The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1882-09-28
TRUTH NOT EXPECTED.


justice, quotes only paragraph from
q STATESMAN editorial on ten
months schools, to show, as it says,
that we are ignorant of or condemn
a declaration in the Democratic
platform, while Col. Jones advocates
the ten raonths measure. The Demo-
cratic platform favors ten months
schools, but the Post must know that
the Democrats, in convention at
Galveston, we're not fools enough to
consider themselves the Texas legis-
lature, and thus to frame law,
stating how ten months schools
should be instituted and main
tanned. The Post pretends
to be very authoritative up
on school subjects, and if
It's editor is up in anything besides
bombast, it should be informed that
not one state, in which there are
boasted free school systems. not
even Massachusetts, and New
York, distributes the entire fund
necessary for conducting long school
terms. In no state in the Union is
more money, even at this day, dis
tributed by the state for common
free schools than in Texas. Were
the New York or the Massachusetts
legislature to pass bill, imposing
tax sufficient in itself to provide for
all the schools IN the state for ten
months, there would be political
revolution in consequence thereof
Were not bombast the chief stock of
the Post, it would know that
in all the states, providing
for efficient free schools, the states
themselves distribute a fund, In
many instances, sufficient only to
run the schools for two, three or
four months in the year, leaving the
people of the school districts or CON-
munities the option of fixing the
length OF. the term and of imposing
local tax, the money derived there
by being added to the state fund to-
wards complete support of the
schools. This Is the law where the
the best and most efficient sys-
TENS are in vogue, even where
population is dense; but the Post
finds nothing to condemn in such
laws in these old states, because
some of the most noted states con-
Quoting schools after this fashion are
administered by Republicans. Its po-
sition is such, in fact, as would force it
to condem provision for conducting
free schools in Texas for ten months
on state taxation, were such law
in force as the product of Demo-
cratic administration. In this event
it would call such a law oppressive
and outrageous, and it would be
clamoriug for the very plan now
proposed by the STATEsMAN-the
question as to ten months being left
to the pleasure of the people OF
school districts or communities. The
Democracy declares for ten months
schools, and holding the power in
the next legislature and in the exc
cutive department of the state, it
will amend the present school law so
as to have such schools wherever they
may be decided upon by districts.
But the amended law will not con-
tain a provision so unjust and so
unwise as to enforce ten months
terms where they are unpracticable
and impossible {; nor will the state be
stultified by collecting a universal
tax for a purpose that can not be
made universal. The law will be
made to apply to school districts and
communities, as it DOW applies in
Texas alone to incorporated towns
and cities. The city of Austin, for
instance, has its pro rata of the state
school fund. To this is added a fund
derived from a special tax, authori-
zed by legislative enactments,
but imposed by Its own
citizens, supplying enough money to
maintain free schools in the munich
pality for the long term. Such a
law will certainly be provided by
the next legislature, since there will
be no Radical restoration to prevent
it, and the rural, as well as municipal,
districts will be granted the right to
have long term schools. Gould the
Post, and those it would see in
power, have full swing, the state tax
would be increased again to one
dollar and fifty cents on the hundred
dollars, and with the immense
revenue derived therefrom, there
would be organized grand army
of high salsrled, incompetent school
officers, the school teachers being
left unpaid, and being compelled, as
they were under the Davis admins
tration, to sell their vouchers to
spectators, who had the state treas.
ury encircled with ring, through
which there was but one entrance
the back door-while these hard
earned vouchers were made to pay
from forty to sixty per cent to the
members of the ring. The Pos
is as ungenerous as It is politically
untrue. While Republican to the
core, it calls itself Independent, be
cause it knows the masses of Texas
having reason for it, despise Repub
licanism. False to conviction, it car
not be expected to be otherwise thar
false in representation. 1t could no
but represent the STATESMAN
falsely, and while correcting its mis-
Representations, we certainly do no
expect it to be led to truth.
The San Francisco Alta character
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