Newspapers / The University of North … / Oct. 21, 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 21. 1925 CHAPEL HILL, N C. THE UNIVERSITY OF irOETH CAROLINA PRESS VOL. XL NO. 49 Editorial Boardt E". C. Branaoii. S. H. Hobbs, Jr.. L. R. WHson. E. W. KniRht, D. D. Carroll, J. B. Bullitt. H. W. Odum. Entered aa aecond-clasa matter November 14. 1914, at the Poatoffice at Chapel Hill. N. C.. under the act of August 24, 1912 HIGH m WEALTH PRODUCTION A GREAT WEALTH PRODUCER As a producer of wealth North Caro lina enjoys high rank among the states of the Union. Only fourteen states rank ahead of ours in the combined value of basic products and industrial output for the year 1923. The table which appears elsewhere shows the rank of the states on the basis of gross values produced by farms, forests, factories, and mines for the year 1923. There are other forms of wealth produced such as wealth created by merchandising, transporting, banking, etc., but the above are the basic sources upon which the others mainly depend. The secon dary forms of wealth and professional services are fairly proportionate to the production of basic and industrial wealth. No claim is made that the table is economically perfect. The figures are gross, and not net, as net figures are impossible to obtain. Some states are slightly forward, as the oil producing states which get credit for the crude oil and also for the finished product, when it is refined in the state where produceii. The raw product goes into the finished 'p?oduct and is counted twice. The value of all factory output includes the value of the raw product. Wealth is consumed in the production of all wealth, only more in some kinds than in others. Net values are prac tically impossible to obtain, nor would a table based on net values be much, if any, preferable to the one below- The position of North Carolina as a producer of wealth should be a matter of pride to everyone in the state. The states that rank ahead of us owe their rank largely to their superior urban and industrial development, and to their size and total population. Our wealth comes almost entirely from two sources, namely, farms ?ind factories. The an nual production or several states is largely attributable to oil and minerals which some day will be exhausted. Our farms and factories will continue to produce long after the mines have be come exhausted. The table which appears elsewhere shows the total wealth produced by farms, factories, forests, and mines. The total for North Carolina was more than a billion and a half dollars for the year 1923, distributed as follows: Pro duced by industries $961,911,000, by agriculture $613,400,000, by forests $38,- 051,000, and extracted from mines $10,- 006,000. Thus nearly 97 percent of the total was produced by farms and fac tories, both of which are fairly well distributed over the state. Second in the South A glance at the table will show that only Texas in the' entire South ranks ahead of North Carolina as a producer of wealth. Oklahoma and West “Vir ginia, ranking 19th and 20th, ^ respec tively, are the southern states following closest after North Carolina. In each of these states minerals account for about one-third of the wealth produced^ —oil in Oklahoma and coal and iron in West Virginia. Aside from Texas, North Carolina is nearly four hundred million dollars ahead of her nearest southern competitor in the production of wealth. She is more than a half billion dollars ahead of Tennessee, Kentucky, Ala bama, and Georgia, and nearly six hun dred million dollars ahead of Virginia. Yet Georgia has considerably more peo ple than North Carolina, while the other states named above are only slightly below us in population. Our Accumulated Wealth Wealth production is one thing, wealth accumulation is entirely different. There ought to be a fair agreement among the states in wealth production and wealth accumulation. North Carolina is making rapid strides in the accumula tion of wealth. In fact on a percent basis she led the entire United States between 1912 and 1922, but she still ranks too low in wealth accumulated, her high rank in wealth production considered. We rank fifteenth in the annual pro duction of wealth as noted above, but we tank twenty-first in true wealth of the state as estimated by the federal Bureau of the Census, the total wealth of the state in 1922 being estimated at $4,643,110,000. We ought to rank as high in wealth accumulation as we do in wealth production, and would if we retained a fair part of the wealth we produce. The reasons for the discrep ancy are no part of this study, but they are to be found largely in agriculture where production is high but accumula tion of farm wealth almost ridiculously low. However, in the accumulation of wealth on a total basis North Carolina ranks 2l3t and is surpassed by only two states in the South, Texas