North Carolina Newspapers

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 the University Ex tension Division. JUNE 9, 1926 CHAPEL HILL, N C. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS VOL. XII, NO. 30 Editorial Hoards E. C. Branaon, S. H. Hobbs, Jr., L. R. Wilson, E. W. Knight. D. D. Carroll, J. B. Bullitt. H. W. Odum. Entered as second-class matter November 14, 1914. at the Postoffice at Chapel Hill, N. C., under the act of August 24, 1912 ” FARM TENANCY IN THE U. S. WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION (Note: The April issue of the Uni versity’s North Carolina Law Review— “Workmen’s Compensation in North and South Carolina’’—deals more fully with the problem here discussed.) Although North Carolina is tradition ally an agricultural state, the use of modern machinery, the division of labor, and the development of the factory with the consequent factory village, is fast working a transformation in the old order of things. Capitalists are more and more securing Carolina mill sites in order to have close proximity to forests, water power, cotton fields, and a native population untainted by what they call “radical proclivities.’’ So th^t, in addi tion to the claim to preeminence as one of the largest cotton-producing states, North Carolina is fast becoming one of the important industrial units of the country. In 1920, according to the census, 896,- 682 people in North Carolina were en gaged in gainful occupations, and of this number 268,314, or 28 percent, were en gaged in extraction of minerals, manu facturing and mechanical industries, transportation and public service. Con servatively then, 260,000 employees in North Carolina would be affected by a Workmen’s Compensation Actwhenever such a law is passed. Underlying Theory The general theory underlying com pensation statutes is that since the in jury to the workman is an incident in the process of production, the industry should include compensation for the in jury as one of the elements in the final cost of production. Just as a mill owner must pay for repairing- a broken machine, he should pay the economic loss resulting from injuries to workers in the course of their employment. It has been suggested that such a rule will make workmen careless, and that it is unfair to hold the employer liable when he is not at fault, but, as a matter of fact, no American compensation act compensates for pain and suffering or even gives full economic reparation, and it is submitted that rarely does a work man value partial economic reparation more than his life and limbs. Under the present system of em ployers’ liability, an employer must use ordinary care for the safety of those in his employment, provide a reasonably safe place to work, reasonably safe tools and appliances, and a sufficient number of reasonably competent and careful workmen to conduct his business in a reasonably safe manner. But an employer who has exercised reasonable care in these respects is not liable for industrial accidents to employees that occur inevitably despite these precau tions, hence the inherent hazards of the industry fall exclusively upon the em ployees. Furthermore, even where an employer has failed to perform one of these duties and an injury is approxi mately caused thereby, the employer may still avoid liability by setting up as a defense contributory negligence, as sumption of risk, and the fellow-servant rule. Of the forty-four recent North Carolina cases involving personal injuries to employees which were studied, the employees were able to recover damages in only twenty-seven cases, and of course many of these cases were brought upon a contingent-fee basis, so that the employees actually recovered little on the average. The common law of employers' liability assumes that every workman is in a position to choose his own occupation, to quit it when he will, and to exact whatever wage he can. The fact is that abstractions proceeding upon a theoreti cal equality do not fit a society divided into classes by conditions of industry. Generally speaking, the workman One of Only Five It is a significant fact that forty-three American states have enacted Work men’s Compensation Acts, only Ar kansas, Florida, Mississippi, and the two Carolinas having failed to do so, and North Carolina is the only im portant industrial state in the United States which is without such a law. To have the desired effect, a sweep ing change in the present law of em ployers’ liability will obviously fail un less there is adequate machinery to get the actual money to the injured em ployees or their surviving dependents with a minimum of expense and delay. In answer to that problem, thirty-two states have created a commission to administer their compensation laws, and this seems to be the most practical