A LETTER TO WOODROW WILSON
Needless to say, the first duty of this Tammany school board is to
enforce loyalty to the plutocracy; and, needless to say, this
constitutes “patriotism” and “religion.” Mr. Aaron Dotey, Chief Spy of
the DeWitt Clinton High School, brought in a report last year, charging
a school teacher with having said that “patriotism is a murderer’s
occupation and a traitor’s cloak.” It did not occur to Mr. Dotey that
this might not be the teacher’s fault. The Chief Spy should have
mentioned that a hundred and fifty years or so ago a leading Englishman
of letters, a prize old Tory, made the statement that “patriotism is the
last refuge of a scoundrel.”
The hounding of the teachers by the scoundrels began at the very
outbreak of the war. First, there was the “mayor’s pledge,” which they
all were required to swear; this not being enough, there was another
pledge contrived by the board of education. All the teachers were loyal,
but not all of them were willing to swear away their right to think.
There were eighty-seven conscientious objectors to the “loyalty
pledges.” A number of these subsequently served in the army and made
distinguished records; but intention to enlist did not save them from
persecution at the outbreak of the war, nor did their war-records save
them from persecution after they came back.
In the fall of 1917 there occurred an outbreak at the DeWitt Clinton
High School. Dr. Tildsley arbitrarily lengthened the school day, when
already the teachers and pupils were overworked. A deputation of pupils
waited upon the board of education, to protest against the proposed
measure, and were received by John Whalen, board member and prominent
Tammany chieftain, who settled the matter as follows: “I want it clearly
understood that neither the pupils nor the teachers will be allowed to
run the schools. And I want you to understand that if you pupils don’t
go back and behave yourselves I’ll close down all the schools. Do you
understand?” The pupils went back and reported, and there was the
beginning of a strike; also there was a meeting of the teachers of
DeWitt Clinton, attended by more than a hundred, who adopted the
following so-called “Whalen Resolution”:
First:—That it is the sense of this meeting that John Whalen’s
assertion is contrary to the modern spirit of true democracy.
Second:—That remarks of this type and threats to close the high
schools are detrimental to good discipline and good teaching.
Third:—It is the sense of this meeting that the autocratic assertion
of John Whalen is subversive of the proper spirit underlying our
educational institutions.
Fourth:—Be it finally resolved:
That the best interests of school administration demand the cordial
recognition of the classroom teacher as a most vital influence in the
educational system.
This, of course, was a direct challenge to the power of the gang; a
revolt which must be put down at all hazards. Superintendent Tildsley
came up to ascertain the names of the ring-leaders, and especially of
the one who had drafted those incendiary words. The spy department was
ready with the information; the criminal was Samuel Schmalhausen, a
Jewish Socialist, twenty-nine years of age. It was resolved to drive
Schmalhausen out of the system, and with him two other Socialist
teachers, Mufson and Schneer. The spy department undertook to get
something on these teachers without delay; and we are now going to hear
a little story, which shows in detail exactly how a school spy
department works.
In a day or two word was brought to Dr. Paul, principal of the school,
that Mr. Schmalhausen had assigned to his pupils a theme for a
composition, as follows: “Write an open letter to Woodrow Wilson,
commenting frankly, within the limits of your knowledge, upon his
conduct of the war against the German government.” Almost certainly some
East Side Jewish boy would make that an occasion for disrespectful
expressions; so Dr. Paul sent the head of his English department, Miss
Garrigues, to Mr. Schmalhausen’s room. This lady rushed up in breathless
haste and caught the pupils in the act of turning in their themes; she
took possession of them, without giving Mr. Schmalhausen a chance to see
them, and delivered them to Dr. Paul, who went over them. Among
seventy-six themes he discovered one that justified his hopes—a bitter,
sneering letter, written by a seventeen-year-old Jewish boy.
Dr. Paul, being skilled in intrigue, saw how this thesis would “go” in
the capitalist press; his venom bubbled over and he exclaimed: “Now I’ve
got him!” At least, Miss Garrigues on the witness stand testified that
he said that. Dr. Paul denied it with asperity, and when asked to
explain how Miss Garrigues could have thought she heard it, he described
her as “an emotionally energized lady on occasions.” Poor Miss
Garrigues—she was new to public life, and did not realize that the first
essential to success is to be a fluent and tactful liar.
Dr. Tildsley came, and he also recognized the opportunity. He summoned
Schmalhausen, and first pinned him down to the fact that he had written
the “Whalen resolution”; then he set for this sensitive minded and
idealistic young teacher an extremely cunning trap. You understand, Mr.
Schmalhausen had not yet seen the criminal theme; and Dr. Tildsley did
not let him see it now. He read him the first page of it—the first page
being mild, and all the outrageous statements being found in the latter
pages! So Dr. Tildsley trapped Mr. Schmalhausen into saying that he
would merely make some minor corrections of expression in the theme; at
least, Dr. Tildsley testified that that is what the young teacher
said—Mr. Schmalhausen denied it. Later on Dr. Tildsley, consulting the
rest of the gang, realized that his case did not look quite right, so he
went back to the school, and read the entire composition to Mr.
