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 University Ex
tension Division.
APKII^ 12, 1922
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. VIII, NO, 21
Editorial Board t E. C. Srarison, 8. H. Hobbs, Jr., L. R, Wilson, K. W. Kniuht, D. D. Carroll, J. B. Bulll£t, H. W. Odum. Entered as second-class matter November 14,1914, at the Postoffice at Chapel Hill, N. C., under the act uf August 24, lOlJs.
PAYING TAXES IN NORTH CAIOLINA
STAGGERING TAX BURDENS
Chapel Hill is a little college town of
1500 inhabitants with 1700 more people
in'the student body and faculty of the
State'University. The private property
owners are staggering under a local tax
rate of $1,13 per hundred dollars of list
ed taxables—fifty cents of it for public
school support and sixty-three cents for
all other town purposes, streets and
sidewalks, lire department, police pro
tection, andfthe like.
In Raleigh the taxpayers are stagger
ing under a totaltown and county rate
of $1.98 per hundred of listed taxables,
with a still higher rate in prospect if
the proposed million dollar school bond
issue receives a majority vote in the
approaching election.
In California, we found a little town
with a tax rate of $3.40 for schools alone,
and a total tax rate of $7.30 for town
and county purposes of all sorts. This
little place has a high school property
which alone is valued at $750,000, and
the high school graduates last June
numbered 125. At this rate, Raleigh
ought to have four hundred high school
graduates year by year.
“You needn’t be surprised”, said the
leading local banker. “It’s that way
all over California, The money we
spend on schools, water, and highways,
we don’t call taxes at all; we think of
it as an investment in community prog
ress and prosperity. And believe me,
without water, highways, and schools,
no town in California would be on the
map fifteen minutes. If a man opposes
irrigation, highways, and schools in
California, he doesn’t land in the legis
lature, he lands in the bughouse.”
Think of it! A tax rate of $7.30 per
hundred and nobody kicking, or nobody
that we ran across in six weeks of resi
dence in this little town last summer.
Betting on Carolina
Not taxes but investment! It is a
distinction with a difference—a real dif
ference!
Schools, highways, and health are
not a tax burden. They are a commu
nity investment, a confident bet on the
future of the home town and the home
state, as the best town and the best
state on earth to look at and to live in.
They are public advantages that draw
homeseekers like a magnet, and more
folks mean more chances to sell real es
tate at a profit, more building, more
factories and weekly wage envelopes,
more trade and bigger profits for shop
keepers, bigger deposits in the banks,
bigger business in bank loans and dis
counts, and bigger bank dividends. That
is what they have in mind, when Califor
nians make a distinction between taxes
and investments.
Money for schools, highways, and
health, they consider a dead-sure busi
ness proposition. Money invested in
these advantages comes back at last to
property owners and taxpayers—all of
it and more.
So it will be in Chapel Hill and Ra
leigh. So it will be in the ninety-seven
Tar Heel communities that in 1921 voted
twenty millions of school bonds.
We have begun at last to bet on our
home towns and our home state in the
California way. We have gone far in
Governor Morrison’s day, but we have
a long way yet to go. But we are be
ginning in this state to see a distinction
between town taxes and town invest
ments, county taxes and county invest
ments, state taxes and state invest
ments—just beginning.
Solomon clearly had such a distinction
in mind when he said: There is that
scattereth and yet increaseth; and
there is that withholdeth more than is
meet, but it tendeth to poverty. And
he also said: There is that 'maketh
himself rich and yet hath nothing, and
there is that maketh himself poor
and yet hath great riches.
Enriching Carolina
Taxing ourselves poor for schools,
highways, and health in North Carolina
is a way of getting rich—the only way.
We have long been withholding more
than is meet for these purposes and the
result has been poverty—real poverty:
of purse which is bad, and real poverty
of spirit which is worse, infinitely
worse.
Too poor to educate! said Senator Ben
Hill to the Georgians just after the
Civil War; we are too poor not to edu
cate. The more we pay for education
the richer we become.
A town or a county or a state .bank
rupted by schools, highways, and health!
There is no such place anywhere on.earth.
If so, where is it? Put your finger on it
on the map.
I am a bull on America, said J. P.
Morgan, who was an investment not a
spider-web capitalist, and he sat tight
as a winch While the stocks of the
American Steel Corporation skidded to
ward zero.
