San Francisco kept on growing, and the schools kept on falling to pieces, and public agitation grew louder and louder. Various public bodies took the matter up, and finally a survey was ordered, and a committee was appointed by the United States Commissioner of Education. This committee visited 106 schools, and made 1818 visits to classes. They issued an exhaustive report of 649 pages, which you can get from the United States Bureau of Education. They criticized the schools of San Francisco very sternly, and called for a complete reorganization, amendments to the charter, new departments, and other radical changes.

Superintendent Roncovieri, needless to say, took offense at this report, and before the Teachers’ Institute he delivered a violent attack upon it. The report was defended by Mr. Addicott, of the Polytechnic High School, and so resulted several years of controversy. Roncovieri’s outpourings were featured in the San Francisco “Chronicle,” organ of Mike de Young, whom Ambrose Bierce pictured hanging on all the gibbets of the world. (See “The Brass Check.”) In the “Chronicle” of October 19, 1920, Superintendent Roncovieri described Mr. Addicott as “a clown,” “an idiot,” and “a boob.” These highly educational statements were followed by charges on the part of Mr. Gallagher, Catholic president of the board of education, to the effect that there was gambling going on at Polytechnic High School. Also it was charged that Mr. Addicott had suspended some pupils—though nobody could explain how the principal of a school was to keep the pupils from gambling if he were not allowed to suspend any of them. It must be especially hard for a principal to keep the pupils from gambling when the principal knows, and all the pupils know, that the big business men of the city are doing little else.

Not long after that Mr. Addicott committed two major offenses; he gave to the grand jury information concerning the wasting of school funds by the grafters, and he said something in public to the effect that the president of the school board had appeared at a school gathering under the influence of liquor. So Mr. Addicott, after a farcical trial before the Catholic board, was turned out of the school system, and the non-Catholic population of San Francisco proceeded to organize the Public Schools Defense Association. The students of the Polytechnic High School declared a strike, and there was a campaign carried on by means of mass meetings and leaflets, which made the public acquainted with facts which the newspapers had for years refused to print. What these facts were is the next subject for our attention.

CHAPTER XXIV
THE CITY OF FRENCH RESTAURANTS

Once more I am sorry to seem to play the game of the Grand Imperial Kleagles; nevertheless, it must be stated that two forces have had control of the San Francisco public schools for the past twenty years: First, the big and little business grafters, and second, Archbishop Hanna, who is pledged ex-officio to the undermining of the public school system and the building up of the Catholic parochial schools. The Catholic superintendent and the Catholic board had deliberately held down the construction program of the public schools. The money intended for these schools was stolen by the grafters, while building materials were sold at bargain prices or stolen outright for the parochial schools. The very furniture out of the public schools was taken—the Catholic children were sitting on chairs taken from the public schools, while the children in the public schools had to sit on soap-boxes. You may find this incredible, but it is a matter of public record; it was proven before the grand jury, and the documents are available for those who care to consult them.

Needless to say, not many take that trouble; the newspapers of San Francisco follow the rule of the capitalist press throughout the United States—attacks on Catholic institutions are barred. Public speakers were forbidden to hold meetings and to lecture on this question, by order of the chief of police. Colonel J. Arthur Petersen asked in the office of the superintendent of schools for certain records concerning school affairs, and Mr. Roncovieri threatened to shoot him. Later on, a mob set upon Colonel Petersen and tried to murder him in broad daylight on the streets of the city.

The most curious story is that of the sale of school desks. By order of the school director, Miss Jones, a Catholic, there were sold to the parochial schools nearly three thousand school desks, at from fifteen to fifty cents apiece. They were delivered by the city’s trucks to the various parochial schools, and the Catholic fathers and sisters signed receipts for them, and the city’s workmen, paid out of the city’s money, installed the desks, and cleaned and varnished them, using the city’s tools and materials. And three thousand children of the city were told that there were no accommodations for them in the public schools, but there was plenty of room in the church schools nearby!

I send the manuscript of this chapter to my friend, Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco “Call,” and he writes me that he has never heard of these incidents. I take this as a curious illustration of the power of the Catholic church over public opinion. The facts concerning the theft of school furniture, books and building materials constituted the principal issue in the school election of 1921. I have before me seven pamphlets of the Public Schools Defense Association, in which the facts are given in minute detail; especially Bulletin No. 2, dated October 10, 1921, and Bulletin No. 3, dated October 20, 1921. The facts were also published and republished in a paper called the “Crusader,” especially the issues of June, September, and October, 1921. Mr. H. H. Somers was an active worker in the association, and he has sent me transcripts of the sales of school desks, which he personally rechecked from the records of the board of education.

The president of this board came to the defense of the gang declaring that the desks had been sold “to anyone who might want them.” But practically nobody got them except the parochial schools, and nobody knew anything about the sales but these same schools. The city charter provides that all public property which is “usable” must be sold at public auction, after being advertised for five days; a law which was not once complied with over a period of five years. The president of the board furthermore argued that the desks “were sold in small lots.” Concerning that you may judge for yourself; I quote from the records: Father W. H. O’Mahoney received two lots, a total of 235 desks, voucher 960, dated May 8, 1920, and voucher unnumbered, dated September 27, 1919. Father Peter C. Yorke received two lots a total of 200 desks, vouchers 812, November 26, 1917, and 912, September 22, 1919. Father Sullivan received 200 desks, voucher 610, September 8, 1916. Father Doran received one lot of 375 desks, voucher 816, December 2, 1918. This makes a total of 971 desks delivered in six lots. In addition to these, more than 2,000 desks went in lots of from 20 to 60 per delivery.

So great was the public excitement over these matters that on September 15, 1921, a crowd of five hundred women stormed the city hall. A Mrs. McCarthy declared that children at the Portola and Buena Vista public schools, from which desks had been sold, were having to sit on soap-boxes; another woman declared that her own child was sitting on a soap-box. The newspapers reported the incident, but briefly, and without mentioning the dread word Catholic. The grand jury took up all the charges, and conducted very thorough investigations.[[E]]