Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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PAGE TWO THE NEWBERRY SUN THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 1955 've; *w 1218 College Street NEWBERRY. S. C. PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY O..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 Well, we hear a lot about automation. Let’s hear what one of our greatest enterprises says of it: “Automation will help U. S. work force fill a need for 40 per cent more goods. In the next nine years, the demand for goods and services will grow faster than the number of people available to produce them. In 1964, one of our greatest shortages in the \ United States will be man power. Our most conservative es timates indicate 184 million Americans will want 40 per ct. more goods than we consume today, and they may demand 100 per ct. more electrical products; yet the work forces available to produce the goods will increase less than 13 per ct. Automation is the most practical and desirable solution to this shortage of labor. If our standards of living is to keep rising the way it has been, machines will have to be put to work where none now exist—new, more versa tile machines will have to be built. For working men and women, automation creates new jobs requiring more skill and judgment; it will give more human beings a chance to do creative work . . . work which machines cannot do. And, because automation promises more and better goods at lower prices, pay checks will buy more than ever before. Automation has proved to be evolutionary, not a revolu tionary, process. It requires careful study and adjustment, and there are always short-range problems to solve. But using more machines is our best hope to meet the coming shortage of working people, and allow the available men and women to do a higher order of productive work. As we see it, this is progress in the American way.” The livest topic of the day is not the presidential race, but Atomic power. Everywhere we hear of uranium and nuclear fission. Many enterprises have entered the field. “One company in more ways than one is typical of scores of small enterprises that owe their existence to the fast developing nuclear energy field. Many of them have only a dozen or so employees, though a few have grown to respec table ‘small business’ size with 400 to 500 workers. You’ll find these companies scattered all across the U. S.; they tend to be clustered close to big university cities or centers of scientific research. A buyers guide compiled by Nucle onics magazine lists some 1206 such firms with a take in the atomic energy business. Unlike such big corporations as DuPont, General Electric, Union Carbide or Westinghouse, that are managing huge atomic installations for the government or constructing- costly reactors to generate power, these smaller concerns are operating on the fringes of atomic science. The growing knowledge of the atom and its radioactive by-products, and of the atomic particles called electrons has given physicists and engineers many new ideas on how to put radiation to work in a variety of ways. Helping measure and tame such radiation has created many new businesses ‘at the edge of the atom.’ It’s a realm with more than a touch of glamour. The whole field is still new enough to make its participants seem like adventurers into the unknown. Despite enactment of a Federal law last year designed to encourage private par ticipation in peacetime atomic actvities, there’s sufficient secrecy on some government projects to cloak the industry with an aura of mystery. Growing competition also puts the lid on talk about many promising developments still in the laboratory stage. Says an official, ‘We’re getting cautious about discussing our I activities. We have about 100 companies competing with us, and several really large outfits are considering entering the field. Why tip them about our operations? Apart from companies engaged in uranium mining or prospecting, whose activities have been pretty well publi cized, there’s a broad group staking their futures on partic ular aspects of the atom business. 9t I have spent some hours at Shaw Field observing the Air Force of today which is our first line of defense. The story I tell begins with my great and helpful friend. Dr. B. M. Ed wards, whose eminence as a banker is known everywhere, add whose instant readiness to do good keeps me constantly under obligation. Dr. Edwards, having seen all the equip ment at Shaw Field, called Colonel Bernard A. Katz and made an appointment for me. I spent an hour with the Col onel, as a preliminary preparation and then went out on the field to observe the operations in the air. The air force is a highly technical service. It is quite ar duous enough to serve in any military capacity even pn land or on the sea; but to do battle for the Nation thousands of feet in the air is a service which entitles our men to every protection we can give them. One need is trained men. We have many trained men but we waste their training by not keeping them in the service. ANNUAL SPRING BOARD In order to keep them we must make the service attractive. It is not so much a matter or more money for the over-all department, as it