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.
APRIL 27, 1927
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
the university of north CAROLI.NA PRESS
VOL. xm. No. 24
Ediioriitl Board: E. C. Kranaon, S. H. Hobbs, Jr., L. R. Wilson, E. \V. Knig-ht. D. D. Carroll. J. B. Bullitt. H. W. Odum.
Entorod as second-class matter November 14. 1914. at the Postoffiee at Chape! Hill. N. C.. under the act of August 24. 1912,
BirniS ATTENDEl) B¥ MIDWIVES
ATTENDED BY MIDWIVES
Eisewh3re appears a table based on the
recent annual repoi’t of the Bureau of
Vital Statistics, State Board of Health,
in which table the counties are ranked
according to th4 percent of all white
children born in 11)26 who were delivered
by midwives. The parallel column gives
the percent of n^gro births attended
by midwives,
Gaston county makea the best show
ing with less than seven-tenths of one
percent of white births attended by
nndwive.s, the assumption being that
the attendance of a doctor is preferable
to that of a midwife at child-birth.
Brunswick county ranks last with mo^re
than fifty-eight percent of all white
births in 1926 attended by midwives.
Of the nearly fifty-eight thousand
white cliiliren born in the state in
1926, eight thousand one hundred and
sixty-three were delivered by mid
wives.
Six mountain counties report no negro
births attended by inidwivss. All toid,
-rjiily twenty-seven negro children were
born in 1925 in these six mountain coun
ties. Dare county witli n'ineteen negro
births reports them ail attended by
midwives. Iti a large number of coun
ties in eastern North Carolina with
large negro ratios more than three-
fourths of negro births were attended
by midwives. In nine eastern counties
more than ninety percent of negro
births were attended by midwives. Of
the state total of 26,279 negro births
reported, 17,826 or 70.66 percent were
attended by midwives.
Alt told nearly twenty-six thousand
births or about one-third of all births
in North Carolina, white and black,
were attended by midwives in 1925.
Geogs-apbic Distribution
The geographic distribution of the
practice of midwifery makes an inter
esting study. The proportion of white
children delivered by raidwives in the
Piedmont country is rather small. The
ratios are high in the counties east of
the falls line, or the Coastal Plains, and
highest in the Tidewater and mountain
counties, with the exception of a half-
dozen urban counties.
At least four-fifths of all negro births
in the eastern half of the state are
attended by midwives. The ratio is
considerably lower in the Piedmont
counties as a rule, and lowest in the
Carolina Highlands. There are only
three counties in the eastern half of
North Carolina with as many as one-
third of the negro births attended by
doctors.
The South Leads
Midwives appear to be more prev
alent in the South than elsewhere.
Quoting The Survey: “It was found
that midwives were by far the more
numerous in the Southern states.
Thirty thousand out of the entire 46,000,
practiced in Alabama, Florida, Geor
gia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland,
Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina,
South Carolina,Tennessee, and Virginia.
Virginia had 6,036 registered mid
wives, North Carolina 6,600, Missis
sippi 3,200, Michigan, Pennsylvania,
and New York had five thousand.
The remaining 10,000 of the total
46,000 were scattered among 26 states,
an average of only 400 to each.”
Who Are the Midwives
The Monthly Health Bulletin recently
said, “The midwife of Robeson county
is rather typical of the midwife of the
South. Out of one hundred twenty-
eight midwives registered, over one
hundred are colored and only thirty-
eight can read and write; the average
age of each is fifty-six years, and the
average number of confinements at
tended by each midwife annually is
nine. WasSermanns were taken on
sixty-three midwives and thirteen
showed positive.”
Further quoting the same article,
“These mid wives are, except in rare in
stances, ignorant, untrained, incompe
tent women, and some of the results of
their obstetric incompetence are unnec
essary deaths and blindness of infants,
and avoidable invalidism, suffering and
deaths of mothers. In moat European
■countries the midwife has been a fixed
institution for hundreds of years, and
receives a strict course of training and
supervision by the government. The
training of the mid wives in Germany,
I where they are required to spend six
! months in a government obstetric
hospital, under the instruction and
supervision of trained obstetricians, is
far superior to that which the great
majority of physicians receive in this
country before graduation. Holland,
France, and Italy give a two-year, and
Norway, Sweden, and Denmark a one-
year course of training to their mid
wives. England faced this problem,
and solved it as late as 1902 by the
establishment of the ‘Central Midwife
Board,’ by an act of Parliament
entitled ‘An Act to secure the better
training of midwives, and to regulate
their practice.’ The system is some
what similar to that of Germany, the
midwife being trained in an obstetric
hospital for six months, licensed after
examination by the Central Midwife
Board, and their work supervised by
the government. New York has estab-
i lished a training school for midwives,
! but it is too small to more than touch
j the problem in the city alone.
