The news in this publica
tion is released for the press on
the date indicated below.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published weekly by the
University of North Guolioa
tor its Bureau of Elxtension.
NOVEMBER 1,1916
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. II, NO. 49
dUorial Bo«rd. B.C. Branson,,]. G. deR. Hamilton, L. B. Wilson, .T. H. Johnston, B. H. Thornton, &:
M. MoKie. Entered as second-class matter November 14, 1914, at the.postofflce at Chapel Hill, N.C.. nnder the aot or August 24,19IS.
NORTH CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES
OOKS BY UNIVERSITY HEN
The Trees of North Carolina.—Dr. AV.
C. Coker and Mr. H. R. Totten.
The Modern Drama and Opera; Intro-
|luction to the Drapia in America; and
Francois de Curel’s L’Envers d’Une
3ainte, under the title A False Giant. —
)r. Archibald Henderson.
AN IMPORTANT PROJECT
The Mississippi State Board of Health
lias taken a step in the prevention of ma-
llaria. In one of the Delta counties the
fattempt is being made to prevent human
^ings who have the malarial organism
hn their blood from infecting the malarial
Eosquitoes. p]very man, woman and
lUd (about 6,000) in the county was
ked to submit to a blood examination
[for this organism. Very few refused.
■Intensive treatment with quinine is ap-
fplied to all persons harboring the organ
ism whether or not they show symptons
lof the disease.
I Since the mosquito becomes a malaria
Ibavrier only thru biting an infected per-
fcon, it hoped that by this means the res-
lEavoir of infection may be drained and
ftliie'disease abolished. It is too soon to ^
[know the final results of this experiment'
jbut the prehminary reports are most en-
bcw.iraging.
NO END OF FAIRS
School fairs, community fairs, the State
[fair—more than a hundred fairs in North
iarohna thit- fall! A dozen years ago
lere were less than a half dozen all told
:ie whole state over.
They evidence a tremendous social
wakening in our country regions. The
3unty or community that does not have
'a fair these days is as dead as Dickens
aid Mr. Marly was—dead as a door
nail.
North Carolina is a mighty good state,
'he fairs are helping our own folks to
'nd it out. Pretty soon we will believe
it so strongly that the people of other
states will begin to look tliis way and to
nove in bag and baggage, scrip and
crippage. Our wilderness sjiaces need
0 be occupied. Oar farm lands need to
‘ome into the market at something like
heir real value. C)ur sparsely settled
reas need to fill up with thrifty home
owning farmers from the North and
Vest.
Tiie century-old notion that North C^ar-
olina is a good state to move out of is
changing; and the greatest change is
aking place in' our own minds—wliich
after all ia the lyain matter.
A TEXT ON NORTH CAROLINA
The other day the Greensboro News
Mas gracious enough to say. Vie think
hat a volume containing the gist of the
North Carolina Studies that the Univer
sity News Letter has beeu running ought
to be placed as a text-book in every pub
lic school in the state.
Tiie North Carolina Club Year-Book
which is now in the hands of the print
ers is exactly in keeping with the idea of
the Greensboro News.
As long aa the small edition lasts it will
go free of charge to the people who want
it and w'rite for it.
A copy will go promptly with our very
''Special compliments to the Editor of the
•Greensboro News, and to Mr. Lawrence
Holt of Burlington whose letter sometime
ago suggested a University Bulletin of
iJiis sort.
iCt may chance that the teachers of the
state in their institutes and the pupils in
©ur high schools can well artbrd to thumb
thi.8 little volume thoroughly.
Also it may chance to be suggestive to
tiie fa/rmers, the bankers and other busi
ness people, the legislators and people of
the state in general who are minded to
think constructively in large ways in
terms of the common weal and the Com
monwealth.
WEALTH BY MANUFACTURE
At the first meeting of the North Caro
lina Club for the year 1916-17, Mr. W.
E. Price of Rockingham county presented
for discussion The Primary Wealth Pro
duced by Manufacture in North Carolina
in 1914. The paragraphs that follow
summarize the report and the discussion.
Nearly 120 Million Dollars
Our latest figures come from the Feder- ^
al Census of Industries covering the year
1914. Here we find that the valne added
to raw materials by the processes of man
ufacture in our 5,507 establishments
amounted to {119,000,000; in which par
ticular North Carolina led the 13 south
ern states.
