The news in this publi
cation is released for the
pre^ on receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published Weekly by the
University of North Caro
lina for its University Ex
tension Division.
NUVEMBEK 16,1921
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. VHI, NO. 2
•ISdltorial Board
B. C. Bran-siyn, 8.H. Hobbs, Jr., L. R. Wilson. B. W. Knight, D. D. Carroll,'J. B. Bullitt, H. W. Odum.
Entered as seoond-olass matter November 14,1914, at the Poatoffloe at Chapel HIU, N. C., under the act of August 24, 1919.
TOWN AND COUNTRY TENANCY
I
HELPING MEN TO OWN FARMS
There'v/ere right around one million
two hundred ^thousand landless, home
less people in North Carolina in 1910.
They are the people who own not a sin
gle shingle in the roof over their heads,
or a single inch of the land they culti
vate. They are tenants and renters in
town and country areas. They are town
dwellers who spend their days and nights
like poor Dante going up and down
somebody else’s stairs. They are farm
ers who do not have their legs under
their own tables, as the Danes say.
They are mill villagers who live in com
pany Ijouses. They are a third of our
white farmers and two-thirds of our
negro farmers. They are from two-
thirds to three-fourths of all the dwell
ers in the fifty-seven cities of North
Carolina. Their families counted, they
are nearly six hundred thousand farm
workers white and black, five hundred
thousand town and city dweller^, and a
hundred thousand factory ^eratives
more in unincorporated mill Villages in
North Carolina.
And the landless, homeless multitude
steadily increases in North Carolina and
in every other staW of the Union. In
North Carolina they increased in-num
ber during the last census period by
166,000. They were 53 percent of the
entire population of North Carolina in
1910; they were 52.6 percent in 1920.
Our farm tenant population was in
creased by fifty thousand souls during
the last ten years. Our landless indus
trial workers have been increased by
thirty thousand souls during the last
five years, and our landless city dwell
ers by pne hundred and twenty thousand
during the last census period.
And so the story runs in every state
in the Union. The ratio of landless
people varies from a third of the popu
lation in North Dakota to nearly seven-
of
California, as Executive Secretary
the State Land Settlement Board.
This book is already a text in the De
partment of Rural Social Economics at
the University, and a reference volume
for the North Carolina ' Club members,
who are this year devoting their entire
schedule to Home and Farm Owner
ship.
The University Library has twenty-
one copies of this book and we are glad
to send it out by mail as a loan to any
body in North Carolina who wants to
get his fist around this big subject.
UNSIGHTLY LITTLE TOWNS
Greensboro has an ordinance requir
ing the occupants of lots abutting paved
sidewalks to keep the adjoining grass
plots neatly mowed, and to*" have snow,
ice, and other obstructions removed by
10 o'clock of every day; it also requires
all property owners to keep their side
walks clean and fr^e from weeds. This
ordinance is strictly enforced, says the
city manager. It meets with very little
opposition and manifestly it contributes
to the trig appearance of the city.
A similar and greatly needed ordi
nance would require all vacant town-lot
owners to keep such lots clear of weeds
and unsightly trash. This ordinance is
hardly less necessary than the other. If
ordinances of this sort were faithfully
enforced the appearance of the 413 little
towns of North Carolina would Hie im
proved a thousand percent almost over
night.
The weedy, trashy, unkempt condition
of sidewalks and streetfronts in Chapel
Hill, for instance, never can be cured
by any street force that the town is
likely to be able to support upon the
taxes paid. What would cost many
thousand dollars in taxes for street
cleaning is a very small matter when
every property owner and the occupant
tenths of the population in New York of every dwelling or business tidies up
tentns 01 I.U pun spaces immediately around him.
state. The fatal law seems to be that
the more populous and prosperous an
area becomes the fewer are the people
who live in homes of their own. It is
the crudest paraiiox of Christendom.
No state or country can hope for sta
bility and safety, peace and prosperity,
when a swelling majority of its people
own little or nothing but household goods
and personal effects more or less mea
ger. It is an economic status that easily
develops discontent and restless roving.
Civilization is rooted and grounded in
the home-owning, home-loving, home-
defending instincts. A land of home
owners, and no other, safely weathers
every storm whatsoever, political, eco
nomic, or social. So reads the plain les
son of history.
