\
The news in this publi
cation is reieased 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.
JANUARY 14, 1925
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
THE UNIVEESITy OF NOETH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. XI, NO. 9
E JItorirtI Baardi H. C. Braoaoa. 3. H. Hobbs, Jr.. L R Wilson. B. W. SnlKht, D. D. Carroll, J. B. Ballltt. H. W. Odum.
Bnterod sa second-elasa matter Nevamber 14. 1914, at the Pestoffleo at Chapel Hill N. C., andor the act of August 24. 1912
LITERATURE AND STATEHOOD
CAROLINA-PUBLISOER
Is North Carolina—Publisher to be ad
ded to the rising tide of titles recently
applied to the Tar Heel State and now
heralded to the world by French Strother
and Irvin Cobb? Is it to take its place
side by side with North Carolina—
Road Builder, North Carolina—Cotton
Manufacturer, North Carolina—Cigaret
Maker, North Carolina—Federal Tax
Payer, North Carolina—Educator,
North Carolina—Farmer?
The basis upon which this question
rests is not hard to see. It is to be
discovered in certain events which
transpired during 1924, unimpressive
when considered singly, but notable
when viewed collectively.
Twice within the last two months, H.
L. Mencken, editor of The American
Mercury and contributor to the Balti
more Evening Sun, has proclaimed Tiie
Journal of Social Forces, a University
of North Carolina Vress publication
now beginning its third volume, the
most significant periodical the South
has ever seen. Early in 1924 the Trinity
College Press brought out a volume, an
Anthology of Verse by American
Negroes, which was widely commended
by reviewers throughout the country,
and from the same Press The South
Atlantic Quarterly adde'd a new volume
to the distinguished series of twenty-
two volumes which have appeared
heretofore. From the North Carolina
Historical Commission has come volume
one of the North Carolina Historical
Review, and during the most recent
tour of the Carolina Playmakers a
second series of Folk Plays written by
the Playmakers has come from the
press of Henry Holt and Company.
Some time during the summer an at
tractively printed volume of prize short
stones and poems came from the
North Carolina Federation of Women’s
Clubs, later the Wachovia Historical
Society issued an attractive genealo
gical work, and throughout the year
articles and occasional books by North
Carolina authors appeared in the nati
onal magazines and in the lists of
national book publishers. Finally, at
the meeting of the State Literary and
Historical Association in Raleigli on
December 4 and 6, the University of
North Carolina Press exhibited twelve
books, five learned journals, and four
service periodicals published by it dur
ing the year, and on December 7 the
State press carried the information
that The Reveiwer, a distinctive liter
ary journal published for the last three
years in Richmond, has been acquired by
a group of North Carolina writers and
hereafter would be issued from edit
orial and business offices located at
Chapel Hill and Hickory, respectively.
Whether or not the title North Ca
rolina—Publisher is to stick, we cannot
say. But if it does, and we belong to
bribe which hopes it may, the following
bare bone facts will have to be faced.
Few Publishing Houses
First and foremost of these is the
fact that the South has not acquired
the publishing habit. Of the 376 pub
lishing houses whose catalogues ap
peared in 1923 in the Publishers’ Trade
List Annual, only 21 are located be
tween Baltimore and New Orleans, and
of the 1692 publishers listed in The
American Book Trade Manual for 1922
who bring, out occasional books, only
143 are located in the same territory.
Of these, 47 are government depart
ments or other publishing agencies in
the city of Washington, leaving a net
remainder of 96 for the South at large.
Among Southern institutions of high
er education, only Johns Hopkins, the
University of North Carolina, Trinity
College, and Sewanee have established
formal presses and entered publishing
fields comparable even in a limited
sense to those occupied by the presses
of Princeton or Chicago or Yale.
With the church publishing boards
and educational publishing houses such
as the B. F. Johnson Company, of
Richmond, the situation is somewhat
better. In 1922 the Publishing Boards
of three of the leading churches of the
South reported sales of publications
approximately as follows: Presbyterian
$900,000; Baptist $1,398,000; Methodist
(including sales in the Southwest) $6,-
698,262. But nowhere in the South is
there a publishing house of which all
of us instantly think when our atten
tion is directed to the g^eral field of
book production.
Artistic Form Essential
Book making is essentially a fine art.
