The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-06
MR. MOULDER IS PLEASED
He Will Organize the Teachers
Pension Fund at
Once.
The Laws Faults May Be Corrected
by the Next Legis-
lature.

superintendent Moulder, acting with his
customary promptness, yesterday had the
clerk of the board send out the following
circular, Yhich explains itself:
To the Principals-LApIEs AND GENTLEMEN: ]
have this day received the following reply from
City and County Attorney Harry T. Creswell to
q communication addressed to him by me re-.
guessing his opinion as to the in tent and mean
ing of the so-called pension law"
This is to notify you that the Superintendent
accepts this Interpretation and Will act in con-
formity with it hereafter.
Please notify your teachers of the contents of
the accompanying opinion, and say to them
further, that those who desire to avail them
selves of the benefits of the pension law
zhould file with the Superintendent and with
the secretary and with the Treasurer legal no.
tice that effect without delay, ,
superintendent of Common Schools.
To this is attached the opinion of the
City and County Attorney, as published in
yesterdays CALL.
II am very much pleased with the writ
ten opinion of City and County Attorney
Creswell," he said yesterday. ''It is a
clear and lucid Interpretation of what
must certainly be the intent of this very
cloudy and ambiguous piece of legislation.
AS | declare in my circular to the princi-
pals l shall accept and act upon it. By
the rejection of the word and the City
and County Attorney makes sense out of
what was nonsense. 1t is fortunate that
the opinion has come to hand in time to
permit OF my communicating with the
teachers through the principals before the
closing of school.
1t is important that those of them who
desire to avail themselves of the benefits of
the law shall file notice of the fact without
delay, for many reasons. In the first place
very many teachers-about 200-have al
ready given such notice, and Immediately
upon the opinion of the City and County
Attorney being made known very many
more would sign voluntarily. The law,
among its many other faults, has fixed no
time under which the teacher must sub
scribe to its conditions in order to enjoy
its benefits. Those who wanted to be
as 1t is, walt until the eleventh hour, until
| they had been in the service for twenty or
twenty-five years and stand in fear of be-
ing retired for incapacity and then, turning
In the per cent of their salary just once,
retire with the pension.
"Of course, continued the Superintend-
ent. these faults of the law will be cor
rected, doubtless at the next sitting of the
Legislature, but it is important that the
teachers who desire at any time to avail
themselves of this law shall come in at
once, so that the best possible showing
may be made before the lawmakers. In
these two years pending their sitting, it is
not likely that the Annuity Commission,
as 1t IS called-composedo of the Mayor, the
Superintendent and the County Treasurer
will place anybody ON the retired pension
list, one reason being that there win be no
fund in that time.
But we want to recognize this law and
have it in practical working order with
some tangible results, such as will warrant
us IN going before the next Legislature and
asking 1t to put the law in more practical
shape.
$50 earnest were many of the teachers
IN their desire to put this thing to the test
that they were considering the idea of
starting it on a private basis on the lines
as lar as possible as indicated by the law,
in case the law were declared imperative,
and with the results of this going to the
next Legislature with the promise of turn
ing the funds so raised over to the Treas
urer IN case legal law, so to speak, were
enacted. | am glad to say this will not
now be necessary, and we will go ahead
and = the law as Interpreted by the City