E.H. Morris Suggests Less Expensive Way to House Students, March 8, 1922

The Mocksville School Building

Editor Record:--

I note your editorial in last week’s issue enquiring when the “Mocksville Consolidated School District” was going to build a bigger and better school building. I shall not discuss the suit now pending in our court to be tried at next term, but I will say this, we should do now what should have been done last summer—put up two or three class rooms on the campus, which could be done at nominal cost, and had it been done (as Cocoleemee has done) all the children could have been accommodated for the present school years, and at very small cost to the tax payers compared to the $45,000 bond issue and thus relieve our people of some of the burdens of higher taxes until times get better or at least improve, and our people are in a better condition to bear the additional burdens. I am not opposed to a new and better school building in Mocksville, but our town is already in debt and our people are feeling the weight of the tax burdens—we have nothing here to tax but the people’s homes, and last year little was made on the farms and all our business men are feeling the pinch—so many people are in debt—so many people are out of work, and still others who will be compelled to go in debt the present year, that we should at least take all these things into consideration at this time. Certainly people in our town are like the picture I once saw in a paper years ago—a crowd of young men had rigged up a prairie schooner and started on a trip to Pike’s Peak; they prepared a big poster and fastened it on the side of the wagon, on which was engraved the following words, “Pike’s Peak or Bust,” and it is Bonds, more Bonds or Bust with the bonders. These be times for serious reflections and thought, even if the bonders are in the saddle.

--E.H. Morris

P.S. I will be one of 100 to give $10 each to build the necessary classrooms, or one of 200 to give $7.50 each. With this amount we should be able to easily accommodate the overflow until a more propitious time, and this plan will relieve us of any additional tax burdens at this time. Surely there are enough patriotic citizens to carry it thru.

--E.H.M.

From The Davie Record, Mocksville, N.C., March 8, 1922