The new* in this publica
tion is released for the press on
the date indicated below.
^ M ^^^U^I\^RSITY OF north CAROLINA
NEWS LETTF
JVOVEMBER 8,1916
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
for its Bureau of Extension.
Han.ilton, U R. Wilson, J. H. John.ton, R. H. Thornton, . VO^I, NO. 50
Entered as second-olaas matter November U, 19U, at the..ostoffl«e at Chapel Hll. N C
. mt-e at onapel Hill, N. C., ander the act of Aagnst 24,1912
Bditoriai
Branson
NORTH CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES
WEALTH AND DECAY
UNIVERSITY SUPPORT IN
NORTH CAROLINA
If a tax payer had as much as a thous
and dollars wortli of propertj' on the tax
books in North Carolina in 1915, his tax
burden for University support amounted
to eighteen cents.
It amounted to one dollar if his taxa
ble property was as much as $5,555; in
which event he is a fairly well-to-do citi
zen as we count prosperity in North Car
olina.
It amounted to the magnificent sum of
$5 if his property on the tax books was as
much as 127,777. And counting out for
eign and domestic corporations, the tax
payers of this class are very few in North
Carolina.
A Typical Township
How lightly University support rests
•upon the vast majority of the property
owners of the State can be seen by exam
fining a classified list of the tax payers in
typical township. The list covers ^♦hite
tax payers, and all real and personal
.property except stocks, bonds, incomes
■and public utility corporation property.
The white population is 2,700. The tax
payers number 956, and their total taxa
ble.property in 1916 is two and a quar
ler million dollars.
Less than 9 cents each is the Univer
sity tax burden on 401 of these tax pay
ers; 175 others pay less than 18 cents
each; wliite 320 others whose property is
assessed at from one to five thousand
dollars pay from 20 to 90 cents each.
Five hundred and seventy-six or nearly
4hree-flfth of the tax = payers contribute'
; in taxes less than 18 cents apiece to Uni
versity support. Only 52 contribute as
much as 11.00; and of these 23 pay as
much as^.OO; tweve as much as JS3.00
«ight as much as $4.00; and only six pay
s ranch, as J5.00 apiece to University
upport. One cotton mill concern pays
75 or a fifth of all the taxes contributed
0 University support by the tax payers
■of the entire township.
Sixty tax payers worth 3>1,192,425, on
he tax liooks, own nearly exactly half
f the real and personal property of the
ntire township and contribute half of all
he tax money that goes to University
upport. ^
And these figures probdbly represent
he whole State. The whites who pay
axes on re^il and personal property, one
r both, are almost exactly a third of the
hite population of all ages; and more
han half of these white tax payers’the
hole state over pay in taxes less than 18
ents apiece to support the State Univer
ity. Around a half of all the tax money
or University support and all. other pur-
oses is paid by six per cent of the prop-
rty owners or tv\ o per cent of the entire
opulation.
So much for the concentration of
'ealth, such as it is, in a state like North
'arolina.
umverstty clerks and stenographers alene
receive nearly $80,000 a year. It takes
money to carry university benefits into
every nook and corner of the state.
The South and the West
During the year ending June 30, 1916
six southern universities received larger
legislative support- than the .University of
North Carolina. Alongside these .states
we place seven western states and the leg
islative support they received.
Texas $365,246 Kansas
Iowa
Nebraska
Ohio
Michigan
$585,000
767,200
951,000
1,041,482
1,429,800
Wisconsin 1,735,928
Minnesota 2,063,913
Arizona 296,298
Kentucky 205,977
Mississippi 172,500
Oklahoma 170,615
Georgia 155,500
N. Carolina 145,000
The universities of five southern states
have larger investments than North Car
olina in physical properties — grounds,
buildings, library, apparatus, machinery,
and furniture. Here again, a compari
son with western states is suggestive.
