Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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PAGE TWO THE NEWBERRY SUN 1218 Collegre Street NEWBERRY, S. C. PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY 0. F. Armfield, Jr., Owner Entered as second-class matter December 6, 1937 at the Postoffice at Newberry, South Carolina, under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $2.00 per year in ad vance; six months, $1.25. COMMENTS ON MEN AND THINGS By SPECTATOR Tax-Free Enterprises Deplored The Congress of the United States and the General As sembly of the State of South Carolina are in the “red”; very definitely both the National and State governments are afflicted with deficits. Let us be more specific: both the Nation and the State need money, more money, more and more money all the time. Where must they seek, money? From whom do National and State government get the money they now spend and have been spending all the time? They cannot get it like manna in the wilderness; they get the money from taxpayers. Since it is a cardinal principle of our American political philosophy that all men are equal before the law, how is it that both the State and the Nation foster and promote enterprises which pay little or no taxes? One power Company, the only big pri vate power Company chartered in South Carolina, paid in taxes for last year six and one-half million dollars. That money was paid not only to the State and Nation, but to twenty three counties and more than a hundred towns. Why doesn’t the Nation, why doesn’t the State solve the problem of deficits by creating more tax-free concerns? If the benefit of tax-free enterprises is so great, why not multiply them and draw the needed revenue from the skies ? Mrs. Annie Howell King of Aiken never grows weary of telling her readers the story. Let me quote The Standard and Review of Aiken: “Professor A. J. G. Priest of the University of Virginia Law School recently said this about the Tennessee Valley Authority and its operations: ‘As a matter of fair play I find it difficult to comprehend why the people of Tupelo, Mississippi, and Nashville, Tenn., (TVA consumers) should enjoy all the benefits of tax-free electric energy while my Virginia neighbors and I, and many others pay electric rates which properly reflect the substantial local, state and Federal taxes paid by the investor-owned companies’. TVA pays nothing in federal taxes, and only relatively small sums in lieu of taxes to other agencies of government. It pay no interest on its huge investment of taxpayers’ money. That explains why TVA power is ‘cheap’ — every one in the country helps to subsidize it. It also explains why TVA is a phony and dishonest yardstick of power costs. Contrast this with what happens when private enter prise carries on power development. As a Duluth newspaper said, ‘it uses funds entrusted to it by investors ... and sells the resulting electricity at rates regulated by govern ment bodies. Then like other businesses, it pays higher taxes to federal, state and local governments — on the average 23 cents out of every dollar in revenue taken in — a real addition to public treasuries that helps hold down taxes for all of us’. Which is be^t for the country — taxpaying enterprises or tax-eating socialism?” “According to the National Association of Electric Com panies, ‘In 1950 TVA's electric system was 94 per cent hydroelectric and 6 per cent steam. On completion of sche duled expansion in 1956, the ratio will be 30 per cent hydro and 70 per fcent steam’. It is quite obvious that TVA, founded on flood con trol and navigation, is being used to expand government ownership of the electric power industry. It is no longer a by-product of river control, but is becoming more and more a system of steam plants owned and operated by govern ment. It is not difficult to believe that the whole development and many others like it are being energetically promoted by those who would socialize America and destroy private ownership and free enterprise. With interest-free capital supplied by Congress, and having to pay no taxes com parable to what private industry must pay, TVA can make a showing that deceives all but the well-informed. £v.: Automation Stimulates Industry ‘W- sr-jf. Has the T.V.A. promoted and produced wealth for Tennessee? Well, here’s what a Chattanooga paper says: “All Tennesseans ought to be proud of their state and anxious to see it progress. That is why it is disturbing to note the low rating of Tennessee in Southern business progress as rated in a recent Kiplinger Letter. The Kiplinger survey rates the states of the South in order of business progress during the past five years. This is the order of standing # and the percentage of expansion, according to the rating system: Florida, 28 per cent; Louisiana, 18 per cent; Georgia, 18 per cent; North Carolina, 16 per cent; Alabama, 15 per cent; South Carolina, 13 per cent; Arkansas, 12 per cent; : Virginia, 8 per cent; Kentucky, 6 per cent; Tennessee, 3 per cent; Mississippi, 1 per cent. j / It’s distressing to find Tennessee next to the bottom of the list, above only highly agriculturalized Mississippi. Of course, the Tennessee Valley Authority has made a habit for two decades