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DEMOCRACY IN EDUCATION 


EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY 





APRIL, 1930 




















PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS. CHICAGO 


LSTILTSTILKTIKTICTIIKWA.WTIWT IAW. 


VOL, XIV. No. 8 

















es 





eee 





en 




















Education under the Soviets: Six weeks trip 
visiting schools in U.S. S, R. and Berlin. Leader: 
Dr. Daniel B. Leary, Dept. Psychology and Edu- 
cation, U. of Buffalo—Sailing S. 8. Bremen, 
August 2!st. Round trip $710. 


@ Seven weeks trip visiting U. S. S. R. and Ham- 
burg. Copenhagen, Stockholm en route. Leader: 
William Clark Trow, Prof. Education, U. of 
Mich. Sailing S. § Europa, June 18th. Round 
trip approximately $776. 


@ Optional return sailings. Each group limited to 
eight. (Additional itineraries available from $395. ) 


Individual itineraries also exe- 
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representation in Russie 


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A Handbook for Peace Workers 
ENTITLED 


Between War and Peace 


FLORENCE BREWER BOECKEL 
Education Director 
of the 
NaTIONALCOUNCIL for PREVENTION of WAR 
Published by the Macmillan Company 


Wuar You Can Do For PEACE 


Realistic, practical surveys of the relation 
to world peace of educators, of the Church, 
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CONTENTS 


Lo! The Poor School Teacher........... l 


H. P. Dole. 
The Advantages and Responsibilities of 


Labor Organization ................... 4 
James Mullenbach. 
I ice a a NS 6 
The Value of the Union Movement to 
ee 10 
Marian C. Lyons. 
The Seattle Election .................... 12 
Labor’s Attitude Toward Peace.......... 13 
Mary Anderson. 
Unionism Among Intellectual Workers.... 15 
Michael B. Scheler. 
Educating Future ES een 16 
O. Myking Mehus. 
Teachers’ Retirement in California........ 20 
R. W. Everett. 
Illiteracy in the United States............ 22 
RE ne oe te ato ay 28 


ON En ene 31 


ARE TEACHERS WORKERS? 

















Progressive Teachers Are Reading 


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The News Magazine of the Labor Movement 
to find out. 


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The American Teacher 


Entered as second class matter Oct. 20, 1926, at the post office at Chicago, Ill., under the Act of March 3, 1879. 


ceptance for mailing at special rate of postage prov 





Volume XIV, No. g 





S———— 


APRIL, 1930 a 


ded for in Sec. 1103, Act of Feb. 28, 1925, authorized Nov. 3, 1926. 


Two Dollars. a Year 


Lo! The Poor School Teacher! 


By H. P. Dole, Vice-President San Francisco Federation of Teachers, Local 61 


The narrative which follows depicts the life 
story of a school teacher which we believe to be 
typical of the teaching profession in America 
today. 

George Stubbs, the central figure of our story, 
was born in a city in the middle west. Brought 
up under the influence of the church, his early 
life was devoid of,many of the thrills so charac- 
teristic of modern life in some of our larger 
cities. George was a faithful attendant at his 
Sunday School and church services, and his serv- 
ice to his fellow men through his religious de- 
votion gradually impelled him to undertake a 
wider and more useful career as a teacher in the 
public schools of his native state, 

The requirements for teaching in the high 
schools of his state were to him rather strenuous 
since graduation from an accredited university 
was necessary. This meant four years of sacri- 
fice and toil. However, George undertook the 
task feeling that the end justified the means, and 
by hard work in selling books, life insurance and 
other odd jobs through his vacations, he at last 
succeeded in reaching the coveted goal. He be- 
came a full-fledged teacher, eligible for a position 
in the high schools of the state. 

Through his church affiliations, he easily se- 
cured a position as teacher of mathematics in the 
high school of his native city. He did not realize 
it at the time, but the chief reason for his appoint- 
ment was the fact that the chairman of the local 
school board was also superintendent of the Sun- 
day School as well as the senior deacon in the 
church. 

Having a robust constitution, a good education 
and some four years of salesmanship experience, 
George soon came to the notice of the business 
men of his city. No less than four flattering 
offers were made to him to enter business. One 
offer was particularly alluring. He was told that 


if he would take a course in commercial work he 
might have the position of secretary to the presi- 
dent of the city’s largest industry. He was as- 
sured that through close attention to the details 
of the business he stood in line for promotion to 
a high-salaried position and possibly a partnership 
in the growing concern. It was even hinted to 
him that he might be of inestimable service to 
his fellow men in all walks of life, but to all 
these arguments George stated his firm conviction 
that he felt called to be of service to the younger 
generation through teaching in the public schools. 

True, the salaries paid to teachers were not to 
be compared to those paid for similar service in 
the business field, but George felt that “the la- 
borer was worthy of his hire” as the scripture 
says, and he further believed that through some 
mysterious working of Providence the good peo- 
ple of the city would recognize*his worth and in- 
crease the salaries of himself and his fellow 
teachers to equal those paid for similar service 
in the business and industrial fields. 

With that spirit of optimism which so charac- 
terizes the profession, he cheerfully set to work 
at his appointed task. He had felt all along that 
school teaching must be somewhat of a “snap” 
since the hours of labor were not long and the 
classes he had to teach were young and therefore 
easily managed. 

Very soon a great awakening came to George. 
He found that his work at school was but a frac- 
tion of the labor he was called upon to perform 
in teaching. Reams of test papers had to be car- 
ried home each night, and the marking of these 
papers often kept him grinding away until long 
past the business man’s hour for retiring. His 
work had to be carefully planned in advance. He 
was compelled to keep abreast of the times in his 
methods of teaching, which meant that extra 
courses in the university had to be undertaken. 








2 THE AMERICAN 


Unable to attend many of these classes, he found 
it necessary to take extension courses by mail. 
This became an extra burden upon his time and 
purse. Family sickness was added to his list of 
worries. His meagre salary of $100 per month 
was barely sufficient to keep the home fires burn- 
ing without any disaster such as sickness or addi- 
tional expenses. He decided to lay the matter 
before the Board of Education and thus secure 
relief from his oppressive financial burdens. 


He interviewed the School Superintendent and 
urged him to press his claims for more pay upon 
the Board. He was told by the Superintendent 
that the salaries already paid were hopelessly in- 
adequate, and that he would do all he could to 
have the situation alleviated. True to his word 
the Superintendent did place the situation before 
the Board, but that august body of men solemnly 
averred that with new streets opening up in the 
growing city, the City Council felt that increased 
appropriations must be made for paving con- 
tracts, sewers, electric and gas connections, etc., 
and that the present was not the time for any 
increased taxation for school purposes. Indeed, 
the City Council told the School Board that they 
must in some way or other actually decrease. their 
budget in order to keep down the growing tax 
rate in the city. 


The School Board went into solemn conclave 
with their Superintendent on the question, and 
it was decided that in order to hold his position, 
the Superintendent MUST in some way or other 
inaugurate a system of rigid economy in the 
school department. This was accordingly done 
by increasing the size of the classes in the schools. 
About this time an experiment had been tried in 
one of the universities, to determine the effect of 
size of classes on the results achieved. It was 
found that a professor could lecture to fifty or a 
hundred students as easily as he could to twenty, 
and that the results of his lectures were about the 
same with large classes as with small groups. 
This gave the Superintendent his cue. On sev- 
eral occasions, the learned Superintendent an- 
nounced from the public platform that experi- 
ments had shown that just as good results could 
be secured in teaching large classes as in small 
ones, therefore the classes in the public schools 
should in future be larger in order to reduce the 
educational budget for the ensuing year. He was 


TEACHER 


careful not to mention that the experiment re. 
ferred to was undertaken in a university where 
the teaching was done by the lecture method, and 
that the students were grown-up men and women 
from a selected group of individuals who were 
most anxious to secure the college credits they 
were paying for. None of these facts was dis. 
closed to the audiences addressed. The infer. 
ence was that this experiment had been tried 
successfully in the public schools, with young 
children as the subjects of the experiment. 

The teachers decided that they would not sub- 
mit to the great injustice done them without a 
struggle. They held indignation meetings and 
passed all sorts of resolutions. They even went 
so far as to appoint a committee to wait upon 
the School Board and present their grievances, 
The Board received them with all the dignity 
which a School Board of a small city could mus- 
ter, and frankly told them that their superinten- 
dent had recommended that the classes be in- 
creased in size, and that, since this experiment 
had already been proven a success elsewhere, they 
were determined that it should receive a fair trial 
in their city as well. 

Feeling that they had been treated like a lot of 
unruly school boys, this committee reported the 
results of their conference to their confreres, and 
went back to their classes, now numbering forty 
to fifty as against thirty under the former sys- 
tem. 

It soon became evident that about the only 
thing the teachers could do under the circum- 
stances was to “keep school” and not to “teach 
school.” It required all their time and energy to 
maintain discipline with such large groups of stu- 
dents, and teaching became the assignment and 
hearing of lessons, much as was done in our 
grandfather’s day. 

Pupils who formerly took a real and vital in- 
terest in their work now lost interest in school 
and wanted to quit. The State law prevented this 
since all pupils must remain in school until they 
had reached the age of sixteen. Harsh measures 
were of necessity resorted to in order to keep 
order and discipline in the classroom. Parents 
complained of the unrest among their children. 
They insisted that the school work be made more 
interesting than it was, with the result that the 
teachers were forced to assign only those portions 








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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 3 


of the work which offered the least resistance to 
the children’s minds, neglecting the vital fact 
that these children were being pushed through 
the grades with but half the preparation for their 
duties as citizens that was formerly given to grad- 
yates of the schools. Exhibitions of school work 
became the order of the day, and many of the 
parents who visited the schools and viewed this 
display of talent went away feeling that their 
schools were indeed working marvels with the 
young of that thriving city. Little did they know 
that this same show work was a subterfuge on 
the part of a desperate teaching force to hide the 
real situation. In after years, these same children 
when brought into competition with the well- 
trained men and women from other states and 
other cities would not be able to hold their own 
in the keen competition of business and industrial 
life. But the ever-increasing cry to “keep down 
school taxes” prevented any relief whatever. 

Then came the great world war. What a catas- 
trophe for the tired school teachers! When the 
war ened, it was found that a complete revolu- 
tion had taken place in the industrial world. The 
cost of living had so advanced that the 1914 dol- 
lar was worth no more than 64c, and yet the 
teachers’ salaries remained the same! 

Workers in all other lines had organized in 
labor groups and had dictated to their employers 
the wages they were to receive. A suggestion 
was made to George that he should start a move- 
ment towards the organization of a branch of 
the Teachers Federation, affiliated with the Amer- 
ican Federation of Labor. George met the sug- 
gestion with haughty disdain. What! Mix with 
the laboring men? Rub elbows with the man in 
overalls? Never! Such action was highly un- 
professional and beneath the dignity of the cul- 
tured school teacher. The Superintendent and 
the School Board fostered this feeling, declaring 
that the teaching profession was one peculiarly 
set apart from the rest of the working world, and 
that communion with the laboring classes would 
result in certain defilement to the teaching pro- 
fession. 

As time went on, the pinch of poverty -was 
more and more felt among the teachers. They 
complained that carpenters, who were thoroughly 
organized, earned $9.00 per day, while they in 
their white-collared positions received only a frac- 
tion over $3.00. 


The Labor Council, knowing the desperate 
plight of the teachers, graciously invited them to 
one of their meetings. Of the five hundred 
teachers in the city about a score attended this 
meeting. These teachers were told that if they 
would organize a branch of the Teachers Federa- 
tion and affiliate with the American Federation 
of Labor, the Labor Council would back them 
in their struggle for better salaries and better 
working conditions. 

Twelve teachers decided to take the plunge, 
although they did so with many misgivings. 
George was approached by this group and asked 
to become a charter member of the new Teachers 
Federation. He refused to join. Openly he 
stated that he considered it very unprofessional 
to organize against their own employers, and be- 
sides such a move was not favored by either the 
Superintendent of Schools or the members of the 
School Board, therefore those who displeased 
the powers that be would never get promotion 
in the service if they persisted in their determina- 
tion to form a teachers union. In his hecrt, 
George thought that he could ill afford to offend 
his superior officers for, should he lose his posi- 
tion, he felt there was nothing else in the world 
he could do for a living. He had associated with 
children so long that he was regarded as “a man 
among boys, but a boy among men.” A half loaf 
was to him better than no bread and, even if the 
movement proved a success, he would benefit by 
the work of others, for should a general raise in 
salaries result, he would receive his increase with 
the others, and that without offense to any person. 
Little did he know the contempt the progressive 
teachers in the department held in their hearts 
toward him. Little did he know of the contempt 
of the Superintendent and the Board for his 
cowardly attitude. Had he realized these things 
he would have thrown himself whole-heartedly 
into the fight for adequate pay for his services 
to the city and to the nation. 

The Federation at length became a reality. 
When the Board found that their warnings had 
been unheeded, they held a solemn conclave at 
which they decided that those teachers who had 
‘efied the Board in forming their union must be 
cieiplined. They therefore issued an order that 
ur.‘ess this branch of the Federation of Teachers 
shou'd dissolve within thirty days, they would 
immediately dismiss every member of the group. 








4 THE AMERICAN 


They also announced that they contemplated in- 
creasing the teachers’ salaries from $1,200 to 
$1,300 per year, but they refused to do so while 
the obnoxious Federation was in existence. 

The Federation drew up a salary schedule pro- 
viding for a maximum salary of $1,800 per year. 
They took their schedule to the Labor Council 
through their representatives. The Labor Council 
immediately indorsed the new schedule and 
agreed to back the Federation to the limit in their 
fight for increased salaries. Furthermore, the 
President and Secretary of the Labor Council 
were appointed a committee to wait upon the 
School Board and present this schedule for their 
approval. 

The meeting of the Labor committee with the 
School Board was a memorable one in that city. 
The Board refused to grant the increases asked 
and openly threatened to dismiss every member 
of the Federation from the service. To this 
threat the President of the Labor Council replied 
that he was aware that the Federation of Teach- 
ers was not permitted to call a strike to enforce 
its demands, but fortunately this right had not 
been denied to all other labor unions. He fur- 
thermore stated that the Labor Council was pre- 
pared to go the limit in case the school board 
insisted on curtailing the rights of teachers to 


TEACHER 


organize, a right that every American citizen 
should exercise if he so desired. 

This speech was so unexepected that the 
School Board became strangely silent. No ac- 
tion was taken against the offending teachers al- 
though the salaries remained the same as before 
and the classes still consisted of forty to fifty 
students. 

The Federation decided to launch an agitation 
for better salaries through the local press. Elec- 
tion day approached. Candidates for positions on 
the School Board appealed to the electors on the 
salary issue alone. With the aid of the labor 
party every one of the progressive candidates was 
elected. What a victory for the dozen staunch, 
red-blooded teachers! Even the press, which 
had been somewhat lukewarm throughout the 
fight, now openly espoused the cause of the teach- 
ers, and the new salary schedule became a real- 
ity. 

The new Board from time to time had occasion 
to promote teachers to higher positions as vice- 
principals and principals in the school service. 
They reasoned that they wanted real men for 
these positions, and, as a result, George is still 
teaching his classes in mathematics at his $1,800 
per year, while many of his fellow teachers are 
earning nearly twice that sum in high positions 
in the service. 


