PERIODICAL ROOM GENERAL LIBRARY UNIV. OF MICH. AMERICAN TEACHER IN THIS ISSUE Dictatorship of the Bankers Charles J. Hemdley Danger to Free Public Education William J. Bogan Banking and Bankers John P. Frey “Smoke” William T. McCoy Teachers and Taxes Radio Channels Harris K. Randall The World Cowt Esther Everett Lape FEBRUARY, 1933 VOLUME XVII No. 3 NGAN OF THE AMERIGAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS Talks to Trade Unionists on the USES OF LIFE INSURANCE To Provide—\. FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE IN OLD AGE. The American Public now as never before is consider- ing ways and means of erecting protection against the time when reduced earning power necessitates obtaining an income from other sources. Also its recent experience with investments has taught it that the most secure form of investment is the life insurance contract. ULLICO Endowment policies maturing at the end of 10, 15 or 20 years or upon attainment of ages 60, 65 and 70 create the necessary reserve fund. In particular ULLICO Insurance with Annuity con- tracts extend life insurance protection up to age 60 (or 65) at which time they are converted into an annuity providing $10.00 per month per $1,000 of face amount payable to the insured as long as he lives, with the guar- antee that should the insured not live to receive 120 monthly payments, the Company will pay to his estate the unpaid balance of the 120 monthly payments. Experienced life insurance agents will recognize the many opportunities for the sale of these attractive insur- ance contracts. Write for Information to THE UNION LABOR LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY MATTHEW WOLL, President WASHINGTON, D. C. Canadian residents should apply to our CANADIAN CHIEF AGENT— Cc. E. Sexi, 465 Bay Street, Toronto, Ont., Canada The H. G. ADAIR PRINTING CO. A. R. BALFANZ, President W. T. FISHER, Treasurer CONSTRUCTIVE PRINTERS Telephones: FRAnklin 8124-5-6 107 No. Wacker Drive, Chicago Table of Contents Page Page NS ee -_ fe ee setae stawd teuad eee 20 Dictatorship of the Bankers. Pete eee teen eens ( has. J. Hendley 4 This Set Comnilites.......... Pe. ale — Danger to Free Public Education............ Wm. J. Boaan 7 : : Childhood versus the Depression.............. Wm. G. Carr 8 Florence C. Hunter............-.. veeccesessoersers soe 2 SE re Pe John P. Frey 10 Education or Catastrophe............ i dnastanauxecws aul 22 ™ ce” lV’ F ‘Coy 13 oe in al i ‘Smoke ee ees Vm. T. McCoy! Dublin Conference of W. F. E. A.......ccccnccccccccccess 24 i eeu pe cee ee enceceeen 16 a Teachers and Taxes Radio Channel Grants and Grantees....... Harris K. Randall 3 > ~ tae ns te “Eeencaey” United States and the World Court.....Esther Everett Lape % Making Teaching a Profession Schools and the A. F. of L. Convention.................... 2B Speaking of Laps P * The Coat and the Cloth rs rr or Te... cus ddstecebedseeceeeboce dante 29 coer bi-monthly by the American Fed- i eration of Teachers, 506 South Wabash Ave., Editorial Off S UBSCRIPTION $1.00 for the year—Foreign $1.10 Chicago, Ill. Entered as second class matter Oc- y mors ate —Single copies, 25c. At the time of expira tober 27, 1926, at the post office of Chicago, IIl., 506 South Wabash Ave., _tion, a bill will be found in the copy. | Sub- under the Act of March 3, 1879. Acceptance for Chicago, Illinois. scribers are requested to give prompt notice of mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Sec. 1103, Act of Feb. 28, 1925, authorized Nov. 3, 1926. Liat Ce eee ne Ree ee oe ern = 3 - *4 05" + ei ET a Ss CES ee — se : -13 3+ 3 eS et Fe i as ££ THE AMERICAN TEACHER The Dictatorship of the Bankers Charles J. Hendley virtually a dictatorship of the bankers. Municipal and state governments, private corporations, and even the national government has received peremptory demands from the bankers to reduce budgets. In many instances they have made the specific demand that payrolls be cut. The nature of their business makes it inevitable that they should make such demands. For the value of the securities they hold or sell depend upon balanced budgets and to them the most obvious method of balancing a budget in time of stress is to cut the payrolls. The November issue of the monthly review the National City Bank advances the argument that high wages are retarding economic recovery and that wage cuts, if general, do not lower the standard of living. TT present regime in the states and the nation is Example of the New York Bankers We shall use the example of the bankers of New York City to illustrate what is happening in the realm of municipal financing. Until about a year ago New York City could obtain temporary loans for 3% or less. Then suddenly the bankers refused to advance money except at very high rates and on their own conditions. Even the relief stations of the city were closed for several days until the bankers got their 6%. For more than a year now every temporary loan obtained by the city has been granted grudgingly and at high rates of interest. Last September the mayor of the city in making a demand that the city’s employees take a reduction in pay said: “The city has to economize to satisfy the bankers, I got $17,000,000 recently to last until October 1. We won't get any more unless we put through a definite retrenchment program. The bankers want results, and I have determined to see that they get them.” In- cidentally, we might add that the city employees have not yet come across with a “voluntary” donation to balance the budget. On October 17 this year Mr. Mitchell, President of the National City Bank, and other prominent bankers appeared before the Board of Estimate and in a dramatic manner demanded a drastic reduction of the budget as a condition of obtaining any more loans. Again two weeks later, according to the press, dozens of bankers from over twenty banks crowded a meeting of the Board of Estimate. One result has been a reduction of about $75,000,000 in the city’s budget, but the bankers and real estate operators are not yet satisfied. They frankly demand a big reduction in the payroll, a salary reduction for all city employees and have carried their fight to the state legislature. On November 30, Mr. Mitchell of the National City Bank, Mr. Aldrich of the Chase National Bank, and the Mayor and the Comp- troller of New York City went to Albany to confer with Governor-elect Lehman, who is Acting Governor in the absence of Governor Roosevelt. The conference lasted until the wee small hours of the night, and as a result Lehman called an extra session of the Legislature to meet on December 9 to deal with New York City finance. One particular object is the repeal of certain mandatory legislation that protects teachers’ and other city employees’ salaries. The Citizens’ Budget Commission We have in New York a self-appointed citizens’ bud- get commission that is now gloating over its victory in forcing the politicians to agree to this special session of the Legislature. This so-called commission is composed of bankers, real estate operators and representatives of the public utilities. We have identified their most prominent and active members and found that out of a list of forty of them, thirty represent twenty-one leading banks, twenty-odd principal mortgage companies, and over thirty miscellaneous real estate companies. The public utilities are represented through the banks. This commission has employed experts to “educate” public opinion and to present its demands to the politicians. Probably numerous other communities in the country have similar citizens’ committees making drives for re- trenchment in public service. The New York bankers are in an especially strategic position. On the one hand, as members of the Citizens’ Budget Commission they can pose as exemplars of civic virtue and exploit the embarassment that the Tammany politicians experience as a result of the Seabury revela- tions, and on the other hand, as monopolizers of credit they can dictate terms to an improvident city administra- tion. To oppose their dictatorship appears, superficially, to be aiding and abetting the political racketeers. The Bankers’ Profits Yet, these “exemplary” citizens, the bankers, do not hesitate ‘to demand higher rates of interest for them- selves while demanding that workers’ wages and salaries be reduced. And the record of their profits even during this depression show that they have been able to take care of themselves. Thirty-one of the largest public banks of the city have made profits as follows during the last three and a half years: Profits of Thirty-One Largest New York Public Banks Accumulated Net Dividends Surplus and Year Profits Paid Undivided Profits i” rostdhecden $162,039,000 $103,402,000 $1,244,714,000 ae 143,746,000 112,306,000 1,396,945 ,000 hee 189,924,000 132,003,000 1,172,847,000 1932 (6mos.). 66,433,000 55,985,000 1,058,473,000 Se ic cme ds $562,142,000 $403,696,000 —Moody’s Manual of Banks, 1931, 1932. From this table it will be observed that these banks are paying dividends in this the third year of the worst depression on record at a rate that will total nearly $112,000,000, or about $9,000,000 more than they paid themselves in 1929 when prosperity was at its peak for other businesses. Some of these banks have reduced their dividends this year, but their dividends still range from 6% to 100% of their capital stock, or an average dividend of 14.5%. On their total capital structure, which consists of their capital stock and the accumulated surplus and undivided profits, their 1932 dividends amount to 6.14%. This is a little greater than it was in 1929. Of course the accumulated surplus is profit too, In other words, profits are being pyramided on profits at a rate of over 6% this year. Yet this is an understate ment of the profits of the interests who are demanding OP as OO He ae ue ob 6 ‘om hana 932. yanks vorst early paid k for luced range erage “ture, lated Jends | was o. In its at state nding FEBRUARY, 1933 so strongly that our salaries be cut. For it does not include the profits of the big private banks like J. P. Morgan & Co., Speyer & Co., Kuhn, Loeb & Co., because the records of their profits are not available to the public. These big private firms, though, have a prominent part in financing the city, And we have not undertaken to account for profits paid in the form of stock dividends and subscription rights. Neither have we tried to esti- mate the profits that have accrued to the favored few through mergers and the split up of stock into smaller units. This wondrous method of accumulating profits at a compound interest ratio would go on indefinitely and profits grow right on up to the sky like Jack’s beanstalk if the capitalist system were sound either in operation or in theory. Bankers the Modern Demi-Gods Louis Brandeis, now Justice of the United States Supreme Court, exposed the bankers’ methods of pro- fiteering eighteen years ago in his little book entitled “Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It.” Recently a new edition of this significant book has been published, and it is even more timely, if possible, than it was in 1914. Brandeis makes a clear exposition of what Thorstein Veblen and others have shown in more abstruse language; viz., that bankers dominate the busi- ness and industrial life of the capitalist world. In the first place, they have in their control the me- dium of exchange of practically the whole business world, it being entrusted to them on deposit. Not only are they the custodians of the petty accounts of ordinary persons, but their institutions are the depositories of the insur- ance companies, the public utilities, the railroads, other big corporations, and the municipal, state and national governments. And, of course, they have the moral and legal right to loan these funds for their own profit. In the next place, the big bankers monopolize the credit of the business world. Only they can underwrite the enormous issues of securities and commercial paper that are constantly offered for sale. And the issue of credit is of vastly greater importance in the modern business world than the circulation of money, for more than 90% of the business transacted is on the basis of credit in one form or another. Brandeis makes plain how the bankers have gone far beyond the role of mere custodians of other people’s money and the role of dealer in securities and com- mercial paper. They have obtained control of the man- agement, either directly or indirectly, of all of the key industries, such as railroads, public utilities, steel, oil, coal, etc., etc. Labor, too, has felt the dictatorship of the bankers. Ever since the elder J. P. Morgan founded the Steel Trust and waged war upon the steel