is to use more money to retain the men we have trained. . • / * Anybody can think and speak persuasively, but some thinkers are like splendid engines which are entirely apart from any load and merely run round and round, idling. Some men are advocating a yearly wage pay. It sounds plausible and attractive. Who will guarantee that the sales and the profits will remain unchanged? “Tne only effective way the vast majority of firms could guarantee continuity of productive employment would be to have flexible wage costs per unit of output that would make possible the lowering of consumer prices when de mand slackens, and thus maintain a relatively high volume of sales. The Nunn-Bush plan, for instance, guarantees 52 pay checks a year but the workers’ income isin part depen dent upon the selling price of shoes. Under the Hormel com pany plan, employees are guaranteed 52 weeks pay on a schedule which for most workers is 38 hours a week, but they may be required to work up to ten hous a day of 53 hours a week without overtime payment. The workers are paid a standard weekly amount through out the year. The overtime in excess of 38 hours a week is used to offset the short work weeks. To establish a system of guaranteed annual pay, without wage adjustments, would necessitate the Government’s guaranteeing national income, or its equivalent, and this would be accompanied by Federal control over production, wages, prices, and even consumption. In other wqrds, a planned economy would replace the present free enterprise system. Rigidities would run into violent conflict with the fundamental principles of a dynamic economy by shackling employers, converting wages into inflexible overhead costs, and stifling risk taking. The plan would hit hardest the small firms that do not have the reserves to draw upon, nor the credit for tieing up funds in non-profitable inventories. Because of incalculable * * ‘ ' commitments, the plan would discourage the establishment of new enterprise, as well as the expansion of new business. Moreover, during a recession, costs would mount as profits declined. Even in the mild recession of 1937-38, a guaranteed wage system would have doubled the wage cost of several automobile plants and tripled the wage cost in a steel mill, according to a government study. If only a few large com panies were forced by the unions to adopt this plan, it could be most detrimental to our economy since an estimated 60 per cent of all investment in research and development ex pansion is done by concerns with $5 million or more of assets. Instead of creating complex machinery for the handling of laid-off workers, it would be more logical to modify the present unemployment compensation system, which is reg ulated and administered by the 48 states and which covers nearly ^11 workers. This system is based upon sound prin ciples. The liability of the employer is limited since it is recognized that he cannot provide continuous work for all employees in a highly competitive society. Unemployment payments vary from $20 to $35 per week up to 26 weeks, and are tax free to recipients. A reasonable gap is main tained between benefit payments and the wage level of the individual worker in order to discourage idleness, and, by the same token, to provide the displaced worker with an in centive to seek and accept other employment, as he is re quired to do. Every effort should be made by the adoption of sound business and governmental policies to minimize seasonal and cyclical influences in order to provide for the greater stability in our economic system that would assure more steadiness in employment. At the same time we must maintain a dynamic economy by the aggressive promo tion of scientific and industrial research and resulting new capital investment, which have been responsible for an es timated one half of existing jobs.” H%u€arnegie ^ AUTHOR OF "HOW TO STOP WORRYING AND START UVING" T . L. Bond, 2465 Merchant Street, Abilene, Texas, was made man ager of a branch house Wholesale Grocery. Having been on the road for some time previous, it seemed that all the troubles in the world had just been put on his back. He was trying so hard to make good that it was taking about eighteen hours of the day for him to keep his house on top, and it was getting on his nerves so badly that he thought he would have to give up. For the first time in his life it seemed that he must admit defeat. Shortly he received a call from the President of the Company who told him that due to circumstances unavoidable he would like for Mr. Bond to take in conjunction with this house he already had, another branch nearby. He hesitated at first but then thought inasmuch as this was an advancement, it might help relieve his mind of some worries he already had. So he accepted the job. Thirty days later he was in more trouble than ever before. He immediately asked to see the CARNEGIE President and he told him that he would like to turn back one house or both of them. Before he could finish his sentence the President said he was sure that Mr. Bond was going to say that worries were his main trouble. Then this experienced man went on to say that most things one worried about never happened, and. that mostly the worries that bothered Mr. Bond the Company was insured for. Right then T. L. Bond learned that minor matters were his biggest troubles. Today when he locks the door to his business he locks in his worries and even though his responsibilities are now ten times greater, worries are few. 