The news in this publi
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
DECEMBER 22, 1926
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published Weekly by the
University of North Caro
lina for the University Ex
tension Division.
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
the university of north CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. XIII, No. 8
Editoriiil Board! E. C. Branson, S. H. Hobbs, Jrj, L. R. Wilson, E. W. Knight, D. D. Carroll. J. B. Bailitt. 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.
SIXTY-FIVE FARMERS!
The recent report of toe Federal Trea
sury Department, Statistics of Income,
carries some interesting tables relative
to the number of farmers and individuals
operating farms who filed farm income
tax schedules for the calendar year
1923. According to the treasury analy
sis only sixty-five farm schedules were
filed by individuals for the whole state
of North Carolina. This does not include
the schedule filed by agricultural cor
porations, o€ which there are only a
few in the state.
This seems to us to be one of the most
significant bits of information released
in some time. Of the two hundred and
eighty-three thousand farmers in the
state only sixty-five filed an income
tax schedule. Of these sixty-five, only
forty-six reported net profit; the other
nineteen reported net loss from farm
ing for the year. We do not know how
many of the forty-six there were who
actually paU a tax, that is, whose
profits were within the taxable brack
ets. Possibly not half of them.
The table which appears elsewhere
ranks the states according to the num
ber of farm sofcedules per ten thousand
farms filed by individuals. It will be seen
from the table that North Carolina ranks
last of all the states, with an average
of less than three farmers out of every | gQ^jety
ten thousand filing a federal farm-in-'
come tax schedule for the year 1923,
which as we recall was not such a bad
year for our farmers.
California Leads
In California out of every ten thous
and farmers, eight* hundred and ten in
dividuals filed farm income tax sched
ules,
thousand all told out of a population of
nearly three millions.
It is an interesting fact that the state
that takes such high rank as a crop
state; that leads the world in tobacco;
that takes high rank in cotton; that
ranks second only to Texas in the num
ber of farms, should have only sixty-five
farm schedules filed by individual
farmers. Three farm schedules per ten
thousand farms looks bad for a great
agricultural state.—S. H. H., Jr.
LANDLESSNESS AND CRIME
The ownership of land tethers a man
to law and order better than all the
laws on the statute books. It breeds
in him a sen^e of personal worth and
family pride. It identifies him with the
community he lives in and gives him a
proprietary interest in the church, the
school, and other organizations and
enterprises of his home town or home
community. It enables him to hold his
family together, makes him a better
father, a better neighbor, and a better
citizen, mainly because it makes him a
stable, responsible member of society.
Landless men, white or black, in town
or country areas, tend to be restless,
roving and irresponsible; and the rest
less, roving, irresponsible multitudes of
America are a fundamental menace to
These are some of the things we had
in mind the other day as we journeyed
into a mid-state county of North Caro
lina to study the criminal dockets of the
two court sessions of the last twelve
months—a county quite unconsciously
described by Sidney Lanier years ago,
a county whose people ‘lie wholly off,
or about three hundred times the ' out of the stream of thought, and whirl
rate for North Carolina.
1 the poor dead leaves of recollection
For the United S,tates an average of round and round, in a piteous eddy that
almost exactly one hundred and nine
individuals per ten thousand farmers
filed farm income tax schedules, or an
average of thirty-one times the rate for
North Carolina.
North Carolina ranks second in number
of farms, but she ranks next to last in
the number of individuals who file farm
income tax schedules. Only Rhode Is
land filed fewer, her total being forty.
One out of a Thousand
For the calendar year 1924, approxi
mately sixty-four thousand individuals
in North Carolina filed federal income
tax schedules, and the number ranges
from sixty-four to seventy thousand
each year. It is an interesting fact that
upon an average only one out of every
one thousand income tax schedules filed
in the state is filed by a farmer. Tbe
farmers comprise sixty percent of our
total population but only one-tenth of
one percent of the federal income tax
payers are farmers. It takes nearly
in the roof over their heads. The ten
ants are nearly exactly one-third of the
population, but they committed more
than four-fifths of all the crimes. All
the assaults with deadly weapons were
committed by tenants, all the second-
degree murders, all the illegal disposals
of mortgaged property, all the crimes
of false pretense, all the injuries to
property, all the fornication and adul
tery, all the prostitution, all the cruelty
to animals, all the moonshining, all the
reckless driving of cars. The tenants
furnished three-fourths of tbe convic-
two counties to supply one farmer who tions for larceny and illegal receiving,
files such an income tax schedule, and ^ four-fifths of the convictions for operat-
it requires more than two counties upon ing cars while intoxicated, four-fifths of
KNOW YOUR STATE
One of the practical functions of
every school is, or should be, to
familiarize young minds with their
surroundings. Life if lived in the
abstract would be dull and profitless
indeed. A study of economics be
comes valuable largely as it resolves
itself into terms of bushels, pounds,
dollars, cents, taxes, roads, utilities,
and a multitude of other elements
affecting our daily lives. Education
should breed good citizenship. And
good citizenship requires a readiness
to meet conditions as they are.
