A PRAYER FOR FREEDOM
There is an election of the school board in Los Angeles every two years.
The Black Hand laid their plans to elect a complete board in the spring
of 1923; they went at the job in grim earnest, sparing neither trouble
nor expense, and the story of what they did reads like a chapter from a
muckraking novel.
The ruling group held a series of meetings: Harry Chandler of the
“Times”; “Eddie” Dickson of the “Express,” evening newspaper of the
Black Hand; Captain Fredericks, congressman-elect of the Black Hand;
Harry Haldeman, president of the Better America Federation; E. P. Clark,
proprietor of one of our biggest hotels, and principal financial backer
of the Better America Federation—these and half a dozen others
constituted themselves “the Committee of One Thousand” for the purpose
of electing a “citizens’ ticket” of seven members for the school board.
A little later they decided to expand into “the Committee of Ten
Thousand”—this in spite of the fact that at no one of their meetings
were they able to collect more than thirty-seven people!
Their ticket comprised an assortment of hard-boiled reactionaries. At
the top of the list stood Jerry Muma, their most active representative
on the previous board. Mr. Muma runs a big insurance business; and just
as the campaign was getting under way there was made public the
affidavit of a prominent architect in the city, to the effect that Mr.
F. O. Bristol, agent for Muma and likewise a candidate for the school
board, had come to the architect soliciting insurance, and pointing out
that Jerry Muma, as head of the building committee of the school board,
controlled much valuable business of an architectural nature. “Mr. Muma
believes in reciprocity,” said Mr. Bristol, significantly. This
affidavit caused the Black Hand to take Jerry Muma from the head of its
ticket; but they left Mr. Bristol!
Also they left on their ticket Mr. Frederick Feitshans, president of the
Los Angeles Desk Company, in spite of the fact that this gentleman
admitted to a committee of the teachers that he was at present selling
many thousands of dollars’ worth of furniture to the schools of Los
Angeles, and that while under the law he could not sell it to the
schools after he became a member of the board, there was nothing to
prevent his selling it to an agent, and this agent selling it to the
schools. As reward for Mr. Feitshans’ refinement of sensibility, the
gang members of the old board did their best to jam through a contract
with the Los Angeles Desk Company for seventeen thousand dollars’ worth
of furniture before the new board came in!
Also, there was Mrs. Lucia Macbeth, wife of the vice-president and
general manager of our biggest cement company—and this with fourteen
million dollars’ worth of new buildings to be handled by the new board!
A terrible discovery concerning Mrs. Macbeth came out during the
campaign: she smoked cigarettes! She admitted this to a committee of
clergymen who visited her, but promised that if she were elected to the
board she would give up smoking; and naturally the church people of Los
Angeles could not lose such an opportunity to bring a lost sheep into
the fold.
Also, there was Mr. Odell, a lawyer, one of the members of the old
board, who had voted “right,” and who, as a Mason, brought many votes; a
retired hay and grain merchant, who stated naively to the committee of
teachers that he was tired of playing golf and wanted something to do;
the wife of a real estate and insurance man; and another lawyer, who
represented the bond house of Mr. Babcock, the gentleman who was
selected by Captain Fredericks as campaign manager to put this
reactionary school ticket into office. Mr. Babcock’s firm got the
handling of several millions of the school bonds; and this firm sends
out literature, signed by Mr. Babcock, attacking government ownership,
and advising the public to put its money into private enterprises. So
you see how Big Business and the schools tie up! On this board almost
every kind of interest which preys on the school system was boldly
represented; and to elect it every power the Black Hand could wield,
both inside and outside the system, was wielded, and every slander that
could be whispered concerning the opposition was spread upon the front
page of the “Times.”
“No politics in the schools!” runs the formula; which means, quite
simply, that no one must oppose the Black Hand. The rumor was spread
that the “teachers’ board” was pledged to oust Mrs. Dorsey; and so for
every teacher the issue was one of “loyalty to the chief.” Many were
intimidated—I know one teacher who was told by her principal that if she
gave out literature for the “teachers’ ticket” she would be summoned
before the grand jury! Others were bought with promises of promotion—the
system is honeycombed with intrigue of that sort. The principals’ clubs
went boldly into politics, cheered on by the “Times” and the “Express.”
