THE PRICE OF INDEPENDENCE
There has existed for the past twenty years inside the school system a
secret oath-bound society of the school men known as the “Owls,” whose
members pledged themselves to consider first the interests of this
group. They served the Southern Pacific Railroad in the old days when
this machine ran the state; they now serve the Santa Fé Railroad and the
Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association and the Chamber of Commerce
and the Better America Federation, and the other organizations of the
Black Hand. For twenty years the system had one man, an assistant
superintendent named Lickley, who declined to join this society. He had
also refused to make the various anti-social pledges which the Better
America Federation has required of every candidate for the school board
and of every school official. In the 1921 election Mrs. Dorsey pleaded
with Dr. Lickley, advising him “as a mother” not to support the
“teachers’ ticket.” He supported it; and so in the interests of
“harmony” it was necessary that he be driven out of the system. The
intrigue against him came to a head during the election campaign, and
became an issue in this campaign.
In telling the story, I have to devote two paragraphs to some Los
Angeles school principals. I apologize for taking up your time with
people you never heard of before, and will never want to hear of again.
But you will find, as we go on, that the school system of America is one
system; when you read about school principals in Los Angeles, you will
be learning about school principals in every other big American city.
Also, I would suggest that if men are important enough to be put in
charge of your children, they ought to be important enough for you to
know about.
In the course of Dr. Lickley’s duties it became necessary for him to
consider charges against a principal by the name of Doyle. Seven
witnesses made affidavit that this principal had kept liquor in the
school building, contrary to law; that he had offered them this liquor,
and that his habits were generally known to the students, and were a
cause of demoralization in the school. It was testified that this liquor
had been brought to Doyle by Italian boys, whose parents were making it,
and that these boys had thus obtained immunity from school duties and
from punishment. It was also testified that he had knocked down David
Rutberg, a fourteen-year-old Jewish boy, by striking him in the eye. It
was further charged that Doyle, while principal of an evening school,
took other teachers away from their classes and spent the time with them
gambling in the basement. For this and other reasons Dr. Lickley
recommended Doyle for dismissal. We may complete this part of the story
by stating that Mrs. Dorsey and her school board have blocked every
effort for a hearing of these charges. Doyle is still in the system, and
the board has jumped him over two entire divisions, and elected him
principal of one of the biggest schools in the city. When this caused a
scandal, the men who had made the charges against Doyle were summoned to
the superintendent’s office, and efforts were made to browbeat them into
withdrawing their sworn statements.
Immediately after Dr. Lickley’s action in the Doyle case, charges of
insubordination and disloyalty to the system were preferred against Dr.
Lickley by Doyle and others. I will list these others: first, a man
named Lacy, whom Dr. Lickley had dropped from the principalship of a
school upon the charge that he had come to school in a state of
intoxication, that he was unable to perform his duties, and that he had
misappropriated the funds of the Schoolmasters’ Club. Next, one
Cronkite, who, according to Dr. Lickley, was demoted from the position
of supervisor, because of “incompetence, laziness and objectionable
conduct to other members of the department.” Next, a principal named
McKnight, who, according to Dr. Lickley, left the principalship of one
school because of “serious and reprehensible misconduct.” Next, one
Dunlap, who was charged by Dr. Lickley with having stolen public
property; also with having carried on a private business as insurance
agent in school and in the board of education offices, urging the
employes under his supervision “to buy insurance, oil stocks,
automobiles, real estate, etc.” Another man, I am told, had been
disciplined by his Masonic brothers for taking a woman upstate with him.
Another was turned out of a night school because the young women
teachers would not stand his conduct toward them; he was put in charge
of the jail night school—it being apparently assumed that such pupils
would not be troubled by his morals. During the campaign the men under
charges were in conference with Mrs. Dorsey, enjoying her confidence and
carrying out her plans. I want to make clear my own position as regards
the matter: I do not say that these charges are true; I say that they
have been published by responsible persons, and that neither Mrs. Dorsey
nor her school board have cared enough about the good name of the
schools to answer the charges or bring the men to trial.
Mr. Herbert Clark, recently promoted by Mrs. Dorsey, came to Mr.
Bettinger with a proposition: they had “got the goods” on Lickley; they
wanted to take him out and put in one of their own gang; they would let
him stay as an assistant, but with minor duties; and if Mr. Bettinger
would consent to this program, they would make him the next
superintendent of schools in Los Angeles. Mr. Bettinger refused, and
then the gang took the charges before the Municipal League, which asked
to have them in writing, and to have them sworn to; but instead of doing
this, the gang induced a poor old lady to bring the charges before the
county board of education, asking that Dr. Lickley’s license as a
teacher be revoked. The old lady had understood that the charges would
be secret—but whiff! they were spread out in the “Times”!
This county board was a gang affair—two of them members of the “Owls,”
one of them the brother of an old Southern Pacific Railroad henchman,
who ran the recent Water Power campaign for the Black Hand. A third
member was the father of Lacy, one of Dr. Lickley’s accusers! In the
course of the election campaign, this accuser went to a meeting of the
Los Angeles City Teachers’ Club, and started to speak. His right to
speak was challenged, because he was not a member; whereupon he paid his
fee, received his membership card, and made his speech. It proved to be
a series of false statements concerning Dr. Oxnam—that Oxnam had been in
jail recently, and that he had been barred from speaking in the city of
Long Beach. Some of the teachers objected, and succeeded in silencing
Lacy, until Oxnam could appear to answer the charges. Oxnam wrote,
demanding that Lacy produce his evidence, and challenging Lacy to appear
at the next meeting of the teachers. Lacy declined to appear, whereupon
the Teachers’ Club expelled him.
There were two sets of charges against Dr. Lickley, one set of which
they published, and the other of which they whispered. They had been
shadowing him with detectives for years; they had followed him on train
journeys and steamer trips, and wherever he drove in his automobile.
Sometimes there were as many as four people devoting their attention to
him; one of these men got drunk and admitted that he was shadowing Dr.
Lickley for the gang. They were trying to get what they call a “woman
story” on him; as we go from city to city you will find this such a
common device of the Black Hand that you will learn to take it for
granted.
The Lickley stories served their purpose—of helping to beat the
“teachers’ ticket.” The candidates of the gang were elected without
exception, and Dr. Oxnam came out next to the bottom of the poll. The
charges against Dr. Lickley were dismissed, on motion of the attorney
for the opposition; whereupon Superintendent Dorsey informed Dr. Lickley
that if he still stayed in the system she would put him in a solitary
room in the Grand Avenue School, with curtailed duties, without a
stenographer, and without even a telephone. It happens that Dr. Lickley
is a lawyer, and can earn far more at his profession than he was getting
in the school system. He had before him a long and nasty fight, with the
cards stacked against him. He tendered his resignation, which the new
board accepted.
Some maintain that he should have stayed and fought it out. Suffice it
to say that one of the factors upon which the Black Hand counts, when it
puts its scandal bureau to work, is the probability that men of
refinement will choose to go their own way as private citizens, in
preference to having slanders about them published in the newspapers. If
you take that to mean that Dr. Lickley was guilty and ran away, all I
can answer is what Mr. Bettinger tells me; that he rented a room in the
upper part of his home to a typist, who, hearing him speak of Dr.
Lickley, remarked: “Why, I typed all the reports of the people who
investigated his life; he didn’t do anything wrong.”