The  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
1373 
New  School  Bill  is  a  Consolidation  Measure 
WHAT  THE  MEASURE  IS— The  rural  school  bill 
which  was  prepared  by  the  Committee  of  Twenty-one 
and  introduced  in  the  last  session  of  the  Legislature  is 
essentially  a  consolidation  measure.  Spokesmen  of  the 
committee  claim  that  it  is  not,  and  attempt  to  prove 
their  assertion  by  quoting  the  following  sentence  from 
the  very  first  section  in  their  bill :  “After  this  act  takes 
effect,  such  school  districts  (common  school  districts 
and  union  free  school  districts  having  less  than  4,500 
population)  shall  not  be  dissolved  or  their  territory 
annexed  to  other  districts  without  the  consent  of  the 
qualified  electors  (voters)  of  the  district  expressed  as 
prescribed  in  this  act.”  After  throwing  out  this  smoke 
screen  the  proponents  of  this  bill  have  consistently 
avoided  a  further  explanation  to  show  our  country 
people  just  how  the  district  school  is  safeguarded  (as 
they  claim  it  is)  as  prescribed  in  this  act.  Instead, 
they  have  contended  themselves  by  howling  a  chorus 
that  consolidation  would  be  impossible  under  this  bill 
unless  sanctioned  by  a  majority  vote  of  the  people  con¬ 
cerned.  Yet !  I  have  heard  a  long  table  of  them 
shout  “No!  No!  No!”  to  the  suggestion  that  the 
bill  leaned  toward  consolidation. 
SPECIAL  FEATURES— Now,  just  what  are  some 
of  the  consolidation  features  of  the  bill  which  you  never 
hear  the  committee  proclaim?  In  the  first  place,  all 
school  property,  or  lack  of  it,  expressed  by  bonded  in¬ 
debtedness,  in  a  proposed  community  is  consolidated. 
(Sec.  1269.)  The  district  school  no  longer  belongs  to 
the  district..  In  the  second  place,  districts  are  prepared 
for  consolidation  (Sec.  1226).  In  mapping  out  the  pro¬ 
posed  community  districts  Section  1221  provides  that 
special  attention  shall  be  given  to  associating  in'o 
groups  those  school  districts  about  community  centers 
that  are  connected  by  lines  of  transportation.  Funda¬ 
mentally,  the  community  district  is  a  groundwork 
provision  for  a  consolidated  school.  Provision  for  con¬ 
solidation  does  not  stop  here,  but  fruitage  is  assured  to 
the  plan  by  incorporating  in  the  bill  Section  12S2,  which 
compels  the  community  district  to  furnish  high  school 
facilities  for  a  full  four-year  course,  and  Section  1292, 
which  provides  for  compulsory  transportation.  The 
committee  has  been  very  specific  in  branding  compul¬ 
sory  consolidation  as  a  terrible  thing — they  have  rated 
as  one  of  their  main  points  the  section  which  they  say 
will  deprive  district  superintendents  of  the  authority 
necessai-y  to  force  consolidation — but  they  seem  unani¬ 
mous  in  their  approval  of  compulsory  transportation. 
The  practical-minded  farmer  will  seriously  question 
whether  compulsory  transportation  does  not  also  mean 
compulsory  consolidation.  If  a  few  pupils  must  be 
transported  from  each  district  to  a  community  center, 
why  not  transport  them  all? 
POSSIBILITIES  OF  LAW.— Section  1283  reads: 
“The  schools  maintained  in  the  sevei’al  school  districts 
comprising  a  community  district  at  the  time  of  the 
taking  effect  of  this  article  shall  be  continued  by  the 
community  board  until  closed  as  provided  herein.”  The 
schools  are  to  be  continued  until  they  are  closed,  and 
considerable  provision  has  been  made  for  closing  them. 
Compulsory  transportation  is  the  particular  feature  in 
the  bill  which  would  accomplish  this  result.  The  ex¬ 
pense  of  maintaining  a  system  of  transportation  in  addi¬ 
tion  to  properly  financing  our  present  schools  would  be 
prohibitive.  One  feature  or  the  other  would  have  to  go, 
and  since  transportation  is  not  optional  with  the  com¬ 
munity  board,  the  closing  of  a  gi-eat  number  of  our 
schools  would  be  brought  about. 
The  bill  also  contains  other  px-ovisions  which  would 
influence  the  closing  of  schools.  The  community  board, 
upon  certification  by  the  district  supei-intendent  that  a 
school  building  is  unfit  for  use,  can  close  any  school 
building  in  the  community  for  an  indefinte  period.  The 
district  superintendent  is  given  power  to  condemn  a 
school  site  and  if  approved  by  the  intermediate  board  a 
new  location  must  be  secured  for  the  school  or  the 
school  closed.  The  district  superintendent  can  also  con¬ 
demn  a  school  building,  and  if  approved  by  the  intei-me- 
diate  boai-d,  a  new  building  will  have  to  be  constructed 
or  the  school  closed. 
