Vol. 20, No. 36
One Man Killed
In Explosion at
Munitions Plant
Walls of Homes Shake, Windows
Rattle; Early-Morning Hlast
Causes Considerable Alarm
A SMALL OUTBUILDING
JS PARTIALLY WRECKED
One man was killed in an ex
plosion in a mixing house at the
munitions plant in Carrboro a
few minutes before 6 o'clock
Wednesday morning, and seven
men were slightly injured. The
house, a small frame outbuilding,
was partly wrecked. The Carr
boro fire company arrived
promptly, and so the tire that fol
io wed the explosion was put out
before it reached a dangerous
stage.
The blast shook the walls and
rattled the windows of many
homes in Chapel Hill as well as
in Carrboro, and it caused con
siderable alarm in the two
towns. Os course a few persons
thought immediately of possible
"enemy action,” but most of the
community supposed the. episode
was just what it turned out to be,
an accidental explosion.
The man who was killed was
Carlis M. Rice, 29 years old, of
Durham, a nian without children.
Most of the injured men were
residents of Carrboro and
\ icinity.
Within a few minutes of the ex
plosion, a big crowd gathered at
the plant. In it were many people
who feayed that relatives or
fnend.s had been killed or hurt.
A stout iron fence with closed
gates, and with armed guards
standing by, kept everybody out
except firemen, ambulance driv
ers, physicians, Navy officers,
and officials of the plant.
The main street of Carrboro,
and the open space between there
and the plant, presented a lively
scene for an hour or more after
the explosion. Many residents of
Chapel Hill had come out in cars.
Men and women stood around,
and speculated and when any
body came out from behind the
fence there would be a rush to-*
ward him in quest of informa
tion; ;t fruiUk-ss quest, for none
of the ('mergers would tell any
t liing.
Pre-College Retreat
And Freshman Week
The L'niversity’s 11th annual
Pre-College Retreat, for 100* se
lected freshmen from all over the
state, will begin Monday, Sep
tember 14, and will continue
through Wednesday. The 100
freshmen attending it will l>e men
who were lli-Y headers in high
school. It is sponsored by the
University’s Y. M. C. A.
Freshman Week, when the en
tire freshman class will begin a
six-day orientation program, will
begin Wednesday, and entrance
examinations for students with
advanced standing and for excep
tionally well qualified high school
students without diplomas but
with recommendations of their
principals will also be held Wed
nesday.
Freshmen and transfers will
register Monday, September 21;
upperclassmen will register
Tuesday, September 22, and
classroom work will begin Wed
nesday, September 23.
Indications now are that the
enrollment of freshmen and
transfer students will be about
the same as last year, and that
there will probably be more
women students than last year.
The total enrollment of the stu
dent body will depend on the per
centage of upperclassmen return
ing. War conditions make it im
possible to estimate how many
of them will return.
The Chapel Hill Weekly
LOUIS GRAVES
Editor
Public Health School Here Chosen as
One of Three to Train Men for Army
| The University’s school of
, publi<i,health has been chosen as
one of three publiq health schools
|in the United States-to train phy
sicians for the Army Medical
j Corps.
The first contingent of phy
la .
Isicians assigned •• here, about
I twenty*’of them, will come in
| October to begin an eight-weeks
program. They are to be trained
to hold positions as health of
ficers in Army camps; to that
|end, they will take courses in
[epidemiology, sanitation, public
health administration, tropical
| diseases, venereal diseases, and"
vital statistics.
t
S. H. Hopper, ts-he was at thej
Georgia Institute of Technology,
has come to take H. B. Gotaas’s
(place in the faculty of the school;
of public health, and he and his (
|
j wife and one child have taken the
| Gerald MacCarthy home in West- j
I wood. Mr. Gotaas has been com-
j missioned a captain in the Army i
Insurance Payment on School, $99,008.41;
SB,OOO to Be Spent for Books, Fquipment
The payment by the insurance
companies to cover the destruc
tion of the Chapel Hill high
j school building and its contents
by fire, will be $99,008.41. The
j insurance carried on the build
ing and contents was $102.000.^
The settlement was agreed
upon at a joint meeting of the
I Orange county board of educa
tion and the ( Impel Hill school
! hoard.
1 Out of the total, the county
(hoard has allotted SB,OOO to be
expended immediately for text
books, library books, and equip
ment. The division will he as
follows:
FoCtextbooks, $2,000.
