THE CITY OF FRENCH RESTAURANTS
Once more I am sorry to seem to play the game of the Grand Imperial
Kleagles; nevertheless, it must be stated that two forces have had
control of the San Francisco public schools for the past twenty years:
First, the big and little business grafters, and second, Archbishop
Hanna, who is pledged ex-officio to the undermining of the public school
system and the building up of the Catholic parochial schools. The
Catholic superintendent and the Catholic board had deliberately held
down the construction program of the public schools. The money intended
for these schools was stolen by the grafters, while building materials
were sold at bargain prices or stolen outright for the parochial
schools. The very furniture out of the public schools was taken—the
Catholic children were sitting on chairs taken from the public schools,
while the children in the public schools had to sit on soap-boxes. You
may find this incredible, but it is a matter of public record; it was
proven before the grand jury, and the documents are available for those
who care to consult them.
Needless to say, not many take that trouble; the newspapers of San
Francisco follow the rule of the capitalist press throughout the United
States—attacks on Catholic institutions are barred. Public speakers were
forbidden to hold meetings and to lecture on this question, by order of
the chief of police. Colonel J. Arthur Petersen asked in the office of
the superintendent of schools for certain records concerning school
affairs, and Mr. Roncovieri threatened to shoot him. Later on, a mob set
upon Colonel Petersen and tried to murder him in broad daylight on the
streets of the city.
The most curious story is that of the sale of school desks. By order of
the school director, Miss Jones, a Catholic, there were sold to the
parochial schools nearly three thousand school desks, at from fifteen to
fifty cents apiece. They were delivered by the city’s trucks to the
various parochial schools, and the Catholic fathers and sisters signed
receipts for them, and the city’s workmen, paid out of the city’s money,
installed the desks, and cleaned and varnished them, using the city’s
tools and materials. And three thousand children of the city were told
that there were no accommodations for them in the public schools, but
there was plenty of room in the church schools nearby!
I send the manuscript of this chapter to my friend, Fremont Older,
editor of the San Francisco “Call,” and he writes me that he has never
heard of these incidents. I take this as a curious illustration of the
power of the Catholic church over public opinion. The facts concerning
the theft of school furniture, books and building materials constituted
the principal issue in the school election of 1921. I have before me
seven pamphlets of the Public Schools Defense Association, in which the
facts are given in minute detail; especially Bulletin No. 2, dated
October 10, 1921, and Bulletin No. 3, dated October 20, 1921. The facts
were also published and republished in a paper called the “Crusader,”
especially the issues of June, September, and October, 1921. Mr. H. H.
Somers was an active worker in the association, and he has sent me
transcripts of the sales of school desks, which he personally rechecked
from the records of the board of education.
The president of this board came to the defense of the gang declaring
that the desks had been sold “to anyone who might want them.” But
practically nobody got them except the parochial schools, and nobody
knew anything about the sales but these same schools. The city charter
provides that all public property which is “usable” must be sold at
public auction, after being advertised for five days; a law which was
not once complied with over a period of five years. The president of the
board furthermore argued that the desks “were sold in small lots.”
Concerning that you may judge for yourself; I quote from the records:
Father W. H. O’Mahoney received two lots, a total of 235 desks, voucher
960, dated May 8, 1920, and voucher unnumbered, dated September 27,
1919. Father Peter C. Yorke received two lots a total of 200 desks,
vouchers 812, November 26, 1917, and 912, September 22, 1919. Father
Sullivan received 200 desks, voucher 610, September 8, 1916. Father
Doran received one lot of 375 desks, voucher 816, December 2, 1918. This
makes a total of 971 desks delivered in six lots. In addition to these,
more than 2,000 desks went in lots of from 20 to 60 per delivery.
So great was the public excitement over these matters that on September
15, 1921, a crowd of five hundred women stormed the city hall. A Mrs.
