North Carolina Newspapers

The Library, Chapel Hill. The news m this publica tion is released for the press on receipt. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA NEWS LETTER Published weekly by the University of North Carolina for its Bureau of Extension. OCTOBER 2, 1918 CHAPEL HHX, N. C. VOL. IV, NO. 45 Editorial Board ■ E. C. Branson, J. G, deB. Hamilton, L. R. Wilson, E, H. Thornton, G. M. McKie. Entered as second^lass matter November U, 1914, at the Postoffloe at Chapel Hill, N, C., under the act of August 24, 1912, GERMAN PEACE TREACHERY TRENCH LINE PEACE Our soldiers abroad do not take kindly tlo any peace but that which is born of German defeat, for we find a recent issue of The Stars and Stripes, the official publication of the American armies in France, saying: American doughboys charge a Ger man machine gun nest across an open field. Some fall, but the others press forward. They come to their objective^ at tire point of the bayonet, only to find the beaten Hun, with uplifted hands, crying ‘Kamerad.’ But with a gun or a knife concealed, ready to violate his plea of surrender. This is the time Hun spirit, the spirit of the kaiser and his court. With the power of the offensive pass ing from him, he is now merely wait ing for another chance to lift his hands with the cry of ‘Kamerad!’ or ‘Peace.’ Peace—with part of the loot still in his possession! Peace—with only a thought of German gain or German victory through craft or deceit! Peace with the hidden knife ready -for its sudden and treacherous thrust! Peace! In the A. E. F. there will be no thought of peace, no whisper of peace, no dream of peace until the Hun is beaten to the dust. The fighting lines sweeping their way forward through machine gun fire are not talking peace. The fighting lines and the workers through the S. O. S. are not thinking of peace. Their single thought and dream is victory. They see ahead, through the battle smoke, only a sav age enemy to humanity whipped until he is ready to quit and take up his share of the work for civilization. Let the weak-hearted who are dreaming of a compromise— Let the pacifists, who are talking of ‘peace by agreement’— Let the side-liners who have ‘had enough of war’— Let the secretly inclined pro-Ger mans, who think ‘this great tragedy should end without a decision’— Let them one and all know once and for all that for the A. E. F. there is no such word as peace with the Hun unbeaten. The man who talks of peace today, except through victoi-y, is a traitor. He is only fit to face the firing squad.—Exchange. UNTIMELY PEACE TALK The more soundly Germany is beat en in France by the great Allied offen sive the louder will be the cry for peace which we may expect to hear from the Fatherland, says the Phila delphia Record. If Marshal Foch suc ceeds in pushing, the Huns back, first to the old von Hindenburg line and then over the border and toward the Rhine, the Teutonic clamor for a ces sation of strife may be expected to become almost deafening. The speech of Dr. Solf, the Colonial Secretary, is apparently a feeler in this direction. It reflects the apprehensions aroused by the brilliant British and French successes. If these continue, old count von Hertling, the Imperial Chancelloi, may be expected to come to the front and wave a peace program. Possibly even the Kaiser may be guilty of a few sobs and remind the world how pensistently he struggled for peace throughout his reign and how eagei he is now to see its blessings restored to distracted Europe. , ,, , +v,or-o It is reassuring to note that there is practically unanimous sentiment among the Allies against paying an attention to such hypocritical protes tations. Germany is now O" the run, and she can be decisively defeated it she does not make an unconditioiml surrender. The rapidly erican army in France makes Jictoiy impossible for her. Foch nearly 1,500,000 fresh and ®ol diers from this side of the Atlantic, and if he throws them against the weakened German line he can breaK through almost at will. This is one of the interesting possibilities of the near future. . npaten Not only must Germany be beaten to her knees, tmt Austria, Bulgam and Turkey must be stripped of any advantages they made to do penance for their many sins. Belgium, France, Russia, P land, Roumania, Sei^ia and Gieece must all be restored m their entirety^ with compensation for the - they have suffered. Then theie wiU be i chance for lasting peaCe So^long as von Hindenburg and t e „ _ continue to talk of a ^ strong ROUGH ELECTRIC SHOCK We suffered a shocking experience the other day in the company streets of the quarantine unit in Camp Han cock, while visiting with 346 raw re cruits newly arrived from North Caro lina. They were bright-faced, brawny chaps who will fill the Kaiser’s eye when they go over the top in France and tramp the streets of Berlin after a while. But just then they were feverish, miserable and restless from the effect of typhoid and smallpox vaccines, and they were sick and home sick beyond words. We spent the day fetching stamps and stationery from the Y. M. C. A. hut and the knicknacks they craved from the Canteen, and sitting about on their cots trying to cheer them up somewhat. During which—and this is the point we are making—we discovered just three of these Tarheel boys who knew about the University of North Caro lina, what it is doing or trying to do, and where it is on the map. Doubt less there were more than this, but we did not find them after diligent search in delicate ways during two days. And twenty-six per Cent, or more than one in every four of them, were illiterate; not ignorant and stupid but illiterate. They were souls Condemned all their lives till now to live in the midget world of the home communi ties. They were quietly courageous with the courage of clean manhood, but they were bewildered and haunted by nameless fears in the new world into which they had been sudden!’ plunged. They were the lost, forgot ten children of the state whom Walter Page tells about in a little book of his that long' ago ought to have become a creative classic in North Carolina. College Frontiers All of which means that the Univer sity of Norte Carolina, for all her noble dreams and endeavors, has yet a long way to go before her mission is fully wrought out. Roughly, 85 per cent of her students come year by year from 52 counties and around 12 per cent from 30 coun ties, while 18 counties furnish less than 5 per Cent of her student body. Ten of these counties send no students to the University or only rarely so. Which is to say, so far as the reach and informing influence of the Univer sity are concerned, there are some for ty odd counties in this state that are a frontier area, frontier for the state colleges as well as the University. How shall we break into this area ? How can college culture be related to the mass mind in these regions ? The beckoning rays of tee kindly lamp of learning that hangs out of every University window fall short of reaching a half million souls in moii than a full third of all the counties in North Carolina. . What shall we do about it? What feasibly can be done? We have some very definite thoughts about this problem, and President Graham is now considering a practical plan of approach to it. What the illuminated think about us in the rarefied ether of upper academic cir cles is well worth considering, but we cannot safely forget that the main spring and measure of our civilization is the character and the culture of the plain people of North Carolina. The level of their thinking determines the level of our civic life as a people. In emergencies and crises the fate of a people—as in Russia—is aetm-- mined not by the few who thinly on the highest levels but by the many who feel and aCt on the lowest levels of blind instinct. , , . , ^ . . . Wliat Haiward thinks of us is of fai less import than what the plain people of North Carolina know about us, and think about us, and the degree in which they rely upon us in every problem ot life and business. MY SERVICE FLAG Or. A. B. Harding There’s a flag m my library window And on its bosom of white. Surrounded with red as a border. Is placed a blue star of the night. To some it may mean very little. The flag is all they can see. But that star from the night On its hosom of white Means more than a little to me. His Country has called. He obeyed it And if he should fall in the strife, I know of no cause any grander. Where a soldier could lay down h; s life. And that flag in my library window With a star on its bosom of white. Means all that I have. But proudly I gave That little blue star of the night. I have tried to be true to the nation, I have given the gold I could spare, I have practicted a strict abnegation, Tfiat my country might have its full share. And that flag in my library windo Presents on its center of white. The last teat I gave To the land of the brave. My little blue star of the night. the big Corporation, which operates plant at Hog Island. “It is the best possible evidence that we intend to stick,” he said. The Japanese visitors Counted the fifty ways, one by one, and exclaimed: “Why, we have only ten more ways in our whole country than you have in this one yard.” And Lord Reading of England, declared that it typified the limitlessness of America. “Others ask how we can do such things, and they learn that at the be ginning of the war the wealth of the United States was $250,000,000,000, compared with $86,000,000,000 as the wealth 'of Great Britain; $80,000,000,- 000 for Germany, and $65,000,000,000 for France. “We have half the total banking re sources of the world. Since the war began we have bought back $4,000,- 000,000 of securities, loaned .$7,000,- 000,000 to Allies and extended PERSHING’S FIRST VICTORY The story of the conflict between General Pershing and disease and im morality is a fascinating and a long one, says Dr. Luther B. Gulick, in Aug ust Good Housekeeping. There is no element in military policy which has been given more attention by General Pershing and his staff than has been given to this one point. As far as I know, he is the first military com mander to see fully the significance of immorality and disease and then to set up a campaign administered so thor oughly as really to meet the situation —something hitherto unattained by any army. The set of influences that now sur round the men from the time they disembark to when they leave the port of entry show a successful plan of operation which restricts opportunity and inclination for evil and promotes inclination for right. On the medical side the campaign has been Conducted with unparalleled brilliance. Those diseases which are popularly supposed to be connected with the army are less prevalent in the American expedition ary force than they are in America. Not just a little less, but very much less! Stations for the treatment of these diseases are to be found everywhere the soldiers go. Officers contracting these diseases are courtmartialed. Commanding officers whose troops contract these diseases are regarded as having failed even more culpably than if they had unnecessarily lost the lives of many more in battle. Brigad ier General Bradley gave me