Robert Duvall Tells What He Saw During the East Lake Raid, 1927

From The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., March 18, 1927.

I am keeper of the Bridge over Mill Tail Creek for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and try to attend to my own business, but on last Friday something happened that caused me to sit up and take notice. Just before daybreak I heard a boat come through the bridge, and I got up to see what it was, but there was no lights on it, and I could not tell what boat it was, but it was not long before I heard a great shooting going on up the creek, and I wondered if Uncle Sam sent an Army of Soldiers to Mexico and they through a mistake had come to Buffalo City, but it soon occurred to me that the shooting was just to try to scare some poor fellow away from his still before they got to it.

Some time in the afternoon I saw them coming out and I could almost have sworn that they had found some whiskey. I am not saying the men were drunk, but I do believe the boat was, for it was going from one side of the creek to the other and finally took the wrong shore and started through on the wrong side of the draw, and ran ashore after having almost run over a man in a small skiff on this side, but after awhile they managed to get it off and glanced over the other way, and for a minute, it looked as if through the bridge town away or the boat smashed to pieces, but finally they got out, and went on out of my sight in a zig zag direction. And then I looked and saw another boat load of them coming but they happened to hit on the right side of the draw, and got through very well.

And then I sat there and thought, and wondered and wondered. Is it possible that Uncle Sam could not pick up three or four good brave, sober men, to do the job of capturing a few old whiskey stills, that had perhaps been discarded for months or maybe years, and saved a lot of this great expense? But why should I worry or be kicking about it? I am 72 years old and my taxes will not help to pay these bills much longer.

I am not trying to uphold the liquor traffic. I know nothing about it, and care less, so let them run the Government to suit themselves, until like the Rum Chaser, it hits the shore.

--Robert V. Duvall, Buffalo City, N.C.

Lack of Justice in Courts Lead to Loss of Regard for Law, 1927

“When East Lake Lost Regard for the Law,” from The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., published Friday, March 18, 1927.”

Their Resources Dwindled as They Fought Big Corporations; Employment Ceased, and Prohibition Offered the Big Chance

East Lake today is in a turmoil. Its far-famed industry is crippled. Paralyzed by forces that outnumber his own, King Corn has temporarily abdicated the throne he has held undisputed for eight years or more, and before the terrific onslaughts of Federal agents in the past week, he fled far back into the impenetrable fastnesses of the Alligator River swamps.

King Corn has fled, but hopeful of recovering from the heaviest blow ever dealt his solar plexus. A dozen stills fell last Friday before the attack of nearly 20 Federal Agents under the command of Capt. A.G. McDuffie of Fayetteville, who invaded the swamps with the assistance of a 75-foot vessel of the Coast Guard rum fleet, commanded by Capt. Glenn Willis. Capt. McDuffie had learned how news of a raid can leak out thru Elizabeth City, and he planned his attack from New Bern this time. Part of his force of officers assembled at Manteo, went in the night to the East Lake Section, and made their way under cover of darkness to Mill Tail Creek, a narrow and tortuous waterway where most of the stills were found. They did not invade the shores of South Lake and East Lake, but saved these lakes for last, and were hopeful of raiding the giant Holmes still as the closing and crowning achievement of their campaign.

The distillers blame it all on one Joshua Relfe of Elizabeth City. Relfe recently went over to the Buffalo City section and worked for quite a while. He came back to Elizabeth City and is said to have conferred frequently with Federal officers London and Ratledge at this city. So well organized is the system of espionage maintained by the distillers that as far back as two weeks before the raid, they got wind of Relfe’s work, and were openly complaining that he had made maps of the section, and had spotted every still on Mill Tail Creek, to aid the officers when the raid should take place. It is said that Relfe will not go again soon to Buffalo City alone.

The East Lakers are expecting the worst. A Federal officer on the Manteo boat the week of the raid, made his boast that he would blot out the liquor industry in the East Lake section. The work of raiding goes on this week, and it is believed that most of the stills on the lakes will be effectually crippled. But the officers looked in vain for the fabled “Hidden City,” about which so much has been said. There is no such place. The stills are located 50 to 100 yards from the waterways, with no shelter, or comforts, and few of them are far from human habitation. Most of them are said to be near the farms of the owners.

Cut Off From the World

The history of the liquor industry in East Lake might be said to date back long before prohibition. It is a story with many ramifications. Originally East Lake was part of Tyrrell, and the most inaccessible part of that county. The people were isolated from their county seat, and conditions were bettered but little when the section joined Dare. It was a great section of virgin pine and juniper forests. Its swamps abounded with game and fur-bearing animals. Its ridge lands were rich and fertile.

