Was Julian Selig Running from Cows, or Revenue Officers? 1920

“Doc Selig’s Injuries Cause Many Conjectures,” from the July 23, 1920 issue of the Elizabeth City Independent.

While hastening down the Norfolk Southern track at Shawboro from a dance which he was attending, Dr. Julian W. Selig, well known young optometrist of this city, was painfully scratched and cut when he fell through a barbed wire culver, which he failed to see in the darkness. He was on his way to the night train to see his parents, who were returning to Elizabeth City from Norfolk. Another version of Doc Selig’s painful accident is that a cow chased him over the barbed wire fence, which brings up the question, ‘Why was the cow chasing him?’ Still another version may be found by Revenue officers who are operating in the vicinity this week.

We Shot the Boss on July 29th, 1948

NOW SHOWING in ten U.S. cities—a movie perhaps unlike any you have seen . . . a move in which the stars are men and women of industry. Here on the set are two of the many actors—James F. Bell, left, founder of General Mills, and Harry A. Bullis, chairman of the board.

We shot the boss on July 29th

Yes, we shot board chairman Harry Bullis and lots of other General Mills people this past summer, with movie cameras—to make a film now being seen by thousands of our stockholders and employees at informal gatherings throughout the country.

To bring to life the inside story of the company’s 20^th year, the new movie—“General Mills Today”—features the farmers who grew our raw materials, the employees who turned them into useful products, the customers who bought them, and the stockholders whose investment made the business possible. It dramatizes the teamwork, the service, and the freedom that underlie our American system.

The chairman of the board and other officers are traveling with the show, to welcome the guests in person, invite suggestions, and answer questions. It’s all part of a broad policy to keep owners, workers, and the public better informed about the company.

Back in 1939, James F. Bell realized that too few people understood how employees, stockholders, and managers in a modern corporation work together to produce needed goods and services for the public—and what each receives in return. To help correct this, he pioneered seven informal regional meetings that fall. Since then, other companies have also adopted the same method of reporting to their employees and stockholders.

P.S.—the new General Mills movie has a happy ending: record sales and record wages, with earnings once again just under 3 cents on each dollar of sales . . . and many new products and services for your convenience and enjoyment.

Furniture Buyers in High Point This Week, 1914

From the Thursday, July 23, 1914, issue of the High Point Review

Quite a number of buyers have visited this city the past seven days since the beginning of the mid-summer exposition and more are coming tomorrow and Saturday, the closing days. The furniture expositions are getting better each time and the success of same is practically assured. It takes time to bring the large crowds here but they will eventually come, because High Point is the logical furniture center for the Southern buyer especially, and it does the buyer and eventually the trade good to come to the furniture center once a year.

The furniture exposition building should be built at once. It will do more toward creating interest and getting the buyers here than anything else. The fact that High Point has an exposition building will show that we are in earnest, that it is a permanent fixture and that is what is needed just now. Let us build it.

As One Editor Sees It by R.F. Beasley, 1941

Beasley’s Farm and Home Weekly, Charlotte, N.C., July 31, 1941. A single score of years is 20 years, so four score means a person is 80.

As One Editor Sees It by R.F. Beasley

George Bernard Shaw, the playwrite that people have been talking about an arguing over for many years, was 85 one day last week. He said he had been trying to die for a long time but couldn’t. The old bounder is of course fibbing. When he gets sick he will forget all about dying and try to get well. We all talk big about being so many score years young and not expecting to die as long as we feel well. I went to call on an old friend the other day who is 85 and he never said anything about trying to die. He was trying to live, because he is sick. Sam Jones used to say that people told lies about being ready and waiting to go to heaven. Every one of them, he said, would run for the paregoric bottle at the first touch of pain. Life is a tragedy any way you look at it. No one escapes. And death cannot be laughed off even by George Bernard Shaw.

***

I think that Senator Burton K. Wheeler is about the most detestable man in the United States. He has been violating the spirit if not the letter of the postal law in using the franking privilege to send out all kinds of attacks upon the President of the United States, even postal cards to men in the army asking them to violate the military rules by writing letters demanding that the draft period not be extended. Wheeler hates Roosevelt so bad that he would apparently turn this country over to Hitler or anybody else if only it would hurt Roosevelt. We are arresting men in this country for sabotage, but we apparently can do nothing about any sabotage a United States senator chooses to practice. When Andrew Jackson was president and some senators were acting about like Wheeler is now, Jackson turned loose a grapevine telegram that since there was such a thing as treason, people could be tried and hanged on the charge. It had a good effect. He did not except United States senators.

***

Japan has been coddled by this country and England for years. That country is the one which started the wave of aggression 10 years ago by robbing China of Manchuria. Now both England and America seem to be ready to stop the coddling and talk business. Why is there no outcry about our stern attitude towards Japan while some are bursting their lungs against aid to England and defiance of Hitler? The Pacific coast hates the Japanese and that closes the mouths of some United States senators. Yet it is perfectly well known that Hitler is the man who is instigating Japan to more and more aggression. Through his pressure on the French government, which is his puppet, Japan has been given a free hand in the French territory of China. France calls upon Japan to protect her possessions are the fake charge that America and England are preparing to take them. That is simon pure Hitler politics.

***

There is one thing that this country should put a stop to. That is all these various societies and organizations of people in this country who still hold allegiance to foreign countries. When in former times men came to this country from Europe they came to escape those countries and to be transformed into Americans. Now they appear to come to America only to continue to be something else and to exert pressure on this country to cease to be American. Westbrook Peglar contends that only natives of America should be allowed to vote. Foreigners come here now, often lie about their naturalization papers, and waltz into our politics and put pressure on our officials in behalf of that country they came from. No German-American bund should be allowed to exist, nor any Communist party. We are so wasteful of liberty in this country that pretty soon we shall have none. No many who splits his nationality ought to be allowed to vote in this country, and all naturalization ought to be put on a probationary status.

Good Housekeeping Cover, July 1930

Agriculturalists and Practical Farmers Prepare for Farmer Institute Meetings, 1914

“Prepare for Farmers Meetings” from The Review, High Point, N.C., July 30, 1914

Raleigh—More than 500 well known agriculturists and practical farmers from various parts of the state and members of the staff of farm specialists maintained by the state department of agriculture were here for a three days’ conference preparatory for driving into special farmers’ institute workers for the series of farmers’ institutes that are to be held under the auspices of the state department of agriculture in all those counties stretching from Raleigh westward to the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains during the next 60 days. Capt. T.B. Parker is director of the institute work and has arranged the dates for the institutes and will have immediate supervision of the work of all four of the parties that started out form here, immediately after the conference closed to take up the work of holding the institutes, Chatham, Durham, Moore, Hoke, Davie and Randolph being among the first counties to have institutes in connection with this series.

Horrid Thought, We May Have to Go Without Silk Stockings During War, 1941

Beasley’s Farm and Home Weekly, Charlotte, N.C., July 31, 1941

Dr. Lingle, late president of Davidson College, published an article in the current issue of the Christian Observer, giving documentary accounts of suffering in the South just after the Civil War. There was a philanthropic couple in New York who undertook to aid to the extent of their ability people all over the South who were in dire need. This did not apply to the colored people who were the proteges of the Federal government. They were the white people, poor before the war, but left like Scarlet O’Hara, on the land with nothing to eat. Letter after letter is given from Southern people, merchants or others of known probity, who told of such lack of food that in some cases amounted to starvation.

Well, we must have the hardships of war, even before we have actual war. In some of the countries which have had or now have war, people are begging for bread. And right here in our own beloved land we are threatened with a shortage of silk stockings. Of course people do not eat silk stockings. But Shylock said, “You take my life when you do take the means whereby to live.” And that being so, people in America who might find life unbearable without silk stockings may face the stern necessity of shuffling off this mortal coil.

