Multi-millionaire political financier Rex Sinquefield has told an audience at Lindenwood College that the Ku Klux Klan designed the public school system to ruin the lives of African-American children.
Sinquefield is known for spending millions of dollars supporting candidates and backing petition drives attacking teacher tenure and advocating elimination of the income tax.
Listen closely, the recording was made with a cell phone camera.
Ralph Voss’ newspaper column in the Linn Unterrified Democrat was published April 11, 2007, was a satirical commentary on the condition of the American education system and clearly says, “The Klan had nothing to do with it.” (see below)
Sinquefield has issued a statement apologizing for what he calls “an ill-timed, inappropriate reference.”
“I apologize for my reference to a quote from Ralph Voss of the Unterrified Democrat. The public discourse on these issues is too critical for an ill-timed, inappropriate reference. It is my sincere hope that this does not distract us from the important mission of helping all children access a high-quality education.”
The statement does not admit that he mis-stated the content of the editorial or that he was wrong in his history of American education.
Ralph Voss sent us a copy of the column. Here is the part that concerned education:
For the Record, By Ralph Voss
In early 1962 the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan was really out of sorts. Ever since the Civil War the Klan had been trying to control blacks, and up to that time had been relatively successful. But times were changing and the country was no longer in the mood for blacks to remain as second class citizens. The grand dragon didn’t know where to turn, so he called a meeting of some 10 leaders from throughout the country and someone suggested scraping up all the money they had and hiring one of those Washington think tanks to come up with a plan.
So the grand dragon and his cohorts traveled to Washington D.C. and walked into the office of a think tank with two shopping bags full of $100 bills and explained their dilemma. The think tank manager was hesitant at first, but he saw the bags of money and decided that maybe they could help after all.
“This will take a little time,” the manager advised. “Come back in two weeks and we will have a plan for you,” he said. “The plan will be presented to you orally; we are not willing to put it in writing.” The two Klanners agreed to this, turned over the money and departed.
In two weeks the Klanners went back and the think tank people presented their plan. “You need to place liberals in charge of the public schools,” the think tank folks explained. “The liberals will hurt the public schools in every state, but their policies will simply devastate the big city public schools that the blacks and poor whites attend. The big city schools will get so bad they will lose their accreditation and the dropout rates at those schools will just be unbelievable. Liberal judges will take money that should be going to schools outside the big cities and pour that into the big city schools, but it won’t help because of all the corruption. The extra taxes ordered into effect by the liberal judges won’t help either. The big city schools will continue their downhill slide and finally realism will set in and the blacks and poor whites will ask for vouchers so they can send their kids to the same schools the politicians, trial lawyers, big city school teachers and big city newspaper folks send their kids. The request of these blacks and poor whites for equal treatment for their children will go unheeded for 45 or 50 years, but by then some conservative Republicans will be pointing out the hypocrisy of the liberal position and the people with kids in these inner city schools are going to become very restless and the demand for vouchers will become impossible to resist. But at least you will have bought yourselves 45 or 50 years. That’s the best we can do for you.”
The Klan members did not comment on the plan, but thanked the think tank people and left. When they got outside the grand dragon was ecstatic. He turned to his buddy and said, “Man, is that ever a plan. We sure got our money’s worth.”
The unfortunate thing for Missouri and most other states is that the above plan was put into action. The Klan had nothing to do with it. But the fact remains liberals were placed in charge and the results are what we see unfolding in front of us. The public schools in St. Louis-with 32,000 students-are no longer accredited. Kansas City schools are about as bad. And remember, this is after the state of Missouri poured hundreds of millions of dollars into those schools. And do you recall U.S. District Judge Tom Clark in Kansas City ordering a tax increase on the people of Kansas City to pay for all kinds of ideas he thought were advisable. In St. Louis U.S. District Judge William Hungate did about the same thing, although he did not order the tax increase. The result was huge sums of money that should have gone to outstate school districts was instead shipped to the two metropolitan districts.
And how much good did it do? None. The schools in St. Louis and Kansas City are worse now than 30 years ago. Vouchers are the only answer. The residents of St. Louis and Kansas City need to be given the means to send their children to other schools, public or private. We need a voucher system. Without this the problem will only get worse and we will be taking more and more money away from other schools.
Liberal ideology is so sick and twisted the government will help a young girl terminate her pregnancy without the consent of her parents, but will not help a 30-year-old black couple send their kids to the same schools the liberals send their children.
The above column appeared in the April 11, 2007, issue of the Unterrified Democrat, a weekly newspaper published since 1866 at Linn, Mo. The owners of the U.D. from 1866 to 1979 were conservative Democrats. Three liberal Democrats bought the paper in 1979, ran it into the ground and were forced to sell it. At that time it was purchased by the current owner, a Reagan Republican
