Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1919-06-05
LEONARDToWN Md THURSDAY MORNING. JUNE 1919

Our kind-hearted taxpayers Of Southern Mary
land will soon have an opportunity to show their
disinterestedness, If the Smith owner Bill
(Senate $3.50 manages to pass this session Of
Congress.
The object Of this bill is to provide Federal
Department Of Education in Washington and
to aid the different States In promoting educa-
hon. 1t is successor to the original Smith Bill,
introduced October Is. 1918, and withdrawn
FEBRUARY l9, 1919. The need of American
ization Of foreigners. and of combating ilteracy
are the ostensible motives OF this bill.
That we need widespread action for the
Americanization of our foreigners and for the
eradication Of iliteracy is plain enough. A
brief promenade on Fifth Avenue, in New York
City, at the closing hour Of the garment and fur
lofts, when you find yourself as isolated among
the vast Yiddish-speaking throngs as deaf man
at band concert, --such little walk will show
you that We have foreign problem to deal with.
1t will also show you, by the way, that foreign
birth and iliteracy are by no means necessarily
connected. There is far more reading and
studying among these exotics than among many
Of our old-ine American settlers.
But it is one thing to see the need another
thing to create. at tremendous public expense at
time when everything calls for economy, al
gigantic machinery. with fa-reaching powers,
centralizing these powers in the hands of few
functionaries in Washington and quietly setting
aside that old-fashioned document known as the
Constitution Of the United States. And that
is what the Smith Towner Bill intends to do.
or will do, whether it intends to or not.
/ he fundamental evil of this bill, as Of many
that have been proposed in Congress since the
war. IS that it turns over to the Federal Govern
ment functions that the States are perfectly able
to perform, that they would perform in the end
FAR more efficiently than the Federal Govern
ment can ever do. and by such procedure,
steps forward with giant stride to that Prussian
Capitalization Of authority. and subsection of the
individual! to the government, and of the govern
ment to the high funchonary, which is the very
thing that we have been spending our blood and
treasure to put an end to in Europe. The
Smith I owner Bill is framed so consistently on
the model of the many Prussian educational
measures that no German minister of public In
struchon would be ashamed to own it. A CEN
trail authority at Washington, controlling the
text books, the ideas. the teachers, the teachers
salaries and politics. the examination, the school
standards. the honors and promotions of the
whole country, and deciding what each little
American is entitled to know and what he has
no business to know. is not different from the
same sort Of thing at Berlin, except that the
former would have much higher pay, rule over
larger nation. and cost whole lot more to the
world In general.
The mere fact that this Federal Department
OF Education is to cost, with its officials its de-
partments. and its doles to the different States
some 100000 dollars year may not dis
turb US in these days when governments are
reckoning expenditures in the billions Butt
when that which is paid out in appropriations
must first be collected In taxes, NAV YOU not ask
your Congressman. SIS it worth whiIe2"
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