Of course the soldiers of Washington at Valley Forge had no silk stockings. Many of them had no stockings at all and a good many of them had no shoes. But times are different now. What were then unheard of luxuries are now necessities. The government may find it necessary, in warding off the attempt of Japan to stab freedom and democracy in the east while Hitler is murdering it in the west, to forbid the shipment of silk from Japan to this country. That means no silk stockings, for all the silk that we can get will have to go into parachutes to save the lives of men who find it necessary to jump from death in the air. You can’t make parachutes out of cotton. Can you make stockings of cotton? No, not silk stockings, and who would scratch his or her legs with cotton or wool socks? Therefore, the people representing the silk stocking manufacturers will endeavor to show the government what a suicidal policy it would be to prohibit the importation of silk from Japan. And we do not yet know how large and powerful a silk stocking block may arise and exert its pressure upon the government.

Freedom and democracy are nice, if they do not cost anything. But when the necessities of life must be given up in their behalf, that is something to talk about. Would America give up silk stockings for freedom? Would America give up anything for freedom?

Rev. Tyre Suffers Stroke, Rev. Deshields to Hold Revival, 1920

“Presiding Elder Tyre Suffers Paralytic Stroke,” from the July 23, 1920 issue of the Elizabeth City Independent.

Rev. A.P. Tyre, who was Presiding Elder of the Elizabeth City District Methodist Episcopal Church South about 15 years ago, is the victim of a stroke of paralysis and his condition is extremely critical. His daughter, Mrs. W.C. Sawyer of this city, was called to his bedside this week. Rev. Mr. Tyre is now located at Greensboro.

Revival at Coinjock

A revival meeting will be conducted at Coinjock Christian Church, Currituck County, beginning Wednesday evening, August 4. The meeting will be conducted by the present pastor, Rev. Z.N. Deshields, assisted by the former pastor, Rev. C.B. Mashburn of Ellington, S.C.

High Point to Get Electricity to Light the Streets Downtown, 1914

From the Thursday, July 23, 1914, issue of the High Point Review

Mayor Tate Talks on the White Way and Other Progressive Matters

Judging from the citizens’ meeting the probability is that High Point will have the “white way.” Since this meeting Mayor Tate has said publicly:

“We are now favored with a proposition from the Public Service Company, not as I believe a money-maker for this company, but with a view to beginning a larger and greater development of High Point which will ultimately enhance their values here just as it will that of all others whose property enhancement depends largely upon the continued growth of the city, whereby the city will be saved of the cost of erection and maintenance of the “white way” system. This entire outlay to be made by the Public Service company and the entire responsibility of its maintenance to be on them. The only cost to the city will be a stipulated price per year for each of the five-light columns, with a proper rebate penalty for outage as under our present contract.

“The term of this ‘white way’ contract will run for five years so that it will expire at the same time our other contracts with this company expire, thus permitting the city to renew all its lighting and power contracts together, or possibly make other arrangements if deemed wise.

“Now if we would give this city the ‘white way,’ we must also provide for further extensions of arc lights to the outlying sections not yet provided with this convenience, and in order for the proper care for the whole undertaking, it will be necessary to increase the incandescent lighting rate about one cent per k.w. hour making the minimum, say, 60 cents per month. Our rate, when this is done, will be, only a fraction more than half that being charged by all other North Carolina cities.

“This proposition will doubtless be definitely determined and settled at a meeting of the city council soon, and if there are any citizens who opposed the plan as outlined in the petition now being circulated, it would be wise for them to appear before the council and give expression to their views at that time.”

In addition to the arrangements which have been made for repairing the bithulithic payment this summer, there are several forward steps to be taken in High Point’s advancement: First the “white way”; second, a new city hall; third, a furniture exposition; fourth, electric road to Winston; fifth, cleaning out another main street; and sixth, a county courthouse.

Troops Depended on Carrier Pigeons in WWI and WWII, 1941

Beasley’s Farm and Home Weekly, Charlotte, N.C., July 31, 1941

Carrier Pigeons Trained by Army for Messengers

A stout heart is honored by all men, by all nations, and special tribute is paid to voiceless heroes. That is why out of every war has come acclaim for the animals and winged messengers who serve men alike in the fields of peace and the fields of battle.

The annals of the United States Army are rich in tributes for these comrades who, bearing no arms of defense or offense, have gone into the fight with hearts of steel. Into these records have gone the history of “First Division Age,” hero of valorous deeds done in France and beloved buddy alike of generals and privates and on whose tombstone in an East Orange (N.J.) cemetery is chiseled the simple epitaph: “Rags—Wounded in Action With the American Expeditionary Forces in France—1918;” of “Old Cap,” wire-haired Griffon who served with distinction in the World War, winning a French medal and who sleeps today in Ware, Mass.; of “Stubby,” famous war dog of the Twenty-Sixth Division, painted by Charles Ayres Whipple; of “Mr. Downing,” General Pershing’s favorite mount who answered the last call in 1933; and of “President Wilson,” battle scarred war pigeon and one of several hero pigeons of the World War, says a New York dispatch to the Christian Science Monitor.

Training for Birds

It is to these sky messengers that the United States Army is today devoting attention and training comparable to that given trainees in any branch of the service. Maj. John K. Shawman, pigeon expert of the Signal Corps, is in charge of the work of training these birds at Fort Monmouth, N.J., and has recently staged eight-day flights in New York City of his feathered wards.

The United States Army is second to none in the development of bird communication service, having found that carrier pigeons have increased in importance with each development of the blitzkrieg, since through them defensive communications are maintained and opportunity developed to shatter the enemy lines.

Formerly homing pigeons could not be moved around, but insisted upon returning to one spot. Army Signal Corps officers have developed the use of a mobile loft that can now be taken on maneuvers to any part of the country. Within five days of their arrival at destination, the birds will be performing their duties.

An exclusive development of the United States Army is the two-day pigeon service. These birds will take a message to a special point and return to the place of take-off. How the birds are thus trained is a close Army secret. It is believed this country is the only one to have developed such two-way feathered couriers.

Major Shawman’s carrier pigeon training in New York was carried on from Rockefeller Center. Among the most interested spectators were the pigeons that make their homes on the set-backs of the city within a city in midtown Manhattan, and who find easy living in the hands of bird-lovers. They looked up in wonderment at the swift flight of the winged soldiers of the army.

Major Shawman gave his pigeons several days in New York to permit them to get accustomed to their new surroundings. Short flights were made during these days. Then, for the big test, six birds were taken by underground railroad to six points in the outskirts of the city. The subway in no way affected their sense of direction, and when they were released they flew as straight as an arrow at a mile-a-minute clip back to their mobile loft at Rockefeller Center.

In War Service

The carrier pigeon service of the Army is being greatly expanded. Another duty that has fallen to the care of Major Shawman is the registering of every private pigeon loft in the Nation. This was done not only to list a reserve of birds in case of an Army shortage, but more importantly, to keep a careful guard over the activities of saboteurs and fifth columnists who might use the birds for message carrying.

Great Britain has been using pigeons to carry dispatches in the present war and has appealed to American loft owners to donate birds for war service. Each British airplane when it takes off carries two pigeons for dispatching messages back to its base in case the radio fails to work.

Military use of pigeons dates from the days of the Roman Empire. Decius Brutus used homing pigeons to get in touch with the Roman Consuls in 43 B.C. when Mutina was besieged by Mark Antony. The Saracens used sky messengers during the First Crusade. The Crusaders tried to interrupt this service by sending falcons after them, but many of the enemy birds got through.

In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when the Germans surrounded Paris, homing pigeons were used by the defenders to keep in touch with the outside world. The Germans countered by using a corps of pigeon-chasing hawks, but, nevertheless, pigeons were credited with delivering more than (can’t read number but it’s more than 100,000) messages.

After this war pigeon corps were established as regular units in the Army and Navy Intelligence Departments of most of the European Powers. The birds were equipped with whistles which kept hawks, falcons and other predatory birds at a distance.

