That government is a fearful master has been thoroughly proven to the teachers of Portland; the White Terror has raged in the schools, and has taken all the ugly forms of spying and treachery and brutality. The first teacher I talked with told me how she had seen a shadow on a window curtain, and had discovered the superintendent listening outside her class-room window. The second teacher I talked with had discovered the second assistant superintendent hiding in a cloak-room watching the teachers. Of course, all the agents of the Black Hand were training their children to bring tales home from the school-room. The Portland “Oregonian” exploded in a furious editorial, revealing that a teacher had actually defended the “Survey”; another teacher had maintained that the Socialists who had been elected to the Assembly in New York state had a right to demand their seats. That Charles E. Hughes agreed with this school teacher made no difference to the editor of the “Oregonian.”
During war-time, when everybody was selling Liberty bonds, a rumor spread that the librarian of the public library refused to buy. She was “grilled” by the city commission, and said: “I have been doing my work as librarian and minding my own affairs. But if you question me, and insist upon a reply, why then I inform you that I am a pacifist.” One commissioner’s answer was: “Would you want a German to ravish you?” You remember how they used to settle the anti-slavery question in the old days: “Would you want a Negro to marry your sister?” Of course the librarian went out, and her persecutor was elected to the school board.
This ultra-patriotic official was a wholesale druggist, and I had a friend who, in the early days of the war, was talking with an employe in this establishment, and was told that they had two clerks at work all day marking up prices. The employe said this in all innocence; he was proud of being part of such a busy and thriving institution! The druggist-hero was a Four-Minute Man, whose especial enemy was German literature and history; he did not rest until he had routed Goethe from the Portland schools. This reminds me of our adventure here in Pasadena, where our patriots discovered “The Psychology of the Unconscious,” by Jung; this great authority happens to be a Swiss, but he has a German name, and moreover, he was rumored “obscene,” so out he went from our public library!
There are Catholics in Portland, and they work for their faith; they get on the school board, and then there are anti-Catholic campaigns, and they get off again. But one member, thus put off, laughed to a friend of mine, saying that he didn’t mind, he had accomplished his purpose—he had sold the Archbishop’s property to the city! Now Oregon has passed a bill requiring all children to attend public schools; the Catholics are testing this in the courts—and meantime three public school buildings have been mysteriously burned down.
Not long ago there was a Catholic chairman of the school board, a prominent judge and politician. The alarming discovery was made that there was a teacher of manual training in one of the high schools who was a Socialist and believer in evolution; he was brought to trial, and Professor Rebec of the state university took the stand, and testified that it was quite the common custom among scientific men to believe in evolution. The chairman of the school board interrupted in rage! “That’s an exploded standpoint, and we won’t have it here!” The trial lasted for a week, and was a grand farce comedy. But, of course like all these Black Hand trials, its end was predetermined, and the teacher was fired.
I asked a large group of teachers what had become of the youngsters, under this regime of hundred per cent capitalism. Their testimony was unanimous upon the point that the schools are retrograding and that the children are not learning as they should. Home study has become a lost art. In the first place, the children have no room to study at home; in the second place, they go to the movies. Their parents permit them the freedom of the streets at night; and what can a teacher do, when she herself is condemned by official decree to be a mere phonograph? “It wouldn’t be so bad,” said one teacher, “if the phonograph had interesting records. But you can imagine what kind of lessons He picks out!” She had used this word “He” several times in our talk, and finally I asked, “Who is He?” There came a chorus from several at once: “When we say He, we always mean Mr. Grout!” Since this was written, “He” has been re-engaged for a term of three years.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE LAND OF LUMBER
We continue north to Seattle, another metropolis of fir and cedar. Here organized labor has been active; the city came near having a Socialist mayor, and the struggle of Big Business to keep its grip on the schools has been intense. The state university, located in Seattle, is safe in the hands of the gang, with a president by the name of Suzzallo, who acquired his finish at Columbia University, and has made himself a little miniature Nicholas Miraculous. Last spring he appeared before the legislature, and explained why he was worth $18,000 a year to the state; he had effected many economies—and when pressed to cite these, he stated that he had kept the professors from getting salary increases, and had reduced the standard salary for incoming instructors! The poor college slaves are strictly forbidden to take part in politics—which means that they dare not resent such incidents.
For twenty-one years the public schools of Seattle have been under the control of a feudal lord of finance, by the melodramatic name of Ebenezer Shorrock. He was born under the flag of Queen Victoria, and acts as if he had been born under George III. A teacher asked for an advance in salary, and gave the excuse that he was paying for a piano. “A piano!” cried Banker Shorrock. “What business has a man in your position buying a piano?” To another teacher he made the statement that “No man who has any self-respect would work for the salary the teachers are paid.” Yet, in all his twenty-one years he has never voted for an increase to the teachers; and in June, 1922, he voted a decrease. In the arguments over this action he used his inside knowledge as head of a bank to attack his teacher slaves; he knew about their accounts, and many of them had “saved money!” We are told that these bankers are the proper persons to guard school finances; so let it be noted that Banker Shorrock has so run the schools into debt to the banks that now they are paying more than half a million dollars every year in interest.
On his board this mighty plutocrat has a surgeon to the rich, who was asked by a labor leader to permit the “Nation,” the “New Republic,” and the “Freeman” to be used in high school civics classes. “Well,” said Dr. Sharples, “I cannot answer this question, as I am unacquainted with the journals you mention.” This from a professional man, presuming to direct education for a third of a million of people.