4Tbe Daily Reflector. GreeaviUe. N.C.Thursday. June 18. 1170

Census Figures Not Pleasing

SOME CHOICE!

More and more reports are coming from Eastern North Carolina cities which are dismayed with the preliminary population figures that are now being released the U. S. Census bureau.

Officials in Greenville, where the population grew by 7,056 over the ten year period, did not feel that the growth was near what was expected. However, Greenvilles growth to 29,916, according to the preliminary figures, was of boom town proportions compared to some other cities.

Wilson, for instance, received their preliminary

Accurate Data In Price Index

By NEIL GILBRIDE AP Labor Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -Every month 240 men and women fan out in 56 cities, large and small, across the land to find out how much youre paying to bring home the bacon, and a lot of other items.

They check the prices in 18,000 retail stores and service establishments, from shopping center supermarkets to the little laundry on the corner.

Tlte figures they compile are sent to the Labor Departments Bureau of Labor Statistics which uses them to put together one of the nations most vital economic indicators, the Consumer Price Index.

This is the monthly report that shows the price trends for food, clothing, housing, transportation, medical care and recreationthat pinpoints the pinch you feel as the cost of living continues to rise.

On the whole, it is quite an accurate statistic, said Dr. Joel Popkin, the bureaus assistant commissioner for prices. Government statisticians figure on no more than a one-tenth of one per cent error in the figures.

The bureau has been compiling the living cost reports for 50 years, periodically updating the items sampled to account for changing spending patterns and new products. The latest revision was in 1964.

'Ihe infex for the past year has shown a steady rise in prices at a rate of 6 per cent or more, the worst inflationary climb in 20 years.

The report is compiled in terms of index points and percentages, not in dollars and cents, but can be readily converted into money terms.

For instance, the April index for all items showed a climb of eight index points from March, up from 133.2 to 134. This represented a rise of six-tenths of one per cent for the month.

The index figure, based on averaged 1957-59 prices, means it took $134 in i^ril to pay for the same market basket of typical family goods and services that cost $100 a little more than a decade ago.

A companion report, based on industry payroll figures, shows average weekly wages for some 45 million rank-and-file workers and how they are faring with inflation. The April report said the weekly wage of $117.98 was up 6 cents in pay, but down 43 cents in purchasing power because of inflation. The average wage was up $6.23 over the year, but down 20 cents in purchasing power.

The price index covers costs of everything people buy for livingfood, clothing, automobiles, homes, house

furnishings, household supplies, fuel, drugs and recreational goods; fees to doctors, lawyers, beauty shops; rent, repair costs, transportation fares, public utility cates, etc, the bureau said.

In pricing lawyers fees, for instance, a sampler will price the fee for a short form will, Popkin said.

TTie price index also includes sales, excise and real estate taxes, but not income or personal property taxes because they are not directly associated with the costs of goods or services.

Some items are priced every month over a period of several days or weeks; other items that do not show too frequent cost changes will be sampled only ever three months or so.

The various items are weighted for the index computation, according to the estimated importance of each.

Food is given a weight of 22.68 per cent of the market basket on the estimation that the average city workers family spends that much of its budget on food. Housing gets 33.20per cent of the weight of the index, clothing 10.73 per cent, transportation 13.31 per cent, health and recreation 19.70 per cent including 6.25 per cent for medical care, and 5.12 per cent for other goods and services.

Tlie samplers price 400 different items in all.

Prices are obtained by personal visit to a representative sample of about 18,000 retail stores and service establishments where wage and clerical workers buy goods and services, including among the establishments chain stores, independent grocery stores, department and specialty stores, restaurants, professional people, and repair and service shops. Rental rates are obtained from about 40,000 tenants, the bureau said.

The field samples are mailed to the bureaus Washington office, where Louis B. Woytychs Division of Data Collection handles it.

Many of the bureaus 200 clerical and statistical experts then pore through the stacks of raw data and prepare it for feeding into a computer for the final compilation of the price figures.

The final figures are closely guarded until Popkin announces and analyzes them for newsmen at a scheduled news conference every month.

The consumer Price Index is used widely to guide family budgeting and to understand what is happening to family finances, the bureau said.

It is used extensively in (Continued on page 6)

The Doily Reflector

INCORPORATED 2t9CoUnclie Street, Greenville, N. C. 27834 Established 1882 Published Monday Ihrongh FHday Afternoon and Sunday Momhig

DAVID JUU AN WHICHARD, Oiairman of the Board JOHN S. WHICHARD-DAVID J. WHICHARD Publishers Second Class Postage Paid atGreenvUle,N.C.