As such it is receiving special considera
tion by such book designers as Bruce
Rogers, C. P. Rollins, and D. B. Updike,
and by such nationally known represent
ative organizations as the Graphic Arts
Compaiiy of America. Consequently,
format and letter-press have to be
studied carefully if the products of
Southern printeries are to compare
favorably with those of other sections.
Many Southern print shops have essen
tial mechanical facilities and turn out
excellent printing, but with this must
be coupled the most careful sort of
application and extensive experience
if books are to be published which will
help sell themselves by virtue of their
physical attraction.
Book Stores Rare
Making the title stick, however, can
not be accomplished merely by placing
the manuscripts of gifted writers in the
hands of experienced publishers and
artistic printers. In reality, the manu
facturing end of the business is pro
bably the least difficult problem the
book-maker must face. Certainly it
does not compare with the difficulties
of selling when it is remembered that
North Carolina stands well toward the
bottom of the list of states in its abili
ty to absorb books, that the well stock
ed thoroughly effective modern book
store in the South is comparatively
rare, and that 260 copies of such books
as .Woodrow Wilson’s Address on
Robert E. Lee, or of Walter Hines
Page’s Letters would glut the book
store market of the State for the first
twelve months from date of publica
tion.
But figures carry more conviction
than assertion. In North Carolina, for
example, every town of any size has
its Ford agency:but in the entire State
containing 2,600,000 people, there are
only ten cities possessing a total of 31
bookstores listed in The American Book
Trade Manual. News stands and book
shelves in drug stores are to be found
fairly well distributed throughout the
State, but the Manual referred to in
cludes only reasonably extensive busi
nesses devoted to the sale of books or
to large department stores with
important book departments.
Measured by the same yardstick,
Virginia, with 2,309,187 people, has 47
book stores in 13 of her cities, and
Tennessee, with 2,337,886 people, has
43 stores in 7 cities. Wisconsin and
Iowa, with populations approximately
equal to those of the states mentioned
have double the number of stores lo
cated in double the number of cities,
while Rhode Island, Connecticut and
Vermont, with a combined population
equal to that of any one of the three
states mentioned, have 125 stores in 33
cities. '
Graveyard of Journals
Telfair, Jr., writing in The Literary
Lantern for December 7, has the fol
lowing to say concerning contemporary
literary journals:
Right now the question which inter
ests most of us is the state of the
various literary magazines here in the
South. With few exceptions some
thing seems to have gone agley. Tlje
Double Dealer drifts along a month or
so late and every now and then combines
two months in one issue; The Southern
Magazine is defunct; The Fugitive
from Nashville seems to have taken
wings, at least for an issue or two (we
hope it is only for reorganization); The
Reviewer is threatened and announces
a possible though by no means certain
abandonment; The Texas Review has
changed hands and becomes the South
west Review; and All’s Well has al
ways been so much the hobby of
Charles J. Finger as to reflect the edi
tor’s busy periods and vacations by de
layed publication. Right now of all
the literary magazines coming our way
two poetry journals only seem to be
holding their own— the newly launched
Buccaneer of Dallas and that blythe
and cheerful Lyric of Norfolk. Of
THE WORLD FOR HIM
Were I to pray for a taste which
should stand me in stead under
every variety of circumstances and
be a source of happiness and cheer
fulness to me during life, and a
shield against its ills, however things
might go amiss and the world frown
upon me, it would be a taste for
reading. Give a man this taste and
the means of gratifying it, and you
can hardly fail of .making him a
happy man unless, indeed, you put
into his hands a most perverse
selection of books. You place him
in contact with the best society in
levery period of history—with the
wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest,
the bravest, and the purest charac
ters who adorned humanity. You
must make him a denizen of all
nations, a contemporary of all ages.
The world has been created for
him.—Sir John Herschel.
course this means something. What?
Hatteras has frequently been styled
the graveyard of ships. The ship
wreck of The Southern Eclectic, The
Sunny South, The Uncle Remus Maga
zine, Trotwood’s Monthly, to mention
four of the best known of the hundred
or more publications launched in the
South at various times since 1866,
would seem to indicate that the South
has been a veritable graveyard for
such publications. And even the most
notable survivors such as The Sewanee
Review and The South Atlantic Quart
erly have subscription lists in no way
comparable to the present series of the
Yale Review which, while no older than
either of these two has more than 20,-
000 subscribers.
Apart from church journals, frater
nal organs, and educational and agri
cultural journals, which receive the sup
port of special constituencies, only a
baker’s dozen of magazines or journals
of opinion and comment have made
real headway, and that too as a result
of effort all out of proportion to the
success they have achieved.
