The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1921-07-14
WHITTIER ARE WE DRIFTING?

S)walla walla voted to continue
free text books and supplies in both
high and grade schools but at the
same time voted down money with
which to buy them.
The Walla Walla citizens have but
recorded on their ballots the attitude
of the public mind toward the taxa
ton question-every appropriation is
blessing, but every tax levy is bur-
den no longer to be endured. ''.@
The burden will become lightened
no sooner than the taxpaying public
sees fit to rescue the present. clamor
from it's orphanage and legitimately
father the wish for lower taxation with
a willingness to give up some of those
things which taxation buys. As long
as we persist in dressing ourselves
in frills somebody must pay for our
finery, nor will the expense account
for our adornment come out of any
body's pocket but our own. 81,
Affirming its voice to the popular re-
frain the Benton County grand jury
recently rather grandly proclaimed
the marked contrast between this
,county's taxes in 1906 and 1920. In
crease! To be sure! In 1906 the farm
er followed wind-blown trails through
the sagebrush and visit to neigh
Dor or a trading center wasaa days
journey and cross-country trip, the
motorists nightmare; today Benton
county farmers leave their homes af-
ter breakfast and are on time at 9
a. m. Farm Bureau meeting called at
the county's center, or they can do
recall meeting in the evening" after
chores and travel with ease and in
comfort; in 1906 our children hiked
through sand to frame school build
ings and shivered around an old rusty
stove; today they are transported from
their dooryards in auto busses, housed
in brick or stone and cooled orfwarmed,
as the case may be, by means of ex-
pensive modern ventilating and heat
ing systems; in 1906 they studied
reading, writing and arithmetic from
textbooks bought by the parents; to-
day they are instructed in agriculture,
manual training, domestic science,
business, music and art. ...s.
Today the county nurse looks after
the health of our children, the coun-'
ty agent directs our farming opera.
lions, the district horticulturist leads
the bug fight in our orchards and in
spects our fruit. In 1906 we paid doc
tor bills and fought our battles alone.
In the immortal words of our grand
jury, "WhiLher are we drifting"
Drifting it is! If we are drifting any
where it is away from Individual self
reliance, along the flowery paths of
Let-George-Do-It, and hollering our
heads off about paying for the SER
vices We receive.
We are not alone. The same condi-
tions prevail everywhere.
"The state of Kansas" says William
Allen White, in his newspaper, "prints
the child's schoolbooks at cost, looks
after his teeth, his health, his morals,
and gives him free college education.
When he is a citizen the state protects
his bank deposits, looks after his in
vestments, regulates the price of his
light, water, gas, transportation and
communication by phone or telegraph;
the state regulates the hotels wherein
the citizen stops at night, builds and
controls the wagon roads upon which
he travels by day; the state grades his
wheat, inspects his groceries, stand
ardizes and purifies his water, his
milk, his oil, his gasoline. Then, after
licensing the doctor who steers him
out of life and the undertaken who
tucks him under the Kansas Sod the
state regulates the company that pays
his widow the life insurance."
Nearly all of the services are per.
formed for the citizen of Washington
and several more not in the list. Thi:
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