And Governor Morrison is a bull on
North Carolina. He believes in North
Carolina and in schools, highwjiys, and
health a% commonwealth builders.
If he bankrupts the state ‘^or these
purposes North Carolina will suddenly
look bigger on the map than California
ever did.
California has climate, but North Ca
rolina has folks—if only the folks them
selves could realize it.
If only we could come to believe in
ourselves and to invest liberally in our
selves and our state in the California
way, that state couldn’t hold a candle !
to this state in a thousand years. [
We are a great state, and we are |
moving toward the top, but we are not ‘
moving fast enough and the top is still [
far above us. f
And speaking of taxation, the two I
main matters in this or any other state :
are (1) tax equalization, and (2) effi-1
ciency in handling public moneys. j
A dollar of service for every dollar ■
of taxes is the cry of the farmers, j
and they are everlastingly right about
it.—E. C. B.
STILL AHEAD
The income tax returns coming to
the office of Gilliam Grissom, collector
of internal revenue, indicate that North
Carolina has been hurt less than any i
other Southern state by the business'
depression. At least this is the im- j
pression the collector has from the re-1
ports he gets from other states. i
About four million dollars have been ,
collected from over 42,000 taxpayers. |
Most of the returns come from the;
smaller taxpayers, for about a thousand
of the larger taxpayers have asked for
and been granted extensions. When
these come in, the collector' believes
that the returns from this state will
run more nearly up to the returns for the
previous year than in any other South
ern state. The revenue will be less
this year because of the business de
pression, and also because of the in
creased exemption allowed married men.
—Raleigh Times.
(Released week beginning April 10)
KNOW NORTH CAROLINA
Hogs in North Carolina
Students now in school will live to
see solid train loads of hogs in North
Carolina going to market.
This business will belong to North
Carolina, not necessarily because of
the boll weevil invasion, but by right
of conquest.
As compared with the corn-belt
farmer, the North Carolina ’farmer
cah produce pork cheaper. He has
a better market. He can hit the
high market before the corn-belt
farmer gluts it.
Immediately someone will question
the first advantage stated above;
he will say, what about that cheap
corn? I can only answer: he raises
it in North Carolina. If a low price
for farm products is an advantage,
the cotton belt should be rolling in
wealth.
We are all aware that a high order
of intelligence is not necessary to
grow cotton; it is of a sort with that
which attempts to starve cheap gains
on a hog, and sells oily hogs out of
the peanut fields on the lowest mar
ket of the year. Profits from such
hogs are, as Ring W. LaVdner would
put it, about as conspicuous as a
dirty finger nail in the third grade.
Profitable pork production is a
man’s game, and it is worth his best
effort. There is nothing in it for the
man who is too indifferent to study
the rules, or too indolent to mix and
feed proper rations.
When the possibilities of pork pro
duction are properly understood
throughout the cotton belt, the un
painted shack will give place to the
modern comfortable home, and happy
smiles will replace care-worn ex
pressions.—W. W. Shay, Swine'Di-
vision, State Farm Extension Ser
vice.
aluminum plant on the globe? How
many know of the wonderful mining
resources in Cherokee and Clay, or of
the water po.wer' in our foothill and
mountain counties? What do they know
of our manufactures, markets, and or
chards, or why the tourists from all
the world come here? When have they
been told that here, at their very doors,
is the garden spdt of the miracle state
of the Union? And what do they know
of the wonders and amazements in the
riches, records, and rise of North Caro
lina as a whole?
If they are not taught these things,
they are deprived of useful knowledge
and robbed of high inspiration. There
is no better, weapon to give a boy for
life’s battle than the realization of the
work which his fathers have done and
he is expected to carry on.—Asheville
Citizen.
THE RURAL PLAYGROUND
When we were children, ‘ ‘staying at
noon” was one of the joys of going to
j school, but after a few weeks of it in-
I terest flagged and we roamed aimlessly
j about listening to the gossip of the
i larger girls or watching the “wrast-
,iing” of the older boys.
W'ith the introduction of organized
play, first in the cities, and now ex
tended to the rural communities, the
noons prove all too short.. The Univer
sity of North Carolina, always in the
van of any new educational movement,
has just issAed a little pamphlet, by
Harold D. Meyer, supervisor of field
work in the School of Public Welfare,
giving some comprehensive suggestions
for the rural playground. The major
object is to create a finer citizenship
through one of the best agencies of
proper training—play.