workers’ union, bankers have used their influence to prevent workers from organizing and to keep wages down. In the great railroad strike of 1922 the workers found that they were opposed by the bankers rather than the managers. And undoubtedly the present demand for a further reduction of railroad workers’ pay comes from the same source. For the bankers are hell-bent on saving the capital struc- ture of the railroads even though it be at the expense of Labor. The bankers’ own employees are among the poorest paid white-collar workers, and many of them have been summarily discharged for daring to try to organize. Verily the bankers dominate the economic world like the demi-gods that lived in the imagination of the Greeks. Fear of the Gods Moreover, the awe the ancients had for the gods and the demi-gods has its counterpart in the profound de- ference we have for the demi-gods of business. There is a traditional assumption that the bankers have, and by right should have, the final word in all temporal matters. There is a popular preconception that the de- mands of money-leaders must be met or our whole economic life will come to a complete standstill, and that the bankers have infallible judgment as to what the interest rates should be. The present economic im- passe might, indeed, be interpreted by some as a verifica- tion of this popular belief. The Incubus of the Capital Structure However, Brandeis and others have shown how dis- astrous for both banking and industry banker-manage- ment has been. One effect has been to burden industry with a capital structure, or as Veblen used to say, with a capitalized overhead cost, that now seems to paralyze industrial effort. In the 1932 issue of Moody’s Manual of Industrials (p. liv) there is a compilation of securities outstanding in the United States. The figures are said to be collected from the publications of the United States Treasury and other reliable sources. They in- dicate an enormous growth of capitalization in the form of stocks, bonds and mortgages. Corporation Securities Outstanding in the United States (Face Value in Billions) 1925 1929 1931 o. Date Be on ccvccsacwaer $ 28,489 $ 41.731 $ 44.894 b. Preferred Stocks ........... 15,947 19.632 20.170 c. Common Stocks ........... 58.987 89.184 90.561 d. Total Stocks and Bonds..... $103,423 $150,547 $155,625 e. Gain over amount of 1925... ...... 47,124 52,202 f. Accumulated Surplus ...... 34,567 a: rE es g. Total Capital Structure..... $137.990 lf h. Gain over amount of 1925... ...... > aS 8 These figures show that in the four years from 1925 to 1929 the corporations of the country increased their capital stock and bonds by more than forty-seven billions of dollars, or at the rate of nearly $12,000,000 annually. When we take account of the accumulated surplus and undivided profits (line f), we find that the total capital structure of these corporations increased over sixty- seven billions of dollars, or at the rate of nearly $17,- 000,000 annually. (See lines g and h). The most reckless of the promoters would hardly contend that the material assets and the tangible output of industry grew at such a pace even in that golden period. Much of this increase in capitalization was undoubtedly mere inflation of credit, and a large amount of the assets underlying it was intangible. The fictitious character of much of this capital structure is revealed in the radical fluctuation in the market value of the securities that represent it. We have no figures on the total market value of all of the securities mentioned in the table above, but the fluctua- tion of the prices of the stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange illustrate what happened. From the same source, Moody’s Manual of Industrials, 1932, p. liv. we obtain the following: Market Value of Stocks Listed on the New York Stock Exchange 1925 1929 1931 Number of issues.............. 1,043 1,293 1,295 Value in Billions.............. $34.489 $64.708 $26.694 The market value of these securities rose nearly 90% in four years, and then in two years declined to a point more than 22% below their value at the beginning of the period. Of course, the tangible industrial equipment and resources which these stocks represent did not change in amount corresponding to this fluctuation in price. In other words a large amount of these stocks represented intangible assets, if assets at all. In many cases these intangibles were nothing more than sanguine expectations of profits to be obtained through high pressure salesmanship or through control and manipula- tion of markets. The Bankers Responsible for the Depression Now, the bankers are to be held directly responsible for these inflated capitalizations and for the unnecessary overhead costs that they put upon industry, for their cooperation must be obtained for the flotation of any block of securities of any consequence. Indeed, they often initiate the inflation of capital, for great profits accrue to themselves in the process. For example, for organizing the United States Steel Corporation, J. P. Morgan & Co. and their associates in the syndicate re- ceived securities which netted them $62,500,000 in cash. According to Brandeis and other competent author- ities, we have come to such a pass that the bankers can either make or break almost any enterprise by granting or withholding credit. Since they are in so strategic a position we are justified in holding them responsible for the reckless financing of business and for the consequent debacle that we call the depression. What Can We Do About It? What can we do in the face of so powerful a dic- tatorship? The answer is ORGANIZE! There can be no way out without organization. The burdens of the depression and of the readjustments that it makes necessary are being shifted in the direction of the least resistance, and woe unto those who pursue the policy of yielding to the demands of the bankers and big business generally. There is no limit to what these high pressure go-getters will take if we will accommo- datingly give it to them. Moreover, the depression has advanced to the state where teachers can see more plainly than ever before their community of interest with other workers in both public and private employment. While financial and real estate interests all over the country are de- manding that teachers’ salaries be cut, the American Federation of Labor reiterates its consistent stand that teachers’ salaries be maintained. This organiza- tion rallies to the support of the public schools and to the defense of the teachers when a legion of other organizations demand drastic reductions in educa- tional budgets. Organized Labor has pointed the way out of this de- pression in its demand that the work day be shortened, that wages be increased, and that every one be put back to productive employment. To the despairing question, “How in the world can this be done?” Labor answers that the increased productive capacity of industry makes it possible. For one hundred and fifty years the inventors, scientists, engineers and managers have been making the world over, so that our wealth producing capacity has been multiplied thousands of times. Moreover, the progress of science is cumulative. Each step in advance gives us more power to advance still further. Power- driven machinery, scientific processes and scientific man- agement make possible an abundance of the necessities and comforts and even of many of the luxuries for every THE AMERICAN TEACHER one, That there is so much want and unrest in this the richest country is due only to our stupidity. The Twilight of the Gods We might quote the American Federation of Labor's report on the shorter work period as the handwriting on the wall foretelling the doom of the demi-gods of business : “In response to the efficiency impulse, and dating back many years, industry has centered its efforts on increasing production through machine refinements and improve: d means and methods, based primarily upon labor displacement and a reduction in labor cost, without any regard to what effect thi is policy would have on consuming power or public welfare. “This short-sighted policy has brought about virtual business prostration . This depression has come at a time when the productive agencies of our country, developed to the nth degree, have attained a capacity both actual and potential that can deluge every demand. “The problem that confronts us is in fact a problem of plenty. The genius of man has solved and more than solved the problem of production. Today, however, with this prob- lem of surplus and the disposition of surplus on the one hand, we find on the other some 12,000,000 workers in this country begging vainly for liberty to toil, while millions of others on part time employment must, in addition thereto, suffer intoler- able wage reductions. “These conditions must not be permitted longer to continue, To admit that this problem cannot be solved in an orderly manner would be an indictment on American common sense, For millions to suffer for lack of adequate food, clothing and shelter and to be denied work opportunities solely because of increased productive efficiency is to stamp the word defeat on our entire social system . . . We must master the machine and make it serve public welfare. “There is no other way. If we are measurably to match production and consumption, wages must go up and the hours of labor be progressively lessened as the only answer to the machine era in which we now live. No program of social or economic reform can hope to attain success that does not em- brace this economic truth as the corner stone of its reasoning.” It is hardly necessary to add that the demi-gods of business cannot think in terms like these. They can think only in terms of speculative market values and in the capitalization for private gain of any improvement in production. But those of us who work for our in- comes can see the possibilities of a great forward move- ment instead of the present movement of aimless and indiscriminate retrenchment. Moreover, it is not strange that Labor can see the way more plainly than those who live by exploiting any situation for their own profit, for it has nothing to lose by the unhampered production of goods and services to satisfy the needs of the race, but everything to gain by it. And Labor is destined to lead the way out, for progress has always sprung from the fundamental needs of the masses. One Way to Keep Of the Commissary E. B. Holmes, former school board member, has landed a nice, fat job at $250 per month as business manager of the Seattle school district. He will take over the duties of super- intendent of supplies and superintendent of grounds. The men who have filled these positions will still be kept on the payroll, it is understood. Mr. Holmes, who has been engaged in the lumber business in the North End for a number of years, has suffered severe “financial reverses” during the past years of the de pressio mn. This job comes as one of those lucky strikes of good fortune which are occasionally mentioned in our “success” magazines t answers the serious problem which 15,000 unemployed he ads of families have not been able to solve satisfactorily, Last spring Mr. Holmes did not “choose” to run election to the School Board. The office pays no salary could not have held his new job and been a member at the same time. The teachers were quite willing to see Mr. Holmes step out for he had voted for the “yellow dog contract” and had taken a reactionary position on most issues They are not particularly happy, now that they have been forced to take two wage cuts in the interest of economy, t see a new job added to the budget. for re and he Seattle “Vanguard.” ER the Or’s ting 3 of nany ction 10ds, abor have iness n the gree, can n of olved »rob- hand, untry "S on oler- tinue. derly sense. r and se of at on chine natch hours O the al or t em- ning.” ls of can ad in ment r in- nove- ; and range - who t, for on of > but » lead n the ided a of the super- ie men ayroll, usiness severe . This which es. It ads of for re- and he at the J olmes +” and e been my, to rd.” FEBRUARY, 1933 The Danger to Free Public Education Wm. J. Bogan oNIGHT I make a special appeal to fathers and mothers, especially mothers, for the support of free public education. Father may or may not fight for the rights of his children, but every mother, in all circumstances, can be depended upon to fight like a tigress for her young. I appeal to the fathers and mothers who have not the means nor the desire to give their children private education. I say to par- ents, therefore, that if throughout my talk you will keep in mind the need for free education for your own children, I may arouse in you a