HIGH AND LOW NC COUNTIES
iived direct
verttment is a board
led the '‘Board of
;ation and Review” and it
something like a half mil
lion dollars of the taxpayers’
money each year to “equalize”
the expenditure of this and1 all
other categories of welfare aid.
Its theory being, that there are
rich counties and poor counties,
and that the fair thing to do is to
take some from the rich counties
to help, those poor counties.
That is its theory. Let’s look
at Hts practice.
The spread between average
payments per client in the de
pendent child department ran
ges from the high of $33.08 in
Cabarrus County to the low of
$19.76 in Anson County . . .
Some equalization.
But the 41 per cent differen
tial in average payments repre
sented between. Rich Cabarrus
and Poor Anson is nothing to
compare with the spread be
tween Jones County and Hen
derson County in total per cent
of population receiving such aid.
In Jones County during May
there were 779 dependents in
this category in a county of 10,
000, or 7.79 per cent enrollment.
In Henderson Gounty there
were 184 people enrolled in this
category out of a population of
36,000, or 0.51 per cent.
This puts Jones in the ques
tionable situation of having
1597 per cent greater enrollment
per capita in this category than
Henderson County.
Across The State
In all of North Carolina there
are just five counties that have
as much as five per cent enroll
ment of population in this de
pendent child category.
They are Jones 7.79, Tyrrell
6.72, Madison 5.77, Northamp
ton 5.58 and, Oops, Durham 5.02.
How did rich Durham sneak into
such poor company?
On The Lew Side
There are 10 of North Caro
lina’s 100 counties where less
than one per cent of the popula
tion was enrolled for this par
ticular kind of welfare aid.
'They are Henderson .51, Ire
dell .55, Stanley .56, Cabarrus
.60, Union >76, Burke .76, Macon
.82, McDowell .69 and Chatham
.97. Now how did so many of
those poor Appalachia Counties
get mixed in with those rich
counties?
How do such pockets of pover
ty occur? How do such pockets
of prosperity occur?
Take a look at the sister coun
ties of these “poor counties”;
Jones County with 7.79 per.
cent enrollment in this aid de
partment is surrounded by five
counties; some rural, some with
mixed farm and industrial eco
nomies and others with econo
mies based largely on military
bases.
Poor Craven is the next poor
est sister county to Jones with
an enrollment of 3.48 per cent,
Marine Rich Onslow is next with
2.57 per cent,, Rural Duplin is
next with 2.11 per cent, Rich Le
:THE JONES COUNTY
NUMBER 14
TRENTON, N. C„ THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1967
VOLUME XIX
Jones 4-H'ers Having Good Time at State 4-H Clubber Meet
Douglas Hill, Rt. 2, Dovar, had a tough
time in tho 4-H horticultural fudging, identi
fication and information contest during
State 4-H Club Week at North Caroline
State University — even the girls looked
didn't mind, however. Here he
out to enjoy some peaches offer
teammates, twins Carol Cauley
md Sue Cauley, while Lolly Byrd holds
some extra ones. All team members live on
Rt. 2, Dover.
Branch Bank Burglary Bungled; Thief
Scared Off, leaves Equipment Behind
j fattier an amateur or nervous
thief bungled badly an effort to
crack the vault of 'Trenton’s
iny office Sunday mgnt.
The abortive effort was not
scovered until about 8 Monday
orning when Estal Taylor of
renton route 1 noticed that the
ink’s - front door had been
rcea opon. v -•> \
Aside from the damage to the
door and the wiring nothing else
was disturbed, px&t.
Sheriff Brown Yates called in
both state and federal officers
to assist in the investigation of
the effort.
The general feeling around
Trenton is that an emergency
1 '* .»ight jby
,«ad scar
the siren
Kinstonian Killed in
Guilford Accident
James W. Cole, 43, was In
stantly killed last Thursday
night at about 10:20 when the
car in which he was riding was
wrecked in Guilford County
about 11 miles south of Greens*
boro. ,
Cole, a World War Two vet
eran, had gained, considerable
notoriety from ms connection
with the Ku Klux Klan in the
past 12 to 15
Paul LeClair of Greensboro
died
car
roir is next with 1.93 per cent
ana plu-perfect rich Carteret is
lowest in this special index with
only 1.36 per cent of its popu
lation being supported in part
or totally by an ADC check.
So we see that Jones County’s
rate is more than twice that of
Craven, and well over three
times the rate of the other four
counties bordering it, and more
than 500 per cent greater than
rich Carteret’s rates.
Tyrrell is the next worst off
county to Jones in this depart
ment with 6.72 per cent of its
population being helped from
this fund. It has three neighbor
ing counties, and they stack up
this way: Hyde 2.86, Washing
ton 2.37 and Dare 17.5 per cent,
ton 2.37 and Dare 1.75 per cent,
index of poverty is mountainous
Madison, where 5.77 per cent of
its 17,000 people are getting
this aid.