The East Lake people were plain, hardworking people, who cultivated their little farms, raised their own honey, and their cattle and hogs waxed fat on the roots and berries in the free ranges of the swamp. Furs brought them a good income, they were “good livers,” and the unlettered and out of touch with the world were always noted for their openheartedness and hospitality. They secured grants to large tracts of the lands and held them in their own name and many of them profited from the sale of timber from their lands.

But the exploitation of the timber industry of eastern North Carolina reached the forests of the East Lake region and played havoc with the peace and contentment of the people. The big timber interests came to East Lake, bought some of the land and stripped it of the trees. They cut, not only on their own lands, but on the lands of the natives, and when a native protested and sought legal action to save his timber, the lumber companies stood him off in courts until after the timber was cut off. Dozens of East Lake people have gone to their remote County seat year after year to fight their cases, paying their own expenses for transportation and board for weeks at a time from their limited means, until their resources were exhausted. And the rich timber interests, with their unlimited funds and more able lawyers, were successful in staving off the disposition of the cases, securing a continuance for term after term until they had secured the timber they sought, and finally the case would drop. It Was often said one of the timber company that it only wanted to buy one tree on a piece of land to get a foothold, and it would take the rest before it stopped cutting. The only man who was successful in stopping their work was the man who went out in the swamp and held the invaders off at the point of a gun.

Courts Ruled Against Them

Unable to secure what they believed their just rights in the courts, galled by the loss of their timber, and the steady depletion of their funds by lawyers and legal expenses, there grew up a great bitterness against the courts, and disrespect for the ways of the law. The law seemed unworthy of recognition by an East Laker who had seen it work for the rich man and against the poor man. The unlettered woodsman and farmer could not understand anything except he had been dispossessed of what he had long called his own.

The big timber operations drove the game farther back in the swamps, and cut out this source of revenue. The farms were poorly drained and wet years played havoc with crops. The employment that supported many people in the timber business declined. Finally the operations of a company that gave employment to hundreds of men and made money flow freely in the vicinity ceased shortly after the advent of the prohibition laws. Many families were destitute, hundreds of people moved away to seek employment in the cities. Taxes were high, and the discontent of the people was heightened when the lawyers of the lumber company secured big reductions on their assessments.

The people were up against it in East Lake, and when big liquor interests established their stills in the swamps, many men found the employment at good wages in the stills, and learned the business. The big Brickhouse distilling interests gave employment to many people who learned how to make liquor, and growing dissatisfied, as employes, they found financial backing and established their own stills. The East Laker found a ready market at good prices for his whiskey because he was enabled to produce a good product. He had little fear of molestation and having the time to make a good product, felt justified in installing good equipment that would enable him to make a tremendous output. In the scattered neighborhoods of the section are something like 400 inhabitants. Buffalo City, once the headquarters of the big Dare Lumber Company operations, is about two miles from the Methodist Church and school. The other communities are located at a similar distance.

The average East Laker today is a generous, hospitable person, who would go out of his way to do a stranger a favor. The people are usually good providers, and outside of their liquor operations, are generally law abiding. They were always rough, hard-hitting men who got along fine until they got to drinking, but at that, fights were seldom and in a decade only about two serious fights have taken place between drinking men, with no fatalities in either instance. They never could understand why liquor shouldn’t be available to all who wanted it. They never had much respect for the administration of the law, yet they generally respected a neighbor’s rights.

And it is said by those who know East Lake that there are not over 30 stills in the section, and not over 60 people of the more than 400 are engaged in the business. For there are dozens of people in the community who are bitter against the industry, and would oppose it, if for no other reason than the ill-fame it gives their home section.

TB Clinic to be Held in Henderson, 1940

 “TB Clinic Here Week of April 15,” from the March 28, 1940 issue of Henderson Daily Dispatch.

An adult tuberculosis clinic will be held in Henderson during the week beginning April 15, it was announced today by Dr. A.D. Gregg, Vance County Health Officer. All persons having arrested cases of tuberculosis and all others who might have contracted the disease are asked to make appointments with the health department immediately for examination during the week.

Dr. A.F.H. Easom of State Sanitorium will conduct the clinic, making fluoroscopic examinations, Dr. Gregg announced. The clinic will be held at the Scott Parker Sanatorium.

Dr. Gregg asks that all physicians in the county report to the health department all patients for whom they would like to arrange appointments for examinations.

Charlie Clark With State 4-H Poultry Champion William Boykin, 1944

Culling Pays Dividends,” from the Henderson Daily Dispatch, Monday, March 20, 1944. To see the photo, go to https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91068401/1944-03-20/ed-1/seq-2/

Charlie Clark Jr., left, assistant county agent of Johnston County, is explaining the fine points of culling to William Boykin, 4-H poultry champion of 1943 for North Carolina. On a flock of 77 Rhode Island Reds, William had a profit of $489.42 above feed costs. Most of the eggs were sold to a hatchery. He had a disease in his flock and by strict culling kept his average production per hen at 254 eggs for the year. The average North Carolina hen lays about 160 eggs.

