Final address to the General Assembly June 23, 1927, Clifford Walker, Governor

FINAL ADDRESS
TO
The General Assembly
.JUNE 23, 1927
CLIFFORD "'ALKER,
Governor

MR. PRESIDENT, MR. SPEAKER,
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL AssEMBLY:
Georgia is today universally recognized as a storehouse of greater undeveloped natural resources than any State in the Union. Great as is Georgia in her undeveloped physical resources, greater still is Georgia in the riches of her potential man power-the wealth of undeveloped boys and girls of pure Anglo-Saxon blood. It is encumhent upon every good citizen to see that the resources of the State, the raw material in both men and matter, are developed to full capacity. Each of you has voluntarily assumed leadership as a representative of the people, with authority and power here and now to lay the course and provide the means for progress and for the development of the latent powers and potential resources of this great common-wealth.
If I interpret a-right the spirit of this day, the import of this hour I am daring to assume that each of you impressed with the tremendous responsibility of this presence will welcome with unabated sincerity practical suggestions of means and measures which this General Assembly may initiate to develop all the resources of the State.
Conditions have divided our people into two classes-rural and urban; those who live in the towns and cities and those who live in the country. One half of the people have been drawn into community centers to enjoy better protection, superior personal comforts, business intercourse and other advantages. Banks, commercial and industrial plants and other enterprises, the subject of large taxable values, logically followed and this enabled these communities to incorporate-to levy taxes upon these values sufficient to provide for those living within the limits every facility for education, for health and every other benefit of modern governmental life. With no thought of depriving others and yet recognizing their own needs only, they have builded an invisible wall about their own corporate limits providing for themselves without properly reflecting that this very process of congregating taxable values and segregating the taxes thereon has relatively left the other half of the people who live outside their limits without adequate means of pro-
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viding for themselves such facilities, allowing a large portion of the youth of the land to grow up in ignorance-a prey to passion, the fruitful subject of prejudice and intolerance which in far too many instances have brought shame to the fair name of Georgia. As a consequence not only the neglected sections but the entire State has suffered. The retiring administration has been criticised in certain quarters because it has not hesitated to call attention to conditions which are not creditable. It has called attention to the progress made, highly creditable, too, considering the tremendous handicaps, but the trouble is that this progress has largely marked only the favored few thickly settled sections covering probably not over one-tenth of the area through not over one-half of the people. The State has suffered negatively in the failure to develop to full capacity the unlimited raw material in potential man power from rural sources, sources near to nature and nature's God-that field which when only partially developed in the past has furnished to Georgia its most illustrious sons. It has suffered pos~tively in prejudice and intolerance and lack of vision in these wide-spread rural sections, retarding the development of the State. The doctrine of equal\zation proposes to raise the level of the State by entering this fertile field of development, by carrying educational and health facilities to those remoter sections, giving to the boys and girls there at least a chance to develop and demonstrate to the world the good that God Almighty put into them-a chance of education the equal of that given to the boys and girls in the towns. If I had the time, I confidently believe I could demonstrate that under our Democratic form of Government the boys and girls in the rural sections are entitled to equal opportunities as a matter of right. But at the threshold of a new administration pledged primarily to a business administration, I shall content myself with the assertion that as a business proposition we must provide a system of universal education. Ifno other consideration than sordid selfishness appeals, we must develop to full capacity the real potential assets of this State-the underprivileged and untrained boys and girls. If Jones and Bloodworth had been properly educated that dark page on Georgia's history would probably not have been written. If the few citizens making up oc~asional mobs which have discredited the whole people had been trained to think straight

they would have realized that instead of doing a good job, as no doubt they thought they were doing, their mob violence has done more harm to this State than millions of dollars of advertising will do it good. If allowed to go untrained, one sec,tion of an adjoining county can raise enough criminals to corrupt the entire city of Macon. One militia district in a neighboring county can make enough blind tiger liquor to debauch every boy and girl in the city of Atlanta. It is to remedy this weakness in our equcational system, to raise the level of the entire State by carrying equal educational oppor~unities to these remoter sections, that the equalization law was passed. The simplest thinking will be convincing that this new doctrine is not only fair and just to the less privileged sections but will re-act in the progress and development of the towns and cities as well. The equalization plan does not contemplate the education of one class of citizens at the expense of another class; it requires that the people of the remoter sections shall be taxed for education in exactly the same proportion as is levied upon the urban people but is does provide when this is done that the taxable values congregated in the centers, multiplied by trade and commerce with the rural people, shall share the burden of equalizing educational and health opportunities for the people of the country. I assert without fear of successful contradiction that if necessary it would pay the community centers to bear the entire cost. If you provide good schools and good churches in the country districts you will not only lessen crime and corruption in the country and in the towns but you will develop a higher order of citizens able to produce wealth and multiply the patronage of the enterprises of the towns and cities. You will produce a people in the country whose contact will inspire an even higher order of citizenship in the urban class; yes, you will provide better conditions of living in the towns and in the country and thus you will save the country and save the towns and save the State!
