The news in this pubii-
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
THE UNIVERSiTY OF NORTH CAROLINA
K li
Published Weekly by the
University of North Caro
lina for the University Ex-
teiision Division.
APRIL 16,1924
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
THE UNIVEKSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. X, NO. 22
e.UlorUI Baardi B. 0. BransOii. S. H. Hobbj. Jr.. L, R. Wilsan, B. W. Knight. D. D. Carroll. J. B.BnIiitt. 3. W. Odum.
.2 Stkcered aa second-class matter November 14,1914, at the Postoifice at Chapel Hill, N. C., nnder the act of Angus! 24, WIS
TAXABLE WEALTH IN N.
TAXABIE WEALTH
The table which appears elsewhere
in this issue of the University News
Letter shows how the one hundred
counties of-the state rank in wealth
listed for taxation in 19^3, on a per in
habitant basis. The table is derived
by dividing the aggregate of property
listed for taxation as reported to the
State Commiss^ner of Revenue by the
total population for 1923 as estimated
by the Census Bureau. Values for
Alleghany and Jackson are considered
as of the year 1922.
The aggregate wealth listed for tax
ation in North Carolina in 1923 was
5^2,664,012,120 while property listed for
taxation in 1922 aggregated $2,576,338,-
426. The increase oveY the previous
year was $77,673,694 or almost exactly
3 percent. The moderate increase is
^plained by the fact that last year the
counties were permitted to do as they
pleased in valuing property. Substan
tial increases were made by a few
counties, while moderate reductions
took place in a few. T-he vast majority
.of the counties elected to retain the
valuations of ^922.
It might be of interest* to note that
the federal Department of Commerce
estimates the principal forms of wealth
in North Carolina in 1922 at $4,5^3,110,-
000, so that at best not more than 56
percent of the wealth of the state is on
the tax books. The real wealth of the
state at the present time is about five
billion dollars.
The counties making the largest
gains in wealth listed for taxation dur-1
ing the year 1922-23 are Buncombe, '
twenty-three million dollars, Mecklen
burg ten million, Gaston seven and a
half million, and Catawba more than
seven million. These four counties ac
count for about three-fifths of the net
gain of the entire state. The countie’s
showing the largest losses are Scot
land, three million dollars; and Ran
dolph, Columbus, Lenoir, and New
Hanover, each showing a decrease of
about two million dollars. The rest of
the counties showed comparatively lit
tle change, a majority of them regis
tering flight gains.
The aggregate of property listed for
taxation in North Carolina in 1923 av
eraged $988 per inhabitant, against an
average of $972 for the previous year.
Which is to say, our taxables increase
faster than our population.
Durham First
Durham ranks first in North Caroli
na in wealth listed for taxation per in
habitant, with an average of $1,930,
which is almost twice the average for
the entire state. For many years'Dur
ham has maintained first rank in per
capita wealth listed for taxation. In
1919, the year before revaluation, Dur
ham led with $954 of taxable wealth
per inhabitant, while in 1920, the year
of revaluation, her average was $2,907
per inhabitant.
Guilford and Forsyth are tied for
second place, each county averaging
$1,766 of listed wealth per inhab
itant. Most likely Guilford will lead
Forsyth in 1924 since the wealth listed
for taxation is increasing much faster
in Guilford than in Forsyth. During
the last year Guilford added about
thirteen and a half million dollars to
the wealth on her tax books, while
Forsyth added less than three millions.
Buncombe Gains
Buncombe, which ranked seventeenth
in per inhabitant wealth on the tax
books in 1920, ranks fourtl> in 1923.
Buncombe's rise in taxables has been
most rapid. During the year'1922-23
she added 23 million dollars to her tax
books, or more than one-third of the
total increas%for the state. Buncombe
is one of the few counties that have,
consistently increased their taxables
over the 1920 revaluation figures, and
the increase has been much larger in
Buncombe than in any other county. .
On the other hand a big majority of
the counties have effected -horizontal
reductions in tax values since 1920, so
that today there is probably a larger
discrepancy in tax assessment ratios by
counties than before the revaluation
year. While a few counties have gone
beyond- the revaluation figures many
counties have scarcely half as much
wealth per inhabitant listed for taxa
tion as in' 1920. Scotland county has
dropped from $2,022 to $1,150 per in
habitant, while Graham -has dropped
from $2,086 to $963. Rockingham has
dropped from $1,773'to $920, and large
reductions have taken place in Wayne,
Lenoir, Pitt, Robeson, Johnston, and
many other really rich counties.