method. Under this system, employers report industrial accidents to the com mission which then supervises the settle ments. In case a claim is disputed, use by the commission of independent in vestigators, impartial physicians, simple forms and procedure, and the mail service, is admirably adapted to quick, cheap, and adequate determination of the dispute. With a single commission having plenary jurisdiction over all in dustrial injuries, it is possible to secure coordination of activities, to perfect a state regulatory system, and make a scientific study of such problems as acci dent prevention and rehabilitation. To give greater dignity to the commission, and to expedite a final decision of the commission, the appeal should be directly to the Supreme Court of the State. The commissioners should be fully equal to the superior judges in intellectual ability and general attainment, and the fact that the case^ which they decide involve a narrow range of subjects should en able them to become especially pro ficient in deciding them. Present Status Unfair It is submitted that the present sys tem of employers’ liability in North Carolina is economically unfair and un wise, and is productive of antagonism between employers and employees. It results in a denial of recovery in a large number of cases in which the injury arises out of the employment, and in the cases in which the plaintiff is suc cessful the attorney usually takes a large portion of the net amount ulti mately recovered. The uncertainty, expense, and irritation of the present negligence-litigation system is great; and an injured employee who dares to sue his employer, almost invariably loses his job. The general theory upon which Work men’s Compensation Acts rest is eco nomically sound and the end secured is certainly socially desirable, and it is believed that the enactment of such a law in North Carolina would be a step forward in the state’s industrial prog ress. Under a compensation system, employers not only do not treat injured employees as antagonists asserting ad verse claims, but usually assist them in securing prompt payment of their claims by the insurance carrier. The laws of forty-three sister states furnish con venient guides to the legislature of Korth Carolina.—Robt. A. McPbeeters, Research Assistant in the School of Law, University of North Carolina. risk, both physically and financially, of inevitable accidents or quit his job, and of course few workmen are in a position to take the latter alternative. To a large extent, this statement is also true of^injuries which are commonly regarded as due to the negligence of the employee. CARTERET COUNTY BOOKLET Carteret County: Economic and Social is the title of the fourteenth county bulletin issued from the Department of Rural Social-Economics at the Univer sity of North Carolina. Expenses of publication and distribution of this par ticular bulletin ate borne by the Exten sion Division. In about ten days the bulletin will be ready for distribu tion to newspapers, local-study clubs, Generally speaking, the worKman as- Carteret, and any individual sumes the risk of or group sufficiently interested to write needs food and clothing, and e g ..Qpies. It is an important compila- teceived are fixed by competition, not interpretation' of facts and by the hazard of the employment t ^thered into a handy little Under the doctrine of assumption of risk, the workman must assume the bo_^ f,„teret countv’s understanding of Carteret county’s problems and progress. The authors of the bulletin are Miss Aleeze LefEerts, Mr. Clifford W. Lewis, and Mr. Henry Lay, all Carteret county students at the University. The three have contributed ten chapters to the WORKMAN COMPENSATION The serious consequences to a wage earner’s family of industrial acci dents resulting in the death or maim ing of the worker, who frequently is the main support of a family, are of increasing concern, not only to the workers and the employers them selves but to the state as a whole. The present uncertain position of both employer and employee grow ing out of the danger of industrial accidents is unsatisfactory. Experi ence has demonstrated the desira bility of replacing the uncertainties of the present situation with some form of Workmen’s Compensation Law which will be fair to both the employer and employee. The proper regard for those humane principles which would place the burden of the injured in the more hazardous occu pations upon the industry itself; instead of upon the injured workman or his family, I believe would justify very serious consideration of this matter. What form this law shduld take, what classes it should includef how the insurance feature of such a plan may be arranged, and what compensation should be provided, need not be discussed at this time. It is sufficient, perhaps, for the moment, to point out that North Carolina is one of the six remaining states, and I believe the only great industrial state, that has not adopted a Workmen’s Compensation Law as a governmental policy. Experience in other states bears witness to the salutary results, and the dictates of conscience require that an effort be made to place upon our statute books a law that will meet the peculiar needs of our state, and. at the same time, be fair and just to all concerned.