SUBSCRIPTION RATES Payable in Advance Hanie Delivery By Carrier Motor Route Monthly I2.2S

RyMaU. One Year axbtonlhs RUree Months

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MEMBER OF ASSOaATED PRESS The Associated Press Is ex clusively entitled to use for puMicatioo all news dispat ches credited to It or not otherwise credited to this paper and also the local news published herein. AU rights of publications of special dispatches here are also reserved.

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figures just this week and they showed that bustling dty grew by only 600 people over the decade. The report showed Wilson with a 1970 population of 29,325. If the figures are correct, Greenville for the first time will exceed Wilson in population.

Rocky Mount, it was reported, grew by only 1,149 to 33,296. Tarboros increase was said to be only 854 to 9,265; This, despite the fact that Tarboro annexed some areas four years ago which included 1,700 people.

It was expected that Eastern counties would lose population over the decade. In fact this was lookeid on as a healthy development from a humanitarian and economic standpoint as laborers left the farms, where they were being replaced by machines, and moved to the cities.

However, in Greenville and other eastern cities, new housing construction, increased utilities services, growing numbers of telephones pointed to considerable increase in population.

It remains to be seen whether the final figures will help the situation to any extent. However, we believe officials in all of the cities are right in questioning the accuracy of these figures.

Ayden Recognition Is Well Deserved

Ayden town officials and citizens should be pleased that they have been presented the Governors Award for community development.

Ayden was one of four North Carolina municipalities, and the only one in the east, to receive the award.

The town was recognized for its work aimed at attracting industry and for its successful clean-up, fix-up campaign.

Ayden citizens have shows an enthusiasm for improving their town and the Governors Award is a fitting recognition of there success.

Hanoi Trying Smash Lon Nol

By JOHN T. WHEELER

Associated Press Writer PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) Hanoi apparently had decided it must smash the government of Gen. Lon Nol in a matter of months, qualified diplomatic and intelligence sources repot. It looks like a major change of strategy.

'Die aim of a major drive now under way and said to be aimed at Phnom Penh seems to be to give the Communists a major victory that will in part divert attention from their inability so far to make good on promises to liberate South Vietnam.

Only a month ago both Communist and Western sources believed Hanois Cambodian offensive was launched to widen its supply routes toward South Vietnam and to set up new base camps well removed from the Cambodian border area entered by American and South Vietnamese troops last month.

Communist sources say that now the major target is Phnom Penh and the Lon Nol government. A Western source says the primary objective in Indochina is to destroy the pro Western government that seized power from Prince Norodom Sihanouk March 18.

The Ctommunist scenario, as pieced together from various sources, apparently is supposed to go something like this;

Elements of five North Vietnamese division now within fairly easy striking distance of Phnom Penh will begin closing in on the capital. One of the first major attacks will be against Cambodias small air force, based almost exclusively at Phnom Penh. This will throw the burden of the air war on South Vietnam, or possibly the United States.

Part of Phnom Penh would

be taken in an offensive. The hope seemingly is that South Vietnamese aircraft would bomb occupied parts of the city.

North Vietnamese cadre are reported to be training tqiwards of 6,000 Cambodians about 40 miles west of Phnom Penh to be sent into the capital after North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops do the heavy fighting. However, Communist sources say the recently recruited Cambodians have proved extremely disappointing, placing their military role in doubt. Part of the reasoning for sending Cambodians into Phnom Penh could be that these forces would suffer most of any bombing casualties if the South Vietnamese react.

Such a bombing together with continuing rumors mostly with some foundationof largescale South Vietnamese looting in Cambodia might discredit Lon Nols regime. The new government won a major part of its support by claiming Sihanouk was in collusion with Cambodias ancient foe, the Vietnamese.

To all this pressure, the Commimist may hope to add popular unrest at having Cambodia turned into a major battleground ^because of a war that basically involves only South and North Vietnamese and their allies. The Communist hope, perhaps slim, is that peace front would emerge.

Given this pressure from below, the Communists may believe that Lon Nols government will disintegrate. Diplomatic sources say some sort of power crisis is developing here. Power plays in Saigon gravely weakened the governments ability to deal with enemy forces in the countryside there and were one factor that led to American military involvement in South Vietnam.

Strength For Today

THAT STUPENDOUS DRAMA

Is God really in the world? How can we think otherwise? Of course, if one takes the position that the universe in its present form just happened, then reasoning of that sort (if we can call it reasoning) might lead us to almost any absurd con-culsion. The sensible thing is certainly to admit the fact that a created universe presupposes a Oeator. And having admitted this are we not logically required to go fiirthtf and admit that in some way the Q^tor has not lost connection with his creatkm bt supervises it and is quite evidently Ininging it to an end He had alwa;^ had in mind? Atheists believe they are logical. As a matter of fact, ^y are anythii^ but logical. After all is said and

done, the explanations found in the Bible as to how certain things came to pass are usually the most sensible that could be made.

