OCTOBER, 1928 VOL. XIII—No, 2 


Democracy in Education Education for Democracy 


The 
American Teacher 


THE ORGAN OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 

























To live for common ends is to be common, 
The highest faith makes still the highest man; 

For we grow like the things our souls believe, 

And rise or sink as we aim high or low. 

No mirror shows such likeness of the face 

As faith we live by of the heart and mind. 

We are in very truth that which we love; 

And love, like noblest deeds, is born of faith. 

The lover and the hero reason not, 

But they believe in what they love and do. 

All else is accident—this is the soul 

Of life, and lifts the whole man to itself, 

Like a keynote, which running through all sounds, 
Upbears them all in perfect harmony. 


—Bishop Spalding. 


a 





Pie ee 506 Seuth Wabash: A 
er Buil 99 u Ve. 
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma > Chicago, Illinois 


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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


The Time to Strike 


By Wi_tiaM HERBERT CARRUTH 


My God, I am weary of waiting for the year of The hearts that kindled with mine are caught in the 
jubilee; selfsame net; 

I know that the cycle of man is a moment only to One waits to master the law, though his heartstrings 
Thee; vibrate yet; 

They have held me back with preaching what the And one is heaping up learning, and many are heap- 
patience of God is like, ing up gold, 

But the world is weary of waiting; will it never be And some are fierce in the forum, while slowly we 
time to strike? all wax old. 


When my hot heart rose in rebellion at the wrongs The bitter lesson of patience I have practised, lo! 
my fellows bore, these years; 
It was “Wait until prudent saving has gathered you Can it be, what has passed for prudence was prompted 


up a store;” by my fears? 
And “Wait till a higher station brings value in men’s Can I doubt henceforth in my choosing, if such a 
eyes;” choice I must have, 


And “Wait till the gray-streaked hair shall argue your Between being wise and craven or being foolish and 


counsel wise.” brave? 


Whenever the weak and weary are ridden down by 
the strong, 

Whenever the voice of honor is drowned by the 
howling throng, 

Whenever the right pleads clearly while the lords 
of life are dumb, 

The times of forebearance are over, and the time to 
strike is come. 








Orders - Inquiries 


CONTENTS 


Employment Contracts and Free Institutions— 
I 2 
The New Menace to Education— 
Dr. John A. Lapp 
Report of Education Committee of the A. F. of T. 
Who Said Jurisdiction?— 
Kate Richards O’Hare 





Editorials 

Brookwood and Academic Freedom— 
A. Lefkowitz — 

It’s the First Step That Counts— 





Salary Increases in Memphis— 
Carlotta Pittman 








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in the 


Volume XIII, No. 2 OCTOBER, 1928 Two Dollars a Year 





trings 


heap- 

ly we 
Just before President William Green left to attend 
the two national conventions in the interest of organ- 
A, lo! ized labor, he gave me some positive instructions. 
One was to convey to you his sincere regret that he 
npted HF could not be with you. He wanted you to know 
that he considers the work you are doing as important 
ich a as any which is being accomplished within the great 
F union movement. He wanted to have the pleasure 

) an 


of attending one of your sessions and seeing you at 
work, and then of conveying to you personally on 
behalf of the American trade union movement its 
congratulations upon what you have been able to 
accomplish in the face of the obstacles that you have 
encountered almost from the beginning. He had also 
personally hoped that it would be his privilege, in- 
stead of my opportunity, to discuss the subject which 
ison your minds somewhat as the result of an inci- 
dent in Seattle, Washington. 

I feel, however, that President Green’s misfortune 
in not being able to be here is my very good fortune, 
because outside of my trade union interest in your 
organization I have a particular interest in our public 
school system, one reason being*that I was among 
those Americans who failed to have the opportunity 
of taking advantage of it because of the necessity of 
getting enough to keep alive. The second was that 
since then, coming into contact with the public school 
system from the outside, I have had some experience 
as president of a board of education. 

I think that before touching upon the subject 
which is close to my heart tonight, it might be well 
to say something to revive your own knowledge of 
the fact, that the American public school system, 
that is, our free public school system under state direc- 
tion, is the result of the genius of one or two men, of 
whom Horace Mann was the principal one, and of 
the trade union movement between 1825 and 1835. 


CuHariITy SCHOOLS 
The first great accomplishment of the American 
trade union movement was the establishing of a pub- 








Employment Contracts and Free Institutions 


Address by JouN P. Frey, Secretary-Treasurer, Metal Trades Department, American Federation of Labor, 
Representing W1LL1aM GREEN, President, American Federation of Labor, Before the Twelfth Annual 
Convention of the American Federation of Teachers, Chicago, Illinois, June 27, 1928 


lic school system. Previous to that time a wage 
earner’s child went to the so-called charity schools 
and had the stigma of a charity school scholar placed 
upon him. 

Some years ago I endeavored to study the agitation 
during that period. I was able to read some of the 
newspapers of that day and discover the opposition 
which the trade union movement met with. I found 
that the clergymen of practically all the religious 
denominations were opposed to a free public school 
system. Seemingly they felt that the church had a 
function to perform which a public school system 
would interfere with. The principal educators of 
that period were opposed to it (at least those who 
were vocal in the matter) on the grounds that it 
would interfere with the successful practice of that 
profession to which they had given so many years of 
their life. Joining in the chorus, singing bass, so to 
speak, for the quartet, were the manufacturers of 
that day. 


The trade union movement held that the poor 
man’s child was as much entitled to an education as 
the child of the more well-to-do parents, and then 
fundamentally they held, in addition, that no coun- 
try could be safe unless the mass of the people 
secured an education, that our free institutions could 
not endure unless the overwhelming majority of the 
citizens understood them and knew how to protect 
them. 


Ever since that day there has been no organized 
group in this country which has been more active in 
the development of our public school system. It 
was the trade union movement which made attend- 
ance to the lower grades compulsory, and our thanks 
were the charge that we were endeavoring to keep the 
children from earning a living and being in competi- 
tion with adults. However, compulsory school at- 
tendance became the rule in the majority of the states. 
Then we went farther and insisted that the children 
should be supplied with free textbooks in the grade 













































schools. Perhaps there has been no organized group 
in the country, until you formed your Federation, 
that stood so constantly on guard in defending the 
welfare of the children and seeing that our public 
school system developed as it should and functioned 
as Was necessary. 


While I am on that subject, let me leave this one 
thought with you. The trade union movement be- 
lieves that the workers should be efficient, that there 
is nothing more necessary than that while children 
are in the formative years they should be taught the 
lessons which make them competent in industry and 
commerce. We believe that the public school system 
should assist in developing the ability that children 
possess, the intelligence that they have, so that Ameri- 
can industry will be truly more efficient than the in- 
dustry of any other country. But let me add that if 
what our public school system is to do is merely to 
make the children of the masses of the people more 
efficient to produce wealth, and fails to instill the 
principles in them that should move every American, 
if it fails to give them the cultural opportunities so 
that life will mean something for them a little more 
than earning a livelihood and being efficient, if all 
our public school system is to do is to make us more 
efficient in a material way and the spiritual is left 
out, then I don’t know but that our public school 
system will do our country more injury in the long 
run than benefit. 


I have some thoughts in mind with which I pre- 
sume you are much more familiar than I am. You 
know the influence you have upon the children’s 
minds. They come to you at the kindergarten age 
and they stay with you until they have left the high 
school, at least many do. The parents are interested 
in the mental development of the child, not the 
knowledge of the three R’s that they will acquire, but 
a knowledge of life as related to the ideals they 
possess, their knowledge of what they should and 
should not do, and you have those children many 
hours during the day. During the other hours while 
they are awake they should be playing. The proba- 
bility is that the influence which you have on the 
child’s mind is greater than that of the parents them- 
selves. At least it is equal to that of the parents, so 
that the interest which the parents should have in you 
is equally great with the interest that they should 
have in the welfare of the children, for you very 
largely are shaping those youthful minds and train- 
ing them how to think, even more than the parents 


are, 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





Someone said very truthfully that if he could write 
the songs of a country he cared not who made the 
laws. I think that could be justly paraphrased by say. 
ing: Give me the power of selecting the teachers of 3 
country and I care not who its rulers may be. But] 
am quite conscious from conversations with some of 
you that you are fully aware of the very responsible 
part that you are playing, that teaching means much 
more to you than having a position and drawing a 
salary. 









DENYING RIGHT TO ORGANIZE 






One of the things which you teach your children 
from the beginning is something concerning the in- 
stitutions of our country. You endeavor to have 
them understand what liberty is, you endeavor to 
make them realize that an American is entitled to 
certain rights because he is a free man, and that with 
those rights go certain responsibilities. Above all else 
you try to instill a basic understanding of human 
liberty and the duties which accompany it. If you 
are not free yourselves, I would like to know what 
caliber or quality of freedom you are going to teach 
to your children? If you tell them that everyone in 
this country has an equal right with every other citi- 
zen and then these pupils learn that it is not true 9 
far as teachers are concerned, that you are not free 
to do what everybody else can do, I am afraid you 
will fail to impress upon the minds of your pupils the 
truths which you think are so important. You teach 
them something about the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and I presume that you explain to them that we 
are all created equal; that means that there are no 
special privileges in this country, that every man and 
woman is born with all of the rights, ail of the oppor- 
tunities, all of the privileges which everyone is ¢n- 
titled to. If these children know that the employers 
are organized, and the doctors and the lawyers, and 
all of the professional and business men, that the 
city considers its chamber of commerce one of its 
most important institutions, and then they are taught 
that teachers are unable to enjoy the right of ass- 
ciation as American citizens, but can ‘only do % 
through the consent of a board of education, you will 
create a question in the minds of those children as t 
whether the country is truly as free as you have tried 
to teach them that it is. 
































That leads me to a question which is in our minds 
and also the mind of the trade union movement 
Some of the boards of education in this country hav 
been the most progressive bodies in the community 
and have done as much to raise the standard of think 


















a= 00 Ss Aa. = » = = @ txt mee 


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th 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 5 


ing and education as the teachers themselves. In fact, 
I am afraid that there are some teachers in our public 
schools who are still a trifle old-fashioned in their 
views, perhaps almost reactionary. But there are 
boards of education with peculiar views as to their 
rights and their responsibilities who are decidedly 
reactionary and who make their influence felt to the 
detriment of the teachers and to the injury of the 
pupils in the schools. Those are the boards who arro- 
gate to themselves authority which should never be 
placed in their hands. They are men, sometimes 
women, who believe that for some peculiar reason the 
teachers should not have any organization of their 
own, that while they are competent to do the think- 
ing so far as the education of the children is con- 
cerned, they are not competent to do any thinking so 
far as their own interests and their own welfare is 
affected. So you have recently come into contact 
with the same problem which has faced the American 
trade union movement for some time. 


One group of teachers, those in Seattle, have been 
told that they must sign a contract in which they 
surrender their right to organization as teachers in 
order to retain their position as teachers in the schools 
of the city. Your right to organize has been made 


not to depend upon any guarantee of the constitution 
which there may be, but upon the consent of a board 
of education. 


LIBERTY LARGELY THEORY 

Just so soon as any group in this country pre- 
sumes to tell others that their right to organize is not 
an inherent right, but is one which depends upon the 
consent of those in authority, just that moment we 
have closed the doors to liberty. Liberty, like reli- 
gion, may be made nothing more than a beautiful 
theory. The only liberty that I know of, worth a 
continental, is that which is put to use, and the only 
people who can understand human liberty are those 
who apply it in their daily affairs at all times and 
under all circumstances. ‘Those who enjoy liberty 
are not those who believe they are entitled to it, but 
those who put it into practice. 


You are much more familiar with the growth of 
human liberty than I am because you are professional 
educators, but you know the story; the slaves and 
the serfs did not have any voice in making the laws 
which created and maintained them as slaves and 
serfs; the masters made all the laws, and little ves- 
tiges of that same point of view are found in our 
Own country from time to time. 

There is an old common law, that of master and 


servant, which was written into the common law of 
the mother country, not by the servants and not by 
the masters co-operating with the servants, but by 
the masters themselves because they wanted the law 
to give them a guarantee of domination over those 
that they employed and who worked for them. 

One of the elements of our common law of con- 
tract, so far as the industrial relationship is con- 
cerned, is the result of the laws passed at that period 
and the construction of these laws by the courts. 

Liberty has been very largely theory. Apparently 
so far in the world’s history, liberty has always been 
some miles ahead of practice and sometimes a number 
of leagues. It is in connection with this aspect of 
liberty and the common law of contracts that we 
are particularly interested as trade unionists in that 
nondescript which has been called the yellow-dog 
contract, which compels anyone working for a liv- 
ing to surrender the right to organize in order to re- 
tain or to secure a position. 

There is nothing the matter with our American 
institutions. I am firmly convinced that they are 
the most splendid which any people have ever had; 
but there have been in our country, and I think we 
have. today, legal minds who have been able so to 
twist and turn our free institutions that the condi- 
tions they accomplish conform more or less to the 
medieval conception of individual rights, and some 
of the ablest legal giinds in this country have been 
retained for that very purpose. 

There is probably nothing more important to you 
as teachers than your right to associate yourselves 
together for lawful purposes. I don’t see how our 
civilization could exist without this right to volun- 
tary organization. I don’t see how the business men 
of a community would be able to look after their 
legitimate interests unless they had the right to form 
chambers of commerce where they could meet for 
the purpose of taking up those questions which af- 
fected them directly as business men. 

ORGANIZATION RIGHT VITAL 

I don’t see how the clergymen could carry on their 
work unless they associated themselves through or- 
ganization. I don’t see how the professional men, the 
scientific men, could carry on their work unless they 
were organized. It is through these voluntary organi- 
zations that our civilization is carried of, much more 
than by the law of the land. It is through these vol- 
untary organizations that people are able to inform 
themselves intelligently upon the problems of their 
group, to map out policies and programs which it 





6 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


seems advisable to carry out. Whenever a group is 
denied this right of voluntary association, it follows 
that everyone else is in a position to take advantage of 
them if he so desires; it also means that they are no 
longer in a position to protect their own welfare, but 
must depend upon somebody else to do that for them. 

The manufacturers of this country are fairly well 
organized. I presume that taking it by and large, 
Americans as a whole are as thoroughly organized in 
voluntary associations as the people of any other 
country. 

What would happen in Houston if suddenly the 
Republicans were to declare that they alone had the 
right to have a political party and denied the Demo- 
crats the privilege of having a party unless they 
pledged themselves to vote the Republican ticket? 
What would become of the merchants in a city if the 
people suddenly decided that a chamber of commerce 
was an unhealthy institution and that any merchant 
who was a member of it would be boycotted and they 
would no longer purchase his wares? Experience has 
taught us not only through our free institutions, but 
in every other way, that nothing is much more essen- 
tial in our civilization, in providing opportunities for 


us and safeguarding our rights, than the exercise of 
this basic American right of voluntary association for 
lawful purposes. 