Of the 24 counties that rank above
the state av(fi*age of $988 of tax prop
erty per inhabitant, two are in the
tidewater country, three are in the
central coastal plains, and three are in
the mountain area. Of the other six
teen, twelve lie along the Southern
Railway from Wake to Cleveland, and
four are Sand Hill counties.
Below the Average
The seventy-six counties that rank
below the state average are scattered
over the entire state, rich and poor,
high and low—all mixed together on
the tax books. Tidewater, Coastal
Plains, Hill, and Mountain counties
are rich, poor, and indifferent, on the
tax books.. A study of the table will
show some interesting facts. For in
stance how can one account for the
fact that Graham and Swain, sparsely
settled rural counties up against the
Tennessee border, rank 28th and SOth
respectively in taxable, wealth per in
habitant, while Johnston, Edgecombe,
and Robeson, three great agricultural
counties in the Coastal Plains, rank
47th, 49tb, and 62nd, res^ctively? A-
gain Swain ranks 30thj while Macon
next door ranks 99th. Alleghany ranks
42nd, while Wilkes, which most likely
is poorer in willingness than she is in
wealth, ranks last of all the counties—
even below Dare and Clay, which cer
tainly is not the proper order. How
does it happen that Sampson is so
much ' poorer than Duplin, Pender,
Harnett and all the other adjoining
counties, poorer-'even than Bladen, if
you can believe the tax books? How
does Franklin happen to tget into such
company, while McDowell ranks among
the rich counties of the state? Is
Montgomery so much richer than Ran
dolph, or Chatham as poor as she ap
pears?
Hardly. The answer Res largely in
the willingness or lack of willingness
to list property, in efficiency or lack of
efficiency on the part of the officers
charged with getting property on the
tax books, and in the indifference
shown by tax payers. The officials are
usually guided by the local attitude. In
some counties the property owners pre
fer high - values and low • rates.
In other counties they prefer
low values and high ^es, ^ach
tax payer hoping to sticK the other
man. In a few counties that are mak
ing little progress low values and low
rates prevail. Such counties draw
heavily on the state schpo*! fuhd, the pen
sion fund, the road allotment^ and
the like. These are the pauper counties
mainly—poorer in spirit than they are
in wealth in many cases.
A study of the table will prove con
clusively that there is no policy fol
lowed by the various counties in listing
property. Each individual county pro
ceeds independently of every other
county. Tax listers in some counties
are lax, while in others th§y are strict.
For instance, horses are listed at an
average value of $184.33. in Jackson
county and $41.05 in Watauga. Mules
are taxed at $i3&per head in Cumber
laud and $62.17 in Haywood. Cattle
are listed at an average value of $38.-
66 in Scotland and $11.07 in Currituck.
Hogs are listed at $11.61 each in Rock
ingham and at $2.27 each upon an aver
age in Currituck.* Sheep are worth
ten times as much in one county as in
another, on the tax booH.s. Dogs are
listed at an average of $40.47 in For-^
syth and at $1.04 in Polk!
The Bemedy
There is no excuse for the situation
which exists in North Carolina with
respect to listing property, real and per
sonal, for taxation. It is hard to un
derstand why some definite policy for
listing property has not long ago 'been
settled on. There is no reason why
one county should list its property at
75 or 80 percent of its true value while
in a neighboring county property is
HIS LAST WOSOS
“I canvassed the state for four
years in behalf of education of the
children of the state, right .straight
along; sometimes on Sundays they
would ask me down to the churches
to talk, and I always talked about
education—." Education was the,
last word that came from the lips
of Charles Brantley Aycock, for the
stenographic report of his speech
ends with the words, ‘‘At this junc-
'ture the speaker fell dead."
No wonder this man is being me
morialized not only by the people of
the state of which he was the hon
ored Governor, but also of the en
tire South and even of a wider area.
