Page:The North Carolina Historical Review - Volume 1, Number 1.pdf/32

30 namely, Wilson, Cabarrus, Forsyth, Greene, Jones, Lenoir, Martine, Perquimans, and Pitt. Wilson County under the leadership of T. F. Pettus, chairman, enjoys the distinction of having subscribed its allotment by the end of the first day of the Campaign. As a result of the June drive, North Carolina subscribed $30,390,790 in War Saving Stamps, including sales previously made. This lacked $18,000,000 of the allotment of $48,000,000.

The remainder of the year was devoted largely to the redemption of the pledge made in June. There was a series of drives to get the people to purchase the Stamps they had pledged. One was the Victory Drive, November 28th and December 6th. Another was the final drive later in December.

The fruits of the campaign in terms of money, being tangible and material, may be definitely counted. Our objective was $48,666,380 or $20 per capita, maturity value, for every man, woman and child—white and black—in the State. This is the same basis of apportionment that obtained over the entire Nation. At the end of the June drive, as has alread been stated, the State had subscribed $30,790,390 or not quite two-thirds of its allotment. At the end of the series of follow-up drives on October 1, the State had subscribed $37,073,444 or a little over three-fourths of its allotment.

The Retail Merchants of North Carolina led the Nation in sales, as shown by the following excerpt from a letter of congratulation by Mr. Harold Braddock, Director, Savings Division, War Loan Organization, Washington: "It may be of interest to you to know that in no other State has the Retail Merchants' Division accomplished such gratifying sales. On several occasions the smaller towns have succeeded in overselling their quotas to the amount of four hundred per cent, but no State has made a record to be even compared with yours."

What the Negroes of North Carolina, who constitute 36 per cent of the total population, actually accomplished in War Savings cannot be determined with any degree of accuracy for the reason that no separate records either of pledges or sales were made for the races. In pledges it was noteworthy that the 14 black counties of the State, pledged a larger per cent of their allotment than the State as a whole, that the 19 counties that subscribed or oversubscribed their allotment had a larger percentage of Negroes than the State as a whole, that the 49 coun-