Court UPHo ps “YELLOw Doc” 

The only groups I know of ins this country whose 
right to associate themselves voluntarily for lawful 
purposes has been denied are the workers, the trade 
unionists. Little by little the insidious doctrine has been 
preached and applied that for some strange reason or 
other the moment an American citizen becomes a 
member of a trade union he loses or should forfeit 
some of his rights as a free man. Throughout the 
country, and particularly since the war, the so-called 
vellow-dog contract has been forced upon workmen. 
The workers have been told that unless they signed 
them they would be discharged, that unless they 
signed them they would not be given employment. 
The most startling, the most disquieting incident in 
connection with that is that more than one state 
court and a few federal courts have assisted the em- 
ployers in carrying this un-American program into 
effect. 

One illustration will do for all of the others which 
I could burden you with. A few years ago the most 
complete monopoly that there is in this country, or 
as complete a monopoly as exists, the United Shoe 
Machinery Company, desired to de-unionize its ma- 


chine shop. The foreman went to all of the machin- 
ists, gave them copies of yellow-dog contracts, told 
them that they must sign them or they would be 
compelled to discharge them. If the- machinists 
signed those yellow-dog contracts the union they had 
established for their protection, would vanish into 
thin air. They went on strike to prevent those con- 
tracts from being forced upon them. These men felt 
that their right to organize was as precious as the 
employer’s right to do the same thing. To prevent 
their being forced to surrender their union, they went 
on strike. An injunction was issued restraining them 
from remaining on strike. The court held that a 
strike for that purpose was illegal. The case was 
carried up to the Supreme Court of the State of Mas- 
sachusetts and that court upheld the lower court, so 
that as far as the judically made law of Massachusetts 
is concerned, trade union membership is not an in- 
herent right of the citizens of that state, but one 
which depends upon the employer’s consent, and 
when the employer withholds his consent the courts 
tell him: “We will add the tremendous influence of 
our power in helping you to carry out your pro- 
gram.” 

Now the issue is quite a simple one and a clear one. 
It is simply this: Have those who work for wages 
the same rights as Americans as those who occupy 
themselves in the professions, in industry and in com- 
merce, for profit? Are we to have special privileges 
and special classes? Are the majority of the people 
in this country to enjoy the right of association and 
of action for their own welfare, or are we to permit 
the growth of the theory that when it comes to those 
who work for wages or salaries, this right no longer 
exists, because to organize for the purpose of improv- 
ing your condition as an employe interferes with 
somebody else’s prospects and somebody else’s plans? 

What would happen if all of the boards of educa- 
tion should take the same position as the board of 
education in Seattle, Washington? If all the boards 
of education where you hold your membership were 
to present the same form of contract to you and you 
signed it, instantly the American Federation of 
Teachers would become merely a matter of history. 


In the trade union movement we gradually won 
our right to organize. We met with the same oppo- 
sition which you have encountered, but we did not 
meet with the yellow-dog contract, we merely met 
with discharge. We believed there was nothing more 
essential to the welfare of ourselves and our families 
than exercising this right to organize. 





- 
‘ 


o™ a & & 


n” ~ ~ an. a | co ‘ 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER | 7 


Then came the attorneys’ invention of this so-called 
yellow-dog contract. You are facing that problem 
today just as we are compelled to face it. So far as 
the American trade union movement is concerned, 
we will oppose a yellow-dog contract with the same 
vigor and determination as we would oppose the ef- 
fort of a manufacturers’ association to establish roy- 
alty in this country and a king instead of a presi- 
dent and an elected congress. 

At the bottom of everything which we attempt to 
do, underlying every right which we exercise, is this 
right to voluntary association for lawful purposes. 
Take that right away and the wage earner is voice- 
less, he is the subject of every whim, every caprice, 
every fad that those who feel they are in control de- 
sire to apply. 

It seems to me that your organization has a most 
important duty. There is nothing you can do of 
more importance as school teachers than to have’your 
pupils understand what is involved in human liberty, 
what the institutions of our country really are, what 
the principles are upon which those institutions have 
been founded. You are the ones more than anybody 
else who will give these children an understanding of 
what their rights are and of the responsibilities which 
go with them. If you should bow the knee to the 
edict of those who say that because you are teachers 
the right to organize can be denied to you, then you 
are no longer deserving of the privilege of instilling 
thought in any American citizen’s child’s mind. If 
you would bow down to that, you would no longer be 
deserving of the confidence of the wage earners of 
this country, you would be traitors to the institu- 


tions of our land which have made our free public: 


school system a possibility. 


PROBLEM AN OLD ONE 

Do you realize what it would mean to the thinking 
children (and you know how keenly those young 
minds work) if they learned that you had bowed the 
knee to an edict and had agreed to waive your right 
to voluntary association, to trade union organization 
so that you could retain your position as a school 
teacher? They would lose confidence in you, they 
would say you had bartered your rights for your job. 

You are not the ‘first ones to meet this problem. 
It has come to you only within recent days. It has 
been with the American trade union movement for a 
number of years. We have a campaign which we 
think will result, which we are confident will result, 
in legislation which will prevent any further use of 
or any further application of this so-called yellow-dog 


contract. You do not have to appeal to the American 
Federation of Labor for sympathy so far as the Seat- 
tle incident is concerned. You have no reason to de- 
pend wholly upon the American Federation of Labor 
in the contest in which you are now compelled to 
join. Instead of that, we welcome you to take part in 
the contest which we are engaged in to make this 
so-called yellow-dog contract an impossibility in the 
United States of America. (Applause.) 

President Green, on behalf of the American Fed- 
eration of Labor, wanted me to assure you that in- 
stead of finding it necessary to apply to him for 
assistance, I should merely say to you, ladies and gen- 
tlemen, that we welcome you to take part in the 
same contest which we are engaged in ourselves. 


This is not the first time that efforts have been 
made to take men’s rights away, and while it has no 
direct bearing on the yellow-dog contract, yet per- 
haps indirectly it may leave a happy thought with 
you, one that will show that the cloud is not without 
its silver lining. After the Civil war, many South- 
erners were gravely disturbed over the labor prob- 
lem. The planters did not intend at that day to go 
out and plow the fields and hoe them. They wanted 
the negro to do that, and the negro was now a free 
man. With this freedom the Southern planters felt 
that their industry was in very bad straits, but their 
constitutional lawyers said, “Don’t worry, this is not 
half so bad as it seems. Of course the negro has 
been given his freedom, but apparently you are not as 
familiar with the sacred law of contract as you might 
be. That is your safeguard. It is lawful to contract 
for labor, and it is lawful to contract for labor under 
conditions which are as advantageous to the employer 
as he can get away with. All you need to do to tie 
the negro to the plantation as effectively as he was 
before is to enter into 4 labor contract with him. The 
negro’s emancipation is not altogether an unmixed 
blessing to the negro. In the past you have had to 
feed him. Now you can enter into a labor contract 
which keeps him only so long as you want him, and 
when he is worn out you don’t even have the trouble 
of giving him a corner and a shed and looking after 
him until he passes away.” 

Guided by these constitutional lawyers, whose views 
were somewhat similar to those of the attorneys for 
the National Association of Manufacturers, who are 
largely responsible for the development of the yellow- 
dog contract idea, the Southerners went to the negroes 
and said: “Now you work for.us and we will pay 
you wages.” 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Of course, the negro was very glad of that, but 
he had insufficient clothing, he had to have food, he 
was not paid weekly, so he would get food and cloth- 
ing from the plantation owner and then he would 
work to pay the debt, and because the plantation 
owner was a fairly intelligent thinker, the negro was 
never out of debt, and they had established under a 
form of labor contract, absolute peonage. 

When the people of our country discovered that 
that was the result of a form of labor contract, the 
anti-peonage law was enacted by Congress, and every 
time that this law has come before the United States 
Supreme Court: it has been upheld by a practically 
So a labor contract in this 
country which unduly ties a man to his job, a labor 
contract which is contrary to public policy, has been 
declared null and void so far as peonage is concerned. 

If those of us who have had a little more opportu- 
nity, those of us who have had a training equipping 
us to work, particularly those who are educators of 
our youth, are to work under a labor contract which 


unanimous decision. 


is contrary to public policy, then I am satisfied that 
as soon as the American public becomes aware of what 
has taken place, there will be a volume of indigna- 
tion as strong, if not stronger than that which swept: 
over the country when the peonage law was enacted 
by Congress. 

I am thankful that this has come along. It is a 
necessary step in your experience. You, like every- 
one else, must learn that only those enjoy liberty who 
have an intelligent knowledge of what liberty means, 
those only enjoy liberty who fight for it and who 
exercise it. When you have carried your contest to 
a successful conclusion (and I know that you will, 
for no powers can prevail against an enlightened pub- 
lic opinion), when you have won the contest started 
by the board of education in Seattle, Washington, 
then you will be better equipped to perform your 
functions as teachers than you ever have been before, 
because you will have had a practical experience in 
the school, the only school where liberty can be truly 
taught, the school of experience. (Applause.) 





The New Menace to Education 
Address by Dr. Joun A. Lapp, Marquette University, Local No. 79, Before the Twelfth Annual Convention — 


of the American Federation of Teachers, Chicago, Ill., June 27, 1928 


The subject of this address is ““The New Menace 
to Education.” Perhaps it might be called an old men- 
ace in a new form, the menace of the attempt to 
control schools for the making of public opinion in 
the interest of a profit-making, private enterprise. 
The present effort is undoubtedly the most extensive 
form in which the attempt has been made to control 
public opinion in our time, if not in any time, namely 
the attempt on the part of the public utilities to 
insinuate their propaganda into the schools and col- 
leges of the country and in many and devious ways to 
get control of the public opinion forming groups and 
thereby to lay foundations for the continuation of 
private management of public utilities. This is a 
plain effort to advance private, profit-making enter- 
prises at the expense of the public. 

I have gone through much of the material that has 
been presented in the Federal Trade Commission’s 
inquiry and I have found a dozen or more different 
ways in which these ramifications extend to control 
public opinion. Possibly others will be found as the 
investigation proceeds. The first one of these forms 
of propaganda is the hiring of college professors to 
make “impartial” reports adverse to public ownership. 
Witness the hiring of a Minnesota professor to give 


a black eye in a special report to the Ontario Hydro- 
electric system. A copy of a check for transportation 
and expenses verifying this fact was published in one 
of the leading newspapers recently. 

It is obvious that a man sent under such circum- 
stances, masquerading as a college professor, can not 
possibly bring back anything like an impartial report. 
That is not what he was sent for. It is possible his 
employers knew what his views were before they sent 
him. It is possible that he did not stultify himself and 
that perhaps he gave what he really thought he found. 
But it was, nevertheless, an effort on the part of a pri- 
vate, profit-making enterprise to conceal itself behind 
a college professor and give the evidence of academic 
care to the study that was presented. 

The second of the methods is the subsidizing of the 
writing of text-books favorable to privately owned 
public utilities and against public ownership, by col- 
lege professors, thus hiding the power trust behind 
the gown of a college man, but in effect being n0 
different than if those books were written by a public 
utilities representative. 

I do not know how to express what we should say 
about a college professor who lends himself to this sort 
of thing. Perhaps we will need to turn our attention 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 9 


to college men as much as to the interests that would 
attempt directly or indirectly to corrupt them. 


A third method is the inducing of school authori- 
ties, local and state, to co-operate in the distribution 
in the schools of literature sanctifying the privately- 
owned public utilities. This is quite a universal 
method, from the evidence that has been brought out 
before the Federal Trade Commission. There have 
been attempts to get the local school people to permit 
the distribution of the literature in the schools, at- 
tempts to get them to give a favorable view to the 
literature, and attempts to get them, on a state-wide 
scale, to recommend that this literature be distributed. 
This literature is all very carefully written so as not 
to make it appear that it is the propaganda of a pri- 
vate interest, some of it is perhaps highly educational, 
some of it undoubtedly valuable, but carrying within 
it the seeds of growth in favor of privately-owned 
utilities and in opposition to public ownership. 

Fourth, the hiring of influential educators to make 
educational talks before teachers’ conventions and be- 
fore normal schools and elsewhere, as evidenced in the 
disclosures in Missouri just the other day. By the way, 
you do not get many of these things in a large section 
of the daily press. There is a strange concealment in 
the press. ‘This is news, or should be news, by all 
standards of newspaper management, yet it is not get- 
ting into more than a fraction of the newspapers of 
the country. 

An influential educator on the faculty of one of 
the universities of Missouri was hired by the Public 
Utilities Association and was paid to give talks to the 
teachers in training in the normal schools of the state. 
Expenses and honorariums were paid by the associa- 
tion and the professor presumably delivered the 
things that he was expected to deliver. This professor 
denied that he had had his speeches written by the 
utilities interests, but they served the purpose for 
which they were bought by the Public Utilities Asso- 
ciation. That example is only one of many and we 
know not how far the ramifications may have gone. 


Fifth: Here is one of the methods that really ought 
to interest us a good deal. This perhaps is even the 
most influential, at least, immediately influential, of 
the various ways in which the public utility interests 
have attempted to get control of educational thought 
to their own advantage. I have reference to the estab- 
lishment of bureaus of research under high-sounding 
names in universities to study utilities problems 
(sometimes under a different name), and publish re- 
Ports and books for the benefit of the public as well as 


to train research workers and teach the coming col- 
lege teachers. This is an exhibition of high-minded 
generosity to our educational institutions. It is mag- 
nificent to receive funds for the establishment and 
financing of a bureau of research. No one can assume, 
however, that anybody can go into a research bureau 
of that kind and try to find truth. If one does assume 
that, he is in need of enlightenment. 


Sixth, the paying of expenses of college professors 
to attend conferences for the purpose of formulating 
courses of study for utilities under the fostering care 
of a college professor on leave of absence from his 
university and in the pay of the utilities interests. 
The impropriety of this is so obvious that it is strange 
they attempted it. 


Seventh, the retaining of college professors for the 
purpose of consultation. Here is some of the rawest 
and crudest stuff I have seen in all my life—Managing 
Director Aylesworth, of the National Electric Light 
Association, in 1923, said: “I would advise any man- 
ager who lives in a community where there is a col- 
lege to get the professor of economics interested in 
your problems. Have him lecture on your subject to 
his classes. Once in a while, it will pay you to take 
such men, getting $500 or $600 a year, or $1000 
perhaps, and give them a retainer of $100 or $200 a 
year for the privilege of letting you study and con- 
sult with them, for how in heaven’s name can we do 
anything in the schools of the country, with the 
young people growing up, if we have not first sold 
the idea of education to the college professors?” 

That does not come from an obscure person. That is 
the Managing Director of the National Electric Light 
Association, making a public statement, asRing the 
managers of the public utilities bureaus to get in 
touch with the college professors of economics, and 
especially singling out those in the small colleges get- 
ting small salaries who might be influenced by re- 
ceipt of $100 or $200 a year as a retainer. Aside from 
the propaganda in that, I think educators ought to 
feel the insult, the deep insult, that is found in those 
words of the Managing Director of the National 
Electric Light Association. It is an insult to them, an 
insult to education, an insult to all educators, to state 
that they could buy the influence of college profes- 
sors at $100 to $200 a year, plainly for noservice on 
their part, but for the privilege, as was said, of hav- 
ing a chance to consult and study with them in the 
field of economics. 

