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THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
' The newt m this publica-
tioD is released (or the press oo
receipt
NEWS LETTER
Published weekly by the
Univorsity of North Carolins
(or its Bureau of Ebctension.
FEBRUARY 2,1921
CHAPEL N. C.
VOL VU, Nt*. 11
Baitorial Board i B. C. Branson, L, R, Wilson, E, W. Knight, D. D. Carroll, J. B. Ballitt.
Entered aa seoond-«las8 matter Noromber 14. 1*14. at the Poetofllne at (Thapal Hill, M* O., nnder the act of Angnat 5J4,
ASAFELYBALANCED CIVILIZATION
NO CAUSE FOR ALARM
The whole teaching of modem history
shows that the great nation of the fu
ture is not the nation which is predomi
nantly agricultural, or the one which is
predominantly industrial; it is the na
tion which most successfully combines
these two rjualities. Indeed, the agri
cultural development of this country it
self is dependent upon manufactures;
farming is rapidly ceasing to be a man
ual process; except for farm machinery,
the product of our industrial centres, it
could never have attained its present
progress.
The fact that our urban population is
increasing, therefore, is no ground for
pessimism, but quite the reverse; it
shows that as a nation we are achieving
that balance between agriculture and
industry which can alone make us a well-
roundei self-sustaining people. The
Jeffersonian ideal of an agricultural de
mocracy, if it ever represented the ideal
state, which is doubtful, represents it
no longer.
Should our urban population continue
to grow rapidly at the expense of the
rural sections, and perhaps overwhelm
ingly over-balance it, then there would
be cause for alarm; for that would mean
that, like England, we should become
merely a nation of factory workers, pro
ducing manufactured products in ex
change for food grown overseas—a con
dition unhealthy in peace time and de
structive in war.
So long as our farms can abundantly
feed our own population, and our fac
tories manufacture not only for our own
seeds but for a large foreign trade, we
are a symmetrical, wholesome, econom
ic entity. That is precisely our condi
tion as revealed by the new census re
turn. After all, the United States has
around 40,000.OOOfarmdwellers or about
a third of the total population engaged
in working the soil, and their crops are
greater now than at any time in our
history.—World’s Work.
departments with whole-time county
health officers, public health nurses,
local clinics and dispensaries, for local
libraries with county-wide service, and
the like; and we think about state in
stitutions of learning and benevolence
as individuals and localities rather than
in commonwealth terms, as North Ca
rolinians.
But during the last five years the city
ward drift has been enormous in North
Carolina. There are not fewer people
in our country regions, but there are
relatively fewer, because our city pop
ulations have increased so rapidly. And
what is even more significant, the
wealth produced by our mills and fac
tories and foundries now overtops by
many millions a year the wealth pro
duced by the farmers of the state. We
not only lead the South in industrial en
terprise, but our manufacturing indus
tries at last produce greater wealth
than all other agencies • combined; that
is to say, our industrial output for the
first time in our history exceeds the
combined output of our farms, forests,
mines, quarries, and fisheries. We are
being urbanized and industrialized far
more rapidly than any other state in
the South, and manufacture has at
length displaced agriculture as the dom
inant factor in the economy of the state.
All of which means that we are mov
ing into a better balanced civilization;
that, all in all, the state at large con
sidered, the cityward drift is well not
ill for North Carolina. Or so it may be,
if only the enormous industrial wealth
of the state can be generously surren
dered to commonwealth advantages.
The change is fundamentally signifi
cant, and the need is that our people
understand it in competent ways.
MORE URBAN, LESS RURAL
The safe balancing of town and coun
try civilizations is a fundamental prob
lem for states, countries, and continents.
It is fundamentally important in North
Carolina. Heretofore we have been
dominantly a rural people. For long
years it has been true that as the coun
tryman thinketh in his heart, so have
we been in the Old North State. The
culture of Uie countryman has been the
measure and the mainspring of our civ
ilization.
And the new census discloses eighteen
hundred thousand people in North Caro
lina still outside towns and cities of any
THE MORNING COMETH
sort or size whatsoever, dwelling in sol
itarv farmsteads, only seven families to the lowlands and made some homeless.
