St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1896-01-17
AN OPEN ENEMY.


neer Press is as foolish as it insists that
1t is in it's references to school finances;
for then we should be able to acquit
it Of a far greater detection, the crime
revenues as cannot stop short of the
effectual ruin Of the system built up
here through so many years Of pain
full endeaVor. But we find it impos-
takes, 50 many eVasions Of repeated
fact, so many plain contradictions of
the truth should be the result of hon
est error, common though that is in
the columns to which we refer. This
case seems to be one of deliberate in
tention. For purposes of its own, part
Iy political we suppose and partly to
save from proper economy interests
that are dearer to it than those of the
children and the future of ST. Paul,
the Pioneer Press appears as the
avowed enemy of the schools
AS in all other instances where it
Guilty, 50 in this it talks about irrele-
want matters when it is pinned down
to the point. We have given the fig
ures of school revenue for 1897. Those
figures are not ours alone, but those of
the secretary of the board They are
furnished from records of the past
taken directly from the books of that
precious pet and protege of the Pho
neer Press, Controller McCardy. They
make inevitable a deficit of from
$780, to S150,000 in the school fund of
1897, the only place in which anybody
except the Pioneer Press has ever fore
seen a difficulty What is it's answer ?
That 1.-The schools will have exactly
the same sources of revenue next year
as this" That is to say that 20 per
cent of $246,000, the balance to be re-
ceived this year from taxes, Is the
same as 20 per cent Of $135,OOO, the
balance to be received next year from
taxes This is entirely in accord
with the general run of Pioneer Press
mathematics, though a method of deal
ing with figures unknown to anybody
else. Perhaps it may have been caught
from Col. Kiefer, who is strong on the
subject of percentage.
There is no need Of complicated COM
putations. We have quoted the statis-
tics because they were drawn from
records which even the Pioneer Press
could not dispute. The central prob
lem is simplicity itself If $246,OoO are
levied for school purposes one year
and $135000 the next, the decrease of
revenue IS Sill, 900. There will be that
much less money to spend Even the
elaborate misstatements of the Pioneer
Press show no possibility of such a
change without altering the whole
standard of the schools cutting off
entire departments or closing them for
part of the year; unless, indeed, they
should leave several months bills I'M
paid this year, call the resulting ac-
emulation a surplus" and have that
TO go on next year, according to the
Iioleei IIeSS luee VI HHance. FINALLY,
our contemporary, who has broken the
record on blunders in this case can
learn at the Office Of the school board
that the fiscal year of The schools has
not been changed, as it asserts, so as
to commence Jan. I.
There is just one sentence in the
latest article in the Pioneer Press
which shows the head Of the cat peep
ing out of the bag It says that the
bodies which have provided for the
needs Of the schools in 1896 are amply
capable Of providing for them in 1897.
Precisely SO. There Is the milk in the
cocoanut. There is an election COM
ing pretty soon. How beautiful it will
be to assert that the reformers have
cut down expenditures by 100000 and
lcssened the tax rate nearly mills.
Then next fall can take care of itself:
and if there must be an extra mill put
into the next tax levy to keep the
schools open, who cares? This is the
policy Of false economy and deficiency
bills. eff necessary, the amount ap-
propriated from the tax levy can be
increased sufficiently to cover any pos
sible deficiency" Throw over into
next years budget the proper charges
Of this is an idea of retrenchment that