The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1914-08-11
Shall Farmers Pay More School
Taxes?

CONTINUED from Page Three.)
living sc heavily, England puts more
OF the x on the man who inherits
great wealth without working for it.
When Lord Strathcona died the other
lay, for example. worth about as
much as George w. Vanderbilt in
this State. l noticed that the in
herltance tax was Is per cent, or
$4,000 out Of Lei $1,000 900. When
l was in England two years ago /
noticed that on ~millionaires leaving
estates to distant cousins the rate
went as high as % per cent. OF
course, h more tax collected from
large inheritances, the less there is
for the farmer or laborer to pay
and 1t is certainly juster for society to
take a part Of a great fortune which
a man inherits without turning his
hand to get it, than it is to tax the
little earnings the laborer needs for
decently feeding and clothing and
educating his family.
Is 1t the Selfish People Who Favor
Education?
There are two or three points
which H. F. F. mentions which call
for but brief reply.
AS to education meaning more
crime, he has all the statistics in the
world against him is, so far as we
know. Our Southern negroes are less
adapted to education than any other
people we have, but figures show
that ven the educated negro fur
nish fewer convicts than Tho unedu-
| Gated.
AS for the people who advocate ed
ucation being selfish, we can pass
that by. The reader may take any
community he knows and consider
Tho 1yno 90 hoo -h H. = a
ucation for the boys and girls, and
fight for it, and then consider the
lives of those who are unwilling to
a taxes for such purposes, and
very quickly decide for himself as to
which class is most patriotic and un-
selfish.
Then comes up the old, old ques-
ton OS to education spOilng people
for manual labor-making them lazy
or unproductive. Look at the fig
ures | have already given for NORTH
Atlantic and North Contra States
The men on farm and factory wh6
get twice the schooling they get in
the South are making from 800 tC
$500 more a year than they get here
land they. are not likely to earn Sc
much more on farm or factory un.
less they work.
AS for paying taxes to send some.
body to college, nobody has ever pro.
posed that in human history. Wha'
we are trying to do in the South i
to give our boys and girls a good pub
lie school education. When IA ma
tive white voters out Of every 10t
in North Carolina, II in South Caro-
lima, nine in Georgia, II in Ala
bama and Tennessee, and Is in Louis
lana cannot even read their ballot
they cast, it's easy to see that W,
in the South needn't be alarmed owe
the question whether college educa
!, ton for the masses is good or not.
acknowledge is Power; Shall Labo
, Have Power.
: SO we repeat and reiterate hat w
, do need to double our expenditure 70
, our public school purposes. Even i
: proportion to our wealth we are no
!, paying as much as the North pays
t though we have two system to sup
port where the North has only one
+ When I was out in the Svea com
munity in Minnesota last year I ask
: ed what was their special school ia
: and was old $40. Yet even a 80
cent special tax is frequently oppose
f in the South. And just as a farme
' will stay DOC until he has learne
to spend enough for seed corn in tn
spring, so will the laborer or farme
/, stay poor until he learns to spen
money for seed-knowledge for hi
boys and girls in their %springtime c
youth.
E knowledge is power and neve
until 1aborers are educated will the
have power enough to win their right
or frame an economic and politice
= system that will give them a jus
f share of the wealth they produce.
: is because they realize that that Ia
Dor organizations, the Junior Orde.
= and the Farmers Union are foreve
trying to make the great masses Sc
that without education there is n
. hope Of progress-and they are RICH
: Earthquake Reported.
= 11-aShinnton u q A11o a Sliol