However, there are comforting signs
of latei in almost every country of the
world, of serious concern in behalf of
landless, homeless men—in New Zea
land, Australia, Denmark, Ireland, Eng
land, Scotland, Canada, California, and
a score or so of other states, all of which
have adopted some form of state-aid to
home and farm ownership for landless
men. And recently there have been
signs of concern in North Carolina about
this fundamental menace to our devel
oping democracy.
There is something
a
like a state-wide concern in John Smith,
Tenant, in Walter H. Page’s Forgotten
Man, in the twelve hundred thousand
people in North Carolina Who do not
own the homes they live in or the farms
they cultivate. And as for farm ten
ancy, it is distinctly a white man’s
problem. Our white farm tenants out
number our negro tenant farms in North
Carolina by 10,000 and in the South by
more than 150,000.
Various remedies have ^een proposed.
Some of these are wise and some are
otherwise. We can eksily know the suc
cesses andfoiluresof other countries, the
causes of failure and the ways of sue-
cess. It would be stupid in this state
to pitch our tent in the graveyard of
dead experiments.
Which brings us to say that Elwood
Mead’s recent volume on Helping Men
, to Own Farmsis worth the while of every
\reader, thinker, and leader in North
Carolina. So f ar^ it is thfe ©nly volume
entirely devoted to this subject in this
country or any other, qnd it is written
by the man who safely spelled out the
problem in Victoria, Australia, and who
THE FORGOTTEN MAN
Walter H. Page
In estimating a civilization it is
the neglected and forgotten man
more than any other that must be
taken into account.
When you build a house, you make
the foundation the^ strongest part of
it, and the house, however .ornate
its architecture, can be no stronger
than the foundation.
A community is not rich because
it contains a few rich men, it is not
healthful because it contains a few
strong men, it is not intelligent be
cause it contains a few men of learn
ing, nor is it of good morals because
it contains good women—if the rest
of the population also be not well-to-
do, or healthful, or intelligent, or of
good morals.
The common people is the class
most to be considered in the struc
ture of civilization.
Moreover, in proportion as any
community in the organization of its
society or in the development of its
mstitutions lays emphasis on its few
rich men, or its few cultwated men,
it is likely to forget and to neglect
its very foundations. ;
It is not these small classes that
really make the community what it
is, that determine the condition of
its health, the soundness of its social
structure, its econoipic value and its
level of life. The' security and the
soundness of the whole body are
measured at last by the. condition of
its weakest part.—Rebuilding Old
Commonwealths.
it is proposed to raise a like amount by
private subscription.
The campaign recalls the ill-fated
campaign m Wake county two years
ago. This county all but started a tu
berculosis sanatorium, failing by a rel
atively small number of votes in the
popular election.
North Carolina is not adequately cop
ing with the spread of tuberculosis. No
state is. No state has as yet waked up
to a true realization of its responsibil
ity to the helpless. The penniless tu
berculosis patient has precious little
chance to recover. But a Christian
confhiunity will not always go on letting
human beings die for the want of the
proper sustenance.
It is to be hoped that Mecklenburg
will successfully consummate its cam
paign for the Mecklenburg county tu
berculosis hospital. All large counties
and groups of smaller counties ought to
maintain tuberculosis hospitals.—News
and Observer.
The once-a-year clean-up day is good.
A once-a-week'clean-up day is better—
fifty-two times better.
The street-cleaning force of a little
town is doing very well to clean the
ditches and cut the weeds and grass in
the street along the sidewalk edges and
street fronts once or twice a year.
Property owners or occupants could at
tend to this matter of appearance every
week or every few days.
Trashy, weedy, vacant lots and backr
yard lots disfigure the appearance of
little towns the whole country over—
except perhaps in New England and the
Pacific coast states where sheer per
sonal pride in the look of the home
town takes the place of ordinances and
police inspection.
A good many towns in North Carolina
have ordinances requiring owners and
occupants to keep weeds down on their
property or in front of their property
on all lots either vacant or occupied, as
for instance Asheville.
However nothing will take the place
of pride when it comes to small town
prinking. All little towns the country
over, could easily look as lovely to the
eye as the little college town of Am
herst in Massachusetts and the little
towns of Southern California. In this
matter Oxford leads the way in North
Carolina. It is charming to the eye
and it has been made so by the civic
activities of the women of the town.
