January-February, 1937 What is a Fair Salary Increase? An Editorial Stepchildren of America*- - - - - - - Gertrude Robinson Industrial Unions Advance - - - - - Richard B. Crosscup _Educate and Organize - - - - - - - - - Alice Shoemaker | Teachers and the Crisis in W P A e President’s Page—Superintendent to the Defense The Classroom—Teachers View a Sit-Down The Case of Mr. Vederman The Problem of Ratings Democracy In Peril WHAT EVERY og a at the Common Sense Banquet OHN wis WELL INFORMED TEACHER SHOULD KNOW Cur Futile Weeks Ghestage T wing St7s. see tan eee Must be Spent The How and Why of the A. F. T. by WALTER N. PoLakov anv Fiorp Dei The following a eey vag yan in convenient _ Ten Unemployed Constitutions questions concerning the aims and organization of the ; American Federation of Teachers. They are well suited wa Bos en Keeps ee Sous Amettoon 4 for distribution to prospective members. Samples will by JouN Fany — a . ‘ be sent on request. vo iF Speak the American Language! — | ae ea acme by Maury Maverick 1. Information about the A. F. T. Progressivism: 1937 a . Contains facts and figures 25c per hundred by THomas R. AMLIE wt BF 2. Six Major The above are the lead titles from Th a mete aot et hey part co Aaargaar . 4) rage eo vet is intelli Pet nation's educational program — 25c per hundred Saieak tolen Eaetenes tactows bal Gib o aunae af tee Te: |. 3. The A. F. T. Program of Action constructive than destructive. It appeals to American attitudes \ : Ff Adopted at the 1931 Convention and American horse-sense. It draws inspiration from American j ES 25c per hundred traditions and the American ideals, without ignoring or being . hostile to the rest of the world. Ste i 4. Cau Teachers Unions Be Called Out on Strike? If the list of titles above stimulates your interest why not use Th Questions and answers on this the coupon below for an introductory subscription ? ad eee a ssaenncmee 7 MONTHS FOR 1 DOLLAR s S. Sitatene Saavened ope Pewee saSesewesor seasons seUeses es Enesasesesoneoaacccoes ill clinch that argument 25c per hundred COMMON SENSE, 315 Fourth Avenue, New York Ed Enclosed find $1. Please send me COMMON SENSE for 7 months, 6. Why I Am A Member of the Teachers Union as advertised in AMERICAN TEACHER. Prominent educators state their See REE 5 cocci te cbandse¥bacapndduhcotnegsdcodbetbinidtnes Ed 1 35 se (ou NES << ccnass ietdanoeekerkignsadsreadnubababiees- Pre » ft J. Gia Reasons fer Joining the A.F.T. = =§«-§§._ ccc cc ccc ccccccccccccccccccccccccccsscossce cece 7V2 It’ EE (Jerome Davis) se are also printed in “Questions Th and Answers’) 25c per hundred re Th 8. Questions and Answers a La A convenient and inclusive resumé An Wie per ened USCSTIONS ce 9. The Historical Setting of the A. 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Thousands of encyclo tic OF TEACHERS pedic articles. 35,000 geo ch CHICAGO, ILLINOIS tl antonyms. Edited by 207 C => authorities. di Calioge, Committee ‘on, Academie Freedom of tne A. ¥..%, Write for illustrated new booklet ast form on March | Bi. Price ibe. Se hs “Through Wonderiand with Webster” ly G. & C. Merriam Co., Springfield, Mass. Reaets Jes nol- ty ore ion en: clo 120” 107 ™ AMERICAN TEACHER JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1937 NUM —s VOLUME XXI ConTENTS What Is a Fair Salary Increase?.................. An Editorial 4 The Problem of Ratings........................ Helen Freilich § EER io Bboaess sn dnecass cece ond Doxey A. Wilkerson 6 Teachers and the Crisis in WPA..................0.0-e00ee5- 10 Who Won the Elections?............. S. Pollock and A. Preis 10 Educational Projects—A Need...... L. Liebman and J. Tobias 11 Stepchildren of America................00 Gertrude Robinson 13 The Case of Mr. Vederman............ Statement of Local 192 15 Industrial Unions Advance................ Richard B. Crosscup 17 Teachers View a Sit-Down.............. Statement of Local 435 19 Educate and Organize.......................- Alice Shoemaker 22 DEPARTMENTS I a od ool oh ck padopths cuabesthepuses 66s 1 ch do cadnebscbccecceosoussad Jerome Davis 16 SED BUDEP. o ccccccctvcccccvcetecencccesccecceccees 20 me mememens Weller te Action. ........cecccccccccccccccscces 25 es nnniends Sabeucateeossoneseete Beryl Parker 30 Rss dhe ch davon codecen’ coc ccseuteshdeheséoees 31 aaa, a cin Gali geeoeendedbéadses ca rwada 32 en, ch cls ocdettnstéde cathubonetastocees 34 Contributors’ Column ................-2.-0005 Inside Back Cover Leading Union Labels: Second Series............ Inside Back Cover What Price Yale The call for Professor Jerome Davis’ Scholarship? reinstatement at Yale has become a mighty trumpet call for academic free- dom in American colleges. Student protest has found force- ful expression in resolutions by national delegated conven- tions of the National Student Federation and the American Student Union, and in an impressive demonstration held in the Yale Divinity School Auditorium by the Connecticut Valley Chapter of the A.S.U. The December tenth demon- stration attracted delegates from ten institutions includ- ing Yale, Harvard, Wesleyan, Smith, Boston University, _ Brown and Radcliffe. Teacher protest has been mount- ing. To press the campaign forward, the Boston Federa- tion has organized a broad committee involving the Massa- chusetts locals, the Inter-professional Association, W.P.A. groups, Student Union chapters, and the Social Justice Council of the Community Church. In New York, in ad- dition to the Teachers Union, the Teachers Guild, the In- .tructional Staff Associations of City College and Brook- lyn College, the City College Anti-Fascist Association and other teacher groups have passed resolutions of protest. In Texas, Local 462 introduced a resolution at a State meet- ing of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association, which was passed on to the National Education Association with a recommendation that it investigate the case. Religious protest has been slowly crystallizing. The denunciations of many individual ministers have been reenforced by or- ganized protest. Branches of the Community Church have spoken their condemnation. The National Conference of Jews and Christians has broadcast a nation-wide appeal for action through its news service. Organized labor, which early entered the campaign by passing vigorous resolutions at the Tampa convention of the A.F.L., has been intensify- ing its protest. Action has been taken by pocketbook workers in New York and by miners in Butte, Montana; by central labor unions from Port Washington (Wiscon- sin) to Parkersburg (West Virginia); and by labor federa- tions in Chicago, New York and points south and west. . . . The complete report of the investigation conducted by the A.F.T. College Committee on Academic Freedom (a sub- committee of the National Academic Freedom Committee) into Prof. Davis’ ouster proves that the budgetary explana- tion has no foundation in fact, that the scholarship and teaching argument is a libel on a capable scholar and teacher, and that the dismissal is “a clear case of the vio- lation of academic freedom and tenure.” So long as Pro- fessor Davis remains outside the Yale Divinity School, Yale scholarship will be questioned by a world that will want to know how much Yale scholars are moulding their re- search to suit administrative will. Only if the Yale Cor- poration reconsiders its action in the light of recent in- vestigations, will Yale University maintain a position of leadership in the world of American education. That Democracy The open sending of war materials, May Live technical experts, and thousands of armed men into Spain on the part of Italy and Germany makes it clearer than ever that the war in Spain is not only a Civil War to overthrow a legally constituted government, but also a war on Spain by fascist countries for the spread of fascism. Should the leaders of Italy and Germany succeed in this attempt to impose fascism on Spain, they would be encouraged in their desire to spread fascism throughout the world. Foremost in the fascist program is the suppression of trade unions. Many trade unionists in this country have realized the danger to organized labor inherent in the spread of fascism and have come to the support of the workers in Spain. A partial list of trade unions which have rallied to help Spain include locals of clothing workers, artists, iron workers, writers, W.P.A. workers, bookkeepers, stenographers and ac- countants, bakers, barbers, bricklayers, beauticians, needle trades workers, hotel and restaurant employees, building service employees, carpenters, cafeteria workers, hospital em- ployees, steel workers, painters, dental technicians, hat, cap, and millinery workers, hospital and medical professionals, American federation of government employees, furriers, electrical and radio workers, coal trimmers, confectionery and tobacco workers, laundry workers, machinists, meat cutters, milk wagon drivers, optical technicians, sign writers, alteration plumbers and steamfitters, American radio teleg- raphists, suitcase, bag and portfolio workers, journeyman tailors, teachers, poultry workers, allied printing helpers, commercial telegraphers, waiters and waitresses, and trans- port workers. The needle trades and clothing workers have undertaken to send 100,000 garments to Spain. Ambulances and medical supplies have already been sent. As trade union- ists, we are as much concerned with stopping the spread of fascism as are our fellow workers in other unions. As teachers, we are especially concerned with the preservation of free speech, free thought, and free inquiry which fascism would destroy as promptly and effectively as it would the trade unions. The distress of the Spanish people, and their need for food, clothing, and medical supplies, keeps increas- ing as German and Italian bombers continue to rain destruc- tion on Madrid, to destroy homes, and to maim women and children. With the undisguised determination of fascist Italy and Germany to bolster up Franco, and with the equally strong determination of the loyalists not to yield to fascism and foreign intervention, the struggle promises to be long and hard. The Executive Council of the American Fed- eration of Teachers at its December meeting decided to call upon locals and individual members to continue to send con- tributions for food, clothing, and medical supplies for Spain. Contributions should be sent to our national secretary-treas- urer, Mr. Irvin Kuenzli, 506 South Wabash Ave., Chi- cago, Ill. The Industrial According to the press, the War De- Mobilization Plan partment intends to introduce into the present Congress the bill for the Industrial Mobilization Plan which was explained to readers of Tue American TEACHER by the article of Mr. Warren D. Mullen in the November-December number. The 1933 version of the plan, which originally aroused widespread and indignant protest, has now been amended by what is un- doubtedly the temporary omission of the labor draft and censorship provisions. But examination of the plan in its The cAmsmican TEAcHR present form reveals that it is still thoroughly anti-labor in its purposes. The War Labor Administration, which the bill would create, provides no protection for labor, but promises “the assurance to industry of an adequate labor supply both in numbers and occupational qualifications.” The Advisory Council, part of the Administration, has no representative of labor on it, yet one of its tasks is “the formulation of policies and methods for the stabilization of fair wages.” What the War Department regards as a major problem of War Labor Administration is “the prevention of unethical competition for labor by war industries.” Under the guise of removing restrictions on production, collective bargaining would be suspended not only for the duration of the “emergency,” but “thereafter” to permit “reasonable adjustment.” The bill tactfully admits that child labor laws are a restriction on pro- duction, and would have to be cancelled too. Behind its specious new phrasing, the original purpose of the Industrial The ~AMERICAN TEACHER Official Organ of THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS $06 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Illinois Organized April 15, 1916 AFFILIATED WITH THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR —Q President Secretary-Treasurer Jerome Davis Invin R. KvEnzZ1 Vice-Presidents Maynarp C. Kruscer Inviw R. Kuenzu Mercepes L. Ne_son Nancy Lea SmiTrH Watter G. BercmMan Henry Artuur CALtis FraNcis FRANKLIN Harowp J. Gispons Mary Foiey GrossMAN Haray C. Steinmetz Cuares J. Henpier . RayMonp WALSH Mary Herrick upe WILLIAMS Sopnus Kerrn WINTHER ——_——_——_ Board of Editors Emiry I[AMPIERI L R. Cetra Lewis EstHer PETerson J. RayMonp Waren Executive Council. Contributing Editors Grorce E. AXTELLE Rozsert Morss Lovett Mrtprep BerLeMaNn Ora McLaucHin Srertinc A. Brown Se_pen MENEFEE Epwin Berry Burcum Beryvt Parker ArtHur ELper Houtrann D, Roserts Boats GAMZUE Cotston E. Warne Ipa GLantz KLINGSBERG Joun Wooprurr > ra) Business Offices 114 ~ > Street 506 S. Wabash Avenue New York City Chicago, Illinois ON: $1.00 for the year 33, the —-F » | 25e. “ 18, 1933, at pent 4 O0—Single copies, wig: 1879. Acceptance for to - —. A ~~ - wm @® © Oe’ HodéiwW oOroenwouboawed frees & a. . Se CS 6S bor in he bill Omises y both tive of Olicies at the tition noving ld be “g but 1e bill n pro- nd its istrial ERS IN ES nue $x: + em se Ft aes ‘ a *y rs. on F a Ms ~ ie 5 es : be = +25 ag i in. : a 4 . 2 be 58 ’ *t oa Ale A books published, familiarity with professional literature, contributions in the interest of the school, the system and the profession as evidenced by interest in extra-curricular activities, teacher welfare movements, etc., contributions in curriculum making, and improved teaching ability. But in Cincinnati, it is demonstrated by constant self-improvement and wide reading. In Louisville, one of the professional characteristics is a good sense of loyalty; in Omaha, pro- fessional qualities include a sympathetic understanding for children and enthusiasm for teaching. These few instances afford only a glimpse of the infinite variations possible on a rating theme. They show how vague such general terms as “loyalty,” “cooperation,” may be. What do we demand of a good rating system then? Are The cAmunican TEACHER ratings even necessary? Are the teachers of Buffalo, Atlanta and Winnetka poorer teachers because there is no formal rating system? Are the schools in Denver and Akron any the worse because only probationary teachers are rated? Have ratings justified themselves by improving the quality of teaching in our American schools? These are questions to which teachers unions will have to give serious attention. Good teaching cannot be obtained by intricate rating plans, nor by the use of such words as loyalty and co- operation which may cover anything the supervisor would like. It can be obtained only by adequate preparation «for teaching, by good teaching conditions and by super- vision which aims at improving teaching rather than at marking teachers. Federal Aid To Perpetuate or Diminish Educational Inequalities: DOXEY A. WILKERSON a defense of the general policy of increased federal aid to education. That such a policy is essential to the strength of the nation; that it is consistent with the genius of our government and with the development of our na- tional policy regarding education; that it is justified by the wide diffusion throughout the country of the benefits arising from adequate education—or penalties from lack of it; and that it is in accord with our complex economic structure and with any democratically conceived theory of federal tax- ation—that these propositions are true has been frequently and convincingly demonstrated.‘ It should suffice, then, to restrict this discussion to the critical analysis of current legislative proposals. Now before the 75th Congress are three bills which pro- pose a permanent policy of general" federal aid to education: the joint bill by Senator Harrison and Senator Black, and its identical counterparts sponsored by Representative Fletcher and Representative Fulmer—all generally referred to as the “Harrison-Fletcher Bill’*. By the time this is read, there will have been introduced still another bill, drawn and supported by the American Federation of Teach- ers. In all, they represent but two distinct legislative pro- posals. By what principles may they be evaluated? What are their relative merits? T SHOULD be unnecessary to burden these columns with Criteria for Federal Aid Legislation Americans have long cherished the ideal of “equality of educational opportunity.” In any literal sense, of course, that ideal is impossible of attainment. If interpreted, how- ever, in terms of a guaranteed “foundation program of education for all children within the nation,’* it becomes a proximate goal, well within our reach. Few will gainsay that its attainment should be a major purpose of federal aid. Several requirements would seem to inhere in the “equalization principle” as applied to federal aid to edu- cation; (1) definition of a reasonably defensible foundation program of education; (2) appropriation, from the receipts of federal taxation, of sufficient funds to finance that pro- gram; and (3) distribution of those funds with proper re- gard for the educational need of each state and its relative ability to pay taxes. These, surely, are valid tests of fed- eral aid legislation. Viewed less idealistically, if the federal government enters upon an enlarged program of aid to education, it will do so because it expects a sort of guid pro quo in terms of a more adequately educated citizenry. Only to the extent that federal funds are efficiently and equitably administered by the states will this purpose be achieved. There are eminent authorities who insist that federal aid should be divorced completely from any “compliance features”; that states should be left absolutely free to spend federal funds for education in any manner they see fit. Such a viewpoint seems most strange when one considers that the laborious re- searches of these same authorities reveal marked inefficiency and inequity on the part of some states in that administration of even the limited funds they now spend for education. Outmoded tax systems, rural-urban inequalities, and Negro- white inequities, to mention but a few, are poor evidence ao tm ww oy oc wot ww ao’ fo el & ion 898 that the federal government need not safeguard the expendi- ture of funds it gives to the states. Much more realistic and sound appears the viewpoint expressed by Judd: If experience . . . justifies the federal government in taking over a share of the support of public schools, then federal grants should be made the basis of certain demands which will assure the nation of proper conduct of its schools. There should be re- quired a decent enforcement of the fundamental law that there be no discrimination against any citizen because of race or color. A second essential guaranteed is that all schools be conducted for a sufficient number of months each year to provide proper preparation for citizenship. Another essential is the power to compel attendance over a period of years. In short, new re- sources ought to be used to improve the schools, not merely to perpetuate existing inequalities.5 It seems reasonable—and it is certainly realistic—to insist that federal aid legislation be drawn in accord with the “efficiency principle.” Finally, there appears to be fair unanimity among edu- cators that “political control of the purposes and processes of public education should remain with the state, territorial, or other regional or local governments.”* What may thus be termed the “local initiative” principle offers further valid criteria for federal aid legislation. An adequate federal aid bill, then, is one which: 1. Defines a reasonable foundation program of education, pro- vides adequate funds for its achievement, and distributes those funds with regard for a state’s educational need and relative ability to support education ; 2. Protects the interests of the federal government by insuring reasonable efficiency and equity in the use of federal funds; and 3. Safeguards the right of state and local governments to deter- mine the purposes and processes of education. Contrasting Provisions and Relative Merits of the Two Bills Measured by criteria here held to be valid, the Harri- - son-Fletcher Bill and the proposed American Federa- tion of Teachers Bill are of markedly uneven merit. Brief answers to a few pertinent questions will suffice to reveal their crucial differences. 1. What is the expressed purpose of each bill? The Harrison-Fletcher Bill proposes to assist the states and territories “in providing more effective programs of public education.” By contrast, the A.F.T. Bill seeks to enable the states and territories “to provide more equal and more adequate opportunities for public education.” That one avoids acknowledgment of the equalization prin- ciple, and the other accepts it as a major purpose, is shown by the following analysis to be highly significant. 2. Is a defensible foundation pro of education ex- lity dopeet?’ program f Both bills provide for whatever educational program there can be bought with continued state and local ex- penditures of not less per year than those of 1935-36, to- gether with the added federal funds. Beyond this, the 7 Harrison-Fletcher Bill’s only specific “foundation” pro- nouncement is an ambiguous requirement of a “system of public schools available throughout” a state for not less than 160 days. On this point the A.F.T. Bill is much more explicit. It requires that a state maintain a mini- mum 160 day term “for each of its public elementary and secondary schools.” Further, the latter bill defines, as a goal to be achieved gradually, the average daily attendance of 84 per cent of a state’s children of school age, five to seventeen years, inclusive. Both bills might well have gone farther, even without encroaching upon “states’ rights,” in defining the minimum educational program to be guaranteed for each child. Of the two, the A.F.T. Bill specifications are clearly more defensible. 