sense of the danger which threatens. My appeal is to all those who through principle or economic stress send their children to the public schools. I speak with feeling because a proud, boastful nation, dominated for years by men of power, credited with clear vision, has accepted a program of defeat. Leadership is gone—gone because it never was real. Vision is gone. Apparently it was only a bubble of conceit. Our great men who appeared to be heroic statues of bronze in the market place were washed out by the first downpour because they were merely var- nished clay. Fear rules America. In the Great War, soldiers died for democracy, be- lieving that their sacrifice would benefit the world for all time. Teachers of America are not dying for de- mocracy, but they are showing millions how to live for it. During the present financial crisis they are follow- ing the example of teachers all through the ages who have remained at their posts notwithstanding the haz- ards of poverty, pestilence and war. A famous editorial from the New York Times reinforced this idea beauti- fully. “Do not let the needs of the hour, however demanding, or its burden, however heavy, or its peril, however threatening, or its sorrows or heartbreaks, make you unmindful of the defense of tomorrow, of those disciplines through which an efficient democracy is possible, through which the institutions of civilization can be perpetuated and sanctioned.” There is a special necessity for free public education today and the danger of losing many of its benefits is so great as to demand of teachers that the study of methods and means and devices be abandoned tem- porarily for the study of economics. Schools have been living in a fool’s paradise, firm in the belief that all the nation was committed to democracy and free public education, but signs and portents on every side give warning of danger. One of these signs is the report of the May Committee which appeared in a recent edi- tion of the London Times: “Since the standard of education, elementary and second- ary, that is being given to the child of the poor parents is already in very many cases the superior of that which the middle class parent is providing for his own child, we feel that it is time to pause.” True, few in this country openly proclaim the theories so frankly expressed by this English committee, but in private, thoughts like this are often expressed. From the beginning of recorded history down to the present day, progress in civilization has been made pos- sible through a continuous war for the rights of the common man against the forces of ignorance and greed. In some cases the charities of the rich became in time the rights of the poor. This was especially true of Radio address, Station KYW, Chicago Men Teachers’ Union Series. education in our own country. Free public education not so long ago was a charity handed down by the rich. Now it has become the most precious heritage of the poor, which no social group nor government can elim- inate without destroying the foundations of society it- self. The withholding of educational privileges from the poor will prove disastrous. The attempt to tear down those phases of education which. minister espe- cially to the children of the poor is like staining with impious hands the sacred vessels of the temple. The famous iconclast, Norman Douglas, who does not believe in any form of public education, says that our public school system is a “state-controlled factory of echoes.” There may be truth in this if he means that it gives social solidarity, but with the improvement in teaching methods independence of thought will also be achieved. Whatever its defects, free public education is the only hope of the common man. Primitive man would have lasted only a short time in competition with the lower and more powerful animals had not his su- perior brain with its great power of invention enabled him to develop a simple weapon from the branch of the tree, an invention that made him master of the animal kingdom by adding greatly to the length and power of his arms. This weapon, the club, was the greatest in- vention of man. The next most important invention was also a club, the school. The former protected him against the lower animals, the latter protected him against himself. It enabled the common man to take his place in the seats of the mighty. The school in all ages has tried to meet the needs and demands of society. Hundreds of years ago when so- ciety was static this task was comparatively easy. So- cial and economic changes were so gradual as to be hardly noticeable over a period of centuries. Labor- saving devices were unknown and would have been un- welcome. In certain parts of the world the ancient methods of agriculture and industry still persist. One may see today the fellaheen of Egypt using the methods that were popular in the days of Moses. Children fol- lowed in the footsteps of the parents and the lowly man knew his place and kept it. Education was only for the few. It was a closed monopoly for the select and the elect. As changes in society were so very slow it was an easy matter for the schools to keep pace with them. The modern school deals with the results of ma- chinery, science and technology. Society demands that the schools keep up to date. The schools must keep pace with the demands of society. In fact, society has forced upon the schools all the modern phases of edu- cation for which they are now being criticized. Big business in its attempt to lower costs of govern- ment should move cautiously and in accordance with the principles of wise statesmanship, for the record of big business.in managing’ its own affairs for the past decade, does not inspire confidence in its ability to man- age education. Big business seems often to claim a divine right to the possession of wealth but every stu- dent of history and economics knows that without the presence of the common man this type of divinity will not function. The rich have acquired their wealth from the common people, but many feel no urge to make re- turn. Manhattan Island which was sold about three 8 hundred years ago to Peter Minuit by drunken Indians for twenty-four dollars worth of junk has increased in value to billions of dollars, not through the skill of stock jobbers, railroad manipulators, nor wreckers, but through the common people with the common needs that developed civilization. Therefore, the schools rep- resenting the common people, as well as the uncommon, resent the attempt to make free public education in America like a charity handed down from the bounty of the rich. The rich have proclaimed themselves this benefaction by impressing upon the people throughout the generations their superior rights. And now there is none so poor to do them reverence. To quote a great Chinese philosopher : “He who stands on a pedestal has no place to step but off.” Therefore, I say that the slogan Save THE SCHOOLS strikes deeper in its implications than salaries or sup- plies or any other material things. The impairment of the school means the weakening of the rights of every citizen, and though in our despair of democratic gov- ernment we sometimes cry for the man on horseback to save us from ourselves, we know that every vestige of liberty taken from us will be difficult to restore just as we know that some phases of democratic education eliminated in a crisis like this will never be restored. To meet the emergency in education every friend of the public schools should iet the public know how great the emergency is. Facts should be presented to the public. Parents should be taught that any reduction of efficiency in the schools means a loss to their own THE AMERICAN TEACHER children. The elimination of waste and extravagance— objectives approved by the schools—should not be used as an excuse to destroy the ideal of American citizen- ship, the rights of the common man. The lesson pre- sented by Chicago may be an aid to other communities facing an emergency in education. To many of this audience the word “Chicago” is a symbol of waste, extravagance, corruption and crime, The city has been the butt of ridicule in all parts of the world and in varying circumstances, but though many of the criticisms are leveled at her in order to distract attention from worse conditions at home, her people are fair enough to admit the truth. In fact, the in- habitants who know Chicago and love her for her human qualities are quick to reveal her faults and forget her virtues. Regardless of the truth or falsity of criticism every intelligent person knows that Chicago is forever presenting lessons to the world. Some are bad and same are good. Some of these lessons take the form of horrible examples for other communities to avoid, and some may be classified among the everlasting in- spirations. To night I call to your attention the latter type of lesson, the type that has stirred the hearts of all mankind—the lesson of sacrifice presented by the teachers of the Chicago Public Schools. Will you, the parents of pupils in our public schools, permit public education to be wrecked? The city is shamed in the eyes of the world—but we seem to lack the financial leadership that would modernize our nine- teenth century revenue system, pay our debts and save our schools from destruction. Childhood Versus the Depression William G. Carr O ONE can speak in Chicago about schools with- N out first paying high tribute to the teaching, supervising and administrative staffs. Week after week, month after month of financial hardships have fallen upon this group of loyal citizens and de- voted public servants. From their own slender and impaired resources they have contributed to the relief of cold and hungry children. They have gone without pay; they have been paid in depreciated scrip; their justly earned salaries are still in arrears. But the schools have stayed open, The children have been placed first; their educational rights have been remembered by the teaching profession although others have forgotten. The citizens of Chicago should take every possible and proper step to discharge in full and at the earliest pos- sible moment the financial obligations still owing to these employees. Schools today are being pinched between two oppos- ing pressures, increased responsibilities and decreased resources. Unemployment and depressed business con- ditions generally are bringing children into the schools by the thousands. Almost every school system in the country is struggling to adjust itself to an unexpected increase in high-school enrollments. In Chicago, for instance, the increase in enrollment in 1930 and 1931 nearly doubled that of the two previous prosperity years. Climbing enrollment figures have always characterized American education,’ but the depression has accelerated this tendency and flooded the schools with an eager horde of children, youths and adults. Radio address, Station WCFL, Men Teachers Union Series. The other side of the nutcracker is the insistent de- mand for governmental economy. The archaic tax sys- tem which characterizes Illinois and many other states is threatening to break down entirely under the severe pressure of bad business conditions. Governmental bud- gets, including school budgets, must be scrutinized for every possible economy. Grave danger exists that hys- terical retrenchments may penalize the children. The school budget represents a tempting target for the first broadside from the economy shotgun. It is a large single item and, on the whole, poorly defended. Certainly no group of our citizens is less responsible for current economic conditions than the children. No group is less able to defend its own interests. No group is more likely to be imposed upon when short-sighted governmental economies become the order of the day. “One body of our citizenry,” says Director Clifford of the President’s Organization on Employment Relief, “remains immune from all blame and responsibility in the difficulties with which we are faced I refer to the children. Public machinery directed to the pro- tection of childhood should be the last to be affected by measures of economy. Let us everywhere be on guard against any retrenchment which pinches the youth.” On guard is indeed the proper watchword. It 3 high time for American parents to look to the founda- tions of their public schools. Already serious reduc: tions in school services have been brought «bout and more are threatened. Summer schools are being dis continued. Night schools are being closed. Childres are being sent home from kindergartens. Special educa tional opportunities for the crippled and other unfortut- es i, ak ee the ols, y is lack ine- save FEBRUARY, 1933 ate children are being denied. School