AGAINST  THE  SMALL  SCHOOL— The  bill  as  in¬ 
troduced  in  the  Legislature  contained  two  other  provis¬ 
ions  which  glaringly  discriminated  against  the  small 
school.  When  the  normal  average  daily  attendance  of 
pupils  in  a  school  falls  below  nine  the  community 
board,  by  a  two-thirds  vote,  could  close  the  school  for  a 
period  of  one  year  at  a  time.  The  Commissioner  of 
Education  was  to  be  granted  authox-ity  to  withhold  pub¬ 
lic  money  on  account  of  schools  which  are  maintained 
with  an  average  daily  attendance  of  less  than  10  by 
the  ratio  which  the  average  daily  attendance  bears  to 
10.  These  two  provisions  were  withdrawn  as  soon  as 
unexpected  publicity  began  to  stir  up  a  tempest. 
AUTOCRATIC  AUTHORITY.— A  consideration  of 
the  consolidation  features  of  this  bill  is  not  complete 
without  a  full  recognition  of  the  supreme  authority 
vested  in  the  Commissioner  of  Education.  Give  him  a 
consolidation  law  and  it  cannot  be  expected  that  he  will 
be  lax  in  its  enforcement,  for  no  more  staunch  supporter 
of  consolidation  can  be  found  than  Dr.  Frank  P.  Graves, 
our  present  commissioner.  And  his  authority  will  reach 
directly  to  members  of  the  board  of  education  of  the 
community  district  who  are  subject  to  removal  by  him 
whenever  he  considers  there  is  cause  for  such  removal. 
A  member  of  the  board  of  education  wTho  is  removed  by 
the  commissioner  becomes  ineligible  to  hold  a  school 
office  for  a  period  of  five  years. 
Our  farmers,  who  are  directly  affected  by  this  bill, 
should  take  full  cognizance  of  the  tactics  employed  by 
the  pi’oponents  in  striving  to  get  their  measure  passed. 
At  no  time  have  they  rushed  to  the  country  with  a  full 
presentation  of  facts,  but  have  volunteered  only  selected 
facts,  which  were  picked  to  calm  the  curiosity  and  to 
soothe  the  appi’ehension  of  our  country  people.  In  an 
effort  to  accomplish  this  result  many  of  their  statements 
have  been  misleading.  They  claim  that  the  bill  does 
not  lean  toward  consolidation,  and  that  our  taxes  will 
be  lower.  Instead  of  being  open  about  it  they  had 
counted  the  backing  of  officialdom  to  be  sufficient  to 
pass  this  measui-e.  The  influence  of  Cornell  operating 
through  the  Farm  and  Home  Bureau,  the  policies  of 
which  organization  are  controlled  by  Cornell  by  law, 
was  sufficient  to  bring  together  a  i-ousing  meeting  of 
officials  and  Farm  Bureau  agents  at  the  hearing  held  on 
this  bill  last  Winter.  Very  few  farmer  were  present, 
because  it  was  not  deemed  wise  to  permit  the  County 
Agents  to  broadcast  an  announcement  of  the  hearing  to 
the  Farm  Bureau  members. 
LABOR  UNIONS  FAVOR  THE  BILL.— Further 
than  this  the  proponents  enacted  a  terrible  blot  on  their 
operations  to  force  immediate  passage  of  this  bill  last 
Winter  by  appealing  to  the  labor  unions  for  help  to 
force  this  bill  through  over  the  heads  of  the  fai-mers 
before  they  could  possibly  have  time  to  understand  the 
bill.  Commissioner  Graves,  Governor  Smith,  who  would 
force  compulsory  consolidation  at  once,  and  the  Com¬ 
mittee  of  Twenty-one  are  equally  l’esponsible  for  the 
way  this  matter  is  being  handled.  Farmers  should 
know  that  the  one-dollar  to  two-dollar-an-hour  men  as 
represented  in  the  New  York  State  Federation  of  Labor 
are  going  to  help  pass  this  consolidation  bill.  The  pro¬ 
ponents  mentioned  above  are  in  close  contact  with  the 
leaders  of  labor  regarding  this  matter.  The  present 
economic  position  of  agricultui’e,  where  the  farmer  must 
work  three  hours  or  more  to  purchase  one  hour’s  work 
of  the  labor  unions,  does  not  warrant  a  revolutionary 
change  in  our  school  system,  as  is  proposed  in  this  bill. 
Those  changes  that  may  be  desii’able  should  be  brought 
about  thx-ough  evolution — not  revolution. 