Texas $2,325,770 Nebraska $2,467,668
\irginia 2,207,616 Iowa 3,722,372
Alabama 1,380,000 Indiana 5,475,258
Georgia 1,330,000 Michigan 6,530,618
Tennessee 1,216,028 Wisconsin 7,403,512
N.Carolina 1,154,025 Minnesota 9,974,746
The Burden on Tax Payers
In another column vve present a table
worked out by Mr. H. G. Baity of Iredell
county It ranks the states according to
univer'sity support per thousand dollars
of assessed property values in 1915. j ,
The figures range from two-and-a-half
cents per thousand in New Jersey to $1.98
in Nebraska. In North Carolina the bur
den borne for University support amount
ed to 18 cents on every thousand dollars
of property, assessed valuation. Twenty-
eight states were more liberal in .support
ing their universities. Among these were
six southern states, which contrast with
western states as follows;
Mississippi $.39 Washington
S. Carolina .323 Montana
Arkansas .32 Michigan
Louisiana .24 Wisconsin
Kentucky .23 Iowa
Florida .204 Minnesota
N. Carolina .18 Nebraska
$.46
.49
.52
.53
.90
1.21
1.98
Rome was once where the United
State.- is today—the greatest, strong
est, richest nation of tho known
world. Home rotted to death from
wealth, luxury, and sloth. The inter
nal relation of her people and her con
duct towards other people were di
rected by the law of the jungle. W'e
carf share Rome’s fate only by imitat
ing Rome. Because we are in a world
infinitely greater than Rome knew, we
can hold in it power and place far be
yond the wildest vision of the proud
est Romans if only we will learn from
the fate of the peoples who have listed
before us and have miserably failed ;
learn to regard the 'highest ideals as
real and powerful things; accept as a
firm conviction the belief that as a
nation Providence and circumstance
have entrusted us with an exalted
mission.
Had the teachings of the great Km-
peror Augustus been followed, Rome
would have remained unshaken. It
is easy to know that if this nation of
ours is given over to luxury and riot,
to huge wealth unequally divided, to
efi'eminacy on the one hand'-and mis
ery and rage on the other, our de
struction will come .surely, swiftly and
shamefully, without even the allevia
tion of pity or sympathy, with alt 'the
added ignonimy of the world’s con
tempt and the knowledge that we will
live in history not as an example of
Tandeur, but as another instance of
disgraceful failure.—John Skelton Wil
liams. Comptroller of the Currency.
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 98
THE RURAL SCHOOL TERM
In the Educational Special of the “Pro
gressive Farmer” for June 24, 1916, the
editor, Clarance Poe, presents one of the
piost fearless, logical, and eloquent pleas
ever made for a longer school term for the
rural childreji of the South. His appeal
for a longer school term is of vital inter
est to the entire country. Mr. Poe de
rtares:
“We must give the boys and girls of
the rural South longer school terms—and
w'e must do this no matter what it costs
in time, ettbrt qt money. Not only is it
trije that in no other section of the Unit
ed States are the people doing so little for
their boys and girls as we are doing; not
only is it true that probably no country
in Christendom except Russia is doing so
little for its boys and girls as we in the
■south are doing, but the shameful fact is
that when the writer was in Japan, he
found even that so-called heathan coun
try aroused to the importance of educa
tion and giving its country boys and girls
twic« as long a term as wo, are giving ours
fi'cr ‘compulsory attendance.
oiinply to stir us up and shame us
into action, we are reprinting the table
prepared by the Russell Sage Foundation,
showing the number of days schooling re
ceived by the average child in each State
in 1910. We of the South have made
gratifying progress since then, to be sure,
but yet all too little. Yeitw- boys and
girls, kind reader, your boys and girls
here in North Carolina who were getting
only 51 days average in 1910, South Car-
lina’s with 50 days, Virginia’s with 58
and Georgia’s with 62-these boys and
girls of ours must face the competition of
boys and girls from Massachusetts who
were getting 131 days average, from Ohio
who were getting 113, from Illinois who
were getting 108, and from Washington
who were getting 107, and so on down
the line. Are you willing simply in order
to save a few pennies to send your boys
and-girls out into life Jess well equipped
than their competitors? •
Noi can >ve lay the flattering unction
our souls that in proportion to our
means we of the South are doing as well
as people of the other States are doing
We are not.”-J. L. McBrien, School e|1
tension Agent, Federal Bureau of FMu-
cation.
University Support in Other
States
I The State appreciation for the Univer-
^ty of North Carolina in 1915 was $145,-
BjjO, of which $30,000 was for buildings
■and $115,000 "for maintenance. Twenty-
^ven states made larger appropriations,
2 amounts ranging from $150,000 in
Jaine and $155,000 in Georgia to ■$2,-
0^,000 in Minnesota and $2,28*6,000 in
Illinois.
