Must Prove Fears Baseless

Pitt County voters approved the conversion of Pitt Technical Institute to a community college in a referendum held with the general election on Tuesday,

While the voting on the issue was close as votes were tabulated all evening, the final results showed community college status winning by a vote of 7,591 to 6,972.

^ It was the second tinie that Pitt Countians had voted on community college status, with the issue failing to carry in the first balloting.

The Daily Reflector has supported community college status because we feel that the addition of the college level work will be a great advantage to the young people attending the local institute.

At the same time we recognize that those who opposed community college status did so largely out of concern for preserving the vocational and technical programs which have made Pitt Tech so valuable to our community.

We have not felt that technical and vocational education would be impaired by community college status, and it is up to PTI administrators to prove to the taxpayers that emphasis on these valuable programs wont be decreased.

PTI will now be able to offer a broad and flexible range of programs to our area. It can improve the services it has been offering and add to them with a college level program.

Pleasing Aspect Of Tuesday's Voting

One of the pleasant surprises of the Tuesday general election was a larger than expected turnout of voters.

Preliminary figures showed nearly 52 percent of the 28,021 registered voters in the county going to the polls.

THIS AFTERNOON

In some elections the number voting falls well below 50 percent.

We are happy that high interest was shown by voters in the issues and candidates. We hope this is an indication of continued increased interest in the political process.

ByBILLNOBLITT

RALEIGH - A major showdown on how North Carolina handles treatment of alcoholics is brewing for the 1979 General Assembly.

At stake are millions of dollars which are spent in this field, and an even more significant clash between philosophies of treatment.

United Health Services of North Carolina, a division of the state United Way organization, is preparing to take the fight to members of the General Assembly in an attempt to reshape the program.

"The technology to deal with alcoholism exists, and is well known, says Tony Mulvihill, executive director of the Durhambased health agency which concentrates primarily on alcoholism and drug-related ills.

That technology centers around community treatment; at home where family, employers, friends can bring the pressures to bear which can help an alcoholic face his problem and work through to a cure. Alcoholics Anonymous has devised workable programs for the majority.

But North Carolina clingsTODAY'S TOPIC

to the idea that mental hospitals are the prime treatment facilities for drunks. The result, charges Mulvihill and his agency, is untold millions of dollars spent some would say wasted on ineffective treatment programs.

The state program is run by the Mental Health Division of the Department of Human Resources. The figures are produced by the bureaucracy, and hard to nail do>ra, but Mulvihill claims t^t a total of $22 million in local, state and federal funds arebeing spent on alcoholism programs. Thats the official line. Another $12 million is going into detox centers in state hospitals or local centers, he said.

State mental hospitals report that 38 percent of all admissions are for alcoholism treatment, yet alcoholic patients make up only 8.4 percent of the total patient days logged because so many are in sobered up out. There is, Mulvihill charges, very little actual treatment or follow up, or work with the family to help them learn to deal with the problem.

Last fiscal year there were

11,942 admissions for alcoholism to mental hospitals or area rehabilitation centers, but more than 3,000 of those were revolving door patients admitted more than once.

Boiled down to their essentials, Mulvihill makes these charges:

Mental Health is spending more than budgeted of publicly reported on alcoholics, and that ineffectively;

Hospital admission figures are being used to beef up statistics in order to increase the budgets for the system, and to perpetuate institutional hospitals rather than more effective local programs.Too Costly

Needy mentally ill patients are shortchanged as a result, as are local

alcoholism programs which could benefit from more money (local treatment, for example, can be provided for about $15 daily compared to $55 per day at a state hospital).

All of which comes down, Mulvihill complains, to Perpetuating the system with outrageously expensive programs... operated for the benefit of certain bureaucrats.

The state is offering very costly and marginally effective institutional services without requiring any show of interest in treatment or in prolonged sobriety on the part of the individual, he says.

Additionally, with decriminalization of public drunkenness taking effect, it is expected that the Mental Health Division will seek more millions to deal with alcoholics who will be institutionalized rather than jailed.

United Health Services will propose to legislators that a statewide policy board complete with local advisory councils be established to run ail alcolKdism and drug programs, calling on agencies for approved programs and services.

Message To Lawmakers

By JONATHAN WOLMAN Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -Voters across the nation sent their lawmakers an unmistakable message on election day: Overhaul the federal budget, if necessary but get inflation under control.

An Associated Press-NBC News poll indicates that voters are uneasy with the half-trillion dollar federal budget, and even in this era of Proposition 13 politics, the majority consider budget cutting far more important

than tax reductions.

In addition, the voters are willing to see their favorite government programs and services cut, if that will help slow inflations march.

