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 its Bureau of-^Sx-
tension.
■if® ■■■
MARCH 16, 1921
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. VII, NO. 17
Editorial Board  E. C. Braiison, L. R. Wilson, E. W. Knight, D. D. Carroll, J. B. Bullitt.
Entered as second-class matter Novenaber 14,1914, at the Postoffice at Chapel Hill, N. C., under the act of August 24,1912.
^ ,
THE PRINCIPAL THING
The gentlemen of the appropriations
committee of the house listened last
night to a plea for North Carolina more
important than any other that has come
to their ears. The men and women who
stood before that committee were beg
ging, not for material prosperity, nor
for greater comfort, not for increase of
luxuries, not in behalf of the flesh and
blood of North Carolina, but in behalf
of her spirit.
This legislature has wrought boldly
and well for the commercial prosperity
of the state. The passage of the high
way bill was an achievement for the
material good of the state worthy to be
ranked with the most notable in its his
tory. It means millions of dollars in
the pockets of Tar Heels, a vast increase
in the comforts, conveniences and lux
uries of life for all the people. Can this
legislature afford to be less bold and
energetic in providing for the intellec
tual and spiritual development of North
Carolina?
What shall it profit a man if he gain
the whole world and lose his own soul?
Riches are d’esirable only if their pos
sessor has also theTpiritual wealth that
alone will enable him to control materi
al wealth and use it for worthy ends.
North Carolina might become rich be
yond the dreams of avarice, but if she
allowed her mind and heart to remain
stunted and undeveloped, her last state
would be worse than her first.
North Carolina’s Boast
It has been North Carolina’s boast in
the past—and who will deny that it was
a true one?—that she has never bent
her knee to the golden calf. Who are
the most eminent men in North Carolina,
even to this day? Her millionaires?
Not unless they possess something more,
and more difficult of attainment, than
money. One of the finest things that
can be said of this state is the fact that
she possesses obscure millionaires. Mon-
«y alone is not yet sufficiently powerful
in this state unaided to lift a North Ca
rolinian into eminence.
But will that proud boast still be just
ified if we devote our attention exclus
ively to the improvement of our materi
al conditions? Not for long.
In the educational program that is be
ing presented to the legislature a de
mand is being made upon our lawmak
ers to set North Carolina’s creed before
the world as a belief in mental as well
as in material progress; a whole-hearted
subscription to the ancient, eternal truth,
“Wisdom is the principal thing; there
fore get wisdom; and with all thy get
ting, get understanding.’’—Greensboro
News.
STATE BOND ISSUES
The building programs of the ten state
institutions of liberal learning and tech
nical training call for $14,644,000 during
the next six years. This is the budget
total of these institutions as submitted
to the State Budget Commission-not
twenty million dollars, as careless peo
ple are saying.
They forget that the twenty million
dollars named covers five and a third
millions for the nine state institutions
of benevolence. The proposed bond is
sue concerns state benevolence as well
as state education.
During the last six years the public
school fund of the state has been almost
exactly doubled; the increase has been
from six million dollars in 1916 to twelve
million dollars in 1920. And the public
school properties of the state have risen
in value from ten and a half'millions to
twenty-four millions in a single year.
These grand totals, mind you, include
high-school properties and high-school
maintenance.
Over against 24 millions invested in
public school properties at present, the
state has invested only seven million
dollars, in round numbers, in her ten
schools of technical training and liberal
culture. If the state has neglected any
thing it has been her schools of liberal
learning and technical training. - What
they need in order to double their ca
pacity within the next six years is four
teen and a half million dollars; not 20
millioji dollars, mind you, but fourteen
and a half million.
Timid People
Timid people are appalled at a state
bond issue of fourteen million dollars for
college expansion. And most or all of
these people are mighty good people;
they are merely staggered by the pro
posal to invest liberally in a great state
enterprise.
But the time has come when we must
all learn to think in big terms about vital
causes in North Carolina—church causes,
highways, public health, public welfare,
college education, and so on. We are
rich, but riches alone will never salt our
civilization down unto salvation. And
riches selfishly used will curse us incur
ably. Our salvation does not lie in
wealth, much or little. The destiny of
this state turns upon our willingness to
convert our wealth into commonwealth
culture and character.