The following from the editorial col
umns of a recent issue of The Manufac
turers Record is interesting reading and
is typical of the optimistic tone of the
forward-looking publications of the coun
try:
“Watchman, what of the night? The
watchman said. The Morning Cometh.”
The whole country is asking. What of
the night? and rightly so, for the night
of business is dark and the clouds lower
heavily. Men everywhere are oppressed
with the mighty damage the storm has
wrought. The lightning still shivers
the trees and the thunder rolls omniously.
But the watchman sees that the morn
ing cometh. He sees that the clouds are
growing thinner, the lightning strikes
less fiercely, and faintly he visions a
sign that the storm is passing. It has
done damage, immense damage; it has
swept mighty trees away; it has flooded
mile the state over, only j but it has now done its worst. Its fury
the square
seventeen families to the square mile is over,
in our most populous county, and fewer
than four families to the square mile in
ten counties.
Soon the sun begins to breakthrough
the clouds, man reasserts his dominion
and promptly starts afresh on his work
But we are rapidly ceasing to be dom- He replows, he replants, he builds strong-
inantly rural. During the last census | er dams, he moves to higher grounds
period our town and city dwellers moved j and goes forward to larger things. He
up from five hundred thousand to eight forgets the terror of the storm, his
hundred thousand inhabitants-a gain j nerves regain their calm, his muscles
of sixty percent in ten years. More than
two-thirds of the people of the state
More than ' become firm, his backbone stiffens and
^ he conquers all difficulties.
still live in the countryside, in social
insulation—or measurably so; but the
ratio drops from 79 to 71 percent.
We have long had too many producers
of existence necessities — food, fuel,
shelter, clothing, and the like and too
few local consumers; too few brisk,
busy little towns, offering nearby farm
ers ready cash for everything they pro
duce. Our apple crop illustrates the
situation. We produced last year nearly
eight mfllion bushels, but barely more
than three hundred thousand bushels
found their way into the channels of
commerce. The balance were consumed
at home, sold for a song, fed to the
pigs, or left to rot on the trees.
Manufacture Leads
Under this condition of heavy rural
majorities in the open country, the state
has found it difficult to move up upon
higher levels in mass organization for
economic and social advantages. The
farmers find it difficult to organize for
business enterprise, for county health
That is the story of business. It has
faced the storm, it has been beaten down
for a while, but it will soon arise and
move upward to higher ground. The
clouds are passing, the sun begins to
shine, and the watchman sings aloud to
the farmer and the merchant, the man
ufacturer and the day laborer. The
Morning Cometh!
A LOW AVERAGE
We have been accustomed to flatter
TH E GOVERNOR’S PROGRAM
FOR PUBLIC WELFARE
We must take humane care of all
our defective and unfortunate peo
ple, whose defects and misfortunes
are of such a character that they can
not care for themselves, or he ade
quately cared for by the private ef
fort of loved ones. In order to ac
complish this God-like purpose, the
institutions and organizations set u^
by the state for the care of our de
fective a'd unfortunate people must
be made adequate for the treatment,
care and training of these helpless
and defective ones within our border
in a manner worthy of a people who
love deeds of mercy above all ma
terial things.
And the delinquent girls and boys
of our state must be cared for and
trained as the conscience of a Chris
tian civilization demands. Our in
stitutions for this sacred and patri
otic work must be strengthened and
made adequate to carry out this noble
purpose.
The institutions and organizations
which we have set up for these noble
purposes ere well designed for the
great work to be done, but we have
discovered that the work to be done
is so much greater than we knew
that they must all be strengthened
and equipped to do larger work than
heretofore.
We must throw around the home
and life of our people an enlightened
world’s knowledge of preventive med
icine, and make ceaseless war upon
sickness, suffering and death in this
state. Our greqt department of
health must be generously nourished
and equipped for this humane ser
vice. Disease cannot be successfully
prevented by individual effort alone.
Modem statesmanship demands that
every practical effort shall be made
through organized health boards and
expert officers to protect the health
of the people. Our health depart
ment has accomplished wonders with
the means furnished. I believe I ex
press the deep desire of our enlight
ened people when I urge increased
strength for this great department
of our government.
