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Hollinger Corp. 
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PRIMARY EDUCATION 
 And the Race Problem 
 
 An Address to the People of Virginia 
 "^ r A. F. THOMAS, Member of the State Senate 
 
 J79 
 
 / 2 
 
 PLEASE READ AND HAND TO 
 YOUR NEIGHBOR 
 
 MOOSE BROS. COMPANY, PRINTERS AND BINDERS. LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA 
 
X 7 19^5 
 
 J J 
 

 Shall the Country Children of 
 Virginia Be Educated? 
 
 The inauguration of the public free school system in Virginia 
 dates from the adoption of the Underwood Constitution by vote of 
 the people on July 6th, 1869. Article 8, Section 3 provides : 
 
 " The general assembly shall provide by lavi^ at its first session under this' 
 Constitution, a uniform system of public free schools and for its gradual, 
 equal and full introduction into all the Counties of the State by the year 
 1876, or as much earlier as practicable." 
 
 Coming as it did upon the heels of a great war in which was 
 involved the question of liberating four millions of people for whom 
 it was claimed, by the victorious side, equal civil and political rights, 
 there is left no room to doubt that it,.^vas the purpose of the framers 
 of the Constitution that every child in the State should have equal 
 opportunity to get an education. *M6t walling, , to leave the matter of 
 developing this system to the discretion of the legislature, the framers 
 made it mandatory that the law inaugurating the system should be. 
 passed at the first session held under the Constitution. Nor willing 
 to rest here, they evidently mistrusting the legislature (with how much 
 reason its subsequent acts will show), limited the time for complete 
 inauguration and establishment in all the Counties of the State to 
 the year 1876. Article 8, Section 8 provides : 
 
 "The general assembly shall apply the annual interest on the literary 
 fund, the capitation tax provided for by this Constitution for public free 
 school purposes and an annual tax upon the property of the State of not less 
 than one mill nor more than five mills on the dollar, for the equal benefit of 
 all the people of the State, the number of children between the ages of five 
 and twenty-one years in each public free school district being the basis of 
 such division. Provisi n shall be made to supply children attending the 
 public free schools with the necessary text-books in cases where the parent 
 or guardian, bj^ reason of poverty, is unable to furnish them. Each County 
 and public free school district may raise additional sums by a tax on prop- 
 erty for the support of public free schools. All unexpended sums of any one 
 year in any public free school district shall go into the general school fund 
 for re-division the next ytar. Provided, that any tax authorized by this 
 
section to be raised by Counties or school districts shall not exceed five mills 
 on the dollar in any one year, and shall not be subject to re-division, as 
 hereinbefore provided in this section. " 
 
 This section clearly demonstrates that the framers of the Consti- 
 tution committed the State to the free school principle. Going 
 beyond the mere declaration of the principle, in this section, they 
 laid down the lines along which the progression was to go. They 
 left the legislature no opportunity to neglect, by reason of failure to 
 provide ways and means, the free school system that they had insti- 
 tuted and which was to be extended all over the State by the year 
 1876. They commanded that this general fund should be divided 
 according to school population and that it should be expended for 
 the equal benefit of all the people of the State. The only discretion 
 left the general assembly was that it might decide upon the rate of 
 the general tax to be levied for public free schools, and even this 
 was limited by the provision that made it the duty of the legislature 
 to levy at least one mill and denying it the power to levy more than 
 five mills. 
 
 As a supplementary measure, made in order to give scope to local 
 interest and to facilitate development, Counties and free school dis- 
 tricts were permitted to levy an additional tax for public free school 
 purposes upon property not in excess of five mills on the dollar. It 
 will be observed that the language employed to grant to Counties 
 and free school districts the power of local taxation is permissive. 
 The only limit placed upon this power was that its exercise should 
 not involve a greater tax on property than five mills on the dollar. 
 Being a right granted by the Constitution, it was entirely without the 
 province of the legislature to interfere in any way with the local 
 authorities in its exercise, further than to provide by law for the 
 method to be followed. Any restriction upon local authorities 
 greater than that contained in the Constitution itself was clearly an 
 assumption of power on the part of the legislature and an invasion 
 of the constitutional rights of the local authorities. If it were in 
 the power of the legislature to forbid Counties and free school dis- 
 tricts to tax the property within their confines at a greater rate than 
 two mills on the dollar when the Constitution had provided that they 
 might tax five mills, by parity of reasoning, the legislature could with 
 equal reason have denied the Counties and free school districts the 
 
right to levy any tax at all. The legislature itself exists by virtue of 
 the constitutional provision and when it undertakes to over-ride rights 
 guaranteed in the fundamental law, it feeds upon its own vitals. 
 
 I wish to call special attention to the fact that the Constitution 
 instituted a State public free school system and intended that it 
 should be inaugurated and supported by the imposition of a capita- 
 tion tax and a tax upon the entire property within the confines of 
 the State, and such funds as belong to the literary fund. Proof of 
 this assertion is found in the fact that the State's part of the arrange- 
 ment is made mandatory. The legislature must inaugurate the sys- 
 tem not later than 1876 and it must support it by applying such 
 funds as the Constitution provided and in the manner provided. It 
 mattered not if the legislature did not approve of the plan, if it did 
 its duty it must carry out the constitutional commands. 
 
 The case is entirely different with the Counties and public free- 
 school districts. Nowhere in the Constitution can it be found where 
 there is any command that they shall do anything. It leaves the 
 question entirely to their discretion, the only arbitrary feature being 
 the inhibition that such local tax, if levied, shall not exceed a rate of 
 five mills in one year. To grant one permission to do carries with 
 it as a necessary corollary the right to refrain from doing ; therefore 
 the Constitution, in leaving the matter of local taxation for public 
 free school purposes to the discretion of the local authorities, left 
 them free to do or not to do as they thought proper. Any act of 
 the legislature to compel the local authorities to levy a tax or to for- 
 bid them doing so was clearly in violation of the Constitution and 
 an invasion of the rights of local government. 
 
 The public free school system was founded upon the assumption 
 that the education of the masses was good public policy and that all 
 the people had a common interest in it, therefore it was the duty of 
 the State to educate all. 
 
 The first session of the general assembly under the Constitution 
 passed an act which was approved July 11, 1870 (see acts 1869-70, 
 page 407), designed to carry out the mandates of the Constitution. 
 Section 14, 2nd sub-division? of this act provides : 
 
 " The duties of each County Superintendent of schools shall be as follows, 
 viz : To take the needful steps, under direction from the Superintendent of 
 jPublic Instruction, to submit to the voters of each County the question 
 
4 
 
 "whether the County shall raise additional sums by taxation therein for the 
 support of the public free schools, not exceeding the amount of the appor- 
 tionment from the State together with the allowance to the County Superin- 
 tendent of the amount designated by the Board of Education, not exceeding 
 the amount specified in the preceding sections: provided, that if upon any 
 such proposition the votes for and against it shall be equal, the County 
 Superintendent shall give the casting vote.'' 
 
