The schools of Chicago are a happy hunting ground for every form of reactionary propaganda. The War Department supplies “dope” for the high school papers, and it is published. The boys hate this military training, but they take it; as one boy explained to his teacher, “I’ve been bullied for two years; now it’s my turn to bully somebody else.” Many years ago Chicago had a great superintendent of schools, Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, and she tried to keep this curse of militarism away from the children. She introduced in courses for every grade a little time to be given to the teaching of peace; but the president of the school board, attorney for the packers who came to board meetings drunk, cut it out. The bankers come to set up their golden calf in the schools; also the various commercial men who want to use the schools for advertising—putting their “dope” into the writing books. For example, the book-keeping classes copy pages of the transactions of Marshall, Field & Co. A recent investigation in the technical schools showed that employers were calling up for high school students, and even specifying their church affiliations. Such employers use the public schools to train their apprentices, and then violate the constitutional rights of citizens. The Yellow Taxi-cab Company sends to schools to ask if would-be drivers have union relatives! The big Babbitts of the Association of Commerce, desiring flocks of little Babbits, arranged for organizing in the schools what they called “Junior Associations of Commerce.” The boys must be called out of class to listen to lectures by Mr. Sam Insull, monarch of all the gas tanks he surveyed, who made a tour of the schools to tell how he succeeded by never looking at the clock. Another business man told the kids that labor “slacked” during the war; and as many of these Chicago kids came from union homes, they resented it. When the grown-up Association of Commerce failed to support appropriations for the schools, the kids at one school got on their dignity and withdrew. Then the Chicago Federation of Labor had a bright thought—why should there not be a Junior Federation of Labor in the schools? Why should not labor leaders come to tell the kids how they succeeded by solidarity? A movement for this program was started, and the name Junior Associations of Commerce was changed in a hurry to Civic Industrial Clubs! How badly some labor representation is needed in Chicago schools you may judge from a story told me by a parent, whose little boy asked his teacher, “What is the militia for?” The answer was, “To put down labor strikes.” CHAPTER XXIII THE SUPERINTENDENT OF TROMBONES We have now examined the public schools of three of our largest cities. We are going to visit a number of other cities, and it will be convenient to begin with San Francisco and cross the continent eastward.