LIES FOR CHILDREN
Needless to say, those who run this school machine for the Black Hand
are vigilant to keep modern ideas from the children. They excluded the
“Nation” and the “New Republic” from the high school libraries shortly
after the war; and they have recently refused to rescind this action.
There was a debate on the subject before the Friday Morning Club, a
ladies’ organization, and Mrs. Chester C. Ashley, ex-member of the board
of education, waved before the eyes of the horrified ladies the current
issue of the “Nation,” June 6, 1923: let them inspect the cover and see
what poison was prepared for the minds of their children:
UPTON SINCLAIR DEFENDS THE LAW
HIS LETTER TO THE LAW-BREAKING CHIEF OF POLICE OF LOS ANGELES
The Better America Federation picked out as its text-book of patriotism
for the schools a work called “Vanishing Landmarks” by Leslie Shaw,
ex-secretary of the treasury, a comical old Tory who glorifies the
Constitution as a bulwark of special privilege. “Only Socialists, near
Socialists, and Bolsheviki clamor for democracy,” declares Mr. Shaw; and
he says it is wise for representatives of capital to be permitted to
organize, and the only danger begins when federations of unions are
formed. Incidentally he denounces, as part of the revolutionary program,
the woman’s suffrage amendment! The Better America Federation spent
twenty thousand dollars to put a copy of this book into the hands of
every school teacher; they wanted it adopted as a text-book in all
elementary schools—and this in a state where the women have had the
ballot for twelve years! As one teacher remarked to me, the slogan,
“Votes for Women,” is to be changed to “Lies for Children”!
For the Pilgrim Tri-Centennial the Better America Federation prepared a
beautiful text-book for the schools, full of reactionary propaganda;
this they gave away, and they had a list of eloquent orators, also to be
given away. Then they produced a text-book “Back to the Republic,” by
Harry Atwood, denouncing the initiative and referendum as treason to our
forefathers. The publishers announce this as “The Outstanding Book of
the Age,” and it was distributed to every teacher. Let me quote you a
few of its theses: “Promiscuity, or free-love, is to the domestic world
what democracy is to government.... What gluttony is to the individual,
democracy is to government.... What drunkenness is to the individual,
democracy is to government.... What discord is to music, democracy is to
government.... What insanity is to thought, democracy is to government,”
etc., etc. And understand, this in a _text-book_! Teachers were expected
to compel little children to learn this by heart, and to recite it!
Next came “The Citadel of Freedom,” by Randolph Leigh, a product of
Nicholas Murray Butler’s educational machine. It was written as a
Columbia doctor’s thesis, and is a panegyric of the Constitution, in
which every reactionary influence in our history is glorified, and every
popular influence sneered at. I have read the galley proofs of this
book, as submitted to the school board of Los Angeles, and they bear at
the top the tell-tale label, “TIMES.” Mr. Leigh appeared personally
before the board of education, offering to put a copy of this book into
the hands of every student orator. He was backed by a committee,
including Chandler of the “Times” and Haldeman of the Better America
Federation, who offered a prize of fifteen hundred dollars, or “a de
luxe summer tour of the Mediterranean country,” for the best oration by
any high school student using this book and its references as source
material. A liberal representative on the school board objected, saying
that the students should have an opportunity to hear both sides. Mr.
Leigh said that he had done all the research work. The board member
answered: “Our students are trained to do their own research work.” And
Mrs. Dorsey sat there and did not say one word in defense of her school
system!
Reactionary teachers are appointed for the express purpose of repressing
originality and independence in the students. What are their standards
and ideals was charmingly revealed by one of them who was discussing a
certain pupil with a friend of mine. This pupil was a “leader,” said the
teacher; “I know she’s a good leader—you give her something to do and
she’ll do it beautifully.” The consequences of such training are seen in
the so-called “Ephebian Society,” an organization formed to interest the
high school alumni in public service. The choicest of the high school
graduates are picked out each year, and this is a great honor—while you
are graduating. After that you discover it to be a farce; because the
members of the society meet and the authorities in control forbid them
to take up any vital subject whatever. The Ephebians meet in the rooms
of the board of education, and are permitted to spend their time raising
money for the Travelers’ Aid Society, or superintending the Newsboys’
Christmas Dinner! I talked with this year’s president of the society,
Lee Payne; they will never get him again, he said.
