North Carolina Newspapers

The news in this publi cation is released for the press on receipt. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA NEWS L Published Weekly by the University of North Caro lina for its University Ex tension Division. FEBRUARY 1,1922 CHAPEL HILL, N. C. VOL. VIII, NO. 11 Ediiorlal Uostrd . E. C. Branson, S. H. HoSbs, .Tr., L. E. Wilson, E. W. Knicht, D. D. Carroll,:.!. B. Bullitt, H. W. Odum. Entered as soeond-olasa matter Xovomber 14,1914, at the Poatoffioe at Chapel HiU, N. C., under the act of Auitust 84, 191S TOWN AND COUNTIY TEMANCf million town and y dwellers in the United States WHY JOHN SMITH, TENANT? The fundamental causes of home and farm tenancy, under the handicap of which fifty-seven counti^; are now laboring, were exhibited Mon day evening at a meeting of the North Carolina Club of the University, in a report by C. R. Edney, of Mars Hill, who has been making a special study of this particular phase of the general sub ject. This report came as a sequel to the various studies made last fall by the Club on the extent of tenancy, in which it was found that the large and steadily increasing masses of landless, homeless people in the state and the nation cre ate a problem that calls for solution, the safety of civilization considered. The remainder of the year will be de voted (1) to the effects of tenancy, and (2) to the proposed methods of stimu lating and aiding home and farm owner ship. ' After introductory remarks showing the evil effects of tenancy and the im portance of solving the problem, Mr. Edney outlined the four main causes of tenancy, as follows: 1. Heredity—mainly the poverty, il literacy, insanitary living, ill health, ants of the South live and by which they are destroyed.” While the purpose of Mr. Edney’s study was merely to outline the causes of tenancy, he does not stop without suggesting the remedies which have already been tried out in other coun tries, namely, a progressive land tax, a transfer tax, a death tax that fairly di vide the unearned increment with the community, and the state-aid laws pro moting home and farm ownership on the colony plan, as in Australia, and California. Mr. Edney’s paper appears in full as a chapter in the Club Year-Book, 1921- 22.-J. G. GuUick, Jr. LIBEEAL CULTU8E No man, in my judgment? is liberally ■trained unless his intellectual habits and 1 his cultural possessions are vitalized j and in some way related to the various | spiritual, economic, and social activities of mankind.—Edwin A. Alderman, Pres ident of University of Virginia, in The World’s Work. WELFARE 0FF:CIALS MEET An important new organization is , . , . 1 • 1 4.1 4. 4.1 that of the Southern Executive Officers and hopelessness into which the tenant 1 Departments , of Public Wel- masses are orn. i rpj^jg organization has just been 2. Personaldeficiencies-mainlyalack ^j^g^^g^ij^ with Mrs. Clarence of the home-owning virtues, namely in- Johnson, Commissioner of Public dustry, thrift, sagacity, sobriety, and ^j^Qj.^^D^j.olIna, and Mr. Roy integrity. [ Brown, Field Agent, present and 3. Enveloping social-economic condi-1 taking a prominent part. tions that make it more and more diffi- j additional importance to North cult to buy and pay for farms and city j Carolinians was the request of this as- homes—say, (1) under the crop-lien, I the University of North time-price, supply-merchant system of Carolina publish through its School of farm tenancy areas, or (2) under the Welfare a bulletin giving the rack-renting that prevails in town and history and organization of de city centers. j partments in the Southern states. The 4. Civic conditions—mainly in (1) the story will be prepared by officials in laws of western civilization defining each state, compiled by Mr. Burr Black- private property ownership, and in (2) bum of Georgia and published by the the prevailing system of taxing land j University of North Carolina for ser- values. vice in the Southern states, the depart- Any plan or scheme or law aimed at ’ ments of which will take sufficient promoting home and farm ownership copies to finance the venture. Mr. G. must take all these causes into consid-, Groft Williams, Secretary of the South oration. All of them are human nature ' Carolina State Board of Public Welfare, causes, individual and social; that is to ! was elected President of this associa- say, they inhere in the very nature of tion. human nature. Speaking of these causes, Mr. Edney said in part: “Heredity goes a long way toward ^ c. • i t j a explaining John Smith,' Tenant. The North Carolma Social Laws and Agen. THE CAROLINA HANDBOOK The distribution of the