 This provision was repealed March 26, 1872 (see acts 1871-2, 
 page 444). Section 24, 8th sub-division of the same act provided: 
 
 " The duties of the boards of school trustees shall be: To prepare and 
 submit to the voters of the district questions touching a tax on the property 
 in the district, in order to provide school houses, school books for indigent 
 children and other school appliances and current expenses, such as are pre- 
 scribed by law. When practicable, these questions shall be submitted in 
 connection with elections held for other purposes under the general election 
 laws of the State ; but the polls may be opened for the same purpose at such 
 other times and under such regulations as may be prescribed by the board 
 of education. If in any case occurring under this act there should, on poll- 
 ing the votes, prove to be an equal immber of votes on both sides, the Chair- 
 man of the Board of District School Trustees shall give the casting vote." 
 
 This provision was amended March 26, 1872, as follows : 
 Duties of school trustees : 
 
 " Within thirty days from the passage of this act, and on or before the 
 fifteenth day of November in each year, to prepare and return to the presi- 
 dent of the County School Board, to be by him laid before said board at its 
 earliest meeting an estimate of the amount of money which will be needed 
 in the district during the next scholastic year, for providing school-houses, 
 school books for indigent children and other school appliances and neces- 
 sary, proper and lawful expenses." 
 
 The act of July 11, 1870 (acts 1869-70, page 415, section 57, 
 latter part of the 3rd sub-division), further provided : 
 
 "Provided, that no tax, to be raised by Counties or school districts for 
 the support of the public free schools, shall in any case exceed five mills on 
 the dollar in one year." 
 
 Idem, Section 66 : 
 
 " Public free schools shall, in like manner, be established in all the cities 
 and towns of this State which are provided with a municipal government 
 excluding the jurisdiction and cognizance of the authorities of the Counties 
 within which such cities and towns are respectively situated. And the pro- 
 vision of this act shall be applicable to such cities and towns in like manner 
 as to the Counties, in respect to the officers and authorities to be charged 
 
with the execution of the law, their mode of apportionment, their function 
 and responsibilities, the raising, distribution and collection, custody, appli- 
 cation and disbursement of funds and in all particulars, except only in so 
 far as the charters and ordinances of such cities and towns severally (being 
 not contrary to the Constitution) shall otherwise provide." 
 
 Acts 1870-71, page 405 (approved March 31, 1871). 
 
 " Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the general assembly that public free schools 
 shall be established in all the cities and towns of the Commonwealth, which 
 are not embraced in whole or in part within the bounds of a township ; and 
 the provisions of an act entitled an act to establish and maintain an uniform 
 system of public free schools approved July 11, 1870, save as hereinafter pro- 
 vided, shall be applicable to such cities and towns in like manner as to the 
 Counties of the Commonwealth. 
 
 " Sec. 8. The municipal authorities of any such town or city as described 
 in Section 1, may in their discretion raise from time to time by tax on prop- 
 erty as by law provided for defraying of the expenses of the municipal gov- 
 ernment such sum or sums as thej^ may deem requisite for the support of 
 the public schools therein : provided, that no tax thus levied on property 
 for school purposes shall exceed three mills on a dollar in any one year, and 
 that no annual capitation tax shall exceed fifty cents for all purposes." 
 
 On March 26, 1872, Section 64 of the act of July 11, 1870, was 
 amended so as to withdraw the power given to the Board of Educa- 
 tion to direct a special assessment and collection of the school tax in 
 any County or school district. 
 
 On March 26, 1872, Section 57, 2nd sub-division of the act of 
 July II, 1870, was amended making it the duty of supervisors to 
 levy taxes for school purposes, 3rd sub-division reading : 
 
 "Provided, that no tax levied by any County for public free school pur- 
 poses therein prior to 1876, shall in any case exceed seven and a half cents 
 in the hundred dollars upon the assessed value of the taxable property of 
 any County and no tax to be levied by any school district for public free 
 school purposes therein, prior to the year 1876, shall exceed seven and a 
 half cents upon the assessed value of the property therein. '' 
 
 (This act excepts Alexandria County, which, if three-fourths of 
 those voting vote affirmatively, may tax fifty cents in the hundred 
 dollars). 
 
 Acts 1871-2, approved March 26, 1872, page 442. 
 
 Idem; " 4th: It shall be the duty of said board of supervisors after care- 
 fully considering such estimates, to levy a tax upon the property of the 
 County, not exceeding the maximum prescribed in the third clause of Sec- 
 lion 57 of this ^ct, sufficient to realize the amount recommended by the 
 
County school board in their estimate of County school purposes, or so much 
 thereof as the board of supervisors may allow and to levy a tax upon the 
 property of each township, for which an estimate shall be furnished, not 
 exceeding the rate aforesaid, sufficient to realize the amount recommended 
 by the County school board for school purposes, or such school districts or 
 so much thereof as the board of supervisors may allow." 
 
 "7th. Nothing in this act shall apply to cities and towns, the councils 
 of which are authorized and required by law to provide for the support of 
 public free schools therein." 
 
 Acts 1871-2, Special Session, page 471, approved April 4, 1872 — 
 State levies tax of one mill for public free schools — seemingly the 
 first State levy for this purpose. 
 
 Acts 1872-3, approved April i, '73, amending Section 57, act 
 March 26, 1872: 
 
 "Sec. 57. Provided that no tax levied by any county for public free 
 school purposes therein, prior to the year 1876, shall in any case exceed ten 
 cents in the hundred dollars upon the assessed value of the taxable propeity 
 therein. Provided, however, that it shall be lawful for the board of trus- 
 tees of any school district, or the County school board of the County, to 
 include in their annual estimates for such school district and for the board 
 of supervisors of the County to include in their levy for public free school 
 purposes in said district any amount which, together with any county tax 
 levied in such district for the purposes of public free schools of the County, 
 shall not exceed twenty cents in the hundred dollars upon the taxable value 
 of the property in said school district." 
 
 Acts 1877-8, page 215, approved March 12, 1878. 
 
 " Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia. That the twentieth 
 Section of Chapter 79 of the Code of Virginia, edition 1878, shall be amended 
 and re-enacted so as to read as follows: 
 
 " Sec. 20. It shall be the duty of the city or town council, and of every 
 incorporated town of over five hundred inhabitants which has been created 
 into a separate school district, to provide in due time, and it shall have no 
 power to withhold the sum or sums reported by the city or town school 
 boards, and declared to be necessary for the proper maintenance and growth 
 of the public schools of the city or town, except the city of Richmond, the 
 council of which said city shall have the discretion of the board of county 
 supervisors: 
 
 "Provided, That the council shall not be required to appropriate a sum 
 greater than double the amount received from school funds of the State 
 during the same scholastic year; but the council may, in its discretion, 
 appropriate a larger sum, but it shall not have power to impose a tax on 
 property for school purposes exceeding three mills on a dollar in any one 
 year. " 
 
The foregoing acts are embodied in the Code of 1887, Section 
 833, 3rd sub-division. 
 