McCarthy declared that children at the Portola and Buena Vista public
schools, from which desks had been sold, were having to sit on
soap-boxes; another woman declared that her own child was sitting on a
soap-box. The newspapers reported the incident, but briefly, and without
mentioning the dread word Catholic. The grand jury took up all the
charges, and conducted very thorough investigations.[E]
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Footnote E:
So many people have expressed incredulity concerning these matters
that at the risk of repetition I quote one paragraph from the report
of the school committee of the grand jury, the chairman of which was
Mrs. Samuel Backus, wife of General Backus, former postmaster of San
Francisco:
“Mr. Conkling, store-keeper, testified that School Director Miss
Sallie Jones condemned the furniture and sold the same to private
parties and schools, and the same were at once put into service. Miss
Sallie Jones testified that she had ordered the sale of old desks,
etc., and that the same were sold at private sale, and at the same
time the Department was buying new furniture for the schools, as she
would not put old desks or chairs in new schools built by bond money.
This is in strict contradiction of the Charter. First, the furniture
was not useless, and second, it was not sold at public auction. Most
of the sales were made at 25 and 50 cents per desk, and replaced by
new ones costing from six to ten dollars.”
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Nor was it desks alone. Thousands of sacks of cement, intended for the
public schools, were stolen from the board of public works, and other
material, wood, steel, etc., was likewise delivered to the parochial
schools. Because of the overcrowding in the public schools, the city had
built over five hundred temporary shacks, costing one or two thousand
dollars each; and it was estimated that more than half this amount had
gone into graft. A school official in the course of his duties sent a
cement man to estimate on cement repair work; the price asked was two
hundred dollars; the official told him to add fifty dollars, “And you
know what it is for.” On another job the man estimated two hundred and
fifty dollars; he was told to add fifty dollars for the official; then
he was told to add ninety dollars to this. A former storekeeper of the
schools received fifty reams of paper, and was asked to sign for one
hundred; because he refused to do this he was discharged from his
position. It was shown that the city had furnished its Catholic board
president an automobile costing over five thousand dollars. Other
members of the board had had homes built at the expense of the city; the
material was taken from the board of public works, the employes of this
board helped to construct the buildings, and the time was charged to
“school repairs.”
Also this grand jury committee brought out the fact that the laws had
been repeatedly broken in the purchase of text-books for the San
Francisco schools. Books had been bought in large quantities in defiance
of state provisions, and at prices higher than those permitted. The
committee listed a total of 11,161 books which could not be used at all.
Among those who appeared before the grand jury was a Catholic member of
the school board, Miss Alice Rose Power, who admitted that she had
formerly owned five thousand shares of stock in a text-book company, and
had assigned half this stock to the head of the company and the other
half to her nephew. She still had a desk in the office of this company,
and at the same time, as a member of the school board, had authorized
purchases of text-books from this company.
I was told by teachers in San Francisco that there were store-rooms full
of unused books, which had been purchased at much higher than the
authorized prices; scarcely a teacher who did not report basements and
cupboards in his or her school, piled up with books which could not be
used. One teacher told me how, when it was known that this book graft
was being looked into, great quantities of books were shipped to another
school, and others were given to the pupils to be carried home. I
recalled the stories I heard nearly twenty years ago, when I was
investigating the glass factories in South Jersey; the state child labor
inspector would telephone to a certain factory that he was about to make
an inspection, and all the child workers would be gathered up and hidden
away in the big passage through which the fresh air was driven to the
blast furnaces!
Under the law, all these book companies could have been fined and made
to take back the books; also the bondsmen of the school board members
were liable for the amount of the graft. Some citizens hoped that this
money might be collected, but their hope was vain. The foreman of the
grand jury requested that while the investigation was under way, the
Public Schools Defense Association would hold no more public meetings
and give no more information to the press; the grand jury likewise gave
out nothing, and so gradually the excitement died down. Then, to the
dismay of the association, the grand jury adjourned without taking any
action; and the members of the association investigated, and discovered
that the foreman of the grand jury was a Catholic!
