Newspapers / The University of North … / Oct. 14, 1925, edition 1 / Page 1
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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 the University Ex- ' tension Division. OCTOBER 14. 1925 CHAPEL HILL, N C. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS VOL. XL NO. 48 Editorial 3oard« E. C, Branson. S. H. Hobbs, Jt.. L. R. Wilson, E. W. Knight. D. D. Carroll, J. B. Bullitt. H. W. Odum. Entered as second-class matter November 14. 1914, at the Postoffice at Chapel Hill. N. C.. under the act of August 24. 1912 STUDYING COUNTY GOVERNMENT COUNTY GOVERNMENT The jungle of American Democracy is going to receive official attenti(»n. We refer to County Government, and to the commission that Governor McLean has recently appointed to make a thor ough investigation of county govern ment and to recommend measures look ing to the improvement and modernizing of the present system in North Carolina. The Commission appointed by the Governor is as follows: E. C. Brooks, R,aleigh, Chairman; A. C. Mc Intosh, Chopel Hall; Frank P. Spruill, Rocky Mount; "E. M. Lyda, Asheville; F. H. Coffey, Lenoir; J. A. Orreli, Wil mington; S. T. White, Greenville; R. L. Stowe, Belmont; G. V. Cooper, Kinston; D. W. Newsom, Durham; G. G. Stancili, Morganton; and E. B. Bridges, Charlotte. We Lead Oif Again North Carolina leads off. For some years local clubs and public-spirited individuals in various states have been studying county government, but so far as we know this is the first time that any governor has appointed a state commission to investigate county gov- ei*nment and to make recommendations for improving the present system. The lack of interest in county govern ment in the past is very strange in view of the fact that everybody in the United States lives under some form of county government. So far as we know only one course on this subject has ever been offered in any American college or university, and that course attracted very few students. Mighty few books on the subject have ever been written. The 1917 Yearbook of the North Caro lina Club at the University of North Carolina was the second volume to ap pear on the subject and it remains to day one of the few standard books on .county government. Under the direc tion of Or. Rrfinson. who for years has been studying county government and stressing the need for improvement, the library of the Department of Rural Social-Economics has assembled the most complete collection of books, pamphlets, and clippings on this subject to be found in the entire United States. First-Hand Studies For more than a year the Institute for Research in Social Science has had three field surveyors making first-hand studies of county government in a num ber of county court houses, at the invi tation of the local county commissioners. To date six county surveys have been completed and are now on file. Invita tions have been received from some twenty-seven other counties to make similar studies in those counties. The reports already completed are Pamlico, Edgecombe, Stanly, Surry, Alamance, and Macon. The counties scheduled for study during the present college year are Gates, Washington, Beaufort, Craven, Dare, Carteret, Greene, Ons low, Duplin, Sampson, Columbus, War-; ren, Halifax. Nash, Wilson, Robeson, Lee, Moore, Montgomery, Union, Cabarrus, Alleghany, Ashe, Caldwell, Burke, Rutherford, and Polk. When these counties have been surveyed there will have been collected a vast body of information about county government •of a kind that no other state has ever attempted to assemble, information out of the court houses themselves, which information by the way is not for publi cation. The Governor and members of the Commission have indicated their desire to make use of the assembled library on county government, and of the three research students and their reports, all of which nave freely been placed at the disposal of the Commission. It looks as if North Carolina is going to take the lead in another great cause. No more important commission has ever been appointed in this state than Gov ernor McLean’s County Government Commission. ASHEVILLE’S PUBLICITY TAX people are predicting that Western North Carolina is on the eve of a great boom such as Florida is ex periencing. If these predictions come '-rue the boom will be largely the result of the conscientious effort of this area in attempting to develop itself. Un- ■doubtedly much of the prosperity of California and Florida is due to the large sums* that have been spent on advertising the resources of those states. The natives of North Carolina know that nature has been kind to the state, and we boost a great deal among ourselves, but we have made no great state-wide effort to let the outside world know about our many and wonderful attractions. However, there is one area in the state that has under way a constructive development and publicity campaign, the area centering around Asheville. The September 24 issue of the Manu facturers Record has a splendid account of Asheville’s publicity tax, and the fine results of her organized pub licity campaign. It might be a profit able investment to make Asheville’s idea a state-wide proposition. The fol lowing extract from che article appear ing in the Manufacturers Record shows how Asheville taxes herself to raise a publicity fund: Intelligent Planning Constantly and consistently for 26 years Asnevilie has been advertising to the outside world the