ilandbook of (Released for week l^eginning Janu ary 30.) KNOW NORTH CAROLINA Morrison’s Program Make the state’s charitable insti tutions adequate for the treatment and care of the state’s unfortunates. Increase the strength and power of the departmentof healthfor caring for the physical welfare of the people. Increase the common and high schools and equip them better for educating the children of the state. Prepare the higher institutions'of learning for properly receiving the ever-increasing number of graduates turned out by the high schools. Establish a state highway system and make the main highway of the state dependable every day in the year, the state forcing the construc tion of highways,, eliminating the piece-meal system and going forward with as much rapidity and vigor as “strength and sound business will permit.” He who defiles the law, either by stealth or overgrown power, will be made to suffer for his selfish con tempt of decency and right. These are the high spots, so to speak, in the governor’s inaugural address in January 1921, touching upon the more significant progress ive measures that he advocated and for which he has successfully fought every day he has been in office.— Greensboro News. cooperation are absolutely necessary. Such cooperation will cut by one-half the number of those doomed to asylum lives.—James Hay, Jr., Asheville Citi zen. the list of reading references, with brief descriptions of the services they offer. Professor Meyer is available for com munities that wish to undertake organ ized play. Further information and bul letins may be received free of cost by addressing the University Extension Division. THE ALTAR OF IGNORANCE Fifty per cent of the loss and suffer ing caused by insanity is preventable. The statement comes from the National Committee on Mental Hygiene. Think what it means! It means that the pop ulation of the insane asylums of North Carolina could be cut in half. It means average tenant is not only afflicted by “e® prepared two years ago ^ that thousands of our citizens hav^ one or more of the above mentioned by the American Eed Cross has been been, and are being, sacrificed under personal causes, but he is usually a vie- over by the School of P^bhc, the most exquisite torture known to tim of the conditions bequeathed him: Welfare of the Jmversity of North man, to popular ignoi^anee. It means by his progenitors. In other words, 1 Carolina. ] that out of every two persons lying be- heredity is a factor in determining' The University will keep this Hand-1 hind'the walls of imprisonment for m- whether a man will be homeless, land- book revised up to date including new ; sanity one could be leading a useful less poverty-stricken, unaspiring, and amendments which are the results of, life, rearing a family, adding to the hopeless or a sturdy, robust, property- i each succeeding, legislature. Copies wealth and progress of the community, owning citizen. may be had by social workers, educa-! Mothers and fathers, young men and , ' tors and others interested by writing young women, are offered up in crowds A secon exp ana i to the School of Public Welfare, Chapel on the altar of ignorance to a life worse country tenancy lies m a common lack , of ti^e home-owning virtues. These are industry, thrift, sagacity, sobriety, and integrity. Not one alone but all these are necessary to the firm possession of landed property.” Social Poverty “The social-economic causes that cre ate tenancy in country areas are spar sity of population, life in solitary farm steads, a few to the square mile, bar ren social life, poor roads, poor schools, few churches, the absence of farm com- mun'ties, of community spirit, and of cooperative farm enterprise. Under social conditions of this sort a large number of country people become dis contented and move out, to take a chance as tenants in more progressive farm communities, or to become wage- earners in factory centers, or to swell the population of cities. It is obvious that under such conditions tenancy would be more profitable in many re spects in a good community, than farm ownership in a dead or dying country area—as, for instance, in thirty-four counties and three hundred and two country townships in North Carolina. “And furthermore, ‘once a tenant, always a tenant’ is becoming more and more true, because of the share- rent, crop-lien, supply-merchant, time- price system under which the farm ten- THE RURAL PLAYGROUND The University Extension Division has just issued a new bulletin on The Rural Playground, prepared by Profes sor Harold D. Meyer of the School of Public Welfare. The purposes of this