The Advantages and Responsibilities of 
Labor Organization 


An Address by Mr. James Mullenbach, Member of the Board of Education, before an Open 
Meeting of the Chicago Elementary Teachers’ Union Local 199 


I would like to speak about what we might 
call the fundamental values of the Union. The 
first concern is with wages or the methods of 
compensation. Strikes come from disputes over 
wages and from the arbitrary treatment of men 
and women who suffer under the industrial sys- 
tem. But I do not wish to dwell on the topic of 
Capital and Labor. That is fully described in the 
Master and Servant Acts in the several states. 
However, under that condition of industrial or- 
ganization the employer knew his workers. He 
had among his workers people whom he regarded 
as his equals. And they were all working to- 
gether as a family. The element of human per- 
sonality entered largely into this order. The em- 


ployer and the workers formed a class together 
and they had personal contacts with each other. 
The workers’ disadvantages were modified by this 
personal contact, for each knew what the other 
was thinking about. 

But today no such relationship exists. Imagine 
the President of the United States Steel Corpo- 
ration in New York knowing, or caring, what Joe 
Pilshulski, a worker out in South Chicago, thinks 
about. Conditions in the factories today have de- 
stroyed this personal relationship. Among these 
conditions are, the disintegration of the trades, 
wherein only a minute portion of the entire proc- 
ess is performed by one workman, the introduc- 
tion of piece work, the speeding up of production, 








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THE AMERICAN 


and the monotony of the work. This has resulted 
in a divestment of interest in the shops, 

We had a head quality man over at Hart, 
Schafner & Marx. He is the man who passes 
on the quality of all the work that is done. One 
morning he came to work with a green overcoat 
of the cloth and style that was popular at the 
time. I admired the coat. He showed it to me 
with great pride and said that he had made it 
himself in his own workshop at home. He was 
proud of doing good work. Imagine, if you can, 
how proud a button-holer in our factory is when 
a coat is thrown down before her! The only 
thrill she gets out of it is to find out whether it 
is a two-button or a three-button coat. She has 
no pride in her work because she does only a 
very small part of the entire job and cannot feel 
the pride that comes with complete production. 


The speeding up system and the monotony of 
the work tend to create emotional unbalance. One 
girl objected because she was asked to move her 
place to the second seat from where she had been 
working. She complained that she could do more 
and better work on the first machine. She said 
she had got used to that machine and that ma- 
chines were just like people and had a way of 
their own that the worker had to get used to. 

The schools are sometimes criticized because 
the children do not fit into the present industrial 
system. The fault lies in the industrial system 
because it cannot utilize the cultural information 
and values which the children are taught. The 
fault is not with the schools but with the system. 
School people must not let the business group 
get us side-tracked. The fault is with the system 
when the child is not able to invest the cultural 
knowledge he receives in school in the industrial 
order. a 

Our industrial system is organized on an auto- 
cratic principle and it has influenced our economic 
life. The man who hires capital also hires labor. 
This fact underlies all American industry—it is 
organized on an autocratic system. The heads of 
business control all the powers that are used in 
the production of the manufactured article. And 
it is all done on an autocratic principle. 

Just after the war there was much talk about 
the “open shop.” It was referred to as the Amer- 
ican way of doing things. It was an attempt 
to take advantage of excess patriotism. But it 


TEACHER 5 


was contrary to the principles expounded by Jef- 
ferson when he said that governments derive their 
just powers from the consent of the governed. 
We have in the present industrial order an or- 
ganization on a principle that is directly opposed 
to those of Jefferson. It is an autocratic organ- 
ization. And an autocrat cannot know the truth. 
Who is going to tell him? Certainly not the 
worker, for he is afraid of losing his job if he 
tells about conditions. Certainly not the fore- 
men so long as the work gets done. So, the 
owner, in an autocratic system, can never know 
the truth of things. The worker does not pro- 
test because of the fear that exists in the heart 
of every worker in the autocratic system. And 
so the man at the top doesn’t know it. This is 
the real weakness that underlies industry organ- 
ized on an autocratic basis. And it is the reason 
why they do not and cannot win through. De- 
mocracy must inevitably win through, in spite of 
its ups and downs. 


The greatest problem that faces Labor—its 
real problem—may be divided into two phases. 
First: the attempt of Labor to organize and seize 
power. That is the first object of Labor. Get 
recognition of your Union. The employer will 
surrender much in the way of hours and wages 
rather than have to recognize the Union. But 
it is essential that he recognize the Union because 
in doing so he surrenders some of his power that 
was hitherto withheld. Sometimes an employer 
will let a strike take place to find out if the com- 
mittee that asks for recognition of the Union is 
really representing the will of the majority of the 
workers. But employers have found this an ex- 
pensive way and are usually ready to recognize 
the Union if a strike threatens. 


Power is never given. It must always be 
seized. It is the last thing that a man will give 
away. An outstanding exception to this fact 
was the case of Hapgood who attempted for years 
to give control of his company to his employees. 
But they were fearful that there was something 
wrong with it. But when you seize power you 
have it. 

The second real problem is what to do with 
the power after you have it—after you have 
seized the power. There is where the educational 
obligation rests upon the leaders. They must 

(Continued on page 24) 








6 THE AMERICAN 


The American Teacher 


Democracy in Education Education for Democracy 
Published Monthly, except July and August 
Official Organ 
THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 
OrGANIzep Apri 15, 1916 
Affiliated With the American Federation of Labor 
Editorial Office: 

506 South Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois 











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EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


President 
Mary C, Barxer, Atlanta No. 89; 685 Myrtle Street, 
N. E., Atlanta, Georgia. 

Legislative Representative and Vice-President 
Setma M. Borcuarpr, Washington No. °8; 1741 Park 
Road, N. W., Washington, D. C. 
Vice-Presidents 
FLorence FisH, Minneapolis No. 59; 3301 First Ave., S., 
Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

ApRAHAM LerxowiTz, New York No. 5; 10414 27th 
Avenue, East Elmhurst, Corona, New York, N. Y. 
Henry R. Linvitte, New York No. 5; 70 Fifth Ave., 
New York, N. Y. 

A. J. Muste, Brookwood a Brookwood, Katonah, 


CarLoTTta Pitrman, Memphis No. 52; 151 Clark Place, 
Memphis, Tenn. 
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West, Seattle, Washington. 
Lucie H. Scuacut, Chicago Women No. 3; 6714 S. 
Union Ave., Chicago, Illinois. 
E. E. Schwarzrrauser, Portland No. 111, R. F. D. 5, 
Box 68, Portland, Oregon. 
W. J. Scorr, Atlanta No. 89; 212 Kings Highway, 
Decatur, Georgia. 

Cuartes B. Stmiman, Chicago No. 2; 827 Ridge 
Avenue, Evanston, Illinois. 
Secretary-Treasurer 
Fiorence Curtis Hanson, Chicago Women No. 3; 506 
South Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois, 
Telephone Harrison 2950. 














“God gives each man one life, like a lamp, 
Then gives 
That lamp due measure of oil; 
Lamp lighted—hold high, wave wide 
Its comfort for others to share.” 
—Robert Browning. 


TEACHER 


Cutting School Costs 

The most important question before th 
teachers of America today is the one of cuttin 
school costs. Most teachers thought they had bee, 
already cut to the bone but that thought wa 
based on the maintenance of the present educa. 
tion program. But the proponents of the econom 
plan have a different idea. They propose to cu 
school costs by curtailing the education program 
Remove seventy-eight kindergartens in Wash 
ington, D. C., and a lot of money is saved, bu 
at what a loss. Increase the teaching load, cu 
the curriculum to the three R’s; money is saved 
but the loss in life is incalculable. 

Accusations of waste in the schools are widely 
made but the teachers are not acquainted with 
any money waste. We need to have this word 
“waste” defined. The closing of these seventy. 
eight Washington kindergartens is waste of the 
worst kind, besides being a heinous crime agains 
childhood. 

There are cries also of corruption, but what 
kind of corruption. The criers refer to misappro- 
priated funds. We are concerned also with cor- 
ruption but of a different kind. The corruption 
that troubles us is the use of the schools for 
propaganda purposes, the control of text books 
by special interests, the manipulation of the cur- 
riculum by powerful corporations. 

We do not want Johnny to use two pencils 


where one and three-quarters would do or Maryf ; 


to spoil a sheet of scratch paper but the waste 


that stirs us is the waste of lives, of time and] 


opportunity through large classes, overcrowded 
schools, an impossible teaching load, inadequate 
pay, long hours. The waste in teachers’ and 
pupils’ lives through these things troubles us 
greatly. 

This cry of economy in school expenditures, 
this cutting down of school costs does not sound 
very good in the face of statistics. Out of an 
income of over $90,000,000,000, this nation spent 
in 1926 2%4.% for education, 8%4% in combating 
crime, and 221%4% in luxuries. 

242% for education; 812% for combating crime 
2% % for education ;221%4% for luxuries. 
24% for education;84 % for war. 


But we hear no agitation against luxuries. We 
see more done to cut down school costs than to 
cut down crime costs. 









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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 7 


Not the amount spent for education, but the 
small amount spent and the kind of education 
for which it is spent should excite the alarm of 
all those interested in education and progress. 





A New Plan for Increasing Teachers’ Salaries 

“Since salaries of professors are usually con- 
sidered inadequate, Dr. Remsen B. Ogilby, presi- 
dent of Trinity College, has suggested that the 
instructors should have more time for outside 
work. Although he offers no definite plan as to 
how the arrangement should be made, he stressed 
strongly the growing necessity for shorter hours,” 
we are told by the Philadelphia Teachers Associa- 
tion News Letter. 

He says that two-thirds of the professors in 
our American colleges supplement their salaries 
by other earnings and that they do this work, 
according to their own statement, from necessity 
and not from choice. 

It would seem that when we say that teaching 
is not a profession but a part time job, we are 
not mistaken. Dr. Ogilby at least agrees with 
us and the figures for college professors uphold 
us. If the figures for the public schools were at 
hand we are confident they would not be greatly 
different. 

We find ourselves in agreement with this col- 
lege president in the matter of shorter hours, but 
most decidedly in disagreement with the reason 
for the shorter teaching hours and the use of 
the hours not devoted to teaching. 

A part time job can be made into a profession 
not by shorter teaching hours for further out- 
side work but by adequate compensation for 
the teaching. Good teaching in our schools and 
colleges demands a fair salary, for economic 
security is a necessary postulate of good teaching. 

Shorter hours and higher salaries to insure 
better teaching is our position. : 

To improve the teacher’s economic position by 
giving him more leisure for work in another field 
is a new idea to us and we can but exclaim, 
Well, Well! What next? 





Unemployment of Teachers 

Unemployment is an important social problem 
engaging the attention of all thinking people. 
This unemployment situation affects teachers as 
it does other classes, but for a different reason 


and perhaps with even more grave social results. 

In New York City alone, there are 3,000 
teachers unemployed. We hear that too many 
pupils are attending the normal schools and that 
the output of teachers exceeds the demand. Let 
us see if there is not something other and more 
serious involved. In New York City there are 
about 32,000 teachers. To lower costs we will 
increase the pupils in the classes of these teachers 
from 40 to 50. Every four teachers receiving 
this increase will displace one teacher. These 
32,000 New York teachers are taking the places 
of 40,000 teachers. 8,000 teachers have been 
made unnecessary by increasing the teaching load. 

Well, what of it? Isn’t that economy? Isn’t 
that saving the tax payers money? 

It certainly is not. The cost in efficiency of 
education is vastly more than dollars and cents. 
The loss to the lives of these children in that 
character building which can come only from 
close and intimate contact with a vital teacher 
cannot be measured. The loss to the Republic in 
upright, valuable citizens is not to be computed 
in taxes. 

Thousands of teachers unemployed; the teach- 
ing load greatly increased ; the homicide rate rang- 
ing from 12.7 to 66.8 per 100,000; the crime rate 
growing daily. Is there any connection between 
these? 





Democracy in Education 

The basic principle of Democracy is that every 
individual shall be treated as an end within him- 
self, not as a means to an end. From this con- 
ception is derived the obvious inference that in 
all the activities that the social order provides for 
the employment of human activities, the empha- 
sis is placed, not upon the material element, but 
upon the human. In the light of this principle, 
the things of life must take second place in a 
society that is to call itself democratic. 

This fundamental principle carries with it some 
significant implications : 

First, it implies that every individual shall treat 
every other individual as an end within himself ; 

Second, that every individual shall be able to 
participate in the good of society on equal terms 
with every other individual ; 

Third, that every individual shall have the re- 
sponsibility of seeing to it that every other in- 
dividual shall have the right to participate in the 








8 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


good of society on equal terms with himself; 

Fourth, that provision be made for the all- 
round development of the individual in order that 
he may be able to make the maximum contribu- 
tion to society in all of its vital interests; 

Fifth, the recognition on the part of each that 
interests are mutually penetrating, that all co- 
operating for the well-being of all means the 
maximum growth of all; 


Sixth, that the amelioration of the conditions 
of life shall be constantly and consciously sought. 

How does the public school stand with refer- 
ence to these standards of democratic organiza- 
tion and administration? “The school,” says Dr. 
John Dewey, “has lagged behind the general con- 
temporary social movement ; and much that is un- 
satisfactory, much of conflict and of defect, comes 
from the discrepancy between the relatively un- 
democratic organization of the school, as it affects 
the mind of both teacher and pupil, and the 
growth and the extension of the democratic prin- 
ciple in life beyond school doors.” 


The American Federation of Teachers insists 
upon democracy in education. Its interpretation 
of the idea is a broad one, extending into all 
phases of organization and administration. It in- 
cludes the relationship of pupil to pupil, teacher 
to pupil, teacher to principal, principal to teacher, 
administrator to principal, supervisor to teacher, 
teachers as a group to administrators and the 
board of education, and the public’s attitude to- 
ward the support of public education. This prin- 
ciple applied to education means equal oppor- 
tunities and advantages for all the children with 
favor to none and with discrimination against 
none. It implies, further, that education is a 
moral obligation that adulthood owes to child- 
hood without regard to artificial stratification of 
society and to individual obligations of parents 
to children. That teachers should have a part 
in determining the conditions under which they 
are to carry on their professional duties, such as 
the choice of textbooks, salary scales, hours of 
work, construction of courses of study, size of 
classes, etc., is an implication not difficult to un- 
derstand. They believe that only when the schools 
are operated in a thoroughly democratic manner 
is it possible for them to develop for the demo- 
cratic society to which they are responsible the 
type of citizens that can take their places in a 


social order requiring self-control and self-dire;. 
tion. Government will be safely democratic whe 
its schools are really democratic. 

W. J. Scott, in The Atlanta Teacher, 





“Yellow Dog” Judges Ignore Elementary 
Justice 

Labor’s opposition to Judge Parker’s appoint. 
ment as Supreme Court associate justice again 
puts the “yellow dog” in the limelight. 

The “yellow dog” is enforced by an injunction 
judge. 

The worker, in signing this alleged contract, 
surrenders his right to do a lawful thing—not to 
join a trade union while so employed. 

The injunction judge accepts the fiction that a 
worker seeking employment is on an equal foot- 
ing with a powerful industrial corporation. 

This romanticism is only held by men who sup. 
port injustice and who approve a pledge that is 
wrung from helpless job seekers. 

The worker signs the “yellow dog” because he 
needs employment. He is not a free agent. The 
corporation takes advantage of his necessities. To 
provide food and shelter for himself and de- 
pendents he must place himself at the mercy of 
an employer who can enforce any condition he 
elects. The worker subordinates his indepen- 
dence to the will of another, and this mental at- 
titude is reflected in every social and civic 
activity. 

