The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-15
HE DEFENDS
 THE BOOK LAW Governor Shows Its Value
 to Patrons. SAVING OF 40 PER CENT
Declares That Some Critics
 Have Been Unjust.
Chief Executive Points Out Ad- vantages of Arrangement Provid- ed by Commission and Says
 There Is No Monopoly.

In an interview yesterday Governor Jelks defended the operation of the new, text book act from criticisms of persons unfriendly to the law.
 The Governor said he thought he ought to furnish statement to the public to remove some transformation and to cor rect false impressions:
 ''The critics of the new school law agree that the selection of text books has been most excellent and that no touch of scan dal has come from the Commissions awards" said Governor Jelks. ''The books now being used in the schools of this State are a great improvement over the old books. If the text book law re- suited in nothing more than these im- proved books, 1t would have abundant jus- | tifcation. The selections were found good enough for all cities, where the high er-prtced and, presumably more expert teachers are employed. Under the law, | these cities could have petitioned to be relieved from the operation of the statute but they did not do so. Every city took the books-a handsome compliment to the Commissions selections.
 "As to the saving to the patrons of the schools. have made some careful figures and furnish them to public which has not been correctly informed. The book publishers have what they call a list price, I have carefully figured the re- duction to the patrons from this list price, The more popular books used, that is to say the books used in the lower grades in the schools-bear the largest reduction and those little used, called for by the higher grades, bear the smallest reduction.
 "In order to arrive at the saving from the operation of the law one must first determine what money relation each sub | ject bears to the whole. School publish CTS will agree that readers compose 25 per | cent of the whole; arithmetics, 20 per cent: geographies. 15 per cent; grammars, 8; | spoilers, 8; histories. 5; copy-books per | cent of the whole. These seven subjects amount to 83 per cent. All other subjects will amount to not more than r per cent Now, the reduction under the law from | list price of the S3 per cent above, is 2 per cent, bound in cloth the usual bind ing. The reduction from list price in all other subjects amounting to something over 10 per cent, the aggregate net sav- ing from list price in cloth, the usual binding being something above 20 per cent. These figures are almost absolutely cor rect, and represent the saving on the
 books when the usual binding is pur-
 chased.
 "The Commission, in order to have what
 it considered a fairer price, put on the
 books. arranged for special bindings which allowed the publishers to make a lower
 price to us and not disturb the sale price
 of their publications in other States. The
 reduction to the patrons in this State from
 list price in this special binding will
 amount to B per cent and the figures have
 been made carefully. It will be said the
 special binding commonly called boards.
 Is inferior to the usual binding. and this hut ho frl1a bo to
 lives who came before the Commission
 united in saying that the cloth book did
 not cost the publishers more than halt cent more than the special or board cov-
 CTS. The patrons of the public school are entitled to these board covers at any lo-
 cal agency in the State on all books for
 which this special arrangement was made and the patrons are privileged to buy either kind.
 T learn from the Fowler Company one of the State depositaries, that in some books. at least four out of five shipped out of their store have had this special cover.
 1 Tt has been seen that in the usual binding, then. the patron. in the purchase of books, will find that where the list price would have been ten dollars, he would only have to pay eight. and where | the books were listed at ten dollars by purchasing the board binding. he would only have to pay $666 This brings me to say that nine stores of ten in Alabama, outside of those counties where there were County adoptions, sold books at an advance over list price of an amount greater than 13 per cent. The book men in this State, I think, know this to be true. So that the patron now saves, if he buys iny any one of these nine stores. about $S.S5 on his ten dollar purchase in the usual cloth binding and in the special edition. he saves about one half The saving to the patrons of the State, taking all the sales and considering the different prices at which books were sold in differ ent communities before the law went into effect, will not fall much short of 40 per cent in the whole State.
 II favored the new text book law and was instrumental in having 1t put on the statute books. The improved character of the text books used alone justify 1t. The immense saving to the people doubly jus tlfes 1t and freedom from the annoyance of constant changes and the ever-recur- ring additional expense of such changes would of itself, take care of the law
 ''The Legislature gave the Commission a very short while to act which crowded | the publishers to fill their contracts in time for the fall schools. but am sure that after this week there will hardly be local agency without every book which may be called for The public will under stand and excuse some awkwardness in the laws early execution.
 q observe that some gentlemen are complaining of the monopoly established. thoughtful man when he learns that the law requires a bond of the contractor. one condition of which is that he shall keep his books or sale in some local agency fin at least three places in every County knows he must confine their sale to some one store in these com munities in order to secure the keeping of the books all the time and their sale will be an item to such merchants. although he only gets 10 per cent for the trouble. If every merchant were allowed to sell them at this 10 per cent, it will readily be seen that the books
 in many places would soon be out of stock altogether. It is difficult to under stand why a person cannot realize the reason for the alleged monopoly ba law will take rara of itself