 "The board of supervisors shall have power and it shall be their duty, at 
 the meeting on the fourth Monday in July in each year, or as soon there- 
 after as practicable, to levy tax upon the property in the county sufficient to 
 raise the amount recommended by the County school board in their esti- 
 mates for County school purposes, or so much thereof as- they may allow, 
 and to levy tax upon the property in each school district, sufficient to raise 
 the amount recommended by the county school board for district school 
 purposes, or so much thereof as they may allow; but the tax so levied shall 
 not exceed the maximum prescribed in the third sub-division of Section 
 1506." 
 
 Acts 1895-96, page 274. 
 
 Amending 8;^^ of the Code, omitting the part making it the duty 
 of the board of supervisors to levy a tax on the fourth Monday in 
 July, or as soon thereafter as practicable. 
 
 Code, Sec. 1506, 3rd sub-division. 
 
 " Providing that no county shall levy for free school purposes a tax in 
 excess of ten cents on the hundred dollars, and that no district shall levy 
 for the same purposes in excess of ten cents on the hundred dollars." 
 
 Code 1540. " The city councils shall appropriate and have no jDower to 
 withhold the sums reported by the city or town school boards; provided 
 not greater than double the amount received in the same year from the 
 State funds, but the council may appropriate a larger sum, but shall not 
 impose a tax greater that three mills on a dollar; but the city of Richmond 
 shall have the discretion of the boards of supervisors in similar cases." 
 
 The foregoing is the evidence upon which I base the following 
 deductions: 
 
 ist. That the Constitution adopted July 6, 1869, and the act of 
 July II, 1870, were the only legal enactments in Virginia that sub- 
 scribed fully to the free school principle. 
 
 2nd. That all legislation since that time has been unfriendly to 
 the public free school system required by the Constitution, and the 
 legislature has done what it could to throttle and destroy it. ; 
 
 3rd. That the legislature has by unjust and unwise laws dis- 
 criminated against the public free schools in the Counties and in 
 favor of the towns. 
 
 4th. That the legislature has failed utterly to discharge the 
 moral obligation that it was under to foster and support the free 
 school system. 
 
 5th. That it wrongfully and in defiance of the Constitution and 
 decisions of the Supreme Court denied local authorities the right to 
 give the support that the legislature should have given. 
 
The Public Free School Principle. 
 
 There are two forces upon which man must rely for all that goes 
 to make up civilization. The one is physical ; the other is mental — 
 the one matter, the other mind. The mind conceives, the hand 
 executes. They are not independent, but correlative. The exercise 
 of physical force without guidance is chaotic disturbance; it may 
 destroy but never produces. Mental conception, unless applied to 
 material objects, is only a day-dream that gives forth no tangible 
 results. When mentality begins to guide the hand in order to 
 increase skill and thus facilitate production, the line of differenti- 
 ation between the man and the brute is established. The greater 
 the mind force, the greater the production — because man as he rises 
 above the state at which he is dependent upon the spontaneous 
 productions for means of subsistence, learns to harness the forces of 
 nature and compel them to assist him. This is the result of the 
 effort of the mind to increase the effectiveness of labor and relieve 
 the body of the necessity of unremitting manual toil. This effort is 
 evidenced in all things when civilization is on an ascending scale. 
 The constant effort of the individual is to improve methods ; to 
 accomplish greater results with less physical force. The inventor is 
 the machinist of society bending every energy to tighten the taps, to 
 take up the slack, to lessen the loss of force. Anything that tends 
 to develop the mind force is increasing the momentum that drives us 
 on to the accomplishment of greater results. Education is the 
 greatest factor in this development. When I say education I do not 
 mean a process of cramming like that employed by the good house- 
 wife to fatten a goose, but the unfolding, as it were, of the natural 
 powers of mind, a training of the intellect to perceive and to remem- 
 ber facts, to analyze and to classify them, to get knowledge and 
 through it to get wisdom. In other words, in order to be considered 
 education the process must be one that teaches the mind to perceive, 
 to plan and the hand to execute and the heart to regulate 
 the relations of men upon lines of equality and justice. Such edu- 
 
cation increases the power to know the true from the false. It 
 increases the effectiveness of labor and raises the standard of morals. 
 For these reasons, it is good public policy to educate. We are 
 bound up in a social whole. We are all inter-dependent. A loss 
 to one must necessarily re-act upon all the rest. There is no such 
 thing as climbing by ourselves. We must carry the rest with us. 
 This principle of fraternity underlies democratic government. Once 
 destroy the common interest and rule by majority becomes impos- 
 sible. Democracy recognizes this truth in asserting the principle of 
 local government. It leaves to localities the power of governing 
 things local, because, when the confines of the governing power 
 exceeds the limit of the common interest, oppression results. 
 Whether we view it from the point of intellectual development that 
 applies the lever, bridges the stream, tunnels the mountains, harnesses 
 the falling water and bridles the lightning, or from the point of 
 political effect that insures wise counsels and worthy citizens, or from 
 the still higher plane of moral perception, the evidence is equally 
 conclusive that education is not only a high duty, but a necessity. 
 Education is imperative if we would ascend, if we would place our 
 State upon the pedestal of distinction that she once occupied, it 
 behooves us to commit ourselves fully to the principle that all her 
 citizens must be developed. Why should education be general.? 
 Because the end to be obtained is the utmost development of mind 
 force. If Virginia today has one need more imperative than all 
 others, it is for men of brains and character in her workshops, in her 
 factories, on her farms and in her government. When God dispensed 
 with generous hand mental power, he did not place it all in any one 
 family or class. He scattered it all through the social lump in order 
 to leaven it. From the lowly walks of life, from the middle classes, 
 from the bon ton, there come examples of mental and moral great- 
 ness. America's greatness is due in no small measure to the unex- 
 ampled opportunity that has been afforded brains to manifest them- 
 selves. If, then, mind is in the mass, we must work the mass in 
 order to develop it, just as the miner digs up tons of worthless 
 material in order to bring out the valuable ores that lie beneath. In 
 a country such as ours, where political policies must be passed upon 
 by the populace, it is absolutely essential to high government that 
 the people should be high themselves ; that they should in the high- 
 
lO 
 
 est degree have the faculty of discrimination and judgment. There 
 are great problems in front of us. We are now going through an 
 evolution to which recorded history offers no parallel. The lamp of 
 accumulated experience throws but little light on many of our most 
 serious problems. We are being forced onward at an ever increasing 
 rate of speed toward conditions which our forefathers would have 
 thought impossible. We must meet these conditions. We must 
 prove ourselves equal to the duty of our age. We must hand down 
 to them who come after us a civilization projected along lines of 
 right and reason, or one marred by ignorance and incompetency. 
 If we develop the people the first will result; if not, the latter 
 becomes inevitable. For these reasons education becomes impera- 
 tive. It is a duty that none who loves the State, none whose heart 
 is fired with zeal for the common welfare, will neglect. The danger 
 is not that we will do too much, but that we will do too little. 
 
