annual maintenance tax bearing a certain per cent to the amount of the bonds issued, such per cent to be worked out by the State Highway Commission. To spend $100,000 to build roads and then leave them without any provision for maintenance is folly equal to that indulged in by the farmer who buys $1,000 worth of farm machinery and then refuses to build a shed under which to keep it. All the license fees paid by the owners of automobiles ought to be paid to the State and disbursed by the State Highway Commission in the maintenance of State roads, so as to comply with the requirements of the Federal Government for the upkeep of roads built under the Federal Good Roads act. The powers of the State Highway Commission should be enlarged so as to give it supervision over all contracts made for road or bridge building, and it should be supplied with an adequate force of engineers for this purpose. VIII ANOTHER CHANCE FOR THE CHILDREN The Constitutional Amendment requiring a six-months school for every child in the State ought to be resubmitted to the people on its own merits unassociated with any other amendment. The children are entitled to have the voter cast a single ballot declaring whether he is or is not in favor of a larger opportunity for the child. Every town child has this much schooling already, and no man can look a country boy in the face and deny him the right of an equal start. IX INCORPORATION OF RURAL COMMUNITIES Rural communities should be given the right to incorporate by a vote of the people of the community. Such corporations, wisely and conservatively formed, will make it possible to do many things for the upbuilding of country life that are impossible so long as the community has no legal entity. I have suggested nine measures, all designed to serve one end, that is, to make life on the farm just as profitable, and just as attractive, as life in the town. I believe in the justice and efficacy of these measures, but I do not bow down to them or worship them. If any one can point out a more excellent way of attaining the desired end I shall greatly rejoice. What I am trying to do is to focus the thought of the State on the subject, for I know that if I can get two million people to think on these things with the intensity and constancy their superlative importance demands, some mind among the millions will find the best remedy for every evil and the best path to every good. Every suggestion made carries with it the initial and never to be forgotten requirement that the people themselves must be willing to pursue knowledge, and practice the homely virtues of industry and economy. No legislation can guarantee to ignorance the dividends of intelligence. Justice, equal and exact, can never deliver to idleness the fruits of industry. It would be a mistaken charity that would give to extravagance and frugality the same reward. A LOGICAL PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM It is possible to justify a uniform system of appointing the members of the county boards of education and the county superintendents of public instruction. It is possible to justify a uniform system system of electing these officials by a vote of the people. The present mongrel system, whereby in twenty counties these officials are elected by a vote of the people, and in eighty counties by the General Assembly, cannot be justified in any forum of common justice or common sense. The avowed object in having the boards of education elected by the General Assembly is to keep the schools out of politics. But the plain truth is, to make the naming of the county boards of education a perquisite of a member of the General Assembly often puts the schools in the very worst kind of politics. I am profoundly convinced that the welfare of the children of the State would be promoted by the appointment of a General Educational Commission of not more than seven men, chosen by reason of their known interest in the cause of public education, and clothing this commission with power to name the county boards of education in all the counties in the State, and clothing the county boards with power to name the superintendent and committeemen. Both on the central commission and the county boards the minority party should be given reasonable representation, and each member of the central commission and each member of the county board of education should, upon assuming office, be required to subscribe to an oath that in all cases he would vote for the men best qualified to serve the educational interests of the State and county, without regard to political considerations. MANUFACTURING Next in importance to agriculture is the manufacturing industry of the State. This industry affords employment to thousands of our citizens, and creates more than $300,000,000 of wealth every year. An industry of such gigantic proportions is deserving of the State's fostering care. Our manufacturers ask for no subsidies and no special privileges of any kind. They do ask and deserve to be treated with sympathetic consideration. As a class they are humane, forward-looking men, earnestly desirous of making the most of our natural resources, and they rightly resent being thought of as cannibals who delight to feast on the flesh of women and children. I am persuaded that practical regulations that make for health and safety, and for the proper conservation of womanhood and childhood, will