The news in this pubii-
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 the University Ex
tension Division.
OCTOBER 22, 1924
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. X, NO. 49
Editorial ISaarJr E. C. Branaon. S. H. Hobbs, Jr., L. R. WHaon B W, Kol^ht, D. D, Carrol!, J. B BalHtL H. W, Odum.
HkiMrod aa ■•cond-claaa matter Navembar 14, 1914. at the Poatofflce at Chapel HIU,N. C., under the actef Ausuat 24. 1912
PORT TERMINALS FOR N. C.
federal govenment aid
"The Federal government approves
the development of publicly owned
terminals. Where such utilities are
provided by a state, or other public
agency, the National authorities state
definitely they will extend fullest co
operation with expert advice and prop
er funds for extending inland water
ways and deepening river channels to
accommodate increased commerce.
Approve Movement
The War Department recommends
to Congress all River and Harbor appro-
priations.-It has directly approved North
Carolina's present forward movement
for state-owned terminals and general
development of water transportation.
Recent communications from the Office
of the Chief of Engineers have the fol
lowing unequivocal statements; “I
wish to assure you that both Congress
and the War Department are heartily
in favor of the general policy which
the state appears to be pursuing, of
providing such terminal facilities as
are necessary and retaining these un
der public control. The evils of monop
olistic Control become evident when
the individual or corporation concerned
fails to provide adequate facilities,
while at the same time so manipulat
ing his control of the situation as to pre
sent others from providing such facil
ities. Cases of this sort have repeat
edly occurred, due either to the in
ability of the controlling corporation to
provide adequate terminals or to its de
sire to divert business to some other
port in its own interest. 1 shall be
happy at any time to offer such assist
ance and co operation in your studies
as the Corps of Engineers can afford,
to the end that a proper solution of
your problem can be worked out."
Federal Co-operation
If North Carolina expects to have
ports and waterways improved by the
Federal government it is absolutely es
sential that public terminals be pro
vided. This statement is confirmed by
the River and Harbor Act of 1919 as
follows: “Itis hereby declared to be the
policy of Congress that water termi
nals are essential to all cities and towns
located upon harbors or navigable water
ways and that at least one public termi
nal should exist, constructed, owned
and regulated by the municipality or
other public agency of the state and
open to the use of all upon equal terms,
and with the view of carrying out the
policy to the fullest extent, the Secre
tary of War is hereby vested with the
discretion to withhold, unless the public
interests would seriously suffer by de
lay, moneys appropriated in this act for
new projects adopted herein, or for the
further improvement of existing proj
ects, if in his opinion, no water ter
minals exist adequate for the traffic
and open to all on equal terms."
State Must Act First
Thus it is clearly shown that provision
of state-owned terminals by North Ca
rolina will secure further improvement
of our waterways upon recommendation
of the Corps of Engineers of the War
Department. If public port facilities are
not provided, North Carolina faces the
serious situation of being denied fur
ther waterway improvement by the
Federal government.
Vote for Stdte Terminals
A vote for state-owned terminals and
waterway development on November 4
guarantees valuable help and the ex
penditures of millions of dollars by the
Federal government in continuing the
Ifiland Waterway as originally planned,
and in deepening channels to any depth
necessary to accommodate the com
merce of the state.—Port Terminals and
Water Transportation Leaflet No. 9.
WILL IT INCREASE TAXES?
It is the question that timid people
were asking about the issue of $60,000,-
000 of bonds for highways four years
ago, and about the $16,000,000 of high
way bonds two years ago. It has taken
four years for our State Highway Sys
tem to answer it. The answer is over
whelming. License fees and gasoline
taxes have paid the operating cost
of the Highways Department, have set
aside $600 a mile for road maintenance
per year, and have already paid off two
and a half million dollars of the High
way bonds.
Nobody four years ago could have an
swered this question about public high
ways. Nor can anybody answer this
question now about public port ^termi
nals, more than to say that state-owned
terminals in other states are financed
on port terminal charges for services
rendered and that the Act itself re
quires state-owned terminals in North
Carolina to be financed in exactly the
same way. See section 11 of the Act.
Privately owned port terminals are ex
pected to pay their way and they do.