Don’t Drink the Milk in Elizabeth City, 1927

“Not a Clean Dairy Near Elizabeth City,” from The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, March 25, 1927. Fifty thousand microbes in each drop of milk doesn't sound appetizing to me! Of course, all the milk was sold unpasteurized so cleanliness was the only way to keep disease-causing microbes out of the milk. 

City Milk Inspector’s Survey of Dairies Servicing This City Show All Dirty, None Above Fourth Class

An inspection of 20 dairies serving milk to Elizabeth City reveals the startling fact that none one of all the dairies ranks above Grade D, according to the milk standards of the North Carolina State Board of Health. The health of every adult and the lives of hundreds of infants in Elizabeth City are endangered by dirty milk.

This is rough stuff folks but if we are ever to get a cleaning up of the dairies in and around Elizabeth City and secure anything like a clean and safe milk supply, we might as well face the facts and know where we stand.

Elizabeth City recently enacted a milk ordinance complying with the recommendations of the State Board of Health. To enforce this milk ordinance the city has employed an all-time milk inspector who will also serve as inspector of the city’s water supply.

C.L. Hedgepeth, the city’s milk inspector, got on the job a few weeks ago. He met with the dairymen and they asked him to give them until Oct. 1, 1927 to comply with the ordinance. It was a reasonable request and Oct. 1 has been fixed as the date on which the ordinance goes in full force and effect.

Now the new milk ordinance will not prohibit the sale of dirty milk; it simply provides that the dairymen shall label his milk and cream for what is actually is and the public will be guided by his label. If the folks think they can save money and keep healthy by drinking dirty milk they are at liberty to buy dirty milk. But those who demand better milk will have assurance that milk marked “Grade A” will be Grade A milk, or the best milk.

The grades are A, B, C and D. A total of 20 dairies within a radius of 13 miles of Elizabeth City are supplying Elizabeth City with 315 gallons of milk a day. They range from one-cow dairies to a single dairy that has a maximum number of 21 cows.

And not one of these dairies is above Grade D. Grade D milk is milk that contains not less than 1,000,000 nor more than 5,000,000 bacteria per cc. And that means one to five million microbes to every 20 drops. That means that in every drop of milk sold in Elizabeth City there are 50,000 microbes among them, possibly the microbes of tuberculosis, gonorrhea, syphilis, diarrhea and other horrible diseases.

Dairies are classed as Grade D dairies if they are deficient in the following particulars:

1.       No acceptable bottling facilities.

2.       Open privies in which flies have easy access and from which surface water washes in and out.

3.       Water for washing bottles is taken from an open well which contains or is subject to fecal contamination.

4.       No protection of bottles or buckets from flies between milkings.

5.       Unwashed or improperly washed udders, teats and milkers’ hands.

6.       Dirty milking clothes; dirty cow flanks; filthy milk stools; or pouring or straining milk in the barn during fly season.

Every one of the 20 dairies supplying Elizabeth City are listed under Grade D because they are deficient in several or all of the forgoing particulars. Out of the 20 dairies, 17 are adjacent to open privies where the water washes in and out.

The average Elizabeth City dairyman is ignorant or unmindful of modern sanitation. Only two dairies attempt to sterilize their bottles by steam and their methods are ineffective. Eighteen who profess to use hot water for washing bottles are washing them ineffectively.

Not one of the 20 dairies was found to use a safe form of washing their milkers’ hands or washing the teats and udders of the cows.

The dairymen promise to cleanup by October 1, but most of them are opposed to going on a Grade A basis. Grade A milk, containing not more than 50,000 bacteria per cc calls for clean barns, clean cows, and exact sanitary methods of handling milk. It will cost the dairymen a little money to go on a Grade A basis. To avoid this expense they are saying that they don’t believe Elizabeth City will want Grade A milk, because Grade A milk will necessarily cost more.

But if these dairymen are going to stick to Grade D or Grade C milk, this newspaper is going to see to it that Elizabeth City knows what these grades mean and knows the condition of the diary providing this milk. In the interest of better milk, better health, and the babies, this newspaper purposed to keep the light focused on the dairies serving this town until they clean up. And in doing this, The Independent believes it will have the cooperation of every dairyman who desires to clean up.

Points on Milk Ordinance

The primary object of Elizabeth City’s Standard Milk Control Ordinance is to raise the quality of the milk produced and to increase the amount consumed thus contributing to the general health of the City.

