The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1915-04-01
Austen Discusses District Controversy

/
Editor Glacier-I should like to say a
| few words as regards the late division
of the Frankton school district. In the
| first place, have we had fair deal2
know that we have not. A court of
law is supposed to try to do justice to.
and be fair and square with both par
ties to any controversy that they may
| try TO settle. Now that district boun-
Diary board was to all intents and pur-
poses law court.
In that first trick that Forden ct al,
tried to put through on US last year,
we had to appeal to the circuit court
for review of the case and it was
thrown out. Well. when they tried it
again this year and we had some little
chance to state our side of the case it
did not go, and that should have set
| tied it, unless the other side should
have appealed their case to higher
tribunal, as we should have had to do
had the case gone against us.
What did the other side, composed Of
Forden, Thompson. ct al, do? The next
month they appealed the case to the
same Identical court and got decision
the other way.
Now, in all conscience. | would ask,
did anyone ever see anything in civil
lied Jurisprudence TO beat that? And
one person at least who served on that
boundary board was very much inter-
ested in seeing the division made.
Now, has such person a valid right to
sit in case like that? And has coun-
ty school superintendent right to take
sides in district controversy and try
to ruin one district to benefit another or
to crafty some whim or spite of his
own?
Forden, ct al, could appeal their
case within month to the same court
and have them reverse their former de-
ci son, but we who were fighting for
the life of the district, it seems, have
no such privilege. Where, pray, is the
justice in the case2 May the Lord
deliver us from any such courts of JUS
tice as that
But there was one man on that dis
trict boundary board to whom take
off my hat with the profoundest re-
spect. He knew that fraud was be-
ing perpetrated on the Frankton dis
trict and he stood up to the last against
all the bulldozing and chicanery of the
other side for what he knew was right !;
but the light in which the other mem
bers of that boundary board who perpe-
trated that outrage on the Frankton
district must appear to all honest men,
had better be left to the imagination.
Ii would not look well in print.
Now that shilly.shallying about the
rpaH uau inaf tOn oiIlu for aputbtn..
as there is no man so dull that he could
not see that they were simply striking
at the life of our high school, and
every member of that boundary board
knew it, and yet they would dare to
debauch the law and decide case on
such flimsy pretext as that. Are the
children of Forden and his click so
much better than the others that they
are to be shown special consideration,
and the others both east and west of
them left to go up and down THAT aw-
full hill" to Frankton still?
have been in pretty close touch with
the Frankton school for almost third
of century, and never heard of the
hill being considered a hardship to the
children until Forden appeared on the
sCGIt. nave pdsseu over tDdL TUdu III
all times in winter when the snow was
from one to four feet deep, and never
yet have | passed that way at the noon
hour or at evening when there was
school there, that did not find most of
the school coasting down that hill from
the top all the way to the school
grounds, and anyone hearing their
peas of laughter and seeing their
happy faces would never have imag-
ined that they considered the climbing
of that hill any hardship. But Forden
knew better, and when he tearfully
pictured to tender hearted and Impair
tial county school superintendent and
county judge, the awful horrors of the
climb up and down that hill, their ten.
der hearts were melted and they SOL
emnly promised Brother Forden that
they would set him over into Barrett
regardless of the effect it might have
on the fortunes of the grandest rural
district in the valley, and the only one
that kept out of debt and still main.
tained four year high school course.
Had they worked half as hard to try
to build up the school as they have to
try to tear it down, we should have
had as fine rural high school as there !
is in the state.
Yours earnestly,
+. r. Austen.