3. Are appropriations adequate? The Harrison-Fletcher Bill provides for an initial ap- propriation of $100,000,000, to be increased by $50,000,- 000 each year, until in the fifth year and thereafter $300,000,000 is provided annually. The A.F.T. Bill pro- vides for an appropriation of $200,000,000 in the first year, $250,000,000 in the second year, $350,000,000 in the third year, and $500,000,000 in the fourth year, and each succeeding year. In the light of Mort’s recent determina- tion that equalization of a national foundation program costing sixty dollars per pupil would require an annual federal appropriation of one and one-quarter billion dollars,” the amounts set in both bills seem markedly con- servative. The larger appropriation of the A.F.T. Bill probably represents a more nearly justifiable start toward achievement of a really defensible national foundation program. 4. Are funds so distributed to the states as to decrease inequalities in their ability to support education? The Harrison-Fletcher Bill apportions funds to the states on a strictly pro rata, flat-grant basis, every state, rich or poor, receiving an identical amount for each in- habitant aged five to twenty years inclusive. The in- equity of this plan may be illustrated in case of New York, one of the ablest states, and South Carolina, one of the poorest. New York’s taxpaying ability per capita is $64.92; South Carolina’s $23.60. In 1931-32, New York spent for the education of each pupil in average daily attendance the sum of $176.20, or $79.05 more than the national average. South Carolina spent $33.43, or $63.72 less than the national average. Yet under the Harrison- Fletcher Bill, federal aid would be apportioned to the two states on exactly the same basis. The inevitable re- sult would be to perpetuate, not to decrease, existing edu- cational inequalities. The A.F.T. Bill, in harmony with its expressed pur- pose, would apportion funds to the states with due regard for their educational need and relative taxpaying ability.*® Its operation, as contrasted with the Harrison-Fletcher Bill, is readily apparent from differences in allotments under the bills for the five able states. (Assume an A.F.T. appropriation of $100,000,000.) Index of A.F.T. Ability to Harrison-Fletcher Bill Allot- Support™ Bill Allotment ment From State Schools From $100,000,000 $100,000,000 Difference a 11.63 $ 179,293 $ 137,452 —$ 41.841 Nev. .... 2.93 59,014 50,465 —_ 8,549 RR Be 8,813,332 6,848,620 — 1,964,712 io ccs SOR 288,429 179,547 — 108,882 Calif. ... 1.66 3,589,413 3,178,675 — 410,738 ae 37 2,788,746 3,032,321 — 243,575 AS it «i 32 2,509,319 3,038,589 oe 529,270 ma... St 3,154,615 3,784,399 + 629,784 Miss. ... .30 1,897 304 2,379,505 + 482,201 i Succ wat 1,821,629 2,212,757 — 391,128 It will be noted that for each “rich” state the A.F.T. Bill allots less, and for each “poor” state more, than does the Harrison-Fletcher Bill. None who really desires “democracy in education” will question the greater equity of the A.F.T. Bill apportionments. Supporters of the Harrison-Fletcher Bill grant the soundness of the equalization principle as a basis for federal aid, but consider it “less practical from a legisla- tive point of view.”™* It is refreshing to note that framers of the A.F.T. Bill chose to predicate their measure, not upon questionable political expediency, but upon dem- ocratic principles of education. 5. Is a reduction of rural-urban inequalities assured? It is between urban and rural American that the greatest educational inequalities exist. For those who are at all acquainted with the flagrant inequities which character- ize some rural schools in all states and most rural schools in many states, this assertion requires no documentation. There is nothing in the Harrison-Fletcher Bill to guarantee that such schools be brought more in line with their more potent urban rivals for financial support. The Bill’s sole gesture to that end is the ambiguous 160-day term pro- vision which readily could—and probably would—be in- terpreted as a state “average,” thus permitting continued gross inequality in even this respect. Undoubtedly, state The cAmer:caN TEACHER administrators of federal grants appreciate and would be inclined to favor the more pressing claims of their rural schools. But they must be responsible to the highly ar- ticulate and more politically forceful demands which urban communities may be expected to make for the lion’s share of federal funds. The A.F.T. Bill assures for rural schools far less than they deserve. But it does require that each school be kept open for a 160 days, and that specified increment of progress be made each year toward the goal of 84 per cent of the children of school age in average daily attendance.’* Rural schools will profit most from both of these provisions. 6. Are the constitutional rights of Negro children pro- tected? In a recent editorial, Thompson pointed out that in those states where separate schools for Negroes are man- datory, constitutional pronouncements to the contrary not- withstanding: An equitable proportion of school funds and school opportunities has never provided for Negro pupils. And, what is even more significant, this disparity has been continually increasing instead of decreasing. .... In 1900, only 48 per cent more school funds were spent on each Southern white pupil than were spent upon each Negro pupil in the same communities; in 1930, some 252 per cent more funds were spent on each Southern white pupil—an increase in disparity of over five-fold in 30 years.** This trend, concomitant with markedly increasing school revenues in the South, reveals clearly that, left to their own devices, the more money Southern states have to spend for public schools, the less, proportionately, do they spend on Negro schools. To what extent would Negro schools share state apportionments under these two bills? The Harrison-Fletcher Bill leaves the Southern states absolutely free to continue, with federal funds, the inequity which has increasingly characterized their state and local support of Negro schools. If, with the $300,000,000 ap- propriation, they should divide their federal allotments be- tween white and Negro schools in the same proportion that they divided their own funds in 1933-34, the result in eight typical states would be as shown in the table below: No. of Negroes State Allotment 5-20 Yrs. of Age Di bedsdcecaducescnsee $ 7,527,957 357,048 Eid 6 0b abesdcc cocteuse 3,520,677 140,362 Rie checccccescnsane’ 8,366,238 427,058 Dats scans ab oae bese s 5,632,422 276,293 MEEK i adoccéodecededecs 3,748,575 85,909 Eis badge skates cocns 9,463,845 384,977 MEAG Scenes 6 cacaebes 6,459,984 59,699 EE hvikic son vcbebSideee 5,464,887 353,593 | eee, $50,184,585 2,084,939 What Negroes What Negroes Amount Diverted SHOULD WOULD from Negro to Get Get White Schools $2,724,276.24 $ 813,019.36 $1,911,256.88 1,070,962.06 401,357.18 669,604.88 3,258,452.54 1,204,738.27 2,053,714.26 2,108,115.59 642,096.11 1,466,019.48 655,485.67 449,829.00 205,656.67 2,937,374.51 1,694,028.25 1,243,346.25 455,503.37 471,578.83 16,075.46 2,697 ,914.59 633,926.89 2,063 ,987.69 $15,908,084.57 $6,310,573.89 $9,597,510.68 BRES. eowmd i am me he ete Hm THO &@ se wT oO OUD Olle OOlUCUrelC d be rural y ar- rban hare 100ls each ified the e in most Bro lls? ites lity ap- hat ght ted > to ols ).88 }.88 }.26 1.48 67 ).25 46 com - ee ree yt January-February, 1937 An equitable distribution of funds under the $300,000,- 000 Harrison-Fletcher Bill appropriation would require the expenditure for each white person and each Negro, aged five to twenty, of $7.63. Left to their own devices, the group of states shown above may be expected to spend; for each white person—$9.80; and for each Negro —$3.02. Such a policy, Thompson remarks, would “make the federal government and the nation as a whole par- ticeps crimins to an outrage that has heretofore warped the conscience and degraded the morals of only a part of our people.’** The experience of the past shows that Southern states would not hesitate to divert federal funds from Negro to white pupils just as they do state and local funds. To cite one example, in 1933-34 Alabama received from the Federal Emergency Fund a total of $3,901,938 for public schools. Though Negro children constituted 33 per cent of that year’s enrollment, only $415,783 was spent on Negro schools. Thus, this federal money was divided be- tween white and Negro schools in exactly the same ratio as in the case of state and local funds; that is; for white schools—89 per cent; for Negro schools—11 per cent. So have the Southern states divided all other federal edu- cational funds—with two notable exceptions; money from the Second Morrill Act of 1890, and current student aid supplied by the National Youth Administration. In both cases, legislative or executive mandates require an equit- able distribution of funds between the races. Again the A.F.T. Bill presents a striking contrast. It provides that, wherever schools are maintained for the white and Negro races, a state must expend annually, from its own funds, for public elementary and secondary schools for the Negro race, not less proportionately than it spent during 1935-36. There is a further provision that in such states there must be spent “for the public educa- tion of the Negro race . . . . a proportion of the federal allotment which is not less than the proportion which the school population of the Negro race bears to the school population.” In granting increased aid for education to the Southern states, the federal government cannot, with honor, neglect so to safeguard the constitutional rights of its Negro children. 7. Is Federal control of educational purposes and pro- cesses prohibited? Both bills, the A.F.T. Bill a bit more explicitly, fully prohibit any federal control of the purposes, means, and processes of education, expressly reserving all such func- tions to state local governments. Both bills permit the use of federal funds for the public education of persons below or above the age limits of the population upon which appropriations are based. Both specifically pro- vide that states shall not be delimited “in their definition of a program of public education.” There is no choice between them on this issue. The Measure of Progress America’s ideal of equality of educational opportunity has long been vitiated by marked inequalities among the states, disparities among communities within,a state, and inequities between the races. The A.F.T. Bill is so drawn as to decrease such disparities; the Harrison-Fletcher Bill to perpetuate or increase them. Better is it that the fed- eral government initiate no enlarged program of aid to education unless, by so doing, it assures more democratic educational opportunities. As in our economic life, so in education, the recent inaugural pronouncement of Presi- dent Roosevelt is pertinent: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” 1 See, for example: (a) Federal Relations to Education, Report of the Na- tional Advisory Committee on Education, Parts 1, 11, Washington, D. C., 1931; (b) Re of the National Conference on the Financing of Education, Washington, D. C.: National Education Association, 1933; (c) Paul R. Mort, Federal Support for Public Education, New York: Teachers College Colum- bia University, 1936; (d) Leslie L. Chism, The Economic Ability of the States to Finance Public Schools, New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1936; (e) Mary F. Grossman, “A Time for Federal Aid,” AMERICAN TEACHER, 21: 18-19, N-D '36; ({) National Survey of School Finance, State Support for Public Education, Washington, D. C.: American Council on Education, 1935. 2 “Permanent” as contrasted with recent emergency poe and “general” as opposed to grants for special purposes, such as the mith-Hughes Act for vocational education. 8 S419 (Mr. Harrison and Mr. Black); H. R. 2288 (Mr. Fletcher); H. R. 1634 (Mr. Fulmer). 4 National Survey of School Finance, op. cit., p. 78. (My italics.) 5 Charles H. Judd, “Federal Support of Public Education,” The Educa- tional Digest, 1: 5-7, My '36. 6 Federal Relation to Education, Part 1, op. cit., p. 83. 7 Paul R. Mort, op. cit., page 242. 8 Leslie L. Chism, op. cit. ® Riennial Survey of Education: 1930-32, Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office. 10 The rather simple formula for achieving this distribution need not be elaborated here. 11 Paul R. Mort, op. cit. pp. 232-33. 12 Howard A. Dawson, “The Harrison-Fletcher Bill,” Journal of the Na- tional Education Association, 26: 2, Jan. 1937. 13 In 1933-34, the median state had 80.8 per cent of its children, aged 5 to 17, in average daily attendance. The lowest percentage of any state was 63.0. One-fourth of the states had percentage ranging downward from 75.0. The seventy-five percentile was 84.0 per cent. ec A. F. T. Bill requires that a state progress toward that latter ratio at the rate of two per cent per year. 14 Charles H. Thompson, “The Harrison-Fletcher Bill and Negro Separate Schools,” Journal of Negro Education, 6: 1-6, 1937. 15 Charles H. Thompson, op. cit. Paty Se 3 a an Ke iter oe a ry ee eee eae " RR 8 ee PP es - + we . F: aa Who Won the Elections? ‘Samuel Pollock and Arthur Preis HILE the final election returns were still untabu- W lated, the WPA workers received the first reward of blind political faith in the form of wholesale dis- missals. Tossed suddenly from the comparative security of WPA jobs to the tender mercies of bankrupt local communities, hundreds of thousands of America’s unem- ployed are reflecting bitterly today on the inconstancy of political suitors, even one so smiling and beneficent as F. D. R. Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected president of the United States by an unprecedented popular mandate. Sig- nificantly, however, his campaign was conducted almost exclusively on a defense of past endeavors, with few definite pledges for the future. In almost irrational panic at thought of a Republican victory, organized labor, the liberals and intellectuals, endorsed a political blank check and frantically stuffed it into Roosevelt’s pocket. The vote for Roosevelt did carry with it, however, certain implied expectations. The electorate decisively rejected Alf Landon, whose only definite appeal was for government economy and conservative relief spending. Indeed, the question of relief was the central and raging issue of the campaign. The elections over, Roosevelt succumbed on the relief issue, with almost immodest speed, to the pressure from the right. It is increasingly obvious that Roosevelt is making certain pacific gestures toward the U. S. Chamber of Com- merce, the Liberty Leaguers and the rest of the tories who have been raising an infernal wail about “balancing the budget” and “stopping the chiselers and loafers from picking the public pockets.” Despite his reassuring words on unemployment in his Congressional address, Roosevelt had already initiated a policy which within a month of the elections forced hundreds of thousands from desperately needed WPA jobs. His proposal for a WPA deficiency appropriation of only $790,000,000 foreshadows the permanent dismissal by early spring of at least 600,000 more WPA workers. Of the proposed appropriation, actually but $650,000,000 is ear- marked for continuation of WPA until the end of the fiscal year. Teachers and the There should be nothing startling about this policy, for, in reality, it is merely the continuation of one already well established. For two years, a major objective of the ad- ministration has been to withdraw from the responsibility for the maintenance of the unemployed. A long step in this direction was taken as early as Jume 1935, when the federal government proceeded to liquidate the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and dumped 1,500,000 relief recipients, for whom no WPA jobs were ever provided, upon the states and local committees. Another 3,853,000, largely taken from the relief rolls, were em- ployed by February 1936 on WPA. This was the peak point. By August 1936, the peak figure had been quietly reduced to 3,362,000. On November 17, 1936, Harry L. Hopkins reported to the Conference of Mayors in Wash- ington, D. C., that WPA employment stood at 2,500,000. He also placed an estimate on unemployment at 8-11 million. This estimate places existing unemployment at a level close to that of February 1933, at the deepest pit of the depression,—a point at which it has tended to be stabilized except for the period following the bank moratorium. Mr. Hopkins at the same time admits that WPA employment was cut one-third within eight months. With the forth- coming dismissals WPA will have been reduced within a year by about fifty per cent. Yet, even the most con- servative estimates fail to indicate that total unemployment has been reduced within the same period of time by a per- centage remotely paralleling the proportion of WPA liquidation. The trend of present policy will affect no occupational groups more drastically than the unemployed professional workers. The administration is aware of the storm its poli- cies will provoke, and is prepared to utilize the most ex- pedient methods in effecting them. A factor on which the administration counts for support of its policies, is the wide-spread illusion that the depression is over, that em- ployment opportunities are rapidly expanding and, in particular, that those with the added capacities of a higher education now have a comparatively easy task in secur- ing some type of employment. The administration is guided solely by its desire to re- duce relief expenditures to a minimum. Professional projects afford one of the sacrificial lambs handiest to the current budgetary knife. The professional worker gets the highest wages on WPA and the end-products of his work are the least tangible. A laborer, with the lowest pay, gives tangible evidence of the character of his work, in a ditch, a ee}, Fe, ce C ', for, y well e ad- bility n this when the mped were other - em- peak lietly ry L. Vash- 000. lion. level f the lized Mr. ment orth- ithin con- ment per- VPA ional ional poli- t ex- ) the the em- , in gher + ae Crisis in WPA a road or sewer-line. Since educational benefits are not as easily measurable or immediately apparent as a con- crete highway, the not too reasoning individual can be counted upon not to bemoan their loss. Besides, there are some in the administration who are none too anxious to maintain the educational projects, as presently constituted, under any consideration. Still ran- kling in a conservative administration mind is the memory of pre-election charges, made by the tory press, that the educational projects are the “hot-beds of radicalism.” These charges were largely the fulminations of a hostile press in- terested not so much in truth as in political destructiveness. The inspiration for these charges came no doubt from the fact that the educational projects served largely the under- privileged. ‘These workers demand from education not merely cold scholasticism but a basis for understanding the immediate economic and social realities about them. Likewise, an instructor, but newly divorced from the bread- line, might occasionally permit his observations to be con- ditioned by the tenor of his experiences. The administration is making such huge slices in the pro- fessional WPA projects because it anticipates a minimum of resistance from those directly affected. Professionals constitute but eight per cent of the WPA employees. The personal background of most professionals does not make them readily sympathetic to unionism. The indi- vidualistic nature of their work mitigates against that group contact and consciousness which is so vital an aid to or- ganization. Yet, without organization, little effective re- sistance can be mustered against the WPA layoffs and wage-cuts. Continuation and expansion of these essential community services are dependent almost exclusively upon federal gov- ernment support. In even so primary a field as public school education, the need for federal aid and subsidy is becoming imperative. It is obvious then that the federal government, and not local communities, must assume responsibility for providing adequate services in these fields. WPA made @ small but significant beginning in the professional and Service types of projects. To curtail or discontinue them now would do immeasurable social harm to the local com- munities. , In the final analysis, however, no consideration of indi- vidual or community needs actuate the present relief poli- ies. The federal administration is fully aware of the Oe Mie ships it will and has invoked, President Roosevelt is pro- ceeding to cut WPA to the bone. For Roosevelt is merely carrying through the dictates of the actual forces behind this policy, big industry and finance. The masters of economic power want no genuine aid to the unemployed. They want a large surplus of labor, starved into despera- tion and servility, and ready to take a job at any pay, under any conditions. And—they want less taxes. Organized labor, on the other hand, dare not abandon the unemployed. We dare not permit the existence of a vast, permanent and desperate army of jobless which can be used by fascist demagogues and labor-hating employers to break strikes, undermine unionism and destroy wage-stand- ards and working conditions. The professional workers, as well as all others, must fight now, bitterly and without compromise, against every effort to curtail WPA. We must demand a system of permanent federal public works to provide all unemployed with a steady employment on socially-useful projects at decent wages. This is the least we can demand of a nation which has every material at hand to produce plenty for all. Educational Projects -A Need Laura Liebman and Jack Tobias XPAND WPA! ApproprRiATE $1,040,000,000! kK Behind these slogans, carried on hundreds of ban- ners, 25,000 New York workers paraded through the streets of the city on January 9th. Perhaps the most impressive contingent in this demonstration was the block of 3,000 members of Local 453, the WPA Teachers Union. One week later another 250 delegated representatives of the Local participated as part of a national delegation uf 2,000 that had descended on Washington from 26 states to bring the above mentioned slogans into the individual offices of the nation’s legislators. The position of the ad- ministration, that of drastic curtailment of WPA had been made clear. Has the number of unemployed decreased sufficiently to allow for a cut in WPA? Of specific interest to us —Has the number of jobs for teachers substantially in- creased? A few figures from New York