attractions and advantages of western North Carolina. And during the same period increasing numbers of progressive citizens have been mobilized in concerted efforts to promote the social and economic ad vancement of this region. Asheville and the whole section of which it is the center and metropolis have grown and prospered. The results of intelligent planning and concentration of purpose are manifest on every hand. The evi dences of cooperative endeavor are ap parent everywhere in this “Land of the Sky.” For many years .the appropriations for advertising were small, but the campaigns, s^upported by united con structive effort at home, produced re sults far beyond the expectations of the pioneers in the field of community pub licity. Activities were suspende0dur- ing the World War period, but renewed with the return to normal conditions in the affairs of che nation. All Property Benefits Realizing that the benefits of adver tising are distributed over the entire community, and that every property owner has an immediate return in the enhancement of values, the leaders in the movement proposed a municipal tax for publicity purposes. The idea was approved by the city authorities. An enabling act was drafted and passed by the state legislature. The proposal was I submitted to the voters of Asheville and ratified by an overwhelming ma jority. The law provides that the City Commissioners may levy- a special tax of not less than one-fortieth of 1 per cent and not more than one-tenth of 1 percent on all taxable property. It is further provided that this fund shall be used exclusively for advertising, and that it shall be administered by the Asheville Chamber of Commerce under the joint direction of the City Commis sioners and the executive board of the Chamber of Commerce. A Five-Year Program In 1924 the publicity tax levy was in creased to the maximum as one of the major items in a five-year Program of Progrcvss embracing 83 definite projects and activities. One hundred and forty- two citizens participated in the prepara tion of the program, which was organ ized and co-ordinated by a central com mittee of 26 community leaders drafted for the job by the Chamber of Com merce. A recent report reviewing the first year shows actual progress on every item in the program and a num ber of important projects accomplished or near completion. This program has attracted so much attention elsewhere that delegations from several other states have visited Asheville for the purpose of studying Chamber of Com merce methods. The advertising budget for the five years is |600,000. The revenue from the municipal tax the first year is ap proximately $72,000. The remainder of the annual appropriation was subscribed by the hotels, banks, and realtors. The operating budget of the Chamber of Commerce, $52,000, was subscribed by member firms and individuals in a five- day campaign which reached a success ful conslusion at noon on the third day of the allotted time. The national' advertising campaign was inaugurated on January 1 of the current year. Reviewing the first eight months' operations, the officers of the Chamber of Commerce have disclosed a number of very interesting and inspir ing facts. KNOW NORTH CAROLINA According to ihe federal Depart ment of Commerce North Carolina had an estimated true wealth in 1922 of $4,643,110,000, and was the third richest state in the South. Texas, with five times our area has twice our wealth, while Virginia ranks slightly ahead of us in estimated true wealth. However, in the an nual production of wealth, which is perhaps far more important, North Carolina ranks second only to Texas in all the South. The output of our mines, forests, farms and in dustries for the year 1923 was around one billion six hundred million dol lars, which was considerably more wealth than any other state in the South produced, Texas alone ex cepted. Both on the farm and in the factory North Carolina holds high rank among the states of the Union in the value of wealth created an nually. MAKING SKILLED ARTISANS In this age of automatic machines and mass production, when the creative instinct is all but suppressed and there is scarcely any pride of workmanship, it is refreshing to discover at least one place where young people are learning real craftsmanship. At Tryon, North Carolina, a beautiful little village on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge, is a novel industry, or more correctly a novel school. It has named itself the Tryon Toy-Makers and Wood Carvers. Here a dozen young men and women born and bred in the mountains, and denied all but the rudiments of an education, are proving themselves artists of a high quality. Their specialty is toys—not the cheap, fragile, gaudy i kind displayed on the ten-cent counter, ■ but sturdy and charming toys, made of I mountain hardwoods, and fashioned j with exquisite skill into the most origi- ! nal creations. j There are log cabins, covered wagons, horses, rabbits, chickens, automobiles and filling stations. There is Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Bears, The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, and other familiar Mother Goose characters. All are wrought with delicate precision and colored with gay enamels. In addition to the toy-making, these young people are doing some excellent work as wood-carvers. In their quaint little show-room there are candle-sticks, trays, fruit bowls, chests, chairs and mantels—each piece