Manufacture ranks next to Agriculture
among the producers of primary wealth
in the state, although it produces less
than half as much wealth, the total for
the farms in 1915 being $242,000,000.
Wonderful Increases
Manufacture is a big detail in North
Carolina life. In 1914 it employed capi
tal amounting to |>253,842,000, engaged
151,333 persons, dispensed 156,283,000 in
salaries and wages, and turned out pro
ducts valued at $289,412,000.
Manufacture in North Carolina in
creases at amazing rates. In 1850 the
product of our manufactures, mines, and
mechanic arts amounted to only $9,111,-
000. The total in 1914 represents a gain
of more than three thousand per cent.
In the ten year period from 1904 to
1914 our cotton mills increased from 212
to 293; our hosiery and knitting mills
from 40 to 74, our carriage and wagon
factories from 125 to 137, our furniture
factories from 105 to 109, our cotton oil
mills from 43 to 62, and our fertilizer
factories from 27 to 41.
Our textile products increased in value
in ro^ind numbers from $51,000,000 to
$99,600,000; our tobacco factory products
from $28,000,000 to $57,800,000; ourcot-
ton seed products from $3,705,000 to
$15,000,000; and our fertilizer products
from $3,000,000 to $10,000,000.
Southern Leadership
At the close of the five-year census
period in 1914 North (’arolina led the 13
southern state.s;
In the average number of industrial
wage earners, 136,840.
In the primary horspowers employed
in manufacture, 508,236.
In the total annual wages paid,* $46,
038,000.
In the value added by the processes of
manufacture, $119,470,000.
In the ratio of increasel value due to
manufacture, 26 per cent.
In the number of textile mills, 367.
In the amount of raw cotton consumed
in manufacture, $68,748,000.
In the total value of our textile prod
ucts, $99,636,000.
In the variety of cotton goods produced.
In the number of furniture factories, 109.
And in the manufacture of chewing and
smoking tobacco we led the whole United
States.
Our Leading Industries
\'iewing our manufactures in detail we
find that in 1914 five big industries were
producing 83 per cent of the total value
of our manufactured products. Arranged
in the order of importance they were:
Textile mill products - $99,636,000
Tobacco factory products - 57,861,000
Timber and wood-work’g prod. 57,000,000
Cotton seed mill products 15,269,000
Fertilizer products - - 10,308,000
Miscellaneous products - 40,350,000
Home*Furnished Materials
In several respects manufacture is car
ried on in North (Jarolina under ideal
conditions.
First. For the most part our mills and
factories use raw materials that are pro
duced abundantly in North Carolina.
Our cotton mills now consume all the cot
ton the State produces—last year 353,000
Ijales more than we produced. In 1915
we produced nearly 200 million pounds
of tobacco worth $22,221,000; but our to
bacco factories in 1914 consumed raw
materials worth some two million dollars
more than our 1915 crop. Our tuxiber
and wood-working esUblishments multi
ply and flourish because lumber is abun
dant and cheap, in North Carolina. In
1915 we ranked among the first four
states in the production of softwood lum
ber, and among the first ten in hardwood
production. The materials consumed in
1914 by our factories producing furniture,
carriages and wagons, cars and coflins
amounted to $9,795,000; but our lumber
camp and saw mill products amounted to
$16,320,000.
Because our leading industries are
based directly on our own home-produced
materials, the additional wealth they
THE HOPE OF THE STATE
Governor LocKe Craig
The moral and intellectual growth
of North Carolina has kept pace with
her material growth. AVe have not
forgotten that the child is the hope of
the state.
There are now in attendance upon
our public schools more than twice as
many children as in the year 1900, and
they are going to school nearly twice
as many days in the year. The houses
in which they are taught cost nearly
nine times as much, and their teach
ers are paid two and a half times as
much. Then the average*value of a
school house was $158; now it is $1,-
162.74. Then there were 1190 log
school houses; now there are^-.but 65.
Soon these will give place to handsome
structures similar to those that are the
ornament and pride of nearly every
school district in the state. This has
cost money but money that the pa
triotic citizens of North Carolina will
ingly paid.
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 97
create remains at home for the most part
to reward North Carolina wage-earners
and investors, merchants and bankers.
