The news in this publi
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published Weekly by th»
University of North Caro
lina Press for the Univer
sity Extension Division.
FEBRUARY 14, 1923
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. IX, NO. 13
Bdiiorial Bcardt E. C. Branson. S. H. Hobbs. Jr., L. R. Wilson. E. W.» Knight. D. D. Carroll, J. B. Bullitt. H. W. Odum,
Entered as second-class matter Novemberl4, 1914, atlthe Poatoffice at Chapel Hill, N. C. under the act of August 24, 1912
THE EMPIRE STATE OF THE SOUTH
HOW CAROLINA RANKS
North Carolina is attracting more
attention throughout the Nation than
any other Southern state. Few states
are more in the limelight today
than is the Tar Heel State. News
papers everywhere are calling her the
Empire State of the South. And she
is the Empire State of the southeast
ern third of the United States. Like
New, York, the Empire State of the
Union, North Carolina is a great agri
cultural state. Like New York she is
a great manufacturing state. In al
most every particular she is the leading
manufacturing state of the South. Like
New York she possesses an enormous
amount of water power, both developed
and undeveloped. In many respects
she is more favored than the Empire
State. In the variety of her soils and
seasons, in the mildness of her climate,
in the homogeneity of her population
and the varied beauty of her landscape
North Carolina stands almost alone.
The writer recently had occasion to
take a three thousand mile trip, and
everywhere, on the Pullman cars, in
the hotels, at meetings of various
national bodies, he heard the state of
North Carolina discussed. The state
has received an enormous amount of
advertising from various sources. It
. is likely that our vast expenditures on
good roads and schools have given us
enough favorable publicity to repay
the cost. One southern paper stated
that North Carolina had spent fifty-
five million dollars on roads and had
gotten seventy-five million dollars'
worth of national publicity. Twenty
years ago a Tar Heel away from home
kept the state of his nativity a secret.
Today he is proud of his homeland, and
people who meet him are anxious to
hear about the marvelous achievements
of the southern giant that has awaken
ed to his vast powers, has taken
stock of himself, and has decided to de
velop to full maturity his wonderful
possibilities. Mr. Seavey in The New
York Times says: If ever a common
wealth went head over heels, wholesale
and retail, latitudinally and longitudi
nally, to boom and develop itself, that
commonwealth is the Old North State.
It is impossible even to outline in one
article half of what there is to say a-
bout this state. An attempt will be
made to present only a few of the
most important facts; to exhibit merely
a few of the factors that cause the
Tar Heel State to be known as the
Empire State of the South.
Her People
North Carolina has the most homo
geneous population in the Union. A
larger percent of her people are native
born than is to be found in any other
state. Few southern states have a
larger white ratio. The negroes are
about twenty-nine percent of the total
population and are fairly well distri
buted over the eastern and central
parts of the state. They live mainly
on farms and are largely responsible
for our high rank as a cash crop state.
Although North Carolina is the lead
ing manufacturing state south of Balti
more, the bulk of her people live in
rurabareas. It is out of these rural
areas that our industrial labor has been
drawn. The white farm tenants for
twenty years have been swarming off
the Piedmont and mountain farms into
industrial and trade centers. They are
the best textile labor to be found any
where. And although we have been
urbanising and industrializing at a pace
that has attracted national attention
and respect, we are still a rural state.
Only four states in the Union have
more farms than North Carolina. Only
four states have a larger ratio of their
inhabitants actually living on farms.
They are North Dakota, South Caro-^
fjna, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Our
actual farmers and their families are
nearly sixty percent of our total popu
lation, and almost three of every four
people live outside of incorporated
places.
Our industrial growth will depend
largely on cur available labor supply.
Were labor the only limiting factor
there would be no cause to worry. There
is still available twice as much white
tenant labor alone as is employed in all
the industries of the state. Thousands
of white tenants are anxiously waiting
for a chance to move to town, for a
new cotton mill to open its doors, or
for employment in other factory enter
prises. The drift is unmistakable. Al
most every county in the western half
of the state has decreased in the num
ber of farms during the last ten years.
The tenants are on their way to town.
It is a wise mov* f : the tenants and
perhaps the final i i :.alt will be a better
agriculture based on farm ownership.
