The sun. [volume] (Newberry, S.C.) 1937-1972, January 31, 1957, Image 2
PAGE TWO
1218 College Street
NEWBERRY, S. 0.
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
Let’s go after business: that’s how a merchant combats
a lull in trade. When everything is quiet, or dull, the live
merchant doesn’t sit still and “raise” prices, does he?
I know a progressive young man who has sent an em
ployee throughout his trade area in order to solicit business
from house to house. That is an expedient in the right
spirit.
Our Nation needn’t try that because it has too much reve
nue now; it has become a sort of octopus; but our State
needs money; our merchants need trade; our citizens need
a diversity of employment to take up the slack.
The day for large farming operations leaves at a tremen
dous disadvantage not only the small farmer and his family,
but the entire community, and all the interests of the com
munity.
A man needs capital if he would farm on a large scale;
and it seems likely that only large-scale farmers will be
able to compete in an age of mechanized agriculture.
I know that every County has a few farmers who hold
their own, even when operating as small farmers, but such
men are exceptional men: the world is composed of ordin
ary men, not geniuses; and the ordinary man and his fam
ily must live. As a matter of fact, if they should remove
all of us ordinary people there wouldn’t be enough people
remaining to operate anything.
I know that our legislators are as keenly aware of the
general condition as I am; so I hope we may find a way
to bring in new productive business so that several hundred
thousand of our people may find regular employment at
good wages.
We Americans are becoming so accustomed to the flaunt
ing of the Constitution that we accept whatever is done,
and even proclaim it as thoroughly constitutional.
Speaker Rayburn said (or was quoted as saying) that the
President has a constitutional authority to send troops
wherever he pleases, because he is Commander-in-Chief.
That is entirely unsound in law; the President may act
lawfully in such matters only when Congress declares war.
Even the Congress has no constitutional authority to run
wild all over the earth. Perhaps we should throw the
Constitution in the waste basket so we may have no re
strictions on our impulses. Would you endorse that folly?
Certainly not!
One of the most informative studies of conditions has
been made by The First National Bank of Boston; I am
using it, in part:
“All citizens have an important stake and an over-riding
interest in plans for taxing and spending, for it is only from
their pockets that government revenues are obtained. Cur
rently, there is an added urgency in efforts to get greater
value for every dollar spent, due to the renewal of cold war
tensions and the consequent prospect of expanded national
defense and foreign assistance programs.
Concern for the quality and cost of government is a per
ennial problem, which seems to defy solution, for big gov
ernment is inevitably wasteful. Any study of the budget,
or the cost of government, runs up against a sheer magni
tude and a complexity of data that baffle easy descrip
tion and multiply the difficulty of dramatizing any solu
tion. This awes and terrifies many able citizens, who shrink
from their clear duty to better understand the budget pro
cess, in order to promote economy, sound fiscal policies, and
more prudent practices in raising and disbursing funds both
in national and state capitals, and in their home towns.
During the greatest prosperity this national has exper
ienced, our governmental units in fiscal 1955 spent $110 bil
lion, or around one third of the entire national income. And
the trend since has been upward. This exceeded consumer
spending in food stores, for tobacco, clothing, and housing
combined. It represented the equivalent of $664 for every
man, woman, and child. Of this amount, the cost of na
tional defense was $246, while the remainder paid all other
Federal, State, and local costs. Taxes amounted to $491
per capital, or the equivalent of more than six weeks of a
factory worker’s labor at the present average hourly wage.
In addition, during the year, all government debt outstand
ing rose to $1,928 per capita—an aggregate annual gain of
nearly $8.5 billion.
Federal spending is nearly double that of the state and
local governments combined, while 71 percent of all tax col
lections goes to Washington. The fiscal 1957 budget expen
ditures are now expected to be $69.1 billion, or $4 billion
above the estimate of last January. This marks the larg
est peacetime total with one exception, and was exceeded in
only three years during World War II. The $700 million
estimated surplus may be in jeopardy because of a slacken
ing in corporate profits. With every prospect that the fis
cal 1958 budget will show a minimum rise of $2-$3 billion,
it becomes clearer that we are failing by a wide margin to
get spending under control. Further, at a time of peak pros-
THE NEWBERRY SUN
RELUCTANT AWAKENING
perity, we are achieving too limited a surplus to meet the re
quirements of a compensatory fiscal policy.