This is done by grading each source and requiring that every package of milk bear a printed label indicating the true condition of the contents. Such grades are determined by the City Health Officer through his inspector.

Thus, adulterated, adjusted, watered, skimmed or colored milk must be so labeled. Cream falls into four grades from the standpoint of fat content; these are subnormal, normal, heavy and extra heavy. Cream caps must bear this fat grade in addition to the sanitary grade.

Fresh, whole milk obtained by complete milking of one or more healthy cows may be labeled as “Raw Milk” and must bear a sanitary grade on the cap in letters large enough to be plainly seen by the purchaser. These grades are determined by the condition of the equipment, the methods used, and the condition of the product as determined by chemical and bacteriological examination. Standards are set in section 7, pages 17 to 26, inclusive, of the City Milk Ordinance.

Working Wives Taking Jobs From Men, 1940

“Legislation Considered to Curb Working Wives” by Roger W. Babson, from the front page of the March 29, 1940 issue of Henderson Daily Dispatch. Today, some argue that foreigners are taking American jobs. In 1940, the complaint was that working wives were taking jobs from unemployed men. The other concern that asking people if they were employed in the 1940 Census would result in faulty statistics turned out to be false.

The biggest reseach job ever undertaken by any nation in any age begins on Monday when the 1940 census starts. Each decade this vast nose-counting project gets bigger, the blanks longer, the questions more personal. However, as long as people want to turn to Uncle Sam for help when they are in trouble, they must expect to furnish the information which the government needs in order to intelligently provide such help.

Notwithstanding all of the hullabaloo about “your income”, most anxiously awaited reply will be to the question, “Are you employed?” I fear the nation will be shocked when the answers to this query are added, tabulated, published. However, it will be impossible to compare this figure to any previous totals. Our national ideas on unemployment have changed drastically in the past 10 years. We went “unemployment conscious” during the 30's. Ten years ago a jobless family of four was content to consider that one person—usually the father—was unemployed.

Today, that family would report there are four out of work.

Millions of Working Wives

During the last decade, business has been unable to absorb the trek of women into industry and find new jobs for the displaced males. It is estimated that there are three to four million married women holding jobs. Of course, in many cases this wives are the sole support of their own family, of their aged parents, or of some other family. My hat is off to any wife with guts enough to support the family if her husband cannot or will not do so. But many people believe something must be done about those cases where both husband and wife are holding down good jobs.

Under normal conditions I would feel that nothing need be done legislatively about the problem of working wives and husbands. Today’s conditions, however, are not normal. There are millions of men out of work, the government is supporting upwards of 20 million people, federal expenses have soared to an all-time peak. At least one-quarter of this money goes directly for relief and another 25 per cent for recovery. In addition, nearly every town and city runs community chests.

Adding to Tax Burden

Yet, from one end of the country to the other there are glaring examples of wives holding down good jobs while their husbands are doing likewise. These cases cover public jobs as well as private employment. So long as we have to hand over one-quarter of our income every year to meet government bills (which have been pushed up to record highs to support the jobless) then some type of formal action to stop this practice is bound to come.

A storm of controversy has rated around this subject for years. Protectors of the home have thumped the tub against working wives on the basis that the place for the wife is in the home. They insist that if we wish to continue with our present system of the family as the unit of society, we must confine the wife to her real role of mother and homemaker. I think a lot of words are wasted in arguing along this line. If the family as a unit of society is going out the window, then we can not stem the tide simply by putting a new law on the books. Only a spiritual family awakening will solve the problem properly.

Real Objections Are Economic

My only objection to married women working is based on cold economic grounds. Working wives take many part-time jobs, they work at lower pay scales than single women, they create a surplus of labor, they fill jobs that unemployed men could handle. The tide of resentment against the practice is rising steadily throughout the nation. I understand that two state legislatures have already adopted laws designed to force married women out of industry. Twenty-eight other legislatures have considered the subject.

Yet if legislation is to be adopted, I hope it will be practical, sensible, not too restrictive. There are hundreds and hundreds of cases that must be made exempt—cases where the wife must help support her own family, an unemployed brother’s family, an aged mother or father. If any legislation is adopted, it should not automatically purge married women from industry. It should merely prohibit both husband and wife form holding certain types of jobs, especially government jobs. In many a family the wife makes a far better bread-winner than the husband. If the wife has the business ability, then why shouldn’t se hold the family job while the husband stays at home and changes the baby’s diapers?

Should Recognize Trend

Working wives can make out a splendid case for themselves. Yet I believe they would be smarter if they recognized the rising tide of national resentment against both husbands and wives working where there is no need for both to work. They would do far better to resign their jobs now and prevent restrictive legislation—legislation which it may take years to repeal. We already have too many regulations shackling employers and employes. But if wives insist on working when their husband have good jobs, then they must face the day of reckoning.