of claiming credit for everything good that has happened in Tennessee, as though there wpuld have been no progress without TVA. Perhaps TVA wants to claim credit for seeing Tennessee rank 10th in the ,11 Southern states v in business progress. The leading states don’t have the ‘blessings” of TVA and seem to be doing very well with the American enterprise system. We hope progress isn’t passing Tennessee by because of the Socialism that has been established here.” Chattanooga, as you know, is a thriving city of Tennessee. I need not remind you that the proof of the pudding is the eating thereof, as we’ve always heard. Tennessee Near Bottom In Progress “Technological progress is the foundation of modern economic civilization, and accounts largely for the difference between living conditions ( today and those in the cave-man period. Yet, in spite of the great contributions made by mechanization, there has been opposition to every forward step. Now the ‘bogey-man’ is automation, which is branded as a Frankenstein that will cause mass unemployment and is being used as a pretext for the guaranteed annual wage. Automation is a new word applied to the contribution of the long-term trend toward increased mechanization in the economy. It is therefore evollutionary rather than revolution ary. < Automation will be extended because of economic pres sure. We have reached the stage in our highly complicated industrial system where this forward step in mechanization must be taken in order to prevent productivity from level ing off or declining. The necessary productivity can be pro vided only by operating machines longer and at a faster pace than it is possible for humans to operate them and supply them with materials. Another reason for the adoption of automation is to cut unit costs, which have moved sharply upward in the last two decades or so, due to the rise in wages, taxes, and other elements. For instance, the average cost of an hour’s factory labor, including fringe benefits, is more than 165 percent above that of 1939, while it is estimated that the price of equipment has advanced only about half as much. Hence emphasis is being placed on labor-saving devices in prep aration for the rugged competition that lies ahead. Further more, the annual increase in our labor force is at a diminish ing rate, due largely to the abnormally low birthrates in the depression period of the 1930’s. Whereas the current labor force is around 42 percent of our population, by 1965 is is estimated that it will be less than 38 percent. On the other hand, the number of non-productive persons will have in- From the Tmll&ssee Trlbtuie, Tall- assee, Alabama: There is a politi cal axiom that a congressman would vote for an appropriations and against ail taxes. As a body, with some individual exceptions, the present congress seems hell-bent for conforming. After voting itself a pay raise, the wearers of the toga have voted to reduce individual income taxes which in the main wfl] benefit the average person by twenty dollars, give or take a few. Hie pay raise, incidentally, is on borrowed money. Now this newspaper could use a twenty dollar saving as well as the next one. As a matter of fact, the particular piece of green legal tender on which the government prints the picture of the late An drew Jackson is one of our favorite pieces of currency. It is a lovely work of art But we sincerely question the Jus tice of continuing the financial wing-ding we have been on in this country for the past quarter cen tury and passing on the bill to our children, grandchildren and their grandchildren. It seems to us that we should try more earnestly to balance the budget and to hew more closely to the pay as you go concept TO force through a tax reduction to be passed on to future generations, no matter how subtle the maneuver, is in truth as crude as robbing a kid's piggy bank. • • • From (he CatskiU Mountain Star, Sangerties, New Yerk: Our younger readers will be delighted to know that we have it on the authority of die American Hearing Aid Asso ciation that ears do not have to be washed to remain healthy! While we would not go so far as to say that dirty ears are healthier than clean ones, science has neverthe less established that clean ears are a matter Of taste rather than hearing. Among other fallacies that the Association has debunked are the notions that left-handed people have sharper hearing in the left ear. that deaf people hear better if we shout at them, that sea-weeds and seeds may grow in the ears of bathers. Blowing tobacco smoke into the ears and anointing them with on ion juice have also had their vogue, since as far back as recorded his tory goes there have been those who were handleappd by impaired hearing. And always, it seems, these unfortunates sought by one futile superstition or nostrum after another to do something about it. Thus, when truly scientific and ef fective hearing aids are available it seems downright wicked for peo ple to remain hard of hearing when they don’t have to . . . because of vanity THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 1955 Strom, lurmond to RLE COTTON BILL DEFEATED 1 V. During the past week, the U. S. Senate defeated an at tempt to increase cotton acreage