CF | The AMERICAN — TEACHER Welcome Fran Boas Former President, American Associa- tion for the Advancement of Science : ; Professor Emeritus, Anthropology, Columbia University "| have joined the Teachers Union because | believe that the tendencies of our times demand the active cooperation of all who believe in intellectual freedom and the necessity of educating the coming generations to greater intellectual freedom. Our greatest | task is to invigorate those who hold that freedom can flourish only in a democracy, so that we may steer a clear course for- ward, patiently but unhesitatingly." —FRANZ BOAS I Articles by JERRY VOORHIS MAX SEHAM WILLIAM E. BULL ELMER A. BENSON LAWRENCE MARTIN NED H. DEARBORN PHILIP F. LA FOLLETTE LEON A. RANSOM THOMAS MANN ———$—————— re Reviews by GEORGE SELDES EDWIN BERRY BURGUM I. KEITH TYLER EDA LOU WALTON BERYL PARKER Published by the AMERICAN FEDERATION of TEACHERS Inside the Cover ONE OF THE WORST EXAMPLES of labor news distortion in the history of the New York Times is described in the January 1 issue of the Guild Reporter, organ of the American Newspaper Guild. In addition to suppressing an NLRB re- port describing a vigilante attack on June 4, 1937, which took the life of an A. F. of L. striker and seriously injured many others, the Times published a story saying that “towns- people” of Newberry, Mich., were “aroused” over the “ridiculous” report. No resident was identified or directly quoted. The Times story referred frequently to “C.1.O. agitators’ although until three months after the vigilante raid the strikers were members of Local 2530, Lumber and Sawmill Workers, A. F. of L. There was no reference in the Times story to the 200 vigilantes, who, armed with clubs, iron bars, and other weapons, set upon the peaceful strikers. Yet the scene was vividly described in the NLRB report. The Guild Reporter submitted its story of the Times’s distortion to the managing edi- tor of the Times in advance of publication and asked for a statement. None was made. The newspapermen’s journal concludes: “The Times story, published in place of the revelations of the sworn testimony, is, if it is believed, well calculated to allay the public horror that would arise if the facts in the NLRB report became known. If this is the case, the story would fit in with the press tactics of the European Fascist countries, where organized gangs do their jobs and the incidents are dressed up to sound spontaneous and acceptable to the public.” = = MEMBERS OF THE A. F. or T. and workers generally will be interested in a remark- able report issued recently by the National Bureau of Economic Research, not a New Deal agency, but an investigation bureau supported by universities and foundations. This bureau found the following three main facts about the world in which we live: 1. Productive efficiency increased so rap- idly during the depression that it took only 336,000,000 “man-hours” of work to pro- duce in 1935 the “volume of goods” which required 427,000,000 man-hours in 1929. In other words, four men produced what five 2277 produced before, and the fifth man lost his job. 2. If the workers had received the benefit of this increased efficiency, their pay would have been boosted 20 to 25 per cent. This added purchasing power, the report says, “would have meant a substantial gain in the national standard of living.” 3. The 8,839,000 workers in the manu- facturing industries in 1929 worked an aver- age of 48.3 hours a week. In 1935, they could have produced as much by working only 38 hours a week, a reduction of 10.3 hours, or 21 per cent. * * * ORGANIZED LABOR has lost one of its best friends with the death of Paul Y. Anderson, dean of Washington newspaper correspond- ents. Speakers at his funeral included Senator George Norris and John L. Lewis, head of the Congress for Industrial Organization. Anderson was correspondent for the St. Louis Star-Times and prior to that for many years represented the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Anderson’s graphic description of the Para- mount news-reel pictures of the Chicago Me- morial Day massacre at the Republic Steel plant, was one of the greatest “scoops” of newspaper history, since most of the news- papers of the country, notably those in Chi- cago, suppressed and distorted actual facts in the riot. His recent radio speech against Martin L. Dies, charging him with attempt- ing to destroy liberal organizations in the country, was widely quoted. * * * SIXTY-NINE ECONOMISTS and government officials recently joined the vigorous opposi- tion of organized labor to any cut in federal expenditures for relief work. In a letter to President Roosevelt these economists said any cut in W.P.A. expendi- tures at the present time would be dangerous. “Such a policy would involve throwing some million breadwinners and their families into destitution during the severe winter weather,” they said. “It would involve a reduction of more than $50,000,000 a month in direct wage payments in addition to some $30,000,000 in related expenditures. “Such a cut in consumer purchasing power would, we believe, constitute a severe threat to the continuation of the present economic recovery, and might even cause a serious set- back in business.” Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board M. S. Eccles in a blistering letter to Senator Byrd of Virginia, who has attacked work relief, said, “I do not think that empty stomachs build character.” He said further: “We cannot expect to preserve our free institutions in this country if we condemn a substantial proportion of our people to pro- longed idleness on a bare subsistence level of existence.” 7 . * FOURTEEN STUDENT WAITERS at the Uni- versity of Texas made local history in Austin when they called a strike at a campus cafe- teria, Mrs. Lindley’s Dining Room. The strikers were led by Roger Jackson, organizer and chairman of the Student Wait- ers Council, a local organization. Their com- plaint included charges that they were being worked for 12% cents an hour. Mrs. Lindley precipitated the strike, they said, by insisting that they work two hours in return for one meal and pay $10.00 a month for the other. * * * ACCORDING TO A RECENT REPORT by the Fed- eral Communications Commission, every time you drop a nickle in a Bell telephone slot or pay your bill to the telephone trust, you are paying one-fourth more than necessary. The report states that “a reduction of approx- imately 25 per cent may be made in telephone rates throughout the entire Bell system with- out interrupting earnings.” The investigation, which took over a year and cost $1,500,000, charges the following: 1. At present the trust controls approx- imately 80 per cent of the total telephone stations, 95 per cent of the total wire mileage, 98 per cent of the toll lines, and 94 per cent of the telephone manufacturing _ business. The Beil system’s policy since its beginning has been directed toward a nation-wide, uni- fied control of the telephone field. 2. Research activities have been directed towards the attainment of influence and control in adjacent industries by patent con- trol in order to protect the telephone mon- opoly from emerging forms of communica- tion. The costs of protection from competi- tion have been charged to telephone sub- scribers rather than to stockholders who are benefited. 3. Through standardization in plant and operating methods the Bell system has sup- pressed invention, failed to replace outmoded equipment with superior types capable of rendering more efficient and less expensive telephone service, and has made costly mis- takes in judgment. 4. Tricky accounting practices regarding depreciation were used. 5. The telephone company buys equipment from Western Electric, a wholly owned sub- sidiary, and prices bear no relation to actual or alleged costs. a. ft. & THE AMERICAN TEACHER ™ AMERICAN TEACHER Published by The American Federation of Teachers VOLUME Xxill JANUARY, 1939 NUMBER 4 IN THIS ISSUE The Next Step for the Progressives. ..........c.cccsscocceses Jerry Voorhis, Elmer A. Benson, Philip F. La Follette 6 ereeeeee The New Role of the Teacher................s000 Max Seham 9 Dare Teachers Change the Press?............. Lawrence Martin 11 Court Upholds Lloyd Gaines................. Leon A. Ransom 14 Madison’s Policy Committee Reports........... William E. Bull 17 EE, ib cesc keane bet eneVbnt wes ee Ned H. Dearborn 20 The Trouble with Democracy................... Thomas Mann 22 i TS cas ceereesessesnene® Mary Foley Grossman 32 DEPARTMENTS EE ES RT OT RRC OE S27. 2 ED, 0s vids ckeebestaunsssevssennbamadbnnéeee 3 The President’s Page, Health Education and the Teacher....... 5 Among the New Books: I Broadcast the Crisis, and The Truth about Munich........ ioe tiers inthis ee ha gee aid @amA Soha aeee George Seldes 23 sn nado pees one ks 0 04 accel I. Keith Tyler 24 EE UNS acoxinc cbs cacetennee Edwin Berry Burgum 25 NG ca gadwkeeditn kaeces kee ere Eda Lou Walton 25 sins tient ais hue ahi da iad dulcis biel Beryl Parker 26 rr rs Ch Oh PD ose cence cendeesbaceedaeec® 27 inc se nvhasecdened Tied baaeedeue een renns 29 ES oc dnc shin ine ed ae keene ahe aie se bk eeeee 31 Drawings by Chandler Montgomery ——_.g——__ THE AMERICAN TEACHER Georce T. GurErnsey, Editor ENTERED as second class matter January 3, 1939, at the post office at Chicago, Illinois, under the act of March 3, 1879. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of February 28, 1925, authorized November 3, 1926. SUBSCRIPTION: $2.50 for the year—Foreign $2.60—Single copies, 35c. Published monthly except June, July and August, at 506 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago, Ill. Subscribers are requested to give rere notice of changes of address. Remittances should be made in postal or express money orders, draft, stamps, or check. ae a A’ LONG LAST Tom Mooney is free, pardoned after twenty-two and one-half years in prison by the newly- elected governor of California whose election was made possible by the support of all branches of organized labor. Present reports indicate that Mooney intends to spend the rest of his life—he is now 56—fighting for a unified labor movement and for the freeing of Warren K. Billings. As one of his first acts after being released from prison, Mooney divided the $10.00 given to him by the govern- ment between the Retail Department Store Employees, A. F. of L., who have been picketing the Kress and Newberry stores in San Francisco since last August, and the American Newspaper Guild, C.1.0., to aid it in its strike against the two Hearst papers in Chicago. The victory of Tom Mooney should give heart to all those who have worked incessantly for his freedom, and it should be a special object lesson to the members of the American JANUARY, 1939 Federation of Teachers in their fight for those teachers who have [[-lVasaiepte not hesitated to speak freely and 3 - rT courageously when the interests of American children were threat- ened. For we still have our cases of academic freedom—Dr. Je- rome Davis, Professor Keeney, whose case is now before the Su- preme Court of Montana, the Flint teachers, and all those “Tom Mooneys” of American education who have been framed by the vested interests of our society. x*x*k HE TRUTH OF THE CHARGES which Secretary of the Interior Ickes made against the American press on “Town Hall of the Air” recently is reaffirmed by the experi- ences of the American Federation of Teachers. The Decem- ber issue of the Cleveland Teacher, published by Local 279, charges that “Cleveland Daily Papers Close Columns to Friends of Public Schools” and that sections of letters from members of Cleveland’s labor Board of Education are deleted. Recently an officer of Local 557, Kenosha, Wis., submitted a statement to the local press which, when it appeared in print, was twisted to say almost the exact oppo- site of what it originally had said. Fortunately for the Kenosha Union, the weekly Kenosha Labor has a circula- tion of more than 10,000 and the Union is provided with a method of reaching the people of the town. Other Unions are not so fortunate. In the recent publicity about the resignations from the New York Teachers Union, some of which happened nine months ago, the Unions of New York City and elsewhere were largely at the mercy of whatever interpretation newspapers wished to give. For instance, although wide publicity was given to an alleged threatened resignation by George S. Counts, little or no publicity was given to a later letter by Counts in which he said: “For many years I have held, and I hold today, that teachers should establish the closest relationship with organ- ized workers. If democracy is to be defended in these days, it will be defended, not by any privileged groups, but by powerful organizations of working people of all ranks and occupations. I am not intending to leave either the New York College Teachers Union or the American Federation of Teachers.” In this same situation newspapers decided that state- ments on the New York controversy from Union member Robert S. Lynd, noted sociologist and author of Middletown 3 and Middletown in Transition, and other outstanding edu- cators had no “news” value! Perhaps Professor Boas, outstanding anthropologist, in joining the Teachers Union, made the best statement on the issues involved when he said: “Nothing seems to me more futile than to complain of the destructive tactics of a minority and to answer by withdrawal. The Democrats do not resign their seats in Congress because the Republicans bore from within. I am willing to discuss matters with extremists from either side. I doubt whether I should suc- ceed in finding common ground with anyone who does not have as his goal freedom for the whole human race. But I am willing to try. Extremists become troublesome as soon as they are held up as dangerous enemies and when the groups that are not fanatic refuse to recognize the freedom of thought for others that they claim for themselves and exhibit their usual indolence and indifference.” All members of the American Federation of Teachers realize that the attacks upon American education and Amer- ican democracy require that we have the strongest possible Union. Encouraging in this respect is the report of the New York College Teachers Union that it now has 990 paid-up members, a new all-time high for Local 537, and that its December Conference on Higher Education, at which Ord- way Tead, chairman of the Board of Higher Education of New York, and Harold J. Laski spoke, was attended by approximately 1000 teachers. Professor Robert K. Speer of New York University has pointed out that charges against the Union appear to have grown out of an article, “The Twilight at Teachers Col- lege,” which was published in the Nation, rather than out of definite charges against the Teachers Union. We can all say with Professor Speer, “Come on back, and I will join you in a movement to bring to the Teachers Union an even greater democratization than now exists.” xk OW THAT THE PROBLEM of adjusting the AMERICAN TEACHER to monthly publication has been completed, we would like to indicate that the A. F. of T. journal will appear upon the fifteenth of each month. This means that all material must be in the office of the AMERICAN TEACHER by the first of each month. No material can be accepted after that date. During the remainder of the year we are going to publish several issues of a newspaper which will be mailed with the magazine. The next issue of the newspaper will be published in February, and all Locals are urged to send in as much news as possible about the work that they have been doing. We are especially anxious to have the reports of local com- mittee chairmen on the work of the Educational Policies Committees and the Legislative Committees. National com- mittee chairmen are urged to take advantage of the news- paper as a means of publicizing their work. It will be pos- sible for all Locals to order extra copies of the newspaper to distribute to non-Union teachers. The February issue of the newspaper will present a com- plete resumé of the actions taken by the Executive Council 4 at its December meeting. An important action was taken on the matter of taxing state and federal bonds and public- school teachers’ salaries. The resolution will be printed in full in the newspaper and an article will appear in the magazine explaining the background of this decision. Locals are requested to delay any action that they might take on this matter until next month so that their action will be in harmony with that taken by the national organization. x** _ DRIVE FOR FEDERAL AID goes forward. On the back cover you will find a specific suggestion from the National Legislative Committee. If there is united support among all groups favoring Federal Aid, there can be no doubt but that it will be passed at this session of Congress. We ask you to give the national legislative chairman all the support you can in carrying out our program. We espe- cially urge you to send to her any | endorsements which you may get from local officials or organizations. At its fall meeting, the National Council of Women went on record in favor of Federal Aid “for the pur- pose of helping to equalize educa- tional opportunities” because there are “more than 2,500,- 000 children in the country for whom no schools have been provided and another 2,500,000 attending schools that are little better than none.” Federal Aid is a required step in securing for all the children, as President Roosevelt put it in his message to our convention, “the kind of schools to which they are entitled.” x** HE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of Teachers of German were recently reported in Time as having defeated a resolution expressing sympathy for the victims of fanaticism in Germany. If this report is true, it is of far greater im- portance than its inclusion in a brief footnote would suggest. To American teachers, certainly, it is disheartening news of major import. It is reasonable to suppose that if teachers of German in the United States do not have the function of conserving German culture in the New World, they have no function at all. Teachers of German should know better than any other group how far the present ruling group in Germany has retreated from the magnificent standards of culture and scientific advance which have been established by scholars, artists, musicians, scientists, and philosophers in earlier and happier days. Members of the N. A. T. G. have much to explain as American citizens in rejecting so mild a resolu- tion; as teachers of German, they deliberately invite the condemnation of their colleagues in the educational profes- sion. It is sincerely to be hoped that the rank and file members will speedily repudiate the leadership which has thus embarrassed a group of conscientious and enthusiastic students of some of the world’s finest literary traditions. THE AMERICAN TEACHER The President's Page HEALTH EDUCATION AND THE TEACHER AST DECEMBER a letter received from the national office of the American Federation of Teachers brought this startling news: “One-half the mem- bers of our office staff are ill and we are seriously handicapped.” We all know from personal experience the costs of ill health but perhaps we do not realize how serious is the problem. In 1935-36 a national health survey was made which covered three-quarters of a million families in eighty- four cities. Among other things the Federal Govern- ment reported that this showed: 1. As far as the poor in our urban areas are concerned, little health progress has been made in the past half century. The gross sickness and death rates are as high now as they were fifty years ago. 2. The lower the income, the higher the sickness and death rate. For unskilled workers the death rate for the ten most deadly diseases is almost twice as high as among professional groups. On the average indus- trial workers die about eight years sooner than others. 