N.C. State News, Aug. 8, 1919

From The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Aug. 8, 1919.

N.C. State News. . . A Digest of Everything Worth Knowing About Old North State Folks and Things

--Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, will deliver an address at Fayetteville, September 6, the occasion being the celebration of Lafayette Day in that city.

--After shooting his wife three times, inflicting instant death, W.B. Kettles, construction engineer of Greenville, shot himself twice. Kettles has been in ill health for some time. He may recover from his wounds.

--Damage amounting to $2 million has been done to Wayne county farms by the recent floods, and 3,000 acres of farm land under cultivation have been flooded with consequent destruction of crops, according to reliable estimates

--Despite his claim that he needed the whiskey for heart disease, J.O. King of Raleigh will likely receive a road sentence for the illegal possession of liquor. Elbert Choplin of that city was fined $50 and costs for transporting whiskey for King.

--Here is something new under the sun. According to a recent report of the Railroad Administration, the Norfolk Southern railroad has a record for the past year of 97.5 per cent on time for its train service. This, according to the Administration, is a very good record.

--Because he refused to raise the price on “hot dogs” and cold drinks, Louis Costellos, proprietor of a small stand in Durham, was threatened with death by Steve Proctor, another local dealer in similar articles. Proctor was placed under a bond of $200 as a guarantee of good behavior.

--At a farmers’ meeting held under the auspices of the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, the farmers of Wake county announced as their most pressing need a tobacco market, a cotton market and a packing plant. At the present time, the farmers asserted, they have to go beyond their own county to profitably dispose of their products.

--A reduction of 9 ½ per cent in the cotton crop of the South compared with the cotton acreage of 1918, is announced by J.S. Wannamaker, president of the American Cotton Association. This is the largest decrease of acreage in cotton every recorded. It is further stated that the condition of the growing crop at the end of July was 67 per cent normal, as compared with 70 per cent on June 25. (When the war ended, the market fell and cotton growers couldn’t sell the crop for cost. They got together and decided to grow less cotton in 1919.)

--Eight new concerns, including three cotton mills, with an aggregate capital stock of more than $3 million have just been chartered by the Secretary of State. The industrial development of the State has proceeded at an unusually rapid rate since the termination of the war.

--Mayor E.H. Bain of Goldsboro has established a new precedent in dealing with fallen women, but the announcement that in the future he will refuse to convict such women unless the equally guilty men are brought before him. The police have been instructed to arrest all men found in houses of ill fame.

--Every teacher in the schools of North Carolina this year must hold a certificate stating that he or she has not an open or active infectious stage of tuberculosis, or any other infectious disease. This is in accordance with an act of the General Assembly of 1919 that was fathered by Representative Turner of Mitchell County.

--Between 400 and 500 employes in the shops of the Atlantic Coast Line and Norfolk Southern railroads at Raleigh have joined the national strike of railway shopmen. Demands for wage increases which have not been granted are given as the reason for the strike, which if continued will mean the practical stoppage of railway traffic within a few days. (The inflation rate was 14.5% in 1919. By comparison, it was 2.4% last year.)

--Editor J.A. Sharpe of the Lumberton Robesonian was elected President of the North Carolina Press Association for the coming year, at the annual convention of the Association recently held at Wrightsville Beach. Resolutions endorsing the peace treaty were unanimously passed.

--“Fiddlin’ Joe” Collins maintained his title as champion fiddler of central North Carolina n a big fiddling contest recently held at Fuquay Springs, which was attended by aspiring fiddlers from Cumberland, Wake, Harnett, Sampson, Durham and other counties, who strove to wrest the championship from the uncrowned king of fiddlers in that part of the State.

--The strange pest supposed to be the army worm, which is devastating the soy bean crop in Pasquotank and other nearby counties, is likewise doing great damage in central North Carolina. That; taken with the recent destruction of crops by floods and the expected return of the 7-year locust, is causing much gloom and discouragement among the farmers of that part of the State.

--Rear Admiral Thomas Washington, who succeeds Admiral Victor Blue as head of the United States Bureau of Navigation, is a native of Goldsboro, Wayne county. There are at present four other Tar Heels who are now serving in the Navy with the rank of Admiral. They are Admirals Long, Anderson, Scales, and Blue.

--The hospital for the colored insane at Goldsboro sustained a loss of $35,000 during the recent floods, according to an estimate of the management made public this week.

--All matters of controversy between the employees and the management of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco company in Winston-Salem have been adjusted and the threatened strike has been called off.

--The highest honor which can be bestowed on an American soldier by the British government has been conferred upon Dr. A.R. Winston of Franklinton. It is the D.S.O., and was given in recognition of Dr. Winton’s bravery on the field of battle at Bellicourt.

--During the recent evangelistic campaign conducted by “Cyclone Mack” McLendonin Sanford, more than $5,000 was collected by the evangelistic party. Very large crowds attended every service, and scores of persons have signified their intention of joining the local churches at an early date.

--Capt. Chas. M. Bower, alias Steele, 81 years old, of Statesville, is in the  Washington, D.C. jail on a charge of obtaining various sums from Washington City people to finance a wild scheme for recovering buried treasure on Cocas Island, off the coast of Costa Rica. Bower claims to know the exact location of the hidden wealth.