Florence Cole's Address to the Training School, Boone, N.C., 1914

From the March 26, 1914 issue of The Watauga Democrat, Boone

Miss Florence V. Cole, a member of the Training School, delivered the following short but very timely and true little address before the faculty and student body one day last week:

“From the time that Socrates held his little intellectual court until the present day, there has been a feeling with the Student Body that the Faculty is its natural enemy. This has been particularly true of the small boy, to whom the teacher has been an implacable foe whose greatest joy in life was to deny him the privilege of hunting on an ideal winter day or fishing when the spring breeze called irresistibly.

“Some of these privileges are inalienable and belong to a boy by right of birth. They are the outlet for that tremendous energy characteristic of the small boy.

“The old time school master gave little heed to these rights. He stood on a high pedestal of dignity, stiff of collar and of backbone, and swayed his classes with the ferule. The school marm was even more awesome than this; she has become a matter of tradition. She was always an old maid, invariably scraped her hair tight back from her face, and exhorted her pupils in a shrill and nerve-racking voice.

“The up-to-date teacher wishes to avoid this sort of thing Not only does the exaggerated dignity starch and dry the humanity within him, but it is obviously hurtful to the attitude of the student. It constantly reminds the small boy of his lost rights and he resents having knowledge forced into his head by a dignity of odious as the ferule.

The faculty members of the world are beginning to realize the wonderful method opening to them year by year of making friends of the students and being one with them. They are trying to substitute interest in the school for the loss of those privileges dear to the small boy’s heart. They are trying to make him realize that by meanness he is not outwitting an enemy, but injuring a friend. They are giving him athletics, play-grounds and games of all kinds. They are giving him the Boy Scout movement, that he may bore his bare toes in the soft green turf of the bank, gaze with fascinated eyes upon the shadowy water and wait with expectant thrill, that only a really, truly small boy’s heart can feel, for the nibble of the fish at the other end of the line; and do it in a way calculated not to interfere with his education.

‘The Student Body is beginning to see this in its quick, keen way, and is beginning to respond in the desired manner. We are hopeful that the day will come when the prejudice of the ages shall have been brushed aside and there shall be perfect understanding and friendship between the Faculty and that throbbing, pulsing small-boy heart of the school, the Student Body.”

Getting Cigarettes Into Female Hands, 1927

“Getting Cigarettes Into Female Hands,” from editorial page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, March 18, 1927, W.O. Saunders, Editor and Publisher.

Tactful Cigarette Sales Boosters Supply Generous Samples to Elizabeth City Girls

Hundreds of Elizabeth City women were supplied with complimentary packages of a highly advertised brand of cigarettes by good looking salesmen who tactfully did their stuff here a few days ago.

Cigarette manufacturers haven’t had the nerve to come right out in their advertising and appeal for the trade of women smokers. That would be shocking. But they are making a strong bid for the women’s business just the same and one way is by getting samples into their hands. Hundreds of packages of a brand that is said to be good for the throat because its tobacco is toasted (? Actually looks like it says teasted but that doesn’t make any sense) were distributed among Elizabeth City women last week.

And if any woman who was offered a pack of cigarettes showed any resentment, the fact is not of record. Even women who do not smoke grabbed the samples eagerly to take home to their men folks.

Personal News From the Hickory Daily Record, March 11, 1918

March 11, 1918, from the Hickory Daily Record

Local and Personal

Lenoir and Rutherford baseball teams play on the local college diamond this afternoon.

Mr. Glenn Yount of Camp Sevier is spending a few days with his father, Mr. Davis Yount.

Mr. and Mrs. Russell Robinson of Charlotte spent the week end in the city with Mr. Robinson’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. R.W. Robinson.

Mr. Dan Hanover of Alpina, Mich., nephew of Mrs. A. Hutton, is spending some time with Mr. and Mrs. Geo. N. Hutton.

Mr. Stanley Wilson of Detroit spent Sunday with his family, who are guests of Mr. and Mrs. Geo. N. Hutton, and leaves this evening for Washington.

Superintendent McIntosh was surprised to learn today that he had suffered a stroke of paralysis, but as he was as vigorous as ever and was able to hustle as of yore, his illness did not worry him any. How the report started is a mystery, but his friends were glad to learn that there was nothing in it.

Blimps at Weeksville Air Station, World War II

If you’ve heard a story about a family member serving in the Navy in World War II who was stationed in North Carolina building blimps, it may be true. Our State magazine published an article on an air station in Weeksville. You can read it online at: https://www.ourstate.com/weeksville-air-station-blimps/

Negroes Have Right to Vote, Editorial by W.O. Saunders, 1927

From editorial page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, March 18, 1927, W.O. Saunders, Editor and Publisher.

