The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1908-05-28
|SALE0F SCHOOL PROPERTY
CAUSES CONSIDERABLE DISCUS
SION AT ROCK HILL.
Senator B. r. Tillman Writes Letter
Threatening to Move VIM
t1rop College.


COLUMBIA, May 22.-The tug of
war the Winthrop authorities have
been having with the Rock Hill local
school board over the proposition to
transfer to Winthrop what is known
as the high school property just
across the Street from Winthrop, and
which has been the subject of more
or less acrimonious discussion IN
Rock Hill for several months, has
called forth characteristically vlgor-
Gus letter from Senator Tillman to a
member of the Winthrop board OF
trustees who has local connections.
The letter has not been given out
for publication, but those who have
seen it say it is full Of fire and brim-
stone" that the senator says in it
that if the fool fight that is being
made in Rock Hill on President john
son in this matter is not at once stop
ped the senator will get his friends
together and induce the legislature
to refund to Rock Hill the $50, 900 it
gave for the establishment of Win
throp in that town and remove the
college to a more congenial and ap-
preciative city, and turn the present
Winthrop "plant" into a State asylum
for negroes, that the need for a
separate asylum for blacks is becom-
ing more and, more insistent daily
anyway.
Since this letter was written-but
hardly as result of it, however,
majority of the Rock Hill school board
has voted to sell the property in ques-
ton to the college at something like
$40, 900, which is nearly three times
what it sold for few years ago, and
5000 more than Winthrop offered
for it at the beginning Of this con-
troversy. The property, however, is
very valuable, and is likely fully
worth the price named in the deal.
Still, the row is not over, the minor
ity in the local board now seeking to-
uphold the sale by injunction pro-
ceedings on the ground that this pro-
perty cannot be used for other than
high school purposes. Friends OF
Winthrop, however, regard the deal
as practically closed, believing that
the Injunction will not be sustained.
The object of the Winthrop man:
agement is to make an ideal model
school of this property, on which
nearly $100, 900 all told is to be ex-
pended, the institution afording free
tuition to people in Rock Hill and
vicinity.
The final result of the controversy
will be watched with keen interest
throughout, the State.
In order to offset the argument in
favor of letting the property go to
Winthrop members of the local school
board came here last winter and got
a special act passed, in the form OF
an amendment to another local bill,
providing for a special election in
Rock Hill to authorize an additional
tax levy with which to operate the
school; the biggest property holders
in the town are backing this move.
One of the Rock Hill local papers
bitterly attacked the members of the
local board blocking the deal, accus-
ing them Of impeding progress for
selfish purposes. The two members
of the board who have been opposing
Winthrop mostvigorously ownprach-
cally all the other property contiguous
to the present Winthrop grounds, and
having fanked President johnson at
the rear Of the college with a cotton
mill and cotton mill villages, they are
accused of presenting him the alter
native of buying their property for
his model school or going without.
On the other hand those supporting
these members of the local board say
they have been acting for the best in
terests of the town of Rock Hill, and
that their efforts to continue school
for boys in the community have been
prompted solely by patriotic motives.
Union Farm Kennels Burned.
UNION SPRINGS, ALA, May 20
News has just reached here at'the
Union Farm kennels, at Suspension,
have been destroyed by fire and sew