Tacoma’s Wealthy Elite Demand End to Public Schools
A committee from the Chamber of Commerce, led by industrialist Nelson Bennett, argues that public education is a wasteful burden on taxpayers and poor citizens.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Tacoma, April 28 — The Morning Union said yesterday: 'Abolish the high school, the school of manual training and the higher branches altogether. I never went to a high school and I guess I'm a little better off than most people who ever did,' is a reported utterance of Nelson Bennett at the semi-monthly meeting of the board of education yesterday. The committee endeavored to induce the school board to reduce the salaries of teachers and janitors 'in the interests of the heavy taxpayers.' Mr. Bennett is reported to have exclaimed: 'Cut off all the schools, altogether! What good does an education do a common man anyway! Why, it's nonsense to educate such people and raise them with wrong ideas of their proper place and condition in life! Let every school go; we don't want them. They do the city no good. Now, there is my hotel down there that is a benefit to the town. Why not assess the school property and knock off the assessment on the Tacoma Hotel?'
“What good does an education do a common man anyway! Why, it's nonsense to educate such people and raise them with wrong ideas of their proper place and condition in life!”
This 1894 report of wealthy interests pushing to slash public school funding in favor of tax breaks mirrors ongoing tensions in Washington state regarding civic priorities and the value of public goods over private development.
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