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The expulsion of these three teachers was, of course, a personal triumph for Mr. Aaron Dotey, Chief Spy of the DeWitt Clinton High School. The activities of the “Dotey Squad,” as the spies and informers are termed, were now extended to cover the entire system. The Chief Spy compiled a card index, with detailed information about suspected teachers. I have talked with some who have been privileged to inspect this catalogue, and have seen on Mr. Dotey’s desk a dossier of clippings and reports a foot high, relating to one group of rebel teachers in the system!

Mr. Dotey’s training for this work had been thorough; first, he was a sheriff; then, becoming a teacher, he was put in charge of the “corridor squad,” which has to do with discipline. He struck one pupil in the jaw and knocked him down for talking in line; he was accustomed to summon unruly pupils to his room and administer the “third degree,” calling them foul names, shouting and storming at them in a voice which could be heard all over the building, and which became a scandal throughout the system. One of the crimes of Mr. Schmalhausen was that he had proposed a program of student self-government, thus eliminating Mr. Dotey. To complete the picture of this furious old bigot, I mention that he was “converted” by his Catholic wife, which fact now puts him in line for a big promotion.

The next teacher to fall a victim was Mr. Benjamin Glassberg, of the Commercial High School of Brooklyn, who was notified that he was suspended without pay. Mr. Glassberg’s hard luck was that a boy in his class had asked him “whether or not Lenin and Trotsky were, in his opinion, German agents or German spies.” I quote the exact words of Mr. Glassberg’s answer, as sworn to by thirty-five boys in the class; eight of these boys testified, and then the board got tired of hearing them, and the testimony of the other twenty-seven was entered by stipulation—that is, both sides agreed upon a statement of what the twenty-seventwenty-seven would testify in substance. Mr. Glassberg’s reply was that: “he did not think so, as Lenin and Trotsky had been busy circulating propaganda literature against the war among the Germans, thereby undermining their morale, and weakening their power in the war.”

Here was another Socialist teacher whom it was desired to “get,” and this was the chance to “get” him. There were forty-three boys in the class, and more than thirty were Jewish. The principal summoned before him, one at a time, two Jewish boys and ten Gentile boys, and questioned them as to what had happened in the class, trying to get them to say the worst possible things against Mr. Glassberg. A stenographer was present and took down what the boys said; then, according to the testimony of one of the boys, a most eager opponent of Mr. Glassberg, the principal “made an arrangement of little bits” of what the boys had said, and made it into a statement. The boys were summoned several times—for a period of eight weeks this coaching and rehashing of the charges went on, and meantime Mr. Glassberg was suspended without pay, and could not get the copy of the charges to which he was legally entitled! It finally became necessary for his lawyers to apply to the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus, compelling the service of the charges upon Mr. Glassberg!

The statement, when finally prepared, was an obvious perversion of everything which even the most hostile of the boys alleged. This was, let remind you, a time when the principal news out of Soviet Russia was “the nationalization of women”; and here was a teacher, questioned by his students, and telling them the plain and obvious truth. Let me quote a little more of the testimony—and please note that I am quoting from the stipulated testimony of thirty-five members of the class:

Another boy in the class made a statement, though apparently rising to ask a question, to the effect that it must be that Lenin and Trotsky’s government was stronger with the people than the Kerensky government for the reason that it held on longer than the Kerensky government, and it could hardly be that the Bolsheviki were such thieves and cut-throats as represented if their government lasted so long. This boy’s statement Mr. Glassberg did not discuss at any length, because it was made at the end of the period, but did indicate in what he said that since the Lenin-Trotsky government had lasted longer than the Kerensky regime, this indicated that it must have considerable strength with the people. Another boy asked if information about the Bolsheviki was being withheld and Mr. Glassberg said that he was inclined to think so, and read certain questions which Senator Johnson had read in the Senate some time previous asking information about Russian conditions, and also referred to the fact that Colonel Robins of the Red Cross had been requested upon his return to this country by the State department, not to discuss the Russian situation, and also referred to a speech made by Major Thatcher of the Red Cross at a banquet in Boston at which he had defended the Bolsheviki from the attacks made upon them by some previous speakers.