I don’t suppose that has gone very far. I don’t 
know whether this was just a dream on the part of 





10 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Mr. Aylesworth or not; I don’t believe that many 
professors of economics have been influenced, and yet 
they may have been without having any thought of 
being influenced at all. What is more subtle than 
being asked to co-operate and study with some man 
who in the community. is an important fellow in the 
business world? I can imagine a great many college 
professors being quite flattered by the possibility of 
sitting down and studying anything with one of the 
big business men of the town. I trust, however, that 
this kind of influence has not extended very far. If 
it has, then we have little hope for freedom anyway. 
If college professors are what Mr. Aylesworth thinks 
they are, we might as well give up the business of 
education as it stands and not attempt to clarify 
problems any more in the interest of public welfare. 

Eighth: Making investigations of text-books to see 
which ones are safe, and using influence to put out 
of the schools and keep out of the schools those which 
do not favor the reasonable point of view of the pri- 
vate utilities, and to put in favorable texts. I do not 
need to elaborate on this point at all. Every person in 
this audience, I am sure, has instances in his own ex- 
perience or observation of efforts of this kind defi- 
nitely to put out of the schools text-books that take 
a favorable view of public ownership. 

Let me cite one instance of many. A certain book, 
used in some of the schools in the seventh and eighth 
grades, made the very innocent statement that it was 
possible that the railroads (this was written just be- 
fore the war) would be found unprofitable to private 
interests and since the public had to have their serv- 
ices, it was conceivable that public ownership of rail- 
roads would sometime come as a necessity, just as it 
had come in the case of highways and some of the 
other utilities which had to be taken over by the pub- 
lic. Innocent enough, is it not? Not especially radi- 
cal or dangerous. Did it escape? It did for a while, 
when people were busy with the war. 

When “normalcy” came, a long editorial in one of 
the leading papers of one of the cities where the book 
was used, which paper represented private pillage at 
every stage, cited that as one of the damnable things 
that were being taught the pupils of that city. In due 
time, the book was eliminated. That illustration is 
only one of many that could be presented. 

Ninth: Correcting the blunders of the ignorant 
educators who, of course, know nothing of the prac- 
tical, very practical, business of running utilities, and 
therefore put errors into their books; calling atten- 
tion to the fact that these errors exist; and getting the 


authors to remove them from their books. One public 
utility representative said very naively just recently 
that it would pay to go back to the authors and let 
them make some more money by getting them to 
remove the “mistakes” that were in their text-books 
concerning public utilities. 

Tenth: Pinning the bolshevist label on people who 
believe in public ownership of public utilities. The 
declaration went out from headquarters: ““When you 
find anybody who believes in public ownership of 
municipal utilities, pin the bolshevist label on them.” 
If you want some facts on this, go to the office of the 
People’s Gas & Electric Light Company, here in Chi- 
cago. Only a few weeks ago, over the signature of an 
official of that company, a circular went out all over 
this state to pin the bolshevist label on people who 
believe in public ownership of public utilities. 


We ought to get to a point after a while when 
the communistic or bolshevist label would be a joke. 
I have, for myself, a very effective way of disposing 
of the labellers. I have a new system of mental test- 
ing. Not being scientific enough to understand the 
old, not having enough experience to use it, I couldn’t 
get the I. Q. of people very exactly. So I worked out 
a test of my own, and its results are quite perfect so 
far as it goes. Try it on your friends and see if it 
doesn’t work. If a man calls me a socialist because I 
believe in municipal ownership of waterworks, or 
social insurance, old age pensions, and things of that 
sort, I classify him in the mental age of eleven years. 
If he calls me a communist for that reason, I classify 
him in the mental age of nine. If he calls me a bol- 
shevist for that reason, I classify him in the mental 
age of seven. You will be surprised at the exact meas- 
urements I get of a whole lot of people by this 
method. 


I ran across some bolshevist label pinners some time 
ago and there is where I got the test; I worked it on 
them. I think I was called a socialist that time because 
I believed in the McNary-Haugen bill. There being 
no other way out of the thing, I got rather savage 
and asked these men why they presumed to know any- 
thing anyway. I said, “You don’t read anything.” 
I didn’t know them, I had never met them before, 
but I said, “I know your type, you don’t read 4ny- 
thing on modern social and economic problems. You 
haven’t read a book in the last five years on any mod- 
ern social or economic problem.” 

They laughed, and I demanded the name of a book; 
it wasn’t forthcoming. They couldn’t name a book 
they had read. One admitted he hadn’t read any. 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 11 


I said, “All right, you can’t name a book that has 
been written in the last five years on any modern 
economic or spcial problem.” I got their I. Q. right 
away. I should like to try it out on some of the gen- 
tlemen who have been signing these circulars, to “pin 
the bolshevist label on them.” 


Eleventh: Setting up committees of research 
through state colleges of agriculture to work out plans 
for the rural extension of electric power. Here is a 
thing that a college of agriculture might very prop- 
erly work out for itself, to see how electric power 
could be secured and utilized for the farmers. But 
when done at the behest and at the expense of a pri- 
vate profit-making enterprise, imagine the results. It 
is more than probable, in fact, it is certain, that those 
agricultural departments and colleges that did engage 
in this did not try to put over any propaganda of the 
power interests, but the very coupling of a college 
of agriculture, supported by public funds for public 
‘ interests, with an organization that is adverse to one 
of the fundamentals of public welfare is not to be 
excused. Yet I can see how it happened; I can see 
how men who were not on their guard against these 
private profit-making interests, would be able to ac- 
cept the offer of co-operation to try to get electric 
power to the farms. 


Twelfth: One of the most interesting things I 
have run across in this material is the disclosure that 
came only last week. You didn’t get it in the Chi- 
cago papers; at least in The Chicago Tribune. The 
disclosure came down in Missouri. I happened to be in 
St. Louis, or I probably would have been deprived of 
the privilege of reading about it. One of the papers 
in St. Louis, The Post-Dispatch, is publishing quite 
fully the material from the Federal Trade Commis- 
sion. The subject was one about which we had some 
information before, but on which we did not have 
documentary evidence, namely, the hounding efforts 
to keep Carl Thompson off the Chautauqua platform 
two years ago this summer. Thompson was hired by 
the Redpath agency to go out and speak at their 
Chautauquas on the subject of super-power in the 
United States, speaking through Iowa and Missouri 
and that section of the country. He was, of course, 
speaking favorably to public ownership of the super- 
power system. The public utilities associations sent 
their cohorts on his tracks, and wherever he went he 
was preceded by the representatives of the utilities, 
who went to the local committees and demanded that 
he be kept from speaking. Mr. Thompson wrote about 
that in The New Republic just after it happened. But 


now comes the documentary proof; now comes the 
letters of instruction going out from the central pro- 
paganda agencies to keep him off the platform. 


Carl Thompson isn’t the only one. It was very 
much to the credit of the Redpath people that he was 
given a chance on the Chautauqua. It was very much 
to their credit that they stuck to him, and while in 
some instances the local committees did cancel his 
dates, he went through the season. 


I have no objection, whatever, nor have you, I am 
sure, to any man advocating anythihg he pleases; I 
have no objection to the power trust doing its utmost 
to advocate anything it pleases. I believe in free 
speech as long as it is exercised in the open. But when 
a private profit-making enterprise seeks to conceal 
itself behind our great educational institutions and 
seeks to mold public opinion through the schools in its 
own private interests, not openly, but secretly, by paid 
agents; when these people attempt to get text-books 
written favorably to them and introduced into the 
schools; when they organize committees for the pur- 
pose of co-operating with the educational institutions 
in the extension of private utilities services; when 
they attempt to keep people off the public platform 
who are advocating public ownership of power or 
public utilities; when they hound teachers of civics 
and economics in high schools and colleges, intimi- 
dating them and preventing them from teaching the 
truth about these questions, lest they may lose their 
jobs; when they do all these things under cover, then 
it is time for the educators of this country to rise up 
and assert themselves. 

In my judgment, education is not worth a conti- 
nental if educators do not stand forcefully against 
these efforts to debauch it. The whole thing is so 
insulting to educators themselves, it is so undermin- 
ing of the integrity of education, and it is so danger- 
ous to the republic that it ought to receive the uni- 
versal condemnation of the united educational forces 
and of all the forces that believe that governments 
are instituted for general welfare and that education 
is the great means by which that may be brought 
about, 

I have no doubt myself that educators will meet the 
challenge. I have seen evidences of very fine resist- 
ance. But we need to have united resistance, nation- 
wide resistance; we need to fight this battle now in 
such a way that no one will ever attempt again to 
debauch the schools and to insult the educators and 
to seek private profit through control of public edu- 
cation at the expense of public good. 





12 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Report of Education Committee to the Twelfth Annual 
Convention of the American Federation of Teachers, 
Chicago, Illinois, June 25-29, 1928 


The permanent Committee on Education has at- 
tempted during the past year to carry out the in- 
structions of the last convention. On three of the 
questions referred to it for study, it finds itself unable 
to report. 

It has not been possible this year to investigate the 
method of handling clerical work in the French 
schools, as was requested. The situation in continua- 
tion schools, and the effect of size of classes on effi- 
ciency, are under study in two of the Chicago locals; 
but the committee felt that the information at its 
command did not warrant it in reporting on these 
subjects. 

On other questions referred to it, it reports as 
follows: 

JUNIOR COLLEGES 

The attention of the last convention was directed 
to two extensions of the public school system, which 
in one case seems to be assured and in the other at 
least to be considered seriously. At one extreme the 
junior college has probably established itself as a 
highly desirable unit of the public schools, and at the 
other, the nursery school is being almost as warmly 
contended for as the kindergarten was in its early 
days. 

Both of these units require expensive equipment 
and a highly specialized teaching force, hence their 
addition to our school system will carry a decided 
increase in the per capita cost. 

The American Federation of Teachers believes that 
no development of our educational system which will 
give American youth a better chance or which prom- 
ises a richer life is too costly for America to pay for. 
Hence it should seek to understand these movements 
and to estimate their value. 

The Junior College has become a part of our edu- 
cational system and has grown to considerable magni- 
tude with little realization of its significance even by 
the educational world. 

NaTuRAL DEMAND MET 

The schools have grown out of the demand of stu- 
dents who want advanced work beyond the high 
school and yet are not ready, for one reason or an- 
other, to go to the universities. Educators have recog- 
nized for some time that the large universities do not, 
possibly cannot, made adequate provision for the stu- 


dent just out of high school. A few universities are 
seeking to meet this situation by organizing their first 
two years as a separate school, a few others have en- 
tirely discontinued the freshman and sophomore years. 
With the increase of Junior Colleges, more universi- 
ties will probably gladly follow this latter course. In 
1927 there were already, according to the American 
Council of Education, forty-four Junior ‘Colleges 
which had been fully accredited by the four-year col- 
leges and the number of students is increasing with 
astounding rapidity. 

President Wilbur, of Leland Stanford University, 
has recently issued a letter in which he says that he 
considers it inevitable that the normal public school 
system of an established community will soon have its - 
own Junior College. A larger number can attend such 
institutions “with less expense and less wastage than 
in our university classes. The quality of instruction 
in the Junior Colleges offers at least as satisfactory 
preparation as does our own lower division work, 
judged on the basis of our experience.” In this Presi- 
dent Wilbur is in substantial agreement with judg- 
ments commonly expressed. 

SEPARATE BurmLpINGs FAVORED 

It is to be expected that in institutions which in 
many cases have started almost without foresight or 
plan many faults should be apparent. The Com- 
mittee on Education believes therefore that certain 
standards should be established, and that trends and 
policies should be defined. 

The committee holds that the libraries, labora- 
tories and social activities of the Junior College should 
be equivalent to the best of these features in the first 
two years of the four-year colleges. Owing to the new 
expense of these schools and the rapidly increasing 
number of students, a general cheapening will be a 
temptation to a tax-ridden population. Such a cheap- 
ening, the committee believes, would be disastrous. 

Many of our Junior Colleges are housed with high 
schools. This causes confusion and conflict. Junior 
Colleges should be in separate buildings. In small 
communities where the number of students does not 
seem to warrant this, consolidation of the colleges of 
larger districts should be encouraged. Buildings should 
be constructed to provide ample space for real col- 
lege work, with conference rooms, departmental of- 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 13 


fices, and offices for individual teachers. There is 
tremendous waste of time, energy and opportunity, 
when the “antiquated classroom plan” is adhered to 
and important features are subordinated or eliminated 
through a false sense of economy. 


It is generally accepted that only students who have 
done four years regular, systematic high school work 
should be admitted to our Junior Colleges. The dif- 
ficulty often lies in admitting students temporarily 
without proper credentials. This swells numbers, but 
lowers standards. Another fault lies in keeping stu- 
dents who do not do the work successfully. The 
committee believes that arbitrary rules of procedure 
in this situation would be dangerous. It does advo- 
cate, however, that each school have a definite stand- 
ard requirement of achievement as the basis for the 
retention and the expulsion of students. There is no 
legitimate reason for allowing those students who 
have been expelled from the state universities to linger 
on indefinitely in institutions which are also supported 
by the taxpayers. 

The faculty of the Junior Colleges have been un- 
der fire from several directions. In some cases that 
fire was well directed; in other cases it was aimed at 
imaginary targets. 

The Junior Colleges are often accused of employing 
high school teachers. ‘The committee helieves that 
this practice should be approved in general when those 
teachers have fulfilled certain definite academic re- 
quirements. On the other hand it sees no reason for 
discriminating against teachers from the four-year 
colleges. The crux of the matter lies in the fact that 
teachers in Junior Colleges whether they come from 
high schools or from four-year colleges must com- 
bine, in order to be successful, two kinds of prepara- 
tion—one in scholarship and one in professional ex- 
perience. The Committee suggests the following re- 
quirements: . 


1, Teachers should have a Master’s degree or 
the equivalent of two years of graduate work. 
In the case of technical subjects practical experi- 
ence of equal scope is acceptable in place of the 
advanced academic study. 


2. Experienced high school teachers with the 
required academic training should not be dis- 
criminated against. 

3. All members of the faculty should have 
training in the technique of teaching. 

4. Principals or presidents of the Junior Col- 
leges should be of college calibre and of wide 
experience and vision. 


Definite plans should be made for opportuni- 
ties for study. Sabbatical leave and visits to other 
institutions should be encouraged. 


In order that teachers of high standard may be 
secured an adequate salary schedule should be pro- 
vided, academic freedom should be assured, and 
such regulations of the teaching load should be made 
as shall assure satisfying results. 


While not recommending separate boards of trus- 
tees for the Junior Colleges, the committee feels that 
for some time at least there will be a need for separate 
committees of boards of education to direct these 
schools. 