—Gov. A. W. McLean, in his first message to the 1925 Legislature. study as follows: Historical Back ground, Natural Resources, Industries and Opportunities, Facts about the Folks, Wealth and Taxation, Schools, Farm Conditions and Practices, Food and Feed Production, Evidences of Progress, Problems and Solutions. Work on the bulletin was sponsored by the Carteret County Club at the University which, although organized primarily for the purpose of promoting fellowship among the students that hail from Carteret, also desires to translate a part of education in terms of the com munity which is common to each of its members. —E. T. T. classed as owners. That is, they are renting additional land. The percent of land area cultivated as leased land is larger than the percent of farms oper ated by tenants. In the South Nearly two-thirds of all farm tenants in the United States, sixty-five percent to be exact, are in the sixteen Southern states. Only one-third of the nation’s farm tenants are located in the other thirty-two states. More than half of all farms in the 16 Southern states, 61.1 percent to be exact, are operated by tenants. In the ten cotton-belt states 67.8 percent of all farms are operated by tenants. Every cotton-belt state except Georgia in creased its tenant rate during the last five-year period. The exodus of fatm tenants from Georgia following the boll-weevil disaster, and not increase in farm ownership, explains Georgia’s de creased tenant rate. Georgia lost ap proximately sixty thousand farms, 1920-1925, about forty-eight thousand of which were tenant farms. In the South farm tenancy seems to thrive equally as well on prosperity as on depression. Fat years seem to hatch tenants as effectively as lean years. During the fairly prosperous decade from 1910 to 1920 the farm tenant rate increased in the South. Since 192^ there has been a general depressson in agri culture and many farmers who had made a payment or two and were classed as owners in 1920 have lost out and reverted 1 to the status of tenant. And in addition thousands of straight-out owners have lost their farms since 1920, due to the general depression. Depression is not conducive to land purchase, so the new farm population likely prefers to farm as tenants. The greatest single economic and social problem in the South is the problem of farm tenancy, and it is not a negro problem as is so often thought, but a white problem, for two-thirds of all farm tenants in the South are whites, and only one-third are negroes. It was not a white problem after the Civil War, but it is a white problem today, and it is increasingly a white problem. And what is true for the South is equally true for North Caro lina. There is no hope for an efficient and generally prosperous agriculture, nor for a satisfying and wholesome rural life, that is not rooted and grounded in home and farm ownership. —S.H.H.. Jr. FARM TENANCY IN THE U. S. The table which appears elsewhere shows how the states rank in percent of all farms operated by tenants for the year 1925, while the parallel column gives the tenant rate for 1920. The difference is the ratio increase or de crease in tenant farmers. Volume XII number 14 of this publi cation presented a study on farm ten ancy in North Carolina by counties in 1926 and 1920, along with a more or less detailed interpretation of the state table. Summary Facts The following appear to be the out standing facts with regard to farm ten ancy in the United States. While there was a decrease in the number of farms in the United States between 1920 and 1926, there was an in crease in the number of farms operated by tenants. The net increase in the farm tenant ratio was from 38.1 percent in 1920 to 38.6 percent in 1926. Exactly one-half of j^he states in creased their farm tenant rates during the last five years, while in the other twenty-four states the farm tenant rate decreased. A point that it is well to keep in mind is that the farm tenant situation is far more serious than statistics on farms operated by tenants indicate. If a former tenant has purchased a farm, and has made only a small first payment, he is classed as an owner. If a farmer owns a very small piece of land and rents additional land be is classed as an owner. A large percent of farmers classed as