The book graft is an ancient and honored one in San Francisco history.
If you visit the University of California you will be shown with pride
the magnificent Bancroft library of old Spanish manuscripts. You are
told that this is a memorial to H. H. Bancroft, the historian of
California; and you get the impression that Mr. Bancroft donated it. As
a matter of fact, he sold it to the state for a quarter of a million
dollars; also, he sold his books to the schools—his great store-house of
culture, the “History of California” by Hubert Henry Bancroft, three
volumes at five dollars per volume. It was published by the author, and
wide-awake young agents explained to school boards and superintendents
that the great work was not yet complete; there was a shrewdly worded
clause in the contract, whereby the purchaser agreed to take the
succeeding volumes of the series.
The school authorities signed this contract by the thousands, and then
the Bancroft mills began to grind! “The History of California” extended
to thirty-three volumes, and then it was continued in the form of
histories of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Central America, Alaska;
it was like the magic salt-mill which made the sea salty! These volumes
would appear every six months or so; they would be delivered at the
schools, and the innocent teachers would take them in and put them on
the shelves. Nothing was said about payment, and so nobody worried about
it; until finally, after the series was completed, the bills were
delivered—and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth among school
boards of California. Many refused to pay, but Bancroft sued, and got
judgments amounting to over a million dollars. I am told that there are
schools way up in the hills which have a shelf of Bancroft’s history as
their sole instrument of general culture. After that the Bancroft
concern was a power in the school-book business of the state; it got the
agencies for many of the big book concerns, and carried the school
superintendents in its pocket.
Some time ago the people of California got tired of being robbed by book
companies, and put through a provision for the manufacture of elementary
school text-books by the state. All over the United States I found the
book men incensed concerning this California procedure. They would
present me with pocketfuls of literature, expensive pamphlets
demonstrating the futility and extravagance of the California text-book
program. I would listen politely, and accept the literature and ship it
home, where it still forms a pile upon my shelves; but I do not need to
go into it, because, having investigated the California situation, I
know how the political machine is occupied to sabotage the public
text-book scheme. The former state printer, Richardson, is now our
governor, put in office by the Black Hand to starve the schools and
build up the jails.
To return to San Francisco: there was an election campaign over the
issue of reorganizing the school system, and this became of necessity an
anti-Catholic campaign. The Catholics fought vigorously—some three
hundred nuns were marched to the polls to cast their votes for the
Catholic program, and the archbishop formally granted them absolution
for the crime of taking part in politics! Nevertheless, the awakened
people of San Francisco had their way. Mr. Addicott was reinstated, and
Superintendent Roncovieri and President Gallagher of the school board
retired.
San Francisco now has a new board of education. The president of this
board is a department-store proprietor and strong Chamber of Commerce
man, who admitted that he had completed his scanty education in a
parochial school. The grand duchess of the board is the mother-in-law of
Congressman Kahn, one of our most ardent militarists, and a close friend
of the archbishop’s. The rest of the board consists of the sister-in-law
of the mayor’s secretary; a prominent tobacco merchant; a prominent
lumber merchant; a labor official who is employed in a bank at a salary
of $150 a week, and who sends his children to the parochial schools; and
finally, Miss Alice Rose Power of the Catholic church.
This board has imported a new superintendent from New Orleans, and I
find a long article in the “Sierra Educational News,” state organ of the
school machine, telling what a great educator he is. We shall see in due
course how greatness is manufactured by these school machines, and for
what purpose it is used. We shall see Superintendent Gwinn working with
the gang when they stole the National Education Association away from
the teachers; also we shall see him drawing up the “patriotism program”
under which the N. E. A. turned its conscience over to the keeping of
the American Legion. It is worth noting that he retains from the days of
the trombones his deputy superintendent, who at the last election was
caught taking eight hundred dollars from the Power Trust, for propaganda
among the teachers against the public ownership bill.