Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1907 — HIGH LICENSE AND TEACHERS’ PAY. [ARTICLE]

HIGH LICENSE AND TEACHERS’ PAY.

It is humiliating that our schools are dependent on the saloon. Editor Marshall of the Republican should now shake hands and make up with Bro. Carr of the Fowler Leader, who was Also a candidate for postoffice honors but was given the icy hand by Congressman Crumpacker, Nearly every person holding a position under the state government wants his pay increased or his work lightened or something else nice and soft. These Republicans never know when to stop once they get their hands in the treasury. And the treasury, by the way, is desperately hard up for cash. As soon as the Republican party came into power in Indiana it began tampering with the school book law passed by a Democratic legislature to relieve the people from the school book monopoly. Changes in the law and friendly officials have caused a loss of millions of dollars to the parents of the state, A newspaper correspondent writes from Washington that “it will be surprising to many people to be informed that President Roosevelt has turned his back completely on tariff revision.’’ Not at all. Mr Roosevelt “has turned his back’’ upon everything that he has ever advocated. Sometimes he has faced about again in the right direction, but not often The school book trust, tfhich has fared so well in previous Republican legislatures and also at the hands of Republican state officials, again has its representatives in Indianapolis. There is no more infamous robbery than that committed by the school book trust. Every parent who has to supply books for his children knows that the extortion has been growing greater.year after year.

The Saturday Evening Post recently printed an article written by some senator’s secretary in which it was said that when the Washingtonians had nothing more important to do they went “Fairbanksing.” That means, when translated, that they goto the endless Fairbanks receptions, where there is something to eat and something to drink and a good deal to see and an ever-present suggestion that “we are candidates for president.” Somehow it happens that the newspapers absolutely ref usd to take Mr. Fairbanks’ ambition seriously—that is, of course, excepting the Indianapolis organs.

An effort has been made to convince the teachers in the public schools that the only way to increase their pay is by the passage of a SI,OOO saloon license law. This is merely an evasion of a serious question. No one knows what the effect of a high license law will be in Indiana. The revenue derived from such a law is bound to be uncertain. It may be more or it may be less than that produced by the present law. But no one can say how much more or bow much less. It is all in the air. If the Republican party had managed the state’s affairs with economydnstead of with wasteful extravagance it might now be able to make provision for increasing the pay of teachers without adding to the tax levy. But it did not do this. If the Republican majority in the present legislature really wants td favor the teachers it can do it definitely by cutting down expenses in other directions. it won’t do this, it can borrow money on the state’s bonds or it can make a higher tax levy. Or what is better, it can transfer the 3-cent sinking fund Jevy, which produces $500,000 a year, from the general fund to the fund for the benefit of the teachers. The proposition to make better pay for the teachers dependent upon the unknown effect of a license law of questionable utility is little short of an insult.