districts are re- fusing to purchase the supplies and text-books needed for instruction. School terms are being shortened. School budgets are being reduced, not by small amounts in many cases, but by drastic and ill-considered slashes. Too many children are being crowded into a single class- room. ‘The teachers’ load is being increased. Experi- enced teachers are being alienated from the profession by arbitrary, ill-considered and often unnecessary re- ductions in salaries. The supervisory staffs of city and county school systems are being reduced. School build- ings stand in want of repair while jobless carpenters walk the streets. Badly needed new school plants are left unfinished. School libraries are ordering no new books. School nurses are being discharged and other health services of the schools are being discontinued. Playgrounds and other community activities are being closed. Social work and individual counseling in the schools are being so limited that they can no longer function effectively in the guidance of boys and girls. Does this seem like an unduly pessimistic picture? It is neither pessimistic nor optimistic; it is factual. Abundant evidence exists to prove every one of the statements just made. Of course, neither Chicago nor any other single community has effected every one of these curtailments in school services. But Chicago’s schools have suffered heavily. And unless wise and con- structive policies prevail, other retrenchments will follow. What can be done? Every parent should make his in fluence clearly and strongly felt against unnecessary reductions in school budgets. Every parent should dis- cuss the schools with his friends and neighbors, not as a political or financial issue, but as one of the major responsibilities of the community. Parent-teacher asso- ciations must face the issue squarely. In many cities, the school superintendent with his associates is fighting almost a lone hand in behalf of the educational oppor- tunities of the children. If school people resist the harm- ful slashes in the public budget too earnestly, they are likely to be called selfish. The children are bound to lose unless you and the other parents of your community come to the assistance of the school leaders. You must do so quickly and vigorously if you wish to maintain school efficiency. You will be told that schools are costing too much. How much is too much? Is five per cent of the national income too much to spend for the schooling of your boys and girls, the development of a trained citizenry and the conservation of the nation’s human resources? The schools do not absorb as much as five per cent of the national income even in this time of restricted economic activity. Figures for this year are not yet available, but we do know that in 1930 the cost of all public schools, elementary, secondary and collegiate, was less than four per cent of the national income. Schools cost less than three per cent of the estimated income of the State of Illinois. Furthermore, this per cent is not “rapidly increasing.” It remained practically constant for a decade prior to 1928. The school bill and the tobacco bill are about equal. The bill for passenger automobiles in Illinois is five times the bill for public schools. All the public schools in America could have been run from 1776 to 1932 for less than the World War cost us. Parents and others who believe sincerely in the need for good schools are not likely to put must stock in the cry that schools are too expensive. When a man is confronted with a lowered income and 9 the necessity of spending less money he asks himself two questions: ' What expenditures are essential? What expenditures can be postponed? Let us apply these two questions to the cost of public schools. Good public schools are essential. The support of education is a first responsibility in a democratic gov- ernment, Unless we are prepared to desert the Ameri- can democratic ideal and to scuttle the American stand- ard of living, we dare not deny every child his birth- right to an adequate educational opportunity. Even corporations and those individual taxpayers who do not have children of their own must contribute a fair quota to the support of public education. This is a settled American principle which we dare not desert if we ex- pect our democracy to endure. Schools are the insur- ance policy of democracy. We economize on education at our peril. Let no one tell you that good schools are a luxury. “They are an economic and social necessity. But times are hard. Can we not. postpone the proper expenditures for schools until a better day? School ex- penditures cannot be postponed. The education that you deny today to any child is lost forever. You cannot say to a fifteen-year old boy, “Next year we shall give you a fine new junior high school. Next year we shall see about revising. your instruction in citizenship and health. Next year we shall buy you the best teaching service available in the state.” For that boy, next year’s education never comes, Next year that boy will be at work in a factory or in a shop if society is lucky. If society is unlucky, that boy may be in the reform school or in the morning line-up of young gang- sters in some local police court. Even if the boy remains in school, the year is lost forever. You can nearly al- ways postpone that new highway, the replacement of that bridge, the new street lights in the suburban district, a new car for the fire chief, and hundreds of other gov- ernmental purchases, but education is a continuous proc- ess and must be financed continuously. President Hoover has insisted that, However the national economy may vary or whatever fiscal adjustments may need be made, the very first obligation upon the National resources is the undiminished support of the public schools. We cannot afford to lose any ground in educa- tion. That is neither economy nor good government. Parents should insist that no reduction be permitted in necessary school expenditures until everything pos- sible has been done to reduce inefficient and wasteful expenditures in other branches of government, to dis- tribute the cost of education fairly over the entire tax- paying ability of the state, and to postpone expenditures for those governmental services which can be postponed. The fine educational opportunities enjoyed by your children today have not come about by accident. They have been built up, against the bitter opposition of class interests, over a long period of time. Every step of progress has been contested by ignorance and selfishness. Taxation for schools, the abolition of tuition charges, the free public high school, the state university and every other worthwhile reform represents a hard fought battle, Today all that has been won stands in peril. Public education is our first and last line of national defense. It is now being attacked. Will the parents of America do their plain duty in defending it? Wildwood (N. J.) Teachers Get Pay in Scrip.—Fifty- five teachers comprising the staff of the public schools here have received their September salaries in scrip. The three banks refused to honor the scrip, while merchants were hesitant in making known whether they would accept it. iF W [ ey ties —— ee el ee oe mein ty: ee Ce et a THE AMERICAN TEACHER Banking and Bankers John P. Frey F I'T were not for the important questions that this Convention must consider in connection with reso- lutions coming before it, dealing with depression, the steps necessary to bring about recovery, I would not be tempted, as I have been, to bring to your atten- tion some facts connected with banking in the United States with which I feel all trade unionists should be thoroughly familiar. Unless we understand some of these facts we shall not be in a position to deal as thoroughly with some of our problems as we should be if the information was at hand. I have no intention of discussing banking theory or banking practice as it is taught in the universities and the text books, but rather to call your attention to the manner in which the banking industry in our country has been con- ducted, until today it not only dominates the giving of credit and the withholding of credit, but dominates business and industrial policies and actually deter- mines whether corporations will reduce the hours of labor, whether they will increase or reduce wages, and goes even further and determines what news- papers and magazines shall publish on industrial prob- lems and what they must keep out of their columns. Preliminary to some statistical matter which I desire to get into the record, even though it may weary you, I should like to call your attention to the wonderful accomplishment of the American bankers. There is in circulation in our country approximately five billion dollars of legal tender. All of the silver coinage, all of the bills, all of the gold coinage which is in circulation to carry on business amounts to five billion of dollars. Yet the bankers of our country, after 1919, were successful in loaning between seven- teen and eighteen billions of dollars to foreign coun- tries, and in addition to that were able to add to the internal investment structure of our country some forty-four and a half billions of dollars. Now as an evidence of their capacity, think for a moment of that five billions of legal tender in the United States and the fact that they could then loan some eighteen billions of dollars to foreign countries and add some forty-four billion to an already top- heavy international investment structure. Our banks more than any other group in the coun- try have been responsible for the inflation in prices which has taken place. These bankers are re- sponsible for the overcapitalization, for the floating of unsound bonds, for the making of loans which were not justified, because a part of their profits is the commission they received for floating bonds and for making loans. As I go into the statistical matter which I have prepared I would like to have you keep in mind that the holding companies in the United States, that type of company, association or corpora- tion which began to develop rapidly after the war and which secured such a control over the profits they made, so that they could siphon off the profits of the corporation unto their own pockets—these holding companies have been in many cases owned outright Address before the A. F. of L. Convention, Cincinnati, Nov. 25, 1932. by the large commercial banks of the United States, [ said that those bankers, particularly the large com- mercial banks, have dominated industrially and com- mercially, having the last word to say as to what hours of labor should be and what the wage reduc- tions should be. Let me give you one or two illustra- tions of how this works. There is the classical story of Ginsberg, the cloak and suit man, who went to his banker to borrow $50,000. The banker, after looking him over for a little while, said, “Mr. Ginsberg, | can not make the loan. I have already loaned you $100,000, and no more of the credit of this bank is going into your business,” Ginsberg said, “Do you mean that?” And the banker replied, “I certainly do.” Ginsberg said, “Do you understand the cloak aud suit business?’ And the banker said, “Of course not.” And Ginsberg replied, “Then you had better learn the trade in a hurry be- cause you are already in the cloak and suit business.” My attention to the part which the banker plays in dominating industrial policies came through a con- ference which I had with a banker whose name is unnecessary for my purpose. At one time he had been the receiver of a very large foundry. I had gone to him to secure a settlement for my own trade; I had not succeeded. I found him one of the most hard- boiled men to talk to that I ever interviewed. But just before I met him on this last occasion he had taken a very deep interest in the question of wages and was supporting the position of the American Fed- eration of Labor, adopted at our Atlantic City Con- vention in 1925, which was to the effect that industry and commerce must suffer unless the real wage, the purchasing power of wages, kept pace with industry’s increasing capacity to produce. When he told me he approved of that declaration of the Atlantic City Con- vention I asked him how a hard-boiled banker, such as he had been, could take that position. He said, “Frey, I have learned from experience. I am a mechanical engineer by profession as well as a banker. I beame an engineer first. A banking corporation, a private bank of which I am a partner, developed the business of loaning to large corporations, the minimum loan being $500,000, and when a corporation desired a loan I was sent as the engineer of my banking company to make a physical examination of the plant and study the company’s business, the company’s markets, and then when we made the loan it was understood that I had to go on the Board of Directors and remain on that Board until the company had repaid the principal and the interest. Finally I found that I was a member of the Board of Directors of twenty-seven manufac- turing corporations, several of them the largest of their kind in the United States, some of them in com- petition with each other. We had made a loan of $20,000,000 to one corporation, and to secure that loan the corporation had been compelled to make me president, and I began to wonder how these corpora tions would ever secure the money to pay back the loans we had made to them. The more I studied that problem the more I studied the home market and the foreign market, the more I became convinced that as the banker was carrying on business he was ou pu be Sai yw he re ” cer ou ‘he be- een to had ird- But had ges ‘ed- on- stry the ry’s > he ‘on- h as rey, rical ame vate ness loan loan ly to tudy and that in on cipal mber ufac- st of com- in of - loan e me ‘pora- k the udied arket inc e was FEBRUARY, 1933 committing suicide and leading the corporations along with him.” That was why this man, from his experience as a director of maiuy corporations, representing his own bank, had come to the conclusion that the bankers should have some sound understanding at least of the industrial problem in this country. Just one more word about how the bankers work, because it is all important that we should understand it, that the business men should understand it, that the public should understand it as well. In the late fall of 1930 two well-known bankers declared that unless wages were reduced there could be no recovery from the depression. They took a position which was in dirct conflict with that of the agreement reached in the White House in November, 1929, when the repre- sentatives of the big industries of our country and the representatives of the American Federation of Labor agreed that wages must be maintained, because if the consuming power of the country was destroyed business would be injured still more. . The first note of opposition with that position came from the banks, and the first one who spoke was Mr. Albert H. Wiggins, Chairman of the Board of Di- rectors of the Chase National Bank, a gentleman whose connections I will bring before you very short- ly. And supporting him was Mr. Stevenson, the Presi- dent of the American Bankers’ Association. Some of us may have believed that when these bankers spoke they were expressing their personal opinions for the purpose of influencing the public to a policy they felt was sound. In reality, before they had made that statement and afterwards, they were compelling the corporations whose credit they supplied to fall in line with their program for industrial recovery. One more illustration to show how they work—and you notice I am not mentioning names just now, be- cause some of these business men who were sand- bagged would not care to have it advertised. But one of the largest publishing houses in this country, a publishing house with some twenty-five or twenty-six weekly and monthly magazines devoted exclusively to commerce and industry, had very ardently supported the White House program in November, 1929, and after Mr. Wiggins had informed the public that wages must be reduced, after Mr. Stevenson, the President of the American Bankers’ Association, had endorsed that position, this publishing house continued to sup- port the position that any reduction in wages was fatal to commerce and to industry, that if anything was necessary to bring about recovery it was to in- crease rather than diminish the consuming capacity of the American people. Early in 1931, some three months after Mr. Wig- gins had made his first public statement, he sent for the economist of this great publishing house and asked him in a most brusk manner what he and his publications meant by continuing to advocate no re- ductions in wages after the bankers had said that a reduction in wages must come, and-he wound up his interview with this representative, who is also the economist of this great publishing house, by saying, “All of your publications depend upon advertising. If you think you can get advertising and run counter to our program, go ahead.” So the next issue of that publishing house’s publications said nothing at all about wages and has not discussed the matter since, because they knew that if the great commercial banks said, “You are going counter to our program,” it 11 would mean that their publishing business would im- mediately dry up. Now with that very brief and elementary picture of how the bankers in our country have dominated busi- ness policies and industrial policies, determining more than the corporations themselves whether wages would go up or down, whether the hours of labor would be shortened, I will present a very condensed statement of how it works. We have many types of banks, of course, in this country, but they can be roughly divided into two—the private banker and the commercial banker. The private banker is represented by such concerns as Brown Brothers; Dillon, Read & Company; Goldman, Sachs & Company; Kuhn, Loeb & Company; Lee Higginson & Company; J. P. Mor- gan & Company; J. Henry Schroder Banking Corpora- tion; J. & W. Seligman & Company and others. I have broken down the record of sixteen of these pri- vate banks. When I first began to look around for the methods by which the banker accomplished his purpose I went to the Treasury Department and there was no information to be secured there about the private banker. I went to the Federal Reserve and they had no data, and I discovered that nowhere in Washington and nowhere in any other city in the United States was there any record of the business which the private banker carried on. He holds no license from the state, he holds no charter from the state or Federal Government, he merely has set him- self up in business as a private individual and makes reports to no one. So these great private bankers who dominate the large commercial banks report to no one at the present time and there is no means by which we can know how they carry on their business. All we can know is the men through whom they do these things. I have in this list sixteen of the leading private bankers, with their offices in New York, and I find that these sixteen bankers hold directorships in sev- enty of the largest commercial banks of New York and immediate vicinity, and that in addition to having this control over the commercial banks through the directors who sit on them, they also hold 1,065 di- rectorships in aviation, public utilities, railroad and other transportation, manufacturing, commercial and other corporations. So that directly the representa- tives of the sixteen private banks sit on the Board of Directors of the leading commercial banks of New York City and on the Board of Directors of our larg- est corporations. They do a great deal more than that. These com- mercial banks on whose Boards of Directors the partners of the private banks sit make much of their profit through the bond issues and the loans which the private bankers float. The private banker does not put up his money. The commercial banks, that is, the large commercial banks in New York City, do not put up their money. When a foreign country or a foreigner or a domestic corporation or individual desires to borrow a very large amount of money he does not get legal tender, he gets credit, and the private banker, through his control of the Boards of Directors of commercial-banks, in turn passes out his credit which they loan and for which they get paid through the small banker and through those of us in the United States who buy bonds and put up money for first mortgages. Perhaps it might be interesting to see what a tew of those bank directorships really are. Brown Brothers 4 ——s —— ae SS W 12 has as one of its partners a director of the Central Hanover Bank & Trust Company, another a partner in Greenwich Savings Bank, another a partner in the Bank for Savings in the City of New York. Another is a partner in the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, another a director both in the City Bank Farm- ers Trust Company and the Union Banking Corpora- tion, another in the New York Trust Company, another in the Bank of New York & Trust Company, and the Grace National Bank of New York. One is doing still better, he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Commercial National Bank & Trust Company of New York, of the Empire City Savings Bank and of the Union Banking Corporation. Another is a director in the City Bank Farmers Trust Com- pany. I have told you of the private bank of Brown Brothers, Harriman & Company, with directorships in 14 of the largest commercial banks in New York City. Dillon, Read & Company hold directorships in nine of the commercial banks ; Goldman, Sachs & Company in five of these natienal banks; Hallgarten & Com- pany in two; Kissel, Kennicott & Company only two; Kuhn, Loeb & Company hold but four, but those four are the International Acceptance Bank, Inc., the Man- hattan Company, the Chase National Bank and the Equitable Trust Company. I do not need to give all of these, but the House of Morgan holds 12 director- ships in the commercial banks, and these banks are the First Security Company of New York City, the Guarantee Trust Company of New York City, the Bankers Trust Company of New York City, the Bank for Savings in the City of New York, the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, the New York Trust Company, the Bankers Trust Company, the Corn Ex- change Bank Trust Company. They also have a di- rectorship in the Chase National Bank and the Chase Securities Company. I find by going through the directorships held by the partners in these private banks that most of them tie up with the Chase National Bank, so that when the Chase National Bank speaks on an industrial problem it is the private banker as well as the Chase National Bank that is speaking, but these partners do not care to do the errand-boy work, they are too important in the banking industry and in their own estimation to do that. They use the directors of the large com- mercial banks to do that. Taking a list of eight of the largest commercial banks in New York City we find that the directors of those banks hold 3,741 directorships in public utility, aviation, railroad, manufacturing, steamship and com- mercial corporations. So that when these eight banks on whose Boards of Directors the private bankers sit desire to carry out any policy they immediately have a directorship in 3,741 American corporations to see that it is enforced. We are disturbed over securities. Our insurance companies were so disturbed over their resources which consist largely of securities that the Recon- struction Finance Corporation was called into exist- ence. As I give you a few more statistics you will see where the banker has fit into the scene. The Bank of America National Association holds 22 directorships in aviation companies, 25 directorships in banks, 137 in miscellaneous corporations, 21 in insurance com- panies, 78 in manufacturing corporations, 22 in trans- portation companies and 40 in utility corporations. The Bank of Manhattan Trust Company does a THE AMERICAN TEACHER little better. It has directors in 38 other commercial banks, in 183 miscellaneous corporations, in 25 insur- ance companies, in 61 manufacturing corporations, in 24 transportation companies and in 31 public utilities, I don’t want to weary you by reading through the list of all these banks, but I want to give you-just one, because this is the bank more than any other which has been responsible for the political agitation for legislation to which the American Federation of Labor has been vigorously opposed, because it was the leader in demanding that wages should be reduced —the Chase National Bank, with Mr. Wiggins the Chairman of its Board of Directors, Mr. Wiggins, who served notice on the largest publisher of a certain type of magazines that if he did not withdraw his advocacy of no reduction in wages he would lose his advertising. This is the picture of the Chase National Bank. The directors of that bank hold directorships in 69 other commercial banks, in 262 miscellaneous corporations, in 55 insurance companies. All told, 82 of their di- rectors are directors in insurance companies but they want to dominate some, so in the Metropolitan Insur- ance Company six directors of the Chase National Bank are directors of that great insurance company, The directors of this bank are also on the