City will show the facts. The Board of Education has not given an examination for a license to teach in the elementary schools since 1931. There seemed little point in giving ee Se oA, os 12 such an examination. Teachers who passed the exam- ination as far back as 1929 have still not been placed in regular teaching positions. There are over 5,000 li- censed elementary school teachers in New York City awaiting appointment. The situation in the high schools is no brighter. As many as 95 per cent of the indi- viduals taking the examination for a license have been eliminated. The fact that thousands of additional people become prospective candidates at each commencement is almost too obvious to be mentioned. Can we assume that there is no need for the services of these trained people? The educational program of the WPA in the past few years has definitely proven other- wise. New and varied services never included in the regular school system are of immeasurable value to thou- sands of New York City children. More than 20,000 children in elementary and secondary schools have re- ceived special aid in the form of coaching and remedial work for the retarded and maladjusted, instruction for the lame, the blind, and the deaf, special assistance for the talented. Among other handicapped pupils who have been aided by the services of the WPA teachers are over 1000 homebound children and 2700 who require special speech training. Nursery schools for underprivileged pre- school children had on a national scale an enrollment of 52,500 during the typical month of May 1936. Perhaps the most significant branch of the WPA edu- cational program is the work with adults. In Adult Edu- cation the country has undergone the greatest revival of interest it has ever experienced. During May 1936, a typical month, more than 1,825,000 persons (nationally) were enrolled for instruction under the educational pro- gram of the WPA. Adult education classes in such sub- jects as history, mathematics, economics, sociology and English were attended by nearly 800,000 persons. En- rollment in literacy classes exceeded 266,000 persons, and the enrollment for vocational instruction exceeded 260,000. A total of 88,000 persons participated in parent educa- tion courses, i.e. courses dealing with homemaking, child guidance, the purchase and preparation of food, and re- lated topics. Workers Education classes helped almost 61,000 men and women who had little formal education but were seriously interested in social and industrial problems. Innumerable authorities well qualified to judge the value of this work have repeatedly commented on it. A report on “Youth in School and Industry” submitted by the New York City Superintendent of Schools contains this interesting quotation: “The social significance of this experimental work is obvious. The underlying assumptions are that our edu- cational service should be extended to higher age levels and made commensurate with the needs of adult life; that our educational service must be flexible enough to The cAmmrican TEACHER meet the constantly shifting economic demands that re- quire new or additional skills on the part of the adult workers, whether he be in the counting room, the studio or the factory; that such training is made imperative not only by the demands of commerce and industry but by the need for containing morale and social stability during the period of prolonged unemployment; that the social stability and the economic efficiency gained through such training will more than repay the community for the slight additional cost involved. In short, the experi- mental work has abundantly demonstrated that adult edu- cation must be an integral part of our future school program.” Morris Siegel, director of the Adult Education Project, stated in one of his reports: “Once we concede that education is a life process, we cannot successfully defend the thesis that formal or in- formal education can stop at 14, 24, or even 64. There is no more reason for distinguishing between adult edu- cation and non-adult education than there is reason to separate adult living from non-adult living. In a progres- sively advancing civilization one must make continuous adjustments in his own life and in relation to the com- munity if he is not to be overtaken by the tides of prog- ress. Adult Education is a prime necessity. One dis- regards it at his own peril and to the permanent injury of his fellow beings. “Whether the new leisure of this and coming generations is to be a bane or a benefit will be determined by the kind of publicly supported adult education program we evolve.” There is a need for the many thousands of trained, un- employed teachers in helping the “millions who are de- nied education, recreation and the opportunity to better their lot.” The organized teachers of the nation, who recognized the importance of WPA by electing a WPA vice-president of the A.F.T. at the last convention, can materially assist in the campaign for its continuation. Regular teachers should, wherever possible, assist in the organization of WPA educational work. The strongest bulwark against the dismissal of project workers is a strong union of their own, affiliated with the A. F. of L. Resolutions support- ing WPA should be introduced in every Central Trades and Labor Council, and then sent on to the local Con- gressman and Senator. A. F. of T. locals must do the same. Individually, every teacher should communicate with his Congressman urging support for the WPA pro- gram. The campaign is far from over. In a month or two, Congress will have to determine the appropriation for the coming year. Organized labor should make its sentiment felt now. —_ a Gt. o6 it re. adult tudio rative y but bility t the ough y for cperi- edu- chool oject, 3, we r in- Chere m to gres- 1uouS com- prog- njury tions y the n we |, un- p de- etter nized ident assist chers n of ainst their port- rades Con- » the licate pro- January-February, 1937 Stepchildren wo THINGS we have to admit. There is an upward shift in industrial conditions together with some up- ward turn in employment, even though a possible ten million adults are still without benefit of the pay envelope from private industry. The other thing is a noticeable in- crease in the return to general employment of children of fourteen and fifteen. These may seem strange economic companions but the simple truth is that it is a companionship as old as our industrial story. This began in the latter days of the eighteenth century and our very first cotton factory noti- fied the world in 1789 that “it would afford employment to a great number of women and children, many of whom will be otherwise useless, if not burdensome to society.” We feel rather differently today about this thirty-five per cent of our some one hundred twenty-eight million whose years number less than eighteen and a half. But there are stil people willing to wait for state child labor legislation to do the trick, even though the hundred years it has taken for only eight states out of the forty-eight to reach the level set by the child labor provisions should be disillusion- ing. That level, we remember, was sixteen years for regu- | lar employment, with light work in certain occupations out- side school hours; in addition, hazardous occupations, though not other employment, were prohibited for the sixteen and seventeen-year olds. Some people are still willing to tolerate the continued existence of the sore spots which state-wide legislation has left unhealed over wide areas. Sore spots are disagreeable GERTRUDE ROBINSON of America to contemplate but they cannot be ignored if we really want child labor reform. Briefly stated they amount to this: In four states the minimum work age is fifteen; in thirty- five it is fourteen years; in one there is no minimum. In practically all these are exemptions that serve as sieves through which may be strained all too many children. Largely because of poverty, these unfavored children of America may go to work before the legal age. An analysis of these state laws reveals that in nine states children under fourteen, in some cases with no age minimum, may leave school for industrial employment, possibly for factory em- ployment. In eighteen other states similar occupational risks may be run by children under fourteen, outside school hours. At once one asks, what about dangerous occupa- tions for these children who are bartering childhood for a microscopic pay envelope. The answer is simple. In eleven states there is practically no prohibition of dangerous occu- pations for children under sixteen; in thirty-two the same is true for minors between sixteen and eighteen. For those who are still willing to wait for the tortoise to win in the race for child labor reform, it is to be noted that all this was as true at the beginning of this past crucial year 1936 as it is at the beginning of 1937, except for two changes only: one state, Rhode Island, raised the minimum work age to sixteen and one state, Virginia, raised the minimum age for work in a limited number of hazard- ous occupations from sixteen to eighteen. Meanwhile the return of children to store and factory and mill and wherever the exploiter of the cheapest of labor is ready to take them on is not only possible in these many states. It is happening. Again we may read newspaper items such as the one that appeared in the Boston Transcript of February 14, 1936. A sixteen-year-old boy, employed for one week in a textile mill, was found crushed beneath a machine in the mule-spinning room. Sometimes they are not killed but maimed for life, like the fifteen-year-old lad we read about in the Jersey City Journal of November 19, 1936. His left foot was crushed in the gears of a bal- ing machine in an old paper shop. Again there are in- creases in the authentic reports of small slaveys in the sweatshops, in the street trades, in the gigantic commer- cialized agricultural enterprises. A visitor to a nut pack- ing establishment in a southern state saw little girls of six and seven operating nut-cracking machines. Meanwhile, the children are not only in increasing num- “A * i — er pa ye as aS : vas e ig Ws es SER ho <2 ge nt Ae Oe, Patt - A de Ate rest? = 5 ei. ‘ mo £ hy ee EN ERTL age ue e ay wos & te at eet Rete y So Fishes: E Nine More Needed! Twenty-seven state legislatures have ratified the Child Labor Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Ratification by nine more states is required in order to make that amendment a part of the Constitution. The following state legislatures that have not ratified the amendment are now in session: Connecticut Nebraska Delaware New York Florida Rhode Island Georgia South Carolina Kansas South Dakota Maryland Tennessee Massachusetts Texas Missouri Vermont Other states that have not ratified but may hold special sessions in 1937 are: Alabama Mississippi Louisi Virgini bers in the sweated trades but in the legitimate industries. Figures from the latest report of the Children’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, covering ten states, the Dis- tsict of Columbia and 98 cities outside these states show an increase of 150 per cent in the number of work per- mits (authorization to leave school for full time employ- ment and not applying to newsboy badges or vacation or after school work permits) granted boys and girls of four- teen and fifteen years of age in the first five months of 1936 (after the codes), over the number in the first five months of 1935 (under the codes). The Child Labor Amendment would simply give power to Congress to frame a law within the scope of the text of the Amendment. The friends of this enabling act are ready to urge Congress to frame legislation carrying sub- stantially the provisions of the industrial codes. Whether legislation up to these standards is enacted or not, it is im- portant to bear in mind that any law passed may be re- vised or changed by a vote of Congress, without going through the time-consuming process of repeal. The Amend- ment would place the weight of no dead hand upon the future with its changing industrial and social needs. After all, that is the crux of this or any social issue,— adaptation to changing needs. It was Thomas Jefferson who said: Our duty is to act upon things as they are, and to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Teachers should guard against substitute local measures that sound good but are designed to defeat the basic pur- pose of this Amendment—the granting to all of our thirty- five per cent of our population equality of opportunity up to capacity to improve it. President Roosevelt wrote a letter to each of the nineteen governors of states in which legislatures are or soon will The cAmunican TEACHER be in session. Mr. Hoover at once made a public endorse. ment of this letter,—a plea for action on the Child Labor Amendment. We, the teachers of the children, can do no less. It is largely up to us to put through ratification of the Amendment in this Year of Our Lord, 1937. Six states ratified the Amendment between 1924, when it was adopted by Congress, and 1933. Then, with the prick of the depression to goad laggard industrial ethics to action, eighteen states ratified up to 1937. Already in this year—which may achieve the authentic end of child labor as a national institution—the twenty-seventh state has gone on record. In 1937, seventeen states that have not yet ratified the amendment have regular sessions of their legislatures. It is possible to secure these needed nine ratifications; but it is possible only if the advocates of fair play for children organize the forces of public opinion and let these legisla- tures know that ratification is what the people want. Local unions can organize legislative committees of teachers to influence governors and legislatures. They can enlist the interest of parent-teacher organizations. They can cooperate with other union groups. In many cases they can get the support of service clubs, and chambers of com- merce. When legislatures learn of a widespread interest of representative groups like these, they will be quick to take action. More Non-Union Teachers should read this magazine and regard it as their own forum. Send us the names and addresses of those you believe are, or should be, in- terested. We will send a sample copy free to each. Arrangements can also be made, on request, to send additional copies regu- larly to those who will undertake their sale in a faculty or community. & Address The American Federation of Teachers 506 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago. ao ms se hlUcrertlUrlUrehUrhOhllUC Sl Geel am oat COULSllCUCUClCON Orse- bor lo no m of when the thics y in child state the . It but dren isla- rest r to January-February, 1937 The Case of Mr. Vederman k. JOSEPH VEDERMAN was appointed to the De- partment of Mathematics at Overbrook High School, Philadelphia, in September, 1934. On June 26, 1936, he was dropped from that faculty and from the Philadelphia school system because of alleged in- competence. An examination of his case, however, indi- cates that other factors are involved, and that, under the guise of an unsatisfactory teaching rating, his dismissal represents an attempt to infringe upon academic freedom. Events bearing upon Mr. Vederman’s case seem to have taken that pattern which has of late become increasingly representative of reaction in schools. Prejudice, coercion, and beclouding of issues, have combined to present an all-too-familiar picture. Mr. Vederman, a member of A.F.T. Local 192, appealed to the executive board of the union after he was informed that he was to be permanently dropped. A committee was appointed to investigate the case and has established the following facts which to date the Board of Education has made no effort to disprove: That for seven months after his appointment, up until April 1935, nothing occurred or was said to him that would indicate that his work merited an unsatisfactory rating. That in April 1935, while talking to three other teachers in the faculty room during a non-teaching period, Mr. Vederman jestingly remarked that “what this country needs is a good revolution.” That a few days after he made this remark, Dr. H. Ross Smith, principal of the school, called him to the office and subjected him to a series of questions. He was asked whether he and his parents were citizens and where they were born; what teacher or other organizations he be- longed to, and whether he was a socialist, communist, or radical. In addition he was asked whether he had made the remark, “what this country needs is a good revolu- tion.” That, although probationary teachers who have been rated unsatisfactory at the end of the first year are gen- erally given the opportunity of a second probationary year in another school, and although several appointments were made in that year in the other high schools, Mr. Veder- man was retained at Overbrook for a second year of pro- bation—under the same principal and the same department head. That, according to Mr. Vederman’s testimony and not denied by those involved, reference was again made to Te ae BEA Oy matters other than his teaching. On one occasion during his third semester, his department head, when asked about his proficiency, replied, “Have you convinced Dr. Smith that you are not a radical? . . . . On another occasion, when Mr. Vederman pointed out that his department head had adjudged his work satisfactory, Dr. Smith replied, “You’re argumentative, and that’s why I’m going to rate you unsatisfactory.” When a union committee interviewed Dr. Edwin C. Broome, Superintendent of Philadelphia Schools, it was confronted with a detailed written report of observations made during the entire two year period by the principal and the department head. Yet up to January 1936 Mr. Vederman had received no written criticism of his work. Indeed his department head had previously told him that his work was fair and on two occasions had complimented him. . A number of teachers at Overbrook High School in- dicated their intention of petitioning for the retention of Mr. Vederman, whereupon the high school administration took strong measures to discourage teachers from signing such a petition. A city-wide protest of high school teachers greeted this new coercion, whereupon teachers at the school were asked to sign a statement to the effect that there had been no coercion. The interjection of elements not strictly related to teach- ing seemed sufficient reason for the union to ask for an investigation of the case. The Academic Freedom Com- mittee of the local, accordingly invited the Philadelphia Teachers’ Association to send a representative to meet them, in the hope that a review of the evidence might re- sult in some joint action. The president, Dr. Clark, re- plied that he preferred to sound out the opinion of the Overbrook faculty. The petition in behalf of Dr. Smith, signed by a large majority of his faculty, was regarded by Dr. Clark as justification for refusing to meet the A.F.T. Academic Freedom Committee. Instead, in an article in the official organ of his association, he rambled on gently about the integrity of the authorities involved and complacently suggested that: . . . Since any community is controlled more by habit and custom than by intelligence, academic freedom must remain a relative concept. The meaning of academic freedom must al- ways be conditioned by the temper of the time. Speaking presumably of the union campaign on Mr. Vederman’s behalf, Dr. Clark continues: . « + Teachers generally will be able to understand the atti- tude of Mr. Vederman, fallible judgment and all, and will sym- ies Tipk Mesias eT 4 = Baiee =, et OSHS Pe ae cana 5) ext oe 2 > - wo. Tee PE OHA SE scar ho 4 BS ~ .