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C0MMENT8 ON MEN AND THIN08 (My Spectator) I have hud visits from several gentlemen who tire offering themselves for public office, 1 find the word "candidate" objectionable, just us "politician" sounds bud. If popular government Is to succeed It must be curried on by honorable and cupuble men 1 lantjshuklng and story-telling should not play any part In it. Of course we are all human, very lue man, and the human part of us is frequently lutlm-nced by mere trifles. A campaign for public office Is expensive in time, energy und money. We are allowing our public offices to be bought, by electing those who can spend a lot of money. One of the recent and expensive practices Is to send a cur out to bring In the voters. That costs several hundred dollars even in county campaigns. Wo ought to slop it. Another tiling it costs so much in foes to become a candidate that a poor man has small chance. In order to become u candidate for governor each cumlidato was assessed $i>i)o. We have hundreds of capable men in South Carolina who have not $i?uo. They therefore, aro barred; the stale i annul use their ability. And it is so now in the counties. There is a theory thai iho wlnliov can afford to pay a large usaer.smeut; hut how about the loser? The assessment Is, alter all. one of tho smallest items in the Hill, hut it starts high. A gent Ionian asked me what kind of man should bo elected to executive office'and to (ho legislature. I know, In a very general way, and you know. I too. We need a level head, a calm spirit, an holiest purpose with trained Intelligence and knowledge of tho state. Wo need men who cotno as states-men, riot as representatives of this group or that group, or some other group. We need men to think of the state as a whole, of all tho people. Since no one man knows all the state iiu<| all the people, we need men of wisdom, sound to the core. Most of lis will agree to all that. Tho difficulty comes In applying It. Some men are smart lu their own business i hut not worth anything In the legls-' lature. They don't seem to adjust themselves to public affairs. Other men who are worth almost nothing In private life sometimes develop Into useful public officials. I mean somoj linn, In both cases. Theoretically I | am all wrong, but it has happened that way. Who would have picked cut Ceiieral N. It. Forrest as a military genius? Hut there uro students who apeak of him as the greatest natural ' i leuder in America's military annals. | In voting many of our people uro j swayed by something as trlval as that which llred the spirit of little Jimmy and made him envy little Joe. Suld Jimmy to his mother: "1 wish I was Joe." The mother said: "Why do you want to be poor little Joe? He Is poor and ragged; ho has no money and has to work to support his moth or; while you have a pony; a bicycle, a nice homo, good clothes and money." "Yes," said Jimmy, "but Joe kLn wiggle his ears." I wonder, sometimes, whether. In choosing men are wo like Jimmy. As a rule, a man of no judgment at home will not become a Solomon In Columbia: nor should we send a man of no ability or character I to Columbia to make the laws for all the st 11 to and to ape ml the tax money of a 11 the people. The State of South Carolina closed its fiscal year on June 30. with about three and a half million dollars surplus. Sounds like a lot of money, but It Is loss than ten per cent of what the state is spending. Any man now enjoying a flood tide of prosperity through bumper crops and prices or high wages will find that he must pay ten per cent or more in taxes! Mesides, when money comes plentifully and easily one should pay off his debts and build up his resources for a defense against the time when the lean kine will eat up the fut k!ne, as Pharoah's dream foretold of the famine in Kgypt. Three and a half million, even If wisely conserved, and Increased to eight million by next year, would not tuke up the slack In our state revenue if a two-year slackening of business should put us back to condition of 1938. I do not refer to 1934, when the depression poverty struck us so hard that tlie state operated on less than six million dollars a year. I'm taking 1938, which was, far from the pinch of 1934. In fnct, by 1938 our public spenders had so j far forgotten the famine in Egypt that they spent $40,000,000 and put the state In debt with a deficit of about $3.000,(>00. Would it be out of order to point out that the present happy condition of having a surplus is not the result of wise leadership, sound statesmanship or anything else but just luck? Well, that's life, isn't It? Luck ? Yet our happy financial condition is based on the blood and suffer* [ Ing of people throughout the world and Includes the loss of thousands of our own people. It is blood money, in very truth, for it came to us entirely as the fruit of war. If we are wise public stewards we will remember that we are now enjoying tho smile of fortune, but fortune, you | know, is very tickle. When the war i closes, great factories will have to adjust themsolves to the production of peace-time goods. Unemployment will unavoidably be heavy, certainly for a time. Surely we need not claim the gift of prophesy to predict that this mighty strain of the nation cannot continue in time of peace. We should cut down on what we are now spending. remembering that when the change comes we shall not wish to close schools or colleges. Let us be prudent now, with careful ; regard for the future. Many people won't pay any atten-; tiou to that. It will seem to them ' Just calamity howling. What do you suppose the neighbors thought of Noah when he worked on the Ark? i We are short-sighted by ntfture, which perhaps, has its advantages. LIDICE: Village of Death THIS IS TIIK 8CKNK of the Nazis' latest triumph. Once Lidice was a quiet little Czechoslovak village like thousands in the U. S. Its people, miners and farmers, worshipped at the ancient church and shopped in the little general store (left). Today Lidice is no more. The church and the houses are level with the ground. Every man over 17 was murdered. Every woman was deported, and Lidice's children are imprisoned in German reform schools. Even the cattle and the pigs were driven away. The razing of Lidice was part of the campaign of terror that the Nazis began after the assassination of their bloody policeman Keinhardt Heydrich. Having executed hundreds of men and women, the Gestapo turned its anger on this innocent village and laid it waste. Unsuccessful