and cried, Look at all this God-awful litter.

And Man learned to split the atom and then he took what he learned and he put it in a bomb to defend himself from other men, and he set off the bomb to see if it would work, and it did. And Man was very pleased with himself because he was safe from other men and this was good. But other men learned to split the atom, too, and they put it in their bombs and Continued on Page 10)

By HAL BOYLE

NEW YORK (AP) Oh, when daffodils wave their golden banners and tulips lift their colorful cups to catch the sunshine and the rain, I get the feeling Id like to be a hermit.

What a nice occupation that would be-at least during spring and summer. A hermit can get away from it all by being with it.

My idea is to be a sociable hermit not an unsociable one, to welcome all mankind but still keep it at arms length.

I dont want to be a cave-dwelling hermit, because caves have an average year-round temperature of about 56 degrees, a mite chilly for antique bones. I want to be a hut-dwelling hermit and inhabit a comfortable stone hut in the shelter of vast trees by the side of a river on whose . surface nothing would be allowed larger than a canoe.

The hut would contain a large meditation chamber, an open window, a perch for a singing bird,a mat by the fireplace for a hound dog to lie on, five bathrooms and three vice presidents.

Naturally a hermit has to lead an orderly life or else hed go to pot like ordinary people do.

The way Ive tentatively planned my schedule is this: Monday, Wednesday and Friday, available for public view and private consultation; Tuesday and Thursday, exercise days to be spent throwing rocks at my vice presidents; Saturday and Sunday, dedicated to deep thinking and watching fingernails grow.

Since it costs money to be a hermit, as it does to be anything else, Ive decided to share my wisdomat a price. Small questions asked by private individuals will be answered three for a quarter. Larger questions will be responded to at a flat rate of four bits each, paid in advance.

Large corporations, such as the Ford Foundation, will be charged a consultation fee of a million dollars a year, plus a $500,000 further fee for any idea suggested to it, whether accepted or rejected. I would limit myself, in any case, to no more than seven ideas a ^ear.

At first I thought I would exclude the public from my weekend brooding sessions, but on second thought I decided that would be unfair to the tourists. So Ill let them in but erect a cautionary sign: Youre welcome to cirop dollar bills in the wishing well, but, please, no coins. Their sound distracts the hermit.

When winter threatens 111 also put out a sign saying Hermit in hibernationdo not disturb. TTien Ill put my three vice [H'esidents on public welfare, sneak out alone on some dark night and follow the sound of honking geese flying south.

Im sure that in Miami Beach nobody would bother a hermit incognito tanning himself on the beach and letting the sands of time slip through his happy fingers.

^AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY

Business Is Changing Tactics

or a number of e\ik eating away the hearts and the moral life until everything crashes into ruin. Amnusity and hate, cherished over the years, will do this. Covetousness, which rob the soul of all its spiritual values, is another of these insidiaus and devastating evils. We know that millions of people in this country gradually drink themselves into moral ruin, becoming what is termed today alcoholics.

By ELMER ROESSNER . Consumerism isnt just going to fade away. Business, government agencies and pohtidans are beginning to realize that its here to stay, and theres a surge of attempts to cash in on it In this falls elections, there wiD be precious few candidates who do not declare in favor of consumerism as well as motherhood. The Federal

ELMER

ROESSNER

Termites can destroy a building as effectively as can a hurricane. The long -cherished, long - practiced evils honeycomb the life until at la^ there is nothing to support it in dignity.

By Earl L. Dswghw

Trade Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and other government agencies are stepping up campaigns to protect the consumer. The Prcsideiit has a consumer advisor, Virgima Knauer.

Congress.is considering scares of bills to increase consumer protection and Sen.

Warren G. Magnuson, D-Wash., has emerged as a consumers champion.

States and cities are creating or strengthening their consumer agencies. State attorneys general or their equivalents around the country are dusting off some almost forgotten laws and are asking state legislators for new laws and fresh money.

Ralph Nader, who a few years ago would have been considered harmless crank, is now a national hero.

Consumers Union reports that its magazine, Consumer Reports, has jumped in circulation from 958,000 in 1966 to 1,775,00S' today.

Everybody Into The Act

And in every city, village and town, womens clubs, parents organizations, civic clubs and almost every other type of organization with the exception of the Mafia are organizing, investigating, resolving and sometimes screaming for more laws.

more protections and boycotts of suspected cheats.

Whatever the cause, sunspots, the population explosion or contagious unrest sweeping the world, consumerism seems here to stay.

A remarkable change in business attitudes is oc-curing. When consumerism first raised its shaggy head, many businessmen took the attitude of the two hillbillies in the old story. They were dozing in the back of the store. One said, Zeke, theres somebody out there in the store. The other replied, Keep quiet, Hiram, and maybe theyll go away. From Annoyance To Opportunity

But .business, perhaps taking a lesson from the politicians who say,If you cant lick em, join em, are beginning to capitalize on consumerism.

William M. Batten, chairman of J. C. Penney, told a recent meeting of

Penney executives: Consumerism provides unprecedented importunity for our company. It comes disguised as a problem. Other merchants are taking the same attitude. They really love them, you know; without them they would be out of business!

Trade associations are urging members to become more conscious of the customers. William"V. White, chairman of the Information , Council on Fabric Flam-mability, a few days ago scolded retailers for not taking the lead in informing the public about product safety hazards. The National Retail Merchants Association has scheduled its first Con-ference on Consumerism and Marketing Controls in New ' York April 27 to 29.

And guess whom the Mass Research Institute has invited to speak at its'annual meeting in Washington in May? Virginia Knauer and Ralph Nader!

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