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.
AUGUST 4, 1926
CHAPEL HILL, N C.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. XII, NO. 38
Ediioriai Bonrdi E. C. Branson. S. H. Hobba. Jr.. L. R. Wilson, E. W. Knight. D. D. Carroll, J. B. Bullitt. H. W. Odum.
Entered as second-cluBS matter Novembar 14. 1914, at the Postoffice at Chapel Hill, N, C., under the act of August 24, 1918
WE EIDE IN CAKOIINA
We predii^ that waikiog clubs will
become a professional sport in North
Carolina in a few more years. Walk
ing as a means of changing one’s geo
graphic position is rapidly disappearing.
“I have not walked a mile in a month”,
is a common expression. “Shall we
walk or ride?” said the wife a few
days ago when staffing out to call on a
neighbor just two doors away!
Almost every family in the state now
has a motor car, at least there are
almost as many motor cars in the state
as there are families, and the average
family is as fond of the car as a child
is of a new toy.
North Carolina now has a total of
more than four hundred fourteen
thousand motor cars, and at the rate
she has been buying them for the last
six months she will pass the half-mil-
lion mark within another twelve
months. The National Automobile
Chamber of Commerce reports that on
December 81, 1926, there were 340,287
motor cars in the state. The State
Department of Revenue, in a communi
cation dated June 26 giving the number
of motor cars registered by counties, re
ported 414,669 motor cars in the state on
that date. Non-resident cars were ex
cluded. This means that in slightly less
than six months the state has increased
her motor cars by 74,372, which seems in
credible but the facts are from official
sources. This is a larger gain in six
months than has been made in any
previous year period.
There is now one motor car for every
six and one half inhabitants in the
state. Tne average family in North
Carolina is approximately five persons.
At the present rate of purchasing cars
we will average one to the family by
another twelve months.
Guilford Leads
In the table which appears elsewhere
the counties are ranked according
to the number of inhabitants per
motor car. The parallel column shows
the number of motor cars registered in
the county on June 26. Guilford leads
both in number of motor cars, 22,461,
and in inhabitants per car, with one
car for every 3.8 inhabitants. Which
means that Guilford has considerably
more motor cars than she has families.
The entire population of Guilford could
all go to ride at once, and leave enough
cars at home to carry the population of
any one of the smaller counties of the
state.
Mecklenburg is second in motor cars,
with 20,912, and also second in inhabi
tants per car, with one car for every
4.1 inhabitants. Nine counties, namely
Guilford, Mecklenburg, Rowan, Lin
coln, Wake, Buncombe, Caldwell, Lee,
and Henderson, average a motor car or
better to the family. Eight mountain
and two tidewater counties comprise
the ten counties that foot the ac
companying table. Yancey ranks last
with approximately five families to
the motor car. But Yancey aver
ages almost as well as the state aver
aged at the end of the prosperous year
of 1919.
Volume X, number 19, of thi6 publica
tion, issued March 26, 1924, carried a
table on motor cars as of January 1,
1924, similar to the table that appears
in this issue. By referring to the table
for two and a half years ago the reader
can easily compare the status of his
county then and now, and readily see
the progress in motor car ownership.
The following brief table, selecting
counties at random, illustrates the
progress made in a little more than two
years.
County Inhabs. Inhabs.
per car per car
Jan. 1, 1924 June 26, 1926
Guilford 6.2 3-8
Buncombe 9.0 4.9
Caldwell 12.6 4.9
Rockingham 9.7 6.0
Camden 12.9 7.4
Washington 16.1 8.0
Swain 62.1 16.6
Mitchell 72.6 18.0
Yacncey 76.1 26.7
The state average on January 1, 1924,
was one motor car for every 10.8 in
habitants, agsanst the state average
for June 1926 of one car to every 6.6
inhabitants. The two-and-a-half-year
increase in motor cars has been from
248,414 to 414,669, or a gain of 166,246
motor cars. Nearly one-half of the
gain has taken place during the last six
months.
Record of a Decade
In nearly every respect the last
decade has been by all odds the most
significant in the history of the state.
Herbert Hoover credits North Carolina
as having led the nation in progress
made during the last fifteen years.
Our record of gro'wth in industry and
agriculture, in building and loan,
bank resources, highways and public
schools, and so on and on, has been
astounding. The following table show
ing our increase in motor cars is illus
trative of our general progress.