NURSERY SCHOOLS 

A resolution was introduced in the convention of 
1927, calling attention to the rapidly developing 
movement for establishing schools for the pre-school 
child, and to the organization of the Workers’ Nurs- 
ery Association in Chicago for the purpose of con- 
ducting a labor-owned Nursery School and Research 
Center. It was recommended that the American 
Federation of Teachers endorse this movement and 
give it its support. 

The convention, on recommendation of the reso- 
lutions committee, referred this matter to the Per- 
manent Committee on Education for a year’s obser- 
vation and co-operation, the committee to report at 
the next annual convention. 

Since the Workers’ Nursery Association has post- 
poned the organization of the contemplated school, 
the committee on education has addressed itself to 
the study of the theory of the Nursery Schools and 
to the observation of such Nursery Schools as could 
be observed. 

The Nursery School originated in England having 
as its purpose primarily the care of the children of 
the very poor. In America the movement has been 
broader and more scientific. It has sought to study 
the child as a child, and to discover how children be- 
tween two and four, irrespective of the social status 
of the parents, can best be developed. There are a 
number of schools in America that are a development 
of the creche, that is, they are made up of the chil- 
dren of working mothers or are located in districts 
where homes are poorest. But the American move- 
ment has recognizzed that poverty is not the only 
handicap to the highest development, and a fair pro- 
portion of the American nursery schools is composed 
entirely of children of wealthy or well-to-do homes. 


Students of child welfare have observed that the 
first two years of life and also the kindergarten age 





14 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


have been carefully studied, but that little is known 
of the intervening years from two to four. The psy- 
chologists moreover are beginning to proclaim that 
the years from two to five are the most important in 
the child’s life. ‘The neglect of these critical years 
and the lack of scientific knowledge concerning them 
seemed fraught with danger. 

Hence we find a group of most earnest, sincere 
guardians of childhood engaged in the movement for 
establishing these schools for children from two to 
four. The committee has been deeply impressed with 
the scientific and yet sympathetic spirit of the work- 
ers in the movement. They are working with the 
truly scientific spirit, seeking to discover the laws of 
growth and the proper guidance, not to invent the 
laws and force the children into compliance with 
them. Open minded testing and trying of methods 
and theories are everywhere present. 

In Winnetka, Illinois, the whole idea is on trial. In 
a suburb of favored homes, they are seeking to dis- 
cover the relative value of home and school training 
for these ages. Sixteen children were chosen for each 
type of training. For each child in the school there 
was found a “twin” of the same sex, age and men- 
tality to be brought up at home. At the end of the 
school year these “twins” will be observed by an ex- 
pert, to determine whether the school has demon- 
strated its value, and what that value is. 

The result of this experiment is not yet available, 
but the effort illustrates the frankly experimental 
spirit which the committee found everywhere in this 
movement. 

No CoMPULSION FouND 

Very naturally the association of babies and schools 
has given rise to fears and some rebellion. But the 
fears of suppression, of regimentation, of loss of 
initiative and individuality, were entirely dispelled 
from the minds of the committee as these schools 
were studied and observed. In fact, one felt that 
few homes could be as free from these faults. Al- 
most no compulsion could be observed. Stimulating 
apparatus, play things, games, stories, songs, were 
there, but each child chose for himself what he 
wanted to do. The games, the stories, the songs each 
came at its own particular time but no one was forced 
to join. If one wanted to hop-skip about by himself, 
he might, provided he did not disturb the others. Only 
rest, food and toilet are “standardized.” 

The school day in these schools varies. In some it 
is a three-hour session, in some it is about five, but 


the extra hours are devoted to lunch and nap. The 


school at Hull House makes its session correspond to 
the working day of the mothers. 

In all these schools great stress is put on outdoor 
play, for which appropriate apparatus is furnished, 
During the indoor play time many of the kindergar- 
ten devices are used, Group activities are encour. 
aged, and one of the most valued ends attained is 
that children learn the great art of living together, 
involving co-operation, consideration of the rights of 
others, leadership and initiative. 

STAFF OF EXPERTS AVAILABLE 

A very important feature of the schools is the co- 
operation with the home. As at present organized 
the nursery school has a complete staff of experts at 
its command; physicians, both general and special, 
nurses, nutritionists, psychiatrists, and specialists in 
sociology and psychology, in addition to the specially 
trained teachers. All of these keep the children under 
observation and their advice and guidance is at the 
service of the parents of every child. No child of 
the wealthiest home can have the scientific care that 
these children have, and the ignorant mother, be she 
rich or poor, devoted or careless, is stimulated, and 
directed in intelligent care of the child during the 
many hours it spends at home. 

Much questioning and criticism will inevitably be 
directed at these schools. (This is, of course, good.) 
But to the committee it has seemed that to many 
thousands of children the nursery schools will be of 
inestimable value. There are poor little rich children 
as well as poor little poor children to whom this little 
child’s world with playmates, toys and stories, this 
real world also of eating, sleeping, giving, taking and 
sharing, will be a heaven of happiness as well as 2 
means to healthful growth. 

The Education Committee wishes to recommend: 


That the American Federation of Teachers endorse 
the movement to study the needs of the pre-school 
child and the establishment of schools in which re- 
search, the training of teachers, the relief and instruc- 
tion of parents may be combined with scientific care 
of children. 

Sprit OF SCHOOLS COMMENDED 

That it commend the spirit of truly scientific and 
yet sympathetic altruism shown in the movement and 
in the schools at present being conducted. 

That it recommend that the extension of the pub- 
lic school system to include these schools for the pre- 
kindergarten child be deferred until such a time % 
experiments shall have had time for completion, 4 
tried and approved technique shall have been devel- 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 15 


oped, and a sufficient body of trained teachers shall 
be available; until there is no danger that standardiza- 
tion, indifference or lack of funds shall warp these 
schools out of the idealism that characterizes these 
pioneer schools of the movement. 


THE MORRISON PLAN 

Quite late in the school year, the National Office 
referred to the Education Committee a question that 
had come in from the field concerning the so-called 
Morrison plan of teaching or the unit system. The 
committee made such study as was possible in the 
brief time remaining, and makes the following tenta- 
tive report. It considers that the system has merits 
and recommends that a more thorough study of the 
system. be made by the Education Committee of next 
year. 

There are educators who claim that this system 
marks the most important educational innovation in 
recent years. ‘Teachers who work with it are gen- 
erally enthusiastic, and parents report very satisfac- 
tory progress of their children under the system. 


The method may be described briefly as follows: 


The subject matter of the course is divided into 
units, each of which has a definite objective. A unit 
is presented in a brief survey by the teacher, and an 
outline and list of readings is furnished. A pre-test 
is given to ascertain the pupil’s knowledge or reactions 
to the subject. Then the class room is turned into 
a study room in which individuals or small groups 
work on a specific problem. A large amount of read- 
ing material is furnished and the class room becomes 
a laboratory. Finally the teacher checks to see if the 
unit has been mastered. 


DIFFICULT TO OBTAIN EQUIPMENT 


A number of difficulties present themselves in at- 
tempting to use the method. One of the greatest is 
in organizing the curriculum into teachable units. 
Professor Morrison explains his idea of a unit thus: 
“The whole process of education, of adjustment to 
the objective conditions of life, is made up of units 
of learning, each of which must be mastered or no 
adaptation is made, * * * I¢ follows that the course 
material which we find in the curriculum is valuable 
in education only as it is analyzed into significant 
units of learning which generate adaptations in the 
pupil and in that way contribute to his adjustment. 
* * * The unit is both objective principle or art or 
value and the corresponding subjective transforma- 
tion in the pupil which results in a new attitude or 
special ability or skill.” 


The difficulty of obtaining equipment must also 
be noted. Many books and much mimeographed ma- 
terial are essential. The class room must be arranged 
so that the materials are accessible to the students and 
freedom of movement is possible. 

Another serious difficulty must be faced in the fact 
that more teachers are required. Much of the work 
is individual and the checking of papers may become 
an intolerable burden if the usual pupil load is re- 
quired of the teacher. The method will fail entirely 
if this requirement is not met. Also the teachers of 
this system must acquire a new technique, and they 
must be completely “sold” to the merits of the 
method, if a success is to be made. The system must 
be accepted from within the teaching force, not 
merely imposed upon it. 

Some teachers using the method feel that the 
weak student is often lost in a large class, and that 
there is some loss of stimulation to the retiring stu- 
dent that would come from more frequent class dis- 
cussions. 

METHOD STIMULATING TO PUPIL 

With these difficulties faced and met, the commit- 
tee feels that the method has much to recommend it. 
Among the more important it would list: The em- 
phasis is on pupil activity rather than on teacher 
activity; the method stimulates the student to inde- 
pendent study and extensive reading; memory work 
is minimized; lesson hearing gives way to supervised 
study; individual differences in pupils are more easily 
met by varying the amount of work required; the 
bright pupils are given an opportunity. 

Finally the committee recommends that Boards of 
Education and principals use great care in organizing 
schools under the Morrison Plan. The school plant 
should be modified to meet the needs of the system; 
the entire curriculum must be reorganized into units; 
a new technique must be mastered and accepted by 
the teaching force, and a large corps of teachers must 
be provided. 


PROPAGANDA IN THE SCHOOLS 

When this committee in its report to the last con- 
vention directed attention to the Ely Institute for 
research in Land Economics and Public Utilities, it 
seems to have been a foretaste of revelations of as- 
tounding magnitude. 

The committee felt keenly the danger to-education 
of an organization posing as an institute of research, 
and so closely associated with a great university as to 
be popularly considered a part of it, which was yet 
financed by businesses whose interests were largely 





16 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


concerned with the outcome of their ostensible 
research. 

The committee would be glad to claim, perhaps, 
that it realized not only the danger of the principle, 
but the extent of the practice. But the investigation 
of the Federal Trade Commission of the activities of 
the Power Interests has revealed a situation more omi- 


nous even than the committee feared. 


The spectacle of this nation-wide organization 
spending unlimited effort and money to reach with 
its propaganda every pupil above the eighth grade in 
our schools and colleges, might stimulate anew the 
faith of educators in the importance of their work. 
But the contemptuous attitude expressed toward these 
same educators can do little toward increasing their 
pride in their position. 

We assume the familiarity of the delegates with 
the general trend of the revelations before the Fed- 
eral Trade Commission and merely recall some of the 
high points. 

Power Trust ACTIVE 

The National Electric Light Association, the chief 
propaganda agency of the power interests, has been 
subsidizing the Harvard School of Business Admin- 
istration to the extent of $30,000 a year for its “‘re- 
search staff in public utilities management” and the 
records of the National Electric Light Association 
show that the subsidy is largely to “produce an ade- 
quate text book on public utility corporations” which 
““would better appear under academic auspices than as 
a publication of this association. In addition it is ob- 
vious that such literature bearing the imprint of Har- 
vard University would be quite generally adopted by 
other institutions.” 


Dr. Ely’s Institute at Northwestern has also been 
receiving a subsidy from the National Electric Light 
Association of $25,000 a year, and has apparently 
been delivering a satisfactory return, since Dr. Ely 
felt free to write the Association on February 16 of 
this year, asking additional support to finance a study 
of municipal ownership of utilities in California, 
where the private power interests are attacking pub- 
lic ownership with especial bitterness. Illustrations 
could be multiplied, but the policy is clear. Manag- 
ing Director Aylesworth of the National Electric 
Light Association in addressing the 1923 convention 
of the Mid-West Utilities is quoted in part as say- 
ing: “I would advise any manager here who lives in 
a community where there is a college to get the pro- 
fessor of ecnomics interested in your problems. Have 
him lecture on your subject in his classes. Once ina 


while it will pay you to take such men getting fiye 
or six hundred, or a thousand dollars a year, and give 
them a retainer of one or two hundred dollars a year 
for the privilege of letting you study and consult 
with them. 

“For how, in heaven’s name, can we do anything 
in the schools of the country with the young people 
growing up if we have not first sold the idea of edu- 
cation to the college professor?” 


OccasIONAL “SURPRISES” ENCOUNTERED 

But occasionally even after the organized utilities 
paid their money to an institution some individual 
faculty member would attack them. This happened in 
the case of Dr. Wm. Z. Ripley of Harvard, who pre- 
sumed to question some of the financial practices of 
the public utilities. This was a painful surprise to 
some in the electrical industry. The chairman of the 
committee on Public Relations felt called upon to 
try to explain the unfortunate occurrence at the 1926 
convention of the Public Relations Section. He said 
in part: “There are two aspects of the organization 
of educational institutions which may not be entirely 
clear to us—the individual mule in the team of 
twenty must be allowed to kick over the traces once 
in a while if he will. Otherwise the search for truth, 
the advancement of truth, the very credibility of the 
institution suffers. * * * And so if occasionally a pro- 
fessor breaks loose on stuff that does not please us, let 
us bear in mind always that he may not be express- 
ing the consensus of opinion of his colleagues. * * * 
The one suggestion I would offer is that the professor 
is most amenable to inspiration. If we can be sure that 
we have got hold, with reference to our industry, of 
the will of Jehovah, perhaps we may play the part 
of Jehovah in putting into the mouth of the particu- 
lar Balaam, whom we are asking to go forth, some- 
thing of the truth we would like, which we have a 
right to expect, to have prophesied.” 

But even more serious than this alarming success 
in buying the camouflage of academic prestige and 
supposedly disinterested authority, is their censof- 
ship of high school text books. In a number of 
states, their records show, they have had every text 
on economics used in the schools of the state exam- 
ined, and where statements deterimental to their in- 
terests were found, pressure was brought to bear on 
school authorities to take the book out, or to place 
it on the shelves as a reference book. 

No OpporTUNITY OVERLOOKED 

They boast that they overlook no opportunity ia 

our educational system from the eighth grade up 





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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 17 


Their records show that they utilize every avenue 
they can succeed in reaching in each situation from 
the individual teacher or principal through board 
members and superintendents up to State Superin- 
tendents of Public Instruction. And money for prop- 
aganda, which they take from consumers under the 
heading of operating expenses, seemed to be unlimited. 

Gifford Pinchot says in a letter to the Washington 
Times: ‘Never in the history of America has the 
like of this attack on the soundness and independence 
of education been uncovered. In attacking the in- 
tegrity of the schools it attacks the very basis of 
self-government.” 

At this point let us avoid misunderstanding by 
repeating our declaration of a year ago. It is not a 
question of the sinoerity of any given individual’s 
conviction, or of the right of organized private groups 
to finance research. The growing control of research 
by private endowment does create a difficult social 
problem, but we are not concerned with it here. We 
freely grant that scholars of high integrity may and 
do legitimately serve private foundations. But the 
issue is still one of masquerading under false colors. 
We can well let the Federal Trade Commission speak 
for us. We quote from page 240 of its report: 

“The right of the industry to present its case be- 
fore the bar of public opinion is unquestioned, pro- 
vided such presentation is made openly in the name 
of the industry, and therefore without even a sem- 
blance of deception such as may be involved in sub- 
sidizing authors, teachers, universities, or research or- 
ganizations in order that inspired text books or other 


materials may be given greater credibility because is- 
sued over the name of supposedly impartial writers, 
research organizations or institutions of learning. 
Where this is done the general public may well ques- 
tion whether the scientific attitude and integrity of 
established institutions of higher learning are not be- 
ing undermined. Truly no greater calamity could 
happen either to industry or to the public than for 
educators or educational institutions to become the 
paid mouthpieces of economic groups.” 