Second. Tobacco factories^ and hydro
electric concerns excepted, manufacture
in North t'arolina is carried on by many
small corporations in a large number of
small enterprises. The wealth created
thereforl tends to be rapidly and evenly
distributed among many people.
In the North and East the reverse is
true. There the tendency is toward a
small number of large plants rather than
a large number of small plants. In con
sequence there is a startling concentration
of wealth in the hands of a few people
and widespread poverty , and distress
among low-grade workers and tlieir fam
ilies. Dr. Scott Nearing reports that nine-
tenths of the wage-earners in the great
industrial area north of the Ohio and
east of the Mississippi do not receive
wages sufficient to keep them above the
poverty line. A recent report of the U.
S. Public Health Service shows the same
distressing facts.
No such poverty and distress exist in
the industrial centers of the South. For
instance, a Co-operative Cotton Mill com
pany is being organized in Gastonia; the
stock already subscribed amounts to |54,-
000, and it lias been taken largely by cot
ton mill operatives—superintendents,
floor bosses, spinners and weavers. Even
the dofi'er boys are taking a share or two.
Large Enterprises
On the other hand, our tobacco factor
ies and hydro-electric concerns are con
trolled by large corporations. The to
bacco business is rapidly coming into the
hands of a few big companies that are
centralizing their plants. In 1904 there
were 55 tobacco factories in the state; in
1914 there were but 36. During the same
period, however, the value of tobacco
products was doubled.
Of the water power developed in the
state, two corporations in 1915 controlled
75.1 per cent. These same concerns con
trolled 66.5 per cent of the total power of
the state—water, gas, and steam. Eight
companies controlled 94 per cent of the
developed water power of the state; and
fourteen corporations controlled 89.1 per
cent of our total power.
STATE GOVERNMENT COSTS
Last week we presented a table show
ing the per capita cost of state govern
ments in 1915. The figures covered the
state tax burden for protecting persons,
property, and health, providing social
necessities, promoting the general welfare
of the laboring classes, caring for depen
dents and defectives, restraining and
punishing delinquents, bettering social
conditions, promotingeducation,research, j
literature and art, providing for recrea
tion, caring for productive properties, '
managing investments, negotiating loans,
and performing other services and carry
ing on other activities authorized by law
for state government ends.
In North Carolina $1.76
In North Carolina the per capita state tax
burden for these purposes was $1.76. Its
EDUCATE OR PERISH
TI e further we delve into the question
of rural school attendance in its relation
to the length of rural school temi the
more evident it becomes that we need an
aroused public opinion for a better rural
school attendance and a more rigid and
efi’ective enforcement of compulsory at
tendance laws to make sure of this better
attendance—not alone for the betterment
of the children themselves, but as a mat
ter of simple justice to the taxpayers.
It is unjust to tax A to pay for teaching
B’s children when the authority that lev
ies and collects the tax from A allows B
to keep his children out of school wdiether
it be thorough indifi'erence, ignorance or
selfishness. Furthermore, it is a crime
against B’s children to let him keep them
out of school.
Sinning Ailainst Childhood
AN'hether poor attendance of pupils
comes from indifi'erence of parents, a
s’eeping public opinion, or a lax enforce
ment of compulsory attendance laws—or
from any or all of these things—the pen-1
alty falls hardest upon the children in \
their lost opportunity for an education, j
though society must pay a heavy toll in |
the end for it" own sinning against such
children.
As a concrete example of the magni
tude and gravity of these problems in
some of the States, take Pennsylvania.
The enrollment hi her public schools for
the year ending ,luly 5, 1915, reached the
colossal figure of 1,461,937. The average
daily attendance in her public schools
for that year was 1,166,513—making her
average daily absences climb to the start
ling number 295,424. The cost of enforc
ing the compulsory attendance law in
Pennsyhania for the same year was
$198,991.71. These figures cover both
Airal and urban schools. The latest
available statistics on separate attendance
in urban and rural schools of Pennsyl
vania (1910) show that the numl)er at
tending daily in every 100 enrolled in the
url>an schools of this State was 82, while
in the rural schools it was only 76.6. It
is evident, therefore, that the rural schools
of Pennsylvania had a larger per cent of
pupils in the 295,424 daily absentee.s than
did its urban schools. Yet Pennsylvania
is one of the six States with the highest
daily attendance.
