I have told the story of Mr. Charles P. Cary, state superintendent of education in Wisconsin. Early in his teaching career, Mr. Cary tells me, an agent for the American Book Company asked certain favors of him, and offered in return to make him superintendent of schools in a big city; the place depended entirely on this book agent. All through Mr. Cary’s work as superintendent in Wisconsin, the book-agents would come to him, demanding this and that. When the question of his re-election came up, one of the most prominent lawyers in Milwaukee told him that he could get thirty-five hundred dollars toward his campaign fund by calling on a certain state official and agreeing to certain terms laid down. Mr. Cary was told that this was the money of a leading firm of book publishers. When Mr. Cary did not accept this proposition, an agent of Ginn and Company put up his father to beat Mr. Cary—and somebody put up the money to elect this father!
Ginn and Company has been for more than a generation the most active competitor of the American Book Company, and it would not be surprising if they had learned something about its methods. We have come upon the activities of Ginn and Company agents in the school politics of many cities; as I revise this chapter, there comes a letter from Philadelphia, telling me how its salesman there became principal of the girls’ high school. I remind you of the situation in Worcester, Massachusetts, where Mr. C. H. Thurber, manager of Ginn and Company, and trustee of Clark College and Clark University, put into the presidency the author of the Frye-Atwood geographies, and started a whole series of new sciences, with departments and summer schools and chautauquas based upon these popular school geographies. The head-lady of Ginn and Company’s geography department pours tea with the best social charm, and there are ninety-seven Ginn and Company text-books used in the public schools of Worcester. Also I should note that the senior partner of this firm, Mr. George A. Plimpton, is a trustee of Amherst College, which has just kicked out a liberal president; and also a trustee of Barnard College, thus interlocking with Nicholas Miraculous, and with Professor George E. Strayer, who runs the National Education Association.
Let us move to North Dakota, where I listened to the story of a county superintendent of schools, elected by the Nonpartisan League. The gang is on top once more in North Dakota, so this man is no longer an educator, but is earning a living in the real estate business; nevertheless, he asks me to call him Mr. Smith! Among the forces which were active in defeating the people in North Dakota while they tried to control their own schools was a certain Mr. Gleason, agent of the American Book Company, “whose boast it was that he had placed more school superintendents than any other man in the United States.” When a new superintendent was appointed, Mr. Gleason always called, and the superintendent was always glad to see him—the reason being that it was the custom of the American Book Company to pay superintendents ten per cent commission on all books sold in the county. They paid this quarterly, as a matter of regular routine. They kept track of the situation in every school district, and if any book was not reordered, they sent an agent to find out about it.
Mr. Gleason’s subordinate, Mr. Thorson, came to see Mr. Smith, and was very genial. He wanted him to sign up a new list of books for the county. But Mr. Smith explained that the request was a little premature, as he had not yet taken the oath of office. As soon as Mr. Smith had assumed his duties, Mr. Thorson came again, but Mr. Smith wanted a little time to get acquainted with the situation. Then came Mr. Gleason himself; but Mr. Smith insisted upon having his own ideas about text-books. He made out a list, which gave the American Book Company sixty per cent of the books, forty per cent being divided among other companies. Mr. Gleason was dissatisfied with this, because he had been getting ninety-seven per cent of the business. When these agents could not persuade Mr. Smith, they tried to threaten him, but this also did not avail.
In the following year Mr. Thorson came again. He wanted to see Mr. Smith in private, and asked Mr. Smith to dismiss his stenographer, which Mr. Smith refused to do. He then asked to see him after office hours, and Mr. Smith absented himself from the office so as to make this impossible. The agent telephoned on Sunday evening, and came to Mr. Smith’s home for an interview; but Mr. Smith’s wife was present, and that also was not satisfactory. He asked Mr. Smith to come to meet him in his room in the hotel; Mr. Smith refused this. He begged for an interview on Monday morning, and Mr. Smith said that he would come to the hotel at six o’clock in the morning. He went, and took with him his “Uncle Charley,” who followed Mr. Smith up to Mr. Thorson’s room. When Mr. Thorson saw this, he asked that “Uncle Charley” should wait in the lobby; so “Uncle Charley,” by prearrangement with Mr. Smith, pretended to go down to the lobby, but came back to the door of the room and listened through the open transom to what was going on. Mr. Thorson offered Mr. Smith ten per cent commission on all books sold within the county, and he had the cash with him. Mr. Smith threw the money on the floor, and walked out of the room.
And so began a long campaign against him. Mr. Gleason, Mr. Thorson, Mr. James, and several other agents put in nine weeks in the county, trying to get the school machine lined up against Mr. Smith. They approached a number of the teachers, as well as school directors; they gave Mr. Smith “a dirty fight.” But he won with a good majority, and threw out all the American Book Company’s books. He ordered some of Ginn and Company’s books for the consolidated school of one township, and Mr. Thorson and Mr. James went to this school with a supply of American Book Company books, and traded book for book, taking out the Ginn and Company books, and putting in their own. But Mr. Smith took the trouble to interview school boards, and in every case he succeeded in persuading them that the other books were better; he completely drove the American Book Company out of the county—that is, until they drove him out of the schools!
They have one system throughout all North Dakota; they get the superintendents to an “educational meeting,” which is really a banquet paid for by book company agents. When they are properly fed, the list of books is flashed upon them, all carefully prepared for the various grades of their schools. Many superintendents don’t know anything about books, and don’t want to bother with them; they know the subject is a dangerous one, and the easiest way is to sign the list. The book company then prints this list at its own expense, and sends the copies to the superintendent for distribution to the school boards. The boards, receiving this list, assume that it represents the superintendent’s selection, and they put the list through.
And apparently it is the same way in South Dakota. Miss Alice Daly resigned in 1921 from the Madison State Normal School, and in a public statement declared as follows:
The book trust operates in South Dakota exactly the way that it has operated in other states, against the interests of the great mass of working people, against the freedom of the teacher, against any efficient organization of teachers, against the frank and honest discussion of vital questions of the day, against labor; in short, against democracy. The book trust operates for its own selfish interests, for capitalism and for autocracy within and without the school. The book trust whenever it has enjoyed control, operates against education in any genuine sense of the word.
The manager of one concern which sells books all over the country, and concerning which I have not learned of any graft, assures me that throughout the middle West, especially the states of Missouri and Iowa, the county “adoptions” are almost uniformly a matter of purchase. The petty politicians on the school committees see a chance to make a little money, and they make it—that seems obvious enough. The price is five or six hundred dollars; and this manager found it so hopeless to try to do business without paying that he told his agents to quit the county field. I have not heard of any American counties being without text-books, so presumably there are other companies not so fastidious.