 The unit so far as Virginia goes is the whole State. Her duty 
 extends all over her territory. If ignorance makes life and property 
 less safe, it is the concern of all. If increased intelligence increases 
 the productive power of the people, vouchsafes greater security and 
 happiness, it likewise becomes a subject of general importance and 
 interest. The common interest existing, democratic government 
 can well undertake to carry out the task of educating the masses. 
 The government, the servant of the people, ofters the most effective 
 agency for discharging this obligation. This being true, it becomes 
 the duty of each to sustain the movement in the measure that he 
 possesses property. Tax the rich and the poor with even hand, and 
 spread the benefit according to school population. The public free 
 school principle requires that the property of the State shall educate the 
 children of the State; that all localities shall be taxed at an even rate 
 and the money expended according to the number of school children. 
 What matters it if one county is rich and another poor. If educa- 
 tion is the end to be attained, is it not quite as material to the State 
 that the mind force of the poor district shall be developed as well as 
 that of the rich district } The mind wherever found, in the valley or 
 on the hilltop, in the mountains or on the sea-shore, must be brought 
 under the benign influence of training and development. There are 
 some who charge that a general tax for schools is unjust to the richer 
 communities. If this is true, then the whole principle is wrong and 
 
ought to be discarded, because if it is wrong to tax the rich district 
 to help educate the poor district, by parity of reasoning, it is unjust 
 to tax the rich to educate the poor. Identically the same principle 
 is relied upon in both cases. Believing unreservedly in the free 
 school principle, I believe that it should be a county tax rather than 
 a district tax, and a State tax rather than a county tax. Why? 
 Because it is senseless to say that mind force can be as well developed 
 when the rich district confines its taxes to its own confines, leaving 
 the poor district without the means to carry on its schools as when 
 the levy is uniformly laid over both the rich and the poor districts 
 and the expenditure is made according to the number of children. 
 Is it nothing to the State that the children who chanced to be born 
 in the poor districts are deprived of the opportunity to develop the 
 mind that God has given ? There can be no wise government that 
 develops one part of its people and leaves the rest under the pall of 
 ignorance. Such government is unjust and unworthy of the patriotic 
 esteem of its people. Ignorance is the arch enemy and it behooves 
 us to chase it out of our State so that intelligence, like a beacon 
 light, may throw its effulgent rays from every hilltop in Old Virginia 
 to guide the feet of her sons and daughters safely in the paths that 
 lead to a higher plane than they have yet occupied. 
 
 These are the principles upon which the public free school system 
 was founded. The Underwood Constitution, abused and condemned 
 as it has been, has this to redeem it. It, and the law enacted July 
 II, 1870, are all that our law books show as being in consonance 
 with it. Every act since that time has been against the free school. 
 If the legislature had believed in the public free school system; would 
 it have withheld from the State system that support which it was 
 under every obligation to give.? With the exception of a maximum 
 appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars per annum, the legis- 
 lature has never done anything toward the support of the system 
 except that which the Constitution made mandatory. To say that 
 the legislatures since 1870 were friendly to the free school, when they 
 have stood supinely by and witnessed its struggles almost to the 
 point of extinction, without giving support, is hardly credible. The 
 Constitution and the act of July 11, 1870 putting it into effect were 
 hardly from the printer before the legislature began its restrictive 
 work. Like vandals, it proceeded to tear down and demolish the 
 structure. , 
 
12 
 
 1. The act of March 31, 1871, denied the cities the right to levy 
 a greater tax than three mills. 
 
 2. The act of March 26, 1872, denied the people the right to 
 vote on the question of levying taxes for schools. It limited the 
 right of the counties and districts to levy a tax to one and one-half 
 mills until 1876. 
 
 3. The act of April i, 1873, raised the limit for counties and 
 districts to two mills prior to 1876. 
 
 4. When the Code of 1873 was adopted it perpetuated this wrong. 
 
 5. Act 1895-96 amends 833 of the Code so as to eliminate the 
 clause making it the duty of the supervisors to levy taxes for school 
 purposes. 
 
 6. In the year of grace 1903, the revision committee composed, 
 as I have been informed, of able lawyers and distinguished citizens, 
 made recommendation restoring the right of local authorities to levy 
 a tax for schools not to exceed the constitutional limit of five mills, 
 but in doing so, transcended, I think, their constitutional power in 
 providing that local authorities should levy a tax not less than three- 
 fourths of a mill for counties and three-fourths of a mill for districts 
 and provided a rather cumbersome method by which the people 
 should decide by vote whether an excess of one mill should be levied 
 after the board of supervisors had levied a rate of four mills. Along 
 with this legislation, there was passed an act (Acts 1903, p. 798, 
 approved December 28, 1903) re-enacting sections 1490 and 1491 of 
 the Code, the first providing that no State or county funds should be 
 paid the districts until they had made proper provision for school 
 houses, apparatus, etc. The latter containing the astounding proposi- 
 tion that no State money shall be paid for a public free school in 
 any school district until there is filed with the division superintendent 
 a written statement signed by the chairman and clerk of the board of 
 district trustees, certifying that the school has been kept in operation 
 for five months during the current year, or that arrangements have 
 been made that will secure the keeping of it in operation for that 
 length of time. Provided that in case of the unavoidable discontin- 
 uance of a school before the expiration of the time required, the 
 State Board of Education shall be allowed to relax the requirements 
 of this Section and to decide the case on its merits. Such proposi- 
 tion is simply monstrous; if put into effect will close not less than 
 
^3 
 
 90 per cent, of the county schools of the State. It is a vital thrust 
 at the free school system and places in the hands of the State Board 
 of Education a power as absolute as that of a Czar. The total school 
 fund of the State is something over two million dollars. The local 
 fund is approximately one million dollars. The school term in the 
 State is about six months; this includes the cities which run from 
 nine to ten months, The average in the county is hardly five months. 
 Now under this law the local authorities must run the schools, or 
 provide for running them as long as is now done before they can get 
 one cent of the State fund. Where they will get the funds to do 
 this, I have no idea. The practical effect of this law will be to close 
 nearly all the schools of the State, or to make of the district boards 
 prevaricators beside whom Munchausen and even Ananias would 
 appear as clumsy novices. The Governor's suggestion that the chil- 
 dren of the Commonwealth should have a session of nine months is 
 good. I heartily endorse it, but his suggestion that the maximum 
 tax rate allowed by the Constitution be enacted does not furnish a 
 practical method of reaching the desired end. If he refers to the 
 State tax rate, I will say that this rate cannot be raised until after 
 1907, hence nothing can come from this source to lengthen the ses- 
 sion. If he refers to the local tax, I will say that such procedure 
 would result in raising the most money where the least need exists. . 
 The cities and rich districts already have sufficient sums to operate 
 the free schools, whereas in the poor districts the value of property 
 is not sufficiently large to yield at a reasonable rate the amount 
 necessary to run the schools. 
 
