THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTEH
The ae->vs in this publi
cation is released for tlie
press Oft receipt.
Published Weekly by the
University of North Caro
lina for the University Ex
tension Division.
JULY 23, 1924
CHAI^EL HILL, N. C.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. X, NO. 36
Sditorl.l a„.rd. B. 0. Branson. 3. H. Hobbs. Jr.. L. K. Wilson. B. W Er.'db., D. O. C.orroll. J. B.Bnllltt, H W. O.ino!
Bawred aa aecanji-claea marj#-r Navambflr 14. 1914, at the Poatofflceat Chapel Hill, N. C.,
under the actsf Aaeraat 24, 1111
VALUE OF FACTORY PRODUCTS, 1919
XXXII-DRINH IN DENMASK
It is fair to say at the start that
water is a common drink in Denmark.
It is really a beverage among the
Danes. It is universally served in the
cafes and restaurants,in the hotel dining
rooms, and in private homes. It is
delicious water, soft and pure and pal
atable as one might expect from the
springs and wells of a sand-clay-pebble
area.
Not so in Germany and not so in
France, for both are limestone coun
tries in the main, and in general the
water has the odor and pronounced
taste of surface seepage through de
cayed Kmestone foundations. Outside
the limited area of granite formation it
is not safe to drink water in either
country. It is even difficult to use it
for shaving, bathing, or washing
clothes. Nobody expects you to drink
water in France and Germany. The
natives do not drink it as a rule. They
consider it good for cooking and scrub
bing but not for drinking—good for
dumb animals but deadly for humans.
More than once we upset the whole es
tablishment calling for drinking water
in German and French cafes. Drink
ing water is ready at hand for every
body in American hotel lobbies and
usually it is ice water, but in Europe
if you want water to drink you ring for
it and pay for it with a tip. One can
buy anything to drink from the little
hand carts that run alongside the
trains in the French railway stations
anything but water. When one chances
upon it, it is bottled Vichy or St.Evian
from the granite regions of central
France, but in Germany you do not of
ten have a chance of this sort. We
traveled across the Atlantic on a
French boat. Wine was served free of
charge and in unlimited abundance on
the dining room tables at the luncheon
and dinner hours, but you paid three
francs a bottle for all the water you
got to drink. Nowhere on the railway
trains of the continent is there any
water to drink. The most acute suf
fering we experienced was nine hours
of thirst on a delayed train from Paris
to Basle. When at last the dining car
was attached to our train we swarmed
into it and our bill for water alone was
two good American dollars.
But water is a fairly common bever
age in Denmark. Water bottles are
common on the tables of hotel dining
rooms, restaurants, and cafes "every
where and the water is distinctly;^good
for all the uses of water at home. But
also every other kind of drink is com
mon except the fantastic mixed drinks
of the old days in the United^ States
and the deadly drinks of the Volstead
law era. However, one may find
American bars and American drinks in
the large cities of every European
country—not only American drinks but
also the American fashion of standing
at a bar and gulping drinks down with
a single swallow after the manner of
the film picture heroes. The Europeans
criticize it as primitive and vulgar but
they are developing the habit more and
more across the Atlantic.
Unlimitfid DrinKin^
The drinks of Denmark are unlimited
in variety and quantity, indeed they
cover Denmark like the dew—beer,
porter, stout, wines, liquors, appetiz
ers, everything in fact except absinthe.
And everybody drinks one thing.
or another or all of these, men, women, j
and children alike. There are not now I
and never were any bar rooms in Den- j
mark in the American sense of the!
term, but drinks are served to order in j
every cafe, restaurant, inn and hotel 1
and equally freely served in private I
homes. Every grocery store sells hot- j
tied malt drinks, wines, brandies, and I
grain, potato, and sugar-beet alcohols, j
The beers and porters are made in Den-1
mark and brewing is perhaps the larg- i
est manufacturing business of the |
Danes. The wines are usually imported ;
and the Spanish-Portugese wines are [
inexpensive. Imported beer is high!
because of a protective tariff, and so ■ ■
also are the imported fruit and grain j in whiskey drinking Denmark. And
alcohols. A considerable revenue is i he would certainly be a stupid observer
THE UNIVERSITY AND THE
PEOPLE
The higher educational institu
tions in the state are more alive to
day than ever before to the civic and
social service which they owe the
people. Especially is this true of
the University, which is heading the
great onward movement. It is well.