owners are virtually tenants, and a tenth of the cultivated area of the United States is land rented by farmers HOME OWNERSHIP There is no government for the many while the land belongs to the few; for the history of the world teaches that the men who own the land will rule it. The home-owner is the most con structive and at tfie same time the most important force in our civilization. He is a pioneer in progress, be is a lover of peace, but he is a very demon in the battle when danger threatens the land he loves. The small farm owned by the man who tills it is the best plant-bed in the world in which to grow a patriot. Such a consideration brings wealth to the souls of men. On such a soil it is possi ble to produce anything, from two pecks of potatoes to the hill to a President of the United States. The wizard of the Northwest, James J. Hill, once said: Land without popula tion is a wilderness, population without land is a mob. Every consideration of progress and safety urges us to employ all wise and just measures to get our lands into the hands of the many and forestall that most destructive of all monopolies—the monopoly of the soil. —Thomas W. Bickett. OUR LANDLESS MULTITUDES North Carolina has twenty-two mil lion idle wilderness acres, a hundred thousand vacant town and city lots, and a million three hundred eighty thousand landless, homeless people, town and country. Almost exactly one-third of our white farmers and two-thirds of our negro farmers own no land. The people who live in rented dwellings in our towns and cities are from two-tbirds to three-fourths of the various municipal populations. These are the people in North Caro lina who own not an inch of the soil they cultivate nor a single shingle in the roofs over their beads. They are fifty- two percent or more than half the en tire population of the state. Enduring social structures cannot be be built on landownership by the few and land-orphanage fer the many. Civilization is rooted and grounded in the home-owning, home-loving, home- defending instincts.—E. C. Branson. FARM TENANCY IN THE UNITED STATES Percent of Farms Operated by Tenants 1925 and 1920 In the table below, based on the Federal Farm Census of 1925, the states are ranked according to the percent of all farms operated by tenants in 1926. The second column gives the percent of all farms operated by tenants in 1920, to show increases and decreases. Maine, with only 3.4 percent of her farms operated by tenants, has the low est farm-tenant rate in the United States. Mississippi with a farm tenancy rate of 68.3 percent leads the states in tenancy. North Carolina ranks 39th with 45.2 percent of all farms operated by tenants in 1926, against 43.6 percent in 1920. During the five-year period 1920-26 North Carolina’s net increase ip the number of farms operated by tenants was sur passed by only two states, Texas and Oklahoma. (Note: For a discussion of farm tenancy in North Carolina in 1925 see News Letter, Vol. XII, No. 14.) S. H. Hobbs, Jr. Department of Rural Social-Economics, University of North Carolina Percent Percent Percent Percent Rank States tenants tenants Rank States tenants tenants 1926 1920 1925 1920 1 Maine ... 3.4 4.2 25 Ohio ...25.6 29.5 2 New Hampshire. 4.8 6.7 26 Maryland ...26.4 28.9 2 Massachusetts ... 4.8 7.1 27 Minnesota ...27.1 24.7 4 Connecticut.... ... 6.4 8.6 28 Indiana ...29.2 32.0 5 Nevada ... 7.8 9.4 29 Colorado ...30.9 23.0 6 Vermont ... 9.3 11.6 30 Kentucky ...32.0 33.4 7 Utah ...11.1 10.9 31 Missouri ...32.6 28.8 8 Rhode Island. ...12.1 15.6 32 North Dakota. ...34,4 26.6 9 New York ...14.1 19.2 38 Delaware ...35.8 39.3 10 California ...14.7 21.4 34 Tennessee ...41.0 41.1 11 Michigan ...16.1 17.7 35 South Dakota. ...41.6 34.9 12 Wisconsin .,.16.6 14.4 36 Illinois ...42.0 42.7 13 New Jersey.... ...16.a 23.0 37 Kansas ...42.2 40.4 14 Washington.... ...16.3 18.7 38 Iowa ...44.7 41.7 14 West Virginia ...16,3 16.2 39 North Carolina ...45.2 43.5 16 Oregon ...16.8 18.8 40 Nebraska ...46.4 42.9 17 New Mexico.. ...17.1 12.2 41 Arkansas ...66.7 61.3 18 Pennsylvania.. ...17.4 21.9 42 Oklahoma ...68.6 61.0 19 Wyoming ...17.9 12.6 43 Louisiana ...60.1 67.1 20 Florida ...21.3 26.3 44 Texas ...60.4 63.3 21 Arizona ...21.6 18.1 46 Alabama ...60.7 67.9 22 Montana ...21.9 11.3 46 Georgia ...63.8 66.1 23 Idaho ...24.4 16.9 47 South Carolina...66.1 64.6 24 Virginia ...26.2 26.6 48 Mississippi ...68.3 66.1 FARM TENANCY BY GEOGRAPHIC DIVISIONS Geographic Percent Percent Geographic Percent Percent division tenants tenants division tenants tenants 1925 1920 1925 1920 New England.. ... 6.6 7.4 W. N. Central. ...37.8 34.2 Pacific ...15.6 20.1 South Atlantic. ....44.6 46.8 Middle Atlantic ...16.8 20.7 E. S. Central.. ...60.3 49.7 Rocky Mountain...22,2 15.4 W. S. Central.. ...59.2 52.9 E, N. Central.. ...26.0 28.1