And of course if God is in the world and human beings are the highest creation, He is in some way influencing their lives and bringing them to a definite destiny. Just as there are not two leaves in the forest exactly alike, so there are not any two persons in the world exactly alike. It was discovered some years ago that everyones fingerprints are different from those of any other person.

It is har<i to get away from die fact that we are in the midst of a stiqiendous drama presided over by a Beigh of complete intelligence and power. Rie admonition to get ri^t with God is still the best of all possible advice.

By Earl L. Douglass

By JAMES KILPATRICK

Who Will Bell Panthers?

It is about time come to think of it, it is way past time for some first - rate reporter with room enough to turn around in to work up a comprehensive piece on the Black Panther Party. The impression continues to grow that the Panthers are nothing more than lovable kittens, the helpless victims of pdice brutality. The impression is as phony as a $40 diamond.

Nevertheless, the myth takes hold and the big lie grows. Eldridge Cleaver, kindness of Dell Books, delivered himself some

months ago of an impassioned defense. Now Bobby Seale, kindness of Random House, has produced his own story of these innocent targets of oppression. Leonard Bernstein gave them a certain respectability. Out on the Ck)ast, Angela Davis, the Ck)mmunist professor at UCLA, says the Panthers are being harassed on trumped -up charges to stifle political dissent.

The statement that has gained widest circulation it has become practically an article of liberal faith can

Other Editors Say Strange Silence

(Washington Daily News)

It appears to us that the proposal, made several times of late, by Robert Morgan, N.C. Attorney General, that auto liability insurance rates be determined by open competition among companies doing business in our state rather than by the state itself, is being met with a strange silence.

This apparent silence is difficult to interpret. And it is rather difficult to understand.

Mr. Morgan reasons that if competition among companies is allowed to guide the insurance rates, and if so, then of course the people of North Carolina will like it. Perhaps as of now, the people just do not know enough about the proposal to have an opinion on what it might do.

As it is now, if we understand correctly, the Insurance Rating bureau gathers statistics from all companies doing business in our state and from the information received, sets the rates for all. Thus every company must charge the same fixed amount for insurance.

A company operating more efficiently than some other company cannot lower its rates even if it wanted to do so.

Mr. Morgan can fight this thing out in one sense through judicial actions but in reality he might go to the legislature with his proposal. And it would appear to us to represent a drastic departure from what the state is doing now.

We feel that it is true that the average person knows very little about insurance and insurance rates. Strangely, we have seen no comments from insurance company spokesmen regarding the Morgan proposal. Maybe they will want to have an open market where competition is prevalent and where each company can set its own rate. Or maybe they prefer the present system. We just do not know.

We do know that there is a lot of dissatisfaction in some quarters about the present method. But again no one really knows whether open competition will solve the questions or not. But at least the attorney general or peoples lawyer has made a rather dynamic proposal. And it should be weighed carefully and the strange silence which is prevailing now should be replaced with some expressed opinions among those in position to know the score.

be traced to a press release last December from (diaries Garry, a top Panther attorney. He charged that over a le^nonth period, police officers had killed 28 Panthers in cold blood. The figure of 28 has stuck.

Now, if the charge were true or even substantially trueit would be a matter of grave concern. Officers of the law are just that: officers. They are not executioners. The circumstances surrounding the killing of Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Qark in the (Chicago shoot - out of December 4 have created doubts that ought to be resolved. A top -notch reportera Qark Mollenhoff or a Haynes Johnson could perform a useful public service by digging in depth for the truth.

My own understanding is that the figure of 28, upon cursory examination, swiftly comes down to 20. That is the number of named, identified Panthers who have died under violent circumstances since August of 1968. But the dimensions of the great Panther myth can be guessed when it is noted that of these 20, ten were not killed by police in cold blood or otherwise.

Specifically, the list of 20 includes Alprentice Bunchy Carter and John Jerome Huggins. Ibey were killed in a gun battle in January of l%9 on the UCLA campus, but not by police: They were killed by a rival black gang known as US. Panthers Sylvester Bell and John Savage met the same fate in San Diego a few months later.

The list includes a Panther named Nathaniel Qark. He was killed by his own wife in September of last year as the outgrowth of a extra - marital affair.

