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.
DECEMBER 15, 1926
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. XIIL No. 7
Editorial Board; JP. C. Branson, S. H, Hobbs. Jr., T. R. Wilson, E, W. KniKht, D. D. Carroll, J. B. Bullitt. H. W. Odum.
Entered as second-class matter November M. 1914, at the Rostoflice at Chapel Hill, N. C., under the act of Auifust 24, 1912.
OUR FOBGOTTEN WOMEN
Almost a half-million of them in the
United States, three-fourths of them
east of the Mississippi river, and more
than half of them in the South Atlantic
and East South Central states. Nearly
1.200 of these forgotten women are in
Aroostook county, Maine, nearly 1,400
in Clinton and Franklin counties, New
York, and more than 2,000 in Berks,
Lancaster, and York‘counties, Pennsyl
vania.
Forty-four thousand of them are in
North Carolina. Nearly forty-three
thousand are in Kentucky—more than
2.200 in Pike county alone. Twenty-
four thousand in Virginia, almost exact
ly half of them massed in the twenty
southwestern counties of the state,
more than a thousand each in Pittsyl
vania, Wise and Buchanan, nearly three
thousand more over the line in Wilkes
and Surry counties, North Carolina, and
five thousand in the four border counties
of Kentucky. Thirty-nine thousand are
in Tennessee ahd more than half of
these are in East Tennessee.
Native-born White Women
They are not negro women nor
women of foreign birth. They are
native-born white women twenty-one
years old and over, who cannot write
their names or read a letter or a news
paper or their Bibles. In round numbers
477 thousand of them! So read the dull
figures of illiteracy in the 1920 Census.
This in America, whose other name is
said to be Opportunity! And after
three hundred and ten years of history!
They are tne women God forgot—
“thin and v/rinkled in youth from ill-
prep'ared food, clad without warmth or
grace, living in untidy houses, working
from daylight to bedtime at the dull
round of weary duties, the mothers of
joyless children, worn out by excessive
child-bearing, and encrusted in a shell
of dull content with their lot in life. ”
They.are the forgotten women lamented
by Walter Hines Page in an address
delivered in his home state tw’enty-five
years ago, and 1 have described them
in his phrases.
They are the women described by
Ellen Glasgow in one of her Virginia
stories: “It’s goin on ten years since I
have stopped to draw er easy breath,
and 1 am clean wore out. 'Taint no
better than a dog’s life, nohow—a
woman and a dog air about the onlv
creatures as would put up with it, and
they air the biggest pair of fools the
Lord ever made. 1 have had a hard life
and it warn’t fair.’’
Uncle Tut in one of Lucy Furman’s
Kentucky stories delivers himself about
one of these forgotten women: “My
sympathies alius was with the women
folks anyhow—’pears like the universe
is agin’ ’em, and God and man wuz con
federates to ke^p ’em downtrod. In all
my travels i have seed hit, and hit’s
been the same uld .^tory ever sence Evl
et the apple. 1 gunnies! il I’d ’a’ had
the ordering of things then, I’d ’a’
predestyned the female sect to better
things! li replenishing the earth was
to be their job, 1 wouldn’t have'laid on
’em the extry burden of being overly
subject to some misbegotten, heli-borned
man-brute! Yes, dad burn my looks,
when 1 see a puny creetur like Cory
there, not only childbearing every year
reg'lar, but likewise yearning the fami
ly bread by the sweat of her brow,
hit fairly makes my' blood bile, and
eends my patience with the ways of the
Lord.’’
They Are Country Women
With rare exceptions, they are country
women, born and rearedln the lonely,
lowly farm homes of the sparsely settled
rural regions of the United States. In
North and South Carolina, Georgia and
Alabama they swarm out of their
dreary country homes in large numbers
into the cotton mills. '^In Maine, New
York state and Pennsylvania they are
descendants of devitalized stocks. Every
where native white illiteracy of all
ages and sexes is a country problem,
it long ago disappeared in pur towns
and cities, or nearly so. Nine-tenths of
it is rural. Not so in the North and
West where for the most part illiteracy
is foreign born, in city and country
regions alike.
Difficult Social Problem
The illiteracy of our native-born
white women is self-perpetuating and
hard to cure (1) because their homes
are solitary dwellings in obscure places.
(2) because they are scattered a few
families to the square mile in the vast
open spaces of countryside America,
(.3) because they are sensitive and shy.
