The Liberal democrat. [volume] (Liberal, Kan.) 1911-1924, 1915-01-15

shall enable them to care for depend
ent minor children at home instead of
their being cared for in institutions.
2. To designate certain existing
officials to comprise and act as an in
dustrial welfare committee with
power to establish and enforce wage
schedules and to regulate the hours
of women and minors in industry.
3. To provide for the paying Of con-
victs' earnings to their dependent
families, after a sufficient sum is de-
Quoted for the convict's maintenance.
4. To give organized labor the right
to select the officers of the state la
Dor bureau.
S. To help solve the problem Of the
unemployed by extending the activi-
ties of the free employment bureau.
6. To strengthen the workmens
compensation act for the better pro-
lection of the workers.
Z. To promote the safety and safe
guard the interests of railroad men
and the travelling public.
s. To compel employers to report
promptly to the labor department all
accidents occurring in factories or
mines.
8. To make child desertion by
either father or mother crime.
10. To broaden the 5000 tax eX-
emption law by removing the dis
elimination against certain classes Of
women
II. To authorize cities Of the first
and second class to establish public
loan Institutions that the loan shark
evil may be abated.
Stronger Rural Schools.
Only per cent of the boys and
Urls of Kansas ever go to college.
For the 80 per cent whose only means
Of schooling is the district or the city
school, we must provide what we are
not now providing, an education that
will better fit them for the struggle
of life.
A boy or girl who has gone through
eight grades should possess a COM
plete, practical education and should
have received special training in some
specific line OF work, fitting him or
her to earn livelihood. Vocational
work should he done in all the schools
beginning With the fifth grade. Wher-
ever conditions favor it, the establish
ing Of a consolidated school or of a
township high school is worthy of
much consideration. We should pro-
vide for and encourage a wider use
of school plants. making Of them edu-
catlonal and social centers for all the
people throughout the year.
believe that the office of state
superintendent of public instruction,
as well as that of county superinten-
dent, should be removed entirely from
politics.
An institution which supplements
the work of the public schools and
reaches every remote farm house in
the state is the Kansas Travelling lii
brary. In the last two years it has
sent out a total of 61,250 books, reach.
ing, it is estimated, 100000 persons.
recommend that ample funds for a
continuation of its good work be pro-
vided
Free Text Books for Schools.
All school books should be supplied
to the children of Kansas free of cost
I recommend compulsory district and
municipal ownership of such books
Twenty-one states now follow this
plan successfully. also favor a law
properly safeguarded. providing for
the use of supplementary books.
am convinced the state can publish
the text books needed for use in the
common schools at a material saving
to the people. During the last two
years the state printing plant has been
enlarged with this purpose in view.
So far only three books have been
issued 1t is, of course, physically
impossible for the state to undertake,
during the next two years, the pub
fishing of all the books to be required
in the public schools of all grades.
therefore recommend that an appro-
Oriation be made sufficient to print
such books within the present ca
pacity of the printing plant, as, in
the judgment of the school book com
MISSION are most Immediately needed.
Rural Credits Association.
Farming is our biggest business in
Kansas. Our prosperity, our progress,
our very existence depend on it. 1t is
a business in great need of financial
Tellel. me IdTHeTS OF Kansas are
sorely in need of a credit system
meeting their special requirements,
that they may more readily obtain
money on short or long time for their
farming operations, or that they may
become owners of farms. Our present
system of credit is based on business
as conducted in cities, where capital is
turned quickly. In New York, Ohio
and in other states this need has been
met by legislation providing for rural
loan and savings associations similar
to the building and loan associations
in the cities.
Cooperative Societies.
The necessity for better organized
farm industry in the United States is
now generally regarded as urgent.
Kansas has no adequate law encourag-
ing and providing for the formation
and conduct of farmer cooperative
societies such as exists in the states
of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska
and Iowa. AS we live in one of the
foremost agricultural states, we
should not be backward in providing
every condition which will aid our
greatest industry.
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