THE SCHOOLS OF MAMMON
What becomes of the children under this regime of the Black Hand? I have
talked with scores of teachers, and their testimony is unanimous, that
the children’s minds are on anything in the world but study. I choose
the great “L. A. High,” because that is where the children of the rich
attend. One parent, a woman of refinement and sense, has tried to keep
the tastes of her daughter simple and wholesome, but she tells me it is
impossible, because home influence counts for nothing against the
overwhelming collective power of the mass. The child comes home thrilled
with excitement, telling of what the other girls have; and she must have
what they have, or her happiness is ruined. It is all money; their ideal
is the spending of money, their standard is what things cost. I know a
lad, who tells me gravely that a fellow can’t have anything to do with
girls these days; they have no interest in you but for the money you
spend on them, and unless you are rich you cannot “go the pace.” About
this school you will see the automobiles parked for blocks; and, of
course, the youngsters who drive these cars are the social leaders, they
run the school affairs, and they get the girls.
The schools are given up to athletic excitements and “assemblies”; “Aud
Calls,” the students term them—that is, calls to the auditorium. They
come to practice cheering; they follow the cheer leader, who tells them:
“That wasn’t loud enough. Now give one for the team.” The young people
come out from these affairs trembling with excitement, and they have no
mind for their studies the rest of that day. Out in the halls are
students waving balloons which they have bought in the bookstore; on
athletic occasions, you see, it looks so lovely if everybody in the
bleachers is waving toy balloons with the school colors. They will just
get settled in class with their toy balloons, when there comes a call
for “fire drill.” Or if such diversions are lacking, the pretty young
things take out their vanity boxes and proceed to powder their noses and
smear red paint on their lips, while the poor unhappy teachers are
trying to put something into their silly heads. I have walked through
the corridors of a high school and counted a dozen of the young things
performing these toilet operations while chatting with their beaux.
How can the teachers combat such forces? There is only one way, and that
is by making the studies interesting, by taking up live topics, which
awaken the initiative of the students, and reveal to them the delights
of thinking. Several teachers have tried to do this, and the stories of
what happened to them are amusing; but unfortunately I cannot tell the
stories, because each would identify a teacher, and no teacher dares
take that risk! I can tell about a girl who wanted to write a thesis on
“The Social Motive in American Literature.” Here was a real subject—but
the principal of the school forbade it.
Also I can tell how, during the war, seven high schools took part in a
debate: “Resolved, that the nations of the world should adopt the
program of the League to Enforce Peace.” You can look back now and see
that it was our going into the war blindfolded, our utter failure to
know anything about the issues of the peace, that made the great tragedy
of Europe. Do not get this League to Enforce Peace confused with
pacifist organizations like the Peoples’ Council; this was a perfectly
respectable organization, with ex-President Taft as president! But Mr.
Jack Bean, a member of the school board, rushed to the “Times” with the
charge that the high schools of Los Angeles were carrying on propaganda
for immediate peace! The “Times” took it up, and for three days
published scare articles accusing two students, Lee Payne and Mildred
Ogden, of being pro-German. Young Payne assures me that their only
mention of Germany in the entire debate was to quote President Taft’s
statement that if the program of the League to Enforce Peace had been in
action in 1914, Germany would not have dared to begin the war. But the
solemn asses on the board passed a resolution, solemnly forbidding the
debating of peace; and the “Times” solemnly printed their resolution
under the caption: “Win the War!”
How far the Black Hand is willing to go in this program of cutting out
the brains of the school children you may judge by the fact that in 1921
Assemblyman Greene introduced, and the Better America Federation tried
to jam through the state legislature, an act providing for the expulsion
from the schools of “any teacher who shall disparage to a pupil in the
school where said teacher is employed, any provision of the Constitution
of the United States of America, or who shall orally make to such pupil
any argument or give to such pupil any written or printed argument in
favor of making any change in any provision of said Constitution.” And
this, you understand, in face of the fact that the Constitution itself
provides for its amendment, and has been quite legally and
constitutionally amended no less than nineteen times in our history!
Think of a school teacher being forbidden by law to discuss with a pupil
the desirability of an amendment prohibiting child labor!
A still more curious incident occurs while I am finishing this book.