 If the deep importance of the subject did not make it imperative, 
 I would like to leave unsaid the characterization of the whole pro- 
 cedure, but when I think of the three hundred and fifty thousand 
 white children of this State who are being fitted for a state of per- 
 petual serfdom; when I remember that those who would come to us 
 and help develop the resources of our State are kept from us on this 
 account ; when I consider that Old Virginia is slowly sinking in the 
 scale and is gradually losing that prestige and honor she once enjoyed 
 among her sister States, I feel that I would be a renegade, faithless 
 to the high trust that Virginia citizenship imposes upon me, if I did 
 not denounce the conduct of the legislatures of the past thirty years 
 as the greatest wrong in her political history — the days of recon- 
 
14 
 
 struction not excepted. We might excuse with more compliment to 
 morals than intellect the legislature's failure to give the State system 
 adequate support, but what can be said in extenuation of its offence 
 in tying the hands of the local authorities and the abuse of power 
 that enabled them to pass statutes limiting the local rate to two mills 
 when the Constitution had granted the local authorities the power 
 to tax five mills in terms so plain that a man, though a fool, might 
 run and read and not err therein. The highest tribunal in your 
 State has twice spoken in unequivocal terms on this subject. Rob- 
 ertson vs. Preston, 97 Va., 286, June 29, '99, after citing Art. 8, 
 Sec. 8 of the Constitution, the Court says: 
 
 "That section of the Constitution confers upon each county the right to 
 levy a tax upon property for the public free schools, which the General 
 Assembly has not power to take from it." 
 
 Supervisors Washington County vs. Saltville Land Co., September 
 12, 1901, 99 Va., 645, says: 
 
 "The levy of a school tax is manifestly for a county purpose. It is made 
 BO by the Constitution and the right of the county to impose the tax being 
 derived from the Constitution, cannot be taken away by the General 
 
 Assembly." 
 
 The act of throttling the free school system by putting fetters 
 upon the local authorities may have proceeded from ignorance, and 
 therefore involved no moral turpitude, but with these decisions 
 staring one in the face, a continuation would involve open enmity to 
 public free schools and an utter disregard for the Constitution of the 
 State. 
 
 The legislature restricted the counties and districts to two mills 
 and at the same time permitted cities and towns to levy three mills. 
 
 Act March 12, 1878 compelled the councils of towns within the 
 limit of double the amount of the State funds to give the school boards 
 what they demanded, but left the council free to appropriate as much as 
 they pleased of the cities' funds, provided they did not levy a greater 
 tax than three mills on property. Doubtless, this difference arose, not 
 out of any desire on the part of the legislature to foster schools, but 
 from a demand coming from the cities themselves that they should 
 be permitted to do that which was for their good. It should be 
 remembered, too, that the limitations upon the council's right to tax, 
 did not fall so heavily upon cities because they have large incomes 
 
15 
 
 other than those derived by tax on property, out of which the coun- 
 cils could make the necessary appropriations. For this reason the 
 city schools have been developed and the entire force of the legisla- 
 ture's restrictive, not to say destructive, policy has fallen upon the 
 county schools. The results are shown (from figures obtained from 
 the State Superintendent's report of 1898-99 in connection with 
 figures furnished the Richmond Times by the Department of Educa- 
 tion on Dec. i8th, 1901) as follows: 
 
 Total school population of the State 665,865 
 
 " " " in cities 81,889 
 
 " " in counties 583,976 
 
 Local revenue from cities $366,111.69 
 
 :: " ". "dSS; '2'ifi} • ; ^'^^'-0^ 
 
 Amount local revenue per capita of school population in cities 4.47 
 
 " " " " " " " " " counties .96 
 
 Which shows that each child in the cities has nearly five times 
 the amount of local funds expended for its education that falls to the 
 share of the child in the country. Is it any wonder that men and 
 women are leaving the country, where they might be producers of 
 wealth, in order that their children may be saved from ignorance ? 
 Many have told me that they preferred to live on the farm, but they 
 felt that it was a duty to bring their children where they might receive 
 the benefit of decent schools. Can Virginia afford to depopulate her 
 country districts of all who have aspiration and ambition, leaving 
 only the more thriftless to sink deeper each year into the slough of 
 Despond ? The Superintendent of Public Instruction in his report 
 of 1 900-1 901, utters a wail over the rural schools and says: 
 
 "It is a lamentable fact that in some counties of the State the public 
 schools are not meeting the reasonable expectations and demands of our 
 people for educational opportunities for their children. Some of the school 
 houses are unfit for human habitation, the school term is so short that the 
 children forget almost as much during the long vacation as they learn during 
 the short school term, and the teachers are in many instances inadequately 
 prepared and still more inadequately paid. " 
 
 He gives a faithful description of the symptoms which would 
 have been still more correctly drawn if he had added that in many 
 localities the average of education is lower today than it was fifteen 
 years ago, and that thousands after thirty years' existence of the 
 
i6 
 
 so-called public free school, could neither read nor write their own 
 names, if their lives depended upon it. He attributes it all to an 
 "insane desire" to multiply schools, and recommends consolida- 
 tion, against which I have nothing to say. I believe in consolida- 
 tion and transportation of pupils; it should be done, but the Super- 
 intendent did not go deep enough to reach the seat of the disease. 
 If his diagnosis were correct, that "insane desire" would affect all 
 parts of the country alike. Observation teaches me that it only 
 affects the poorer districts. In the richer districts, where there is 
 property enough for the limited tax to yield a sufficient sum to oper- 
 ate the schools, they have longer terms, better houses and less of 
 the "insane desire," while in the poorer districts where the amount 
 of the property is too small for the low tax rate to yield a sufficient 
 sum to run the schools, there are houses "unfit for human habita- 
 tion," little education and much "insane desire." That "insane 
 desire " is the most healthy feature of the whole miserable business. 
 It indicates that the people realize that they are being dragged down 
 and they are blindly striking out to save their children from an 
 impending fate. Give them light, show them the cause of their 
 trouble, and unless I underrate them, they will see to it that the 
 wrong is righted, even if they have to empty every seat in the Gen- 
 eral Assembly to do so. 
 
