The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1918-10-31
OUR DUTY TO OUR CHILDREN

"Our duty to our children" is a
chord that has been played upon with
great emphasis in the past few weeks
by the advocates of the ten-mill
amendment.
According to them we are sacrific-
ing the entire interest of the children,
are selfish, narrowminded, unpatriotic,
reasonable and reactionary, if we do
not vote for this amendment.
We certainly owe our first and our
greatest duty to our children. But
this duty does not consist entirely or
even mostly in loading them down
with books and sending them to the
nearest schoolhouse.
Some of the duty that we owe to
our children is the duty we owe to
ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to
| have comfortable homes and the
means to live fairly decent lives. We
cannot start our children off proper
/ ly in life if our homes are squalid and
we are burdened and worried with
| debt Children need food and clothes
and reasonable amount of amuse-
ment. They cannot have these if the
expenses of their parents are more
than can be met.
The American people have not
reached that point yet but they are on
American homes, the breadwinner
makes only enough to break even. He
does not make enough to lay up any
thing for old age or misfortune. You
only have to look around you to find
evidence for this statement. Most
American men and women keep out
OF the poorhouse by dying early.
We, the men and women of today,
are assuming the heaviest burden Of
taxation that has ever been laid on
any people. The burden is already
tremendous, but it will certainly be
doubled and probably trebled.
/ We should not add to our taxation
anything that we can avoid. Not only
for our own sakes but the sakes of
our children. This is one of our duties
to them. They will have to bear the
burden after we are gone.
The advocates of the ten-mill
amendment will sheer at you and call
you stingy and selfish if you say you
are not willing to vote for the amend
ment. But study them closely, COM
pare their burdens with yours, and de-
eide if they hadn't better remove the
beams from their eyes before they
criticise the notes in yours.
In the last few weeks we have
spoken to many people about this
amendment. Some have been among
our leading business men with prop
erty amounting to tens of thousands;
some struggling men with large fam
lilies and small incomes; good many
betwixt and between. None of them
stingy or selfish. All have given in
the last year and half to patriotic
purposes; some of them more than
they could afford. With few excep-
tons they were against the amend
ment.
The expense of our public school
system is already enormous. In our
most remote country districts, where
the schools are the most sparsely at
tended, they cost every taxpayer 80
cents en- each hundred dollars of his
property. This goes up in the sub
school districts to 90 cents, 81 and
S1.10, and in Ocala it is S14O Now
the school authorities want another
80 cents on all of these. Only a few
years ago, the millage was raised
from five to seven, and if you vote to
increase it to ten, it will not be more
than half dozen years before you
,, will be asked to raise it to twelve.
Added to this is the cost of books,
which your school authorities will do
nothing to reduce, but which on the
contrary they constantly increase by
, adding unnecessary studies, and by
!, occasionally changing books on you,
compelling you to throw away the old
sometimes scarcely soiled) and buy
NEW, and you will not have any trou-
BILE in figuring out that in few more
years large proportion of the peo-
pie will have to take their children
out of school at twelve and fourteen
!. years of age and put them to work in
order to help pay the taxes. When
this result is attained, the public
school will become a class institution
and curse instead of blessing.
Look at the people who are clamor-
ing for this amendment and you will
find that if the additional tax is levied
most of them will get more out of it
than they will put into it.
i Vote against this measure. 1t is
excessive, untimely and unnecessary.
And resolve that in future you will
elect to office men who will try to
save your money, instead of wasting
it. That will be your duty to your
children, who are going to pay in
taxes ten dollars where your fathers
paid one
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