There is in Los Angeles an organization called the Young Workers’
League, an educational society of the Communists; they held a debate on
the subject of Communism versus Capitalism, and not being able to get
anybody to defend capitalism, they appointed their own speakers, who
naturally didn’t do it very ardently. Three lads, one of them a high
school student, the other two just graduated, attended the meeting and
found themselves dissatisfied with this defense; they rose up and said
they could do better, and the result was the planning of a debate. The
Young Workers’ League hired a hall, and the three students spent a good
part of their summer vacation preparing for the contest. Two or three
days before it came off, the Young Workers’ League distributed
announcement cards in the high schools, erroneously referring to the
students as “three representatives of a high school debating society.”
Immediately thereafter the one high school student was informed by
Principal Dunn of the Polytechnic High School that he must not take part
in the affair. Mr. Dunn did not take this action on his own initiative,
he explained, but under instructions from Mrs. Dorsey, who had
investigated the matter.
On the afternoon of the day set for the debate, the secretary of the
Young Workers’ League appealed to me. Being interested in the cause of
free speech, I went to see Mr. Robert Odell, attorney and president of
the school board. After hearing my account of the matter, Mr. Odell said
that the only objection he could think of was that the debate might not
be fair, the audience might be packed against the students. My answer
was that I would agree to act as chairman, and see that there was no
interruption of the speakers. Mr. Odell agreed to ask Mrs. Dorsey to see
me immediately.
It was then four o’clock in the afternoon, and I called on the
superintendent, and listened while she explained to me at great length
that the schools could not under any circumstances permit students to
represent them in public debates unless the students had been selected
by the schools. In reply I assured Mrs. Dorsey that I agreed with her
absolutely; but if that was all the school authorities wanted, why not
require the high school student to state to the audience that he spoke
as an individual, and without authorization from his school? I offered
as chairman of the debate to make this announcement with the utmost
explicitness.
I pointed out to Mrs. Dorsey the singular position in which her schools
would be placed by the preventing of this discussion. A large audience
would be sent from the hall convinced that the authorities were afraid
to let their students face the arguments of the Communists. The students
would have to meet Communists in political life, so why not let them
practice while in school? Mrs. Dorsey gave me her answer, and I
understood it to be that if I would make the announcement as promised,
the school authorities would not concern themselves with the debate in
any way. I then got the three students together and gave them this
information. They reported themselves as anxious to debate, and greatly
disappointed at the outcome; but they were not willing even to come upon
the platform without first having talked again with their school and
college superiors. They would not go into details; but evidently
something had been said to them which had taught them caution. Said one
of them, significantly: “You know, Mr. Sinclair, the schools can get
along without us very easily if they want to.”
Then I tried to arrange for the affair to come off two weeks later, and
wrote to the school authorities. What happened between the authorities
and the students I do not know; one of the latter, in a letter to me,
apologized because he could not “go to the heart of it.” He added: “This
much I can tell you—that the determining factor in this case is the
Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association.” That the lads were wise in
keeping out of the debate was shown by the fact that I received from
Mrs. Dorsey a special delivery letter, repudiating the understanding of
the matter which I had got from her. Said Mrs. Dorsey: “You pressed for
assurance that the boys would not be punished by school authorities if
they took part in the debate. This assurance I declined to give, stating
again that the schools were not a party to the debate and must not,
therefore, be involved in any program of arrangements therewith.” So
there you have the lady!
At the hour that I was chasing about Los Angeles, interviewing school
authorities and trying to save this debate, two enormous bruisers were
pummeling each other into insensibility at the Polo Grounds in New York
City. One was the champion bruiser of North America, and the other was
the champion bruiser of South America, and the two Americas held their
breath, awaiting the outcome. That was entirely respectable; that did
not threaten the capitalist system, so no one stopped the pummeling, and
no one stopped the school children of Los Angeles from reading the
newspaper bulletins about the great event. But here were three serious
students who were not interested in bruisers; three self-supporting boys
had put in all their spare time during vacation, preparing to defend the
faith of the schools; and the school superintendent of the Merchants’
and Manufacturers’ Association steps in and frightens these boys into
silence, and disappoints an audience of a thousand working people who
have assembled for an intellectual treat. Such is “culture” under the
Black Hand!