The American Federation of Teachers, as the first 
organization of educators publicly to call attention 
to this danger, owes it to itself and to the profession 
it seeks to protect, to protest against the use of our 
schools by any business interest to inculcate in im- 
mature minds principles of economics favorable only 
to those interests. 

The American Federation of Teachers also should 
urge its members to be alert to detect other attempts 
so to use our schools, and to realize their own im- 
portance as the protectors of the minds of the youth 
of the land and hence of the future of the nation. 

LILLIAN ACKERMAN 
Epwarp Davis, 

FLORENCE GREEN, 

Leo R. KLINGE, 

Lucie H, SCHACHT, 
CHARLES B, STILLMAN, 
GEORGE TANNER, 

Jennie A. WILcox, 

Apa ZARBELL, 

Lucr W. ALLEN, Chairman. 





Who Said Jurisdiction? 


By Kate RicHarps O’Hare, of Commonwealth Local 194, American Federation of Teachers 


“Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman! I arise to a point 
of order. This body has no power to deal with this 
matter. It is a jurisdictional question involving my 
craft and I demand that the laws, written and un- 
written, and the ethical codes long established by 
common practice and consent in the American Fed- 
eration of Labor be respected and this matter be left 
to the craft and union under whose jurisdiction it 
comes,” 

In countless labor conclaves and under all sorts of 
conditions this protest has been voiced, and around it 
have raged some of the most bitter contests of organ- 
ized labor. As industry becomes more complex and 
industrial processes more intricate, jurisdictional prob- 
lems will become more acute. When all window 


frames were made of wood there was no quarrel be- 
tween sheet-metal workers and carpenters, and when 
hollow-tile and reinforced concrete construction was 
yet unknown there was no quarrel between bricklay- 
ers and plasterers. But modern methods of construc- 
tion have brought on devastating struggles between 
these crafts, just as other modern processes have in 
other crafts. 
TEACHERS’ CRAFT INVADED 

There are no indications that the time will ever 
come in the American Federation of Labor when it 
will be considered lawful or ethical for the mem- 
bers of one craft to invade the field of labor and 
jurisdiction of another organized craft. That is, in 
theory. But in reality the field of labor and the 





18 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


jurisdiction of my craft is being constantly invaded © 


by members of other crafts. 


There is a union of educators affiliated with the 
A. F. of L.—The American Federation of Teachers— 
and matters of education within the parent body 
logically come under its jurisdiction. Workers’ edu- 
cation has made tremendous strides during the past 
five years. It is the live and vital topic in every state 
federation of labor and international convention. All 
sorts of educational ventures have been undertaken 
by organized labor, and in them all, so far as I have 
been able to observe, the teachers’ union has been al- 
most entirely disregarded, and the teachers’ work has 
been undertaken by hod-carriers, bricklayers, carpen- 
ters, plumbers, blacksmiths and whatnot—anything 
but organized members of the teaching craft. 


During the past five years I have attended at least 
a hundred state federation of labor and international 
conventions. At each, workers’ education has been 
discussed, and at most, educational committees have 
reported, or the president has reported for them, and 
in no instance, so far as I can remember, has the edu- 
cational committee been headed by an educator, or a 
member of the teachers’ union. 


RESULTS NoT SATISFACTORY 

Not a glimmer of the grim humor involved in 
having a barber, painter and boilermaker report on 
educational work seemed to penetrate these labor con- 
claves, and the members of the educational commit- 
tee would have been thunderstruck and outraged had 
I risen to proclaim the jurisdictional rights of my 
union, and told them flatly that they were scabbing 
on members of a sister craft. Yet, when we get 
down to brass tacks, what else is it but the violation 
of jurisdictional rights and scabbing on another 
craft? 

If results were satisfactory one might wink at the 
_ lapses from ethical standards, but they are not. In 
less than half a dozen conventions have education 
committees reported satisfactory progress in workers’ 
education ventures, and when the progress has been 
satisfactory they have had the common sense to hire 
educators to do the work. 

There was a time when teachers were considered 
a sort of third sex, trousered ladies, and sexless spin- 
sters, who being unfit for any real jobs were put in 
charge of the education of the young. And being 
sapless, spineless, and totally lacking “guts” they were 
convenient doormats for the body politic. Unfor- 
tunately there was all too much basis for this general 
attitude; teachers were in the main so smitten with 


Christian meekness that they invited the rest of the 
world to wipe their feet on them, and naturally go 
what they professed to want. 


TEACHERS WITH BACKBONE AND BraIns 

But that state of affairs is rapidly passing. Educi. 
tors with backbone and brains who are fit to be en- 
trusted with the education of modern youth have rec. 
ognized their solidarity with labor, organized their 
own union, and affiliated with the parent body. They 
are fulfilling all the obligations of trade unionism, 
have a definite and much needed contribution to make 
to the progress of labor, and should in all fairness be 
protected in their jurisdictional rights. A labor body 
should find it as abhorrent to its ethical standards and 
sense of justice for members of other crafts to scab 
on teachers as on carpenters, ° painters, cooks and 
waiters. 

Labor education is not a fad nor a new toy. It 
will not drop down like manna from Heaven. It 
must be paid for in hard cash just like any other 
worthwhile thing. It is a vital weapon in the hands 
of the working class and it must be developed by 
trained, skilled craftsmen and not by dabbling am:- 
teurs. If your union or central body can establish 
workers’ classes, do so by all means, but do not de- 
pend on a busy secretary, business agent or a crafts- 
man following his trade to act as instructor. They 
lack the necessary training, they cannot be in touch 
with modern educational methods or material, and 
they cannot hold down two jobs at one time and do 
justice to either. 

BE PRACTICAL AND LOYAL 

When you have organized your study class in 
labor problems be practical as well as loyal to the 
principles of trade unionism. Hire a union teacher 
and pay him a decent wage to act as instructor. The 
results will be far more satisfactory, your venture 
into workers’ education will be sound, sane and scien- 
tific, and your conscience will be free from the feel- 
ing that you are scabbing on members of another 
craft. 


If labor education is worth doing at all it is worth 
doing with the best available skill; honestly and ethi- 


cally; and with well trained union teachers in charg¢- 





Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Cap- 
ital is only the fruit of labor, could never have exi 
if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superidt 
of capital, and deserves much the higher considera 
tion.—By Abraham Lincoln. 





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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Bring It With Education 


Resolution Regarding World Peace Adopted at the Conference of the World Federation of Education 
Associations at Toronto, Canada, in August, 1927 


At the great conference of the World Federation of 
Education Associations which 4,000 leading educa- 
tionists from all over the world attended at Toronto, 
Canada, in August, 1927, one subject of discussion 
was the bringing about of world peace through edu- 
cation. The following resolution presented by the 
Adult Education Section was adopted: 

Whereas, The peace and happiness of the world 
depends largely on education, and 

Whereas, One of the most important means 
of education is that of the reading of the great 
literatures of the world (this includes music, art 
and drama), and 

Whereas, These great literatures have in them 
those correctives as to the values of life, which 
are needed to build up permanent communities 
of intelligent and happy people, which tend to 
strengthen the intellectual and spiritual qualities 
of character, and which keep alive with growing 
force, as citizens become older, the great ideals 
of honor, truth and justice, on which ideals 
alone, contented community life, national demo- 
cratic life and world peace must finally depend, 


means whereby the adult citizens of their con- 
stituencies may be encouraged to continue their 
education throughout life, by 


I. Making the great literatures of the 
world easily available to all adult 
citizens in both country and city 
districts. 

II. By making provision for the advisory 
guidance of the reading of their 
adult citizens. 

That through the messages of the great 
literatures of the world there may be dif- 
fused throughout every country and in 
every section of society, those ideals which 
will vitally mould the lives of their citi- 
zens, enkindle their imaginations, widen 
their interests and sympathies, and by the 
continuing process of education give them 
an inexhaustible source of happiness and 
thus help to bring, by mutual sympathy and 
responsibility, a world peace, based on the 
great principles of honor, truth and justice. 





and 
Whereas, Such_a selection of literature is be- WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.—More than 50 per cent 
ing constantly made more difficult by the in- of Iowa farmers are tenants, Professor Charles E. 
creasing number of papers, magazines and books Payne of Grinnell College, lows, told conferees to the 
of doubtful and mediocre character - building Institute of Politics. 
value, which are being printed; therefore be it Last year, he said, every college in Iowa decreased 
Resolved, That we, the World’s Federation of in attendance and they were unable to meet demands 
Education Associations, do advise the organiza- for scholarship assistance and for positions to enable 
tions herewith affiliated, to consider ways and students to work their way. 








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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





BOOKS 


“There is no frigate like a book 
To bear us lands away.” 
—Emily Dickinson. 








we 


Any sociologist will tell you that crime is pre- 
vented not so much by education as by continuing ed- 
ucation, Reading is the born enemy of the gang. Any 
psychologist will tell you that the quickest and surest 
way to assure continuing education is to develop the 
reading habit—James Weber Linn, Herald-Examiner. 








BETWEEN WAR AND PEACE; Handbook for 
Peace Workers, Florence Brewer Boeckel, Education 
Secretary National Council for Prevention of War, 
The MacMillan Company, 600 pp., postpaid, $2.00. 

The educators of every country have since the war 
been seeking new ways to develop better international 
understanding and a clearer knowledge of the close 
economic and social relationships of the modern 


world. In the new Handbook for Peace Workers 


published this autumn by Macmillan under the title 


“Between War and Peace” by Florence Brewer 
Boeckel, Educational Secretary of the National Coun- 
cil for Prevention of War, the whole story of what 
teachers are doing through their national and inter- 
national organizations and of the experiments which 
are being made in individual schools and classes is for 
the first time fully set forth. The practical character 
of the information it contains is evident in the sub- 
jects with which the chapter on Education and World 
Peace deals. Among them are these: the recent studies 
made to determine what international attitudes are 
being developed by present courses and methods of 
teaching; history text books, what present studies of 
them reveal and what suggestions have been made for 
their improvement; what international educational 
organizations are doing; the plan of the International 
Committee on Intellectual Co-operation; activities of 
teachers’ organizations in the United States; what is 
being done in the normal schools and through foreign 
study and travel and exchange of posts to give teach- 
ers a world point of view; what is being done in the 
universities through the regular courses and in extra- 
academic activities; what the schools are doing; de- 
tailed suggestions for teaching international good- 
will not only through history, geography and civics 
but through all other regular school courses; projects 
in international goodwill which various schools have 


carried out; programs for special days; information in 
regard to where material can be gotten for class 
room and program work; information in regard to 
fellowships, Opportunities for student foreign travel 
and foreign correspondence and bibliographies of 
books on education and for children. The book is 
throughout a book of facts not exhortation, and will 
be invaluable for teachers. 





AMERICAN COMMUNISM, by James Oneal, 
Rand Book Store, New York. Reviewed by A. J. 
Muste, Chairman of Faculty, Brookwood Labor 
College. 

The most important question for sincerely pro- 
gressive and radical people interested in the American 
labor movement, is how anyone who is not either re- 
actionary or Communist can best function in the 
movement today. That question is not answered in 
Mr. Oneal’s book. Doubtless it will not be answered 
by any book. It will be worked out in experience, 
sad and difficult experience for the most part in the 
next few years, and then some one may write a book 
about it telling just how and why it happened. 

Nevertheless Mr. Oneal’s book renders an impor- 
tant service for it does answer another troublesome 
question with which many find themselves con- 
fronted, namely, “But if you are not a reactionary 
what else can you honestly do but side with the 
Communists?” This book makes it clear why hosts 
of people in the. labor movement and in sympathy 
with it cannot be Communist any more than they 
can be reactionary, and does it almost entirely out 
of the record and the mouths of the Communists 
themselves. 

The case that Oneal builds up would run, very 
briefly, as follows: 

1. That Communist tactics were evolved out of 
Russian experience under a brutal Czarism and have 
been arbitararily and mechanically applied to West- 
ern European and American conditions, whereas they 
are not applicable to the latter any more than tac- 
tics evolved in the United States would have been 
suitable to the Russian movement. 

2. That in the period immediately after the wat 
the Communists deliberately, on the showing of their 
own records, pursued both on the political and the 
trade union field a policy of “splits” in order to put 
out of business all labor organizations by them fe 
garded as reactionary and to build up “pure” organi- 
zations that would carry on armed conflict with 
capitalism in “the present epoch of acute civil wat” 
as the Communists believed it to be; that so far 





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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 21 


he United States is concerned at any rate this was a 
udicrous and tragic misreading of the situation; and 
that therefore the policy of “splits” led only to ter- 
rible weakening of the American movement in its 


attle against reaction. 


3. That when the policy of “splits” was aban- 
Joned and that of the “united front” adopted, the 
ommunists in “co-operating” with the other labor 
organizations for the achievement of specific ends 
Shabitually placed in the forefront not the achievement 
of these ends but the preaching of Communist doc- 
trine and the “capture” of the organizations with 
Ewhich they were “co-operating,” and again did so 
deliberately. Thus Lenin himself advises Workers 
Party members “to practice trickery, to employ cun- 
ning and to resort to illegal methods—to sometimes 
even overlook or conceal the truth” in order to pene- 
trate trade unions. 

4, That by this and similar measures such as per- 
sistent, personal, violent, unrestrained villification of 
practically all persons in positions of leadership in 
the labor movement they have left a trail of bitter- 
ness and personal rancor which has seriously depleted 
the energies of the movement. 


5. That Communists in the trade unions and 
other labor organizations always owe first allegiance 


to Moscow, have to act in concert and in strict obe- © 


dience to orders, and that thus there develops some- 
thing more insidious and destructive even than dual 
unionism, namely, a “dual allegiance” which operates 
It is pointed out that no 
organization can for any length of time maintain its 
self-respect, vitality and efficiency in the face of its 
actual problems which is thus dominated by another 
organization which exercises direct influence but is 
not charged with direct responsibility and whose 
aims are not the same. 

6. That, for whatever reason, the Communists 
have not produced results, they cannot point to con- 
crete gains achieved by the workers nor to a strength- 
ening of labor organization and morale as a result of 
their efforts. It is not much to the point to reply 
that this is due to sabotage on the part of the Right 
Wing, since the latter can too readily make the re- 
tort that in recent years all its efforts have been sabot- 
aged by the Lefts. 