Boards of Directors of 236 manufacturing corporations. This is not the time to give you the list, but it includes prac- tically every large manufacturing corporation in the United States. Every one of them is listed in the Board of Directors on which this bank’s directors sit whenever the boards meet. They also have 133 di- rectorships in transportation companies. This list of transportation companies is the list of the principal railroad systems of the United States, and in addition to that they have directors in 73 of the largest public utility corporations in the United States, some of which they own, like the Chase-Forbes-Harris Cor- poration, which has succeeded in selling so many sour bonds to Americans who thought they were making a good investment. Just one thought more, because I have already transgressed too much upon your time. You have the picture before you now of how the private banker has been able to filter into directorships of the com- mercial banks and dominate their policies. You have seen how these commercial banks, through their di- rectors, sit on the Boards of Directors of thousands of the largest manufacturing, transportation and pub- lic utility and other corporations in the country. Now let us go behind the scenes just for a moment and you will have a better understanding of why the bankers became frantic some months ago. They had always resented any interference with their business, they demanded that Uncle Sam himself go into the credit loaning business and that there must be some thing like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to save them. Their securities had depreciated in value. They had been selling them and those to whom they had sold were in trouble; one of the largest sources for the placing of these securities had been the big insurance companies of our country, some of which were on the point of being unable to continue business because their resources had been depreciated too greatly. I read to you a number of insuranet companies upon which the directors of these commer cial banks have sat. Now picture the private bankef financing all of these corporations with his partners on the Boards of Directors of the large commercial ee i I lad o—W iT- al 1Y. of 1S 1c- ‘he the sit di- of pal 10n lic of or- our ‘ing ady ave i iker om- lave ; di- ands pub- nent - the had ness, » the ome- ation din yhom rgest been ne of tinue -jated irance nmef- ankef rtnefs ercial Fespruary, 1933 banks, the necessity of floating millions and millions of bonds to those who would buy them, and then the break-down that came in the Boards of Directors of the commercial banks at a meeting at which the commercial bank told its directors, “We have so many million or billion dollars’ worth of bonds to dispose of,” and then these same bank directors sitting on the Boards of Directors of the largest insurance com- panies of our country ramming down the insurance companies’ throats the bonds that the big private banking houses had said must be sold. With this picture before you I am sure you will 13 realize our problem is somewhat different than when we dealt with the individual employer and corporation itself and had to go before the Board of Directors. At the present time the bankers in New York City, through this interlocking machinery they have built up, are the ones to tell these corporations what their industrial policies shall be, so that one of our prob- lems is not only to deal with the employer directly, we must deal with this banking system that has siphoned off the wealth of the country and is more responsible for the frightful suffering we are passing through than any other group of business men. “Smoke” William T. McCoy oneers, despite the romances and historical novels, did not lead idyllic lives. They lived in log huts, sometimes with earthern floors; they dressed in skins of wild animals because they could not afford cloth; their food was just what they could win by strenuous effort from forest and field. Often their equipment for living was limited to an axe, a rifle and a few rude household implements. Dollars were rarities and hard to come by. Our grandfathers, no matter how poor they were, made every sacrifice that their children might have schooling. The people’s schools were supported at any cost. Teach- ers in pioneer schools boarded around. Of course these teachers were poorly paid and were employed only a few months in winter, but the financial burden of the schools upon the pioneers was relatively many times higher than the cost of schools to the taxpayer today. Something of this determination to have schools still persists in parts of America. There are towns in the Dakotas which tax themselves for schools alone five times aS much as our total rate for all state and local taxes, and this is done without complaint and as a matter of course. It is done because the people estimate the value to themselves and to their children of a good education higher than any other objective value what- ever. In New York last week the state legislature agreed to the revocation of laws fixing the salaries of all public employees EXCEPT TEACHERS. New York City recognized the value and necessity of free education. In Chicago, either this determination to maintain public education has been lost or the people have not yet reached the point of conviction that their schools are being ruined. Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka and a long list of parasitic townlets built up by wealthy men all around Chicago are marks on the map of the desire of these men to profit by carrying on their business in Chicago and at the same time to escape their due share in the burdens and responsibilities of citizenship. Chicago is a good field for them to exploit in building up enormous fortunes for themselves, but not good enough for them to live in and send their children to its schools. This sort of divorce calls for alimony. These rich men have established private schools in which their own children must have every luxurious detail of modern and progressive education. Why should they care (they ask) what sort of schools are maintained for the chil- dren of the people. There is more than indifference in the attitude of these men. They have foreseen the day in the develop- ment of America when there will be a sharper com- Radio address, KYW, Chicago Men Teachers Union Series. Ps: AMERICA insisted on schools, and the pi- petition in all callings. The frontier has passed away. The desirable land has been homesteaded. Cheap lands will soon be a memory. Business, trade and transporta- tion tend constantly to greater mergers and consequently to fewer desirable positions of good rank and good pay. The professions and the higher industrial positions are the points where the prizes for individuals will be won. These prizes will be won by those who have the ability plus the training. A public school system which pro- vides for the children of all the people the elements of training offered in the costly private schools maintained by the privileged wealthy makes it possible for the child of a poor man to compete on equal terms with a rich man’s son. To the rich and privileged this is unbear- able. They have not enough advantage from their wealth. They will not play the game unless the dice are loaded in their favor. They are unwilling that the child of the poor man shall have an even chance so far as schooling is concerned. It is easy for these men of wealth and power to make their will felt. A national Chamber of Commerce is correlating and directing the assault of local chambers of commerce on public school systems. “Citizens’ Com- mittees for the control of public expenditures” are formed in every important community and a combined and uniform and furious assault has been aimed at the expenditures for public education in a hundred cities at once. That such an assault can be made upon the people’s schools in Chicago without rousing the people to im- mediate and effective defense of them is due to two unusual conditions arising out of the stoppage of tax revenues and out of the depression and unemployment. These two conditions have combined to put the Board of Education at the mercy of the bankers; and the bankers must obey the orders of the big business lead- ers. Since the Board has been without tax revenues for several years, it would naturally expect to make use of its credit through the sale of tax anticipation warrants like every other government in Cook County. For many years Chicago banks have purchased similar warrants willingly, without question and without limit, except that imposed by law on the issuer. But for a year past the banks have utterly refused to purchase warrants or to cooperate in any way with the Board of Education in its sincere effort to finance the schools. They have avoided a blank refusal by setting up various reasons why they did not care to “risk depositers’ money.” There was no risk, there is none and there can be none in the purchase of school board warrants by the banks. At the time when their vaults were full of bonds and other 14 securities of private corporations selling on the market at less than fify cents on the dollar of supposed value, school warrants on the same market were about seventy- five. Private corporations have behind their paper only the limited resources of the corporation. School board warrants are a full faith and credit first lien on every cent of real and personal property in the city of Chi- cago. They cannot fail to be paid unless all government ceases in the city and state. These facts are fairly obvious to everyone; therefore, the bankers had to have more specious excuses for their failure to finance the schools of their city during an emergency. There was a tax strike on. A little sly encouragement to the promoters would tend to prolong the strike. The Cisar and Bister suits were useful also as field work behind which the bankers could entrench themselves. Then the N, S. F. law presented itself as a further possible defense. So through the weary months the sham battle went on. Each stronghold stormed was abandoned for another entrenchment in the rear. Time was the strong ally of the Citizens’ Committee and the bankers. “The wicked school board, which wasted the eople’s money” was the man of straw over whose shoulder the Citizens’ Committee struck blow after blow at the vitals of the public schools. A budget of $103,- 000,000.00 for 1932 represented the lowest per capita cost of education of any great city in the United States. Under the attack of the Citizens’ Committee, the Board cut this $18,000,000.00. That was a greater cut than was proposed or accepted by the city or county budgets ; it should have satished every reasonable demand for emergency economy. Instead, it merely whetted the ap- petites of the Citizens’ Committee to demand another huge slash which they unblushingly placed at thirty or forty millions. The Board made an additional slash of $15,000,000.00 which reduced its original figures by about one-third. This could be done and was done only by reducing the salaries of teachers whose pay was then nearly a year in arrears, by denying pay to sick teachers, by cutting off night, vacation and continuation schools, by eliminating adult education, by denying the schools the necessary materials of instruction and by halting the building of new schools. The interesting and alarming facts about all this as- sault upon tax supported public services are that it can be made at all, that it can be made to center upon the public schools and that it can be made without rousing any effective public protest. That it is unjustly centered upon the schools can be shown, I believe, very surely and briefly. In all the scandals and charges of graft and waste which have gathered about the various gov- ernments, only two directed at the School Board have been based upon facts, i. e., that certain public schools erected or contracted for under a former administration had been too costly and that the operative costs have recently been too large due to an excess of janitorial help in the schools. That there has been any waste of public funds in the instructional department has not been pretended by anyone. Yet it is exactly upon the instruction department that the burden of enormous reductions has been laid. Another fact: although the Strayer Survey found only $1,700,000.00 of excess expenditure in the operative de- partment and a huge deficiency in expenditures for in- struction in the 1932 budget, the Citizens’ Committee forced reductions of thirty-three millions of dollars upon the Board of Education mostly in the instruction depart- ment. Without the guilt of “whoopee expenditures” such as were brought