The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1918-09-21

with the question of where the money
is TO come from to do the things that
are absolutely necessary to be done.
Within few days / expect to fur
nish the press of the county with a
plain, concise statement of the history
and the purpose of the proposed ten
mill amendment.
| appreciate your indulgence in
space to discuss the question and re-
greet that we do not see the matter in
the same light or from the same
standpoint. Very truly yours,
j. H. Brinson.
Thanks, Mr. Brinson, "for these
kind woids," as Happy Hooligan
would have said, in the days before
the Hun. In those days, when you
and Us occasionally tackled subject
on which we agreed, and to which we
used more severe language than we
have about the ten-mill amendment,
you did not call US demagogue, nor
style our discourse TRADE. In this
business, as Mr.. Blueback Speller
Webster says, are we now hooking
your OK, or, as more down-to
architect might remark, do you APP
prehend our getting your goat?
If we said you and your brother
and sister members of the education
al autocracy were inclined to be pig
gish in trying to shove this ten-mill
amendment through at this time,
wouldn't we be as polite as you are,
and somewhat more truthful
Well, we will forgive you. We are
used to being called names-in fact,
we sometimes call ourself more
names in minute than you could
think up in week. And we amt go
ing to call you and the other educa-
tional particularly the au-
tocratesses-any names, either.
We do not need to be specific in
figuring out the graft from a ten
mill tax. There would be no such
elaborate thing as figuring about it.
1t would be as simple as little mig
ger busting" open a forty-pound
watermelon and going into it with
both hands.
Your explanation about raising
funds for your propaganda is indeed
a bad text for you. You should have
known, tho probably most of the
other teachers didn't. that when you
asked the school boards of the state
to contribute $40 each to push your
ten-mill propaganda that you were
asking the said boards to break the
law. There is no law allowing a
county board to appropriate money
for such purpose. When the Mar
ion county board authorized its con-
tribution and warrant for this
amount was drawn to the credit of C.
R. M. Sheppard" ETC., then the Mar
ion county board took the peoples
money without their knowledge or
consent. It had no right to take
cent of public money for such pur-
pose, and we are very much surpris-
ed to learn that it did. 1t is only ten
dollars, but board that can illegally
ten dollars can appro-I
pirate ten hundred or ten thousand
the same way. You teachers set fine
example to the young people you are
supposed to instruct in ethics as well
as mathematics. If you wanted five
hundred dollars to use in inducing
the people of Florida to give another
million dollars year, why didn't you
take up collection That is what a
press association would have DONE
Editors are not any richer than teach
ers, and there are forty or fifty teach
ers to one editor.
We don't doubt your sincerity in,
the source of your "war
fund.-" but we doubt that you know
all about it. Ten dollars apiece from
the counties of Florida wouldn't go
far on the printing bill of cam
paign, even if they all paid. Some
teachers and some officials are not
as conscientious as the members of
the Marion county school board. The
book trust has its agents among
them, as any man well acquainted
with Tallahassee knows.
You say, Mr.. Brinson, that "every
citizen of intelligence knows you can
not reduce taxes without reducing
public improvements" etc.
There is one great improvement
that could be made without increas-
ing the taxes, and that would be to
reduce the taxes.
At present, however, it is our pat
riotic duty to do without improve
ments until the war is over. The war
board has just refused the
state of New York permission to spend
nine million dollars of its own money
for new school houses. Municipali.
ties are forbidden to issue bonds for
states must not vote
bonds for roads, unless they can be
used for military purposes, railroads
must not lay any more rails, except
where needed for carriage of troops
or supplies. You and your brother
and sister autocrats will be distinctly
disloyal if you press this issue at this
time.
We admit that the schools need
money, but they do not need it any
more than other departments of
the public service. The schools