Served in World War

During the World War homing pigeons carried thousands of messages back from the front lines on both sides of no-man’s land, 20,000 birds being used by the United States Army, 120,000 by the Central Powers and more than 300,000 by the Entente Allies.

The American bird Cher Ami was the savior of the famed Lost Battalion of the Argonne. Isolated from the rest of the Seventy-Seventh Division, this battalion sent bird after bird into the air only to see each brought down by German sharp-shooters and machine-gunners. Cher Ami, the last bird left, although wounded in the breast and minus a leg, finally got through to Division Headquarters with a message which gave the exact location of the lost men and led to their rescue.

“President Wilson,” who lived 11 years after the World War, was assigned to a tank corps in France and during a battle in the Marne-Argonne sector flew through a heavy fog and rain at a mile-a-minute clip for 21 miles. He delivered his communication which was stilled tied to his leg. One of his legs had been shot away.

Another outstanding feathered hero of World War I was Mocker, who passed on at Fort Monmouth in 1937 at the age of 21 years. Mocker flew over the fighting lines many times. During the final push before St. Mihiel, Mocker was hit by a piece of shrapnel and lost his right eye. In spite of this, he winged his way to the American lines. The message gave the range on a German gun which had been hindering the advance of the American troops. Twenty minutes after Mocker arrived with the message, the gun was silenced.

In Times of Peace

Feathered messengers were used by man for peaceful purposes long before they were put to military use. The ancient people of the Orient and Egypt made use of them. The Greeks, who borrowed the idea from the Persians, used pigeons to report the results of the Olympic games. Ancreon in 560 B.C. wrote on”Ode to the Carrier Pigeon,” telling how each province’s representatives took pigeons to the games and sent word back home how the games were progressing.

Homing pigeons’ speeds average from 30 to 60 miles an hour, although a record of 75 miles an hour has been made. The birds can stay in the air from sunrise to sunset and have hung up some remarkable long-distance flying records. One bird released in Havana, Cuba, on July 4, 1930, arrived in Baltimore, Md., five days later, 1,300 miles away.

A racing pigeon called “Miss 1303”escaped in May, 1930, from a Caracas, Venezuela, mining engineer to whom she had been sold and flew 3,000 miles to her original home in Long Island.

French soldiers releasing carrier pigeons in World War I

Tobacco and Cigarettes Used to be Leading Products in North Carolina

I'm old. I remember when the air in sections of Durham carried the sweet smell of tobacco. I also remember when Winston-Salem manufactured Winston and Salem cigarettes. But those days are gone. When the president noted products made in the various states yesterday, he didn't hold up a carton of cigarettes. North Carolina's product was Cheerwine.

If your ancestors were living in North Carolina, they may have been involved in the tobacco industry. For an overview, read Teresa Leonard's Past Times column in the Raleigh News & Observer. 

http://www.newsobserver.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/past-times/article27906262.html

Below is a photo from the newspaper article, which was published July 20, 2015.

Mention Around the Mills, from the Fieldcrest Mill Whistle, July 20, 1942

Fieldcrest Mill Whistle, July 20, 1942.

Mention Around the Mills

Correspondents

The following correspondents have been selected for the purpose of gathering news from their respective mills. Any news item—about yourself, your family, your friends and neighbors—should be given to them. Don’t be bashful; people like to read about you just as much as you like to read about them.

Blanket: Mrs. Katherine Turner

Sheeting: Warren Hubbard

Bedspread: Morell Connor

Finishing: Mrs. Lois Hill

Central Warehouse: Mrs. Maybud Stanley

Rayon: Ray Warner

Bleachery: Miss Georgia Thomas

Office: Howard Sheffield

Woollen: Mrs. Maggie M. Harris

Towel: Mrs. Virginia Witt Williams

Hosiery: C.D. Looney

Karastan: Miss Dorothy Manley

Blanket Mill

Mr. and Mrs. Dan Strutton and Mr. and Mrs. C.F. Hailey and Son, Hassell, attended the funeral of Mrs. Hailey’s aunt, Mrs. Archer Moonan, in Baltimore, Md., last week. Before returning home they spent several days in Washington, D.C.

Claude Gillie of the Marines spent a few days last week with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. H.C. Gillie.

James Manuel of the army spent last week with his mother and other relatives.

Pfc. Edward Ferguson spent several days in town visiting friends and relatives.

Lawson Talbott of Durham spent the weekend with his mother.

Mr. and Mrs. Jack Blackwell and children, and Bernice and Francis Gilbert, and Bernice Burch spent Sunday at Fairystone Park.

Sergeant Nathan Powell of Fort Bragg spent last weekend with his wife and parents.

Ed Hurd of the army spent the weekend with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Hurd.

Mr. and Mrs. Roy Todd and Miss Gertie Meeks of Schoolfield were recent visitors at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Dewey Gauldin.

Mr. and Mrs. Walton Hamrick of Fayetteville are visiting Mrs. Hamrick’s mother, Mrs. Gladys Leary.

Sheeting Mill

Mrs. George Voss and children and Master Ted Gaudlin were weekend visitors of Mr. and Mrs. Ira Barrow.

Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Williams motored to Fairy Stone Park, Sunday.

Mr. and Mrs. E.C. Stophel spent the holidays with friends and relatives in Tennessee.

Mr. and Mrs. Ed Walker and family spent last weekend in Vesta, Va.

Eugene Pruitt of the navy visited his parents, Mr. and Mrs. E.E. Pruitt recently.

Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Samuels and family visited relatives here last weekend.

Word received recently from Kessler Field, Miss. One of the largest air force technical schools, states that Dewey Melton, son of Mr. and Mrs. R.M. Melton, has recently been promoted from corporal to sergeant. Sergeant Melton, formerly a professional baseball player, has a host of friends who are glad to know he is doing so well with Uncle Sam.

Mrs. Fred Rippy and children of Charlotte has accepted a position here and is making her home with her mother, Mrs. Annie Wilson.

Bedspread Mill

Bradley Murray, who has been in the hospital for an appendectomy, will be able to return to his home Friday. We are glad to hear of his rapid improvement and hope he will be at work soon.

Doris Barnes has gone to New York to visit her husband, Everett, who is employed in an anti-aircraft plant there. “Keep ‘em falling (the enemy), Everett.”

The rest of the page was damaged, so I don’t know what was in the rest of the column about Mrs. Nannie Gilley, Mrs. Cora Brannon and Ann Murphy.

Towel Mill

Mr. and Mrs. Leroy H. Shaw announce the engagement of their daughter, Shirley Alyne, to William Grover Golightly. The marriage will be solemnized in the near future. Miss Shaw is employed in the Towel Mill office and Mr. Golightly is connected with the Martinsville Broadcasting Co.

The Health League and Fellowship Club held its regular monthly meeting last week at the Fieldale Y.M.C.A. club room, with Mrs. T.F. Wilson hostess. After the business session a stork shower was presented to Mrs. George Merriman. Delicious refreshments were served by the hostess. The club plans to hold its annual picnic Saturday evening, July 19, 7 o’clock at the Fieldale baseball park.

Our popular sewing room foreman, E. Sherrill, reports that he believes he is just about the best gardener in the county. He raises a double crop of vegetables from one planting. Everyone that doubts this may call on Mr. Sherrill and he will be glad to show them his Irish potato planting, with a crop of something that resembles tomatoes growing on the vines and, of course, he has a crop of potatoes under the ground.

Rev. Z.V. Mason has concluded a successful revival at Salem church in Patrick county. The baptismal service was held at George’s Mill, Mayo River, yesterday afternoon at 4 o’clock, with 11 candidates for baptism. Mr. Mason assisted in a revival at the Methodist church here a few weeks ago.

Mr. and Mrs. J.B. Hunter, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Hunter and Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie Robbins attended a family reunion last Sunday at the Fredell farm about eight miles north of Fieldale.

Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Pickup were among the visitors at Fairy Stone Park, Sunday.

Our community is saddened by the death of C. Kelly Harrell, which occurred last Thursday afternoon while he was at work in the mill. Mr. Harrell was a loom-fixer and had been a loyal employee of the Towel Mill for many years. He was a good citizen and well liked by everyone. Survivors include his wife and two children.

Sgt. Hobart Gusler of Camp Pickett, Blackstone, Va., was called to Fieldale during the weekend on account of the illness of his wife. Mrs. Gusler has been quite ill for several days but her condition is now somewhat improved.

Mesdames Willie Sawyer, Bill Barbour, Lyle McAlexander and Hughes Martin visited their husbands at Norfolk Saturday and Sunday, returning to Fieldale Sunday evening.

Frederick Stilwell, formerly connected with the packing room and now with the U.S. Navy, has been transferred from Newport, Rhode Island, to Great Lakes, Illinois. He will attend a machinist school at that place.

Hosiery Mill

Robie B. McFarland, a knitter employed in the Hosiery Mill, is leaving for officers’ training this week. He also has the distinct honor of being the first employee of the mills in the manufacturing division to obtain and have delivered to him a U.S. War Bond purchased through the payroll deduction plan. This action further exemplifies the loyalty and patriotism that Robie has always shown towards things pertaining to the successful promotion of our war efforts. Such characteristics will be of particular value to him as he develops into a military officer.

Edgar D. Ferguson of the U.S. Navy was recently promoted from water tender, second class, to water tender, first class.

Messrs. Morris N. Eggleston and Walter Hale were the first employees of the Hosiery Mill to subscribe for war bonds. Both of these young men as well as many of their associates were very anxious to “slap the Dirty Little Jap” by putting their savings into the purchase of war bonds for the promotion of the war campaign.

Mrs. Evelyn Ferguson of the Hosiery Mills has just returned from Philadelphia where she spent a week with her husband, Edgar D. Ferguson, USN.

Bryant Takes Long Walk and Describes Indian Children at Boarding School, 1901

Beasley’s Farm and Home Weekly, Charlotte, N.C., July 31, 1941

Took Round Trip of 20 Miles…Only to Find That Old Jim Walkingstick Had Nothing to Say and Said It

By H.E.C. (Red Buck) Bryant

Jim Walkingstick was a Cherokee Indian in 1901 but no doubt he has passed to the Happy Hunting Ground long before this, for he was 77 years old in that old horse and buggy era when I made his acquaintance. One Sunday morning in November, I was walking from Bryson City, Swain County, to the Eastern Cherokee Training School, 10 miles away on the banks of the Oconee-Lufty River.

I had for a companion on that 20-mile round trip jaunt a traveling salesman I had never seen before. He heard me say that I was going to walk and insisted on accompanying me. I asked him if he had been used to such strenuous journeys afoot, and he answered in the negative but boasted that he could do the task if I could. He was what George Ade called a wind-jammer.

We made the journey, up hill and down hill, in very good time. I never saw that pal again for 15 years, and then in Washington. On a popular business street he stopped me, and recalled the ramble in the mountains, and added that he went from Bryson City to Knoxville, Tenn., where he was out of commission for nearly three weeks. He had undertaken, too much, when he was not used to it, and it laid him up.

To the Cherokee School

Back there, 40 years ago this coming winter, I wrote:

“Bryson City, Nov. 22—If one would know North Carolina he must travel from the Atlantic to the Smokies. Out here I almost feel like I was in a foreign land. The topography of the country and the people are so unlike what I have been used to around Charlotte. But the more I know of this section and its inhabitants the better I like them. To fully appreciate the country or the people one must make excursions into the rural districts. There mountain men and women live. They are the salt of the earth.

“Bryson City is a very lonesome place for a stranger on Sunday. Of course there are churches to go to but I go to those at home. One soon tires of laying around a hotel and is compelled to do something in self-defense. That I did yesterday. And, being interested in Uncle Sam and his work, I walked out to the Cherokee Training School.

“I had for a walking mate a pill seller who walked well for an inexperienced mountain climber. We made the visit between 9 and 5:30,and with the exception of a ravenous appetite, a few sore muscles and a great desire to sleep, I did not feel any the worse from the jaunt.

“What I saw at the school and on the way there and back affords material for a good story.

Meets Old Man Jim Walkingstick

“Seven miles out of town we began to see Indians—real Indians. I have seen Catawbas and Croatans but none of them look like the Cherokees, who have red, copper color, the high cheek bones and the long, straight black hair.

“The first individual we met was old man Jim Walkingstick. He was leaning against the fence that enclosed the red man’s church at Bird-Town. His eyes were fixed on the far off mountains and his mind, no doubt, on the Happy Hunting Ground. He was not the only man there for two dozen or more young bucks stood along the fence, and others loafed in front of the church. All waited for the services to begin. As we approached every mouth was closed. If any conversation had been going it was stopped. Each Indian looked as if he had lost his best friend. The atmosphere was heavy with Indian piety. I felt like I was offending the Indians by desecrating the Sabbath. But I have since come to the conclusion that they were simply playing ‘possum or pouting. I believe they thought the two pale-faced tramps were after doing the Red-skin harm. I tried to draw Jim Walkingstick into a conversation, but he did nothing but grunt. He could not tell his own name. His silence sealed the lips of the younger men. It was impossible to get a word of information about the country, or the people. And when I insinuated that I would stay for preaching the whole crowd looked more downcast than ever, and some few bucks grunted and walked away. If we had offered to go in the church I do not believe the pastor would have had a corporal’s guard.

Women Look Neat

“We moved on up the river toward the school and met a score or more of women going to Bird-Town. Most of them wore red shawls or capes over their shoulders and red bandana handkerchiefs on their heads. Their skirts were made of some plain cloth and had been made when the water was high, for they did not swing lower than the shoe top. They were made to walk in. I saw no one but who looked neat. As a rule the women are large and strong looking. Several of the girls wore strings of beads.

“The Eastern Cherokee Training School is maintained by the federal government. From year to year Congress appropriates enough to provide for 150 children. The school draws from all the Cherokee families east of the Mississippi River. At present 168 children, 90 boys and 78 girls, are in the school. Their ages run from 6 to 18.

“The work done at this school is decidedly practical. The boys and girls are trained to work as well as taught to read and write. The purpose of the education is to prepare the boys for earning an honest living by honest labor, and the girls for making good housekeepers, good wives and good mothers.

How the School Operates

There are 140 acres of land in the school tract. The boys work in the gardens, in the dairy, in the carpenter shop, in the blacksmith shop, in the shoe shop, where the girls learn to sew, to cook, to wash. The boys milk the cows and the girls take the milk and prepare it for the church and the table. The boys care for the barn and the stock while the girls help cook food and make clothes. The school is made self-sustaining as far as possible. One department helps the other. The work of a session is so divided that every boy must take a turn in each department. For instance, one week he will work on the farm, the next in the blacksmith shop and so on through. The object is to make him an all-round workman. The girls are worked in the same way.

“There are about 18 buildings in the enclosure. The main ones are the girls’ dormitory and dining hall, the boys’ dormitory, the teachers’ quarters, the superintendent’s cottage, the commissary, the school building, the office building, the baker’s shop, and the carpenter’s shop.

“The school is a model for neatness and cleanliness. Every building is kept in ship shape. The boys and girls are required to make their beds and clean their rooms. The superintendent makes a close inspection every Sunday morning from 9:30 to 10 o’clock. He goes to the sleeping apartments and each and every child is expected to be dressed in his or her best clothes, and standing by his or her bed. Order and system prevail everywhere. Along with several other visitors I was conducted into the large bed room of the girls, the dining hall, the kitchen and the school building. The girls sleep in a large room on iron beds equipped with comfortable mattresses and coverings. Boys and girls eat in the same dining room, though they occupy separate buildings and have separate play grounds.

