To Crusade Against Illiteracy
It is to be hoped that the brief Associated Press dispatch carried in The Chronicle recently, announcing that the National Illiteracy Crusade has been organized in Washington was widely read.
The slogan of the organization is "Banish illiteracy by 1930," and the personnel of the organization is in every way most admirable.
William Allen White, the president, is proprietor and editor of the Emporia (Kan.) Gazette, and is a writer of a very high order of ability and a practical, sensible man, with a vision of popular needs.
Miss Jane Addams of Chicago is one of the outstanding women not only of America, but of the world, and Glenn Frank, president of the University of Wisconsin, stands in the front rank of American educators. His name and his writings are familiar to Chronicle readers who feast on his articles every day. He and Miss Addams are vice presidents of the organization.
The secretary is Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart of Kentucky, whose great work of establishing moonlight schools in the mountains of Kentucky has given her a national reputation for social efficiency which is richly deserved.
Congress should promptly respond to the request to incorporate the organization so as to give it full corporate powers. No worthier movement has been set on foot in this generation. While the work the organization has undertaken is stupendous, it is practicable and capable of achievement.
Illiteracy should and can be banished from the United States. Its present proportion is a reproach upon popular government.
It was stated recently in the public prints that statistics in Germany reveal that the enlistment of men in the army of that nation showed that 95 percent of them could read and write.
The percentage in America who are illiterate is shamefully and inexcusably large.
It is hoped that the movement inaugurated in Washington will receive cordial moral support and that it will not be permitted to drag and lag for lack of financial support.
[printed up left margin]: HOUSTON CHRONICLE OF FEBRUARY 26, 1926. Houston, Texas -- Where 17 Railroads meet the sea.
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