3. In 1936 about a quarter of a million mothers had no doctor during childbirth. The result was that two- thirds of the mothers and one-half of the babies, who might have been saved, died. 4. Each year 70,000,000 persons lost an aggregate of more than 1,000,000 days of work because of illness. 5. Thirty per cent of all those on relief have no doctor’s care even when seriously sick. 6. Approximately one-third of the children under fifteen years of age have little or no medical care. Two-thirds of the rural areas have no child-health clinics. In the eighty-four cities studied 28 per cent of all children sick for seven days or more had no doctor’s care. It is obvious that in the face of this appalling situ- ation the teachers of the nation have a tremendous responsibility towards making the nation health con- scious and training the children how to live so that they may keep well and prevent disease. For teachers, perhaps one of the best ways to do this is to demonstrate health themselves. We all know that it is foolish to wait until we are sick and then try to medicate our way to health. What we should be doing is to preserve health, to keep well all the time. We all know certain simple rules but we do not always practice them. What are some of the fundamentals? Most Americans eat about ten times as much of protein foods, such as eggs, meat, fish, and cheese as they really need. Most of us consume too much sugar and starch. On the other hand, we eat far too little of “live foods’”—those which are replete with vitamins and life. Probably four-fifths of our daily food should JANUARY, 1939 consist of vegetables, raw salads, and fresh fruit. Another “must” for the average human animal is exercise. This helps us to eliminate the wastes and poisons of the body. Teachers are apt to neglect ade- quate exercise, especially if they use automobiles. Another thing we must avoid is operations. No doubt some are necessary, but many are not. So serious has the menace of unnecessary operations become that Dr. J. J. Golub, director of the Hospital for Joint Diseases of New York City, declares the rate of opera- tions is increasing faster than the population and is a menace. Among the causes for this condition he lists : (1) unethical practice and the lure of larger fees, (2) the urge to operate, (3) haste to operate upon non-emergent conditions, (4) the surgeon’s personal- ity trait. To prevent this trend he urges the setting up of “regional consultation boards.” We should also know and help our pupils to under- stand a health program for the country as a whole. The National Health Conference called by the Roose- velt administration proposes the following steps: 1. Extend the Social Security Act so as to give adequate medical, dental, and hospital service for the forty million people who have incomes of less than $800 a year. Increase funds for maternal and child care and for wiping out tuberculosis, venereal disease, and malaria. 2. Build hospitals and health centers so as to provide 360,000 additional beds. 3. Provide an adequate system of health insurance for the American people. Most European countries have long had it. 4. Furnish disability insurance to compensate workers for wages lost in illness. No matter what subject we teach, we should all be interested in health and we can play our part in making the students health-conscious. Even if we are teaching Latin, we can indicate what the Romans did for health and sanitation. If we teach mathematics, we can have the children calculate how much money is lost each year by the American people due to sickness. Too long American citizens have waited until they became sick and then they have allowed doctors to apply poultices or operate to cure the disease, but to ignore the causes. It is time that we all live up to the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. There is no better place to begin than in the American Federation of Teachers itself. Every local could well afford to devote at least one meeting each year to the subject of health and health promotion. JeRoME Davis The Next Step for the Progressives @ JERRY VOORHIS JERRY VOORHIS HAT SHALL BE the next step for the prog- W\ ressives? Shall it be a united front against the spread of Fascism? A strengthening of social security and wages-hours laws? A plan for ef- fective anti-monopoly laws? Shall we push forward the T.V.A. “yardstick” plan? Or shall it be coop- erative self-help units for unemployed? While all these objectives are important, no single one seems to strike directly at the central problem of releas- ing the brakes upon our immense productivity, so that America’s farms and factories can produce and sell the abundance we need. What are the forces that are stultifying America’s dynamic industrial energies ? The chief hindrance to full productive activity in America is, in my opinion, the use of a clumsy and outmoded bank-credit monetary system. It is a system which provides no adequate means for in- creasing the supply of circulating medium to match the increase in wealth-producing power of the people. Congress was given by the Constitution authority to “coin money and regulate the value thereof.” We have not done so, except in a very limited way. Instead, we have given over that function to banks, first by the National Bank Act of 1863, then by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913—or more especially by amendments to the Federal Reserve Act. Under the operation of these acts, private banks control the credit of the nation and use that credit to buy United States Government bonds which in turn become the basis for more issues of bank credit money. It is utterly idiotic for the government to sell its bond to Federal Reserve Banks or member banks for credit entries upon their books. If the bonds of the ¥ -: ) AY ELMER A. BENSON PHILIP F. LA FOLLETTE @ At its twenty-second annual convention in Cedar Point, Ohio, the A. F. of T. endorsed and urged the support of all candidates who were seeking election on a progressive platform. In light of the results of the recent elections, the AMERICAN TEACHER has asked a number of outstanding progressives to contribute to a symposium on “The Next Step for the Progressives.” In this article we present statements by three well-known leaders in the field of politics. The symposium will be continued in the next two or three issues, and members of the A. F of T. are urged to suggest contributors. ez Civ T.V.A., the H.O.L.C., or other government cor- porations are good for the issue of bank credit money, they are good for a direct issue of government money secured by the projects undertaken by that govern- ment. In other words, the United States has a right and duty to set up government corporations to construct dams, housing units or other self-liquidating projects, and to issue money secured by the bonds of those corporations. The rate of interest need be not more than one per cent, merely enough to meet the book- keeping costs, but if it were more than that the income from such interest would be net income to the gov- ernment and an important factor in balancing the budget. The best informed economists declare that the American people lack about eight billion dollars a year of buying power, at present levels of prices and wages. Which means either one of two things— that monopolists’ prices are eight billions too high, or else the income of potential consumers, chiefly farmers and workers, is eight billions too low. Therefore every billion dollars of new govern- ment money issued for construction of self-liquidat- ing projects will help to correct both those defects. First, it will give needed buying power to the people. Second, to the extent that electricity, housing, or other goods and services are supplied at competitive prices, it will prevent monopoly price fixing. Obviously such a plan could not be operated safely unless the Federal Government had pro- vided authority to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to raise the reserve ratios of member banks to prevent runaway bank credit inflation. For that reason I am convinced that the Binderup Bill— ee ae THE AMERICAN TEACHER H.R. 9800—which provides for the acquisition of the twelve central Federal Reserve Banks by the gov- ernment and the establishment of 100 per cent re- serves behind demand deposits should be passed. * ELMER A. BENSON HE MOST IMPORTANT “NEXT STEP” for pro- gressive-minded people is education—for them- selves and for others. Why do I say this, and what do I mean by it? Progressive-minded people are those who realize that human society is a living thing; that where there is life, there must also be growth and devel- opment; that it is not possible to keep things in status quo; that it is not possible to stand still in the world’s history. They realize, also, that in or- ganized human society, the motive-power behind this constant growth and development comes from those groups or sections of people who hold an essential place in the work of the world, and who at the same time are seeking to make alterations in the way that work is being done. Typical of such groups are workingmen who or- ganize a union to improve their standing in the indus- trial order; unemployed people who form a special organization to prevent their being squeezed out of the economic order; farmers organized to prevent foreclosures on their farms; school teachers who form a union to promote a more democratic relation- ship between themselves and the board or the super- intendent; and parents who get together a citizens’ committee to see that persons and corporations of great wealth and great incomes pay enough taxes to keep the public schools operating efficiently. Circumstance itself is prompting such groups to seek social changes on behalf of the general human welfare. Since progressive-minded per- sons recognize the supreme validity of social development, they want to is somewhat new, somewhat different from those with which they dealt in the past—say in 1932 and 1936. In the first place, the demands which the people are now beginning to make upon their political lead- ership are different from those they were making in the period from 1932 to 1936. Then, the great popu- lar demand was for immediate relief from the un- happy effects of the economic crisis, and this demand took the form of a cry to get rid of the Old Guard and its policies. Today, this is no longer the prime issue to millions of unemployed and their families; to hundreds of thousands of dispossessed and debt- encumbered farmers; to millions of underpaid wage- earners ; to millions of jobless youth. These millions now ask that something be done to rebuild our crum- bling economic foundations, that steps be taken to extricate our people and our economic institutions from the economic crisis into which business leader- ship has thrown them. Secondly, the “powers that be” are less willing than they were from 1932 to 1936 to give way to the demands of popular opinion; instead, they have or- ganized a furious fight against further proposals from the progressives. One needs only to recall the fury of the fight against the Supreme Court bill, and the daily propaganda against the National Labor Re- lations Board and the TVA. Finally, the whole conflict between the progressive- minded and the reactionary-minded is taking on an international character which it did not sharply have in the years 1932 to 1936. Regardless of what one’s protect groups like those I have men- tioned, to promote their activities, » and to be allied with them. This is . the viewpoi hich mak - 1 wpoint which makes a prog VU ressive. / These progressives are now called — /) upon to deal with a situation which yi 1 JANUARY, 1939 personal judgment may be as to the issues involved in each case, there is no way to overlook how deeply American life and thought have been stirred by the questions of the war in Spain, the Soviet Union, the Nazi and Fascist persecution of the Jews, the Japanese invasion of China, the Munich pact, and Fascist devel- opments in South and Central America. The world is entering another period of acute imperialism, like that of 1914-1918, and this is part of the altered situ- ation with which the progressives must now deal. Election returns of recent years indicate that in America about one third of the population gravitate persistently toward the camp of the progressives; another third tend to stay in the conservative camp, where some of the leaders, though not all, are general- issimos of reaction and Fascism. In between these two camps, lies the middle third of our population, composed of ordinary persons like you and me, who wish life to be decent and fair, and who want progress and opportunity for all, but who can be drawn into one camp or the other. Daily this middle third are drenched with the propaganda of reaction. Shall they be won for reaction, or for progress? The next step before the progressives is to rally this middle group to follow progressive courses of action toward continued social development and improve- ment. That is mainly a job of education. The education that is needed will lead people to discover what keeps our economic system from work- ing; just who controls our economic life; just how their operations lead to economic crisis, to imperialism, and to wars of aggression; how vigilante groups are financed, and what they do; the place and importance of progressive groups, how we may prevent the bur- den of economic recovery from being shouldered by wage-earners, farmers, and small home owners. By education in these and similar matters, | do not mean school-room study and the learning one takes from textbooks. I mean, rather, the education one can receive from the activities of life itself— from active work for peace through one of the peace leagues; from membership in one of the councils seeking to aid the unhappy victims of imperialism in China; from participation in a party to raise benefit funds for workmen who have been forced out on strike; from attempts to promote an adequate public- health program, and active efforts to make it possible for every one to receive competent medical aid. From such activities, men and women learn how society is organized to help or hurt progressive activities, and they learn who and what it is that prevents them from doing the things they know need to be done. Both the consciously progressive-minded and the “middle third” of our people need that kind of edu- cation. Developing it is the next step before the progressives, and it will lead to the mobilization of a majority of America into the progressive movement. * PHILIP F. LA FOLLETTE HE RESULTS OF THE NOVEMBER ELECTION, and the primaries before it, have confirmed the worst fears of a great many thoughtful progressives. Many progressives had feared for some time that the Democratic party was fundamentally just as conserva- tive and just as blind to the crucial problems of our time as the long-slumbering Republican party. Progressives recognized and readily acknowledged that for the present the Democratic party had brilliant leadership at the top. At the same time, however, they were disturbed by the continued presence of a Hague, a Prendergast, a Kelly-Nash, and a Tammany machine as integral parts of the Democratic party. These spoils-dominated machines, one of which calmly and arrogantly continues to defy the Bill of Rights, were by no means the basis of the Democratic party’s suc- cessive triumphs in 1932, 1934, and 1936. Quite the contrary, the Democratic party succeeded to power be- cause for the first time in two decades the great mass of people became the Democratic party, flocking to it as the only available instrument for change and progress. But almost from the very first, there was a vital and deep-going struggle within the party itself. Despite overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress, the administration was compelled to soften its blows and on several major occasions to fall back in full retreat. President Roosevelt’s failure to cleanse his own party of its most hard-boiled reactionaries demon- strated anew last spring and last summer the sound- ness of the progressive conviction that fundamentally the Democratic party is dominated and controlled by men who see and feel no more than the reactionaries in control of the Republican party. Aware of this basic truth, a group of progressives last spring launched the National Progressives of America. Some sincere liberals doubted the necessity for such a movement, and attacked the wisdom of planting a progressive standard on the national scene at that time. Their contention rested on two assump- tions: in the first place, they clung to the feeling that the Democratic party was an adequate instrument to achieve progressive ends; and in the second place, they feared that a new national party would divide the lib- eral forces of America, allowing our domestic imperial- ists—the reactionaries—to rule through this division THE AMERICAN TEACHER of liberal strength. But as I have already indicated, both the primaries and the general elections served to repudiate the two assumptions. Progressives must face these facts. They must recognize that if this nation is to go forward with a genuine progressive program, it must forge a new and dynamic political instrument dedicated to the formulation and placing in operation of such a program. It must be free to move, free to turn around without running head on into the demands of a Hague machine or other groups of die-hard Bourbons. Far from questioning the timeliness of a new national Progressive party, progressives must recognize that “it is later than you think.” National Progressives of America intends to be in the field to provide the people a very real choice be- tween reaction, as embodied in the two old parties, and progress, as embodied in the new progressive movement. A genuine progressive movement must be more than a movement of protest. It must be a movement with a strong affirmative program of its own. It must be ready to grapple with the very real problems which confront the nation and the world today. For in- stance, progressives are committed to the nationaliza- tion of money and credit as the indispensable method of returning to the people the control of their own national economy. Only through the ce:nplete nation- alization of money and credit can we regulate the flow of capital into the arteries of our economic system and thus secure uninterrupted economic health. Every able- bodied man and woman must be provided with a self- respecting job at secure wages. Labor and agriculture must have the opportunity to bargain for their fair share of the wealth that they produce by brain and hand. If they accept the challenge of recent events, if they use the temporary reverses of the past as a stepping- stone to real organization, progressives of America can unite for a real fight against the forces of reaction. It means rolling up our sleeves and wading into the fight of our