“From all information available, it
I seems that what is most needed in this
I country is "the better training of the
1 physicians in obstetrics—not to try to
j educate the midwife to the extent of
' the European countries. If this is done,
1 she may become a fixed element in our
j social and economic system and assume
I a legal status which cannot later be
! altered...Broadly speaking, three stand-
j points are taken in this country—first,
I the midwife must be abolished; second,
j the midwife had best be ignored and
'■ left to her own devices; third, the mid-
i wife should be raised to a higher
I plane by proper state control and edu-
! cation. Tlie first proposition is impos
sible until some better substitute for
the midwife is provided to care for the
large number of women she attends in
childbirth. The second proposal is un
worthy of consideration. The third
proposition is at the present time the
only practical way of dealing with the
midwife problem—whether it has for
its object the temporary safeguarding
of helpless women and children, or
finally the elimination of all but the
educated midwives. Since the evil of
the moment cannot be eradicated, the
danger to the public can be minimized
by some provision for the proper regu
lation, supervision and control of mid
wives by the state. The methods of
regulating midwifery may be divided
into three classes—restrictive measures
carried to indirect abolition; educational
restrictions; and, finally, registration
and supervision. The purpose of regu
lation by educational restriction, gener
ally speaking, is not to disturb the
existing body of midwives, but to
gradually replace them, by means of pro
gressively elevated requirements and
standards, by a smaller body of well-
trained women; this method to be
carried in the course of years to the
point of practical abolition. The pri
mary object of registration is to bring
the midwives under the supervision of
competent officials, so that their work
may be subjected to some measure of
supervision.”—Jr.
FOR A FREE PRESS
The North Carolina Club at its
last meeting had the privilege of hear
ing Josephus Daniels, former Secre
tary of the Navy, discuss the relation
of democracy to the press. This year
the club has been considering some of
the problems of democracy, and in
seeking a speaker for this subject it
naturally turned to Josephus Daniels,
who is both a brave and able editor and
a great exponent of democracy.
We are living in a day, said Mr.
Daniels, when democracy is flouted and
scouted. All over the world there is a
distrust of democracy. People are
losing faith in themselves and are call
ing for a dictator. They want to shake
off the responsibilities which democ
racy imposes. Autocracy is in flower
in Italy, Russia, Spain and other coun
tries, and many Americans are singing
its praises. About 1913 there , was a
rebirth in democracy all over the world
—in Russia, Japan, China, Persia,
England and America, but today the
pendulum has swung far back in the
other direction.
Speaking of democracy and a free
press, Mr. Daniels said the two terms
ought to be synonymous. He quoted
WHERE FARMERS SPEAK
Yesterday I ventured the sugges
tion that salvation by politics is the
great illusion of agricultural Ameri
ca, and that the farmers of Ameri
ca must do for themselves what
the farmers of Denmark have done
for themselves.
T!ie 1 )anish farmers have subjected
themselves to the intolerable fatigue
of learning the game of distribution
or marketing all the way from the
farm to whelte their products are
consumed.
This conquest of knowledge has
enabled the Danish farmers to
secure control of their own economic
destiny. ♦
The gist of the accomplishment of
the farmers of Denmark is this—
they have lifted agriculture from
the level of a domestic vocation to
the level of a successful commercial
enterprise. And, as Branson and
other students of the Danish achieve
ment have pointed out, the estab
lishment of agriculture as a com
mercially successful enterprise has
meant, in Denmark, five things:
First, the Danish farmers have
resorted to the latest scientific
methods of producing crops to feed
the farm family and the farm
animalk
Second, the Danish farmers have
raised livestock through which their
crop surpluses are converted into
milk and meat products.
Third, the Danish farmers have
established farm industries to con
vert these milk arid meat products
and other farm products into forms
that will be saleable and satisfying
to the ultimate consumer—such
industries as creameries, cheese
factories, bacon factories, egg
packing plants, and the like-
owned and operated by the farmers
or their employed e.xperts and busi
ness representatives.
Fourth, the Danish farmers have
established sales organizations and
financial institutions, controlled and
conducted by the farmers on a co
operative basis.
Fifth, the Danish farmers have
engineered the development of a
political state whose service agencies
are sincerely and scientifically kept
busy in behalf of agriculture.
