The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1871-03-03
FROM TOPEKA.

q 1
: our control seem to render it prope
t that we should again refer to the cours
f of L. b. Kellogg in trying to defent
g himself Sor his immodest demand
against the State Treasury. 1t seem
= that the ''SnaaU controversy" has degen
: Grated into our personal wrangle." 81
far as we are concerned this is no "per
! sonal wrangle." The matter of appro
: priations is one in which the public il
concerned, as well as Mr.. Kellogg, ant
there is where he seems to err. From
the tone of his last article, we infer tina
he has 'Get down" considerably from
the lofty stand point from which he
wrote the first article. There is no at.
tempt to consign us to political grave
or to the fury of an outraged constitu-
ency. There is not much fiery indig-
nation. Mr.. Overstreet was thought
to be very moderate in his ''eard, ,
when we consider the violent, ungen-
tlemanly, uncalled for and false Ian
guage with which he was assaiIed in
Mr.. Kellogg's first attack. Mr.. Kellogg
makes no attempt to Justify his false
charges against Mr.. o. He does not
even do what would seem to be due
Mr.. o., that is, acknowledge that he
had misrepresented that gentleman. He
ought to have been just enough and gen.
tlemanly enough to do that, seeing there
was no grounds whatever for the at
| tack he made upon Mr.. o. He lodges
that point because it would be "unwel-
come handling" for him, as he admits
He "opens" on us with an alIusion to
our mode of conducting a personal con-
troversy in this paper, which contains
about as mnch truth as many of the
charges in his first article. All we will
say in reply to this point is that we de-
| fy him to prove single instance where
| we have wound up personal discus
sion by the statement that "no further
discussion of this subject will be per-
mitted in his paper" This assumption of
| the Principals is untrue. We shall, if
we have no bad luck, be around here
during the spring and summer, and the
little man can have all he wants in
this case of Kellogg VS.. the State treas
ury. We doubt if he really considers
it so funny, as far as he has gone, as he
would have us believe. We have right
on our side, and so long as we are de-
Tending the interests of the people
against the overreaching demands of
one man, we are willing to go ahead.
But we submit that the small game will
not require the wasting of much of our
powder.
Kellogg undertakes to correct an en-
ror of ours, and in so doing again tries
to mislead the public. He says the
Board of Directors voted four to one
against us. We say the Board of Di-
rectors voted three to two against him.
In saying, i'll our former article, that
the board simply recommended the
amounts for current expenses and sala-
ries, we meant the executive commit
tee. He quotes the law as follows:
.Said Board OF Directors shall have power
to appoint principal and assistant, to take
charge of said school, without expense to the
State, and such other teachers and officers as
may be required in said school, and ttC the sat-
ara of each, and prescribe their several du-
ties1
The Board did fix the salaries of each
teacher at the first meeting. We sup
ported their action. Mr.. Kellogg at
tempted to violate the law by repudia-
ting the action of the Board. Not will
ing to take the action of the Board in
fixing his salary, he calls, without au-
thority, another meeting, which he at
tempts to pack with members who did
not know his object. Had the object
of the last meeting been understood he
would have been defeated lin his i'm
modest designs in that, also. AS he is
a stickler for law, all at once, we will
call his attention to another provision
of the same act, which will undoubted-
ly not be to his taste:
.'But said Board of Directors shall have no
power to make any contract or incur any in
debtedness in the organization or control of
said institution, either in the name Of the
State, or for which the State be made liable"
But these contracts from the law
aside, does the Principal seriously ar
que that these salaries are not under
the control of the legislature? If he
does, his verdancy is serious.
Ell staten ent in this last ''school-chil-
dren" composition, and that is that we
began the controversy. We said not
word until we were forced to do so by
his continued publication, in several
papers, of ec pdrte articles, the object of
which articles were to throw US in an
unfavorable light at home. That was the
GninluS of those publications. We reply
to him, as one school child should to an
other, leaving out that smile, mo 1
didn't"
We believe there would bave been no
occasion for this controversy had not
the head of our Normal school urged,
with indecent zeal, such plans for per-
sonal emolument as seemed to us
not altogether modest or quite
becoming the place he occupies. We
are entirely willing that liberal salaries
| be provided, but we had rather take the
Judgment of some one not interested as
what liberal salaries are, than to &C
cept the action of the Principal in fix
| ing them. We also agree with him in
saving the places must be filed by COM
petent persons. We do not say that the
present teachers are not qualified. We
should not be in favor of greater sala-
ries for others in their places, because
we believe the pay is sufficient. We
hope the Professor is not going to re-
sign, and that the fates will deal gently
with them for, 10 these many days.
We must look after the interests of
tax payers, as they bear the burdens of
ali salaries fer those employed by the
State. The effort to continually stretch
up the salaries does quite as much
harm as good to all concerned. The
work of those employed in 'measuring
themselves among themselves" may, in
the end, prove to be not altogether wise,
especially while the strife continues to
beexclusively for the frightening of
the measure of salaries. Mr.. Kellogg
says he is in the habit annuaIly,.of fur
nishing the figures for the estimates,
''as a suggestion, simply basis for
their action. This may be true, but we
had no idea that by so doing he would