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‘T said when they started the thing it would be the ruination of the town and I say so again,”’ said a man Sunday viewing the land slide in “‘Eddie Knox's big ditch,”’ “the Inland Waterway, ‘Knox’'s Canal,” or whatever you're mind to call it. I have never been in a position where I couldn't say what I think and if I had been, I'd have said it anyway. And what I think is that the big ditch is all right. It’s not going to ruin the town or anybody in it, and once it’s finish ed, 99 out of every 100 of the residents are going to like it. I never have thought it was the pro per solution—l I've leaned to the theory that the tracks should have been around the town——but I'm not an engineer, architect, or even a city official. Those who know more about engineering, architecture and city administration than I do. It’s all right to forget, as quickly as possible, the traffic jams, par ticularly on Saturday nights when long freight trains blocked the Main street crossing until automo biles were lined up and waiting from the railroad to the new post office and the south side and to the First Presbyterian church on the north. The sooner we forget it the better, but even with a make shift bridge, conditions are al ready improved. We have mostly forgotten the fatalities at the Main street grade crossing——most of us but not those directly concerned. I doubt if there is a single rela tive of one who was killed there who has uttered a word against the “big ditch.” You know, in this age, horrors are not nearly so hor rible until they strike in your own household. The “big ditch” is all right and is going to be a beauti ful improvement, besides elimin ating a death-trap and inconven ience without measure. The chances are that all of those resi dents who would have had three square meals a day without it, will have three square meals a day with it. I never have subscribed to the theory that this country is headed for the bow-wows. Neither do I believe the big ditch is going t wreck the town or anybody in it. And speaking of the town: I seem to've been ‘put on the spot” because I said the refunding of $4,000,000 of the city’s debt back in 1933 cost the taxpayers $6,000, 000. Well, I stick to it. And I maintain that it is a fact—that is, in round figures. But my state ment apparently has been used in criticism of the city administra tion and the officials who had the refunding in charge. It was never intended that way and I don’t care how often I’m quoted as saying that no criticism is due. I happen to know something about munici pal financing——if I didn’t know something about it, I'd say the past 20 years of my life had been wasted. There is no particular point to what I said about the re funding operations costing the taxpayers six million dollars, and everybody who knows anything about such things probably already knew it. Always when you owe a note at the bank and can’t pay it, you go down and renew it, (or, if you don’t, the banker is going to be on your neck). Well, that’s just what the city of High Point did. The only difference is that the city deals in larger figures than most individuals. But in sub stantiation of my figures, I sub mit the old rule that money dou bles at five per cent in 20 years. The city would have paid (if it could) $4,000,000 of bonds and there would have been no further interest to pay on them. The bonds were refunded for 30 years and, therefore, 30 years’ interest must be paid, or, double and a half, which will amount to six million years. (The city’s average in n rate, I believe, is slightly less than five per cent, but the above is approximately correct.) Never has understood why any one will commit suicide. There is s0 much to enjoy in this old world #0 many beautiful things to see —I don’t even like to think of the end of it all through natural causes, much less of my own mak ing, and I never know whether a suicide is brave or cowardly. Seems to me the cause lies in a magnifying of some little trouble which gets to be a monstrosity and overwhelms the mind to such extent that all reason is lost. At the same time, we all know so little that I doubt if one mind ever knows what goes on in an other. It’s just one of those things that cannot be understood. Yet this world promises so much, and, after all is said ‘and done, we know little of the next, it is hard to believe that a sane man would deliberately seek to bring the end by his own act. Kan ever listen to the police radio? Somehow or other I get quite a kick out of it, but I don't know why. There is certainly little amousement in a broadcast to Cruiser So-and-So to go to such and such street— a fight—and you don’t even know what town it is. It's more interesting, of course, to listen to our own North Carolina state radio, but even then all you hear is distress and trouble. Few nights ago I was twirling the dial on my radio and suddenly I heard: ‘Three miles north of Burlington on Highway 61, which immediately interest ed me, being as how I live on Highway 61, but I couldn't figure out just how that highway could be north of Burlington. But I couldn't get the station again, and finally I decided that it was Bur lington, Vermont, or maybe Ohio and let it go. But it sort of gets your interest anyway. Abraham Kurnick, New York newspaper photographer, has in vented a “camera gun” which not only shoots bullets but takes a picture at the same time. It is de signed for the use of the police and, of course, might show what the person at the other end of the revolver was doing at the time the police was shooting, but further than that, I fail to see any far-reaching effects of using the weapon. It might, also, show whether the policeman’s aim was good, as, likely, the recipient of the lead bullets would be in the position of falling, in the event the aim of the policeman was good and he could easily tell whether he had hit the bull’'s-eye. I believe I could invent a better contraption. I would equip the cop's pistol with a lariat and on the pulling of the trigger throw it out to trap and draw in the suspected criminal without shoot ing at all.
Newspaper Details
High Point Enterprise
High Point, North Carolina, US
Sun, Nov 27, 1938
Page 20
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