the school lands. Congress made no reply to this request. “The legislature felt the necessity of doing something, and accordingly in January, 1827, passed an act for the sale of the school lands, with such conditions as avoided any question of right as regards the people for whose benefit the lands were held. It was provided, first, that the sale of section 16, in the original surveys, should be voted on by the people of the township, and the sale made if they decided so; second, the lands were to be appraised and not sold below the appraisement; third, on full payment of the money, a deed in fee simple was to be made by the State. The same policy was adopted in reference to all the school lands.” 474 In 1827 the first permanent common school fund was established by the same legislature, by an act which provided that the proceeds of the sales of all school lands and salt lands, together with such gifts, donations, devises, etc., as might hereafter accrue should be funded by the state at six per cent interest.474 United States 1837 Ohio received $2,007,260.36 from the United States surplus revenue distributed in 1837.475 It is impossible as will appear later, to state how much of this has been credited Surplus Revenue, to the irreducible debt. An Act passed March 28, 1837, provided for loaning the principal to the counties, to the state, or to the Canal Fund. In each instance the loan was to bear interest at six per cent, and five per cent must be devoted to the support of schools.476 The sums loaned to the counties were later recalled. The money which the state succeeded in recovering was used largely to redeem turnpike bonds due in 1846, to purchase state bonds and to pay the state debt.475 March 7, 1838, an act was passed by the general assembly which did not establish a permanent fund, but merely guaranteed from certain sources an annual revenue of $200,000 for the common schools. The act reads: 474 "Educational Land Policy of the United States," Barnard, American Journal of Education, Vol. 28, pp. 936-937. 475 E. G. Bourne, History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837, pp. 95-99, 122. (For an account of the Surplus Revenue Fund, consult Chap. III, pp. 70-78. 476 E. G. Bourne, History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837, pp. 95, 96. "Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, "Sec. 3. That there shall be a state common school fund established, consisting of the interest on the surplus revenue at five per cent, the interest on the proceeds of the sales of lands; the revenue from banks, insurance, and bridge companies, and other funds to be annually provided by the state to the amount of $200,000 per annum." The basis of distribution was school population (4 to 20 years). An Act passed March 24, 1851, provided that "the balance of the Surplus Revenue Fund shall be added to the common school fund." 477 Respecting this, Bourne writes as follows: "This last phrase it has been impossible to interpret exactly, for in the school reports the Surplus (Revenue Fund) is not mentioned, as the common school fund of which it is a part is reported as a unit. It may mean the surplus left after paying the turnpike bonds and seven per cent bonds of 1851." 478 Loss It would be difficult to form even an approximate estimate of the amount the state school fund has lost through various causes. The first report of the State Superintendent of Schools (p. 41) contains the following statement: "(School) land has been taken at six dollars per acre worth at the time fifty dollars. School lands have been sold at less than a dollar and in some cases at less than fifty cents an acre.” 479 Writes Mayo: "There is no more melancholy, and certainly no more confusing, chapter in American history than the record of the amazing waste of this great national gift to the people of Ohio, as related in the report of Superintendent (Samuel) Lewis (first State Superintendent of Public Schools, 1837-1840) and condensed in the statement of President E. F. Tappan, of Kenyon College, in his contribution to the valuable centennial volume of 1875, entitled 'Education in Ohio.' 480 "It is impossible to estimate the amount lost by what would seem to be, at the best, the most careless handling of a precious trust. One of the causes 477 The American Almanac, 1853, p. 297. Repeated in succeeding issues. Reference taken from Bourne, as above, foot-notes, p. 98. 478 E. G. Bourne, History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837, p. 98. 479 Quoted from Orth, S. P., The Centralization of Administration in Ohio, p. 32. 480 Mayo, A. D., The Development of the Common School in the Western States from 1830 to 1865, Report U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1898-99, pp. 360, 363. of this was that the mass of the people who through the first generation flowed into Ohio were poor, and depended greatly on the low price of public lands for a start in life. . . . They were chiefly interested at first in getting the lands at a nominal rate and in sending members to the legislature who would resist every attempt to wrest the children's patrimony from the hands of their hard-working and anxious parents. Much of the land was leased between 1810 and 1820 at a very low figure for ninety-nine years, with privilege of renewal, though subject to revaluation every twenty or thirty years, with an increase of interest. But by the law of 1827, which the superintendent denounces as 'plunder,' tenants . . . were permitted to surrender their leases and, on the payment of the amount of the original appraisement, obtain deeds in fee simple. In many cases lands worth $40 and $50 per acre were sold for $4 and $6." 480 This statement should be compared with one made above. There it was pointed out that the legislature of Ohio at first doubted its right to sell the school lands. When this right had been assumed and assured there was something to be said in favor of the law of 1827, for the increase in the value of the lands was undoubtedly due largely to their improvement by those who had leased them; and should these men be made to pay for improvements they themselves had made? The entire policy of the state of using up the proceeds of school lands and establishing a state irreducible debt is open to serious question. This topic is fully discussed in Part I of this work. Here it is sufficient to say that an evident purpose of granting school lands to the state by the federal Government was to lessen the burden of taxation necessary to support the schools. Ohio, like many other states, by using up the principal, compels the people to be taxed for the interest, thus making the fund a means of increasing rather that of decreasing taxation for schools. The present sources for increasing the principal are the proceeds of sales of the lands granted by Congress. It is impossible to state the acreage of the common school lands remaining unsold. "These lands belong to the townships, Sources of and since the state has no concern except to receive the money when the lands are sold, there is no record (kept by the state) of The revenue is apportioned among the townships and other districts of the country in proportion to their share of the original capital.481 The purpose of the fund is stated in general terms: "for the support of common In view of the fact that the revenue is regarded as interest paid upon a debt due to the districts, no conditions Conditions of are named which must be fulfilled in order for a district to receive its share.* * See Idaho, foot-note 122a. 481 School Laws, compiled by the State Commissioner of Common Schools, 1898, Sec. 3954. CHAPTER XLIV OKLAHOMA * The prospective permanent common school fund of Oklahoma is (1905) estimated at $22,000,000, composed as follows: $5,000,000 on deposit to the credit of Oklahoma in the United States Treasury; $17,000,000, the estimated value of unsold common school lands. Congress, by Act organizing the territory of Oklahoma in 1890, appropriated $50,000 in the aid of public schools.482 The following year Congress authorized the government of Oklahoma to lease the lands granted to the Territory for not more than three years, the rents from the leases of these lands to constitute a revenue for public schools. Oklahoma possesses 1,413,803 acres of common school lands under lease,483 estimated as worth approximately $17,000,000. The rent yielded by these lands in 1905 amounted to $301,026.81,483 approximately twenty and one-tenth per cent (.2016)† of $1,492,862.34,4 483 the total common school revenue derived from all sources. "FLETCHER HARPER SWIFT, Esq., "Dear Sir: COPY "GUTHRIE, OKLA., September 13, 1906. Your letter of recent date addressed to the Honorable L. W. Baxter, Superintendent of Public Instruction, has been referred by him to me. "There is at present to the credit of the state of Oklahoma in the United States Treasury the sum of five million dollars with interest at the rate of 3% from June 16, 1906 (granted for Indian Territory ‡). This five million dollars is granted the state under the statehood bill as a part of the permanent school fund, no portion of the principal ever to be used but to be invested as a perma *See also Indian Territory and notes. † Computed. See also Indian Territory and notes. 482 Report Supt. of Public Instruction, Okla., 1891-93, p. 5. 483 Data furnished Sept. 13, 1906, by Fred L. Wenner, Sec. of Board for Leasing School Land. |