^We expect rich states like Illinois to
tmd millions on their University. But
'en Kansas with a w'hite population
^ly a little larger than that of North
♦n)lina spends $585,500 a year on her
Jfeiversity, and Nebraska with a much
jailer white iJopulation than ours spends
^51,200 a year on her University, we
to wonder whether our $145,000 a
Jfar represents a lack of wealth or a lack
^'fjwillinguess on the part of our people
'^ojsupport their University and its larger
-purposes.
^^orth Carolina like VV’isconsln and
^as is busy with state-wide university
fflsion activities, but Texas gives her
University $365,246, and Wiscon-
$1,735,928 a year. With larger sup-
l*ort in these states the value of their
■'’Diversity extension work «an be corres-
#jj^ingly greater.
W^hat the University of North Carolina
^ to Spend upon services to the state
yond campus walla is only a few- thous-
dollars a year. In Wisconsin the'
The State of Nebrasha
Nebraska which heads the list in uni-
ersity sujjport, with $1.98 per thousand
dollars of taxable property, deserves a
word of special mention.
The white population of the state is
350,000 smaller 'han that of North Caro
lina. The state is less than half a cen
tury old. but in 47 years she has invested
$2,467,6^ in university properties and in
1915 appropriated $951,200 to university
support. Her people tiave built one of
the really great universities of the coun
try in a very few years. They believe in
university culture. They put a tax bur
den of nearly tw o dollars on every thous
and dollars worth of property, for univer
sity .education alone. But Nebraska also
believes in common school education.
In 1909-10 she was spending for this pur
pose $6.27 per inhabitant against' our
$1.38, and next to Iowa she lias the
smallest rate of rural illiteracy hi the
United States—1.7 per cent, against 19.6
per cent in North Carolina.
Our total common school fund ought
to be quadrupled. And if legislative
support of the University of North Caro
lina could be gradually doubled in the
next six years, its value to the state could
be multiplied many times o\-er. As it is
she has almost reached the limit of brick-
making without straw.
No nation ever yet paid too much for
the education of its people, and the more
it pays for this purpose the richer and
more powerful it becomes, said Benjamin
H. Hill.
We must educate or we must perisji,
said Henry Ward Beecher.
a iy other wood demanded by the indus
tries of the country can be obtained in
North Carolina.
PRIMARY WEALTH CREATED
BY OUR FORESTS AND
FARM WOOD-LOTS
J. V. BAGGETT, Sampson County.
The forests of North Carolili^ contain a
greater variety of valuable commercial
timber trees than any otler state in the
Union. Yellow pine and cypress, yellow
poplar and gums, holly and juniper,
walnut and cherry, locust and chesnut,
all the oaks and hickories, and almost
Our Forest Products
Much of our timber has already been
cut, but there are many billions of feet
of valuable lumber still on the stump. It
is estimated that there are at present
some 430 billion board feet of our stand
ing timber, in which partiular North Car
olina rank.s among the first four states of
the Union.
With such a wide variety of timber
trees, and with such an enormous amount
of standing timber. North Carolina is at
tractive to the investor. We have raw
materials and labor in abundance. What
we need is capital, industrial engineers,
and skilled craftsmen to convert our tim
ber into marketable products of wider va
riety and greater value.
The wooded area of North Carolina is
nearly 22 milhon acres. Some 7 million
acres are in forest growths that yield an
annual output of two billion board feet of
lumber and fifty-two million shinglei
Our lumber camps, saw mills and crate
factories in 1914 produced a total wealth
amounting to twenty-three and a half
million dollars.
Our Wood'lot Products
In addition to our forest areas we have
nearly thirteen million acres in farm
wood-lots. These are wooded areas of
various extent within farm limits, and
usually they are covered with second
growth timber of various kinds. These
W'ood-lot products are firewood, fencing
material, logs, railroad ties, telegraph
and telephontf poles, material for barrels,
naval stores, and the like. The total
wood-lot wealth produced in North Caro
lina in 1910 was eleven and one-half mil
lion dollars, and in this respect we lead
the whole United States.
area is lying idle and worthless? The
truth of the matter is that our cotton and
corn crops alone produce greater wealth
m Noi-th -Carolina than our wood-land
crop of lumber, shingles, firewood, fenc
ing, poles, posts, and the like.