But do not mistake: By practical
education is not implied a sordid out
look. One’s beloved State is not to
be translated into a rattle of coins.
Rather, the correct version is in the
language of Opportunity. Oppor
tunity for service. Opportunity is
seen in undeveloped natural re
sources, in an opening for a new in
dustry, in the niches waiting for in
telligent workers to fill.—Holland’s
Magazine.
has all the wear and tear of motion
without any of the rewards of progress. ’
There are such static or stagnant social
areas in every state, an appalling num
ber of them in the rural South.
Crimes of the Landless
Of eighty criminals convicted in Chat
ham, the county we studied, sixty-six
. • *. • u j! A.1. perous an area becomes the fewer are
were tenants, owning not an inch of tbe ■ , ^ .
soil they cultivated or a single shingle
records of crime. There are 191 land
owning negroes in ^ Crenshaw county,
Alabama, but only two of them were
guilty of crimes during the twelve
months ending September 1. In Wilson
county, N. C., there are 720 landowning
negroes, but not one of them was haled
into court and convicted in the year
1926-26. A home-owning negro is more
than' apt to be a decent, law-abiding
citizen.
A City Problem
But landlessness is not merely a coun
try problem. In tbe cities of America
the ratios of tenancy are appalling. In
towns of ten thousand inhabitants or
more in North Carolina from two-thirds
to three-fourths of all the people live in
rented homes and they are forever mov
ing from house to house, from city to
city, under the pinch of necessity or the
lure of opportunity, from year to year.
Instable citizenship everywhere is
fundamentally related to crime of all
types and degrees. Perhaps no other
country of the world is so threatened by
restless, roving, instable citizenship as
America. The more populous and pros-
an average to supply one farmer who
reports profit from farming operations!
It seems to us that two conclusions
are pertinent. First, that the income landowning families outnumbered the
the abandonment, and four-fifths of the
bootlegging. There were only two crimes
in which landowners or members of
tax does not hit all classes alike. The
salaried man pays on his gross income;
the corporation, the farmer, and others
on their net profits. The operation of
the income tax, the fairest of all taxes
when equitably administered, is mani
festly unfair to certain classes. It
reaches almost no farmers, and it is
inconceivable that there were only
forty-six farmers in the state who
made profit from farming in 1923. The
salaried man may be unable to make
ends meet, but he must pay on his
gross income.
Second, that the burden of support
ing the state government fails almost
entirely on the city people, since about
the same people who file federal in
come tax schedules file state schedules.
The franchise, inheritance, and business
taxes are borne almost entirely by
urban people. There are not more than
two or three dozen farmers in the state
who contribute to the general fund of
the state treasury. They pay auto
mobile license and gas taxes for the
support of highways but contribute
almost nothing to the general fund of
fifteen million dollars or so required to
run the state government. We do not
claim that they ought to pay income
taxes or bear a part of the burden
of supporting the state government.
It may be that they are already over
taxed supporting local government.
But it is a fact that our state govern
ment is supported by our urban and
industrial taxpayers—fewer than fifty
crimes committed by tenants, namely,
house-breaking and gambling, and in
these crimes they fell below their ratios
of population. In all the other twenty-
one types of crime in the records, the
tenants ran far beyond their population
quotas. This county, like many another
such county, is paying an excessive
penalty for harboring a landless, rov
ing, irresponsible population.
To be sure, this mid-state .county is
remote and rural, quite jof a sort with
forty-one other counties of North Caro
lina, and the chances are that the
studies the University is now making
will show something like the same ex
cess of crimes committed by landless,
homeless people the state and the South
over.
For instance, the landless are 40 per
cent of the population in Orange
county, N. C., but 76 percent of the
crime in 1926-26 was l^committed by
cropper farmers andjtenants, town and
country. In Wilson county, N. C., the
same year, the landless are almost
exactly 80 percent of the population,
but they committed 96 percent of the
crime. In Crenshaw county, Ala., dur
ing the last twelve months, the tenants
and croppers committed 86 percent of
the crimes although they were only 46.
percent of the population. And I may
add by the way, that crime in all these
counties is just as certainly related to
home ownership as to race. Among
the 456 landowning negroes in Chatham
county only two broke into the court
the people who live in homes of their
own. It is a penalty we pay for what
we are pleased to call progress. And it
is the cruelest paradox of Christendom.
Eighty-nine percent of all the people in
greater New York live in rented homes
—in the tenements, apartment houses,
; and family hotels of a cliff-dwelling
I civilization. Sooner or later America
I will have to reckon with her landless,
homeless multitudes. Our landless are
already mor^ ;than half the people of
North Carolina and the Nation—more
than one and a half million people in
this state and more than fifty million
people in the United States.
