Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Gov. Morrison Addresses Vocational Agriculture Teachers at N.C. State College, Raleigh, 1922

From the Watauga Democrat, August 3, 1922 issue

“Men are teaching in North Carolina today that damnable Russian doctrine that the law is a heartless and cruel thing,” Governor Cameron Morrison told the teachers of vocational agriculture gathered in annual conference at N.C. State, as he turned aside a moment from his message on the home production of foostuffs.

He promised that “as long as he may be governor he will do everything in his power to crush the teachers of the doctrine that has drenched Europe in blood.”

The Governor took a whack at those who opposed his stand on the strike situation in North Carolina and the United States. Speaking of his letter in reply to President Harding’s appeal for troops to help reopen the coal mines, he declared, “If Harding and the folks at Washington will let me run North Carolina, I will be perfectly willing to let them run the United States—if they can.”

Governor Morrison voiced his unalterable stand against “any group of citizens who erect a standard of insubordination in North Carolina and insist upon their right to mob for no other reason that he has a job and wants to work it.”

“The future greatness of North Carolina depends a great deal more on raising chickens and hogs than on raising politicians and statesmen,” the governor told the conference.

The governor was in complete accord with the work being done by the vocational teachers. “I know nothing,” he said, “that will do more for the strengthening and upbuilding of the state than the teaching of real, scientific agriculture. It ought to be tremendously augmented in North Carolina for it is a science that can be easily taught.

“I do hope North Carolina will never cease to be an agricultural state,” Governor Morrison continued with earnestness, “for that state or nation which neglects the basic industry of the world will be a weak people, I care not how proficient they may be in industry, mercantile enterprises or mechanics.”

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