The women*of our little towns in North
Carolina could work a similar miracle
of transformation, and if the women do
not do it, we venture to say it will not
likely be done in long years to come.
ston-Salem spirit which is turning the
trick. Those folks up there are making
money, but they are not too busy with
that business to forget to develop their
city along with their ^ther progress.
Men and money are attracted to Win
ston-Salem. They don't have to go out
and solicit and invite projects to locate
there. They gravitate that way. There
is a city pride about Winston-Salem
that is not found in many Carolina
cities.
INVESTING IN SCHOOLS
WINSTON-SALEM’S WAY
Winston-Salem has given the State
papers cause for comment. The Raleigh
Times says;
‘ ‘Winston-S;jlem has not! only started
somewhere; The Biggest Town is arriv
ing. It was only yesteryear that the
people of the Twin-City voted $800,000
bonds for schools; Monday it adds a
million more and throws in $100,000 for
an example good enough for even the
Best Town in North Carolina.”
All this has been voted in addition to
the generous donations of the Reynolds
The following editorial clipped from
the Philadelphia Record shows how the
educational program of North Carolina
is impressing outsiders:
The Charlotte, N. C., Observer prints
a long list of towns and rural commu
nities in that State which have within
a year voted in favor of bonds for school
purposes, the total aggregating $13,-
000,000.' The amounts vary from $1,000,-
000 ifesuedby Greensboro down to $2,000
by a hamlet named after Milwaukee.
These figures, says the Observer, af
ford very good indication that the little
schools are keeping pace with college
and university development. The edu
cational movement i% North Carolina
has assumed proportions that possibly
are not equaled by any state in the
Union. This is gratifying news, for it
is a common impression that in the edu
cational procession the Southern States
have too often lagged behind. North
Carolina, which showed a very large
gain in the last census, will find that
good schools will be a great advertise
ment for it.
Perhaps in the next generation stu
dents will be flocking to its colleges
from all parts of the country rather
than to Massachusetts or Connecticut.
Money placed in good school buildings
and adequate teachers’ salaries is one
of the best investments a state can
make.—Rutherford Sun.
COUNT/ EOSPH ALS
A movement has been launched m
Mecklenburg county for the erection of
a coaiity tuberculosis hospital. The
yesterday in immaterial matters and
will be ruled off.
Other claims, amounting to about a
dozen all told, came within the purvie^
of the new court, and accordingly were
taken under consideration.—Los An
geles Examiner.
THE POOR MAN’S COURT
Every poor man to whom money is
owed now has a court all his own in
California.
Yesterday, the Small Claims Court
was oificiaily opened by Justice of the
Peace Howard Hinshaw and Clerk W.
S. Dinsmore.
According to a law enacted by the
latest session of the Legislature, effec
tive yesterday, any person who owes
another money, anywhere from 1 cent
to $50, on an expressed or an implied
contract, can be sued in this new court,
without lawyers or any other court ex
pense.
Justice Hinshaw explained the pro
cedure as follows:
Supposing you are a grocer. One of
your customers has purchased of you
goods to the amount of $15, for which
he has failed to pay. You can come into
the office of the Justice’s Clerk, on the
second floor of the courthouse, and there
file a statement of the facts. You must
know the exact amount owed, the exact
name and the exact ^ address of the per
son owing you. File these with the
clerk. He will have copies made and
mail one to the person owing you, by
registered letter, citing him to appear
in court in not less than five days nor
more than fifteen days from the date
of the filing.
Justice Hinshaw explained that after
this procedure he would have both par
ties to the case come into court' with all
their evidence, when he would question
both parties and then determine the
facts.
If it is shown that the debtiis legiti
mate and unpaid the justice then will
order the defendant either to pay it at
once or in weekly installments.
‘The law does not allow, collection
agencies and third-party claimants to
come into this court. They must sue
in the old way. ”
Several persons tried to file claims
A UNIVERSITY HOTEL
The need of the tow'n of Chapel Hill
for an adequate hotel is a matter of
state-wide importance. The state and
its university need closer acquaintance
with each other. Both would profit by
it, for the university gains a friend in
every one who goes to visit it, and the
visitor gains a new respect and a new
hope for North Carolina by inspecting
the instfitution.
