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The Disaster Drill A Death In Our Family The emergency room area at the hospital is jammed with people. In addition to the critically injured, friends, members of the family and curiosity seekrs crowd around the entrance. Some are hysterical. Some faint. Newsmen and camera men mingle with the crowd, seeking information. It’s a disorganized, writhing mess. It makes working conditions impossible for doctors and nurses. The above hypothetical case could happen here. That’s the reason a disaster drill is to be staged later this month. Sheriff Eugene Johnson will set off the alarm. Only he knows when and where it will be and how serious will be the nature of the emergency. Speed Crackdown Clinton City Council took a wel come step last week in voting to purchase a radar unit. The unit is to be used to check the speed of cars on our city streets. We were surprised to learn that Clinton had no such, unit but w-e are glad that the city has taken action to remedy a traffic oversight. We hope the city police will put the new radar units to good use. Maybe then we will be able to go to sleep at night listening to the sounds of crickets and tree frogs in stead of the screeching of tires and roar of speeding automobiles. When he gives the w'ord, ambulance services, policemen, firemen, doc tors, nurses and hospital officials are to swing into action. They all are to have specific assignments and . are to earn,' them out. Afterwards, representatives of all the involved organizations will sit down together and study the re sults of the drill. Were the ambu lances late in getting to the scene Did policemen fail to give needed assistance? How long did it take doctors to get to the hospital? Why didn’t someone keep the curiosity seekers away? Bailey Memorial Hospital has its own emergency procedure set up and has conducted drills on this for the past three years. How'ever, there has never been a coordinated effort to bring all of the potentially involv ed agencies together for a major drill. Of course, we hope and pray that this community never has such a major emergency but it could hap pen. An explosion, a raging fire, a tornado, a wreck involving dozens of people—all of these things, and others could happen. We will learn much from the disaster drill and it is better to learn it now under these circumstances than to wait until later and learn it the hard way. Bravo, Dr. Shannon We tip our hat to- University of Virginia President Edgar F. Shan non, Jr. As many other colleges and uni- verisities around the country were hit by student demonstrations, sit- ins, and upheavals in w’hich students took over administrative offices, Dr. Shannon made his university’s stand very’ clear. Dr. Shannon said it simply. Stu dents who participate in unauthoriz ed assemblies or any unauthorized occupation of university property, if they fail to disband “will be subject to immediate suspension.” He said the university will not negotiate with anybody, or any group no matter w r ho they are and no matter what they want, under conditions of duress. Dr. Shannon said the warning was not related to any indication of planned demonstrations but was is- ued to clarify standards and regula tions of behavior “which are expect ed here.” Bravo, Dr. Shannon. The purpose of attending univer sities and colleges is to learn and this process can only be carried out in a disciplined atmosphere. We suspect the University of Virginia students will learn some thing besides first-hand anarchy. Pre-Empted Last Thursday night, television stations pre-empted their regular programs to televise the proceedings of returning Sen. Robert K. Ken nedy’s body to New York. One of the shows pre-empted was a movie, “The Face of a Mob ster,” the violent story' of gangster Dutch Schultz. It was another of those movies in which killers and mobsters are glamorized. And everyone wonders why there’s so much, violence in our country. Beginning Anew It is always tragic when a con gregation Joses its church building to fire or some other natural hazard and the First Baptist Church of Jo anna is no exception. However, members of the con- gregation have rolled up their sleeves and are getting on with the task of rebuilding. We wish them Godspeed and believe that, through the new challenge, they will real ize a new cohesiveness and the sat isfaction which comes from having an immediate cause for which to work. In such situations, the dedication of purpose often carries over into other phases of church life, making it even more vital and effective. “The Cowboy from the Clear Fork sez a taxpayer is a person who doesn’t have to pass a civil service exam to work for the government.' - Clydene Comedy, Throck morton (Texas) Tribune. .v.y.'.v.- v.v.v.y.-.v.y/{ THE OLD M mcwiue politician 11 ■m4 THE NEU) MACHINE POLITICIAN fligt iff 10 THE CHRONICLE, Clinton, S. C., June 13, 1968 Editorial Criticized S. C Gun Law May Be Tightened BY THE CONRONICLE’S Capitol New Bureau COLUMBIA - The assassi nation of Sen Robert F. Kennedy has given impetus to new de mands for additional fire arms control laws. Even at the time of the Ken nedy assassination the Congress was in the process of giving final action to gun control legislation. Congress was bitterly scolded on nationwide television by the President in the hours following the assassinati(jn because the new law covered only handguns and did not extend to rifles and shot guns. Federal jurisdiction over gun sales is limited to transactions in interstate, nr ones that cross state lines, so that federal gun control laws apply to little other than mail order sales of guns. The measure passed by Con gress in the week of the Robert Kennedy assassination provides that mail order sales of hand guns must comply with the laws of the state in which the pur chases lives. President Johnson has de manded that Congress subject mail order sales or rifles and shotguns to the same provision. Since the federal law applies only to mail order sales, the bulk of the problem of regulation of gun sales depends on the state legislatures. Accordingly, gun purchase probitions and regula tions vary from the nearly abso lute probition by the New York Sullivan Act to no restriction whatever in several states. The South Carolina Legislature enacted a stricter handgun con trol gun law in 1965. Under this act persons must be licensed to sell handguns and must keep a list of purchasers’ names and addresses together with the make, description and serial number of the weapon sold. Sales to minors, insane persons, felons and subversives are forbidden under penalties of fines and loss of license to the dealer. 