lives. It means standing up in the face of ridicule. It means having the tenacity to stick when the going will be toughest. It means having the in- testinal fortitude to take standing up, the blows and slurs of the opposition. Most of all it means work, plenty of work. National Progressives of America is in the field to stay, to stay until a genuine progressive philosophy becomes the prevailing program of Amer- ica. We shall stop at nothing short of providing for the people of America the standard of living to which vast natural resources and a great ingenuity entitle them. The New Role of the Teacher @ MAX SEHAM T IS NOW GENERALLY ACKNOWLEDGED in the edu- cational world that health is a fundamental factor in preparing children for best citizenship. By the same token, modern educational hygiene postulates that teachers and non-medical health workers in the schools must participate in the application of the newer concept, “the whole child.” In the past, our outlook has been limited to that particular specialty in which we have been trained. The psychologist was interested in the child chiefly from the standpoint of exploring individual differ- ences, the doctor stopped at the tonsils and the heart, the dietician was concerned with the nutrition of the child, and the teacher took it for granted that her role was limited to the teaching of the three R’s. Today we see the child as a total functioning organism different from any other child in the world of living things. JANUARY, 1939 To accept this point of view is one thing, but to practice it every day in teaching children is another. It is readily admitted on paper that the “whole child” must be educated, but until the school takes over its responsibility toward the entire biological growth and development of the child, this important concept is a mere by-word. It is true that in many school systems attempts have been made to provide medical inspection ; in some schools, child-guidance clinics have taken care of a small number of emotional and learning difficul- ties. Special classes, also, have tried to meet the need of other handicapped children. But the large numbers of children who deviate physically, mentally, and so- cially from the normal are allowed to go through school unrecognized and untreated. Before the advent of mental hygiene in schools, it was generally assumed that school failures were due 9 solely to mental incapacity or sheer unwillingness to learn. Because of this attitude which still prevails in too many schools today, the school marks were the sole criteria by which the teacher classified her pupils. This attitude was responsible for the failure of the teacher to recognize and refer for treatment many children who were suffering from physical disease and behavior inadequacies. If any treatment was administered, it was in the form of punishment for failure to conform to an established set of rules for conduct, or on the basis of mental deficiency. Fortunately for both child and teacher, this attitude is on the decline. Today if a child misbehaves or does incompetent work, we regard such failure as the result of preventable and curable causes. We attempt to diagnose the situation, seeking to isolate the casual factors, with an eye to their elimination. Toward this end, the teacher requires a practical understanding of the meaning and use of the concept the “whole child.” In other words, she must become familiar with the physical, emotional, intellectual, and environmental factors working through laws of health and behavior which produce maladjustments and inadequacies. Final diagnosis and actual treatment must be left to the nurses, school physicians, and psychiatrists; the teacher, however, can, and should be able to correlate the child’s behavior with his functional state. It is not within her province to determine whether a child has a certain defect or a said disease. True, she may have her opinions, but the responsibility for authentic diag- nosis rests with the physician, private or public, at the behest of the parent. The teacher can determine whether the child shows signs or symptoms of gross physical faults which make it advisable, or perchance “J jC hag N & 4,0 F K 8 A ———— imperative, that professionals be consulted to ascertain whether or not anything needs to be done and what that is to be. A kindly and not too officious interest in the child’s health on the part of the teacher should serve as a bond between her and the parents, and by a little tact and interest much can be accomplished toward getting the child taken to a physician or to a clinic. While it is unnecessary (and somewhat unwise) for the teacher to attempt to specify the exact nature of the disease, she should be familiar with the symptoms of infectious diseases and constantly on the watch for them, especially during epidemics. In the physical examination, also, the teacher may cooperate by testing vision and hearing so that a thorough examination and proper treatment may be given early by the doctor and also so that she herself can arrange for the most efficient seating and methods of instruction. In some states, in the absence of medi- cal examiners, the teacher is required by law to make tests of the vision and hearing of her pupils. Even in cities which have an adequate system of medical in- spection, it is desirable, even though not required, that the teacher should be able to make such tests. If she has the proper training and the permission of the school authorities, she can even make emergency examina- tions. Though not qualified as a medical diagnostician, she can and should be encouraged to be constantly alert to observe the child and to obtain all the betraying facts and forward these speedily to the proper person. The teacher is in the most strategic position to suspect dis- turbances in health, both physical and emotional, long before even the parent or the physician. She should early seek to establish the pupil’s physical and mental level, know his previous history, note irregular atten- dance, and discover his mental tone and attitude with reference to his particular conflicts or anxieties. Facial expression, posture, reaction time to the spoken word, color of the skin, physical and mental stamina—these and others are indicators of health. The child who is restless because of a scabetic itch, the mouth-breather who keeps his mouth ajar throughout the whole period, the child who clutches his book too closely to his face or squints when looking at the blackboard, the pupil who demands a request repeated again and again before he comprehends—all these will reveal their respective deficiencies. As to emotional difficulties, the teacher is likewise in an ideal position to observe and record unusual or undesirable reactions to encouragement and criticism, to success and failure; the individual pupil’s participa- tion or lack of participation in the activities of his class; his expressions of fear, anger, or jealousy; his degree of sensitiveness or indifference; his sense of THE AMERICAN TEACHER responsibility ; his type of effort, ambition, and enthu- siasm. It is obvious that in order to carry out successfully such a diagnostic program the teacher must first of all get the adequate preparation and experience. At pres- ent, the knowledge of most teachers on this subject is vague and incomplete. Apparently we have acted on the assumption that teachers know intuitively all that is necessary. The vast majority of them have pur- sued only a brief one-semester course in educational psychology, possibly supplemented by a brief one- semester course in child study. So little time has been given to the psychology work they have pursued and so much has been crammed into the brief courses, that the modicum they have acquired has been of little practical value to them. With such superficial prep- aration, it is not to be expected that the average teacher will be able to guide and direct growth and develop- ment so that the child’s personality will reach its maxi- mum of efficient, symmetrical growth without suffer- ing irreparable damage from the innumerable perils that beset the path of personal progress on every hand. Neither will she be able to individualize skill- fully the processes of instruction to meet:the needs of her varying pupil material, or apply sound prin- ciples of mental hygiene in her management of ali the classroom activities, or perform skillfully the functions of a guidance counselor. If the teacher is to improve herself diagnostically, she will have to pursue more courses in applied men- tal hygiene, and in abnormal and clinical psychology. Further, she must learn the art of observation in or- der to recognize early all children who are suffering from specific mental, educational, social, and physi- cal disabilities. It is beginning to dawn upon at least some of the leaders in the teaching profession that the supreme function of the school, particularly so far as the ele- mentary grades are concerned, is to develop healthy, efficient personalities rather than teach subject matter. Dare Teachers Change the Press? @ LAWRENCE MARTIN WAS TALKING OVER George Seldes’ new book the other day with a Genteel Person, one of those who toils in the upper reaches of the newspaper industry. His conclusion ran that there was some merit in the book, BUT Seldes “as usual’ had many misstatements of fact; and a heart that was in the right place had been misled by hair-trigger indig- nation into too much scolding and fault-finding. This is as good a way as any to dismiss the criti- cism of a man who knows the “game” from the in- side. It’s an old technique, an escape technique. Upton Sinclair’s Brass Check was similarly pish- tushed. The American Society of Newspaper Edi- tors, after inviting Clarence Darrow and Silas Bent to criticize the press, belittled their remarks on the same excuse. Westbrook Pegler, Stanley Walker, the late Marlen Pew, and other stalwarts could always be relied upon to rally to the cause of Press Freedom from Attack. And when Senator Minton gave it to the newspapers with both barrels, he was overwhelmed with abuse. The newspaper is our unique institution. In two ways the position of the press in the national com- JANUARY, 1939 plex entitles it to unique ranking. First, it is the Great Untouchable. It has assumed that its vital function, and its patriotic duty, is to haul everything and anything over the coals. But criticism of its own operations is violently denounced. The press ap- pears to have set up a double standard of criticism. lis own distortions and errors are made light of. But should a critic of the press make any errors of fact, his entire argument is forthwith damned by it twice over. Second, the press is a well-nigh insoluble problem. Many years ago Dr. Frank Tannenbaum showed in a provocative book that the problem of the Negro was insoluble. He maintained, if I remember his argu- ment correctly, that all the “solutions” which had been proposed only opened the door to graver prob- lems. The case of the press is comparable. There is no way in which the press can be depended upon, or compelled, to discharge honestly its function of sup- plying the news. It can be depended upon to supply bias, opinion, magazine features, accurate box scores and racing results, and information about battle, mur- der, and sudden death. But it cannot be depended upon to report fairly, or in some instances even to report at all, events in the controversial realm—such as the activities of government, whether local, state, or federal, big business, and labor. We could make up our own interesting “Informa- tion Please’ program on the press. Would it re- quire an expert to answer this question with assur- ance—which committee investigation has the press (all of it, or your own newspaper) reported more fully, the Dies inquiry or the LaFollette? In many newspapers, the LaFollette committee disclosures, sen- "They Wouldn't Print This!" sational though they were, and news in any journal- ist’s definition, got no space at all. To the first thir- teen meetings of the LaFol- lette committee, the New York Times gave 324 inch- es, the Christian Science Monitor 208 inches — the Chicago Tribune, 39 inches! And, to quote the investi- gator, Miss Roberta Clay: “The Chicago Tribune . . . failed to give the investiga- tion news space except as it could make out a case against the New Deal.” At the moment I am writ- ing this, Newspaper Guild pickets are walking up and down in front of the plants of the two Chicago Hearst newspapers — there is a strike of some 500 Hearst employees: reporters, copy- readers, photographers, branch managers of circu- lation, and workers in the business and promotion de- partments. Although the New York Times finds this newsworthy and gives it plenty of space, the strike is not news in the Chicago press. Few Chicagoans know there is a strike; and the strikers have as little chance to publicize it on the radio as in the papers. Both as consumers of the daily newspaper — product of the one industry whose business privileges are hal- oed by the Constitution— and as teachers, we are confronted by this quandary: 1. The newspaper business is big business. The large city plants are worth millions of dollars. In most of the large cities it would cost at least five million dollars and something like a gang war to bring out another newspaper. This means that in any crucial matter we get the kind of news big busi- ness wills us to get. 2. The big business press is practically above the law. It might have to take the rap of damages in a particularly glaring case of libel (in which case no HTWO No. 5358—6 Pfs F. Siper—J. Messner x2—11-15—Orig. 4 Here’s some news that’s real news-— but i## may never appear in the news columns of any paper! yellow, vicious of scared. than America’s Sixty Families” but, she adds, “the final section, one of the most important, points out what the man in the street can do about it.” This is a challenging and ex- citing book — as shocking and direct asa bullet! If you believe what appears in print—or dis- trust what does—you owe it to yourself to read this book and act oo uw. Read what others say sbow dt: “Candidate for the most sen- sational book ef the season.” — Donald Gordon. “Brave, well- informed, wholesome."—Boos- of-the-Month Club News. “A job.” — Charles Beard. “By all means read it''—W al- ter Winchell. LORDS PRESS by George Seldes auther of YOU CAN'T PRINT THAT 416 pages, indexed, $3.00 at all bookshops, or SUUAN WAESINER, HC. BW 40 ST. LT PROOFS FROM Herald aii Tribune | eR AEE LR ITE This is a proof of an ad which Julian Messner, Inc., pub- lishers of George Seldes’ new book Lords of the Press, received from the New York Herald Tribune. However, the ad was never printed by the Herald Tribune, which apparently substantiates much of what Mr. Seldes has been writing about the American press. paper will publish the news of the verdict), but it is free to invade the citizen’s privacy and to make a hash of fair trial. Any attempts to safeguard the public in the matters of its exploita- tion of child labor or dis- honest advertising have small success. 3. At a time in human history full of change and the possibility of disorgan- ization and_ breakdown, when as never before we need an alert and intelligent citizenry, the newspaper votes daily against intelli- gence: by failing to live up to its obligation to be honest, and by emphasizing unintelligence in its “fea- tures’ — comics, society, commercial sport, promo- tions, and bilge of the American Weekly variety. Lest I be put down as unduly puritanical on the last point, let me quote from the remarks of Mr. J. Charles Poe, of the Chat- tanooga News, in 1934— one of the few liberal re- marks in many years of American Society of News- paper Editors meetings: “Is not the time ripe for a shift away from the diet of dull routine, inconsequential crime and cheap, flippant entertainment in our news columns to a more intelli- gent and withal more nour- ishing news menu? THE AMERICAN TEACHER I believe that it is. . . I am definitely of the opin- ion that our people are ready for a more sub- stantial news treatment. They want a chance to know about those social questions which heretofore have been chiefly the concern of scholars. They would like, perhaps, to try to re- late themselves constructively to the pattern of their times... .” I have said that this problem of the malfunc- tioning of the newspaper is insoluble. An en- dowed press will not solve it. Ethical codes, written by the press lords in the spirit of political campaign platforms, have not solved it. You cannot legislate a solution. Letters to the edi- tor cannot do it. Newspaper boycotts cannot achieve much, for the alternative is to do with- out. A labor press is no more a solution than is a radical press because it is a class press, and as such provides a solution, if any, for only part of the population. If Mr. Seldes’ book is to be criticized on any point, it is on this one, that he hasn’t recognized the scope of the problem. Mr. Seldes feels, with a rather unsure optimism to my mind, that the advance of the Newspaper Guild may take care of this, our No. 1 “cultural” problem. And it is possible that the Guild, when it has attained security for its members, may turn to professional matters and try to enforce an ethical code. But the Guild itself, as Mr. Seldes shows, at present repudiates any such aim. True, matters have gone so far that in some Guild con- tracts a reporter or writer has the right to say that his name shall not be by-lined on an article which is against his convictions, or of which he disapproves for any reason. That is a negative something. But it is eloquent of the bog in which we find ourselves on this newspaper problem that if the Guild’s lead- ers were to try today to add to its aims anything of a crusading, professional, directing, or controlling character, the rank and file would revolt. And it will be many years, if ever, before the Newspaper Guild will interest itself in such activity, or be educated to the point of presenting a united professional front. However, Mr. Seldes does not propose, in his book, to settle the newspaper question. His aim is more modest and his achievements more interesting. The book is in three parts. Part I paints in twenty- two chapters the portraits of the main press barons, milords of New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadel- phia, California, etc. Part II gives us sketches of the main groups of baronial retainers: the scribes, the jongleurs, the favorite jesters—or in homelier lan- guage, the foreign and Washington correspondents, the editorialists, the columnists. Part III offers rec- ipes for action. JANUARY, 1939 These are excellent recipes, the best that can be offered. While they will not give us the kind of press our nation needs, they would considerably im- prove the intolerable situation if a sufficient number of citizens could be moved to try them. I wish Mr. Seldes had written in a paragraph or two directed at the teachers, their responsibility for the situation and their role in changing it. Among teachers there are too many press victims, too few press critics. If teachers could be educated, or could educate them- selves, to understanding and action, there might be some chance that a generation of readers would arise who would demand of the publishers more honest and substantial goods, less coloring matter, more meat and less gristle, more news and less paper. Teach- ers