They are crab-like souls who before
advancing light steadily retreat ijato
the fringe of darkness, to borrow Victor
Hugo’s figure. And (4) because they
are wives and mothers and older
daughters, and it is women everywhere
in all ages who lift or lower the culture
level of homes. Educate a man and
you educate an individual, but educate
a woman and you educate a family, said
Charles D. Mclver. There were 47,000
of these illiterate native-born white
women in North Carolina in 1860 and
there were 44,000 in 1920. In seventy
years the decrease the United States
over has been less than 100,000. The
ratios have been greatly reduced in all
the states since 1850, but the totals are
little changed from year to year in any
remote rural region.
These are the women who unaware^
sign away their homes nnd dowers 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
knew; swallowed up by the big outside
unknown world; gone somewhere, they
hardly knew where; the camps at home,
the trenches overseas, Flanders, the
Somme, the Argonne were all one to
them. Their loved ones were gone-
lost in the sealed silences of illiteracy;
that much they knew and little more.
Whether safe and well,or ill or maimed
for life or in prison or dead, they did
not know and many of them do not
know till this very day, as the authori
ties in Washington will tell you.
Ephraim’s Curse
The essential curse of illiteracy lies
in the suffocating loneliness it imposes.
The world the illiterates live in is mainly
the little world of the home and the
neighborhood. They are cabined, cribbed,
confined by the here and the now. They
are heirs of all the ages, to be sure, but
they cannot claim their birthrights.
The accumulated wisdom of the race
reaches them m traditions passed on by
word of mouth alone. The great tidal-
waves of world affairs break in tiny
ripples on their far distant shores after
many days. They are oftentimes
dowered by nature with magnificent
possibilities, their brains and fingers are.
nimble, their characters are substantial,
fine and capable, but they live in a
pint-cup world where the largest men
are little and the largest achievements
are iasignificant—a drab, dreary, un
inspiring world. Their wits stew in
their own broth, their brains fry in
their own fat. They are seethed in
their own milk, like David’s ewe lamb!
Oftentimes they are people of the
very finest character and capacity, good
neighbors and upright, law-abiding
citizens. The unlettered are not ne
cessarily 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 sometimes
they 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
diamonds in the rough that never can be
marketed for lack of polish.
Natively great without letters, as
occasionally they are, they, fail of the
full greatness they might have achieved,
and die unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
The tragedy of such lives wrung the
heart of Carlyle, ’i’hat one soul should
die ignorant that had capacity for learn
ing—that, said he, I call the tragedy of
tragedies, were it to happen twenty
times a minute as by some computations
it does.
A Home-Mission TasK
These 600,000 white women that God
forgot have made a feeble appeal even
to men and women of heart-to teachers
and preachers, to church and school and
Sunday-school workers. Perhaps be
cause they are a home-mission problem.
It might be different if they were in
Korea or Siam. But they are near at
band, a few under the dripping of the i
eaves of every country church, a few
hundred or a thousand or so in almost
every county east of the Mississippi—
so near as to be commonplace and
uninspiring. They lack the distance
that lends enchantment to foreign mis
sionary adventures.
The situation reminds us of Emer-
A GREAT PROVINCIAL
Nature pays no tribute to aristoc
racy, subscribes to no creed or caste,
renders fealty to no monarch or
master of any name or kind. Genius
is no snob. It does not run after
titles or seek by preference the high
circles of society. It affects humble
company as well as great. It pays
no special tribute to universities or
learned societies or conventional
standards of greatness, but serenely
chooses its own comrades, its own
haunts, its own cradle even, and its
own life of adventure and training.
^Woodrow Wilson.
son’s cryptic address to a New Eng
land audience in the eighteen fifties.
Don’t talk to me, said he, about your
incredible tenderness for black folk a
thousand miles away: go love the wood-
choppers in your backyards.
Secular effort fails. It is a task for
the church, and in my opinion this social
sore never will be healed unless tender
hearted home-mission workers can bring
to this task the fever and fervor of
religious zeal.
Let him alone, was the curse laid on
Ephraim. And it is Ephraim’s curse
that lies on these wives, mothers, and
daughters. Public schools and mission
schools and moonlight schools have not
solved the problem anywhere. Adult
education is nowhere a success as yet
in America. The daylight schools reach
the children measurably well, but not
the mothers. The largest promise of
such success lies in such settlement
work 8S the Hindman and the Pine
Mountain teachers give themselves to
in Kentucky, and in the consecrated
efforts of Elizabeth Morris in Buncombe
county, North Carolina. In their rounds
of friendly visitation, they really reach
and teach the mothers of Lonelyland.—
E. C. Branson, published in part in
The World’s Work.
j at great cost for his benefit. Another
thing is that the farmer is an individu
alist—a fine and proper quality in itself
but one that has its drawbacks when it
is applied to a pursuit which is in natural
i competition with every other trade, call
ing and industry—all without exception
more %nd more highly organized. No
legislature, no governmental agency,
no practice of “cussing out” the buyer
of his products, no goodwill and respect
for the farmer is going to help him
greatly until he decides to help himself.
