The paradox of the South was that while it was blessed by nature with immense wealth, its people as a whole were the poorest in the country. The population problems of the South were the most pressing of any America faced.

Many thousands of the South’s families were living in poverty comparable to that of the poorest peasants in Europe. The low-income belt of the South was a belt of sickness, misery and unnecessary death.

The fact that the South was the source of a considerable part of the rest of the nation’s population made the South’s difficulties in providing school facilities a national problem.

YEARS AGO,

THE SOUTH WAS

AMERICA’S NO. 1

ECONOMIC AND

EDUCATIONAL

PROBLEM.

The South’s excess of births over deaths was 10 per thousand, compared with the national average of seven per thousand, and the South already had the most thickly populated rural area in the United States. The largely rural states of the South supported nearly one-third of their population in school, while the industrial states supported less than one-fourth. There were fewer productive adult workers and more dependents per capita than in other sections of the country.

Moreover, in their search for jobs, the productive middle-age groups left the South in the greatest numbers, tending to make the South a land of the very old and the very young. Migration took from the South many of its ablest people. Nearly half of the eminent scientists born in the South were now living elsewhere. The export of population reflected the failure of the South to provide adequate opportunities for its people.

The richest state in the South ranked lower in per-capita income than the poorest state outside the region. The average income in the South was 52 percent of that in the rest of the country. The average annual wage in industry was only 71 percent of that outside the region. By the most conservative estimates one-half of all families in the South should have been rehoused.

Since the South’s people lived so close to the poverty line, its many local political subdivisions had great difficulty in providing the schools and other public services necessary in any civilized community.

The assessed value of taxable property in the South averaged only 34 percent as much as the Northeastern states. In other words, the Northeastern states had three times as much property value per person to support their schools and other institutions. Consequently, the South was not able to bring its schools and many other public services up to national standards, even though it taxed the available wealth as heavily as any other section.

The state and local governments of the South collected only 56 percent as much per person as the state and local governments of the nation as a whole collected. Although the South had 28 percent of the country’s population, its federal income-tax collections were less than 12 percent of the national total.

Low industrial wages for men in the South frequently forced upon their children as well as their wives a large part of the burden of family support. The South led the nation in the employment of children in both farm and industrial work. One hundred eight out of every 1,000 children between 10 and 15 years old were employed in the South, compared with 47 out of every 1,000 children of these ages in the country as a whole.

Employment of children affected school attendance. If consideration was given to the number of days of school attendance, the disparity appeared much greater; the school term generally was shorter in the South than in other sections. The upper age for compulsory school attendance throughout the rest of the country was generally 16 to 18. However, two Southern states required attendance only to 14, one to 15, and only in two states did the upper age extend above 16 years. All permitted exemptions that materially lessened their effectiveness.

Low wages and poverty were in great measure self-perpetuating. Its people had been living so close to poverty that the South found it almost impossible to scrape together enough capital to develop its natural resources for the benefit of its own citizens. A glance at the bank reports showed how difficult it was for the Southern people, whose average income was the lowest in the nation, to build up savings of their own. Although the region contained 28 percent of the country’s population, its banks held less than 11 percent of the nation’s bank deposits. Savings deposits were less than 6 percent of the national total.

The presence of malaria, which infected annually more than 2 million people, was estimated to reduce industrial output of the South by one-third. The health-protection facilities of the South were limited. For example, there were only one-third as many doctors per capita in South Carolina as there were in California. The South was deficient in hospitals and clinics, as well as in health workers.

Since adequate schools and other means of public education are indispensable to the successful functioning of a democratic nation, the country as a whole was concerned with the South’s difficulty in meeting its problem of education. Illiteracy was higher in the Southern states than in any other region. The South had to educate one-third of the nation’s children with one-sixth of the nation’s school revenues.

Although Southern teachers compared favorably with teachers elsewhere, the average annual salary of teachers in not one of the Southern states was equal to the average of the nation. In few places in the nation, on the other hand, was the number of pupils per teacher higher than in the South. Overcrowding of schools, particularly in rural areas, lowered the standards of education, and the short school terms of Southern rural schools further reduced their effectiveness. In the South only 16 percent of the children enrolled in school were in high school, compared with 24 percent in states outside the South.

Higher education in the South lagged far behind the rest of the nation. The total endowments of the colleges and universities of the South were less than the combined endowments of Harvard and Yale. Meager facilities existed in the South for research that might lead to the development of new industries especially adapted to the South’s resources. As for medical schools, the South did not have the facilities to educate sufficient doctors for its own needs.

But the poor educational status of the South was not a result of lack of effort to support schools.

All Southern states fell below the national average in tax resources per child, although they devoted a larger share of their tax income to schools. The Southern states spent about one-half the average for the country per child in schools.

That was the South 60 years ago. The National Emergency Council, advised by a group of 22 noted Southern leaders, pulled few punches in its stark portrayal of a South that constituted a “national emergency.”