the figures week by week from January 10. At no time in any of these weeks did the number of men who were in effective from these causes reach as high'as one out of each three hundred soldiers. No such record has beer found in any army in the world since these plagues first swept Europe with their devastations. I looked at our men all the way from the ports of entry to the dugouts back of our front line 500 miles away— straight-standing men, the kind who look you right back in the eye without a question, and I thought, can it be possible that these are the same men who only a few months before had credit . • „, .1, to Allies and business concerns to the amount of $7,000,000,000 more. We have Carried on the enlarged business of the country and a war costing us $50,000,000 a day. “And America’s wealth has increas ed since August, 1914. It has one- fourth of the commerce of the globe and has accumulated a third of th' gold supply of tee world. So great i the nation’s wealth that even this war cannot deplete it. Informed Germans or citizens of other nations canno' think Germany can win with America against her.”—Raleigh Times. FOCH’S WAY peace,” the war must be 1, -L_ 1 into their heaus as von Hindenburg and the le to tli0 . , •* • the idea is knocked into their teat their cause is lost and that they must accept such terms as t are pleased to make. ^^®®® , very different from those vag Y lined in the past by von Hertling, v Bethmann-Hollweg and othei Teuton ic spokesmen.—Exchange. WAR HITS GERMANY HARD Three million Germans have died in the war Zone. Sickness arid disease due to hardships and food troubles have run the deaths among the ci'cilia’- population to a million beyond the pre-war average, and lowered t births by three and a third million a vear In tee ordinary course of events, Germany’s population in 1919 would be seventy-two million souls: under war conditions it wiU be a full seven million less than that figure. AMERICA’S MIGHT America’s vast shipbuilding pro gram has opened the eyes of tee world to Lr tremendous possibilities, recent ly declared Peter 0. Kmght, vice /resident and general counsel of the American International Shipbuilding The following story . is going the rounds of the newspapers in Italy: The Italians—influenced by devil- made rumors—rwere still retreating be fore their German-Austrian kamerads. The British and French troops pour ed into Italy commanded by Foch. At once the Italians began to make some sort of a stand. An Italian boy soldier, loaded down with a heavy bag of supplies, was climbing a steep path. No horse or automobile could make it; everythin must go on men’s backs. The young Italian was very tired. The load was too much for him, but he kept on plugging ahead. He heard a footstep. A brisk old ] man, dressed in the horizon blue of France, came up beside him. “Pretty heavy load for you, son,” said the old Frenchman, speaking Italian. “Oui, m’sieu,” agreed the son of Italy, speaking French to be courteous. “Let me give you a hand,” said the old Fi-ench soldier, and he seized th heavy bag and threw it over his ow- shouider, and the sons of the ■ Latin nations kept Climbing. After a tim’ the man in horizon blue said “Let us rest a minute,’’and they sat down be side the path. Soon some Italian general staff of ficers appeared—one of them being on the king’s personal staff. Of course the two soldiers by the roadside cam’ to their feet to salute the high officers. But tee Italian officers stopped. The one who belonged to the king’s person al staff ejaculated one word: “Foch.” That’s who it was—Foch, “Le Patron,” which is French for the “big boss.” He had been caught acting like a common human being. But it didn’t feaze him. He didn’t forget that he is Le Patron. He saluted the Italian high officers stiffly, threw the bag on his shoulders again, and wite the Italian soldier beside him protesting volubly, those two started up the path Pretty safe sort of a man, Foch, eh ? Pretty good sort to have Charge of our boys who go “over there.”—Rome Dispatch. joined the army, 26 per cent of them afflicted with venereal disease ? It did not seem possible. They were, and at the same time they were not the same men, for the wonderful things that Pershing had done, the new ideals that he has created, the medical and moral defenses against vice, the organized temptations for righteousness which have been set up with his co-operation by the Y. M. C. A. had made new men. This, the greatest organized piece of teamwork for righteousness that the world has ever seen, has done for these men what tee church, the homes and the schools of America had not been able to do. The greatest single cause of disease and suffering among innocent women and children has al ready been stamped out in the A. E. F_ These men are not becoming diseased and debauched; exactly the opposite thing is happening. They are being trained up and are getting finer ideals than they ever had.