Newspaper Page Text
VOLUME I.
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I K -5. |
“One day after school John Lewis. ^9BMStob||mhS^
In the performance of his Janitorial
duties, mounted a step-ladder in the
hall outside the superintendent’s office
the better to dust the transom.. Obvl
cusly he had to look tn. He says he
saw Superintendent Barnes In the act
of kissing, or being kissed, by Inez (Hr
Armstrong. ” y
fHIS is the simple story of
the kiss that upset a town
so consarned hard, as Cap
. tain Dunbar says, that half
the folks don't know
whether they’re 'foot or a
horseback, which, coming from an
officer of the law, carries weight. The
town is the snappy little village of
Freeport, L. I.
Since the primary incident, and as
an indirect result thereof, the author
ities at Albany have been appealed to
twice, the police have been called
upon to perform emergency duty, four
men have lost their official.lobs, there
has been a strike, parades through
the town, a placarding of fences and
barns with statements and warnings,
mass meetings of citizens, men and
■women alike, and a general condition
of such persistent turmoil that no one
would so much as think of predicting
what’s going to happen next, accord
ing to a correspondent of the New
York World.
By starting with the kissing inci
dent, it is easier to set matters down
in something like order.
Arthur E. Barnes, a Union college
man, tall, angular, red-headed and
given to wearing stiff starched white
lawn ties bow-knotted at his Adam’s
apple, as superintendent of the Free
port schools had offices in the high
school. One day after school John
Lewis, in the performance of his jani
torial duties, mounted a step-ladder in
the hall outside the superintendent’s
office the better to dust the transom.
Obviously he had to look in. He says
he saw Superintendent Barnes in the
act of kissing, or being kissed, by Inez
Armstrong, a demure and willowy lit
tle teacher. Now, this incident, which
is no part of the high school curricu
lum and nowhere mentioned by the
regents, was communicated to the
school board. But the midsummer
vacation was approaching and the
school authorities, having in mind the
gossip which naturally follows on the
very heels of a story of an indiscre
tion. did not take prompt action.
In the Role of Joseph.
Barnes himself admitted the kiss
ing, saying that he was the recipient
thereof instead of being the kisser.
He furthermore credited It to a hys
terical outburst on the part of the
young teacher due to her delight at
having been successful in an examina
tion for promotion in which he had
aided her.
But It hadn’t looked that way to Jan
itor Lewis or to his assistant, Eddie
Smith.
When the schools closed the young
teacher went away from Freeport,
and during the long summer drone
the school board turned the matter
over in its official collective head and
finally decided that Superintendent
Barnes’ admitted qualifications for
school direction, coupled with his sev
eral years of service, should not be
disregarded. So he was re-engaged
for another year.
And Barnes came back with his
white lawn tie to the scene of the
•’incident" at the beginning of the fall
term. But the young woman didn't.
Then some of the townspeople
sought out Janitor Lewis and his as
sistant, and even an upper grade
youth or two for a more detailed ac
count of what had taken place within
the superint-ndent’s room. They got
it Smith confirmed Lewis. The boys
confirmed Smith.
Trouble for Superintendent.
The next move ’ as the circulating
of an appeal to the state superinten-
NUMBER 5.
dent of education to compel the Free
port board of education to rescind its
contract with Barnes.
Some of the townsfolk announced
that they would withdraw their daugh
ters from the school until such time
as Barnes had been given his walk
ing papers. Barnes stood pat when
the term began. Having been exoner
ated by the school board and his con
tract. renewed, he went about his du
ties quite as if nothing had happened.
Not so industrious John Lewis or Ed
die T. Smith. Their respective brooms
and dusters were placed In other
hands, which some at the WMigit
supporters of the school board now
believe to have been a tactical mis
take. Neither man was guilty of any
thing except seeing the kissing, un
less guilt attached to talking about it.
So, at the beginning of the school
term, Barnes was very much present
and Inez Armstrong and the janitors
very much absent
Formal charges were made soon
thereafter to Dr. J. S. Cooley, school
commissioner for Nassau county, by
a committee of Freeport citizens that
Barnes was morally unfit to continue
In village school work. The testi
mony of the janitors was made a part
of the formal bill. It was both gen
eral and circumstantial. It was not
confined to recounting one incident,
but carried Barnes through a year,
during which period, as set down, he
had been a party to other acts not a
recognized detail of school superin
tendency.
Testimony Contradictory.
At the bearing before Commission
er Cooley one witness testified that
he had placed himself in as near as
possible the position occupied by the
janitor on the occasion when he had
seen the superintendent and the wom
an teacher together, and he gave it as
his opinion that Smith could not have
seen the kissing or noted the mani
festations of hysteria. This might
have carried some weight were it not
that the superintendent had admitted
the kissing.
Another witness told of Barnes’ ex
cellence in higher algebra, which like
wise did not seem to have any fixed
bearing on the incident. There’s no
algebra for kissing.
The overwhelming weight of the
evidence against Barnes was accepted
by Dr. Cooley, who two days before
Christmas declared officially that
Barnes was unfit to teach.
