The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools

by Upton Sinclair

Until a year or two ago the Department of Classroom Teachers of the N. E. A. was nothing but a name. The way it leaped into sudden life is an amusing story. The school superintendents of the N. E. A. decided that they would have an exclusive organization, and hold meetings uncontaminated by the presence of the school proletariat. At their mid-winter convention of 1920 they reorganized themselves into an autonomous body, called the Department of Superintendence. After they had done this, the embarrassing discovery was made that they had violated the by-laws of the N. E. A.; but, of course, at the next convention of the N. E. A. special amendments were passed, so as to legalize what the superintendents had done. Being a superintendent in the N. E. A. is like being a millionaire in a police-court.

Now to each of the N. E. A. conventions come the “Bolsheviks” of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Association, headed by their president, Ethel Gardner; also the “Bolsheviks” of the Chicago Teachers’ Federation, headed by Margaret Haley. These groups are fighting for the school proletariat, and they watch with practiced eyes the tricks and contrivances of their superiors. They pounced upon this brilliant scheme of the Department of Superintendence; why not reorganize the Classroom Teachers’ Department of the N. E. A., and have it autonomous, like the Department of Superintendence? A beautiful scheme, you see! The Department of Superintendence had excluded from its membership everyone who was not a superintendent; now let the Department of Classroom Teachers exclude everyone who was not a classroom teacher!

Here was treason and rank rebellion; and actually, these teachers had the insolence to call a convention in Chicago, in February, 1922, at the same time as the midwinter meeting of the Department of Superintendence. The gang was so indignant that in Milwaukee the board of education refused leave of absence to Miss Ethel Gardner, who was president of the Department of Classroom Teachers, so that she might attend the convention she had called. The gang moved heaven and earth to oust her from her job as a teacher; but it so happened that she had an honest principal, and when they asked him to report her as incompetent he replied: “I will not tell a damned lie.”

The convention was held without Miss Gardner, and the teachers appointed a committee of Milwaukee and Chicago “Bolsheviks,” which spent all the spring drawing up a constitution and having it made air-tight by a competent attorney. At the 1922 convention of the N. E. A., held in Boston, they appeared with a printed draft of their scheme. They were going to re-elect Miss Ethel Gardner, the Milwaukee “Bolshevik,” as their president; and it goes without saying that the gang did not intend to let that happen. The gang picked out a “tame” teacher, Miss Effie MacGregor of Minneapolis, and decreed that she was to become president of the Department of Classroom Teachers—in spite of the classroom teachers!

This chapter is called “Dispensers of Prominence,” and here you see what I mean. The classroom teachers had never heard of Miss Effie MacGregor; she had never attended a meeting of the Department of Classroom Teachers, nor was she a member of a classroom teachers’ association. She had fought hard against the increase of their salaries; but now she was to be their president, and have the spending of their ten thousand dollars for a year! President Charl O. Williams of the N. E. A. proceeded to place the lady on the main program of the N. E. A., introducing her as “the foremost classroom teacher in the United States.” President Williams went on to explain the lady’s credentials to that title—she had arranged a movie benefit at a theatre, and raised funds to send eight delegates to the convention! Please understand, that is not a joke; that is the N. E. A. idea of “greatness.”

Come back with me to Oakland, California, and recall the picture of Fred M. Hunter, superintendent and educational ward leader, with his school henchmen and his grafting contractors. Recall Miss Elizabeth Arlett, “who, while supposed to be teaching the school children of Oakland, was touring the United States, shortly before the 1920 convention, in the interest of Mr. Hunter’s candidacy for president of the N. E. A. For that service and her subsequent activities, Miss Arlett was promoted to be principal of a high school in Oakland,” etc. You will expect to find Miss Arlett at this 1922 convention, ready to carry out Mr. Hunter’s orders for the smashing of the classroom teachers. You will be prepared to hear that the gang went into caucus in Miss Effie MacGregor’s room, and that Miss Arlett took the initiative and made the principal speech, endorsing her and outlining the program.

The gang had engaged Symphony Hall for the business meeting of the Department of Classroom Teachers—an afternoon meeting, and there was to be a concert in the hall in the evening. The promise had been made that the hall would be vacated at five o’clock; but not a word was said to the teachers about this, and the gang proceeded to drag the meeting out with technical discussions over the details of the constitution. At six o’clock a slip of paper was sent up to the presiding officer, stating that the meeting had already kept the hall for an hour beyond the time agreed upon, and must vacate immediately!

The teachers had just got down to the work of electing officers; they wanted to finish this work in a hurry, for they knew exactly whom they wanted, and it wouldn’t have taken five minutes. But the gang would not let that happen; a member of the board of trustees of the N. E. A. began a violent and noisy filibuster, and so prevented the election. The assembly twice rejected a motion to hold an adjourned meeting; they wanted to do their electing right there, but the gang held on and delayed matters, until finally the janitor threatened to turn out the lights, and thus forced the teachers from the hall.

So here was the Department of Classroom Teachers left without officers for a year! They did not know what to do; but the gang knew, you may be sure. They sprung the proposition at an assembly of the N. E. A. convention, at which very few of the classroom teachers were present, but at which four out of five of those present were superintendents or members of the supervising force. To this gathering the president of the N. E. A. announced that she “ordered” a meeting of the Classroom Teachers’ Department, to be held as soon as this N. E. A. assembly had adjourned. Under the by-laws, the president of the N. E. A. was absolutely without authority to order any such meeting; but she ordered it, and the incoming president of the N. E. A. took charge—Mr. William B. Owen, president of the Chicago Normal School, “ward leader” of the gang in that city.

The meeting was held; that is to say, a number of spectators stayed over, and Mr. Owen called them to order as classroom teachers, but without making any effort to find out whether they really were classroom teachers or not. The climax of absurdity was reached when this meeting—it was held in a theatre—was forced to vacate, and adjourned to the Boys’ Trade School. Fewer than two hundred people came to this place, and no effort was made to ascertain who they were, or what right they had to vote in the affairs of the classroom teachers. By means of this assemblage, the gang proceeded to elect Miss Effie MacGregor to run the Department of Classroom Teachers for a year! And you may be sure that in the course of that year the gang got busy, and pulled its wires, and saw to it that at the next convention there was a good majority against Miss Ethel Gardner, the Milwaukee “Bolshevik!” The job was an easy one, because the convention was in Oakland, and we have been there and seen how Superintendent Hunter keeps his teachers under his thumb.