—Exchange. THE WELL-TO-DO FEW Americans Cannot be said to be a well-to-do people, according to tee Government census statistics, which show that only two per cent of the whole population in this Country has the distinction of being in this class. The other ninety-eight per cent have only their wages from day to day or are dependent upon relatives or chari ty. Only nine persons in a hundred have more than $5,000 when they die, while sixty-six of every hundred dying leave no estate and die penniless. Of the remaining thirty-four persons, twenty-five never accumulate more than $1,300 in their life time, and die with much less than that. This has been America’s record in the past. When tee census is taken in 1920, two years hence, the above figures are likely to show considerable changes, but when the census of 1930 is taken, so different will be the story of America’s well-to-do class as well as of her Charity seekers, that people w’ill declare that magicians have handl ed the figures. The year 1918 is the beginning of a new era for America. It marks her entry into an industrial and economic independence. It is the year in which she shook off her Chains of poverty and dependence and walked free in the consciousness of prosperity, independ ence, and self-esteem. The cause of this magic change ? One little habit, one little trait of Character, wrought the miracle. It was the habit in people to save, to spend less than they made, and their wisdom to order their lives on simpler, saner lines. It was the work of the War Savings Campaign, the great thrift movement, that new and at first un popular, doctrine, which made saving fashionable and extravagance a dis grace. Individuals who missed this training became poorer financially and weaker morally. On tee other hand those who practiced its virtues pros pered and it was they who increased the number of the well-to-do class.— N. C. War Savings Bureau. THE NEW-TIME WOMAN I believe that every woman needs a skilled occupation developed to the de gree of possible self-suport. She needs it commercially for. an in surance against reverses. She needs it socially for a compre bending sympathy with the world s workers. She needs it intellectually for Con structive habits of mind which make knowledge usable. She needs it esthetically for an un derstanding of harmony relationships as deteimining factors in Conduct of work. I believe that every ybung woman should practice this skilled occupation up to the time of her marriage for gainful ends with deliberate intent to acquire therefrom the widest possible professional and financial experience. I believe that every woman should expect marriage to interrupt for some years the pursuit of any regular gain ful occupation; that she should pre arrange with her husband some equi table division of the family income such as will insure a genuine partner ship, rather than a position of depend ence (on either side); and tea,t she should focus her chief thought durin.e the early youth of her children upon the science and art of wise family life I believe that every woman should hope to return, in the second leisure of middle age, to some of her early skilled occupations—either as an un salaried worker in some one of its so cial phases, or, if income be an object, as a salaried worker in a phase of dt reciuiring maturity and social P ^^Tbelieve that this general policy of economic service for f would yield generous by-products of intelligence, resprasibility and con tentment.—Laura Drake Gill.* RELIGION AND WAR The bloody gauntlet of the World War lies at the door of the Church, challenging at once its efficacy as a force in human affairs and the validity' of its message. As they watched bags of treasure carried in through the gates of the Later an Church at Rome, Pope Innocent IV, said to Saint Thomas Aquinas: “The day is past when the Church could say, “Silver and gold have I none.’ ” Saint Thomas replied: “Yes, Holy Father, and the day is past when the Church could say to the lame man, ‘Rise up and walk. ” The Church has wealth; has it pow- ? Does it meet the needs of men on the levels'of daily human life? Does it bear burdens, console and inspire, or split hairs ’twixt south and southwest side ? Does it speak the authoritative word of rebuke of wrong in high places, of guidance in perplexity, of as surance and hope ? That clear-souled, radiant Christian, Donald Hankey, writing out of inti mate association with the British sold ier in the trenches of France, and presenting his practical conception of the aloofness of the Church, says the present crisis is an unprece dented op portunity for the Church of England either to make a new start or to com mit suicide. What answer.does Christian culture make to such a challenge ? It will not do to ignore it as foreign to our rela tively sheltered and untossed exper ience. It is pressing in now upon every type of experience, even the most remote and unresponsive. We must take up this challenge. We will help forward the movement already w'ell advanced which is shifting th ’ emphasis of Christian interest from opinion to conduct, from metaphysics to service. We will insist upon co operation in the divided body of Christ and upon an ampler adjustment to the moving world which it is set to trans form. At the same time, you will assert that the Church as the instniment of reli gion is regnant in human life. It is the agency of the coming Kingdom of God to pluck up the root of sin out of which all social wrong springs. There can be no new and better world following this crisis, no reconstructed social order after the mind of Christ, apart from tee reconstruction of the units of society. It is not a new social mechanism that we want, but a new social spirit. Not new laws, but new people. And it is the primary function of the Chris tian Church to make of men and wom en new creatures in Christ Jesus. As another has pointed out, the three his toric scourges of mankind—famine, pestilence, war—^have counted their victims by the tens of millions. 'The first two have been mastered—^famine by commerce, pestilence by sfeience. But war, instead of yielding to pestil ence or science, is in reality bom in commerce. “Only religion can kill war, for religion alone creates the new heart.”—President W. L. Potent.