Still another is Panther Charles Cox, who was pronounced dead on arrival at a Chicago hospital in May of 1969. The coroners office found that he had died of barbiturate intoxication. (Continued On Page 6)

Boyle

Views

Life

By HAL BOYLE

NEW YORK (AP) - Jumpii* to concluaons:

The two most troubled periods in most pe<^les lives are adolescence and middle age. They are startlingly alike in that during their reign a persms thoughts and actions are deeply influenced by an inner hysteria and insecurity of which outsiders may be almost totally unaware. 'Ihe cure for both adolescence and middle age is the same; you simply have to outgrow themand go on to a calmer and better time.

An old-timer is a guy who can remember when a girl going out on a date took along only a dollar bill for her mad money.

You rarely learn anything very into'esting from talking to people at a cocktail party who wear sunglasses to cover up the way they still look from the cocktail party they went to the night before.

No one looks so hopeful as the old maid the day the cruise ship sailsor so forlorn the day it returns.

One of the things men wonder about all their lives is why girls tend to go to the powder room in pairs and what they talk about when they get there. Well, what they generally do is exchange opinions about their escorts, and the longer they linger in the powder room the less flattering those opinions are.

Nothing arouses the hidden paranoia in every office worker more than putting a dime in the office vending machine an^getting back neither the soft drink nor the coin. It brings all the woes of his lifetime to a peak.

One of the first lessons of maturity is to have a wholesome distrust of anybody \riio is always telling you where to buy things wholesale. Hes usually no bargain himself.

An optimist is a guy who marries a hatcheck girl in the belief that he can win a lovely smile from her every day thereafter by giving her a two-bit tip.

People are getting to have less and less faith in science, which at one time was supposed to create an endlessly better world. It has, instead, pawned so many Frankenstein terrors that all we can hope for is that it will refrain from cross-breeding termites with woodpeckers.

Newsmen are often unfairly blamed because the front page contains mostly bad news. But even if a newspaper printed a front page with nothing but good news on it, folks are so contrary that theyd still use it to line the bottom of a bird cage tomorrow.

Opinions n Brief

Our doctrine of equality and liberty and humanity comes from our belief in the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. (Calvin G)olidge.

When your work ^eaks for itself, dont interrupt. Henry J. Kaiser.

Teen-agers are upset these days because theyre living in a world dominated by nuclear weapons and adults are upset because theyre living in a world dominated by teen-agers. Chetek (Wisconsin) Alert.

Merge All Of U.S. Railroads?

By ELMER ROESSNER

Tliree significant events point to the problems of American railroads and point to a solution.

TTiose events, all in the last few days, are:

e The Penn Ontral Co., owner of the nations largest railway system, is in trouble. It has plenfy of assets, refrigerated if not frozen, but

elmer

ROESSNER

lacks operating funds. The situation so critical, threatening to drag under thousands of businesses, that the Nixon administration has undertaken to guarantee $200 million in banks loans, with more later, to keep the system fluid.

#An Interstate Commerce

Commission examiner has recommended approval of a merger of Illinois Central and the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroads.

Saving The Passenger Train

With railroads still protesting that they re losing money on inter-city pssenger runs, Tran-sportati(xi Secretary Jcrfm A. Vo^ has renewed pleas to the House to accept the Senates bill to establish a quasi-public corporation to operate the nations passengm- trains.

If that were not enough, commuter transportation is getting worse and losing more money and metropolitan areas are demanding that the federal government pump more money into commuter services, forgetting that any money pumped in comes not fr(nh a gold^ well but from pockets and savings of metropolitan residents.

One solution, perhaps imperfect, to .a|l these

problems is a merger of ail American railroads perhaps under fedo'al administration.

What It Would Do Such a merger would be scored as a gigantic trust. But we have other gigantic trusts: the Army, the Navy, the Air Force. It would be just as silly to operate with two armies as it was to operate two main lines between New York and Chicago.

Such a merger would create almost unbelievable econixnies;

Thousands of miles of paralld operaticms could be diminated.

^Thousands of high -salary executives could be retired.

The non - operating assets of the railroads could be sold, perhaps yielding more than enough to pay for the acquisitions, such as unimproved land, farm land, office buildings, hotels coal mines, oil wells and the

\ hundred of other ventures. Idle Assets

Thousands of tons of unneeded iron and steel could be sold to add to capital liquidity. It may be remembered that Henry Ford paid $5 million for the Detroit & fronton railroad and got his money back from the salvage he picked up along the line.

There are countless other advantages. Half the trackage could be scrapped and the remainder given proper maintenance. Passenger, freight and other cars could be standardized to reduce maintenance costs. Rates could be made uniform frixn Bangor to San Diego. Passenger trains could run from coast to coast without changes.

And the Great American Railroad could make passenger and freight tieups with airlines, ship lines, bus lines, trucking lines, hotels resorts, t barge lines, pipe lines, travel insurance services and so on.

Write your Congressman.