Morris tribune., 1904-09-03
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IN RE THE BOARD OF CONTROL.

| n
opened and contracts awarded Hereunder by
the board of control Some day the
people will say by their votes that
this autocratic method Of disbursing
the public money must end. 1t may take a
pretty severe jolt to bring about the awakening
| but it is reasonably sure to COme-.Whee1O 8
Wee ky.
| This is another indication that an election
of Legislators is coming on, and that the attack
on the board of control will be renewed. It is
also symptom, showing that the passage of
time, that assuager of all human griefs has not
yet softened to the local graft the hurt of de-
prvation of it's perquisites, and assures us that,
with apologies to Trumbul1,
mo graft e'er felt the halter drew
With good opinion of the law"
AS human nature runs in it's pettiness this
paramountcy to local over state interests and
welfare is to be expected but it is none the less
pititul.
From another source, not a town having
one of the states nstitutions-correcton charit-
able otherwise-comes philosophc
attack by a leading paper upon the board of
control, not the body but the system. While
the reflection was induced by news that North
Dakota is to follow Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota
and other progressing states. and establish
state board of control, the opportunity
used to discuss the policy on general princi-
pies. The system is but another Indication of
tendency noticeable everywhere to concen
tration; to submerging the local in the state.
In the case of the substitution of a state board
for the hume rous local boards there is a loss
of that care and attention the local board gave
it's charge, accompanied by a loss ofindividualty
of the community and augmentation of the
power of the state. And
AS to the criticism of the Fergus Falls
paper, it is sufficient to say that the business
element, chiefly concerned in the policy of the
board not in calling for "secret bids but in not
making bids public when opened, acquiesces
in the reasons and policy of the board, founded
as they are good public policy and having
in view solely the public's interests. The "jolt
it predicts is not reasonably sure to come"
The other critic lacks perspective. TO it there
is no line dividing the business and interests
of the state as state from those of town as
a town. The fact that a state institution is
loo ated in a town not the capitol, obcures to it
it only local matter.
the mistaken policy of scattering institutions
created to perform purely state work among
the cities of the state, instead of concentrating
them at one point, and of the following that
error by creating boards whose membership
was either wholly local or one of whose members,
and the managing one a resident of the
town in which the institution was located. |
This led inevitably to that notion of local par 1
of local ownership, which resulted Il
in that form of graft which strove to secure the 4
largest possible appropriation, not because it /
was essential but because it would be largely /
spent in the town The consequence that Il
the disposition grew to such an extent that it I
defeated itself and brought about the transfer /
Of management where it rightly belongs, in a |
single body representing the state, and not any /
locality. And we beg to assure both of our
the change is a permanent one l
st. Paul Dispatch sh