In the 1957 budget, 61 percent of the funds, or more
than $40 billion, was allocated to major national security
programs. There can be no question of our need to be strong
and ready for any eventuality, but to deny, as some do,
that there are substantial opportunities for economy in these
expenditures, without weakening our defenses, is contrary
to all logic. In certain areas the desire for more and more
services, costing increasing amounts, seems to give too
little attention to ultimate costs. The fact, that the prices
of goods and services have mounted for government, even
as for its citizens, dictates that the budget needs more care
ful scrutiny than ever before, and no category of spending
should be considered untouchable.
Past efforts at economy and improved efficiency do not
offer great encouragement. The second Hoover Commission,
following our most far-reaching study of Federal operations,
pointed the way to greater efficiency, to lessened competi
tion of Government with business, and to savings, estimated
as high as $5.5 billion per year. A balance sheet of prog
ress over the eighteen months since its work was completed
shows that, of 479 separate actions called for by its recom
mendations, some Sl3 have been endorsed, in whole or in
part, by the Administration. Of these, 193 actions, or 40
percent, have been, or are being, implemented, with poten
tial savings estimated at around $530 million yearly.. This
represents little more than some of the less controversial
and less costly reforms. Much remains to be accomplished,
if we are to profit by the excellent work, and this will re
quire diligent efforts of everybody.
An area crying out for courageous pruning is that of
grants-in-aid to state and local governments. For fiscal 1957
these items, amounted to 6 percent of total Federal budget
expenditures. The dollar total of around $4.5 billion, spread
over some fifty different programs, is more than the total
peacetime budget prior to 1932. In recent years this Fed
eral aid has furnished 8 to 10 percent of state and local
revenues. Yet these funds represent no gifts from Wash
ington, but a return of locally collected monies, after the de
duction of exorbitant administrative costs. Grants are
frequently accompanied by burdensome and costly stand
ards and controls which weaken the recipients. In addition,
since they usually involve matching funds, they are a temp
tation to extravagance, and one which therefore favors the
wealthiest or most imprudent units. The Governors’ Con
ference has more than once recommended that these grants
be curtailed and that certain Federal revenue sources be
M r. CLYDE T. ELLIS, Gener
al Manager of the National
Rural Electric Cooperative Asso
ciation with headquarters in Wash
ington, has taken dead aim
against what he terms is a stud
ied national lobbying campaign
backed by private utilities “to
poison the minds of the Ameri
can people and their public offi
cials against rural electric co
operatives and public agencies
such as municipalities, public power
districts and the Federal power
program."
Mr. Ellis refers to a national
advertising campaign in maga
zines, newspapers, over television
and radio which alleges “there
is a privileged class of people In
this country who pay little or no
taxes in their electric bills, made
up of those people who secure
their electricity from govern
ment wholesale power sources."
He claims that the statement
is false on the face of it since
Rural Electric Cooperatives in
fiscal 1956 purchased only 6 per
cent of all Federally generated
power, whereas private power
companies themselves bought 10
per cent and private industry
bought 20% of this federal power.
Ellis points out that the total
cost of this advertising campaign
by private utility interests is
“paid for by those who must of
necessity buy electricity from the
compaines who sponsors the ads,
for they are monopolies within
their respective areas. In addi
tion, since the cost of such ads
and other manipulations of the
public mind are deductible ex
penses for tax purposes, 02 per
cent of the cost of this propaganda
comes out of the Federal treas
ury.”
“We do not believe," Mr. Ellis
said, “that it was the intent oi
Congress for consumers and tax
payers to pay the cost of their
own misinformation."
Mr. Ellis grants the right of
privately owned public service
monopolies to use such propagan
da advertisements to place their
views on current issues before the
public, provided the owners do
it at thair own expense.
“But," he continued, “we are
convinced that remedial legisla
tion is today necessary to close the
door to the use of ratepayer’s
money collected to pay the cost
of a public service for their own
private purpose.”
Mr. Ellis declared the Rural
Electric systems, owned by farm
ers are directly interested in these
propaganda expenditures for two
reasons:
1— Nearly two-thirds of the rural
electrics are purchasing their
wholesale power requirements
from the privately owned public
utilities, for which they paid $59,-
449,112 in the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1955;
2— Nearly one-third of the rural
electrics are purchasing all or
part of their wholesale power re
quirements from Federal whole
sale power agencies under laws
attacked by these ads, and for
which the rural electrics paid the
government $28,844,795 in fiscal
1955.