meet with no opposition at the hands of these men. I insist that legislation with respect to our mills and factories should be made with reference to the living conditions that confront us, and not with reference to the theories of the professional agitator. I insist that our legislation shall reflect the conscience of North Carolina, and not the covetousness of New England. I am convinced that in North Carolina there is less of friction between labor and capital than in any state in the American Union where so large a number of operatives are employed. And this sympathetic relation between employer and employee ought to be fostered by laws that will appeal to the judgment and conscience of those most vitally concerned. I offer these suggestions: 1. The owner of every mill located within reasonable reach of a public water supply ought to be required to install running water in the homes leased to operatives. No one convenience would do more to lighten the labors of the women, and preserve the health of the entire family and community. 2. Our State anti-trust law should be amended so as to permit the same combinations for the advancement of our trade with foreign lands as are proposed in the Webb bill now pending before Congress. Given the proper encouragement from National and State authorities, our mills are ready and able to secure trade in every corner of the world. I long to see the day when every bale of cotton grown in the South will be spun and woven in the South, and when this day comes the South will be the greatest lender instead of the greatest borrower on earth. 3. My third suggestion is that a committee composed of representatives appointed by the North Carolina Manufacturers' Association, the Commissioner of Labor, and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction should prepare a plain, simple course dealing with the science of manufacturing, and this course should be made a part of the public school curriculum in every industrial center. The boys and girls who are already at work in our mills, and those who expect to become operatives, ought to be taught the underlying principles of the business in which they are to engage. The mill worker is entitled to know, not only what to do, but why he does it. In this way the head will acquire knowledge while the hand increases its cunning, and the final result will be a man instead of a machine. This process will enable our mills to produce their own experts, and every mill worker can enjoy a well-grounded hope of rising to a higher and more lucrative position. I am persuaded that if invited to do so, our manufacturers would be glad to send, at stated periods, trained, practical men into the schools in their communities to give the children instruction in the underlying principles of the particular work in which they are engaged. The Textile Department of our Agricultural and Mechanical College is doing a most excellent work with the force and equipment at its command. But North Carolina ranks next to Massachusetts in its textile industry, and promises soon to stand at the very head of the column, and I insist that the Textile Department of the College be enlarged both with respect to teachers and equipment, to such an extent that it will be recognized that North Carolina affords the very best textile training to be found in the United States. TAXATION My views in regard to taxation were embodied in a pamphlet submitted to the Constitutional Commission in 1913, and in a paper read before the North Carolina Press Association in 1914. Since the taxation amendment was rejected by the people, I have had no opportunity to make such further study of the subject as would justify the submission of any particular plan at this time. It is my purpose to thoroughly investigate the subject within the next two years, and I suggest that the General Assembly direct the Governor, the Chairman of the State Tax Commission, and the State Treasurer to make an extensive investigation, and submit a comprehensive plan of taxation to the next General Assembly. In the meantime, I desire to say, in order that our people may be giving the matter thought, that in my opinion any plan of taxation that will raise sufficient revenues, and be at all acceptable to our people, must involve the separation of the sources of State and local revenues. If this fundamental principle can once be agreed upon, its application will become a matter of detail. I earnestly urge this General Assembly, through its appropriate committees, to at once take an account of what the fixed charges of the State Government will amount to within the next two years and what the income of the State will be from all known sources, and I insist that appropriations shall not be made until the means for meeting such appropriations are devised. HEALTH The State Board of Health should be given ample funds to continue and enlarge its work. The law should require a careful examination of every child who enters a public school, at least twice a year. This can be done by whole-time county health officers, or by representatives of the State Board, as the conditions may warrant; but the law should compel it to be done. "The riches of a commonwealth Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health." To insure such riches intelligent examination of the children at stated intervals is absolutely necessary. The State Board deserves the