I repeat, therefore, that we must without further delay, correct the system of Sectional favoritism in education. The conditions and processes which I have just outlined have brought us to the system of today which provides practically every educational opportunity for the boys and girls who happen to live
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inside the corporate limits of the towns and cities while, in large measure, boys and girls who live outside of these limits have been given practically no educational opportunities. You are reminded that we are living under a democratic form of government; that the citizen who resides in the remote sections of the county is taxed in identically the same proportion as the citizen who lives in the towns and cities and that the government is, therefore, obligated to furnish to the citizen in the remote sections the same benefits of government as it furnishes to those who live in the community centers. It follows, therefore, that we must now, without further delay, provide universal education, giving to the boy and the girl in the country opportunities of an education the equal to those enjoyed by their friends and relatives in the towns and cities.
To realize this picture you must develop this principle of equalization of governmental benefits; you must realize the injustice of congregating the great taxable values in a narrow restricted community, building a wall around itself, providing every opportunity to its own people but making practically no provision for even the elemental benefits of government in the vast areas outside the community; you must provide a consolidated school in reach of every boy and girl in the country.
The doctrine of equalization applies also to highways. As sectional favoritism has been shown in the distribution of its educational opportunities, so, likewise, have we been distributing the benefits of modern highway construction to the favored few counties. The present system requires the counties to bond and tax themselves to pay a material part of the expenses of State highway construction and paving. The result is inevitable that the wealthy counties can and will provide themselves with the blessings of modern scientific highways while the less fortunate counties must content themselves with doing without. It would not be profitable to discuss at this time the highway problems now before you. l\1y only concern is, and I do dare to assert the conviction without the slightest apology, that the very first consideration, the supreme obligation of this hour, is the providing for the under priyileged boy and girl in the remoter sections of the weaker counties a fair chance of an education; that that chance can be given to them
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only by the establishment of consolidated schools; that such consolidated schools can be established and maintained only by providing a system of twelve months dependable highways over which the children can be carried from their homes to such consolidated schools; that such consolidated schools and such a system of twelve months dependable highways are equally necessary and interpendent and they cannot and will not be provided by over one-half of the weaker counties of this State if their power to bond themselves, their power to tax themselves, is exhausted by levying taxes to pay interest and principal on local county bonds, or any other obligations to help the State to construct and pave state highways comprizing only seven per cent of the roads of the counties. Under the law, counties can bond themselves only in the sum of 7% of taxable values. These values in one-half of the counties are too small to authorize bonds sufficient to pay the counties share of building its State highways alone to say nothing of building and maintaining a modern school system. The only sound remedy is for the State to fund its gasoline and tag taxes to provide the means to build the State roads allowing the counties to build the county roads and provide modern school and welfare facilities.
Just as important as equalizing privileges of education and highways is the need of equalizing protection of public health. In recent years medical science has conquered one disease after another until today thousands of permature deaths are preventable. "The right to life" has attained a new meaning as something which the State may give to its citizens, or withhold from them. If the State has within its power the means to assure to its citizens the right to life but withholds it, thousands of them have little opportunity to enjoy either liberty or the pursuit of happiness. They are deprived of all three of the fundamentals rights guaranteed them in the constitution.
A state government which cannot bear to have a child grow up an illiterate but which still can bear to see him needlessly become an invalid or die, is a rather curious guardian of its people. Yet within the five years ending January 1, 1925, 30,512 people died in Georgia as the results of diseases that are unquestion-
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ably preventable. These diseases cannot be prevented by the individual's own efforts nor by his physician, but can only be prevented by organized public health measures. Typhoid fever killed 3,820, malaria 2,922, smallpox 74, diphtheria, 1,971, measles, scarlet feaver and whooping cough 2,725, pellagra 2,252, tuberculosis 12,840, dysentery and diarrhea under 2 years 6,160. At least five times this many people suffered from these diseases during the period, though not fatally, and in many instances will bear the marks to an early grave. One-third of the people are handicapped by disease, two-thirds of which is easily preventable.
The large community centers with large taxable values are providing themselves with every modern method of protection from disease. The principle of equalization demands that such advantages be carried to the less favored sections as well.
