The newt ia this pmblica*
tioQ ii released for the press on
receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
for its Bureau of Extension.
JULY 23.1919
CHAPEX HILL, N. C.
VOL. V, NO. 35
saitorial Board ■ K. C. Branson, J. G, deB, Hamilton, L. B. Wilson, D. D Carroll, G. M. MoKie,
Entered as second.olas3 matter November 14,1914, it the Postoffloe at Chapel Hill, N, C., under the act of August 24,1912.
IREDELL IN THE WAR
The Statesville liandmark of July 2
devotes ita entire space to chronicles of
Iredell County and her sons and daugh
ters in the Great War.
It tells in detail what the home folks
‘did. The little child who knitted a
sweater for a soldier is honorably men-
itioned,along with the selfless men who
‘jaade the whole county ring with their
fervor. It celebrates the hundreds who
gave and gave and gave that Iredell’s
quota of foodstuffs and of dollars might
be raised and over-raised.
It gives a list in full of the men who
volunteered and the men who went to
the colors no less cheerfully through the
selective service draft—nearly 1,000 of
ithem.
It gives a sorrowful paragraph each to
the half hundred who laid down their
lives in the service of their country.
It gives full accounts of the doings of
the 105th Engineers, tlie 115th Machine
Gun Battalion, the 30th and the 81st
Divisions—of their valiant deeds as road
‘builders, as Hindenburg line breakers,
•and their bravery on the Meuse and in
ithe Argonne.
Iredell has heri‘ a definite record of her
loyal devotion. When book history comes
to be written there will be no room for
doubt about the rightful place of Iredell
people on the scroll of fame.
Iredell is gathering her war records to- j
■gether. So, too, is Wilson. What other
Garolina counties have done as well? We
should like to know in order to do hom
age to them in the News I^etter.
It is work that should be done now.
It ia fitting work for the Daughters of the
Confederacy and the Confederate Vet
erans. Or for women’s organizations, or
Jor somebody. It should be done in
■every county in the state and it should
■be done at once.—E. N.
THE CAROLINA PLAN
1 am not meaning to be impertinent
•when I say to the Local Community sec
tion of the National Social Work Con
ference that the welfare problems of 44
million people in the United StateA are
not industrial and urban but agricultural
and rural. The multitudes that dwell in
the vast open spaces of America beyond
• our city gates have not yet had their day
in court. These country multitudes have
■problems, they are of pressing national
importance, and they must be fully con
sidered at some early day if we are to
keep our town and country civilizations in
sane, safe balance. No problem more
important than this challeuges the state.s-
men of any land or country. It may not
;be amiss therefcre to fix the attention of
this conference for a little while upon the
country end of our national life.
Countryside Well-Being
I have been asked to present to you the
North Carolina Scheme of Eural Develop-
jnent. The phrasing of my subject ia not
;my own, which gives you a chance to ac-
.quit me, if you will, of ^iliat a Cracker
friend at home calls “toploltical assum-
acy.”
North Carolina i.s a rural state, like all
the rest in ilie cottnii and tobacco belts of
the South. Our it dastrial bread-winners
are a larger proporiion of the entire popu
lation than in any other Soutliern state,
but in 1910 they were only 133,000 all
told, or less than one-seventh of tlie total
number of persons engaged in gain
ful occupations, and more than half of
these live under rural conditions in little
trade centers and mill villages of fewer
.than 2,500 inhabitants. Our welfare
problems are therefore mainly rural.
Which means that for two and a half
• centuries we have been unaware of any
. social ills and unconcerned about them ;
• or so until our present governor Thomas
W. Bickett, in epoch making fashion,
■focused public thought upon their super
lative importance.
Nearly exactly four of every five people
’in North Carolina are dwellers in the
open country, outside towns and villages
of any sort or size wliatsoever, only eight
families to the square mile the state over,
botli races counted. And they dwell not
in farm groups or communities as in tlie j
.old world countries but in solitary, wide
ly scattered farm liomes, fewer than four
families per sijuare mile in ten counties,
and fewer than seventeen per square mile
in our most populous country county.
Our country civilization is analyzable in
terms of individual farmsteads, settle
ments, and neighborhoods. Compactly
settled country communities conscious of
common necessities and definitely organiz
ed to secure (tommon advantages are few
and rare. Country community is a teiiu
that means sometliing in the Middle West,
the North and East; it means little as yet
anywhere in the South. We have such
communities here and there, but they
are infrequent, sad to say.