allotments by a vote of 51-39. This means that unless a similar bill can be suc cessfully revived this session, there will be no additional acreage available to hardship cases or to small farmers with less than a four-acre quota. I am trying to revive the issue in order that our c >tton farmers may be allocated additional acres to guarantee each farmer the right to plant at least four acres. Unless this can be accomplished soon, however, it will be too late for this year. This is how the measure was killed. Instead of basing the bill on hardship cases and a four-acre minimum allot ment, an amendment was adopted providing for a IVk per cent overall increase in acreage. Then, senators from large wheat-producing areas offered an amendment to increase acreage for wheat by the same amount. When the final bill was brought up for a vote, it was killed because it provided for general increases for both commodities without regard, to hardship cases. i t IRRIGATION LOANS ' In view of the recent droughts in South Carolina, more emphasis is beirig placed upon irrigation as a means of averting future crop disasters. Many farmers are financially unable to purchase the necessary irrigation facilities or to obtain private loans. At present, however, the Farmers Home Administration has the authority to make government loans up to $25,000 to individuals and $250,000 to associations and groupss. This i£ made possible by the loan facilities loan act, passed by Congress last year. The loans can be secured by mortgages on chattels and real estate. Terms can be arranged over a period of 20 years, based on the individual’s ability to repay. Interest rates are fixed by law at 3^ per cent to the lender and 1 per cent for insurance. The loans can be made available for the following pur poses: irrigation, pasture improvement, soil conservation, domestic water facilities, woodlots, and drainage facilities. CHERRY BLOSSOM FESTIVAL Seventeen South Carolina high school bands will march in the annual Cherry Blossom Festival parade Thursday night here in Washington. South Carolina also will be represented in. the parade by several floats and Miss Suz anne Young of Grenwood, the South Carolina Society’s Cherry 7 Blossom princess for 1955. In last year’s parade, two state bands won honors, afid a float from Myrtle Beach won the grand prize for the parade. In addition to these high school groups visiting the nations capitol this week, many more are expected during the remaining spring months. I am glad to have them visit my office so I can arrange a tour of the Capitol and.pro vide them with passes to watch the Senate in action. GRITS ARE SCARCE After three months in Washington, Jean and I Khve about given up hope of finding any yellow hominy grits up here. Jean spent the first few days in town searching for grits, and she finally ran across some white grits after a long search. But, yellow grits is out of the question. A WELL organized move is now under way in the Congress to make dairy products one of the so-called basic crops, subject to the same production controls as other basics in order to get man datory 90% of parity price controls. It wiU be remembered that in the last Congress, it was a bloc of dairy representatives in House and Senate who moved over to support of the sliding scale of pari ty supports in the fight on the amendment to the 90% of parity bill. Then when the amendments came up to raise the dairy sup ports above the 75% of parity level set by Secretary of Agriculture Bensoh, enough votes from the ’‘basic bloc” went against them in retaliation for their desertion of the farm bloc, so that the dairy bloc lost in their fight to raise their own supports above 75%. And this gave the dairy farmers the excuse they needed to vote for the sliding scale on the final vote which de feated the 90% parity support issue. Representative Lester Johnson, of Wisconsin has introduced a bill, H. R. 4360, which would make dairy products a basic crop and provides for a referendum on whether to eliminate “surplus” production of milk and butterfat for manufactur ing uses in‘order to receive 90% of parity supports through the pro duction payment method. If two- thirds of all dairymen voting agreed to cut production, supports would go into effect along with marketing quotas assigned to each farmer. If more than one third, of those voting rejected quotas, dairy products would be supported only at 50% of parity, which corre sponds to provisions affecting other ' basics. REA co-operatives will spend ap proximately $202 million for con struction of new facilities in 1956, for which they will submit approxi mately $156 million in loan applica tions, according to a survey just completed by the Rural Electrifi cation Administration. The survey further showed that borrowings will continue at relatively high levels through 1960; that they have at this time approximately $122 mil lions of their own general funds invested in facilities; that they will continue to connect new consumers to their lines at a rate of about 125,000 a year through 1960, includ ing both farm and non-rural con sumers; that investment of about a fourth of future loans will T>® spent in improving distribution sys tems to meet increased power needs of