In like manner as conditions in the past have developed favoritism in the distribution of its educational and highway and health advantages so again there has grown up favoritism in taxation, which in the passing of years has developed into injustice unthinkable and hardships unendurable. The system of ad valorem property taxes adopted a hundred years ago was fairly satifactory under conditions which existed at that time. Then intangible property was at a minimum but as the years have gone by this intangible and invisible property has grown until now tax experts advise that it comprises two-thirds of the property of the State. It follows that as you meet today one-third of the people and one-third of the property of this State are now paying the expenses of the government of the State while two-thirds of the people and two-thirds of the property are escaping taxation. In terms which cannot be denied proper authorities advise you officially that the business administration of the affairs of this State demands three millions of dollars additional revenue annually. In other words, if as business men we capitalize the natural resources of this State in man-power and raw material to its full efficiency we must provide additional revenue of three millions a year. Vfithout adding one dollar to the burden of the present taxpayers of the State these three millions can easily be raised by forcing on the tax books of the State the hidden wealth represented by intangible property-
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the notes, the mortgages, the stocks and the bonds, or the income therefrom. And yet year by year faced by these facts legislatures have come and gone and failed and refused to take such steps. In the meantime, in the irony of fate, the owners of such properties, the holders of this hidden wealth, with few exceptions, have not only not fought these constructive efforts but have sympathized with and encouraged fair and just measures looking to that end. The men who are escaping taxation in Georgia are, as a rule, the men most able to pay taxes; the property which is escaping taxation is, as a rule, the property which produces the most income. No honest man can deliberately advocate the continuance of a system which places practically all of the expenses of the government on property which is bearing no income while the properties which bear the largest income is escaping taxation. No generous or just man can refuse to pay a reasonable part of his income to the government which protects his business, his life, his liberty and his property, so long as that income is over and above the expenses of living. How can this Legislature justify itself in delaying one moment placing a fair share of the expenses of the government upon these owners of hidden wealth when one of your great insitutions comes to you and says that if you will furnish it with an additional dormitory, it will educate 250 additional students with practically no additional overhead expense; when five hundred young girls are permitted to live at Athens scattered over the city without dormitory, or other home supervision; when the boys at Georgia Tech are deprived of the privileges of chapel exercises and the influence of the reading of the Holy Bible and other spiritual services because they are not provided with a chapel sufficient to seat them; when many hundreds are annually turned away from the girls school at Milledgeville and other hundreds from the Technological School crying for an opportunity to train themselves to develop the natural resources of this State and thus contribute to the wealth and happiness of the people of the State; when the helpless and dependent wards of the State at Milledgeville are housed in unsanitary quarters, three and four to the room built for one and two; when your girls training school near Atlanta is turning away daily young and criminally inclined weaklings when there is a building, a completed building, ready to be occupied but vacant because of lack of a few thousand
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dollars maintenance funds.
Georgia is blessed in the promise of the administration under an experienced and wise business man. If a proposition were made to that sagacious man to double the capacity of his cotton mill by the expenditure of a sum but a small fraction of his capital investment, he would accept the proposition even if it involved the borrowing of the money. Practically all of the State institutions are coming to you proposing to enlarge their capacity and increase their efficiency materially if you provide only a small increase in maintenance funds. Good business demands this investment.
Only last week the president of perhaps the greatest industrial enterprise in this State publicly announced his judgment that the only way we can secure new citizens of constructive type and new outside capital so necessary to the development of the State is to provide state-wide highway, school and health systems, improving conditions of living in the country. I repeat Good Business demands this investment.
And good business demands that an immediate survey be made of the future needs of the State in the light of rapidly changing conditions. The processes outlined, the modern educational awakening not only challenges but demands your consideration.
Universal education is no longer a problem; it is an issue. There is a new day in Georgia! The patriotic spirit of the militant young manhood of this State under the leadership of the State Teachers' Association, the Kiwanis Club and other organized groups, all aflame with passion for their underprivileged brothers have taken charge of the educational interests of the State and will lead it on in its destiny, training native sons of Georgia to leadership of public sentiment in the development and maintenance of a great modern State. They have a vision of the glory which will follow education of all the boys and girls of this State. They see a militant army of students from the multiplying hundreds of consolidated schools in the country as well as in tO"wns and cities marching on to the University and its branches. They are coming here to tell you that the graduates from these accredited high schools have grown from a company of 03 in 1906 to an army of over 9000 in 19CZ7; that with the tramping of the
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foot-falls of that army you must turn a deaf ear to the prejudice that colleges are rich men's clubs and make them a haven of hope for the army of poor boys and girls of the State marching on their way to intellectual light and economic freedom. This is a new doctrine but under God it is justified and demanded by changed conditions in Georgia. If the colleges were ever rich men's institutions they must be made accessible to the regiments of struggling boys and girls knocking at their doors. As a matter of fact the expenses of living have been increasing and because of inadequate appropriations to maintain their existence incidental fees have been multiplied and profits made oxi'boarding charges making it more and more difficult for the less fortunate to secure an education. In the meantime coHeges and universities in other states have gone forward in research and equipment. Realizing their superior facilities the rich men-even devoted alumni of our State colleges-are sending their sons and daughters to other states. This process can only result in decay for both the University system and the State.
