State's Problems from a Woman's Standpoint, Sept. 5, 1925

Women Now Take Active Part in Public Life. . . What the State’s Problems Are from a Woman’s Standpoint

Raleigh, Sept. 5 (AP)—For years North Carolina problems, their solution, and the future possibilities of the state have been discussed by men. It is only within recent years that women have begun to take an active part in public life.

From the standpoint of a woman who has been in public life for the last 20 years, what are North Carolina’s most important problems of today? What are the State’s problems form the woman’s standpoint?

They are four in number, according to one woman who has spent the last 20 years in North Carolina public life:

--A recasting of our present taxing system.

--Reorganization of our public school system.

--The promotion of agriculture through the perfecting of organizations in farm communities for efficient marketing, reasonable financing, etc.

--Adequate protection f the existing forests and reforestation of cut over areas and barren lands.

Those are North Carolina’s outstanding problems of today, in the judgment of Miss Harriet M. Berry, organizer of savings and loan associations, editor of the Market News, and secretary of the North Carolina Good Roads Association.

Some of these problems “can be remedied with legislation,” Miss Berry says; “Others must be worked out by already existing agencies working with the people themselves.”

“The solution of our educational and other problems” depend upon the recasting of our tax system, Miss Berry believes. “There should be a uniform state tax levy on all property, real and personal, corporate and consumers, for the support of a real public school system. This will have to be done before the country boys and girls, constituting from 60 to 70 per cent of our people, can have educational opportunities commensurate with the city boys and girls.”

Miss Berry does not favor an additional tax on farm lands, but a tax on certain luxuries such as tobacco products, cold drinks, cosmetics, and other luxuries.

The reorganization of the public school should be such as to make “uniform standards as regards teachers, books, and equipment for the country as well as the city children.” This can come about Miss Berry believes, only as the tax system is improved.

“North Carolina’s advantages in soil, climate, and geographical location should enable her to become one of the largest factors in the great eastern consuming centers,” Miss Berry believes. But to accomplish this there must be worked out “for each farm community an agricultural program which will put farming on a business-like and efficient basis.”

Forest conservation and re-forestation will develop a tremendous source of revenue in the course of 25 or 30 years, Miss Berry says, but “there must be a well-defined and continuous policy of protection and reconstruction.”

From the front page of The Concord Daily Tribune, Saturday, Sept. 5, 1925

newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1925-09-05/ed-1/seq-1/