However that may be, the rise of
North Carolina as an industrial state is
very largely due to her abundant supply
of adaptable labor, a supply that has
scarcely yet been tapped.
Agriculture
North Carolina is a great agricultural
state. She is not the agricultural state
she should be, not the state she will be
within a decade or two. But even to
day she is the Empire State of the
South in agriculture. Texas produces
larger crop totals but Texas is an em
pire in size, not a state. Only four
states have more farms than North
Carolina. Only four states have a
larger farm population ratio. Only
four states produce greater annual crop
wealth totals. /
We rank first in the Nation in the
value of tobacco produced annually.
We rank first in cotton production
per acre and high in the total value of
the cotton Qfop.
We lead the Union in soy bean pro
duction, and are among the leaders in
sweet potatoes and peanuts.
The farmers of this state have an in
vestment in land, buildings, imple
ments, and livestock of one and a quar
ter billion dollars. This is an enormous
amount of wealth taken totally, but on
a per farm basis we do not rank so
well.
The one weak link in agriculture in
this state is the lack of livestock. We
are one of the most poorly developed
livestock states in the Union. We need
to correct this weakness, and live more
largely on home-grown produce. MVe
have the two best standard cash crops
known to man. These two crops alone
are worth to us two hundred million
dollars annually. When our farmers
live-at-home and sell these two crops
efficiently through well-developed co-
opdrative organizations, banking a fair
share of the sales receipts, there is no
legitimate reason why we should be
second to any state in the Union as an
agricultural state.
In variety of soils and seasons we
stand alone. Our four geographic
areas, the Tidewater, Coastal Plains,
Piedmont, and Mountain country, pos
sess a greater variety of soils than are
to be found in any equal area in the
Nation. From the sea to the mountain
tops is found a greater variety of plant
life than is to be found in the entire
continent of Europe. Our rainfall is
abundant and well distributed, and our
growing seasons are adequate for all
needs. This means that this state can
become a veritable paradise of variety
in farm produce.
We could easily feed ourselves. We
could market millions of dollars' worth
of fruits and truck crops. We could
develop into a prime dairy, poultry, and
livestock state, and in addition we have
a treasure not possessed by any other
state, a combination of two great cash
crops worth more than two hundred
million dollars annually. When we
learn to retain a large part of this
wealth, who dares say we will not be
the Empire Agricultural State of the
Union?
Manufacture
Whatever our present status and fu
ture ourlook as an agricultural state,
we have arrived as a manufacturing
state. We are the undisputed leader
in the South in the field of manufac
ture. And our position is growing
steadily stronger. We are industrial
izing faster than any other state south
of Maryland. Prosperity reigns in
North Carolina because she is a great
industrial state. Were it not for our
industries we would be in the same po
sition as many other southern states to
day. We could not put on a stupen
dous road and educational program. In
the support of people ours is a great
farm state, but in the creation of wealth
LEARNING FROM CAROLINA
Many states have their eyes on
North Carolina, and some of them
are rubbing their optical organs.
They behold a commonwealth a few
-decades ago plodding along in the
mud, with antiquated school and
health systems, with industry unde
veloped, but now breaking into the
front rank of states in all the activi
ties that make for social and eco
nomic improvement.
South Carolinians are frankly im
pressed by what the Old North State
is doing, so much so that the Editor
.of The Columbia State is in Raleigh
writing for his paper two or three
columns a day under the title Learn
ing From North Carolina. In Wed
nesday’s issue Mr. Ball tells his read
ers how North Carolina is co-ordina
ting highway, school, and public
health work by means of the travel
ing hospital.
This hospital is a truck equipped
with pouches, medicines, and instru
ments; a staff of doctors and nurses
accompanies it. The county health
nurse sends in reports of the cases
needing attention, with recommend
ations as to the ability of the family
to pay for medical attention—the
treatment is free when conditions
warrant. Here is The State’s picture
of how the plan works:
“One motoring through North Ca
rolina next Summer may come upon,
by the roadside in the woods, a hos
pital with white-capped nurses, in
ternes and all the other attendants
and accoutrements. It may be a
brick building of one story covering
as much ground as the McM aster
School in Columbia. In it will be 26
or 30 children, patients. Attached
will be a kitchen in which the usual
hospital foods are prepared—and
there will be a laboratory, operating'
tables and perhaps rolling chairs. A
fortnight later the traveler return
ing may see no signs of hospital;
only an empty school house cleaned
and polished. The hospital has moved
on, with healing for the next neigh
borhood.