* 16 pathize with him, but they cannot overlook the more fallible judgment of those who have taken the case from its proper set- ting and elevated a subordinate incident in it to the place of first importance. AMERICAN TEACHER readers will best judge for them- selves the merit of the relative academic freedom concept, and whether the “incident” is really subordinate. About the same time, the local committee, in view of the strong stand on Academic Freedom taken by the National Education Association at their recent conven- tion, sent to the executive secretary, Mr. Givens, a com- plete report and asked for cooperation. The reply of Mr. The cfmmnican TEACHER Givens, stated he deemed the case worthy of the con- sideration of their National Academic Freedom Commit- tee and had forwarded the letter to said committee. No reply has been received to date. The A.F.T. is continuing its efforts for a fair hearing on the case. The membership realizes that a dangerous precedent is being established, and unless this vicious form of bias is vigorously combated, teachers in general will be at the mercy of the petty prejudices of their superiors. Statement Issued by the Executive Board Philadelphia Local 192. Presidents Page HE MosT frequent reason advanced against joining the American Federation of Teachers is its relation- ship to organized labor. It is argued that this is un- professional, that teachers should represent all the public rather than one class, that such affiliation means a labor bias. These arguments sound plausible but they lack merit. Every teacher should ponder carefully the reasons why it is essential for teachers and workers to join hands. (1) We are living in a group era. It is group pressure and group effort that bring results. Teachers alone repre- sent but a small minority of the population. The organized workers plus the teachers represent the overwhelming ma- jority of the American people. (2) The teachers have found through experience that af- filiation with organized labor brings achievement. Many years ago when the Chicago teachers joined with labor they were able to force tax-dodging public service corpora- tions to pay $600,000 in additional taxes. As a result salary cuts were restored. Today teachers all over the nation have affiliated with labor because it gets results. (3) The working class is the friend of education. The trade unions were the first to demand free public schools. They have always stood for better education. Professor Counts found that 52% of the boards of education were made up either of proprietors, managers, or those engaged in buying and selling. These classes are prone to curb academic freedom and are quick to cut salaries and cur- tail education at the first sign of depression. Why should not the teachers join with their friends rather than with their enemies? No one can point out to a single concrete ex- ample where affiliation with labor has damaged education. On the contrary, all over the nation it has promoted democ- racy in education and education for democracy. (4) The more professional teachers become, the more necessary affiliation with labor. Professional groups always need the support of the working class to win. Isolated and complacent pride as a substitute for economic justice is ridiculous. Actually on the average the unorganized teach- ers receive far less pay than the organized workers. (S$) In many ways the teachers are akin to the working class. Doctors, lawyers, and other professional men can con- trol their hours and conditions of labor and their fees. Teachers cannot. In a sense the teachers are wage earn- ers for they do not own their own equipment nor the tools with which they work. Why should they not be organized as skilled workers? Ultimately school revenue comes from all who labor, both with hand and brain. (6) The classroom should not be isolated from the social order. Teachers must not have compartment minds. Edu- cation is indissolubly intertwined with the social and eco- nomic order. (7) Instead of fostering class bias, affiliation with labor protects academic freedom. When President Roosevelt met with the representatives of the South American Republics and affiliated in a peace pact it did not mean becoming biased or un-American. Similarly, to affiliate with organ- ized labor does not mean limitation either of free inquiry or of outside complete independence. The American Fed- eration of Teachers has complete autonomy, complete in- dependence. It does not use the weapon of the strike. Teachers merely prefer to join with the workers rather than with the exploiters. In reality this protects academic free- dom now endangered by the property interests. In conclusion, if the organized workers both of hand and brain, representing union workers on the one side and union teachers on the other, join hands, there is nothing that is best for education that cannot be achieved. In fact, the security, the prosperity and the welfare of the working class in the end measures that of us all. Liberty, equality, fraternity cannot be more effectively symbolized than by the organized teachers of the nation joining hands in affiliation with the organized workers. Jerome Davis. J amit- No aring Tous form will iors. oard 192. bor net lics nd on he ly on January-February, 1937 Industrial Unions Advance The Organized Challenge to the Open Shop RICHARD B. CROSSCUP OR THE FIRST TIME in trade union history, labor or- ganization is challenging the open shop rule of the General Motors Company. This challenge has stirred the public imagination and roused public attention to a degree that is unusual except in cases where labor struggles have been marked by provocation and bloodshed. In the use of the “sit down” technique, most dramatically applied in Flint, Michigan, the friends of labor see a method of struggle by which the maximum of solidarity, effectiveness, and discipline can be maintained with a minimum of damage to property and of physical violence, unless such violence is directly inspired and initiated by the employers. For this very reason, since provocation is a traditional instrument of strikebreaking, the “sit down” strike has brought the foes of labor to their feet to chant in outraged unison about the sacred rights of property and the evils of trespass. The trespass, it seems, consists in the occupancy of certain premises by people who habitually occupy those premises, against the will of an ownership which—in so far as it is not altogether abstract—is scattered to the farthest corners of one or more continents, and expresses its will through the devious mechanism of the proxy. But the morals in- volved can be left to philosophers. For labor, the issue is the right of collective bargaining, and the most peaceful and effective way of obtaining it. In this connection, our own Flint Teachers Local has issued a statement on the Flint situation, which we print herewith. The Flint situation, however, is merely one aspect of a nation-wide movement. It is well to understand that the C.I.O. organizational drive is not all drama. The drama, in fact, is rooted in an organizational wave of amazing rapidity, intensity, and scope, under the leadership of twelve powerful international unions. In a few months the United Automobile Workers Union has grown from 40,000 members to over 100,000, with thousands more joining steadily.* The union had already won wage increases, shorter hours, seniority rights, and less speed-up in various local situations before its dramatic challenge to General Motors. In less than a year the United Rubber Workers Union has grown from a small Federal Union to a vast Interna- tional, with 25,000 workers in Akron alone. More and more eto, Sm tin 4s locals are being chartered and are obtaining seniority rights, shorter hours, wage increases, vacations with pay, and union recognition. The Steel Workers Organizing Committee, created by the C.I.0. last June, has already organized over 125,000 workers. The writer has been told by C.1.0. organizers that the rate of organization had reached 1,000 workers a day. The very threat of organization has already brought wage increases to the steel workers. The United Electrical and Radio Workers of America more than doubled its membership in nine months. It is firmly established, with company recognition in the key plants of General Electric and Westinghouse, and has a closed shop, 36 hour week agreement with the Philco fac- tory, largest radio manufacturer. In elections held by the National Labor Relations Board, the United Electrical and Radio Workers Union was chosen as the sole collective bar- gaining agency of the RCA-Victor plant in Camden, New Jersey, and of the General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York. The Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers has won wage increases amounting to twenty per cent in Camden, New Jersey, and has held down hours on naval construction in the East to the 36 hour week. Notable progress has been made by the Federation of Flat Glass Workers. Some of the older and already firmly established C.1.O. unions have obtained further successes by the general wave of organization. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers has organized the great garment plant of Wilson Brothers in South Bend, Indiana, as a result, strangely enough (or naturally enough), of victories won in South Bend by the United Automobile Workers. The United Textile Workers are again organizing some of the great textile cities of the East, which have been cen- ters of the open shop, and of oppression and intimidation for some years. In the South, the organization of textile plants is going on under conditions of great difficulty and danger. The Committee for Industrial Organization now rep- resents nearly two million workers. The C.1.O. is active in politics, but it permits nothing to interfere with its organ- izational work. The drive goes on. It is impossible to say how many thousands, how many tens of thousands, will be added to the rolls of the organized labor movement between the writing of these notes and their appearance in THE American TEACHER. The C.I.O. drive is a great rising tide. Yet it would be a naive mistake to feel that this tide of organization is like a tide of nature in being subject only to natural law and not equally subject to human volition and control. It is worth our while to enquire into the reasons for the remarkable achievements so far. One of the principle factors in this success is the or- ganizational form. The high degree of rationalization of process in modern industry and the high degree of concen- tration of capital have necessitated on the part of labor a commensurable organizational form. One can imagine the pathetic spectacle of Labor challenging so vast a corpora- tion as General Motors through fifteen business agents of fifteen mutually exclusive and autonomous international unions representing only a small fraction of the General Motors workers—namely, the skilled. Needing organiza- tion, desiring less speed up, better pay, the workers in mass production industries have been waiting for the correct, the only feasible organizational form. Industrial unionism, the organization of a whole industry like the automobile in- dustry into a single international union, is that correct, feasible, and long awaited form. A second factor in these achievements is the leadership of the movement for industrial organization. John L. Lewis, chairman of the Committee for Industrial Organization, is recognized as one of the most powerful personalities of the labor movement. In the United Mine Workers of Amer- ica he has built one of the nation’s most powerful unions. The others, Sidney Hillman, David Dubinsky, Major Brophy, Charles P. Howard, are names which have long stood for the most progressive achievements of the Amer- ican working people. It is a striking fact that the dozen unions affiliated to the C.I.0. had, at the time of the forma- tion of the C.1.0., a total membership equal to one third of the whole organized labor movement of America. The power and prestige of these twelve unions have long proved - that they are under a leadership of men of determination and integrity, above all, of men who make a courageous appraisal of contemporary history. To charge that the remaining A.F.L. leadership is lacking in qualities of de- termination and integrity, though true, perhaps in individual cases is much too facile and uncritical. The distinguishing difference is in their respective appraisals of what is necessi- tated by the times. It is because these men make a correct appraisal, and act upon it, that the millions of workers in the mass production industries look to them for leadership. But John L. Lewis and the able men around him cannot organize any considerable number of workers by themselves. Ard for this reason the final and determining factor in these achievements is to be found in the stamina, courage, energy, and persistence of a secondary leadership,—what might be termed a leadership of the second and third line. Besides the hundred odd names that find their way into the na- tion’s newspapers, and therefore represent the public leader- ship, there is the local leadership of thousands of workers who are devoting themselves with no less energy and intel- ligence to this heroic task. Some of them worked yesterday at the bench, and today receive their weekly pay check as paid organizers of the C.I.O. Others remain at the bench and in small volunteer groups, often working secretly in relation to other groups, with their work coordinated by the paid organizer, go from house to house in the evening, build- ing the union. Sometimes the workers of plant A organ- ize plant B; the workers of plant B return the courtesy. Sometimes the organizational groups are composed of workers in other trades, other cities, other unions. The cigar maker, the store clerk, the pretty stenographer go about in the evening and on Sundays, to bring organization to the workers in rubber, textile, and steel. Such is the backbone of the drive. Its achievements will, as this is read, already have far surpassed what has been enumerated here. We who stand pledged to democracy can look upon these achievements in the direction of or- ganizing the millions of unorganized, as one of the most hopeful phases of contemporary American life. * The figures given here are from official literature of the C.I.0. The oer data has been given to the writer orally by C.1.0. organizers in the e Since the writing of this article and the statement on the following page, the sit-down strikes in the plants of the General Motors Corporation have been effectively carried through to conclusion in an agree- ment which the workers themselves greet as a signal triumph. For the first time, General Motors has entered into extensive collective bargaining with organized labor. To one who knows the disastrous history of labor’s efforts to organize the mass produc- tion industries, the advance made by the C.LO. in this strike has profound significance. The greatest corporation in one of the nation’s key industries has recognized the United Automobile Workers of America as sole bargaining agency in twenty of its plants for a period of six months. Wage increases have already been announced, with negotiations still pending. Other corporations are in retreat. Chrysler has announced wage increases, and the union workers in the Ford plant are openly wearing their union buttons in the shop! The cAsmrican TEACHER ane oo lCUrMmMmlhlUClUCir re lCrKlC sack BES = tg : Teachers View A Sit-Down January 11, 1937 N THE mipst of the present confusion surrounding the strike of General Motor employees, the Flint Federation of Teachers wishes to reiterate its support of organized labor and to clarify the issues involved. ; Before stating issues we wish to point out the following sequence of events that are very significant. On December 28th, proposed contracts were submitted by the United Au- tomobile Workers Union to the management at both Fisher Body plants, with a request for a conference on January 4th. On December 30th, two union inspectors were demoted in Fisher No. 2 plant, thus precipitating the sit-down. The same night the management of Fisher No. 1 plant started to remove dies from the plant to be shipped to unorganized plants. So the men in the plant sat down to prevent the company from moving their jobs to another city. On Janu- ary 2nd Judge Black issued an injunction of a type which is illegal according to the Federal courts. As an example of the difficulty Flint people have in getting an impartial analysis of the present situation in the city, we wish to point out that on January 7th, Walter Lippman’s column, which ordinarily appears in the Journal, was not published. It dealt with the present strike from all points of view. Peaceful organization is legal in this country, a right guar- anteed in the constitution. Labor unions are organizations formed for collective protection of the interests of the workers in a particular craft or industry. In the past, unions have been based on common employment at a particular craft or trade. With the growth of large industrial plants, employing thousands of men at many different trades, the industrial or “vertical” type of union has been developed, to meet the needs of workers under modern conditions. Just as industry has centralized its management by forming corporations to care for the many and varied needs of a large manufacturing establishment, so labor has had to form broader unions which include not only all the work- ers in a particular plant, but all the workers throughout the country employed in that industry. Only thus can labor organizations hope to be able to represent the interests of their membership. It is absurd to speak of labor organi- zations dealing with individual plant managers, when the company owning plants in many cities and states can move key machinery at will from one city to another and resume Operations. For this reason collective bargaining, or the tight of labor unions to send their representatives to discuss problems of hours, wages, and working conditions of the industry, is the most important issue involved in the Gen- Yet General Motors has absolutely refused to recognize this fundamental right of collective bargaining in its true sense—on a national scale. The terrific toll of speed-up which is paramount among the grievances of the auto workers, must be eliminated for the sake of common decency and human justice, let alone the welfare of the men. A re-adjustment of wages and hours to conform with higher costs of living is neces- sary. These are the issues of the strike. Briefly summed up, they are the right of the American worker to earn a decent living under decent conditions. Contrary to the belief fostered in the majority of Flint newspapers, the United Auto Workers Union is neither a new nor a small organization in Flint, particularly in the plants affected by the strike. Not only are the majority of the men in the two Fisher plants members of the Union, but since the strike began many thousands of Flint auto workers from the other plants have joined the union. Nor does the fact that there is on a national scale some division within the leadership of the American Federation of Labor on the question of craft versus industrial unions, mean that a very considerable section of the older craft unions are not supporting the Auto Union. On January 8th, the Flint Federation of Labor went on record in support of the present strike. The Detroit and Cleveland Federations of Labor have done likewise. An additional factor in obscuring the basic issues and the responsibility for the present strike in the minds of Flint residents is the Flint Alliance. This organization, started without statement of specific purpose or method of work, without dues and without any declaration of the requirements for membership, was set up over night. Mem- bership cards were distributed widely in and around the plants, and although the basis of membership is not confined to auto workers, it sets itself up in direct oppo- sition to the democratically created and long existing offi- — cial organization of the automobile workers, the United Au- tomobile Workers of America. The Flint Federation of Teachers feels that the issues at stake are too important, the scope of the present labor movement too broad, to be dismissed by time-honored preju- dices or unthinking opposition. It is necessary for every honest and open-minded citizen to acquaint himself thor- oughly with all facts on both sides. Only in this way can the truth be determined and justice assured. Statement issued by the Flint Federation of Teachers, Local 435 at - ‘ ie SPN A pst ee. ee —— 3 x Sig pS a * eee” eo ee te F - — Se ee ee aun ial ~ Psy ie a = a, * *, ued + PUR ~~ , » SB aac, NE ar In Quest of Industrial “Happiness” AMONG the facts brought out in the January hearings of the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee was the state- ment of Mr. J. H. Smith, president of the Corporation Auxiliary Company that his company had saved “indus- tries thousands and thousands of dollars.” The function of his company was to promote industrial “happiness” in fac- tories. Members of the committee, however, translates this term as industrial espionage. $1,750,019 was paid in four years by 499 clients. General Motors and Chrysler subscribed heavily to this service. Youth Sends Delegates to Washington ON the campus, support for the American Youth Act grows. Student councils of Columbia, Barnard, Hunter and the New Jersey College for Women have endorsed the bill, and intend to send delegates to Washington on February 19, when, led by the American Youth Congress, a concerted drive for the passage of the bill will be made. 3,000 dele- gates are expected; over a thousand youth organizations are federated in the American Youth Congress, represent- ing 1,600,000 young people. Decrees THE annihilation of culture proceeds by decree in Ger- many. Thomas Mann, the foremost living man of letters, who is a German, has been denationalized by Hitler, and his property confiscated. Following the award to Carl Von Ossietsky of the Nobel Peace Prize, Hitler, in his anniver- sary message to the German people, decreed that no German hereafter may receive a Nobel prize. The Austrian sign painter hopes no doubt that in time there will be only one German left in the international arena. New Items in Color for the College Wardrobe THE Blue Shirts at Columbia! The Blue Skirts at Barnard! Professional patrioteers are again at work on the campus, and behind the local “razzle-dazzle” of these organizations stand the Student Patriot League of Minneapolis, Minn., and the Student Americaneers at Columbia, Ohio, with a full fledged fascist program, directed particularly against all pro- Tt 5 Hayapen in g Now gressive youth organizations. . . . It might be noted that in New York, Senator MacNaboe’s lone-wolf foray on Cornell University, in search of the usual subversive activities proved something of a boomerang. The organized forces of reaction, though slow to learn new tricks, never stop working. Re: Nazi Education THE president of Fordham University, the Rev. Dr. Rob- ert J. Gannon, at an address to members of the Fordham Preparatory School Alumni Society, pointed to the disap- pearance of liberal institutions of learning under the Nazi regime. “A liberal education does not make good Nazis,” he said. The aim of Nazi education in Germany, he added, is to make “robots” out of the German youth. Addendum to: Whither The American College? PROFESSOR S. Ralph Harlow has recently made public the results of an investigation of what the American college is doing to help its students to think clearly on social issues. By interview and correspondence with eighty-seven colleges, his inquiry attempted to find out what colleges are doing to clarify problems of peace, race prejudice, marriage, etc. He writes: The majority of students stated that the four years of college tended to turn out men and women better able to exploit their fellows rather than inspired to build a better social order. What- ever world peace sentiment they had acquired, students attributed to outside sources rather than to the college as an institution. Race prejudice is rampant on the average campus. He reports that one college president wrote to him: “I do not believe that any question involving controversial social issues ought to be discussed on a university campus.” Light on the Terror In Alabama THE Senate Civil Liberties Committee, in the investiga- tion of the flogging of Joseph Gelders, a representative of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Pris- oners, has revealed the responsibility of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co., a subsidiary of United States Steel, for most of the recent anti-labor terror in Alabama. Labor spies, the leaders of the flogging party, have had their con- nection with T.C.1. & R. exposed; even officers of the Na- tional Guard are on the payroll of the company. . . . The same company, by the way, according