a work of art. Producing Artists This interesting experiment in wood- I working is not run as a commercial ’ proposition, but as an agency through which the young people of the moun tains may earn an honorable living and ; at the same time learn a skilled- trade. ^ The idea originated in the minds of : Miss Eleanor Vance and Miss Charlotte I Yale; who themselves became the de- : signers and teachers. The project was [ launched twenty-five years ago as one i of the Biltmore Industries and was ' moved to Tryon ten years ago. Its . progress has been not rapid, but steady. It might have been more rapid had its objective been solely the production of toys. Instead the chief objective has been to train a limited number of boys and girls for lives of usefulness. More than a dozen have been trained up into finished artisans and sent forth to fill responsible positions. No Mass Production At present there are employed five girls, five boys, and two men—boys who have remained. I saw them at their work and I never saw more interested workers. They literally have to be driven away from their benches at night. The increasing demand for the toys and carvings could easily absorb the product of a larger force, and there are a dozen on the waiting list, but these fine ladies are unwilling to take on more than they can personally train. They consider that their real work is to produce men and women with deft fingers and sound characters; the toys are incidental. On the other hand, there would be no scarcity of orders if they would produce in gross lots, but that gain would de stroy the creative nature of the work. They want their boys to become skilled craftsmen, not machine operators. Not all the applicants display an apti tude for th^s kind of work, but the many who db is evidence that the^moun- tain boys and girls are rich in native ability and respond readily t( intelligent and sympathetic direction. —Paul Wager. COOPERATION PROGRESS Organization of the farmers for the purpose of marketing their crops col lectively is progressing. I believe that some day it will cover the entire field. Denmark has shown how, under the most adverse circumstances, it can transform the agriculture of a people. Wherever cooperative marketing is farthest advanced, either in the United States or abroad, there you find agri culture in its best estate; violent fluc tuations in the markets eliminated; bet ter prices to the producers without an increase in cost and sometimes with an actual decrease to the consumer; an ap proach to standardization of product; a more intelligent effort to adjust pro duction to probable demand; a finer and more satisfying community life. It will be many years, however, be fore the cooperatives of the staple farm products are sufficiently organized to take care of this ever-present problem of surplus. And this is a situation which, if left to itself, tends constant ly to grow worse. For, as Professor Ely points out, when a manufacturer finds that he cannot market his product for cost of production, he can stop or re duce production and at the same time reduce expenses. The farmer cannot do this. His expenses largely go on whether his acreage planted is some what smaller or not. Having to meet these expenses anyway, the lower the price the larger must his acreage be to accomplish tins. If the producers of any farm product are only partly organized and attempt to take care of the surplus, the pro ducers of that commodity who are not members of the cooperative receive the full benefit of the improved price without bearing any of the burdens in cident to the surplus .... And thus, though the members of the coopera tives themselves received much larger returns than if they had not organized, the non-members have profited even more. It is difficult to maintain the morale of an organization when outsid ers receive the benefits of the organ ization in a larger measure than do the members themselves. Some day the farmers will be so thor oughly organized, I hope and believe, that they will be able successfully to cop^ with the surplus. But that day has not come yet. Meantime, are we to THE BEST INVESTMENT We hear of bond issues for perma nent improvements—constructing roads, erecting buildings, installing water works and other things, but as a matter of fact there is but one permanent im provement or investment. That is the money we spend for the education of our children. We bond ourselves to build roads and the treading millions pound them into dust and the winds blow them away. We spend money for the erection of massive buildings of concrete and steel and in two hours fire reduces tRis mag nificent structure to ashes. We invest our money in all of the appliances and devices necessary for life in a complex civilization and in a decade or two the things bought are obsolete or outgrown. But the money we spend in purchas ing an education for our children buys something which is as permanent as life itself. One generation of educated men and women in North Carolina would so increase the wealth of the state that the returns on this investment would be a thousand fold —a return of such mag nitude in actual dollars and cents that ths police^ would jail a man if he prom ised such returns on any other kind of an investment. North Carolina made great progress during the past ten years because the boys and girls a generation ago got the rudiment of an education under the in spiration of Charles Brantley Aycock. The