NEWBERRY PIE
Next we visit Detroit, headquarters of our automobile industry, where we
find the usual struggle to hold down union labor, and the usual school
board of business men and politicians, engaged in protecting the
interests of their crowd. I sat chatting with a group of newspaper
reporters, one of whom has been specializing in school affairs for many
years. “I suppose you have the regular school board graft,” I remarked;
and he hesitated: “No, I wouldn’t say there was much graft.” “Well,”
said I, “you have a committee which selects sites for the schools; do
you mean to say the members of this committee haven’t relatives and
friends among the big real estate speculators, who want the schools in
the neighborhood of their subdivisions?” The reporter looked at the rest
of the company and grinned. “Oh, the dirty son-of-a-gun, he’s right on
to the whole thing!”
He went on to explain—of course they had that, but nobody would call
that graft in Detroit. It was in the power of the school board to make
the city grow any way it desired; there were thousands of people forced
to live in the suburbs, because rents everywhere else were too high, and
in making up their minds which district to go to, the first thing they
thought of was the nearness of a school. Then I went on to ask about
text-books, and the first detail to come out was that the principal of
the Northern High School of Detroit had written a text-book on English
literature, and the superintendent had been unable to refuse it, because
the principal was so “well connected.” “Is it a good book?” I asked, and
an educator replied: “It is one of the rottenest in the world!”
Another friend tells me about some school board meetings which he
attended. There was a long and intricate discussion of the kind of pipe
which should be used for school buildings. One board member was keen for
iron pipe, another board member was keen for steel pipe. That bankers
and lawyers and dentists and club ladies should know so much about the
technicalities of building materials was puzzling to my friend. Some
kind of conclusion was arrived at, and then two weeks later he went
back, and attended another board meeting, and lo and behold, they were
threshing out the question all over again! Said my friend to a reporter:
“Aren’t there any other questions connected with Detroit education but
what kind of pipe they have in their buildings?” The answer was:
“Simpleton! One of these board members has a friend who would like to
sell iron pipe, and another of the members has a friend who would like
to sell steel pipe.”
The connections of Big Business with the schools are so intimate in
Detroit that they are almost humorous. We have seen the American Book
Company operating in Minneapolis, and we now find that in Detroit its
president, A. V. Barnes, is the brother-in-law of Truman H. Newberry,
ex-secretary of the navy and ex-senator from Michigan.[H] We shall,
before we finish, see the American Book Company engaged in corrupting
school officials and making away with school money in every section of
the United States. Now we discover that several hundred thousand dollars
of the money thus made away with was used by Newberry and his gang to
buy a seat in the United State Senate.
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Footnote H:
In “The Goose-step” Mr. A. V. Barnes was erroneously stated to be the
_father-in-law_ of Truman H. Newberry; and thereby hangs an amusing
anecdote. The Detroit “Times” wished to reprint the chapter dealing
with the University of Michigan, and in order to make sure of the
facts they sent the book to Judge Murfin, regent of the university,
and friend and attorney for the Barnes-Newberry family. Judge Murfin
sent back his comments with the statement that “Mr. Barnes is _not_
the father-in-law of Mr. Newberry.” Just that and nothing more; you
see what a clever family lawyer the judge is! But someone on the
“Times” was suspicious, and wrote again, saying that in order to be
perfectly fair it would be necessary for Judge Murfin to state if
there was any relationship at all between Barnes and Newberry, and if
so, what the relationship was. By this means Judge Murfin was
persuaded to admit that Barnes is Newberry’s brother-in-law!
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As a rule, when these high-up grafters purchase a political title they
wear it with honor and glory the rest of their days; but it happened in
this case that Newberry’s opponent was Henry Ford, who has money enough
to have some rights, even in America. When Mr. Ford visited my home two
or three years ago, he told me that he had some two hundred men at work
investigating these election frauds, and he did not mean to quit until
he had got Newberry out of the Senate. He kept his word; but all through
the struggle the defense of Newberry was the first task of the gang in
Michigan—and this including the school machine. Mrs. Otto Marckwardt, an
instructor of swimming in the Detroit schools, and wife of a professor
at the University of Michigan, was so indiscreet as to answer the
questions of a pupil about the Newberry affair, and for this she was
turned out of her position. How this could happen you will understand
when I explain that Mr. Frank Cody, superintendent of schools in
Detroit, has a brother, Fred Cody, who was Newberry’s most active
henchman, and was convicted of election frauds along with Newberry. The
cycle becomes comically complete when we learn that Fred Cody is agent
for the American Book Company, whose president is Newberry’s
brother-in-law!
So here is the perfection of plutocratic education. You may learn from
it what Big Business is going to do to all our children; in fact, you
have already learned it—turn back to Chapter XXI, and read about
Margaret Haley’s deputation of nine school teachers who came to Detroit
to study the “platoon system” as there applied. I am told by an educator
whom I trust that this system is fundamentally good; I am here
discussing only what is found in the great metropolis of automobiles,
the headquarters of all standardization. I remind you of its deputy
superintendent, in charge of this Fordization of infancy, who tells us
how “society” is certain to require more and more propaganda from the
schools, and this is the system which makes it possible. Ask yourself,
before it is too late, whether you are satisfied with your destiny, to
breed human units to be turned into factory operatives and cannon fodder
for the masters of the new American Empire.