The news in 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 Eietension.
October is, 1920
CHAPEL HHL, N. C.
VOL VI, NO. 47
[Alorial Board i tS. G. Brsmson, L. B. Wilson, E. W. Knight, D. D. Carroll, ,1. B. Bullitt.
Entered as second-class matter November 14, 1914. at IhH Postoflac-at Ohapel Hill, N, G., under the act of August 24,1913
OUR SOCIAL PROGRESS IS IN PERIL
THE GREATEST NEED OF ALL
A North Carolina man of vision has
been looking about his state, to size up
its greatest needs. He finds that al
ready multiform social needs of urgent
sort have been discovered and have
been provided for by legislation and
otherwise! such as mandatory county
juvenile courts, welfare boards state
and county, county school supervisors,
local public health officers, public health
nurses, county Y. M. C. A. secretaries,
free dental clinics, etc.
But the need still remains; and what
a social state the catalogue reveals, al
most all centering in neglected child
hood, and what a revelation of disas
trous results from ignoring child needs,
and social integrity in North Carolina!
“ We need to keep wayward boys
and girls out of our jails. We need to
take the children, the epileptics and the
insane out of our county homes. We
need juvenile detention houses in every
county. We need greatly increased
provision for the 7,500 feeble minded
children of' the state. The Jackson
Training School needs to be greatly en
larged. We need at least three more
reform schools for wayward boys and
girls, one for Negro children and two
more for white children. We need to i
plan for the Tiny Tims of the state far
beyond the capacity of the Babbington
Home in Gaston county. We need
county or county-group hospitals, dis
pensaries, and clinics, and they need to
be built, equipped and staffed for ser
vice within the next few years. We ,
needl00—not23—county health depart- j
ments. We need public health nurses—at,
least one to start with in each county, and |
more as rapidly as they can be found ^
and salaried. We need to develop our j
child-placing agencies. Our jails and ;
chain-gang camps need to be emptied j
of convicted misdemeanants and a state i
farm established for them. We need !
organized community life in our country
regions. We need wholesome social
recreations in the countryside, and these
needs call for community organizers
and Red Cross home service secretaries.
‘ ‘We need trained social workers in
North Carolina. We need them in mul
tiplied hundreds. They should have a
:omprehensive grasp of social subjects
and competent skill in handling social
situations. We need public health
jourses in schools of every grade and
sort, and such instruction ought to be
mandatory in all schools receiving state
aid. We need a great social science
school at the university, and a great
summer term devoted to public welfare
instruction for our public welfare work-
riches as a crown of wisdom, or as a
badge of selfish folly and shame? Shall
we trick ourselves out in harlequin liv
eries and let the souls of the children
of North Carolina go naked and a-
shamed?”
Can we read this of North Carolina,
and not know that the charge and the
questioning fit all states, and, all com
munities, and all of the people to some
degree? What is more beautiful than
the spirit of helpfulness offered freely
and applied intelligently for the better
ment of the social order? It is not a
work that can be done by wholesale
order, but beautiful may be the growth
through the steady application by the
people of the spirit of goodwill for the
commonweal. — The New Bedford,
Mass., Standard.
A CHEESE PARING POLICY
What a great cry for help that is in
the interest of physical and moral well
being! ""Where are these public health
nurses and welfare workers? . More im
portant, where is the devoted public
spirit to bring it all about? Where is
the money to pay for it all? But here,
at this point, the answer is plain. The
citizen whose ambition is ‘ ‘Tlie making
of men that are finer than gold, and the
making of women that are like the
King’s daughters, all glorious within,’’
knows"YVhere the money is.
Carolina Has The Wealth
North Carolina has wealth equal to
tl\e necessities of Social well-being. It
is a billionaire state, not merely in wealtli
accumulated but a billionaire state in the
wealth annually created. Crops, live
stock, fcotton seed, firewood, mines and
quarries, fisheries, manufacturers, lum
ber and planing mill products, produced
$1,396,000,000 worth in 1919. Thib is
not the only proof of wealth. There
are the Liberty bonds owned, the money
in the savings banks, the automobiles,
tne further proof in 163 millions of fed
eral itaxes.
The charge stands proven that North
Carolina is a rich state, and yet all
these omissions and neglects exist! The
question is as to the spirit. Has North
Carolina the willingness to convert its
Wealth into welfare and well-being?
