The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-10-10
Eetters to tbe Gditor
Eritor The Advertiser;

as does every true friend of the South. To be brief and definite to waste no words in natural resentment or an unnatural forgiveness let it at once pc said that Mir. Walker found Tn corner and not in a prominent place at the Exposition a chart of educational statistics. He thought its position mistake--and says so. He disagreed with those who, he says, gave as an excuse for It's obscure position that II miSht hurt our Southern friends, ana proceeds to put some of the contents of the chart as prominently before the public as is possible for him to do in the pages of his magazine.
 fishes to his readers that Alabama ex- pends per capita for education 5S cents. inQuiry of the State Department of Educatfon in Alabama would have en- ngures--according to the census of children between the ages of ' and 2i Aia6ama expended last year per capita sl.si. and: aecordins to average attend, ance, $4.4l. These figures are raised the present year to $l.45 for the former, ana over $500 for the latter
 He would most likely have been told further that the State gives over half ner income to public schools, as great proportion as any State in the Union. To this information could have been added the intelligence that the State tution that counties may vote a special tax for schools. Had persistence push ed the inquiry into why this had not been done before, he might have learn ed that the struggle would naturally be long and arduous to persuade leg islative body to grant a local tax when sucn Legislation meant the grant u hordes isI of negroes of the right to vote should educate black children to whom and generous.
 
 ability; a like standard applies to the state. It is safe to say that in propor- ton to their wealth, every Southern state Is giving to education as much Union en Dr IoSeyy say Ssnef Sas put sae it amn n ine ously for North Carolina. in saying:
 Back of each child in North Carolina Is only s3s7, while back of the Michi- York child IS ssssi s Afa E. C. a' Marphy 1na SsS is authority for the statement that on each $l0O of real and personal property in Arkansas in 1890 was expended 22.3 cents. 24.4 cents In Mississippi, over against 20.5 cents in New York, and 30.9 cents In Pennsylvania; and that the assessed value of property in New York and Pannsylvania in 1870 was greater than in the whole South.
 All know how figures lie," and that the most mendacious figures are stat1s- tics which leave out the circumstances just idea of what every Southern State Is doing for education compared to other States would be to compare her proportion of appropriation out of her income to similar proportion in all the States. That such an estimate could not be obtained by application at tae state Department Is one of the proots St of how quietly l; ". Hill is going about formed cavillers and critics.
 Had Mir. Walker been acquainted with the latest authoritative expression South" by E. c c. Murphy. % the Exposition R position Chart would not have misled him. Twice in the book Is corrected stated- perhaps oftener-ecAlabama's per capita spirit in hurting" us he would have found there that the South invites. whether in journalism or elsewhere a criticism national in the exactlng nobil- vigor, national also in its intelligent and constructive sympathy the large-tempered understanding of all the lovers of mankind and of all the would have been reminded There Is no disgrace in our illiteracy. It Is due to historic and formidable forces"
 To one idea of MT. Walkers we hea rt- fly subscribe, as the world long since has done, Tt Is just as important to teach the adult man and woman as 1t Is to teach the child"-how import ant he may realize when he thoroughly learns all he does not now know of the educational status of the South which ne discussed from the viewpoint of an assumed omnisc1ence, which we know IS championed by omnipotence and in- mite love For ordinary mortals 1t suff1ces to bear one another's burdens"
 On the same assumptive power of lan cree. he tells us that illiteracy is what makes and will keep lands in the South lower-priced than in the West and North. and promulgates that to raise their prices we must do more for education. Leaving out differences of soil in which both advantages and dis adVantages in each are discovered by intelligent people, everyone knows that the value Of agricultural lands depends on the labor to till them, and every in- telligent speaker and writer on South ern conditions knows that the depre- e1ation tn In the lands of the South is ow- clency or Tree negro labor and the im- poverishment of the soil through it's continuance; t2) to the lack of rail ton on account of the presence of the negro. Another cause of lower-pricod land in the South is found in conditions Iror riKe those which long ago led to a.. years the navigation of the Mississippi river for the benefit of the Atlantic states: J; L. M. Curry states it dis passlonately The Southern States of and 146 'O' o'
 The dimnution in prosperity. the retrogression. the relative decline of the south are easily accounted for. The adjustment of taxation the bonn ties to navigation and fishing, govern ment partnership with favored inter ests' sectional discriminative disburse- ments, the entire fiscal action of the Fsderal government. have concentrat ed favors on one section to Xhe disnar agement of the other. New York citv IS the financial centre, the Thread needle Street of the United States. ; The immense capabilities of the North, the energy. enterprise, capacity or thls frugal, industrious. clever poo- pie. are not to be denied. nor underrat- cd; but equally 1t cannot be denied that MhateHer adVantages accrue from the nnancial and commercial and economlc policy of the Federal government in ure almost exclusively, or very disnro. portionately. to the North Whlle the South by the war was deci- mated Tn men and bankrupted In pron- eJty, the North made money, and at the end of the conflict was richer fhsn at the beginning. No hostile enemies tramped over her soil; no armadcrs oIockaded ports, and threw fiery shot ana shell into maratime cities: cur rency was redundant, speculation was rife. prices were high. The profuss expsnoiture Of the government kent trade busy in every department nnd MT. Seward said that not only lad the war not impoverished anybody hut that It had largely augmented the ma tional resources" As the re suit Of Federal appropriation tba North has had her harbors and rivers shd roads and bridges and buildings cost of t-ansportatio increaains inc circulation of money while inc So,th