home to the sanitary district, without any million dollar bridle paths to account for, THE AMERICAN TEACHER the Board of Education was forced to cut 28% while the city cut only 17% and the county 4% in their budgets. This iniquitous discrimination against the schools would be bad enough under any conditions. It is astounding when you consider that the Chicago school system ranks far below all other important cities in its per capita expenditure for education and that its teach- ers are notoriously underpaid and overloaded. The most sinister feature of the Citizens’ Committee is the fact that for the first time in American history in a peaceful and well organized community it marked the advent of arbitrary force deliberately exerted by an intelligent group in opposition to lawful authority. This is revolution and this example will not be lost on larger and more dangerous and more determined elements on other occasions even more critical. If our self-selected leaders in the privileged classes set the example of over- turning the authority of the legislature which fixes the tax rate, of the Board of Education which levies it, and of the duly elected officers who spread and collect and administer it—if they, representing a small and hostile group, set at naught the will of the whole people as expressed by their lawfully constituted representatives and officials—then the beginning of the end of popular representative government in America has been reached and our people must choose between the acceptance of an oiigarchy in government and the defense of their political rights. Now to explain my titlke—Smoxer. Economists and other authorities on finance have estimated that the en- tire cost of public education in Chicago is less than ten cents a day for each adult in Chicago—the price of a cigar. America now spends annually less for its public school system than for its bill for tobacco and candies, for cosmetics and amusements, for replacement of stolen and worn out automobiles and for a number of other items in the national budget. If the Citizens’ Committee really has your support, you place ahead of education for American boys and girls all the items of expenditure I have listed above, besides the real necessities of food and clothing and shelter. We pay out for the public utilities more than the salaries of all our teachers—and we do not note any reduction in the payments we must make for gas, elec- tric light or telephone. Pioneer America cut into its necessities to provide schooling. Today we prefer chewing gum, radio, the movies, good roads, transportation, synthetic liquors, newspapers, etc.—that is, we prefer all these if we fol- low the lead of the Citizens’ Committee. They assure us that we can no longer afford to support the quality or the quantity of education which we developed. And we believe them while spending ten times as much for a long list of luxuries, or worse. Smoke—only smoke, friends, but the perilous screen under which creeps the deadly fire which is now consuming the fabric of your school system. Last week the Board of Education was forced to agree to still further reductions in its levies so that upon your public schools and upon them alone a total cut is proposed, on the basis of the estimates for 1932, of fully half. The teachers cannot save your schools. They have done all they can. The Board of Education can- not save them. No one can save them but an aroused people and now is the time. The alternative is for Chicago to face an astonished world next year with its costly Century of Progress in the foreground and a wrecked and ruined school system in the background— an idiot’s gesture truly! a ee ee ee. rt, nd ve, nd an ny ide the rs, ‘ol- ure lity ind for ke, the our to pon it 1S - of ‘hey can- ised for 1 its id a 1d— Fepruary, 1933 Toledo Teachers Subjected to Coercion The Toledo News-Bee has made public one of the most brazen attempts ever made by local politicians, to browbeat and coerce workers into giving up their moral and legal rights as citizens. This expose of political interference with the rights of American citizens came out after an organization of school teachers known as “The School Men’s Club,” in an effort to protect their own and the public’s inter- est, interviewed candidates of both parties as to their stand on certain public questions, and then issued en- dorsements of those candidates who, in the judgment of these teachers, were the best qualified to fill the offices. The Executive Committee of this teachers’ organiza- tion presented to a Parent-Teachers’ meeting a letter setting up a plea for maintaining the present high stand- ards of education in our school system. They also asked for officials, “to further the economic use of the tax- payers’ dollars by a more equitable distribution of the funds to be spent by each of the three branches of our local government, thus insuring each of sufficient funds for proper functioning.” In addition to the letter, which, from what we are able to gather from various sources, was a simple state- ment of facts, they intended to issue slips to the teachers with the names of those candidates for office who had shown by answers to questions that they would be favor- able to the best interests as propounded by the teachers’ committee. If our understanding of this question is correct, these slips with the names of endorsed candi- dates were to be sent out prior to election. Inasmuch as none of these endorsing slips have been found any- where around the city by our investigator, it is fair to assume that the political threat against our Toledo school teachers had the desired effect. We understand from the publicity given by the News-Bee, that Mr. Harry Haskell, a member of the board of education, is reported to have said: “There will be hell popping,” if the School Men’s Club failed to withdraw the slate of candidates the club had endorsed for county offices. We are also given to understand that this same Mr. Haskell took the power of dictator upon himself to the extent of saying that teachers had no business meddling in politics. On Noy. 8th the News-Bee carried another story entitled, “Schools Enter Politics Again.” The story told of the activity of Mr. Haskell member of the board of education in sending communications to school teachers asking their support for Stephen Brophy, a candidate for Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. According to the story, not only did this local dictator ask for the teachers’ vote but asked them to pass out cards for this candidate for judge. We would pay little or no attention to this action on the part of Mr. Haskell if he had not already gone on record as denying the teachers the right of doing just the very thing he later asked them to do. We do question the right of this man Haskell, however, to use the power of his official position to coerce school teachers upon political ques- tions. From the reports presented in the columns of the News-Bee, if they are correct even in a small meas- ure, we condemn this member of the board of education, Mr. Haskell, for playing dirty as well as petty politics. We maintain that any man or woman elected to the position held by Haskell has no authority over the po- litical or religious activity of teachers outside the school building. We further maintain that this same man stulti- fied his office by a deliberate attempt to coerce the teach- ers of Toledo. We also feel sure that if the teachers were organized under the banner of the American Fed- 15 eration of Teachers which is affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, this local dictator would have been told where to head in. When conditions exist such that the teachers of a city the size of Toledo are forced through fear of their jobs to bow their heads in sub- mission to a cheap and arrogant politician, it is high time that they began to screw up a little courage and started asking for an organizer of the Teachers’ Union to visit the city. Of course, we feel sure that the calling in of an organizer by any teacher or small group of teachers would be the immediate signal for the board of educa- tion to start a drive against the jobs of the few daring souls. We have little or no faith in any democratic or truly American spirit in the present board. We have a very high opinion of Mrs. Ruby Cramp- ton as a member of the board and feel that she can be depended upon to stand for the rights of the teachers whenever all of the facts are properly presented, but one member does not liberalize the Toledo Board of Education. If the Toledo teachers were members of the Teachers’ Union there would be no danger of a Mr. Haskell, or any other member of the school board, trying to coerce or bull-doze them. School teachers could then politely but firmly tell all members of the board who were inclined to use arrogantly their official position to destroy the teachers’ constitutional rights as free citi- zens, just to go and jump into the lake. Well, we may get busy and educate the educators as to how they may maintain their freedom. —Toledo Union Leader. Chattanooga Labor Offers Aid to Teachers Wuereas, The program of wage slashing of all county employes, regardless of justice and equity, as promul- gated by Judge Cummings, is unsound and unfair; and, Wuereas, Since the wages of school teachers, those already miserly paid mainsprings of the rearing of our American youth, will be still further reduced in order to alleviate the suffering of our millionaires; therefore be it ResotveD, That the Chattanooga Trades and Labor Council resents and protests, reasons and demands, that if school teachers’ wages are affected in any way that it be on an increasing basis, regardless of whether today’s dollars can buy more Packard automobiles, $85,000 homes, or gold bathtubs; and, be it further Resotvep, That Chattanooga Trades and Labor Coun- cil hereby brings attention to the school teachers them- selves that we welcome them in any effort that they may make to help themselves, rather than sitting supinely by, crying for justice and aid. Our Opportunity (Continued from page 3) As discouraging as past attempts to get teachers to organize have been, it is possible that the seriousness of the menace and the greatness of the cause will call forth the latent intelligence and leadership that must exist in so great a body of people as the teachers in the American public schools. The members of the American Federation of Teachers owe it to themselves and the children if not to the great mass of indifferent teachers, and certainly owe it to the public school system of America and, yes, to the civil- ization that rests upon that system, to make a supreme effort to carry an organization message to the unorgan- ized teachers. 16 Democracy American Federation of Teachers Organized April 15, 1916 Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor 506 South Wabash Ave., Chicago, III. President Henry R. Linvitte, New York Local 5; 70 Fifth Ave., New York, N. Y. Secretary-Treasurer Florence Curtis Hanson, Chicago Local 3; 506 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago, III. THE AMERICAN TEACHER Official Organ Apvisory Eprror1aL Boarp Lucire W. ALLEN RutTH GILLETTE Harpy Chicago Local 3 New York Local 5 Mary C. Barker Henry R. LINVILLE Atlanta Local 89 New York Local 6 Sec_ma M. Borcuarpr A. D. SHEFFIELD Washington Local 8 Wellesley College Joun M.Graysier CxHartes B. STILLMAN San Francisco Local 61 Chicago Local 2 FLorENcE Curtis HANSON Executive Editor Publisher H. G. Apatr Printine Co. 107 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago, IIL. Spec Mourn Not the Bead Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie— Dust unto dust— The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die As all men must; But rather mourn the throng— The cowed and the meek— Who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong And dare not speak. —Chaplin. apathetic Shall We Economize, Too? The Post Office Department has de- cided to charge publishers for notifi- cation of changes of address in mail- ing lists. Hence the AMERICAN TEACHER pays when you move and don’t tell us. Every misdirected magazine costs us six cents in addi- tion to original mailing cost. You can have a better magazine and help us out by dropping us a line when your address changes. Thanks. THE AMERICAN TEACHER in Education Teachers and Taxes The reactionary forces which have been in control of business affairs and have made a mess of them are trying to shift the blame for our sorry plight to the shoulders of government. The chief difficulty of government today is that due to the business depression the incomes of the people have been reduced about forty per cent under the management of