bulletin are: “To create more enthusi asm and a more constructive interest in play; to give those interested practi cal suggestions and facts to further such interest in others; to start the play movement by giving a few general games and pointing the way to obtain further material of real worth; to cre ate a finer citizenship through one of the best agencies of proper training, namely, Play; to extend the full ser vices of the Extension Department and the School of Public Welfare in the de velopment of the play movement in North Carolina.” The bulletin includes some discussions of play as a social force, emphasizing the physical, mental, moral, social, and preventive values. It gives a score or more of general suggestions about the methods and ideals of play; discusses the playground and equipment; and lists fifty or more games which may be util- One of the OUSTING THE DAWDLERS Who ought to go to college? Before the war the answer was all-sufficient: Anyone who can pass the entrance examinations. But this democratic form ula is no longer adequate to the needs of the committee on admission, with several applications in hand for every vacancy. The colleges hold a strategic position in this regard that they never before enjoyed. And college presidents are taking advantage of the situation to clear their halls of triflers. There is no room in Wesleyan for any man whose presence is not justified by clear purpose and faithful effort. No one is entitled to a college education who does not earn the right from day to day by strenuous and enthusiastic life; the college is for the ablest and the best, says President Shanklin of Wesleyan University. There is no reason why a boy who comes to college should expect any easier time than a boy who goes to work in a factory or in an office. A col lege is a workshop, and if it is going to maintain its place in the esteem of a nation that has supported it with un stinted generosity we must see that the gospel of honest work is not only taught in the colleges but practiced by all of us who have anything to do with it, says President Richmond of Union College. It is entirely possible to exclude the loafer and the man who is foul-minded, or foul-mouthed, the dull, the sleepy, and the aimless. This year is the time to eliminate all such and keep only those who are of high character and clean minds, says President Faunce of Brown University. School sins are too well known to need discussion. The list includes lack of earnestness, lack of purpose and aim, small appetite for book learning or hard work, and scholarly ambition that rises no higher than “a gentleman’s grade”. For the most part, men have not acquired these as faults in college. The boy that enters a college that is fairly free of such blasting ideas will seldom develop these delinquencies un less personally infected before he enters, says Professor Allen of Lafay ette College.—What the Colleges are Doing, Ginn and Co. FOCH AND LEE It is hardly to be wondered at that the greatest soldier of the twentieth century should take occasion to pay his tribute of admiration and affection to the memory of one of the really great commanders of modern times, a soldier whose military genius was equaled only by the purity of his purpose and the splendor of his charac ter. Soldier-like, Marshal Foch employs few words in answering the anony mous “American Patriot” who had telegraphed him at a Virginia town that Robert E. Lee was “a traitor”. If General Robert E. Lee was a trai tor, said the marshal of France, Napo- lean Bonaparte was a coward. If Gen eral Lee was a traitor, I wish France had more of them. He was one of the greatest military leaders the world has ever known. In winning the World War, Ferdi nand Foch leaned heavily upon the shoulder of Robert E. Lee. It was “the sword of Lee” that flashed on every battlefield in France from the first Battle of the Marne to Armistice Day. Lee’s strategy, revived and employed first by Joffre and later by Foch, held the Hun along the French front, swift to attack, wary to retreat only to at tack again, until at length the Hinden- burg Line was pierced and the enemies of civilization sued for peace. In this estimate of Lee, Marshal Foch takes his stand beside Viscount Wolseley of England, who declared that Lee was the greatest soldier given to the world since the days of Marl borough. —Louisville Courier-Journal. THE DRIFT FROM THE FARM It is rather shocking to be told, and to have the statement strongly support ed, that 9,000,000 bales of cotton, raised on American plantations in a given year, will actually be worth more to the producers than 13,000,000 