The Negro and the Ballot

The recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, that Negroes under the Constitution of the United States have the right to participate in state primaries and cannot be deprived of that privilege by state law, was inevitable. That the disfranchisement of the Negro in many Southern States has been effectively maintained for something like a quarter of a century with Federal opposition has been due largely to the fact that the Negro has never put up a serious fight for the rights of franchise guaranteed to him under the fourteenth amendment of the Federal Constitution.

The reason the Negro has not put up a serious fight for his rights has been due in the main to the tact, patience and meek commonsense of Negro leaders thruout the South who have suffered the humiliation of disfranchisement in silence because they recognized and appreciated the elements of justice and reason in the Southern white man’s contention that the masses of the Negroes in the South were intellectually incapable of exercising the right of franchise.

The case from Texas which went up to the Supreme Court at Washington was easy to dispose of because Texas made an outright discrimination against the Negro because of his color. Here in North Carolina we disfranchise the Negro in a more polite way, but not less effectively.

In a constitutional amendment adopted in 1902 we denied the franchise to the Negro by stipulating that “Every person presenting himself for registration shall be able to read and write any section of the Constitution in the English language.”

As a larger percentage of Negro voters in the State could not so read and write back in 1902, the Negro was effectually disfranchised. There was not a word said about color in our amendment. It discriminated against illiterate whites and blacks alike. But the illiterate whites were shrewdly taken care of. The amendment excepted any male person who was entitled to vote on Jan. 1, 1867 or any time prior thereto, or any of his lineal descendants. Not a word was said about color there, but Negroes were not voting in North Carolina prior to Jan. 1, 1867 so the “grandfather clause” didn’t help them; it did prevent every white cracker in the state from being disfranchised because of his illiteracy.

But it is not in the amendment to our state constitution so much as in its enforcement that the Negro has been denied the vote for years. The Negro has made great strides in educational progress in a quarter of a century and millions who could not qualify for registration by reading and writing a section of the constitution a few years ago, can very well qualify to-day. That they do not qualify is because the enforcement of the amendment is in the hands of Democratic registrars who will not permit them to qualify.

How it works is well illustrated by a case that came to my personal attention here in Elizabeth City a few years ago. Two well-educated colored women tried to register in a certain precinct. The registrar told them they would have to read and write the constitution. The registrar couldn’t read it and write it correctly himself. But the two women proceeded to read and write as directed. The registrar saw with alarm that they were going to qualify. He took the book containing the constitution away from them, closed it up and told them they would have to write from memory. He kept the two colored women off the registration books and got away with it. They did not go to court or make any fight for their rights. If they had gone to law and gotten by a biased local county judge to the Supreme Court they would have won their right to the franchise and have established a suit for damages against that registrar as well. “That private damage may be caused by such political action and may be recovered for in a suit at law hardly has been doubted for two hundred years,” according to the recent Supreme Court decision.

Ultimately and at no far distant date the Negro will regain the franchise in every Southern State. It is his right under a white man’s constitution in the making of which the black man had no hand. I am not setting myself up as a defender of the Negro’s rights in the matter; I have other troubles enough, God knows. I merely state a fact of which all of us should take cognizance.

C.C.C. Project Reports From North Carolina, March 24, 1934

C.C.C. project reports from North Carolina

March 24, 1934—Located in Durham, N.C., Co. 436 checks up to find that only five days have been lost in eight months because of the Dixie weather, which consists mainly of sunshine. The outfit is working in the beautiful hills of Hill Forest, one of the prettiest sections of the state. At present, the company is constructing eight- and six-tenths miles of truck trails.—Carl Parker

March 24, 1934—Capt. Hugh A. Page, C.O. of Co. 432, Stantonsburg, N.C., was presented with a sabre and scabbard by members of his company. Capt. Page has completed six months of active duty and will return to civilian life.

Checker Fiends To Match Wits in Elizabeth City, 1927

“Checker Fiends to Match Wits Here,” from The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., March 18, 1927.

To contests to determine the champion checker player of Northeastern North Carolina will be held in this city next week. The first will be held Monday, March 21, at 7:30 in the Chamber of Commercie rooms for the elimination try-outs. The second and greatest contest will be held Friday night, March 25 at the same hour and place to determine the championship.

The winner will receive a handsome silver trophy.

J.C. Evans and Lonnie Sherlock are promoting the checker fest, and among the entries to date from this city are: M.W. Davenport, Dr. M.M. Harris, Dan Harris, Lonnie Sherlock, G.G. Markham, Vann Sawyer, Jim Wilcox, Billy James, Raymond Ange, and J.C. Evans.

