Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1875-11-13
aGoING TOO FAST.
"The Montgomery County Court Get
ting Things into Snarl."
EpIroRs NASHVILLE AMERICAN

EDITORS NASHVILLE AMERICAN:
Under the above rather startling
caption in your issue of the 9th. | OBJ
serve letter from the Superintendent
of Public Schools in this county, adj
dressed to State Superintendent Trous-
dale. and what purports to be the re-
ply of the latter.
Our County Superintendent is well
known in this locality to be a gentle
man, whose mind, like certain warm
place, is paved with good intentions,
but whose ways, like those Of Provi-
dence, are past finding out. In this
letter he declares with emphasis that,
"The County Judge has no light to lay
finger sweight upon the school fund,
and that the only manner in which
school money can be paid out by the
County Trustee is TO the Treasurers OF
the several districts upon an order from
their respective boards.
And the State Superintendent grave
ly responds, That no such misapplica-
ton Of funds collected either by the
State or county under the present
school law could be permitted, that all
moneys now collected were to be APP
piled TO the support of schools as at
present established.
Will you please inform the latter
gentleman, with my compliments, that
| consider the above a very sound pro-
position of law and that nobody down
this way, that l know of, has ever
thought of disputing it. VIII you
please inferm him that the County
Court of Montgomery has never
dreanlpt of laying "a fingers weight
upon the school fund, or of misapply-
ing in any way ANY moneys noto cot
leeted for school purposes feither by
the State or county," u
Indeed if he will examine with care
the letter of his subordinate, whose
ways so closely resemble the ways of
Providence, he will find that he does
not precisely charge that there is a
good deal OF loose talk in that letter,
some valuable information on good
many subjects and highly interesting
account of conversation said 70 have
taken place between himself and the
County Judge, in which the latter in
dividual. since the Superintendent has
the telling Of it, comes out badly
worst, d. a
But when be comes, as the lawyers
say, to the charging part of his Bill of
Complaint, he charges that
Said committee recommended the court
to authorize the County Judge to issue
county warrants for 66335 per cent. of the
whole, which warrants are receivable in
pa ymsnt of taxes and when sufficient
amount of county polls have accumulated
to cancel the warrants with them"
Now this is not exactly what the
court did, but it is as near right as Su-
perintendent Whitfield was ever known
to be.
The County Court of Montgomery
instructed the County Judge to draw
county warrants upon the county treas
ury for the payment of certain claims
which the court chose to allow. TO
meet this extraordinary demand, the
court provided that portion of the
county poll tax for next year should
be paid into the county treasury for
revenue purposes.
This order of the court was correct
and will be obeyed. The services for
which the appropriation was made,
were rendered years ago by honest
men and women who had toiled in
that hardest of all fields of labor, the
school room. They looked to the peo-
pie of this county for their pay They
had received warrants signed by the
District Directors and countersigned
by the County Judge. They brought
no suits because they were informed
by intelligent attorneys that they could
not recover Nearly two years ago
they appealed as a matter of justice to
the Quarterly Court of which some of
the directors were members.
The matter was here publicly dis
cussed. 1t was declared that the fail
ure to pay these claims had shaken the
faith of the community in the present
school system. A year ago the matter
was referred to committee. In Jan
uary, 1881 lengthy report was present.
ed, recommending that the county poll
tax for the coming year should be APP
propriated to the payment of the claims
IN full; the court took no action at that
time, bat instructed the committee to
appeal to the Legislature, then in ses-
sion; statement of the case was drawn
up by the committee and forwarded TO
the Representatives at, Nashville. The
Bill, if introduced at all, fell dead, it
was hopeless case; again in April the
committee renewed their recommends
tiOu to pay the claims out OF the poll
tax, infull. Finally, the County Court,
not wishing to see so heavy q loss fall
entirely on few individuals, by a
unanimous vote, authorized the Coun-
ty Judge in all cases where the holders
were willing, to take up these warrants
for two-t thirds of their value.
All this while the County Superin-
tendent was silent. Though almost
absurdly fond of seeing his name in
print, he opened not his mouth, " and
now, when he suddenly wakes up after
his long sleep, and hastens to bring a
grave charge against the Quarterly
Court of this county, which has done
him the honor to elect him, insinua-
ating that the members have been
frightened into u compromise by threats
of law suit, that they have acted
without warrant of law and have
unanimously passed measures DANA
ging to the Free School interests
when he steps briskly to the front OF
Free Schools and talks of sueing men
who have labored in that cause for
years, he does himself an injustice, for
which, as his friend, | am sincerely
sorry.
And when the printers devil, for l
presume it was he, caps the climax by
prefacing the whole business with
such startling head lines as going too
fast" he perpetrates a joke, at sight of
which smile goes round the county.
The county of Montgomery, Messrs.
Editors, needs no defense from me, if
your State Superintendent thinks so,
let him look about him a little; he
will see that the county of Montgom-
cry has a bonded debt of more than Il
quarter of million dollars, equal to
6 per cent on her entire taxable prop
erty, the interest on which, as some of
the bond holders in your town can tes-
tify, she pays promptly. In addition
to this she has heretofore voluntarily
levied tax upon property of a half
mill and poll tax of one dollar, for
school purposes, now they take up
stones to cast at us because we pro-
pose to appropriate portion of this
poll tax to the payment of our school
debt, and yet there are AZ counties in
Il L l.