Higher education has frequently
been indicted on several counts—in
effectiveness, formalism, tradition
alism, irreverence, and agnosticism.
The educational world is recogniz
ing that not the aristocracy of in
tellect so much as the democracy of
culture must prevail; that the real
test of the University is its civic and
social service rendered, and society
at large is demanding that the col
lege take its active part in human
affairs. Hence it has come about in
recent years that some of the most
far-reaching and uplifting sociolog
ical movements i;i the state have
been headed and largely directed by
men educated at the University of
North Carolina. This is a very hope
ful sign and is fraught with great
possibilities as the scores of young
graduates go out from its halls this
month.—Sanford Express.
derived by the state from the tax on
imported .brandies and whiskies. The
Danes like all the rest of the Scandana-
vian peoples crave strong drinks. Com
monly the Dane wants a small glass of
aqua vitae or fiery grain alcohol with
who could not see that light wines and
beers as thoroughly alcoholize a people
as the prevalent strong drinks of the
British Isles and the Scandinavian
countries. My deliberate conclusion is
that light drinks settle none of the
his glass of beer, and the habit of mix- | problems of alcoholism. Norway for
ing these drinks is almost as common ; instance is a country of free or nearly
among the women. j fj-gg beers and wines, with prohibition
The nearest approach to the Ameri- j laws against brandies and whiskies be-
can barroom is the country saloon j yond a stated small amount monthly,
where the peasants congregate on Sun-1 In other words, the Norwegians have,
days and other holidays to drink and i or had while we were in Denmark, ex
talk without interruption by their i actly what some people advocate in
women folks. The wine shop of the this country, namely, light beers and
farm village in France is a similar wines. Nevertheless the bootlegging
meeting place for the small farmers, of strong drinks into Norway threat-
The French village wine shop has its ened to throw the whole kingdom into
counterpart in the German must or civil war in the fall of 1923. My con-
cider hails. And I may add that alco
holic saturation is certainly as com
mon in the wine shops of rural France
and the hard cider halls of rural Ger
many as in the whiskey shops of rural
Denmark.
Family DrinKiag
But outside the country regions of
Denmark, France, and Germany,it is the
whole family that seats itself around a
restaurant or cafe table to spend the
evening or the holiday eating, drinking
and having a social good time in general.
They rarely ever drink without eating,
but they eat and drink unbelievable
quantities before the evening is over.
It goes without saying that roystering
parties, drunken and rowdy, frequent
ly make the night hideous in the small
hours of the morning in beer drinking
Germany, in wine drinking France, and • will power of the individual to drink in
elusion was that lawlessness in Nor
way is very like the lawlessness of the
United States, and that light wines and
beers solve none of the drink problems
of a country.
Inhibition in DenmarK
What Denmark has in her liquor
laws and practices is certainly better
than the lawlessness of Norway. Upon
an average there is one country saloon
for every 360 Danes the country over,
but neither in the large cities nor in
the country regions of Denmark did I
discover as many signs of drink and
drunkenness as anybody can see around
the'railway stations and hotels of any
state in America, Utah alone excepted.
As a matter of fact Denmark does not
believe in prohibition. It does believe
in inhibition. That is to say, in the
moderation and to stop short of drunk-
, enness. The drunkard pays a swift
I penalty for his weakness in Denmark.
I And there are weak people in Denmark
• as in every other land and country. But
j what the drunkard and his family face
' are penalties that stagger the excess-
^ ive drinker- not the penalties of law so
I much as the inevitable penalties of so-
I cial custom. For instance, he faces
the city workhouse or ladegaard as the
Danes call these institutions. The
workhouse inmates are called lade-
' gaard-Iemmers. The drunkard gets
I into the workhouse where he receives
! shelter, food and medical attention,
and the daily job of the ladegaard-lem-
mer is to sweep the gutters of the
streets. Moreover he sacrifices his
old-age pension, for no man or woman
who receives public charity or appears
on the court records of conviction may
expect state or municipal pensions in
old age.