Twenty million dollars is not much of
a bond issue for two and a half million
people in a state like North Carolina.
It is only eight dollars per inhabitant,
and it means a per capita tax of only
forty-eight cents a year for thirty-six
years—not for state colleges alone but
for the benevolent institutions of the
state as well. It is a mortal pity that
the bare thought of it seems to throw
into convulsions a lot of excellent peo
ple here and there.
The Nerve of Los Angeles
What we need is the nerve, say, of
Los Angeles. Ten years ago this little
city of three hundred thousand deliber
ately saddled upon itself a bonded debt
of thirty-three million dollars, or more
than a hundred dollars per inhabitant,
to install a water-supply system and to
build a municipal harbor thirty miles
away. And, by the way, to get the
water they needed, they siphoned across
canyons, tunneled through mountains,
and digged through alkali deserts for
two hundred and thirty miles. The city
now has two hundred and sixty-five mil
lion gallons of snow water from the
base of Mount Whitney daily, enough
for a city of three million people. And
her man-made harbor is the safest on
the Pacific coast, says Admiral Rodman.
Does it pay to invest like this in com
munity progress and prosperity ? It has
paid Los Angeles. In forty years the
city has multiplied its population fifty-
five times over. The manufacturing
capital it has attracted is greater than
of our entire state. The bank de
posits of this one city almost exactly
equal the bank resources of the whole
state of North Carolina.
Three hundred thousand people in Los
Angeles marched right up to a twenty-
six-million water bond issue without a
scintilla of doubt aboutJ;he wisdom of
it; The two and a half million people
of North Carolina are now face to face
with a bond issue of twenty million dol
lars for state colleges and state insti
tutions of benevolence.
Have we the nerve? Have we any
thing like the nerve of Los Angeles?
Have we the courage to invest in edu
cation and benevolence with anything
like the civic wisdom of a little • Pacific
coast town set in the edge of an alkali
desert?
Where Our Wealth L^es
North Carolina is a state of marvel
ous natural resources. The truth is,
nature has done so much for us in North
Carolina that we have done precious
little for ourselves. We have been timid
about investing in ourselves as a state,
and we have trifled with amazing op
portunities. Somehow we cannot seem
to learn that our greatest resources are
hid away in the souls of the youth of
the state. The real wealth of North
Carolina does not lie in the veins of ore
in our hills; it lies in the. veins and
brains of our sons and daughters. And
we must search for this wealth as for
hidden treasure.
Twenty million dollars looks enormous
to two and a half million people in North
Carolina; but thirty-three millions looked
like a trifle to three hundred thousand
people in Los Angeles who were willing
to stake their city against the world.
As for North Carolina, we’ll stake
her against the universe—that is to say,
if she’ll only give her boys and girls a
fair chance and a square deal.
EDUCATION AND RELIGION
Calvin Coolidge
I speak in behalf of higher educa
tion. There is need not only of pa
triotic ideals and a trained intelli
gence in our economic life, but also
of a deep understanding of man and
his relationship to the physical uni
verse and to his fellow man. There
has always been evil in the world.
There are evil forces at work now.
/ ■
They are apparently organized and
seek the disintegration of society.
They can almost be recognized by
their dir^t appeal to selfishness. They
deny that the present relationship of
men has any sound basis for its ex
istence. They point out to men with
untrained minds that it takes effort
to maintain themselves and support
government and claim that they
ought to exist without effort on the
accumulation of others. They deny
that men have any obligations to
ward one another. The answer to
this lies in a knowledge of past hu
man experience and a realization of
what man is. v...
The sources of the state of mind
which’supports civilization are edu
cation and religion. We hol’d by the
modern standards of society. We
believe in maintaining modern civili
zation for the protection and support
of free government and the develop
ment of the economic welfare.
The great test of an insti^ptlon is
the ability to perpetuate itself. It
seems fairly plain that these institu
tions can survive with the aid of
higher education. Without it they
have not the slightest-chance.