Worth $9 A Day
Statisticians claim that everyday a pu
pil attends .school is worth nine dollars
to hinj. On this basis the 295,424 pupils
daily absent from Pennsylvania’s scliools
last year cost over $2,655,000 daily, or for
the school term of 170 days, over .$450,-
000,000. For the nation at large the 5,-
000,000 boys and girls daily absent from
school lost thereby on a school term of
160 days, $7,200,000,000.
AV'e must educate or \vv must perish,
said Beecher.—,I. L. McBrien, School Ex
tension Agent, Federal Ilureau of Educa-'
tioii.
application was as follows: Highways
and R(‘creation, less than 1 cent; Public
Health and Sanitation, 5 cents; Protec
tion of Persons and Property, 10 cents;
Conservation and Development of l!e-
sources—mainly Agriculture, 11 cents;
tieneral' Government costs—Legislative,
Executive, Judicial, Upkeep of I’ublic
Buildings, etc, 14 cents; General Ex
pense—Old Soldier Pen.sions mauily, 25
cents; Charities, Hospitals and Correc
tions, 39 cents; and Public Education and
fjibraries, 71 cents.
These figures do not cover state outlays
or investments in permanent properties
iud pulilic improvements, nor interest
charges on funded, floating, and other
debt; either in North Carolina or other
itates in the table presented last week.
So much by w'ay of re-stating accurately
he information assembled by Mr. W. R.
U'atson from the Census Bureau Bulled
cin. The Financial Statistics of States in
1915.
Operative Cost 14 Cents-
In to-day’s issue i\Ir. Watson presents
a table ranking the states according to
the per capita cost of general government
in 1915 That is to say, the cost of the
legislative,executive, and judicial branch
es of state governments, the u[)keep of
public buildings and the like,—the oper
ating cost of the civil machinery, so to
speak.
These average.s ranged iVdin 14 cents
per inhabitant in North Carolina and
Georgia to $1.!»1 in Nevada.
That is to say, it cost 14 cents per in
habitant to oil the civil machinery in
North Carolina in 1915. P.arring only
(ieorgia, this was the smallest figure on
this account in the United States.
It was nearly twice as much in .Arkan
sas and Tennessee; twice as much or
more in Oklahoma, South Carolina, and
]\Iissis.sippi; three times as much or more
i)i Louisiana. N'irginia and Texas; four
times as much in Florida, and five times
as much in Kentucky.
In other words, it cost 14 cents per in
habitant in North Carolina in 1915 to col
lect and expend $1.62 for commonwealth
support and protection, progress and
prosperity—the price say, of a moving
picture ticket or two.
WEALTH AND WELFARE
This nation cou'.d easily increase its
savings to ten billion dollars per annum;
and this huge sum could then be used for
the development of our own country; for
the promotion of civilization and for the
advancement and upbuilding of near and
remote countries of the earth. —John .
Skelton, Williams, Comptroller of the
Currency.
THE PER CAPITA OPERATING COST OF STATES
Covering the Year 1915. Based on Federal Census Bulletin,
Financial Statistics of States, dated April 28,1916.
W. R. Watson, Darlington, S.
University of North Carolina.
Per Capita Cost in the Unite 1 States at large 45 cents.
Rank State Per Cap. Cost
1 North Carolina $0.14
Georgia 14
Alabama 22
Minnesota 26
Arkansas 26
Washington 26
Tennessee 26
Indiana 27
Nebraska 28
Oklahoma 28
South Carolina ’ .29
Kansas 29
Mississii)pi ". 29
Missouri ; 31
Maine 32
Pennsylvania 33
Iowa 37
New Hampshire 38
Ohio 38
Illinois 38
South Dakota 38
Michigan 41
Wisconsin 41
IjOtiisiana 43
Rank State
Per Cap. Cost
25
New Jersey
44
26
New Mexico.
46
26
West Virginia. ...
46
28
North Dakota....
47
2i
Virginia
48
30
Texas
31
Oregon
32
Idaho
52
33
Delaware
55
34
Colorado
34
Florida
36
iSIassachusetts
63
37
Montana
64
38
Wyoming
39
California
40
Kentucky
70
41
Connecticut
42
Utah
80
43
New York
81
44
Maryland
1.00
45
Rhode Island
1.07
46
Arizona
47
Vermont
1.43
48
Nevada