The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-26
SCHOOL HOUSE LAW PROVES DETECTIVE Appropriation for Rural
 Schools Is Void ERROR IN THE RECORD Someone Erased One Little Word After the Bill Left the House
 Clerks Desk for the
 Governor
ERROR IN THE RECORD

Montgomery, April 5-tSpecial)- It was discovered today that the law recently enacted on the subject of rural school houses in this state is in fact null and void.
 A bill was introduced and passed by the house appropriating the sum of s100500 annually for the purpose of aiding rural districts in building, re- pairing and equipping rural school houses, apportioning $500 to each coun- ty annually. The bill provided that this aid should be extended in sums of s25 to $500 to each district upon the approval of the county board of edu- cation. The legislative records show that the bill passed the house and was copied by the clerk of the house pre- cisely in the form in which the bill was originally drafted. Being late in the legislative session when the bill passed the house, 1t was sent to the senate without engrossment as Is the usual custom during the last few days of each session, though as stated above, the clerk copies the bill in full before sending 1t to the senate.
 When the original copy of the bill attached to the engrossment of the bill reached the governors office late on the night of the final adjournment of the session, the engrossed copy was carefully compared with the original copy of the bill attached when 1t was observed that in one section of the bill "$2000" appeared on the engrossed copy when $500" appeared on the original bill accompanying the engrossed copy. This clerical error was corrected by an amendment sent up by the governor.
 One Word Erased
 Today it was discovered that the word thousand five hundred was erased by means of several pen marks through it which were made by some one after the bill left the office of the clerk of the house and before it reached the governors of- flee The engrossed copy sent to the gov ernor likewise did not contain the word hundred, but conformed exactly to the original bill in it's changed condition and therefore 1t was not observed that the house passed a bill appropriating lone hundred thousand five hundred dollars to be divided in amounts of lone thousand five hundred dollars to each county, whereas the senate passed bill appropri- ating "one thousand five hundred dollars" the word "hundred'' having been in some way stricken out.
 There seems no way of finding out just how the word Hundred" was scratched out by some one who used pen, whether as friend to the bill he thought there had been some error which needed correc- tion, since the words "one thousand five hundred" appeared in other places in the bill when referring to each countys DOT tion, or whether in an unfriendly act he took this simple means of changing the bill in such a way as to bring about the passage of one bill by the house and different bill by the senate. which, of course renders it null and void.
 Conditions Unchanged
 The net result of the matter is to leave legislation on this subject just as it ex- isted before the legislature convened. The law during the past four years appropri- ated s1G00 to each county from the tag tax fund, but required communities to raise s1G0 It was found in the operation of the law that many of the poorer com munities needed repairs on their buildings which would not cost this $20O minimum fund, and therefore scarcely also to raise s100 in order to get another $100, especial ly when they did not need to use so much money for the purpose at hand. An other unfortunate feature in connection with this matter is the fact that 1t will still be illegal to use any of this fund ap- by the state for the purpose of buying desks as was contemplated in the new law which fails.
 This entire annual appropriation of s1O0, 800 was proposed to be taken from the tag tax fund, and if there had not been enough in that particular fund the bill provided that any remainder was appro- priated out of any other fund in the treas ury not otherwise appropriated.
 As showing the apparent popularity of this measure. it passed the house with only one vote dissenting and the senate No feature of school work in Alabama during recent years has shown more commendable progress than that of building and repairing rural No phase of educational development in fact, had stood in more apparent need of improvement. and 1t was by the friends of this measure that even greater progress would be made along this line in the next few years than in the past.