One school director, a pet of Mrs. Dorsey, used the school time and the
school’s long distance telephone for a whole day calling the Masons in
the school system to a meeting at which they were told how to vote.
I have before me a letter from a school principal telling me how a
certain political woman came to him, offering him, in exchange for his
support in the gang, a written promise of a high school principalship.
This offer was turned down and the principal wrote his wife, who owns a
dairy: “Keep the cows. We may need them.”
In apologizing for telling so much about the harbor strike, I promised
to prove that the same men who smashed this strike were running the
school system of Los Angeles, and smashing the teachers. Now comes the
proof. As it happened, the campaign for the election of the school board
was going on all through the harbor strike and the formation of our
Civil Liberties Union; and among the few who came forward to stand for
this union was the Reverend G. Bromley Oxnam, pastor of the Church of
All Nations, and candidate for the school board on the “teachers’
ticket.” At our first mass meeting of protest, held in Los Angeles three
days after the release of Hopkins, Hardyman, Kimbrough and myself, Mr.
Oxnam was asked to lead the singing of “America” and to open the
proceedings with a prayer. This he did; and so all the fury of the enemy
was turned upon him. The kept preachers of the Black Hand denounced him
from their pulpits, and also before the Ministerial Union, and before
the City Club. Nothing more was needed to defeat a candidate for the
school board than to associate him with Upton Sinclair, notorious
Socialist and muckraker. Day after day the “Times” pounded upon this
theme, both in editorials and in news. The Better America Federation
circulated alleged stenographic transcripts of speeches by Mr. Oxnam,
which “transcripts” were made up in their own offices, and were the
opposite of Mr. Oxnam’s beliefs.
Understand, Mr. Oxnam was not the head of this ticket; he was only one
of seven. But from the day he stood upon the Civil Liberties platform,
the ticket became the “Oxnam ticket,” and his candidacy was an effort of
Upton Sinclair and the “soviets” to take possession of the schools. All
the minor organizations of the Black Hand, the business clubs, the
women’s organizations, the little educational bosses—all these adopted
resolutions denouncing the conspiracy to turn the schools of the city
over to the “Reds.” There is very good reason to believe that the
praying of a prayer for the Constitution of the United States not merely
cost Mr. Oxnam his election to the school board, but cost his associates
their election as well. So, at the risk of making my story too long, I
print the prayer that Mr. Oxnam prayed, and that a stenographer took
down for his protection:
Our Father, we lift our voices to Thee in Thanksgiving. We are
thankful that Thou hast created us thinking beings. We are thankful
that we are not mere automatons, but that Thou hast given to us
freedom of choice, and that in large measure our own destiny and that
of our brothers lies in our own hands. We pray Thee, that just as Thou
hast granted to us the right to think and to speak, so too we may
grant to our citizens the right to think and to speak, to the end that
that glorious day may come at last when all men share the abundant
life Jesus of Nazareth died to bring to men.
Give to us, we pray, the spirit of tolerance. May we be willing to
listen to our brother with whom we disagree. But O God, as we pray for
tolerance, we pray too that we may be men of conviction. Give to us an
open mind, but give us also the strength to stand for our convictions
even if it take a Calvary Cross to win them. May we never bow the knee
before insolent might. Help us to be tender and just, loving and
righteous, never turning aside from the needy. Give to us that virtue
that was Christ’s—forgiveness. May we even love those who despitefully
use us. Keep before us ever the example of the One who was despised
and rejected of men, yet who could pray forgiveness for those who
crucified him.
We thank Thee for America, her traditions, her history, her place in
the world. We thank Thee for our forefathers who won for us the
liberties we so easily inherit. Give to us their spirit. Fire us with
the desire to bring to men the ideals for which they died. Give us
Life, give us Liberty, give us Happiness. Give us the strength to
stand for Life, and Liberty, and Happiness. We thank Thee for the
Constitution of our Republic. We thank Thee that the people united to
establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility, and promote the
general welfare. May we stand worthy of them today. Give to us the
courage today to stand as Americans insisting upon the maintenance of
those principles upon which our Republic was founded.
In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.