THE SUPERINTENDENT OF TROMBONES
We have now examined the public schools of three of our largest cities.
We are going to visit a number of other cities, and it will be
convenient to begin with San Francisco and cross the continent eastward.
San Francisco has a long and picturesque history of graft. Its Big
Business is in the hands of descendants of gamblers and hold-up men, who
have run its affairs in that spirit. Everything has been for sale,
including the leaders of the exploited working class. The old line union
leaders of San Francisco were, and to a great extent still are, agents
made use of by business men against their business rivals. Some twenty
years ago Eugene Schmitz, head of the musicians’ union, led the workers
into politics, and was triumphantly elected mayor of the city. Behind
the scenes as boss sat Abraham Ruef, a lawyer; and these two became
almost as important in the world of graft as the heads of traction,
water, gas, and electric light companies.
In 1906 came the earthquake and fire, and in the resulting confusion
fortunes were made. Everything had a tax on it—the privilege of building
a street-car line or the privilege of building a chimney on your home.
Every form of vice was included—you may judge the moral tone of this
community by the fact that one of the most prominent men in San
Francisco “society,” a regent of the University of California, was shown
to have invested trust funds in a “French restaurant” building, intended
to be used for his own profit as a house of assignation; and after this
exposure the gentleman stayed on as regent of the university!
One courageous newspaper editor, Fremont Older, and one public-spirited
rich man, Rudolph Spreckels, undertook the exposure and punishment of
these grafters. Francis J. Heney was put to work, and he made up his
mind that for the first time in American history the big insiders, and
not the little agents, were to pay the price. He went after Patrick
Calhoun, president of the street railways; and the result was the most
terrific civic convulsion in American history. Of course, all the
interlocking directorate rallied to Mr. Calhoun’s rescue; they were
equally guilty, and must stand or fall by their confederate. While
trying the case in court, Heney was shot in the head, but he recovered,
and the prosecution was continued; Mr. Calhoun was saved from the
penitentiary only by the purchase of the jury which was trying him.
In spite of all the efforts of Older and Heney, the outcome was that to
which we are accustomed; the little fellows were punished. Abe Ruef was
sent to the penitentiary, while Schmitz was let off by the Appelate
Court. Fremont Older, realizing that Ruef was merely a tool of the real
criminals, became sorry for him and tried to obtain his pardon. Nothing
was ever said about Ruef’s returning the plunder he had collected, and
he is now living in retirement upon this. Ex-Mayor Schmitz has recently
been re-elected one of the supervisors of the city. But he has now
learned his lesson, and takes the orders of Herbert Fleishhacker, the
banker who now runs both the city and state administrations. If you have
read “The Goose-step,” you have made the acquaintance of Herbert
Fleishhacker’s brother, Mortimer, who is the grand duke of the board of
regents of our state university, and owns the “hell fleet of the
Pacific,” the fishing vessels whose horrors are a legend of the San
Francisco waterfront. It is interesting to note that Mortimer
Fleishhacker has just appointed a new president of his university, an
astronomer named Campbell, whose son is in the bond department of
Herbert’s bank; and the new president has shown his loyalty to his
masters by declaring in a public address that “higher education is a
privilege and not a right.”
What has been the fate of the public schools of San Francisco you may
judge when I tell you that a trombone player in the Schmitz orchestra
was appointed superintendent of schools of the city, and held that high
position for eighteen years. Alfred Roncovieri was a union man,
representing what was supposed to be a union labor ticket; nevertheless,
the teachers of San Francisco were persecuted for belonging to the
American Federation of Teachers. They were ordered to withdraw, and some
two hundred out of two hundred and fifty did so. At the same time the
schools were open for the propaganda of the bankers and the militarists,
and the usual spy system was installed by the business interests.
Mr. Roncovieri was an Italian Catholic, and the censorship of text-books
was turned over to his Church; books on history, economics, biology and
science had to be submitted to Father Wood of St. Ignatius College, who,
with the help of a Paulist priest, decided whether they were suitable
for the children of San Francisco. They rejected one book, “Builders of
Democracy,” but through a mistake ninety copies of it got into the
library of one of the high schools; the city had paid for them, but the
Catholic censors ordered them out, and out they went.
Mr. Roncovieri conducted very pleasant “institutes” for the teachers,
and was profuse in flowery compliments, telling them that they were “the
finest teachers in the world.” (They had been appointed by the grafters,
and had tenure for life, and a majority of them were Catholics.) He
selected lists of speakers, and the Catholic brothers and fathers were
prominent thereon. He cultivated his reputation as “the best hand-shaker
in San Francisco”; also he saw to it that the incidental music at the
institutes was of the finest quality—as an expert trombone player, that
was in his line. How good care he took of the schools you may judge from
the fact that in one of the largest and most crowded high schools more
than one hundred windows were found to be broken and not repaired!
San Francisco kept on growing, and the schools kept on falling to
pieces, and public agitation grew louder and louder. Various public
bodies took the matter up, and finally a survey was ordered, and a
committee was appointed by the United States Commissioner of Education.
This committee visited 106 schools, and made 1818 visits to classes.
They issued an exhaustive report of 649 pages, which you can get from
the United States Bureau of Education. They criticized the schools of
San Francisco very sternly, and called for a complete reorganization,
amendments to the charter, new departments, and other radical changes.
Superintendent Roncovieri, needless to say, took offense at this report,
and before the Teachers’ Institute he delivered a violent attack upon
it. The report was defended by Mr. Addicott, of the Polytechnic High
School, and so resulted several years of controversy. Roncovieri’s
outpourings were featured in the San Francisco “Chronicle,” organ of
Mike de Young, whom Ambrose Bierce pictured hanging on all the gibbets
of the world. (See “The Brass Check.”) In the “Chronicle” of October 19,
1920, Superintendent Roncovieri described Mr. Addicott as “a clown,” “an
idiot,” and “a boob.” These highly educational statements were followed
by charges on the part of Mr. Gallagher, Catholic president of the board
of education, to the effect that there was gambling going on at
Polytechnic High School. Also it was charged that Mr. Addicott had
suspended some pupils—though nobody could explain how the principal of a
school was to keep the pupils from gambling if he were not allowed to
suspend any of them. It must be especially hard for a principal to keep
the pupils from gambling when the principal knows, and all the pupils
know, that the big business men of the city are doing little else.
Not long after that Mr. Addicott committed two major offenses; he gave
to the grand jury information concerning the wasting of school funds by
the grafters, and he said something in public to the effect that the
president of the school board had appeared at a school gathering under
the influence of liquor. So Mr. Addicott, after a farcical trial before
the Catholic board, was turned out of the school system, and the
non-Catholic population of San Francisco proceeded to organize the
Public Schools Defense Association. The students of the Polytechnic High
School declared a strike, and there was a campaign carried on by means
of mass meetings and leaflets, which made the public acquainted with
facts which the newspapers had for years refused to print. What these
facts were is the next subject for our attention.