Will it make its wealth the free and
willing servant of the common good?
The man with the vision points out the
folly of any other course — “Are we to be
ennobled by our amazing storesof wealth,
or jsoarsened by it? Shall we wear our
Who loses when the state of North
Carolina cuts down its expenses to the
very bone? Why, the people for whom
the tax money is spent, naturally; and
the heaviest losers are those who get
the larger part of the money, of course.
If the state, like all Gaul, were divided
into three parts, in the enjoyment of
the state’s revenue; and if two of the
three parts got, each, seven cents out
of every dollar paid in in taxes, and the
third part got 86 cents out of every dol
lar, then when the state’s income is cut
down isn’t it as plain as the nose on
your face that the 86-cent crowd is the
one that has the kick coming?
And it so happens that North Caro
lina’s income is divided into three chan
nels as it flows out of the state treas
ury. One goes to running expenses—
that is, to salaries of officials and up
keep of offices down at Raleigh. This
takes seven cents out of every dollar.
The second goes to bondholders, in the
shape of interest on the state debt. This
takes seven cents out of the dollar. The
third goes back to the taxpayers in the
shape of schools, roads, protection of
person and property, protection of
health, in agricultural education and
promotion, in schools for the deaf, the
blind, the feeble-minded, in pensions for
the old soldiers, and in hospitals for the
epileptic, tuberculous and insane. This
amounts to 86 cents out of every dollar
paid in in taxes.
Who Gets Hurt
The University News Letter has an
alyzed the state’s expenditures and re
ceipts for 1919, basing its analysis on
the report of the federal census. It
shows that the cost of running North
Carolina for 1919 was $2.54 per capita.
That was the lowest per capita cost of
state government in the country, with
one exception - South Carolina. The av
erage for the country was $6.05, rang
ing from $19.25 in Arizona to $2.40 in
South Carolina.
How have we achieved that result?
An easy question—the government of
North Carolina is next to the cheapest
in the United States because it is next
to the most worthless in the United
States. The North Carolinian gets 86
cents worth of direct benefits for every
dollar he pays in, but the trouble is he
doesn’t pay in-but $2.54.
The conspicuous failure of our North
Carolina leadership is that it has con
tented itself with .advertising the fact
that the taxpayer gets all that he pays
for, without ever pointing out that he
pays for preciousj little. Why, the tax
on railroad tickets and freight—the tax,
mind you, not the cost of transporta
tion itself—in 1919 was almost as much
as the general property tax on all the
property in North Carolina, 'jihe exact
figures were $2,653,609 for the general
property tax, and $2,612,267 federal tax
on transportation. This year the gen
eral property tax has been abolished al
together. It amounted to little more
than the federal government collects as
one of the smallest of the innumerable
taxes it levies, yet we raised such a yell
about it as raised goose-flesh all over
the politicians, drove the legislature
into spasms of fright, and caused some
pretty level-headed observers to predict
that the political complexion of the
state may be. changed.
There is something wrong when the
A PRAYER FOR AMERICA
If I had one prayer for America-
one prayer for one gift to Americans,
it would be to give them imagination;
an imagination that would permit
them to see what is around them, to
see with the mind’s eye; to build up
a picture of consequences when they
know what the factors are; a vision
that would be wider than this coun
try, that wopld see the state of the
world, and that would awake us. to
our duties.— University of Virginia
News Letter.
COUNTRY HOME CONVENIENCES
LETTER SERIES No. 31
BANISH BLUE MONDAY—V
I open the Good Book and read this
commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.’’
You say: “You’re all right there. Bill,
we haven’t killed anybody.’’
But there are more ways of
than sticking a dagger in the
than by shooting out your wife’s
than by pounding her head to
with an ax. Many a husbarid is
his wife with neglect. She has
had anything but heartaches and
with him.
killing"
heart,
brains,
a pulp
killing
never
groans,
paramount issue in North Carolina is a
picayune tax. We say picayune because
the total amount of taxes we pay to
the federal government without batting
an eye is many times greater than the
general property tax we pay to the
state. Why is North Carolina totally
absorbed in this piffling detail, when
there is such a world of work to be done
—real work, that will amount to some
thing, that is worth a statesman’s con
sideration? What can explain it, except
a lamentable failure of leadership? It
is not a partisan matter, for Republi
cans are as guilty as Democrats. It is
not a condition that belongs exclusively
to politics, except to the degree in which
the leadership of the state in general
is political leadership. The press must
shoulder its share of the blame. Edu
cators cannot escape, nor ministers, nor
any class whose influence extends to
any degree whatsoever over the minds
of the people at large.
