THE LOCAL MACHINES
We have now examined school conditions in nineteen of the largest
American cities; the total population of these cities amounts to
eighteen million, which means four million children subject to the
education here portrayed. You have noticed how much alike these school
machines are; it has no doubt occurred to you that such resemblance
cannot be a matter of accident, there must be some centralized control,
some bureau of standardization in charge of school systems in the United
States. And this is true; the local school machines, in cities, towns
and villages, are part of county machines, and these county machines are
part of state machines, and these state machines are united and
co-ordinated and standardized by the National Education Association,
with the help of the United States Bureau of Education, and the
Rockefeller General Education Board, and the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching.
Let us begin with the counties. Under the American system a county
superintendent of schools invariably has to be a school politician, and
almost invariably has to be a political politician as well. His school
gang is made up of his assistants and clerks and principals and other
numerous appointees, all of whom depend upon his favor and are looking
for promotion; also those teachers who serve him as bell-wethers,
leading the flocks of teacher sheep. In order to preserve the
self-respect of teachers, and make them think they have something to do
with education, they are organized into associations or clubs, all of
which are affiliated with the National Education Association, and
practically all of which are run by the local school machine. These
teachers’ associations thus occupy in the school world the same position
as the company or “yellow” unions, in the labor world. In the great
percentage of cases the officers in these teachers’ associations are the
superintendents and principals and other members of the supervising
force; in the remaining cases they are teachers who take their orders
from this force. In the few cases where the teachers have dared to rebel
and control their own organizations, their leaders have been browbeaten
and persecuted, slandered and denied promotion.
The county superintendent works hand in glove with the local politicians
and their local financial masters. Whether he is appointed, or whether
he is elected, makes little difference, because the election must be
preceded by a nomination, which depends upon the local political
machine. Back of this nomination and the ensuing election are all the
sinister forces of graft which expect to profit from the schools. There
are the land speculators, who either have land to sell, or want to buy
school lands upon which wealth of some sort has been discovered. There
are contractors who want to put up school buildings for profit; there
are school book agents, who are bosom friends of all superintendents,
and put up money to elect them, and get it back ten-fold. I shall show
you in due course how these book agents serve also as teachers’ agents,
controlling the appointment of teachers and handing out favors and
promotions to those who support their “line.”
And of course there are the bankers, who want the handling of school
funds, and also of the teachers’ funds; you shall see how the teachers
put up money for their own pensions, and the gang takes charge of it,
and turns it over to the bankers, either for cash or for political
support, which comes to the same thing. Also there are business
interests which want child labor, and want the compulsory school
attendance laws repealed or ignored. There are the various organizations
of Big Business propaganda—the National Association of Manufacturers,
which wants the children trained for servitude in mills and stores; the
American Legion and the militarists, who want them taught war and the
patriotism of greed; the newspapers, which support all forms of
reaction, and hold over the head of every official the imminent threat
of ruin as the penalty for insubordination. Such is the position of
county superintendents of schools, and of county boards of education
everywhere throughout the United States—except in those few counties
where the people, through the Farmer-Labor movement or something of the
sort, have been able to take over control of their own affairs.
Next, the state superintendents and the state boards, which are the same
thing upon a bigger scale. The state machine has more money, the state
superintendent gets a higher salary, and so he is a politician of more
skill and subtlety. He stands in with the state gang, and his office is
a “hang-out” for idle functionaries smoking numerous big cigars. He
works with the land grafters and the book companies, the bankers and
merchants and manufacturers; he is their man, and gives the people their
kind of education. As a rule, the people are satisfied with that—there
being no other kind of education in sight, and no other kind
conceivable. The devout peasants of America have been taught to sing a
hymn about “the old-time religion,” which was good for their fathers and
is good enough for them; in exactly the same way their children get the
old-time education from the old-time gang. The average American has been
taught to believe in the public schools as next to the church in
sacredness, and he takes it for granted that public educators must be
noble-minded and disinterested men.
There are frequently disputes between the educational politicians and
the political politicians; but if you examine these, you will generally
find that they are disputes over the division of the public funds. The
educational politicians are naturally fighting for the educational
machine; they want it to grow big, they want to be able to promote their
subordinates, and to carry on their propaganda, and to build up their
prestige. Here in my state of California, as I write, the state
superintendent is in the midst of a dispute with the newly elected
governor of the Black Hand. The governor cut down appropriations for the
state school machine to almost nothing—it was part of his program of
“economy,” and the state simply must have a new penitentiary if the
“criminal syndicalism” law is to be saved. The state superintendent of
schools carried the issue to the legislature, and the legislature voted
him the money, and the governor vetoed the bill.
So now in the Los Angeles “Times” you learn that the state
superintendent is guilty of “political activities”; he is using the
power of his office to appeal to the people against the governor. In
such a dispute the sympathies of the local educational machines
throughout the state will be with the superintendent; they too want
funds, and they have to fight the forces which cut off their funds. But
they will all be careful not to overstep a certain limit in their
activities; the ultimate arbiter is Big Business, and both parties
appeal thereto.
I have emphasized the uniformity of school systems and of their
political control. This uniformity is attained by constant communication
among the superintendents and the supervising force. In California they
make the state pay the expenses of this inter-communication; twice every
year there are conventions attended by all county and city
superintendents; once a year there is a convention for all principals of
high schools; and the traveling expenses of these functionaries are paid
out of the school funds. We shall find when we come to study the
national body that it has a “Department of Superintendence,” and holds a
convention in the course of each winter, at which all the
superintendents gather, expenses paid. Here is the great clearing-house,
where the bosses exchange experiences and perfect the technique of
holding down the salaries of the teachers, breaking up their
organizations, eliminating the rebels from the system, and making fast
the hold of the gang.
We are going to attend several of these conventions of the National
Education Association, and meet some thirty thousand educators,
assembled from every corner of the country. But first it is desirable
that we should know more about the county and state organizations, all
of which send delegates to the national conventions. Let us take up the
state machines—bearing in mind that they are all alike, and that when
you know one you know forty-eight.