A  SERIOUS  ISSUE. — It  has  often  been  said  that 
next  to  the  struggle  for  making  a  living,  this  school  bill 
is  by  far  the  most  serious  matter  that  has  come  up  for 
the  consideration  of  our  country  people  in  many  years. 
In  view  of  the  tremendous  importance  of  this  matter, 
every  rural  school  district  in  the  State  ought  to  decide 
immediately  (as  long  before  the  Legislature  meets  as 
possible)  to  call  a  special  school  meeting  and  take  in¬ 
ventory  of  the  local  opinion  regarding  this  bill.  At  this 
meeting  at  least  one  repi-esentative  should  be  elected  to 
attend  the  public  hearing  at  Albany  or  other  conferences 
that  might  be  assembled  near  by.  Prospective  members 
of  the  Assembly  should  be  informed  concerning  the  sen¬ 
timent  -of  their  rural  constituents  as  soon  as  it  can  ac- 
curately  be  determined.  We  should  decide  this  matter 
in  a  democi’atic  way  by  invoking  the  principles  of  home 
rule.  And  then  I  am  sure  that  we  shall  all  gladly  abide 
by  the  decision  of  a  majority  of  those  whom  this  bill  is 
supposed  to  directly  affect.  D.  boyd  devendorf. 
The  Fruit  Judging  Farce  at  Syracuse 
My  opinion  is  that  they  spoiled  the  fruit  exhibit  at 
thte  New  York  State  Fair  from  an  educational  view¬ 
point  when  in  regai-d  to  prizes  they  favored  uniformity 
in  size,  rather  than  large  size  and  good  general  appeai*- 
anee.  In  fact,  the  prizes  should  go  to  the  plates  that 
would  bring  the  highest  price  in  the  open  market.  Let 
a  good  commission  man  who  sells  fruit  be  the  judge, 
and  then  pi'izes  would  not  go  to  No.  3  sized  fruit.  I 
have  lost  all  interest  in  the  exhibit  as  now  conducted, 
for  I  judge  fruit  by  its  selling  value,  and  not  by  some¬ 
one’s  theory.  grant  g.  iiitchings. 
HIS  note  by  Mr.  Iiitchings  refers  to  the  fruit 
exhibit  at  the  New  York  State  Fair  this  year. 
It  is  a  fair  sample  of  the  anger  and  disgust  ex¬ 
pressed  by  fruit  growers  at  the  miserable  failure  of 
fruit  judging  at  Syracuse.  What  was  in  former 
years  a  well-conducted  and  useful  exhibit  was  ruined 
by  politics,  and  the  smallest  and  meanest  politics  at 
that.  For  some  years  past  Charles  G.  Porter  of  Or¬ 
leans  County  has  had  charge  of  this  exhibition.  He 
had  a  group  of  assistants  and  judges  who  understood 
fruit,  and  they  knew  what  was  needed.  They  gave 
satisfactory  service  and  a  good  exhibit  properly 
named  and  fairly  judged.  Exhibitors  supposed  that 
the  same  expert  management  would  be  found  this 
year,  and  they  came  with  their  fruit  as  in  former 
years.  They  found  a  condition  that  was  little  short 
of  a  calamity.  The  present  State  administration  evi¬ 
dently  started  out  to  take  all  possible  political  jobs 
for  members  of  its  political  party.  The  whole  man¬ 
agement  was  promptly  fired.  It  ought  to  be  possible 
to  find  plenty  of  Democrats  who  understand  fruit 
exhibiting  and  judging,  if  it  is  necessary  to  put  par¬ 
tisans  in  charge  of  such  a  thing.  The  people  who 
were  put  in  charge  of  this  important  work  are  de¬ 
scribed  by  an  eye-witness  who  knows  the  facts: 
Mrs.  Stover,  the  commissioner  in  charge,  lives  in  Buf¬ 
falo,  and  has  never  had  anything  to  do  with  fruits  nor 
farming.  Langham,  the  superintendent,  is  by  profes¬ 
sion  an  auctioneer.  He  is  also  a  Democratic  politician, 
and  ran  for  the  Assembly  in  Orleans  County  last  year. 
Langham’s  three  assistants  in  putting  up  the  exhibit 
were  from  Orleans  County ;  one  a  bank  clerk,  another  a 
barber,  and  the  third  a  laundryman.  None  had  had  any 
experience  with  fruit.  There  were  four  judges,  no  one 
of  whom  was  a  fruit  grower  by  profession  ;  no  one  of 
whom  had  ever  judged  fruit,  even  in  a  county  fair,  be¬ 
fore  ;  no  one  of  whom  belongs  to  any  horticultural  or¬ 
ganization  in  this  State.  One  was  a  cooper  who  knew 
barrels,  and  wanted  to  awai'd  prizes  in  the  barrel  stuff 
on  the  package,  rather  than  what  was  in  it.  Another 
had  been  a  telephone  construction  operator  until  a  few 
years  ago.  This  last  man  was  supposed  to  judge  the 
grapes,  but  admitted  he  knew  only  Concord  and  Cataw¬ 
ba.  The  other  two  men  were  general  farmers,  one  of 
which  had  grown  some  fruit. 
