Belt Valley times. [volume] (Armington, Mont.) 1894-1977, 1923-02-15

cludes all of Cascade count
with the exception of the Bel
district, the Stockett-Sand Cou
lee district and the Great Fall
districts.
These three school district
contain about rs per cent of tn.
voters of the county, and tn
county at large elects the coun
ty superintendent.
With their % per cent of thu
vote of the county the voters o.
the county unit must attempt
to elect a superintendent who
shall be one of themselves anc
sympathetic to their problems
1t can readily be seen that
their chances are nil and that
Great Falls with 65 per cent OF
the voting population has the
power to select and elect q
county superintendent no mat
ter what the wishes of the rural
population may be.
We have no fault to find with
their recent selections but the
law as it rests now on the stat
ute books removes from the
hands of the local districts ev-
cry particle of power to select
their own county .superintend-
ent and puts this power in the
hands of the county seat which
may or may not be sympathetic
TO the necessities of the rural
population.
With all due Difference to the
good intentions of the authors
of this law, it has placed the
county unit population of Cas-
cade county directly under the
control of the Great Falls voters.
A majority of the residents of
the county metropolis will con-
slider this just and proper while
the farmers and residents of the
smaller towns view the situa-
ton in helplessness, realizing
the utter futility of any attempt
to reconstruct the situation un-
der local conditions.
This is called a county unit
system. It is not and never can
be made such under the existing
law. The only real county unit
would include the whole county,
first class, second class and
third class districts. The re
sponsibility for the betterment
of conditions in the districts of
small assessed valuation would
rest upon cities and country
alike and its burdens as we'll.
We have always envied the
opportunities which the board
of trustees of district No. | has
had to manipulate the boundar-
les of their district. We have
admired the ability with which
they have handled the situation.
Their success has made Great
school district one of the
wealthiest school districts in the
state and has enabled them to
run their schools on one of the !
lowest special levies. But their {;
successful system for making ;
district No. l great and power I
has left communities at the
very gates of Great Falls where I
the schools must be supported ]
by the county unit ca. I
Did you ever see a map of
district No. /?
This district must ever be a {
of pride to the school |
boards who have handled it and |
he envy of the county unit CD
md the second class districts as c
WE'LL 1t illustrates very ably the (
lsefulness of a complacent coun- r
y superintendent. District No. I
In the eyes of a resident there
# IS as beautiful as a setter pup s
o a dog fancier but in the ewes d
# a farmer in the county Unit a
is ramifications are as beauti- W
ul as the arms of an octopus. r
Wherever there are opportu-
Itles for power sites there you Ia
1IIl find an arm of district No. m
/. Wherever a railroad or rail- m
Dads make the assessed valua-
attractive you will find an b,
Their arm but between these v,
where the soil is rather bi
reproductive and the prospect vi
e revenue did not appeal to dis la
-ict No. ! when compared with in
ne expense of supporting a gl
lral school, you will find that de
le farmers have been encour- 10
red to form their own school be
lStr1cts and are consequently ca
lpported in large measure by ci,
y county Unit. TO