Ellis declares, as set out In the
Congressional Record, that the
cost of this program of “misin
formation” runs into “many mil
lions of dollars a year.”
TELL US V0UR
PROBLEm
AMO LIT M PAM IT ON TOHCLP OTMCM M SOL VMM TIMMS.
BY JOHN and JANE STRICKLAND
TIT HEIN Edward Langly, Toron-
» Y to, Canada, was/sixteen, his
father taught him a lesson in over
coming fear that he says has re
mained in his mind ever since.
This being the age when the aver
age boy becomes interested in
girls, he says it must have been
the cause of him taking a neigh
borhood girl to the movies.
He walked her home after the
movie, and when he stepped off
her front porch there stood the
neighborhood bully who said.
“Come down off that porch!” That
frightened Edward. He was wear
ing a skull cap and as he stepped
off the porch, he tossed it at the
bully and when he reached for it,
Edward hit him as hard as he
could. Then he ran for home; ran
into the house; ran up the stairs,
and jumped into bed. From out
side his window on the alley some
one yelled, “I’ll get you in the
morning.” He worried all night,
even in his dreams, about what
would happen to him on his way
to school in the morning.
The next morning as he started
to dress, his fattier walked into
his room, went to his closet with
his school clothes in one hand and
his dungarees in another. The
dungarees he handed to Edward,
the school clothes he re-hung in
the closet Then his father went
back downstairs, not having spok
en a word. Edward dressed and
started to school — tension and
fear mounting with every step he
took.
As he turned the corner at the
filling station he saw coming that
big bully with a group of his
friends. They went into a vacant
lot, and here Edward began a
fight in deadly earnest, determined
to fight until he had won. After it
was over, he went home. When he
turned up the walk, his father
stepped out on the porch with a
look on his face that Edward had
never before seen. Putting his arm
around his son’s shoulder h^ looked
at him with pride.
“Without a word,” says Edward,
“my father taught me the funda
mental rules for overcoming fear
and worry.”
\
'/
addocated to the states, to enable them to finance the
programs directly. The Commission on Intergovernmental
Relations found unequaled opportunities for savings in this
field, yet Congress, urged on by local pressure groups and
unwieldly Federal bureaus continues to hand out billions in
this costly form of ‘gift.’
Repeated deficits in ur over-all government spending,
and continued resort to borrowing, leave little hope for tax
reduction, unless we d .land more for our tax dollars. Suc
cess in Congress, in state capitals, and in city and town halls
will never come until ci/zen apathy diminishes and all of us
take more interest and demand action. Businessmen can be
of inestimably greater help if more of them will bring to
bear on gqvemmer. .orations some of the management
talents which have so richly served the American productive
machine.
To achieve sound(“ " seal policies, greater economy, and
more of our spendi e closer home will help in the fight
against inflation, tr rg wider personal discretion in the
spending or saving f our incomes, and buttress our eco
nomic strength in this uneasy world.”
$25,000,000 Andrea Doria sunk off Nantucket July 25 1956 bv
pumping air into hull. ’ 7
CROSSWORD PUZZLE
9 f^tto rmnrrrr
PUZZLE No. 431
ACROSS
ugh shelter
ushed
ad coven-
posed to
eather
ne
owing out
mainder
emite
nk of canal
oosite
trpath
rrelatire
either
eifle island
•ew pine
lishes
ap on one
it
atuities
mntaln in
>e’s triple
wn
h eggs
:ee strikes
.)
of roses
move
rountry
ibr.)
1 marsh
charl-
i gift
out
49 Bitter vetch
50 Diners
52 Sun god
54 A direction
55 Agreeable
61 City of
Wyoming
65 Disembark
from a ship
66 Lasso
68 Weight of
India
69 Great Lake
70 Go in
71 An ancient
country N. of
Persian gulf
72 Assists
73 Plants „
74 Lairs
DOWN
Ruler of Iran
At this place
Turkish title
Valuable gems
Small bar
racuda
Pale
Greenland
settlement
8 Man’s
nickname
9 Woody plant
10 Floor
11 Appellation
carpeting
of Athena
12 Nuisance
13 A son of Adam
21 Anger
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
23 51 (Rom.
num.)
26 Yell
27 Abode
28 Particles
29 Look at
fixedly
30 Dislikes
intensely
31 Toward the
center
32 Analyze
grammatically
34 Feminine
name
35 Kind of bear
36 Appears
39 Roman road
43 Abhorred
48 Swaps
61 Collection
of facta
53 While
55 Entreaty
56 Hook money
57 Wife of
Geraint
58 Angers
59 Baseball
team
60 Portal
61 Vehicles
62 European
63 Ardor
64 Male sheep
(pi.)
