AN ARRANGEMENT OF LITTLE BITS
The expulsion of these three teachers was, of course, a personal triumph
for Mr. Aaron Dotey, Chief Spy of the DeWitt Clinton High School. The
activities of the “Dotey Squad,” as the spies and informers are termed,
were now extended to cover the entire system. The Chief Spy compiled a
card index, with detailed information about suspected teachers. I have
talked with some who have been privileged to inspect this catalogue, and
have seen on Mr. Dotey’s desk a dossier of clippings and reports a foot
high, relating to one group of rebel teachers in the system!
Mr. Dotey’s training for this work had been thorough; first, he was a
sheriff; then, becoming a teacher, he was put in charge of the “corridor
squad,” which has to do with discipline. He struck one pupil in the jaw
and knocked him down for talking in line; he was accustomed to summon
unruly pupils to his room and administer the “third degree,” calling
them foul names, shouting and storming at them in a voice which could be
heard all over the building, and which became a scandal throughout the
system. One of the crimes of Mr. Schmalhausen was that he had proposed a
program of student self-government, thus eliminating Mr. Dotey. To
complete the picture of this furious old bigot, I mention that he was
“converted” by his Catholic wife, which fact now puts him in line for a
big promotion.
The next teacher to fall a victim was Mr. Benjamin Glassberg, of the
Commercial High School of Brooklyn, who was notified that he was
suspended without pay. Mr. Glassberg’s hard luck was that a boy in his
class had asked him “whether or not Lenin and Trotsky were, in his
opinion, German agents or German spies.” I quote the exact words of Mr.
Glassberg’s answer, as sworn to by thirty-five boys in the class; eight
of these boys testified, and then the board got tired of hearing them,
and the testimony of the other twenty-seven was entered by
stipulation—that is, both sides agreed upon a statement of what the
twenty-seven would testify in substance. Mr. Glassberg’s reply was that:
“he did not think so, as Lenin and Trotsky had been busy circulating
propaganda literature against the war among the Germans, thereby
undermining their morale, and weakening their power in the war.”
Here was another Socialist teacher whom it was desired to “get,” and
this was the chance to “get” him. There were forty-three boys in the
class, and more than thirty were Jewish. The principal summoned before
him, one at a time, two Jewish boys and ten Gentile boys, and questioned
them as to what had happened in the class, trying to get them to say the
worst possible things against Mr. Glassberg. A stenographer was present
and took down what the boys said; then, according to the testimony of
one of the boys, a most eager opponent of Mr. Glassberg, the principal
“made an arrangement of little bits” of what the boys had said, and made
it into a statement. The boys were summoned several times—for a period
of eight weeks this coaching and rehashing of the charges went on, and
meantime Mr. Glassberg was suspended without pay, and could not get the
copy of the charges to which he was legally entitled! It finally became
necessary for his lawyers to apply to the Supreme Court for a writ of
mandamus, compelling the service of the charges upon Mr. Glassberg!
The statement, when finally prepared, was an obvious perversion of
everything which even the most hostile of the boys alleged. This was,
let remind you, a time when the principal news out of Soviet Russia was
“the nationalization of women”; and here was a teacher, questioned by
his students, and telling them the plain and obvious truth. Let me quote
a little more of the testimony—and please note that I am quoting from
the _stipulated_ testimony of thirty-five members of the class:
Another boy in the class made a statement, though apparently rising to
ask a question, to the effect that it must be that Lenin and Trotsky’s
government was stronger with the people than the Kerensky government
for the reason that it held on longer than the Kerensky government,
and it could hardly be that the Bolsheviki were such thieves and
cut-throats as represented if their government lasted so long. This
boy’s statement Mr. Glassberg did not discuss at any length, because
it was made at the end of the period, but did indicate in what he said
that since the Lenin-Trotsky government had lasted longer than the
Kerensky regime, this indicated that it must have considerable
strength with the people. Another boy asked if information about the
Bolsheviki was being withheld and Mr. Glassberg said that he was
inclined to think so, and read certain questions which Senator Johnson
had read in the Senate some time previous asking information about
Russian conditions, and also referred to the fact that Colonel Robins
of the Red Cross had been requested upon his return to this country by
the State department, not to discuss the Russian situation, and also
referred to a speech made by Major Thatcher of the Red Cross at a
banquet in Boston at which he had defended the Bolsheviki from the
attacks made upon them by some previous speakers.
