The Paducah sun. [volume] (Paducah, Ky.) 1898-1906, 1905-09-27

aec;ioa ~i.h alleged conditions AZ
the schoois;
The Beard Of education probably
viii die ~hsn the seoois 90 TO the
polls n No~sness. let the nev
beard thea elected have a care
Or this one Ia the same issue about
the superintendent of the schools;
IF the superintendent of public
schools had exercised proper care
and diligence, that condition could
never have obtained"
To be plain. there was never any
occasion for all the publicity given
the schools in this affair. 1t was
found by a board of health that has
allowed the whole city to be filthy
and unsanitary during the summer.
that unsanitary conditions existed at
two of the schools.
The News Democrat says of this:
THE city health officer. according
TO the president of the board of edu-
cation, in the forenoon found the
sanitary condition of Longfellow
school to be satisfactory. In the af-
ternoon of the same day a commit
tee of the board of education found
that the sanitation needed atten
ton. although not as badly as re-
ported" Which authority knows
what ii is talking about?"
The above indicates that at least
conditions were such that there was
some doubt in regard to how bad
they really were. And whatever the
conditions. the person directly to
blame was janitor who didn't know
enough to report them to the proper
authorities. The school board and
superintendent acted as soon as they
were apprised of conditions. Yet yell
low journalism would still attempt
to brighten parents into disorganiz-
ing the schools by keeping their chill
dren at home through exaggerated
reports of conditions. and only yes
terday the News-Democrat had
scare headlines, LEE SCHOOL IN
FECTED BY SCARLET FEVER, I"
with nothing to support this premed-
itated effort to inspire the people
with needless fear, and cause them
to keep their children out of school,
except the fact that several days ago
little girl in one of the rooms be-
came i'll and developed scarlet fe-
yer. Her doctor is quoted in the
same article thus:
'Dr. Reddick says that there is
little danger of contagion from the
disease in its first stages and the lit
tie girl being at school before the
case was fully developed would not
have endangered the rest of the
school to any great extent"
Yet this one case in one room is
seized upon as pretext for saying
the whole school is infected.
The Sun is OF the opinion that if
any alarming conditions existed, the
schools affected would be promptly
closed as a precaution. In the alb
sence of the necessity for any such
precaution. we do not believe a
whole city should be thrown into a
panic and the public school system
impaired. simply for the sake of an
egotistical effort to display headlines
and give newspaper the appearance
of containing news that is not news.
We are perfectly willing for our
contemporary, the Afternoon Effort,
TO take shot at us anytime it de-
sires, however, for 1t is a ludicrously
bad as well as harmless shot, and
usually gets the hot end of every
proposition it tackles.
The mayor, city administration,
board of public works. board of
health. police chief, police commits
sioners. police department and pretty
much everything else have been its
target. and we find they are all still
doing business at the same old
places-as we hope TO be doing after
il has used up its ammunition on us.