to Steel Labor, offi- at in rnell rities Irces stop Rob- ham sap- Nazi zis, »” ded, January-February, 1937 cial organ of the Steel Worker’s Organizing Committee, has been systematically robbing their workers for years through “skin-me” company stores. Out of twenty pay-slips, selected at random, from a total pay of $1,011.28 for two weeks’ work, the deductions amounted to $895.69; average pay, then is $5.78 for the T.C.I. & R. worker and his family for the two-week period. The Economic Question to the Fore THE American Association of University Professors, in an- nual session at Richmond, Virginia, in December, were ad- vised to organize for their professional welfare, in a report given by Dean M. N. Wiley of the University of Minne- sota. He called attention to the “opportunism” of the poli- cies under which the universities and colleges have oper- ated, and the lack of guiding principles. The need for “resolutely and adequately drawn programs,” because of the want of which the professariat suffered in the retrench- ment of the depression. Salary Restoration and Payment—W hen? IN 1932, if the teachers of Chicago got a paycheck, that was news. So it is not surprising to learn that Chicago teachers have not had the 1932 33 per cent salary cut re- stored. However, other categories of city employees no longer receive the short check. In the face of an advance of living costs of 40 per cent, teachers’ wages are only 1 per cent higher than in 1914! The forces of reaction in Chicago, nevertheless, oppose the school budget and plan a “raise” for teachers’ salaries only if the teaching year is ex- tended to ten months. . . . Last month Maine’s Commission of Education revealed that 48 towns in that state are behind in paying school teachers for periods from 3 months to 3 years. Up there eyes have been too long fixed on the federal budget to scan school budgets at home. Academic Freedom for Preachers THE Rev. L. Hamilton Garner of the Universalist Church of the Redeemer, Newark, N. J., was “fired” in January by his congregation for,—of all things,—his “outside activi- ties, which seemed to consist mainly of open forums in the church addressed by outside speakers. The trustees ob- jected especially when he invited an exile from Nazi Ger- many to speak in the church. At that, the vote was fairly Close: 88 for dismissal, 56 against. Come to Florida ABOUT 200 students of the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes at Tallahassee are on strike eo IS Base Nn 21 for “more and better food.” The students pay $12 a month for board, and receive 3 meals on week-days and 2 on Sun- days. According to the school’s business manager, J. R. E. Lee, Jr., the students “complained that they were getting too many vitamins and not enough food.” . . . In two Florida towns, local ordinances requiring the finger printing of Ne- gro domestics are now being fought. This is typical of the discriminatory practices against Negroes in one of the states where labor conditions for all workers have been shown, by recent events, to be as bad as, if not worse, than any other section of the country. Educational Progress in Mexico PRESIDENT Cardenas of Mexico in his annual message to the congress announced an educational program which speaks well for the attitude of the government. Two thou- sand new rural primary schools are to be founded. In the program, also, is an appropriation for an Institute of Higher Education for Workers, whose schools will be open only to organized workers and their children. The cur- ricula of these schools will be designed to enable the worker to take a larger part in the political and economic life of his country. Scholarships will be provided for the school for the needy. The budget provides the record sum of 57,363,000 pesos ($16,005,200) for education. What Hitler Is Doing for the German Worker THOUGH the American press has been singularly lacking in recent months in giving anything but the most official news from Germany, the Labor Chest News Service reports that mass trials have been taking place all over Germany. Groups of workers from 18 to 400 in size, in all parts of Germany have been arrested for taking part in raising funds for the defense of republican Spain. However, even in the con- servative press volunteers appears in reference to German and Italian aid to Franco in quotations these days. The Rediscovery of the Constitution “THE right of peaceable assembly is a right cognate to those of free speech and free press and is equally funda- mental.” . . . Thus spoke Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, in setting aside the conviction of Dirk De Jonge, who was charged in 1934 with the violation of the State Criminal Syndicalism Law of Oregon. In upholding this constitutional right, the Supreme Court calls attention to the long unchallenged suppression of civil rights by Boss Frank Hague of Jersey City, New Jersey, who attacks all union activity in his section of that state as communist ac- tivity, liable to the kind of political repression which is repudiated in the decision of the Supreme Court. Educate and Organize How Labor is Training Its Own Leaders ALICE SHOEMAKER ABOR NEWS is front-page news, and the country is be- coming aware of the critical situation facing the labor movement today. The foundations of the Amer- ican Federation of Labor are shaken by the struggle be- tween the craft and the industrial forms of organization, where the drive by the industrial unions for expansion in unorganized fields threatens the power of the old craft form. Some of the unions, which a few years ago seemed to have worked out a stable and equitable form of col- lective bargaining, have had their power curtailed by the removal of industry from urban to rural areas and from large and easily-controlled to small fly-by-night shops. And the very right to organize in bona fide unions is still challenged by the attacks on the new Wagner-Con- nelly Labor Relations Law, which must be proved con- stitutional, and by the ubiquitous violations of its letter and its spirit on the part of the anti-union employers. Labor is faced with the necessity of developing a states- manlike leadership fitted to its difficult tasks, as well as a highly disciplined rank and file which will support that leadership. A high degree of versatile ability is required. The labor leader today must master the technique of organization in order to gain and hold his membership. He must be conversant with the economic situation as it affects his industry, in order to carry on effective negotia- tion and write agreements which will chart working con- ditions and labor relations for the whole industry over a period of years. He must master political strategy, at least to the extent of securing favorable and preventing unfavorable legislation, even if he goes no further in that field. The community and the government, moreover, are making increasing demands on him. He is asked to serve in welfare drives, on industrial commissions, on planning boards. Meeting with employers and their expert at- torneys, with government officials and civic representa- tives, he must stand his ground and seek gains for labor. Grade or at most high school education must be pitted against university training, and must hold its own. It is not surprising that forward-looking labor leaders are conscious of the need for training, and are emphasizing workers’ education as part of their program. The Wis- consin State Federation of Labor carries on its letterhead the following statement of its aims and objects: “To edu- cate, agitate, organize, and federate the wage workers of the State to the end of securing for them absolute social and economic independence.” It will be noted that “edu- cate” comes first on the list of activities, and in Wiscon- sin a far-sighted and competent leadership has put exten- sive effort into the training of its members, through an educational program supplementing its wide organizational and legislative activity. A decade ago, in seventeen of the larger cities of the state, “labor college” classes met weekly in union halls to discuss the problems facing the labor movement. When most of these petered out for various reasons, labor seized on the embryonic summer school for women workers held at the University of Wisconsin, wid- ened its scope to admit men, and shaped its development to meet labor’s needs. Now, through the active spon- sorship of the State Federation of Labor, and at its insistence, a department of workers’ education at the Uni- versity is in process of development. At present, this consists of a six weeks’ summer resident course, a series of local winter institutes, correspondence work with former students of the summer school, and local committee work to advance this program over a wide area, and to help pro- mote local classes. The institutes are carried on each year under the joint auspices of the University School for Workers: and the central labor bodies of 8 or 10 Wisconsin cities. Dur- ing three or four consecutive evenings, forums on sub- jects of concern to labor are held, featuring outstanding speakers whose talks are followed by general discussion. Labor plays, discussion groups, exhibits of union label goods, music by union orchestras, community singing of labor songs, exhibits of books relating to topics under discussion, add to the interest. Whole families come, especially on the nights of the labor plays, and the wide- spread publicity and general participation in the discus- sion of such topics as farmer-labor cooperation, what labor organization means to the worker, to the employer, and to the community, public ownership vs. regulation of utili- ties, undoubtedly add to the general understanding of labor problems in these cities. High school auditoriums are head edu- rs of ocial ‘edu- scon- xten- h an ional f the ekly abor rious | for wid- nent pon- _ its Uni- this Pries ‘mer vork pro- oint the Jur- sub- ling jon. abel , of \der me, ide- bor and tili- bor January-February, 1937 usually provided without charge, and distinguished citizens support this form of community education by presiding. But such mass education, while valuable as far as it goes, is inadequate to meet the need for developing a more effective labor movement. The six weeks’ summer course on the University campus takes a longer step in this direc- tion. Here come for a period of intensive study those who have been active in an organization, whose ability shows promise, and who are interested in giving up their earnings for this period, in order to fit themselves to func- tion more intelligently. Not all are members of organized labor. Some represent cooperatives, Y. M. C. A. or Y. W. C. A. industrial clubs, or unemployed workers’ organiza- tions. But the great majority of the students are active trade unionists, and a third to a half are officers of unions and central labor bodies. This kind of student body demands a very practical kind of study. Economics, English and history are taught, all closely correlated in a program of considerable freedom and flexibility varying in content to meet the needs of the par- ticular group. In the economics courses small groups choose the subjects of most interest to them, search the library for relevant material, analyze and discuss it with their instruc- tor, and then present a forum report on it to the whole school. By this process the students learn to use a library, to evaluate material, to see the various sides of questions, and to tolerate the opinions of others in discussing them. It is a process which they can continue to use after they return home. English includes public speaking, parliamentary law, and effective writing. Special groups study labor drama, great literature, proletarian novels, and the like, according to their demands. In history, an attempt is made to give perspective to present-day industrial society by showing its development through various civilizations. All the teach- ing procedure is informal, and frequent forums as well as day-by-day classes provide provocative discussion and ex- change of experience and point of view to supplement and illumine factual material. Obviously, as a part of the Uni- versity, the School is committed to a non-factional ap- proach to economic questions, but the principle of collec- tive bargaining and the validity of labor’s function are assumed, and a definite attempt is made to provide courses that will be useful to men and women active in the labor movement. The informal life of the School is probably as important a part of the educational process as the classroom work. Two fraternity houses near the lake shore are rented for the men and for the women student workers, with a dining- room and social center in common. The faculty, who are chosen for their first-hand knowledge of workers’ prob- lems as well as for experience in their fields, are always available, and swimming pier and porch reverberate with heated discussions of trade union tactics and economic 23 philosophies. With a pier for a forum, a sudden duck- ing may serve as an effective argument in which the best swimmers are the most convincing if not the most logical! And as the summer progresses in this inter- mingling of work and play, animosities soften into tol- erance and some degree of understanding, narrow con- ceptions widen to new horizons, and ready-made formulae are replaced by some well-grounded conclusions. Con- tact with the general cultural life of the University, in- cluding special lectures, music, trips to the observatory, and the like, is a further part of the enlarging experience. A visit to the convention of the State Federation of Labor is the climax of the summer. It is difficult to give an adequate picture of the earnest- ness, the eagerness and the sincerity of purpose of these students. One is impressed by their deep concentra- tion on study which they think may be helpful to their fellows, their sense of the world’s wrongs, some of which they have suffered in their own persons and which they believe they may help to right. Their buoyant exuber- ance is born of release, even for a brief period, from work and care or the terrors of unemployment and of the happy day-by-day companionship of kindred spirits in a delightful environment. With a variety of races, ages, and economic groups, living in amity, it is a heart- ening demonstration of the possibilities for the society of the future. A student in the 1933 session, who had been standing in bread-lines and sleeping in flop-houses for many months, at the end of the course tried in these words to sum up his impression for the faculty: I am now able to discuss intelligently the newspapers, some laws, labor parties, history, literature perhaps, financial matters, astronomy, workers’ art, and a lot of other subjects which I knew so little about. I have discovered a taste for writing. I have enjoyed the company of normal women and men after having been isolated from them for a year and a half, and that is some- thing you may not even understand. I have made new friends in the United States. .. .I have had a University at my disposal, a new, delightful, sad, experience to me. I have had a chance to live with Negroes and I found it a pleasure as well as instruc- tive. I lived collectively with twenty others, in a house I did not own, using necessities of life I had no personal claim to, yet felt under no obligation, found it better than any kind of life I ever lived before. My debt to the School is for things that make life better. It will always have my best wishes and my support. But the test of the experience comes when the six weeks are over, and the students return to their jobs and their organizational responsibilities. And the significant problems they face, and which according to their testi- mony the School helps them to meet with an increased degree of confidence and capability, are the issues which are shaping the development of the labor movement today. Their struggles in organizing new territory, promoting indus- trial or craft unionism, interesting women in union organiza- tion, securing workable agreements, starting workers’ edu- cation classes, increasing solidarity and keeping harmony 24 in vigorous activity. A man from a town of 5,000 workers writes of initial organizing efforts: between discordant factions, are shown in the following quotations from letters from former students now absorbed The cAmunican TEACHER I am on the educational committee for the A.F.L. and we have given model meetings at different union gatherings, showing them how to run a union meeting quickly and efficiently. . . . This work, besides attending to my regular union duties and some of the educational classes, has kept me busy. I do enjoy it, and I wish I had more time to learn so I could be of more help, because Lord knows we need plenty here in Detroit. In my community the labor movement was new, and due to discussion at the Summer School and the contacts I made there, I was able to get right into the thick of things and make use of the information I had gained. We have organized four new unions since last summer and have advanced labor to a position of importance in the city. ... About two weeks after my return from Madison, my union went out on strike. We were out for a week and won everything we asked for and much more... . During the last week in September we gave a marvellous display of the effectiveness of mass action. A local baker refused to rec- ognize the union which his employees had organized, and on a Sunday morning we threw a picket line around the plant. All the employee organizations participated, and within four hours the employer and the union had signed an agreement. ... I am teaching classes on the F. E. R. A. program. . . . Besides that I am busy organizing a Central Labor Council. An unusual way of trying to organize the women is described by a charming young Italian worker: When I first got back from School I had a job readjusting The eagerness with which newly organized unions turn for help to those who have had even a small amount of experience is illustrated by a student who, when she came to the School, said that her greatest ambition was to get into the diplomatic service, since she had an uncle there. She did not belong to a union, and scarcely knew its purpose. After her return she writes: I have joined the —-——— union August 22, and have attended nearly every meeting. I have the position of counselor, chair- man of my department grievance committee, and I am on the membership and entertainment committees. I am a delegate to the Central Trades and Labor Council. [Soon afterwards she was elected its secretary!] Our membership has grown consider- ably the last month, including many reinstatements. Women are becoming interested slowly. . . . So far, as a result of our union, we have been given seniority rights, some grievances have been ironed out with the officials, and the factory manager sent us a letter saying that he would be glad to meet with a committee any time we so desire. myself at home. -I started to work at the-——————milll on the Tuesday after my return. We have an A-F.L. union there, but it is one which is not recognized by the company, nor is it the least bit active. The president of the local got in touch with me, and asked what we could do about reorganizing the outfit. We tried several different ways, but all were futile. At two par- ticular meetings which were called (with speakers from out of town) no one showed up. . .. Now we have an organizer in town who was sent by the national office. He and I have put our heads together and we've gotten to the point where we have elected new officers. By the way, yours truly is vice president. Now the next thing in order is to get the organizer acquainted with those who fail to come to the meetings. We work this out in a sort of social affair. I invited several girls from the mill to my house for an evening at cards and lunch. Then I intro- duced Mr. organizing and the benefits we would derive, and so on. You know, we heard it time and again at School. Then he asked if any of the girls from my group would invite some of their friends to their homes with the same idea in mind. So far he has attended three of these meetings. Lucky man, he gets in on all the lunches. From a girl who is now president of her Women’s Aux- iliary and active in her own union: The ladies formed a women’s auxiliary last month, and we co- operate with the men in giving a hand with the social activities. We have found that when we bring in the women for a little social affair, they persuade their husbands to join the union. We are trying to help the men to raise funds for furnishing the Labor Hall. A student from a highly industrialized city says: I have helped to organize a public speaking and parliamentary law class which meets every Monday night, with an Economics class on Wednesday night. These classes meet at Union Hall. On Thursday evening we have a Current Events Club at the Y.W.C.A. I attend all these classes regularly. The members we have in these classes are very interested in them. The secretary of a federal local writes: , and he talked to them on the value of I had the experience of being one of a committee of five from our union to call upon the President of our factory. He agreed to do whatever we desired, but when it came to signing an agree- ment—a verbal is as far as he'll go. A Negro student writes with some exuberance, but with real appreciation of an atmosphere of inter-racial equality: Yes, already seven months have passed since the most eventful chapter of my life. Just six weeks at a school for workers have left a permanent strain of skepticism and fairness of judgment with me—not what to think but Aow to think. In six weeks, all my views on the political, economic, social and cultural structure of America and the whole world were completely re-oriented. . . . Living as a family of big children from many different back- grounds and many variable shades of temperaments was a good sociological experiment, chuck full of lessons in social-mindedness. Another student raised $220 for scholarships: Believe it or not, I’ve been soap-boxing at factory gates three or four times a week. What I learned at school this summer has certainly come in handy in these speeches. The president and secretary of the Trades Council and myself are the only ones who can do any speaking. So we three have to speak at different factory gates every noon. We've succeeded so far in forming in the company, a federal labor union, of over a thousand paid up members, and a union in of about 100 paid up mem- bers. A truck drivers’ union at present has 54 paid up members. An automobile mechanics union is being formed. A union of hosiery workers in —-———— has a charter. We are now trying to form a union in 66. We have about 250 applications from there already. I’m going to speak at their gates all this week. What with every night taken up with meetings, I haven't had much time to do any studying. I hope I have time this winter to continue along the lines suggested at school. Having seen over a period of years this kind of vig- orous and dynamic activity enhanced or inspired by the Summer School, it is not surprising that the State Federa- tion of Labor in convention assembled yearly, gives it un- lave 1em > of and elp, turn it of S to incle new ir- the he er- re yn, , OB but (i Fe weer eS ee S ta ae ee pe reserved endorsement and urges that affiliated unions raise scholarships to send their most promising people. (The University budget provides overhead costs and teach- ing salaries for this as for its other departments, but funds must be raised by unions or community commit- tees to cover tuition, costs of board and room, and often carfare, for forty per cent of the students come from outside the State.) The Wisconsin State Federation of Labor, moreover, looks forward to a wider program of state-supported work- ers’ education in the future. It is an interesting parallel with the situation a hundred years ago, when labor took the lead in demanding free public education for its chil- dren so that they could make the most of the equality of opportunity promised them by the Jacksonian Democracy. Now the frontier is gone, and what equality of opportunity ever existed has gone with it. Labor knows that its immediate future lies not in escape from industry, but in establishing sufficient control over it to provide a decent wage, fair and non-hazardous hours and working conditions, and some degree of security and self- respect. How rapid will be its further steps toward the “absolute social and economic independence” of the Wis- consin State Federation’s motto will depend upon many factors, not the least of which is its educational program. The federally financed workers’ education classes of ‘the last two years, with their large and enthusiastic attend- ance, have demonstrated that working people want to study when the teaching program and study conditions meet their needs. The State Federation is asking for a state- wide series of local classes to supplement the institutes and the resident summer course. A labor-initiated bill covering such a program passed the Assembly in the last legislature, but was killed in the Senate. Another legis- lature more generous to the University and more attentive to labor’s demands may make such an enlarged program possible. The Teachers Union in fiction NATIONAL NEWS HE NaTionaL Executive Councii of the Ameri- can Federation of Teachers met in the National Office in Chicago on December 30-31, 1936. The highlights of the meeting are outlined in the following paragraphs. 