The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-18
MINISTER'S WILL FIRE FIRST GUNS IN BIG CAMPA A|GN Fight Against Handicap of H. Iiteracy Opens Sun
 day STRIPLIN OUTLINES
 METHODS OF ATTACK Future Legislative Candidates Will Pledge Themselves To Allow Communities To Control
 School Taxation.

With a sermon in every pulpit in Ala bama, the statewide campaign for edu- cation will begin next Sunday and con- tlnue without cessation for two weeks. This is to be whirlwind campaign for Alabamas children. It is the preliminary move to another campaign which will be waged next year, when every candi- date for the legislature will be pledged to submit an amendment to the people which will allow every community the right to control it's own school taxation.
 w. D. Stripln of Gadsden, manager of the Alabama education committee, of which Harry Gunnels Is chairman, is in Birmingham. This committee is the result of the educational conference which was held in Birmingham last spring. MT. Striplin has just taken from the press the campaign book, which Is to guide the workers in the field. The ministers of the state will preach Sunday on the i'm portance of education. Monday speakers will begin in nearly all of the counties, and the message which this little hand book carries will be spread in every di- rection.
 Aabama's lIliterates.
 It contains speeches on the needs of the hour by Harry Gunnels and pr. J. H. Phillips and inducements of the virtues Of local taxation for schools by all the principle educators of the state.
 The need of such @ campaign Is shown in table which puts Alabama with the five states which have a larger number of illiterates than all the rest Alabama has 22,655 illiterates and 14S illiterates in thousand of native white population or 14 times as many as that of the same class of population in IA other states, and more than all other states in the union except three.
 MT. Striplin is sending out 4O00 circular letters preliminary to the opening of the campaign. He has already successfully organized for meetings and speakers in many of the counties. In his foreword the manager says:
 A Strong Appeal.
 Tn preparing this campaign book, was impressed that some information about local taxation, some comparative tables, some arguments In favor of this pressing need and some suggestions about a general educational uplift would be helpful. Of course realize that this is not the only school need, but I firmly believe, that with the right of local taxation secured to the community so that a majority can lengthen the school term and make better the local school by a district tax, the size of which the voters determine, the other school problems will be easy of solution. Every organization, every indi- vidual-every loyal American should awake and determine, that our children shall no longer be handicapped by the lack of sufficient revenue to maintain in every district a school equal to the best We should be justly proud of our splen- did state, of her glorious past and her distinguished men and women; but to show the right appreciation of our rich heritage, we must turn our faces to the future and with renewed zeal and energy push the battle against ignorance until 1t vanishes from our midst like the clouds before the noon day's brightness"