For library books, $1,500.
For equipment, $4,500. The
purchases of equipment are to in
clude 300 pupil desks, 10 library
tables, 60 chairs for library, 14
iteachers’ desks, rebuilding of 30
typewriting and mimeographing
machines, 6 lockers for open
classrooms, 1 sewing machines,
2 stoves, and 1 refrigerator.
The $92,008.41 left after the
release of SB,OOO for books and
equipment will he invested. The
county commissioners will decide
at their next meeting, October 4,
what form the investment will
take. It is regarded as almost
certain that the money will have
to he put into some kind of gov-
Navy Officers’ Picnic
The officers of the Navy’s Pre-
Flight Training School had a pic
nic at the Country Club Wednes
day afternoon and evening. The
uniforms of the officers and the
many-colored frocks of the wom
en, against the background of
the grass and shrubs and trees
around the clubhouse, made a
gay and a beautiful scene. The
officers had in many faculty peo
ple as their guests, and every
body bad a fine time.
■Lt.-Col. Foy Roberson, IJ.S.A.
Dr. Foy Roberson has lieen
commissioned a lieutenant col
onel in the Medical Corps of the
United States Army and has
gone to Texas to be chief sur
geon of a base hospital with
3,000 beds. His address is: care
of McClo.skey General Hospital,
Temple, Texas.
Mr. Gwynn Ordered to Res^
J. Minor Gwynn was ordered
to bed for six weeks of rest by
his doctor recently. The most
recent report is that he is doing
fine.
CHAPEL HILL, N. C., FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER U, 1912
and has been assigned to the divi
sion of sanitation and health of
the Office of the Coordinator of
Inter-American Affairs (the or
ganization headed by Nelson
Rockefeller) in Washington. He
and Mrs. Gotaas have already
gone to Washington.'.
Besides the physicians who are
to be trained for the Army, pub
lic. health workers from Latin
America are coming here to be
trained. This was arranged by
the sanitary bureau of the
Nelson Rockefeller organization.
One of the South Americans,
Signor IVit-/ of Sun iVniimm.
j has already arrived. Six more are
(.scheduled to come, but it is not
i known when they will get here.
Travel between Latin America
and the United States is made
| difficult now by a shortage of
(shipping as well as by sub
marine*. .
The Latin Americans who do
| come will stay through the col
i lege year.
I eminent securities readily con
vertible into cash.
Os course the school authori
ties would like to use the money
as soon as possible for the con
struction of a new building. But
mobody has the faintest idea
w hen a favorable opportunity for
building will come. It may be
years before the needed materials
(can.be obtained.
l he high school is now quar
tered in ten rooms in the Bap
!tist church. The arrangement
j w ith the e-hurch covers the period
I till Christmas only. It the school
| turns out to l*e a satisfactory
'tenant, the church may he will
ing to renew the arrangement.
Salvage Committee Has ('olleeted IBS,OOO
Rounds of Metal Scrap Here in Two Months
Within the last two months,
the salvage committee of the
Local Civilian Defense has col
lected in Chapel Hill 168,000
priu mis of iron and'steel scrap to
be converted into arms and sup
plies for the nation’s lighting
forces.
Os this total, 140,000 pounds
came from the University; 14,500
pounds came from contractors,
mostly from Cobh and Home
wood; and the remaining 13,500
pounds came from householders.
The house-to-house canvass
that began week before last, has
yielded fine results. Os the cards
that the canvassers carried
around, to be filled out, 71 offer
ing scrap have been turned in to
the committee. The trucks that
went around last Friday and Sat
urday collected from 40 places,
and by tomorrow trucks w ill have
called at the other 31.
"We have had wonderful co
operation from the people in
Chapel Hill,” said Ove F. Jensen,
The Thrift Shop—-What It Does and What It Needs
The Thrift Shop, operated by
the British War Relief Society,
is in the basement of the Scott
building across Henderson street
from the post office. The society
is grateful for the generous .sup
port the village gives it. All
kinds of used wearing apparel
and household furnishings are
readily sold here, and the pro-
Dan Hamilton and Billy Koch
left here two weeks ago today,
hound for*the Rocky Mountains.
It was a gamble when they would
get there—or, in fact, whether
they would get there at all, for
they depended on picked-tip rides.