Colonel Raymond Robins took the witness stand, and testified that upon his return from Russia he had been requested by the State Department not to discuss the Russian situation. Major Thatcher also took the stand, and testified to the truth of what Mr. Glassberg had said about him. It is interesting to note that the principal of the school informed some of the boys who were to testify at the hearing that Major Thatcher, an army officer of the highest standing, was “a criminal.” Also, a number of the boys told how the principal had attempted to intimidate them before they went upon the witness stand. To quote one case: “Do you know, boys, that Mr. Glassberg was charged with conduct unbecoming a teacher; therefore it means that you boys who are going to testify for Mr. Glassberg are UN-AMERICAN.” The boy’s reply was: “Mr. Raynor, do you know that when we are going to testify for Mr. Glassberg, we are going to tell what we heard in our class, and no more. We are going to tell the truth.”

Mr. Glassberg’s record as a teacher was produced before the board. His ratings during his entire five years had been the highest possible, this applying both to discipline and to teaching. Nevertheless, he was driven from the schools; and soon afterwards went Benjamin Harrow, whose crime was that he advised his students to read a magazine article by Thorstein Veblen. Also, according to the official statement of Superintendent Tildsley, “his favorite reading is said to be the ‘Nation,’ the ‘New Republic’ and the ‘Dial.’ He occupied a front seat at each session of the Glassberg trial, and seemed to approve sentiments expressed in favor of the Bolshevists.” In this same official document is given an idea of the cultural level of the district superintendent in charge of all the high schools of New York City; says Dr. Tildsley: “Mr. Harrow recommended his pupils to read an article in the ‘Dial’ of February 22, 1919, by Thornstein Veller!” Mr. Harrow did not wait to be tried before John Whalen and the rest of the thugs. He handed in his resignation, with a blistering letter to Dr. Tildsley, asserting:

You are using the school as a medium for conducting a campaign of propaganda in favor of the most reactionary tendencies of our day.... In short, you have made the schools an unhappy place for any sensitive American who refuses to accept your own individual conception of what constitutes Americanism, who prefers rather to accept what the founders of this republic conceived to be the true American ideals.

Also, while dealing with teacher casualties, I must pay honor to Dr. Arthur M. Wolfson, who was principal of the High School of Commerce, and resigned as protest against this White Terror. Dr. Wolfson knew that he was dealing with boys who came from Socialist homes, and he had conceived it his duty as an educator to take a stand of neutrality in the issues of the class struggle. He would teach his students the ideal of freedom of discussion, and a hearing for both sides. For many years he followed that program, and as a result there was in his school an atmosphere of tolerance and fellowship unknown in other New York high schools.

But it had been the custom when election time came round for the history and civics department to take a straw ballot for the presidency; and this time the dreadful discovery was made that three hundred and fifty-four out of the two thousand students had voted for Debs! It was proposed to tell this news in the school weekly, but the superintendent in charge ordered this paper suppressed, and rebuked Dr. Wolfson for taking the straw vote. Dr. Wolfson pointed out that the “Literary Digest” was doing the same thing. Also, if the students were for Debs, would it do any good to suppress the fact? Would it not be best to face the fact and deal with it? A little later Dr. Wolfson got his orders about Russia; no longer was there to be free discussion; he was to teach one view and only one view—that is, the official propaganda of the young secretaries of our State Department who, with their aristocratic Russian wives, were conducting a private war against the Russian people without authorization from Congress.

Later, Dr. Wolfson was ordered to enforce a rule forbidding the New York “Call” to be carried in class-rooms or study-halls. So he wrote a dignified letter to the board of superintendents, explaining: “Frankly, during the last two or three years I have not felt free to follow the intellectual habits of a lifetime.” Superintendent Ettinger came back with a letter to the New York “Times,” declaring:

I am very frank to confess that I dissent most heartily from the basic thesis set up by Principal Wolfson that it is the function of our schools to allow students and teachers to express their belief freely, to meet argument with argument, and not either overtly or covertly to suppress opinions which are held in honesty and in good faith.

It is not often that the gang is so frank as that, so we owe thanks to Superintendent Ettinger. Wishing to give him all the fame to which he is entitled, I mention that to a reporter of the New York “Call” he declared that he would bar H. G. Wells from the school forums of New York for having said that Lenin was a great man!