The man who always talks about
education and to promote education
neglects the accumulation of the
• things that are' often carelessly
thought to be of more worth, cannot
and will not; be ignored. Aycock
lived and died talking about educa
tion. We who are living can have
no better theme.—Winston-Salem
Journal.
lis.ted at only 30 or 36 percent of its
value. How caij'the state school equal
ization fund be equitably dis^ibuted
when the very method employed in;
distributing it encourages a county notj
^to raise sufficient funds to run its j
schools? The county that is doing, its j
part and more contributes to the coun-;
ty that fails to do its part. The county I
that deliberately chooses to list its;
property at a low value receives a
large slice of the equalization fund. A, I
minimum tax rate is of-no va^ue when |
unequal assessments are'allowed. This j
is only , one illustration of the conse
quence of the unequal*listing of prop-1
erty. I
Real and personal property should b,e
listed at some definite percent of its true
value, whether high or low, but uni
form in every county in the state. The
rate on personal property, at least cer
tain forms of personal property, should
be lower than on real pro’perty, and
uniform in every county. The rate on
real property must be determined by
local needs, but, in order for the rich
counties to aid the poor counties on
some fair basis in the equalization
scheme, the poor counties should first
do their part and not feign poverty,
with an eye on the state pool. This is
why some counties rank so low in tax
able wealth, and as the equalization
idea grows and the fund enlarges con
ditions will get worse, unless a definite
policy is decided on and carried out.—
S. H. H., Jr.
But mind you, it is agriculture by
farmers who own the land they till.
Your plan of glorifying farm enter
prise has been ''the settled policy of
France for nearly ten years. The De
partment of Agriculture in Paris has
field agents in every department or
county hunting out the' farm families
that excel in any detail of agriculture.
Everywhere the winners are celebra
ted, and awarded, with pompous public
acclaim, blue ribbons and medals. The
newspapers and the illustrated maga
zines are full of these events. The
French Legion of Tlonor now includes
the farmwives as. well as the farmers
of France. The mother of eighteen
children in a farm household was blue
ribboned this last gone year; also a
French family that had owned and cul
tivated the family estate in successive
generations running back a thousand
years. Fiuir years ago a member of
the faculty of the University of North
Carolina bore the-name of this family
and was descended from the stock of
it. Since the days of the Fourteenth
Louis agriculture has been the most
neglected and the most despised call
ing in France. It is now in fair way
of becoming the most prosperous and
the most famous.
I long to live to see our cotton and
tobacco production put down on a home-
raised bread-and-meat basis. It meansof
course an immense increase in our milk
and meat animals and in animal products
of all sorts—butter and^cheese, poultry
and eggs, bacon and beef in particular.
If itcoijld be so, North, Carolina with
her natural'advantages might easily be
the richest farm area in the world. But
preeminence in farm wealth cannot be
based on tenancy farming, it must be
based on ownership farming. Nor can
it be based'on individual farm effort in
the production and sale of farm pro
ducts. It must be based on coopera
tive farm enterprise. And coopera
tive farm enterprise ■ wilkhave a hard
time starting up, lasting on, and profit
ing all the way until our country peo
ple can develop^ farm communities
whose residents are primarily farmers,
and not .primarily merchants, bankers,
and garage keepers.
I beg you to pardon this long letter
but I clearly see the need in'^North Ca
rolina for searching out and celebrat
ing the successful farmers who lead in
these new types of agriculture. There
is no news item morb important than
this sort of story, and no editorial that
signifies more, not even editorials on
the oil scandal. A fundamental thing
is mere important than a fantastic
something-less ' spectacular but far
more 'significant.
I wish to express to you my appre
ciation of your particular interest in
these farm enterprises and its values
to Gaston county and the state. —E. C.
Branson.
ABC’S OF FARM PHOSPEHITY
Our readers may be interested in a
few paragraphs of a letter' from our
editor-in-charge to Mr. Hugh A. Query,
editor of the Gastonia Gazette. The
quotations follow.
IT' every diaper in North Carolina
were busy hunting out and cele
brating the successes in dairy farm
ing, pig and poultry farming, milk and
meat production, fruit and truck grow
ing, we should have no cause to fear
the boll weevil. Soil conservation and
restoration, feed and food production,
including milk and n^t products, are
the foundations of*'a permanent and
prosperous agriculture. And* a perma
nent pro^erous agriculture is a neces
sary foundation for an improved coun
try life. Country civilization on the
highest levels of satisfaction cannot
exist on a starved agriculture. The
levels of country life are very high in
Denmark, but they- are very low in
Germany and France, among the peas
ant farmers. Which means, that farm
ers can be very rich and yet he content
to live like paupers.
