[1792] And this was the case notwithstanding the fact that the county superintendents were now allowed mileage at the rate of eight cents a mile in order to get them to come to Montgomery for their money and thus to decrease the chances of corrupt practices of the attorneys. Hodgson complained that many old claims which should have been settled by Cloud were presented during his administration.
[1793] Speed was a southern Radical. During the war he was a state salt agent at the salt works in Virginia. He was a member of the Board of Education from 1870 to 1872, and was far above the average Radical office-holder in both character and ability.
[1794] Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1873, 1874, 1876; Speed’s Report, 1873. Speed was ill much of the time, and his bookkeeping was little better than Cloud’s. Two clerks, who, a committee of investigation stated, were distinguished by a “total want of capacity and want of integrity,” managed the department with “such a want of system ... as most necessarily kept it involved in inextricable confusion.” Money was received and not entered on the books. A sum of money in coin was received in June, 1873, and six months later was paid into the treasury in depreciated paper. Vouchers were stolen and used again. Bradshaw, a county superintendent, died, leaving a shortage of $10,019.06 in his accounts. A large number of vouchers were abstracted from the office of Speed by some one and used again by Bradshaw’s administrator, who was no other than Dr. N. B. Cloud, who made a settlement with Speed’s clerks, and when the shortage was thus made good, the administrator still had many vouchers to spare. This seems to have been Cloud’s last raid on the treasury. Montgomery Advertiser, Dec. 18, 1873; Report of the Joint Committee on Irregularities in the Department of Education, 1873.
[1795] Under the Reconstruction administrative expenses amounted to 16 per cent, and even more.
[1796] The experiences with the American Missionary Association, etc., made this provision necessary.
[1797] The United States Commissioner of Education gave a disapproving account of these changes. It was exchanging “a certainty for an uncertainty,” he said. Speed had not found it a “certainty” by any means.
[1798] Plus the poll tax, which was not appropriated as required by the constitution, but diverted to other uses.
[1799] There was a shortage of $187,872.49, diverted to other uses.
[1800] Shortage unknown; teachers were paid in depreciated state obligations.
[1801] Shortage was $330,036.93.