Number Inhabs.
cars per car
16,410 140.0
109,000 23.0
140,8b0 18.4
Year
(Dec. 31)
1916
1919
1920
1921 148,627 17.6
1922 182,665 14.6
1923.. 248,414 10.9
1924 302,232 8.9
1926 340,287 7.9
1926 (June26) 414,669 6.6
There are four counties in the state
each of which now has more motor
cars than the entire state had a decade
ago. Ten years ago there was one car
for every one hundred and forty in
habitants. Today there is almost a
motor car to the family. Our motor
cars have multiplied twenty-five times
over in ten years.
Well Distributed
A study of the accompanying table
impresses one with the fact that the
ownership of motor cars is not concen
trated but rather widespread. Some
counties do better than others, but the
range from the best to poorest is not
so wide. Three-fourths of the counties
do better than one car for every two
families. The twenty-five counties that
appear at the end of the table range
from one car to every two families to
one car for every five families. Two
and a half years ago the range for the
state was three times as wide as it is
today, from 6.2 inhabitants to the car
to 72.6 inhabitants per car. The main
explanation for the wide and fairly even
distribution of ownership of motor cars
lies largely in the uniformly good roads
found the state over, the result of our
state-wide system of public highway
construction and maintenance,
The Saturation Point
For some years economists have
been figuring on the final limit to number
of motor cars. The “saturation point”
has experienced some remarkable revi
sions, all upward. There are now more
than twenty million motor cars in the
United States. North Carolina owns four
hundred and fourteen thousand. In two
and a half years we have nearly doubled
our motor cars. During the last six
months we have increased our motor
cars by nearly seventy-five thousand.
We now have almost one motor car to
the family and are buying them faster
than ever before. By another twelve
months we will have passed the half
million mark and will average a car to
the family. Whether a car to the family
will be the saturation point or not we
don’t know. Our guess is that it will
not be the limit in North Carolina.—
S. H. H., Jr.
DRUNKEN DRIVING
Although the latest reports from
England showed a reduction, not an
increase, in the already small number
of violent crimes annually committed
in that orderly realm, Englishmen seem
bent on still further protecting, by
severe law, the peace and safety of
their land. Offenses against traffic
laws, and other misdemeanors involving
the use of automobiles, have grown in
frequency in Great Britain just as they
have here, even though violent crime
has decreased there. And in the sheaf
of sharp-pointed penalties which have
just now been set up in England under
the new criminal justice act, stronger
enforcement of the law of the road is
a principal object.
For example, the minimum penalty
for drunken driving has been raised,
even on the first offense, to four
months’ imprisonment or a fine of ap
proximately $260. In Massachsetts the
minimum for the first offense is a $20
OUR MOTOR CAR BILL
The Bureau of Industrial Technol
ogy, computing from data collected
by the National Automobile Chamber
of Commerce, states that it costs
seven hundred dollars a year upon
an average to own and operate a
motor car. The figure covers all
cost items, as original purchase, de
preciation, upkeep, repairs, gaso
line, oil, garages, taxes, interest,
tires, insurance, and so on. If the
figure of the Bureau is correct.
North Carolina’s motor car bill for
1926 will be approximately 290
million dollars. It is the middle of
the year and we already had on
June 26 more than four hundred
and fourteen thousand motor cars.
It will take the money received
from all crops sold in the state to
pay our motor car bill.
It will take the total value of
output of all our textile mills to pay
our motor car bill. It will require
nearly one-fourth of the gross in
come of the state from farms and
factories to meet our motor car
bill.
The money we spend on motor
cars in 1926 would operate all pub
lic schools in North Carolina for
twelve years, and leave a surplus in
the treasury.
The state government of North
Carolina could be run for 22 years
on what we will spend on motor
cars this year.
The State Health work, the ap
propriation for which was cut a
year ago, could operate 860 years on
what we will spend on motor cars
this year.
It would require a total of 160
thousand men with a salary of two
thousand dollars each to meet our
motor car bill.
The money we spend on motor
cars in three months would pay the
entire bonded debt of the state for
public highways.
The money we spend on motor
cars in six months would pay the
entire bonded debt of the state for
all purposes whatsoever.
