[E]. So many people have expressed incredulity concerning these matters that at the risk of repetition I quote one paragraph from the report of the school committee of the grand jury, the chairman of which was Mrs. Samuel Backus, wife of General Backus, former postmaster of San Francisco:
“Mr. Conkling, store-keeper, testified that School Director Miss Sallie Jones condemned the furniture and sold the same to private parties and schools, and the same were at once put into service. Miss Sallie Jones testified that she had ordered the sale of old desks, etc., and that the same were sold at private sale, and at the same time the Department was buying new furniture for the schools, as she would not put old desks or chairs in new schools built by bond money. This is in strict contradiction of the Charter. First, the furniture was not useless, and second, it was not sold at public auction. Most of the sales were made at 25 and 50 cents per desk, and replaced by new ones costing from six to ten dollars.”
Nor was it desks alone. Thousands of sacks of cement, intended for the public schools, were stolen from the board of public works, and other material, wood, steel, etc., was likewise delivered to the parochial schools. Because of the overcrowding in the public schools, the city had built over five hundred temporary shacks, costing one or two thousand dollars each; and it was estimated that more than half this amount had gone into graft. A school official in the course of his duties sent a cement man to estimate on cement repair work; the price asked was two hundred dollars; the official told him to add fifty dollars, “And you know what it is for.” On another job the man estimated two hundred and fifty dollars; he was told to add fifty dollars for the official; then he was told to add ninety dollars to this. A former storekeeper of the schools received fifty reams of paper, and was asked to sign for one hundred; because he refused to do this he was discharged from his position. It was shown that the city had furnished its Catholic board president an automobile costing over five thousand dollars. Other members of the board had had homes built at the expense of the city; the material was taken from the board of public works, the employes of this board helped to construct the buildings, and the time was charged to “school repairs.”
Also this grand jury committee brought out the fact that the laws had been repeatedly broken in the purchase of text-books for the San Francisco schools. Books had been bought in large quantities in defiance of state provisions, and at prices higher than those permitted. The committee listed a total of 11,161 books which could not be used at all. Among those who appeared before the grand jury was a Catholic member of the school board, Miss Alice Rose Power, who admitted that she had formerly owned five thousand shares of stock in a text-book company, and had assigned half this stock to the head of the company and the other half to her nephew. She still had a desk in the office of this company, and at the same time, as a member of the school board, had authorized purchases of text-books from this company.
I was told by teachers in San Francisco that there were store-rooms full of unused books, which had been purchased at much higher than the authorized prices; scarcely a teacher who did not report basements and cupboards in his or her school, piled up with books which could not be used. One teacher told me how, when it was known that this book graft was being looked into, great quantities of books were shipped to another school, and others were given to the pupils to be carried home. I recalled the stories I heard nearly twenty years ago, when I was investigating the glass factories in South Jersey; the state child labor inspector would telephone to a certain factory that he was about to make an inspection, and all the child workers would be gathered up and hidden away in the big passage through which the fresh air was driven to the blast furnaces!
Under the law, all these book companies could have been fined and made to take back the books; also the bondsmen of the school board members were liable for the amount of the graft. Some citizens hoped that this money might be collected, but their hope was vain. The foreman of the grand jury requested that while the investigation was under way, the Public Schools Defense Association would hold no more public meetings and give no more information to the press; the grand jury likewise gave out nothing, and so gradually the excitement died down. Then, to the dismay of the association, the grand jury adjourned without taking any action; and the members of the association investigated, and discovered that the foreman of the grand jury was a Catholic!
The book graft is an ancient and honored one in San Francisco history. If you visit the University of California you will be shown with pride the magnificent Bancroft library of old Spanish manuscripts. You are told that this is a memorial to H. H. Bancroft, the historian of California; and you get the impression that Mr. Bancroft donated it. As a matter of fact, he sold it to the state for a quarter of a million dollars; also, he sold his books to the schools—his great store-house of culture, the “History of California” by Hubert Henry Bancroft, three volumes at five dollars per volume. It was published by the author, and wide-awake young agents explained to school boards and superintendents that the great work was not yet complete; there was a shrewdly worded clause in the contract, whereby the purchaser agreed to take the succeeding volumes of the series.
The school authorities signed this contract by the thousands, and then the Bancroft mills began to grind! “The History of California” extended to thirty-three volumes, and then it was continued in the form of histories of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Central America, Alaska; it was like the magic salt-mill which made the sea salty! These volumes would appear every six months or so; they would be delivered at the schools, and the innocent teachers would take them in and put them on the shelves. Nothing was said about payment, and so nobody worried about it; until finally, after the series was completed, the bills were delivered—and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth among school boards of California. Many refused to pay, but Bancroft sued, and got judgments amounting to over a million dollars. I am told that there are schools way up in the hills which have a shelf of Bancroft’s history as their sole instrument of general culture. After that the Bancroft concern was a power in the school-book business of the state; it got the agencies for many of the big book concerns, and carried the school superintendents in its pocket.