He can do that only when he learns his
situation, takes account of his • dis
advantages and realizes his opportunities
to improve his methods, by thinking and
acting in his own interests as his trade
competitors do.
It is only as the farmer comes to think
of himself as in business and to use busi
ness methods in his daily tasks that the
people as a whole, in industry, trade, or
the professions, will remotely approach
a proper use of and profit from our
State’s richest endowments. A pros
perous agricultural industry is the prime
necessity not only in North Carolina but
in America today.—Gov. A. W. McLean.
PLEASE NOTE
.Anyone wishing a copy of the recent
Mecklenburg Survey, 817 pages, an
nounced in the December 1 issue of the
News Letter, must provide the postage,
which is eight cents, when ordering
from the Department of Rural Social-
Economics, University of North Caro
lina, Chapel Hill, N. C. This book is
also being distributed by the Chamber
of Commerce, Charlotte, which financed
the publication of the volume.
USE BUSINESS METHODS
We all know, in every community,
some farmers who seem to have a kind
of magic which enables them to main
tain a relative success and security,
regardless of bad seasons and price de-
, pressions. It is often a very simple
wizardry, such as any good bookkeeper
; or thoughtful executive could explain;
' a simple planning for results and study
, of costs and regard for experience and.
knowledge of conditions. Sometimes
' this may be instinctive in the man, but
’ the principle is there and it underlies his
action.
How can we reach the average farmer
on whom the prosperity of all of us de-
; pends and bring him to give to his most
i important work the attention, the care,
and the analysis that are necessary in any
other business? We may answer that edu
cation is the real remedy, bat we have
then to encounter the human equation
of getting a great and important part
of the population to accept the instruc
tion necessary. Government agencies,
direct or indirect, may and do make
available for all who will study and learn
the principles and the knowledge of
soils, of cultivation, of farm methods
and economy, and of profitable market
ing which are essential to produce the
better product and obtain for agricul
tural effort an equal return when com
pared with profits accruing from other
industry. Agricultural colleges can and
do teach these methods and give instruc
tion in the application of science to the
soil. We are every day acquiring a more
and more complete understanding of
agriculture from the point of view of
production, but how far we have ad
vanced toward winning the average
farmer to take advantage of this knowl
edge is problematical.
For this lack two things are perhaps
responsible. One is that the average
farmer for one cause or another is a
poor reader. We know how hard it is
to get the farmer interested vitally in
the meetings and teachings and demon
strations which the government provides
THE SHORT BALLOT
The short ballot is the people's ballot,
—the long ballot is the politicians’'
ballot, according to a paper by Alvin S.
Kartus, of Asheville, University stud
ent, read before the regular fortnightly
meeting of the North Carolina Club.
“It is impossible for the present-day
voter to cast his ballot intelligently
owing to the large number of petty
offices to be filled by men with whom
the voter may not even be acquainted,”
Mr. Kartus asserted.
“This situation, ” he said, “leads to
voting the straight ticket,” a practice
very common with present-day voters.
He said that was a system which plays
into the hands of the political rings and
bosses, since the voter never knows
for whom he is voting for the incon
spicuous offices but contents himself
with casting his vote for the party’s
candidates,
All this, Mr. Kartus reasoned, was
responsible for misrepresentative gov
ernment, “a system which America
should not and will not be content
with.”
The remedy, he stated, lies in shorten
ing the ballot to a point where the
average man can and will vote in
telligently and in making most of the
minor offices appointive instead of
elective.
“If we are to have good govern
ment,” he concluded, “if we are to
have representative government, w’e
must have government that fits in with
the mood and habits of the people.
The people have refused to give cog
nizance to the minor offices, which has
led to generalinertiaandmisrepresenta-
tive government. The long ballot does
not work! its rule is machine rule and
machine rule is not democracy, if it’s
democracy that we want, we must
ascertain how much civic work the
I people are willing to do, and plan our
government accordingly. The only way
that we will have government by the
people in reality is to simplify gov
ernment sufficiently for the average
voter to maneuver it intelligently.