COUNTRYSIDE IMPROVEMENT
There should be, and in the long run
there will tend to be, no more farmers
in the nation than are needed to pro
duce the quantity of products which
can be disposed of at a profit. ,
There will be farmers enough if the
business of farming is made more pro
fitable and if rural life is made attract
ive and healthful.
The consumers must be willing to
pay prices for farm products which will
enable farmers to produce them and to
maintain a satisfactory standard of in
dividual and community life.
The nation, therefore, must be pre
pared to ..omit nothing to improve the
countryside. The farmers have proved
themselves worthy citizens and strong
bulwarks against radicalism. — D. F.
Houston, formerly Secretary of Agri
culture.
COUNTRY-HOME BOOKS
ought to be in
Here are books that
every country home;
Games for the Home, School, Play
ground, and Gymnasium, by Jessie Ban
croft.
Ice Breakers, by Edna Geister.
How to Build and Keep a Tennis
Court,by Paul B. Williams—Playground
and Recreation Association of America,
1 Madison Ave., New York City.
I Hear America Singing: 66 Commu
nity Songs.—C. C. Birchard and Co.,
Boston, Mass.
Piano Pieces the Whole World Plays;
Songs the Whole World Sings. — D.
Appleton and Co., New York City.
AMERICA’S TROUBLED HOUR
those financial resources, which we com
mand in a degree unparalleled in the his
tory of the known world, have been de
voted to this cause, and when it is
thought better to invest twenty million
of dollars in laboratories rather than in
one battleship devoted exclusively to
purposes of destruction, then possibly
we may take the position that our ma
terial success entitles us to take among
the great nations of the world.—Arthur
Gordon Webster, in The Scientific
Monthly.
ourselves that the common schools are
an American invention. We have no
peasants in this country and we think
that the average of education and in
telligence is very high. And yet we
find as a result of the psychological
tests made upon about three million men
in our Army that the average mental
age of the soldier was about thirteen
and a half years.
When learning is looked upon as a
sufficient motive for engaging the at
tention of the best intellects, and when
THE GIST OF DEMOCRACY
The ultimate bond of the democracy
of the future cannot be eternal princi
ples of right embodied in a code of laws;
it cannot be the selfish ties of business;
it cannot be the coercive force of gov
ernment and police control. The only
enduring basis upon which a free peo
ple can rest their political loyalties is
the conscious and reasoned conviction
of the average man. The democracy
of the future must be more than a body
of laws, more than a social or political
program; it must also be a faith, a loy
alty. For, after all, the creative and
and toward looking elements in human
life are our faiths. To state the prob
lem in terms of psychology, we must se
cure in some fashion an effective or
ganization of the sentiments of the av
erage man around those comprshensive
political and moral values lying at the
core of the democratic ideal.—Dr. Al
bion W. Small, in The American Jour
nal of Sociology.
America is the country in which are
to be studied the most startling reve
lations of what is called, more or less
accurately, the mass mind. It is also
the country in which, above all others,
external uniformity of conduct and ex
pression is not only imposed and en
forced but is, in the popular view, har
monized without difficulty with the car
dinal doctrine of the Republic. English
people should realize that there are
reasons lying deep in the social struc
ture and tradition which go far to ac
count for the great difference that ex
ists between the British and American
attitude toward individual heresy and a
dissentient minority.
No country has ever been called upon
to grapple with so huge and baffling a
social problem as the one under which
America is staggering today. Con
sidered in the complex terms of immi
grant communities, of capitalist power,
of labor and social organization, of city
life and the cost of living, of the Negro
and the swiftly changing South, of a
stupendous population moving irresist
ibly toward a higher material standard
than has ever been touched by any peo
ple, and finally of a great nation puzzled
and shocked by the convulsions of the
Old World, we have the most overpow
ering prospect ever offered to the mind
of man.—S. K. Ratcliffe. Contemporary
Review.
MONEY^ROP SENSE
More soy beans, potatoes and com,
more beef and pork and more of some
other food and feed stuffs will be grown
in the lower part of the eastern tobacco
belt next year than ever before, if the
advice of expert agriculturists, includ
ing federal demonstration agents,
is followed by the farmers who this fall
have seen their tobacco crop sell for
less than 40 per cent of last year’s
average and the cotton market grad
ually tumble to unprofitable levels.
