AL 93
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J: It was over.
C: They were not trustees anymore.

J: They were not trustees anymore. The districts were consolidated. They tried
 various attempts to negate that, to go back [to the old way]. Some of them did,
 but they could not get anywhere with it because the school people were glad to
 get rid of them because they were being harassed by those trustees.

 You get the sort of thing that is going on over here in Keystone Heights with
 these folks. Did you see that in the paper? A little group of people will come in
 and harass a principal and teachers and get them fired. They cannot do it over
 there because the board is not going to let them get away with it. The only thing
 they can do is just harass them. But under the trustee system, they, that local
 group, would have had the power to fire the principal and the teachers.

C: Just arbitrarily? The trustees had that kind of influence?

J: Yes. They had not only influence, but power.

C: Well, that was one of the great evils of the school systems that the Citizens
 Committee pointed out. Did the trustees have any redeeming value at all? One
 of the indictments of the Citizens Committee was that the trustees continued the
 inequality, they made budgeting difficult in the counties, they made countywide
 building programs impossible. Why did that system last so long?

J: Well, it lasted long because there is a great deal of tradition in America of
 localism, local self government. We have states' rights on the national basis,
 and then we have local self government--let the local people run it. We have all
 that junk that is being dished out now by [President Ronald] Reagan in order to
 escape any federal responsibility. Someone said last night that Reagan does
 love America but hates its government. Well, they would love Florida but hate
 its state government or the county government. That wanted to run it. There is
 an egotism.

 One of the strongest drives of both men and women--I think it would go for
 women, too--is the desire for power. What are the main drives of the human
 race? Well, I think the [principal] desire [is] for power. Another is money, which
 gives you power. The reason for [desiring] money is power. The Bible says the
 root of all evil is money. Well, a good deal of that is because it gives you power.
 That is the reason why they were so reluctant to give up those things.

 Now, in the Florida legislature, at that time, there was a higher percentage of
 college graduates, who are knowledgeable people, in the legislature than in the