Considerable discussion by the public and by teachers attended these trials. Among those commending the Board of Education for their vigilance were the Schoolmasters’ Association of New York and Vicinity, who adopted a resolution expressing the hope that efforts to suppress disloyal influences in the schools would be energetically sustained.[373] On the other hand, the Teachers’ Union voted to give the teachers on trial their “legal, moral and financial support,”[374] and eleven college teachers requested that the decision against them be delayed for further investigation.[375] Professor John Dewey was reported to have likened the trial to “the Inquisition,”[376] and the New York Evening Post editorially declared that “the case not only was prejudiced from the beginning, but was disingenuous in inception, unfair in method and un-American in spirit.”[377] On December 19, 1917, these teachers were dismissed by the Board of Education.[378] Later their appeal for reinstatement was denied by the Commissioner of Education.[379]
In November, 1917, six other teachers of the De Witt Clinton High School were transferred to other schools because lacking a positive loyalty. Friends of the teachers ascribed their transfer to their “independence” and not to a lack of loyalty.[380] The absence of academic freedom and democracy in school organization, an indefiniteness in the charges preferred against them, were all advanced by the teachers themselves in extenuation of their acts.[381] According to a statement of The New York Times, in the inquiry to determine their fitness to teach, the teachers declared they had been asked such questions as the following: “Should not a teacher inculcate instinctive obedience to supervisors, no matter what the acts of the superior officers may be? What is your opinion of the Bolsheviki? Do you believe in revolution? Are teachers qualified to criticise superiors? Do you believe in internationalism? Do you think a teacher ought to impose his views on pupils? Is there not a presumption that whatever is, is right? Would you rather have Hillquit or Roosevelt for mayor? What would you do if a boy called President Wilson a murderer? Do you accept Hillquit’s treasonable utterances? Does not the critical attitude in children need suppression? Would you be willing for the boys in your class to discuss Liberty Bonds pro and con? In the matter of the longer day should the teachers have been consulted?”[382] That the teachers were asked these questions was stoutly denied by Superintendent William L. Ettinger.[383]
Closely allied with charges of disloyal speech were those growing out of attempts to obstruct the government in its prosecution of the War. Of such a nature was the charge brought against Miss Fannie Ross, a teacher in Public School 88, Brooklyn, who, while acting as a registrar in the state census, was reported to have expressed opposition to the draft, to have given advice outside her line of duty, and to have gone so far as to influence a man to claim exemption.[384] On December 26, 1917, Miss Ross was suspended from service for six months because of “conduct unbecoming a teacher,” due “to tactless remarks.”[385]
The apprehension of the school authorities of New York City was further reflected in the trial of teachers who were suspected of radical views. This anxiety expressed itself in the withholding of certificates of loyalty and morality at least during the investigation. Following the War, membership in the Socialist Party, advocacy of Communism, and a sympathetic attitude toward the Bolshevist program of Russia were the chief charges preferred in the trials.
Among the first teachers summoned before the high school committee of the Board of Education because of radical views was Harrison C. Thomas, a teacher in the De Witt Clinton High School. Mr. Thomas was an advocate of internationalism and of socialism, a conscientious objector who had been excused from the draft, and avowedly not enthusiastic over wartime enterprises like Liberty Bonds. When questioned regarding his attitude in the classroom, he confessed that he would not conceal the fact that he was an objector; that he believed resistance to aggressiveness by force wrong; and that if Germany wanted to rule this country submission would be better than forceful resistance. Yet he declared that he had tried to get into reconstruction work in France and that he would do anything except fight. As a result, his certificate of morality and loyalty was withheld.[386] Similar action was taken in the case of Bernard M. Parelhoff, of the George Washington High School, who maintained that a nation which “teaches patriotism in its schools is merely driving nails into its own coffin,” and because he believed there should be no reverence for the uniform as such.[387]
Licenses were likewise withheld from other teachers, among whom were Eugene Jackson, Austin M. Works, Garibaldi Lapolla, Abraham Lefkowitz, Edward Delaney, and Wilmer T. Stone of the De Witt Clinton High School; Ruth G. Hardy of the Girls’ Commercial High School; John J. Donohue, Louis A. Goldman, Felix Sper and John J. Shipley of the Stuyvesant High School; Max Rosenhaus of the Bushwick High School; Alexander Fichlander of Public School 165, Brooklyn; and Henrietta Rodman, Benjamin Gruenberg, and Benjamin Mandel of the Julia Richman High School.[388]
The action of the authorities in withholding certificates of loyalty from some of these teachers called forth a protest from Dr. Henry Linville of the Teachers’ Union, of which many of the accused were members. Dr. Linville assailed the methods employed in the investigations and the reasons for which certificates were being withheld. He asserted that during the War these teachers had been unmolested by the federal government and had not been summoned to face charges of disloyalty by the school authorities. Although non-conformists in relation “to static views of society and politics,” he declared that “most of them actively supported all war enterprises, a minority only being pacifist in belief and action.”[389] Moreover, in denial of the charge that teachers of alleged radical views were indoctrinating their pupils with minority and undesirable opinions, he declared that none of these teachers had ever maintained the right of a teacher to press upon the pupils the political views that he himself held.[390]
But the authorities throughout were insistent in their desire to rid the schools of all teachers holding a political belief which to them was anathema. To this end in November, 1919, a permanent license was denied Miss Sonia Ginsberg, of Public School 170, because she admitted membership in the Communist Party;[391] for the same reason action was taken against Miss Rachel (Ray) Ragozin, in February, 1921;[392] and in February, 1922, resolutions were adopted by the Board of Education directing the Superintendent of Schools to reprimand Miss Sarah Hyams for signing the membership card of the Left Wing of the Socialist Party.[393] For advocating the reading of an article on Bolshevism, in November, 1919, Associate Superintendent Tildsley recommended that a permanent license be refused Benjamin Horwitz, a teacher of English in the De Witt Clinton High School.[394]
The suspicion that Benjamin Glassberg, a teacher of history in the Brooklyn Commercial High School, was preaching the doctrines of Bolshevism led to his suspension from service in January, 1919. Among the objections raised against Mr. Glassberg as a teacher were statements alleged to have been made by him to the effect that a teacher in the public schools was not allowed to tell the truth, that the State Department did not permit true reports to be given about conditions in Russia, and that Red Cross workers were forbidden to express true opinions regarding that country.[395]
At his trial before the Board of Education on May 9, 1919, Mr. Glassberg confessed that he had quoted from several noted Bolshevists in reply to a question whether Lenine and Trotsky were German spies. He declared that the statements with which he was charged were in answer to questions asked by his class and not as “a lecture laudatory of the Bolsheviki and severely critical of the Government of the United States.” In regard to the remark about freedom of speech in the public schools he asserted complete innocence.[396] On May 29, 1919, Mr. Glassberg was dismissed from service.[397]