The  idea  of  putting  such  men  at  judging  fruit 
was  worse  than  a  joke,  but  it  is  too  serious  a  mat¬ 
ter  to  laugh  about.  The  only  reason  we  can  think 
of  for  appointing  such  people  is  the  thought  that 
perhaps  the  management  felt  that  this  was  to  be  an 
exhibit  and  judgment  of  political  “plums.”  All  these 
men  were  rated  as  good  fellows  and  good  at  their 
business  of  barber,  laundryman,  cooper  or  auction¬ 
eer,  but  apparently  the  only  reason  they  were  ap¬ 
pointed  as  fruit  judges  was  because  they  were  good 
Democrats  who  needed  a  little  job. 
If  the  full  story  were  to  be  told  of  the  way  some 
of  these  men  undertook  to  judge  fruit  is  would  make 
a  combination  of  tragedy  and  comedy.  It  is  said 
that  none  of  them,  to  start  with,  knew  what  a  score 
card  was,  or  what  to  do  with  it  when  they  had  it. 
The  simplest  details  of  the  work  had  to  be  explained 
to  them.  The  plain  bald  truth  is  that  it  was  the 
worst  calamity  that  ever  befell  a  great  fruit  exhibit. 
New  York  is  the  great  apple  State  of  the  Union. 
Fruit  growing  ranks  next  to  dairying  in  importance 
and  in  future  development,  and  this  exhibit  at  the 
State  Fair  is  an  essential  thing  in  this  development. 
It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  let  our  people  know 
how  the  business  is  developing  and  to  make  our  fruit 
growers  feel  that  their  industry  is  receiving  the  same 
attention  that  is  given  to  other  lines.  It  is  one  of  the 
worst  things  that  could  possibly  happen  when  an 
exhibit  of  this  kind  is  turned  over  to  small  poli¬ 
ticians,  and  simply  used  to  pay  a  few  petty  political 
debts,  when  it  ought  to  mean  one  of  the  largest 
things  in  the  development  of  a  great  industry.  Here 
is  an  occasion  when  the  fruit  growers  of  New  York 
State  should  make  themselves  heard.  If  they  sit 
still  and  make  no  protest  over  this  display  of  small 
politics  it  would  seem  as  if  they  had  lost  something 
of  the  spirit  of  the  old-timers,  who  not  only  knew 
how  to  fight  but  got  right  out  and  fought,  whether 
they  did  it  scientifically  or  not.  The  fruit  growers, 
this  Winter,  should  make  a  noise  over  this  matter 
that  will  be  heard  all  the  way  from  Buffalo  to  Mon- 
tauk  Point,  for  it  is  only  by  fighting  these  things  that 
come  within  our  grasp  that  we  are  able  to  train 
ourselves  for  the  bigger  political  fights  that  are  sure 
to  come. 
Right  of  Way 
THIS  question  of  a  right  of  way  across  property 
will  not  down.  Hardly  a  day  passes  without 
some  reported  case  where  the  public  use  of  a  road 
or  path  threatens  to  take  property  out  of  private 
control.  Here  is  one  case  from  New  York  State : 
There  is  a  foot  path  which  has  been  in  use  for  25 
years  or  more.  It  leads  diagonally  through  three  dif¬ 
ferent  properties,  in  all  about  1,200  to  2,000  ft.  There 
are  two  fences  which  are  intact  and  through  which  the 
trespassers  have  to  crawl ;  also  a  stone  wall  about  3  ft. 
high  to  be  climbed  over.  The  center  stretch  has  been 
mine  for  about  a  year.  Can  I  alone,  or  in  conjunction 
with  one  of  the  other  owners,  stop  this  trespassing? 
T.  E.  D. 
In  this  case  we  do  not  believe  the  public  has  ob¬ 
tained  any  easement  or  right  of  way.  You  have  the 
right  to  build  a  fence  as  high  as  you  like  to  keep  out 
any  trespassers.  One  plan  suggested  for  such  cases 
is  to  prohibit  all  public  use  for  one  day  in  each  yea:-. 
This  can  be  done  by  putting  up  a  “No  trespass”  sign, 
and  posting  some  person  at  the  path  to  notify  all 
that  no  passing  is  permitted.  By  doing  this  once  each 
year  you  can  prove  that  there  has  not  been  “con¬ 
tinuous  passage.” 