Mr. Meyer gives twenty-five useful
suggestions for the successful conduct
of a playground, and also a few good
general hints on teaching a game. These
are followed by a series of games for
the different grades and an excellent
bibliography of playground literature.
—National Journal of Education.
THE SOUTH OF TOMORROW
The South has nearly one-third of the
total area of the United States.
It has a greater combination of natu
ral advantages than any other equal
area in the world.
It has three-fifths of the coast line of
continental United States.
It produces over 60 percent of the
world’s cotton.
It has the greatest natural gas fields
known in the world.
I It has the largest sulphur deposits
known in the world, producing three-
fourths of the world’s sulphur supply.
It has practically all of the aluminun
industry of the United States based on
Southern raw materials.
It has three-fourths of the coking
coal area of the country.
Its coal area is twice as great as that
of all Europe including Russia; and five
times as great as that of all Europe ex
cluding Russia.
It has, according to Government re
ports, an estimated oil reserve of 55
percent of the entire supply in this
country.
It has 40 percent of the country’s
forest area.
It has 65,000,000 acres of reclaimable
wet land, which, when drained can be
made to produce crops worth from $2,-
600,000,000 to $5,000,000,000 a year.
It can raise the cotton and the wool
with which to clothe the country and
much of the world, and the livestock
with which to feed the country.
It is already annually shipping several
hundred thousand carloads of early veg
etables and fruits to Northern and West
ern markets.
It has nearly 60 percent of the cotton
consumption of American mills.
The exports from Southern ports in
1921 were$l,867,000,000, comparedwith
$356,000,000 from the entire Pacific
Coast.
These and a thousand and one other
facts of equal interest will be found in
the Blue Book of Southern Progress is
sued by the Manufacturers' Record,
Baltimore. Price 30 cents.
THIS IS MY NATIVE LAND
Every boy or girl who leaves school
in Western North Carolina without
knowing thoroughly what Western North
Carolina is, goes into the business of
living under a tremendous handicap.
Since most children will give their adult
years to the section in which they were
born, the best thing any teacher can do
for any pupil is to see that he knows
his homeland. With such knowledge,
the young Western North Carolinian
possesses the chart of achievement and
the map of opportunity. He knows
what his surroundings offer to his tastes
and giftp. He begins life with the in
spiration that comes from an apprecia
tion of the wonders in this his native
land. He can be given this information
by being assigned to the writing of com
positions and essays. Text books are
not essential.
Such a policy in all our schools would
be a contribution of incalculable value
to the future citizenship of Western
North Carolina. It would mean-guid
ing the child to adult success. Why
talk to a boy of what work he will un
dertake or what‘profession he ^ill en
ter if you tell him nothing of the busi
ness that is here or the developments
that are possible? The products and
needs of Western North Carolina will
mean far more to him than the para-
sangs that Xenophon’s army marched,
or the rivers that Caesar crossed.
How many boys leaving our schools
know that we have in Western North
Carolina the biggest wood-pulp mill in
the world and that at the Toot of the
mountains is the next to the largest
THE PROSPECTOR
The Prospector, the latest arrival in
the publications’ field at the university,
appeared here this week. This is the
official organ of Professor Hibbard’s
class in English 21, and was prepared
by members of the class with an eye to
artistic as well as literary effect.
The make-up of the publication is
patterned.after Theatre Arts Magazine,
witAi four full pages of illustrations
and thirty pages of reading contents,
consisting mostly of essays, sketches,
and poetry. Most of the contributions
are by members of the class, but the
magazine also contained a poem. The
Aftermath, by DuBose Heyward, and
another entitled Sail’s Gap, by the pop
ular North Carolina poet, Mrs. Dargan.
Last year Professor Hibbard’s class
took over one of the issues of the Caro
lina magazine and put out one of the
best numbers of the year. The editor-
in-chief of The Prospector is C. L. Moore,
^nd the business manager F. T. Thomp
son.—University Press Service.
CAROLINA LAW REVIEW
It was announced today that th^ fac
ulty and students of the Law School of
the University of North Carolina have
completed arrangements for The North
Carolina Law Review to be issued quar-''
terly during the school year.
The Review will be conducted by an
editorial board consisting of the mem
bers of the law faculty and a number
of second and third year law students .
selected for excellence in scholarship.
The faculty editors are: Dean L. P.