Boasting In Vain
Some of our leaders are inclined to
boast of what they call the conserva
tism of the people of North Carolina, but
outsiders, not blinded by vanity, use a
less flattering term. They call it back
wardness. In reality, the people of
North Carolina are like all other people,
in that they are going to do what seems
to them for their own best interest. If
it seemed worth while to them to be
progressive, they would make ' North
Dakota look like a stronghold of re
action. At present, the people are in
clined to congratulate themselves on
every dollar saved in the state’s ex
penses, regarding it as a dollar earned.
It never occuts to them that they real
ly savd only 14 cents, and that in the
endeavor to gave 14 cents they are sac
rificing benefits worth far. more than
the 86 cents that they cost.
And who is making any genuine effort
to convince them of their error? Con
sider all our agencies of leadership, and
see how few of them are really trying
to lead, rather than truckling to preju
dice, to vanity, and to ignorance. To be
sure, there are some, else the state
.would have slid back into a condition
bordering on barbarism long ago. But
how tew they are, and how weak!
To increase the numbers of this small
class, to strengthen their hands—this
is the service that North Carolina needs.
But to perform it requires boldness as
well as energy, disinterestedness as well
as skill, faith as well as determi
nation; and the dis^mrbing
truth is that we have not enough leader
ship of that type to carry the state for
ward. We must develop it. It is not
merely to be wished that we may de
velop it, or to be hoped that we may de
velop it; we must develop it, for “where
there is no vision the people perish.’’—
Greensboro Daily News.
Some husbands grow ashamed of their
wives after toil and worry have seamed
their faces. The man who is ashamed
of his wife because the brilliancy has
faded out of her eyes and the roses have
fled from her cheeks is the worst pol
troon that ever lived. Remember the
vow you made to love and cherish, not
only while her step is sprightly, not
only when the roses are blooming in her
cheeks, but till death parts you. That’s
the promise, and God help you to keep
it.
“Oh,” you say, “I can’t stick around
home all the time. I’ve got to have
some fun once in a coon’s age.” And
you crank up the fliver and away to
town, while your wife stays at home
and works on. You think it’s more fun
to stand around and chew tobacco and
spit all over the sidewalk and talk poli
tics than it is to try to entertain your
wife.
Say, many a man has never even dis
covered the well of love and good cheer
and fun there is in his wife if he’d only
be good enough to dravr it out. You
don’t know what good company she can
be.
If I were a girl and a farmer asked
me to marry him I would ask:
‘ ‘What will you get me to help save
me in my housework?”
I’ll tell you, girls, I’d gauge his love
by whether he wanted to buy me the
modern things for keeping house or not.
I’d rather be an old maid with a house
full of dogs and cats than the wife of a
miserable specimen of a stingy jug-han
dle kind of a husband who would whine:
“Mother didn’t have them things to
work with, and she got along. ’ ’
I heard a fellow say: “The mother of
Abraham Lincoln didn’t have all those
things. She patched the clothes to
make them last three or four seasons.
She saved the wood ashes and made lye
and soft soap. She had to try out the
tallow and mold it into candles.”
Yes, and the mother of Abe Lincoln
died when he was yet a small boy: died
when she ought to have been in the
prime of life, died from hardship and
drudgery and exposure. It is a good
thing those days of drudgery for the
woman on the farm are passing. It is
a bad thing that for so many women
they still exist. —Billy Sunday, in the
Country Gentleman.
OUR JUVENILE COURTS
The office ot the State Board of Char
ities and Public Welfare has compiled
the figures of juvenile court work in the
State embracing the period from the
time the law went into effect; last year
to July 1, 1920.^ While the law went in
to effect on the adjournment of the
Legislature of 1919, no county superin
tendents of public welfare were appoint
ed till July, August and September.
Since these officials are ■ the .probation
officers of the juvenile courts, little work
could be done until these officials were
appointed and received some prelimi
nary instruction in their work.