1937 Convention in Madison Our next annual convention will be held in Madison, Wis- consin, during the week of August 23-28. Miss Allie B. Mann, of the Atlanta local has been appointed in charge of a committee to cooperate with the local committee in suggesting a convention program. The Executive Council proposes that this next convention emphasize the problems of the classroom teacher; that the number of committees be reduced and arrangements made whereby they can meet and function more effectively; that the number of outside speakers be reduced te an absolute minimum; that resolu- tions be as few and as pertinent as possible. Mr. Kuenzli Elected Mr. Irvin R. Kuenzli, who was elected one of the vice- presidents at the last convention, and who has been serv- ing since September as temporary Secretary-Treasurer, was elected by the Council to this office on a full-time basis to serve until the next convention. The vacancy in the office of vice-president for the Ohio, Kentucky, and West Vir- ginia areas thus created will be filled by an election con- ducted by mail. . . . All locals will soon receive a referen- oh oe ee a aes ~~. van dum whose intent is to empower the Executive Council to elect the Secretary-Treasurer. The American Teacher will carry an article on this proposal in the next issue. This is a problem which merits the full discussion of all locals. An Invitation to Y. W. C. A. Secretaries The Council’s discussion of the problem of membership for Y.W.C.A. secretaries with one of this group resulted in the following resolution: “. . . that the A.F.T. offer membership to Y.W.C.A. secretaries engaged in educa- tional work ; and we further propose that after 500 Y.W.C.A. people are members of the A.F.T., they do not claim for our organization sole jurisdiction over Y.W.C.A. secretaries; rather, we welcome and will cooperate with them, and hope that in time all Y.W.C.A. workers may be organized into suitable unions of their own.” Admission of Unemployed Teachers Deferred: Other Groups Admitted Further study is being made on the matter of admitting unassigned or unemployed teachers. A brief questionnaire on this subject will be sent to all locals, and the question will be brought to the convention for final disposition. . . . The Council recommends an amendment to permit the ad- mission of educational clerks and school librarians. Unions unwilling to accept any particular group of quali- fied people into membership will be asked by the Council to relinquish regional jurisdiction to permit the formation of another local, or to present the matter, with argument, to the Executive Council. The Council will consider any i. et mt Oe ~ il ras ope Pa ts we te Sete, aA : - 26 request for charter under such circumstances in the light of the history, policy and arguments of the existing union. Publicizing the A. F. T. A complete revision of our national literature is con- templated as a result of a report submitted by Mrs. Nancy Lea Smith. Mrs. Smith will head an editorial board which will prepare pamphlets and leaflets to bring our organiza- tional publicity up to date. All such publicity will pass through the committee, and is to have the final approval of the Executive Council. Dr. Davis Vs. Yale All A.F.T. locals which have not forwarded resolutions and petitions to Yale are urged to do so at once; make additional contributions to the Defense Fund to continue and broaden the work of the Special College Committee on the Jerome Davis case. Married Women Teachers Every effort will be made to secure the cooperation of all organizations interested in securing and maintaining con- stitutional rights of married women teachers, and to see what financial support can be secured from these organizations. Help the Spanish Red Cross The Council voted that special attention be called to the resolution passed at the 1936 Convention relative to giving financial aid to the Spanish Red Cross. The need now is a thousand times more imperative than it was in August. Locals—take notice. Send in your contributions to the Sec- retary-Treasurer. The American Teacher Miss Celia Lewis, of the Editorial Board of THe Amert- CAN TEACHER, presented a report of its work during the past year, and listed plans for future work. The Executive Council approved the additions to the Board as recom- mended by Miss Lewis, and recommends several note- worthy additions to an already imposing list of contributing editors from schools and colleges all over the country. Dr. Raymond Walsh, of Harvard, was elected as representative of the Executive Council to the Editorial Board. National Legislation for Teacher and Pupil The Executive Council voted to appropriate $1000 to carry through the legislative program based on teacher and pupil needs submitted by Mrs. Mary Foley Grossman. The program is concerned primarily with securing Federal Aid for schools, and legislation for aid to youth in the form of work and relief provisions and medical assistance. Non- teacher groups will be approached to aid in this program, including parent-teacher associations, Y.W.C.A’s, youth or- ganizations, etc. A legislative program such as this can win us nation-wide recognition. Here is a splendid organi- The c4merican TEACHER zational opportunity for the A.F.T. Every local can be of great assistance by complying with the requests of the Legis- lative Committee. The A. F. T. and the C. I. O. The Executive Council gave material proof of our interest in the organizational campaign of the C.I.0. by voting to contribute $100 to the Steel Workers’ Organizing Commit- tee. THe AMERICAN TEACHER will publish a series of arti- cles on the C.I.O. and its relation to the A.F.T. All locals are urged to keep in close contact and cooperate with local C.I.0. groups or unions. The vote of our delegates to the Tampa Convention against the suspension of the C.I1.0. unions, was of course, sustained Organization Reports from regional vice-presidents indicate a tre- mendous amount of ground work being done. Much in the way of concrete organizational results may be expected in the next few months. NEWS from LOCALS News in Brief. Local 265, Fargo, South Dakota, is help- ing to sponsor a Teachers’ Tenure Law. . . . Local 2, Men’s Teachers’ Union, Chicago, Illinois, is cooperating with other organizations for salary restoration. . . . Local 195 Public School Teachers, Cambridge, Massachusetts, is giving up its charter and the remaining members are entering Local 441, Boston. Local 441 will thus have complete jurisdic- tion over all public and private schools in the Greater Boston Metropolitan Area. . . . Local 344, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, is actively supporting the tenure bill of the State Federation of Teachers. The bill provides that the only grounds for dismissal are to be incompetence, physi- cal disability, or immorality, and calls for trial in the Com- mon Pleas Court. Back salary cuts have been received in Delaware County, but salaries are low, only older and more experienced teachers receiving in excess of the minimum. The local tries to have numerous social affairs, especially theatre parties, to stimulate organization. Accomplishments of Teachers’ Union in Trenton. The Mercer County local can report a number of victories: (1) At the instance of the Teachers’ Union, the Trenton Central Labor Union was instrumental in forcing the City Council to keep open the public night schools of the city; (2) The Teachers’ Union, helped by the forces of organized labor, managed to kill three dangerous flag salute bills before the state legislature; (3) The Teachers’ Union was the first organization to call attention to the possible weak- ening of tenure by Assembly Bill No. 21, which had been approved by the New Jersey Teachers’ Association. The Teachers Union saw that this seemingly innocuous act might allow unscrupulous school boards to dismiss teachers upon aor aes 2 2. CUS; — ore’ er a. > ee ee a ee le! ee eee le ee eee ell at lll li ele to uit- rti- SBE = = oF @e WH ume Ye err ll e January-February, 1937 ae pa recommendation of a single physician appointed by the board, without opportunity to appeal the case. Local 437 aroused other teachers’ organizations and defeated the bill. A.F.T. Wins Election Victory in Seattle. Mr. Stanley Atwood, teacher of history in the West Seattle High School, and a member of Local 200, was elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Washington on Novem- ber third. He defeated the veteran Republican incumbent by a plurality of more than 30,000 votes. Mr. Atwood was attacked by the newspapers, which are overwhelmingly tory, and by the usual agglomeration of so-called “pat- riotic” societies. The Washington Parent Teacher Asso- ciation, disregarding its avowed non-political character, and scarcely noticing Mr. Atwood’s platform, joined in the at- tack. But the Atwood support, though less vociferous than the opposition, was more substantial. Running on the Democratic ticket, Mr. Atwood was supported by a com- bination of labor organizations, the Washington Common- wealth Political Federation, and the unorganized political forces of the state. Mr. Atwood’s platform, which was en- dorsed by the Washington Joint Council of Teachers Unions and unanimously approved by the Convention of the Wash- ington State Federation of Labor, contains the following basic elements: (1) A bill providing for adequate and uni- form retirement of teachers. (2) A law to place the Uni- versity, the State College, and the Teachers Colleges on a PER CAPITA financial basis, similar to the per capita millage basis now used to finance public schools, and which will serve to remove the budgets of these schools from the arena of political maneuvering. (3) An adequate tenure law which will provide due notice and fair hearing and will prevent discrimination on grounds of race, sex, creed, political belief, marital status or union affiliation. (4) A Regent’s Bill for State University, College, and Teachers Colleges, which will put the control of these institutions in bodies truly representative of the people; the Board of Regents to have at least one woman, one farmer, one member of organized labor among its members, in addi- tion to a teacher-elected teacher from each of the state schools. These bills have already been introduced and represent, at least in part, the legislative program of Local 200. In office, Mr. Atwood is already fulfilling expecta- tions. He has been acting as president of the Seattle Branch of the North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, and his appointments, which have been uni- formly good, include able Seattle teachers who had pre- viously been discriminated against because of union affilia- tion. New York Delegation Goes to Albany. 700 public school teachers, members of Local 5, New_York City, greeted en masse the opening sessions of the State Legislature in Albany, pressing their demands for immediate restoration of salaries. The delegation reports the following achieve- ments: (1) Introduction of an amended bill to provide for 27 full and immediate salary restoration, with the promise that there would be a vote within three weeks. (2) A statement from Governor Lehman that he considers the teachers’ loyalty oath as “useless” and “stupid,” and that he will sign the repeal if it is passed by the Assembly. (3) A promise from Assemblyman Schanzer that he will introduce a bill increasing salary for junior clerks, the lowest paid workers in the educational system, from a $900-1200 schedule to a $1200-2300 schedule. (4) A promise to introduce a bill for the equalization of pay for substitutes. (5) A promise to introduce a bill for repeal of a statute which permits local boards to set up separate schools for Negro and white children. (6) A promise from Governor Lehman that he will confer with Mrs. Bella Dodd, legis- lative representative of Local 5, and with the N. Y. State Federation of Labor, on including budget provision for lunches, eyeglasses, shoes, and clothing for needy children. Teacher Congressman from San Dimas, California. Local 210 reports that Mr. Jerry Voorhis, organizer and leading spirit of the local, was elected to Congress last No- vember from the 12th District, California. Mr. Voorhis, after graduating from Yale, got first-hand knowledge of the labor movement by working at various trades. He helped in relief work in Germany during the inflation period after the war, becoming ill from malnutrition as a result of the experience. He is founder of the Voorhis School at San Dimas for under-privileged children, and was its principal until his departure for Washington. A luncheon-meeting was given in his honor by the local on December 12, in Pasadena. Permanent State Organization Planned in Illinois. On November 27 and 28, a conference of teacher locals in and near Illinois was held in Chicago for the purpose of planning a permanent state organization of union teachers, and of stimulating organization in Illinois and neighboring states. Illinois had delegates from Belleville, Bloomington, Chicago, and the North Shore District. In addition there were a number of visitors from the Chicago area, and one from Urbana. Indiana sent delegates from Michigan City and Indianapolis and visitors from Anderson. At the Friday afternoon session, Mr. Arthur Elder, president of the Michigan State Federation of Teachers, discussed the value of state organization, and described some of the Michigan experiments in getting new locals started. At the dinner Friday evening, Professor Paul Douglas spoke on the need of immediate organization of teachers. He suggested that we capitalize on President Roosevelt’s recognition of labor by bringing pressure to bear on local school boards in order to obtain recognition of the right of teachers to organize. On Saturday morning, Dr. Eugene Lawler of Northwestern University, a member of the advisory committee for the Illinois Educational Commission, discussed the possibilities of securing federal aid for schools. He emphasized the need of requiring that federal aid really be used to equalize edu- wes ne 2 See 3 ~~ “ « r tee~ $5 2 t i oS eee ea cational opportunities. Part of the Saturday afternoon session was spent in planning joint action to organize new locals in strategic places where contacts had already been made. A temporary committee was set up to aid in or- ganizing new Illinois locals, and to act as a center to receive suggestions from all Illinois locals until such time as a per- manent Illinois Federation of Teachers should be formed. Those attending the conference felt that prospects for or- ganization in Illinois were excellent. Union Teachers in Ohio Contest Leadership. For the first time in the history of the Northeastern Ohio Teachers Association, a classroom slate of nominations was offered against the administration’s hand-picked nominees in the October 23 annual meeting. Hitherte, elections have been mere matters of form, with only a few participating. This year there was a real battle and real competition. The classroom candidate for president, Mr. Henry Hazel of Local 279, Greater Cleveland, obtained 4,000 votes against about 6,500 for the administration’s candidate, the most popular school official in the Northeastern Ohio area. The union’s candidate for vice-president, George Davis, received a similar vote. Glenn Baxter, the local’s candidate for secretary, was elected by 4,126 votes against 3,404 and 2,122 votes for two other candidates. The union feels that if they had selected non-Clevelanders, they would have swept the field. There was considerable prejudice against the big city. The influence of the local may be estimated from the fact that, while our membership is officially 2,005, the Hazel vote, allowing for absences, revealed that at least 2,500 non-union teachers followed the union leader- ship. Convention of California Federation of Teachers. Delegates to the state-wide convention of the California Federation of Teachers assembled for a two day session No- vember 27 and 28, on the campus of the Los Angeles Junior College. Harry Shepro, president of the Los Angeles local, in welcoming the delegates, urged them to assume the ob- ligation of organizing the teachers of the state into new locals, and of drawing the great mass of unorganized teachers into the already existing locals. Harry Steinmetz, national vice-president for the South-West, said that the appeal to teachers should be on the basis of the construc- tive legislation program, and on the fact that the A. F. T. stands for the best for teachers and for the preservation of democracy. The Committee on Teacher and Educational Problems recommended: (1) A general rise in teacher salaries because of higher living costs. (2) A maximum teacher load, in all but specific fields, of twenty pupils per class. (3) Substitute teachers to be guaranteed enough teaching hours to secure a minimum living wage of $100 per month. This committee also recommended that studies be made in five fields: (1) Salaries, teacher load and hours, retirement, status of substitute and probationary teachers. (2) Textbooks which infringe on academic freedom by pre- senting biased views. (3) Teacher qualifications with a view toward raising the standard of teaching service in Cali- fornia. (4) Infringement of right of teachers to teach as their information dictates. (5) Tenure legislation. The con- vention endorsed the resolutions of the California Federa- tion of Labor on education, and went on record against all forms of vigilantism, and against curtailment of adult edu- cation. Attack on Commonwealth College Renewed. Two years ago the legislature of Arkansas leveled a bitter at- tack against Commonwealth College, one of the outstanding labor schools of the country. The first measure, a sedition bill, was so outrageous that it was defeated by the spon- taneous protests of educators throughout the state, backed by the organized protests of labor organizations and sym- pathizers in various parts of the world. The next measure was a “nuisance” bill, which provided for closing down Com- monwealth as a nuisance on complaint of as few as five resi- dents of the vicinity. An investigating committee was dis- patched by the legislature, but despite its predisposed hos- tility, despite the discovery of a few witnesses antagonistic to Commonwealth, and despite hearings held behind locked doors, the committee could recommend no action against the school. Today the college is again under fire from its enemies. This second concerted attack comes when the Arkansas labor movement is gaining strength, when the Southern Tenant Farmers Union is weathering every sort of terrorism, and is putting planters on the defensive by successfully prosecuting an Eastern Arkansas city marshal, a well-to-do planter, on seven counts of peonage. Herman Norton, 22 year old Arkansas legislator, has introduced a bill aimed directly at the school. This bill is entitled “An act to prohibit the teaching of any foreign doctrine of gov- ernment for the purpose of overthrowing the government of the United States or for other purposes’ (emphasis ours). In addition the college has suffered blistering, vile tirades from a Reverend L. D. Summers. Among the stock “red-herring” charges flung by