are more strongly entrenched professionally than newspaper workers will be for at least a decade. They can dictate curricula as no newspaper underlings can dictate the reporting, handling, or display of news. More courses in reading the newspaper, presented by teachers who can see both the woods and the trees, are urgently needed. While we are about it, why not some attention to the magazines? There are hundreds of them also, with millions of readers. Is it not strange that, while the newspapers have their Sinclairs, Bents, Seldeses, the magazines have escaped critical scrutiny? This too is of interest to the teaching profession, for all the investigations made of the magazine reading of teachers show saddening results. Teachers, it seems, are addicts mainly of such stereotyped periodicals as the Saturday Evening Post, the American Magazine, and of course the women’s monthlies. The quality 13 magazines—Harper’s, the Atlantic—are far down on the list, and almost at the tail end, at the vanishing point, come the Nation and the New Republic, Scrib- ner's and Forum. The reading taste of teachers seems about on the level of the general population. On this showing we can hardly say that teachers are lead- ers. How many teachers could take a copy of Time and detect in it the evidences of prejudice, bias, and distortion ? The Lords of the Press reign over us with an abso- lutism as real as that of any Louis XIV or Hitler. They form our minds with their daily headlines, cartoons, and “features”; with their slanting, omis- sion, subordination, or blowing-up of this kind of news or that. In the end, perhaps it is true that we get the kind of newspaper we deserve. We shall have better ones only when we deserve them, and we shall deserve them only if we are able to fight our way up through our own minds, largely formed by the press. The pupil must revolt against the textbook. Supreme Court Upholds Lloyd Gaines @ LEON A. RANSOM N DECEMBER 12, 1938, the United States Su- preme Court reached a decision’ that will cause repercussions throughout the entire field of graduate and professional education for the next few years. That decision, in brief, established (1) that a state which undertakes to furnish educational oppor- tunities as a state function to its citizens must afford substantially equal opportunities to all of such citizens who apply and are qualified, and that there can be no denial of this opportunity to an applicant because he is a Negro; (2) that this function must be per- formed within the state borders; (3) that therefore a system of tuition scholarships (now in effect in seven states?) by which the state provides financial aid for study elsewhere to Negroes who desire to take courses available to white students in the state uni- versities, but from which Negroes are barred because of their race, is unconstitutional in that it deprives them of equality of protection under the law; (4) that the state could meet this burden either by setting up separate, but equal, facilities for its Negro students or by admitting them to the existing institutions ; and finally (5) the duty of the state to provide equal facilities can not be measured by the number of stu- dents who make application. The decision marks the culmination of both the Negro race’s struggle to obtain equality of educa- tional opportunities and one phase of its more recent effort to demonstrate to the nation as a whole that a policy of discrimination, manifested by insufficient courses, inadequate physical plants and equipment, te of Missouri, ex rel. Lloyd Gaines vs. S. W. Canada, et al., sos wet 232, (Dec. 12, 1938). 2Ken , Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. 4 and inferior salaries for teachers in Negro schools, is detrimental to the political, social, and economic order, not only of today, but, more seriously, of tomorrow. The effort to get a Supreme Court decision on the right of a Negro to receive a professional or graduate training within his own state borders at state expense was the natural, evolutionary step in the education program of a race that had once been held in physical slavery and still is, in many respects, confined in an economic bondage. The first generation after slavery was confronted with the problem of learning to read and write—the old three R’s. The removal of actual illiteracy was the immediate objective. The second generation faced the task of forcing the states to provide schools and teachers for Negroes on an equal (in theory) basis. The law books are full of decisions in which both state and federal courts established and recognized the principle upon which the present decision is based—that the state may separate the races for the purposes of education, if its internal policy so dictates, but that it must provide substantially equal facilities to the two races. The last generation of Negroes since slavery had as its problem the extension of this principle to the estab- lishment and maintenance of state-supported institu- tions of higher learning for Negroes. Every state which practiced the policy of segregated education established or aided one of these so-called “colleges.” Up until recent years most of them were little more than mediocre high schools or industrial or agricul- tural institutions. However, efforts on the part of educators within the past two decades have borne fruit THE AMERICAN TEACHER with the result that today most of these institutions are real colleges of liberal arts. It was obvious that the next step, to be taken by the present generation, would be to attempt to gain a right to full participation in the state’s program of education—the right to enjoy the benefits of graduate and professional training wherever the state had initiated such courses. That this had been anticipated is evidenced by the fact that a few of the southern and border states, recognizing the theoretical legal right of Negro students to such education, enacted statutes which offered them a sum of money, —in some cases the full amount of tuition, in others the differential between the cost of tuition in another state and that in the state of domicile*—to enable such students to go to such other state to complete the education he desired. As early as 1932 a Negro youth made application for admission to the School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina; but his suit, brought after refusal, was dismissed because of a technical failure on his part to meet the entrance requirements. A similar application for graduate work in the University of Virginia by a young Negro woman was rejected in 1935. No legal proceedings were instituted in that case. The follow- ing year, almost simultaneously, applications for admission to the Law School of the University of Maryland, the Pharmaceutical School of the Univer- sity of Tennessee, and, in Gaines’s case, to the Law School of the University of Missouri, were filed. In all three the university officials refused the applicants, and in each case the student appealed to the courts for a writ of mandamus to compel his admission. The Maryland courts decided* that since the state had undertaken the function of education in the law, and had excluded the applicant from the enjoyment thereof solely on account of his race and color, and made no adequate provision for him elsewhere, it must admit him to the only institution maintained by that state." However, the court did not pass on the question of the constitutionality of the state’s scholarship tuition plan for the reason that the plan, as then operated, was incapable of giving any adequate substitute relief, there not being sufficient funds to distribute to all those who had applied for participation in it. At about the same time the Tennessee courts and the Missouri courts had decided to the contrary in 3The Missouri statute provided for the difference between the cost of tuition at the University ot Missouri and that at any institution in an adjacent state which the Negro student attended. 4University of Maryland vs. Murray, 169 Md. 478. 5Mr. Murray, who has now completed his course, receiving the LL.B. de- gree, reperts that he suffered no inconveniences or indignities while in attendance, being granted every right and courtesy offe JANUARY, 1939 his classmates. their cases, and the Missouri decision was brought to the Supreme Court of the United States. Gaines’s case was chosen in preference to the Tennessee one for the reason that, at that time, the latter state had no scholarship plan, and so the constitutionality of this device could not be questioned on appeal. The wisdom of the choice is demonstrated by the instant decision which effectively closes the gap left open by the Maryland case and establishes, once for all, that personal rights and opportunities cannot be measured in terms of money, and a substantial portion of the citizenry be deprived thereof by a payment of a cur- rency equivalent. No one will be so naive as to believe that this decision will solve the problems overnight. There are still many difficulties the realist must face. Chief among these is the practical one of getting those states which are committed to the separate school system to put the principle in effect. As the writer views the situation, these are the alternatives available to such states under the decision: (a) set up separate Negro universities, department by department, equal in every respect to the present state universities, as demand is made therefor by Negro applicants, even if there be only one such applicant for each depart- ment or division ; (b) set up separate classes for Negro students within the confines of the present state uni- versities ;* (c) admit Negro students to the present classes ;" (d) abolish all graduate and professional instruction as a state institution. To each of these there are now—and more will arise —many objections. To (a) and (b) the greatest of these is the financial burden involved. At present only two states, Tennessee and Missouri, are in a position to even approach the problem from a practical point of view. Missouri, by its “Lincoln University Act of 1921,” has provided a theoretical university for Negroes equal in all respects to the University of Missouri. But, as pointed out by the court in the instant case, this is only a paper university and no funds are available to carry the plan into effect. And the student’s right to an education exists in the present, not some nebulous future time when the state can afford it. On the other hand, Tennessee has the nucleus of a real university already at hand in the several private institutions surrounding its present State College for Negroes at Nashville if it can arrange a merger of these and find the funds with which to purchase and operate them. Within a radius 6But many states have constitutional or statutory provisions which prohibit teaching white and Negro children in the same buildings! TThis would necessitate a revision (or an ignoring) of the present laws requiring separation. sty GE of a few blocks from the state school there are Meharry College, with departments of medicine, surgery, dentistry, and a non-active school of phar- macy, Fisk University, with one of the country’s leading graduate divisions, and the Kent College of Law. With these under state control and support, Tennessee would be in a fair way to meet the problem adequately. No other states have either plans for a separate university or private institutions which they can absorb. But, as pointed out above, the real difficulty is one of finance. Already the state institutions in the area affected by the decision are suffering from a lack of sufficient annual appropriations, with a con- sequent difficulty of maintaining their standards. To duplicate, or even to add to the present appropriations seems almost impossible and highly improbable. It is extremely doubtful if the people of the state can or will add to their already high tax burden. Even the relatively slight increase which would result, in sep- arate classes for Negroes, from additional salary and operating expense will impose a real burden. The danger about which the A. F. of T. and all edu- cators must be alert is that which may come in an effort to lighten this increased burden by a general lowering of the salary scale for all teachers and by a reduction in the quality and quantity of classroom instruction. Even more serious is the possibility that a great deal, or all of the present state aid to the counties for educational purposes may be taken away and diverted to the maintenance of separate univer- sities, and teachers in the elementary and high-school divisions left to the vagaries and uncertainties of the county taxing unit. 16 Equally dangerous, but less likely to occur, is the adoption of the suggestion (d) above—that the state give up the function of graduate and professional training. This, in addition to the injury which would be inflicted upon the masses who cannot afford the luxuries of a private institution, would result in the glutting of the teachers’ labor market with the thou- sands of men and women who would be summarily dismissed. All of these alternatives seem to be too high a price to pay for the maintenance of a system of prejudice and segregation that has long since out- grown the conditions out of which it originated. The only sensible, economical, and democratic plan for which teachers everywhere should work and argue is the unlimited admission of qualified Negro appli- cants to the present classes and institutions maintained by the state. For some years yet to come they will be comparatively few in number and will create or cause no problem that is insurmountable. A sincere, professional effort on the part of teachers to cope with the situation and to show their communities that maintenance of prejudice will result in both financial and moral bankruptcy of our present educational scheme in dictated not only by the ultimate good to be attained, but by the present financial interests of the teachers themselves. Two other alternatives have been suggested by some educators and editorial writers which ought to be mentioned to conclude this article but which the writer thinks can be dismissed with a word. One of these is for several southern states to band together and establish a “regional” university for Negroes, thus dividing the cost. It is obvious that this will also be unconstitutional, in view of the decision’s announcement that the state must perform its duties alike “within its borders,” unless the plan includes a proposal to do away with the present state univer- sities and establish a similar “regional” university for white students. There would then be equality of treat- ment. The second proposes a system of free state scholar- ships to Negro students—the very thing declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Presumably, however, the scheme would not make such scholar- ships compulsory, but would make inem so attractive that it would be economically advantageous to the Negro student to accept rather than insist upon attendance at the state university. While this has many of the cost disadvantages discussed previously, a suggestion is ventured here that the plan could and would be successfully attacked as unconstitutional. THE AMERICAN TEACHER Any white student could raise the point that he was being discriminated against, and any taxpayer could probably enjoin the use of state funds in this manner as a waste. It would seem to follow, then, that the A. F. of T. and all other liberal groups must recognize that to protect their own interests and liberties it is necessary that every effort be exerted to require compliance with the mandate of the Supreme Court ; and that the most effective protection will be afforded by a policy of aiding in molding public sentiment to the view that the Negro not only has a right to equality of educa- tion, but that it should be given to him just as it is to every other citizen to the end that the public money and energies may be used most effectively and not wasted by a system of duplication based on prejudice and a refusal to realize that the old order has changed. Madison's Policy Committee Reports @ WILLIAM E. BULL BOUT A YEAR AGO Dr. Winspear reported to our local the new program of the National Edu- cational Policies Committee. He was very en- thusiastic, dramatic. There is a growing attack upon the American schools. Educational democracy is be- ing threatened. The schools are being redirected for the special benefit of the sacred few. “Where?” we asked. “In Chicago, there is the Johnson plan,” he replied. “In Philadelphia the Work’s intelligence test trick. . .” “And in Wisconsin . . . what?” we queried. Right there we bogged down. Here was a young war going on against the schools all over the nation and none of us had so much as heard a B-B gun pop. Our enthusiasm thermometer struck zero almost im- mediately. We adjourned and went home. We thought, and rather woefully, no war in Wisconsin! But Dr. Winspear was convinced. He came back at the next meeting. Made another speech. If there is no attack in Wisconsin, then there are at least two things we must do. We must publicize the attack in other states, help them fight there, and see to it that the attack does not come to Wisconsin. The ther- mometer went up to 32 degrees; we thawed out and appointed a committee. War correspondents were chosen and we began to gather ammunition to use on our imaginary enemy. We learned the Johnson plan outline. We read up on the Work’s proposal in Philadelphia. We clipped newspapers and magazines which told of teachers be- ing fired for teaching democracy and teachers being made to take oaths not to teach it. There was a war! The thermometer kept going up. We outlined a city- wide conference, envisaged a state-wide conference of all organizations, planned to present our war cor- respondence, and, finally, asked the Madison Federa- tion of Labor to let one of our speakers present the whole problem, as our first concrete step. JANUARY, 1939 I happened to make that speech. I pictured special privilege running the schools, painted the dangers to unions, pointed up the moral of more and more educa- tion, sounded the war gong, held up Chicago and Philadelphia, and sat down to wait for questions. “The next order of business . . .”’ said the president. I started to leave the hall and paused to listen to a fellow in the back of the room. “These teachers are off,”’ he was saying. think education’s a religion. Always harping on it . . . Long-haired boys. . .” I left hurriedly. The thermometer went down to 40 below. I am certain that many locals with more enthusiasm than we had and better intentions have run up against just this same situation. The local labor groups will not listen to them. There is no home-town Franken- stein running amuck in the streets. The average man doesn’t even remember one hiding in the index of his high-school history book. And when we thought of that—the average man doesn’t remember anything being wrong with his school when he was a child—we tumbled over our- selves with amazement. Of course not! Neither had most of us, and that was just why we had never seen anything of the war that Dr. Winspear had been talking about. It dawned upon us that we had the horse hitched to the wrong end of the cart. What we had been calling an attack upon the schools was really an attack upon the intelligence of the American people, an attack which had been going on so long that all of us (we who had wanted to fight it and those whom we wanted to rescue) were unaware that any- thing had been put over on us. We took stock and changed our methods. It be- came obvious that the work for the committee had a dual object: to simultaneously re-educate the people (and ourselves) so that we might have a critical basis “They 17 Sern on which to judge what the schools should and should not teach, and to make a survey of the local school sys- tem to find out if it was doing an adequate job of educating. We drew up a new program, set up a speakers’ bureau, asked labor locals and civic clubs to hear our speakers, and made some speeches which, in short, were received about as enthusiastically as a pauper on Wall Street. We felt as though we were pushing a mountain around, though we did get the Madison Fed- eration of Labor, the C.I.O. Industrial Council, and the Madison Council for Liberal Action to officially endorse our program. All of this had taken up about three months and we had not yet dug the first trench. After all, we needed to dramatize our program, to put some zip into it, and to make the people aware of it. We cooked up a plan to have all the books dealing with social sciences in the city schools exhibited so that people might look them over and see for them- selves what was being taught in the schools. We decided to approach the city librarians and to ask them to cooperate with us in putting on a campaign to get more adults interested in self-education. Mr. Bardwell, the superintendent of schools, was cooperative. He offered to gather up all the books used in the high schools for our exhibit. Miss Helen Farr, the head librarian of the city, was willing to ex- hibit them in the lobby of the main library. Still more, she was willing to meet with our committee to discuss possibilities of interesting union men in using the li- braries more frequently. The mountain began to move. A meeting was arranged between about forty local labor leaders, educators, townspeople, Miss Farr, and the Library Commission. Some of these individuals had not been in the library for twenty years. They had reasons. We found them out and laid plans to remove such barriers as might possibly continue to keep workingmen away from the library. After a three-hour session the following plans were worked out : 1. The library is to prepare a pamphlet giving the lo- cations of all the libraries, the rules, and, in general, what the library has to offer to the public. This pamphlet is to be distributed to all union people. 2. The library is to prepare a bibliography of all books which might interest union people. 3. On the request of any union the library will prepare special bibliographies on any topic which that union may be interested in. 4. Unon educational committees are to meet with Miss Farr to discuss what new books should be added to the library, and these books are to be bought as funds per- mit and space is provided. 5. Miss Farr will direct a special class on how to use the library for any union that is interested. 6. All the libraries will install special places for union newspapers and magazines, to be provided by the unions. 7. When funds are available, the library will issue a list of new books acquired each month, so that the public may know of all additions. These lists will be given to the newspapers and copies will be sent to all local unions. 8. During one month, in the fall, the main library will exhibit the school texts used in the public schools. They may be drawn out as any other book. Special union educational committees will review these books from the viewpoint of labor interest. 9. Arrangements are to be made so that people may call for books at branch libraries and return them there also, so that trips to the main library may be avoided for those living at some distance. This meeting made the front page of a local daily with twenty inches of excellent advertising for our program. The committee now took a new lease on life. The library began to carry out its promises. The trade unions began to feel that they were get- ting some attention which they long may have de- served but for which they had never thought of asking. The superintendent of schools produced the textbooks, about 100 in all, and union members, not only of the teachers union but sewage plant workers, carpenters, railroad men, and painters, began to look them over. Suddenly the bomb burst. The war had come to Wisconsin. We had been overlooking it while it ex- isted between the covers of our own textbooks. We were astounded, especially because at that time (which was two months before the November elections) we were happily under the impression that Wisconsin was a liberal, yes, even a very progressive state, and that Madison, its capital, was exceedingly so. One may still say that Madison is progressive and that its text- books probably are as good, if not better, than most liberal cities in the country. Yet we found in the books that (1) unions threaten to destroy the government, (2) unions take away from men their “sacred” right to work, (3) the history of the labor movement has been one of bloodshed, rioting, and destruction of prop- erty—all of which is blamed on the unions—(4) stu- dents would do better not to have anything to do with unions, but should play along with the company or join a company union. There is much more. Fascism is praised; demo- cratic processes damned. The Ku Klux Klan is a worthy organization; senate investigating committees are not. Depositors never lose money when banks go broke, and cooperatives are not safe institutions in which to invest. Such findings were not only astounding: they were news. A reporter mentioned our findings to his edi- THE AMERICAN TEACHER tor, William T. Evjue, a staunch leader in the prog- ressive movement in Wisconsin, and, as a result, he was assigned to write a series of articles on our find- ings. Four articles, totalling 206 column inches, ap- peared on four successive Sundays in the Capital Times, and on the front page. The textbooks were at once placed on exhibit, let- ters were written to all labor locals asking them to hear one of our speakers discuss our program, and a city conference was planned. The people were now awakened to the problem and the committee began to get constant cooperation. Several informal meetings were held with townspeople and labor leaders, and with- in six weeks we had spoken to about twenty organiza- tions with a total audience of roughly 1500. By this time we had come to October of 1938. Our program was now in full swing and we began to branch out to include our original intentions, that is, to gather public opinion behind us in our attempt to make education impartial and, at the same time, edu- cate the public so that it might have a critical attitude toward education. A conference was called of the officers and educa- tional council of the State Employee’s Association (A.F. of L.), representatives from the local and state vocational school boards, the dean of the University of Wisconsin Extension Division, representatives of the School for Workers, librarians, the director of the State Bureau of Personnel, the Educational Council of the Madison Federation of Labor, and our com- mittee. Several hours were spent in attempting to co- ordinate the educational work oi all these agencies. Plans for more intensive cooperation were worked out, new courses and public forums were outlined, and detailed methods for getting union men to use libraries and other available educational facilities were dis- cussed during this conference. A few weeks later the committee began a series of radio broadcasts over Sta- tion WHA in which > we discuss such top- ics as propaganda in textbooks, the labor movement's fight for free public educa- tion, adult education, the growing attack upon democratic ed- ucation, why teach- ers should organize, and, in general, our | ] whole program. JANUARY, 1939 Meanwhile, the committee felt that our activities should reach out farther than just to the city of Madi- son, and a plan was conceived whereby a national in- vestigation of education might be feasible. We felt that a thorough study would probably reveal that in those regions of the country where the Senate’s Civil Liberties Committee had found the greatest abridge- ment of democracy very little of that democracy was taught in the schools. Consequently, we submitted to Senator Robert M. La Follette a brief of our position and asked him for an interview to discuss it with him. He offered to back our plan and suggested that the brief be presented to WPA officials in Washington as a project. At the present time the brief is in the hands of Mrs. M. F. Grossman, our national legis- lative representative, who has been asked to take it up with Washington officials. It is the feeling of the committee that we have now laid the foundation for much constructive work in the future. The State Federation of Teachers endorsed our program at its last convention, and the State Federation of Labor will present corrective and con- structive legislation to the State Legislature this year, in part, at least, as a result of our work. We have felt, however, all along that we have not closely coordinated our work with the work of other locals all over the country, just as we have felt that the problem before us is infinitely outside the powers of any one local to handle. We must all get together, and quickly. I believe that Regent Kenneth Hones of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin expressed the sharpest analysis of the educational work that we are now doing when I recently presented our committee’s program to him. He said, “do you think we can educate the Ameri- can people fast enough? I am sometimes afraid that those who are against us will beat us to them.” 19 Tenax Propositi @ NED H. DEARBORN DDLY ENOUGH America owes Herr Hitler and his fellow dictators a debt of gratitude. So does the whole world. We are their debtor in the same sense that we profit by experience derived from the assiduous activity of every articulate enemy. That experience forces us into a vigorous vigilance that should base its conduct on care and wisdom. Vigi- lance cannot be effective if it depends upon timid cau- tion, pointless action, or mere alertness. It needs the strong foundations of such enduring and thorough care as can be found only in critical study. It needs the firm basis of wise counsel which is a logical result of critical study. Sound interpretations of conditions and their practical application become the program of action of vigilance so conceived. The enemy is thus met by positive resistance. If the anti-democratic Hitler as No. 1 Enemy of Democracy focuses Ameri- can thought on the individual and group values of liberty, of freedoms and human rights to the end that we clarify the issues of democratic social life, he has served one good purpose. The lesson, though nega- tive, should certainly benefit us. The lesson applies to all phases of our national life— for example, government, social relations, industry, religion, and education. These terms broadly defined are all-inclusive and therefore neither singly nor to- gether lend themselves to brief discussion. Hence this discussion is limited in little more than outline form to schools and colleges as the chief agencies of education in its technical sense. It is needless here to argue the potential importance of schools and colleges in a democratic country. It is beside the point of this comment to dispute the common claim that they are free institutions. It is pertinent to challenge them by questions on the grounds of democ- racy. Todoso may be heresy, but it is not treason. Question Number 1. What contributions have “educators” made to an understanding of democracy? The word has its meaning for nearly all of us in the writings of traditional American proponents and de- fenders of the faith—Thomas Jefferson, Samuel and John Quincy Adams, James Madison, and James Otis; in the lives of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln as symbolic of the dignity and importance of the common people ; in the thought of Thomas Paine as found for example in The Age of Reason and The Rights of 20 Man; of John Locke in his letter and essay on Toler- ance and his two treatises on Civil Government; of John Stuart Mill in his essay, Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion; of John Milton in Areopa- gitica; of Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Voltaire. Then if we wish to contemplate historically the development of democratic thought we turn to the writings of Aristotle, Marsiglio of Padua, Leopold of Badenberg, Nicholas of Cusa, Philip Melancthon, Jean Bodin, Hubert Languet, Sir Thomas More, John Muir, George Buchanan, and Thomas Aquinas. No demo- crat can find much comfort in Aristotle nor in the writers of the Middle Ages. These men did, however, discuss some aspects of the question which in a few cases required no little courage considering the times. Among our contemporaries we study the writings of John Dewey, Boyd H. Bode, Bertrand Russell, James Bryce, and Thomas Mann. Here, though, we can attribute original thought only to one or two of them. Where among this imposing list of thinkers on democ- racy are the “educators”? A pitiful minority indeed. Murmurs of discontent can be felt concerning this indictment. The question is thus raised regarding the extent to which original thought can be expected from our schools and colleges. Original thought is by no means our only contribution to democracy. There are “wholesalers” among us who serve a good turn, the authors of magazine articles and books which clarify the meanings of the terms, which indicate their impli- cations and suggest their applications. Their name is legion. The world will forget them before or very soon after they leave it, but that is not to deny their usefulness. Then, too, there are retailers among us. These are the rank and file—the classroom performers, the platform lecturers, and the practitioners by ex- ample. How many first-rate wholesalers and class-A retailers can we count in our profession? The correct answer corresponds to the exact number who thor- oughly understand the various social theories of democracy and who believe in the ideal to the point of personal profession and practice of that ideal. Question Number 2. What contributions have schools and colleges made to democracy through their own organization and administration? It seems proper in this connection to omit references to the schools and colleges of other countries. The “glass house” idea THE AMERICAN TEACHER is reason enough. Are American schools and colleges democratically organized and administered? Anyone with only a casual knowledge of the history of educa- tion knows they are not. He knows they have their roots in theories of aristocracy, not of democracy. He knows that their organizational pattern is comparable to that of government, industry, church, and army. Administrative policy is predetermined by the organi- zational pattern. The variations in administration are due to the personal equation, not to differences in pat- tern. A kindly administrator who also believes in the essential values of human rights will deal beneficently with his fellow workers and perform his duties as democratically as the structure under which he operates will permit him. He must overcome the handicaps imposed upon him by the system. How many ad- ministrators of this kind have we in our schools and colleges? A tyrannical administrator, on the other hand, finds the organizational pattern made to order for his purposes. He doesn’t even need to be bothered by staff officers; he may rely entirely on line officers. The system favors the tyrant. - Oe. i POAT LL ee # $ a ~ “—~ —_ fx. oxy > - - > - JS, - JANUARY, 1939 This characterization is supported by the investiga- tional and protest functions of such organizations as the American Federation of Teachers through its local unions, the American Association of University Pro- fessors, and the Education Committee of the Civil Liberties Union; by the existence of numerous com- mittees on academic freedom; by records of court action related to countless administrative matters; by protective legislation ; and by endless struggle in behalf of the rank and file in our profession. To cite one instance in this struggle—trecently a resolution was introduced before the New York City Board of Edu- cation granting the right of teachers to join any pro- fessional organization of their choice. Is further com- ment necessary ? Question Number 3. What are some of the factors that retard the contributions of schools and colleges to the cause of democracy? It would seem a sine qua non for schools and colleges to practice democracy so long as they preach it. Thus far it has been a non sequitur. Why is this? Practical answers have been suggested in the discussions of the foregoing questions, such as lack of understanding as to the meanings of democracy 21 ee HE TROUBLE WITH DEMOCRACY is that it has such an extensive meaning—so extensive as to become sometimes completely vague. It is like breathing. You don’t think about the air as long as there is no shortage of oxygen. You may fill the sphere of democratic thought with your most excessive desires, with the result that you end in a flat denial of de- mocracy. We have witnessed dictators claiming to be the true executors of the democratic will: and “execution” in- deed it was! We never have had the pleasure of meet- ing a democratic statesman who openly dared to avow his predilection for Fascist methods. The resurrected Diogenes, with his lantern, would detect nothing but democrats today. The trouble with democracy is its passion for suicide. Take, for instance, the freedom of speech, which is a The Trouble with Democracy Thomas Mann Reprinted from the December, 1938, New Jersey Teacher, published by the New Jersey State Federation of Teachers. corner stone of all democratic constitutions. How about a speech advocating the abrogation of free speech? Such a speaker always can rely upon some upright democrats who will protect him against any threat to his liberty. The trouble with democracy is, namely, that it is an optimistic creed. Like education, democracy respects humanity. It is our baser instincts that feel so grossly flattered by the Fascist belief in the irrevocable base- ness of human nature. Paradoxical as it may seem, many people experience the most romantic thrill if they behave as “realists” —as cynics who believe in nothing but force and fear. It is their own fear which makes them so boisterously heroic. The iron men of our dic- tatorial times are ironically the mouthpieces of cow- ardice. Their via triumphalis is the way of least resist- ance. and their implications in group life, and undemocratic organization which is the framework that limits dem- ocratic administration. These answers do not satisfy. We can substitute understanding for lack of it. We are still free in America to change the structure of our institutions. We have complete liberty internally to modify the structure and consequent practices of our schools and colleges; or to discard them and establish new ones in their stead. The fundamental answer probably lies in human nature. We may assume, may we not, that educators are human, that they possess qualities of virtue and vice as do others of the human race, and are on the whole no better and no worse than any other large population group. Logically the psy- chologists should discuss human nature in its many and complex aspects, but we needn’t know that much about it to venture a pertinent observation. As human beings we dread, dislike, or fear the new and strange. Hence our resistance to change. We enjoy comfort, ease, and pleasantness. Hence our reluctance to displace long established habits. It is easier to float downstream or just to float than it is to swim against tide or current. All this is commonplace. The important point to be raised is our unwillingness to share responsibility. There is always the easy temptation to assume all of it or to leave all of it to someone else. Aye, that is the crux of the matter. Of course we want our rights, our freedoms, our liberty. In fact we have come to expect them. The plain truth 22 is we must constantly pay a price for them. That price in a democratic society is shared responsibility. It is a matter of values. We must be willing individually to carry our share of the responsibility for becoming an informed professional group with special reference to the meanings of democracy and their implications in theory and practice. We must be willing individ- ually to share responsibility for the organization and administration of our schools and colleges. Individual human rights and responsibilities are the Siamese twins of a free people. If one, through neglect or disease, dies, the other also dies. This is one basic answer to our third question. It is an inescapable one. Our schools and colleges are staffed with adminis- trators, supervisors, instructional and special service officers. We should work together democratically as a unitary whole. If each of us has the will so to do, and if each of us resolves to work together demo- cratically and approaches the task of reconstruction in the spirit of good will, the democratization of our schools and colleges is as good as accomplished. Pa- tience and tolerance are the blood brothers of good will, and the will to do is the prophet of insight and wisdom. By our future conduct as individual members of our great profession we will classify ourselves as non-democratic, undemocratic, anti-democratic, or democratic. Let us never lose sight of the essential elements of the proposition. Our schools and colleges should by example as well as by precept lead the way. THE AMERICAN TEACHER mong the New & “a I BROADCAST THE CRISIS, by H. V. KaLTENnsorn. New York: Random House. 