We justify the greater and greater
accumulation of capital because we
believe that therefrom flows the sup
port of all science, art, learning and
the charities which minister to the
humanities of life, all carrying their
beneficent effects to the people as a
whole.
Unless this is measurably true, our
system of civilization ought to stand
condemned.
COUNTRY HOME CONVENIENCES
LETTER SERIES No. 44
FARM WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Waste of Woman Power
The farm wife has been called the
most important factor on the farm yet
very little has been done to make her
work*easier and to save her health and
strength. Each day is crowded with
tasks that have to be done and most
country homes are not equipped with
labqr and time-saving devices that take
the drudgery out of woman’s work,
make their working hours shorter and
leave some time for the rest and amuse
ment that are rightfully theirs. The
farm home today is operated “by hand”
to almost as great an extent as when
women did the cooking in ovens set di
rectly on coals, sewed all garments
with hand-needles and did the washing
down by the spring with sawed-off half
barrels as tubs. Progress seems almost
to have passed the farm women by.
A Striking Contrast
Long ago the assistance and value of
mechanical power for the farm was re
alized and today the average farmer has
mechanical help to carry on his plowing,
his harvesting, and even his milking.
These mechanical aids give him a pro
ducing capacity double that of his
grandfather.
A recent survey shows that only half
the farms having power-machinery for
farm purposes had also the power-ma
chinery for home uses. The averge farm
er’s wife is still carrying on her part of
the farm work with almost the same
tools and conveniences, or lack of them,
that served her grandmother. When we
consider that it is a simple matter to
connect the' engine used in the barn
with the household equipment it seems
singular that more homes do not have
the advantages of machine power.
The Farmer’s Duty
It is not right that women should be
compelled to accomplish their tasks by
grace of human strength alone. As pow
er on the farm is the greatest of time
and labor-savers for the farmer so pow
er in the home is the greatest blessing
to'the housewife. Comfortable and con
venient homes are the right of every
woman.
In ^every ocupation it has b.^n found
that shortened working hours, improved
working conditions and living sur
roundings are necessary for the success
of the work. It is not right that the
greatest profession—that of home ma
king-should have to be carried on with
such a great sacrifice of woman power.
It is up to the farmer to equip his
home with water works, a lighting sys
tem, a first- class washing machine and
all of the things which will not only in
crease the comforts of his home, but
will lighten the burdens of his wife who
keeps up his home. He owes this to his
wife just as he owes to his country
courage and obedience to the law.—A. N.
COUNTY FEES AND SALARIES
■Various counties in North Carolina are
discussing the fee anif the salary sys
tems of paying county officers. Some
of the salary counties want to drop back
to the fee system; some of the fee
counties want to move up into the sal
ary system of paying county officials.
At present almost exactly half the
counties of the state are on the ancient
fee system. They are usually remote
rural counties, with small populations,
that collect less than seventy-five Thous
and dollars a year all told for all pur
poses, state and county. This is true
of all but ten of the fee counties, which
undoubtedly ought to move up upon a
salary basis; provided, of course, county
salaries are sufficiently large to attract
competent men—wherein most of the
salary counties fail and fail so egregi-
ously that we cart well understand the
dissatisfaction with the salary system
here and there.
For instance, there are very few coun
ties in the state that pay the sheriff a
sufficiently large salary. As for the
clerks of court, the pay' they get for
what they do is ridiculous in most coun
ties. They ought to have more money
at once.
On the other hand, when the total of
tax receipts >in a county is more than
seventy-five thousand dollars a year, it
is wise to pay county officials on a sal
ary basis. The salaries ought io be
liberal, and all salaried officials ought
to be closely enough supervised to see
that they are diligent in business, serv
ing the county. And the public oughtTo
be fully advised of their diligence or lack
of diligence. It is information the tax
payers ne^d when election days’ come
round. i
The Salary Plan Fault
Under the salary system the county
officials are required to collect the cus
tomary fees and commissions and to
turn these over to the county treasurer
to be placed in a fund out of which court
house salaries are paid. The temptation
is to neglect to collect these fees and
commissions, since they do not go into
the private pockets of office holders
as under the fee plan; and the result in
our salary counties is that the salary
fund steadily dwindles until it is soon
too small to pay the courthouse salaries.