these reactionary business leaders. The incomes of the masses of the people who pay most of the costs of government have been reduced by even a greater percentage and they are unable to support the cost of government. All those who serve the public in any capacity are dubbed tax-eaters and therefore are to be public enemies. The way out accord ing to these big business leaders is to reduce the government by eliminating its important functions and to reduce the salaries and the number of public employees. The advocacy of the anarchistic plans for the destruction of govern- ment must provide considerable amusement and possibly hope for Emma Goldman and her friends who were driven from the country some years ago for advocating doctrines that would have similar results. Per- haps there is some connection between present tendencies and the renewed attempt of the former Queen of the Reds to be readmitted to the United States. She would add a conserva tive touch to some of the more vio- lent “‘citizens’ committees” that are busily engaged in tearing down gov ernmental institutions. One of the major objectives of the unsocial forces is to destroy a part of the government and to shift the entire cost of the support of the re- mainder from their shoulders to those of others. The substitution of the sales tax for income taxes is the prin- cipal method offered to effect this desired change. There has been great suffering among the wealthier classes during the depression. Statistics have been given to show that the number of persons who have incomes of more than $100,000 annually has decreased from ten thousand to four thousand. This is a tragedy beside which the fact that 12,000,000 unemployed have lost all their income is trivial. That decreased wages and part time work have reduced another 12,000,000 to the verge of destitution is not worth classed as cost of some of mentioning. The ten thousand or four thousand must be relieved. Many of them have been reduced to incomes of less than $50,000. Those who still remain in the hundred thousand dollar class are taxed shamefully. In many cases they are compelled to pay nearly one tenth as much in taxes as an English- man of equal wealth must give to sup- port his government, Their tax bur- den must be shifted to the whole people including the 12,000,000 out of work. The vehicle for shifting this tax burden is the sales tax. Of course, the millionaire will pay according to his consumptive expenditures, so will the farmer who produces his goods for less than cost if he is not too hard up to buy. The worker whose wages have been cut and who is working a day or two per week will pay. The destitute unemployed will pay by hav- ing a small deduction made from the amount of his relief. The same amount of money for relief purposes will not buy as much food after the tax is deducted. The principal argument for the sales tax advanced by its proponents is that it is easy to pay as it is done in installments and that it will not be noticed because it is indirect. This is particularly true in the case of the who has been relieved of a heavy income tax. Those living on the edge of starvation may notice even one less loaf of bread per week. It is possible that those who are thrown out of work because of fur- ther contraction in buying power caused by this tax may notice the ef- fect of this tax very keenly. Of course he may not be _ intelligent enough to connect the loss of his job with this tax on consumption. Every known device to make the sales tax popular is being used. It 1s attached to popular causes. It is to be used for unemployment relief, for education. Teachers should be wary and not advocate a “sales tax to save the schools.” The people who want the sales tax are not interested in saving the schools, If the schools become the chief beneficiaries of a sales tax, other sources of taxation will be re lieved of the necessity of caring for education and taxes from _ these sources will be monopolized by other governmental functions. The inevit- able reaction against the unfairness person the me Ses the the nts one not “his the fa on tice eek, are fur- wer ef- Of gent _ job the It is is to , for not the t the AVviNg come , tax, e re- x for these other nevit- rness 1933 FEBRUARY, 17 Education for Democracy and unjustness of the sales tax will endanger not only the revenue raised by it but also its chief beneficiaries. The real friends of the schools and the teachers in the schools are opposed to the principle of the sales tax. Organized Labor, than whom pub- lic education has no greater friend, has denounced the tax bitterly in its recent convention. The following is quoted from an interview with Presi- dent Green of the American Federa- tion of Labor at the time of the Fed- eration’s last convention: “Labor views with feelings of deep ap- prehension the attempt of the advocates of sales tax legislation to transfer the bur- den of taxation from the wealth of the Nation to the masses of the people. Hav- ing consistently held that sales tax legisla- tion is un-American and inconsistent with our democratic form of government, the American Federation of Labor will make sales tax legislation an issue to be de- termined by a record vote of the Mem bers of Congress. ; “Labor has borne the brunt of a three year depression and at the present time it is undergoing continued hardship and suf- fering. During all this period it has mani- fested qualities of self-possession and self- restraint which have challenged the ad- miration of its many friends. It is incon- ceivable that Congress would add to the suffering which Labor has endured by im- posing upon it the additional burden which it would be called upon to bear in case Congress passes sales tax legislation. “The issue is clearly drawn. The ques- tion is, shall the wealth of the Nation bear its proper share of the tax burden or shall it be transferred through the enact- ment of sales tax legislation to the homes, the firesides, the earnings and the lives of the poor, the masses of the people, many of whom are forced to forego the bare necessities of life? “As the American Federation of Labor has always fought for the protection of the average citizen, the workers of the Nation, it will in this instance fight as never before to protect Labor against be- ing made the victims of sales tax legis- lation.” The farmers of the country through their organizations are opposed to the sales tax in all its forms, In sections where the unemployed have organized, organizations speak- ing for these unemployed have op- posed the adoption of a sales tax even for unemployment relief. On the other hand, bankers and their organizations, chambers of com- merce, daily newspapers owned by wealthy income taxpayers, in fact all persons eligible to membership in the various citizens committees so busily engaged in deflating the schools are favorable to sales tax legislation. The latter groups have shown themselves unfriendly to the public Schools in this crisis and indifferent to the welfare of teachers. Labor, the farmers and the unemployed organ- izations are standing today in favor of no reduction in educational stand- ards. Can any teacher afford to desert his friends and allies at this time and favor the tax proposed by the foes of education and denounced by its friends? Even if there were some merit in a sales tax in ordinary times, the im- position of one during a depression would be most unfortunate. A sales tax is frankly a tax on consumption. Most of it would be paid by people who spend every cent of their in- comes, in times like these, for con- sumption goods. A depression caused by lack of ability to buy necessary goods could only be made worse by any diminution of that buying power. As hard as it is to take for the ten thousand or four thousand or what number with the super incomes, the only tax that would not be harmful socially during a depression is a tax on that portion of an income that is not used for buying consumer’s goods, If a considerable part of those excess incomes could be put into circulation to support governments the expendi- tures of which are largely consump- tive, a movement upward from the trough of the depression would be made. The Present Crisis We are in the midst of war as real as the war of which James Russell Lowell wrote in the well-known poem of which the above headline was the title. This is a war even more funda- mental than was the Civil War, be- cause it is an economic war, and in- volves the slavery of the human race to the acquired Lords of the Machine Age. Specifically, we are beginning to identify these lords as the holders and the manipulators of money,—the bankers. We deal with these financial dictators in another column, and in other issues of the Union Teacher. Dr. Lefkowitz’s recently issued, excel- lent pamphlet, “Teachers and the Eco- nomic Situation,” is an authoritative document on this subject which all our members should possess. As all the 35,000 teachers know, the bankers have ordered the Board of Estimate to appeal to the Legis- lature to repeal the mandatory statute by which the salary schedule of New York City teachers is protected. Teachers also know that all metro- politan newspapers have taken the stand that wages must be reduced. They also stand for the elimination of municipal waste, but they evidently agree with the bankers and the graft- ers that the elimination of waste in- volves too much trouble to discuss now, whereas by a majority vote of the Legislature mandatory legisla- tion can be repealed, and by a ma- jority vote of the Board of Estimate the demands of the bankers can be met. At the time of going to press, the teachers are beginning to see and to comprehend the signs of the relent- less pressure of the economic forces that are made real through the com- manding voice of the banking inter- ests. Instead of teachers tremblingly yielding, let them join the fight that is now being waged in their behalf by Union and other leaders. By refusing to yield, teachers will become aware of their own power. That would be a good thing for teachers, and for education as well. The above editorial is reproduced from the UNION TEACHER, the publication of New York Local 5, not only because of its excellence but because of its uni- versality. We feel that it fits into the situation of every community m the United States as well as into New York, and therefore take pleasure in passing it on to the readers of the American TEACHER. Some More “Economy” As an illustration of the type of intelligence and leadership which is at present controlling public educa- tion, we submit the following: Dental clinics have been discon- tinued in a great measure in our pub- lic schools. The elimination of this service, it is claimed, has been made to save the taxpayers’ money. Let us look into this saving a bit. If the recent survey of the Ameri- can Dental Association is dependable, and we believe it is, the closing of dental clinics in the schools is a waste and extravagance, and another illus- tration of taking it out on the chil- dren. The survey gives us these startling higures: Chicago taxpayers are losing $750,- 000 a year in educating children who fail to pass their grades because of bad teeth. Atlanta, Ga., with every child up to the standard dentally has reduced from 32 per cent to 8 per cent the number of children who fail to pass their grades, an estimated saving of $250,000 a year. 18 In Cleveland, 92 per cent of the children examined have defective teeth; in White Plains, N. Y., 98 per cent. In New York City, of 40,000 chil- dren examined, those with two or more bad teeth averaged five months behind their proper grade. Bridgeport, Conn., cut down the number of “repeaters” by 65 per cent in a five-year program. Let’s establish more dental clinics and save money as well as do justice to the children, if the latter means anything in this cynical age. Making Teaching a Profession We enter upon a new year. With renewed vigor we re-dedicate our- selves to our profession, and to rais- ing the status of that profession. Our first step to make our efforts more effective, it would seem, would be to clarify for ourselves what a profession is, what the obligations of our profession are; and then we should quite definitely work out the ways and means of better and more fully meeting these obligations. Frankly, is teaching at present a pro- fession, or does the work simply de- mand that we who are engaged in it shall meet certain “professional ob- ligations”? Let’s be fair in the analysis. (1) A profession requires that its members be trained. (2) A profession requires that those who practice it shall devote themselves to public service, shall concern themselves with the public good. (3)