“We arrived at the school soon after dinner had been served. The children were at play on the lawns. Fifty or more boys, handsome little fellows, with black eyes, black hair and red-tinged faces, were scattered over a hill side and a valley, inside the fence, playing shinny. They were like so many lambs skipping about. Further on, the little girls were running and jumping about on their lawn. They were pretty to look upon in their dainty, clean Sunday clothes with their raven locks arranged in plaits tied with bows of ribbon at their backs and on top of their heads. It was an attractive picture. There was a beam of happiness in every little black eye. The children seemed healthy and satisfied. As they romped they did not make much noise. Now and then, however, a boy would give a regular Indian yell. Uncle Sam, thru the teachers, has already accomplished much at this school. He has taught the boys and girls how to keep clean, how to dress, how to work and how to live together in peace and harmony. They should make good citizens.

‘It will no doubt be of interest to other schools’ boys and girls to know the names of 10 of the Cherokee children. Here they are: Masters Owen Walkingstick, Joe Coloniheiski, Jesse Ropetwister, Wilson Gadageski, and cunuaneeta welch, and little Misses Ona Youngdeer, Wahueeto Standingdeer, Yon Youngbird, Maggie Walkingstick, and Josephine Jessan. Those will do to remember. The girls who bear these names are good looking and young. The boys are bright and attractive.

“The location of the Cherokee school could not be improved upon. It is in one of the most charming mountain spots of North Carolina. The Oconee-Lufty River circles around the ground with its clear, swift water in full view of the buildings.

“The children go to Sunday school in the forenoon and to special service in the afternoon every Sunday.

“The Cherokee tribe of North Carolina numbers about 2,500 persons. Jesse Reed is chief and his board of councilmen is composed of 17 of the leading Indians of this section. They met a few days ago.

“On our way to Bryson City, we saw Jim Walkingstick out strolling. He was more communicative than he had been in the morning. On being asked where some Indian wares could be had he piloted us to the house of his son, John, where we purchased a small basket made by Lady Walkingstick. Near the Bird-Town church we bought some table napkin holders made out of laurel. It was then that the Indians became more interesting. Several of them condescended to talk a wee bit.

Whittier’s, on the Murphy branch of the Southern Railway, seven miles east of here, is the most convenient station to Cherokee.

“Many of the most promising boys, after leaving the school here, go to the Carlisle Indian School, of Carlisle, Pa.”

Good Housekeeping Magazine Cover, July 1911

Families Across the State Coming to Raleigh for Farm and Home Week, 1941

Beasley’s Farm and Home Weekly, Charlotte, N.C., July 31, 1941

Farm People Invited to State College Meet

From officials of the North Carolina State College comes a cordial invitation to farm folks of this and other counties to attend the 38^th annual Farm and Home Week starting next Monday, August 4. Accompanying the invitation is an offer to provide a room in one of the college dormatories for the entire week for only $1.00.

The invitation is signed, first by Col. John W. Harrelson, administrative dean of the college; and by Dr. O.I. Schaub, director, John W. Goodman, assistant director, and Miss Ruth Current, State Home Agent of the State College Extension Service.

An attractive program has been arranged for the farm people. It includes talks at joint assemblies of farm men and women by Governor J.M. Broughton, Col. Charles M. Busbee of Fort Bragg, Dr. Helen Mitchell, director of nutrition for the Federal Security Agency; Edward Scheidt, special FBI agent of Charlotte; and Dr. Sankey L. Blanton, Baptist minister of Wilmington.

Bayard Clark, representative from the Seventh Congressional district, will address the 20^th annual meeting of the N.C. Federation of Home Demonstration Clubs on Thursday. Miss Margaret Edwards, head of the home economics department of the Woman’s College at Greensboro, will speak on the Honor Day program Friday.

Special conferences for men are scheduled Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and classes in a great variety of homemaking subjects will be conducted for women Tuesday and Wednesday.

Group singing, led by Jack F. Griswell, will be held each night, and quiz programs will be conducted by F.H. Jeter on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. An amateur program is planned Thursday night.

Claud Davis Drowns in Catawba River, 1917

 “Colored Man Drowns in Catawba River,” from the Hickory Daily Record, July 3, 1917

Claud Davis, colored, of Ineman, S.C., employed as cook for the H.F. Deitz paint crew on the Southern Railway Company, was drowned last night about 8 o’clock at Catawba in the Catawba River. He was in bathing with a number of other people and seems to have fallen into a deep hole and could not swim.

Mrs. Lee Gaye Meets Midget of Ridgecrest at Baptist Assembly, 1941

Beasley’s Farm and Home Weekly, Charlotte, N.C., July 31, 1941

The Midget of Ridgecrest by Mrs. Lee Gaye

To some this may seem like a broad statement and some might think I’m merely speaking well of our Baptist Assembly at Ridgecrest, but others like myself are struck with the truth that it’s wonderful.

It’s a beauty spot of our nation, there on the mountain top where you receive spiritual blessings, a vision and an inspiration to help carry to every human heart the message of Jesus.

I wish it was possible for every officer and teacher to be there next year for the southwide Sunday school week.

The general and departmental conferences are educational and helpful, and the sermons are the best. The general atmosphere gets next to your heart. It is a rather reassuring thing to have people always look like they are interested in you and glad to have you. Upon such a commendable spirit has the reputation of this assembly grown among the Baptists not only in North Carolina but almost every state.

It was very thrilling to meet and be in conference with the writers of our Sunday school literature, also to talk with folks from New Mexico, where my brother has been for 18 years, and to send greetings to him, and the friendly folk from Tampa, Fla., who took a message to my son there. Everywhere praises are heard of the friendliness and fellowship. I feel like it is a long sought for spot where one could stay for a long time and leave with reluctance.

It was at one of the wonderful dinners they feed you that I met the midget of Ridgecrest. He attracted my attention as soon as he sat down at the table, because he had the body of a child about 7 years and the face of a grown man. Some one at the table asked him why he was eating with the older folks and he said: “I’m 18 and one of the staff.” Well, I just couldn’t believe but that he was joking, but I was so impressed I had to leave the table and hunt him up and get his story for the Journal, and here is what he told me:

His name was Dan Turner, born at Ridgecrest August 28, 1922 and weighed 9 pounds at birth. His parents are normal, as are his three brothers. He now weighs 60 pounds and is 44 inches tall. He began school at the age of 7 and finished at 18, and, if possible, will go to college. He has been working at Ridgecrest five years, four of which he has been on the staff. He wears a No. 10 shoe in a child’s size and 7-year size boy clothes. He has never shaved and won’t unless it becomes necessary. He has been examined by different doctors and all say he won’t grow anymore.

Just then a lady who was listening asked it all that information he was giving me was true. For a minute his countenance fell and then with that bright, intelligent look of his, he said to ask Mr. Morgan about him. So to Mr. Perry Morgan, manager of Ridgecrest, I went for more information. Mr. Morgan said all the boy had told me was true and he added that he is dependable, the champion checker player, can swim like a fish, is active in all sports, also an active worker in Ridgecrest church. Mr. Morgan also said he hoped it would be possible for Dan to go to college. I, too, hope he some day will have his chance, for I know he will make good.

--Mrs. Lee Gaye

Whites Kill Blacks, Burn 310 Homes, Because Negroes Might Cross Future Picket Lines, 1917

“Fear Another Outbreak in East St. Louis Tonight,” from the Hickory Daily Record, July 3, 1917

Estimates of Number of Dead Range From Score to 250—Many Blocks Burned in Fire That Raged During Night—Saloons Still closed Today

By the Associated Press

Fires which were started by rioters in three negro quarters at noon were fanned rapidly by wind, getting beyond control of the firemen.