But another penalty stares him in
the face, namely, the loss of credit. A
man who drinks to excess cannot be a
member of a local cooperative credit
union or short-loan society as the
Danes call them. There are 168 of these
societies and membership is a badge of
public honor. If he is expelled from
his credit society his name is worth
nothing at any bank. The loan cashier
asks the would-be borrower what his
post office is, and turning swiftly to
the directory of credit-society members
asks if he is a member. If the bor
rower says No, the cashier turns down
his application without further parley
no matter what property collateral may
be offered. If the borrower has been
dismissed from one of these credit so
cieties and obtains a short loan under
false pretense of membership he is li
able to indictment in the courts. If he
stands convicted of this or any other
offense against the law he forfeits his
old-age pension as well as his credit. It
is a serious matter because in Denmark
business is based on credit as in every
other country of the world. But life
and business are probably more inti
mately related to credit in Denmark
than anywhere else in the known
world.
Weakness of will in the matter of
drink penalizes a man in Denmark, I
fell upon a sad instance in illustration
of this fact in Copenhagen. The son
of one of the parliamentary leaders, a
young man approaching thirty years of
age, was working for his doctorate de
gree in the University. He was digging
out his doctorate dissertation in the
offices of a Cooperative Central in Co
penhagen. He was a Jutlander and he
could not withstand the temptations of
gay life in the capital city of Denmark.
He was promptly shut out of the Co
operative Central and because of that
fact was just as promptly sponged off
the University roll.
The Danish Ideal
The ideal of the Dane.s is inhibition
not mean teetotalism. It means moder
ation, say the Danes, and they stoutly
contend that temperance in the Bible is
properly translated moderation. It was
the Lutheran pastor of a country
church in Denmark who drew down his
Greek dictionary and argued out this
interpretation of the word in the
Epistles of St. Paul.
The temperance movement in Den
mark is an increasingly strong move
ment. The members of the temperance
societies have already reached a total of
of some 200,000, and I was told that
the number was rapidly increasing. But
I found the temperance hotels in Den
mark serving light wines and beers just
as any other Danish hotel. They are not
the cold-water temperance hotels of
England and Scotland. Temperance
does not mean total abstinence in Den
mark. It means temperance or mod
eration in the use of alcholic drinks.
And there is a prohibition movement
in Denmark. The prohibition conven
tion met in Copenhagen during my
stay in the city. The delegates met in
the fervor of the“two or three gathered
together in an upper chamber”; but
my guess is that prohibition will never
command more than a handful of fol
lowers in Denmark. The Danes con
sider prohibition Norway a fearful ex
ample and the United States a still
more fearful example. They stoutly
maintain that moderate drinking is all
told a far less evil than the widespread
lawlessness of prohibition countries.
I am not arguing the matter. I am
simply giving the situation in Denmark
as faithfully as I can, with glances at
the great problems of alcohol in other
European countries. —E. C. Branson,
Copenhagen.
DOES EDUCATION PAY?
Constantly the college graduate is
confronted by the query. Does Edu
cation pay? To some it does not, but
there are failures in every line and
these, for the most part, were failures
in College.
Education does not insure success, it
merely makes the chance better. Dean
Coffee of the University of Minnesota
Agry^cultural College recently published
some statistics in the Minneapolis
Journal showing the effect of education
upon farmers in that region.
Men of high-school education, he
says, on these farms earned about
five hundred dollars yearly; those with
some college training made about six
hundred dollars annually; but those
with a complete college training had an
average yearly income of more than
three thousand dollars.
Only thirty-one persons outof five mil
lions with no schooling attain distinction
in their work; with elementary school
ing eight hundred and eight out of three
million achieve some distinction;
with a high-school education twelve
hundred out of two million rise above
the average in accomplishment; with a
college education more than five thous
and out of a million render notable ser
vice.
Put in another way the figures mean
that the college graduate has ten times
the chance of making good that the
not prohibition—the inward denial of | *twenty-
If- * J f.L J. J j' • I , I two times better chances than has he
oneself instead of the outward denials of ; who takes only the elementary courses,
law. And inhibition with the Danes does —Student Life.
MAP OF north CAROLINA
SHOW/Aje
The Value of Manufactured Products
1919
(OOO'S omi f isdonmapj
LEGEND
4 4. SO/,SCO 7-0 4/,S/£,/70
^E08.S8/,eS£ TV 4/OJ58.3/3
\4/0./S3.3/3 Fc 44.S0/.6SO
s-
4/.S/^./TO 7-0 414.668
Pt'eparea/ J&y MnDJEi. Ol7£Riyl/iN in
i/?e depari-menf oP /Sura/ ^ociol
Economics. L/m vers//u o/”
Nor//i Caro/znoT