Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1897-05-01
JUST NOW THE HOWL IS AT THE
TEXT BOOK BOARD.
SAY THE BOOK TRUST OWNS Il
NOTHING LIKE POSITIVE PROOF TO
OFFER, HOWEVER.
Trust Seems Suddenly to Have Become
Convinced of the Wisdom of the
New Layv-MaryelOus Similarity
Among Leedy's APP
pOintments.

Topeka Kas. April 3O.-tSpecial0 An
other vicious report is being circulated
throughout the state rejecting upon the in
tegrity of some of Governor Leedy's ap-
pointees. This time it is the state text
book board that is under fire. In brief, the
report is to the effect that this new board
Is already within the clutches of the book
trust, and that it will be useless for other
book concerns to make bid for supplying
the state with text books. This report was
started by those Populists who fought the
text book bill in caucus on the ground that
1t delegated too much power to commits
sion composed of nine men. The charge
was made there that the book trust would
not ask for n better thing than to have
the legislature pass bill that would en-
power a committee of nine to select all the
school books for the state.
At that time, Representative Doyle, of
Republic county, said: The book trust
now has to buy up school boards all over
the state. 1t costs a tremendous amount
of money. How much easier it will be for
it to handle nine meni The commission
feature of the bill is wrong and the Popu-
lists will discover so to their sorrow If it
Is not eliminated" The same sort of senti-
merts were expressed by large number of
other Populists in the caucus.
Now that the bill has become law, those
who opposed it are particularly anxious to
have things turn out as they predicted.
They went to be able to say: II told you
&C." They grasp every incident which
tends to cast suspicion upon the acts of the
members of the board or the trust, and
boldly proclaim that it clearly indicates
that the trust is on top.
But the Populist masses should not per-
init themselves to be worked into a state
of frenzy over these cruel reports. Is the
board not a Populst organization? The
only Republican on it is d. o. McCray, and
no one would dream of accusing him of
manipulating things in favor of the trust;
and even If he was so inclined he could cut
no ice. being hopelessly in the minority.
But McCray is not inclined that way. Did
he not take a deep interest in school book
legislation during the recent session of the
legislature, and work night and day to Sc
cure its-defeat?
Then, what has Stryker done that Popu-
list confidence in him should be so shaken?
His recent action in attempting to saddle
off $4,000 of Graham county bonds on the
state school fund at par Is certainly evil
dence of the motherly watch he keeps over
the interests of the schools of the state. 1t
certainly was not Mr.. Stryker's fault that
the assistant state treasurer refused to
sign the warrants to pay for the bonds on
the ground that the bonds were not a good
investment.
Mr. Stryker has been cultivating C. ].
Barnes, of Chicago, mfnager of the book
trust, considerably recently. The super
intendent prefers Barnes to Harry Wilson,
who has gotten so much notoriety through
the legislative smelling committee as
wholesale briber. But Barnes is not that
kind of a man. The trust would not have
a man at its head who would use any un-
due influence to obtain a contract, no mat
ter If 1t were for a whole state. Barnes
is here and Stryker has been paying him
so much attention that the agents of the
other book companies have become jeal-
Gus. As an offset, they claim that Stryker
is doing it more to keep his eye on the
trust than anything else. He evidently
thinks it safer to trust himself with the
agent of the trust than to allow the other
members of the commission to do SO.
While it is also true that the trust has
given up the notion of testing the consti-
tCtionality of the new law in the courts,
that is no proof that deal of any kind
has been made. Its Kansas attorney spent
several days in the state library a couple
of weeks ago looking up decisions with a
view to testing the law and many holes
were found in the measure. but after a
consultation with members of the commits
sion the agents of the trust thought ii
would be too bad for the people of Kansas
If the law was knocked out so they called
their attorney off. This is the first time
tiiit lle liusl eNSi itis uoWH 81 tiSuy, uIu
Il probably did SO this time only out of
consideration of the great friendship 1t en-
tertains toward the barefooted school chill
dren of Kansas.
1t is also fact that the state super
intendent has written to the county and
city superintendent in the state asking
them to indicate their preference of books
of various kinds. and the majority of the
superintendents place the trusts books at
the head of the list. The charge made by
suspicious Populists that the superintend-
erts would give the trust the best of 1t
simply because it makes them presents of
Il good many books from time to time is
far fetched, indeed. School superintend-