The poll reveals that Democrats did better than Republicans in appealing to the austerity-minded electorate. Republicans have always campaigned for federal spending cuts, but this year the GOP also embraced a cross-country federal tax-cut effort that failed to spark wide defection from the Democratic

The Daily Reflector

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Party.

The AP-NBC poll was conducted as voters left polling places in 1,200 locations throughout the nation. Nearly 35,000 persons were surveyed, the largest single-day public opinion survey in history.

Three out of four voters said they cast their congressional ballot without a thought toward President Carter, but 27 percent said the presidents performance in office influenced their vote. Still, despite his energetic coast-to-coast campaigning effort. Carter had little impact overall. The number of people who voted for Democrats due to Carters influence was matched by those who cited the Carter influence and then voted Republican.

Because candidates from both major parties had declared their allegiance to

austerity and tax cutting along the campaign trail, the economic issues had little discernible impact on the overall balance between Democrats and R^ublicans in Congress.

Four years ago, in the Watergate-year election that swept many Democrats into office in previously GOP districts, the Democrats earned 58 percent of the nationwide vote. Incomplete vote totals indicate the Democrats will approach that figure again this year.

Asked what single issue they think the 96th Congress ought to tackle first, 35 percent of those surveyed cited inflation, while 24 percent said cuts in federal spending. Tax cuts and crime problems were far down the priority scale, at 11 percent each.

(Coitfimiedon pages)

strength For Today

AKINGDOMATHAND

When Jesus began to preach it was with the declaration that the kingdom of heaven was at hand.

Here is a basic teaching which many people fail to comprehend. The New Testament tells us that Jesus established the Kingdom of God on earth. That is, he brought down a portion of heaven into earthly environment and established it by changing mens hearts until they were filled with heavenly light and supported by a power far above anything known to the common ways of life.

BattleBrewsOverDrunks

^ JAMES J. KILPATRICK

TV Outlook Brightens

Billie Serf Estes went on trial for swindling in the fall of 1962. The Supreme Court reversed his conviction in June of 1865, holding that the evils of television in the courtroom had denied him a fair trial. Now, 13 years later, TVs prospects are looking up. We may yet seen the day when televised coverage of the courts becomes a routine thing.

Two events suggest a significant change in Uje

judiciarys view. Last August, meeting in Vernumt the annual conference of State Chief Justices voted 44-1 in favor of permitting TV in the courtroom. Last week, in Florida, after a years test in courtrooms across the state, participants indicated increasing approval of television coverage of judicial proceedings.

Floridas experiOKe carries particular weight. The

Other Editors Say Wages Of Beer

(Hie Raleigh Times)

Miller Brewing Company, settling in at the little town of Eden in Rockingham County, is cast in the role of the rich uncle come to live among poor relatives in Cannery Row.

Paying twice the going wage of $4.50 an hour at established and respected Fielcterest Industries nearby. Miller, paying $9.25 an hour, is seen by other nervous Tar Heel textile firms as a harbinger of high wages and complex labor problems. It is the same sort of skittishness experienced by some local business leaders when Miller feinted once or twice in the direction of Wake County during its preliminary scouting for a Southern site.

It is not likely that Miller and Schlltz Brewing Co. in Winston-Salem, vdth their high wages and good working, conditions, will have any impact of note on North Carolinas generally low wage scale an average of $4.49 per hour. But that is not to say that a $23,(XX) per annum salary for what amounts to raw, unskilled labor will not be a psychological tool in the hands of unions pressing for higher pay for their members.

For example, the North Carolina Association of Educators, gearing up for its pitch to the 1979 General Assembly, has already used the Miller contract in rebutting in its house organ Education criticism from a state newspaper of NCAEs proposed range of up to $20,000 for a teacher with a Masters degree and 30 years experience.

The article noted Miller employees $23,100 salary pl'*'^ a paid lunch hour, 12 paid holidays, three sick days for which Ih'^ employees will be paid if the days arent taken, plus life, medical and dental insurance. I guess the brewers all have doctorates, the writer concluded.

One might read into the Miller and Schlitz employee bonanzas the implication that brewing beer is more vital to the states welfare than educating children or growing food or making clothing. But we see it as more of a mi^laced phenomenon than anything else-a typically high Milwaukee wage scale.

In a state where the hourly wage averages $4.49, a wage twice that, plus generous fringe benefits and free beer, is bound to attract attention.

states experiment began in July of 1977 and ran through June of this year. The ex-jseriment was comprehensive. TV stations were granted the right to cover the state courts, all the way from traffic cases in the county courts to oral arguments before the Florida Siq>reme Court.

When the year was up, a survey was undertaken to get the opinions of those who had participated. Last week the results were tabulated. Lumping together those who were completely in favor of TV and those who were slightly in favor, it appears that the idea won the approval of 64 percent of the jurors, 56 percent of the witnesses, 47 percent of the court employees, and 46 percent of the lawyers.

