Claude Gore Asks, Have We Forgotten the Common Good? 1922

From the Rockingham Post-Dispatch, Oct. 19, 1922

By Claude Gore

Rockingham is a beautiful town, its people are above average in intelligence and possess more of this world’s goods than most people; but we are on an insane hunt for pleasures and on the wrong trail even for that. In this mad rush for pleasure we have discarded our one-time good community spirit, we have thrown it aside as if to lighten our load in the race to get that which will give us more to eat, more to wear, more to see, and more than the Jones’s haven’t got.  It is no longer a race to keep up with the Jones’s but a race to out-do the Jones’s. When a project come up that is designed to better our community the best of us prey upon it with the idea of getting all the personal benefit we can and, many times, it is at the expense of our neighbors. The common good seems to have been forgotten. It is a rush for personal gain, generally a money gain with a belief that money can buy happiness. It cannot be exchanged for that commodity. Money buys things that stimulate our desire for happiness and when the effect of that stimulant dies down we are worse off than we were before. Happiness comes from a deed well done; a piece of work well done; a kindly deed; even a kindly deed done with money leave a bitter tinge and happiness would be nearer complete if the money could have been left out.

Several years ago, I was on the train, bound for Wilmington and the train stopped at Lumberton. There was a very old woman in the seat opposite me and she asked if this was Lumberton. I told her yes and she said, ‘I was to get off at Lumberton,’ and I asked her why she did not get off. She said she could not walk; so I picked her up in my arms and took her off the train. The conductor said, ‘Why I forgot that old lady.’ There was no one to meet her, so while the conductor held the train, I carried that old lady still in my arms several hundred feet to the waiting room and did not put her down until the agent promised me that he would take care of her. It was after midnight. When the conductor signed that train ahead and I swung into my seat I felt much better. Did I make that old lady happy? No. I relieved her distress and made myself happy.

In addition to acts of kindness there is only one thing in the world that can make a man happy. That is love of his work. I pity the man who does not love his work. The grandest feeling in the world is to go home at night thinking on the way that you have done a good day’s work; done it well; a little better than you ever did before and better than anyone else could have done it—and then on top of that to get a good night’s rest and wake up in the morning with an eagerness to get on the job again and see if you can do even a little better today than you did the day before. Oh, how I pity the man who considers his work a drudge and considers payday and Saturday afternoon the only day worth while.

Our people do not appreciate large employers of labor as they should. These men are real benefactors. A red-blooded, true man, does not want anything given to him. He wants a chance to work and fair pay for what he does. Large employers of labor distribute more happiness than we realize. Ask any man who was recently on strike and he will tell you how difficult it is to loaf and be happy.

We should rebuild our community spirit. There are many ways in which we can help. Our town council is doing lots of construction work and we are indulging in lots of destructive criticism. Some of them are beginning to feel like they have a thankless job. Let us back them up with constructive criticism.

Our policemen receive almost no co-operation. Let us help them by obeying the speed laws, the parking laws and other laws that we are continually breaking.

Let us discard that selfish personal gain policy and deliver our influence to the policy that will bring the most good to the community. We must improve our schools more; we must improve our church property. Let us cultivate that neighborly feeling, which makes one feel so much better and the world look so much brighter. Let us abandon that policy of banishing the lawless and try to live so that they can not be lawless. Let us uphold the arm of our solicitor and not convict him before he has been heard. May we all realize what a mistake it is to think at the rate of 248.5 miles an hour ourselves better than the other fellow.

May we keep our school athletics pure and not let our desire to win smother our desire to be honest. May we enjoy the game but not let our excitement interfere with giving our opponent a square deal and the game if we can not win it fairly and as gentlemen should.

Screw up our courage and determine that we will fight vice and the customs that have not yet become vices but have a tendency that way. Fight them forever and a day or until they are completely banished from our community. Pray that the thoughtless age will be made shorter. Try to demolish that idea that the boy is all right; he can get along but the girl must be protected. There is no protection for the girl unless the boys are made clean. Shame on a town that will accept a man who has run away with another man’s wife and will not accept the wife. Where is our community spirit when we will not act for the common good?

And now with Francis Kimball, let us all say ‘a sacred burden in this life ye bear. Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly. Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly; fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin; but onward, upward till the goal ye win.’

Let us remember that happiness is the reward of right living, right thinking, right acting and that these then can not be right without work and our community will benefit whether we will or no.

News Briefs: Steam and Railways, KKK Threat, 1922

From the Rockingham Post-Dispatch, October 19, 1922

Service of the New York, Wilmington and Fayetteville Steamboat company’s Cape Fear river line was inaugurated October 13^th with the arrival of the first boat at Fayetteville. This marks the beginning of freight and passenger service on the canalized Cape Fear. The promoters evidently have no fear of a Friday the 13^th starting date for boat service on the Cape Fear.

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The Atlantic Coast Line railway is issuing $13 million in bonds with which extensive improvements are to be made. With the completion of the double tracking now under contract (by May 1, 1923), 60 per cent of the main line from Richmond to Jacksonville will be double tract. The new equipment to be bought now will include 45 locomotives of the most improved type; 50 passenger coaches, and 3,800 freight cars.