1 he Old # C05T or VjP “Inflation is when you never had it so good or so briefly.” In an interview shortly after the Robert Kennedy assassina tion, Governor McNair suggested that the South Carolina law should be further tightened to require registration with the police by the owners of all weapons. Reports of police and law en forcement personnel in South Carolina indicate that sales of handguns have increased signi ficantly since the enactment of the gun control law in 1965. The biggest volume of sales is in cheap, small caliber, foreign- made handguns similar to that re portedly used in the assassina tion of Sen. Kennedy. In the past year, police report many arrests of minors on a charge of carry ing such weapons in their posses sion. From the experience gained in South Carolina since passage of the 1965 handgun law, it would appear that stricter enforcement of the law in South Carolina is a greater need in keeping hand guns out of dangerous hands than is enactment of additional legis lation. The failure to check sales lists required to be kept by gun dealers to detect illegal sales as a mea sure of enforcement is certain to be raised in opposition to proposals for further gun regula tions by theSouthCarolina Legis lature. To The Editor: As Senator Kennedy was laid to rest this past Saturday night, l recalled to myself one of the worst editorials that I have ever read. It was published in the Clinton Chronicle. The article accused Senator Robert Kennedy of attempting to buy the Presi dency with his millions of dol lars. In the first place, how can any one in his right mind have such a twisted belief when we live in basically a democracy voted and elected by the people, and cer tainly not one which is bought by anyone denounce or even judge a man by his monetary wealth alone, which this editorial was certainly doing. The article failed to mention to the reader that this man stood for the betterment of our nation’s poor people, that he fought feverishly for equality and justice for all races, and that he foresaw our need to end the killings in Vietnam. Senator Kennedy was 'seeking a newer world' - one which would pro vide a better-educated people and put an end to the class strug gle between the rich and poor that now exists in our nation today. Another loophole occurred in the editorial when the writer dis cusses Abraham Lincoln. The writer stated that Lincoln would have no chance at the Presi dency today because of his lack of money. If the writer of this absurd article had only thought a moment, he would have recalled that Lincoln himself in his times was denounced and ridiculed in the South because he wanted to free the slaves. South Car olina was so against this mea sure that we were the first state to secede from the Union. This state turned their backs on Lin coln mainly because of personal greed and, most of all, because of prejudice. I stressed the writer’s ref erence to Abraham Lincoln in the so-called editorial merely to draw an analogy and to show un fortunately how history has seemed to have repeated itself. Just as Lincoln was misrepre sented by the South in the I860’s so was the late Senator Kennedy by this editorial and probably most of the Southern states. Be cause of Senator Kennedy’s avid and overwhelming desire to be come President and to try to help all of America, he was unjustly called 'ruthless and power- hungry.' As in Lincoln’s case, he was denounced by this state be cause of greed and prejudice. One would think that over a period of a hundred years, individuals in this part of the country would have learned from mistakes of their forefathers instead of abid ing by and actually believing in the same backward and narrow minded prejudices which existed over a hundred years ago. No wonder the late Senator Ken nedy’s platform was to 'seek a newer world.’ J. W. Davis University of South Carolina Attitudes & Platitudes j erry Marcus !>/ m 77>« Travtltn Softty Service ‘fill it up!" Alcohol and gatoline never did, and never will, mix. What Do You Know About Communism? (EDITOR’S NOTE: The author of the following article is a recent graduate of Clinton High School.) BY JACK FERGUSON “It is inconceivable that the Soviet Republic should continue to exist for a long period side by side with the imperialist states (i.e., the Free World). Ultimately one or the other must conquer.' Lennis could afford to be honest; he had just made himself dic tator of one ofthe world’s largest countries. Communism had tri umphed. But what is communism? The question was recently put to American soldiers in Vietnam, and the answers were all vague. One soldier, after telling how communism takes away the free dom of the individual, and forces him to unhesitatingly obey the orders of his superiors, con cluded that it was pretty much like the army. What I am trying to point out is that, while almost all Americans are against com munism, hardly any know exactly what it is. How can you fight a shadow? Thousands of Russian young sters receive regular lectures on the evils and failings of cap italism and democracy. Almost all Soviet secondary schools offer instruction in Western history