This has been true in every one of our
salary counties, with only a few excep
tions. Salaried officials fail to do their
full duty, nobody knows in detail what
their failures are, and the general pub
lic only knows that the last estate of
the county is worse than the first. Or
so it is in most salary counties.
Practically everywhere courthouse
bookkeeping is on the old cash-book
plan; there is no effective supervision
of county office finances, no state-wide
auditing of courthouse accounts, as eas
ily there might be—as, for instance,
after the plan of state-wide auditing of
state banks by the bank examiners of
the State Banking Commission.
A State Auditing Bureau
What we ought to have is a state au
diting bureau with competent field
agents, auditing state department ac
counts, county accounts, municipal ac
counts, and institutional accounts. All
agencies that handle public money in
North Carolina ought to be under sys
tematic oversight and auditing. And
this state auditing bureau ought to de
vise simple forms for public accbunt-
keeping, balance sheets, and financial
■reports; so that one city can be con
trasted with every other city in unit
expenditures for public purposes, one
county with every other county, one
institution with every other institution.
At present there is no way of judging
how well or ill any set of public officials
is handling public moneys.
Such public accounting ought to be
developed as a bureau in the office of
the state auditor, and the state audi
tor ought to be everything that nis of
ficial title implies.
We are discussing many things in
this legislature, but a few abc things
like this are fundamentally important,
and these fundamental things ought
not to be overlooked.
Durham Can Do It
Hon. Baxter Durham, our state audi
tor, is fully and competently advised of
the necessity and the manner of state
wide auditing systems. He can easily
present to th'e legislature a satisfactory
bill, and doubtless would do so if called
upon, as he ought to be during the
present session of the legislature.
The above suggestions grow out of
the •^'ranklin county reports giving
detailed figures of the salary fund in
Franklin ’ county. See The Franklin
Times of Februrary 4.
So far as we know, there are only .
five other counties of the state that
give county taxpayers an exhibit of this
sort—Forsyth, Guilford, Wake, New
Hanover, and Robeson. There may be
others; if so, we should like to know
about them. People who are interested
in county finance—and every intelligent
voter ought to be so interested—would
do well to look at the Franklin county
report. What the voters of every
county should know about the home
county the Franklin taxpayers have a
chance to know about Franklin. .
We congratulate Messrs. A. J. Joy
ner and C. C. Hudson, the finance com
mittee of the Franklin county commis
sioners.
THE NERVE OF BALTIMORE
In the early forties there were two
little villages on the shores of the Ches
apeake. One was a little fishing village
at Hampton Roads^ with a fair chance
to become the greatest city on the At
lantic seaboard this side of New York
city. The other was a little flour-mill
center on the banks of the Patapsco,
far up the bay.
These little villages were Norfolk
and Baltimore.
When Baltimore voted a tax of $3.75
a hundred for town purposes, Norfolk
said, “Baltimore is headed into bank
ruptcy. Baltimore is committing de
liberate suicide. No town can pay a
tax rate like that and survive. ’ ’
And the result—well, the result is a
little city of a hundred twelve thousand
people on the one hand, and a big city
of seven hundred thousand people on
the other. Norfolk, with a low tax
rate, had missed a God-given chance of
being a great city. Baltimore, with a
high tax rate, created a chance of her
own.
Prosperity is always expensive. The
least expensive civilization we know is
that of Dahomey, where nobody pays
any taxes and where nobody wears any
clothes to speak of.
So reads the lesson.
Here are questions that ought to be
uppermost in the mind of intelligent
people: Do great public necessities call
for tax levies and bond issues? Are
they a wise investment in community
or commonwealth progress and pros
perity? Is the ability of the people, in
this or the next generation, equal to
the tax burden? Will the funds be hon
estly and competently administered-
will every dollar of taxes yield a' full
dollar’s worth of public benefit?
All these questions are iihportant but
the most important is the last, now that
we have begun to invest millions in
state enterprises.
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