and Virginia. Virginia, which ranks 28th in the pro duction of wealth, in the table below, ranks 19th in estimated true wealth. Virginia’s farms, factories, forests, and mines produce only two-Lbirds as much wealth annually as North Carolina’s, yet Virginia is estimated to be worth about 350 million dollars more than our state. Virginia, in supplying.i^us with much of our credit needs, and in acting as our wholesaler, skims a great deal of the cream of the wealth we produce. However, we are rapidly gaining on Virginia in estimated true wealth, and with our far superior productive powers, even if we are somewhat less efficient, we will soon be second in the South not only in production of wealth but in net accumulated wealth. We are forging ahead at a rapid pace.-—S. H. Hobbs, Jr. TOWN-COUNTRY PROGRAM The second meeting of the North Carolina Club for the 1926-26 college year was held on the evening of Octo ber 5. Mr. Edgar T. Thompson, of the Department of Rural Social-Economics, read a paper on Leadership^ and the Reconciliation of Town and Country Interests., The Club elected^Jofficers as follows: K. G. Dacy, Jr., of Buncombe county. President; C. G. Grady, of Johnston county, Vice-President; Edgar T. Thompson, of Orange county. Secre tary; B. B. Wright, of Cleveland county, Publicity Chairman; and Joe Person, of Mecklenburg county, Membership Chair man. Mr. George Lawrence of the Four-County Demonstration Project is scheduled for a paper two weeks hence on Inter-Community Relationships. Town-Country Relations Mr. Thompson in discussing the prob lem of the reconciliation of town and country interests used the definition of a community proposed by Professor Dwight Sanderson, that “A rural com munity copsists of the people in a local area tributary to the center of their common interests.” This definition recognizes the interdependences of town and country, and the town or vil lage with its surrounding trade and social territory is made the natural unit j f for rural planning and development. The discovery, or rediscovery, of com munities as natural, organic units in j society is changing our ideas about methods of promoting public welfare. THE NOMAD IS FATED It is apparent that the center and fountain head of our national power has always been in the farm homes. Space forbids a roll-call of the lead ers in every line of worthy endeavor who have brought sturdy bodies and active brains from the fields to the commercial centers: but a home has stability and permanance as its first idea. People may move from one location to another, but the nomad is fated by an inexorable law of Na ture to have a low place in the scale of civilization, and the mighty oak or towering fir cannot join company with the tumble weeds, —H. B. Creel, Washington State Farm Bu- cannot meet the prices of the huge and efficient mail order houses. Local Leadership But all of the problems connected with the general problem of better town and country relations must wait for their solution on the rise of local volun teer leadership. The amount of such leadership is a measure of community loyalty—the more of one the more of the other. Until this genuine local leadership is available tp help country man and townsman reach a new and higher level of adjustment, community organization for the development of local welfare will be impossible. THE DIVORCE HATE GROWS If the divorce rate in the United States at the present time is not a cause for mild alarm about the family as a social institution, the divorce rate in crease ought to be cause for alarm. During the brief period of a half-cen tury the divorce rate for the United States has increased from twenty-eight to one hundred and forty-nine divorces per 100,000 population. Thus the rate is now more than five times as-high as it was a brief half-century ago. During the ten-year period preceding 1896 an annual average of about 36,000 divorces were granted in the United States. In 1923 the number had risen to 165,226, exclusive of some six hundred cases for which detailed information is lacking. Counting five to the family it means that the homes of more than eight hun dred thousand people are afflicted each year, or more people than all the towl!fe and cities of North Carolina possess. The real concern is the increased num ber' of divorces from year to year, seventeen thousand more in 1923 than in 1922, and nearly a hundred thousand ! more divorces granted in 1923 than in j-1906. Sixteen to One rates, nor do they originate the causes for divorces. The law is uniform in North Carolina, yet the counties vary widely in divorce rates. In 1923 five counties reported that no divorces were granted during the year. The counties rank all the way from these five with spective states. The Kentucky report showed that the factors of greatest influence in determ ining profits were; labor efficiency as indicated