It is a huge bill. It is a lot of
cash we spend on motor cars. It is a
rich state, a state with great earn
ing capacity, that can plank out
three hundred million dollars in cool
cash on motor cars alone in one
year.
fine or imprisonment for not less than
two weeks. On a second or any subse
quent offense within six years the
sentence must be for not less than one
month, and by a recent amendment
courts are further prohibited from de
laying or avoiding such action by filing
the case or otherwise suspending pun
ishment. This procedure for second
offenders seems properly firm and
secure, but it is more than possible
that the Massachusetts penalty for
first offenders should be increased.
Probably an adoption of the new Eng
lish penalty of four months in jail would
be regarded by American juries as too
severe, and it would become difficult to
secure convictions, except in the most
serious cases. But an increase of the
fine, to make the first offender pay till
it hurt, might help to reduce the still
altogether too frequent occasions when
men and women, and little children, are
killed or maimed on Massachusetts
roads as a result. —Boston Transcript.
AN URGENT NEED
The first addition that needs to be
made to the instruction now given in
the secondary schools, and to adults
already earning their livelihood, is in
struction in the elements of economics
and particularly in whatever relates to
labor and capital and the indispensable
union of the two in production, and to
the distribution of necessaries, com
forts and luxuries, the ownership of
the instruments of production, the rela
tion of wages to prices, the control of
monopolies, and the means of increasing
the efficiency and therefore the well
being of the entire community. There
would be great danger to civilization in
the coming into the control of the
government of masses of people
whose ideas on these subjects were
crude, mistaken or perverse. The
well-being of the population at large
can be increased only by increasing the
total national product of necessaries
and comforts; and such an increase of
product can be brought about by in
creasing the average efficiency of the
whole people in their work, or
by improving the economy of the
people in the distribution and intelli
gent consumption of the aggregate
product. Yet many people seem to
believe that a mere rise of wages can
of itself, without increase of product,
cause an increase of public well-being.
It is an object of the utmost urgency
to teach on a great scale, both young
people and adults, that capital is nothing
but the agglomeration of those portions
of the previous profits of capital and
labor combined which were not con
sumed at the time, but were saved to
be used in future production; and that
these savings are, as a rule, necessari
ly put into lands and buildings, roads,
railroads, sewers, water supplies,
power plants, mines and factories,
which then become the means of ob
taining, making or transporting more
or better goods for the population of
succeeding years to consume. What
an admirable function for a state de
partment of education is here in sight!
The urgent need of democracy for in
struction in economics is well measured
by its frequent failure to elect to office
efficient and honest men, capable of giv
ing the people good service. The progress
of a democracy in knowledge of econ
omics will be best indicated by its in
creasing success in procuring an effi
cient public administration.—Charles
W. Eliot.
MOTHERS’ AID IN CAROLINA
Since the first Mothers’ Aid case in
North Carolina was aproved in Au
gust, 1923, 336 mothers with more than
1,400 children have been helped by the
fund and there are at present 246 active
cases on the list. Seventy-six counties
have signed agreements which give
them their proportionate share of the
money appropriated by the last general
assembly under the state mothers’ aid
law. A bulletin prepared by the state
director of mothers’ aid, intended to
facilitate the program throughout the
state, will be issued early in the spring.
Rural America.
WHERE OUR MONEY GOES
During the first five mouths of the
present year a thousand tons of hay
were shipped into Shelby over the
Southern. The Scar says this, adding
what was shipped over the Seaboard,
means that Cleveland farmers sent out
$50,000 for hay for five months. This
would make over $100,000 in one year.
Most of that hay could have been
grown in that county and the money
kept at home. This is one reason why
North Carolina is not as rich as it
should be.—News and Observer.
MOTOR CARS IN NORTH CAROLINA
Inhabitants per car, June 25,1926
In the following table, based on a statement from the State Department of
Revenue showing the number of motor cars by counties, received June 26, the
counties are ranked according to the number of inhabitants per motor car. Popu
lation figures used are census estimates as of July 1, 1923, the latest available.
The parallel column shows the number of motor cars registered in each county.
The total includes all motor vehicles.
Guilford leads with one motor car for every 3,8 inhabitants. Yancey is
last with one motor car for every 26.7 inhabitants. Thirty-two counties now
rank better than Guilford did on Jan. 1, 1924.
State total of motor vehicles registered 414,669, or one motor car for
every 6.6 inhabitants. The state total on January 1, 1924, was 248,414 or one
for every 10.8 inhabitants. State total on Jan. 1, 1926, was officially reported
at 340,287. Gain for last six months has been 74,372, by far the largest gain
for any similar period in automobile history.
