Union in North Carolina

North Carolina's three largest State-run institutions of higher learning last week became one. During the 1931 session of the North Carolina General Assembly, Governor Oliver Max Gardner urged that the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), North Carolina State College of Agriculture & Engineering (Raleigh, 30 mi. away) and North Carolina College for Women (Greensboro, 90 mi. away) be merged into a single great university, with a single head, a joint board of trustees. Overlapping courses, duplicated functions would be eliminated.* Governor Gardner, ambitious for North Carolina education, said his plan would be an "outstanding contribution" to higher education in the South. The Assembly voted the merger, the Governor appointed a commission to survey the colleges.

Many a "Tar Heel" has objected in principle to the merger. The University at Chapel Hill, quiet and urbane, feels sufficient unto itself, is proud to be one of the oldest state universities in the U. S. (chartered 1789). The State College felt the first effects of consolidation last year when Dr. Carl Cleveland Taylor, dean of its Graduate School, was ousted. Reason given was economy, but many an angry Liberal felt that President Eugene Clyde Brooks, antagonistic to Dean Taylor's social views, had seized upon the merger as a handy excuse.

Even proponents of the merger, however, were shocked last month when the expert surveyors--Dr. George Alan Works of the University of Chicago, Dr. Guy Stanton Ford of the University of Minnesota, President Frank Le Rond McVey of the University of Kentucky--made public their recommendations. They proposed that nearly all important University activities be centred in Chapel Hill, that the Raleigh institution be reduced to a junior college. This was too drastic for Governor Gardner, who hastened to Washington to confer about it with Dr. Frederick James Kelly of the U. S. Bureau of Education. Last week Governor Gardner met with the trustees of the new University, officially consummated the merger in a milder form than originally recommended. Beginning with the autumn term, the three colleges will be administered by one president in direct charge. Each will have a vice president. There will be one comptroller, one director of graduate work, one director of summer schools. Total number of students: 6,450.

The new president will soon be elected. It is almost certain to be small (5 ft. 6, 130 lb.), able, liberal Frank Porter Graham, president of the present University. Under Dr. Graham, the "Hill" has prospered culturally. In the new deal it may be better off financially--its budget was cut by one-third last spring; President Graham was obliged to raise loan funds for scholars and an emergency fund for the "Hill" itself. But "Tar Heels" are reluctant to surrender any part of their president. Last fortnight the lively Chapel Hill Weekly pointed out that individual presidents of the three state institutions could do as well themselves what the new University president (first known as "Chancellor" in the survey report) is supposed to do. Growled the Weekly: "We do not believe that the people of North Carolina are in any humor to create a new and costly office for the sake of show."

War in Chicago

If your salary is nothing per month, how much do you lose when your pay is cut by one month? This is only one of the questions bothering Chicago's 14,000 school teachers, unpaid save for two weeks' salary during the past six months. This year's school term was shortened by two weeks, vacation salaries cancelled, which amounted to a month's pay lost. Few teachers could go vacationing, few could even find jobs to keep them going until autumn. Three weeks ago the Board of Education was urged to save $5.000,000 by closing the schools five weeks next term. This proposal was not carried out, nor is it likely that the Board will cut salaries. But such talk tired the teachers, who were already fed up with trying to live without pay. Impatient at endless budget squabbles involving academic millions of dollars, last week Chicago's school teachers demanded action. They declared war upon the people who they feel are responsible for the trouble, Chicago's non-taxpayers.

Some 96% of Chicago's school money comes from a general property tax, now in chaos. The State of Illinois contributes $3,000,000. According to the recommendations of the report made by Dr. George Drayton Strayer of Teachers' College, Columbia University (TIME, June 20), the State should pay $18,000,000. For next year the Board of Education has budgeted $90,000,000, which Dr. Strayer says should be reduced by $16,000,000. Last week the Board asked the city for $75,000,000 in tax levies, was told it must lop off at least $15,000,000. Chicago bankers have promised to buy tax warrants if cuts are made in building operations, plant maintenance. But up until last week the Board, although agreed on the necessity, made no move to retrench.

Believing that Chicago citizens are holding out $200,000,000 in taxes due. the teachers moved independently last week to get $20,000,000 owing them. They put on badges labeled "Unpaid Teachers," held a mass meeting in Grant Park. They demanded that State's Attorney John A. Swanson investigate and prosecute individuals and organizations engaged in "tax strikes." (They mentioned the Association of Real Estate Taxpayers as a prominent example.) They demanded that Federal District Attorney George Emmerson Q. Johnson prosecute taxpayers who claimed credit in income tax returns for local taxes not paid. Should appeals fail, the teachers promised to picket business establishments known to be delinquent in taxes. Resentfully they rejected County Treasurer McDonough's suggestion that they call on individual delinquents to collect taxes due. Said Teacher Nell W. Reeser: "The County Treasurer apparently thinks of us as a body of super-gold-diggers, who, by some magic wand, are able to conjure money out of the well-lined but carefully guarded pockets of the rich tax dodgers. But tax collecting isn't our business. If [the officials] can't do it, then they should quit and let some one else try."

Chicago's teachers did not get their money last week, but three moves were made to break the tax jam: 1) County Judge Edmund Kasper Jarecki announced he would consider no protested tax bill unless the protester first pays 60% of the amount due; 2) State's Attorney Swanson began investigating the Association of Real Estate Taxpayers, looking for possible grand jury action; 3) County Attorney Hayden N. Bell rendered formal opinion that even though a taxpayers' association seeks a lawful object it is, within the meaning of the law, conspiring criminally.

*New Jersey is currently considering a some-what looser federation of all its state institutions (Rutgers University, Newark College of Engineering, Newark Technical School, New Jersey College for Women, etc.).

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