Rev. Summers against Com- monwealth is the accusation of “believing in Negro equal- ity”. Liberty (sic) Magazine furnished unexpected aid in the shape of an article called “Rah! Rah! Russia!” written by Nolen Bulloch, who was discovered and courteously re- moved from the campus within two hours of his arrival in student disguise for a muckraking orgy. Obviously, Mr. Bulloch’s stay at Commonwealth was of too short duration for him to obtain much first hand material, so he dug up a semi-literate deputy sheriff as well as a farmer disgruntled over his heavy debt to the campus store. Mr. Bulloch also availed himself of the report of the 1935 investigation, which had been edited and published by the Ku Klux Klan. The reason for this constant fire against Commonwealth College can be discovered in the encouragement and assist- ance which Commonwealth College has given to the organ- ization of the embattled Tenant Farmers Union and in the numbers of militant trade unionists among its graduates. The cAmunican TRACHE Ja amnme esas Pst of mpomnpeardadatuubyeedaerece & ~» oOo am © nana Ff ss eS OS Ot lew ali- on- ra- lu- January-February, 1937 Emphasis of Commonwealth College curriculum is upon trade union organization and practice. The school is a firmly established, duly incorporated, non-profit institution, where students and faculty alike wear work-clothes, and de- vote a certain part of their time to the manual work involved in extending, improving, and maintaining the school. On the advisory board of the college are many well-known names, Roger Baldwin, Scott Nearing, Alexander Meiklejohn, and E. C. Lindeman being among them. One of the latest ad- ditions to the board is Francis Gorman, first vice-president of the United Textile Workers of America. (As we go to press we learn that Representative Horton’s bill to outlaw Commonwealth College has been defeated in the Arkansas House of Represen- tatives by a vote of 46 to 19. This victory for the college and for civil liberties may be traced directly to the nation-wide protest which greeted the intro- duction of the bill.) Miscellaneous News from Massachusetts. Local 431 Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Local 441, Boston, as well as the Massachusetts State Council of Teachers Unions sent delegates to the New England C.1.0. conference in Bos- ton on Sunday, January 10. A resolution expressing Teach- ers Union support of the C.I.O. organizational drive was introduced by the teacher delegates; this resolution also urged the C.I.0. unions to use all avenues for preserving unity, especially through maintaining affiliation with, and active participation in, the State Branches of the A. F. of L. and the Central Labor bodies. Mrs. Esther Peter- son, New England Regional Organizer for the A. F. of T., during open discussion from the floor, spoke on the im- portance for labor of teacher organization. Her remarks were greeted by stormy applause when she said: “Do you know that teachers who are teaching your children don’t even know what a trade union is!” . . . Massachusetts locals also participated in a state-wide Conference on Social and Labor Legislation held on January 24. This conference re- ceived enthusiastic endorsement of craft and C.1.0. unions as well as of church and civic groups. It featured repeal of the teachers’ loyalty oath, the Child Labor Amendment, a Bill to Outlaw Company Spies and Strikebreakers, etc. - . - John D. Connors, president of Local 263, New Bed- ford, and vice-president of the New Bedford Central Labor Union, was the New Bedford Labor Party candidate for mayor in the city elections on December 4. The New Bedford Labor Party was organized by the new Bedford Central Labor Union, and had the endorsement and finan- cial support of virtually every local union in the city. The political situation was highly complicated, with a half dozen mayoralty candidates in the field. The Labor Party polled a good vote and hopes to carry the city another year. Wisconsin Conference on Educational Reform and Legislation. At a conference called jointly with the Wis- 29 consin Federation of Teachers in Madison on December 5 and 6, representatives of leading farm and labor organi- zations of the state drew up a program of educational re- form and legislation. Members of the following organiza- tions attended: The Farmers’ Equity Union, the Wisconsin Milk Pool, the Farm Holiday Association, the Railroad Brotherhoods, the Wisconsin Workers’ Alliance, and the Northern States Cooperative League. The conference agreed to work for these objectives: democratic procedure in school administration, with better representation of labor, farmers, and teachers; prohibition of discrimination against teachers for political or economic beliefs and actions, with legal redress for teachers so victimized; outlawing of teachers oaths; educational courses for the unemployed; teaching of cooperative ownership and control of industries; and shifting the cost of education from property to in- come tax. The conference further approved proposals to make labor classes a permanent part of public education, to increase state and federal aid to schools for the equaliza- tion of educational opportunity, to improve standards of rural schools, to establish junior colleges, and provide for participation of farmers in planning courses in producer and consumer cooperation. The conference also voted support of the Fletcher-Harrison Federal Aid Bill. Prom- inent educational leaders of Wisconsin spoke before the conference. Committees were appointed to deal with the problems of cooperation and conservation, rural and urban administration and curricula, academic freedom and teach- ers’ status, unemployed youth, apprenticeship and work- ers’ education. A Statement from Wisconsin. The Committee on Aca- demic Freedom of Local 223 (Madison, Wisconsin) has is- sued the following statement relative to the conflict between the Regents of the University of Wisconsin and Mr. Glenn Frank, the incumbent president whose tenure of office is to be terminated this June: In keeping with a tacit scholarly and gentlemanly understand- ing, neither the faculty as a whole nor any group thereof has taken a public stand during or since the hearing. In this con- nection, the University Regent-Faculty Committee issued a state- ment disclaiming any inference which might be drawn from faculty inaction other than a desire to serve the best interests of the university. The local Teachers Union, while it has disagreed with Mr. Frank on certain specific issues such as salary waivers and student fee charges, has concurred in this general feeling and does not propose to go on record, believing its course to be in the best interests of the teaching profession. From present indications, emphasis is shifting from the case of Mr. Frank's dismissal to the broader problem of improvement in methods of university administration and control. The mailing lists of THz AMERICAN TEACHER have just been revised. If you have been receiving your copy irregularly, please inform our offices at 506 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. ¥ le - 7 % z * RES St ee - aah ad an tepecroeny - a 4 a el ve ' -¢@ 7 < e » = a ~ a Fen 7 ee Doce. POPP RS eau Pies sm Sea ee: =* AS : $ , ~-aegunptainalin Sa . LP ‘ ¢ Aah —_ a oe = < ~~ ce: tee ae eee % . 4 - - re a ced ae a ms ‘ole “ 2% ined mse ee Kew a; Pe 3 eee se , oP 3S The Classroom Beryl Parker {The Classroom department had its first appearance in the Novem- ber-December issue of THe AMERICAN TEACHER. It deals with pro- fessional problems and seeks to help teachers in their day to day work in the classroom. A number of issues will be devoted to the Activity Program since there are widespread efforts to put this pro- gram into effect in all parts of the country. The first article dealt with the need to change from the rigid procedure still observed in many schools, and with the underlying purpose of the Activity Pro- gram. The present article suggests ways of beginning. Future articles will deal concretely with various phases of the work. Dr. Parker would like to receive questions from teachers about their specific problems. Answers will appear in this department. Questions should be sent to Dr. Beryl Parker, New York University School of Edu- cation, Washington Square, New York.] Ways of Beginning A desirable beginning is made when the staff members of a school agree that they would all like to undertake the experiment together. They take time to learn what others have done before; they plan the changes that seem advisa- ble in their own school; they undertake to help one another with problems that may arise; they expect no miracles in immediate results; and they distinguish between false and genuine procedures. There are many schools where individual teachers are al- lowed to develop a social, active, concrete program on their own initiative, even though little aid or encouragement is extended. The finest opportunity to develop a genuine program of activity is presented when the whole school community takes part. Then parents, teachers, children and officials work together on their common plans. The worst beginning possible is made when an order is issued from a central office that all teachers in certain classes must start “activity units” on a particular day. Such au- thoritative edicts merely bring into being a sham type of “activity program,” whose weaknesses are evident to teach- ers. This procedure vitiates the democratic spirit essential to worth-while group activity. Changes in the School A gradual shift from traditional practices is less dis- turbing to most teachers and pupils than a sudden, complete adoption of the Activity Program. Changes in Behavior Changes in behavior occur when children who have been taught to sit still and not talk are granted freedom to move about and discuss whatever interests them. They need time to get used to their new liberties and to carry real responsi- bility easily. At the same time teachers must alter their ideas of “discipline” and develop new ways of guiding child behavior. The effort will be made gladly by teachers who believe that self-control and group opinion are more endur- ing and valuable to society than passive obedience arbi- trarily enforced. The course of study is rarely set aside when an Activity Program begins. Usually teachers look through the regular course to find topics which suggest suitable centers of work for their pupils and the class group chooses those which in- terest them most. When the children explore the unit chosen, teachers find the “academic subjects” tend to fit themselves into place around the central theme. Of their own accord pupils will write, draw, spell, read, sing, dis- cuss social studies and science facts, and even use arith- metic when they are given opportunities and teachers help them see connections. To be sure, every unit does not utilize every subject. Eventually teachers may succeed in changing the course itself. Many curricula are being rewritten by committees of teachers and advisers. This requires extra effort, but it deepens professional experience, and it gives teachers a voice in organizing the program they will develop with their pupils. Schedules have to change also to provide the longer periods children need where they work hard and are so deeply in- terested that they do not want to stop at the sound of bells. The time schedule must be flexible and allow a group to shift from one kind of work to another when they see a reason for change. Nor need the shift be made by all pupils simul- taneously. This does not mean that there is no regularity, but that it is secured when pupils and teachers together plan the day’s work each morning or even lay out a weekly sched- ule in advance. Special periods follow the program of the special teacher and recreation intervals are regular, of course. A revised course of study brings related subjects into one long period (e.g. history, geography, and civics in social studies), so that fewer subject periods are listed in the daily time plan. Improvement of equipment and supplies is a change not mentioned earlier, in order to minimize the material aspect of the Activity Programs. Although the new furniture should facilitate group work, the replacement of fixed seats and desks by moveable tables and chairs is not a guaran- tee of democratic spirit in the classroom. Likewise, the provision of paints, too, and other supplies for handwork will not insure social development in a class, although it is recognized that concrete projects are particularly effec- tive with children in fostering united interest and effort. No one will deny the possible value of material improve- ments, which are sorely needed in most classrooms. The danger is that teachers lacking these advantages ignore the opportunity for developing group relationship of value in The cAmmpricAN TEACHER liv BS g€2R8 ° i=} ——— mee pyaeaeonrp sr. Beeerenas & w@2wse za hild who lur- rbi- ity ilar ork init fit reir dis- ith- elp ire ats he rk Jenuary-February, 1937 immediate grievances, have been able, especially in the con- iY = e< spite Ey: —— Pee f or os we a x every class, regardless of the equipment and supplies avail- able. Some teachers place too much importance on the type of results, which show up well in school exhibits, and concern themselves too little with outcomes in child de- velopment. Decrease of class size is a change that should be sought steadily in many schools. Children need more space and smaller groups, in order that they may talk, move about, and work freely as people normally do in learning how to live and work with others. Every teacher knows that the quality of her relation to the pupils in her charge is pro- portionate to the size of the class enrollment. She cannot properly observe and guide the development of pupils in an oversized class. Wholesome group life for children is impossible in overcrowded schoolrooms and in inadequate playgrounds. School budgets need revision as the importance of “edu- cation for citizenship” is recognized and necessary conditions are specified. Obviously there are costs involved in the development of a genuine Activity Program. In nations, states, cities and rural communities where social gains are valued, there are many teachers ready to develop a pro- gram of democratic education. These teachers are broad- ening the range of their professional activities by working on problems of school legislation, child welfare, and teacher status. This means their own experience in the world equips them better for development of a sound classroom program. Labor Notes A New TECHNIQUE NEw labor technique has swept the country and its dramatic simplicity has captured all imaginations. The sit-down strike is several years old but only within the last few months has it been employed to so wide an ex- tent. According to Louis Adamic, the name had a novel origin in a baseball game between two teams of rubber workers in the course of which the players literally sat down in protest against the presence of a non-union umpire. The earliest American sit-down in an Akron rubber factory ante- dates by a year the famous Jugoslav coal-mine stay-in. Since then its use both here and in Europe has spread like wild-fire. Within the last few months we have had the successful Bendix sit-down, the sit-down strikes in General Motors, in the plants of the Electric Storage Battery Co. in Philadelphia which manufacture the Exide Battery, and in numerous other plants. There has even been a varia- tion in the form of the lie-down strike. The movement is essentially rank-and-file in nature. While some sit-downs have been planned and organized, most have been spon- taneous. A handful of men, ceasing work because of some 31 veyor belt type of plant, to halt the wheels of the entire factory within a short time. There have been some mis- leading attempts to confuse the sit-down with sabotage. This is an exact reversal of the true situation. Workers have realized the extent of their power, but their sense of responsibility has kept pace; and as a result, the strict discipline and high morale among sit-down strikers inspire admiration. There is well-organized sentinel-duty. Drink- ing and smoking are prohibited. Conscientious care is taken of all equipment. Setting-up exercises and boxing bouts discourage tendencies to physical sluggishness. There is no lack of entertainment, and a spirit of closer comaraderie prevails. There are several obvious advantages in this new strike technique. Workers in possession of the factory are in a stronger bargaining position than strikers on the picket line. There are no strikebreakers, scabs, or police to deal with, and consequently no violence. Owners cannot attempt forceful evacuation without direct resultant damage to the plant as well as possible sabotage. Not only are the organized workers made aware of their power, but a strong stimulus is also created toward further organization. An opportunity is afforded for more democratic expres- sion of the will of the workers themselves. Moreover, active community sympathy and support are enlisted in providing comforts and necessities. The C.I.0. leaders, while not dis- couraging the movement, have misgivings on the score that the sit-down is not a true application of the principle of collective bargaining. Nevertheless, in responsible hands— as up to now it has been—it is a powerful and effective weapon. THe Worm Turns pemmensa has been growing in the ranks of the com- pany unions in the steel industry. On December 20, a group of 250 company union representatives assembled in Pittsburgh from three major steel districts employing more than half of all steel workers, unanimously adopted a resolution denouncing the company union plan as “a farce, a sham, and an insult to the intelligence of workers.” An- other resolution set up the new C.I.0. Representatives Council. They condemned the recent “cost-of-living” wage rise. (cf. American Teacher for November-December) and adopted a declaration of principles. They decided to remain within the company unions and set themselves the task of educating all steel workers to the need of genuine industrial organization. They formulated wage and hour demands to be recommended to a national convention of steel workers proposed for the near future. Truly, history is most excitingly in the making. LEGISLATIVE LOOPHOLES once federal legislation in labor’s behalf has in many instances a lamentable history of frustration. Some- how there has always been a way out for some enterprising employers either through ambiguities in the laws or through igen F- ~ : °° Ls Am Re eae ae ae io. erat Z SoA s > : ~ - — — See = ee e sg - + SS < Ss eo - oy ie oer o> ary te 5 lean a sae oo et Sere set jt aa 32 inadequate enforcement. The recently enacted Walsh- Healy Act is a case in point. This act requires contractors on government contracts bidding in excess of $10,000 to fulfill certain minimum conditions. They must establish the 40 hour week. They must pay not less than the prevail- ing wage rates to be determined by the Secretary of Labor, and they must provide sanitary plants. In addition, the act prohibits the employment of males under 16 and fe- males under 18. Numerous requests for exceptions and ex- emptions similar to those granted under the original N.R.A. have already been filed by several industries, accompanied by a@ delicately worded threat to boycott government bids. It remains to be seen how successful these suits will be. Con- gress, incidentally, failed to appropriate the necessary funds for enforcement. . . . The Copeland so-called Safety at Sea Act affords an unrefreshing contrast to this state of affairs. This act, a definite attempt to strait-jacket marine Among the Labor’s Militant Leader JOHN L. LEWIS: LEADER OF LABOR. Cec Carnes. Robert Speller Publishing Corporation. 331 pages. $2.50. < Be STEEL, automobile, and rubber workers, John L. Lewis represents vigor and power, a new-found confidence in themselves and in the labor movement, a determination to organize and win improved conditions. To coal miners, he represents a capable but unscrupulous leader, who crushes opposition within the union as ruthlessly as he fights the operators. To craft unionists he represents sheer rebellion and treachery. To employers he is a menace, to unorganized workers a hope, to newspaper editors a God-send. What sort of man is Lewis and what are his accomplishments? Cecil Carnes has attempted to answer these questions in his timely biography of the leader of industrial unionism. Carnes presents a multitude of facts, but unfortunately he is not equal to the task he has undertaken. As labor biography, Carnes’ volume is of in- different quality. Much of the book is concerned with the various wage negotiations that the miners have conducted. Sometimes the man Lewis is all but lost sight of amid the welter of detail. Carnes would have done better had he spent less time on the moves and counter-moves of collective bargaining, and more on the personality that is his theme. He might likewise have presented a much more adequate picture of the coal industry, of the workers’ organization, and of the human factors in the industry. The miners’ insurgent movements against Lewis in the past are presented somewhat inadequately, and the mis- taken impression is conveyed that all the Illinois rebels returned to the United Mine Workers’ fold in 1934. Carnes is an admirer of Lewis, yet he does not ignore his faults. That he is dictatorial Carnes frankly admits. He terms Lewis “the world’s foremost catch-as-catch-can opportunist.” That Lewis has overpowering ambition goes without saying. Indeed, he would like to be president of the United States. In whatever he does he centers The cAmmprican TBRACHER workers, does not, on the other hand leave any loopholes for the workers. Seamen strenuously object to two of the provisions. Sixty thousand have signed pledges refusing to carry discharge books, a fascistic device for recording a worker’s entire service and an obviously convenient method of blacklisting. The unions also object to the “certificates of services or efficiency” which would require the men to furnish their fingerprints and photographs. These could be used against them in a union-breaking drive. Protests have been articulate and vigorous even to the extent of a delegation of over two thousand marine workers to Wash- ington. They have thus far at the time of writing won a 90- day delay in enforcement which was to begin on December 26, and a promise from Congressman Sirovich and others to work for a suspension of the objectionable portions of the bill. Safety at sea apparently is jeopardized far more by improved working conditions than by condemned vessels and understaffed crews. New Books production industries. It is for this reason that all progressives in the labor movement are lined up behind him now, even those who were his bitter enemies a few years ago. Whatever his short- comings in the past, he alone is able today to direct the fight against open-shop employers and stand-pat craft union officials. Jort Seman. The Dictatorship at Geneva THE RIGHT TO HERESY. Sreren Zweic. Viking Press. 