The book graft is an ancient and honored one in San Francisco history. If you visit the University of California you will be shown with pride the magnificent Bancroft library of old Spanish manuscripts. You are told that this is a memorial to H. H. Bancroft, the historian of California; and you get the impression that Mr. Bancroft donated it. As a matter of fact, he sold it to the state for a quarter of a million dollars; also, he sold his books to the schools—his great store-house of culture, the “History of California” by Hubert Henry Bancroft, three volumes at five dollars per volume. It was published by the author, and wide-awake young agents explained to school boards and superintendents that the great work was not yet complete; there was a shrewdly worded clause in the contract, whereby the purchaser agreed to take the succeeding volumes of the series. The school authorities signed this contract by the thousands, and then the Bancroft mills began to grind! “The History of California” extended to thirty-three volumes, and then it was continued in the form of histories of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Central America, Alaska; it was like the magic salt-mill which made the sea salty! These volumes would appear every six months or so; they would be delivered at the schools, and the innocent teachers would take them in and put them on the shelves. Nothing was said about payment, and so nobody worried about it; until finally, after the series was completed, the bills were delivered—and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth among school boards of California. Many refused to pay, but Bancroft sued, and got judgments amounting to over a million dollars. I am told that there are schools way up in the hills which have a shelf of Bancroft’s history as their sole instrument of general culture. After that the Bancroft concern was a power in the school-book business of the state; it got the agencies for many of the big book concerns, and carried the school superintendents in its pocket. Some time ago the people of California got tired of being robbed by book companies, and put through a provision for the manufacture of elementary school text-books by the state. All over the United States I found the book men incensed concerning this California procedure. They would present me with pocketfuls of literature, expensive pamphlets demonstrating the futility and extravagance of the California text-book program. I would listen politely, and accept the literature and ship it home, where it still forms a pile upon my shelves; but I do not need to go into it, because, having investigated the California situation, I know how the political machine is occupied to sabotage the public text-book scheme. The former state printer, Richardson, is now our governor, put in office by the Black Hand to starve the schools and build up the jails.