There is finer wcurk being done at
Chapel Hill, and more of it, than is sus
pected by most people who have never
been there. The pl^-t is inadequate,
it is true, but enormous results ' are be
ing achieved with the facilities at hand.
The university is more than merely an
establishment for stuffing a certain
number of items of information into
the heads of a certain number of young
men; its business is the stimulation of
the cultural life of the state by what
ever means are available and in what
ever ways it may be able to operate.
It will teach a boy to read- Greek and
Hebrew if he chooses to come and re
side within its walls; but it does not
consider itself too dignified to’ teach a
group of club women how to beautify
their school grounds—more than that,
it will send an expert from its faculty
to their home town to make the demon
stration on the ground. Its savants in
clude men who are capable of attacking
the most abstruse problems of higher
mathematics, or of deciphering crabbed
texts written in all but forgotten
tongues; but they also include men who
can tell a farmer how to light his house
with electricity developed on the farm,
and howto rig up an arrangement to
; save the farmer’s wife from breaking
her back over the tub on wash-day.
Its spirit is the spirit of that wise man
of old to whom nothing human was
alien.
Therefore every North Carolinian
should come in touch with it, if he can.
But the personal touch is out of the
question unless he can see the univer
sity with his own eyes; and how shall
he see it if there is no place for him to*
stay in Chapel Hill?
So the problem of the hotel is more
than a village problem. It is one that
all North Carolina has an interest in
solving.—Greensboro News.
The real work of us all is to build.
The challenge is before us. It is the
task that every valiant man must set
himself. We are to rise from one mas
tery to another. No longer shall we be
satisfied with the present pace—a pace
which, nevertheless, we recognize as
substantial progress. We must rise to
the point where we become intentional
co-workers with every process that
leads to social strength.-The New
England Pilot.
TENANTS AND RENTERS IN THE UNITED STATES
Covering both Town and Country Dwellings on January 1,. 1920. Based on
a Census Bureau bulletin, October 1921.
The University News Letter, Vol. Ill, Nos. 36 and 39, gave the 1910 figures
for the states and for North Carolina by counties, with a brief interpretation.
The landless people of North Carolina increased from 1,180,000 to 1,346,000
between 1910 and 1920, vrhile the ratio fell from 53 to 52.6. percent.
Department of Rbi4i Social Science, University of North Carolina.
City Commissioners have already dona-
Estate which gave a high-school site of j ted a suitable site. The County^Com- | ^
many acres including ample room for | missioners have agreed to appi^ii^to 24
;hr;;:c5;;r;“ Wcesses m parks and playgrounds. It is the Win- ’ ' ^
' about $20,000 directly or indirectly and 25
Pet. Rented
Dwellings
North Dakota 34.7
Wisconsin
South Dakota 38.5
Idaho 39.1
Minnesota 39.3
Montana 39.5
Utah 40.0
Maine 40.4
New Mexico..... 40.6
Michigan 41.1
Iowa 41.9
Vermont ^42.5
Nebraska /42.6
Kansas 43.1
Indiana 45.2
Oregon 45.2
Washington 45.3
Wyoming .... - 48.1
Colorado 48.4
Ohio 48.4
Kentucky 48.4 | ^
Virginia 48.9 |
Maryland 50.1 ^
New Hampshire 50.2 .
Missouri... 50.5 ^
Rank State
Rank State Pet. Rented
Dwellings
26 Tennessee 52.3
27 Nevada 52.4
28 North Carolina |52.6
29 West Virginia 53.2
30 * Oklahoma 54.5
31 Pennsylvania 54.8
32 Arkansas 54.9
33 Delaware 55.3
34 Illinois 56.2
35 California 56.3
36 Texas ■ 57.2
36 Arizona 57.2
38 Florida 57.5
39' New Jersey 61.7
40 Connecticut 62.4
41 Alabama 65.0
‘42 Massachusetts 65.2
43 Mississippi 66.0
44 Louisiana 66.3
45 • South Carolina fi7.8
Rhode Island 68.9
47 Georgia 69.1
48 New York 69.3
49 District of Columbia 69,7