 Let us glance for a moment at the results of the oppressive policy 
 pursued by the General Assembly. In the eighteen cities and towns 
 of the State the school population is 81,889, 
 
 Composed of whites 45,161 
 
 " " negroes 36,728 
 
 from which it will be seen that forty-five per cent, of the school pop- 
 ulation in cities are negroes. In the counties the negroes are less 
 than forty per cent. From this we see that the three hundred and 
 fifty thousand white children of the counties of the State have about 
 one-fifth as much per capita of local funds as the thirty-six thousand 
 negroes of the cities. To be exact, the town negroes have $4-47 
 each, while the country white children have only .96 each. Admit- 
 ting, hypothetically, that the State should educate the negro, that 
 she should give him all that she gives the whites, how in the name of 
 Justice can a system be justified that gives the negro five times as 
 much as it arives the great mass of the whites of the State ? I can 
 
17 
 
 remember when the cry was what shall be done to educate and 
 develop the negro? I appeal now to the people of Virginia to do 
 something to raise the three hundred and fifty thousand white chil- 
 dren of the counties of this State to the level, in point of education, 
 of these thirty-six thousand negroes of the cities. Can we as white 
 men afford to continue a policy that is educating a large body of 
 negroes far beyond the masses of our people ? If you believe in 
 negro elevation, would you crush the hopes of a superior and proud 
 people in order that the inferior might rise ? Are you willing to sink 
 your own kith and kin into the depths of degradation, in order to 
 carry out a theory that has been thrust upon us, and one which, if 
 carried to its logical conclusion, must result in the damnation of 
 Anglo-Saxon civilization in the South ? 
 
 I think the time has passed for circumlocution and dissembling. 
 We must meet the issue openly and frankly. Whatever we may 
 undertake to do, whether in social, commercial or political sphere, 
 this old man of the sea, the negro problem, comes up to vex us. 
 We have trifled with it too long. It is coming on by a steady evo- 
 lution to a point of settlement. The issue must finally be met; the 
 lines must be sharply drawn. There are two sides to this question; 
 to affirm the one is to deny the other. I will state, first, the doc- 
 trine of nearly all negroes and most whites who have never been in 
 contact with the negro. This theory pre-supposes a common origin 
 and admits the existence of the fraternal interest that brothers should 
 feel in each other. It makes mankind the social unit. It claims 
 that the common interest exists between all races and conditions; 
 that there is no difference between men except the differences exist- 
 ing between individuals on account of difference in physical, moral 
 and mental attainments. The idea of racial difference is repugnant 
 to this theory. Its advocates contend that if we came from a com- 
 mon source, then i1 is a crime to attempt to prevent the return to 
 .that fraternal condition that first existed. They claim that any dis- 
 crimination against any race is an injustice that must necessarily be 
 followed by retribution in some form. Under this theory, different 
 races may meet upon a common plane, they may be equal indus- 
 trially, politically and socially. To admit equality in any one of 
 these tiecessarily concedes it in the rest. If there is no difference 
 between the negro and the white, industrially, then all avenues of 
 
effort must be kept open to both alike, so that each will have an 
 unabridged opportunity to exert his powers in the particular voca- 
 tion for which nature and training have fitted him. If once we con- 
 cede that there should be industrial equality between the negro and 
 the white man, the test between individuals comes down to indi- 
 vidual fitness. This means that if two apply for a clerkship, the one 
 white, the other black, the more efficient should be accepted. If 
 two doctors offer their services, the more proficient should have the 
 work. If the preacher, lawyer, merchant, miller, is to be selected, 
 the better qualified shall be chosen. If, then, there is to be indus- 
 trial equality and government follows as an agent of these people 
 who in their every-day life are equals, surely all should be upon the 
 same footing in the selection of the men and the measures that are 
 to be employed in carrying out the scheme of public service. Indus- 
 trial equality then necessarily means political equality. The same 
 reason that places the negro on equality with the white man in indus- 
 trial affairs, demands that he shall be accorded the same opportunity 
 to display his capacity in government. If equality exists in the one, 
 it is absurd to claim that it does not exist in the other. There are a 
 great many white men in the South who are either unwise or insin- 
 cere enough to hold out the idea that the elevation of the negro and 
 enjoyment of political equality will come through moral and intel- 
 lectual development, and in the same breath will tell the negro that 
 there must never be anything looking toward social equality. Such 
 position is absolutely absurd. When the negro has reached indus- 
 trial equality, political equality comes as an inevitable consequence. 
 When he has reached industrial and political equality, social equality 
 can no more be kept from him than we can prevent two and two 
 making four. This is necessarily true because it follows as an effect. 
 The cause may be found in the admission, when we granted indus- 
 trial equality, that there was no difference between men so far as race 
 and color go, and that each individual must be judged according to 
 his individual capacity and fitness. When the negro proves himself 
 the best merchant, we, should patronize him. When he shows him- 
 self to be the wisest statesman we should elect him. Upon what 
 grounds then would you deny him the social relation if he were in 
 every sense your equal and there was nothing in his morals, his intel- 
 lect and philosophy which in a white man would be objectionable to 
 
19 
 
 you ? If then you admitted him to enter into social relations with 
 you and there happened to be an affinity between your daughter and 
 the negro, upon what grounds consistent with your theory could you 
 deny them the right to marry ? If this doctrine is right, then indus- 
 trial, political and social equality are right, and any deprivation of 
 the negro of the full benefit of the public free school, or of the 
 opportunity to enter into any calling, profession or employment for 
 which he shows himself competent, is a crime in the sight of God. 
 Under this theory he is a citizen of this country and entitled to all 
 the rights, privileges and immunities that it affords. I believe this 
 doctrine to be totally and absolutely unsound. I deny its sound- 
 ness and I refuse to accept its teachings even when given in infini- 
 tesimal doses. Do not let us be deceived. This theory is not dead; 
 it has changed its method, but in substance it is the same now that 
 it was when it engrafted the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of 
 the United States and inaugurated the horrors of reconstruction. It 
 is being more scientifically managed. This doctrine, headed by Mr. 
 Robert C. Ogden of New York, is being quietly and scientifically 
 propagated. Its advocates do not tell you the result; they can well 
 afford to wait for that. They know that when they can get you to 
 agree to add two to two they will have four. If they told you the 
 effect you would not do it. I do not question their motives. I am 
 perfectly willing to concede them the samiC integrity of purpose that 
 I claim for myself, but denying in toto their premises, I regard them 
 as the most important agencies in the dissemination of a doctrine 
 that in the end must result in serious race troubles in our country. 
 