Now, of course, the debaters on the other side are 
not without arguments in reply, but facts remain 
‘ven though you can argue against them enthusias- 
tically and even logically. It may be pointed 
out that there ‘have been serious evils and short- 


in a concealed manner. 


comings in many parts of the labor movement and 
that these are responsible to a great extent for the ex- 
istence of Communism and Left Wingism or at least 
for the fact that thousands of workers in the New 
York needle trades, for example, follow Communist 
leadership though they are no more Communists 
than Secretary Kellogg. This is a point which Mr. 
Oneal probably stresses insufficiently though he does 
not fail to mention it. It is true that the methods 
employed by the Communists have often been em- 
ployed by others including their opponents. One may 
seriously question, may deeply regret, some of the 
means being employed at the present time in the fight 
against Communism and believe that the results will 
come back to plague the labor movement. One may 
believe that a movement which does not have an hon- 
est and serious “opposition” is in a dangerous state, 
and that any such “opposition” would encounter 
vehement opposition whatever its tactics might be, 
and much more. Yet when all is said and done no 
one can regard the present situation objectively with- 
out realizing that either the Left Wing must radically 
transform itself or its power in the American move- 
ment must and will be broken, and that it is probably 
too late now for the former to happen. Also, to say 
to one who seeks to confront the American scene 
honestly, realistically and intelligently that if he does 
not want to be a reactionary he must be a Communist 
is simply funny, and hardly even that. If a surgeon 
has a delicate operation to perform on a patient’s 
brain he does not have to set about doing it with a 
cleaver because that happens to be the only tool at 
hand; he may set about trying to find another and 
failing that might not be quite idiotic in deciding to 
let nature do the best it could rather than himself 
assuming responsibility for bringing about certain 
death by the use of an instrument utterly unfitted 
for the job. 

Mr. Oneal accomplishes other results than the one 
we have discussed. He shows, for example, how 
stupid and brutal and unnecessary were most of the 
government’s dealings with Communism in the palmy 
days of Palmer and Daugherty and to date. Except 
for an occasional slip he has done it all in a tone of 
moderation that seems truly remarkable in one who 
has been so intimately connected with the strenuous, 
troubled developments which he records. Whether or 
not one agrees with his conclusions, anyone who pre- 


tends to keep at all abreast of developments in the 
field of labor will have to read and reckon with his 
book. 





22 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


The American Teacher 


Democracy in Education Education for Democracy 
Published Monthly, except July and August 
Official Organ 
THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
Office of Publication, Leader Building, Oklahoma City, Okla. 
Editorial Office: 
$06 South Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois 
Frorence Curtis HANSON, Secretery-Treasurer and Editor 








At the time of expiration, a bill will be found in the copy. 
Subscribers are requested to give prompt notice of changes 
in address. 





Remittances should be made in postal money-order, express 
order, draft, stamps or check. 


SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, TWO DOLLARS FOR THE YEAR 
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Advertising rates made known on application. 





EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 
President 
Mary C. Barker, Atlanta No. 89, 685 Myrtle Street, N. E., 
Atlanta, Georgia. 
Legislative Representative and Vice-President 

Serma M. BorcHarpt, Washington No. 8; 1741 Park Road, 

N. W., Washington, D. C. 

Vice-Presidents 

Lucm W. ALLEN, Chicago Women No. 3; 1803 Livingston 

Avenue, Evanston, Illinois. 
R. W. Everett, Sacramento No. 31; 2740 Portola 

Sacramento, California 
Amy A. Fox, Minneapolis No. 59; 2809 Park Avenue, Minne- 
apolis, Minnesota. 

ABRAHAM Lerxowrrz, New York No. 5; Grand Avenue, East 

Elmhurst, New York, N. Y. 
A. J. Musre, Brookwood No. 189; Brookwood, Katonah, N. Y. 
FroreNce Roop, St. Paul No. 28; 328 Cedar Street, St. Paul, 

Minnesota. 

W. B. SATTERTHWAITE, Local No. 200; 


Seattle, Washington 
W. J. Scorr, Atlanta No. 89; 212 Kings Highway, Decatur, 
Georgia. 
F. G. Srecxzr, Chicago No. 2; 1618 Lake Avenue, 
Wilmette, Illinois. 
CuHaaies B. Stmiman, Chicago No. 2; 827 Ridge Avenue, 
Evanston, Illinois. 
Western Organizer 
E. E. ScHWARTzTRAUBER, Portland No. 111; 
Box 68, Portland, Oregon 
Secretary-Treasurer 
FioreENce Curtis Hanson, Chicago Women No. 3; 506 South 
Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois—Telephone Harrison 2950. 
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
Orcanrep Appar 15, 1916 
Affilisted With the American Federation of Labor 


Way, 


1837 12th Ave West 


R. F. D. 5, 





Fear not freedom but oppression in the handling 
of children. Teachers should have no fear of giving 
children more freedom. Happiness is the goal and 
happiness is the condition of a soul which responds 
to the beautiful things in life freely—Angelo Patri. 


TO ORGANIZE IS THE FIRST STEP 
God grants liberty to those who love it and 
are always ready to guard and defend it.—Daniel 

Webster. 

The program of the American Federation of Teac 
ers for 1928-29 contains some very vital projects} 
the basic thing for us to consider before all else} 
organization. Your organization is a living thing; j 
either grows or declines. Your officers and commi 
tees have definite plans. With your co-operation the 
can be made effective and the influence of the Amen 
can Federation of Teachers for freedom and deme 
racy greatly increased. 

The American Federation of Teachers is what it 
members make it. How much are you interested is 
the ideals of social justice, of the square deal, of th 
protection for the oppressed and repressed? Of what 
concern to you are our present problems of restoring 
to the teachers of Seattle their fundamental rights 
American citizens, of fighting propaganda in tk 
schools, of securing sound tenure laws in Indiana and 
Washington, of eliminating unfair, narrow, pr; 
udiced contracts? Upon how much these things mea 
to YOU depend the power and effectiveness of m 
Federation. 

The American Federation of Teachers must mait- 


_ tain two supplementary kinds of growth: it mut 


constantly increase its membership and it must rende 
increasingly efficient service to its membership and it 
profession. Its service to education and to society i 
in proportion to its membership and its efficiency; 
its efficiency depends upon you, your interest, yout 
whole hearted belief in your organization’s purposs 

How are you going to respond? There is self-inter- 
est as well as altruism in the success of this movement. 
The more you put in, the more you will get out. Th 
more you give, the better investment in your organi- 
zation you have. = 





ORGANIZATION FUND 

The Executive Council of the American Feder 
tion of Teachers at its meeting in Chicago, June 2, 
1928, assigned to Mr. F. G. Stecker and the Chicag? 
Federation of Men Teachers, Local No. 2, in ® 
sponse to their generous offer, the work of raising # 
fund to carry on the organization program of t 
National Office. ‘The committee has been forme 
and has sent out to the officers of all locals the fol- 


lowing letter: 
September 12, 1928. 
To Our Fellow Officers: 
The need of an organization fund was seressed by the 19 
convention of the American Federation of Teachers. The 





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ecutive Council in planning the year’s work accepted the offer 
by representatives of Chicago Men, Local No. 2, to undertake 
a drive for funds. A committee has been created with the 
support of the Chicago Men, in accordance with authority 
from the National Executive Council. 

The committee proposes to obtain during the present school 
year, a fund of twenty thousand dollars for organization work 
by the American Federation of Teachers in developing new 
locals. Contributions will be sought from members of the 
American Federation of Teachers, from friends solicited by 
members, from local treasuries, from campaigns conducted by 
locals, and from labor bodies who may be interested in a local 
organization project. 

This preliminary announcement is made at the beginning of 
the school year when the locals are resuming their activities, 
that plans for participation by the local in this campaign may 
be included in the year’s program. The committee will wel- 
come suggestions. 





& 2 


at ity Yours for a larger National, 

ed ia - J. A. MEapeE, 
J. R. Moore, 

f the F. G. STECKLER, 


Fund Committee. 





ring It is pleasant to report that the first response has 
its sm come from a member of Chicago Men, Local No. 2, 
tell and that one local has signified its intention to con- 
}a i tribute at least five dollars per member. 
iw PROGRESSIVE SCHOOLS IN LATIN-AMERICA 
yout The influence of the “progressive” schools move- 
_§B ment of Europe and the United States is growing 
ain fe ‘@Pidly in Latin-America. Many prominent educa- 
must tS, some of whom have received training abroad, 
nde 2*¢ clamoring for modern educational reforms. Leg- 
dis “lation providing for the possibility of experimen- 
tyisq™ ‘ition in the schools has been passed. In Mexico, 
acy; Atgentina and Chile experimental work has already 
yout been carried on in public schools, while in Colombia 
of 22d Uruguay private schools are being run success- 
te. fully along modern lines. Discussions of the new 
ent. ™ethods and their attendant problems are filling 
The Many of the Latin-American educational journals, 
ani- especially those of the Argentine and Chilean branches 
of the International League for New Education. 
The outstanding features of this new educational 
@ movement in Latin-America and a description of some 
2 the progressive” schools are presented in an article 
' >y Miss Heloise Brainerd, Chief of the Division of 
40M Education of the Pan-American Union, which ap- 
ce peared in the May Bulletin of the Union. Educators 
- interested in securing a copy of this article should 
d apply to the Division of Education, Pan-American 
r Union, Washington, D. C. 





“I will never believe that Providence has sent a 
few men into the world ready, booted and spurred 
» tide, and millions ready, booted and bridled to be 
ridden.” Rumble, 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


ORGANIZATION 


If the teachers of America are to become a real 
factor in the great labor movement, they must be 
organized. The American Federation of Teachers is a 
great educational organization but it reaches a piti- 
fully small number of teachers. That number must be 
increased both for the sake of the teachers them- 
selves, and for the sake of the American labor move- 
ment. 

Teachers rank with farmers and unskilled laborers 
in their lack of organization. Because of this unor- 
ganized condition, teachers, farmers nad unskilled 
laborers have lost pace with the general advance made 
by other occupations during the last decade or two. 


Business executives, professional men and skilled 
tradesmen have made great gains in income and better 
working conditions which includes shorter hours of 
labor. Even unskilled laborers have secured shorter 
hours. Farmers and teachers, the poorest organized 
of all skilled workers, work as long as they did ten 
or twenty years ago, and have made little, if any, 
progress in the matter of real income. 

An investigation in my own school district reveals 
that teachers are receivihg considerably less per pupil 
hour than they were ten or even twenty years ago. 
The small increases in salary are more than offset by 
the longer teaching day imposed and the fifty per 
cent increase in the number of pupils each teacher is 
required to handle. I believe this situation is typical 
of the average school. What other worker in busi- 
ness, profession or trade is receiving less per unit of 
product than he was ten or fifteen years ago? 

The above condition, in my opinion, is due very 
largely to the fact that teachers are dealing with their 
employers as individuals. Contracts are made by 
school directors and accepted by the teachers. The 
latter are not consulted as to the terms, but are sub- 
ject to the whims of any groups who happen to be 
elected or appointed to these boards of education. 


There are other ways in which teachers suffer by 
not having stronger organizations to protect them. 
In most sections of the country teachers are told 
they can not expect higher salaries because there are 
hundreds of unemployed teachers waiting to take 
their positions. Notwithstanding this, an ever increas- 
ing number of normal schools and colleges of educa- 
tion are turning out a greater supply of teachers each 
year. How different is the situation in the medical 
profession. The physicians, through their very strong 
national organization, have forced the requirements so 
high that fewer men are entering the profession and 



























































24 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


many medical colleges have closed their doors. If you 
doubt the effectiveness of organization, compare the 
incomes of the fifty leading educators in any large 
city with those of fifty leading physicians. 


Less than twenty per cent of the teachers belong 
to any national organization that includes teachers 
in its membership, and a far smaller fraction belong 
to any organization that has the economic welfare 
of the class room teacher as one of its major purposes. 
The great mass of teachers is for all intents and pur- 
poses wholly unorganized. 

Why does the American Federation of Teachers 
not organize the teachers of the United States? It 
certainly is not because the teachers do not need 
organization. It must be either that the teachers do 
not want to belong to our organization or that we do 
not want them, or want them sufficiently to make the 
necessary effort to get them. Most teachers can not 
be said to have refused us for they have not been 
asked. They know nothing about us. A very small 
minority of teachers knows that the American Fed- 
eration of Teachers exists. 

That puts it squarely up to us. Have we made the 
necessary effort to bring the mass of the class room 
teachers of this country into our organization? Of 
course we could not have done this over night. But are 
we growing at a satisfactory rate? If not, is it be- 
cause we have made all reasonable efforts to increase 
our organization and failed, or is it because we have 
neglected the organization program so essential to a 
thriving union? 

By investigation into the activities of other unions, 
I find that we are not making a comparable effort in 
organization. Several local unions in my own city 
employ one or two full time organizers in addition 
to their regular officers. If a local union, with a mem- 
bership of less than a thousand, considers it necessary 
to have an organizer, how can the American Federa- 
tion of Teachers, a national organization, justify its 
lack of a better organization program? 

The report of the organization committee for last 
year shows very satisfactory results, considering the 
small means at the disposal of the committee. A num- 
ber of new locals were established largely through the 
efforts of the secretary-treasurer who took what lit- 
tle time she could from her office to visit a few cities 
where some interest in organization had been shown. 
How many more locals might have been added if she 
could have spent the whole year in such work? 


Locals, once started, have languished, and some 
have died. This may be due to various causes. In 


some cases, the enthusiastic individuals who started 
the locals have left their respective school system; 
before the unions had received a good start and their 
members fully educated. In others, hostile employ. 
ing boards have destroyed a union too weak to stand 
alone. The national organization should be in a pos 
tion to encourage and assist these new locals until 
they become firmly established. 

The officers of the Federation realize the need of 
real organization work. ‘They lack only the fund, 
If we are to become a great national organization 
with locals in every state, we must supply the money 
for an adequate organization program. 


The dues in teachers unions are lower than in any 
unions I have observed. The annual dues do not aver- 
age more than $10.00. In some of the unions in other 
crafts the dues are nearly that much per month 
From $20.00 to $50.00 per year is a very common 
fee for the privilege of belonging to a union in other 
crafts. It is safe to assume that the average trad 
unionist pays more for the organization program, 
alone, of his union than the average teacher pays for 
all purposes. Perhaps we are getting all we pay for. 


Labor conditions in the United States are approach- 
ing a crisis. In a period of so called prosperity with 
full production, it is estimated that nearly 4,000,000 
are unemployed. Efficiency methods including speed- 
ing up processes and labor saving devices are adding 
to the number constantly. Even among teachers the 
problem of unemployment is becoming acute. The 
crisis must and will be met. The degree of organiza- 
tion attained by the workers will determine how fav- 
orable for them the settlement will be. It is essential 
that the teachers of the country be well organized 
that they may be in a position to have some influence 
in determining the future of not only the teachers 
but all workers. 


Let’s get together and supply the funds for a real 
organization program for the American Federation of 
Teachers. Let’s give every teacher in the United 
States a chance to know about us and an invitation 
to join us. Let’s make the teachers organization ont 
of the strongest and largest groups affiliated with the 
American Federation of Labor. 