The “yellow dog” violates the first element of 


contract law—that an agreement is void if either | 


party signs under duress. 

To enforce this slave pact, the machinery of 
government is thrown on the side of employer. 

This miserly procedure can only be defended 
by double-tongued injunction judges and the men 
who place them in office. 

The “yellow dog” has proven an effective sub- 
stitute for anti-strike legislation. Maryland, West 
Virginia and ten other States enacted compulsory 
labor legislation during the World War. This 
was accepted at that time, but was found to be 
unenforceable after the armistice. 

Governor Allen of Kansas, now United States 
Senator. secured the passage of an anti-strike law 
in that State. The plan was wildly acclaimed by 
men who realized its serf significance. 

This proposal was urged on the floor of the 
United States Senate by Senators Sherman of 





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THE AMERICAN 


Illinois, Poindexter of Washington and Myer of 
Oregon. 

The scheme was wrecked by labor’s unyielding 
opposition and employers turned to the “yellow 
dog” that fastens the worker to his job as securely 
as any anti-strike law. 

The “yellow dog,” from the employer’s stand- 
point, is more effective than a statutory act. It 
js surrounded by the sacredness of contract and 
the awe with which many workers have been 
taught to look upon judges who can jail or fine 
for contempt of court any one who even suggests 
trade unionism. 

A judge is unfit who fails to grasp the unfair- 
ness of the “yellow dog” and its absence of the 
first essential of a contract. 

He also fails to apply a major principle of 
equity—that a plaintiff must come into court with 
clean hands. 

Such a judge is unlearned in elemental justice 
and intellectual processes so necessary to decide 
issues that have developed out of our new eco- 
nomic life. 


Workers Oppose Judge Parker; He Aided 
Vicious “Yellow Dog” 


Judge Parker’s appointment as associate justice 
of the United States Supreme Court is opposed 
by organized labor. 

In a public statement President Green declared 
that Judge Parker’s decision in the Red Jacket 
case shows that he placed property rights above 
human rights. 

The Red Jacket (Consolidated Coal and Coke 
Company) case was a combination of West Vir- 





| ginia coal owners who secured an injunction from 


Federal District Judge McClintick. The order 
was appealed to the Federal Circuit Court of 
Appeals by the United Mine Workers. 

Judge Parker, as a member of the appeals 
court, wrote the decision which upheld the lower 
court’s defense of the “yellow dog” and swept 
every right from the unionists. 

The Parker decision classed the miners’ at- 
tempt to unionize West Virginia as a “conspiracy 
to interfere with interstate commerce.” 

“The decision,” said President Green, “showed 
that Judge Parker placed property rights above 
and superior to human rights. He approved this 
injunction which virtually reduced West Virginia 
miners to approximately industrial servitude. 


TEACHER 9 


“The officers and members of the A. F. of L, 
believe that the attitude shown by Judge Parker 
in this injunction case reveals a judicial state of 
mind which totally unfits him for service as a 
member of the Supreme Court of the United 
States.” 





GET BUSY ON NOVEMBER CONGRES- 
SIONAL ELECTIONS 


The American Federation of Labor asks Labor 
to consider carefully the attitude toward labor 
measures of all candidates for election to Con- 
gress in the November elections. There is one 
important issue which for many years the Amer- 
ican Federation of Labor and its affiliated organ- 
izations have striven to have enacted into law. 
That is, a law to prohibit the issuance of injunc- 
tions in labor disputes. 

All members of trade unions are urged to sub- 
mit to every candidate for Congress no matter 
what his political faith the following question: 

“Will you vote for a bill to amend the judicial 
code and to define and limit the jurisdiction of 
courts sitting in equity, which will provide as 
follows: 

“*That no court of the United States shall 
have jurisdiction to issue any restraining order 
or temporary or permanent injunction in a case 
involving or growing out of a labor dispute’.” 

If Labor expects to eliminate labor injunctions 
from the federal courts it must have a sufficient 
number of friends in Congress to bring about that 
result. Every member of a trade union should 
support by his vote only those candidates who 
have proved the genuineness of their service, or 
their desire for service, to the people and labor. 
There must be no apathy. Labor’s attitude is 
well known. “Stand faithfully by our friends 
and elect them. Oppose our enemies and defeat 
them; whether they be candidates for President, 
for Congress or other offices; whether executive, 
legislative or judicial.” 

Let the slogan be: 

“We will not vote for a candidate for Congress 
who is opposed to a law prohibiting the issuance 
of injunctions in labor disputes.” 





You better live your best and act your best and think 
your best today, for today is the sure preparation for 
tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow.— 
Martineau. 





10 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


The Value of the Union Movement to Chicago Teachers 
Address by Marian C. Lyons, Chicago Women, Local 3, Before a Meeting of the Chicago 


Federation of Women High School Teachers 


Members and Friends of the Federation of 
Women High School Teachers: 

I am glad to speak to you upon this topic be- 
cause the history of the movement presents a 
record of admirable accomplishments and the 
prospects of a successful future. 

At our December banquet President Hutchins 
of the University of Chicago summarized the past 
efforts of organized labor to secure a free public 
school system by saying that a hundred years ago 
the workingmen’s organization of New York de- 
manded free education, as did the National Labor 
Union of 1866; that the American Federation of 
Labor in 1881 called for compulsory education, 
and also has stood for vocational and continua- 
tion schools. 

Reasons for Our Labor Affiliations 


Many teachers in Chicago still ask us for the 
local reason of our labor affiliation. The best 
reason for it is that it has given us strong sup- 
port in our efforts to improve public school con- 
ditions. Our connection with the Chicago Feder- 
ation of Labor gives our delegates a chance to 
present to a large body of Chicago citizens our 
reports on the school situation here. The Chi- 
cago Federation of Labor is absolutely the only 
powerful body which will delay taking a stand 
on the local school question until it has heard the 
opinion of the class-room teachers. Not that in 
any way the labor group accepts the teachers’ 
opinions as a whole but at least they are willing 
to listen to them and to discuss them sympathet- 
ically. In many cases this labor group has ap- 
proved of our activities and objectives and has 
worked actively to assist us in gaining them. 
Since the children of the labor group attend the 
public schools, the group themselves are inter- 
ested in such questions as over-crowded classes 
and over-worked teachers ; they see that these will 
have an injurious effect upon the progress of their 
own children. Also this affiliation with labor has 
given us the privilege of using the radio WCFL, 


many times to present current educational topics 


to the public. The “Federation News” is open 
to our written contributions on the same topics. 


Support from the State Federation of Labor 

Again, our affiliation with the State Federation 
of Labor results in our delegates being appointed 
as members of its committee on education. On 
this state committee, our delegates have worked 
with the labor delegates on the state program for 
schools and have assisted in placing on that pro- 
gram such items as tenure, better teaching qualifi- 
cations, and a cultural wage for teachers. They 
have supported us whole-heartedly in our efforts 
to get more liberal school legislation. Other or- 
ganized groups in Chicago have shown that in 
the main they prefer to hear the opinions of school 
executives and administrators rather than those 
of the class-room teachers. You can see from 
this statement why we value our affiliation with 
labor and hope to find it a source of greater 
strength in the future. 

Affiliation with Labor Not Unprofessional 

Some local teachers also consider our labor 
affiliation as unprofessional. Such opinion falls 
to the ground when we recall that such men as 
Professor Dewey, Professor Overstreet, Profes- 
sor Joseph K. Hart and Professor Paul Douglas 
belong to our locals. The Actor’s Equity affiliated 
with labor includes all the best actors and 
actresses. Mrs. Fiske and Ethel Barrymore cer- 
tainly can not be called unprofessional; neither 
can be members of the Chicago Symphony Or- 
chestra who belong to the Musician’s Union. 


Some of Our Activities 


In the 15 years of our existence, the Women’s 
Federation locally has aided in increasing sal- 
aries and lessening the time from minimum to 
maximum salary from 10 years to 15 years. We 
have fought the lengthened day and over-loaded 
program for teachers. 


The Teaching Load 

During Miss Berolzheimer’s presidency a thot- 
ough canvass of teachers’ programs was made, by 
which we found that the teachers’ load in some 
schools was fairly well equalized, but in others, 
there was the practice of relieving a few teachers 
at the expense of many. As a result of the study, 
the Women’s Federation recommended for aca 





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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 11 


demic teachers five classes with a maximum of 
175 pupils per teacher and one free period a day. 
Our recommendations were presented by Miss 
Berolzheimer to a meeting of the principals of 
high schools. As a result there was some equal- 
ization of the load in the following semester. We 
cannot claim any permanent lessening of the load 
as the constant increase in high school population 
combined with inadequate school revenue has so 
far negatived our efforts. However, the Federa- 
tion has put itself on record as being in favor of 
a reasonable equalized load for teachers, and it 
is continuing to bring pressure to bear wherever 
possible to secure it. 

Group Insurance 

The Federation was the first women’s organ- 
ization of teachers in Chicago to offer group in- 
surance to its members. There have been excel- 
lent results and the prompt payment by the 
company in cases of sickness has been of im- 
mense value to those insured. Three years ago 
when the sabbatical leave was secured, the com- 
mittee presenting the matter to the Board of 
Education contained two high school representa- 
tives and only two, Miss Berolzheimer and Mr. 
Meade. Last June at Springfield our delegates 
worked successfully for the passage of House 
Bill 633, the revenue from which according to 
authoritative report has been responsible for the 
keeping open of the schools this year. 


Help Given to Special Teachers 


One group of teachers who owe their present 
salary schedule to the aid of the two federations 
is the Vocational Guidance Bureau. All of these 
are persons with college degrees and with addi- 
tional special training. Their yearly salary was 
divided into twelve yearly installments and those 
for July and August called for regular work at 
that time. Their day was a seven hour day with 
ahalf day on Saturday. After having exhausted 
every means at their command, they appealed to 
the Federation of Women High School Teachers. 
After investigation of the situation, the Federa- 
tion pressed for and secured a satisfactory adjust- 
ment. In a similar way the Men’s Federation 
found a large group of their members on the 
limited certificate who were much dissatisfied 
with the administration’s procedure for transfer 
to the general certificate group. The Federation 
formulated and secured the adoption of a much 


simpler and juster method of transfer. An ex- 
ceedingly effective piece of work this was and 
much appreciated by scores of teachers. 
Councils 

Both the Federation of Men Teachers and | 
Federation of Women High School Teachers ren- 
dered major service in securing councils, in carry- 
ing them on while they lasted, and are now work- 
ing for their re-establishment. 
Workmens’ Compensation Applied to Teachers 


For many years Illinois has had a State com- 
pensation law which guarantees payment for in- 
juries to employees while engaged in their work. 
This law has never been applied to teachers who 
may have been injured while in school and had 
to lose their salary for the subsequent absence. 
So far from securing compensation in such cases, 
teachers have lost salary in addition to bills for 
doctors and hospitals. Last year the Federation 
of Men Teachers secured the application of this 
compensation law to teachers, and the practice is 
now established locally as several teachers have 
secured such compensation. As far as we know, 
no other school district in the U. S. applies local 
compensation law to teachers. 


Value of Separate Locals 


Further through our affiliation with labor we 
have been able to work closely with the Federa- 
tion of Men Teachers and the Elementary Teach- 
ers’ Union. Several principals are members ot 
the Men’s and Women’s Federations. This affili- 
ation has therefore furnished us a practical and 
successful method of union of all teaching groups 
in Chicago. This method of uniting all the 
groups is decidedly better than a direct organ- 
ization of all the teachers in a single large asso- 
ciation. Each one of the locals has its own indi- 
vidual primary interests and, in addition, joint 
interests with the other locals. The first of these 
are worked out completely in the separate organ- 
ization ; the common interests are considered first 
by committees in a separate organization, each 
of which formulates its opinions and objectives. 
These are later taken up in joint committees 
which work out the formulation of resolutions 
and lines of action agreeable to all the member 
groups. This joint action is carried on with ab- 
solute equality of the groups and with none of 
them attempting in any way to dominate the 
other. 





12 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


United Action 

After joint committees have completed their 
work, the union representatives appear before the 
Board of Education and the public as a single 
unit. The method results in the training of more 
teacher leaders, the completion of more work and 
more enthusiasm than would be possible in a 
huge, heterogeneous organization. This plan has 
worked so successfully that the public generally 
has learned to look to the union teachers for an 
expression of authentic teacher opinion. 

Co-operation with Other Teacher Groups 

The Union teachers have always cooperated 
with other organized groups. One outstanding 
example of this is shown in our working at the 
present time with representatives of over twenty 
other local groups to prepare a joint legislative 
program and carry out action designed to secure 
its adoption. Unless adequate revenue is secured 


by the action of a special session, the Chicag, 
schools are likely to be closed two months ney 
year. 
Other Affiliations 

The Women’s Federation is affiliated with th 
Cook County and the Illinois Federation 
Women’s Clubs and has applied for membershis 
in the National Federation of Women’s Clubs, 

Wide Interests of Union Teachers 

There is no question affecting the life of th 
Chicagoan which is not of interest to the teacher 
unions. At the present time there are committess 
at work on qualifications for substitute teachers, 
on payments for absences, on adequate revenues 
for the schools, and on the method of opening 
and closing school semesters. 

Our field of effective service is limited only 
by the willingness of our members to help on) 
these and other committees. 


The Seattle Election 


At a school election in Seattle, in March, one 
of the questions raised during the campaign, was 
whether the teachers in that city had the right 
to become affiliated with the American Federation 
of Teachers. 

A resume of the facts in the Seattle situation 
follows: 

Late in 1927, a local of the American Feder- 
ation of Teachers was formed by a number of 
Seattle High School Teachers. 

No negotiations with the Seattle Board of 
School Directors were ever entered into and no 
requests or demands were made upon the board. 

In May, 1928, the Seattle board incorporated 
in the teachers’ contracts a clause which pro- 
hibited the teachers belonging to any organiza- 
tion affiliated with the American Federation of 
Teachers. 

The Seattle local endeavored to have the board 
enjoined from offering a contract with such a 
provision to the teachers, but failed. 

In March, 1929, two of the five school directors 
were defeated for reelection, and one was re- 
elected. 

In May, 1929, the prohibitive clause was con- 
tinued in the contracts for another year, although 
Judge Austin E. Griffiths, newly elected board 
member protested the action vigorously. 

In January, 1929, Superintendent of Schools 


Thomas R. Cole, announced through interviews 
in the daily press, that he would refuse reelection 
as superintendent until after the school election, 
and that he would refuse such reelection if an- 
other board member holding the views of Judge 
Griffiths were elected director. He stated, that 
in the event of such election, the schools of Seat- 
tle would fall under union control. The press 
stated that Mr. Cole would sacrifice his $11,00 
position to accept a teaching position in the Uni- 
versity of Washington at less than $4,000 whic 
he had been offered, if the citizens failed to elec 
a board unfriendly to unions. 

A few days later, Mr. Cole announced that he 
would not consider continuing the superintent- 
ency in any event, and that he had accepted 4 
position in the university. 

Almost immediately, Dietrich Schmitz, ¢ 
feated for reelection in 1929 by Judge Griffiths) 
and Frank S. Bayley announced their candidacie 
for director, endorsing the attitude of Mr. Cole 

Judge Griffiths became a candidate for reele} 
tion. 

Donald A. McDonald, an attorney of high t; 
pute, also announced his candidacy. 

Two other citizens announced their candidal 
on an anti-union platform, but were induced! 
withdraw in favor of Bayley and Schmitz. 