Moyock’s entry, J.P. Murray, will play blindfolded.

State News Summary, March 18, 1927

 “The State News,” from The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., March 18, 1927.

Digest of Things Worth Knowing About Old North State Folks and Things

Governor McLean directed Attorney General Brummitt to investigate the charges of graft against certain employes of the State Board of Health in connection with the administration of the State sanitary privy law, which were brought to public attention on the floor of the Senate by Senator Rivers D. Johnson of Warsaw in which he said that an inspector of the State Health Department contracted with a contractor to build privies for $18 and that the owner had to pay $25. In other instances, the charge for building the privies was less, Senator Johnson said, but there was a difference between the contract price and the charge to the owner.

--

N.A. Townsend of Dunn and Clayton Moore of Williamston were named by Governor A.W. McLean as the Eastern special superior court judges authorized by the emergency judges act which was passed by the 1927 General Assembly after the bill creating additional districts had gone on the political rocks surrounding any attempt to redistrict the State. Both men have served in the General Assembly since 1921. 


A.L. Clodfelter, one of the city’s well-known citizens and a Confederate veteran, died at Lexington after an illness of several days, aged 80 years. 


David B. White, youth of North Carolina, filed suit in Mecklenburg Superior Court for $10,000 against the Southern Railway, alleging arrest without cause. He stated in his complaint that he was going from Charlotte to Pelzer, S.C., to visit an uncle. He was arrested in Greenville at the railway station charged with loitering and within five hours was in shackles on the county roads.

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Robert and Herbert Taylor, two 13-year-old boys, were found guarding a still near Greensboro. Howard Barham and A.L. Taylor are accused of being the operators. When the officers got to the still at the early morning hour they found the youngsters there. They are the youngest prisoners ever brought in by the authorities on charges connected with the making of liquor.

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Herndon W. Goforth of Lenoir, N.C., American consul at Sao Paulo, Brazil, received four serious stab wounds inflicted at the American Consulate by an American giving his name as David Canfield. Canfield, who was arrested, claimed that he had stabbed the American consul in self-defense. He went to the consulate on private business.

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Rev. W.L. Barre, pastor of several Baptist churches in Davidson County for the past five years or more, has received a call to the Shiloh Baptist Church in Camden County, one of the oldest Baptist Churches in North Carolina. The church in Camden was formed about 200 years ago.

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Julius E. Jernigan, well-known Sampson County farmer, aged 72 years, who died last week, is survived by 12 children, two children having preceded him to the grave; 82 grandchildren, 15 of whom have died, bringing the number to 97, and 20 great-grandchildren.

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Judge E.Y. Webb announced that he would appoint J.Y. Jordan of Asheville federal clerk of the Western District of the United States Court. This also means, Judge Webb stated, that the clerk’s office will be located in Asheville. Jordan has been deputy clerk in the Asheville office for four or five years.

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A. Homer Smith, who was charged with the death of his wife and serious injury of his two sons, submitted to a charge of second degree murder, and was sentenced by Judge R.A. Nunn of New Bern, presiding in Superior Court, to not less than 10 years and not more than 15 years in the State’s prison.

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The oldest engineer of the Seaboard railroad, “Uncle Jim” Weldon of Lewiston, died at his home following a brief illness. He was 83 years old and 62 of those years had engineered the “Huckleberry Special” between Lewiston and Portsmouth.

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H. Lee Wesey of Winston-Salem was killed near Salisbury on the national highway when a car in which he was riding turned over. E. Donichy of Greensboro, who was driving the car, escaped with minor injuries.

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Herbert M. Poe, Atlantic Coast Line engineer, prominent Masonic and fraternal leader and secretary of the Seaside Division of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, died at Rocky Mount after a brief illness with pneumonia.

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Miss Iona Allen, girl wife of Taylor Allen, died in Mt. Airy as a result of a pistol wound in the throat. Her slayer was Tommy Martin, aged about 17, who was playing with a pistol.

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Dr. Thomas A. Bohannon, for many years a leading citizen and medical practitioner, died at his home in Burlington after a long confinement caused by a fall in which he fractured his hip. He was 86 years old.

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The North Carolina Board of Nurse Examiners will hold examinations in Raleigh in the House of Representatives April 12^th, 13^th and 14^th, according to the secretary, Mrs. Z.V. Conyers of Greensboro.

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Appointment of Pardon Commissioner H. Hoyle Sink and Thomas G. Bowie of Asheville County to be special superior court judges was announced by Governor W.A. McLean, who is spending several days at Pinehurst.

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Charged with an attempted criminal attack upon Mrs. Etta Griffin, 19, who alleged that he forced her into his automobile at the point of a pistol near Wilmington, W.T. Benson, 22, of Summer Hill was jailed without bond.