 In an interview on December 30, 1903, Mr. Ogden, speaking of 
 the effort to have congress see to it that the negro's franchise in the 
 South was respected, says: 
 
 " 5th. It will retard and hinder the further progress of the sober public 
 opinion of the best South in the effort to secure justice for the negro. The 
 issue needs academic, not partizan discussion; national, not sectional con- 
 sideration; practical, not abstract action; constructive, not destructive treat- 
 ment. The Southern States should be put upon their honor to enforce hon- 
 estly their own franchise laws. Tiiaae for this has not lapsed. If, after fair, 
 deliberate opportunity, the trial results in failure, then consider the remedy 
 afforded by the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution with both of 
 which I cordially agree." 
 
20 
 
 There you have it. The cat is out of the bag. Mr. Ogden would 
 not try heroic methods. He would by gentler and slower methods 
 lead us up to that higher plane upon which he stands and have us 
 look upon the so-called problem through an atmosphere so clear 
 that one cannot tell the difference between a negro and white man; 
 but with a veiled threat he tells his friends that should his missionary 
 efforts fail, then they might consider the proposition of doing by 
 harsher methods that which he had failed to do by gentler means. 
 
 It is my conviction that there is more danger in the little finger 
 of Mr. Ogden's philosophy than in the combined weight of all the 
 scalawags and carpet-baggers who ever attempted to force political 
 equality upon a prostrate South! It is the insidious evil that slowly 
 creeps upon a people that in the end will produce the most harm. 
 Against Mr. Ogden I have nothing to say. That his purpose is high, 
 that his motive is good, I will readily admit; but that his theory is 
 wrong and will result in untold harm, I have not the slightest doubt. 
 Look at it as you will, the end of it is bad. One of two things must 
 eventuate: either the races will become one by miscegenation or they • 
 will be developed to that intensity of antagonism where conflict 
 between them will become inevitable. 
 
 There is a philosophy, rational, in accord with natural law, which 
 I will proceed now to consider: 
 
 We are all the products of nature. Why she made us as we are, 
 or even made us at all, may be involved in more or less mystery. 
 One thing is clearly established, and that is that there are distinct 
 races of men just as there are distinct races of animals. The zoolo- 
 gist tells us that there is a genus known as the felis which embraces 
 the lion, tiger, leopard, panther and cat. These are all classed as of 
 the same family, but each is of a separate and distinct species. In 
 point of fact, they are separate creations having certain things in 
 common; they live upon the same character of food; they walk 
 alike; they bear and nurse their young alike. In other respects they 
 are totally different and each has implanted in it a racial instinct 
 that insures the preservation of the integrity of the species. The 
 animal trainer who puts only lions or tigers or leopards in the same 
 cage has no difficulty in preserving the peace; but he who dares to 
 mix all these different species in one enclosure will raise pandemo- 
 nium. Man belongs to the genus, animal; he is a species. This in 
 
no wise establishes a fraternal interest between him and the tiger. 
 Considering man as the genus, each race becomes a species, but this 
 in no sense establishes a fraternal bond between them. If the mere 
 fact of belonging to the animal creation makes man a family relation 
 of all brutes, then all species of men are bound up in a social unit, 
 otherwise, not. Each separate race is a species of the genus homo, 
 and there is no 'more relation between them than exists between the 
 lion and the tiger. This being true, they can never act together in 
 harmony. The very nature of their being prevents it. They were 
 destined to walk separate paths. There does not exist between them 
 that common interest, that fraternal relation upon which democratic 
 government depends for its reason of existence. When these races 
 come in contact, it becomes a question of force and even justice 
 becomes relative. We have displayed less wisdom than the animal 
 trainer. We have tried to put the white man and the negro in the 
 same cage. We have tried to spread the democratic canopy over 
 them both, but it is too small. Between these races the wall of race 
 instinct, antagonism or prejudice if you please, rises to giddy heights 
 through which there is only one possible escape, and that is miscege- 
 nation, which would mean the destruction of the white race of the 
 South. I ask you to point me, in all the history that runs from the 
 present back to Adam, a single instance where any race has ever 
 amalgamated with the African and made a people who showed 
 capacity for self-government, or had the inherent power of develop- 
 ing a civilization. Why continue the farce of attempting uniform 
 government when we have not the essentials upon which to found 
 it.? If all the laws in Christendom said that all men should have 
 blue eyes and straight hair, or that all should have kinky hair and 
 flat noses, it would not be true. If we fill our law books with con- 
 stitutions and statutes in violation of natural law, they will be about 
 as effective as Dame Partington's effort to sweep out the ocean. 
 
 Thirty odd years ago our law-making power decreed that the 
 negro and the white man were political equals. Not for a single 
 day has this been true. Today he has less political power than he 
 had then. A century from now, if he stays in this country, he will 
 have less than he has today. We have spent millions educating him 
 along the present line and today he is far less useful than when we 
 started. The stability of all things depends upon service. When 
 
anything becomes useless it must give way. The negro has degen- 
 erated until today he is looked upon with suspicion. Confidence in 
 his trustworthiness is shaken. Continue this process and it will be 
 only a question of time when a settlement of the trouble will come, 
 but it will be of such character as will be discreditable to both races. 
 To continue the practice of educating the negro along lines where 
 the doors of opportunity are closed to him is positively cruel. It is 
 sharpening the nerves in order that pain may be more excruciating. 
 If the negro is to stay in the South, he must learn to work ; he must 
 be moral and useful; the plain duty of the State is to teach him to 
 use his hands; to train him to work. He should be educated indus- 
 trially along the lines that are open to him; the State should not under- 
 take to qualify the negro to fill places that he has no chance what- 
 ever to get. In my judgment a large percentage of the State money 
 spent for negro education should go to industrial schools for him; 
 this would make him more useful to the State and have a tendency 
 to promote his happiness and contentment. Our present method of 
 educating the negro has driven him from the whites, no longer does 
 that friendly feeling exist, the future is dark and gloomy. ■ Nature is 
 calling in no uncertain tones for the separation of the two faces and 
 later her call must be obeyed. God help us to find a reasonable way 
 that the changes may occur with the least possible harm to both 
 races. Our educational policy has been to destroy the usefulness of 
 the negro; to make him unfit for the avenues that are open to him; 
 to make him unhappy and discontented, with less respect for law 
 and hence a more dangerous element in the State. There has never 
 been a day that the people of the South believed in the course we 
 have been pursuing; they never would have authorized it if left free 
 to choose. They had thrust upon them a governmental policy in 
 which they had no faith, and after thirty years' trial it has proven a 
 failure. 
 