Germany, Denmark, and France are
in no doubt about the sources of farm
wealth. Two thousand years of trial-
and-error experience long ago taught
them the abe’s of farm prosperity,
reckoned in terms of money alone.
Eng'land's great peril lies in the decay
of her agriculture, and the sheet an
chor of safety in Germany, Denmark,
and France lies in the prosperous agri
culture of these three countries.
TAXABLE WEALTH PER INHABItAnT
InTlorth Carolina in 1923
The following*table showing the tax wealth per inhabitant by counties is
based (1) on thefeggregdte property listed for taxation in each county for the
year 1923 as reported to the St^te Commissioner of Reveniies, and (2) on the
estimated papulation by counties as reported by the Census Bureau in 1923.
Durham leads with $1930 of wealth listed for taxation per inhabitant.
Guilford and Forsyth with $>1766 each arg tied for second place. Wilkes comes
last with only $465 of property per inhabitant listed for taxation.
Forsyth ranks first in total wealth listed for taxation with $165,576,612,
and Dare comes last with only $2,462,439.
State total of property listed for taxation $2,654,012,120, or an average of
$988 per inhabitant.
S. H. Hobbs, Jr.
• Department of Rural Social Economics, University of North Carolina
Rank County - Aggregate
Tax Wealth
Per Inhab.
1 Durham- $1930
2 Guilford ...> ; 1766
*2 Forsyth ^ 1766
4 Buncombe 1675
5 Mecklenburg . 1582
6 Gaaton - 1400
7 N§w Hanover 1247
8 McDowell 1197
9 Rowan 1183
10 Wilson 1177
11 Scotland 1160
12 Richmond 1133
13 Iredell 1115
14 Pasquotank 1093
15. Cabarrus 1083
16 Catawba F. J068
17 Wake - 1064 .
17 Wayne 1064
19 Moore 1063
20 Pitt 1060
21 Alamance 1032
22 Cleveland .. • 997
23 Henderson 995
24 Montgomery 992 .
25 Rutherford. -k- 982
26 Stanly , - 979
27 Craven -975
28 Graham 863
29 Chowan.... 961
30 Swain’ 951
31 Beaufort SSO-
32 "Vance 946
33' Qavie 942
34 Lenoir. 922
36 Rockingham 920
36 Davidson 906
37 Orange..' 903
38 ' Lee 897
39 Hyde 896
40 Caldwell 886
41 Transylvania 881
42 Alleghany 873*
43 Person . 866
44 "Lincoln ,868
45 Hoke 867
46 Halifax 848
47 Johnston 847
48 Mitchell. 844
49 Edgecombe 835
60 Duplin 824
* 1922
Rank County _ Aggregate
Tax Wealth
Per Inhab.
51 Haywood $824
52 Cumberland ■ 814
53 Harnett 808
53 Jackson 808*
55 Surry 802
56 Carteret 797
57 Greene 796
58 Granville 782
59 Tyrrell 781
60 Pender ' 770
61 Martin : .. 766
62 Robesofi ...., 752
63 Pamlico . 751
64 Onslow 750
65 Washington 747
66 Anson 740
67 Perquimans 736
68 Nash 733
69 Polk 714
70 Gates 768
71. Jones . 706
72 Currituck 695
73 Columbus 688
74 Burke 686
75 Camden 685
76 Bladen....: 681
77 Alexander 675
77 Union . .. 675
79 Hertford. . 674
80 V/arren 661
81 Randolph 645/
82 Northampton 639
83 Bertie 632
84 Stokes 627
85 Sampson. 612
86 Chatham 609
87 Watauga..: 698
88 Brunswick 566
89 Caswell 661
89 Cherokee^...' 661
91 Yadkin 652
92 Franklin 646
93 Yancey . 644
94 Madison 636
95 Avery 630
96 Ashe 619
97 Clay ’ 513
98 Dare 471
99 Macon 468
100 Wilkes 465