I shall before long show you how at this same DeWitt Clinton High School there has been established with official sanction an elaborate system of espionage; a teacher drawing full salary devotes the greater part of his time to training pupils to spy upon other teachers, and when these pupils bring reports of unorthodox ideas and utterances, the pupils are praised for a meritorious service. But in the case of Mr. Berry I find that the disposition to report genuine evils is described by Dr. Tildsley as “a tendency to tale-bearing which lessens efficiency!”
Why Dr. Tildsley did not like the “tale-bearing” of Mr. Berry is easy to understand. In 1914 Dr. Tildsley was principal of the DeWitt Clinton High School, and when he was moved on to a higher position, two of his favorite teachers in the school, who were in line for principalships, and who have since been made principals, took five hundred and twenty-five dollars out of the “general organization fund” of the school—that is, money contributed by the students for student activities—and used it to purchase a silver service which was presented to Dr. Tildsley. The source of this money was kept a secret, but Mr. Berry learned about it, and wrote to the president of the board of education, pointing out that this was a clear violation of the law, as well as a great injustice to the pupils, most of whom were poor and many self-supporting. Had not one teacher been turned out of the system for accepting a box of candy from her pupils? A scandal was threatened, but it was hushed up, the newspapers co-operating by not publishing a line. Dr. Tildsley returned the silver service, which was sold, I am informed, to George Sylvester Viereck. For nine years Mr. Berry has been persecuted because of this affair; while Dr. Tildsley was promoted to be deputy boss of the gang!
They have a method of punishing teachers which they learned from the police department in New York. Every now and then some policeman takes it upon himself to enforce a law which his superiors are using as a means of extortion; they will shift this policeman to the Bronx, and a month later they will send him to Brooklyn, and a month later to Staten Island, and so on—the poor wretch spends the greater part of his life on street cars, getting to his job and back. In the case of a teacher they wait just long enough for her to get settled in a new home, and then they move her again. It is something understood by all teachers that anyone who opposes the principal will find herself “transferred,” or lowered in ratings, or will have hard classes, or longer hours with no more pay. Said one to me: “Any teacher who brings charges against a principal is ruined. It matters nothing what the charges are: stealing school funds, or beating the pupils, or offensive advances of a sexual nature. All that happens is the principal denies the charges, and the matter is dropped; a teacher’s testimony counts for no more than the testimony of a Negro in the South.”
New York is not an “open shop” city, and so the teachers have a union. Its leaders suffer discrimination when it comes to promotion, but that does not break the union down. As part of the campaign against it, the authorities maintain a “yellow” union; that is, an organization which is supposed to represent the teachers, but can be controlled by the gang. The name of this is the “Teachers’ Council.” It purports to be a representative body, but the teachers do not vote directly, they vote for delegates from all organizations recognized by the board of education; and the insiders will belong to as many as ten or a dozen organizations, and will have a vote in each. The machine has its henchmen in all the key positions, and the surest way to promotion in the system lies in the rendering of this kind of Judas service. This “Teachers’ Council” is accustomed to attack the reputations of union teachers, and never give them opportunity to reply; the slander, whatever it is, will be quoted in the “Times” as representing the opinion of “twenty-five thousand organized teachers.” We are in New York now, not in Los Angeles, but you note that we still have our “Times,” and it is exactly the same kind of “Times”—it will publish any falsehood about an independent man or woman, and will give the victim no chance to answer.
CHAPTER XVI
A LETTER TO WOODROW WILSON
Needless to say, the first duty of this Tammany school board is to enforce loyalty to the plutocracy; and, needless to say, this constitutes “patriotism” and “religion.” Mr. Aaron Dotey, Chief Spy of the DeWitt Clinton High School, brought in a report last year, charging a school teacher with having said that “patriotism is a murderer’s occupation and a traitor’s cloak.” It did not occur to Mr. Dotey that this might not be the teacher’s fault. The Chief Spy should have mentioned that a hundred and fifty years or so ago a leading Englishman of letters, a prize old Tory, made the statement that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
The hounding of the teachers by the scoundrels began at the very outbreak of the war. First, there was the “mayor’s pledge,” which they all were required to swear; this not being enough, there was another pledge contrived by the board of education. All the teachers were loyal, but not all of them were willing to swear away their right to think. There were eighty-seven conscientious objectors to the “loyalty pledges.” A number of these subsequently served in the army and made distinguished records; but intention to enlist did not save them from persecution at the outbreak of the war, nor did their war-records save them from persecution after they came back.
In the fall of 1917 there occurred an outbreak at the DeWitt Clinton High School. Dr. Tildsley arbitrarily lengthened the school day, when already the teachers and pupils were overworked. A deputation of pupils waited upon the board of education, to protest against the proposed measure, and were received by John Whalen, board member and prominent Tammany chieftain, who settled the matter as follows: “I want it clearly understood that neither the pupils nor the teachers will be allowed to run the schools. And I want you to understand that if you pupils don’t go back and behave yourselves I’ll close down all the schools. Do you understand?” The pupils went back and reported, and there was the beginning of a strike; also there was a meeting of the teachers of DeWitt Clinton, attended by more than a hundred, who adopted the following so-called “Whalen Resolution”:
First:—That it is the sense of this meeting that John Whalen’s assertion is contrary to the modern spirit of true democracy.
Second:—That remarks of this type and threats to close the high schools are detrimental to good discipline and good teaching.