Although surface indications were that the orgy of butchery and incendiarism which cost many lives here last night and laid whole blocks in ruins had spent its force, Adjutant General Frank S. Dixon of Illinois asserted today he feared that there might be more trouble tonight and discussed with the mayor arrangements to prevent rioting. The adjutant general explained that he feared the 1,500 national guardsmen now here would not be able to preserve order.

Estimates of the number of dead varied widely from a score to 250. At 9:30 o’clock this morning 25 bodies had been recovered, including three whites. Thirty-four wounded negroes were found. Estimates of the number of bodies in the debris of burned negro residences ranged as high as 250.

The city was quiet this morning. Saloons were still closed. Sleepy eyed guards and firemen were still at work. Other sections of the city appeared normal.

The number of dead could only be estimated at noon. Twenty-four bodies, including those of three whites, were at the morgues, and 75 others were known to have received treatment. Fire chiefs inspected the burned area and reported at 310 houses, mostly shacks, were destroyed.

Fires were still smouldering at noon today.

Shops opened as usual, but there was practically no business. The fire area covered 16 ½ blocks. It was in these ruins that the deathlist was expected to be swelled.

Three cases of smallpox developed over night among negroes quartered on the third floor of the city hall, it was reported.

Dr. Barnidge of Kansas City, representative of the Red Cross, arrived today to direct relief work among negroes whose homes had been burned. He was without food for the suffering. A large automobile truck toured the city under his direction removing wounded negroes to the hospitals. Negroes huddled together in the corners.

Five hundred of them, men, women and children, spent the night in jail. Two men were asleep in a bathtub when the sun rose. Another slept in a garbage can.

Bits of clothing were taken from dead negroes were shown today by souvenir hunters. One brutal incident of the night was related today. On Broad Street three men saw a negro lying on the street apparently dead. Finding that he was still alive, the men shot him.

The clashes Saturday night gave negroes a chance to organize for fighting. When word was telephoned to police headquarters that the ringing of a church bell had called the armed negroes together, an automobile loaded with police left for the scene. The officers were greeted with a volley. Detective Sergeant Soppedge was killed and three policemen were wounded. One detective, Frank Wodley, is in a critical condition. He was shot in the stomach. The police chauffeur also was wounded. Jay Long, a white man, was wounded in an earlier attack. Police reinforcements early this morning dispersed the mob of negroes and shortly after 3 a.m. Mayor Mollman asked Governor Lowden to send national guards men here to preserve order.

Two companies of the guard arrived about 9:30 and were assigned to duty in the negro quarter. Up to that hour the streets were quiet. As the morning wore on crowds began to congregate in the streets.

Trouble Begins

The first trouble occurred when a negro appeared at Broadway and Collinsville avenue, one of the busiest corners in the city, and an important street car transfer point. A white man struck the negro in the face and others in the crowd knocked him down and kicked him. As he lay in the street, a white man coolly approached and fired at him five times. Two of the shots took effect, one in the arm and one in the leg. As the crowd thinking the negro was dead, fell back, he jumped up and ran. The negro said he had had no part in previous race troubles.

A little later, a white man standing in front of the Illmo hotel fired at a negro but missed him and wounded a white man in the groin. The police arrested the man who fired the shot, but the threatening mob forced the officers to release him.

One of the national guard companies then was ordered from the negro quarter to the business section, but the arrival of the troops seemed to arouse the mobs to further aggression.

At 1:30 o’clock the rioting grew more serious. A car was stopped, the trolley pulled from the wire and a mob of white men invaded the coach looking for negroes. One was taken off and shot. He died in an ambulance. While this disturbance was raging, another car appeared. White women and white girls boarded it and seizing shrieking negro women, dragged them into the streets, where they were pounded and kicked.

Crowd Cheers

A few minutes later as a crowd was attacking negroes, one black was shot in the head. The crowd cheered as a policeman put him in an ambulance. National guardmen witnessed this scene but did nothing to disperse the mob.

One negro man, who was taken from the car which women rioters first invaded, was beaten in the head with a heavy club. He died in an ambulance.

Some of the men in the mob began to fire. William Keyser, a hardware merchant, was killed by a stray bullet.

One negro was shot and killed as he was waiting for a train to take him out of town.

About 5 o’clock a mob raided a pawn shop and carried away rifles and revolvers.

The race troubles here began late in May as a result of the heavy influx of negro labor. Labor leaders then expressed a fear that the negro labor was being imported to break anticipated strikes during the summer.

Stinson and Benton Families to Attend Reunion at Old Home Place Near Indian Trail, 1941

Beasley’s Farm and Home Weekly, Charlotte, N.C., July 31, 1941

Stinson and Benton Reunion August 6^th

The descendants of Cyrus Stinson of Mecklenburg County and of Washington Benton of Union County will hold a family reunion on August 16^th at the D.D. Stinson old home place, 2 ½ miles east of Indian Trail. This is now the home of Mr. E.J. Stinson and he urges all descendants and collateral relatives to make their preparations to be present.

Immediately after the Civil War, D.D. Stinson and P.C. Stinson, sons of Cyrus Stinson, settled in Union County. They married sisters, daughters of Washington Benton. Mrs. Martha Ann Benton, widow of P.C. Stinson is the only sister now living and she is 91 years of age. Her only remaining brothers are Messrs. W.A. Benton of Hamlet and Lonnie Benton of Florida. Union County has never had better citizens than the Benton and Stinson families.

Mr. E.J. Stinson says he is expecting a large number at the reunion and he has already heard from a number of descendants living in other states who expect to attend.

Mr. Stinson has some family relics which he will exhibit. One is a box with glass cover in which are examples of his father’s handicraft. Also there is his parole, given at Appomattox Courthouse on April 10, showing his discharge from Co. B, 15^th Regiment N.C. Troops with the Army of Northern Virginia, immediately after Lee’s surrender. His father, D.D. Stinson, was a prisoner during the war and while in prison employed his time partly in making small articles of bone, which was the only material he could get. One article is a shield with ?? and heart and one is a star and crescent. One is a small piece of turning which was done on a little lathe made by Mr. Stinson for the purpose.

Learning Is Fun at 4-H Summer Camp, 1955

4-H Forestry Camp Held at Millstone from Extension News, July, 1955. Millstone is a camp in Ellerbe, N.C., run by the Cooperative Extension Service.

The axe isn’t dangerous, it’s the man who wields it who causes accidents, according to this authority of forest safety.

Counting seedlings on marked plots, campers determine whether the wooded area is reseeding properly.

Tree salute is given by this group of campers who are scaling standing trees to determine number and size of logs.

Insect damage in a fallen tree is pointed out by Extension Forester F.E. Whitfield.

Rusty ‘rithmetic is taken out of mothballs by campers in class on measuring board feet of lumber.

Work and play, chiggers and timberrrr! Forestry campers had never a dull moment. As the pictures at right show, they planted trees, played softball, skinned posts, went swimming, fought forest fires, and danced square. The camp was sponsored by Southern Bell and the Extension Service.

Canning Vegetables Is Part of the War Effort, Says Flora McDonald, 1941

Beasley’s Farm and Home Weekly, Charlotte, N.C., July 31, 1941

Home Notes by Miss Flora McDonald

With the entire resources of our nation directed toward a united defense program, the health and morale of the great American people is of utmost importance.

Food has always played a vital role in winning or losing of war. It is equally vital in winning and keeping peace.

A well-balanced diet of good, wholesome, nourishing foods is vitally necessary to buoyant health.

Because the women are now determined to meet the challenge that calls for an adequate diet the year ‘round, they are turning to home canning with greater interest than ever before. The recent rains have produced an abundance of beans, corn, lima beans, okra, tomatoes, etc. The Moore County home maker should can the surplus.

