Volume XI
Number 20
October 16
1943
THE STATE
A Weekly Survey of North Caro lino
Entered is treoad-cU». mstur. Jan. I. 1933. st U. Po.toffic. at Ral.ifh. North Csrollns. under th. Act oi March 3. 1879.
Gardner-Webb College
II has had its ups and down for a number
of years, but now — thanks to the generosity
of its friends — it is preparing for a future
that looks exceedingly bright.
THERE no more famous section
of our State than Cleveland and
Rutherford, for on this terrain
was fought the battle of King's Moun¬
tain. the turning point in the Revolu¬
tionary War, and several of our coun¬
ties and county seats take their names
from the heroes who there drove the
Red Coats from the crost: Cleveland
County for Colonel Benjamin Cleve¬
land ; Shelby for Colonel Isaac Shelby
(for whom a Tennessee County was
also named); Rutherford County for
General Thomas Rutherford; Mc¬
Dowell County for the brothers Colo¬
nel Charles McDowell and Major
Joseph McDowell; Forsyth County
for Colonel Benjamin Forsyth, and its
city of Winston for Major Joseph
Winston. What a list of illustrious
names sprang from this one spot!
King's Mountain was also the only
8 lace where any person has success-
ully defied Omnipotence, but hero the
British Major Patrick Ferguson did,
for lie reported to his superior officer,
"My position is so strong that God
Almighty cannot drive me from it."
The Major was quite right too, for he
is still there! Maybe the bullet that
laid him low was fired by the hand of
Cleveland or Shelby or Rutherford.
Some Famous People
It is a county of famous foik too,
for from these red hills came the
Dixons: Thomas, powerful pulpiteer
and peerless playwright, whose his¬
torical novel, the “Klansman," based
upon the Ku KInx Klan of Recon¬
struction, gave to the world its great¬
est moving picture, the "Birth of a
Nation”; his brother Clarence wan tho
George W. Truett of his day. filling
the pulpit once occupied by Charles H.
By R. C. LAWRENCE
Spurgeon in London ; another brother,
Frank, was a nationally known lec¬
turer on the Chatauqua circuit, whoso
son is the present-day Governor of
Alabama. From here came the Dur-
bams: Plato, who warred on the raid¬
ers of Reconstruction, with his son of
the same name, a famous Methodist
profe.ssor and pulpiteer; and Rev. Dr.
< ,'olumbus Durham, leader of ( .’arolina
Baptiste.
This just begins the roster of the
big folks of the section, for I recently
wrote an article on Twentieth Century
Carolina Primates, and just bad to go
to Cleveland for three of the twenty-
six — for where is there a more emi¬
nent "H” than his former excellency
Clyde Roark
Носу;
a more famous
“G” than his former excellency 0.
Max Gardner; a more outstanding
"W" than Judge Edwin Yates Webb !
Now Gardner is known to fame as
the father of our greater University
and as the author of his nationally
THE COVER PICTURE
There are many sailing vessels
still being operated in the
waters of eastern North Caro¬
lina. Here is a large three-
masted schooner, being loaded
with lumber at Washington,
North Carolina. Other similar
craft visit New Bern, Williams-
ton and other towns in that sec¬
tion.
known “Live-at-TTome program”;
while Judge Webb is celebrated as the
veteran Congressman of First World
War days, when he was chairman of
tho Judiciary, co-author of the Webb-
Kcnyon act, and a lawyer of such out¬
standing eminence that he was named
by President Wilson to the bench of
the Federal court in our Western Dis¬
trict. And quite a number of the klans
of the Gardners and the Webbs have
seen service in legislative halls — just
fifteen of them, if you include young
Ralph, the Governor's son who in 1938
occupied a seat in the Senate, over
which body his father once presided as
Lieutenant Governor.
Even Greater Service
But an even nobler service was
rendered by the firm of Gardner and
Webb when they heard tho clarion¬
like call which came from a sinking
educational institution — “help me,
Cassius, or I sink,” and forthwith
they launched a life-boat and sped
through the breakers to the succor of
the sinking; and they saved a ship
which would otherwise have floun¬
dered.
Our state is littered with the wrecks
of secondary denominational schools
that wore unable to find some Aladdin
to rub his magic lamp in their favor,
and such a disaster was imminent in
Cleveland County. In the early years
of the present century before Aycock
had the opportunity to carry out his
educational program, there were no
rurul high schools in tho sector of
which I write, and back in 1905 the
Baptists undertook to supply this de-
(Continued on page twenty-nine )