Our ills are not mainly those of con
gested population centers where, in
Rousseau’s phrase, the breath of man is
fatal to his fellows. We know little of
the bewildering, baffling city problems of
progress and poverty, magnificence and
misery side by side. Our ills are mainly
the social consequences of (1) farming as
an occupation (.2) in sparsely settled
areas. Our social ills are the ills of soli
tariness, remoteness, and aloofness. We
are far removed from socialism in any
sense good or had. On the other hand,
we have always been but a hair’s-breadth
away from individualism, raw, raucous,
and unorganizable. Both the best and
the worst of my home state lies in the
fact that too long it has been excessively
rural and intensely individualistic—in
business enterprise, in legislation and
civic rule, and worst of all in religious
consciousness. Our fundamental ill ia
social insulation and our fundamental
task ia local organization for economic
and social advantage, for local self-ex
pression and self-regulation in community
affairs, and for generous, active civic
interest in commonwealth concerns.
Such in brief are our problems, and
they are the problems of some 40 odd
millions of people in countryside America.
A Common Social Menace
In passing, let me call your attention
to a social ill of fundamental sort that
increasingly menaces our cities and coun
try areas alike—namely, the steady de
crease in the number of people who live
in their own homes and till their own
farms, the steady increase of landless,
homeless multitudes in both our towns
and country regions. These homeless
people shift from pillar to post under the
pressure of necessity or the lure of oppor
tunity. They abide in no place long
enough to become identified with com
munity life, to acquire a proprietary in
terest in schools and churches, and to
develop a robust sense of civic and social
responsibility. Instable, irresponsible
citizenship is a seed bed—a hot bed, if
you please—for every sort of irrational
social imimlse.
Already three-fifths of all dwellings in
tlie United States are occupied by tenants
and renters; in Boston the ratio rises to
80 percent ami in Greater New York to
89 percent. (See the University News
I.etter Vol. Ill, Nos. 36 and 39). Fifty-
five million people in tlie United States
spend their days and nights, like poor
Dante, going up and down somebody
else’s stairs. In gem-ral the fatal law uf
our civiliz.ilion seeiu-i to be liiat the more
populous and pri sperous an a, ea becomes,
the ievuT are the peoj.ile who live ia ttieir
own tiomes and dwell unmolested and
unafraid under their own vines and tig
trees. I have yet to iiear in this confer
ence the discussion of any social ill that
is not sequentially related directly or in
directly to home ownership by the few
and land orphanage for the many. I
shall hope to hear this foundational prob
lem threshed out at length at some early
day in the National Social Work Con
ference. It concerns both our city and
country civilizations in fundamental sort.
In the Old North State
I was drafted into service, I presume,
to give you a modest account—if such
a thing is possible—of North Carolina’s
bravo attack upon the social prob
lems of a rural people during the last
four years.
The story is full of detail, but briefly it
covers a common-school fund nearly
doubled during the war, and a fifty per
cent salary increase for public school
teachers as a legal requirement; an il
PEACE PATRIOTISM
Civic responsibility and civic pride
are hard things to instill into the
minds of those who have grown old
without them. The time to develop a
desire for a clean, beautiful, and
wholesome community is in childhood.
Developed then, it will never disap
pear.
Concrete activities are the best
im-tliod of deveinping things of this
ooit. An example is the ciiildren’s
crnsaiie for a town free from filth.
Discussing the subject in a recent
bulletin of the Kansas board of health,
Walter Burr shows concretely how
much boys and girls have done to
ward removing germ-breeding condi
tions in Kansas towns.
This is the practical, present day
side of peace patriotism. The other
side—the instilling of right community
principles into the minds of the young
people—is of equal importance. The
two go hand in hand.—Kansas Indus
trialist.
literacy commission with a support fund
of $25,000 a year; a compulsory school
attendance law together with a standard
child labor law; three and a half millions
of bond money for enlarging and equip
ping our public institutions of learning
and benevolence; nearly $250,000 a year
for public health work, for the medical and
dental inspection of schools and the free
treatment of indigent school children,
and for the defense of our homes against
the ravages of social disease; around a
million two hundred thousand dollars a
year of local, state, and federal funds for
agricultural education and promotion;
a law sanctioning cooperative enterprise
in general and in particular the best co
operative credit-union law in the United
States, as a result of which we have more
farm credit-unions than all the rest of
the states combined; a state-wide cotton
warehouse system based on the best law
in the South; a public welfare law estab
lishing a state welfare board with ample
authority and support, and calling now
for county welfare boards and -superin
tendents, not optionally as in Indiana,
Kansas, Minnesota, and other states, but
mandatorily; a juvenile court and pro
bation officer in every county, and in
every city with 10,000 inhabitants or
more; a rural township incorporation
law and a state commission charged with
rural organization and recreation; a
state-wide Social-work conference; rural
social science studies and public welfare
courses at the state university.