359 pages. $2.00. THE TRUTH ABOUT MUNICH, by JoHANNEs STEEL. New York: Universal Distributors. $0.50. AR BETWEEN THE PRESS AND RADIO was Officially de- clared in April, 1931, when the American Newspaper Publishers Association passed a resolution to fight its new rival and most serious contender for advertising money. The decisive battle, and perhaps the whole war, probably ended on the night of September 30, 1938, when Kalten- born, broadcasting on the Columbia network, concluded his story of how the self-styled democratic leaders, Cham- berlain and Daladier, had destroyed Czechoslovak democ- racy, how a certain kind of peace had been achieved, another brutal and frightening period of “normality” ushered into being in Europe. Radio had mobilized for a world war in September; and from the tenth of that month until its last day, the world listened breathlessly, millions of people fearful that life or death depended on the decision of “statesmen,” few if any then knowing that the greatest betrayal and the greatest hoax in the history of the world was being per- petrated by their dictatorial or elected leaders. For the people the danger was real. (Even today the vast majority does not know it was hoaxed.) At no time in history there- fore was the necessity for news so important, and while it may be said that the press did as good and even a better job than it had ever done, it is generally admitted that radio did its greatest job, and in doing it came of age and incidentally defeated the press. By that I do not mean that it replaced the press, or that it will ever be able to do so, but it took first place in this great crisis and did it so well that it will now be relied upon in the future. Kaltenborn’s book, J Broadcast the Crisis, therefore has a double value. It is first of all a living story of the crisis as it happened, simply but thrillingly told, a historical docu- ment of the first order, saved from the nothingness of the air. It is also the record of probably the finest individual achievement in the history of radio, the extemporaneous, tense, immediate yet intelligent interpretation of history in the making for millions who actually heard history being made but did not grasp all or any of its meaning. The real story of the betrayal was told much later, but Kaltenborn immediately declared Munich a victory for the dictators and deplored the fact that powerful Soviet Russia had been ostracized by the self-styled democracies. Kaltenborn gives much credit to his colleagues—Shirer, Murrow, Hindus, and others—who of course deserve it. There were also rivals who did a great job, notably Quincy Howe, Leland Stowe, Bryce Oliver, and Johannes Steel, who interpreted the news, and unusually good broadcasts by commentators such as Lowell Thomas who talk rather than JANUARY, 1939 interpret. Johannes Steel’s broadcasts have also been pub- lished, and should also be preserved as a historical record. Mr. Steel was permitted by WMCA to express himself as severely as he liked; he did not hesitate to excoriate and flay instead of criticize. On June 16 he said, “there is not going to be any war in Europe this summer because Great Britain has this wonderful Chamberlain plan of appeasing the aggressor nations by making concessions to them.” On September 19 he said, “England and France have betrayed the democratic Republic of Czechoslovakia.” All of Mr. Steel’s expressed skepticism about the good faith of the “democratic” statesmen, as well as his hatred of the dic- tators, was justified by events. The success of all radio commentators vis-a-vis the “free” press and the victory of radio over the news- papers raise new questions for the intelligent public. What would happen to both means of communication if the crisis were in America, or if it concerned American participation in a war? Is the radio generally more reliable than the newspaper? What should be our future attitude to foreign news in the press and over the ether? I cannot answer all these questions here, but it was ob- vious in the radio reports of the war crisis that the American broadcasters in “free” countries such as France and England really sent the news to us, whereas the broadcasters in their own countries were prevented from doing a thorough job, and that our men in dictator lands also did well and showed up the German and Italian broadcasts as composed chiefly of lies, propaganda, and bluff. For the moment it appears as though our broadcasters in dictator lands speak freely whereas our newspaper correspondents are either censored or fear-stricken. I also got the impression that our broadcasters abroad were fair and American, whereas it is obvious from our news- papers, and notably from the New York Times, that many 23 OO correspondents are unfair, reactionary, and even Fascist propagandists. The French general strike, for example, showed us more recently how unreliable are the reports in a large part of our press sent by either foreigners working for American newspapers or American reactionaries who refuse to cable any news except official government views. Sooner or later, it cannot be doubted, England and France, as well as the dictatorships, will censor our broad- casters as well as our journalists. I know of no way by which we will be able to get our news quickly and honestly in the future. But those who realize how important the truthful presentation of world news is for the survival of democracy and civilization can help in these ways: by encouraging the radio stations and newspapers which give us Kaltenborns instead of Boake Carters and Mowrers instead of Carneys; by protest to radio stations and the press whenever we find the news perverted; and finally by support of the liberal weeklies and other publications which eventually publish the news and views which all the reactionaries and all the censors of the world are forever trying to suppress. GEORGE SELDES x** LET FREEDOM RING! 13 Scripts by Harotp G. Cat- HOUN and Dorotuy CALHoun; Lesson Aids by Roy W. Hatcu; Production Notes by Purtie H. Conen; Music Notes by RupotpH ScHRAMM; Edited by Harry A. JacER. Washington: United States Department of the Interior, Office of Education, Bulletin 1937, No. 32. 380 pages. $0.60. A LERT TEACHERS OF THE SOCIAL STUDIES who have been making extensive use of radio programs as basic mate- rials for learning will welcome this volume which makes avail- able in more permanent form the significant series of broad- casts on the Bill of Rights. Originally broadcast over a coast-to-coast network of the Columbia Broadcasting Sys- tem in the spring of 1937, these programs became “must” listening for students and teachers alike in hundreds of schools. Dramatically they presented man’s unending struggle to win and safeguard civil liberties. Now they can again be utilized for reading, for discussion, or for re- enactment by school dramatic groups and radio workshops. The production and music notes included in the volume should make it possible for amateur groups to produce the series creditably. The material in the scripts deserves the highest praise. Produced by the Department of the Interior, Office of Education, as a part of the Federal Radio Project, the series was the outcome of extensive research. The scripts them- selves were written by Harold G. Calhoun and Dorothy Calhoun, edited by project script directors, and checked and approved for historical accuracy by Ben Arneson, head of the department of political science, American University, and Herbert Wright, head of the department of politics, Catholic University. Thousands of man hours of work went into the final production of each script. The gripping dramatic narratives which were the product of this exten- sive effort can now be utilized by any teachers of high- 24 D school social studies or by the director of dramatics. The weakest part of the volume is that which ought to have been made the most helpful, namely, the lesson aids. This consists of a brief introduction by Professor Hatch dwelling upon the historical importance of civil liberties and giving practically no help in the use of the material, a bibliography which is concerned almost entirely with the historical background of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and two to three pages of lesson aids for each of the thirteen scripts. These helps follow closely a mechanized scheme which is presented in the introduction: that one first needs facts, then one must utilize them in thinking, and finally one will acquire desirable attitudes. Hence the aids are divided into three groups: (1) Activities, which in reality read like the typical “exercises” in a tradi- tional textbook but are assumed to lead the student to collect the necessary informational background; (2) Dis- cussion and Debate, which is only a series of “thought ques- tions”; (3) Watch the Spot! which consists of three to five “memory gems” and takes one back to Sunday-school days. There seems to be little recognition of the fact that to be functional, information has to be acquired in relation- ship to actual use or that attitudes grow {rom participation in realistic experiences. The most fundamental criticism of the study helps is their lack of concern with present-day problems. The scripts themselves are pointed in terms of contemporary problems involving civil rights, and each program becomes a jumping-off place for a vital discussion of infringement of liberties today. The aids, however, plunge the student into the historical background to the almost complete neglect of any application of his learning to the modern world in which he is living. In addition, the activities suggested are almost entirely verbal, and no attempt is made to encourage first-hand study of the local community and its problems of civil liberties. The bibliography is good as far as it goes, but reference to such radio programs as “America’s Town Meeting of the Air,” the “People’s Platform,” and news broadcasts should certainly not have been omitted in a study document which grew out of a series of radio programs. Similarly there is THE AMERICAN TEACHER no attempt to help the student to use newspapers, magazines, or motion pictures in studying the critical problems of civil rights today. It is unfortunate that someone better ac- quainted with the use of modern aids to learning could not have aided in preparation of a volume containing such excellent radio materials. As source materials for the study of those rights which distinguish democracies from dictatorships, this book is excellent. Every high-school student in America should hear the series either on the radio or from recordings. In book form it should be available to every student for reading. Special mention should be made of the price. Sixty cents is relatively little for such authentic and motivating ma- terial, and the cost brings it within reach of any teacher who may wish to use the material for discussion in a course in modern problems or American history. No better project for a high-school dramatic group or radio workshop could be suggested than producing the series for their schoolmates or the general public. A corre- lated project with the social studies would make possible extensive discussion and investigation following the presen- tation of each program. The importance of this in these critical times cannot be over-emphasized. Ohio State University I. Keira TYLer xx RESIDENTIAL QUARTER, by Louts Aracon. Trans- lated by HAAKON M. CHEVALIER. New York: Harcourt Brace. 505 pages. $2.50. esidential Quarter is a vivid story of the disintegration R of the family under the influence of the confusion and conflict that prevail today in French society generally. It is the second of a series of novels in which Aragon, fol- lowing the dominant tendency of French fiction, intends to recount the recent history of social change in his own coun- try. But this novel fortunately avoids the excess of enthusi- asm and simplification which marred The Bells of Basle. It is of a richness and evenness of texture that recalls Malraux. And its translation by a prominent member of the Berkeley, California, local of the Teachers Union is another example of that fidelity to the spirit of the original which has made Professor Chevalier one of our most trustworthy interpreters of French fiction. In this novel one walks the streets of the little provincial town of Sérianne like a well-informed resident who is free from prejudicial relationships. For the life in the mayor’s family, when you come to know it, is woven into the whole fabric of the town’s life; its prostitutes, its professionals, the chocolate manufacturer, and his workers are all in their several ways involved in the election of Dr. Barbentane as mayor. But it is from the point of view of the generation which is growing up that affairs are generally presented. Restless youths, whether rich or poor, rub elbows in a casual intimacy that is promoted alike by their years and their period. Among them the two upon which the novel fixes its attention are the sons of the mayor. The town educates these youths quite as much through its own lax sexual JANUARY, 1939 standards and the cynical opportunism of its social code as by any formal schooling, and sends them forth to their contrasting destinies. Later Dr. Barbentane’s sons meet in Paris, where the elder is a medical student forced to befriend his brother who has been expelled from school. But Edmond becomes attached to a girl who is a modern version of Nana, and after desperate losses at gambling degenerates into her gigolo, while the outcast younger son, after experiencing the poverty of Parisian streets, gets a job in an automobile factory. Thus the two grow apart, and the novel ends with the reader impatient to resume their story in a sequel. But he has already gained more knowledge of the disturbances in French society than any scientific analysis could give. And he feels his information is trustworthy and unbiased, in refreshing contrast to the subjective hallucinations of a Céline or the frivolous cynicism of a Jules Romains. New York University EpwWIn Berry BurcuUM xx*r* MAN’S HOPE, by ANpRE Matraux. Translated by STUART GILBERT and ALASTAIR MacDona.p. New York: Random House. 511 pages. $2.50. ITH THE PUBLICATION OF Man’s Fate, André Malraux had solved the problem of making the novel of mass movements interesting to readers long accustomed to psy- chological novels in which highly individualized charac- ters were in conflict chiefly with themselves. In this novel of the Chiang Kai-Shek Revolution of 1926 in China, Malraux used several highly individualized and complex characters as conditioned by and symbolic of the motives and desires of a people fighting for human dignity. In his new book, Man’s Hope, written while Malraux was fighting as a flyer for Loyalist Spain, we have, again, a new type of novel. Twenty or more characters appear and dis- appear in this book—all of them leaders of groups of Span- ish people or characteristic of certain typically Spanish ways of facing life. Most of these characters are clearly identi- fiable as real revolutionary leaders. But the actual hero of the book is a unified Spanish people fighting for the future of civilization, for “man’s hope” in equality and freedom. The leading characters define, to be sure, the political, re- ligious, and social philosophies of these people: Puig, a Barcelona anarchist, killed early in the war, Captain Her- nandez, in command at Toledo and executed there, Colonel Ximenes, commander of the Barcelona Civil Guards and fighting with and training the communist, Manuel, and the philosophical Magnina disciplining an army he fears may destroy the type of freedom he desires—these are just a few of the characters. Yet every one of these men is drawn with great acuteness, with the novelist’s amazing penetration of human psychology. Far more than any character, how- ever, one remembers the brilliantly written scenes of dramatic action, sometimes with a leading character in the foreground, sometimes crowded merely with people, sometimes enacted by a single nameless man. And out of this matrix of scenes of men facing death humorously, defiantly, with contem- 25 plation, comes the sure sense of the drama of a whole people exerting its will to change society. Malraux’s theory of fiction is that history is today our best fiction, that the novelist does better to publish his diary-like account as a novel than as journalism. Man in action is the novelist. His work is to recapture while they are enacted before his very eyes the scenes of violence, of pity, of horror, and of dignity. He is a great dramatic novelist and an economic one. No one who reads this book will forget the lone firefighter turning his hose defiantly against the guns killing him, or Hernandez waiting to be executed and watching the men ahead of him, lining up, three by three, as if to have their pictures taken by the firing squad. One will not easily get out of one’s memory the blind flyer, or the rushing death car which stopped the first attack. Yet gentler human scenes are quite as numerous. Fascists are given cigarettes by the communists; the cigarette, indeed, is a symbol, almost, of the Spanish people. The whole book is written under fire and one feels as if one were under fire while reading it. But, with Malraux, the reader is in the airplane as it sails clear of the fight into the blue rainbow-lit moonlight. Altogether, reading Man’s Hope is an experience both in understanding the Spanish Civil War and, more important, in understanding the new trend of the novel today and the scope and mass movement and clarification of action it can give in knife-like sketches of a single man’s or a group’s behavior. New York University x kk CENTERVILLE, by Paut R. HANNA, GENEVIEVE ANDER- SON and WiLL1AM S. Gray. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company. 288 pages. $0.92. N THE GREAT STREAM OF NEW BOOKS for the elementary school there appear many readers designed to help chil- dren understand the world about them. There are realistic stories of child life in the family, school, and community in most modern schoolbooks, whether they are called science, or safety, or social-studies readers. So strong is the empha- sis on realism that many children and teachers grow bored with mediocre stories of everyday life and turn with delight to fanciful tales, folklore, poetry, historical stories, and adventurous episodes. In fiction teachers and pupils find relief from the humdrum accounts of the Jones family and the day-to-day routine of stories on smug suburban life. Centerville is different, not merely because it depicts a rural community, but because that community is the dynamic organism, the chief character, and the real hero of the book. The boys and girls, the housewives and workingmen, the animals and plants, even the roads and buildings in Cen- terville are not important except in their relation to the whole community. The plot of the book is woven from problems of trade, taxation, education, and government. Thus sociology and economics and civics become meaning- ful to children of eight to twelve years in the elementary school. Unfortunately the book does not touch one of the basic relations in American life which requires special attention Epa Lou WALTON 26 today because of race antagonisms here and abroad. Cen- terville seems to be a homogeneous community with no Negro or foreign groups. A similar delimination of popu- lation characterized the excellent children’s book on a Negro community in the rural South which appeared last year and is parallel to Centerville at many points. Country Life Stories by Canon and Whiting (Dutton) is likewise a sound book on social studies, well written, beautifully illustrated, and interesting to adults as well as children. It is regret- table that both books evade the problem of mixed popula- tion, characteristic of most American communities in greater or less degree. Schoolbooks are important in the modern program, not as substitutes for teacher leadership or pupil activity, but as valuable aids to instruction and as sources of informa- tion. In recent years thoughtful teachers have been on the watch for books which are significant in content, attrac- tive in presentation, and suitable to a variety of needs in the elementary curriculum. Books which distort truth or withhold facts are avoided. Reading is on the increase in modern schools, because children actually show more power of comprehension and greater eagerness to explore books themselves for the sake of finding facts or enjoying literature. Scientific study of reading techniques has provided effective methods of teach- ing children to read. Publishers of school and trade books have issued hundreds of volumes that fit the school pro- grams and the interests of boys and girls reasonably well. The great lack is not in books at present, but in provi- sions for distribution. Schools have too few of the better books for children. Public libraries do not reach half the population of this country. Family libraries are meager or lacking. Is publishing too costly or are library budgets too small? Why teach children to read unless they may feed their hunger for books and magazines on the finest pub- lications which flow from the presses of this country an- nually? New York University BERYL PARKER nae m THE AMERICAN TEACHER The Teach ers Union in Action —_—_— ao NE OF THE MOST ENCOURAGING REPORTS this month comes from the Cam- Professor Canning in the News Letter bridge Union of University Teachers, which states that Local 431 now has W's the Union that the recent victory over a membership of 125, an increase over last year of approximately 100 members. New locals reported chartered this month by the national office are as follows: No. 605 Chester County Federation of Federal Teachers, W. Chester, Pa. No. 606 Teachers Union of Antioch Col- lege and Yellow Springs, Ohio. No. 607 Peninsula Teachers Union, Hamp- ton, Va. No. 608 Cornell Chapter, Ithaca, N. Y. No. 609 Erie County Teachers Union, Buf- falo, N. Y. No. 610 Glendale-Burbank Federation of Teachers, Burbank, Calif. No. 611 Fisk Teachers’ Association, Nash- ville, Tenn. No. 612 Kitsap County Federal Teachers Union, Bremerton, Wash. No. 613 Luzerne Township Federation of Teachers, Uniontown, Pa. No. 614 Delaware County W. P. A. Teach- ers Local, Delaware County, Pa. * BUFFALO, N. Y. (No. 377)—At the De- cember meeting the Union decided “to op- pose the retroactive application of any Fed- eral Tax upon employees of the states and their instrumentalities.” At the same meet- ing, Reuel Denney, young Buffalo poet whose work has appeared in the Nation, Poetry, and other journals, gave a reading of some of his more recent work. The proposed merger with the Industrial Teachers Union was also discussed at the December meeting. * DES MOINES, IOWA (No. 600)—Objec- tives of the newly-organized Teachers Union, according to President Verne Horty, are the “improvement of teaching conditions in Des Moines, better teacher-pupil relationship, and closer relationship between the teachers and the public.” During the coming session of the legislature, the Union hopes to sponsor a teacher tenure law and a satisfactory teach- er annuity law. Local 600 is meeting twice monthly in the West junior high school and hopes to include a majority of the Des Moines teachers within a short time. Other officers are Nathan Weeks, vice president, and Ruth Hooks, secretary. Speaking before the Des Moines Trades and Labor Assembly with which the local Union is affiliated, visiting Union member J. J. Souter (Local 511, Gary, Ind.) said: “The idea that teachers should not be members of labor unions has been outmoded. Why shouldn’t we associate with union JANUARY, 1939 labor? Do we not teach your youngsters, and who would be more interested in the affairs of the teachers and schools than the parents themselves?” Mr. Souter urged the local unions to give all possible support to the Teachers Union. * BIRMINGHAM, ALA. (No. 563)—Schools in Birmingham may close five weeks short of a full term according to an announcement made by the Board of Education. Teachers who organized the Union last spring thus find themselves faced with another financial emer- gency. After affiliating with the Birmingham Trades Council, the Union was able to secure the aid of its Committee on Education in the passing of two bond issues. Local 563 is working with the Alabama Education Asso- ciation for the passage of the following laws by the state legislature: minimum eight- month school term for the state, uniform teacher retirement plan, uniform tenure plan, and capital outlay for cities. * PALO ALTO, CALIF. (No. 442)—Three A. F. of T. members were elected to office in the California elections and only a lack of funds prevented the election of Anga Bjornson, state legislative chairman of the Union. Proposals for the legislative program include a free teacher employment office, strengthening and extending the state tenure act, and increasing sick-leave provisions. anti-labor Proposition No. 1 was narrowly achieved and that only the repudiation by the farmers of the Associated Farmers’ lead- ership made the victory possible. Employers of the state are still trying to maneuver some sort of a law which will hinder organ- ized labor. The Committee on the Duties and Eco- nomic Status of Assistants at Stanford, headed by Dr. Ernest Hilgard, reported at the last meeting of the Union. * NORTHAMPTON, MASS. (No. 230)—On December 14 the Western i.dassachusetts Teachers Federation, which includes faculty members from Amherst College, Smith Col- lege, and Mt. Holyoke College, held a supper and open membership meeting. Arnold Schu- kotoff, chairman, National Academic Free- dom Committee, spoke on “The A. F. of T.— Professional Association and Trade Union.” Professor Newton Arvin, author of the re- cently-published Whitman and president of Local 230, was toastmaster of the evening. * THE NEW JERSEY STATE FEDERA- TION OF TEACHERS—The New Jersey Teacher, a four-page tabloid-size newspaper, is being published monthly by the Teach- ers Unions of New Jersey. The December issue reports the “educational creed” of Assemblyman Samuel Ferster which he gave at a meeting sponsored by the Essex County Federation of Teachers. The same issue carries good articles on the educational ATLANTA, GA. (No. 89)—Mrs. Mary Jones Hughie, Fulton County teacher, was ordered restored to her teaching position and back salary paid as the result of a court decision in- volving the local tenure law. The Fulton County rule against married teachers was inter- preted as a violation of the tenure law. The Atlanta school budget shows a surplus of $100,000. It is expected that the surplus will be needed for the 1939 budget law because of the absence of the special tax levy for relief in which the schools shared. The thirty-third anniversary of the founding of the Atlanta Public School Teachers Asso- ciation was celebrated with a dinner on December 9 at which President Ira Jarrell, George Googe, Southern representative of the American Federation of Labor, Allie Mann, national vice president of the A. F. of T., E. S. Cook, president of the Board of Education, Superin- tendent W. A. Sutton, and Mayor William B. Hartsfield spoke. Greetings to the members of Local 89 were extended by telegram from President Jerome Davis, President William Green, Congressman Robert Ramspeck, and Jerome Jones, editor of the Atlanta Journal of Labor. George Googe stressed the importance of federal aid in his talk to the 300 teachers. “A government that can extend hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the states for highway building,” Googe declared, “certainly ought to be able to extend aid on a similar basis to the schools of America.” Miss Mann stressed the success of the Union in sponsoring legislation in the General Assembly of Georgia. The December issue of the Atlanta Teacher reprints Dean E. O. Melby’s article from the Chicago Union Teacher. 27 a A IR Ge ee / j 4 A! y issues facing the teachers of New Jersey, an analysis of the recent State Teachers Asso- ciation convention, and the latest informa- tion on the Cole-Kriser tenure case which is now before the State Supreme Court. Herbert H. Cele is president of the State Federation of Teachers. The same _ issue carries editorials against the sales tax and on the November elections, pointing out that Samuel Ferster, endorsed by Labor’s Non-Partisan League, the State Federation of Teachers, and the Newark Teachers Asso- ciation, led the Republican ticket. * SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. (No. 61)— The following rule was adopted by the local Board of Education at its meeting on Sep- tember 14, 1937, and is reprinted from the San Francisco Public Schools Bulletin of January 3, 1939: Rule No. 74c: Membership in Professional Organizations: 1. Teachers and all other employees of the Board of Education shall have complete freedom in selecting the professional organizations which they may wish to join, without coercion of any kind from any administrative officer or other school employee. 2. Whatever courtesies are extended to any teacher organization in the schools shall be fully and unreservedly extended to all teacher organizations. 3. The use of any coercion or pressure by any principal or other administrative officer or other school employee to in- fluence any teacher to join or refrain from joining any organization shall be deemed to be unprofessional conduct. 4. The Superintendent of Schools shall call attention to this rule at the beginning of each school term by means of a notice in the Superintendent’s Bulletin. The A. F. of T. essay contest was brought to the attention of the Board of Education by the Hon. Daniel C. Murphy, chairman of the education committee of the San Francisco Labor Council and member of the state Board of Education. The contest was en- dorsed by the Board of Education, high- school students were urged to participate, and a notice of the contest was printed on the front page of the Public Schools Bulletin. * MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. (No. 238)—The Minneapolis Federation of Men Teachers has submitted the following stand to the Board of Education on the proposed cuts in salaries: “that full salaries be paid for the first half of the tax year” because “the Board has reason to anticipate legisla- tive relief in the present session of the state legislature and no reduction should take place until it is definitely established that sufficient funds are not forthcoming.” 28 JOINT COUNCIL OF TEACHERS UNIONS OF ERIE COUNTY—In one of the most rousing educational meetings ever held in Buffalo, the officials of the New York Federation of Labor, the New York State Federation of Teachers, and other organizations discussed prob- lems confronting American education. The meeting, held under the Joint Council of Teachers Unions of Erie County, met on December 24 in the Statler Hotel. Assemblyman Harold B. Ehrlich urged teachers to develop a “propaganda campaign” to win the friendship of the people. “People do not understand your problems,” he said, “and it is your fault.” He pointed out that teachers must establish a program committee to bring their problems to the people. In closing, Assemblyman Ehrlich warned, “Don’t be as far removed from the people as you have been in the past.” Charles J. Hendley, national vice president, pointed out to the group that the two main enemies of federal aid to schools were budget commissions and privileged economic groups. George Sturges, secretary of the Buffalo Federation of Labor, brought a promise of cooperation and help for teachers from organized labor. He also suggested the inclusion of courses in labor history and labor problems in the curriculum. Other speakers at the meeting were Mrs. Betty Hawley, vice president of the New York State Federation of Labor, and Dr. Bella V. Dodd, legislative representative of the Teachers Unions, who gave the 12-point legislative program for the state. Under present budget estimates, cuts aver- aging 10 per cent for all Minneapolis school employees will be necessary. Officers for the coming year have been nominated by the Union and an election will be held at the coming meeting. * INDIANAPOLIS, IND. (No. 581)—Irvin R. Kuenzli, national secretary-treasurer, Carl H. Mullen, and Milo Burgess spoke at an open meeting of the Teachers Union to which all the teachers of Indianapolis were invited. The six-month-old Union is con- centrating its work on classroom health conditions and hopes to make it unlawful to build future classrooms which do not have a relative humidity of at least 40 per cent and a light index of at least 20 foot candles. * KENOSHA, WIS. (No. 557)—More than fifty Union and non-Union teachers attended the December meeting of the Board of Edu- cation which considered salary adjustments. L. R. Wolfe of the Union made a very fine opening presentation of the case which was ably supported by J. C. Chapel of the Kenosha Education Association. The Union is now listed by the Wisconsin Labor Rela- tions Board. The Union charges that the Kenosha News distorted a letter which was sent to the Board of Education dealing with the ques- tion of adjusting salaries. When the Union appealed to the newspaper for a correction, the story was run the following day with a headline, “Teachers Again Ask Increases.” Kenosha Labor, however, with its 11,000 circulation provides the Union with an avenue of publicity which counteracts the daily press. The December 16 issue carried three stories on the work of Local 557, in- cluding a front page announcement that Mrs. Roosevelt would judge the A. F. of T. prize contest. The contest announcement was also carried in the Kenews, which is published by the Kenosha high school. * BOULDER, COLO. (No. 562)—The Colo- rado Teacher, published by the University of Colorado local of the A. F. of T., lists six points which it feels should be taken into consideration in choosing a successor to President Norlin. The new president should be (1) a scholar, (2) aware of social trends, (3) liberal, (4) democratic, (5) able to in- terpret the university to the people, and (6) a leader in university policy. A special meeting of the Union was held during December at which Dr. Harold Chap- man Brown, national vice-president, spoke. A branch of the American Civil Liberties Union is being formed in Boulder, and “The People of the Cumberland,” a labor film, was shown recently at one of the churches. The Union is planning a Labor Day to be held on the campus some time this spring. A special petition calling for unity in the labor movement was sent to President Wil- liam Green recently. Also being organized on the campus is a union for library workers. * CLEVELAND, OHIO (No. 279)—Walter G. O'Donnell, social-studies teacher at John Marshall high school, has been named chair- man of the committee to study the proposal to establish a free junior college which is now before the Board of Education. Under the heading, “Cleveland Papers Close Columns to Friends of Public Schools,” The Cleveland Teacher, published by Local 279, charges that “in several cases letters friendly to the schools were not printed at all, or were blue-penciled liberally.” The article points out that even letters written by members of the Cleveland Board of Edu- cation (labor-controlled) are censored. Other interesting articles in the four-page news- paper are “An Open Letter of Congressman Martin Dies” and articles by National Vice- President M. J. Eck on the local chamber of commerce and general organization in Ohio. THE AMERICAN TEACHER On the Labor Front = LAST AUGUST THE WALD- mere Furniture Company, employing 17 men, suddenly moved from its New York shop to Allentown, Pa., without any notice to its employees. All of the workers were members of the United Furniture Workers of America, C.I.O. In Allentown, the company signed an agreement with the Upholsterers’ Internation- al Union, A. F. of L., providing for wages below the New York scale. Representatives of the C.1.0. local came from New York, and the Central Labor Union, A. F. of L., ordered an investigation. The A. F. of L. local subsequently voted to repudiate its con- tract, and on the morning following the action not a single man reported for work. In a few days operations of the plant were resumed in New York and a new con- tract was signed with the C.1.0. local, pro- viding for wage increases and a 35-hour work week. * * * INCENSED BY