North Carolina Newspapers

The 'news in this publi- THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA laSi HnansMI Published Weekly by the : cation is released for the W University of North Caro- press on receipt. lina for its University Ex- tension Division. MAKCH 22, 1922 CHAPEL HILL, N. C. VOL. VILT, ISO. 18 BJitorial Board . E. 0. Bronson, S. H. Hobba. Jr., L. K. Wilaon, E. W. Knisht, D. D. Carroll, J.B. Enllllt, H. W. Odum. Entered os socond-oloBa matter Movembor 14,1914, at the Postofflco at clitipol Hill, N. O., under the act of Aajjust 24, 1912. SAVED: $116,000,000 Bank account savings and coopera tive credit unions, as self-help agencies for overcoming home and farm tenancy, were discussed at the last meeting of the North Carolina Club at the Univer sity. Mr. R. F. Marshburn, of Duplin county, made a report on bank account savings in North Carolina and the United States, while credit unions - were explained by Miss Bertha Austin, of Alabama. Bank account savings are obviously an index of the thrift of the less-wealthy masses and a medium through which many of the poorest rise from poverty into property ownership. For this reason the North Carolina Club has been con sidering the fuller utilization of savings- bank facilities as one of the possible ways of escaps out of tenancy for thrifty tenants in city and country areas. In 1920 the bank account savings in the 623 banks of North Carolina repre sented a per capita average for the whole state of $45.39, which is a gain of 389 perceiit over the average in 1915, namely $9.28. During the five-year | period between 1915 and 1920 the total ] bank account savings increased from $22,010,-650 to $116,154,000, placing North Carolina in the position of twenty- first among the states of the Union. In total bank account savings we rank along with the larger and wealthier states, but in savings per inhabitant we hold a lower rank. North Carolina ranks much lower in per capita savings than the New England States, which as a group have a per capita average of $264 and lead the entire nation. Among the thirteen Southern states we hold sixth place, South Carolina with her large negro population ranking ahead of us. This is another confirmation of the dis covery of Prof. E. C. Branson, namely that North Carolina is great in wealth production, but weak in wealth-reten tion. If we were as thrifty as the Vermont Yankees we would have nearly one bil lion dollars in bank account savings to day. We make more, they save more. Bank account savings are significant in a study of tenancy because they are a barometer of thrift on the part of the masses—that is, the little people who earn small wages or salaries, or whose incomes are derived from the profes sions and hand trades, or from small farms and businesses. These are the people who for the most part live in- other people’s homes and cultivate other people’s lands. Thus bank ac count savings are in a sense an index of the effort of landless, homeless peo ple to rise into property ownership, for the wealthy do not keep their surpluses in savings banks but invest them in producing enterprises or in stocks and bonds. What tadit Unions Can Do In the next report Miss Austin de fined a cooperative credit union by say ing that it is a cooperative association composed of any number of share hold ing members, who piay be investors or borrowers or both, and who are mutu ally responsible for the success of the organization, the policies of which are shaped by both borrowers and investors. They operate on the principles of (1) one-man-one-vote and (2) patronage dividends. The functions and benefits of a credit union are: 1. It encourages thrift by providing a safe, convenient, and attractive me dium for the investment of savings by its members through the purchase of‘ shares and the deposit of small sav ings. 2. It promotes industry and enter prise by enabling its members to bor row for productive purposes, and, upon occasion, for emergency purposes. 