And so on and on. Thirty-five laws of
economic and social import have gone on
our statute books in four years, all of
them directly or indirectly related to
rural social welfare. It is a new kind of
legislative activity in Nortli Carolina and
we have had more of such legislation
during Governor Bickett’sadministration
than can be found in any hundred years
of our history heretofore. It lias been
epoch making legislation and it ushers iii
a areat new era in North Carolina. The
Vabey 01 IIumiliation located between
two mountains of conetdt, as a Tartieel
IS accustomed to desciibehis state to \'ir-
giuiaiis and South Caioiiuian.s, lias sud
aenly become the N'alley of Deci.-iun tliat
the prophet Joel saw m ins dreams.
Rural Township Law
So many experiments are recently un
der way in Nortli Carolina, that I have
been at a loss to guess just which one of
them the chairman of this section had in
mind when phrasing my theme for me.
I have, however, a vague suspicion
that a'-ie meant for me to discuss in par
ticular our Rural Township Incorporation
law—a law that makes it possible for the
people of our, country neighborhoods to
create by popular vote the civic machin
ery necessary to self-expression and self-
rule. It is the familiar town meeting of
New England. It was indigenous to the
democracy of a people compactly settled
in communities in limited areas.
The idea has been slow to develop in
tlie South because of our vast open spaces,
and the settlement of our people in early
times and at the present day in individ
ual farmsteads. Our counties are large
as a rule, many of them larger than the
state of Rhode Island. Our townships
are large. They are geograpliical divis
ions and administrative units in' tlie
political scheme of things. They are no
where economic or social groups.,
The net result has been a feeble sen^e
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 177
FLAG ETIQUETTE
It is an American and especially a
Southern habit to be courteous, respect
ful, reverential in the presence of age and
lionorable service. Our rtag is as old as
our nation, as honorable as the sons who
have fought and died in defense of Amer
ican principles, yet vi'e fail wofully to pay
ihat respectful, reverential courtesy to
our flag which ia her due. That we may
all know to the end that we may practice
flag-etiquette the following official rulings
are presented.
The Code
The flag should never be placed below
a person sitting.
The field of the flag is the stripes; the
union is the blue and the stars.
When the flag becomes old or soiled
from use it should be decently burned.
\Vhen two American flags are crossed
the blue fields should face each ather.
In decorating, the flag should never be
festooned or draped; always hung flat.
The statutes of the United States forbid
the use of the flag in registered trade
marks.
As an altar covering, the field should
be at the right as you face the altar, and
nothing be placed upon the flag except
the Bible.
The American flag, the emblem of our
Country, is the third oldest national flag
in the world. It represents liberty, and
liberty means obedience to law.
AVhen the flag is displayed from a staff
the blue field should be in the upper cor
ner next to the staff.
From private poles the flag may fly at
all hours, day and night, with due re
spect to the colors.
In crossing the American flag with that
of another nation the American colors
should be at the right.
When the flag is passing in parade, in
review, or is being raised or lowered, the
spectators should—if walking, halt; if
sitting, arise, uncover, and stand at at
tention.
When carried in parade or when cross
ed with other flags the Stars and Stripes
should always be at the right.
The flag should never be worn as the
whole or part of a costume. As a badge
it should be worn over the left breast.
There are three standard sizes for the
flag provided by the War Department
regulations: Garrison flag 20x38 feet;
Post flag 10x19 feet; Storm flag 5x9 1-2
feet.
In handling the flag it should not be
allowed to touch the ground, and never
allowed to lie upon the ground as a means
of decoration—nor should it be laid flat
with anything upon it.
If you hang the flag from a window it
sliould be suspended by the same edge
which IS ordinarily attached to the pole,
and if two flags are hung together the
cantons should be placed together. If the
flag is draped across the street the blup
canton should be up.
In draping the flag against the side of a
room or building the proper position for
the bine field is toward the north or the
east.
When the flag is used in unveiling a
statue or monument it should not be
allowed to fall to the ground, but should
be carried aloft to wave out, forming a
distinctive feature during the remainder ■
of the ceremony.
Always stand when The Star Spangled
Banner is being played or sung, and pro-
t St when used in a medley.
