Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1909-07-28
wrrHpRAws STATE CONTROL q
1t is Suggested that Life Trustees
Alone Manage Clemson.
Taxpayer" in The state.)


Fourteen years ago the dispensary
was State institution and the State
had fourteen years of scandal and
trouble. Then Carey and Cothran
got up the Carey-Cothran law by
which the State unloaded the trouble
some dispensary upon the counties
and got rid of it, and the State has
had peace ever since; no more do
politicians howl for liquor; no more
"a the militia called out to protect
7hiskey spies, and no more does the
Legislature waste valuable time
quarreling over who shall buy the
: booze. But the dispensary lives yet.
In the early COS the State estab-
lished Clemson College, and Clemson
has been throwing fits periodically
ever since then-students in rebel
lion, military commandants huffy at
scholarly professors, and scholarly
professors sore at each other ard at
the students. Senators, Governors
and the Legislature have devoted
time and close attention to Clemson
and Clemson still gives trouble. Now
Clemson's last row has brought to
light the fact, heretofore overlooked,
that Clemson is not a State instilu-
ton, Mr.. Clemson having by his will
founded the college with certain life
trustees, with perpetual succession,
giving the State only enough trus-
tees to impose upon the State the
burden of providing a living for
Clemson
Senator Tillamn comes forward
now with plan to appropriate big
@Sum of the peoples money and buy
out Mr.. Clemson's heirs, getting rid
Of those life trustees and making the
college wholly a State institution.
Cannot the Senator profit by the
States experience with the dispen-
sary? Cannot the Senator see that
the college has been living sore
only because the State has tried to
control it, and that it will continue
to be sore so long as We people of
South Carolina consider ourselves re-
sponsible for the colleges good be-
havior? If the State must spend a
big amount Of money on Clemson,
would it not be only sensible to
spend 1t with the distinct understand
ing that the State shall never be
bothered with Clemson's antics
again? Here is the sensible plan:
Instead of buying out the Clemson
heirs and abolishing those life trus-
toes enuoN Clemson, ut mo matter
what cost, 5 that ii w.l] have an
assnrod living 1.1d bo 0rmy estab-
iished, and nrn d. Iu0sr a free col.
-IG6e wholly unu-. .nu Lon.I.i o,
those life trustees with perpetual
succession.
There Is nothirg novel in this sug-
gestion. The great English universi-
ties, Oxford and Cambridge, are not
dependent on Parliament. Each is a
free corporation, free of fitful poll
tics, living on the fees Of students
and on the income of estates it holds
as an endowment. 1t ,ems to be a
fact that the Charleston Medical Col
lege was once a State institution, and
good lawyers do not understand how
it became a free college, but 1t is
free, 1t Is firmly established, and 1t
goes on with its work turning out
good physicians, and plenty of them,
3Svery year, and the State is never
bthered with it.
1t would take an enormous appro-
priation to endow Clemson, as much
or more than it would take to buy
out the Clemson heirs. 1t might
take an issue Of bonds to raise that
much money, but it would be money
well spent. The college would be
firmly established, no longer tangled
up with changeable politics, and the
State would be clear Of a nuisance.
= Instead of buying more trouble, as
$enator Tillman suggests, how much
more sensible it would be to buy our
selves free Of Dettish and turhnlant