W. B. SATTERTHWAITE, 
President of Seattle Teachers Union No. 200 





All who have meditated on the art of governing 
mankind have been convinced that the fate of em 
pires depends on the education of youth.—Aristolle 





Labor, 
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RrFrFR SB FR 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Shall Brookwood and Academic Freedom Die? 


By ABRAHAM LEFKOWITZ 
Vice President American Federation of Teachers 


Labor, as the ardent champion of academic free- 

dom, of teachers’ rights, of fair play and of educa- 
tional democracy has earned the gratitude of the 
thinking and progressive teachers of America. How 
shocked then must these teachers have been when 
they read that the Executive Council of the American 
Federation of Labor, on the basis of a one-sided and 
partial report, and without even a semblance of a 
hearing, publicly attacked Brookwood Labor College, 
or local No. 189 of the A. F. of T., as an institution 
that was communistic, anti-religious and a dissemi- 
nator of propaganda antagonistic to the American 
Federation of Labor. To say that the action of the 
A. F. of L. astounded the teachers and friends of labor 
education is to understate the situation. Progressive 
labor was momentarily stupefied if not stunned! 
. First, the action of the A. F. of L. violated every 
principle of fair play and in no way harmonizes with 
the fine sense of fairness we know the members of the 
council to possess and because it is utterly out of 
harmony with its past conduct. The action was ad- 
mittedly taken on a partial report by Brother Mat- 
thew Woll—a report that was unauthorized by the 
Committee on Education or the Executive Council 
of the Workers Education Bureau. 

Second, this attack was made without the slightest 
knowledge of the international or of the Workers’ 
Education Bureau, with which Brookwood is affiliated, 
as well as without the knowledge of the Board of 
Directors or the members of the faculty. 

Third, if any dissatisfaction were felt by the Exec- 
utive Council with the teaching at Brookwood they 
should have called the matter to the attention of the 
American Federation of Teachers before any action 
Was even contemplated, much less consummated. 


A BLow at ACADEMIC FREEDOM 

Fourth, however unjustified and unfounded this 
attack may be, it has, nevertheless, done great harm 
‘0 an institution that has brought nothing but credit 
upon our international and glory to labor education in 
this country, 

Fifth, the attack is out of harmony with labor’s 
Protestations of academic freedom since it is the 
Worst blow ever struck at academic freedom by 
tither friend or enemy. In the face of such a blow, 
how can the A. F. of L. ever again honestly claim 


its championship of the principle of academic free- 
dom? 

At whom did the A, F. of L. strike this blow? At 
Brookwood Labor College. Brookwood, which is un- 
questionably the foremost successful experiment in 
labor education in the United States. At Brookwood 
with its international reputation, with a faculty 
100% organized and thoroughly loyal to the ideals 
of the labor movement—a faculty composed of men 
and women of outstanding scholarship and educa- 
tional initiative! At Brookwood with a board of 
directors composed of men and women prominent in 
the fields of labor and education, whose loyalty to 
the ideals of labor can hardly be questioned even by 
Matthew Woll and his National Civic Federation, 
American Legion or Key Men of America. 


Wuat Was Motive? 


Brookwood, must be judged by its product. Though 
too young to be judged fairly, it can point 
with pride to its students who stand out in all parts 
of the country for their devotion to labor. Charles 
Reed in Salem and Massachusetts; Josephine Kasczor, 
a 1928 graduate who has had her baptism of fire in 
New Bedford and won laurels rare indeed even for old 
timers; Julius Hochman, Manager of the Joint Board 
of the I. L. G. W. U. who rendered yeoman service 
in ridding their union of the destructive communist 
element; Mary Goff, whose fine organizing work is 
justly praised; A. Hoffman and Margaret Woll whose 
pioneering work in the South may be pregnant with 
untold growth and strength for labor in that virgin 
field; Israel Mufson and his ‘Philadelphia Labor Col- 
lege; Leonard Craig and his educational work in 
Pennsylvania, and a host of others too numerous to 
mention. 


What could have been the motive for this unjusti- 
fiable attack? Much as I regret to say it, I believe it 
was due to a mistaken routine action and over-con- 
fidence in the impartiality and integrity of Brother 
Woll. Evidently the credulity of Brother Woll and his 
precipitateness explain much. If not, can the attack 
be due to the fear of the leading position wen by 
Brookwood without A. F. of L. endorsement? Can it 
be the fear that A. F. of L. policies can not stand 
criticism and Brookwood, as an educational institu- 
tion, is essentially critical? Brookwood is critical and 





26 





faces all issues fairly but fearlessly. Neither Brook- 
wood nor any member of its faculty believes in pro- 
pagandist education. Brookwood has been visited and 
inspected by hundreds of men and women in the labor 
movement, some its bitterest opponents, and yet it has 
won nothing but praise. At the last A. F. of L. con- 
vention President John Sullivan of the New York 
State Federation of Labor lauded Brookwood and its 
works as did other labor leaders, notably President 
McMahon of the United Textile Workers. Brookwood 
has nothing to fear. It craves investigation but its 
friends resent secret and unfair attacks from what- 
ever source. 

And to think that this attack came at a time 
when the Dean of Brookwood—A. J. Muste—had 
just completed negotiations for adding a local with 
thousands of members to the A. F. of L. Would that 
the American Federation of Labor had thousands of 
such traitors and then possibly its numerical strength 
would be increasing and not decreasing. Would that 
the labor movement had more traitors like Dean 
Muste of Brookwood! Loyalty to. the ideals of the A. 
F. of L. by all means. But does loyalty mean slavish 
subservience to the prevailing policies as expressed by 
the A. F. of L.? If so, to which policies? To all of 
them? If so, why does not the Council attack those 
Federations which have ignored its political policy? A 
movement that can not stand criticism at the hands of 
its friends is hardly worth preserving. It is time that 
the spirit, the courage and the idealism of the leaders 
of labor came to the fore instead of the hysteria and 
fear unfortunately engendered by the stupid and inane 
acts of the fanatic communists. 


Brookwoop Must Not Dir 

The autonomy of the American Federation of 
Teachers has been attacked by the hasty and ill-ad- 
vised action of the Executive Council of the A. F. of 
L. Not only have we been ignored in the effort to 
discipline one of our locals but the attack was carried 
out in a manner unworthy of the fine idealism and 
the sense of fair play I know the members of the 
Executive Council have heretofore manifested. I can 
hardly conceive of Brothers Green, Noonan, Morrison 
or Tobin maintaining that an institution which had 
not the faintest inkling of the preferred charges, 
which had not been given a chance to be heard, and 
which had to learn of the attack upon it through the 
public press, has been given a square deal according 
to the labor idea of a “square deal.” As a loyal son 
of labor, I earnestly call upon the members of the 
Executive Council to rectify their error and to undo 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 

















































in their straightforward and manly manner the dam Man. 
age done to Brookwood. Only by such action 
they rehabilitate themselves in public esteem. 

I also call upon the friends of academic freedg 
of labor autonomy, of labor education and of justig 
to support Brookwood in its demands for a fair an 
impartial public hearing upon the charges brought by 
Brother Woll who can know but little about an insti. 
tution he has never even visited. 

Brookwood must not and will not perish. Its work 
in the field of labor education is too vital and too nec- 
essary for both labor and the cause of education. Le 
labor and education as typified by Brookwood unit 
to build a bigger, more vital, more effective labr 
movement which, with its organized fellow worken 


in other lands, will help usher in a world of peace 
and brotherhood. 


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TEACHERS ADVISED TO STAND FOR RIGHT 

Walter Lippman, chief editorial writer for th 
New York World, in an address delivered recently 
“American Inquisitors” at the University of Virgins 
gave some good advice to the teachers of the country 
that might also be accepted by citizens in every wal 
of life. 

Mr. Lippman during his address declared tht 
“teachers will be slaves if they act like slaves.” He 


require 
the teac 
average 
from m 
instance 


further stated that “it might be argued that th MBnot mis 
teaching profession could establish its independence if not sup 
it were better prepared to stand up and fight.” Mr Mi they us 
Lippman stated that he believed that is true and said Ming wh 
that he believed “the great body of educators did not tors of 
realize the power they could exercise if they chose not anythin 
to endure this perpetual bullying from ignot-@tendent 
amuses.” . impose, 

In other words, Mr. Lippman believes that if the Just 
teachers of the country were organized into a gresti™ throug! 
body and dealt collectively instead of individually protect 
that they could exercise a great influence over th worker 
country. zation 

Continuing, Mr. Lippman said: ‘‘Weakness alway’ & jurisdic 
tempts the bully. If teachers cower they will be bul- @ has tho 
lied. The tragedy and absurdity of the thing is th tion to 
they could so easily rally a following if they had th Local 
imagination to realize how strong they are. If the in man 
chose to say they would not endure the intolerabl @ dition 
indignities to which they are subjected they ing col 
soon command a new kind of respect in the nation.” §@ “actin; 

Mr. Lippman is an intelligent man and his positiot : 


as chief editorial writer on one of the largest dail 
newspapers in the world marks him as a conse 









an. We do not believe that Mr. Lippman is espe- 
ially interested in labor organizations, yet he realizes 
at if the teachers of this country are to secure any 
elief from the conditions under which they are 
orced to labor, that this relief must come from their 
bwn efforts. 

Taken as a whole, the teachers of the country are 
he lowest paid class of workers that we have. Some 
ight argue that teaching is a profession, but pro- 
ession or avocation or any other name that you care 
o call it, the teachers of the country are wage-earners 
nnd are receiving pitifully low compensation for their 
fforts. 

Whenever a man or woman selects teaching as his 
or her life work there is a certain responsibility at- 
ched thereto that the average worker does not have 
o assume. First comes a peculiar preparation for the 
job; along with this preparation there must be added 
a great deal of patience, for patience is a virtue with 
the teacher. Whether the pupil be a tot just entering 
the school, is a high school student or is a young man 
or woman in college, the same amount of patience is 
required; then there is a certain dignity attached to 


























IGHT 
r the 
tly on 


untry 
walk 





from many of the everyday affairs of the world; for 
instance, political activity and the teacher’s job do 
not mix well; just why it is hard to say. Teachers are 
not supposed to mix in politics too much; if they do 
they usually do not teach long. So the task of teach- 
ing when finally summed up means that the instruc- 
tors of our children are supposed to teach and accept 
anything in the way of abuse that parents, superin- 
tendents or any of the officials above them care to 
impose, 

Just as the hundreds of craftsmen scattered 
throughout this land of ours have organized for their 
Protection and for the protection of their fellow 
workers, so can the teachers. There is an organi- 
zation of school teachers operating under the 
jurisdiction of the American Federation of Labor that 
has thousands of the teachers who had “‘the imagina- 
tion to realize how strong they are” as its members. 
Local organizations of school teachers are to be found 
Mmany cities today. Needless to say that the con- 
dition of the teachers who are organized and are deal- 
ing collectively are much better than those who are 
“acting like slaves,” and the school system in these 
cities stand at the top round of the ladder. 

It is admitted by all that the average teacher has as 
much if not more influence on the lives of our chil- 


’ He 
t the 


nce if 









d said 








e & 


ezs 


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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


27 


dren than do the parents themselves. They take the 
youngster, teach it the fundamentals of an education; 
still later as the child grows and develops the teacher 
imparts the more serious things to the child, and later 
in college in finishing the education it is the teacher 
who puts the final touch on the young man or woman 
and starts them off on their careers. 

Just why parents should want their children taught 
by a class of men and women who themselves are 
cowed is hard to understand. To give a child confi- 
dence and courage, the teacher must have a goodly 
share of it himself. Still our teachers working under 
the conditions, for the salaries or wages that they are 
receiving, cannot be overblessed with either. 

The salvation of the teacher is with the teacher. If, 
as Mr. Lippman says, “the great body of educators 
would realize the power they could exercise, they 
would not have to endure this perpetual bullying 
from ignoramuses.” And if they would only awake 
and use this power the teaching profession would 
“command a new kind of respect from the nation,” 
and a bigger and better influence would be a gift to 
our children as a result of this awakening.—Editorial, 


Nashville Labor Advocate. 





FOR A CONSIDERATION 


Arthur Brisbane’s column “Today,” which is car- 
ried in scores of newspapers, recently contained the 
following paragraph: 

“Every farm should have electric power, at little 
cost, and would have it if people had brains enough 
to control their own power supplies. 

“However, since they haven’t brains enough, they 
should be thankful for men like Insull and others that 
supply brains for a consideration.” 

The investigation of the power trust a short time 
ago by the Federal Trade Commission would indicate 
to us that while they can not furnish brains them- 
selves, these interests can find plenty of puppets in 
our schools and colleges who are willing to mold the 
brains of children for a consideration.—Locomotive 
Engineers Journal. 

When the educational force is criticized in this 
severe way by a trade union magazine of the character 
of the Locomotive Engineers Journal, shall we not be 
stirred to greater determination to carry on the fight 
against propaganda in the schools, and to prove to 
society that there is one group of organized teachers 
who will resent this insult to all educators as evi- 
denced by the contemptuous attitude of the Power 
Trust interests and the general public comment? 






































THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


It's the First Step That Counts 


By FLORENCE Roop, S#. Paul Women No. 28, Vice-President American Federation of Teachers 


Early in the school year of 1927-28, the Federation 
of Women Teachers decided that salaries in Saint Paul 
must begin an upward trend. No increase had been 
granted since 1919 and the schedule in effect was 
shamefully low, which meant not only an injustice 
to the teachers, but through the gradual loss of good 
teachers, the ultimate disintegration of the schools. 

Owing to the peculiar method of financing the city, 
a story which is too long to tell, by which an iron- 
clad tax limit is set for all city expenditures, the 
establishment of a decent salary schedule will be a 
long campaign, a campaign of education of the pub- 
lic, and some teachers; and possibly a campaign for 
the amendment of the city charter to bring about the 
revision of the tax situation before there will be suffi- 
cient money for adequate financing of the schools. 

With the Charter Commission of the city at work 
on a new charter any effort to amend the present one 
seemed inexpedient. Nor did it appear advisable to 
undertake any move which meant an increase in taxa- 
tion. But the Federation of Women Teachers could 
see no reason why money at the disposal of the city, 
not otherwise appropriated, should not be placed in 
the salary budget of the Department of Education for 
the year 1929, for the express purpose of increasing 
the salaries of teachers now in the corps. 

First STEPs TAKEN 

In response to an invitation to attend a conference 
meeting, delegates from the Federation of Men Teach- 
ers and the Principals Club met with the Salary Com- 
mittee of the Federation and it was decided that the 
attempt should be made to secure some increase for 
the year 1929. Further than this no plans were made. 
The understanding was that this was the first step 
toward a better salary schedule but time when such 
a program should be undertaken and the method of 
carrying it forward were left for later consideration. 

