The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1883-03-01

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make bread, buy clothes and pa,
taxeSp II all are to go To school un'
III they are grown, what will become
OF the working class. and how are we
All to live? Senator Fleming saws
what we spend in education we will
save IN expenses of a penitentiary
ana that education viii make the
people honest-that what we lose In
meal We will make up in malt. Well,
II he is right, We will soon have no
use Tor Judges, legislatures, or peace
officers; just educate the people and
all viii Ice honest and lovely.
Now | am one of those who believe
that honesty and rascality both are
born and bred in the bone. Let a
man be born a rascal and the more
YOU educate him the more dangerous
you make him. All this talk about
making men honest at public free
schools Is bOsh 1 have no
money TO spend in making honest
men that way. All the defalcations
OF state treasurers In Tennessee, Ala
uama and elsewhere grows out of this
mistake of spending money TO accom-
plish men who are born rascals.
Rig here. sir, want 20 say that the
Old Baptists have as a general rule
less education and less money, and
their preachers are paid less, than
any other class. Among them there
are fewer def ,lcations and fewer men
who fail TO pay their debts than any
other class on earth, and | would like
Tor that gentleman to tell me of any
primitive Baptist who ever went to
the penitentiary for stealing or MUIR
der | will also tell him / never knew
one of them who was classical
scholar, or who needed a porter or
IA clerk to do work that he was paid
for doing himself.
You shan't put me down as against
common school education, TO learn all
how to read. write and cypher, Just
because am opposed TO your extrava-
CANT twenty-cents-on-th
dollars system. | was willing, like
Senator Terrell, to compromise on
fifteen cents, and that is half as much
as 1t takes To run all the rest of the
state government; but | will not go
one cent higher. Give the legislature
power to levy twenty cents on the
hundred dollars, and it will en-
courage eXtraVagant and the highest
school tax will always he collected.
| know this is lain talk and.
some of your college gentlemen don't
like it, but l am as independent
a man as you ever saw. Some of YOU
look on the working class as the bot
tom rail, but let me tell you that If
we of the working class stop our
labor one year, the tallest collegebred
man, with his bee-gum hat. will be
begging crust of corn bread at the
door of the poorest farmer. and yet
you want to tax us TO educate your
children ten m Inths, when ours can
only find time to 90 TO school FIVE;
and when our children's labor has
educated yours, ours would hardly DO
recognized when met in the road.
am working on nine or ten COM
mittees here, and l have seen the
claims of all officers from governor
down pressed for appropriations OF
money by the best lawyers of the
state. day after day; Int have never
heard one man yet ask "a committee
for protection for the lsboripg -@aaan
or the farmer, OF for the reduction OF
their taxes. They say they have
$4,000 in the treasury and that
1t costs no one anything,
and the idea seems to be
to spend it as fast as we can for the
class who keep clerks and porters to
do their work.
have some home experience on
this subj ect Of ten months school,
and think l know what | am talk
ing about. | sent my boys.to school
five months each y ear, and worked
them five, and / was abused by edu-
Gated men for being miser, because
| wanted to learn them to work. /
paid for their education myself; and
now let any man inquire of all
schools and colleges where they have
been to, and see if you don't find they
have all either led their classes or
been with the foremost. / call no
man educated unless he knows how
to work; and unless he does know, his
education will do him no good. II
you want TO see young men with
but their heads educatedninmn
notice around this capitol and %, ~
had rather see my SS,s-
between the plow handles earning an
honest living the rest of their days
than to see them around here like
see droves of young college gentle
men, begging for clerlships to keep
them out of the sun.