Based on our abundant production of
cheap timber by oiir lumber camps and
saw mills is the wood-working industry
of the state, which in 1914 turned out
product.> worth $57,000,000—a total al
most exactly equal to the output of our
tobacco factories.
Resources and Ranh
Onr timber supplj' is far from exhaus
tion and with even ordinary prudence it
will continue to be one of our rnost vain
able natural resources. Unfortunately
we are not yet exercising even ordinary
prudence, as evidenced by the vast de
struction of forest fires mainly in our free
range counties.
When compared with the state.s of the
f!nion Nortli Carolina niake.s a wonder
ful showing. We rank first in the United
States in the production of wood-lot
wealth. Possibly for this reason nobody
was never known to freeze to death in
iVorth Carolina. We rank among the
first, four states inithe amount of standing
timber. We ranK4th in softwood lum
ber production, 5th in yellow poj>lar and
yellow pine, 6th in red gum, 6th in chea-
mit, 8th in oak lumber, 8th in cypress
8th in cedar, 10th in hemlock, 10th in
basswood, and-2nd in tupelo. W'e also
rank among the first six states in the
amount of lumber produced, 2,090,000-
r»Ar» 19X5 ^
000 board feet
Wood-WorKing Industries
What then are our possibilities? In
1014 one hundred and nine furniture fac
tories In the state utilized 4 million eight
hundred dollars \vorth of material, and
placed upon the market nearly ten mil
lion dollars worth of goods. Our furni
ture factories used more wood than in
any other state in the Union' and it came
■mainly out of our own forests at a cost
less dian the average in ten of the leading
furniturt^ making state-s, and seven dol
lars per thousand feet le.ss than the aver
age of the country at large. Excellent
opportunities are open in North Carolina
for wood-working establishments of every
sort; and undej- proper management they
will yield amazing profits on the capital
invested.
MINISTERIAL LEADERSHIP
Last April Rev. T. C. Coble of Davie
county and President E. K. CTraham of
the University of North Carolina pro
posed Country-Life Institutes in North
Carolina under ministerial leadership
In June the University Extension Bureau
issued a Bulletin on the subject, and in
July an institute of this sort was held at
the University during the Summer School.
This Country-Life Institute Bulletin was
at once called for in a score or more
states, and the edition was exhausted
within a fortnight.
Great Work in Alabama
In late August and eariy September
eleven quite original Country-Life Insti
tutes were held in North Alabama under
the leadership of Rev. R. M. Archibald,
the home mission secretary of the Ala-
bania Methodist Conference.
STATE UNIVERSITY SUPPORT IN 1914-15
Per Thousand Dollars of Assessed Property Values.
H. Ct. baity, Iredell County.
University of North Carolina.
Based on Federal Education Bureau Bulletin No. 6, 1916 and The World Alma
nac figures for assessed property \'alues, 1916. ,
Total Annual Wealth
$35,000,000
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Combining the wealth produced by our 16
17
18
19
20
21
commercial lumber companies and saw
mills with the total produced by our farm
wood-lots, we have § grand total of thirty-
five million dollars. That is to say, the
primary wealth produced by our forests
and wood-lots is greater by ten million
dollars than the product of our cotton
seed mills and fertilizer factories combin
ed.
Who, then, can say our vast wilderness
Rank States Per $1,000
1 Nebraska $1.98
2 Minnesota 1,21
3 Illinois... 93
4 Iowa 90
5 Utah 78
6 Arizona 70
7 Nevada ^ .61
Wisconsin 53
Michigan
California 51
Missouri 50
Montana 49
W^ashington 45
Wyoming 40
Mississippi 39
Maine 35
South Carolina 323
North Dakota -32
Arkansas 318
Indiana. 28
Louisiana 24
43
.22 .
.204 '
Rank States pg^ h^qoo
Kentucky 23
Vermont 23
Idaho
Florida
Kansas - 203
West Virginia 20
Oregon ; '
North Carohna .T... .18
Tennessee ^77
Colorado
Georgia
New Mexico jg
Oklahoma.) ;
138
Alabama 5^35
South Dakota 134
^®xas
Virginia
Penn—State College 09
N. Y.—Cornell
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
3^
37
38
39
40
41
42
.08
Rhode Island q7
New Jersey—Rutgers 025
Delaware has a State college but no state tax on property. Connecticut, Mary
land, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire have no Universities supported by the
State.