Having been exonerated by the lo
cal school board and engaged for the
new school year, Barnes promptly ap
pealed to the state superintendent to
have the county commissioner’s de
cision set aside.
The office of superintendent being
now vacant, the Freeport school board
appointed Principal Roy Leon Smith
of the high school to act as superin
tendent pending the determination of
Barnes' appeal, and in the event of it
being decided adversely to him to con
tinue until such time as a permanent
successor to that official could be se
cured.
Smith, who had remained silent
during the period when Barnes was In
the limelight, and having a rather pro
nounced opinion of the way the kiss
ing incident was handled by the
school board, made public a letter ad
dressed to that body In which he de
clined the temporary appointment to
the vacant Barnes post, saying be did
not care to serve under the board.
This brought the row to Its second
and more spectacular but happily
cleaner stage, which began on Jan 5.
She bulletin
IRWINTON, WILKINSON COUNTY, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1912.
The school board, of which Samuel R.
Smith—the third of the name of
Smith in the controversy—ls presi
dent, dismissed Principal Smith, hold
ing that his conduct In making public
his letter was discourteous and—in
subordinate.
The board did not want to lose the
principal, but it did want to pre
serve its own dignity. It urged him to
withdraw the letter and make such
an apology as the circumstances as
the board saw them, seemed to de
mand. Bui the principal couldn’t see
ft
On the morning of January 8, when
Smith appeared opposite one of the
two Spanish-American war cannon
that stand on the high school lawn,
his namesake of the school board ap
peared on the firing line and told the
principal he must not enter the school.
Some of the big boys and more spirit
ed girls, having heard this, decided
that they, too, would absent them
selves and thus protest against the
removal of the principal. Certain of
the louder instruments of the high
school band were secured from the
basement and the scholars started on
a combined frolic and strike.
Enter Village Police Force.
Here Captain Dunbar of the village
police force of fourteen brave and
earnest men is introduced. He as
sumed the task of keeping the under
graduate body within bounds, which
he did largely by moral suasion.
The parade swung round the corner
by the house where former Assistant
Janitor Eddie Smith, who, oddly
enough, considering the happenings of
the past year, is suffering with an eye
trouble, sat fiddling at the window,
and thence to the offices of the sev
eral board members.
Before nightfall they bad bought all
the tin horns in town and had se
cured banners upon which their u
matum—“Prof. Smith or No School
—was painted.
The next day the teachers found
more empty desks than before. T e
strike had grown. Some of the par
ents were sympathizers with it.
On Jan. 10 Sigmond Opera House
on Main street was the scene of a
mass meeting which took the double
form of a protest against the removal
of Principal Smith and a demand that
the school board resign. There was
ginger in the speeches. Almost as
many women were present as men.
di&patcU carte
down from the state capital announc
ing the dismissal of Superintendent
Barnes’ appeal. It contained the offi
cial comment, "The rule of moral
conduct on the part of teachers must
be held to with absolute rigidity."
which every one accepted as quite in
line with the town’s policy.
Petitions for Principal Smith’s re
instatement were displayed for sig
natures in four parts of town and gen
erously signed. They were presented
at still another meeting.
Whole Thing Summed Up.
In all of the doings growing out of
the removal of the principal the op
portunity has not been permitted to
pass without a dig at Barnes and
caustic comments on the way he tried
to explain his indiscretion by saying a
hysterical little school teacher up and
kissed him.
But with Barnes somewhere in the
west and the little school teacher re
ported as happily married, and Lewis
satisfied that he did his full duty in
reporting the cutting up, and Eddie
T. Smith getting another Job, without
as much as losing a day, but tempor
arily confined to the house with Irri
tated eyes and a tuneful fiddle—with
these characters in the controversy
eliminated the troubles will be
straightened out by and by
“Freeport people have got enough
sense to handle the school question,"
observed Captain Dunbar, "but I’m
not on the job of predictin’ when
they’ll do it. I’m a police officer. Po
lice officers are paid for police duty,
not for predictin’."
Good Marksmanship.
A prominent American, traveling
abroad, was the guest at a royal bunt,
when hares, pheasants, and other
game were driven before the emperor
and his followers, and the servants
picked up the victims of the sport.
Among all the members of the hunt
ing party, the American alone had no
trophy to display.
“How does this happen?" asked
some one.
“Where game is so plenty," replied
the American, gravely, “the merit of a
marksman seems to He in hitting
nothing. So I fired between the
birds.” —Housekeeper
—
A Soft Answer.
A story Is told of a landlord on the i
north shore. A guest, seldom satis
fied, came to him aiid said: "Mr.
Smith” —that was not the landlord’s
name —“Mr. Smith, your coffee is rot
ten.” The landlord shook him by the
hand. “Thank you, sir; thank you.
I haven't had my breakfast yet and
I’ll skip the coffee this time. Much
obliged.”
Feminine Mystery.
Another thing—if it in true that
birds of a feather flock together, why
does a pigeon-toed girl wear ostrjcb
tits? —Galveston News.
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