The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1895-06-11
THE QUESTION OF STATE
COUNTY ADOPTION or oS
TEXT BOOKS

A correspondent in the Cbo,,..
Observer, of May 18th, who faiIoS
give the public the benefit of his
deeply deplores the change from SIts
adoption of school text books 'a
evidently a politician and starts i in ~
usual trade language of politicians
abusing the legislature, the maioriaF,
which was composed of members,
in his own party. This is proboTN,
what he is mad about, but he aAecIsEg
be angry about what the legisIah,'",
has done for schools. He says:
1.-The new law passed by the fn,i.-
Legislature has let down the gan ~
book publishing companies to atteD',
the most fragrant corruption of CONN.,
officials who have charge of the admS
ton of the books for the pubf,
schools" P0"@
Why he is afraid to subject the nm
merous bodies of county officials too
tempts at bribery and at the sen,
time is DESTROYS to have a system Nv
which State officials will be subipctts
such attempts, he does not expIoin
Who told this anonymous writer fb.,
county officials were more CO. I'M
than State o~ficiale3 Why is he -, "a
licitous about their being subject >,
efforts of bribery and c~orruptior,
Why does he want to concentrate oil
such efforts on half a dozen officials IN
the city of Raleigh9 He cannot ma
tend not to know that the book com,
panies have about ninety,six times
much interest in bribing a State official
as county officials. And yet this cer.
tralising Democrat wants to subisc
these officials to such temptatjcr,
rather than have smaller attemr,
made to corrupt county officials. h
cannot fool the people with any such
chaf as this. He has some Interest," a
did not disclose. Let him sign his
name to his anonymous article, and
you will find out that he is an agent
of the book monopoly that has been
exploiting in North Carolina for seven.
teen years, and is now raging mad be-
cause it has been dethroned. Possibly
this reinforcement took some bread out
of the correspondents mouth or some
money out Of his pocket, and he il
mad, too.
But he say s he is mad about the cir.
cular letter which he says has been
sent out to county superintendent to
secure their services in the adoption
of text books through the county CON.
missioners who will have to make the
choice under the new law, whenever
any new books are needed. This cir
cUlar letter would be more i~nteresta
and we would be glad to publish it,
he will give the name of the agent and
the company who sent it out. Hea
probably a friend of the book trust, and
as he suppresses the name of the agent
(Which appears also to be an act Of
friendship the people may conclude
that the book monopoly sent out the
circular. He is certainly a very anony.
nous man; he keeps the author Of The
circular concealed and keeps his own
name concealed, probably for the same
purpose. He talks of book companies
having the brazen effrontery to make
such a proposition, and yet he disclO8as
goodly amount of cheek. Let him
turn on the lights, both on hin.
self and the company he denounCes,
that the people may see who it is be
is trying to condemn and whether be
has got courage enough to give him
any credit before the public. Toward
the last he says look out for the adVo'
Gates of change and know of them
what is the gain to be made. He takes
sides for State adoption even before
county adoption has been tried. The
probability is he is a Democrat who
by his party, Cleveland, the
gold bug, and all, right or wrong.
He says the expense of county adop
ton is n hundred times greater than
adoption. He ought to write
another letter and sign bis name tON
and show how this is. He says it Will
cost ten thousand dollars tn make the
book canvas. This sum to be expended
by the various companies in the sew
eral counties. If the Companies have
got that much to spend, it is better
that it should be scattered over the
State than that they should use it ID
an attempt to corrupt afew personsn
high authority. How this assuming
book agent newspaper correspondent
it will cost ten thousand dollars
make the canvass he had better e.