If the figures suggest something > less than unanimous enthusiasm, the data nonetheless demonstrate a wholesale change from the ice-water attitudes expressed 13 years ago by Justice Tom Clark and Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Speaking for the Court in the Estes case Clark inveighed against television on a dozen grounds. The process would distract a jury; it would jeopardize a new trial; it would impair the quality of testimony; it would intrude upon the solemn decorum of the courtroom; it would heighten public clamor and thus inevitably result in prejudice.

Chief Justice Warren delivered himself of more strident denunciations. With Douglas and Goldberg joining him, Warren handed down a concurring opinion asserting that TV coverage of a criminal trial is inherently a denial of due process. Such TV coverage diverts a trial from its proper purpose, gives the public^ a wrong impression about justice in action, and(CkmUiHiedonpageS)40 Years Ago Today

Nbven4)er9,1998

Pitt County citizens evidenced little interest in yesterdays general election, only about 25-30 percent of a normal vote having been registered.

No Republicans were on the county ticket and the state Democratic candidates piled up large majorities over their Republican opponents, but no tabulations were available here, a number of precinct officials having deferred counting the ballots.

Results of voting in the county, however, will be available tomorrow when the county Board of Elections canvasses the vote.

The sales committee of the Greenville Tobacco Board of Trade announced this afternoon that the Greenville tobacco market would close on Friday, Noveniber 18, the earliest closing date in several years.

" Throu0i today, the Greenville market had sold 49,963,420 pounds for $11,740,888.83, and avera^ of $23.80 per hundred pounds.

LymCaveriyOpinions n Brief

The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant and let the air out of the tires. Dorothy Parker.

Girls have an unfair advantage over men. If they cant get what they want by being smart, they can get it by being dumb. Yul Brynner.

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. Adlai Stevenson.

Foretell A Possible Downturn

The kingdom will never be fulfilled until the last great day. But the kingdom has been established. Its doors are open, inviting us to enter. The opp<Hlunities to live a heavenly life begin* here and now and find their complete possibilities in the opportunities which we believe eternity will offer us.

We can start here and now by accepting the invitation which God gives us to enter the kingdom. Then we can bestir ourselves to spread its beneficent influence and power.

EUaiiaDoi^laM

ByJOHNCUNNITF

NEW YORK (AP) - More banks join in a prime rate rise to 10 '/4 percent. General Motors cuts its year-end dividend to $2.50 a share from $3.25. The founder of a medium-size Midwest business decides to retrench.

Ali moves were revealed on the same day, "ruesday, and all are links in the same chain of thought; They foretell a possible business downturn. Recession? Nobody likes to say, but theyre thinking.

As always. General Motors had been rather bullish about (urospects for the next year and, as expected of an industry leader whose forecasts can be sdf-fulfilling. It broadcairts its confidence widely and loudly.

But numbers sometimes declare themselves more forcefuUy than rhetoric. The

reduction leaves GMs shareholders, about 1.25 million of them, with about $210 million less than they had expected.

Why did GM do it, especially after those bullish forecasts? Because, it said, pressing demands of the business and uncertainties (which) require that the corporation maintain its strong capital position.

In other wonls, money is getting too costly to borrow. No amount of confidence or hopes can change that fact. To survive, a person or company adjusts. A little pain now saves more later.

The Midwest businessman, who hasnt yet told his employees and so asks for anonymity, had been quite bullish, as you would expect from a man who personally built a successful company from nothing in 15 years.

Nothing the president

can do Is going to salvage the situation, he said. In his opinion, he continued, were going to have a recession that is deeper, more widespread and more .prolonged than believed.

And so, after an almost steady expansion that included the acquisition of his chief local competitor just a few years ago, he said he would soon consolidate two factories into one, with resulting layoffs.

The company that is overextended, particularly in the amount of money it owes, can be mortally wounded in the coming recession, he said. I might lose a few pails of milk, he said, but Ill save the cow.

And then? After a year or two the economy will be moving ahead again. Im positioning myself for that right now, he said.

While his retrenching might or might not be good

business, depending upon the course of the economy, he contradicts himself in maintaining the president can do nothing to alter the course of events.

He, himself, is evidence of that: because of

Washingtons efforts to restrain inflation, if perhaps belatedly, he is cutting back when otherwise he might be planning further expansion.

If he and his counterparts continue to do so, then inflation might be reduced to what is now considered an acceptable 6 percent annual rate. The question then becomes; Can It be ac-complished without recession?

Every economist and business person interviewed in the mid-section of the country during the past week conceded that the Washington decisions of last week increased the. possibility of inflation.