I can not but. believe that all this
carries a sound suggestion to the
farmers of America. I do not mean
to say that the farmers of America
could import without change the
system that the farmers of Den
mark have created and expect it to
work automatically. There are
many differences between Denmark
and the United States.
I am not suggesting that the
farmers of America should slavishly
copy the procedures of the farmers
of Denmark.
I am suggesting only that the
farmers of America should consider
seriously the principles upon which
the farmers of Denmark have
acted.
Tomorrow I shall outline some of
the differences between Denmark and
the United States that American
farmers must reckon with in any
serious attempt to profit by the
experience of the Danish farmers in
scientific production and co-opera
tive marketing. —Dr. Glenn Frank,
McClure newspaper syndicate, by
permission.
Thomas Jefferson’s declaration that if
he couldn’t have both democracy and a
free press he would take the latter, for
democracy could not endure without it.
The test of whether a nation is demo
cratic or autocratic, said Mr. Daniels,
is whether the press is free.
Press Commercialized
When our constitution was framed the
editor was given a favored place above
any other occupation, and the freedom
of the press was guaranteed along with
freedom of assembly and freedom of
worship. It must be admitted that
some papers hardly deserve this con
stitutional protection. A newspaper
has no excuse for existence except as a
public servant, and has no right to ex
pect constitutional privileges if it be
comes purely a commercial institution.
Many of the great metropolitan
dailies are getting immensely wealthy.
Single corporations own chains of
newspapers, and the stockholders are
interested solely in dividends. Many
of the large dailies have become the
agents and apologists and defenders of
privilege. Just how long they can
remain so and retain constitutional
protection is uncertain.
To believe in democracy today one
must have a robust faith. Too many
are indifferent. There was a time
when men were willing to die rather
than be denied a voice in government,
jit is not so now. They want to be
relieved of the responsibilities of self-
government; they ask for a dictator.
In North Carolina
What is the situation in North Caro
lina? Have the people drunk of the
fountain of Macon, Vance and Aycock,
or are they drinking the stale waters
of federalism impregnated with gold?
Unfortunately there is growing up in
the state a, spirit of materialism which
is td be deplored. North Carolina
must noc become Pennsylvania-minded
nor even Massachusetts-minded. It
must preserve its native qualities.
Cannot the state become enriched by
industrialism without losing its soul?
Can we preserve the essential princi- '
pies of democracy? |
Democracy, if it is to survive, must
have the courage to combat evil in high
places as well as in low places. The
newspapers must not be silent in the
face of injustice. Nothing is more i
disheartening than to see certain news- j
papers cavil and make spbrt when:
earnest men and women courteously j
point out existing injustices, and ask :
that the plane of life of the submerged |
multitudes be raised a littie. Democ-1
racy often seems like a broken rope ]
but it is the world’s only hope. Democ-'
racy must be continued and it must go i
forward until it takes the last ramparts '
of autocracy and privilege.
Mr. Daniels’s speech will appear in
full in the forthcoming Year-Book of
the North Carolina Club.
SHOUI^D BE COMPULSORY
i A bill offered in the legislature re-
I quiring all county officers to give bonds
I in indemnity companies was tabled. It
[ should have passed. But 'county com
missioners have the right to make the
requirement, and should. Jn fact the
citizen should refuse to sign a bond
that can be given through an indemnity
company. One who can make a bond
through an indemnity company and
passes that by to ask his friends to
take the risk for him should be turned
down. If he has no more consideration
for his friends than to ask them to
stand in his place to save the few dol
lars necessary to get an indemnity
bond, his friends should have none for
him. He doesn’t deserve the considera
tion, and his attitude mighc well raise
the question whether he is to be
trusted.
Of course the average man giving
a bond has no purpose to forfeit it.
But the risk is there; and he wno in
sists on imposing that risk on others
displays an attitude that should give
one pause before he puts his name on
his bond. In the master of county
officers, and other public officials,
straw’bonds are not only possible but
probably. It is a fact that very often
people who are not worth over the
homestead will readily put their names
on an official bond. For that reason
the law should require the indemnity
bond—for safety as well as to relieve
the private citizen from embarrass-
menr. But in the case of county
officers county commissioners may re
quire indemnity bonds—if they will.
BIRTHS ATTENDED BY MIDWIVES
Percent of White and Negro Births Attended by Midwives, 1925
In the following table, based on Vital Statistics issued by the State Board
of Health, the counties are ranked according to the percent of white births
attended by midwives. The parallel column shows the percent of negro births
attended by midwives.