Public port terminals pay their way in
31 other water-front states, and they
can be made to do so in North Carolina,
unless we have less business ability
than the people of thirty-one other
states. In the six states that own
their own port terminals, namely,
Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Alabama, Louisiana, and California,
the port fees pay the operating ex
penses, the interest and sinking-fund
charges, and lay no tax burden on
anybody. The Ship and Water Trans
portation Commission reports that
without exception state-owned termi
nals have been self-supporting.
Sense of Florida Cities
The people of North Carolina have
long been under the impression that
we have no natural harbor facilities and
that nature had done her worst for us
in this particular. The natural harbor
facilities of North Carolina are dis
tinctly better than those of Florida.
Twenty-five years ago the channel to
Jacksonville, 26 miles inland, was
less than 10 feet deep; today the
port of Jacksonville is docking ships
with 30-foot draft. West Palm Beach
is digging its own channel through the
sand-dunes and expects the savings in
freights alone to pay for it in two years.
Miami, St. Petersburg, Tampa, Pensa
cola, have settled their freight troubles
with public ports open to the commerce
of all the world. And the man who
asked in any of these Florida cities if
public port terminals was a scheme to
raise taxes would be a laughing-stock.
Municipal terminals, like state-owned
terminals, are enterprises that pay for
themselves in terminal charges, just
as our highways are doing with gaso
line taxes and license fees.
No Tax On Land
Would state-owned terminals in North
Carolina be self-financing in the same
way? The only possible answer is that
they have paid their own way in other
states. It will take five or six years to
create these port terminals and the
bonds will be issued as construction
needs arise. If they were issued all at
once, the interest and sinking-fund
charges would be $445,000 a year. Sup
posing that they would not earn their
own way during construction as the
Maine state terminals did, the amount
would have to be taken out of the gen
eral fund of the state.
Who pays tax money into the general
fund of the state? Everybody knows or
might easily know that the owner of
real and personal property does not now^
pay a cent of taxes into this fund; that
the Legislature of 1921 abolished such
taxes for state support. STATE PORT
TERMINALS WOULD NOT IN
CREASE THE TAX BURDEN OF
LANDOWNERS BY^SO MUCH AS A
SINGLE CENT. The general fund of
the state is derived from taxes on in
comes, inheritances, franchises, stock
fees, licenses, and so on. If you do not
pay any of these taxes you would pay
nothing to support port terminals, no
matter how much the state invested in
them.
The history of other state-owned
terminals is plainer than a pikestaff.
They do not increase taxes. And the
same thing is almost uniformly true of
municipally owned terminals when they
are completed and in full operation.
Port terminals are not a scheme to
increase taxes, but the question fright
ens the uninformed man. The op
ponents of the measure know that it
frightens him and this is probably the
reason the question is asked.—Port
Terminals and Water Transportation
Leaflet No. 10.
A SELF-STARTER
North Carolina is recognized as a
prosperous southern state. In speak
ing of the reason for her prosperity
an able writer has said, “The secret
of North Carolina’s great prosperity
is easily discovered. She believes in
her own resources and is not neglect
ing any of them. She never waits
for outside help to come along; the
state is a self-starter."—The Bank
er-Farmer.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
7. Will North Carolina operate boat
lines?
The Act gives the Commission the
right to do so whenever in its opinion
it becomes necessary to defend the
state’s investment in terminals. ‘‘The
Commission does not believe it^will be
necessary to operate ships, but un
questionably it should have the right
to do so if others do not."—S. S. and
W. Com. Report, page ' 17. Here is
Roosevelt's big stick, to be used when
and only when necessary. But not
one of the 68 public port terminals
in 31 water-front states has found it
necessary to operate boats. With
public terminals open on free and
equal terms to the commerce of the^
world the necessity does not arise as in
privately owned seaport towns.
8. Will the Commission employ an en
gineer?
The Ship and Water Transportation
Commission acted by and with the
advice af an experienced, skillful and
competent engineer—a distinguished
Army engineer. The Commission
created by the Act will do likewise,
the Act expressly compels it to do so.
Besides, the Army engineers stand by
to help, as in every other water-front
state.
9. Will the Commission establish just
one or more than one port?
