Criticism was directed toward several textbooks because they failed “to inculcate patriotism by bringing to the attention of the pupils the best in the lives, words and deeds of our patriots.” According to the Committee too much attention was given “to the utterance and achievements of the heroes of other countries.” To those who would offer disagreement to such a statement because it meant a “narrow-visioned patriotism” tending to accentuate racial consciousness, they offered the suggestion that “in the elementary grades, our primary concern is to acquaint the pupils with the deeds and words of our own heroes, and the traditions of our own land.”[855] Even though derogatory statements regarding our national heroes might be statements of fact, they asserted that “truth is no defense to the charge of impropriety,” for it “is a solemn and sacred obligation” to preserve “unsullied the name and fame of those who have battled that we might enjoy the blessings of liberty.”[856]
The conclusion of the Committee included, besides the criticism indicated in the discussion of the Report given above, the statement that no evidence of intentional disloyalty had been found on the part of the authors of the textbooks although their attitude toward the founders of the Republic in some cases was “entirely reprehensible.” Nor was there evidence to support the charge that the textbooks had been written as “a result of unwholesome propaganda” although some of the writers frankly stated that they believed “there ought to be more friendly relations between Great Britain and the United States, and that they had written their histories from that standpoint.”[857]
Another investigation of the history textbooks used in the New York City schools was projected in December, 1921, under the auspices of the Hylan city administration. On December sixth, Mayor John F. Hylan instructed David Hirshfield, Commissioner of Accounts, to make “a thorough investigation ... with regard to the new history readers and text-books alleged to contain anti-American propaganda, which have been introduced into the schools of this city.”[858] To the Mayor it was a matter of considerable concern that the school children of that city should be “inoculated with the poisonous virus of foreign propaganda which seeks to belittle American patriots.”[859]
The inquiry was begun December tenth, at which time J. J. Shields, an insurance agent, and Charles Grant Miller were consulted by Mr. Hirshfield.[860] According to The New York Times, Mr. Hirshfield did not wish to employ experts in his investigation, preferring men of “sound judgment” who were “open to conviction.”[861]
In the course of the examination of the books under criticism, Mr. Hirshfield held “five public hearings during the period from February 3 to April 18, 1922, to which all those interested were invited.”[862] Among those who spoke were Alvin E. Owsley, National Commander of the American Legion, who raised objections to history teaching in which “children do not understand the facts” of American history; Joseph T. Griffin;[863] Colonel H. B. Fairfax, representing the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who was surprised at the intimation in school textbooks that Paul Revere’s ride was a myth; Julius Hyman, who felt that Jewish heroes like Haym Salomon and Aser Levi should be given a place in histories;[864] and William Pickens, a negro, who wished history textbooks to record the fact that the first man killed in the Boston riot was Christmas Adams [Crispus Attucks] a negro, that 5,000 negroes fought in Washington’s army, 250,000 in the Civil War and 400,000 in the World War.[865]
On the other hand, Mr. Francis M. Kinnicut of the English-Speaking World and Mr. Telfair Minton of the Loyal Coalition spoke in defense of the histories under attack.[866] According to Mr. Hirshfield, “representatives of the text book publishers” were also present but “none spoke” in defense of their books.[867]
In his investigation, Mr. Hirshfield examined Muzzey’s An American History, West’s History of the American People, Hart’s School History of the United States, McLaughlin and Van Tyne’s A History of the United States for Schools, Guitteau’s Our United States, Barnes’ Short American History by Grades, and Barnes’ American History for Grammar Grades.[868] All of the books were found guilty of “promoting more friendly relations and mutual understanding with Great Britain” to the extent that the “school children are now being taught not the consecrated maxim, ‘Taxation without representation is tyranny,’ but, quite to the contrary, that ‘in England’s taxation of the colonies there was no injustice or oppression,’ and that the real reason independence was sought, was because after England had at great cost crushed out autocracy in the Western Hemisphere, the colonists no longer needed the protection of the mother country, and were unwilling to pay their fair share of the costs incurred.”[869]
Mr. Hirshfield’s appraisal is not unlike that of all other critics who allege that pro-British agencies are in control of the writing of American history. “A determined purpose to disregard the Declaration of Independence, breed disrespect for the Constitution of the United States and American institutions and belittle the great men and women responsible for the establishing of the United States of America” is seen in the writings of many educators who are charged with a willingness “to be subsidized into sympathy with the Carnegie design of ‘the reunited states, the British-American Union.’”[870]
In addition to the grievances urged against the historians in their treatment of Anglo-American relations, Mr. Hirshfield objected to the characterization accorded such “great leaders” as Jackson, Monroe and Clay by McLaughlin and Van Tyne, who with “other history revisionists show a peculiar fondness for this unfair method of estimating the characters of American leaders.”[871] Among other criticisms directed against Muzzey’s history was that of inaccuracy,[872] and West’s textbook was condemned because it was written by an “outright propagandist endeavoring zealously to promote the British design of an Anglo-American union.”[873]
In the discussion allotted by the Report to Guitteau’s Our United States and the Barnes histories, Mr. Hirshfield pointed out changes made by these authors in revisions which have appeared since these books were first criticized. These changes led Mr. Hirshfield to remark that “the promptness with which ‘modern historical scholarship’ may shift itself to any attitude required is truly amazing.”[874] Mr. Barnes, especially, he charged with “mobility” of judgment, but declared that Barnes “is only a Brooklyn school principal and is not considered in scholastic circles of colleges and historical associations, like some of the other complained-of historians, who have been seduced into a sycophantic acceptance of English authority on all things American.”[875]