bales would have been. Equally shocking is the statement that 700,000,000 bushels of wheat, raised by American farmers, would bring them more money than a billion bushels. Yet these are not ex aggerated statements. In a world where there are tens of millions who need food and clothing which they can not get, such a condition is sure to indict the so cial system which makes it possible. In the main the remedy lies in distri bution and marketing. Every proper encouragement should be given to the cooperative marketing programs. There is the appeal for this experi ment. Why not try? No one challenges the right of the farmer to a larger share of the consumer’s pay for his product, no one disputes that we cannot live without the farmer. The base of the pyramid of civiliza tion which rests iipon the soil is shrink ing through the drift of population from farm to city. For a generation we have been expressing more or less concern about this tendency. Econom ists have warned and statesmen have deplored. We thought for a time that modern conveniences and the more in timate contact would halt the move ment, but it has gone steadily on. Per haps only grim necessity will correct it, but we ought to find a less drastic rem edy.—President Harding, Message to Congress. V ized in any country school, most valuable parts of the bulletin is is a thing in which the laity’s help and than death. And fifty percent of these tragedies need never happen! They will cease to be enacted when the public is educated into as much knowledge of nervous mental diseases as it now has of ordinary physical ail ments. We are still putting on cam paigns in every state in the Union to teach people the incipient stages of tu berculosis and other diseases so that these destroyers of health may be re cognized and treated in time to stamp them out without much trouble. There should be at once a similar campaign, nation-wide, on the subject of prevent able and curable nervous mental dis eases. We carry about with us today too much of the middle-ages superstition about mental sickness. We are inclined to regard all forms of it as incurable. We are afraid of it, and ashamed of it. We feel that way about it because we are ignorant of it. Let us all under stand that mental disease can be treat ed like other diseases, let us learn the first manifestations of it in ourselves and in others, and we shall enter upon a more enlightened era. Physicians, the general practitioners, are studying this branch of their science now more than ever. They must pass on their information to the laity. This PUBLIC SCHOOL EXPENDITURES, 1919-20 States ranked according to per capita school expenditures. Figures for Arizona and South Carolina relate to the year 1918-19; those for Texas and Washington, to the year 1917-18. In the United States in 1917-18, total public school expenditures were $644,- 595,145, a per capita expenditure of $6.10. Based on public school statistics published in the American Book Company’s School Calendar for 1922. Department of Rural Social Science, University of North Carolina. Rank State Per capita Total Rank State Per capita Total 1 North Dakota.. ..$20.57 $13,306,205 25 Washington $8.87 $12,035,339 2 Utah, .. 18.26 8,204,830 26 Oklahoma . 8.73 17,715,234 3 Wyoming .. 17.90 3,480,364 27 Vermont . 8.58 3.023,686 4 Montana. .. 17.75 9,744,925 28 Missouri} . 8.24 28,048,051 6 Iowa .. 16.31 39,204,505 29 Maine 7.91 6,078,262 6 Idaho .. 14.37 6,204,865 30 Delaware .. 7.80 1,738,549 7 Oregon .. 14.32 11,217,080 31 Pennsylvania .... . 7.43 64,828,088 8 Nevada .. 14.26 1,103,621 32 Rhode Island ... . 6.90 4,172,349 9 South Dakota.. .. 13.63 Z 8,675,486 33 New Mexico .... . 6.66 2,362,630 9 Nebraska .. 13.68 17,667,610 34 West Virginia .. . 6.26. 9,147,489 11 Kansas .. 12.72 22,612,309 35 New Hampshire . 6.09 2,699,834 12 Indiana .. 12.19 35,714,749 36 Florida . 5.91 6,721,127 13 Minnesota .. 11.84 28,271,667 37 Maryland . 5.65 8,196,441 14 Wisconsin . 11.50 30,280,271 38 Louisiana . 4.94 8,881,151 15 California .. 11.15 38,200,041 39 Tennessee . 4.61 10,785,263 16 Colorado .. 10.45 9,816,132 40 Texas . 4.50 20,962,695 17 Ohio .. 10.19 58,674,184 41 Alabama . 4.48 10,530,500 18 Michigan . 10.13 37,151,445 42 Virginia . 4.47 10,323,600 19 Connecticut.... .. 9.81 13,545,140 43 Kentucky . 3.99 9,660,418 20 New Jersey.... . 9.78 30,854,795 44 Arkansas . 8.85 6,750,000 21 Massachusetts. w 9.50 36,614,623 45 North Carolina.... . 3.74 9,568,743 22 New York .. 9.01 93,585,461 ' 46 Mississippi . 3.53 6,314,535 23 Arizona .. 8.98 2,996,973 47 Georgia . 3.46 10,025;954 24 Illinois . 8.93 57,899,160 48 South Carolina.. . 2.60 4,370,065