More than one port is necessary to a
fully developed state waterway sys
tem, as follows (1) a first-class, rate-
basing port, adequate to coastwise and
overseas traffic, (2) sound and river
front ports inviting profitable barge
and boat connections therewith, and
(3) inland river-ports to extend port
rates as far as possible into the interior
of the state. Nothing less makes it a
state system. All these are necessary in
order to make a waterway system serve
the entire state. If the Act is ratified
it will be easy, says Senator Simmons,
to get Federal appropriations to?deep-
en and widen the necessary channels.
Dredging channels is a Federal right.
And more, it is a declared duty and
policy. Jurisdiction over the navigable
inland waters of a state belongs to the
Federal Government not to the state. It
is the business of water-front states
and cities to build adequate port term
inals open to all on equal terms.
Without such activity, Congress em
powers the Secretary of War to with
hold River and Harbor apprpriations.
10. What places will be selected for pub
lic port terminals?
It depends (1) upon the decision of
the Commission created by the Act to
be voted on November 4. It depends
on this Commission alone. The-Port
Terminals Campaign Committee has
nothing whatever to do with it. (2) The
State Commission will be counseled by
the Army engineers and private engi
neers, as in other states. And (3) it de
pends upon the activity of our sound-
and river-front towns and cities, the
advantages they present, and the co
operation they offer.
11. Will the port terminals towns and
cities be benefited and how?
Sixty-eight towns and cities in 31
other states are not in doubt about the
answer. The little towns and cities in
the Palm Beach district, Florida, are
now spending a million dollars of their
own good money to establish water
competition by means of a canal digged
for miles through sandbeds to public
terminal facilities at their doors. Their
effort is based on arithmetic. They
will save, they say, $600,000 a year, in
freight rates alone. They figure that
the investment will pay for itself
in two years. They want the water-
rate advantages that Miami now
has; without these advantages they
realize, they say, that their district is
doomed. Miami rail rates on grain from
New Orleans have dropped from 61 cents
to 20 cents per cwt., due solely to water
competition. There are similar de
creases in other western products over
the water route from the Middle West.
North Carolina can have the same ad
vantages—with Public Port Terminals
and water-rate competition. — Port
Terminals and Water Transportation
Leaflet.
CAROLINA’S OPPORTUNITY
The Manufacturers Record, of Oct. 9
says:
At the coming election in November
the people of North Carolina will vote
on the question of the adoption of the'
plan for a bond issue of $7,000,000
with a view to the development of
state-owned docks and wharves and
the creation of adequate port facilities,
and in connection therewith an issue of
$1,600,000 of bonds for the purchase,
lease and operating of ships, unless
shipping facilities are provided by pri
vate enterprise.
It can scarcely be imagined that
North Carolina will fail to vote in favor
of these bonds by an overwhelming
majority. The movement is in the
right direction. It should have been
taken years ago. The development on a
large scale of port facilities is one of the
outstanding features of the world’s
business activities. Private enterprise
cannot always accomplish what is need
ed, and, therefore, states and munici
palities in this and other countries
often take the lead in creating port-
terminal facilities for the development
of commerce.
Shortly after the fire of 1904 Balti
more spent $6,000,000 for municipal
wharves leased to steamship companies,
and the city has been so well satisfied
with the result that it has now entered
upon a campaign to spend $60,000,000,
running over a long term of years, the
bonds having been voted for building
enormous docks, wharves and ware
houses, and this, too, in face of the
fact that the Baltimore & Ohio Rail
road, the Pennsylvania and the West
ern Maryland lines have vast terminal
facilities of their own, while private
companies have built some of the
most extensive piers and wharves to
be found in the country for handling
foreign commerce.
Norfolk has found it wise to spend a
large amount of money in a municipally
owned elevator and other port facili
ties, although the railroads of that port
have been very liberal in expenditure
for shipping facilities. Alabama has
v^ed'to lend state aid to the extent of
$10,000,000 for the development of Mo
bile as a great shipping center, and the
work is now under way. New Orleans,
Houston and many other places in the
South have spent many millions of dol
lars ill similar work.
It is remarkable, indeed, that North
Carolina, with all of its energy, has
thus far entirely failed to utilize the
opportunity which it possesses in its
ocean frontage. There are no termi
nal facilities in any port in North Caro
lina worthy of the great resources of
that state or of the possibilities for
foreign and domestic commerce, and
thus North Carolina does not get the
benefit of water-transportation rates
which it should have.
