The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-10-13
SCHOOL QUESTION
IS LOOMING UP
Kilauea, Kauai. oct. 10, 1904.

k1auea, Kauai, Oct. 10, 1904.
Editor Advertiser: At a Republican
| rally held at Kilauea yesterday, Mr..
Cox read. at the request of Mr.. w. H.
Rice Jr.. chairman of the campaign
committee. a plank of the Republican
platform adopted at Lihue on October
Sth by unanimous vote of the District
Committee as follows:
eve particularly endorse that part
of the Republican Territorial platform
that declares in favor of adequate sup
port of our public schools. We demand
provision for the accommodation in
school and for the efficient instruction
of every child of school age. And we
pledge our candidates to secure III the
next Legislature appropriations ade-
quate to maintain our schools at high
standard of efficiency
He then said: The schools of Kauai
and in other parts of the Territory are
at the present time in a deplorable con-
dition. You have been putting children
to school in rooms that are unfit for
nuIIldl AdDtIdl1Ol4 anu OliuCi NOiANAA NAOAAA
that are a disgrace to a progressive
people. The pay of your teachers, al
ways low and insufficient to attract
enough qualified teachers to supply all
the schools. is now on basis of pow
erty that will be ruinous to your schools
and is discreditable to yourselves. In
this year of our Lord One Thousand
Nine Hundred and Four, in this very
district on Kauai, out of a total of four
schools. two have been closed for con-
siderable portions of the year, and one
of them still remains closed, by reason
of the inability of qualified persons to
accept employment at the meager
wages offered. The election of the next
Legislature marks an important crisis
in the cause of education in this Ter
ritory.
Within the year we have found our
selves in the condition of being hard
UP. We were out of pocket a good
many thousand dollars. And like
good house-keeper we knew that we had
got to make both ends meet. We had
got to make up the deficiency. And
we preferred to do it heroically and
n.
men of the Territory put up the money?
1t were hardly fair, the fault was the
fault of all. Assess the laboring men
for the amount? No. Take some dol
lars off the meager pay of policemen
or levy d special tax on the small
farmer? That We're injustice indeed. |
Do you suggest that the burden be
shared evenly by all men or in proper
ton to their ability to pay? That might
not be unjust. But how did We dis
tribute the burden? OF the five or ten
thousand men on Kauai how many men
are contributing to that deficiency fund?
Eight, You can count them on the i'm
GERS of your two hands and still have
YOUR thumbs left disengaged TO stick in
to your self congratulatory suspenders-
Kauai men get off easy. Kauai men
get off easy.
But women? That is another story. !
Your school teacher with her poor forty .
dollars a month you have made to con- .
tribute one hundred dollars toward that
deficiency. Every school
mistress on Kauai and throughout the
Territory is giving of her hard-earned
living a hundred dollars or two hum
dred dollars to save her brethren pos
sessed with the franchise from the con-
seouences of their own folly in the ex-
ereise of that right of franchise. Tax
aSon without representation may be
tyrrany. but it has saved us, this one
time. Shall we require of the women TO
save us again? The platforms of the
Republican party are unmistakable-o on
mis- question. The candidates of the
Republican party are pledged to en-
body these principles in effective legis-
lation. I appeal to your justice and
YOUR chivalry. VIII you not render
chiya Irous support to your schools and
a measure OF justice-even though it be
a tardy measure of justice-to your
school 1Ilistresses?
a. MOORE.