unqualified support of the General Assembly in its campaign against quacks and quackery. The law requires a man to have a diploma from a first-class medical college, and to stand a rigid examination before the North Carolina Board of Medical Examiners, before he is allowed to write a single prescription for a patient in North Carolina. And yet we permit the sale of nostrums to our people without any adequate knowledge of whether or not they are injurious to health or have any medicinal value whatever. I am in favor of a law making it a felony for any man to sell, offer for sale, or advertise for sale in North Carolina any proprietary or patent medicine purporting to cure cancer, consumption, diabetes, paralysis, epilepsy, Bright's disease, or any other disease for which the North Carolina Medical Society and the American Medical Association declare that no cure has been discovered. I am earnestly in favor of a law requiring all venders of proprietary medicines to file with the State Board of Health a statement showing the exact composition of such medicines, and that the State Board be empowered to forbid the sale of such proprietary medicines in the State of North Carolina if in its opinion they are without curative value in the treatment of the disease they purport to cure. A bill is being prepared by our Health Department that will deal fully and adequately with this subject, and I give to this bill by most emphatic indorsement. ABSENTEE VOTING The General Assembly should, without fail, make provision for our citizens whose work keeps or carries them away from home, to participate in our elections. There is no constitutional difficulty in the way of such a law, and every consideration of justice and expediency favors it. ROTATION IN OFFICE The genius of Democracy is as much opposed to monopoly of office as to any other kind of monopoly. In order to have a government by the people there should be occasional changes in the individuals who administer public affairs. It is written in our State Constitution that the Governor cannot succeed himself, and the refusal of Washington to serve as President more than two terms so appealed to the judgment of the American people that it has become an unwritten law. It is not wholesome for the public, nor for the men who hold the offices, for our officials to have an indefinite tenure. Young men justly demand that they be given opportunity to show what they can do in the public service, without having to oppose men whose long possession of an office has well-nigh ripened into a feesimple title. New blood will make for wholesome growth. I am satisfied that a constitutional amendment limiting State officers to two successive terms and county officers to three successive terms would result in increased efficiency and diminished strife. Of course, such an amendment ought not to apply to officers in the judicial, educational, and health departments. THE SHORT BALLOT I am thoroughly converted to the wisdom of the short ballot. When Woodrow Wilson, while he was Governor of New Jersey, spoke in the Capitol Square at Raleigh, he said that the old admonition, "Not to put all your eggs in one basket," was not political wisdom. Said he, "The thing for the public to do is to put all of its eggs in one basket and then watch that basket." It is simply impossible for the average man in North Carolina who reads and takes a live interest in public affairs to acquaint himself sufficiently with all of the men who run for State administrative offices to pass upon them with any satisfaction to himself. Moreover, experience and observation teach that it is well-nigh impossible to induce men who are best qualified to hold administrative offices to run for them in State-wide primaries and in general elections. The Governor and the Lieutenant-Governor of the State should be elected by the people, and all administrative officers should be appointed. I feel no embarrassment in taking this position, for the reason that the change in the law would require a constitutional amendment, and could not possibly be effective during the present administration. THE STATE HOSPITALS The saying of Wilson, "Put your eggs in one basket and watch that basket," applies to the management of our State hospitals for the insane. Under the present arrangement, with a different board of directors for each hospital, no director feels that any great responsibility rests on him. Some of the very wisest and best men who are now serving on these boards, and have served heretofore, have told me that it was impossible in the limited time given by the directors to the supervision of the institutions to acquire any adequate knowledge of their conduct. One director stated to me that he refused to further serve on a board because he was not willing to be held responsible for the management of an institution about whose management he did not know and could not know enough to form an intelligent opinion. I am of opinion that the three hospitals for the insane ought to be under the management of a single board of not more than seven men. These hospitals do a common work, and are supported from a common fund, and I can see no good reason for a divided management. Under the new system the directors would give a sufficient amount of time to the supervision of the institutions to acquire accurate information concerning them. By the constant comparison of the work of |