Civilization is rooted and grounded in
the home-owning, home-loving, home-
defending instincts. Herein lies the
essential social significance of land-
ownership.
Landlessness is one of the main causes
or correlatives of crime, and it is too
little considered either in our cities or
in our country regions.—E. C. Branson,
printed in part in Dec. World’s Work.
RATE “C,” BUT FLOURISHING
“Despite lack of effective supervi
sion, building and loan associations have
flourished,’’ is the comment of the
Magazine of Wall Street on North Caro
lina associations in a review of building
and loan investments by states, in which
North Carolina is given a rating of C,
which means “inherent dangers in the
weaker associations.”
Twenty of the 48 states classified are
given a rating of A—high degree of
safety, seven are given a rating of B—
reasonable degree of safety, eight are
rated C—inherent dangers in the weaker
associations, seven are rated D—in
vestor must scrutinize each association
for individual practice, and E—legal
situation such that commitments ought
not to be made by outsider.
North Carolina ranks 17th in assets
held by associations, according to the
article which is written by William
Stephen Marlowe. Tabulated statistics
dealing with North Carolina associa
tions are given as follows:
“North Carolina—Supervision of in
surance commissioner. Examinations
every three years. Reports annual;
uniform accounts prescribed. By-laws
not controlled. Directors not liable spe
cifically. No provisions for bonding
officers, apparently. Fees permitted,
fines not limited. Silent on dues for-1
j feiture. Loans restricted to members
I no straight loans. Expenses not lim
ited; no reserve requirements. Interest
rate six percent; associations subject to
usury laws. Borrowing limit 30 per
cent of dues. May be adapted for
farmer’s needs. First mortgage real
estate only. Despite lack of effective
supervision, associations have flour
ished. (C)”
Speaking of the tremendous growth
which the organizations have made dur
ing the last few decades, despite the
fact that they are operated under 48
separate sets of laws, which are in some
instances widely separated, the article
has the following to say about the scope
of the associations:
“Organized in 1831 in a suburb of
Philadelphia, building and loan associa
tions have flourished in this country as
in no other. Since 1913 though, they
have gained at an unparalleled rate.
There are at present about 12,000 asso
ciations, with a membership close to
nine millions, with total assets at about
five billions. In 1913 there were only
6,000 associations with two and one-half
million members and with assets of only
one and one-tenth billions. Obviously
the number of members per association
is greater, as are the assets per mem
ber. Hence greater stability has been
introduced and the building and loan
association movement has lost all traces
of amateur development.
“Tbe movement is not, however,
equally distributed over tbe entire coun
try. Five states, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois
have considerably more than half the
building and loan assets of the nation.
Eleven states have three-quarters of the
nation’s assets. Twenty-seven states
between them have only one-tenth of
the assets of the country. From these
figures it is apparent that not only have
the building and loan associations had
great scope, but that their concentra
tion indicates that there is great room
for further growth. For example, were
the entire United States as saturated
with these associations as is New Jersey,
national assets instead of reaching five
billions would be about 17 billions.
“Apart from the investment angle,
it is assumed that about 400, (JOO houses
are built or purchased each year through
the medium of loans made by the asso
ciations. Since mortgage loans may ex
ceed one and one-half billions per annum,
it follows that the building industry in
this country is tied up with the pro
gressive policy of these associations.
Undoubtedly those who feel that most
homes in the more populous states are
financed in this manner are not far from
the truth. In fact, an estimate of two-
thirds might not be excessive.
“The future growth of the United
States is unthinkable without the great
work done by these cooperative agen
cies.”—News and Observer.
SHORT BALLOT ORTHODOXY
The North Carolina Club of the Uni
versity of North Carolina is engaged
this year on “Problems for Democracy
in North Carolina,” and at its fifth
fortnightly meeting lately heard a paper
by Alvin S. Kartus, of Asheville, student,
who had written that “The short ballot
is the people’s ballot—the long ballot is
the politicians’ ballot.” Owing to the
large number of petty offices to be filled
by men with whom the voter may not
even be acquainted, it is impossible for
the voter to cast his ballot intelligently.
The average voter not only nimj not be
acquainted with these aspirants, he /snot.
He could not be, and attend to his own
personal business. The situation “leads
to voting the straight ticket.” So it
does, but short-ballot voting is not
necessarily mugwump voting, nor is the
shortening of the ballot necessarily ac
companied by a tendency to non-partisan
voting. In our part of the country the
non-partisan voter, the voter who does
not hesitate to cross party lines, is a
negligible quantity, Most of the politics
is in the primary; in some of the states
it is all in the primary; and yet the
principles of the short ballot are just as
applicable in North Carolina, in South
Carolina, in Georgia, as elsewhere. But
the long ballot anywhere and under all
circumstances plays into tbe hands of
the machine, if the figure is permitted.