The flag contains thirteen stripes, alter
nate red and white, representing the thir
teen original states, and a star for each
state in the union.
When the flag is shown horizontally
the blue field should be at the upper left
hand corner to the, observer; when ver
tically the blue should be .at the upper
right corner; when in either position the
flag should be fastened only at the top.
When the flag is flown at half stall' as
a sign of mourning it should be hoisted
to full staff at the conclusion of the fu
neral ; in placing the flag at half staff it
should first be hoisted to the top of the
staff and then lowered to positioUi
Whenever our flag and any other are
hoisted on the same staff, the Star Span
gled Banner must float from the top. In
the heart of every American citizen the
American flag must have the first and
highest place—must be supreme.—L.
A. W.
of civic and an almost utter lack of social
responsibility in our country counties.
A perfectly natural result has been honest
but inefficient and wasteful county
government in the South, or so as a rule.
The remedy tor this sad state of afl'airs,
as Thomas Jeft'erson clearly saw a hun
dred years ago, lies in organized com
munity life and local discipline in right
eous self-rule. It is essential to the per
petuity of American democracy and the
lack of it threatens our entire civic struc
ture, said he. Our Rural Township In
corporation law is a tardy recognition of
Thomas Jefferson’s wisdom.
The law is two years old and, because
it rests upon our ancient rights of local
option in static farm areas, township or-
gamliation under this law is slow—so slow
that only six communities in North Caro
lina are so far organized even on paper.
It is a hopeful experiment of the right
S'li t, and ill time it will head-up into
great results.
Social Welfare Laws
best you ttiink me a Bourbon and not
a demociat in political philosophy, let me
burry to say that I think of legislation as
related to sorial aspiration and efi’ort
about as I think of the steel tubing in a
Hudson River tunnel.
The tube of steel is indispensable to
permanency. So are law and civic ma
chinery necessary to give form and per
manency to social activity. Of course I
believe that true democracy is the out
ward evidence of inner grace and worth;
that it must be developed from within
and cannot be imposed from without.
But ours is a represented democracy.
Our own representatives make our laws
and, if they are unfit, sooner or later we
freely elect new representatives and re
peal obnoxious laws.
Such reform legislation as I have dis
cussed is not dropped down from above
like manna; it is grown out of the social
soil under the hand of our chosen civic
servants.
This I know—a vast deal of the gospel
of cooperation, say, has gone to waste in
America, because it has lacked fit legal
sanction in state legislation. Cooperative
credit unions, for instance, are rapidly
developing in North Carolina because we
have what other states lack—an effective
cooperative enterprise law.
Our local welfare problems are being
directly attacked by county juvenile
courts, county public welfare boards,
county probation, parole, and school at
tendance officers, and county factory in
spectors charged with enforcing our child
labor law. There is nothing new to you
in these forms of social activity, except
perhaps the fact that these county boards
and officials have come into existence in
North Carolina under state-wide compul
sion and not by community choice as in
other states.
It is highly significant that a rural, in
dividualistic people has at last been will
ing to lay aside the sacred rights of local
option and to choose instead the sacred
rights of childhood as an imperious com
monwealth concern. A full four-fifths
of our children are country children and
they have long suffered from the social
inactivity of remote rural counties; not
more nor worse in North Carolina than
in similar counties in other states—say in
Clinton and Franklin countks New York
state, or in Fayette county rennsylvania,
or in AVindbam county Connecticut, or
in Aroostook county Maine, or in the
delta regions of South Illinois.
But at last tlie great common heart of
North Carolina has heard the cry of her
cliiUlren, and as a state slie has sounded
a call to the colors for a grand army at
tack upon the enemies of childhood—up
on poor schools in rural areas, upon bad
health conditions, upon the benumbing
drudgery and unrelieved loneliness of
life in solitary farm homes. Nothing
less than this will avail to explain the
ground 'swell of legislative reform in
North Carolina. AVhen one stops to
think it through, it becomes plainer than
a pikestaff that our radical legislative re
forms are sourced in a newly awakened,
immense concern about the children of
North Carolina.
The simple fact is that every really
worth while economic and social activity
is related to the supreme purpose of mak
ing ‘this dirty little spot in space that
men call earth,’ a safer and happier
place for children to be born into and to
grow up in. This is the very essence of
the mind and message and meaning of
Miss Lathrop to this generation of men
and women the world around. May God
multiply her kind ten thousand times
over in every land and country.—E. C.
Branson, National Social-AVork Coilfer-
ence, Atlantic City, June 5, 1919.