Supporters Needed
If North Carolina—Publisher, is t6
stick, a new crop of Maecenases (other
names will be gladly substituted!) or
supporters will have to be raised up.
Popular support such as that of local
chaqtauquas and musical festivals will
not go very far in meeting manufac
turing and advertising costs, and will
not take the place of the sort of thing
which has made the Princeton Press a
go. Charles Scribner, an alumnus of
Princeton, erected a building for the
Press, equipped it with everything es
sential to a modern printing and bind
ing plant and then gave freely of his
experience while 300 other Prince
ton alumni purchased copies of every
volume issued by it during a given
period of time.
We are not limiting the privilege of
this type of support, however, to col
lege alumni. Far from it. We are
simply saying that North Carolina—
Publisher is a title that the State can
win if she wants it and will go after it,
and that winning it will bring her a
distinction concerning which she has
thought, and is now thinking far too
little.
Why the Effort?
Just what is involved in winning
such a distinction is not at this mo
ment altogether clear. Certainly there
is more than merely adding something
else about which North Carolina can
boast, or catching the eye of the Menck
ens and Strothers and Cobbs. At all
events, it may involve the broadening of
the State’s intellectual horizon through
what the late C. Alphonso Smith
characterized the ministry of books; it
may bring about the subjection of our
living and thinking to a more enlight
ened, first-hand criticism; it may fur
nish us a set of ideas more complex
than those derived from our reading in
the common schools and newspapers
but absolutely essential to complete
civilization building; and now and then
it may swing wide the doors of oppor
tunity for artistic and creative expres
sion which, at present, are none too
far ajar.
Mr. J. B. Duke’s statement con
cerning his recent gift of $40,000,000
to Southern institutions emphasizes the
significance of the way in which our
question is answered. He has accom
panied his benefaction with the fine com
mon-sense observation Chat what the
South now needs for its full develop
ment is competently trained leaders
who, as a result of training have ac
quired this more complex and essential
set of ideas.—L. R. Wilson.
UNIVERSITY PRESS BOOKS
With the placing on sale on Decem
ber 10 of Farm Life Abroad, by Pro
fessor E. C. Branson, and the Scienti
fic Study of Human Society, by Pro
fessor F. H. Giddings, of Columbia
University, the University of North
Carolina Press completed its first full
year of active publication, an aver
age of one book having been issued for
each month of the year.
The objects for which the Press was
founded are in the opinion of the Board
of Governors, in a fair way of realiza
tion. Connections with Oxford and^
Cambridge University Presses for the
distribution of books and journals in
England and the Bricish possessions
have been established, favorable re
views of the volumes have appeared in
scholarly publications in this and other
countries, and a .group of unusually
distingui^ed authors have submitted
their manuscripts for consideration by
the editors.
List of Boohs
The complete list of volumes pub
lished to date is as follows:
Robert E. Lee an Interpretation, by
Woodrow Wilson, former President of
the United States, SI .00.
Religious Certitude in an Age of
Science, by Charles Allen Dinsmore,
Professor of the Spiritual Interpre
tation of Religion in the Yale Divinity
school, $1.60.
Farm Life Abroad, field letters from
Germany, Denmark, and France, by E.
C. Branson, Kenan Professor of Rural
Social Economics in the University of
North Carolina, $2.00.
Law and Morals, by Roscoe Pound,
Dean of the Harvard Law School,
$1.50.
The Scientific Study of Human Soci
ety, by Franklin H. Giddings, Profes
sor of Sociology and the History of
Civilization in Columbia University,
$2.00.
Roads to Social Peace, by Edward
Alsworth Ross, Professor of Sociology
in the University of Wisconsin, $1.50.
Analytical Index to the Ballad En
tries in the Stationers’ Register, by
Hyder E. Rollins, Professor of English
in New York University, $4.00.
Argentine Literature, A Bibliography
of Literary Criticism, Biography, and
Literary Controversy, compiled by
Sturgis E. Leavitt, Professor of
Spanish in the University of North Ca
rolina, $1.60.
The Theory of Relativity, by Archi
bald Henderson, J. W. Lasley, and A. W.
Hobbs, Professors in the Department
of Mathematics in the University of
North Carolina, $2.50,
The Saprolegniaceae, with Notes on
Other Water Molds, by William
Chambers Coker, Kenan Professor of
Botany and Director of the Arboretum
in the University of North Carolina,
$10.00.