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J.R. Harrison, member of the Fayetteville Board of Aldermen, received a notice a few days ago purporting to be from the Klu Klux Klan giving him until October 23^rd to get out of that town, under penalty of being killed. Harrison says he’ll not leave.

Angry Uncle Shoots Bride, Kills Himself, 1917

“Angry Uncle Shoots Bride and Kills Self,” from the Oct. 5, 1917, issue of the Monroe Journal.

 “Durham, Oct. 4—Angry because she eloped last Saturday night with Lucas Sears, a young man of Chatham County, Fred Williams, well-known tobacco planter of near Apex, Wake County, today at noon shot and perhaps fatally wounded Mrs. Cassy Sears, his niece, until last Saturday night Miss Cassy Yates. He then turned the pistol to his temple and sent a bullet ploughing through his own head. He died shortly after 4 o’clock this afternoon.

Williams went to the home of Mrs. Catherine Sears, mother-in-law of the girl, this morning. The girl met him at the door and invited him in. Without speaking, he drew the revolver and shot. The bullet entered Mrs. Sears’ right eye. She fell unconscious in a pool of blood. He then shot himself. The elder Mrs. Sears witnessed the shooting. Her son and the girl’s husband of five days were in the field mowing hay at the time. The girl was rushed to a Raleigh Hospital.

Carl White Murders His Wife and Two Young Children, 1917

 “Carl White in Violent Fit of Insanity Kills Wife and Two Children,” from the Oct. 30, 1917, issue of the Monroe Journal.

Taylorsville, Oct. 27—Carl White, aged about 33 years, becoming violently demented today, shot and killed his wife and two small children at his home eight miles from here. Following the triple tragedy White walked down the road some distance from his home and, meeting a neighbor, told what he had done and asked to be killed. White had a struggle with the neighbor but was overpowered and lodged in jail here.

L.C. White of Statesville and Arthur White, a banker of Stoney Point, brothers of Carl White, were at a spring near the house and heard the gun shots. They hurried to the house to find the woman and children slain. Three older children in the family escaped injury. The Whites are prominent in this section.

Retired Hickory Man Shoots Himself at His Doctor's Office, 1917

“Hickory Retired Merchant Shoots Himself,” from the Oct. 30, 1917, issue of the Monroe Journal.

Hickory, Oct. 28—J.A. Sellers, aged about 61, retired business man of Hickory, ended his life this afternoon shortly after 2 o’clock by firing a bullet from a 32 calibre revolver into his right temple while alone in the office of Dr. K.A. Price, whom he had called upon in a social way a few minutes previous. At the time the deed was committed Dr. Price was in a café a short distance away and had left the deceased reading a newspaper and apparently in good spirits.

Only 1 Million Children 10 to 15 Are Employed in 1920, Half the Number Employed in 1910

Originally printed in the Portland Oregonian and reprinted in the Hickory Daily Record, October 4, 1922

Child Labor Decreasing

With a million children between the ages of 10 and 15 engaged in gainful labor, as is shown by the federal census of 1920, just published, the materialism that permits such a condition is strong. Yet it encourages us somewhat to note that the figure indicates a very considerable improvement by comparison with 1910, when it was about double the present number and also that the decline as to the most hazardous labor is the most pronounced of all. One child in every 12 between the ages mentioned is a wage earner of sorts but in fairness to our social conscience it ought to be added that only 185,337 of the million are employed in manufacturing enterprises and that of these there are only 7,191 working in mines.

The word “only” is distinctly a relative term. The number is high enough, but we obtain an impression of progress from the fact that a decade ago one child in five of the specified ages was gainfully at work, that 268,932(?) were employed at manufacturing and 18,000 were occupied in mine work. The number classified under the heading “personal service” decreased in the same period from 112,071 to 54,006.

How far the decrease may have been due to the circumstances that the 1920 census was taken in January, while that of the 1910 was made in April, there is probably no means of determining exactly, but this may have had some effect owing to the difference in conditions governing outdoor work. This would have shown most conspicuously in agriculture—winter being the time of cessation of field work—and it is here that child labor would seem to be the least objectionable, if there is any defense for it at all.

So it would appear that there has been a distinct improvement in 10 years—which indicates that we may expect a further betterment in the next 10. For public sentiment is likely to need nothing more than a demonstration of the benefits of the more enlightened way to be enlisted solidly on the side of the right.

Eminent Surgeon Dies at 40 of Septic Infection, 1922

From the Hickory Daily Record, October 4, 1922

Prominent Physician Of High Point Passes

High Point, Oct. 4—Dr. H.W. McCain, eminent physician and surgeon and one of High Point’s most prominent citizens, died at 6 o’clock last night at a local hospital where he had been a patient for several days suffering from a septic infection caused by a carbuncle on his neck.

Although Dr. McCain had been in critical condition for several days and his death was not unexpected, it cast a gloom over High Point last night. It was on everybody’s mind and has caused profound sorrow throughout the city.

Coming to High Point nearly 12 years ago Dr. McCain not only built up a large and successful practice of his profession, but even of himself a wide circle of friends. He was a man of high ideals as well as integrity of service.

Dr. McCain was 40 years of age, having been born in Union County on February 27, 1882. He attended the Presbyterian college at Clinton, S.C., receiving his A.B. degree at the University of North Carolina, attended Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, and also took a post-graduate course of 18 months in hospital work.