The background: Following Norrman’s public airing of grievances [read the first, second, and third letters], the school board discovered there wasn’t enough money to begin construction on the boys’ high school as planned. The mayor urged the board to delay the school’s construction until the following year, but the board insisted on laying the foundation for the building with plans to resume construction when funds were available.
In recounting the events, The Atlanta Constitution said “many declared that Mr. Norrman had won his fight”, and recalled his earlier letters, stating that “many interesting epithets were scattered around.” Norrman apparently disliked the insinuation and wrote “A Pointed and Picquant Card” which was published on October 28, 1894.
Norrman’s remarks:
Atlanta, Ga.
October 27, 1894“Editor Constitution—
The manner of alluding to my name in Friday’s issue ofThe Constitution, I think is apt to be misleading, in regard to my attitude to the board of education. I have the highest respect for the board as a whole. Most, if not all, of its members are my personal friends, but being specially educated as an architect, and having followed the profession for twenty-five years, I do not think it can be considered presumptuousness on my part, or a mark of disrespect, that I ventured to suggest that some of the members of the board do not indicate such a high training or natural genius as to make them reliable, as either literary or artistic critics.
Only a feeling of kindness prompted me to suggest that some of the members might fill, with honor to themselves and profit to the community, one of many pursuits which requires only personal character, but not a high order of culture. I am always pained when I see any of my friends pretend to know what they do not know, as they thereby put themselves in the attitude of filling positions for which they are not qualified.
I never indulge in epithets—to call people names is vulgar. The occupation which I suggested to some of the members, of attending to domestic animals, is a most honorable calling. Many pursuits are more profitable, but none is more useful to the community at large, unless it be that of a scavenger. He is the true philanthropist. He does the greatest good to the greatest number, without either profit, honor or glory. On him depends all health and strength of both body and mind, throughout all civilization.
That I did not suggest an occupation of the highest usefulness, like the latter, was not on account of any intended slight, but simply that it did not occur to me at the time.
The only act which may in any degree reflect on the board, as far as I know, is the action of the building committee in selecting a plan which is unsafe in construction, defective in its appointments, and which will cost, when finished, $10,000 more than any other plans submitted. That the building committee should be so anxious and hasty to fasten such a defective and expensive building on the community, by wishing to start the foundation of the building this year, seems specially strange, in view of the fact that the honorable mayor went especially before the board to call its attention to the depleted condition of the municipal exchequer, and urged that the building be deferred to the ensuing year.
Very respectfully,
G.L. NORRMAN.”