Milford chronicle., 1959-05-01

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al training, and i'm helping him tt
adjust normally to his environment
In these days, it is doubtful tina
any child may reasonably be ex,
pected to succeed in life il he /.
denied the opportunity of an edu
cation. Such an opportunity, where
the state has undertaken to pro,
vide 1t, is a right which must BIZ
made available to all on equal
TERMS"
Rule Out New Milford
Surely, the public interest would
be better served by gradual plan
which would go long way to.
ward eliminating the possibility
of another setback to the cause oi
education in Delaware such as the
Milford incident. And frank rec
ognition of this fact should GER
tainly be a relevant factor in de-
termining whether or not a given
plan is reasonable and practicable
The community feeling is rele-
want in another fashion also. II
has been testified to that before
total integration is completed, il
will become necessary to re-divide
the state schools into a more or
derly system of districts. Who will
do this? The Legislature, a ma
| jority of whom are from the South
ern Counties and who, being hu-
man, will vote for a piece of leg
islation only if it pleases them.
New classrooms and buildings will
be needed in the near future cost
ing many hundreds of thousands
of dollars. Where will this money
come from? AS pointed out ear
lier, it must be raised by means
of local referendum wherein the
citizens bind themselves to higher
taxes. The Court has wide powers
but among them is not the power
to compel taxpayers from a pre-
dominantly Southern society to
vote substantial additional taxes
upon themselves for a proposition
so unwelcome as desegregation.
Public Backing Needed
All this demonstrates very plain
ly that unless the public is in back
of the plan, the cause of education
will suffer in the long run. A more
convincing reminder of this fact
could scarcely be imagined than
the testimony of James NJ Ros-
brow who appeared as a witness
in this case. 1t deserves to be quot
ed, but the testimony might lose
some of its weight if it were not
first stated that Mr.. Rosbrow is a
scholarly, articulate and public
spirited citizen vitality interested
in the cause of education. A Jew,
he is utterly impatient with seq
regation in any form and as men,
Der of the New Castle School Board
in 1854, he led his Board in push
ing through a plan of integration
even before the mandate of the Su-
preme Court in Brown " Topeka
was handed down. Yet, as Presi-
dent of the Delaware Congress of
Parents and Teachers, he has, of
necessity, travelled widely through
out the lower part of the state and
become familiar with local prob
lens and local feelings. A portion
of his testimony follows:
".. in terms of my own knOwl-
edge and i'm terms of the people
with whom | have talked, in terms
of the meetings l have attended
and the very careful, SOul-Searcf.
ing / have done, / believe that the
plan proposed by the State Board
is a sound workable plan for Dela-
ware and Kent and Sussex COun-
ties. believe it is the type of
plan that will rally to it's support
the decent-thinking people of Kent
and Sussex Counties. l think it is
of tremendous Importance that a
matter of this grave impact to the
community shall have community
support. / say again, sir, that in
all sincerity / wish it were pOss-
ibIe, and / wish | thought it were
feasible, that a 12-grade plan
should work forthwith. This / be-
lieve in. But on the other hand /
don't want to see another Milford
incident IL anything / can do can
help that i don't want to see an
other Bryant BOWles given hOspi-
tality in the State of Delaware. |
feel that this great wrong which
has continued so long can better
be remedied i'm such manner as to
have true community acceptance
by being allowed to go forward on
q gradual basiS.o
To summarize, careful consid-
Grafton of all the material factors
involved in effecting. an orderly
desegregation of the school system
convinces me that any plan call
ing for the immediate desegrega-
ton of all the state schools or of
any large segment of the system,