One of the first points on which agreement was 
reached was that the Parent-Teacher Associations of 
the city, a well-organized group, should be asked to 
co-operate with the Teachers’ Joint Salary Committee. 
The response from the Council of Parent-Teacher 
Associations and from the school associations through- 
out the city was most encouraging. Their delegates, 
parents and not teachers, were seated as members of 
the committee and their presence and assistance per- 
haps did more than any other one thing to bring suc- 
cess to the committee’s work, 


Tt has never been a very difficult task to show Sai 
Paul teachers the necessity for paying for what th 
want. When the teachers returned from the Christm, 
vacation, they were met by letters from the s; 
committee announcing its complete organization a 
its purpose. Salary Letter Number One was 
followed by number two in which a request was 
for financial backing and the exact grounds give 
for the request. Sufficient money was in within 
short a time that the Salary Committee could go for 
ward with its plans. This method of keeping tk 
teachers fully informed as to progress made was con- 
tinued throughout the entire time, closing with a le. 
ter sent the last week in August to the home addre 
of each teacher announcing the fact that the nece:. 
sary amount had been placed in the 1929 budget oj 
the Department of Education to provide an increas 
for every teacher now in the corps, and that it could 
be used for that purpose alone. 

Such a campaign means a number of things. 

It means organization, first of all. Unless there at 
already going groups in existence time is used in th 
formation of a functioning committee which should 
have been spent on the work in hand. Organized 
groups know their workers and do not need to risk the 
success of their enterprises by trusting them to u- 
tried persons. 


CoMMITTEE UNTIRING  ~ 

Teachers have too long been satisfied with the dol 
lar-a-year type of association which pays them about 
twenty-five cents on their investment. When they 
secured their tenure law Saint Paul teachers found it 
well worth while to pay for the best of legal advic: 
and a legislative representative of the right sort. The 
Joint Salary Committee had funds enough to pay for 
the kind of assistance it needed, some one sufficiently 
acquainted with city finances to say. “Here is a sum 
of money for which you can ask. If you are told thi 
it is needed elsewhere, this is the answer.” Since th 
success of the committee’s program was dependent 00 
the accumulation of the amount needed by getting al 
it could from any source of city revenue, the plat 
of hiring an expert on city financing proved to hat 
been well advised. 

But success came, primarily, because the work w# 
in charge of a committee so untiring in its efforts 
so determined to gain its point that it was perpet™ 
ally on the job. It met, week after week. It was 





In 
ciatio 
to th 
to th 
neede 
salary 
ship | 















ling to stay in session from five until ten o'clock, 
after a day in the school-room. It called on newspapers 
and made visits to the Court House and the Depart- 
ment of Education. It stayed in town all summer and 
its members, or some of them, were with the necessary 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 









29 


city officers until the dead-line was reached for the 
time for the submission of the budget to the City 
Council, 

The monetary rewards were small. Net profits -will 
show in a thousand other ways. 





Salary Increases In Memphis 


By CarLotta Pirrman, President, Memphis Teachers Association, Local No. 52 


In December, 1927, the Memphis Teachers Asso- 
ciation, Local 52, had one of its periodical awakenings 
to the fact that salaries here were unusually low, and 
to the more pertinent fact that most of us sorely 
needed more money. Forthwith we appointed a 
salary adjustment committee under the able leader- 
ship of Miss Elizabeth E. Dix as chairman, and im- 
mediately this committee went to work to remedy, 
in so far as possible, such a state of affairs. After 
much deliberation they decided—with the approval of 
the organization—to request a 20 per cent increase. 

Among the things which augured well for our 
prospects was the election last November of a mayor 
and city commissioners whose platform contained a 
plank advocating “better pay for teachers.” After 
their first conference with the board of education 
our committee paid a visit to these newly installed 
officials, and their hopes rose high during the inter- 
view. There was much work to be done by the 
teachers, however, and the little group, in whose 
hands Local 52 had placed so important a matter, 
rose to the occasion nobly. They were indefatigable 
in their efforts to secure an increase. 

COMMITTEE FINALLY SUCCESSFUL 

This salary adjustment committee prepared charts 
which showed Memphis ranked very high commer- 
cially as compared with a large number of cities near 
her size, and even much larger; but almost at the 
bottom of the list in regard to expenditures for edu- 


cation and for teachers’ salaries. ‘These charts they ~ 


distributed among members of the board of education, 
the city commission, and in other quarters where they 
might prove most effective. Our committee also 
secured the endorsements of civic organizations, in- 
cluding the Federation of Parent-Teacher Associa- 
tions, which is a power for good in Memphis. And 
from time to time during our campaign these teach- 
‘fs wrote letters to non-members which brought 
many of them into our organization. 

When school closed in June our committee had 
had several conferences with the board and with the 
mayor and commissioners, each time with diminishing 


hopes of the immediate success of their undertaking. 
All our interviews, ail our endorsements, and all the 
favorable publicity which the newspapers had given 
our cause had failed to secure the definite promise of 
a salary increase from the board of education. They 
continued to protest that they were unable to find 
the funds. Many of the teachers were entirely dis- 
couraged, but not the committee. They could see a 
ray of hope in our contracts which read, “It is un- 
derstood that no change of salaries will be made dur- 
ing the scholastic year 1927-28.” They wondered 
why the date was not written, “1928-29.” And in 
the late summer their splendid work was rewarded 
and their hopes were justified. 

The Memphis newspapers of August 7 carried the 
glad tidings of a salary increase which the board of 
education had voted at its meeting the evening be- 
fore. Although the schedule is still far from what 
we requested, we feel elated over our partial success, 
and even more elated over the fact that our super- 
intendent prophesies a further increase next year. 

At present, beginning with the September check, 
all teachers who are now receiving the maximum will 
draw $15 a month or $180 a year more, and all those 
not receiving the maximum will receive $120 addi- 
tional. Our grammar grade maximum is now $1800, 
only $200 short of the $2000 minimum for which 
the American Federation‘of Teachers stands, and the 
high school maximum is $2100. 

The next thing on our program is a matter of great 
importance—a sunset picnic supper in honor of the 
salary adjustment committee. 





“Normal childhood should be as far as possible 
carefree. Responsibility, care and work have no place 
during these early years, except as a conscious part of 
the educative process. Whatever deprives children of 
this joyous outlook is wrong. Premature employment 
forces adult burdens upon a child before he is ready 
for them and thus denies him his heritage of happi- 
ness and health. For this reason, if for no other, child 


labor is wrong.”—Samuel McCune Lindsay. 


































THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





Local News 











SEATTLE, Loca 200 


Some progress is being made in Seattle, even if 
high school teachers are compelled to sign a “yellow 
dog” contract. 

At the last meeting of the local, a constitutional 
amendment was proposed which would change the 
name of the local from “Seattle High School Teach- 
ers Union” to “Seattle Teachers Union.” As none of 
the members of the union are actively engaged in 
high school teaching, it seemed inconsistent that the 
name of the union should seem to restrict the mem- 
bership to high school teachers. Amendments had 
been made to include other groups. At present, mem- 
bership is open to all persons in Seattle or vicinity 
who are eligible under the national constitution to 
belong to any local of the American Federation of 
‘Teachers. 

The local has three major objectives for the current 
year. First, pressing the appeal from the decision of 
the local court in the matter of the “yellow dog” 
clause in the high school teachers contracts. Second, 
the passage of a tenure law in the State of Washing- 
ton. And, third, a change in the personnel of the 
school board which inflicted the “yellow dog” clause. 

The contract case will probably be heard during 
the fall or winter by the supreme court of the State 
of Washington. Our attorneys are preparing the case 
and will be ready for trial. 

The newly nominated State Superintendent of Pub- 
lic Instruction is well known to favor a state tenure 
law for teachers. A number of candidates for the 
state legislature have pledged themselves to work for 
the passage of such a law. Progress is being made 
in this direction. 

The existence of power propaganda in the Seattle 
schools and the unfair requirement in the high school 
teachers contracts is making a public opinion which 
we believe will crystallize at the next school direc- 
tors election. 

The Seattle Central Labor Council and the Wash- 
ington State Federation of Labor are giving every 


aid possible to further the local’s efforts in all three. 


directions. 

Publicity given to the action of the Seattle local 
in proposing to admit to. membership teachers who 
have not been required to sign the “yellow dog” con- 
tract, moved E. Shorrock president of the school 
board to be quoted as follows: (Seattle Star, Septem- 
ber 12, 1928). 

E. Shorrock, president of the school board, says 

it has never been decided whether teachers would 
be expelled summarily if they joined the union 
after being hired. * * * “It’s not a question of 
unionism,” declared Shorrock, “but the undue 
pressure which the union brought to bear on sev- 
eral teachers, that the board is opposed to.” 

The first statement is mere bluff, as the union 


would be only too glad to have the board discharge 
a teacher who had not signed a contract with a “yel. 
low dog” clause for the sole reason that he had joined 
a union. The last statement is at variance with the tes. 
timony of another member of the board in the trial 
last spring who could not “put his finger” on any- 
thing specific the union had done, but that the board 
feared what a group of teachers affiliated with labor 
might do. Then, the contract specifies that mere 
membership in the union disqualifies a high school 
teacher from accepting a position. Mr. Shorrock was 
answered in this manner by a member of the local. 
As one delegate of the Seattle Central Labor Coun- 
cil always ends his weekly report, no matter how seri- 
ous have been the matters reported upon, “outside of 
this, Mr. President, we are getting along fine.” 
W. B. SaATTERTHWAITE, 
President Seattle Local 200. 





SALARY INCREASES 


Memphis teachers have secured a 20% salary in- 
crease through the efforts of the Memphis Teachers 
Association, Local No. 52. Read Miss Pittman’s ac- 
count of how it was done on page 29. 

St. Paul teachers secured a flat increase of $5.00 
per month through the efforts of the Joint Salary 
Committee of the Principals’ Club, the Federation of 
Women Teachers, No. 28, and the Federation of Men 
Teachers, No. 43, E. J. Harrell, Local No. 43, chair- 
man. Favorable public sentiment has been created 
and further adjustment is expected. See page 28. 

Teachers in Fulton county, Ga., schools, Local 183, 


secured a pay raise through the activity of the Atlanta 
Federation of Trades. 


Cuicaco LocaLs 2, 3, AND 199 


The Chicago Federation of Men Teachers, Local 
No. 2, Chicago Federation of Women High School 
Teachers, Local No. 3, and the Chicago Elementary 
Teachers Union, Local No. 199, are planning for next 
month the biggest social affair that the educational 
world of Chicago has ever seen. This will be a ban- 
quet and reception in honor of Superintendent Wil- 
liam J. Bogan. This event will be a demonstration on 
the part of the teachers and Labor that Superintend- 
ent Bogan is recognized as the teachers’ friend and 
Labor’s friend. 

Superintendent Bogan is well known as a believer 
in the application of democratic principles in educa- 
tion and in industry. He has long been honored in 
Chicago as a liberal thinker seeking to promote social 
justice. The Union teachers of Chicago welcome ti 
opportunity to honor publicly their new superin- 
tendent. 





Miss Mary C. Barker, president, American Federa- 
tion of Teachers spoke before the Institute of the 
Ladies Auxiliary of the International Association of 
Machinists in Atlanta, September 15, on “Education 
of Trade Union Children.” 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 





SECURE A SENSE OF FINANCIAL SAFETY 


Let the Chicago Women High School Teachers’ Federation 
Group Health and Accident Insurance 
Pay Your Doctor’s Bill When You Are Disabled 


Ts TT RSS Be 


Qa. 


1736 State Bank Bldg. 


Office Hours: 





Let a Retirement Annuity Provide 
Money for an Emergency 
An Income in Case of Long Disability 
An Income For Life When You Retire 


Let Miss Reynolds Tell You About These Plans 


V. REYNOLDS 


Phone Franklin 0400 or 0458 
Saturdays 10 A. M. te 5:30 P. M. 


These Plans Guaranteed by Two of the Greatest Financial Institutions in the Country. 


120 S. La Salle St. 


Other Days: By Appointment 











Brooxwoop Loca 189 


Over $12,000 in contributions and $37,050 in 
pledges to the building and endowment fund for 
Brookwood Labor College were announced at a din- 
ner in New York City given recently by alumni of 
the school. About $35,000 has also been pledged 
toward the yearly budget. 


International and local labor organizations that 
have contributed or made pledges include carpenters 
(2 locals), electrical workers (3 locals), textile 
workers (4 locals), 3 central labor unions and 1 build- 
ing trades council, plumbers, sheet metal workers, 
telephone workers, printing pressmen, machinists, 
miners, lithographers, and railway carmen. Three 
women’s auxiliaries of the machinists in Canada which 
had delegates at the Auxiliary Institute at Brookwood 
last summer have made pledges, as have also the 
Associated Women’s Auxiliary Council of New York. 


A week’s pay per year for five years has been 
pledged by all the graduates of the school in New 
York City. Brookwood students recently gave a play 
in Baltimore, the proceeds of which are to go to the 
maintenance of two Baltimore trade unionists at 
Brookwood next year. 

The school is campaigning for funds to enlarge its 
Capacity to 100 students instead of 40 which is the 
Present limit. It was established in 1921 and is the 
only full time resident labor college in America. Only 
members of trade unions may attend. 


SAN Francisco, Loca No. 61 


President Daniel C. Murphy of the San Francisco 
Board of Education made an address on Monday, April 
23, 1928, at 4p. m., in Room 30, High School of 
Commerce, on the subject, “A Layman’s View of 
Some Modern Tendencies in Education.” 


The meeting was under the auspices of the San 
Francisco Federation of Teachers, No. 61, and Presi- 
dent Murphy was introduced by Mr. P. J. Mohr, 
president of the Federation. 


Mr. Murphy’s speech was a very thoughtful and 
interesting one, emphasizing the growth and develop- 
ment of the junior high school movement and the 
progress of San Francisco’s wonderful educational pro- 
gram. The ideals and tendencies of our educational 
system of today were also stressed. 


This meeting was an open one and was attended 
by a large number of San Francisco educators. 


MARGUERITE GERTRUDE Roppy. 





John Dewey, professor of philosophy at Columbia 
University, has been appointed by the University of 
Edinburgh, Scotland, to give the Gifford lectures in 
April and May, 1929. This lectureship, devoted to 
national theology and philosophy, was held at one 
time by William James. 








THE AMERICAN TEACHER 

















American Federation 
of — 


_ "Teachers 


506 S. Wabash Ave., 
CHICAGO, ILL. 


Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor 
Organized April 15, 1916 


Sees 


The American Federation of Teachers desires to 
establish an intimate contact and an effective co-opera- 
tion between the teachers and the other workers of the 
community. 

The American Federation of Teachers desires to 
co-operate with all civic organizations for improved 
civic life. 

Groups of seven or more public school teachers are: 
invited to affiliate with this National Organization of 
Classroom Teachers, for mutual assistance, improved 
professional standards and the democratization of the 


schools. 
Our Slogan Is: 
Democracy in Education: Education for Democracy 


“The American Teacher” is published monthly by the 
American Federation of Teachers. Membership dues 
carry subscription to the magazine. To all others the 
subscription price is $2.00 per year, 25 cents per copy.