67 Spread for
drying
Answer to Psszle Ne. 430
THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1957
- V
CROSS d
ideas from other editors
From The Houston Herald, Do
than, Alabama: If some day the
newspaper man or magazine edi
tor should print the contents of
his wastebasket, there would prob
ably be a riot. There certainly
would be trouble in many homes,
arrests in some direction, shot
guns in others and troubles all
around.
But the patron never sees the
wastebasket. He only glances at
the beautifully printed pages, com
plains if one letter is upside down,
growls his disappointment if one
name in five hundred has hap
pened to go wrong, kicks because
his communication signed “tax
payer,” has been condensed into
respectable English, frowns be
cause the editor didn’t take his
advice regarding his neighbors
stray dogs and is generally dis
gruntled, not so much at what he
finds as what he fails to find.
He knows his share of the waste
basket, but If he could look at the
contributions made to that recept
acle by his neighbors and friends,
he would thank God for the exist
ence of a man with sufficient in
telligence and courage not to
print all he knows and to temper
even that he does print.
• • • •
From The Suburban List, Essex
Junction, Vermont: Farmers com
plain about the higher cost of sup
plies and farm equipment that
compared
years
they have to buy no\
with what they paic
ago.
The railroads have higher cost
of operation as well as increased
prices for all equipment they buy.
In 1947 a railroad box car cost
^x>ut $3,900. The pltee today is
just about double that or $7,800l
Pretty much all the expert ac
countants are agreed that busi
ness, industry and farming are
now working under a new economy
of high prices. In all that I read
it doesn’t look to me that there
will be any lower prices for many
years to come, if ever.
From the Catskill Mountain '
Saugerties, New
ing around the
tion tour, moto:
towns whose
often cause a
laugh. Some of
: In travel-
on a va ca
pe ss through
not a reel
in our own area, whose names wn
take for granted, probably cause
as much mirth to newcomers.
Few towns can top “Big Indian"
for an odd name (nor give head
line writers more fun) unless it is
“Kiskatom," “Sundown," in the
western tip of Ulster County, hast
received its share of comment;
while “Shady" was publicised a
few years ago in a national maga
zine and “Accord" was the source
of a quip on sfimationwide radio
program.
■ i ■«**
IBBPI Sir !■ k H 'II S*B »
'aas* •''i* ’yta a 1 ►'r* jehji
? * a rw ST ^ StH T r -? ft ^ ! 2*
READY MADE . . . Ne need te en$ and groove
nee as spiles if yen have only a few maple trees yen
obtain sap for syrup of sugar. An old-style clothespin o
firmly Into plaoo, does an effective Job and provides
for ball ef tbe pail.
-
CASBAH TENSION . . . French soldiers in Algiers test bundles
drtth mine detectors in search for arms and explosives hidden by
Nationalists.
This cm' That
Lloyd Jordan was the third
successive Harvard football coach
to be released before his agree
ment with the university had ex
pired. During seven years, Jor
dan’s teams won 24 lost 31 and
tied three . . . William “Red”
Holzman quit as coach of the
St. Louis Hawks of the National
Basketball Association “by mutual
consent’* . . . Among other recent
resignations in the field of sports
was that of Warren Woodson,
who quit as football coach at Ari
zona. The Wildcats won four and
lost six, their worst season in
several years. Woodson was
quoted as saying his Job at Ari
zona “was the most miserable
experience of my life." . . . The
San Francisco Seals report reser
vations are going fast for the late
March appearance of the Boston
Red Sox against the Seals in three
exhibition games. The Seals are
a Red Sox farm club, but the Sox
haven’t appeared in Frisco since
1911 . . . Paul Hornung, Notre
Dame star quarterback, received
a reported $16,000 for signing with
the Green Bay Packers—making
him the highest paid rookies ever
. . . Chris Brashear of Britain,
winner of the Olympic Games
3,000 meters steeplechase, has
announced his retirement from
track competition.
BEST SHOT . . . Mrs. Less
Mandel of Chicago set 3 new
trap-shooting records in 1956,
leading all men and women
with 99.6 for 1,006 targets, and
.994 12-gauge high average,
missing only 7 of 1,206 targets;
616 target consecutive nm and
4 gun aggregate of .957, 3588 on
3750 targets.