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THE AMERICAN TEACHER ) 13 


School Committee sponsored the candidacies of 
Schmitz and Bayley and proclaimed that the issue 
was whether the unions should control the schools 
or not. 

Campaign cards, circulars and letters were 
broadcast warning the people to remember Chi- 
cago. It was asserted that if other candidates 
were elected, the schools would be controlled from 
Chicago. All the financial difficulties of Chicago 
the past few months were attributed to the Amer- 
ican Federation of Teachers. 

The Citizens School Committee and its news- 
paper supporter alleged that the campaign of 
Judge Griffiths and Mr. McDonald, and also the 
campaign of 1929 when Judge Griffiths and Mr. 
Shorett had been elected were financed from Chi- 
cago. The newspaper went so far as to state that 
the campaign was being directed from the middle 
western metropolis. 

The action of the executive committee of the 
American Federation of Teachers in voting $500 
to assist the Seattle local union in 1928, which 
fact was quoted from the American Teacher of 


Sept., 1928, was taken as proof positive of such 
support. 

The affidavit of the president of the Seattle 
local of the A. F. of T. that no money had been 
received from Chicago or any place outside of 
Seattle for campaign or other purposes did not 
prevent the candidates and their committee from 
continuing the charges. 

Griffiths and McDonald who had never been 
connected in any way with labor organizations, 
even as attorneys, defended the rights of teachers 
to affiliate with a lawful organization,’ but did not 
advocate such affiliation. 

The hysteria raised by the assertion that a 
recognition of the right of teachers to join the 
American Federation of Teachers would result 
inevitably in class domination of the public 
schools resulted in the following (approximate) 
vote: 

Schmitz, 43,800; Bayley, 39,000, Griffiths, 37,- 
400; McDonald, 33,200. 

E. E. SCHWARZTRAUBER, 
Portland, Local 111. 


Labor’s Attitude Toward Peace 


Text of Address of Miss Mary Anderson, Director Women’s Bureau, U. S. Dept. of Labor, 
Made Over the National Broadcasting Company System from the Studios of WRC 


The attitude of working men and women to- 
ward war and peace is something to which every 
Nation should give far greater heed. If this had 
been done in the past the world would have fewer 
wars to its discredit. The saying “history repeats 
itself” is not necessarily true, for it is within 
our power to make the history of the future. 
And if labor is to be given a greater say in the 
future than in the past as to the making of war, 
this appalling and illogical means of trying to 
settle quarrels between nations will become ob- 
solete. 

We have but to scan the pages of history or 
to look over the battle-scarred lands of Europe 
to realize how truly the fruits of labor are the 
spoils of war. What the workers build up by 
careful, patient toil through the ages, the machin- 
ery of war demolishes in a few brief hours. 
Homes, churches, towns, fields—the work of 
decades—are riddled with shot and shell, blown to 
atoms, or trampled under foot in the ragings of 
a few battles. Peace furnishes labor with the op- 
portunity for steady skilful production of goods 


making for the welfare of mankind and the pros- 
perity of nations. War ruthlessly uses labor for 
its destructive purposes. It demolishes property, 
annihilates and cripples human beings. 

Labor calls for men and women physically fit 
to turn the wheels of industry, to guide the plow, 
and to direct the pursuits of peace generally. War 
demands the physically strong men and hurls them 
into destruction, killing millions and maiming 
other millions, rendering them unable to return 
to the ranks of labor or to any gainful occupa- 
tion. In time of war women are also forced to 
divert their energies from home pursuits to the 
manufacture of diabolical instruments of de- 
struction. 

In the aftermath of war when Nations struggle 
to pick themselves up from the ruins of war, 
labor suffers more than does any other group or 
class. Unemployment, one of labor’s greatest 
enemies, always follows in the train of war and 
casts its blight on millions. 

Whether we reckon in terms of war or peace, 
labor is a mighty force, in regard to both numbers 





14 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


and ability. In our own country there are about 
42 million men and women engaged in some kind 
of remunerative labor. 

Labor’s attitude toward peace is not inarticulate. 
Labor’s views in regard to peace have been 
headed up and voiced in a number of ways. As 
far back as 1887 organized labor went on record 
as espousing the cause of international peace. At 
that time when representatives from the British 
House of Commons came to the United States 
in the interest of an arbitration treaty between 
nations the American Federation of Labor de- 
clared in convention by a unanimous vote for in- 
ternational arbitration as a substitute for war and 
its armaments in the settlement of international 
disputes. 

In every important peace movement since, the 
American Federation of Labor has been found 
in the front ranks Its most recent step was 
the adoption of a resolution in favor of the en- 
trance by the United States into the World Court 
as a means of bringing about world peace through 
arbitration. 

Shoulder to shoulder with the American Fed- 
eration of Labor in its peace program has stood 
the National Women’s Trade Union League. 
Women even more than men are eager for peace. 
It is woman, the mother of the race, the producer 
of men, who knows instinctively the cost of flesh 
and blood and sinew. She realizes more fully the 
waste of war. She has a keener sense of the 
value of human life than has her brother. Among 
all women the working woman faced with reali- 
ties of life has the greater reason for protest 
against war. The working woman forced in time 
of peace to carry an economic burden knows full 
well that war with its wholesale destruction of 
men throws onto women’s shoulders an even 
heavier economic burden, a burden that is both 
back breaking and heart breaking. Woman op- 
poses the policy of greed, hatred and brutal war. 
She endorses a program of good will, justice and 
permanent peace among nations. 

The National Women’s Trade Union League 
of America which is the woman movement with- 
in the labor movement has been the spokesman 
for the nation’s millions of women who work in 
factory and mill. Its 1915 convention sent to 


the President of the United States and to the 
members of Congress, a resolution endorsing the 
action taken by the representatives of many na- 


tions assembled at the Hague, to protest against 
the horrors of war. The resolution pointed out 
that the interests of working women as women, 
as workers, and as mothers are peculiarly bound 
up in the achievements of peace. 

Mrs. Raymond Robins for many years the 
National President of the National Women’s 
Trade Union League acting as the spokesman of 
American working women at the International 
Congress of Working Women in Geneva in 1921, 
said, “Our first task as working women of the 
world to which we here stand dedicated is to 
make war against war.” She further said, “Gov- 
ernments that can spend billions in destructive 
war must learn how to spend millions for con- 
structive peace.” 

This group of working women was the first 
national women’s organization to take a stand for 
the principle of world peace through the outlawry 
of war. This principle has since been accepted 
by the majority of the nations of the world in 
the Multilateral Treaty known as the General 
Pact for the Renunciation of War. 

* * * 


In our city of Washington there is to me the 
most wonderful monument in this city of beauti- 
ful monuments. This is a memorial of peace. 
Almost within the shadow of the State, War, 
and Navy Building stands this noble reminder of 
amicable relations between nations—the Pan 
American Building. In appearance its harmoni- 
ous architecture, heroic sculpture, and cultivated 
gardens are truly symbolical of the arts of peace. 
From the standpoint of usefulness it is a model 
of the maintenance of peace between nations. 
Within its walls a peace program is being con- 
stantly carried forward. This inspiring work 
of art is a fitting setting for the conference table 
around which gather representatives of 21 Ameri- 
can republics. 

They gather together with the same objective— 
to bring about and maintain amicable relations 
between nations. Just as labor believes firmly in 
settling all industrial disputes in the conference 
room, it believes firmly in adjusting all national 
disputes by representatives getting together and 
turning their cards face upward on the table. 

Destructive mob action on the part of unor- 
ganized workers as a means of combat is strongly 
opposed by labor. Labor points always to the 
conference table as the ideal means of settling 








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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


all disputes, whether between capital and labor 
or whether between nations. 
x * * 

Today millions of us who belong to the ranks 
of the working men and women march with 
united front in the cause of permanent peace and 
iustice. We are passing through an era of change 
such as we have never seen in the past. We 
realize that the great tide of public opinion in 


favor of peace is steadily increasing. The op- 
portunity to form a strong basis for permanent 
peace is offered to our present generation. Let us 
not waste our privilege and opportunity. It is 
within your power and mine to usher in a new 
birth, to realize a new vision of life. The call 
has come to us to write the word Peace so indel- 
ibly in our sky that future generations will never 
lose sight of it or swerve from its ideals. 


Unionism Among Intellectual Workers 
By Michael B. Scheler 


On July 6, 1928, the National Directorate of 
the Italian Federation of Intellectual Workers 
held a meeting in Rome and issued the following 
demands : 

Unionization of all classes of intellectual 
workers, such as authors, artists and musicians. 
Minimum wage for journalists. 
Standard regulation of certain classes of in- 
tellectual workers. 
* * * 

The International Federation of Dramatic Ar- 
tists held its second congress in Paris, June 18- 
23, 1928. 

At the Congress it was announced that two 
more organizations: the Spanish Actors’ union 
and the British Actors’ Association have joined 
the Federation. 

The Congress addressed an appeal to the Gov- 
ernments of Europe to protect legitimate actors 
and actresses from the menace of broadcasting, 
talking machines and films. 

National pension funds for aged artists were 
discussed and recommended to civilized nations. 

* * * 


The British Institute of Journalists held its 
annual conference in Dublin, August 27-30, 1928. 
500 delegates from Great Britain, Irish Free 
State, and oversea countries attended the sessions. 

A resolution advocating a pension for journal- 
ists reaching the age 65 was proposed by the Pen- 
sions Committee. 

More holidays with pay for journalists, a 
standard of minimum payments for writers of 
news, sports, correspondence, etc.—were some of 
the demands put up by the conference. 

* * * 

The French Confederation of Intellectual 

Workers formed an agreement with a group of 


Deputies and Senators to protect the interests of 
intellectual workers in Parliament. 


* * * 


The French Union of Journalists held a meet- 
ing in Paris on June 29, 1928. Mr. Edouard 
Herriot, Minister of Education, delivered a 
speech in which he congratulated the journalists 
for their success in grouping themselves in a trade 
union without interfering with the freedom of 
thought so essential to intellectual workers. He 
expressed sympathy with the cause of intellec- 
tual workers. * * * 


The Netherlands Confederation of Intellectual 
Workers at a recent congress called upon the 
government and legislature to settle the follow- 
ing pressing problems: 

Conditions of appointment to positions 

Collective agreements 

Payment of salary during illness 

Holidays with pay 

Payment for overtime 

Introduction of a Pension Scheme and many 
others. * * * 


The Belgian Press Association held its fifteenth 
annual Congress in Dinant, May, 1928. 

The principal topic of discussion was: 

Salaries for Journalists 

A scale of compensation, for different categor- 
ies of writers, based on the present cost of living, 
was worked out and recommended to the employ- 
ing-publishers. 


* * * 


The Swiss Authors’ Association has established 
a fund which will enable authors to secure loans 
without interest to tide them over during the 
intervals of writing books and the receipt of 
incomes from the books. The fund will be sub- 
sidized by the Association and the Government. 





16 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


Educating Future Citizens 


By O. Myking Mehus, Department of Social Sciences, Northwest Missouri State Teachers 
College, Maryville, Missouri 


There is a growing realization on the part of 
leading educators that our schools must prepare 
more effectually students to face the vital issues 
of modern living. Our schools in the past have 
been too far removed from everyday life. We, 
as teachers, have lived in a world apart from the 
stern realities of life. We seemingly have been 
teaching with the false notion that if we “train 
the mind” the child will be able to adjust himself 
to the real world when he gets his diploma. We 
have been doing this in spite of the fact that mod- 
ern psychology has proven conclusively the un- 
soundness of the old doctrine of formal discipline 
and the transfer of training. 

If we hope to develop boys and girls who can 
take an intelligent part in helping to solve the 
complex problems of our modern life we must 
acquaint them with these problems in the school 
room. This thought is well expressed by Kil- 
patrick of Columbia University in his book, “Edu- 
cation for a Changing Civilization” in which he 
says on pages 77-78: 

“If our pupils are to grow into an adequate 
citizenship, they must with increasing age and 
with due regard to their growing outlook and in- 
terest become increasingly familiar with the prob- 
lems of civilization. A proper study of ‘frontier’ 
thinkers should give us the necessary knowledge 
of the more important social problems likely in 
some form or other to confront the rising genera- 
tion. That many of these problems will be con- 
troversial will, if they are handled wisely, but 
enhance their educative value. The effort is not 
to hand out solutions, but to develop methods of 
attack, to develop an intelligent appreciation of 
the problems themselves as well as an intelligent 
appreciation of facts pertinent to their solution. 
That the secondary school and college should 
greatly increase their work along this line is as 
necessary as it is probable.” 

This same attitude is taken in the Twenty- 
Sixth Yearbook of the National Society for the 
Study of Education, page 21, where it states: 
“One of the chief intellectual purposes of the 
school is to develop understanding of the institu- 
tions, problems, and issues of contemporary life.” 
In other words, we cannot be satisfied by merely 


teaching the events of the past ages—we must 
stress modern social problems and stimulate our 
students so they will face these problems with 
a clear vision and unprejudiced mind. 

Following this same line of thought, J. W. 
Crabtree, Secretary of the National Education 
Association, declares in the N. E. A. Research 
3ulletin for September, 1929: “A school which 
merely meets the demands of yesterday or even 
of today, is not enough in as rapidly a changing 
civilization as that in which we are living. An 
analysis of the economic, social, and industrial 
changes which are now in process suggests that 
the public school curriculum must be built for a 
new world, if it is to function in the lives of the 
children today and tomorrow.” 

Not only must our pupils become conversant 
with the questions facing our country, but world 
problems must be discussed. We cannot live 
apart from the rest of the world, for we are all 
members of one large family and we must learn 
to live together harmoniously. The foundation 
for this state of mind must be laid in our public 
schools. This concept was well expressed by 
Dean Henry Lester Smith of Indiana University 
before the Section on International Cooperation 
of the Geneva World Conference on Education 
when he said: 

“An important task before the world today is 
the creation of a new state of mind, a state of 
mind which will permit an understanding and 
appreciation of the character, attainments, and 
traditions of other people and which will trans- 
cend national boundaries without seeking to de- 
stroy them. Internationalism, properly _inter- 
preted, implies an extended conception of citizen- 
ship rather than a super-government with its con- 
sequent minimizing of national importance. 
Racial and national prejudices probably have their 
origin in part deep down in the early life of the 
individual, and can therefore to some extent be 
avoided or mitigated by a program of guidance 
which begins early and continues throughout the 
formative period of the individual. It is not im- 
possible for the schools of the nations, working 
with such agencies as the church, the press, the 
home, and governmental institutions, to go fat 








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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 17 


toward producing a friendly world if they will do 
so.” 

Often the individual teacher is desirous of dis- 
cussing present day problems, but she is handi- 
capped in that she does not have available up-to- 
date and reliable material on modern questions. 
In order to help such a teacher we have gathered 
together a list of sources where material can be 
secured. The organizations that are listed below 
will send literature to teachers who request it. 
We suggest that the teachers file this material 
in large manila envelopes or in cardboard boxes. 
The teacher will find that in a short time she will 
have built up a reference library of authentic and 
reliable information on such questions as world 
peace, race relations, prohibition, juvenile delin- 
quency, crime, child welfare, labor problems, 
health, and hygiene. 


World Peace 


National Council for Prevention of War, 532 
Seventeenth St. N. W., Washington, D. C. 
Kirby Page, 347 Madison Ave., New York City. 
Committee on Militarism in Education, 387 Bible 

House, Astor Place, New York City. 

