The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1898-03-16

schools, pubic ana private, use on an
average swo to five books per pupil
per year at two the number would
be over twelve million books per
year These books certainly repre-
sent startling power This army
of children daily take sheir rations of
the Book Trust commissioners. Take
up an Educational Journal, printed
North. glance at the lists of books
the Trust Combine publishers are pIac-
ing upon the lists constantly. There
are nearly 1000 different kinds of
school books named, and the combine
have just enough sembIance of COM
petition to induce a constant agita
ton and deceive the schools lnto
discarding one book and taking up
another, all in the same system aud
on par--the object being to excite
traffic on the commercial side. This
trust is familiar with the entire field.
They will boy up a Southern book or
agree to print it and finally drop it.
They have been known to disturb the
contents of books to suit their edl
tors views. Inspect the lists in edn
cational journals controlled by the
trust They name no Southern
book, or. scarcely one The whole
book interest, amounting to mil
lions per year, is controlled North,
and the South contributes it's
most liberal quota and receives for
same books that to our section are
most offensive and barmfr!, and not
one iota Of profit in the vast work of
school book publishing comes to the
South. An idea may be formed of
the profit in school books, per year
from the South when one stops to
consider that on "copy books" alone
one cent land this very small) profit
on each would be considered prince
" incorne-about 100000 per
year. Take books on which fifty
cents toSl each is made, and "a neater
idea is given of the enormous tribute
schools South pay to the lord;y mono
poly of school book publishers of
the North, aud all of this is apart
from and barring out the whole ques-
ton of the deep, deadly hurt their
books are inficting upon our schools
and our country. l dislike to partic-
ularize, but may say the books CON-
pei, by their scheme of arrangement,
children to sing their little pieces by
such offensive tunes as marching
Through Georgia. deliver eulogies
10 declaiming upon Abraham Lincoln;
compose letters. compositions. sen
tences, etc, on lives Of Northern men
and women-and our heroes, our de-
voted patriots, our literary men,
statesmen, representative men in all
parts of oar political, social, religious
and domestic life, are omitted.
CAN TIE BONDAGE BE
BROKEN (?
is a question often asked me- I re-
ply ahirmatively, and have reasons
for doing 40, With the aid of one
public-spir1ted and enterprising oil
refner. George Rice, of Ohio, | broke
down the Standard Oil Companys
methods Of selling unsafe oil at ex.
orbitant prices in the South When
/ began the fight l was laughed at
Men laugh to day. There are laugh
ing men always ON hand when serious
danger threatens the people. These
laughers are objects of pity
rather than censure 1t is the laugh
of something unknown to 9 profound
nature Oil in 1881 was about 800
per cent higher per gallon by the
barrel in most points South than it
has been since by retail. and many
degrees lower in fash test than the
Law demands now. / formed an in
dependent oil association among mer-
chants in the South, who refused to
buy Standard Oil Company oil. |
had Legislatures to pass oil inspec
ton and gravity and fash laws and
require fire protection systems as to
storage, etc. The Standard Oil Com
pany to day is not fond of me r.
3. Thurber and another public splri-
ted man in New York in 1888 joined
me in fighting the Standard Com
paDy in the press and the independ
ent oil men like me. So with only
three other men forced the boasted
Standard OilCompany to change their
high banded methods.
With over q million fathers and
mothers. brothers and sisters of South
ero school children with me in the fight
against the CREST Book Trust, the arch
foe of American schools, the demon in
caruate of the Southern schools, what
results may we not accomplish /!
70 the oil fight there was but one