It does that, Mr. Kartus said, because
“the voter never knows for whom he is
voting for the inconspicuous office but
contents himself with casting his vote
for the party’s candidate”—or the can
didate of the controlling group, it might
be added (in a primary). Misrepresenta-
tive government, the Club was told, is
the result. The remedy “lies in the
shortening of the ballot to a point
where the average man can and will
vote intelligently, and in making most
of the minor offices appointive instead
of elective. If we are to have good
government, if we are to have repre
sentative government”—the two are
not necessarily the same—“we must
have government that fits in with the
mood and habits of the people. The
people have refused to give cognizance
to the minor offices”—the people cannot
give it; it is a practical impossibility—
“which has led to general inertia and
misrepresentative government . . .
If it is democracy we want, we must
ascertain how much civic work the peo
ple are willing to do, and plan our gov
ernment accordingly. The only way we
will have government by the people in
reality is to simplify government suf
ficiently for the average voter to
maneuver it intelligently” (and con
veniently).
All of which is short-ballot orthodoxy
-and has, at a guess, been taught at
the University of North Carolina for
more than a decade. It is an idea that
does not make much headway in North
Carolina; and if you search for the
reason you are likely to conclude that
it is that those who work at govern
ment do not wish government by
the people. Some of them do not be
lieve it would be good government, and
some of them do not care about that.
The state must have in it a lot of robust
democrats, men and women of good
lungs and other attributes of leadership
who do burn within for the government
to fit in with “the mood and habits of
the people”; but they do not seem to
get much concert of action on funda
mentals.—Greensboro Daily News.
FARM INCOME SCHEDULES FILED BY INDIVIDUALS
Rate per 10,000 farms for the year 1923
In the following table based on Statistics of Income, Federal Treasury De
partment, the states are ranked according to the number of farm income
schedules per 10,000 farms, filed by individuals for the calendar year 1923. The
parallel column gives the number of farm income tax schedules filed by indivi
duals for each state.
For North Carolina only 66 individuals filed farm income tax schedules,, of
whom 46 reported net profit from farming, and 19 reported net loss. The num
ber reporting taxable incomes is not reported, nor is the income tax paid by
farmers reported.
In California the farm income tax schedules filed by individuals averaged 810
per 10,000 farms. The rate for the United States was 109.3 farm schedules re
ported per 10,000 farms, or about 31 times the rate for North Carolina.
S. H. Hobbs, Jr.
Department of Rural Social-Economics, University of North Carolina
Number
Rate per
Number
Rate per
Rank State
farm
10,000
Rank State
farm
10,000
returns
farms
returns
farms
1 California
....11,044...
810.0
25 Pennsylvania
... 1,524..
76.2
2 Nevada
.... 262...
646.6
26 Wyoming
... 116..
76.0
3 Iowa
....12,881...
604.0
27 Minnesota
... 1,282...
68.2
4 Nebraska
.... 6,048...
396.6
28 Ohio
... 1,688...
66.0
6 Kansas
.... 6,067 ..
366.0
29 New Mexico
... 201...
63.4
6 Arizona
... 362...
336.0
30 New Hampshire.
91...
43.0
7 Colorado
.... 1,788...
308.0
31 Utah
.. 106...
40.8
8 South Dakota...
.... 2,008...
262.0
32 Louisiana
... 492...
37.1
9 Connecticut
.... 653...
238.3
33 Michigan
.. 611...
31.8
10 ’Washington
.... 1,642...
210.3
34 Kentucky
.. 770...
29.8
11 Oregon
... 1,166...
208.4
36 Florida
.. 172...
2?. 5
12 Delaware
.... 213...
207.0
36 Maine
.. 133...
26.6
13 Illinois
.... 4,304...
190.1
37 Virginia
.. 433...
22.3
14 New Jersey
.... 661...
186.4
38 Oklahoma
.. 436...
22.1
16 Montana
... 820...
176.0
39 Tennessee
.. 378...
16.0
16 Idaho
... 677...
166.6
40 Texas.
.. 682...
14.7
17 North Dakota...
... 1,130...
148.6
41 West Virginia ...
.. 106...
11.7
18 New York
... 2,686...
142.3
42 Missouri
.. 237...
9.1
19 Wisconsin
... 2,718...
140.7
43 South Carolina...
.. 137...
7.9
20 Massachusetts..
... 467...
136.4
44 Georgia
.. 169...
6.8
21 Indiana
... 2,346....
120.0
46 Alabama
167...
6.6
22 Rhode Island
40....
....120.0
46 Mississippi
.. 148...
5.8
23 Maryland
... 466....
.... 96.1
47 Arkansas
90...
4.0
24 "Vermont
... 230....
.... 82.7
48 North Carolina..
65
2.9