Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 27, 1990                   TAG: 9005290201
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

PROVIDE SCHOOLBOOKS BY TAXING MILLIONAIRES

On May 9, the Roanoke Times & World-News reported that Virginia does not provide free schoolbooks for its schoolchildren. And some counties do unprincipled things to poor children, like depriving them of ice cream to punish their parents.

Perhaps I'm naive, but aren't all states required by law to provide free transportation, school buildings, and books for schoolchildren? Even desperately poor West Virginia can afford to provide free books. Virginia has more millionaries than most states. Tax them.

If Gov. Wilder wants to be vice-president, or just remembered as a man with a conscience, he will do what Gov. Huey Long of Louisiana did in 1933: provide free books for children and make the trains run on time.

Actually, any train at all between Western Virginia and Richmond would be welcome. Why can't 1 cent of the transportation-fuel tax go to rail-passenger service, and 1 cent toward free school books? JACK FRAZIER PETERSTOWN, W. VA.