The Daily Alaska empire., 1928-07-10
AN IMPOSSIBLE SOLUTION.

Testimony given to the Federal Trade Com mission in it's power trust" investigation was tc the effect that certain large power companies either individually or as members or an assoela- tion. had financed educational efforts, distributed at their own cost books and pamphlets among schools relating to power manufacture, dlstrlbu- tion and kindred subjects and had paid certain educators salaIies and expenses TOT iectures ae- livered on similar topics.
 The facts presented to the Commission led the Washington Herald to comment editorialy:
 It is a sinister shadow cast athwart
 some of our public schools by the
 intrigue of the Power Trust according
 to disclosure before the Federal Trade
 Commission at Washington. Colored
 text books, biased lectures propaganda
 masked in the guise of fact, educational
 officials in the pay of the Power Trust;
 these of the things brought
 to light at the hearings.
 This induced the Washington newspaper to conclude that
 This nation needs a Federal De-
 partment of Education, with secretary
 in the Cabinet, to guard against just
 such activities those revealed in the
 Federal Trade Commission probe of the
 Power Trust.
 It is possible. of course that the probe has revealed grevious situation in some of the public schools regards power trust propa- ganda. In these days of high pressure. salesman ship, there are few major industries that do not maintain public relations departments charged with the duty of keeping the public enlightened the work and duty of those for whom they speak Let it be said to their credit that most of them deal only in facts The power industry is of the nations largest. It has millions of stockholders and it's component parts seek to keep in touch with the public in many ways. Whether it has been unethcal, or sinister" in ifs rplat With Of schools and certain educators remains be established and condemnation will not be tardy should such be shown to be the
 And if it should be established that it's prac- tices in the instances mentioned are all that has been charged. that would still be no reason for a Federal Department of Education. The remedy should not lie in it, but rather in the States, counties and municipalities. The argu ment used by the Herald that Federal executive officer, which in the end means some bureau chief could by fiat prevent the power trust from having text books coored, hiring unscrupu lous lecturers to deliver biased lectures, sub sidizing educational officials, discloses the chic evil embodied in the proposal for such a depart ment It is a virtual admission that the Fedora Government would be a-powerful loca schoos-that they would to be re sponsye to local control and be wholly con trolled by the Federal bureaucracy. If it couIt
  State that certain text books could not be uset because they colored. that certain lee turers could not be heard because their remark biased and not true to fact, or that thi or that educational officer was bought by tn power trust" any other industry, it woul have a despotism education dreamed of by any of those who played a part in eithe founding. the republic creating the publi school system of the nation. It would be evi almost entirely unmitigated.
 The ethics of the power industry's relation with the public school system is, of course a subject of prime importance But it pales int insignifcance besides the question of whether o not we shall have an educational system dom mated by the Federal Government and admin istered through it's agents Any wrongs don under the be righted under the existing system of local control but under the othe there would be no remedy. Basically the ide is unsound and should be rejected a menac to the free institutions of the country