'Americans saved $11.7 billion last year to bring to about $588.4 billion their total in bank balances, insurance, se curities and savings and loan accounts. The Securities and Exchange commission’s report on in dividual’s savings for 1954 showed, however, that the rate of saving didn’t quite measure up to the $11.8 billion in 1953 and the $13 billion in 1952. At the end of last year, individual investors owned, in ad dition to other assets, about $280 bilUon worth of corporate stocks and bonds, the report said. There was more buying of corporate stocks and bonds in 1954 than in the prior year, the SEC reported, but the rise in buying securities on margin during the latter part of the year dropped the savings figure to the same level as in 1953. Savers swelled their bank accounts by $6.8'billion during 1954. And net purchases of shares in savings and loan asso ciations hit a record annual increase of $4.5 billion. The previous high was $3.6 billion in 1953. People bought more U. S. Savings bonds in 1954 than any time since 1949. Holdings of these bonds increased by near ly $800 million. The largest previous increase was $1.5 bil lion in 1949. But there was a net slump of $2.6 billion in holdings of Federal government securities other than sav ings bonds. Individuals added‘less than $700 million to their investment in state and local government securities, com pared with $2 bollion a year before, SEC said, because in stitutional investors were buying more. Mortgage debt rose by $8.6 billion in 1954 as more folks bought homes. The individual mortgage debt figure stood above the $7 billion mark in 1953 and the prior high of $7.2 billion in 1950. i n g t o n Q—Can yon tell me what the average Income of Industrial workers was tn 1954? A—According to the Tax Foundation full-time industrial employees earned an average of $4,050 in 1954. Q—Can yon also tell me how much this average Industrial worker paid tn taxes In 1954? A—This can only be estimated, but a close figure, including federal income tax. Social security taxes, and ail federal excise taxes would probably be around $900 in federal taxes and about $325 in ■ state and local taxes. . 0—Can you tell me how many children attended the 19th annual school safety patrol meeting tn Washington recently? * A—According to registration figures, 31.904 boys and girls from this country and 33 foreign countries marched in the parade down Constitution Avenue. Q—I boticed there are few tall bondings 6k Washington. Can you ten me how high the tallest structure is? A—The tallept structure in Washington is tile Washington monument, 555 feet, 6 inches. A building ordinance prevents any building higher than the monument. fr* Q—la smoking forbidden on the floor of the House of representatives? A—Yes, since 1871. ^ Q—What constitutes a quorum of a Standing Committee In the Senate? A—Each Senate Committee is authorized to establish its own but in no case not less than a third of the full membership. Q—How are women in House and Senate referred to? A—In the House she is “The Congresswoman fxom “. In Senate, she is “The Senator from ———” .iwr “There are 1400 agencies in government spending some $63 billion a v year. There are 71 of these agencies giving medical aid of one kind or another, and 104 agencies in the business of making loans, giving guarantees, or insuring everything from mortgages to the weather. And that is why there are some 2500 government agencies in direct competi tion with private enterprise. All of this came about, Mr. Hoover said, because of selfish pressures. Most of the*e agencies were created during war time or other emergencies for some specialized and then necessary task. But when the emergency ended the agencies didn’t turn in their suits. ‘When the task was completed, each had aboard it an empire seeking bureaucracy and a large pressure group which benefitted from it.’ The bureaucrats, and the specially favored kept the agen cies alive, well-fed and growing. The larger the bureau be came, the broader became its powers and the greater be came its chances of survival. The result was that what be gan as an emergency job turned into a vast heap of waste and inefficiency.” You may wonder how and why so many items creep into the National budget; you might profitably study the State budget also. And what about the schools, now that we are spending millions ? I have nothing in mind specifically unless it be the continued emphasis on building schools for colored children. When our South Carolina leaders relied on the National policy as set forth in the oft-cited case of Plessy v. Fergu son there was reason for the program of emphasizing the building of school houses for colored children. Today, how ever, there is a "policy which the Supreme Court has ex ploded. Common sense seems to indicate that we should formulate a clear afld definite policy that squares with re alities, rather than persist in magnifying errors of judgment. What is to be the policy of South Carolina? Shall we bow to