The Chandler News. (Chandler, Okla.), Vol. 10, No. 14, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 20, 1900 Page: 1 of 12
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i
The Chandler Nevs.
TENTH YEAR.
THE OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF LINCOLN COUNTY.
CHANDLER, OKLAHOMA, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1900.
NUMBER 14.
Chandler's Business for 1900 Shows 25 per cent. Increase over 1899
TO HELP
THE
SCHOOLS.
ONE (if the propositions which the coming
session of the legislature will be asked
to consider will be a plan for the reimburs-
ing of those school districts in which large
bodies of indemnity school
lands are located for the loss
of the taxes which would
be raised if the lands were
subject to taxation. This is a thing: that
should be done. The matter was considered
by the last legislature, but the plan of get-
ting at the matter which was suggested at
that time was open to some objections, and
so nothing was done. It was proposed then
to return a fixed percentage of the money
paid out as rentals from each of such dis-
tricts, the money so returned to be used by
the district as a. part of the school fund.
This plan, however, would have failed to
properly equalize ilie matter among the dis-
tricts that would be affected, and this was
the reason that-it-failed of passage. The
suggestions made in the resolutions adopted
by the Lincoln county teachers at their meet-
ing in Chandler last Saturday is a better one
and certainly ought to receive favorable con-
sideratim and action by the law-makers.
These resolutions point out the fact that in
several of the school districts in this county
there are no taxable lands and none that will
be taxable until this territory becomes a
state with authority to sell its school lands;
.that much of thejands in these districts is
leased by non-residents, and the districts
are, therefore, deprived of even the personal
valuation that they ought to have; that by |
reason of all the residents upon such land
having to pay to the territory large sums of
money as the rental upon the lands leased
by them, they are less able to support by
private subscriptions the schools in their
respective districts. Many of the
schools in the Kickapoo country in this
county are having a hard struggle. The
' remedy which the teachers propose is to
have these school lands appraised as though
for assessment so that the loss to the dis-
tricts by reason of their being untaxable can
be estimated, and then to have returned to
each district a sum equal to the amount of
money that would be raised at the rate of
tax levied upon these lands at the appraised
valuation if they were really taxable. This
plan would "work an injustice upon no one,
for under its operation every district would
receive back from the amount paid out as
rental upon its school lands an amount in
proportion to the amount of school land it
contains. The districts then that are made
up entirely of school land would have a
chance to maintain their schools and provide
the same facilities that are enjoyed in dis-
tricts that have but little school land. We
hope to see this plan prevail. Other coun-
ties will ba benefitted as much as wo will.
IT is gratifying to note that there is a gen-
eral movement over the territory toward
securing some legislation that will make it
possible to improve the public roads of Okla-
homa. The agitation of this
PASS question, of course; will
GT*rs necessarily come largely
LAWS, „ . , , n
from the eastern, part oi
the territory where the country is rougher
than elsewhere, but we trust that the other
portions of the territory will not offer any
opposition to any feasible plan that may be
proposed. The present road laws are inad-
equate. Instead of singling out the more
important roads and concentrating the work
upon them, the work of each road district is
generally distributed over so- many of tlifc
different section line roads that none of
them are put in good condition. It would
seem to be a better policy to select those
roads which are traveled the most and
to put them in good condition first. For in-
stance, there should be at least one good
rOad east and west and one north and south
through each county. If these roads were
located through the center of the county, or
approximately so, it would be very easy for
the counties adjoining each other to connect
their roads and so form a continuous chain
all over the territory. Such roads should
not only be putin good condition by means
of grading, drainage, and bridge-building,
but they should be kept up by constant
work, just as railroads are kept up. If such
a plan could be carried out it would not be
difficult to build the roads connecting with
these principal thoroughfares, and so com-
plete a system of good roads. The plans of
raising the necessary revenue for road work
so as to properly distribute the burden will
require considerable study. Likewise there
will be room for difference of opinion as to
whether it is better to follow the present
system or have the work done by contract.
Oklahoma will do well to profit by the exper-
ince of older states which have wakened up
after thirty or forty years of experimenting ,
in road work and have adopted rational sys- j
tems of improving their roads. Many dill-1
erent plans are employed in different states, i
some of which might be applied 1o Oklahoma
and some of which could not. If the coming
legislature wants to really benefit the
territory it can take up this question
and give it, some careful, intelligent consider-
ation. A road law that will meet the exist-
ing needs may call for increased taxation,
but such taxes will go right hack into the
pockets of the taxpayers in the benefits that
they will receive. Next to good schools,
good roads are the imperative need, and it
would seem that even the schools are in vain
if they cannot teach people the folly of neg-
lecting the condition of the public roads.
,Now is the time to act.
WHILE the discussion of the relative
desirability of single statehood and
double statehood may not have the effect of
moving congress to pass a law giving either
kind of statehood to Olrlaho-
DISCUSSI0N m{l) jt, js giving to the read-
ATFHOOH RrS °f 1110 n<?WSPaPerS S°me
useful information and may
bo considered, from an edupational stand-
point, a good thing. To read the articles
that are written on the subject and to listen
to the arguments that are offered by those
who delight to discuss the problems of state-
hood afford an interesting study in the
extent to which men's views are influenced
by their personal interests. If we properly
understand the idea of a statesman, he is
generally one who subordinates his personal
interests and ambitions to the general good of
the com monwealth, but here i n (Oklahoma the
men who are trying to scramble onto the
plane of statesmanship are somewhat con-
fused in iheir ideas and inconsistent in their
arguments. Inslead of statesmanship,
therefore, we have in many cases peanut
politics. .Some men would cut and fit the
state solely on the basis of party policy;
some would shape its boundaries wit h a view
to the fixing of public institutions; some
would build it on the plan'that would best
favor their political aspirations. You hear
men in old Oklahoma talk about the injustice
of the Indian territory scaring the benefits
of Oklahoma's school land, and yet these
petp'e never worry about old Oklahoma s
sharing the benefits of Lincoln county's
thousands of acres of indemnity lands;
you hear men in the Indian territory say
| that immediate union with Oklahoma would
be unjust, because they sav congress
[must recognize the tribal govsrmnents for
five or six years yet, yet these same men
will tell you that they favor the bill which
proposes to organize the Indian territory at
once as a separate territory; there are pa-
pers in the Indian territory that say the
population of Oklahoma is made up of "cut-
throats and refugees," and there are politi-
cians in Oklahoma who insist that the Indian
territory is not rich enough to bear her
j share of the burden of statehood; there are
men in both territories who insist that n< -
! body in either cares for single statehood,
'and yet they put in a great part of their
time in fighting against the thing they say
|nobody wants; there are Indian territory
| papers that speak in one breath of the
i sacredness of the Indian treaties and in the
I next curse the Indian government. These
I are only a few of the funny conditions that
ex:st in regard to the discussion of state-
| hood, and while the statehood talk is in-
1 structive as to the issues involved it is also
i instructive as to the men wo are trying t >
i shape our plans for statehood.
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The Chandler News. (Chandler, Okla.), Vol. 10, No. 14, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 20, 1900, newspaper, December 20, 1900; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc115955/m1/1/: accessed March 28, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.