Immediately upon the selection of
these officials Commissioner Beasley set
about getting in touch with them, giving
such instruction as was possible, pre
paring all necessary blanks, papers and
records. Last summer a meeting of ju
venile judges and county superintend
ents was held at Wrightsville, and Mr.
Beasley secured the attendance of Judge
Feidelson of the Children’s Court of Sa
vannah, who made a wonderful and use
ful presentation of juvenile court work
to the officials. At the State and Coun
ty Council at the University last fall
the same thing was done, and again at
the meeting of the State Social Service
Conference at Goldsboro in March of
this year.
■ At Hendersonville this year when the
State Association of Superior Court
Clerks (juvenile judges) met in annual
session, Mr. Beasley got Judge James
Hoge Ricks of the Juvenile Court of
Richmond to spend two days with the
judges, and as a result the Association
went on record as determined to accept
and carry out to the utmost the duty and
responsibility of the juvenile court work.
It also appointed a committee to ask the
legislature to carry out certain recom
mendations to better facilitate the
work.
At the Summer Institute for County
Superintendents, held for six weeks at
the University this summer, juvenile
court work' made a large part of the
program, and two days each week were
given to the students in actual field
work in nearby localities.
During the present year the Supreme
Court of the State has handed down a
most able and illuminating opinion writ
ten by Judge Hoke, upholding the Ju
venile Court law..
More Equipment Needed
The great need now is for more room
at the Jackson 'Traming School for boys,
more room at Samarcand for girls, and
a training school for negro boys. With
these needs met and the further employ
ment .of more trained probation oflicers
where needed in the State, and the pro
posed psychiatric bureau of the State
Board of Charities and Public Welfare,
North Carolina will have taken a tre
mendous leap forward in the work of
saving boys and girls.
The special session of the Legislature
passed an act permitting towns of over
25,000 population to combine with the
county in maintaining a juvenile court
for town and county with a judge un
connected with any other court.
Figures for the firstyear’s work have
not been obtainable with perfect accu
racy, but there are enough to show that
4,404 phildren received the protection or
discipline of the juvenile courts and the
county superintendents of public welfare
up to July 1, 1920. Of these children,
about one-third were colored and two-
thirds white. Of these, 2,640 were ac-
! tually in court in person, and their rec-
; ords so entered on the Juvenile Record
! —not a criminal record —while 1,764
j cases were adjusted out of court.
I While no hard and fast line of sepa
ration can be made in every case as be
tween delinquency, neglect and depend
ency with which the juvenile court deals,
nearly all delinquent children being neg
lected ones; 1,486 of the cases were ad
judged delinquent. That means that
these children had violated some local or
State law, and' but for the work of the
court would have been embarked on a
course possibly leading to a life of
crime.
Of the total number, 1,057 were on
probation at the time reports were filed,
308 had been sentjto institutions, and 211
had homes found for them by the'local
authorities.
When the court work has been per
fected, all delinquent, dependent and
neglected children will be protected
through the channel of the court, not as
offenders, but as wards of the State.
The State Board of Charities and
Public Welfare is rendering all aid pos
sible to the local officials, and its de
partment of child ' welfare, under Mrs.
Clarence Johnson, is constantly busy
with aid and counsel in individual cases
arising all over the State.
THE negroes in DURHAM
The largest Negro Insurance Com
pany in the world is located in Durham,
N. C. It operates in mostof the south
ern states and carries insurance amount
ing to $26,634,649. It employs 700
agents, and owns its ■ own o^ce build
ings which are appraised at $100,000.
The Mechanics and Farmers Bank, a
colored institution, has assets of more
than $260,000 and a few days ago the
Fraternal Bank and^ Trust Company,
another Negro institution, -was chart
ered by the State of North Carolina
with a capital of $125,000.
In the city of Durham there are six
Negro physicians, 2 dentists, 1 lawyer,
2 undertaking establishments, 1 bakery,'
2 moving picture houses, 3 graded schools
and grocery stores and various other
commercial enterprises, and the Nation
al Training School which is devoted to
teacher-training and higher education.
The taxable value of property owned
by Negroes in Durham is nearly $800,-
000. The Negroes have several beauti
ful churches.
The relation between the races in
Durham is exceedingly friendly and it
is greatly due to the friendly and help
ful attitude of the white people and the
leaders of the colored race who know
that there must be peace if there is to
be prosperity in any community. ^ J. E.
S.
!i"
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