Nere Elexus Day

Nere Elexus Day. Image Source: News and Observer, March 14, 1935, p. 8.

Nere Elexus Day, a prominent Jacksonville attorney, is listed in various sources as an ECTC trustee, reportedly, from 1931 to 1934, but his name does not appear in the minutes of the board. Day’s appointment coincided with the early years of the Great Depression which challenged state governments to meet the necessary expenses of teacher training and public education. Regardless of his attendance at board meetings, Day’s greatest contribution to the cause of public education in North Carolina and ECTC’s mission of teacher training came when he, as a state representative, introduced, in 1931, the first piece of legislation providing for a sale’s tax, the proceeds of which were meant to help finance public schools as they extended the school year, by state law, to an eighth month. Day’s sales tax was, predictably, neither popular with state legislators nor the electorate but it did, quite significantly, initiate a legislative battle over how to advance public education and balance, as required by law, the state budget.

While Day’s bill as such was not enacted, North Carolina did, in 1933, pass a sales tax by a razor thin margin, thereby establishing a new revenue source that even now continues to be a major source of state revenue and one making possible extraordinary advances in public education throughout the remainder of the Great Depression, financing many of the achievements realized during Clyde A. Erwin’s (1897–1952) tenure as state superintendent of public instruction. Day remained a vocal advocate of the tax, arguing forcefully that unless the state was prepared to forsake its public schools, the sales tax was an absolute necessity. Day asserted at least two-thirds of North Carolina’s counties could not have kept their schools open for more than a few months without the funds generated by the sales tax. It was during these years, from 1931 to 1934, that Day was, in addition to working indefatigably for passage of the sales tax as a means of saving North Carolina’s public schools, reportedly an ECTC trustee.

Day was born in northwestern North Carolina, in rural Watauga County, Blue Ridge township. He studied at the University of North Carolina as an undergraduate for one year, 1906–1907, and then later studied law there, 1909–1910. In 1915, Day married Christine Sylvester a native of Richlands in Onslow County, resulting in his move to Jacksonville where he established his legal practice. Earlier, Day taught school for two years and served as editor of the Onslow Progress, also for two years. During WWI, he was stationed on the home front, between July 1918 and his discharge in 1919, as an army field clerk. In 1935, Day transitioned from his efforts as a state representative to work in Asheville as a special attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, assisting in resolving claims regarding disputed titles to lands on the Cherokee Reservation. In 1942, after serving briefly as a judge in the Onslow County Recorder’s Court, Day took another position with the U. S. Department of Justice, basing him in Durham. In 1945, he was elected president of the Sixth Judicial District Bar, and in 1950, he served as district director of the U.S. census for the Third Congressional District.

As a legislator, Day never shied away from controversial initiatives that he deemed necessary for the public good. In 1935, following the end of prohibition, Day proposed a bill providing for a referendum on liquor sales in North Carolina. As with his sales tax bill, Day’s was the first to dare to broach the topic legislatively and while it was not, in the end, passed, it initiated debates and subsequent legislation that resulted in state control of liquor sales through the Alcoholic Beverage Commission, in conjunction with county referendums approving such sales locally. Day, who declared that he was “personally ‘dry,'” argued that since surrounding states had legalized the sale of distilled spirits, North Carolinians were traveling out of state to purchase their liquor, effectively transforming the dry state into a wet one. In the process, potential revenue on liquor sales was lost. Although Day’s bill was soundly defeated, a more moderate proposal — one establishing a committee to discuss the issue — was approved that led to, in 1937, the Alcohol Beverage Control Act establishing a state monopoly on liquor sales, contingent on, locally, county approval via referendum on such sales.

Day’s somewhat headstrong approach to legislation might not have earned him final credit for bills passed, but it did establish that he was as an important agent of legislative change in the state for the cause of advancing public education and increasing revenues to finance it.

Sources

• Alumni History of the University of North Carolina. Durham: Alumni Association of the University of North Carolina, 1924. P. 159.
• Baskerville, J. C. “Liquor Bill Hearing to Be Ordered Soon: Day’s Proposal Assured Consideration by McEachern Committee Head, Despite Protest by Cale K. Burgess, Head of Organized Dry Forces.” Charlotte News. January 23, 1935. P. 17.
• Baskerville, J. C. “School Law Kept Schools Open in Seventy Counties.” Henderson Daily Dispatch. April 22, 1936. P. 1.
• Baskerville, J. C. “Sees Extra Legislature A Certainty: Representative Day of Onslow, Thinks Social Legislation Is Very Pressing.” Henderson Daily Dispatch. October 15, 1935. P. 1.
• Bratton, Mary Jo Jackson. East Carolina University: The Formative Years, 1907-1982. Greenville, N.C.: ECU Alumni Association, 1986.
• “Committee Breaks Up Over Sales Tax.” Charlotte Observer. March 10, 1931. P. 1.
• Cottrell, Jesse S. “Carolinians in Washington.” Charlotte Observer. April 27, 1941. Sect. 3, p. 12.
• “General Sales Tax Passed.” News and Observer. April 28, 1933. Pp. 1, 8.
• “Hold Conference on Title Work at Reservation.” Asheville Citizen Times. January 26, 1940. P. 7.
• “Liquor Question Faces Assembly.” News and Observer. January 19, 1935. P. 1.
• “Nere E. Day, Candidate for House, Onslow County.” News and Observer. May 30, 1932. P. 10.
• “Nere E. Day Elected Head of Sixth District Bar.” Onslow County News and Views. December 5, 1945. P. 1.
• “Nere Day Quits Post as Onslow Recorder.” News and Observer. February 16, 1942. P. 5.
• “Under the Dome.” News and Observer. December 30, 1935. P. 2.
• “Under the Dome.” News and Observer. March 14, 1935. P. 8.

Related Materials

Nere Elexus Day. Image Source: Yackety Yack, 1907. P. 168. https://lib.digitalnc.org/record/27818

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