State total of while births in 1926, 67,904. White births attended by mid
wives numbered 8,163, or 14.09 percent of all white births.
State total of negro births 26,279. Negro births attended by midwives
17,826, or 70.65 percent of all negro births.
F’. C. Upchurch, Wake County
Department of Rural Social-Economics. University of North Carolina
Percent
Percent
Percent
Percent
negro
white
negro
white
Rank County
births
births
Rank County
births
births
attended
attended
attended
attended
by mid-
by mid-
by mid-
by mid-
wives
wives
wives
wives
1
Gaston
. 43.96
.69
61
Johnston
. 71.16
16.93
2
Alamance
17.44
1.11
62
Henderson....
. 46.96
16.10
3
Guilford
. 39.08
1.34
63
Hoke
. 86.83
16.66
4
Durham
. 48.36
1.77
63
Polk
. 68.67
16.66
6
Forsyth
68.31
1.82
65
Halifax
. 89.46
17.82
6
Mecklenburg...
76.00
2.09
66
Stanly
. 63.63
18.31
7
Orange
37.44
2.63
67
Moore
. 60.06
18.67
8
Buncombe
. 47.46
3.19
68
Caldwell
. 70.46
18.80
9
Cleveland
68.61
3.22
69
McDowell ....
. 25.00
19.20
10
Rowan
59.29
3.77
60
Scotland
. 85.41
19.44
11
Wake
. 63.06
4.70
61
Harnett
. 76.66
19.88
12
Wilson
66.14
4.94
62
Transylvania
. 0.00
20.00
13
Iredell
66.83
6.04
63
Montgomery.
. 72.00
20.10
14
New Hanover..
73.91
6.05
64
Pamlico
. 86.18
20.64
16
Rutherford
42.40
6.29
65
Northampton
. 87.66
^0.57
16
Pasquotank
76.09
6.88
66
Beaufort
. 72.18
21.24
17
Lincoln
73.60
6.16
67
Jones
. 85.71
22.08
18
Rockingham ...
. 50.87
6.16
68
Sampson
. 83.94
22.10
19
Davidson
44.13
6.35
69
Graven
. 90.14
22.28
20
Edgecombe
73.96
6.60
70
Alleghany
. 60.00
22.60
21
Richmond
70.40
7.43
71
Bertie
. 89.61
22.66
22
Greene
62.12
7.46
72
Hertford
86.^9
23.65
23
Cabarrus
69.68
7.67
73
Cherokee
. 66.66
24.61
24
Wayne
69.84
8.22
74
Perquimans...
. 78.20
24.82
25
Vance
Haywood
76.87
8.62
76
Gates
. 86.95
26.35 '
26
00.00
8.89
76
Alexander
. 76.75
26.48
27
Granville
69.90
9.03
77
Camden
. 82.69
26.66
28
Anson
81.09
9.09
78
Martin
. 90.13
26.91
29
Person
50.34
9.16
79
Onslow
. 85.34
29.49
30
Yadkin
44.44
9.60
80
Dare
.100.00
29.66
31
Chowan
70.98
10.14
81
Carteret
. 63.15
29.83
32
Stokes
68.67
10.43
82
Tyrrell
. 92.86
31.64
33
Currituck
74.66
10.75
83
Watauga
. 0.00
31.96
34
Pitt
73.27
11.22
84
Yancey
20.00
32.33
35
Lee
78.06
11.66
85
Burke
72.22
33.60
36
Randolph
66.17......
11.71
86
Jackson
63.84
34.92
37
Davie
67.53
11.76
87
Warren
91.74
36.31
38
Robeson
74.67
11.87
88
Macon
16.66
36.71
89
Lenoir
80.14
12.62
89
Washington .,
94.79
37.24
40
Chatham
68.44
13.21
90
Mitchell
. 0.00
38.49
41
Surry
21.05
13.76
91
Pender
97.03
38.84
42
Caswell
56.84
13.77
92
Bladen
91.00
40.05
43
Union
69.10
14.00
93
Ashe
12.60
41.03
44
Catawba
50.46
14.43
94
Avery
20.00
43.37
46
Duplin
68.09
14.62
96
Wilkes
e4.14
44.25
46
Franklin
73.68
14.92
96
Hyde
79.88
45.34
47
Clay
00.00
14.96
97
Graham
0.00
49.27
48
Nash
64.24
16.02
98
Columbus
84.94
49.62
49
Swain
36.36
16.67
99
Madison
33.33
60.90
60
Cumberland ....
77.62
16.87
100
Brunswick
90,69
68.60