3. It eliminates usury by providing its members when in urgent need with credit at a reasonable cost—which they cannot sometimes otherwise obtain. It teaches its members how capital is assembled, managed, safeguarded, and multiplied by useful employment; it teaches them business methods, self- government, and self-reliance; it devel ops in them a sense of social responsi bility and educates them to a full reali- ization of the value of cooperation. The cooperative credit union is not an experiment. In addition to those that have been established in other parts of the United States and in other coun tries, there are in operation in North Carolina 33 farm credit unions, accord ing to the latest reports- from Raleigh. These organizations have a total of 1,400 members, $20,000 of share capital, $50,000 in deposits, $90,000 in loans, and resources of nearly $100,000. An ex ample of the success of one of these organizations is found in the record of the Carmel credit union in Durham county, which in six months loaned about $7,500, one-third of which was for fertilizer and more than a third to hold cotton against the sudden drop in price. The state depa»'*m'=‘ni of agri culture offers spe''-«a1 in as- tablishing these credit ortraTiiz^iions. The papers of Mr. Iviarshhi:rn and Miss Austin will appear in fall in the 1921-22 Year-Book of the North Carc- lina Club. In round numbers there arc forty four thousand illiterate native born white women in North Carolina according to the 1920 census. If assembled they would fill a city the size cf Charlotte, ; or nearly so. ] They numbered 47,327 away back’ yonder in 1860; seventy years later they were only 3,428 fewer. Which means thatilliteracy, like landlessness, poverty, i and feeble-mindedness, is a self-per petuating social ill. The actual num bers are little changed from year to year, although the ratios dwindle; from 37 percent in 1850 to 10.4 percent in 1920. More than nine-tenths of the white' illiteracy of North Carolina is in the country regions, and almost exactly four-fifths of it is adult illiteracy, Il literacy of all ages, races, and sexes is mainly a problem of rural adults in the South. Less than one-twentieth of it is in our towns and cities. Of the 1,497 white illiterates in Stanly county, for instance, only 161 are under the voting age, and only 140 are in Albemarle, the county-seat town. It is hard to cure (1) because the country schools are everywhere inferior as a rule, and the country homes that breed and shelter the unlettered are scattered, remote, and hard to reach, and (2) because illit erate whites are evei’j'where sensitive and shy. They are the crab-like souls that Victor Hugo describes; before ad vancing light, said he, they steadily re treat into the fringe of darkness. Who These Women Ax-e They are white women. They are our very own kitli, kin, and kind.. They are prospective voters who cannot read ^ a ballot or write their names. They ' aYe older daughters, \/ives, mothers, ' who determine the character and the ^ culture of homes, in woman’s immemo- rial way. They cannot read a letter or ' a newspaper or the Bible. They cannot study the Sunday-school lessons with their children or use a song book at, church. They are the women who un-, aware sign away their homes and dow ers with a cross mark. These are the - women who ate their hearts out in dumb agony during the World War. - Their absent sons and brothers were as dead. Absent—that’s about all that most of them knev/; swallowed up by ; the big outside unknown world; gone • somewhere, they hardly knew .where;; The camps at home, the trenches over^ j seas, Flanders, the Somme, the Ar-1 gonne were all one to them. Their loved j ones were gone—lust in the sealed si-1 lences of illiteracy; that much theyj knew and little n.ore. Whether safe and well, or ill or maimed for life, or dead, they did not know and many of them do not know till tnis good day, as the authorities in Washington will tell you. Ephraim’s Curse The essential curse of illiteracy lies in the,auffocating loneliness it imposes. (Released week beginning March20) KNOW NORra CAROLINA What Carolina Meeds North Carolina cannot live on its past. Wliat are we willing to give toward its future? Within the bound aries of this commonwealth are all the requisites for the building of a great state—soil, climate, natural resources, means of communication, and an aspiring people. North Carolina needs faith in her self. To believe that the golden age lies in the past rather than in the future is a denial of faith. When the backward look dominates a peo ple it is already in the first stages of decay. North Carolina needs a revision of Us organic law. The present con stitution must be made to square with the facts of modern times. A cuiic>tiLution which does not grow