The struggle of every state in this
and'all other countries is to get to the
ocean, and every state having an ocean
frontage which does not make the most
of the situation is sleeping on its op
portunities and robbing itself by fail
ing to develop commerce and'securing
water-transportation rates, which are
always less than railroad rates.
Without any antagonism whatever to
the railroads, water transportation
should be developed in this country
wherever it is possible; for the im
provement of waterways, instead of
being disadvantageous to railroads,
brings about such prosperity through
increased business that the railroads
are enriched thereby.
While North Carolina hassled most of
the states in the extent of^its highway
building and in some other lines of ac
tivity, it has halted by the wayside
when presented with the opportunity
of developing its inland waterways,
with an outlet to the ocean, with facili
ties worthy of the whole situation.
The opportunity of doing something on
a large scale presented by this pro
posed bond issue should receive ttie
sanction of the entire people, for those
in the Piedmont and mountain districts
will be just as much benefited in years
to come as the people of the coast, It
would be impossible to develop a great
domestic and foreign commerce and
build up a commercial center of first
importance without every part of the
state sharing in the benefit.
The commission appointed to have
charge of the matter consists of some
of the ablest men of the state. Their
very endorsement of the enterprise
and their readiness to serve on the com
mission for the spending of this money,
if voted, should carry conviction in
favor of the bond issue to every voter
in North Carolina.
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION \
On the heels of the announcement of
a student body of over two thousand at
the University of North Carolina comes
the news of the opening (week of Sept.
28-Oct. 4) of the “Greater University."
The Greater University is comjiosed
of citizens of North Carolina from
Chei;okee to Currituck who are taking j
regular University courses through the
University Extension Division, while
they are at home or engaged in some
full-time occupation. ||
Bankers in Raleigh are studying Ne
gotiable Instruments under Dr. Atkins.
Mill superintendents and office execu
tives are studying Industrial Manage
ment with Professor Matherly in Wins
ton-Salem. School teachers in Ashe
ville are taking a course with Dr. Terry
in Educational Tests and Measurements.
By combining extension courses with
summer-school work they are enabled
to raise their certificates to a higher
class and increase their salaries .and
ability in two years instead of four
years. Members of the Women’s Club
and other organizations in Thomasville
are having regular instruction under
Professor Meyer. Dr. Knight is giving
a course in the History of Education in
Smithfield. Young men and women in
business in Greensboro are studying
Accounting under Professor Hearn and
Business English under Professor How
ell. School teachers of Graham, Haw
River, and Mebane are studying North
Carolina: Economic and Social, under
Professor Hobbs.
These are but samples of forty-five
University Extension classes which are
starting this week. Each class is met
once or twice a week by a member of
the faculty of the University, who
makes this trip by train, bus, or in one
of the Extension cars.
Big Enrollment
There are over one thousand stu
dents who will this week begin regular
studies in these extension classes. This
is a considerable student body for any
college to have, but the student body
of the University Extension Division is
not limited to extension class students.
Another thousand students in North
Carolina who live in every nook and
corner of the state, from fishing vil
lages on the coast tb log cabins in
the mountains, are taking regular Uni
versity courses by correspondence in
struction. Uncle Sam, through the Unit
ed States mails, has made possible this
method of serving in part the educa
tional needs of those who find it impos- '
sible for one reason or another to reach
the campus of any college. It is said
that one student in the Extension Divi
sion who, as the result of an accident,
has been confined to his bed for years,
has taken several correspondence
courses and has learned to operate a
magazine bureau.
The Old North Sitate through its
splendid support of the University has
made it possible for the University
more adequately to serve the state.
THE FEDERAL POLICY
Congressman Lyon says: “If the
state of North Carolina will develop
terminals along the sounds and on the
Cape Fear river, I can get a bill
through Congress authorizing an ex
tension of the inland waterway from
Beaufort to Cape Fear river. The Fed
eral Government does not necessarily
look to state aid in completing projects
of this kind but rather toward state
cooperation."
The Federal Govenment’s policy now
is to cooperate fully with State Gov
ernments by developing waterways and
river channels, when States provide
publicly owned terminal facilities,
open and free to everyone on the same
tCTms.—Byron Ford News Service.