American Friends Service Committee, 20 South 
12th St., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Outlawry of War, 134 S. La Salle St.. Chicago, 
Ill. 

League of Nations Association, 6 East 59th St., 
New York City, Mid-West Office: 105 W. 
Monroe St., Chicago, III. 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2 
Jackson Place, Washington, D. C. 

World Peace Commission, 150 Fifth Ave., New 
York City. 

Friends Book Store, 302 Arch Street, Philadel- 
phia, Pa. 

Lucy Meacham Thurston, 4 Roland Ave., Roland 
Park, Baltimore, Md. 

Committee on Peace and Service, Rear, 154 N. 
15th St., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Peace Committee of Society of Friends, 304 
Arch St., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Women’s International League for Peace and 
Freedom, 8 Jackson Place N. W., Washington, 
D. C. 

American Peace Society, 613 Colorado Bldg., 
Washington, D. C. 

Federal Council of Churches, 105 East 22nd St., 
New York City. 


Women’s Peace Society, 20 Vesey St., New York 
City. 

Women’s Peace Union, 39 Pearl St., New York 
City. 

Fellowship of Reconciliation, 383 Bible House, 
Astor Place, New York City. 

American Arbitration Crusade, 114 East 31st St., 
New York City. 

World Friendship Among Children, 289 Fourth 
Ave., New York City. 

World League of International Education As- 
sociations, 521 Phelan Bldg., San Francisco, 
Calif. 

National Council of English Teachers, Estelle 
Downing, State Normal College, Ypsilanti, 
Michigan. 

World Peace Foundation, 40 Mt. Vernon St., 
Boston, Mass. 

Foreign Policy Association, 18 East 41st St., New 
York City. 

American Foundation, 565 Fifth Ave., New York 
City. 

The World Tomorrow, 52 Vanderbilt Ave., Room 
410, New York City. 

Committee on Educational Publicity, 305 West 
113th St., New York City. 


Race Relations 


Commission on Inter-Racial Cooperation, 409 
Palmer Bldg , Atlanta, Georgia. 

National Urban League, 17 Madison Ave., Tenth 
Floor, New York City. 

National Association for Advancement of Colored 
People, 70 Fifth Ave., New York City. 

Federal Council of Churches, 105 East 22nd St., 
New York City. 

Woman’s Missionary Council, M. E. Church 
South, 810 Broadway, Nashville, Tenn. 

Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama. 


Prohibition and Temperance 


Scientific Temperance Federation, Room 67, 400 
Boylston St., Boston, Mass. 

Intercollegiate Prohibition Association, First and 
B. Sts. N. W., Washington, D. C. 

Board of Temperance, 100 Maryland Ave. N. E., 
Washington, D. C. 

Paul Coleman, 4202 Adams St., Kansas City, 
Kansas. 

Department of Moral Welfare, 832 Witherspoon 
Bldg., Philadelphia, Pa. 





18 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


National W. C. T. U. Publishing House, Evan- 
ston, II. 

Missouri W. C. T. U., 505 Boonville Ave., 
Springfield, Mo. 

Ohio W. C. T. U., 302 Schultz Bldg., Columbus, 
Ohio. 

American Issue Publishing Co., 110 S. State 
St., Westerville, Ohio. 

American Issue, 911 Victoria Bldg., St. Louis, 
Mo. 

Board of Temperance and Social Welfare, 412 
Chamber of Commerce Bldg., Indianapolis, 
Indiana. 

New Jersey Temperance Society, P. O. Box No. 
253, Newark, N. J. 

Gifford Gordon, Montevista Apts., 63rd and Ox- 
ford Sts., Philadelphia, Pa. 

World Conference on Narcotic Education, 578 
Madison Ave., New York City. 

Boys Anti-Cigarette League, Room 611, 58 W. 
Washington St., Chicago, Ill. 

No-Tobacco League of America, P. O. Box No. 
578, Indianapolis, Ind. 

Juvenile Delinquency and Crime 

Big Brother and Big Sister Federation, 425 
Fourth Ave., New York City. 

Big Brother Organization, Rialto Bldg., Fourth 
at Olive, St. Louis, Mo. 

Commonwealth Fund, 578 Madison Ave., New 
York City. 

Boys Club Federation, 630 Graybar Bldg., New 
York City. 

Judge Baker Foundation, 40 Court St., Boston, 
Mass. 

Missouri Welfare League, 1574 Arcade Bldg., 
St. Louis, Mo. 

League to Abolish Capital Punishment, 112 East 
19th St., New York City. 

National Probation Association, 370 Seventh 
Ave., New York City. 

Division of Probation, State Department of Cor- 
rection, Albany, N. Y. 

Central Howard Association, 605 Transportation 
Bldg., 608 S. Dearborn St., Chicago, III, 

National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor; 
4 West 57th St., New York City. 

National Society on Penal Information, 5937 
Grand Central Terminal, New York City. 

Chicago Crime Commission, 300 West Adams St., 
Chicago, III. 


Massachusetts Civic League, 3 Joy Street, Boston, 

Mass. 
Child Welfare 

Child Welfare Committee of America, 730 Fifth 
Ave., New York City. 

Child Welfare League of America, 130 East 22nd 
St., New York City. 

National Child Labor Committee, 215 Fourth 
Ave., New York City. 

Children’s Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor, 
Washington, D. C. 

National League of Women Voters, 532 Seven- 
teenth St. N. W., Washington, D. C. 

General Federation of Women’s Clubs, 1734 N. 
Street N. W., Washington, D. C. 

Visiting Nurse Association, 830 Monroe Bldg., 
104 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, III. 


Labor Problems 

American Association for Labor Legislation, 131 
East 23rd St., New York City. 

National Economic League, 6 Beacon St., Bos- 
ton, Mass. 

American Association for Old Age Security, 104 
Fifth Ave., New York City. 

National Consumer’s League, Room 1129, 156 
Fifth Ave., New York City. 

Carl D. Thompson, Suite 1439, 127 N. Dearborn 
St., Chicago, IIl. 

League for Industrial Democracy, 112 East 19th 
St., New York City. 

National Women’s Trade Union League, 311 S. 
Ashland Blvd., Chicago, IIl. 

American Civil Liberties Union, 100 Fifth Ave., 
New York City. 

Information Service, 105 East 22nd St., New 
York City. 

Social Service Bulletin, 150 Fifth Ave., New 
York City. 

Conference for Progressive Labor Action, 104 
Fifth Ave., New York City. 

Social Trends Magazine, 412 Chamber of Com- 
merce Bldg., Indianapolis, Ind. 

Editorial Research Reports, 839 Seventeenth St. 
N. W. Washington, D. C. 

Federated Press, 112 East 19th St., New York 
City. 

American Federation of Labor, Ninth St. and 
Mass. Ave., Washington, D. C. 

United Garment Workers of America, 621 Bible 
House, New York City. 








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THE AMERICAN 


Union-Made Garment Manufacturers’ Associa- 
tion, 557 Monadnock Bldg., Chicago, Ill. 

Sherwood Eddy, 347 Madison Ave., New York 
City. 

Co-Operative League of America, 167 W. 12th 
St., New York City. 

Vanguard Press, 100 Fifth Ave., New York City. 

The Consumers Club, 47 Charles St., New York 
City. 

National Asociation for Benefit of Middle Age 
Employes, 507 Fifth Ave., New York City. 
The People’s Lobby, 39 Bliss Bldg., Washington, 

D. C. 
Wholesome Motion Pictures 

The Educational Screen, 5 S. Wabash Ave., Chi- 
cago, Ill. 

National Board of Review, Room 1200, 70 Fifth 
Ave., New York City. 

National Indorsers of Photoplays, R. R. M. Box 
No. 39H, Indianapolis, Ind. 

Harrison’s Reports, Room 1866, 1440 Broadway, 
New York City. 

Indiana Indorsers of Photoplays, 4543 Guilford 
Ave., Indianapolis, Ind. 

The Parents’ Magazine, 255 Fourth Ave., New 
York City. 

Visual Instruction Service, Iowa State College, 
Ames, lowa. 

Protection of Birds and Animals 

National Association of Audubon Societies, 1974 
Broadway, New York City. 

American Humane Association, Humane Society 
Bldg., Albany, N. Y. 

The Humane Society, Central Police Station, St. 
Joseph, Mo. 

American Humane Education Society, 180 Long- 
wood Ave., Boston, Mass. 

The Animal Rescue League, 51 Carver St., Bos- 
ton, Mass. 

American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to 
Animals, 50 Madison Ave., New York City. 
Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, 832 Big- 

lowe Blvd., Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Latham Foundation for Promotion of Humane 
Education, Latham Square Bldg., Oakland, 
Calif. 

Nature Magazine, 1214 Sixteenth St. N. W., 
Washington, D. C. 

American Tree Association, 1214 Sixteenth St. 
N. W., Washington, D. C. 


TEACHER 19 


National Board of Fire Underwriters, 85 John 

St., New York City. 
Boy and Girl Scouts 

Boy Scouts of America, 2 Park Place, New York 
City. 

Girl Scouts, 670 Lexington Ave., New York City. 

Camp Fire Girls, 41 Union Square, New York 
City. 

Parent-Teacher Associations 

Missouri Parent-Teacher Association, 226 Kirk- 
patrick Bldg., St. Joseph, Mo. 

National Congress of Parents and Teachers, 1201 
Sixteenth St. N. W., Washington, D. C. 


Health and Hygiene 

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., One Madison 
Ave., New York City. 

Bureau of Education, Department of Interior, 
Washington, D. C. 

United States Public Health Service, Surgeon 
General, Washington, D. C. 

Children’s Bureau, Department of Labor, Wash- 
ington, D. C. 

Bureau of Home Economics, Department of 
Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 

Missouri State Board of Health, Health Com- 
missioner, Jefferson City, Mo. 

Missouri Social Hygiene Association, 3221 Lo- 
cust St., St. Louis, Mo. 

Missouri Tuberculosis Association, 2221 Locust 
St., St. Louis, Mo. 

American Red Cross, 1709 Washington Ave., St. 
Louis, Mo. 

American Foundation for the Blind, 125 East 
46th St., New York City. 

Eye Sight Conservation Council, 706 Otis Bldg., 
Washington, D. C. 

National Society for Prevention of Blindness, 
370 Seventh Ave., New York City. 

Missouri Commission for the Blind, 1908 Locust 
St., St. Louis, Mo. 

American Society for Control of Cancer, 25 West 
43rd St., New York City. 

Dairymen’s League Cooperative Association, 11 
West 42nd St., New York City. 

National Dairy Council, 307 N. Michigan Ave., 
Chicago, III. 

National Health Council, 370 Seventh Ave., New 
York City. 

State Board of Health, Division of Child Hy- 
giene, Jefferson City, Mo. 





20 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


American Medical Association, 535 N. Dearborn 
St., Chicago, IIl. 

Cleanliness Institute, 45 East 17th St., New York 
City. 

National Safety Council, One Park Ave., New 
York City. 

Association for Improving Condition of Poor, 
105 East 22nd St., New York City. 

American Seating Co., 14 East Jackson Blvd., 
Chicago, III. 

International Society for Crippled Children, 
Elyria, Ohio. 

Missouri Society for Crippled Children, 511 Cen- 
tral Mo. Trust Bldg., Jefferson City, Mo. 

Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men, 245 
East 23rd St., New York City. 

Practical Home Economics, 468 Fourth Ave., 
New York City. 

American Eugenic Society, 185 Church St., New 
Haven, Conn. 


TEACHING OF HISTORY 
The April issue of the NEW ERA will be de- 
voted to the subject of History Teaching and 
will be dedicated to the LEAGUE OF NA- 





Teachers’ Retirement in California 


Review of State Salary Commission Report 
By R. W. Everett, Sacramento, Local 31 


California is in the position of several other 
states that established Teacher Retirement Funds 


on a social pension, rather than an actuarial basis, 


This was done in 1913 with a $500 retirement 
salary. At the present time, due to the shrinkage 
of the dollar, $500 is insufficient; but neither the 
state authorities nor the tax-payers are willing 
to increase that amount on the basis of the pres- 
ent teacher payment, which is $12 a year for 
30 years. 

The 1927 Legislature authorized the appoint- 
ment of a commission of five, under the chair- 
manship of Alexander Heron, who was also the 
head of the State Board of Control. Two mem- 
bers of the Commission were directly connected 
with the schools, and half of the cost was borne 
by the California Teachers Association. The 
total cost of the survey and the actuary’s report 
amounted to about $20,000. 

The demand for this study had been empha- 


TIONS in commemoration of its Tenth Anniver. 
sary. Among the contributors are: 
Dr. G. P. Gooch H. G. Wells 
Prof. Alfred Zimmern W. H. van Loon 
C. H. B. Quennell Sydney Herbert 
Dr. G. H. Green Prof. J. E. Lloyd 
D. Dymond F. C. Happold 
Daniel C. Knowlton. 


This special issue is intended to help those who 
see in history teaching the possibilities of laying 
the foundations for peace, who believe in the 
necessity of training for citizenship and who re. 
alize that a knowledge and appreciation of world 
as well as of national history is necessary to the 
citizen of today. 

Accounts of work done along these lines in 
State, Private and Public Schools in England and 
abroad will be included, as well as illustrations of 
children’s work in both half-tone and colour. 

Those who are anxious to obtain the April 
New Era (% post free) should send a post card 
to the New Era, 11 Tavistock Square, London, 
W.C. 1. As the issue is limited, advance orders 
are the only sure way of obtaining a copy. 


sized by two previous actuarial reports of 1919 
and 1924, each of which had pointed out that the 
scheme was, from the actuary’s point of view, 
insolvent. In spite of these pessimistic reports, 
the fund has grown, in seventeen years, from 
nothing to about $3,500,000. But, if this looks 
fairly prosperous, it must be borne in mind that 
this is due to two factors. The first is that about 
80% of the teachers retire before their fifteenth 
year and receive no retirement salary; the other 
factor is the rapid growth of the teaching group 
during the past decade and a half. Also we dis 
cover that the average age for retirement is 
thirty-three years of service instead of thirty be 
cause of the insufficient retirement salary. 
After discussing the above facts, the report 
takes up the study of the different angles of the 
problem. It holds that thirty years is not net 


essarily a safe limit, as many teachers enter the 
profession at twenty or twenty-one years of age; 








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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 21 


hence, a minimum age for retirement of fifty- 
eight or sixty is suggested. They recommend a 
flat rate rather than a step rate plan of retirement 
salary. The chief problem was how to get from 
the present unsound to an actuarially safe sys- 
tem, and at the same time raise the retirement 
salary to a figure high enough to actually take 
care of a superannuated teacher. The report 
points out that to take care of the teachers al- 
ready retired will require $1,800,000 more than 
are in the fund at the present time. This leaves 
all those who have not retired without anything 
to show for the money that they have already 
put in, and with nothing to take care of them 
when they wish to retire. It is this later group, 
especially those who have now taught more than 
ten years, that seriously complicates the prob- 
lem. Where is the money to come from to take 
care of these people? 


The Commission recommends the following 
scheme: The teacher entering service shall con- 
tribute an amount per year which, with compound 
interest, will produce an annuity of $450 at sixty 
years of age. The State giving an equal amount 
produces a total annuity of $900 a year. In case 
the teacher continues to teach until sixty-five, the 
annuity will then amount to $1,250 a year. No 
further increase is allowed after sixty-five. Spe- 
cifically a teacher entering at twenty would pay 
$56 a year, while if he entered at thirty he would 
have to pay $94. If the teacher leaves service 
before the age of retirement, except for disability, 
the money paid in with its accumulations is re- 
turned. 