and the English language. The communist youth clubs offer in depth answers to why commu nism is better than democracy and why it will eventually tri umph over capitalism. The com munists are ready for us. v.. By contrast the typical student at Clinton High is lucky if ne hears of any kind of history after 1920. While thoroughly grounded in American history from the revolutionary war totheSpanish- American War, the student learns little of his nation’s history after this. This situation is the fault of no one in particular; history books are written in chronolo gical order, and a teacher can cover only so much material. Still it is unfortunate that most of what today’s teenagers know about World War II comes from old movies. It may be stirring to see General John Wayne almost singlehandedly destroying the Third Reich, but it is hardly educational. With such a weak background in modern American history, it is not surprising that doday’s stu dents also know virtually nothing about communism. There are probably no students at Clinton High who could correctly define the dialectic, historical ma terialism, or even communism. So what? I’ll tell you so what. Over 185,000 American men have died in Asia fighting something they could not define in even the simp lest terms. No wonder we have so many draft dodgers! The Soviet Union has a least 12,000,000 people in its Com munist Party-people who know what they are doing, people dedi cated to the destruction of America. Khruschev once said, “We will bury you!" and he meant it The communists are so sure of our apathy that they have even spelled out how they plan to do it. 1. Lull the Americans into a false sense of security, e.g., test treaty, “peaceful coexistence" 2. Encourage atheism, e.g., ban on teaching religion in public schools, growth of atheistic or ganizations on college campuses 3. Organize crippling strikes, e.g., the months long copper strike, the steel strike scheduled for August 4. Encourage unrest, e.g., riots in major U.S. cities, campus up heave Is 5. Gain American support for communist aims be propaganda and infiltration, e.g., 'peace at any price in Vietnam,' 'Better red than dead." I do not mean that the people who have been involved in the above actions aredeffinitelycom- munists or even communist in spired. I do contend that these events have helped the communist cause. To these items some will say, 'But that’s in the past All the communists want today is to live in peace with the West.’ Maybe that is why the Russians and Chinese are shipping tons of peaceful guns, peaceful bullets, peaceful mortars, peaceful missiles, and peaceful tanks to the North Vietnamese, who use them to peacefully kill American soldiers. Or amybe that is why the Russians peacefully slaugh tered Hungarian Freedom Figh ters and more recently started peaceful riots in France and Ger many. Do not be taken in by the peaceful communist image pre - sented by Soviet propaganda; they are out to conquer the world and only American stands in the way. While we are stepping these “peace-loving people’ in Asia, we are losing the battle against communism here at home; and what is worse, we are losing it be default. Time is running out, but we still are not too late to keep the communists from ful filling Khruschev’s chilling pro mise to the American people: “Your grandchildren will live under communism.’ If we are to beat communism, we must first understand it We must know what makes com munists tick. Toward this end I propose that a course in modern history and communism be begun at Clinton High School. Up to this time about the only way stu dents learned about communism was from communists or com munist sympathizers who could hardly be expected to tell the whole truth about their phil osophy. (This statement is about students in general. Students at Clinton High School who take government are given an intro duction into the most basic dif ferences between democracy and communism.) Adults who have taught their children nothing about communism should not be surprised when their offspring enter college and join far left organizations such as the Stu dents for a Democratic Society which played a major role in the rebellion at Columbai Uni versity. The best solution is to arm the students at Clinton High with democracy's best and most powerful weapon-the truth. The communists are fightning hard to win men's minds and must be beaten on their own terms. We have it in our power to win the Cold War if we want to make the effort. If we do not want to make the effort, we have already lost. It is all very well to study America’s glorious founding, but when the distant past is studied to the exclusion of the recent past, the effectiveness and re levance of the course are vastly decreased. Therefore I think that modern history should be in cluded in this proposed course. We have gone farther and faster in the last fifty years than in all the time before that. Our recent history is something to be proud of, for the near past shows how we became the greatest nation on earth and how we can stay that way. A comparison of the United States’ progress with that of Russia would offer posi tive proof of the superiority of capitalism over communism and make the student better prepared to be a good and well-informed citizen. We Americans are now faced with the greatest challenge that has ever confronted us-the chal lenge of communism. Oddly enough it is also a challenge to live in peace with the enemy; but there are three kinds of peace-peace in a totally demo cratic world, peace with a deli cate balance of power, and peace in a world under total communist domination. At present we can all make a choice, but for how long? Behind the Iron Curtain there are many countries that did not know what communism was and could not care less until it was too late. Clinton is a long way from Moscow, but how far is Mos cow from Clinton?