The news in this publi
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
the university of north CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published Weekly by the
University of North Caro
lina for its University Ex
tension Division.
OCTOBER 11, 1922
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. Vm, NO 47
BaitorUI , E. O. Branson. 8. H. Hobbs. Jr., L. R. Wilson. B. W. Knight, D. D. Carroll, J. B. BnUltt, H. W. Odum. Entered second-class m.Uer NovemberU.t9U, .t the Postoffice at Chapel HIU. N. O.. nnder the of 24. m*
STATE BILLS FOR IMPORTED FOOD
WHY FARMERS ARE POOR
Two hundred and thirty million dol
lars in round numbers is the amount of
hard earned cash sent out of North
Carolina in 1920 for bread and meat,
grain, hay, and forage, and other foods
and feeds for man and beast. This to
tal covers standard, staple farm and
garden supplies—not extras, dainties
and luxuries of diet. And furthermore,
the calculation was based on farm val
ues, not retail prices.
In other words, North Carolina was
only fifty-two percent self-feeding in
1920. Nearly half or forty-eight per
cent of our bread and meat was im
ported from the North and West.
These ratios considered, thirty-four
states made a better showing, and five
of these were Southern states—Okla
homa, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, and
Arkansas, in ^he order named. See the
table elsewhere in this issue. These
five states also stood well above North
Carolina in accumulated farm wealth
per country dweller. See the Univer
sity News Letter, Vol. VIII, No. 26.
ABC'S of Farm Finance
The first business of a farm is to feed
the farmer, the farmer’s family, and
the farm animals, says Dr. T. N. Carver
of Harvard University. The production
of cotton and tobacco or any other cash
crop on a home-raised bread-and-meat
basis, is the only way for the farmer
to retain the wealth he produces. In
every county there are farmers who al
ways have corn and wheat in their
bins, hay and forage in their barns,
meat in their smokehouses, and canned
fruits in their pantries. These are in
variably the farmers who are safely a-
head of the game. They accumulate
wealth. They are good credit risks, as
every banker will tell you.
As for the rest, they are stolidly con
vinced that it is good sense and good
business to raise cotton or tobacco and
to buy farm supplies with -cash crop
money. As a matter of fact it is good
sense and good business—for the sup
ply merchants and the warehousemen
but not for the farmers. Our farmers
produce vast wealth under this plan,
but somebody ^Ise gets it. It is a pol
icy that enriches the country towns and
the metropolitan trade centers, but it
empoverishes the country people.
Farm Cooperation
• Our farmers can never hope to be
self-directing citizens of the common
wealth until they are self-financing
and they can never be self-financing
until they are self-feeding. The suc
cess of farm cooperative enterprise de
pends at last upon accumulated farm
collateral and the credit it commands.
The cooperative marketing of cotton
and tobacco in average years in the
South calls for something like one and
a half billion dollars of cash or credit,
and the enterprise is in peril if it must
be financed on the outside by organized
big business or bolstered by state or
federal favors., The only safe basis is
accumulated collateral on the farms.
Farming as a business must stand on
its own bottom of accumulated capital.
The following tables tell the story in
1920:
Bread-and-Meat Farmers
Percent Per Cap.
States Self-feeding Wealth
Iowa 196 $8,113
Nebraska 188 6,826
Kansas 177 3,836
N. Dakota 169 4,074
S. Dakota 162 7,260
Wisconsin 122 2,400
Minnesota 122 3,916
Indiana 118 2,640
California Ill 3,724
Cotton-Tobacco Farmers
Percent Per Cap.
States Self-feeding Wealth
Oklahoma 104 |1,387
Tennessee 78 785
Virginia 78 790
Kentucky 75 964
Texas 69 1,696
Arkansas 68 731
N. Carolina 62 684
Mississippi 46 701
Alabama 44 419
QuicHsilver Dollars
There is an unmistakable relation be
tween home-raised farm supplies and
accumulated farm wealth. The bread-;
and-meat farmers of the Middle West
pile up wealth, while the cotton and
tobacco farmers of the South stay
poor. The towns that handle cotton
and tobacco get rich; but the cotton and
tobacco farmers get left.
The sad fact is that cotton and to
bacco money is not silver but quicksilver.
It slips through the fingers of the farm
ers, and enriches the dealers and the
manufacturers. Cotton and tobacco
money talks, but what it says to the
farmer is. Good-by.