The Clavarias pf the United States
and Canada, by William Chambers
Coker, $8.00.
A Beginner’s Spanish Grammar, by
Albert Shapiro, Associate Professor of
Spanish in University of^North Caro
lina, $1.60.
Education in the South, by Edgar
Wallace Knight, Professor of Educa
tion in the University of North Caro
lina, $.76.
Agricultural Graphics; North Caro
lina and the United States 1866 to
1922, by Henrietta R. Smedes, Libra
rian and Laboratory Assistant in the
Department of Rural Social Economics
in the University of North Carolina,
$1.00.
HARDEST ON THE^NEGROES
During the year 1923 a total of 2,346
deaths in North Carolina were reported
to have been due to pulmonary tuber
culosis. Of these 1,189 were whites
and 1,156 were negroes. Which means
that the negroes are much more sus
ceptible to tuberculosis than the whites
since less than 30 percent of the state’s
population is negro and 70 percent is
white.
The largest total of white deaths,
302, occurred in Buncombe county, due
to the location there of the U. S.
Government hospitals, and the out-of-
state patients temporarily living in
Asheville. Forsyth with 76 negro deaths
from tuberculosis led the state for
that race. Making due allowances for
Buncombe, the death rate from tuber
culosis is almost exactly three times as
high in North Carolina for the negroes
as for the whites. This is due largely
to the susceptibility of the negro to
the “white plague”, but,it is also due
in part to the lack of hospital facilities
for earing for negroes afflicted with
tuberculosis. In order to prevent the
spread of this ^contagious disease, it is
just as necessary to care for afflicted
negroes as for whites, perhaps more so
because of the nature of the services
the negroes perform. The state needs
more adequate hospital facilities to
care for both white and negro tuber
cular patients. County sanatoriums
should be established throughout the
state. Where counties are small, or
rural, and sparsely settled, two or
more counties could combine to provide
a county group sanatorium.
THE COUNTY IDEA GROWING
The Guilford County Sanatorium is
almost ideal except for the fact that
it does not care for negroes, which we
understand it’s preparing to do.
A county sanatorium cannot perform
its function unless it cares for both
white and colored in all stages of the
disease. Too, it must furnish diag
nostic clinics for the county, and,
if it desires to function completely it
should, through its clinics and nurses,
look after the patients after they leave
the sanatorium.
Forsyth County has a small tubercu
losis hospital that cares only for far
advanced cases, but is thinking of
building one adequate to supply the
needs of the county. The city of Wil
mington has a small tuberculosis hospi
tal supported by Tuberculosis Christmas
Seals, the Red Cross, t|ie city, county,
and private donations. Edgecombe and
Nash have small places, also Mecklen
burg will vote on a bond issue for con
struction, and a tax of five mills for
maintenance and for retiring the
bonds. Durham will follow suit in
a short time, while Wake, Wayne,
Gaston, Cabarrus, Stanly, and perhaps
others are giving serious consideration
to the matter.—N. G. Health Bulletin.
TOBACCO MANUFACTURES
Winston-Salem is the center of
our tobacco industry reporting prac
tically three-fourths of the total value
of these products for the State. Dur
ham ranks second and has become widely
known for the manufacture of smoking
tobacco. Other cities in which the in
dustry flourishes are Asheville, Greens
boro, Hickory, Leaksville, Reidsville,
and Statesville.
This was among the first of the
states to engage in tobacco manufac
turing on a factory basis. It is not
only one of the greatest tobacco grow
ing states in the Republic, ranking
second in acreage and in quantity pro
duced, it is first in the value of
manufactured products. The state pays
42.3 percent of all tobacco tax paid to
the federal government.
Sixteen plants in 1924 report the
value of manufactured products at
$261,652,166, showing,a decidedly steady
advancement for the last biennial
period.
The value of plants reported for 1924
is $50,198,170; yearly payroll $14,172,-
446.
Persons employed in plant operations
number 17,174, of which 9,247 are men,
7,740 women, and 147 children.
Highest average daily wage paid
men, $4.61; lowest, $1.88. Highest
average paid women, $2.82; lowest,.
$1.46.
Ten factories employ electric power;
two steam and electric; two, steam
only. Total horsepower employed 9,-
512. Two of the plants operate by
hand.