1936. 235 pages. $3.00. HIs story of the historical conflict between two men which The Right to Heresy sets forth is no more than an ardent defense of an idea which today, in most parts of the world, needs defenders as fervent and courageous as it had when Castellio took up his pen against Jehan Calvin. At the end of his pamphlet which answered Calvin’s own defense of the burning alive of Miguel Servetus, Cas- tellio said: “To burn a man alive does not defend a doctrine, but slays a man.” And though the book contains a devastating analysis of the means by which an authoritarian system, sprung from the mind of one man, seeks to perpetuate that man’s power and his ideology, and the social forms which it has imposed on the people, the best of the book is Castellio—the humanist, the man whose examination of heresy led him to write “that we are all heretics in the eyes of those who do not share our views.” Stefen Zweig is interested, then, in this episode of the Reformation as an historical embodiment of the everlasting intellectual struggle between intolerance and tolerance. Seizing upon Calvin as the arche- type of the doctrinaire dictator, a man who uses his claim to infal- lible religious interpretation to reform social institutions into the mould set by his famous “discipline,” Zweig shows us that, no matter what the ideology, the course of intolerance permits no man to stand against a dictator on his own convictions, all ideas contrary to the dictator’s own must be persecuted as the worst enemies of God. Calvin’s answer be ling. vail. roup cans tore sure At ring The dent 35 August 23, 1936, a smaller group of Americans, booked through e by the same line, landed at London, homeward bound. This group included three Negro teachers, all members of Local No. 5. The party knew of the previous incident, but was assured by one of the group who had been present then, that there would be no trouble. There was. F E i out of the hotel and called for the The Cunard officials attempted the discrimination on the hotel management, the conferences, the fact was inadvertently the Cunard-White Star Line had specified in its agree- the hotel that no colored tourists would he sent there. At end of another four hour period of discussion, the Cunard representative insisted that no hotel of equal standing would accept Negro guests. However, a short investigation by the official, aided by two passengers, led to the discovery of a satisfactory hotel which accepted the Negro guests without discrimination. At a subsequent conference, requested by the travelers, the members of Local No. 5 asked that the company formulate clearly its policy concerning those colored passengers whose stay in London is provided for by the company, and that by October 15 it send a statement of that policy to Miss Lucille Spence, one of the Negro teachers and a member of the Executive Board of Local No. 5. The repre- sentative promised that these steps would be taken. No letter arrived on the fifteenth of October, and it was not until January 28, 1937, after Miss Spence had reminded the London office of its unfulfilled promise, that a meeting was arranged between the New York office and a committee headed by Mr. Charles J. Hendley, President of Local No. 5. At that meeting it was made clear to the teachers that the Cunard-White Star Line would not accede to the request that they deal only with such hotels as would not discriminate against passengers of any color. Trade unionists know that they can exert influence upon those con- cerns with which they do business. Progressive teachers in the United States abhor racial discrimination in any form. We believe that this feeling should be made known tec the officials of the Cunard Line through a flood of letters from teachers throughout the country urging reconsideration of its stand. bef lt 4 e F ABRAHAM LEDERMAN BLancue Katz Er.inc THOLFSEN BEenyJAMIn G. LEVINE Attention Tenure Committees I notice that you have considerable to say about types of State Tenure Bills. I am sending you the one we submitted to the people of California. With a few dates and changes made necessary by the last session of the legislature we could do no better than submit it again if the matter were up. This is one of the best propositions ever offered to the people of any state. It protects patrons and teach- ers and makes it easy to get rid of incompetent teachers. I am J. M. Gravsret, Chairman State Tenure Committee. 1207—22nd Ave., San Francisco, Calif. [Eprror’s Nore: The excellent tenure bill submitted by Mr. Gray- biel is too long for inclusion in Toe American TEacuer. The editors suggest that those interested in drafting a tenure bill would do well to write to Mr. Graybiel for a copy.) 15¢ Day School Singer 5c pe Se Superintendents Endorse It Song Co., Atlanta, Ga. Superintendent to the Defense His letter of Walter R. Douthett is an answer to a report on the A.F.T. convention sent out by Dr. J. Herbert Kelley, execu- tive secretary of the Pennsylvania State Education Association to members of the Executive Council of the Pennsylvania State Edu- cation Association. Dr. Kelley had taken it upon himself to go to the convention and to acquaint the superintendents and others with the following: 1. There are only 730 members of the A.F.T. in Pennsylvania. 2. The “radical elements of our institutions of higher learning are endeavoring to provide leadership for unionizing the public school teacher.” 3. The Philadelphia local claimed credit for legislative activity. 4. Superintendents are excluded from membership. 5. The A.F.T. owes back salary to Mr. Lowry. 6. The meetings were conducted in a democratic manner with the floor open to anyone recognized by the presiding officer. 7. A report was presented by Claude Williams “who was flogged for participation in the share cropper trouble in Arkansas.” 8. A report was given by “Carolus Hidalgo of Mexico who said teaching is so dangerous in some sections that teachers carry fire- arms.” 9. Sara Walsh of Philadelphia claimed that “the teachers union from Philadelphia succeeded in securing the restoration of the Edmunds Act by the State Legislature.” 10. The convention “placed Linton’s restaurant and Horn and Hardart’s on the list: unfair to labor.” 11. “Voted” $5000 to Loyalists in Spain. 12. State and National Associations were referred to as “company unions.” Dr. J. Herbert Kelley, Executive Secretary, Pennsylvania State Education Association, 400 N. Third Street, Harrisburg, Pa. My dear Dr. Kelley: I have your report on the convention of the American Federation of Teachers in Philadelphia. The report is very cleverly done and as impartial as one could expect from one who holds the views you do toward this organization However, there are a few observa- tions I wish to make on your report and, if possible, suggest some constructive action for our Association. First: An organization tha: has but 730 members and only 142 outside Philadelphia is not a sufficient menace to our organization of 63,337 members to feel bitter about it. Second: The American Federation of Teachers Convention did get good publicity in both newspapers and magazines all the way up to the New Republic. Third: The evidence given at State College by the legislative sponsor of our own Civil Service Bill was convincing proof that the A.F.T. had an influence on the legislature out of all proportion to its members, and is worth having with us in any legislative fights for sound educational legislation. Fourth: Your statement that superintendents are definitely ex- cluded from membership is false, and you were told it was false by the National President of the A.F.T. two years ago at State College. I am now eligible for membership in our local, and if you make that statement again, I will join just to prove it. (Will you give me the three bucks to join?) Fifth: Was it necessary or kind to mention Lowry’s back salary? Sixth: A little more “freedom of the floor” would add some zip to our annual meetings. I am not suggesting that the presiding officers at our meetings attempt to curtail free debate and discussion. 36 On the contrary, they have a difficult time to get anyone to make or second the motion to accept a report so we can all vote Aye. My objection to our meetings is that the delegates themselves don’t want any debate. They get tired of Rube Shaw and they get tired of me. (Perhaps with good reason, but you will admit that Rube is good.) The delegates appear to want to vote “Aye” so they can get out and go back to the hotel lobbies. The only reason I can find for it, except the natural civic lassitude of teachers as a class, is that our reports do not contain enough controversial material to raise a breeze. We need a good, old “knock down and drag out fight” that would warm our blood. Even getting in the headlines would give the teaching profession more of a sense of pride and solidarity than does the report of our meetings among the obituary notices. Seventh: Your statement on Rev. Claude Williams is a master- piece. It will have its desired effect, but you leave no opening for attack. Eighth: Teaching in the United States would be more vital and effective if enough teachers ever said anything that would make it advisable to carry side arms. Practically all of us, including myself save our economic and social skins by helping preserve the status quo. I must give these A.F.T. folks credit for more courage than I have. All through history, advancement has been set in motion by the lunatic fringe, so I think we should be grateful to this A-F.T. bunch who have either the courage or foolhardiness to go out and start something for us. I don’t think we need worry about their getting too large by stealing some of our members. We have too many members to have any cohesiveness, and if they get many more, they will become as conservative and routinized as we are. Ninth: I believe I have heard you make for the P.S.E.A. the same claim that Sara Walsh made for the AF.T. Who knows who was responsible? From what I heard at State College, all the P.S.E.A. did for tenure was to prevent the passage of a bill that would have at least been better for teachers than no bill at all. On this matter of tenure, I suggest that the P.S.E.A. get behind any bill the A.F.T. presents, and if need be, give them credit for it. A tenure bill for teachers is much more important than who sponsors it or who gets credit for it. Tenth: Thanks for the information on Linton’s and Horn and Hardart’s. In my ignorance, I have patronized these firms. Eleventh: I too am against rebels who revolt against duly elected constituted authority. However, it now looks as though the A.F.T. is spending money on a lost cause and would have done better to pay Lowry. Twelfth: I think I will sue the A.F.T. for swiping my “company The cAmpricaN TEACHER are foolhardy, some who are radical, some who are just plain “cuckoo”, and some who are self-seekers, but in my contacts with them, | haven’t found any who are “dead”, and that is more than one can say for our P.S.E.A. membership. Let us accept them as “lunatic fringe leaders” if you will, and in place of sneering at them, or attempting to combat them, let’s cooperate with them in advancing education. As the larger and older organization with nothing to fear from their slow growth, we can afford to be charitable and hold out the hand of friendship much easier than they can come to us. Let them do the pioneering for us. If what they propose turns out well, we can accept it and the children will be the gainers. If it turns out badly, theirs will be the responsibility. Again, it is a good thing for us to have a small rival organization that points out our mis- takes to us and gets us out of ruts that any large organization is bound to get in. Lastly: Just what good educational purpose was served by report- ing this convention to the Executive Council and especially in using thirty or forty dollars to broadcast it over the state? It takes work to get thirty or forty members even with the check-off. Pardon me for burdening you with this too lengthy and probably useless letter, but when I have something on my chest, I prefer get- ting it off to going around expressing such opinions to others. With kindest personal regards to you and Harvey, I remain Sincerely yours, Water R. DovtTaHetrt, Superintendent of Schools, Upper Darby, Pa. On Consumers Cooperatives To the Editors: There is one pro-labor force on the consumer front which the writer of “Labor Notes” somehow forgot to mention: the consumers cooperative movement. Without wishing to belittle the very real contributions of union- label campaigns and of friendly activities by such groups as the League of Women Shoppers and Consumers Union, I should be inclined to place the cooperatives in the first rank of significance as an ally of labor. In Scandinavia and Great Britain, where the cooperatives have built up giant enterprises, they have shown themselves to be a mighty adjunct of the labor movement not only by making the worker's dollar go farther than it would at profit-making stores, but by setting high standards of wages and working conditions for their own em- ployees. We can look for a like development here in America where the cooperatives are beginning to spread and command wide public attention. I may point to one interesting example: Cooperative Distributors, a cooperative mail-order house, operating on a nationwide basis with astore in N. Y. This cooperative has as its standing policy not only to distribute goods of tested quality but also to sell, as far as pos- sible, products made by union labor. Moreover, this is the only firm in the field of mail-order houses or department stores in New York, that has a union contract with its workers. The cooperative movement should be of great interest to us not only as union members but also as teachers. We who aim at de- mocracy in education must feel a natural kinship for those who organize for democracy in distribution. And the cooperatives are par excellence a democratic institution. It is also worthy of note that the State of Wisconsin—pioneer in so many progressive ways—is the first state to make the co- operative movement a compulsory part of the school curriculum. Teachers, and especially union teachers, should begin to study the cooperatives in earnest. Jacos DracHLer. Member of Local 5, New York. oan 2 ook oe Se | Contributors’ Column RICHARD B. CROSSCUP is the organizer of our Boston local ‘Mm, or ancing and a member of the Board of Editors of Taz AMERICAN TEACHER. to fear He is a delegate to the Central Labor Union and secretary of the ihold - State Committee for a Labor Party in Massachusetts. to us. gh. GEORGE FINCH is a teacher of English at New York University. If it He is a member of the Board of Editors of Tae American TEACHER. — HELEN FREILICH is an elementary school teacher. She is on len & the Publications Committee of local 5. LAURA LIEBMAN is the head teacher of the Remedial Teaching eport- Project in the High Schools of New York City. She is president of “using local 453 (W.P.A.) and has served on union committees for the - work expansion of educational projects, for the raising of professional »bably SAMUEL POLLACK is a recreation instructor, and author of a Tr get- playground manual. He is executive secretary of local 463 (Toledo Federation of Recreation Supervisors) and a delegate to the Toledo Central Labor Union. He is active in the Lucas County Workers Alliance. ARTHUR PREIS is a recreation instructor. He is legislative agent | of local 463 and chairman of the Lucas County Workers Alliance. ROSE RIEGGER is a teacher at the Walden School in New York City. She is private school vice president of local 5, and a member of the Educational Policies Committee. GERTRUDE ROBINSON was formerly a member of the depart- ment of sociology in the Marot Junior College. She is now engaged in research and publicity work for the National Child Labor Com- h the mittee. She has written articles for the Child Labor Committee in umers School and Society and other magazines. JOEL SEIDMAN is instructor in trade unionism at Brookwood Inion- Labor College. He is the secretary of local 189. s the Id be ALICE SHOEMAKER is the director of the School for Workers cance in Industry, University of Wisconsin. She is a delegate to the Madison Federation of Labor and a member of the Education Com- mittee of the Wisconsin State Federation of Labor and has written have articles on workers’ education in the American Federationist, the my Journal of Adult Education, etc. rker's etting GENEVIEVE TAGGARD is a member of the English department ) em- at the Sarah Lawrence College. Miss Taggard is a well known poet where whose latest volume of poetry is “Calling Western Union,” and is public also the author of a volume on Emily Dickinson, and of articles of criticism. She is a member of the College Section of local 5. utors, JACK TOBIAS is a research worker in the Adult Education Project with in New York City. He is a member of the Executive Board of only local 453 and the chairman of the Education Committee of the pos- local. only New J. RAYMOND WALSH teaches in the economics department at Harvard University. He is vice president of the A.F.T. for the ~~ New England area, and representative of the Executive Council on » de- the Board of Editors of Tae American TEACHER. em DOXEY A. WILKERSON is Assistant Professor of Education at Howard University. He is legislative representative of local 440 and co-chairman of the Committee on Federal Aid to Education. oneer He is a member of the Editorial Staff of the Journal of Negro Edu- : CO- cation, and author of numerous articles and reviews in the Journal lum. of Negro Education Yearbook, Quarterly Review of Higher Edu- r the cation among Negroes, Virginia Journal of Education, Virginia Teachers Bulletin. ER. The supply is limited. Order from the National LEADING UNIon LABELS SECOND SERIES Facsimiles of other labels and shop buttons will appear in subsequent issues. We suggest that A. F. T. members cut and file these union insignia. Buy Union-made goods. BARBERS’ UNION CARD This Card is displayed only where good, com- petent Union Barbers are employed. Patronize no other. It is printed in black, red, blue, and gold. RE THEATRICAL STAGE EMPLOYEES’ EMBLEM The Label should be indented plainly into the end of the bung stave on union-made beer and ale cooperage of every description, and placed where it can readily be seen on tanks, tubs, vats, and other large cooperage packages, and should be indented into stave opposite the bung stave on both ends of all whiskey ae and other work of this class. On union-made slack barrels, soft wood barrels, or butter tubs Label should be stamped plainly on a ry a between the head and quarter hoops, in blue The Proceedings of the Philadelphia Convention of the A. F. T. are now available. Price: 75¢ per copy— 10%, discount in quantities of one dozen or more. All locais are urged to purchase one or more copies. 0 Og 6 oe ee ee oa 3 "i bas ¥ I ms if ie ie bi | ai ie Fd | a 1 ee B Pa -, pa ey ee vee: °° ry Ba bs vie ae ; ae re at ; “¢@ ; f ; i cy a * . 27 ee THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS What it is..... What it isn’t The American Federation of Teachers is a national classroom teachers’ organization. It was organized in April 1916, and was affiliated with the American Federation of Labor in May 1916. 2 A primary objective of the organization is to provide better schools and better work- ing conditions for teachers through the fraternal cooperation of parents and trade unionists. At the present time there are locals in public schools and universities scattered throughout the country from coast to coast. Many of the leading educators of the nation are members. The American Federation of Teachers maintains a non-strike policy. It is an autonomous body within the American Federation of Labor, and cannot be compelled by any labor authority to take any action it does not wish to take. The power of the organization lies in the backing of large numbers of organized workers. The largest locals are in New York City and Cleveland, and the largest number of members is in the state of Ohio. These locals are called teachers unions, or federa- tions, or by other names. Locals may be formed in any city or county on the application of a minimum of seven members by any group of teachers, except those in schools that are established for commercial or religious purposes. The organization is primarily for public school teachers, but teachers of any grade from kindergarten to university are eligible. Princi- pals are eligible under certain time restrictions. Superintendents are not eligible. Charters are issued after the proper application has been made to the national office at 506 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago, Ill., on the payment of $10.00. Each local pays per capita dues to the national organization at rate of 10 cents to 40 cents per member per month depending on the salaries of the members of the local. Each local establishes the dues to be paid by its own members, depending on the ex- tent and the expense of its own activities. 1 It is advised that each local affiliate with the state federation of labor and the city or county central labor body. The expenses of such affiliation are always low. l At the national convention in 1936 the nation was divided into twelve districts with regional vice presidents in charge of organization work in their respective districts. Persons interested may secure the names of the various vice presidents from the national office at 506 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago, IIl. Unite for Pupil Welfare and Teacher Security