For teachers having less than ten years of 
service the above scheme would be applied with 
only slight modifications. For those who have 
taught more than ten years a somewhat differ- 
ent plan is suggested. The present $500 retire- 
ment salary is to be taken a8-a~basis with the 
teacher paying $30 per year without refund in 
the event of withdrawal. In addition to this .con- 
tribution, the teacher would make a “savings 
bank?deposit sufficient to give a life income of 
$200 a year at age sixty. The State then matches 
this additional deposit, making a total retirement 
salary of $900 at age sixty. If service continued 
to age sixty-five the salary would become $1,059. 

The Commission feared that there was no Con- 
stitutional way of increasing the $500 retirement 


fund for those who have already retired, although 
there are many cases where the people are in 
serious need. 

The Commission’s Report was not published 
until the middle of the last session of the Legis- 
lature. Before that time the Rochester Bill, not 
on an actuarial basis, had been introduced. At- 
tempts to compromise the Bill and the Report 
were not entirely successful, and opposition de- 
veloped among the teachers also, with the result 
that the Bill died in the Finance Committee, as 
the actuaries stated that it would commit the 
State to an added expense of from $10,000,000 
to $14,000,000. 

The Retirement Committee of the California 
Teachers Association is working on the problem 
and hopes to have something definite to present 
to the next Legislature. 


REAL ESTATE BOARD VS. TEACHERS’ 
UNION 


The Executive Committee of the Atlanta Pub- 
lic School Teachers’ Association published a reply 
to resolutions adopted by the Atlanta Real Estate 
Board. The Resolutions set forth criticisms of the 
Board of Education for putting before the public 
the need for more funds to carry on the school 
program. The reply from the association meets 
the criticisms made by the Resolutions and shows 
that Atlanta is at the bottom of the list for cities 
of 100,000 or more in cost per pupil. The 
teachers point out the increase in real estate 
values that always attends the building of schools 
and warn the Real Estate Board that in attempt- 
ing to pull down the public schools they are pull- 
ing the temple down on their own heads, 


CONFERENCE ON INDUSTRIAL 
RELATIONS 


On February 21 and 22 the Students’ Inter- 
national Union held a Conference on International 
Relations. A group of 38 students representing 
34 American colleges attended this Conference. 
Professor Parker T. Moon presided at two of 
the sessions and Dr. Herbert Feis at a third. The 
purpose of the Conference, which is held an- 
nually is to stimulate interest in international rela- 
tions and to select scholars for a more intensive 
study of world problems in Geneva. For the 
past five years the Union has awarded scholar- 
ships to students of different countries for six 
weeks seminar at Geneva. 











22 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


ILLITERACY IN THE UNITED STATES 


Letter to Secretary of the Interior Wilbur 
A. F. of T.’s Position on Illiteracy Problem 


March 4, 1930. 
Honorable Ray Lyman Wilbur, 
Secretary of the Interior, 
Washington, D. C. 
My Dear Mr. Secretary: 

On behalf of the American Federation of 
Teachers, I wish to say to you that we view 
with concern and great alarm the methods which 
you, through your National Advisory Committee 
on Illiteracy, are advocating and advancing, in 
this movement of national moment, to wipe out 
illiteracy in the United States. 

You are fully aware, I am sure, of the deep 
interest which the American [ederation of 
Teachers has in this highly significant piece of 
work. You know, no doubt, also, of the assist- 
ance which our Research Department gave to our 
parent body, the American Federation of Labor, 


a number of years ago when that body launched , 


its first active attack on this problem. 

Hence, you realize that our interest has not just 
been aroused by the dramatic appeal now being 
made. Our interest has been and is continuous. 

We realize full well that the Advisory Com- 
mittee on Illiteracy is entering upon a stupendous 
piece of work. America should stand among the 
highest in literacy. As a matter of fact she 
stands probably between sixth and tenth. Au- 
thentic figures‘are not available at this writing 
as the Office of Education refuses to give them. 

The interest of President Hoover has been 


demonstrated by the appointment of this com-.: 


mission. Undoubtedly it is expected a careful 
definition of “literacy” will preface any program. 
If literacy is interpreted as the ability to read a 
few especially learned words and to write one’s 
own name, the program is greatly simplified. 
Such ability, however, will not mean that we have 
a literate population rather than a large illiterate 
one. Programs which hold up illusions of liter- 
acy must be guarded against and those programs 
adopted which are definitely based on the fact 
of literacy, which includes the establishing of the 
reading habit. 

As teachers we ask how long it takes to ac- 
quire a habit and so set it that it remains with 
us through life? The near illiterates are as help- 


less as the absolute illiterates in the work of the 
world. 

New York State has decided upon a FOURTH 
GRADE literacy. This really means giving 
power to the adult to become a reader. Every 
large professional educational organization calls 
for practically the same type of program. 

We challenge the wisdom of announcing to the 
nation as a whole, through the public press, that 
an absolute illiterate can be given the power to 
read a newspaper and write letters by taking a 
short course of lessons. (The manual suggests 
twenty-four lessons.) We also definitely state 
our belief that if this is done within the next six 
weeks, as has been announced, and that if people 
who have learned to write their names and read 
a few stumbling words in the newspaper are to 
be classed as literates, and our place in the liter- 
acy of the world is to be raised thereby, the 
cause of literacy will be definitely and seriously 
harmed. 

If we are classed as the most literate nation, 
we shall not be able to conduct a true educational 
program to establish real literacy, because there 
will apparently be no need. 


If thousands, truly millions, of illiterates will 
have been assured that they can learn to read 
and write by taking a short course of lessons, 
the discouragement and disillusionment that will 
follow in the majority of cases will plunge these 
people into a state so much darker than their 
previous one that there will be no hope for them. 

Let us have a true statement of our deplorable 
condition in the 1930 census and let the National 
Advisory Commission on Illiteracy work out a 
program fitted to the facts obtained from this 
statement and based on such scientific research 
of the adult’s ability to learn as Thorndike’s ex- 
periments in adult learning, in which it is shown 
that the adult can learn with approximately as 
great speed as the adolescent child, but not more 
rapidly. 

Only the intellectual giants can master reading 
and writing habits in.a few months. The aver- 
age child does not have power to read comprehen- 
sively for several years, an article comprising a 
miscellaneous vocabulary. 


May we also very frankly tell you that the an- 
nounced method of the campaign is so unsound 
socially and educationally that some of our finest 














THE AMERICAN TEACHER 23 


citizens will despair of the movement, and regard 
it as but a political gesture? Your manual pre- 
pared by the executive committee says: “The 
writing of certain things has been suggested for 
nearly every lesson, because of the paramount 
importance of those things. They are: The name 
and address, and the sentence, ‘I can read and 
write’.” 

In lesson four, which is after one sixth of the 
course as planned is over, you still instruct the 
teacher to have students trace copy, and copy 
their own names. As you know, many illiterates 
can trace and copy words. Yet in lesson six 
in which you still continue to have the students 
trace copy, you have the students trace the sen- 
tence, “I can read and write.” And, Sir, this 
is in lesson six after one-fourth of your course 
has been completed. 

Do you not think that serious minded persons 
may very validly question whether this campaign 
is truly one to help the illiterate, or whether it 
is but a means of enabling those who are at pres- 
ent illiterate to cover their illiteracy when the 
census enumerators appear in April? 

We are mindful of a very fine survey which 
is being made on the entire question of teaching 
adult illiterates by a sub-committee on technique. 
Would it not be safer, and certainly saner, to 
allow the work which is to be done to be based 
upon the findings of this survey rather than to 
hurry through a superficial, pseudo efficient cam- 
paign which by enabling men and women to write 
their names when the census enumerator comes 
will deny them the opportunity of becoming liter- 
ates and better citizens? 

And as the national organization of class room 
teachers we feel that we must call to your at- 
tention the fact that your committee while includ- 
ing many men and women of national repute 
does not give proper recognition to the class 
room teacher, to the men and women who have 
done the greatest amount of actual teaching in 
the field of Adult Illiteracy. 

This matter, we feel, is of so grave importance, 
that we ask you, Sir, to give it your immediate 
intimate attention. 


Respectfully yours, 
FLORENCE Curtis Hinson. 





Deep-seated wrorgs are not righted by a few weeks’ 
sensational publicity. 


ILLITERACY DRIVE STARTED BY 
LABOR; NOT INCLUDED ON 
ADVISORY BOARD 

The present drive against illiteracy in the 


United States was started by the A. F. of L., 
but the labor movement is not represented on 
the recently-appointed National Advisory Com- 
mittee on Illiteracy. 

Organized workers who are watching this anti- 
illiteracy movement are asking if the committee’s 
program is but a political gesture for the bene- 
fit of certain sections, and if the ability to write 
“T am not illiterate” will wipe out illiteracy. 

A nation-wide study of illiteracy was made 
three years ago by Miss Selma Munter Bor- 
chardt, vice president and legislative representa- 
tive American Federation of Teachers, an affiliate 
of the A. F. of L. 

Miss Borchardt refused to accept at their face 
value the compulsory school attendance laws in 
every State. She showed that most of these laws 
“actually don’t compel.” 

“There are so many exceptions in some cases 
that there are really no laws at all,” said Miss 
Borchardt. “And the excuses aren’t even high 
sounding ones. Too poor; too far from school; 
not enough seats in the school, or any ‘unusual 
case’ are exceptions. 

“First, there are the poverty exemption laws. 
In our rich, prosperous land, ‘the land of oppor- 
tunity,’ children are excused from school if 
they’re too poor to attend. Seventeen of our 
States have some form of poverty exemption 
clause in their school attendance law. 

“In some of the States like South Carolina, 
Texas and Nebraska, children who are needed to 
support a parent are excused from attending 
school; in other States, like Arkansas and Flori- 
da, the exemption is a little more limited, saying 
that children need not be educated if they are 
needed for the support of a widowed mother. 
In Tennessee they may remain illiterate if they 
cannot buy suitable clothing in which to come to 
school. Connecticut recognizes as a legal excuse 
for non-school attendance, inability to supply 
books. 

“But no matter how this poverty clause is 
worded, the effect is the same; poor children are 
not being educated simply because they are poor. 
And this holds true in 17 States, representative 
of every part of our country. The economic 





24 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


waste to the community is great; the loss to the 
people involved is greater. Can these children 
ever fully recover from that feeling of degrada- 
tion to which the ‘poor’ label has subjected them? 

“Poverty should not be allowed to beget pov- 
erty. Certainly the law shouldn’t give its sanc- 
tion to the practice.” 





THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION 
ATTACKS ALIEN REGISTRATION BILLS 
The American Civil Liberties Union has issued a 

pamphlet attacking the alien registration bills now 

pending in Congress, characterizing their proposal 
as “a monstrous system of espionage.” 

The bills, which are of two types, one calling for 
voluntary, the other for compulsory registration, are 
especially supported by the Department of Labor. 

The Union particularly condemns the introduction 
of the voluntary registration bills as so much camou- 
flage, since voluntary registration clearly would not 
accomplish the result at which the Department of 
Labor aims. 

Pointing out that the registration of aliens would 
be a menace to the liberty of citizens as well, since 
it would open the way to their registration, the 
pamphlet continues to condemn the proposed meas- 
ures on the ground that they would lead to constant 
intimidation of our alien population of 7,000,000 
people, to blackmail and extortion, to additional law- 
lessness and law evasion, and to a multiplication of 
petty cases in our courts. 





Privilege, to hold and enlarge its power, reaches into 
every phase of our social and political life. It controls 
business men through bank credits, newspapers, through 
advertising and would sway churches and fraternal 
organizations. 

No organization or institution is immune from these 
overlords, who would silence criticism and check rebuke. 

Profiteers, thus entrenched, raise the cry “radical” 
whenever workers would improve living conditions or 
wrest control of their lives from those who hold, as 
Louis of France, “I am the State.” 















entu Ury 


Sue ET Mus Ic 
You can get any of the 2,700 standard and classi- 
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Contains music in all grades for Piano, Violin, 
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ADVANTAGES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 
OF LABOR ORGANIZATION 


(Continued from page 5) 


educate their group for a sense of responsibility 
for the proper use of that power. 

As a Union it cannot afford to have a rep- 
resentative who is misusing the power of the 
Union, for that power will pass out of the hands 
that misuse it. (Mr. Mullenbach cited the case 
of Hart, Schafner & Marx losing their power 
to the Union because of the misuse of power 
by the foremen in the shops. He further cited 
the case of a Union representative who was mis- 
using his power and interfering with the work of 
the employees by talking to them and preventing 
them from working. After a conference he was 
satisfied from the evidence that the Union rep- 
resentative was guilty. He asked that all the 
Union representatives in the shop meet with 
him for a conference. At this conference he im- 
pressed upon all of them the fact that they got 
their power originally because some bosses in the 
shops had misused their power. And he warned 
them lest they fall into the same abuse of power.) 

When you have once seized the power it is 
necessary to use that power responsibly, consider- 
ately, and judiciously with the feeling of a double 
responsibility—a responsibility to your own union 
and a responsibility to industry. Mr. Hillmann 
counselled his Union workers to know more about 
the business than the owners because they had 
to earn their living at that business—they must 
keep it going and they must stay on the job. 
The owner could go to California or to Florida. 
But the workers had to stay right there on the 
job. And they had to have a job to work at. 


The way out of the present scheme of things 
is through organization of workeis who are con- 
scious of their possession of power and of their 
responsibility for the use of it. As teachers there 
is a greater responsibility than upon other groups 
in the Labor relationship, because teachers have 
the education and the experience that fits them 
for the responsible ‘use of power. The Labor 
movement is to be congratulated because the 
teachers have joined with Labor. 





Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others 
the sacrifices required for co-operation with oneself— 
(Logic and Mysticism, by Bertrand Russell.) 








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THE AMERICAN 


WORLD LEAGUE OF INTERNATIONAL 


EDUCATION ASSOCIATIONS 
521 Phelan Building 


San Francisco, California 


Honorary President Director 
Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur Mrs. Alice Wilson 


The members of the World League of In- 
ternational Education Associations (High 
School students) on this Good Will Day, May 
18th, 1930, are sending through the columns 
of this paper, a message to all the High School 
students of the World, (through the kind 
offices of the teacher reading these few lines) 
asking them to join with them in the work 
they have undertaken, viz: to train themselves 
in a more tolerant and sympathetic attitude 
toward peoples of other countries and to de- 
vote their energies in creating a better under- 
standing among the next generation. 

The World League of International Educa- 
tion Associations was founded in Girls High 
School, San Francisco, California, in January, 
1925. There are now about one hundred I[n- 
ternational Clubs, members of the League in 
High Schools in the United States and abroad. 

There are no dues and no specific rules. The 
only requirement is the signing of a pledge 
in the form of a membership card which reads 
as follows: 

 Eiabeeteneesedesees Sh Wiccsendnneinns Club of 
neenenoeed School hereby declare our intention to 


join the World League of International Education 
Associations. 


We understand that this League is entirely non- 
political and non-sectarian, its sole aim being to try 
for a better understanding of peoples of other coun- 
tries, and to develop towards them a spirit of toler- 
ance and good will. We also understand that joining 
this organization, carries with it no other obligation 
than working together towards the common aim.” 

