You have seen that a teacher is not a citizen in North Dakota or in South Dakota. A teacher is not a citizen in Pennsylvania, where teachers’ unions have been outlawed by decree of the state superintendent. A teacher is not a citizen in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the superintendent has declared that no one may teach history who believes in the recall. A teacher is not a citizen in the state of Washington, where Miss Alfa Ventzke was turned out for protesting against the mobbing of Nonpartisan[Nonpartisan] League members; nor in Texas, where a gentleman whose name I withhold out of kindness to him, writes me how he has wandered from place to place seeking a school where a teacher may be a Socialist outside of school hours. He started out over thirty years ago, and in those days a teacher could be a Populist; but nowadays he has to hide—and even then they find him!
A teacher is not a citizen in Oklahoma, where Mr. A. A. Bagwell, who began life as a Methodist minister, and is now a Christian Socialist, has been hounded from public school to public school all over the state for fifteen years. Mr. Bagwell’s story is told in a series of nine two-column articles in the Oklahoma “Leader,” and it would take several pages even to sketch his adventures. I glance over the articles and note the names of town and county schools where he got into trouble—never for any reason but his Socialist opinions: Gotebo, Greer, Blue Jacket, Weatherford, Ardmore, Springer. The last place is Gotebo, where Mr. Bagwell was county superintendent, and the American Legion held its state convention and complained that the “firing squad” was not being sufficiently used on teachers. So this Christian Socialist was kicked out, and although he presents affidavits from literally hundreds of people where he has taught—including the school boards—he travels from one to another of his superiors demanding a hearing on the charges against him, and can get no hearing.
A teacher is not a citizen in Leesville, Louisiana, where Mr. Otto Koeb went to teach history in the high school. A mile from this town lies the Llano Colony, at which three or four hundred hard-working earnest men and women are making an effort to prove that human beings can labor from other motives than individual greed. Mr. Koeb thought this an interesting experiment, and wanted to write about it; he went to study it—and was informed by the superintendent that if he continued such visits he could not remain a teacher in the high school. So he gave up his position, and now has none.
Nor is a teacher a citizen in Dallas, Texas, where many years ago Mr. George Clifton Edwards, a teacher of Latin and mathematics, committed the crime of being a Socialist. The school board was “a quiet, vestry-like body,” and let him alone; but a certain rich lumberman, a combination of note-shaver and psalm-singer named Owens, served notice on them that if they did not fire the Socialist, he would elect a board that would. They did not, and so he did. From that time on, Big Business has run the schools, and has fired three other teachers, the best qualified in the city. They have closed all the night schools save one, which is practically an adjunct of the big department stores. As Dallas is a city of great distances, this means that evening instruction is denied to the working class.
Nor is a teacher a citizen in Austin, Texas, where sixty-three of them joined a union, and all the officers were dismissed. The president of the union, Mr. E. S. Blackburn, appeared before the superintendent and demanded the reasons in his own case. Mr. Blackburn was director of manual training, and the superintendent told him he didn’t administer his department well. As the teacher had given the sixteen best years of his life to the work, and loved it passionately, this hurt his feelings, and he asked for specifications. The superintendent, after some pondering, cited the fact that Mr. Blackburn hadn’t a wood-block floor in his manual training shop. The next question was, what school did have such a floor; and that was rather a poser, but finally the answer was forthcoming—the Manual Training High School of Chicago. Mr. Blackburn at once telegraphed to Chicago, and three hours later was informed by Western Union that there was no Manual Training High School in Chicago! Continuing his researches by telegraph, he learned that no manual training shop in Chicago had a wood-block floor; he laid these messages before the board—which was “speechless,” but nevertheless voted to sustain the superintendent.
Take Elgin, Illinois, a manufacturing city run by the open shoppers, with the usual board of business men and retainers. The condition of the schools was so bad that the teachers formed an organization—not a union, as they explicitly repudiated union tactics; they wanted merely a respectable teachers’ association, affiliated with the National Education Association. But the Black Hand wouldn’t stand even that, and persecuted the teachers to such an extent that they went into politics and tried to educate the public, and failed. The Black Hand, having been victorious at the polls, reappointed its superintendent, and he proceeded to get rid of six teachers and eight principals who had supported the teachers’ ticket, and to put seventeen other teachers on monthly contracts, so that they would have to be good. One of the principals who lost her place had been in the Elgin school system for twenty-six years, and expressed her feelings about the matter by taking poison and dying. You have heard of the Chinese custom of committing suicide upon the door-step of some tyrannical mandarin; it would appear that this is the one form of protest left to American school teachers in open-shop cities. In this case it was successful, because public clamor, accompanied by threats of lynching, caused the open-shop superintendent to quit.
A teacher is not a citizen in Atlanta, Georgia, where the teachers organized to work for salary increases and for larger school appropriations, and Miss Julia Riordan, a principal with a twenty years’ record, was so courageous as to help them. Three prominent business men called upon members of the board, and instructed them to “slap the teachers’ association” by discharging Miss Riordan. They did so—in secret session, and without giving their victim a chance to defend herself. Then they proceeded to fill the newspapers with mysterious hints as to this teacher’s offenses; one of the board members, Mr. McCalley, a gay humorist who represented a New York bond house, explained that he voted against granting Miss Riordan a hearing because of affidavits which he had received “under seal” concerning this teacher. “If those affidavits are true, I cannot vote to give Miss Riordan a hearing; if they are not true, somebody could be prosecuted.” The humorous Mr. McCalley failed to explain how anyone could know whether the affidavits were true, unless the principal were given a chance to refute them. He failed to explain how “somebody could be prosecuted,” so long as nobody knew who “somebody” was, or what “somebody” had charged!
A teacher may be a citizen in Buffalo, New York—provided that he or she is a very courageous and determined citizen! There was formed in Buffalo the “Teachers’ Educational League,” to deal with the wretched condition of the schools. In 1920 they published a pamphlet, in which they discussed the school situation; I quote four of the paragraphs to which the school board made objection:
We cherish the pious hope that in some not too distant day there may arrive in the positions of administration of the schools men and women of sufficient vision to realize the importance to education of the intelligent and free-minded co-operation of the teachers.
Since 1910 every increase in salary for the grade teachers has been secured by the sole efforts of the Teachers’ Educational League, and with the active opposition of the heads of the school department.