in their attempts to stop the resistance of the people of occupied countries by the wholesale shooting of hostages, the Nazis have tried this new and brutal technique in Jugoslavia and Norway as well as in Czechoslovakia. ??? Vickery Praises Address By Richards J. I). Vickery. who edits "A Weekly Corner All Their Own", In the Columbia State, has the following to say of the address by Congressman Richards before the state convention of letter carriers held here last wet k : week: "Honorable .1 1' Richards, congressional representative from Fifth district, presented an interesting and enthusiastic address to the convention assembled at Camden Wednesday evening, July 1. "The congressman left Washington only a few hours before his appearance with the carrier body. Ho told of some of tho hardships of a congressman, especially during an emergency crisis. Mr. Richards praised the rural carriers as being a body of loyal citizens devoted to tho principle of true Americanism and called them to continue to build on the Ideas of the old in a progressive state. "He spoke of the custom of representatives having to appear before their constituency every two year period and ask them for their approval of their stewardship. It's the congressman's belief that no man or woman understands the goodness of democracy. r' "We are going to win this war," were tho closing words of encouragement by Congressman Richards." Small Farmer Important Figure 3 The Hiuall farmer lu the Southeast Is proving himself to be an important % figure lu the nation's war effort. This was the point of a report to, i day by H. 1*. Deboaehe, county per visor of the Farm Security Admin. IsLratlon. who iald that records com. piled In Washington show that of all the Increases of principal foods re. quired by the Department of Agrlcul. lure. low.income farmers participat.-d ing In the FSA program in the south will produce 26.5 per cent of the in. crease, 42.4 per cent of the increased pork products, and 7.1 per cent of A the extra peanuts to bo raised. In Kershaw county, Mr. Do Loach a said, the 1942 farm plans of F8A borrowers show that they will in. crease their fenced gardens by 150 acres, their egg production by 3.500 dozen, their acres in food crops by 200. "Food production by Farm Security participants really went Into high gear last spring when the 'Food for Defense' program started," Mr. D*. Loacho said. "It was stimulated by loans by FSA totalling $4,610,000 in the four states of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, In this ~ county the total of 'Food for Defense' loans was $0,472.75. "Now, 'Food for Defense' lias become 'Food for Freedom.' In 1942, with thd W&r mcrsafling the nation's " needs and with experience gained and new incentives given, the record of production will be increased. Pro. duction goals, which were something extra In 1941, have been written into the 1942 plans of FSA borrowers, aa a permanent expansion. "President Roosevelt has asked Congress to Increase by $150,000,000 the amount of loans to be made available through the Farm Security Administration for Increased food production In the United States. Thla fact should be proof that the nation is looking to the small farmer as an important source of food production? and that the work of Farm Security borrowers Is recognized as effective., "The small farmer Is winning his place In the sun. Of course, he must prove his right to this place by proper planning and accomplishment, but those that I know In Kershaw county don't have much doubt that they can do it." 450,000,000 Chinese Have Fought Aggression 5 Years Japanese militarists introduced total war to the world two years before Hitler attacked Poland. Shanghai and its civilian* became military objectives for the .Mikado's bombers. Farmers and refugees, driven from their land and occupations. moved soutli and west to continue the struggle. T'*o million Chinese worked to open the Burma Road, vital supply route for U. S. materiel, which is now closed. , ON JULY 7, 1937, at Marco Polo Bridge, Japan struck the blow that started the "China Incident." On Dec. 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor, Japan dropped the bombs that brought war to America. Sadly lacking in mechanized weapons, China has come up the long and hard way from fighting aggression singlehanded?almost barehanded?to the position of valued ally among the United Nations. To her allies China has brought many things from her five years' experience with the powerful Japanese military machine. There is the sheer fighting ability proved in the countless battles all along the 2,500-mile front and behind it. There is the civilian morale that has stood the test of the worst bombings. And then, there is the manpower?ten million trained men, five million armed soldiers, including 800,000 guerillas and 000,000 regular troops operating in supposedly enemy-occupied areas. China's value as a fighting ally is only equaled by the strategic importance of that country as a base for Allied air offensive against Japan proper. After Doolittle's raid on Tokyo the Japanese have launched a determined drive to seek out and destroy actual and potential Allied air bases in the Chinese pro\ inces of Chekiang and Kiangsi. The current enemy offensives are also aimed at seizing some of China's strategic railways, a complete hold on which would enable Japan to have unbroken land communication all the way from the Siberian border to Singapore. By once again stalling the invaders at all cost, the Chinese ore making it difficult for Japan to consolidate her gains in the southern Pacific or to strike at Soviet Russia in the north. Only with more bombers and pursuit planes from America, however, con our Chinese ally play her full role in the Allied offensive from Asia promised by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, United Nations Commander-in-Chief of the China theater of war. Cnder Chiang Kai-shek, China's manpower was mobilized. Thousands of peasants, students and workers trained in the interior to become soldiers. Often undereqaipped, with no plane rapport, Chinese soldiers broke war rules, defeated Jap invaders three times at Chanysha, the last time in January '42. Piggest thorn in Japanese occupation forces have been some 800,000 guerilla warriors, who have carried on a ceaseless war behind Jap lines. Chungking:, since becoming China's wartime caPj" tal, has been the worst bombed city in the world. Flying Tigers, s loss example of wW Sri do if and when she can be rsinlereed In tbe air.