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R.D. Thompson Jr., four-month-old son of Mr. and Mrs. R.D. Thompson of Raleigh Was found dead. The baby was having been accidentally smothered to death as he slept in bed with his mother.

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John Hardy, white, and Leonard Williams, negro, dead, and Cam Pridgen, white, and three other negroes were seriously injured as the result of a boiler explosion near Warsaw.

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A.C. (Sandy) Kelly, former sheriff of Moore County, died suddenly a few days ago following an acute indigestion which lasted about 10 minutes.

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Verdict of murder in the second degree was returned at Hendersonville by the jury trying William Bennison for the slaying of federal prohibition agent V.E. Grant last June.

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Unidentified robbers took around $250 in cash and checks Tuesday night during the supper hour from the grocery store of H.C. Armstrong at New Bern.

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“Be happy, honest, and live moderately,” was the recipe given by Mrs. Jane Childers of Dillsboro on the occasion of her 104^th birthday to those who would live a long life.

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Within two hours after a divorce had been granted Mrs. Lula F. Jones in Wake superior court from George M. Jones, 68, the latter married Mrs. Arratta Bryant, 55.

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Luke, the 17-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Luke Mizell of Brown Spring section near Williamston, died from a gunshot wound accidentally inflicted when a gun fell from a wagon.

Eleanor Roosevelt's Column Features Dr. Harriet Elliot, 1947

From Eleanor Roosevelt’s “My Day” column, published in various newspapers on March 15, 1945. She wrote about Dr. Harriet Elliot, who had been “lent” by the University of North Carolina to the U.S. Treasury Department to assist with a campaign to sell War Bonds and Stamps. Dr. Elliot would not make it back to Chapel Hill. She would die in office in August, 1947.

NEW YORK, Friday—Yesterday morning, Miss Alice Nichols, who is in charge of the Victory Food Campaign for the Department of Agriculture, attended my press conference. I was much interested to find that we have had such a splendid response to the appeal made by the Department for more food production. Now they are going to be able to tell us at certain periods what foods we ought to buy and eat fresh, because they are so plentiful on the market.

Dame Nature has had a hand in this, and from now on we should be eating as many Georgia peaches as possible. Young chicken should form a large part of our diet, and even if Englishmen can only get one egg in every three weeks, we may have as many as we want every day and feel patriotic.

Someone brought up the cost of some of these products, which in spite of being plentiful still are fairly expensive. Miss Nichols told us that a number of the chain stores are planning to get together and sell these Victory Food Specials at cost as they are announced month by month.

If peaches are plentiful, there is no reason why even a woman in the city could not buy an additional amount and preserve them, if she has space enough for shelves where her fruit can stand ready for use in the winter months.

On the train to New York City yesterday afternoon, I managed to go through a considerable amount of mail. The evening meeting of the executive committee of the International Student Service was of particular interest, for it covered the plans for the Student Assembly in Washington in September, which promises to be of real interest.

Today the city is gray and cool. I am doing one or two errands, and then attending a luncheon given by Mrs. Lytle Hull for Miss Harriet Elliott and Mrs. Henry Morgenthau, Jr. I am delighted that Miss Elliott has been lent by the University of North Carolina to help the Treasury Department organize the women of the country in the campaign for a wider sale of War Bonds and Stamps. She is not only very able, but one of the best people to work with that I have ever met.

Today is American Heroes Day, and cities throughout the nation will do honor to their war heroes by trying to break their record for War Savings Bonds and Stamps. One million retailers throughout the nation are trying to meet their billion dollar quota, as set by the Treasury Department, before July, and so 750 cities will stage drives today.

In some cities they are carrying on their celebrations for several days. Des Moines, Iowa, for instance, on Saturday will hold a patriotic rally in the Drake University stadium and admissions will be paid in War Bonds and Stamps. The roll of honor will be unveiled, and on Sunday there will be a sunrise religious service to pray for the Des Moines boys. There is no lack of enthusiasm, so this drive will certainly be successful.

E.R.

COPYRIGHT, 1942, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.

 Eleanor Roosevelt, "My Day, July 18, 1942," The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Digital Edition (2017), accessed 10/21/2017, https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1942&_f=md056241.

J.H. Aydlett Slaughters Two Prize Porkers, 1919

The Independent, March 14, 1919

Prize Porkers

J.H. Aydlett killed two porkers on his farm near Weeksville Wednesday, and the two dressed weighed 1,300 pounds. The largest, weighing 750 pounds, was a big bone Poland China. The next largest, a Duroc Jersey, weighed 550. Mr. Aydlett is acquiring some fame as a farmer and stock grower. He has just given the double vaccine treatment to 120 thorobred pigs on his farm.