kind of state North Carolina will be twenty-five years hence depends on the care with which we invest our money in the education of today’s chil dren—depends on whether or not w'e are niggardly and short-sighted in these expenditures, or whether we have a faith that believes that the money for education can be raised and the oppor tunity furnished every child to ‘ ‘burgeon out the best that is within him. ”— Kinston Free Press. TENANT RATE INCREASES The increase of terianiry m the United States is a fact that needs to be studied from many viewpoints. In 1880 46 per cent of the people of the United States were tenants. In 1900 it had increased to 64 percent, and in 1920 it is estimated at 66 per cent. The percentage is larger in the cities than in the rural districts, sit idle awaiting the further depletion of ' increasing more rapidly in the oilir soils and the ruin of our agriculture ' J^tiral districts than in the cities. In the until we are incapable of meeting the i sixty-one percent were needs of our increasing population? For ' 64 percent and when that time comes, as the ecoiiom- 1920 it is 66 percent. In the country ists point out, there will be another maladjustment. Then prices of farm products will be abnormally high. —Ex- Governor F. 0. Lowden, in World’s Work, October, 1925. ! MUST FINANCE HIMSELF j In the countries of Europe where j farming has reached its greatest suc- j cess, the farmers have learned to finance I riiore wealth I themselves. No remedy will ultimately | question is more important still meet the larmer’s situation until the | ^ 3^^ religious standpoint, latter places this keystone m^the arch | exceedingly difficult to do effective religious work among a constantly mov- in 1880 it was only 26 percent, in 1900 it had grown to 36 percent, and in 1920 it had reached 40 percent. This situation is important from an economic stand point. As a rule the people who own their own homes constitute the most substantial citizenship from the material and industrial standpoint. They are far more likely to remain in the same com munity, and as a rule they will accumh- But we believe that system has been of service to the farmer who has borrowed in sums of $1,000 or more, but it has not, up to the present time, reached those who seek small loans as does the method in Europe under the Raiffeisen plan. To Germany belongs perhaps the greatest credit for having devised the scheme by which farmers can do their own financing. It is grounded on the idea that each farmer in the organiza tion shall be subject to unlimited liability for the debts of the whole. The result is that personal knowledge of each member becomes necessary to those in charge and great caution is exercised in making loans. It keeps down the number of members in an association and also eliminates farm holdings of large dimensions, since their owners do not care to assume unlimited liability. The effect of this plan is to put a premium on small farms which are intensively cultivated, rather than large acreage carelessly farmed. More over, it keeps the farmer’s money in his own locality to a very great extent, and through the tying together of all the local organizations into one great ing class of people. Such people are slower to connect themselves with the Church in any community; they hesitate to connect themselves with the Sunday school, or with any of the organizations of the Church, and they do not become interested in any of the local enterprises of the Church. The home is the founda tion of our civilization; and when fifty- six percent of our people have no home of their own, it is a serious situation.— N. C. Christian Advocate. THE LIVE COUNTRY PAPER A country paper should not only be as readable as possible but as beneficial to the individual and the community as God will let you make it. Mark that down in your little book. Then this~a country paper must always be about three jumps ahead of its subscribers when it comes to seeing things and figuring on things that are good for Jim Jones or Tom Brown and for the place they live in. Just let the country paper keep this start over its subscribers all the time and they’ll trail right along— and like as not get all swelled up think ing about how enterprising they are. if the country paper doesn’t take this lead—and here Ed Howe wags a moni tory finger—something’s bound to hap pen to it. Instead of running the town or the county, that paper’ll mighty soon W. central organization, gives powerful in- ’ discover the town or the county is run- dependent financial strength to the'ningit. Everybody’ll come a-rarin’and farmer, making him to a great degree a-snortin’ round, telling the editor what free of unstabilized speculative financ-, to put in his paper and what will 'hap ing of the cities. | pen to him if he doesn’t. Mpst of the farmer organizations of The country editor who allows this to Europe have adopted a more or less | happen to him is gone. Might just as modified form of the Raiffeisen system. | well sell and hire himself out shucking It has done more to eliminate the usurer ' corn. He’s a failure.—Ed. Howe, editor and financial control than any other one | The Atchison Globe, quoted by Robert thing in the farmer’s world.—Huston | Welles Ritchie in The Country Gentle- Thompson, {man.
The University of North Carolina News Letter (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Oct. 14, 1925, edition 1
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