by the amount of productive work accomplished per man, a good volume of receipts per 100 acres of land, no divorces, to Cherokee which reportedl good returns per live- Stock unit, eftective control of expenses one divorce for every 3.7 marriages. The urban and industrial counties have high divorce rates as a rule, averaging around one divorce to ten marriages. However, there are notable exceptions. Several highly rural counties, where one would naturally expect to find strong family ties, have excessive divorce rates. Causes Personal The causes for divorces are individual and personal, and do not originate in the divorce laws. “Attention must be centered on the causes, and the causes are a puzzling complexity of individual, social, and spiritual differences in an industrial-urban civilization, but the home bolds in balance the fate of the nation and It must be preserved or our social order is doomed.” The divorce evil has not yet reached the alarming stage in North Carolina, but it is increasing at an alarming rate—one hundred years! In order to check divorces it is necessary to check the causes responsi ble for divorces. Let’s pay more atten tion to studying the causes, and remedy ing them where possible, and less atten tion to divorce laws. The laws are often responsible for the place where the divorce is granted, but the cause is re sponsible for the divorce. Nevada or some other state may grant the divorce, but the cause is to be found back home. as measured by the percentage of total expenses to total receipts, good quality of tobacco as indicated by the price per pound, and good diversity of enterprises. The above is what the Kentucky col lege calls seven strong factors making for farm profits. Of the 241 farms studied there were 47 that were not strong in any of these factors. On these farms the net earnings were $109 per farm. On 65 farms with one strong factor the net earniags were $667 per farm. The 66 farms with two strong factors showed net earnings of $1,253 per farm. On 46 farms where there were three strong factors the net earn ings increased to $1,740 per farm, and on 18 farms where there were four or more strong factors the net earnings jumped to $2,172 per farm. The aver age for the entire list of farms was $1,029. These are significant figures. In Wisconsin a similar study was made on 262 farms. While the farmers of the state rely directly upon the dairy percent m seven income, yet it was found that the farms that had several sources of income are uniformly more prosperous. Where poultry, hogs, or crops are sold in addi tion to dairy products the net earnings amounted to over $1,000 per farm more than where dairying alone is practiced. Even the dairy industry must guard itself against production hazards. This can be done by growing the necessary feed crops and diversifying the business so as to utilize all feeds and farm by products, and employ labor advanta geously throughout the year. Quality of cows also has much to do with profits in dairy farming. Cows that produced 7,000 pounds of milk each in a year did so at $1.10 per hundred pounds cheaper than those cows pro ducing less than 6,000 pounds each. SOWS OF CLERGYMEN Who’s Who in America contains 25,357 biographies. Of those whose importance in the life of the country entitled them to admission to its pages, 26.9 percent were born on farms; 24.5 percent in towns of less than 8,000; 24.8 percent in small cities; 20.6 percent in cities of over I This emphasizes the need of efficient, 50,000; 4.1 percent in suburbs of large high-producing cows, cities. Sons of clergymen made up 11.1 Why some farms pay and others do not percent of the total, which means that, ^ pay is an exceedingly interesting and in proportion to population, they com- j profitable study. It has tremendous posed 28 times the average number of j possibilities in any community. Nearly notables.—Dearborn Independent. | all of our agricultural colleges are . I manned with one or more far.m manage- V TbMc TR XT ' demoDstrators capable of making Will oUWE 1* FA 1 i a diagnosis of the business management When dne farm will yield a net profit , of farms in any given community. Why of $1,000 per year more than the aver- ‘ not ask for this service in your com-, age of the community it is natural tojmunity? Here lies aa opportunity for wonder why. Two of our agricultural t the rural bankers to make a vital con- colleges, Kentucky and Wisconsin, have j tact between the college of agriculture answered the question through farm ; and the farming constituency of their management investigations in their re- j community.—Banker-Farmer. Sixteen marriages to one divorce! Mitigating the opposition between town I That was North Carolina’s record for and country, whicn in many communi- the year 1923. For every sixteen mar- ties is very pronounced, is a necessary riages performed in the state during forerunner of community organization, that year one home was wrecked. 