New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-05-30
THE SCHOOL TAX.

Ii, as is probable, the question of sus-
tanning the public schools of this city
shall be submitted to the people of New
Orleans, we look for a popular verdict in
their favor such as shall efeetually rebuke
the opposition which has sought, and still
is seeking to strangle them. A vote in
favor OF the proposed school tax will mean
vote to provide the twenty thousand
children attending the schools with the
means of education. A vote against that
tax will be vote in favor of popular ig-
norance and of the increase of vice and
pauperism in our city.
To suggest reasons why our citizens
should vote for the proposed tax seems an
insult to their intelligence. The public
schools of the United States are the pride
and boast of our country-the noblest ex-
ponent of those free institutions which
clothe our land with strength, and to
charge our people Gas is done by some)
with desire to close the schools, should
be felt by them as an insult alike to their
intelligence and patriotism.
+ In the closing up of the schools three
disastrous results would be involved,
either of which should be sufficient to
deter our voters from an act so suicidal.
At present, we shall refer to but one of
those results, reserving the others for fu-
ture discussion.
The schools are now managed and
taught by about three hundred and
eighty teachers, who are, to great extent,
dependent on their limited salaries for the
means of support. They are men and
women who have given themselves to the
profession, and who have accepted their
present positions with the belief that
while their duties should be faithfully
performed they might expect to retain
their places. To vote against a tax for the
support of the schools would be to vote
that this large body of our most deserving
citizens should be reduced to want and
suffering. Three-fourths of those teachers
are men and women of Southern birth, a
large number of them born in this city and
trained in our schools, and it is an illus
tration of the depth to which political
malignity can descend when, in seeking
to carry out its own blind purposes, it is
utterly regardless of the suffering its act
would entail on this estimable and de-
serving portion of our people.
For three months, owing to the OBJ
placed in the way of collecting
the school tax, the teachers have been IN
paid, and the mere withholding of their
for that time has caused large
of suffering. Yet they have waited |
patiently, hopefully, with trust in the
intelligence and sympathy of our citizens
which We do not believe will be disap- |
pointed.
Urged by pressing necessities, within
about one month, nearly hundred of
these teachers have sold a portion of their
claims to money brokers at ruinous dis
count still, faithful to their trust, they
have kept their places in the schools,
working on, though heart-wearied by
cares; and now, should our people be
,alled to vote on the question of tax for
he public schools, let them remember
hat to vote may" will be to deny these
ried and patient servants of the public
enumeration for past services and hope
or the future.
This is one aspect of the question.