The Honorary President is Dr. Ray Lyman 
Wilbur, Secretary of the Interior, U. S. A. 
The League has been endorsed by prominent 
educators in this country and abroad, and is 
recognized by, and cooperates with a large 
number of international organizations, of 
kindred aim and thought. 


For further information, communicate with 
the office of the League, 521 Phelan Building, 
San Francisco, California. 


TEACHER 25 


ASK SUPPORT OF MINISTERS IN 
DRIVE ON CUSTOMS CENSORSHIP 


An appeal to ministers of all denominations to 
support the amendment to the tariff act taking 
the power of censorship of foreign books away 
from customs officials has been broadcast in a 
circular from the American Civil Liberties Union 
signed by the Rev. Harry F. Ward of New York. 

The Union asks the ministers to write their 
senators supporting the move by Senator Bronson 
Cutting of New Mexico to end the hundred-year- 
old censorship by customs officials. This censor- 
ship, Senator Cutting has pointed out, has ex- 
cluded many world classics as obscene, 

The Union’s position is that courts alone 
should have the power to determine what is ob- 
scene. The letter points out that under the 
amendment suggested, customs officers would still 
have the power to apply for a warrant to seize 
books and take the issue into court under State 
laws. Under the present law, it is practically 
impossible for importers of books to appeal cus- 
toms’ officials ban and to get the issue of “ob- 
scenity” before the courts. 

The Union’s appeal follows opposition by the 
so-called religious lobby in Washington to the 
amendment already adopted by a narrow margin 
in the Senate, cutting out censorship by customs 
officers. A reconsideration of the vote is due in 
the near future when the amendment comes up 
for final action. 


INDUSTRIALISM IN THE SOUTH 

Donald R. Richberg in an address at Birming- 
ham, Alabama, before the District Conference of 
Southern States Leagues of Women Voters bal- 
anced the material gains that will accrue to the 
South from the industrial development against 
the spiritual values that may be lost sight of in 
making these gains. To make clear his point he 
reviewed something of the political corruption 
that followed in the wake of development of in- 
dustry in the north. 

To the extent that the present development of 
the Southern states is being promoted by men 
who live elsewhere, who are alien to the tradi- 
tions and spirit of the people of the South, Mr. 
Richberg sees political corruption, exploitation of 
the workers and attendant evils. 


“When you see the public utilities and the private 
factories of the Northland marching into the South- 





26 THE AMERICAN 


land,” he said, “you may realize that they are not 
only bringing in alien ideas, alien interests, new 
industrial problems and conflicts, and the troubles 
arising out of absentee ownership and control of the 
wealth of the community, with inevitable changes 
in social conditions, but they are also bringing into 
your political life the forces of an alien and menac- 
ing control of government for the private profit 
of those who live elsewhere.” 

He emphasized the “Un-American attitude to- 
ward Labor, which characterizes so many of the 
great industries of the North” which he defined 
as “The denial to men of the right to organize 
themselves for mutual aid and advancement,” as 
a new and great menace to the ideals of the South. 
There is truth in his criticism of the attitude of 
Northern industrialists toward Labor organiza- 
tion but what assurance is there that Southern 
capital is any more fair or generous to the 
worker? 

The great problem that he sees facing the in- 
dustrial South is one that the industrial North 


has failed to solve. 

“How can you encourage the material development 
of a community, encourage the production of wealth 
under the system of modern industry; utilize the 
great capacity of financiers and industrial organizers 
to bring about a greater production and exchange 
of the goods and services that make life more 
comfortable and attractive; and at the same time 
how ,can you prevent the control of your government 
and your very lives from passing into the hands of 
men wielding the great but corrupting power of 
money? How can you preserve your ancient liber- 
ties; your self-respect; your ideals; your standards 
of decent living? How can you preserve even the 
sectrity of life and property from destruction by 
those anti-social forces, which have become so 
powerful and which have so degraded life in the 
great industrial centers of the nation?” 


The problem is not new but the acuteness of 
the situation in the South forces a realization of 
its importance. 





TEACHERS GIVE BOSSES 0O-O 
By Harold Z. Brown 
Federated Press 

Real job control, with a voice in choosing their 
own supervisors, is how the New York Teachers’ 
‘union interprets its slogan, “Democracy in Edu- 
cation.” 

For this reason the union recently reversed 
Tammany school board procedure in a manner 
likely to make school politicians sick. It sent 


out a questionnaire asking its 500 high school 


TEACHER 


members to say what they think of 35 candidates 
for 5 vacant high school principalships. 

Harassed, drudging teachers, used to being 
“rated,” “scored,” “tested,” and “appraised,” by 
their “superiors,” were asked to give a frank 
opinion on the merits and shortcomings of the 
men under whom they must work. Incidentally 
they were asked to say if they knew of other 
applicants more qualified. 

It was a terrible shock to the established school 
order when mere teachers, acting through their 
own organization, dared to ask themselves and 
answer such questions about their future bosses 
as the following: 

“Ts the candidate a person of integrity of char- 
acter, or does he quibble on issues involving 
honesty? Have you noted the psychological ef- 
fect on candidate of power granted to him? That 
is, can he stand having authority? How do chil- 
dren regard him? Do you believe candidate has 
used political, religious, or fraternal influences 
to further his personal ambitions in the school 
system? Would you like to work under candi- 
date if he were chosen high school principal?” 

Finally, each teacher was asked to rank the 
candidates reported in the order of their fitness 
for a principal’s job—reporting only such candi- 
dates as were personally known to him. On the 
basis of this information, the union compiled a 
list of the 35 approved candidates, showing 5 
rated by teachers as highly competent, 5 as not 
competent, and 8 in a middle group where favor- 
able opinions cancelled an equal number of un- 
favorable verdicts. 

All these facts were sent by the union to the 
Board, with a letter protesting against political 
influence in school appointments, saying that “if 
the educational authorities of New York wish 
to eliminate the paralyzing and degrading in- 
fluence of politics, they can do it,” and urging the 
board to reconsider the 170 applicants at first 
rejected. 





CHARACTER 


It is not what a man gets, but what a man is, that 
he should think of. He should first think of his char- 
acter, and then of his condition. He that has character 
need have no fear of his condition. Character will 
draw condition after it—H. W. Beecher. 





When moral courage is in the right, there is n0 
personal daring of which it is incapable—Leigh Hum. 











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THE AMERICAN 


RUSSELL TELLS HOW BONNER 
BETRAYED PUBLIC WELFARE 


Washington—(FP)—How F. W. Bonner, ex- 
ecutive secretary of the Federal Power Commis- 
sion by grace of Secretary of the Interior Wilbur 
and the power trust, betrayed the public welfare 
in blocking effective opposition to power trust 
greed, was told the Senate interstate commerce 
committee, Feb. 18, by Charles Russell, solicitor 
of the Commission. William V. King, chief ac- 
countant for the Commission, waited to reinforce 
this testimony next day. Senators Couzens, Dill, 
Pine, Wheeler and Wagner were astounded at 
Russell’s disclosures. 

Russell testified that even before he came over 
to the Power Commission from the Interstate 
Commission, July 1, last, Bonner called upon him 
to meet in conference, in Bonner’s office, the lob- 
byist for the Electric Bond & Share Co., M. O. 
Leighton. He said that Bonner told him that 
King would not be admitted to this parley; that 
Russell had listened enough to King, and now 
should “hear the company’s side” as to federal 
inspection of the claims as to investment made 
by power companies seeking federal licenses for 
development of federal power sites. 

Leighton, according to Russell, began by tell- 
ing him how to run his job as solicitor. He ad- 
vised Russell to use his influence to make King 
“lay off” his inquiries into details of alleged pre- 
license investment submitted under oath by the 
companies. 

Sen. Wheeler asked the significance of that 
advice. 

“It meant,” replied Russell, “that Mr. King 
had insisted on getting the facts as to just what 
money had been spent by the applicant for a 
federal power site, and for what purposes. For 
instance, there was an item of $140,000 which the 
Byllesby concern charged up as part of its in- 
vestment in three Minnesota power projects, 
which was actually the amount paid to a lawyer 
named Flynn for lobbying. It was labelled as 
lobby expense, yet the consumers of electricity 
must pay for 50 years a return to the company 
on this item, and at the end of the lease the gov- 
ernment must pay the $140,000 back to the com- 
pany as part of the recapture price.” 

Flynn, of the firm of Cummins, Romer and 
Flynn, was credited with having lobbied for fed- 


TEACHER 27 


deral legislation desired by the power interests, 
in the years 1917-21, when the Federal Water 
Power Act was being debated and passed and 
put into operation. 

Another time of $700,000 in the valuation 
claimed by a Pennsylvania power company for a 
new development, Russell testified, was appar- 
ently due to lobbying and other similar expense, 
though the government had thus far failed to 
discover what the money went for. 

Chairman Couzens and Senators Wagner, Dill 
and Wheeler asked for details on the Niagara 
Falls Power Co. deal which has created scandal 
in the Commission for months past. Russell 
showed that he and King had fought Bonner on 
this issue—the question of the company’s claim to 
$77,000,000 old valuation and to an additional 
item of $1,500,000 involved in a roundabout deal 
whereby some small business concerns surren- 
dered 225 second-feet of water to the government 
in order that the big company might be granted 
this water. Russell testified that at least $30,- 
000,000 of the company’s old valuation was based 
on nothing but its privilege of using water that 
the government had permitted it to use. On the 
afternoon before Russell took the stand, Bonner 
sent to the Niagara Falls Power Co. the adverse 
opinion Russell had rendered on this false valu- 
ation three months before. The item of $1,500,- 
000, said Russell, was illegal. If granted, it could 
be used to further inflate the capitalization of the 
company $110,000,000, since the company is us- 
ing 20,000 second-feet of water. 

This Niagara Falls testimony gave the senators 
some light on the reason why electricity costs the 
consumer twice as much, on the American side of 
the Falls, as on the Ontario side where public 
ownership prevails. 

Russell told the committee that the Electric 
Bond & Share and other holding and management 
companies are clearly subject to federal regula- 
tion, as being engaged in interstate commerce. 


Science is the irreconcilable foe of bogeys, and there- 
fore a method of laying the conflicts of the soul. It is 
the unfrightened, masterful and humble approach to 
reality—the needs of our natures and the possibilities 
of the world. The scientific spirit is the spirit 6f 
democracy the escape from drift, the outlook of a free 
man. Its direction is to distinguish fact from fancy; 
its enthusiasm is for the possible; its promise is the 
shaping of fact to a chastened and honest dream.— 
(Drift and Mastery, by Walter Lippmann.) 








28 THE AMERICAN 





BOOKS 


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











INDIA, FROM THE OUTSIDE IN AND 
INSIDE OUT 


This “Case for India,” by John S. Hoyland, 
is one of the fairest, most constructive and sym- 
pathetic analyses of India and its manifold prob- 
lems that has been presented so far in the attempt 
to unravel the multitudinous threads that bind 
India to the wheel of subservience. Mr. Hoy- 
land discusses the question both from the view- 
point of the Englishman, the outsider looking in, 
and the Hindu, the insider, looking out ; each feel- 
ing that the other’s system is wrong and theirs 
the only possible approach to a sublime state of 
perfection in living. 

The author has spent more than fifteen years 
in India, in close contact with its people and its 
particular interior strife. He feels that the only 
possible solution for India is freedom from such 
strict parental authority as Great Britain now 
exercises over her, Great Britain to act merely as 
an arbitrator, a strong wall against which India 
can find support. He points out that the very 
fact that the Hindu system has for three thou- 
sand years withstood, to a degree, invasion, fam- 
ine, and all sorts of catastrophe, is ample proof 
that the Hindu mind is not entirely idealistic, 
“but has the power of rendering ideas operative 
in practice, by the creation of institutions and 
systems designed to embody those ideas in con- 
crete actuality.” 

He cites the Englishman’s attitude toward the 
Colonies in 1770, as a comparison—no one seri- 
ously thought the colonies were capable of self- 
government. No one considers India capable of 
self-government. He feels that the power to 
govern can never be really developed without an 
opportunity to attempt it. He frankly says that 
unless India is released a tragedy “far greater 
than the tragedies of 1775 and 1920” will result; 


that only through Great Britain’s allowing India 
her freedom can she hope to retain India within 
the fold of the British family of Nations. 

Mr. Hoyland not only gives his own opinions 


TEACHER 


but those of leading Indian statesmen such as 
Mahatma Gandhi and Tagore. He cites incidents 
where the British military authority has blundered 
immeasurably in refusing to give even the slight- 
est consideration to the Indian point of view. 
He feels that in dealing with India one must have 
an understanding of the Indian religious mind 
as well as its economic and political minds, for 
religion is the dominating factor of Indian life. 

His whole analysis is sympathetic, understand- 
ing, and tinged with a fine appreciation of the 
fundamentals of the situation that are so often 
ignored by military and state authorities. His 
book is a splendid defense of the case for India. 

* * * 
“Tue Case For Innis,” by John S. Hoyland. Pub- 


lication date, Feb. 6th. Price, $2.00. E. P. Dutton & 
Co. BY. 





UNEMPLOYED CAN READ HOW 
EMPLOYED WORK TOO HARD 


By Robert W. Dunn 


Federated Press 

The speeding up of workers in America’s big 
“open shop” plants is described in a new college 
text book by S. Howard Patterson,* professor 
at the Wharton School of the University of 
Pennsylvania, the school that once booted out 
Scott Nearing for economic heresy. 

The professor admits that industrial plants— 
presumably those owned by the very Philadelphia 
capitalists who support the Wharton School—are 
characterized “not only by excessive hours of 
work, but also by very fatiguing conditions of 
a Instead of strength and skill, ma- 
chinery demands an alertness and a dexterous 
rapidity which youth alone can give.” Which 
means that men are fired at 40 or 50. 

“Speed, noise, smoke, monotony and other 
characteristics of modern methods of production 
are responsible for the strain of modern industry 
which makes for excessive fatigue and eventual 
superannuation,” says Patterson. “The nervous 
strain of industry has been greatly increased, and 
fatigue is mental as well as physical. Some of the 
chief reasons for the fatiguing character of mod- 
ern industry are its intense speed, its dull monot- 
ony, and its incessant noise. 





*S. Howard Patterson, Social Aspects of Industry, 
a survey of Labor Problems and Causes of Indus- 


trial Unrest, McGraw Hill Book Co., $5.00. 








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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 29 


“Constant attention, continuous alterness, and 
physiological adjustment to an automatic rhythm 
are as tiring as great muscular exertion. The 
frequent menace of physical danger and the con- 
stant compulsion of the machine or the foreman 
increases this nervous tension. .... By the use 
of machinery it is possible to speed the worker 
to his greatest possible exertion by forcing the 
human eyes and fingers to keep pace with those 
of electricity and steel.” 

Food workers will be interested to know that 
the professor recognizes their plight when he 
adds: “In canneries and biscuit factories, auto- 
matic conveyors can be geared deliberately to 
that rate of speed which corresponds to that of 
the fastest laborers. Workers, new or old, who 
cannot maintain ‘the pace that kills’ are forced 
to quit.” And this is true of practically every in- 
dustry today. 

He also mentions the contribution of speedup 
to piece work, pace setting, and gang driving, 
and concludes that “the speed and strain of mod- 
ern industry, accompanied by many dangers and 
disagreeable features, are responsible for the phy- 
sical fatigue and nervous exhaustion of the work- 
ers which finally results in a general superannua- 
tion or in some specific occupational disease.” 

