The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1880-05-06
FREE SCHOOL TAXATION.

Ne POSITION Oh tue DIAIEeAAH on
the subject of free schools is well
known. 1t is believed that state has
no right TO tax one man for the educs-
ton OF another mans children, no
msre than the State has right to tax
one farmers property that the weeds
may be removed from another's crop,
or that one merchant shall be taxed on
his goods that another may be protect
ed from losses. Such principles put in
force are simply violations of every
purpose for which these gov
ernments have been established, and
this is why we haYe persistently claimed
that Texas constitution makers, in pre-
senting an enormity, overstepped the
bounds of safety in free government,
and paved the way for the establish
ment of institutions belonging alone to
the most centralized despotisns. These
opinions have often been expressed by
the STATESMAN, and we believe every
true lover of republicanism must agree
with us, that any deviation from them
is only step away from those forms
intended by the founders of our con-
stitutionsl governments to preserve
them in purity. Whether Governor
Roberts opinions are the same as those
of the STATESMAN is not known. There
is nothing in fact to show that they are,
for while we would have had the Six
tenth Legislature make but the very
smallest appropriation out of reve-
nue. for the use of public free schools,
Governor Roberts made no such
declaration. Whether he did or
not, however, affects in no wise the
opinions expressed through this paper.
We contend that state has no right
to use fourth, or q sixth, or tenth,
or even hundredth part of its revenue
from taxation in this interest; and es-
pecially is this so in the instance of
Texas. The founders OF the Republic
of Texas, brave, true and noble men,
who knew the value of freedom,
and whose purpose it was to trans
NIT to posterity government carefully
guarded against the new-fangled and
dangerous principles being borrowed
from European systems, by which ev-
erything is made to revolve about and
be subservient to a center, conceived
and put in force plan directly in OPP
position to the one now in operation.
Through the wisdom and forethought
of these men it was planned that pos
terity should be protected from the ex-
actions of the tax gatherer, except for
the legitimate purposes of government.
These patriots set aside as magnifi-
cent endowment to free education, for
all time to come, not less than 90, 600,
900 of acres of public domain, which,
il carefully guarded, will forever give
free education to every child in
Texas that asks for it. The purpose
of these founders of government, as
shown by the debates upon the propo-
sition to set aside this vast domain, was
in the interest, not alone of education,
but for the purpose of perpetuating q
system of taxation, alone for the spe-
cifc purpose of administering govern
ment, and therefore always to be in
oppressiy. 1t was the wild extrsva-
gances OF Radical rule in Texas that in
augurated this system of taxation for
general education, and it was the weak
sentimcntality OF Democrats that has
caused the system to be perpetuated to
this day. 1t is false and vicious, and
should be eliminated from onr state
constitution, aud the land and money
donations heretofore made by the state
to the public free school system,
should be sufficient within themselves
to satisfy the weakest continents
atty. Even in its present shape
the annual fund arising from these
sources gives to each member of the
school population nearly 81 per head,
and this is more by nearly three times
than is gwen by Missouri or by Kansas,
which are proudly pointed to by free
school fanatics of Texas as robbing
Texas of immigration; and it is three
times as much as is given to edu-
cation by the imperial gov
eminent of Germany, to which
we are often referred by these same
crazy advocates ofsomething not COM
pretended by them. A constitutional
amendment should be submitted by the
Seventeenth Legislature, proposing to
confine the expenditures made by the
state on education to these funds that
have been permanently laid aside for
the purpose. II this be done, and 1t ia
adopted by the people, and the plans
of disposing of public lands proposed
to the Sixteenth Legislature by Gov
ernor Roberts be put in operation, in a
few years Texas will be enabled,
without one cent of taxation for the
purpose, to spend ten times SIS much
money, per capita, in free education as
even this great imperial government of
Europe, and many times more than any
state in the Union. We would see evss
cry body educated, but when in the
power of the state to do so we would
see its gratulties extended by means
not Yiolatiye of the very principles and
purposes OF pure government.
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