Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-10-22
TROUBLE I'm
OCEAN COUNTY
Appointment of Professor Morris
of This City Causes Much
Criticism Down There.

The appointment of Prof. Charles
Charles A. Morris, formerly of the
local high school, to be county sup
erintendent in Ocean county has
stirred up considerable feeling down
there. Treating the matter editor
ally, the Trenton Times says:
Without exception the newspapers
OF Ocean county are c~ondemning the
State Board of Education for going
to Mlddlesex county to find a county
superintendent of the public schools
IN ocean, and their criticisms throw
new light upon the incident that will
temper h commentator that has
been given to the board for eXercis-
ing its prerogative in the interests of
the schools.
The Toms River Courier, which
has for months been making war
upon the grafters and political trick
sters who have been %plundering the
county and controlling it's affairs.
openly charges that Peter Tilton,
who has just been displaced after
four years service, lost his position
as county superintendent because he
was nan enough and good citizen
enough to act as chairman of the
Taxpayers Committee, which ex-
posed the graft in Ocean county af-
fairs and thus earned the hatred of
the grafters."
This opposition, it says, was used
by the State Board as evidence that
there was dissatisfaction with Tilton,
and 'as an excuse for appointing a
man from outside of Ocean county, a
course that had evidently been deter
mined upon before Tilton's term ex-
PRED, by the ruling powers of the
board, who only wanted the excuse
which the opposition of the grafters
furnished"
Some substantiation of this charge
is to be found in the report that
Charles A. Morris, the new county
superintendent, is a native of Rights
town, a recent graduate of Rutgers
College, who has taught about a year
in a school at Perth Amboy, and who
a few months ago removed to Lake
wood in order to discount the feeling
against appointing a nonresident.
The Lakewood Times-Journal says
that 1.-The universal public sentiment
is that if Mr.. Tilton was not to be re-
| appointed, Mr.. J. Provost, of Lake
hurst, should have been appointed,
and why he was not it seems to be
impossible to learn" 1t intimates
| that a political scheme was RESPONSE
BILE for the change, and thinks the
State Board owes to the people of
Ocean county an explanation of why
Mr.. Morris was appointed.
The Lakewood Citizen says that
the way and manner in which the
appointment was made sis suggestive
of trickery, small practice and an ut !
4o, J;n,o~a,I af tho ruichoc nf tho
people of this county. If the APP
pointment had been made three
months ago the retiring superintend-
ent would have had a chance to OBJ
tain a school position; as it is, these
are all filled, and Mr.. Tilton is left
with but small chance of obtaining a
school position for at least-a year."
The majority of the people in
Ocean county look upon the appoint
ment with suspicion, according to the
Citizen, which thinks that IL the APP
pointment is "a fair sample of wis
dom of the State Board of Education
-reputed to be a ~non-parisan body,
but instead a crowd of half-wiSe pol
iticians-it is surely time for Gov
ernor Stokes to clean house with an
axe"
1t is unfortunate that suspicion
should again be directed against the
fairness and honesty of the State
Board of Education, which has on
several occasions recently been criti-
cised for acts that bore a strong pol
itical coloring. Still it has acted
strictly within the law, which per-
mits it to go outside of a county to
select a superintendent. The super
intendents are now paid by the state,
instead of by the counties, as form
erly.
If it were not for the charge that
Mr.. Tilton was displaced at the insti-
of the local grafters, because
exercised his right to take part in
a movement intended to secure hon
esty in the administration of county
the people of Ocean would
have no good reason to complain.
But, under the circumstances, an ex-
PLANTATION from the State Board of
Education is due. 1t cannot afford
to rest under the imputation that it's
acts are inspired by political
motives. For some years it has been
our honest boast that the public
school system of the state was free
of partisan influences.