consumers; that applica tions for generation and transmis sion facilities will account for about a third of anticipated loan needs and that they will increase bor rowings under section 5 of Rural Electrification .act to flnan< consumer appliances and equip ment. * * * Three bills have been introduc( in the House which provide for provement and extension of n free delivery of mail. Two bills troduced by Representatives J* Dolliver and Henry Talle, of 7 would provide for establishmc new routes or extension of routes if they will serve age of one family per mile, third, introduced by Jackson Betts, of Ohio, vide for extension of servk out regard to number of residing in any specified long as roads were good obstructed. ■■SPi i n g t o n Q—I am a member of the organised reserves and am going to under the Korean GI bill. Will my allowance stop when 1 am called for reserve training for brief periods of time? A—Your allowance will not be discontinued so long as it is the prac tice of your school , to grant exemptions for those periods withoi' requiring formal interruptions of your training. Q—A friend of mine, paralysed during Korean military service, is eligible for a “wheelchair housing” grant from Veterans istration. If he gets this grant, will he also be entitled to a home loan to finance the remainder of the cost? A—Yes. His “wheelchair housing” grant will not deprive 1 right to apply for a 61 loan to finance as much of the re of the cost as can be financed in that manner. Q—Have all states ratified the bill of Bights? A—Yes. But. three states. Connecticut, Georgia and Mas did not ratify until 150 years later, in 1937. Q—What was the origin of the Donkey and the Elephant as of the Democratic and Republican parties? A—Both were taken from cartoons in Harpers magazine by Nash. The Donkey was first used by Nash in a cartoon under of January 15. 1870. The Elephant came in a cartoon years later. Q—Can yon tell me the difference between a “majority” and a ality” in an election? A—A majority is more than half the votes cast for all candidates a given office. A plurality is an excess of votes over that cast the next highest opponent. ^ ■ |g n v -~ ■> creased from 44 percent of the population to over 49 per cent during this period. In other words, thqre will be a growing burden on the workers. Automation not only can relieve this strain but also pro vide more goods and services for all people. By means of this system, machines can operate ^ on a 168-hour-week basis, doing the monotonous and repetitive work now being done by human labor, thereby greatly increasing produc tivity. It is true that automation will reduce the need for un skilled or semi-skilled factory labor, but there will be greater opportunity for higher-grade labor. As the National Man power Commission states in its latest report: ‘automatic machines will require highly skilled maintenance and repair men.* The National Manpower Commission goes on to say that there is a shortage of skilled labor in this country as European immigration, the former source we relied upon, has been reduced to a trickle. The supply now must come almost entirely from domestic sources. There will be a growing demand for more skilled workers, which means better pay with more jobs. In other words, the factory labor force will be upgraded. Under automation it will be possible to reduce the work week, with consequent increased leisure, and this will mean stimulation of the recreation industry and related lines. Moreover, the many billion dollars spent on research in the last decade will be a cumulative influence in providing more goods and services. As has been pointed out by one of the outstanding leaders in scientific development, a quar ter of a century from now half of the workers will be pro ducing and selling products that are unknown to us today”. All this is true on our farms, as well as in our factories. CROSSWORD . PUZZLE TT V. 1. ' mm t: t -: -i rtv.i Mf t * 3 3T j ■ □ ' fr : ^ ACROSS 1 Bridge term B S. African veranda 10 Ohio State back 14 Walking stick 15 Dome. novel by Blackmor* 16 Gulf off Arabia IT State 18 positively Close to (poet.) Male im tale forebear 20 Apportion out 22 Aalt stands (mus.) 23 Emmets 24 Makes lace edging 28 Wicked 28 Goes in an opposite direction 32 Vouch for 38 Dry 37 Anglo Saxon lord's attendant 38 Medieval type of short tale 40 Moving truck 41 Cavalryman 43 Gold (abbr.) 44 Compass point 45 Extract of sheep's kidneys 46 Heraldry: grafted 47 Fitted one within WIMm another In a graduated series Su mot Supported a motion _ variety of chalcedony 56 Burn 58 Greek letter 60 Lifted 64 Detroit Lions end 68 Critical battle of World War 1 67 Clamp 68 Wild buffalo Of Tnrtia 68 American Indians 70 Paradise 71 Dress designer 72 Peruses 73 East Indian weight (pi.) DOWN 1 Cicatrix 2 Molten rock 3 The dill 4 Deserved 5 Inclines 6 Weight 7 Native metals 8 Growing out 8 Underwater devices to sever mine connections 10 Dark, fine grained rock 11 Norse god 12 Man's JUBl 1 Jl JiJJB J JIJ JLJ nickname 13 Number (pi.) 21 Rowing implement * 28 Surgical thread 27 Roman road 28 Bird 29 Rub out 30 Climbing plants 31 Foot covering 33 African antelope 34 Cook In certain manner 38 Wearied 38 Part of church (pi.) tTf 61 81 coin 63 Look st