Schmalhausen, asking what would have been his action as a teacher in
such a situation. Mr. Schmalhausen undertook to mark the theme as he
would have marked it in the due course of his class work. His comments,
written along the margin of the theme, were as follows:
Exaggerated, excessive emotionalism.... _Is there any sanity in this
assertion?_... Do you take these remarks seriously?... For a
thoughtful student this statement sounds irrational.... Recall
President Wilson’s differentiation between the German Government and
the German people.... Not accurately presented.... Foolish attitude
historically.... Do you believe in its sincerity? (peace offer made by
Germany).... Sorry to find this unintelligent comment in your work....
Why did you write this?
Mr. Schmalhausen was suspended from his duties without pay, and in due
course was haled before a committee of the board of education. It is
interesting to note that the chairman of this committee was none other
than John Whalen, Tammany chieftain, who had started all the trouble by
threatening to close all the schools! I have before me the testimony at
the hearing, as published in pamphlet form by the Teachers’ Union. John
Dewey describes it as the most comic document of the age, so it will pay
us to read a few passages: first, the testimony of Miss Garrigues, as to
why she considered Mr. Schmalhausen’s theme “an unwise assignment.” Do
not fail to note from this passage the high standards of English
expression which prevail in the English department of New York’s biggest
high school:
Q. May I ask why you considered it an unwise assignment? A. I think
the reason was that it was a little bit, in the nature of the wording,
inclined to lead boys who were either pacific, I think is the real
trouble, or were unpatriotic—this boy unquestionably was unpatriotic,
I think—to express themselves very freely, which I do not know whether
it is very wise for boys of that age to do.
Also you will wish to hear Superintendent Tildsley upon this same grave
question. Dr. Tildsley was very sure that Schmalhausen had made a
mistake in assigning such a theme. He explained in detail why the boys
of the DeWitt Clinton High School were unfit persons to address
imaginary letters to Woodrow Wilson. He said:
They are very much interested in the social life and the political
life of this city; they are exceedingly fond of discussion and they
have developed a rather high degree of critical ability and critical
tendency, and the only thing that they like more than anything else I
should say, is a discussion on social, political and economical
topics; they are more interested in that than they are in being good
or even than they are in athletics.
That students should be more interested in “a discussion on social,
political and economical topics” than they are in athletics, would be
recognized by any superintendent of schools in America as a state of
affairs full of menace to our institutions, and under no circumstances
to be tolerated. Cross-questioned further, Dr. Tildsley stated that he
would not think it right to let boys in the DeWitt Clinton High School
write on the negative of this topic: “We seek no selfish ends in this
world.” He would not consider it proper to let them write on the
negative of the topic: “Conscription is justifiable under a democracy.”
He would not think it was proper to permit them to write an essay on the
subject: “Revenue by bond issue or taxation.” After Dr. Tildsley had
made these emphatic statements, the cross-questioner sprang on him the
painful tidings that all three of these themes had been in the
examination papers of the DeWitt Clinton High School of the previous
week—officially adopted with the approval of his friend and admirer, the
“emotionally energized” Miss Garrigues of the English department!
Mr. Schmalhausen was on the stand for a couple of hours; and as you read
the testimony you recognize a man of culture and fine sensibility, a
teacher profoundly conscientious, with deep respect for the
personalities of his students. He told how he would have dealt with that
theme if it had come up in his class; he would have questioned the pupil
and showed him his ignorance, and tried to make him realize that his
ideas were wrong. Asked if he disagreed with the opinions expressed in
the theme, Mr. Schmalhausen replied:
Oh, absolutely, from head to foot. The subject matter is offensive
from every point of view. Part of it is irrational. Part of it is
crude and violent, the whole thing is a wrong frame of mind, and in my
discussion with Dr. Tildsley, with which I took up a lot of time, I
tried to explain clearly what influences in that boy’s social and
economical and home environment were responsible for some of his
sentiments. So far as I was concerned there was no implication at all
at any time that I ever accepted the thought of that letter.
Nevertheless, Mr. Schmalhausen was driven from the school system of New
York, and with him Mr. Mufson and Mr. Schneer. The offense of Mr.
Schneer was that he had given to some of his pupils a list of books,
with comments on their contents in the somewhat flowery style of a young
man who takes great literature with sudden and intense seriousness.
There were two hundred books listed, and a committee of the
Schoolmasters’ Association undertook to mark ten of them which were
especially offensive. One was Eltzbacher’s “Anarchism”—which turned out
upon investigation to be a work opposing Anarchism, written by a
non-Anarchist; poor Mr. Schneer had been trying to save his East Side
Jewish boys from the snares of the extremists! Another was Romain
Rolland’s “Jean Christophe,” one of the greatest novels and noblest
works of culture of our time. A third was listed as “Sinclair’s ‘The
Divine Fire.’” No one could guess why the committee should have objected
to this eminently respectable novel; it occurs to me that Mr. Schneer’s
failure to give the first names of his authors may have betrayed the
schoolmasters into thinking that he had endorsed a book by my wicked
self! I occasionally get letters intended for May Sinclair; so let me
state that the author of “The Divine Fire” lives in England, and is not
related to me, nor in any way to blame for my evil actions and
writings—except that she occasionally writes me letters approving them!