State ex rel. Parker v. Thompson

• Citation: 41 Mo. 25
• Parties: STATE OF MISSOURI ex rel. THOMAS A. PARKER, State Superintendent of Public Schools, Relator, v. ALONZO THOMPSON, State Auditor, Respondent.
• Decision Date: 31 March 1867
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

41 Mo. 25

STATE OF MISSOURI ex rel. THOMAS A. PARKER, State Superintendent of Public Schools, Relator,

v.ALONZO THOMPSON, State Auditor, Respondent.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March Term, 1867.

Petition for Mandamus.

Relator, pro se.

Respondent, pro se.

FAGG, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an application for a mandamus upon the State Auditor, requiring him to certify to the relator, as State Superintendent of Public Schools, the amount of revenue now in the State treasury applicable to the support of said Schools, and subject to be apportioned among the several counties in the State for that purpose in the present year.

The 59th section of ch. 46, p. 269, after enumerating specifically several sources from which a fund for the support and maintenance of Public Schools is to be created, contains the following provisions: “the income of which, together with twenty-five per cent. of the State revenue, shall be applied annually to the support of the Public Schools and University provided for in this act, to be divided and apportioned as hereinafter provided; provided, that the twenty-five per cent. of the State revenue shall not be applied to the support of the Public Schools or University until the year 1867.”

It is claimed that this provision amounts to a direct appropriation of money from the State treasury, to be apportioned by the Superintendent and applied to the support and maintenance of the Public Schools for the present year. If so, it would follow that one-fourth of all the money in the State treasury on the 1st of March, 1867, not directly appropriated by acts of the Legislature passed previous to the enactment of the School law, should be set apart for that purpose.

We take it that the intention of the Legislature is to be gathered from the terms of the act. Nothing appears upon its face which would authorize a resort to any other mode of interpretation. The addition of this proviso to the section was certainly intended to subserve some specific purpose. Let us see what that was: The act in question was passed in the session of 1865 and 1866, and incorporated among the general statutes of the State. No time was specified by the act itself as to when it should take effect. By the provisions of a general statute upon that subject, however, the 1st day of August, 1866, was fixed when all laws should go into operation, unless a different time had been expressly designated.

Section 80 of the School law directs, “that the State Superintendent of Public Schools shall, annually, in the month of March, apportion the Public School fund, applied for the benefit of the Public Schools, among the different counties upon the enumeration and returns made to his office,” &c.

The enumeration and returns here spoken of are required to be made by the clerks of the several County Courts to the State Superinndent, on or before the 1st day of November in each year. Now, if the 59th section of the act, at the time it went into operation, had stood alone without the proviso in question, there could have been no controversy as to what was really intended. Twenty-five per cent. of the...