S. H. Hobbs, Jr.
Department of Rural Social-Economics, University of North Carolina
Rank County Total Inhabitants
number per car
1 Guilford 22,461 3.8
2 Mecklenburg 20,912 4.1
3 Rowan 10,710 4.3
4 Lincoln 3,910 4.6
5 Wake 16,446 4.8
6 Buncombe 13,976 4.9
6 Caldwell 4,218 4.9
6 Lee... 2,876 4.9
9 Henderson 3,818 6.0
10 Iredell 7,686 6.1
10 Wilson 7,793 6.1
12 Gaston 10,663 6.3
12 Randolph 6,897 6.3
14 Davidson 6,921 6.4
14 Durham 8,229 6.4
14 Forsyth 16,387 6.4
17 Chowan 2,073 6.6
17 Edgecombe 7,186 6.6
19 Union 6,463 6.7
20 Moore 4,004 6.8
20 Scotland 2,717 6.8
20 Stokes 3,661 6.8
23 Currituck 1,244 6.9
24 Hertford 2,769 6.0
24 Richmond 4,690 6.0
24 Rockingham 7,879 6.0
27 Cleveland 6,863 6.1
27 Cumberland 6,020 6.1
27 Davie 2,261 6.1
27 Johnston 8,461 6.1
27 Pasquotank 2,966 6.1
27 Yadkin 2,759 6.1
33 Catawba 6,864 6.2
34 Cabarrus 6,791 6.3
36 Pitt 7.657 6.4
36 Rutherford 6,162 6.4
37 Montgomery 2,267 6.6
37 Orange 2,920 6.6
39 Alamance 6,162 6.6
39 Bertie 3,680 6.6
39 Northampton 3,676 6.6
39 Wayne 7,078 6.6
43 New Hanover ... 6,436 6.8
43 Perquimans 1,644 6.8
46 Lenoir 4,676 7.0
46 Nash 6,292 7.0
46 Surry 4,789 7.0
48 Hoke 1,688 7.3
49 Person 2,679 7.3
60 Camden 729 7.4
Rank County
Total
inhabitants
number
per car
60
Franklin
. 3,689,.
7.4
60
Gates
. 1,430..
7.4
60
Halifax
6,266.,
7.4
60
Sampson
6,148..
7.4
55
Harnett
4,610.-
7.6
66
Stanly
. 3,971..
7.6
57
Chatham
. 3,168..
7.7
67
Vance
. 3,146..
7.7
59
Robeson
. 7,327..
7.8
60
Granville
. 1,869..
8.0
60
Washington .
. 1,458..
8.0
62
Beaufort
. 3,861..
8.1
63
Duplin
. 3,876..
8.3
63
Transylvania.
. 1,216..
8.3
66
Anson
. 3,604..
8.4
66
Martin
. 2,621..
8.4
66
Tyrrell
672..
8.4
68
Caswell
. 1,873..
8.6
69
Alexander....
. 1,430..
8.7
69
Warren
. 2,646.
8.7
71
Burke
. 2,666.
9.0
72
Greene
. 1,859.
9.4
72
Jones
. 1,104.
9.4
72
Pamlico
995.
9.4
75
Craven
. 3,170.
9.6
76
Columbus
. 3,017.
10.1
76
Pender
. 1,468.
10.1
78
Polk
900.
10.3
79
Wilkes
.. 3,146.
10.6
80
McDowell
...1,664.
10.8
81
Haywood
. 2,233.
10.9
82
Alleghany....
664.
11.1
83
W atauga
.. 1,144.
12.0
84
Bladen
.. 1,644.
12.4
85
Jackson
. 1,053.
12.8
86
Brunswick....
. 1,107.
13.6
87
Macon
936.
14.0
88
Carteret
.. 1,072.
14.9
88
Madison
. 1,344.
14.9
90
Onslow
963.
15.6
91
Clay
300.
16.3
92
Hyde
511.
16.4
93
Swain
863.
16.6
94
Dare
292.
17.8
96
Mitchell
643
18.0
96
Cherokee
858
18.3
97
Avery
500.
21.2
98
Ashe
953
22.8
99
Graham
260
24.5
100
Yancey
607
26.7