“The heavy hospital trucks would
never reach a school house on the
top of the hill over a red clay road.
No little red brick school house could
accommodate a hospital with 26 or 30
beds."
The State adds that, if this school-
house hospital is in one of the unde
veloped counties of the coast or
mountains, Forsyth and other rich
counties gladly and liberally contrib
ute to its support. This lesson of
all units of government working to
gether for the common good is one
that The State is seeking to teach
South Carolina through its series of
articles on North Carolina. Thus
the wisdom and vision of Tarheels
is every day being commended by
disinterested observers from other
states who come among us to learn
the secret of our advancement.—
Asheville Citizen.
and in its retention we are a great fac-
;tory state.
j Our 460,000 farm workers produce a-
round410 million dollars’ worth of farm
wealth. Not all of this is new wealth.
For instance we spend 60 million dollars
for fertilizer alone. Our 167,700 fac
tory workers turn out a total produce
valued at nearly one billion dollars.
Nearly a half billion dollars is the value
added by manufacture, a far larger a-
mount than the grand total of all farm
products, crop and livestock.
Eighty thousand cotton mill opera
tives turn out 318 million dollars of out
put. Of this total 182 million is created
in the processes of manufacture.
Fewer than ten thousand workers in
one of our great manufacturing plants
turn out an annual product valued at
nearly 200 million dollars a year. The
new wealth created annually by this
one concern is as much as the total
value of our leading cash crop. Its fed
eral tax bill for one year is many timeo
the total taxes received by the state
from all taxpayers combined.
Yet we are a great agricultural state.
The point is, we are a greater manu
facturing state and manufacture is the
basis of our marvelous abi^ty to invest
in roads and schools and the like.
A few facts gathered from reliable
sources show our present status as a
factory state.
We have about 176 knitting mills em
ploying around 18,000 workers. The
yearly output of these mills is valued
at about 83 million dollars.
We have about 400 cotton mills, capi
talized at about 200 million dollars.
These mills employ about 65,000 work
ers and the yearly output is valued at
about 286 million dollars.
We have 18 tobacco factories capital
ized at about 130 million dollars. These
concerns employ about 14,000 workers
and the yearly output is valued at about
226 million dollars.
Our 124 furniture factories are capi
talized at about 16 million dollars. They
employ more than 16,600 workers and
the value of the yearly output is about
36 million dollars. This is factory value,
not prices the consumers pay.
In addition to the above there are a-
bout 6,600 miscellaneous establishments
which turn out an annual product val
ued at about 376 million dollars, or
more than the total value of all crops
produced in the fifth crop state of the
Union! The proof is abundant that the
economic foundatiow^of North Carolina
lies more in manufacture than in agri
culture.
Our rise to the 15th manufacturing
state of the Union has taken place al-
i most entirely during the last twenty
years. During this brief period the
capital employed in manufacture has
risen from 85 million to 669 million dol-
• lars. The value of yearly output has
: risen from.85 million to 944 million dol-
' lars, while the value added by manu-
I facture has risen from 40 million to
■ 417 million dollars.
We Are First
North Carolina leads the South in the
number of factory establishments.
She leads the South in the number of
i wage earners.
j She leads the South in capital em-
i ployed. Texas, her nearest competi-
i tor, is 100 million dollars behind.
I She leads the South in the value added
: in the process of manufacture.
1 She leads the world in tobacco manu
facture as well as in tobacco crop value.
Her factories consume nearly a third
of all leaf tobacco used in the United
States. She pays nearly a third of the
' national tobacco taxes,
j She leads the South in practically
every detail of the textile industry and
is patting in more new machinery than
all other southern states combined. In
the opinion of some, she may never
forge ahead of Massachusetts, but oth
ers say we will assume leadership in
; the textile world.
I Some of the giant industries of the
' world are located in this state. For
instance, we have the largest towel
mills in the world at Kannapolis. The
largest hosiery mills in the world are at
Durham. The largest denim mills in
the United States are at Greensboro.