 This policy has rendered the negro unhappy and the public 
 unsafe. It is not enough to show that some negroes have been 
 improved, or that the race as a whole has been developed intellectu- 
 ally for this only goes to prove that as intellectual progress takes 
 place the races are driven farther apart and the negro, instead of 
 being a more useful element, becomes a source of endless irritation 
 and danger. Thirty years ago none feared to leave his home unpro- 
 
23 
 
 tected, but today there exists an increasing feeling of insecurity. If 
 the people of Virginia believe in the doctrine of equality between the 
 races, then let us in good faith proceed to educate all the people 
 alike; let us throw all the doors of opportunity open to the man 
 regardless of race. To educate and then to shut the door of hope is 
 to use the State as an agency in the production of a dangerous and 
 criminal class. If, on the other hand, we believe that equality is 
 impossible, that race distinction should exist, then why injure the 
 white man and ruin the negro ? The money that we have spent on 
 the negro is nothing compared to the loss we have sustained in 
 morals. Politically we have been treading the downward path. 
 Our public conscience has been violated and our sense of honor 
 made dull. What I want is to be free and to see our people free. 
 I see but one way to reach this freedom and that is by seeing things 
 in their true light; by subscribing to the true philosophy and keeping 
 well within the lines of the law that nature has laid down, over which 
 none may go and escape punishment. I am not willing to see Vir- 
 ginia continue with the millstone of equality and uniformity tied 
 about her neck. I would unhand her, leaving her free to develop 
 along the lines of the philosophy of her people. I would break her 
 shackles and turn her loose and they who differ from us have the 
 option of continumg a policy that failed with us. It is usual to 
 expect wisdom where men have been in closest touch with the con- 
 dition, but in all the world the men who know best how to regulate 
 the relations between the races along the lines of equality are those 
 who have seen the least of it. In England the white man and the 
 black man are the same. In Australia and Africa they are not. In 
 the North they are brethren. In the South one is a negro and the 
 other is a white man. Let us deal with this subject as we know it 
 rather than as those who do not know it think it ought to be. The 
 unfortunate attempt that Virginia has made to maintain uniform 
 treatment has resulted in more damage to the whites than to the 
 blacks. In the efforts of the legislature to do as little as possible fo^ 
 negro education in the counties, it has brought the whites down far 
 lower in point of education than the negroes of the cities. 
 
 I appeal to all who believe in the education and development of 
 the children of this State along the lines of utility to come out firm 
 for this principle and be ready to give battle for the cause that under- 
 
24 
 
 lies the future greatness of our State. It is not so much that I 
 would change opinions, but I would break up the attitude that the 
 legislature has assumed since 1870, pretending friendship to a uniform 
 system of public schools, while their acts prove conclusively one of 
 two things: either they never arose to a just comprehension of the 
 principles involved, or they designedly tried to violate them. 
 
 It is one thing to tear down. It is quite another to re-build upon 
 the foundation laid bare. Clearly the first thing to be done is to 
 take the hand of the legislature from the throat of the public free 
 school system, leaving the local authorities the constitutional right 
 to tax property for public free school purposes to the extent of five 
 mills on the dollar. The next step is to give the State free school 
 system such State support as may be just and proper. The necessity 
 of this is apparent to any one who understands the situation and 
 who is a believer in the free school principle. 
 
 The wealth of the State is fast being centralized in the cities. 
 At present the eighteen cities of the State own over forty per cent, of 
 the wealth of the State. The cities have only about thirteen per 
 cent, of the school children of the State; hence the counties of the 
 State with less than sixty per cent, of the wealth are compelled to 
 educate eighty-seven per cent, of the children. If local taxation is 
 relied upon, it is manifest that in poor districts there will not be 
 sufficient funds to educate the children. If, however, the tax is 
 general, it reaches all property and in time reaches all children thus 
 conforming fully to the free school principle that the property 0/ the 
 State shall educate the children of the Stale. This would logically lead 
 to the proposition of raising the State rate of taxation for public free 
 schools, but against this course there are objections which need be 
 considered. The first objection is that such action, before 1907, 
 would be unconstitutional. Second, the raising the rate on property 
 for school purposes would bring the money so derived within the 
 funds, disposition of which must be made under Section 135 of the 
 Constitution. This Section provides that the interest on the literary 
 fund, the State capitation tax and the annual tax on property for 
 schools, not less than one nor more than five mills, shall be devoted 
 to the schools of the primary and grammar grades for the equal ben- 
 efit of all the people of the State. 
 
 I am strongly inclined to believe that better results would follow 
 
25 
 
 if the legislature were to make a special appropriation for primary 
 schools, providing that the division among the counties and cities 
 should be upon the basis of school population, but leaving to the 
 local school authorities the discretion of expending it for such pri- 
 mary schools as, in their judgment, might be for the public good. 
 The advantage to be derived from such provision vi^ould be that the 
 white people of Virginia, if they thought best, could use this fund 
 for the education of the white children of the counties until they had 
 been given the same advantages now given the negro children in the 
 cities. 
 
26 
 
 The Remedy and How to Apply it. 
 
 At the next session of the General Assembly I will offer a Bill to 
 appropriate five hundred thousand dollars per annum for the aid and 
 maintenance of primary schools. This money shall be distributed 
 over the State according to school population, but the local school 
 authorities shall be empowered to apply this fund to such class of 
 primary schools as in their judgment may be for the public good; 
 and it shall be further provided that the funds shall be uniformly 
 applied to such class of primary schools as they may select. This 
 only involves a new appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars 
 per annum since in the five hundred thousand I propose to include 
 the two hundred thousand that is at present appropriated and put 
 into the general school fund. In a country governed by the people 
 nothing of lasting importance can be eff"ected unless it reflects the 
 popular will, therefore it becomes the duty of the citizens to stand 
 for measures that they believe will advance the public good. If you 
 believe that I am right in my contention, give it your support. If 
 you agree with me, see to it that- every man who off'ers for election 
 takes position on this question. Make him declare himself and then 
 vote for or against him as your deliberate judgment may dictate. 
 In my judgment, your decision involves more than is at first appar- 
 ent. In the final analysis it means freedom and development, or 
 retrogression and peonage for the masses. For which do you stand.? 
 I have refrained from introducing into this question any partizan 
 consideration. It rises above party politics into the realm of State 
 policy. The political parties in Virginia for many years have stood 
 for little and have accomplished less. Let our fight now be for 
 measures, for the principles that mean something. Let the patriotic 
 men of Virginia come to the aid of the old mother in her hour of 
 need. Let them take hold of the helm and steer the ship through 
 the dangerous waters. We are awakening from a long and restless 
 sleep in which hideous nightmares have palsied our hands and 
 enfeebled our minds, but the rays of light are growing stronger and 
 the day dawn comes apace. Let us, like men of old, rise to the 
 occasion and demonstrate again that when Virginia calls for brain 
 and brawn she never calls in vain. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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