The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1900-09-29
THE IMPERIALISM OF THE SCHOOL
BOOK TRUST.
Southern School Children
Should Study Truthful and
the Best Books-A South
ern Firm of Book Makers
that Should be Patronized.

with very grave qucstlon-one
that appeals not only to the intel
ligence, but to the patriotism and
native loyalty of every school
book committee and every board
of trustees.
In the next FIVE years thousands
of girls and boys in the public
schools of the State will have
laid the foundations to their his
torical education, so far as per-
tains to the people, conditions,
events and government of the
United States. In school histo-
RES and school readers we need
nothing that will epgender or per-
petuate prejudice, partisan ship
and sectional animosity, but we
especially need aud we should in
sist upon the adoption of book 5
that will furnish as nearly as prac-
ticable a full, fair and impartial
representation of all sections of
the country without regard to
lines of latitude or longitude.
In the matter of u school lite
rature the South, for quarter of
a century, has been in a state of
literary bondage to the imperia-
lism of the North book-maker
and publisher. With their colos-
sal and syndicated wealth, derived
in a great measure from Southern
patronage, they have sought and
still persistently seek to crush to
earth every competing enterprise
in the South that attempts to
struggle into life by appealing to
our own people for support in de-
fense of the truth of history.
With a shameless confidence in
the invincible power of money
that characterized tho aristocracy
of the Roman Senate, they are
almost defiant in their arrogant
attempts to throw the baneful in
fluence of gold around the whole
educational machinery the States,
from legislature down the small
cst-book committee.
Besides nameless and number
less sums of money expended in
various directions, through various
channels, this imperial trust is
distributing vast sums in every
county in the Southern States.
In the town of Winona alone it is
paying at least five hundred dol
lars in lawyers fees to secure
adoption or the retention Of the
trust books.
No censure or criticism should
attach to our lawyers. They are
in the lawful exercise of legiti-
mate professional function in ac-
cepting fees from theirrich clients.
Cicero, the great Roman patriot,
despised the briberies and pecula-
tions of Gabinius and Publius Va
tinius, yet because of the magni-
ficent fees they were able to pay
him, he consented to appear as
their advocate, and electrified the
country and the courts Of Rome
with his marvellous and matchless
eloquence in defense of these bold
and unscrupulous robbers.
With a golden sceptre and pur-
chased oratory they have reduced
us to the condition of subject CO.
lonies, and taxation without re-
presentation is the only privilege
we enjoy in the literary domain
of the Northern School Book
Trust.
| have no personal or pecuniary
interest in any school-book CON
Germ on earth. Not one Of them
ever requested my opinion of
their publications, but for my own
satisfaction have made careful
examination of the school litera-
ture issued BY the B. +. johnson
Publishing Company, of Rich
mond, Va, and say without hesi-
tation or qualification that it il
sound, pure, fair, fresh and vigo-
rous, and merits the patronage
Of every school in every Southern
State.
In the examination of histories
and readers, committees and /
boards would do well to bear in
mind that the South does not so
much object to uttered falsehood
IS to unuttered truth not so much
% the public school error as to the
'mothered fact; not so much as to
what is said against us as to the
allure to state history fairly. A
brave and honorable people would
'ather be slain with q battle-axe
han perish with dry rot. When
he character, cause and achieve
nents of our people are assailed,
We can defend them before our
When they are ignored
hey will be forgotten and we will
lave no history.
No Southern writer could tell
,ne-hundredth part of the simple,
truth in a school book
without being charged with sec
,ionalism; hence, no one attempts
Take for instance, the battle of
Brice's Cross-Roads, fought on
he soil of Mississippi. If any
me should publish in a school
book, without comment, the bare,
facts of Forests
fictory in that unequal fight, it
would read. even to our own peo-
pic, like aorid and highly favor
ID romance.