We must always produce cotton and
tobacco. They are our best money
crops and are likely to remain so for
long years to come, but we will be wise
to base their production on staple food
and feed crops.
The boll weevil is a hard schoolmas
ter, but the lesson he teaches is lasting
ly learned, by farmers, merchants, and
bankers alike.
COUNTY GOVERNMENT HINTS
Looking (1) to the business-like ad
ministration of county affairs; (2) to
uniformity in county account-keeping
and reporting, (3) with a maximum of
local control and a minimum of state
intervention—this minimum confined
to authoritative but friendly guidance,
auditing, and county record keeping at
the capitol, for purposes of comparison
the state over.
1. Unified County Government with
responsible executive headship. We
already have county commission goV'
ernment; the problem is to enlarge and
define the scope of it and to create ef
fective executive machinery. Mr. B,
A. Patton suggested full-time commis
sioners, one or more, on adequate sal
ary; Major A. J. McKinnon, a county-
comission manager and definite depart
mental responsibility by Board mem
bers; and Dr. E. C. Brooks, a compe
tent auditor appointed by the county
Commissioners, and serving as the
executive of the Board.
2. Uniform County Account-Keep
ing and Reporting; authorized by state
law, under the state auditor, with
increase of county officials.—Lindsay
C. Warren's suggestion.
3. A Compulsory Annual Audit in
every county in North Carolina.—L. C.
Warren’s suggestion. This law is al
ready on the statute books. The law
assumes the right to protect by- audits
the private moneys of depositors in
state banks. Why not extend this
plan to the protection of the public
Moneys of taxpayers in the hands of
public officials?
4. County Budgets rigidly adhered
to, except in cases of the greatest
mergency; the budget to include the
school budget and to be published be
fore the levying of county tax rates. -
L. C. Warren’s suggestion.
5. The State to hold regional insti
tutes of instruction for county officials.
—E. C. Brooks’s suggestion.
6. County Commissioners to ha^e the
right to remove any county officer who
neglects his books or refuses to keep
them properly and to report promptly
as directed.—E. C. Brooks’s suggestion?
7. Efficiency surveys of county af
fairs in five or more typical counties of
the state, of a sort with Maxey’s sur
veys of county affairs in Delaware.—
E. C. Branson’s suggestion. What
everybody knows in a vague general
way about the deficiencies of county
government in this and other states no
body knows in any accurate, compre
hensive, authoritative way; and until
the people of the state do know exactly
how thirty million dollars of county
money is spent, dissatisfaction will be
rife but real reforms will be feeble for
lack of supporting public sentiment.—
Report of E. C. Branson, to the State
Association of County Commissioners
at the University of North Carolina,
August 18,1922.
THE COUNTY BOARDS
After three full sessions at the Uni
versity, the fifteenth annual meeting of
the State Association of County Com
missioners adjourned until August 1923
when they will meet in Asheville. The
features of the day’s program were Dr.
E, C. Brooks's forceful address tonight
on County Government and Public Edu-
cntion, and Dr. E. C. Branson’s talk
this morning on Improved County Gov
ernment. The main points of these
KNOW NORTH CAROLINA
A Texas Verdict
Dealing with round numbers North
Carolina is about one-fifth the size
of Texas and has about half the pop
ulation.
It is a very old state, having been
the seat of an established civiliza
tion two hundred years ago. Texas
is a new state.
North Carolina was ravaged and
desolated by the war of 1861-6, from
her Atlantic shore to her mountain
peaks, from her northernmost to her
southernmost lines, and she suffered
from the processes of reconstruc
tion to a far greater extent than
did Texas.
The people of Texas have never
felt or seen such desolation as swept
North Carolina, nor have her people
ever suffered such hardship and suf
fering as was the fate of the people
of the Old North State, yet the tax
able values of North Carolina two
years ago were practically the same
as were those of Texas, and now
are not materially less.
There is more rich land in the Val
ley of the Brazos between Waco and
the Gulf of Mexico than there is in
the whole state of North Carolina,
yet prosperity is evident everywhere
in North Carolina. The state levies
no tax at all on general property, but
her four and a half per cent bonds find
eager takers in the New} York mar
ket.