Chapel Hill Chaff
Whenever I want information
about any article of food native
| to this region, I know I can get it
from either Roulhac Hamilton or
Oscar Coffin. These two gentle
men will now only enlighten
you they will make you
ravenous merely by twri or
! three minutes’ talk: for the
l deep feeling with which they
speak about good things to eat
! imparts to every word a remark
(able vividness. If you are ever
(suffering from a loss of appetite,
(just hunt either one of 'em up. If
it is Mr. Hamilton, get him to de
scribe oysters as roasted down
in Onslow or Dare county; if it
jis Mr. Coffin, lead him on to give
you his opinion of coilards or
shortenin’ bread ur barbecue; in
either case, in less than three
minutes your gastric juices will
be seething and fuming for some
thing-to get to work on.
When 1 met Mr. Coffin in front
of the bank one day this week, 1
said: "Somebody has asked me
what a kershaw is, and l can’t
tell him. What is it?" Mr.'Cof
fin knew the answer right off the
hat. 1 consulted the Century dic
. l ionary later, for elaboration, but
it didn’t add anything except two
or three Latin words to what he
had told me. A cushaw, or a
cashaw, or a kershaw (they are
;alternative words, apparently of
j American Indian derivation) is a
I squash, mostly oblong.or crooked.
In his book, "Gardening for the
South," W. N. White says: " The
j best variety of squash for family
use is the cashaw, a long, (*y!in~
idrieal, curved \ariety, swollen at
(one extremity.”
* * *
!
1 ate one afternoon this week 1
saw a lone man, w ith a bagful of
golf clubs hung from his left
(shoulder, plodding along the
broad highway beside FeUer
(Continued on last page)
(chairman of the salvage commit
tee, yesterday. "Os course the 71
persons w ho offered scrap on the
cards are only a part of the con
tributors. Many citizens had al
ready given all the scrap they
(had, and there are still others
I whom we have not reached yet.
"This is to be a continuing
campaign, and we hope every
body will be on the lookout for
.any piece of metal, or any rubber
or rags or rope or burlap, that can
| be spared.”
In the corner of the bin, in
front of the fire station at the
Town Hall, there is a barrel for
rags, rope, and burlap. Rubber
can lx: thrown into the main part
of the bin along with metal.
Every contributor who can do
so is asked to take his scrap to
the bin, but all articles that can
not conveniently he taken will he
called for; when transportation
is needed, telephone the salvage
committee, F-3331, or Mr. Jen
sen, 8111.
ceeds are sent to the British War
Relief. Anyone having anything
to contribute is asked to tele
phone Mrs. Collier Cobh, Jr.
(7181) and it will be sent for. At
present the Thrift Shop is open
only on Saturdays from 10:30 to
1:30 and from 2:30 to 5. There
is an ever-urgent need for chil
dren’s clothing.
They Climbed Long’s Peak
Evidently they had good luck, for
one day this week Mrs. Hamil
ton got a letter from Dan, say
ing: “We climbed Long’s Peak,
Colorado, today, Friday, the 4th,
just one week after leaving
Chapel Hill."
Aldermen Call Public Hearing
Dn Proposal for Establishment
Os “Defense Rental Area” Here
ellach Is Alderman
Robert 11. Wettach, dean of
the University law school, was
elected a member of the Chapel
Hill board of aldermen at tin*
| board’s meeting Wednesday eve
ning. He tills the vacancy left
by Robert W. Madry when Mr.
Madrv was elected mayor. Both
the term of Mr. Madry as mayor
and the term of .Mr. Wettach as
alderman will expire next May.
Mr. Madry was elected mayor
—1 iJ lJ
‘ **' ’ mw!i ino » i’ upun cm j\ s s
nation of John M. Foushee.
This will be Mr. Wettach’s
! second period of service as an
| alderman. He resigned from the
i board about four years ago when
• he became an assistant to the
(attorney general of the state.
! At the sit me meeting at which
(they elected Mr. Wettach, the
aldermen approved an expendi
ture of SSOO for the improve
ment of the sewage disposal
i plant. This is to be matched by
I the University, making the to-
Aal expenditure SI,OOO. The in
crease in the combined town and
(campus population has put se
vere pressure upon the plant.
School Opening Hour
( hanged to 9 O’clock
It has been decided to change
j the opening hour for the Chapel
Hill schools from 8:30 A. M. to
9 A. M.
All pupils in grades 1 to 9, in
clusive (except, those who are to
j report today) are directed to re-,
iport at the elementary school at
9 o’clock Monday morning. The
Ist grade children reporting
Monday will meet Miss Glass and 1
Mrs. ( arter.