the Court’s social ideas and mingle the races in the schools ? I don’t believe it. Of course I quite agree with those who challenge the attitude and the decision of the court, but unles we adopt a plan that avoids a clash with the court we must either submit or resist openly and aggressively. No plan that I have read seems to me to be sound in law, at least in some degree conformable to the sociological whims and vagaries of the court, in its plan to disregard the Tenth amendment and superimpose nebulous dreams of so-called modern thinkers. I renew my suggestion, that, unless we intend to oppose the court in a head-on collision, our most feasible expedient would be to retire from the field of scholastic work under direct control and responsibility of the State and Counties and incorporate schools and colleges alloting certain State aid as grants. All these charters and allotments would be available for any and all races on the same terms. I have said all this before, suggesting it as a practicable method in our confusion. I am sure that nothing short of a political revolution will restore a sane and sound interpretation of the law; if we are waiting for that, we might as well close our grocery stores and try to carve the moon into segments of green cheese. Perhaps I should resort to the example of old Cato, the stern old Roman, who, seeing the danger to Rome in the riv alry of Carthage, included in all his speeches, “And, more over, Carthage must be destroyed!” And eventually it was! W HILE the rest of the country Pit consumed with their own problems and trying to figure out what our national policies and problems are, lets take a look at the people of the District of Co lumbia, some 800,000 of them in a Metropolitan area of more than 1,350,000 in outlying Maryland and Virginia. ; The folks here in Washington are having their problems, and they can do nothing about it, blit : to sit back and hope for the best. The District of Columbia is sup posed to be governed by a three- member Commission named by the President. But aside from pay ing taxes, the District must look ■ to Congress for money to run the District government In the first place the Federal Government has taken over hun dreds of acres of land in the dis trict for federal buildings, parks, boulevards and what-not. This land is tax free. The Federal Government is supposed to aid in support of the District, or the “Federal City” by appropriations from the federal till in lieu of this tak free property. Unfortunately • it ain’t necessarily so. On top of the Board of three Commissioners, the City of Wash ington, voteless as it is, has two unofficial mayors who control the purse strings.. No they don’t live here, except temporarily. One is Senator Matthew M. Neeley, of West Virginia, chairman of the District of Columbia committee in the Senate, the other is Congress man John L. McMillan, of South Carolina, chairman of the like ; committee in the House. These two • men virtually control the appro- Cat priations for the district from federal government, and be< they do, control what hapi the District Government. . Then there is the National ital Parks - Commission, maned by Edw. J. Kelley superintendent, whose boss is retary of Interior Douglas So Mr. Kelley controls most parks in town. Then there is the National ital Planning Commission, also federal independent National Capital Housing At ity, and a National Capital gional Planning CouncU. Almost any public works instituted by the Board of Commissioners, must go through the two Congressional Committees, and these four sets of authorities, councils, commis sions and committees before any thing can get done. Then there are four sets of police. The National itol police force, the Nat e, the W* w . i» and the Service which guards the House, and other VIPs. Washington folks who can’t pay the following taxes: other Federal income city with a $5,000 exemption; a c °i_ sales and use tfcx; a transient rooms; a si . tax of 50% of the water flat fee tax on autos* license tax of than 3500 pounds, $32 for o\ weight; District gt estate and int property tax of $2 per others. CROSSWORD PUZZLE 1 2 3 4 5 14 17 20 ■ 30 36 .si u. gj IT" 13T ir 1 * • . M S3 54 * ■ _ tmamm . B” “1 Me. S4S m :.A'; ACROSS Mai plot of 14 ftindu ciuaen 19 Fabled monster 16 Nerve network 17 Choice part 18 Snare 19 To press 20 Feminine name 21 Part of plant 22 Birds 23 Simpleton 29 A fire worship per 26 Polishes 29 Writes 30 Scandinavians 31 Ritual prayer of Moham medans 33 Small ru* 36 Kind 37 Plunder 38 Collection of facts 40 Footlike part 41 Pertaining to a Great Lake 42 Wash in clear water 44 To cutoff 49 Make enduring 46 Fashions 48 Coarse SI Peeled tain range ' 60 Roman: 61 Outer) 62 in France 63 Dregs 64 Number (pi.) 69 Flower DOWN 1 American In dian 2 Corridor 3 Fennel 4 Keeps 9 Golf mound 6 Game of chance 7 Bird 8 Ancient coun try beyond Euphrates 9 Corded cloth 10 Monastic su periors 11 Dodecanese island 12 Make expiation for 13 Taut 21 Nickname for close relative 22 Enclosure for a light (pi.) 24 Increasejn- tensity of 29 Wampum 26 To cut off a 27 Exeavatk 28 Annoys 29 Project 31 Slide 32 Wing 33 Horse’s n< hair 34 A handle ere Asia 38 Flower 43 Makes certain 44 Pointed weap vdd: He. 844 47 thor Wild 1 80 Raves