Madison’s borders touch three
North Carolina counties and
they are in this condition in this
department: Yancey 3.29, Hay
wood 1.92 and Buncombe 1.01
per cent.
Northampton is next in this
poverty index with 5.58 per cent
of its 25,000 people getting de
pendent children checks. It is
bordered by four North Caro
lina counties and they suffercjto
this degree: Warren 4.36, Bertie
4.10, Halifax 3.40 and Hertford
2.91 per cent.
The most puzzling member of
this 5-county group is big, rich
Durham County where in May
5522 of its 110,000 people were
getting help from the taxpayers
in this category, or 5.02 per cent.
Durham is surrounded by five
North Carolina counties which
suffer as follows: Person 4.93,
Wake 3.11, Orange 1.98, Gran
ville 0.98 and-Chatham 0.97 per
certf:
These contrasts indicate only
one basic situation; that the state
welfare board is permitting a
grossly inequitable distribution
of these funds which cannot be]
supported by logic, or law.
The overall economics of sis
ter counties cannot possibly j
vary so widely. This means that
the administration of welfare |
programs is lax in one county 1
and strict in another.
Variations surely do exist be
tween the economics of every
county, but not to the extent
these figures for May reveal.
There is not that degree of
difference in the cost of living
between Cabarrus ($33.08) and
Anson ($19.76) and there is not
that degree of unemployment
between Jones (7.79%) and Hen
derson (0.51%).
Robert Howison^Jr., chair
man of the state-'welfare board,
last month in a speech to ad
ministrators of ~ this program
charged that too many were
more interested in getting peo
ple on rather than* off welfare
lists.
This obviously is true, but
Howison and his colleagues on
the state welfare board cannot
avoid their responsibility in this
area, and it is long since past
the time when remedial action
should have been taken by the
state welfare board so that a
needy person in one county will
not receive more nor less than
a similarly situated person in
another county.
These figures prove beyond
question that this situation does
exist now.
The county, the number of
persons receiving aid and the
percent of county population are
listed in that order below.
Alamance
Alexander
Allegheny
Anson
Ashe
Avery
Beaufort
Bertie
Bladen
Brunswick
Buncombe
Burke
Cabarrus
Caldwell
Camden
Carteret
Caswell
Catawaba
Chatham
Cherokee
Chowan
Clay
Cleveland
Columbus
Craven
Cumberland
Currituck
Dare
Davidson
Davie
Duplin
Durham
Edgecombe
Forsyth
Franklin
Gaston
Gates
Graham
Granville
Greene
Guilford
Halifax
Harnett
Haywood
Henderson
Hertford
Hoke
1209 1.42
219 1.46
340 4.53
671 2.68
734 3.67
398 3.31
1232 3.42
1025 4.10
1431 4.93
802 4.01
1321 1.01
396 0.76
451 0.60
757 1.50
105 1.57
409 1.36
788 3.94
1080 1.44
261 0.97
433 2^70
265 2.40
217 4.34
1811 2.74
1191 2.38
2089 3.48
4734 3.15
77 1.18
105 1.75
802 1.00
230 1.43
845 2.11
5522 5.02
1256 2.28
7277 3.18
1098 3.75
2451 1.88
104 1.15
111 1.85
346 0.98
202 1.26
4985 1.99
2042 3.40
1413 2.82
770 1.92
184 0.51
670 2.91
417 2.67
(Continued on page 8)
Confused Confusion Compounded as
Insurance Companies Tangle Over
1964 Accident Just West of Trenton
A voluminous legal action was
filed this week in Jones County
Superior Court which is one re
sult of an accident about a mile
west of Trenton on Highway 55
on August 13, 1964.
In this action the Nationwide
Mutual Insurance Company and
its insured client, Fate Berry,
are asking the court to clarify
its claim that neither it nor Ber
ry have any liability in that
wreck nearly three years ago.
The accident involved a car
owned by Isaiah Hill and a sta
tion wagon owned by Carolina
Dairies of Kinston.
Hill's car was driven by
Thomas Lee Berry, son of Fate
Berry, and the dairy wagon was
driven by Robert Lee Creech.
Charles Henry Strayhora, a
ger in the Hill car suf
serious injuries and
Berry,
for $100,
County
Superior Court.
Creech in turn had brought
suit in Greene County Superior
Court for $30,000 against Hill,
Berry and the Employers Mutual
Insurance Company.
Somewhere along the legal
journey Fate Berry was drawn
into the action simply because
his son was driving the car of
Hill.
Berry’s insurance company in
the action filed this week asserts
that it has no liability since
Thomas Lee Berry was past 21
years of age and was fully
“emancipated”, relieving his fa
ther of liability.
Scott Reunion
V .
The family of the late H. K.
Scott will have their annual re
union on Sunday, August 6 in
the community building at Pol