The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-01-22
TEACHERS ANONYMOUS CHAMPION
The SUM Walks Up 10 the Absurdity
or EEis Charuoa


OF His Charges.
The Jersey City News, about ten days
ago exposed an anonymous letter writer
who had been imposing on the Sun
and other apers with letters making
charges against the Board of Education
of this city. The Sun itself seems
to have awakened as the following APP
pears in its columns this morning.
A letter writer has been writing letters
Tor g month past attacking the Jersey
City Board of Education and the Super-
intendent of Public Schools. He has
written under half a dozen aliases. seldom
using the same one twice. His letters
have been directed to various city au-
thorities, including Mayor Wanser, and
10 the newspapers of New York and Jer-
S ESs, CITY; The letters are written in
ing that the writer is a very ignorant
person. They are all written on the. same
Kind of MANILA paper and on the same
typewriter. Some of those received have
been in the form of carbon copies. The
paper is that used as copy paper in a
newspaper office in this city.
The letters to the newspapers are all
signed with initials, for publication. and
underneath them is always a name and
address, the idea being to give the i'm
preston that it is the genuine name and
address OF the writer. who doesn't wan
TO have it published. He evidently knows
that newspapers never print anonymous
communications and thinks to fool them
by signing a fictitious name.
The accusations in the letters are that
there is favoritism in the matter of the
promotions of teachers, and particularly
In the matter of increases in salary; that
finding fault with the acts of the Board
results in dismissal from the list of teach
erS; that ~bulldozing of teachers is in
vogue, and hat there is favoritism in the
matter of appointments.
Teachers in the Jersey City schools are
promoted by a fxed rule. Salaries are
fixed and increases are provided for by
law, the salary depending chiefly on length
of service. No teachers have been dis
missed from the cityFs service and no
names have been dropped from the teach
ers' list in five years. Teachers are pro-
possible, and appointments are made after
examinations and by practical rules which
govern the civil service.
The writer of the letters, it has been dis
covered, is a brother of one of the teach
ers. The law says that there shall be an
increase in a teachers salary after so
many years of service. The rule makes
them all date from December !. A teacher
whose low-salary time IS not up by that
day has to wait a year. This teachers
l last, and she did not get an increase.
The last alias, so far as is known, that
has been used by her brother, is that
signed to a letter to the Editor of the
Sun It Is Martin Jackson, No. 1877
Railroad avenue, Jersey City" There is
a tenement at that number, and no Jack
son is known there. The addresses given
in other letters have been vacant lots. The
authorities have not decided vet whether
to prosecute the letter writer. The offense
is punishable by two years at hard labor
in State prison. The punishment is the
same in both New York and New Jersey,
so that no matter in which State the let
tiers be written the law can get at the
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