Colonel Raymond Robins took the witness stand, and testified that upon
his return from Russia he had been requested by the State Department not
to discuss the Russian situation. Major Thatcher also took the stand,
and testified to the truth of what Mr. Glassberg had said about him. It
is interesting to note that the principal of the school informed some of
the boys who were to testify at the hearing that Major Thatcher, an army
officer of the highest standing, was “a criminal.” Also, a number of the
boys told how the principal had attempted to intimidate them before they
went upon the witness stand. To quote one case: “Do you know, boys, that
Mr. Glassberg was charged with conduct unbecoming a teacher; therefore
it means that you boys who are going to testify for Mr. Glassberg are
UN-AMERICAN.” The boy’s reply was: “Mr. Raynor, do you know that when we
are going to testify for Mr. Glassberg, we are going to tell what we
heard in our class, and no more. We are going to tell the truth.”
Mr. Glassberg’s record as a teacher was produced before the board. His
ratings during his entire five years had been the highest possible, this
applying both to discipline and to teaching. Nevertheless, he was driven
from the schools; and soon afterwards went Benjamin Harrow, whose crime
was that he advised his students to read a magazine article by Thorstein
Veblen. Also, according to the official statement of Superintendent
Tildsley, “his favorite reading is said to be the ‘Nation,’ the ‘New
Republic’ and the ‘Dial.’ He occupied a front seat at each session of
the Glassberg trial, and seemed to approve sentiments expressed in favor
of the Bolshevists.” In this same official document is given an idea of
the cultural level of the district superintendent in charge of all the
high schools of New York City; says Dr. Tildsley: “Mr. Harrow
recommended his pupils to read an article in the ‘Dial’ of February 22,
1919, by Thornstein Veller!” Mr. Harrow did not wait to be tried before
John Whalen and the rest of the thugs. He handed in his resignation,
with a blistering letter to Dr. Tildsley, asserting:
You are using the school as a medium for conducting a campaign of
propaganda in favor of the most reactionary tendencies of our day....
In short, you have made the schools an unhappy place for any sensitive
American who refuses to accept your own individual conception of what
constitutes Americanism, who prefers rather to accept what the
founders of this republic conceived to be the true American ideals.
Also, while dealing with teacher casualties, I must pay honor to Dr.
Arthur M. Wolfson, who was principal of the High School of Commerce, and
resigned as protest against this White Terror. Dr. Wolfson knew that he
was dealing with boys who came from Socialist homes, and he had
conceived it his duty as an educator to take a stand of neutrality in
the issues of the class struggle. He would teach his students the ideal
of freedom of discussion, and a hearing for both sides. For many years
he followed that program, and as a result there was in his school an
atmosphere of tolerance and fellowship unknown in other New York high
schools.
But it had been the custom when election time came round for the history
and civics department to take a straw ballot for the presidency; and
this time the dreadful discovery was made that three hundred and
fifty-four out of the two thousand students had voted for Debs! It was
proposed to tell this news in the school weekly, but the superintendent
in charge ordered this paper suppressed, and rebuked Dr. Wolfson for
taking the straw vote. Dr. Wolfson pointed out that the “Literary
Digest” was doing the same thing. Also, if the students were for Debs,
would it do any good to suppress the fact? Would it not be best to face
the fact and deal with it? A little later Dr. Wolfson got his orders
about Russia; no longer was there to be free discussion; he was to teach
one view and only one view—that is, the official propaganda of the young
secretaries of our State Department who, with their aristocratic Russian
wives, were conducting a private war against the Russian people without
authorization from Congress.
Later, Dr. Wolfson was ordered to enforce a rule forbidding the New York
“Call” to be carried in class-rooms or study-halls. So he wrote a
dignified letter to the board of superintendents, explaining: “Frankly,
during the last two or three years I have not felt free to follow the
intellectual habits of a lifetime.” Superintendent Ettinger came back
with a letter to the New York “Times,” declaring:
I am very frank to confess that I dissent most heartily from the basic
thesis set up by Principal Wolfson that it is the function of our
schools to allow students and teachers to express their belief freely,
to meet argument with argument, and not either overtly or covertly to
suppress opinions which are held in honesty and in good faith.
It is not often that the gang is so frank as that, so we owe thanks to
Superintendent Ettinger. Wishing to give him all the fame to which he is
entitled, I mention that to a reporter of the New York “Call” he
declared that he would bar H. G. Wells from the school forums of New
York for having said that Lenin was a great man!