The significance of the situation was generally recognized by those who were in close touch with the experiment stations and their needs.

Dr. E. W. Allen, then Director of the States Relations Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, addressed the thirty-fourth annual convention of the Association of Land-Grant Colleges as follows:

This halt in the station appropriations is not attributed to any marked change in public sentiment, and perhaps not primarily to the effects of the war itself. But new legislation diverted attention and placed new demands on the States which have doubtless had their effects. The passage of the Agricultural Extension Act in 1914 and the Vocational Education Act in 1917 called for offsets by the States which have increased from year to year. These charges have been added to by the Federal Road Act, which makes the largest demand of all. For the current and coming fiscal years, these three measures will call for combined contributions from the States equivalent to considerably over fifty million dollars a year. In some cases they may work against any large increase for research in the near future.87

A clear statement as to the reason why matching requirements in one area would affect appropriations in another area was made by E. A. Burnett, director of the Nebraska Experiment Station, in an address before the Association of Land-Grant Colleges:

The Smith-Lever and the Smith-Hughes Acts, in which the Federal government offers to match dollars with the State government to promote agricultural extension and vocational education, place the experiment station under a handicap in securing appropriations from the State legislature, unless the same system is used for all. Members

of the legislatures unfamiliar with the purposes of different agricultural activities and interested mainly in other questions are not likely to discriminate between various lines of agricultural work. If they match dollars with the Federal Government in one and not in the other they are likely to give most support to activities in which one dollar will do the work of two.38

That failure to increase State appropriations for experiment stations was not caused merely by lack of funds in the States, nor an unwillingness on the part of legislatures to

37 Association of Land-Grant Colleges, Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Convention.. 1920 (Burlington, Vt.: Free Press Printing Company, 1921), p. 94.

...

38 Ibid., p. 99.

make appropriations for the development of the work in agriculture, is borne out by a statement made by Dr. Allen:

the total [State support] for 1920 stands at practically the same figure as for 1914, six years previous. Six States report decreases in appropriation during that period, aggregating nearly $178,000. Only twenty States show an increase in those six years amounting to as much as $10,000 or over. For twenty-eight States the increased State appropriation ranged from nothing up to $10,000, aggregating $87,000 for this group of considerably more than half the total number. This gives an average for those States of a little more than $3,000 in six years, or $500 a year in this period of unprecedented cost.

But more money was appropriated to the colleges in that period than ever before. These same twenty-eight States increased their extension funds through direct State appropriation by a total of approximately a million and a half dollars, equivalent to an average of over $50,000 per State. When this average State appropriation for extension is compared with the average of $3,000 by the same States for the experiment stations, the neglect of the stations stands out in its naked reality.39

During the period following the Smith-Lever legislation the experiment stations suffered so greatly that it was several years before they were back on a basis where they could render as efficient service as they were previously carrying on. The situation was discussed by Dr. Allen:

Since 1914 the directors of half the stations have changed, several of them more than once. In eight instances the directorship, which was formerly separate, has been combined with other offices, that of president of the college, dean, or director of extension. The effect of these combinations, frequently made in the interest of economy, has been to quite materially decrease the administrative supervision of the station affairs, and in some cases to provide less expert supervision of its work. The total number of separations from the stations in the last six years represents an approximate turnover in the personnel of about 80 per cent. Of those who left, 370 ranked as heads of departments or project leaders, the remainder, aside from directors, being of the grade of assistants, superintendents, etc. By actual count there has been a decline of 250 in the number of persons on the station forces, from an average of about 1,700.40

The conditions described by Dr. Allen should not be attributed entirely to the effects of the Smith-Lever Act.

39 Editorial, Experiment Station Record, XLIV (1921), p. 607.

40 66th Cong., 3d sess., Annual Reports of the Department of Agriculture for the Year Ended June 30, 1920, H. Doc. No. 923 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1921), pp. 454-5.

Funds alone would not have made it possible for the stations to prevent completely the retrogression that took place. There were needs and demands, especially after the United States entered the World War, that could not be met by money alone. Furthermore, the period under consideration was one of rapidly rising prices for both commodities and services. In addition to these factors it should be borne in mind that some of the Hatch funds were used for the dissemination of the results of the researches. Even when allowance has been made for these factors, however, it is still evident that the decline which took place in the efficiency of the experiment stations was in a large measure due to the enactment of Federal legislation that made it possible for the States to get an additional $1.00 of Federal funds for each one of their own that was spent under the Smith-Lever Act, whereas that was not the case with funds appropriated for the experiment stations.

These statements are not designed to discount the value of the work done under the provisions of the Smith-Lever Act. The merits of that program will be considered in a later chapter. It does serve, however, to describe a crucial period in the history of agricultural experiment stations and, perhaps even more significantly, to illustrate the fact that one program of activity cannot be adequately considered by itself, but must be studied as but one part of the broader scheme of land-grant college instruction.

Support of Research among Negroes

Funds are authorized by three Federal acts to defray for agricultural experiment stations the "necessary expenses of conducting investigations or making experiments” which seek "the establishment and maintenance of a permanent and efficient agricultural industry." Included in the scope of these studies are "such economic and sociological investigations as have for their purpose the development and improvement of the rural home and rural life, and for printing and disseminating the results of said researches." For the

year 1935-36, 17 Southern States received $1,565,000 under the provisions of these acts.41

Although none of these funds was allocated directly to the land-grant institutions for Negroes, this does not mean that Negroes are not benefited by the results of the work done with the funds. The published results are available for use by both white persons and Negroes. In many of the studies in States having a large percentage of Negroes it has been assumed that both races are integral parts of the community population and both races have been included in the studies. Two studies in progress at the Alabama Experiment Station are illustrative of this fact. One of these is a farm management study of the effects of erosion control measures and includes consideration of 272 Negro families and 362 white families, this being the ratio in which they occur in the area under study. The second, a study of farm planning for the future, includes the Negro population as it occurs in the various types of farming areas of the States. Similarly, the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station has recently reported the results of an inquiry in which the data for white persons and Negroes are separately reported on a number of points.42 These are illustrations only; additional instances could be cited. The attention to the Negro as an element in the rural population of the South has shown a commendable increase in recent years. There appears to be, however, two further possibilities of improvement:

1. Although most of the economic and sociological problems are common to both races, Negroes face many economic adjustment problems which are markedly different, in kind or degree, from those which confront white persons. There is need for a great deal of research with reference to them, and there is little evidence that such studies are in progress.

2. There is much to be said in favor of centralizing the responsibility within a State for the research in agriculture and home economics. It would seem to be practicable and

41 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Report on the Agricultural Experiment Stations, 1936, p. 182. Funds granted under the Adams, Purnell, and Bankhead-Jones Acts are included.

42 C. Horace Hamilton, Recent Changes in the Social and Economic Status of Farm Families in North Carolina, North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 309 (Raleigh: 1937).

desirable without decentralization of administrative responsibility to work out cooperative relations between the land-grant institutions for whites and Negroes so that some of the Negroes who have the ability and preparation could be brought into the research activities. This would give them an opportunity, that is now lacking, to develop their capacities in this area.