This same young man told me of his experiences when he was selected to
deliver the valedictory of his class. He asked to have a liberal teacher
as his guide, but was compelled to have a reactionary teacher. She
assigned to him a commonplace theme, and he rejected it, and wrote on
the subject of “Labor’s Right to a Share in Industry.” When he brought
in his address, the teacher refused to let him deliver it; it was “too
Bolsheviki,” she said, and told him that when he went into a garden he
must see the beautiful red roses, and not the thorns. She practically
rewrote the address for the student, and he took it off and wrote it
again. The controversy continued up to a day or two before commencement,
when the boy finally had to deliver an address which did not represent
his own convictions.
I have mentioned favoritism among the principals and teachers; needless
to say, also, that children who come from poor homes, and especially the
children of foreigners, are slighted. A boy came to see me, Clarence
Alpert by name, a sensitive lad, conscientious and idealistic; with
tears in his eyes he told me how he had been turned out of Lincoln High
School by the principal, Miss Andrus. I was familiar with the name of
this lady. In an address to the school assembly she had referred to
“that notorious disloyalist and traitor, Upton Sinclair.” I wrote a
letter to the lady in which I mentioned my support of the war—you may
find it in “The Brass Check,” pages 205-7. I served notice upon her that
she would make a retraction of her statements or face a libel suit, and
she preferred the former alternative.
The boy whom she had now expelled had refused to salute the flag. He was
a Socialist, and believed that the flag stood for capitalism. Miss
Andrus sent for him, and stormed at him; he was a Russian Jew, and she
knew his kind from her experience at Hull House. They were dirty, rotten
scoundrels; they were people with no ideals and no country; they were
cheap material, who could not be made into good citizens and were not
entitled to an education. Miss Andrus tried her best to get young Alpert
to name some of the teachers who had encouraged him in his ideas; the
boy was threatened with immediate dismissal if he refused to name them,
but in spite of the fact that he had “no ideals,” he stood firm! Finally
he was given three days in which to make up his mind and salute the
flag.
Then—so the boy explained to me—one of his teachers labored with him,
explaining to him that he was under a misapprehension about the flag. To
be sure it was used by capitalism at the present time, but that was only
because it had been stolen; in reality the flag stood for the highest
ideals ever conceived by mankind, and it was our business to preserve it
for those ideals, and to take it away from the exploiters and rascals.
Alpert agreed to that, and went back to Miss Andrus and told her that he
had realized his mistake, and that he was now ready to salute the flag
as she required. But she declared that he was a hypocrite and a coward,
and should not stay in the school. I went to a friend of mine, a wealthy
man who happens to be a liberal. He called up a member of the school
board, who went to see Miss Andrus; so in two or three days the boy was
restored to school, from which he has since been graduated.
The schools are starting in this fall with what they call “codified
patriotism”; a whole outfit of flummery contrived by the American Legion
and the professional hundred percenters. The flag must be exactly at the
top of the staff, and you must raise it briskly, and lower it slowly and
reverently; you must raise your hat with your right hand, and women must
put their right hand over the heart. The legislature has passed a bill,
requiring that American history shall be taught “from the American
viewpoint”; no longer is it to be taught from the viewpoint of truth!
The children are to learn that Alexander Hamilton was a good American,
but the soft pedal will be put on Thomas Jefferson. They will not be
taught that the Mexican War was a disgraceful foray of greed, and that
Abraham Lincoln denounced it in Congress. Instead, they will be taught
all about the “Red” menace—with the columns of the “Times” for source
material. At last commencement time at least six addresses by students,
dealing with this subject, were featured by the “Times” in its radio
service, which is devoutly followed by hundreds of thousands of
wage-slaves in our community. All these addresses, of course, had been
carefully censored; one or two of them were “repeated by request,” and
the announcement was made that you could have a printed copy of them by
application to the “Times.”