wii'i ?' progressive people is destined i.i time to become a barrier to fur ther progress. North Carolina needs a country life commission. A state whose pop ulation is eighty percent rural can never go far beyond the average standard of living of its farming people. The cooperative movement i& an indication that the farmer pur poses to have a more distinct voice in his economic affairs. But, man does not live by bread alone—even though the bread be made from wheat scientifically grown and co operatively marketed. The good things of life—education, recreation, health, culture—may all come to the residents of cities in their compact groups without additional stimulus from the state. A country life com mission would interest itself in pro moting a more equal distribution of these good things to the food-pro ducers. North Carolina needs an earnest, concentrated campaign to wipe out the blot of illiteracy. The level of a state’s progress must always be gauged by the extent of the people’s ability to share in the thoughts, hopes, aspirations, discoveries, and movements of humanity. So long as North Carolina has a white illit eracy rate higher than that of 46 other states in the Union, her level of progress will be lower than it ought to be. “Great is our heritage of hope, and great The obligation of our civic fate, ’’ - E.^C. Lindeman, Professor of So ciology, N. C. College for Women. The world the illiterates live in is main ly the little world of the home and the neighborhood. They are cabbined, crib bed, confined by the here and the now. They are heirs of all the ages, to be sure, but they cannot claim their birth rights. The accumulated wisdom of the race reaches them in traditions passed on by v;ord of mouth alone. The great tidal-waves of history break in tiny ripples on their far distant shores only after many days. They are oftentimes dowered by nature with magnificent possibilities, their brains and fingers are nimble, their characters are sub stantial, fine, and capable, but they live in a pint-cup world where the larg est men are small and the largest achievements little—a drab and unin spiring world. Their wits stew in their own broth, they fry in their own fat. Oftentimes they are people of the very finest character and capacity, good neighbors and upright, law-abiding cit izens. The unlettered are not neces sarily stupid in brain and sodden in life, but they have only a bare chance to cash-in their possibilities at their full value. They may be and often are gems of purest ray serene, but they are lost in the dark, unfathomed caves of illiteracy, the world forgetting and by the world forgot. They are dia monds in the rough that never can be marketed for lack of polish. Natively great without letters, as they frequently are, they fail of the full greatness they might have achieved, and so they die unwept, unhonored, and unsung. ihe tragedy of their lives wrung the heart of Carlyle. That one soul should die ignorant that had a ca pacity for learning—that, said he, I call the tragedy of tragedies, were it to happen twenty times a minute as by some computations it does. These are the tragedies that appeal to men and women of heart in North Carolina—to teachei’s and preachers, to church and Sunday-school workers alike. And the response by the church ought to be as prompt and full as the response of the state, ^literacy and tenancy are the deadliest menaces the church confronts in western civilization. It was so in Israel in Isaiah’s time; it is so today in America; it is so in the South where two-thirds of all the tenants and seven-tenths of all the native white il literates of the nation are massed. And let us make no mistake about it: as long as we have excessive white farm ten ancy we shall have excessive country illiteracy. Neither can be cared with out curing the other. We are not unconcerned about illit eracy and ignorance among the negroes. On the contrary we are deeply moved by it. But we are centering attention on white illiteracy at present, because in the South, we lightly wave the whole matter aside saying. Oh, that’s a negro problem! We are trying to make it clear that it is also a white man’s prob lem, to be heroically attacked for the sake of ourselves and our own as well for the sake of our brothers in black. Where They Are Our illiterate white women are scat tered all over the state, ranging in ac tual numbers