A few extracts from recent ap
propriation bills of the legislature of
North Carolina will show that her
legislators think and legislate on
liberal lines.
On March 8, 1921, they authorized
a bond issue of$6,745,000 for the en
largement and improvement of the
State’s educational and charitable
institutions, of which $1,490,000 was
applied to the enlargement and im
provement of the State University.
On the same day an act was passed
making appropriations for State
institutions, and under that bill fur
ther provision was made for the
University. It was given $446,000
for 1921 and $480,000 for 1922, thus
the total appropriations for that in
stitute for two years were $2,416,000,
and appropriations for a score or
more of other educational institu
tions were made on an equally as
liberal basis.
The sum of $226,000 for each year
was appropriated for maintenance
of the State Board of Health, and
separate appropriations were made
for the State Sanatorium and the
^tate Laboratory of Hygiene.
‘ th Carolina is spending $50,-
in the construction of dur-
Termanent highways, and the
[ties of the state an equal a-
mount. One highway has been car
ried to a height of 6711 feet.
It may be asked how it is possible
to meet such expenditures?
The answer is, the people of North
Carolina live at home. The trave
ler is rarely out of sight of a cotton
factory or some other kind of fac
tory-one county has nearly, if not
quite, a hundred cotton factories.
The state spins more cotton than
she grows.
Nearly every running stream in
the state is harnessed to produce
electric power, which is carried to
manufactories, in some instances 200
miles.
Texas can do what North Carolina
does when she re-assesses all the
property in the state as North Ca
rolina did and spins her cotton as
North Carolina does, and esteems
the value of State institutions as
North Carolina people do.
Think of it, with one-fifth the area
of Texas and one half her popula
tion North Carolina is leading Texas
in the march of progress, and in the
sphere of enlightened legislation.—
Houston Chronicle.
y '
i?-|
tf Countie
speeches were later adopted in the
resolutions.
The officers elected for next year
are: President, C. P. Aycock, of Beau
fort County; vice-presidents, F. P. Spru
ill, of Nash, and C. W. Morgan, of
Perquimans; secretary-treasurer, W.
E. Johnson, of Buncombe.
Besides the talks of Dr. Brooks and
Dr. Branson there were many others
before the body. Lieutenant Gover
nor Cooper supported the principles
that were brought foward by Dr. E. C.
Branson. Mr. Clark of the North Ca
rolina Geological and Economic Survey
talked on forests and water-power.
Mrs. C. A. Johnson, State Commission
er of Public Welfare, made an appeal
for welfare interest on the part of the
commissioners. Her talk was enthus
iastically received. R. M. Brown, of
the Welfare Department, presented the
subject of county homes and suggested
district homes rather than poorly sup
ported county institutions for the help
less. Following Dr. Brooks during the
last session, Mr. William Hoyt, bond
attorney of New York, who wrote the
municipal finance act of North Caro
lina law, recommended a similar law
for county bond sales.
County Reforms
Points brought up by the principal
speakers were discussed with interest
by the commissioners. The following
resolutions were adopted;
1. Resolved that we endorse the ef
forts and commend the work of the
State Department of Public Welfare of
our state.
2. Resolved, that it would be to the
best interests of all counties and of the
state at large to repeal all legislation
allowing any exemption on property
whatsoever from taxation.
3. We indorse the suggestion of Mr.
L. C. Warren as to making county and
school budgets and having same pub
lished before making tax levy; also
that county school expenditures be pub
lished monthly in some county news
paper. We also adopt his suggestion
of uniform county account keeping and
reporting under supervision of the state
auditor with no increase of county of
ficials.
4. We heartily recommend to the
consideration of this body the sugges
tions of Dr. Brooks as to the right of
county commissioners to remove county
officials for neglecting or refusing to
make reports promptly when called
for.
5. We recommend that the next Gen
eral Assembly of this state be urged to
make adequate facilities fot® caring for
the feeble-minded and insane who are
now being confined in the various coun
ty homes and jails.
6. We recommend that this conven
tion unanimously endorse the co-oper
ative marketing association.
7. Resolved, that this association
should endeavor to secure the passage
of a suitably drawn general law to
authorize and regulate the issuance of
county bonds in this state, and that a
committee of three be appointed for
that purpose.
Before adjourning, the association
gave a rising vote of thanks to Dr.