RECENT NAZI outrages and the threat of Fascism in America, organized labor, together with other liberal forces in America, is uniting in a boycott of Germany. Leading in the fight against Hitler are the country’s celebrities of the stage and screen, most of whom are members of the Screen Actors Guild, an A. F. of L. affiliate, the Screen Writers Guild, and the Screen Directors Guild. Recently Hollywood stars launched a nationwide drive for several million signa- tures to a Declaration of Democratic Inde- pendence, which calls upon President Roose- velt and Congress to establish a complete economic embargo against Germany. The declaration, patterned upon the document of 1776, was originally signed by 56 Holly- wood stars, the number corresponding to that of the early American signers. “Teday a new tyranny has arisen to chal- lenge democracy’s heritage,” the declaration says. “We accuse the leaders of Nazi Ger- many as a ruler was accused in 1776 of a design to reduce the world under absolute despotism.” Among the signers are Melvyn Douglas, Walter Wanger, Myrna Loy, Claudette Colbert, Groucho Marx, Joan Ben- nett, Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Don Ameche, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni, Ben Hecht, Dick Powell, and Harry M. Warner. Other supporters included Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Sidney, Frances Farmer, Dashiell Hammett, and Jules Gar- field. Another cinema star, Charlie Chaplin, was one of the central figures in Hitler’s recent outburst against Secretary Ickes. The Nazis fabricated the story that Ickes was JANUARY, 1939 backing Chaplin in the production of a film called “The Dictator,” which they contended was a direct affront to Hitler. Chaplin denied the charge and announced that his studio was proceeding with plans for the new film, a film which he says will deal with “the efforts of an oppressed people to express themselves while throttled under the heel of dictatorship.” Chaplin’s films are already banned in Italy and Germany. Boycotting of German goods as a means of ending Nazi violence was urged by Robert Brady, vice presi- dent of Consumers Union. Brady, associate professor of economics at the University of California, warned consumers that “parades and the written word help, but the sinews of war are economic, and every dol- lar, every penny spent on German- made goods is a ‘ja’ vote for the Nazis.” Others who support the boycott program include William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor; Louis Mer- rill, president of the United Office and Pro- fessional Workers of America, C.1.0.; Donald Ogden Stewart, scenario writer; and Gov. Culbert L. Olson of California. At a dinner given to launch the Leon Blum colony of 1,000 Jewish refugees in Palestine, William Green put organized labor squarely in the front ranks of those who are protesting in every way possible against persecutions in Germany. In a move to aid German refugees, 30,000 New York mem- bers of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, C.I.0., voted to donate a day’s pay for persecuted Catholics, Jews, and Protestants. The contribution is expected to total $250,000. The position of the Nazis and Fascists toward science was denounced in a manifesto issued by 1,300 scientists meeting in New York City, who called on their colleagues everywhere to defend the principle that “de- mocracy alone can conserve intellectual free- dom.” The manifesto was issued by a committee headed by Pro- fessor Franz Boas, professor emeritus of Co- lumbia Univer- sity, a member of the American Federation of Teachers, at the annual conven- tion of the American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science. The noted anthropologist is a former president of the Association. i - WITH A LIBERAL GOVERNOR in office in California, leadership for a united labor movement is coming from A. F. of L., C.1.0., and independent locals in many cities. Already labor unity councils have been formed in Stockton and Sacramento, while one is underway in Santa Maria. Elsewhere in the country, as in Arkansas and Colorado, organized labor is moving to- ward a united front. In Can- ada, too, un- ions are fight- ing for peace. In Stockton fifty locals, representing the A. F. of L., C.1.O., and the Railroad Brotherhood, formed the San Joaquin United Labor Council. The Council set up a three-point program calling for immediate action, pro- viding for a resolution calling on President Roosevelt to appoint a fact-finding board to bring about national labor unity; declared unqualified opposition to all anti-labor legis- lation; and took steps to bring all locals in the county into the Council. More than 200 representatives of all branches of unionism, including the Workers Alliance, met in Sacramento, the capital city, and organized the Sacramento District Labor Unity Council. Speakers at the meeting pointed out that the recent attempt to destroy the organized labor movement in California by the intro- duction of an anti-union proposition during the November elections had taught unions the need for peace and unity. Said Ray T. Coughlin, Sacramento city councilman and guest speaker, “You have an opportunity in this state to be the first to come forth with a united effort in which the rest of the state and the nation as a whole will ultimately join. Here in California a million dollars was spent in an effort to divide labor, but here labor united in the face of such opposition and came out victori- ous.” In Colorado, the Pueblo Trades and Labor Assembly went on record with a resolution calling for harmony in the labor movement. Presenting a solid front, farmers and union- ists in Arkansas set up a Farm-Labor Council on New Year’s Day, representing 25,000 members of the A. F. of L., C.1.0., railroad 29 ee unions, the Arkansas Farmers’ Union, and the Arkansas Grange. The Council drafted a state and national legislative program, designed to benefit farm- ers and industrial workers; chose a legislative committee to carry on contact work with the state legislature; and elected a permanent AS THE NLRB SEES IT “A unified labor movement would be in a stronger position to enjoy the rights protected by the National Labor Rela- tions Act, and the Board is therefore gratified to note that there are signs that before another year has passed disunity in the American labor movement may be a thing of the past.” Excerpt from the third annual report, National Labor Relations Board. ten-member executive committee. The Coun- cil also affirmed its objections to any changes in the Wagner Act and endorsed the national wage-and-hour law. Organized labor in Canada, through the Canadian Trades and Labor Congress, re- affirmed its position in a statement by Vice President D. W. Morrison. The Congress, he said, would continue to represent all branches of labor. The Congress recently opposed any action to divide the labor move- ment in Canada. Se @ AMERICAN WORKING PEOPLE are not receiving adequate medical care, A. F. of L. President William Green de- clared in an address before the National Health Conference held in Washington, D. C. Good medical care is a luxury, he said, far beyond the ability of the 87 per cent of families with incomes under $3,000 to ob- taiz, while families with incomes below $1,000 must rely upon public service to safe- guard their health. President Green advo- cated increased activities of the U. S. Public Health Service, more hospitals, especially for maternal and juvenile care, and an en- largement of workmen’s compensation to include compensation to workers’ families for time lost. Citing figures of the National Health Survey by the U. S. Public Health Service, Green said that ap- proximately six million persons are unable to work each day because of illness, resulting in a financial loss of approximately one billion dollars annually. In an attempt to improve the health level of the country, especially among workers in the lower economic brackets, progressive phy- sicians continue their campaign for the estab- lishment of group medicine. A test case now before the federal courts, involving the Group Health Association, a health co-operative of government employees in Washington, D. C., may determine the fate of organized medicine 30 in America. In the case the United States Government charges the District Medical So- ciety and the American Medical Association with violation of the anti-trust laws. Since the establishment of the Group Health Asso- ciation, capital doctors on the staff have been barred from the use of local hospitals, through pressure by the A.M.A. A statement by the department of justice issued in connection with the case says in part: “In spite of great technical proficiency, the medical profession has not been success- ful in furnishing adequate medical care to all the American people at a cost they can afford to pay. “Forty million persons with incomes less than $800 cannot pay the costs of necessary medical care and do not receive it when they need it. Half the present deaths of mothers in childbirth and of infants in the first month of life are preventable if they had proper pre-natal care and medical attention at delivery. The infant mortality in families of less than $500 a year income is five times greater than in families with incomes of $3,000 or more. “Cooperative health associations are primarily aimed to help families not on relief. Theirs is the most pressing medical problem today be- cause they have no public funds and will not go on charity.” Backed by 800 leading physicians of the country, many of them members of the A.M.A., President Roosevelt’s $50,000,000 health program is expected to be presented to Congress at its current session. The pro- gram was outlined by the National Health Conference called last summer by Josephine Roche, head of the U. S. Public Health Service. * * * LABOR’S DRIVE IN THE 1938-39 war on infantile paralysis is expected to set a new high record, according to Chester M. Wright, director of labor organizations for the campaign. Labor’s goal this year has been set at $100,000. The drive is sponsored annually by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which is headed by President Roosevelt. Pointing out the need for supporting the drive, Chairman Wright said that paralysis strikes in the homes of workers more than 90 per cent of the time. * * * LABOR AND AGRICULTURE, BY joining forces, can defeat any attempt of Fascist encroachment in America, M. W. Thatcher, manager of the Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association, recently told a militant group of 1,500 delegates at the annual convention of the North Dakota Farmers Union. “The fate of Czechoslovakia should serve as a warning to every country where the principles of democracy and the philosophy of cooperation are held dear,” he said. “We believe we must build more rapidly and more firmly an educational system that will safeguard democracy and its practical ap- plication. “Agricultural income based upon a fair exchange price for agricultural products is a prerequisite to the reorganization of in- dustry and the reemployment of labor at fair wages. Fair wages to labor represent a great market for agricultural products. Agriculture can cooperate with organized labor only upon a reciprocal basis of in- terest.” ** * MORE THAN FOUR MILLION persons are sharing in the distribution of winter clothing by the Works Progress Ad- ministration as a result of the $15,750,000 purchase of manufacturers’ excess inventories. Already more than a million coats, suits and dresses have been distributed to destitute families, and additional shipments are being made from central warehouses in New York and Chicago at the rate of 100,000 garments per day. Distribution is being made in co- operation with state and local welfare bodies. All of the garments are new and have been thoroughly inspected for quality by expert clothing handlers. Total purchases included 3,385,000 units of men’s and boys’ wear, and 3,165,000 units of women’s and children’s wear. * * * THE PIONEER TOBACCO Workers Industrial Union, C. I. O., has placed the products of the P. Lorillard Company on their “unfair to l*bor” list. Because of the company’s refusal to bar- gain collectively with the union, members of the local have been conducting a strike against the Middletown, Ohio, plant since last October. Before that time the Labor Board had officially certified the union as the collective bargaining representative for the workers in the plant. During the strike, executives of the company in New York succeeded in getting Gov. Martin L. NLRB RECORD The third annual report of the NLRB showed that in 41 of the 12,632 cases handled during the past fiscal year there was substantial disagreement on the appropriate bargaining unit. Of the 41 cases, 21 were decided by adopt- ing the A. F. of L. contention and 16 were decided in favor of the C.I.O. In 4 cases the contentions of both groups were accepted in part. Davey to send out state militia in an ef- fort to smash the strikers’ picket lines around the plant. Products of the Lorillard Company in- clude Old Gold and Sensation cigarettes; Briggs, Union Leader, and Ripple smok- ing tobaccos; Beechnut, Bagpipe, and Havana Blossom chewing tobaccos, and Muriel and Rock Ford cigars. THE AMERICAN TEACHER a —_— AF ' ~ ~~ VU ‘ — + THE CONTRIBUTORS Etmer A. Benson is former governor of Minnesota and a member of the Farmer-Labor party there. WM E. Butt is chairman of the People’s Culture Committee of the Madison Local 223. Epwin Berry Burcum is president of Local 537, the New York College Teachers Union. JeroME Davis is president of the American Federation of Teachers. Nep H. Dearsorn is dean of the Division of General Education of New York University. Pur F. La FoLtette is former governor of Wisconsin. Tuomas MANN is a member of the Department of Humanities at Princeton University and author of The Coming Victory of Democracy. LAWRENCE MartTIN is a member of Local 460 and teaches in the School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Beryt PARKER is associate professor of education at New York University. Leon H. Ransom is a member of the law faculty at Howard University and of the legal staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Max SeHAM is an M.D. and a member of Local 444, the Minnesota Federation of College Teachers. GeorGE SELDEs is author of You Can’t Do That and, more recently, Lords of the Press. I. Kerra TyLer is chairman of the national Radio Committee of the American Federation of Teachers and a member of Local 438, Columbus, Ohio. Jerry Vooruis is a member of the American Federation of Teachers and has just been reelected congressman from California. Epa Lou WALTON is a member of the English Department at New York University. In order that the AMERICAN TEACHER may serve aS a medium for the discussion of the educational problems of today, the contributors are not necessarily expressing the policies of the American Federation of Teachers. The AMERICAN TEACHER Official Organ of THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 506 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Illinois Orgenized April 15, 1916 Affiliated with The American Federation of Labor Editor, Georce T. GUERNSEY Consulting Editor, Kermit Esy Editorial Board Mercepes L. NELSON Irvin R. KUENZII Mary J. Herrick Grorce E. AXTELLE Secretary-Treasurer Irvin R. KUENZLI President Jerome Davis Vice-Presidents Mary J. Herrick Liza A. HUNTER Atte B. MANN Mercepes L. NeELson Paut W. PREISLER Jorxt SEMAN Stanton E. SmitTs Doxry A. WILKERSON Grorcre E. AXTELLE Harotp CHAPMAN BRowN Joun D. Connors Micnagt J. Ecx ARTHUR ELDER Mrs. Mary Fotey GrossMAN C. J. Henpiry WHAT EVERY WELL INFORMED TEACHER SHOULD KNOW The How and Why of the A. F. of T. The following publications answer in convenient form questions concerning the aims and organization of the American Federation of Teachers. They are well suited for distribution to prospective members. Samples will be sent on request. 2. Six Major Purposes —_— @—— . Information about the A. F. T. 25c per hundred 25c per hundred 3. Can Teachers Unions Be Called Out On Strike? 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. -. Questions and Answers . The Historical Setting of the A. F. T. 25c per hundred . Why I Am a Member of the Teachers Union 35c per hundred . Six Reasons for Joining the A. F. T. (Jerome Davis) 25c per hundred 35c per hundred (Ruth Gillette Hardy) 35c per hundred . Why I Am Glad to Be a Member of the A. F. T. (Goodwin Watson) 35c per hundred . The Constitution of the A. F. T. (Correct as of Oct. 1, 1937) 2.00 per hundred A Program of Action for Classroom Teachers $2.00 per hundred A Critical Evaluation of the A. F. T. (Aileen W. Robinson) 5Oc per copy Accomplishments of the A. F. T. 60c per hundred Teachers Should Organize (Frank Baker) A Golden Opportunity (Irvin R. Kuenzli) $2.00 per hundred Facts $2.00 per hundred Organized Labor and the Public Schools (Irvin R. Kuenzli) 75c per hundred $2.00 per hundred Power—Participation and Union Organization (Elmer A. Benson) 50c per hundred A Challenge to Class-Room Teachers (Blotter) $1.00 per hundred The National Union of Teachers of England (Elsie V. Parker) $1.00 per hundred —— ORDER BY NUMBER FROM AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 506 SOUTH WABASH AVENUE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JANUARY, 1939 31 ‘i 4h a a LEGISLATIVE ACTION FOR JANUARY FEDERAL AID All locals are urged through their Legislative Committees to carry out all or as many as possible of the following plans for the month of January: 1. Lo a Study the new bill, copies of which will be sent you as soon as Congress convenes. Discuss it in your committee and at your mem- bership meetings. Send out literature to all your members on Federal Aid. Present the bill to your Central Labor Union for approval and ask for permission to send speakers on the bill to the various affiliated unions. Whatever speeches you make to local union groups, or to parent groups, make mention of the Federal Aid Bill and, if possible, get their approval. Report to the National Legislative Representative, Mrs. Mary Foley Grossman, 2302 Delancey Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, all reso- lutions adopted or actions taken on behalf of the bill. There will be additional plans for further action for February so that we urge you to center on the points above for this month. STATE LEGISLATION We urge you to center on the matter of tenure legislation for the coming year. There are two reasons for this action: he The trend toward adoption of tenure legislation throughout the country, which makes for favorable opportunities this year. The rising threat to job security and particularly to women teachers, both married and single. Your National Legislative Representative has received many alarming communications from various states in- dicating this trend. On the matter of married women teachers, I quote from a letter received from President William Green of the American Federation of Labor: “To my mind nothing would be more unjust or undesirable than to follow a fixed policy of discrim- ination against employment of women based upon marital status. In the appointment of teachers decisions should be based upon per- sonal fitness for the job and other considerations secondary.” Salary schedules and certification laws are also important for con- sideration. Mary FoLey GrossMAN National Legislative Representative Bl