from 69 in Hoke where they are fewest, to 1781 in Wilkes which foots the illiteracy column both in ac tual numbers and in ratios, for both men and women. They are fewer than one hundred each in Warren, Pender, Chowan, Currituck, Camden, Hoke, and Tyrrell. They are more than one thou sand each in Forsyth, Johnston, Gaston, Surry, and Wilkes. They make a coun ty-wide school tax of 67 cents, as pro posed in Johnston county, look like a picayune. And these are illiterate white women! Look at the multitude of them, county by county, in the table elsewhere in this issue. In general the Albemarle counties make the best showing, the mid-state counties the next best showing, and the worst showing of ^11 is made by the lower Cape Fear country, the contig uous Tidewater, and the mountain coun ties. New Hanover with its 'county- wide school system stands out as a bril liant exception, both in 1910 and in 1920, but even New Hanover overtops the average of native adult white female illiteracy in the country-at-large—3.1 percent in New Hanover against 2.8 percent in the United States. In thirteen counties of the state illit erate native white women of voting age are one in every six; in Graham and Yancey, they are one in every five; in Wilkes they are more than one in every four! And this in spite of the heroic efforts of a devoted county school superintendent. ' But look at the list. See how many counties make a better showing than your home county. Get busy with this problem. Let him alone, was the curse laid on Ephraim. Don’t lay Ephraim’s curse on these wives, mothers, and daughters; don't pass them by on the other side, like the priest and the Le- vite. If the illiteracy of white men or of negroes does not move you, perhaps the tragedy of the forgotten white women of North Carolina can do it. Call in Miss Kelly and organize your county to support her brilliant plans for the State Bureau of Adult Community Schools. ILLITERATE NATIVE WHITE WOMEN IN N. C. Twenty-one Years Old and Over Based on advance sheets of the U. S. Census for 1920. The average of the state in 1920 was 10.4 percent; total number 43,990. U. S. average of native white illiterate females 21 years old and over, 2.8 percent. S. H. Hobbs, Jr., Rural Social Science Department, University of North Carolina. Rank County Pet. Illit. No. Illit. Rank County Pet. Illit. No. Illit. 1 New Hanover 3.1 189 49 Transylvania 9.8 190 2 Mecklenburg. 4.3 608 52 Polk 9.9 162 3 Warren 4.4 81 63 Caswell...... 10.3 393 4 Craven 4.6 158 53 Jones 10.3 120 5- Hoke 4.9 59 63 Perquimans.. 10.3 130 6 Guilford 6.0 789 56 Carteret .... 10.4 344 j 7 Lee 5.5 129 56 Rockingham 10.4 799 1 Pender 6.5 94 68 Hyde 10.5 -133 ! 9 Buncombe .. 6.9 826 58 Person 10.5 257 .10 Rowan 6.0 492 60 Alexander .. 10.8 292 ‘11 Northampton 61 Tyrrell 10.9 91 ,11 Orange ((e.f y204. l61 Union 10.9 648 13 Halifax 6^8 m 63 Cherokee..., 11.1 363 !14 Granville 6.9 230 63 Sampson .... 11.1 603 14 Iredell 6.9 516 65 Nash 11.2 610 16 Moore 7.0 259 66 Cabarrus ... ; 11.8 764 17 Vance 7.1 218 66 Rutherford.. 11.8 752 IS Chowan 7.3 92 68 Scotland .... 11.9 186 18 Wayne 7.3 465 69 Lincoln 12.0 437 20 Alamance ... 7.4 486 69 McDowell.... 12.0 398 20 Pitt 7.4 367 71 Montgomery 12.6 327 22 Durham .... .Y 7.5 589 71 Robeson .... 12.6 792 22 Wake 7.5 890 73 Duplin .... 13.0 552 24 Chatham 7.8 299 74 Johnston .. 13.2 1074 25 Beaufort 8.0 354 74 Stanly 13.2 687 26 Gates 8.0 109 76 Ashe 13.8 682 25 Hertford 8.0 131 77 Davie 13.9 404 28 Bertie 8.1 203 77 Haywood .... 13.9 704 28 Bladen 8.1 217 79 Clay 4-4. a 049 30 Cumberland .. 8.2 424 79 Yadkin ,^4 ^ 31 Currituck ... 8.3 94 81 Cleveland..,. 32 Pamlico 8.5 118 82 Greene 14.8 262 33 Harnett 8.6 393 83 Wilson 15.1 727 33 Washington .. 8.6 117 84 Gaston 15.3 1488 35 Anson 8.9 278 85 W»tflngn 35 Forsyth 8.9 1073 86 Madison 16.4 706 36 Henderson.... 8.9 365 87 Caldwell .... 16.5 693 38 Catawba 9.2 622 88 Bui'ke 16.7 856 38 Davidson 9.2 674 88 Dare 16.7 186 40 Macon 9.3 266 90 Surry 17.0 1140 40 Pasquotank .. 9.3 232 91 Columbus.... 17.2 796 42 Franklin 9.4 320 91 Onslow 17.2 385 42 Richmond .... 9.4 336 93 Jackson 17.6 471 44 Camden 9.5 74 94 Mitchell 18.1 434 44 Martin.. 9.5 231 95 Stokes 18.4 718 46 Alleghany..,. 9.6 104 96 Swain 18.9 457 47 Lenoir 9.7 371 97 Avery 19.3 396 47 Randolph .... 9.7 655 98 Graham 20.6 198 49 Brunswick.... 9.8 203 99 Yancey 21.3 672 49 Edgecombe .. 9.8 875 100 Wilkes 25.3 1781