The prohibition of night work, the eight-hour day, and the minimum wage for women are necessary to protect the health of the mothers of the next generation.
Or an incendiary statement such as this:
Social insurance helps to maintain normal family standards.
Again, think of telling a tender young child about a workingman who contracted tuberculosis, so that his oldest boy had to leave school, and the mother had to go out to day sewing, with the result that “the young children ran wild.” Then follows the subtle propaganda:
The misfortune of this family could have been prevented if a law providing for social insurance against sickness, or health insurance, had been in effect.
There was a whole list of Bolshevik utterances such as this, which you may find quoted and discussed in a pamphlet published by the National Industrial Conference at Boston. The title of the pamphlet is: “A Case of Federal Propaganda in our Public Schools.” The pamphlet doesn’t state what was done about this matter, so I mention that the circulation of the wicked propaganda by the United States government was immediately stopped.
Next, the National Association for Constitutional Government, which is sending out lecturers to talk to school children on the Constitution. A teacher in St. Paul tells me about a woman from this organization, who was allowed half an hour in a high school of St. Paul, and devoted two minutes to the Constitution, and twenty-eight minutes to the Bolsheviks—meaning, of course, everybody who believes in municipal milk inspection and government control of railroads. This lady has just turned up in Southern California, having got herself transferred to the Better America Federation. She lectures in the drawing-rooms of our rich ladies, and feeds them all the old garbage—free love, nationalization of women, the communization of children, the tearing down of churches. She lends spice to her discourse by telling how she herself in her youth was seduced by these cults of Satan. It is noted that no one is ever given an opportunity to question her, and she never appears before those organizations whose rules provide that both sides of every question shall be heard. She has a new and curious formula for getting at the truth: “If you want to know about Socialism, don’t go to the Socialists!” To a friend of mine she said, with lifted eyebrows: “Do you really think Upton Sinclair is sincere?”
Next, the National Security League. From a syndicated newspaper article, occupying two columns, I cut the following head-lines:
/* LESSONS IN PATRIOTISM ARE FREE FOR TEACHERS
Revision in Study of Civics All Over Country Helped by Noble Work of League Secretary */