3H STATE AID 



payment of interest or principal of these bonds. The enterprises 

 were so unsound that private capital refused to have anything to 

 do with them. It is usually such experiments that clamor loudest 

 for public funds. The later history of these Kansas subsidies is 

 reflected in the adjustments and settlements found necessary. 

 Thus the Cimarron township, Gray County, mentioned above. 

 In 1897 the State of Kansas held in her permanent school fund 

 $15,000 of the flour mill bonds, due in 1902. In the statute 

 pertaining to this case are these words: 9 " Whereas, the said 

 city of Cimarron has a bonded indebtedness of $55,000 and a 

 floating indebtedness of about $10,000, and is in default of 

 interest due on bonds more than $15,000, making a total in- 

 debtedness of $80,000, and the property of all kinds in said 

 city has an aggregate assessed valuation of only $31,351, and 

 said city is insolvent and unable to pay but a small per cent of its 

 indebtedness . . . therefore . . . the mayor and council of said 

 city desire to scale indebtedness of said city down to a sum upon 

 which they can pay interest and ultimately pay the principal." 

 And permission was granted to scale down the debt. The city of 

 Anthony, Harper County, went through a similar experience twice, 

 so hard was it to learn the lesson that credit is a two-edged sword, 

 to be used with care. 10 In 1896 the commissioners of Lane County 

 formally declared the county insolvent, and issued instructions to 

 the county treasurer to refrain from further payments of interest 

 on the bonded indebtedness. 



Kansas, in common with other States, fully demonstrated the 

 inherent and fundamental unsoundness of using public credit in 

 direct aid to agriculture. It was a mere delusion to the farmer and 

 a curse to the community experimenting with it. 



General State Aid. State aid to agriculture has taken such a 

 multiplicity of forms that it is impossible to make even a catalog 

 of it in one single chapter. In general, it may be said that educa- 

 tion, since the famous Morrill Act of 1862, represents the largest of 

 all single investments of State funds in agricultural matters. This 

 educational outlay has vastly expanded, covering teaching, re- 

 search, and extension work by State agricultural colleges and 

 Experiment Stations. Agricultural education has also been 

 extended into city high schools in many sections, and also into 

 county agricultural high schools, and into congressional district 



9 Laws of 1897, chapter 178. 



10 Laws of 1897, chapter 178; also Commercial and Financial Chronicle, 

 New York, February 20, 1897. 