Planters after years of unprecedented
prosperity will not be ruined by the
fall’s setbacks, if they imbibe the
lesson of diversification with experience
as a teacher. The scientific agricultur
ists are urging larger crops of the things
needed at home next year. Many to-
bocco planters buy on the markets
everything needed for home consump
tion rather than keep apart a few acres
from the money crops for the produc
tion of grain, meat, etc.—Carter’s
Weekly.
THE CO-OPERATOR’S CREED
I believe that no man lives wholly to
himself; that the whole race in general
and each community in particular is a
brotherhood; and that the best good of
the individual is to be realized only
through the common good of all. I be
lieve that undue competition in any
sphere of life is wasteful; that co-oper
ation means an economy of men and
resources; and that it promotes effi
ciency, true democracy and good will. I
believe that it is one of the greatest
needs of rural life; that it will solve
many country problems; and that its
success depends upon a sufficient num
ber of men with the co-operative mind.
I believe in working together with 'my
fellows in those activities and affairs
which are common to all; in making
each business transaction an expression
of human interest as well as a matter
of reasonable profit, and in giving and
demanding a square deal in all the acts
of life.—Edward J. Ruliffson.
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
CORNELL’S NINE MILLIONS
Ojmell University’s semi-centennial
endowment fund amounted to |8,952,770
at the close of the campaign, J. D.
White, Chairman of the Endowment
Committee of the Cornell Board of Trus
tees, announced tonight.
The total represents gifts from 10,114
former Comellians, or 82 per cent of all
Cornell alumni and former students, and
408 other persons who had not attended
the institution.
The sum of $6,243,917 will be used tor
the purpose of increasing professors’
salaries, with the exception of $600,000
for the endowment of research. The
remainder comprises gifts for buildings
and improvements, including two prin
cipal items of $1,600,000 for anew chem
istry laboratory and $600,000 tor the
Medical College in New York City.
Approximately 60 per cent, or 15,718
former Cornell students gave financial
support to their alma mater during 1920,
more than 5,000 making gifts outside
the endowment fund.—N. Y. Times.
Democracy does not exist unless each
man is doing his full part every minute,
unless every one is bearing his share of
the burden in building the state-to-be.
This is the trumpet call to men today.
A creative citizenship must be made
the force of American political life—a
trained, responsible citizenship always
in control, creating always its own life.
In most of the writing on American
politics we find the demand for a crea
tive statesmanship as the most pressing
need of America today. It is indeed
true that with so much crystallized con
servatism and chaotic radicalism we
need leadership, constructive leadership;
but the doctrine of true democracy is
that every man is and must be a crea
tive citizen.
All that the individual lacks detracts
from society. The state will become
a splendid thing when each one of us
becomes a splendid individual. Democ
racy does not mean being lost in the
mass, it means the contribution of every
power the individual possesses to social
uses. The individual is not lost in the
whole, he makes the whole.—M. P. Fol-
lett, in The New State.
THE CITYWARD DRIFT
I believe it would be an excellent
thing for humanity if its civilization
could he based on rural industry mainly
and not on urban industry. More and
more men and women in our modern
civilization drift out of nature, out of
sweet air, health, stren^h, beauty, in
to the cities, where in the third genera
tion there is a rickety population, mean
in stature, vulgar or depraved in charac
ter, with the image of the devil in mind
and matter more than the image of
Deity. Those who go like it at first;
but city life is like the roll spoken
of by the prophet, which was sweet in
the mouth but bitter in the belly. The
first generation are intoxicated by the
new life, but in the third generation
the cord is cut which connected them
with Nature, the Great Mother, and life
shrivels up, sundried from the source of
life.—Geo. W. Russell, in The National
Being.
WARRENTON LEADS
A rare instance of comprehensive
municipal ownership is found in War-
renton, N. C., a little town of less than
a thousand people, which has a railroad
three or four miles long connecting
with the Seaboard Air. Line, water
works, electric plant, ice plant, opera
house, all owned and successfully oper
ated by the municipality which is also
building a modern hotel to cost $140,000
and to be paid for by a bond issue. —
Bulletin, Martinsville, Va.
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