The book deals briefly and in a general way 
with such topics as income and standards of liv- 
ing, poverty and “prosperity,” social insurance 
and unemployment, unions and employers’ wel- 
fare schemes. The final sections on socialism and 
syndicalism reflect the usual pro-capitalist view 
point of the goose-step academician. The author 
makes no claim for originality “except perhaps 
for the hazardous attempt to cover so large a field 
in one volume.” 

Workers classes and libraries may use the book 
with profit. It carries an unusually generous list 
of collateral readings and references at the end 
of each chapter. 





WALL ST. ON TRIAL IN FLOYD BOOK 
By Grace Hutchins 


Federated Press 
A mock trial of Wall St., charged with insan- 
ity, is set forth in an amusing and valuable book, 
People Versus Wall St., by William Floyd.* Out 
of the mouths of capitalists themselves the author 


eee tp 
*People Versus Wall Street by William Floyd. Van- 
guard Press, New York, 1930. Price $2.50. 


puts together an indictment of the new capitalism. 

Henry Ford, speaking as “just a plain business 
man” on the witness stand, explains unemploy- 
ment in 1929 with the following statement: 

“T’'ll tell you why the great majority of men 
not at work today are in that condition—it is sim- 
ply because they did not do their best while they 
had a job.” 

John D. Rockefeller, as the defendant “Mr. 
Wall St.” himself, remarks “I take off my hat 
to organized labor,” and immediately comes the 
prosecutor’: follow-up question : 

“Q. Does that mean you recognize labor 
unions? A. Certainly not.” 

By their own utterances, cleverly quoted in 
answer to the prosecutor’s questions, one capi- 
talist after another reveals the secret of making 
the highest possible profits while paying the low- 
est possible wages, under the guise of a more 
“considerate and saner capitalism.” Footnotes 
give the capitalist’s name. 

Labor writers and others will find the quota- 
tions handy on many occasions. The book lacks 
an index which would make it more easily usable 
for such reference. 





UPTON SINCLAIR TELLS HOW TO 
BEAT THE MARKET 
By Art Shields 


Federated Press 

Now Upton Sinclair tells us how to beat the 
stock market. His advice is better than a course 
in the Harvard School of Business Administra- 
tion, where the professors dare not be frank about 
financial practise. Sinclair tells us how in his 
novel of business success Mountain City,* the 
story of Jed Rusher who rose from a ranch boy 
to $50,000,000 in 30 years. 

The way to beat the market is not to study cor- 
poration reports from the outside. Jed Rusher’s 
smart lawyer described such molasses as of the 
“Christmas, birthday, and dance-card variety.” 
The way to beat the market is to manipulate se- 
curities from the inside. Thus, Jed Rusher’s oil 
company would run fictitious signals of distress. 
Its huge surpluses would be hidden by imaginary 
liabilities. Its directors would pass a dividend 
and the price of Tarbucket oil shares would hit 
the toboggan. Meanwhile Jed and his gang 





*Mountain City, By Upton Sinclair, Albert & Charles 
Boni, $2.50. 





30 THE AMERICAN 


would lend the surplus to themselves and sell 
Tarbucket short, making millions on the drop. 
Then they would catch the market on the low and 
get 60,000 more shares than they had before. Six 
months later the company would advertise a sur- 
plus and issue stock dividends, securities would 
soar and Jed would unload, making millions 
again. 

Jed Rusher was a puritan capitalist, a devout 
Methodist. He rigged the market. He bribed 
and blackmailed. He even plotted to commit 
fornication with his employer’s 14-year old 
granddaughter with the hope of crashing into a 
rich family by way of a shotgun marriage. But 
that was a matter of business, not lust of the 
flesh. And aside from that affair he was as 
moral as Rockefeller, not drinking, smoking, 
playing poker at night nor committing other 
transgressions that interfered with his bucaneer- 
ing efficiency. 

What Denver will say of Mountain City will 
be jolly. Newspapermen will chuckle at the por- 
traits from life and none should be merrier than 
those who have worked for the well known Col- 
orado publisher who got his start as a bartender 
and once boasted at a Chamber of Commerce 
banquet that “When I took in a silver dollar I 
would toss it to the ceiling, and if it stuck, it 
belonged to the boss, and if it came down, to me.” 
This cynical pirate made his biggest money out 
of the news not fit to print, suppressing the scan- 
dals of Mountain City society for a price. 

As the success story of a multimillionaire, Sin- 
clair’s latest novel has briefer workers’ scenes 
than Oil and Boston and The Jungle but those 
brief scenes are poignant bits of human suffering. 
The cattle ranch hands, burned and frozen by 
the weather and their children underfed; the 
farmers sinking deeper and deeper into debt 
while their little ones crawled among the sugar- 
beets missing school—their misery hurts because 
it is so real. Sinclair is more than our best 
muckraker, he is America’s outstanding labor 
novelist. 





I have often wondered that persons who make boast 
of professing the Christian religion—namely, love, joy, 
peace, temperance, and charity to all men—should quar- 
rel with such rancorous animosity, and display daily 
toward one another such bitter hatred that is, rather 
than the virtues which they profess, the readiest cri- 
terion of their faith—Spinoza. 


TEACHER 


THE ELEMENTARY ENGLISH REVIEW 

The Elementary English Review, which js 
edited and published by C. C. Certain of De- 
troit, Michigan, has recently been adopted by The 
National Council of Teachers of English as their 
official organ in the field of elementary school 
English. Membership in elementary school Eng- 
lish in the Council now carries with it a year’s 
subscription to The Elementary English Review 
without additional charge. 

Negotiations were completed this fall, and the 
September and October issues of The Review 
carry the imprint of The National Council of 
Teachers of English. 

The Elementary English Review will publish 
official papers of The Council dealing with va- 
rious aspects of elementary English, such as 
composition, reading, spelling, ‘grammar, litera- 
ture, and auditorium and library work. 

Since its first issue, almost seven years ago, 
The Elementary English Review has been the 
only periodical dealing exclusively with the teach- 
ing of English in elementary schools. Its circu- 
lation extends throughout the United States, 
Hawaii, Virgin Islands, and the Philippine Is- 
lands. 

In addition to adopting The Review as an offi- 
cial organ, The Council is further developing its 
organization in elementary English by the ap- 
pointment of a committee on elementary school 
English to plan a program of activities in this 
field. Elementary school teachers desiring to 
become members of The National Council of 
Teachers of English should address their appli- 
cations to 4070 Vicksburg Avenue, Detroit, 
Michigan. The annual dues are $3.00, which 
include copies of all publications by The Coun- 
cil and a year’s subscription to The Elementary 
English Review. 





SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE IN ENGLAND 

A bill has been introduced into parliament for 
the purpose of raising the age at which children 
in England and Wales can leave schools to fifteen. 
This extends the school-leaving age for one year. 
It is estimated that the cost of this additional 
years schooling would be about £3,000,000 for 
the first full year and after 1938 when the build- 
ing schedules would be completed £2,500,000. 
If the bill passes it will go into effect on April |, 
1931, 











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THE AMERICAN TEACHER 31 





gs Local News 


WASHINGTON, LOCAL 8 

During the current school year, the Washing- 
ton Teachers Union, Local 8, has worked on 
the following problems: sabbatical leave for 
teachers; testing in the junior high schools; the 
lengthened school day in the senior high school ; 
matrons for the elementary schools; status of the 
school librarians; vocational schools; adequate 
clerical force for the research department and 
distribution of text books in the senior high 
schools ; maintenance of Group B efficiency. 

A serious situation which the Union is making 
every effort to adjust is the transfer of seventy- 
eight kindergarten teachers to the grades. Wash- 
ington along with the rest of the country is suffer- 
ing from the movement to cut down school costs 
and curtail the education program. Is there no 
other way to economize in Washington than by 
taking from the small children their kindergar- 
tens? There was a time in America when robbing 
babies was considered the most heinous of crimes. 

A very successful benefit performance was 
given at the National Theatre on the evening of 
April 8. The play given was “Brothers” and the 
result was most gratifying, artistically, socially 
and financially. 











ST. PAUL WOMEN, LOCAL 28 

A series of meetings were arranged by the Fed- 
eration of Women Teachers for the purpose of 
presenting to the teachers of the city the candi- 
dates for the city offices. The meetings which 
were held on three successive Monday evenings 
were well attended. 

The Welfare Committee of the Federation is 
holding a series of conferences that will continue 
until members from all schools, representing the 
various departments of work, have been con- 
sulted on what problems concerning the schools 
and the teachers shall be included in a program 
of action, and on the methods by which they shall 
be solved. 





SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, LOCAL 31 

At the February meeting Mr. Leader of the 
Junior College spoke on the philosophical salary 
background offering bases for establishing the 
amount of salary: (a) A comparison of salaries 


paid elsewhere; (b) The amount a teacher with 
a family of four should receive. 

Motion made and carried that a resolution be 
sent to our United States Senators Shortridge 
and Johnson to support Senator Cutting in 
his effort to prevent the establishment in the 
United States of a mental and moral censorship 
by customs officials of imported papers, booklets, 
and books. 

Motion made and carried that a resolution be 
sent our United States Senators requesting their 
favorable consideration of the World Court and 
the Kellogg Pact. 

Mr. Everett made the following motion: Be it 
resolved that the president be instructed to ap- 
point a committee of three members to confer 
with the Administration of the School Depart- 
ment on the following points: (a) The coopera- 
tive formulation of a code of professional stand- 
ards for persons employed in the department. 
(b) The setting up of the necessary machinery 
through which the Administration and the Fed- 
eration may cooperate in the maintenance of such 
standards; provided, however, that before con- 
ferring with the administration such committee 
shall submit for approval or disapproval a tenta- 
tive scheme for accomplishing the previously 


mentioned ends. 
R. H. THURMOND, Secretary. 


ATLANTA, GA., LOCAL 89 

The Atlanta Public School Teachers’ Associa- 
tion has recently enjoyed and profited from the 
visit of Mrs. Florence Curtis Hanson to this city. 
On Saturday, March 15, the officers of the As- 
sociation enjoyed luncheon with her at the Georg- 
ian Terrace Hotel and at the general meeting, 
called on the following Friday, the teachers found 
her address stimulating and helpful. It was par- 
ticularly so as her discussion of school conditions 
in other parts of the country made us see our 
problem in a better light. This problem of ours 
is one of lack of sufficient finance for schools. 
Council has not appropriated enough money to 
run the schools on the present program. We face 
a deficit of money for two months at the end of 
the year if we continue as at present. This con- 
dition is made harder for us because of the rule 
Council has passed requiring that teachers’ sal- 
aries must be set up for the whole year. At 
present, we are working without a budget. A 





32 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


cut in salaries is imminent unless we can bring 
about some change. Facing this situation, the 
Teachers are taking the stand of supporting the 
present school program and of endeavoring to se- 
cure enough money from Council to sustain it. 

Our teachers functioned actively in the recent 
election for County Commissioners here. Com- 
mittee work consisted in securing from the candi- 
dates for election answers to questionnaires which 
pertained to school conditions and in seeing that 
our teachers were registered to vote. Whereas 
we have not asked for a definite report, we are 
convinced that a great per cent of teachers did 
vote. 

The Teachers’ Association has, through the 
press, declared itself entirely back of the present 
educational program of the schools. In that way, 
it has answered the Real Estate Board which 
attacked this program. We stand pat on the fact 
that the present program is modern, efficient, and 
up-to-date in all respects. 

M. LOUISE SMITH, 
Office Secretary. 





BROOKWOOD, LOCAL 189 

The Washington Birthday Conference held at 
Brookwood was very satisfactory. An account 
of the proceeding is to be published. The next 
event of importance on the Brookwood calendar 
is Graduation Day on May 9th. 

Telegrams were sent to the New York senators 
protesting the censorship of books by government 
officials and also alien registration. 

Four members of the Local will assist at the 
Barnard and Bryn Mawr Summer Schools for 
women in industry. 

David J. Saposs’ new book on the French 
Labor Movement has reached its final stage. 





GRAND FORKS, N. D., LOCAL 205 

The March meeting, a “dinner meeting,” proved 
highly successful. A large number of the mem- 
bers was present and a member of the Board 
of Education was a guest. 

At the present time the Local is considering 
affiliation with the State Federation of Labor. 

Increase in membership has warranted the ap- 
pointment of a new member to the council. 

VIONA C. HANSEN, 
Recording Secretary. 


MILWAUKEE VOCATIONAL TEACHERS 
LOCAL 212 

Most of the meetings of Local 212 have been 
concerned with organization. Now that organiza. 
tion work has been completed attention is being 
directed to increasing the membership. This is 
being done by personal solicitation and meetings 
to which all prospective and eligible teachers are 
invited. Tenure and salary schedule are receiy- 
ing attention and will continue. 





PENNSYLVANIA LOCALS 

The locals recently organized in Luzerne coun- 
ty, Pennsylvania—Nanticoke, Hanover, Plains 
and Wilkes-Barre—have very quickly got down 
to business. A joint committee of these locals 
is drafting a teacher tenure law. Ex-Governor 
Pinchot, candidate for governor at the next elec- 
tion, was waited upon to secure his views on the 
subject. Progress is being made. 

The membership is attacking its problems with 
much interest and sense of responsibility. 





SAN FRANCISCO, LOCAL 215 

Last week a charter was received in this 
city from the American Federation of Teach- 
ers for a local of administrators in the local 
field. The new organization started off with 
a goodly number of charter members and gives 
promise of being a lively union. After the 
installation of officers a delegate to the Labor 


Council was elected. 
Labor Clarion 





Good news! We live and learn, and every 
day we get better and better. 





LARKSVILLE, LOCAL 220 

Organization of Larksville borough school 
teachers into a unit affiliated with the Amer- 
ican Federation of Teachers has been effected. 
Charles Kutz of Harrisburg, representative of 
the State Federation of Labor, was in charge 
of the organization meeting. Joseph Keating 
was elected president; John L. Boney, vice- 
president; Esther C. Barry, recording secre- 
tary and Anna Jennings, financial secretary. 

Larksville is the sixth local of the American 
Federation of Teachers to be established in 
Luzerne County. It is welcomed most heart- 
ily into the Federation family. 








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DO YOU BELIEVE 


THAT YOU ARE ENTITLED TO 
1. A voice and a vote in the management of your 
school ; 

n 2. Independence of thot, freedom of expression and ex- 
ercise of initiative; 

'y 3 Working conditions that are sanitary, cheerful and 

inspiring. 
4. A promotion in rank based on merit only; 


5. A salary commensurate with the dignity and im- 
portance of your office? 


‘| JOIN THE. HOST 


i The pF Br mi Teacher 


Published by teachers for principle; net for profit 

f THE AMERICAN TEACHER is the only teachers’ 
p- magazine whose sole excuse for existence is the desire 
to mprove the working conditions of the teachers, and 
raise teaching to the dignity of a profession. 


“ Supscriprion Price 
n TWO DOLLARS FOR ONE YEAR 
t- 


Send In Your Subscription Today 
THE AMERICAN TEACHER 








The 
American Federation 


of Teachers 


Fourteenth 
Annual Convention 


Memphis, Tennessee 


June 30 to July 3, 1930 


Headquarters Hotel Peabody 














56 South Wabash Ave. Chicago, IL 
eee] 




































American Federation 
of 
Teachers 


506 South Wabash Avenue 
CHICAGO, ILL. 


a a 


The American Federation of Teachers desires to estab- 
lish an intimate contact and an effective co-operation be- 
tween 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 sub 
scription price is $2.00 per year, 25 cents per copy.