'Ihe The right of towns and villages to in- ratio was not so bad, compared with corporate and draw town limits around themselves which set. them apart from their supporting rural territory operates to promote a sense of social subordina tion on the part of the countryman. To this is added a growing feeling of economic subordination as evidenced by recurring farmers’ organizations with economic and political aims. Farm peo ple suspect, rightly or wrongly, that they are being exploited by interests which they identify with urban connec tions. Consequently, there has come about a degree of class consciousness among farmers, not so prominent in the United States as in Europe, yet suf ficient to show itself in their politics, and in their attitude toward towns and cities. Countryward Program The basis of reconciling the opposi tion between town and country would seem to lie in stressing those points of mutual interest, such as low freight rates, good transportation service, bet ter farming, the erection and mainte nance of schools, churches, libraries, and the like. And the spirit of concession in behalf of their common community progress must animate farmer and townsman alike. The small town must cease to imitate and pattern after the city but must set its program country- ward. And the countryman must make concessions to the town merchant who : the United States average of one divorce for every eight marriages, or when compared with the twenty-eight states whose ratios were above the average for the United States. But when we note that the divorce rate in North Carolina doubled between 1916 and 1923 we find more room for alarm. Our divorce rate is increasing much faster than the average for all the states. In 1916'we had 668 divorces, or one divorce for every 32 marriages. In 1923 we had 1,604 divorces, or one for every 36 marriages. Our rate in creased one hundred percent, against an increase of 36 percent for all the states. f Divorce Laws Differences in the divorce laws are largely responsible for the“rank of the states in divorce rates. South Carolina grants no divorce, while Nevada aver ages one divorce for every marriage. Nevada grants an absolute divorce for any one of seven causes, and after only six months of residence. South Caro linians go to Nevada or to some other state to obtain a divorce. Southern states, generally alike in occupations, race ratios, and population distribution, vary widely in divorce rates, due in a measure to differences in divorce laws. Remedy the Causes However, divorce laws are not wholly responsible for differences'in divorce WEALTH PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES, 1923 By Industry, Agriculture, Mines and Forests The following table, compiled from official data released by the federal Bureau of the Census, Department of Agriculture, and Geological Survey, shows the rank of. the states according to total value of wealth produced by industries, agriculture, mines, and forests for the year 1923. These are the main basic sources of wealth upon which we all live directly or indirectly. North Carolina ranks fifteenth, standing along with the rich' states of the Union as an annual producer of basic and industrial wealth. Our total of $1,- 613,368,000 is distributed as follows: Industry $961,911,000, agriculture $613,- 400,000, forests $38,051,000, and mines $10,006,000. Only Texas in the South ranks ahead of North Carolina. S. H. Hobbs, Jr. Department of Rural Social-Economics University of North Carolina Rank States 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Total Wealth Produced (000 omitted) New York $9,691,364 Pennsylvania 9,194,620 Illinois.. 6,230,416 Ohio 6,997,466 Michigan 4,488,447 Massachusetts 3,706,825 New Jersey 3,600,496 California 3,324,810 Indiana 2,721,114 Texas 2,696,479 Wisconsin 2,395,618 Missouri... 2,349,612 Iowa 1,782,276 Minnesota 1,703,473 North Carolina 1,513,368 Connecticut 1,376,669 Kansas 1,302,200 Washington 1,198.174 Oklahoma 1,149,192 West Virginia 1,079,010 Maryland 1,041,134 Louisiana 1,013.264 Tennessee ...' 1,003,305 Nebraska 970,218 Rank States 26 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 36 36 37 Total Wealth Produced (000 omitted) Kentucky $976,219 Alabama 974,907 Georgia 971,827 Virginia 923,539 South Carolina 706,363 Rhode Island 686,869 Oregon 680,604 Arkansas 576,607 Colorado 663,114 Mississippi 632,678 Maine 628,678 Montana 441,511 New Hampshire 392,998 South Dakota 356.776 Utah 346,802 Florida 334,666 Idaho 291,713 Arizona 287,729 North Dakota 272,118 Vermont 269,601 Wyoming 259,027 Delaware 156,051 New Mexico 109,503 Nevada... 73,393
The University of North Carolina News Letter (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Oct. 21, 1925, edition 1
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