The sophomores, juniors, and
j seniors in the high school will re-;
- port to the Sunday school as
sembly room in the basement of
tin* Baptist church.
Both the high school and the
elementary schools will have a
full day’s schedule Monday.
The method of handling text
books will be the same as last
year, except that, in the case of
the new Bth grade, the rental fee
will be the same as the high
school rental fee ($2 a semester,
or $4 a year.)
Town Girls’ Ass’n Meeting
The Town Girls’ Association
will hold a meeting at 1:80 next
Wednesday afternoon, Septem
ber 16, in the Graham Memorial.
All girls who live in and near
Cha|>ei Hill and who are plan
ning to enter the University this
fall are urged to he present. The
main topic of discussion will he
the plans for orientation in the
days immediately preceding the
opening of the University.
J. I*. Toomey to Have Shop Here
J. R. Toomey has come to live
in Chapel Hill, and next week he
will open at 110 North Columbia
Street (where Smith - Frevost
used to he) a shop called the
Pantry Shelf. There he will sell
the Pasadena Food Products. Mr.
Toomey and his wife are living
at Miss Lucile Elliott’s on Gim
ghoul road.
Ann Correll Branch
A daughter was born to Mr.
and Mrs. J. Arthur Branch last
Friday night, September 4, in
Duke hospital, She is named
Ann Correll Branch.
Special price tor the Weekly
for anybody away from Chapel
Hill in military or naval service,
$1 a year.
$1.50 a Year in Advance. 5c a Copy
Board Hears Consumers’ Dele
gates, Decides to Find Out
\' hat the Cifizenry Thinks
MONDAY NIGHT IS SET
AS TIME FOR HEARING
At their meeting night before
last the aldermen decided to call
ja public hearing on the proposal
(that the Government be asked to
constitute Chapel Hill a "defense
rental area.” The hearing will be
held at 8 o’clock this coming
j Monday evening, September 14.
>v f nwjA.: 11 tv it; u »m; a
turn-out of citizens for this meet
ing,” said Mayor Madry
'night. "We want to get every
slant of opinion on the question
I of rental control.”
The proposal, presented to the
I aldermen by two representatives
(of the new Consumers’ Assoeia
11ion, Harvey Lebrun and Earl H.
Newcomer, was that the board
petition the Government. After
considerable discussion, the'al
dermen decided that
not willing to take such action
until they had more information
about public sentiment in the
community.
| Contrary to what is probably
la- general impression, the Gov
lernment does not come • in and
take command when a defense
rental area is established. It takes
command only in case the prob
lem cannot be solved through the
processes of local government.
First, the hoard of aldermen
adopt an ordinance one provision
of which is that there shall be a
fair-price committee to hear
'Complaints about increase in
i rents. If local action does not
.succeed in what the Government
|considers a fair level, then the
'Government may step in and is
sue its own orders.
Messrs. Lebrun and Newcomer
told the aldermen that the Con
sumers’ Association, without
having yet made a thorough sur
vey,-had learned of some eight or
ten cases in which rentals ap
pealed to have been lifted to ab
normal figures.
Rooks Needed by the
Hitfh School Library
Now that $1,500 has been al
lotted by the county hoard of
education, out of the insurance
money, for the purchase of hooks
for the high school library, the
citizens conducting the campaign
to replace the hooks destroyed in
the fire six weeks ago have a
clearer conception of the task
ahead of them.
“We know we have to raise a
considerable sum of money,”
said Mrs. H. 1). Crock ford, chair
man of the library campaign
committee yesterday, "and w r e
are going ahead with that. But
we are eager to get as many con
tributions as possible in the form
of hooks. The more books of the
desired sort that we get, the
(Continued on. last page)
Rowland I’ittnian in the Army
Rowland Pittman, alumnus of
Wake Forest, who was with the
Orange Print shop for many
year's, has entered the Army as
a volunteer. He telegraphed his
wife from Fort Bragg Tuesday
evening to let her know that he
had passed the physical examina
tion and taken the oath.
King’s Daughters’ Meeting
The King’s Daughters will
meet at 3:30 Tuesday afternqfn
at the home of Mrs. R. B. Law
son. Anyone interested in their
work is invited to attend this
meeting and become a member.