Roanoke Rapid? has the largest damask
^ mills in the Nation. Winston-Salem
I has the world’s largest tobacco factory,
and underwear mills. Gaston county has
more cotton mills than any other coun
ty in the United States. We are also
credited with the largest pulp mill at
Canton, and the largest aluminum plant
at Badin. We are by all odds the lead
ing furniture state of the South.
The primacy of the South, and our
world leadership in many items, is due
mainly to our resources in water pow
er, and human labor, and secondarily
to the presence of raw materials at
hand. Whether labor or water power
is most important, we have an abund
ance of both for all visible needs for
decafies to come. In waterpower, both
developed and undeveloped, only New
York, of all the eastern states surpasses
us. In adaptable and available human
labor no state is our superior.
We are in the very heart of a vast
supply of raw materials, espedally for
textile mills, tobacco factories, and
furniture factories. In these three in
dustries we will always be among the
leaders. Perhaps within a decade or
two we will reign supreme in all three.
We are headed toward leadership in
these three essential industries. We
are now and will continue to be the
Empire manufacturing state of the
southeastern third of the United States.
And in Addition
As the playground of the South we
acknowledge we are second to none.
Where is another state in the South
that can boast that it is both a winter
and a summer resort? During the win
ter scores of thousands seek the warm
Sandhills for a pleasant outdoor life
while the north is snow-bound. During
the summer hundreds of thousands
swarm into our cool mountain areas,
the most extensive, the highest and the
most beautiful in the eastern half of
the Nation.
Our three hundred or more miles of
seacoast, and our great inland seas at
tract many thousands of visitors both
during the summer and in the winter
duck shooting season. Throughout l.he
summer this eastern strip of land
is a vast pleasure resort, mainly for
Tar Heels. It is possible that the state
should purchase at least a part of this
sea coast and convert it into one vast
state pleasure resort to be preserved
and used by our people for all time to
come.
Building a Commonwealth
The greatness of North Carolina is
not entirely in her material wealth.
Until recently our material wealth was
nothing to boast of. The state has
been blessed with an abundance of wise
and consecrated leaders, leaders who
have spent their entire lives telling the
people that a state, like any business
enterprise, in order to develop must
spend money on itself. The people are
now firmly convinced that this is true.
And once a Tar Heel is convinced he is
a convert for all time. There is no re
troaction nor retraction. The Univer-
versity News Letter says:
“He knows little about this state who
does not know that the people of North
Carolina are bent on building a great
commonwealth on public education,
public highways, and public health."
We are embarked on one of the great
est good roads construction campaigns
ever attempted by any people. Fifty
million dollars was voted by the state
in 1921 to be spent in two years. Dur
ing the last five years the counties have
voted for this purpose an almost equal
amount. The state now has under con
struction, or has completed, nearly 1,-
400 miles of good roads, about one-third
of which is hard-surfaced. The pro
gram will be continued and we will
soon have the greatest network of good
roads to be found in any state, with
possibly one exception.
North Carolina oelieves in education
strongly enough to pour millions of dol
lars into schools of every type. During
the fiscal year 1921-22 approximately 42
million dollars was spent on education
by the municipalities, the counties, and
the state. No couthern state is more
liberally pouring its wealth into educa
tional channels. Illiteracy and wealth
have never been boon companions. An
educated citizenship is the best founda
tion upon which to build a great com
monwealth.
And so the story might run on indeti-
nitely. It is sufficient to say that our
program of expansion has attracted the
entire Nation. Investment capita! is
looking toward North Caroljna. State
officials and newspaper editors all over
the east and south are talking and writ
ing about North C.trolina. Delegations
have come and others are preparing to
come to see how North Carolina does
it. There is no secret. We have the
natural resources. We are a great
agricultural state. We are a greater
manufacturing state. We have been
blessed with wise and inspired leaders
in abundance. We have a citizenship
which believes in itself and in its native
state.
In other words wc have more wealth,
and more willingness to convert wealth
into welfare, than ary other southern
state. Without pnl.Iic willingness, pri
vate wealth is little value. Wealth
and willingness are making North Ca
rolina the Empire State of the South.
•—S. H. Hobbs, Jr., in the North Caro
lina Magazine.