The amount of canned foods needed for one person for the non-productive months is as follows: 32 quarts of vegetables, 24 quarts of fruits, 10 quarts canned meats, 1 quart kraut, 1 quart pickles, 1 quart relish, 2 quarts preserves, 1 quart jelly, 2 quarts jam, 10 pounds dried vegetables, and 8 pounds dried fruits.

Canning Vegetables

For canned tomatoes, select only ripe tomatoes. Blanch for one minute. The skin may then be removed easily. Do not peel any more than may be immediately canned, as tomatoes ferment quickly.

Be careful to remove the hard part of the tomato with a sharp knife at stem end. Pack into cans as many whole tomatoes as possible, cutting them only when they are too large to slip in. Fill can to within ¼ inch of top, press gently and shake down fruit to fill crevices.

A level teaspoon of sugar and a level teaspoon of salt added to a No. 3 can or quart jar of tomatoes improves the flavor of the product.

Use no water with tomatoes. If the can is properly filled the juice will be sufficient.

Process No. 3 tin cans 22 minutes.

When canning tomatoes in glass jars, fill quite full and process quart jars 25 minutes.

String beans: To can string beans, select those that are young and tender and which have few strings. The green pod stringless is a good variety. If the beans are gathered when young and tender, and the strings removed, a good product results. Snap the beans at both ends, string, and place in a thin cotton bag, and dip into boiling water from 3 to 5 minutes. This improves the flavor of the beans and allows more to be packed in a can. Pack closely to within ¼ inch of the top, and fill with hot water. Add 1 level tablespoonful of salt. String beans are a non-acid vegetable and should processed with steam under pressure. If no pressure cooker is available, the young tender beans can be processed for an hour and 30 minutes in a hot water canner. If the beans are older and small beans have formed, process for three hours. Do not can mature beans. Process in a pressure cooker 30 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.

Soup mixture: Corn, butterbeans and okra are difficult to can in a hot-water canner without spoiling unless they are combined with tomatoes, as the acid in tomatoes helps to destroy the bacteria. Therefore, it is recommended that they be made into soup mixture unless a pressure cooker is available.

Please Drive Quietly; Mrs. A.C. Hewitt Is Very Ill, 1917

“Caution to Automobilists,” on the front page of the Hickory Daily Record, July 3, 1917

Automobile owners who have occasion to use the street between Fifteenth and Seventeenth are urged to make as little noise and create as little dust as possible owning to the serious illness of Mrs. A.C. Hewitt. Since the street force has been at work on Seventeenth Street, automobilists have been forced to use the other road, but they will be glad to cause as little distress as possible.

Is G.S. Jacobs to Blame For Collision of Freight Trains? 1917

Hickory Daily Record, July 3, 1917

Raleigh, July 3—Officials of the Seaboard Air Line and representatives of the interstate commerce commission conducting an investigation into the collision of two freight trains near Franklinton Saturday resulting in four deaths and the destruction of thousands of dollars in property, went to Franklinton today. It was expected the officials also would spend some time there.

G.S. Jacobs of Durham, telegraph operator of Franklinton, who it is charged was responsible for the wreck because he failed to hold the northbound train, is still in jail here in default of a bond of $2,000.

The investigation is being conducted behind closed doors and no information is given out.

Destroy the Mad Dog, The Find way to Live in Peace and Goodwill, 1941

Beasley’s Farm and Home Weekly, Charlotte, N.C., July 31, 1941.

First of All, Destroy the Mad Dog…Then the World Must Find a Way to Live in Peace and Goodwill

We are told that chemists, knowing the results of action and reaction of substances, can tell in advance when and how a new substance may be discovered or produced. This may require time and patience to make the discovery, but it is known to be within the field of possibility.

There is something like this in human society. Students may guess or even be assured that certain things must take place. The time maybe far from “ripe” for them and educational processes are long and difficult. The inertia of custom, the opposition of self interest, the inability of the masses and the classes to comprehend the necessities, all tie up to make a lag which makes it difficult for development of much that is admittedly desirable and necessary.

It was thus with Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations. The time was not ripe. Men could see the purpose and the need, but few of them could see that something of the kind must come before the world could have peace. The future effects of the World War were reckoned as similar to the effects of other wars. But they could not be for the world had changed. At the peace council Wilson visioned it, but Loyd George and Clemenceau did not. None foresaw that the conquerers would relax in a moral slump and that the vanquished would immediately start a quest for revenge.

But Wilson, bringing home a scant victory over Loyd George and Clemenceau, met defeat in his own country from the same elements that are now estimating war and worldwide influences in the terms of war with powder and ball and world commerce as when carried in sailing ships. But Wilson saw the great truth—the constant and increasing integration of the world in which old things had passed away and new methods must be devised for new conditions. To him the League of Nations was to be a supervising agency through which all nations, coming into court with clean hands must receive justice, and with reason, tolerance and cooperation established, wars might become obsolete.

But once more the old methods must be depended upon, and now what have we? Another world war more cruel, more unnecessary and more far reaching than the first. So Wilson’s idea, the stone rejected by the builders, may yet become the corner stone of a new edifice of world peace and justice. And now reasonable men are talking of what must come after this war is over, and that is the enthronement of the principles of Wilson. This idea was concisely set forth by Assistant Secretary of State Sumner Wells, the other day for the consideration of the world. His utterances were in part as follows:

“I feel it is not premature for me to suggest that the free governments of peace-loving nations everywhere should even now be considering and discussing the way in which they can best prepare for the better day which must come, when the present contest is ended in the victory of the forces of liberty and of human freedom, and in the crushing defeat of those who are sacrificing mankind to their own lust for power and for loot.

“At the end of the last war, a great President of the United States gave his life in the struggle to further the realization of the splendid vision which he had held to the eyes of suffering humanity—the vision of an ordered world governed by law.

“The League of Nations, as he conceived it, failed in part because of the blind selfishness of men here in the United States, as well as in other parts of the world; it failed because of its utilization by certain powers primarily to advance their own political and commercial ambitions; but it failed chiefly because of the fact that it was forced to operate, by those who dominated its councils, as a means of maintaining the status quo. It was never enabled to operate as its chief spokesman had intended, as an elastic and impartial instrument in bringing about peaceful and equitable adjustments between nations as ?? and circumstances proved necessary.

(The next two paragraphs are unreadable.)

“First, that the abolition of offensive armaments and the limitation and reduction of defensive armaments and off tools which make the construction of such armaments possible, can only be undertaken through some rigid form of international supervision and control, and that without such practical and essential control, no real disarmament can ever be achieved; and,

“Second, that no peace which may be made in the future would be valid or lasting unless it established fully and adequately the natural rights of all peoples to equal economic enjoyment. So long as any one people or any one government possesses a monopoly over natural resources or raw materials which are needed by all peoples, there can be no basis for a world order based on justice and on peace.

“I cannot believe that peoples of good will will not once more strive to realize the great ideal of an association of nations through which the freedom, the happiness and the security of all peoples may be achieved.

“The word, security, represents the end upon which the hearts of men and women everywhere today are set.

“Whether it be security from bombing from the air, or from mass destruction; whether it be security from want, disease and starvation; whether it be security in enjoying the inalienable right which every human being should possess of living out his life in peace and happiness, people throughout the length and breadth of the world are demanding security, and freedom from fear.

“That is the objective before us all today—to try and find the means of bringing that to pass.”

Uncle Sam Will Use Plane to Get Accurate Map of Twists and Turns of Alligator River, 1920

“To Make Accurate Map of Alligator River…This Crookedest of the Crooked Rivers Had to Wait for the Airplane to Get Mapped,” from the July 23, 1920 issue of the Elizabeth City Independent.

Your Uncle Sam will soon have an accurate map of the Alligator River, that vast, mysterious body of water which separates the mainland of Dare county from the county of Tyrrell and has its source somewhere within the wilds of Hyde.