If Georgia. is to keep astride we must develop the raw material in men and matter within our borders. We must train our own people to develop our own hidden wealth in natural resources unsurpassed by any State. To do this we must furnish a wellbalanced scientific system of education from the consolidated schools in the country through the University in Athens. We must equip these schools and higher institutions to give our own the best training in mind and soul and we must make appropriations adequate to place these opportunities in reach of the poorest boy and girl.
I repeat rich men can and do send their children out of the State to better equipped institutions. We must not starve the less fortunate ones by allowing the only institutions available to them to decay because of a lack of appropriations. And that is exactly what is going on in Georgia.
Indeed a new day has dawned in the educational life in Georgia. While an army of struggling boys and girls hitherto denied the privileges enjoyed in the towns at last allowed to see the light through multiplying consolidated schools in the country is marching on to the colleges and universities providing the
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ways, as He always does when there is a supreme need, by raising up men of means and of vision, who in life and in death are giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to be put out at interest the income to be used in paying the way of poor boys through college. Your State University is receiving such funds in astounding sums. If present conditions continue soon every promising and ambitioned child in Georgia, however poor, can go through college and none except those who are promising and ambitious should be allowed to enter college. The question before you is-and you cannot escape the responsibility-what sort of college will these poor boys find when they get there? Are you satisfied for your boys to spend their time and your money or some others money in a second or third grade institution? Are not Georgia boys and girls worthy of the best. Did you know that in most essential elements Georgia's institutions are ranked either at the bottom or near the bottom? Did you know that the comparatively new State of Wisconsin appropriated to its university four million dollars for maintenance besides additional sums for buildings and equipment? A sum for maintenance alone, annually, greater than the entire sums appropriated for Georgia for buildings equipment and maintenance over a period of one hundred and thirty years!
We must furnish our colleges with the best equipment at a minimum expense in order that the maximum number of men and women may be developed to a maximum of efficiency. Any amount of money economically invested in training Georgia's youth is the best investment. We hear much of a business administration and I earnestly endorse the movement. The administrative system in vogue in this Capitol was established many years ago when conditions were entirely different. It is out of date and a commission headed by the Governor should be raised to reform the system. It is important but it is more important that while these reforms are being made, while economics are being effected, the monies already available plus that saved by economy be wisely invested. It is important to eradicate the ticks from our cows, to eliminate cholera from our hogs but it is infinitely more important to preserve the health of our children, to prevent the inroads upon our people of diphtheria, hook-worm, malaria and typhoid. It is important to mine our ceramic clays and develop our hydro-electric power and manu-

facture our cotton into cloth but it is infinitely more important to develop our raw material in men-our assets in boys and girls, for once this has been done, all these other things will follow. I am trying to impress the thought that appropriations to educational institutions are investments, not expenses; that the most successful business administration is that administration which makes the largest and wisest investment in developing the minds and hearts of the youth of the State-in the education of coming generations.
The proprieties of the present situation suggest that the incoming and not the out-going Governor should be consulted as to the method of providing these means and making these investments. I must, therefore, content myself with stating the needs of the State; with articulating the slogan of the retiring administration: the assertion of the conviction, born of undying passion for my under-privileged brother, nurtured by observation and ripened by the maturest deliberation, that Georgia needs a wider vision; a vision less local and more state-wide; less provincialism and more State pride; Georgia needs less legislation and more education; Georgia needs a state-wide realization that the cost of education is not an expense but an investment; that if we provide universal education all our problems, civic and political, will be solved; that if we train all our youth to think straight, radicalism and socialism and their fellows in darkness, prejudice a,nd intolerance, will vanish; that no State is stronger than its weakest county; that no county is stronger than its weakest community; that we can raise the level of our State only by lifting the weaker counties of small taxable values to a plane of equality of opportunities with those c9unties of greater taxable values. This is the principle of equalization and this principle I commend to you with my final official word.
Universal education is no longer a problem. It is an issue. The list of those who contribute to its establ,ishment will make up Georgia's Roll of Honor. In the name of unborn generations, in the name of a Greater Georgia, I call you out, each one of you to inscribe your name upon it.
CLIFFORD WALKER.
June 20th, 1927, Atlanta, Ga.
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