The progressive farmer., 1902-09-02
RACE DIVISION OF SCHOOL TAXES; A
DISCUSSION OF ITS RXPEDIENCY.*

few months there have come rumors
of a popular demand for some plan for
dividing the school fund between the
races in the proportion of the amount
of taxes paid by each-the withdrawal
Of white support from negro schools.
Against this suggested policy Gov
ernor Aycock, Ex-Governor Jarvis and
other educational leaders have square
ly set their faces, risking their own
popularity in some degree in defense
of what they regard as right. For it
cannot be denied that there is an ele-
rnent, not too small to deserve consid-
Grafton, that does not approve of uni
versal education. Just now these men
are laying the greatest stress on the
fact that our newly adopted Constitu-
tional Amendment provides an educa-
tional qualification for voters, and
that the education of the negro means
his return to political power-"the vir-
tual undoing of the Amendment" they
say. Moreover, it is shown that the
whites now pay the expense of their
own public schools and more than two
thirds of the cost of the negro schools; {;
it is asserted that the entire amount
is needed for the education of white
boys and girls.
Quite plausible and rather alluring
arguments are these; it must be ad-
mitted that they possess considerable
force. And yet a careful study of the
problem will show that, even from an
uItra-Southern standpoint, there are
COED grounds for Governor Aycock's
position-good reasons for the belief
that to abandon our time-honored pol
icy for the one now proposed would
work injury to both races.
In the first place, it is probable that
the scheme is a will-o'- -the-wisp; that
it could not be put into execution even
if its advocates were able to secure the
repeal of those provisions of our State
Constitution that now conflict with it.
For learned lawyers believe that the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Con-
stitution of the United States presents
obstacles that could not be overcome.
The righteousness of the measure
may also be questioned-as it was
questioned by an honored Judge and
Democratic leader who said to the
writer recently: "It would not be
right, it would be unworthy a strong
Christian people, to withhold the light
from this weak and needy race"
It appears, therefore, that in the
consideration of this scheme three
questions demand attention:
Is it constitutional?
Is it righteous?
Is it expedient?
In this article only the last of these
interrogatories shall have attention.
We believe that the proposed change
is inexpedient because
1. 1t would destroy the foundation
of our public-school system.
2. 1t would aggravate, not alleviate,
the Southern race problem.
As to the first of these propositions :
The great bedrock truth on which our
scheme of public education is based is
that (the rank and power of peoples
being in proportion to their intelli-
gence) ignorance, wherever found,
without regard to sex or race or condi-
tion, is inimical to the peace, progress,
and prosperity of the commonwealth; ;
that it is, like crime, the common enc
my of all the people, and that all must
work together for it's suppression;
that, as the State can leave to no one
class the punishment of the criminals
of that class, but must itself assume
the task of warning against crime
whose presence Injuries all, so the State
must war against illiteracy, allowing
the Indifference or incompetence of no
class to foster this enemy of the gen
eral welfare.
Suppose we should allow the rich to
say to the poor, or the whites to the
blacks, "Build your own jails, pay your
own judges, punish your own crimi-
Dals; what have we to do with crime
in your ranks 2" By that act we should
abandon the principle that crime is
the common enemy of all the people,
to be controlled and punished by the
State as the representative of all the
people, and pave the way for virtual
anarchy. So when we allow one race
| to say to another. HBnild Your nwn