It may surprise the average reader to know that the U.S. Geodetic and Geologic Survey has never been able to obtain an accurate map of the Alligator River and yet the Alligator River is one of the widest rivers in North Carolina and is to be an important link in the government’s great intra-coastal waterway. Alligator River, after running straight as string for miles, begins to twist and turn and bend, come back on itself, and wrap around itself until it is the despair of surveyors and engineers. Boatmen say of it that there are several places on the Alligator where the pilot on a boat never knows whether he is coming or going and often meets himself coming back.

But Uncle Sam is going to get a map of that river. He has two bright young men in an airplane who are photographing the blamed thing a piece at a time from one end to the other. By patching these photographs together Uncle Sam is going to get a line on that Alligator River and find out just where it begins and how it finds its way to the Albemarle Sound. When you see a hydroplane with the designation “A 313” on its tail, you’ll know what that hydroplane is doing in these parts; it is for photographing the kinks in the Alligator.

American Soldiers Wildly Cheered as They March Through Paris, 1917

“American Soldiers in Paris for Fourth Wildly Greeted by French Girls,” July 3, 1917, The Hickory Daily Record

By the Associated Press

Paris, July 3—A battalion of American troops arrived in Paris this morning to parade on July 4. The Americans were greeted by wildly cheering crowds as they marched through the streets.

The officers are being entertained at the military clubs.

The Americans arrived at 7:30 o’clock, having been 36 hours on their way from the port where they disembarked.

The French Red Cross provided refreshments and the American Red Cross and the Y.M.C.A. also sent representatives to welcome the troops.

Headed by their own band, the soldiers carrying their rifles and sealed packs, fell in line and marched off to their barracks. Hundreds of Americans joined in the welcome.

As the troops marched through the streets French girls pinned bouquets and American flags on the soldiers’ breasts. Flowers were scattered along the route. The band played Yankee Doodle, Dixie and other American airs.

French soldiers on leave shook the hands of the Americans.

Old Postcard Celebrates Spirit of Liberty

Editor Predicts a Sober Fourth of July, Hickory, 1917

“The Fourth This Year,” from the editorial page of the Hickory Daily Record, July 3, 1917

July 4 this year will not resound with sound and fury, the purport of which is that the United States can whip the world. We have learned by this time that this country, unless its navy were able to starve off an enemy, could not meet on equal terms the land forces that any first class European or Asiatic power could transport to this country in a hundred transports. We have been slow in learning this important truth, but we have learned it well. Events in Europe, in which we are now virtually interested just now, has brought this fact home to us.

So July 4 this year will not be spent so much in pointing out what we have done as it will be an earnest endeavor to see how much we can do to prevent another war such as this from bringing want and misery to millions. The people of the United States are thinking not of past achievements, but are bending their energies in making it impossible for another autocracy to challenge the existence of democratic governments.

The Fourth this year finds American troops in France, American war vessels patrolling the waters of two hemispheres, and an American admiral commanding the combined British and American squadrons in British waters and thousands of men ready to serve their country and the world.

It will be a sober Fourth of July. But it will mean more to us on that account.

Picnic and Fishing Plans for the Fourth of July in Hickory, N.C., 1917

The Hickory Daily Record, July 3, 1917

The Glorious Fourth is destined to pass quietly in Hickory tomorrow. The stores, banks and many other public places will not be open, the post office will observe holiday hours and many fishermen will be wading in rivers in search of cats and bass. There will e two picnics of note this day—the Reformed Sunday school at Bakers’ Mountain and Post K, Travelers Protective Association at Catawba Springs.

We Stand Pat With Japan . . . Just Four Months Before Pearl Harbor, 1941

Beasley’s Farm and Home Weekly, Charlotte, N.C., July 31, 1941. Knowing that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it’s interesting to read this article on U.S. relations with Japan four months earlier.

Why We Stand Pat With Japan…Her Threat Is Not Theoretical But Involves Material Things Already in Our Possession

Notes, reprimands and warnings have been going to Japan for some time. The last went Wednesday of this week in consequence of the narrow escape of a United States gunboat, the Tutuilla, on the Yangtze River, from Japanese bombs. The boat was where it had a right to be and if the bomb had not missed, the boat would have been blown up. “So sorry,” is the usual Japanese reply. This will not go any longer.

The meaning of all this is perfectly clear. The United States means business, and for a reason which Japan may have overlooked. There is a significant difference between the Far East and Europe. In the Far East the United States has actual possessions and existing, established, recognized territorial rights and responsibilities. The ban on use of “selectees” does not apply to the Philippines. The Philippines are a dependency of the United States which Washington is bound by treaty to protect and defend with its military forces.

Threat to Philippines

President Roosevelt is criticized for sending United States Marines and naval forces to Greenland on the ground that it is getting too far away from the United States. The Philippines are much farther. But they belong to America to defend, and the army and navy are already there. When Japan went into French Indo-China it was an immediate threat to the Philippines comparable with the threat which a German invasion of Canada would be to the United States itself.

Up until this latest Japanese move every effort has been made to leave a friendly path open for Japan to reconsider its ways and abandon its Axis alignment. But the moment it went into Indo-China everything changed here. It was the move advocates of firm action had been waiting for. It made the whole pattern of Japanese aggression too plain for any doubting. The countermeasures and counterpolicy were all ready and in order.

Japan has chosen to make the last threat and the last advance which can be made into the East Indies without war. Washington has been busy ever since making sure of two things:

A.      That if war comes American forces will have the Allies and strategic positions necessary to assure quick and certain victory.

B.      That Japan is under no illusions.

There is also a powerful positive retaliatory side of the matter. Even if Japan heeds the warning and stops where it is in Indo-China, the pressure of the American economic blockade, implemented by Britain and the Netherlands, will put an increasing strain on the existence of Japan itself.

The assumption in the background is, actually, that the economic blockade is going to force Japan to choose between war and retirement. The best estimates of the blockade’s effect on Japan are that it will be impossible for the Islands to maintain their present extended positions with all trade to the outside world shut off. They must break it by abandoning Indo-China and withdrawing from China itself. Or they can attempt to break it by war.

Washington is watching and waiting, prepared if Japan chooses to attack and confident that if Japan is so foolish as to decide on the course of war the outcome will be quick and disastrous for Japan. The Axis may have the big armies in Europe. But in the Far East, Japan is alone, surrounded now, by its own folly, with powerful Nations all thoroughly out of patience.

License System

Meanwhile there is still much uncertainty here as to what proportion of the Japanese trade with the United States will be permitted to continue. The technical effect of the order freezing Japanese assets is not to stop trade, but to put trade under complete government control. A licensing system has already been set up. What licenses are granted and how much trade is licenses becomes a matter of administrative policy.

It is perfectly possible for the government here to grant licenses today for the export to Japan of aviation gasoline or fighting planes. Imports are equally controlled under the licensing system. There will be no trade if no licenses are granted. As yet there has been no announcement of official policy on licensing. It is assumed that trade will be permitted to continue for the time being in commodities which because of character or limited value can give Japan no appreciable military strength.

It may also be matter of policy to let Japan continue to purchase some gasoline and oil. Official quarters have not committed themselves on these points. Mr. Welles, when asked at his last press conference about oil policy, replied only that every request for an export license would be weighed and decided on its own merits. How each request will be decided will be largely a matter of circumstances of the moment. The government here is now in a position to close or open the oil faucet, and all the other trade faucets, in whatever matter will be most helpful to foreign policy.

If at any moment they think Japan shows signs of improving its international manners, they may be generous with licenses as a reward. If Japan’s behavior goes from bad to worse, each new misstep is certain to be followed by an extra squeeze on the movement to Japan of things Japan wants, or the movement to the United States of things Japan is particularly anxious to sell here.

Incidentally, it is obvious now why Japanese ships were barred from the Panama Canal during the two-weeks period preceding the move into Indo-China. And while no one has officially said so, it can be taken for granted that no Japanese ships are likely to be going through the Canal for some time to come.