McCehee, and Professors P. H. Wins-
ston, A. C. McIntosh, M. T. VanHecke,
and R. H. Wettach. The student edi
tors for the June number are: C. G.
Ashby of Raleigh, B. W. jplackwelder
of Concord, R. H. Frazier of Greens
boro, W. A. Gardner of Wilson, W. D.
Harris of Sanford, D. W. Isear of Wil
son, B. B. Liipfert of Winston-Salem,
F. B. McCall of Charlotte, R. M. Moody
of Murphy, T. O. Moore of New Bern,
I. B. Newman of Wilmington, C. L.
Nichols of Brevard, N. Y. Pharr of
Charlotte, Richmond Rucker of Wins
ton-Salem, W. T. Shaw of Raleigh, and
J. G. Tucker of Plymouth. Professor
M. T. Van Hecke will be the editor in
charge.
The Review will be mainly devoted to
discussions of important topics of com
mon law, equity, public law, court pro
cedure and legislation, of interest to
North Carolina lawyers and judges.
Particular attention will be given to the
significant current decisions of the Su
preme Court of North Carolina, of the
Federal Courts in this state, and the
United States Supreme Court. These
discussions will take the form of gen
eral articles, editorial notes, comment
on recent cases, and occasional reviews
of new law books.
It is hoped that the first number will
appear early in June.—University Pub
licity Service.
LIVE-AT-HOME FARMING
Over $3,000,000 were sent out of Cra
ven county last year for food and feed
that might have been produced on Cra
ven farms, is the astounding fact brought
out by an investigation just completed
by the New Bern chamber of commerce
in cooperation with local wholesale gro
cers.
Two items alone accounted for a mil
lion and a half each of the total. They
were meats and feeds. $100,000
worth of canned vegetables-^egetables
common to every garden—such as^to-
matoes, corn, and beans; and canned
milks were imported last year for con-
surpption by Craven families.
While the figures compiled by the
chamber of commerce are not intended
to be accurate to the dollar, they are
believed to be conservatively approxi
mate, and they go to show what has
been happening in agricultural circles
in a typical eastern Carolina county.
While the farmer has been staking his
all on cotton and tobacco; he has not
merely left the townsman to shift for
himself in securing food, but has ap
parently joined his city brother in im
porting food for himself and his stock.
-Greensboro News.
BANK ACCOUNT SAVINGS IN THE UNITED STATES
In All BanKs, Year Ending June 30,1920
1920.
Based on Report of the Comptroller of the Currency,
R. F. Marshburn, Duplin County
Department of Rural Social-Economics, University of North Carolina
Rank State
Savings Deposits
Rank State
Savings Deposits
1
New York
. ...$2,601,287,000
25
Louisiana
$94,708,000
2
Massachusetts...
1,421,460,000
26
Connecticut
83,208,000
3
Pennsylvania ...
1,204,736,000
27
Kentucky
80,637,000
4
Ohio.
764,987,000
28
Tennessee
79,974,000
5
Michigan
617,695,000
29
Montana
73,901,000
6
Minnesota
441,095,000
30
New Hampshire
69,037,000
7
New Jersey....
400,399,000
31
Colorado
67,968,000
8
Wisconsin
351,168,000
32
California
67,210,000
9
Indiana
269.742,000
33
Mississippi
60,506,000
10
Missouri
...i. 224,269,000
34
Texas
57,284,000
11
Rhode Island....
206,599,000
35
Oregon
54,492,000
12
Oklahoma
185,497,000
86
Alabama
44,695,000
13
Illinois
140,273,000
87
Florida
44,580,0OQ
14
Maryland
133,411,000
88
Maine
43,564,000
15
South Dakota..
183,138,000
39
Utah
42,837,000
16
Vermont
130,943,000
40
Nebraska *..
37,641,000
17
Virginia
127,912,000
41
Delaware
35,399; 000
18
North Dakota ..
119,122,000
42
Arkansas
31,159,000
19
Georgia
117,917,000
43
Idaho
30,806,000
20
Washington
116,949,000
44
Kansas
29,076,000
21
North Carolina...
116,154,000
45
Nevada
13,932,000
90
TnxiTQ
108,961,000
46
Wyoming
13,360,000
23
West Virginia..
106,990,000
47
New Mexico
12,68LOOO
24
South Carolina..
95,129,000
48
Arizona
3,361,000