Branson, Dr. Odum, and Dr. Chase for
their reception in Chapel Hill, and an
other rising vote to the retiring officers
of the association for their efforts to
make the convention a success.—News
and Observer.
A REAL NEGRO PROBLEM
Among the most crying needs for the
rural South is a Grenfell—or a hundred
such—to minister to the Negro physi
cally. To make the imperative nature
of this need clear, I may say that in the
vast plantation regions not one negro
in a hundred ever receives medical at
tention at childbirth; and thousands of
negro babies are reared without ever
having received such attention as
modern science can give. Many sur
vive, but many perish.
Devoted physicians are sorely needed.
Many men now in general practice do
indeed give the negro almost boundless
help; but the need is still great.
I have long wondered why those who
give money to negro education do not
specify that some of it is to be
devoted to the training of negroes who
shall be medical missionaries to their
race; or why all our medical missiona
ries feel it incumbent to go to Korea
and to China and to the ends of the
earth.
Great free dispensaries in the South
would be of immediate and inestimable
assistance to a race which is in dire
need of such help, far more in need of
it than in need of either lower or high
er education. If there is a real Negro
Problem, it seems to be the problem of
giving him medical assistance as a race.
The Black Hearthstone, by Archibald
Rutledge, a South Carolina writer, in
The Outlook.
IMPORTED FOOD AND FEED SUPPLIES
In the United States in 1920
Based (1) on the 1920 census of values of bread and meat produced in each
state, reckoned on farm values, not retail prices, (2) on standard, staple farm,
orchard, and garden products—not on extras, daintiesrand luxuries of diet, (3)
on the consuming population of folks and farm animals, and (4) on the con
sumption averages used in the University News Letter table Vol. VIII, No. 20.
In 1920 North Carolina sent out of the state 232 million dollars for bread and
meat our farmers could have raised at home. They produced 62 percent of
what was needed for man and beast and the state bought 48 percent or nearly
half of her food and feed supplies from the farmers of the North and West.
Thirty-four states made a better showing.
The Southern states that made a better record than North Carolina were
Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, and Arkansas; and all of them stood a-
bove us in the accumulation of farm wealth per country inhabitant. See Uni
versity News Letter, Vol. VIII, No. 25.
Miss Henrietta R. Smedes
Department of Rural Social Economics, University of North Carolina
Deficit
Rank
Extent Surplus or
Self-feeding deficit.
State Percent
Iowa 196
Nebraska 188
Kansas. 177
N. Dakota 169
S. Dakota ..... 162
Idaho 139
Wisconsin 122
Minnesota 122
Indiana 118
Missouri 116
California Ill
Vermont Ill
Washington 110
Colorado 109
Oregon 109
Oklahoma 104
Deficit
States
Maine 99
Illinois 98
Nevada 91
Wyoming 83
Ohio 81
Michigan 81
Tennessee 78
Surplus
$698,306,000
362,328,000
382,446,000
149,627,000
166,362,000
46,987,000
135,814,000
130,389,000
116,696,000
124,166,000
74,612,000
9,134,000
27,271,000
22,130,000
16,107,000
20,666,000
Deficit
1,478,000
27,230,000
2,263,000
11,724,000
207,234,000
132,457,000
110,130,000
Extent
Self-feeding
Rank State Percent
23
Virginia
78
$ 98,696,000
26
Delaware
76
9,923,000
26
Kentucky......
75
126,919,000
27
Montana
. 74
45,761,000
28
Utah
72
27,965,000
29
Texas
. 69
329,036,000
30
N. Mexico
. 68
33,148,000
31
Arkansas
68
169,313,000
32
W. Virginia....
. 56
119,267,000
32
Maryland
66
113,145,000
32
N. Hampshire..
66
36,147,000
35
N. Carolina...
52
232,227,000
36
Florida
. 47
97,119,000
37
Mississippi
, 45
211,819,000
38
Alabama
. 44
269,668,000
38
S. Carolina ....
44
177,640,000
38
Arizona
44
46,371,000
41
Pennsylvania ..
, 43
864,346,000
42
Georgia
43
320,248,000
43
N. York
40
1,058,853,000
44
Louisiana
39
212,033,000
46
N. Jersey
25
382,982,000
45
Connecticut....
25
170,470,000
47
Massachusetts.
. 15
623,846,000
48
R. Island
. 12
84,425,000