The long ballot prohibits this; it is
the politicians' ballot. It is the short
ballot that is the people’s ballot.”
The Club is devoting its time this
year to a study of “Problems for De
mocracy in North Carolina,” and last
night’s discussion was the fifth of a
series of such studies, which will be
continued through the year.
GOOD ROADS AND SCHOOLS
North Carolina not only has pro
gressed amazingly during the last dec
ade or more, but has seen to it that
her advance has been made known to
an otherwise ignorant world. What
she has done has, indeed, deserved recog
nition. One of the results of her
emphasis on the building of roads, for
example, has recently been pointed out
by her State Superintendent of Instruc
tion. He remarked that the quickening
of the rural school system of the slate
has been made possible by the road pro
gram started in 1921. Good roads facili
tate the consolidation of school districts.
They also increased the attendance at
school by making possible the establish
ment of bus lines to carry the children
to and from the schools. As a result
many small schools not efficiently oper
ated could be abolished, and more atten
tion was concentrated on developing the
combined schools. The number of schools
for whites having two or more teachers
increased threefold, and the number of
schools for negroes having two or more
teachers increased eightfold.
The dependence of the educational
system on the status of the roads has
not always been obvious to advocates of
good roads throughout the country. To
be sure, the foresight and-energy which
North Carolina has shown in carrying
out an improved educational program
are os important as the wisdom in plan
ning and executing the road program.
But it is becoming apparent that we are
turning again to roads as great factors
in the economic and social development
of the country. George Washington,
who was one of the few Americans to
think in terms of empire, understood
this a hundred and fifty or more years
ago, and throughout his life of public
service tried to make his countrymen
realize that roads were the skeleton of
the state and that on good roads de
pended the economic progress and wel
fare of the people. Shortly after his
death canals were hailed as the great
means of communication, and no sooner
had these been started than the railroads
promised to outstrip the canals. With
the development of the automobile the
emphasis has shifted again to roads.
North Carolina has now dramatized the
value of a constructive road program in
enriching and developing an entire com
munity. Ten years ago the greater por
tion L'f that stute. barring a few main
hi'ghways, had so-calluri roads of clay or
sand, which were occasiontilly travers
able by motor, but too often so sticky
and covered with mud, that travel was
alow and unprofitable. 'Phey differed
little from the roads in that same state
a hundred years bnuirc. The highway
improvements during the lastjfew years
are only beginning to have their reaction
on the general development of the state.
Already Ihey have justified heavy ex
penditure on them, and are giving an
example to others.—New York Times.
ILLITERATE NATIVE WHITE WOMEN
Twenty-one Years of Age and Over, 1920 and 1850 Censuses
The following table, based on the 1920 and 1860 censuses, shows the total
number of illiterate native white women twenty-one years of age and over bv
states for the respective census years.
The 1860 total for the U. S. was 673,234.
The 1920 total for the U. S. was 477,123, nearly’ten percent of whom were
in North Carolina.
State 1920
Alabama 26,331.,..
Arizona 1,212...,
Arkansas 16,632....
California 3,679...,
Colorado 4,188 .
1860
..20,694
.. 2,624
.. 2,123
..24,648
Connecticut 1,134 2,702
Delaware 968..
Florida 6,242,.
Georgia 26,633..
Idaho 271..
Illinois 12,176..
Indiana 11,466..
Iowa 2,806..
Kansas 2,660..
Kentucky 42,763..
Louisiana 31,967..
Maine 2,323 .
Maryland 6,833..
Massachusetts 3,066..
Michigan 4,766..
Minnesota 2,021
..23,421
..44,408
.. 6,192
38,933
11,379
2,888
12,268
16,961
3,876
260
Mississippi 8,063 7,883
Missouri 17,985 21,823
Montana 308
State 1920 1860
Nebraska 1,160
Nevada 63
New Hampshire 712 1,296
New Jersey 3,723 8,241
New Mexico 13,674 11,761
New York 10.826 62,116
North Carolina 44,063 47,327
North Dakota 431
Ohio 13,224 38,036
Oklahoma 10,037
Oregon 679...’ 71
Pennsylvania 16,937 42,648
Rhode Island 1,019 2,010
South Carolina 16,816 9,787
South Dakota 606
Tennessee 39,260 49,053
Texas 24,964 6,637
Utah 308 65
Vermont 1,197 2,688
Virginia’. 24,340 46,761
Washington 800
West Virginia 17,261
Wisconsin 3,636 3,431
Wyoming 107