You might think that would have ended the matter, but if so, you don’t know the methods of the gang. This teacher applied for a position as secretary to a corporation, and was promised the position, but when she went to begin her work she was told by the manager that Mr. Hunter had reported her as having been “disloyal”; consequently this corporation could not employ her. And if you think that an unusual kind of thing, let me mention that only yesterday I was talking with a school teacher in Los Angeles, who told me about a friend of hers who had fought the gang, and then had left Los Angeles to seek a position elsewhere; for years afterwards she lost every position she held, because the gang ferreted her out and wrote letters about her to her new school employers. There has just been a new school election in Oakland. In preparation for it, Mr. Hunter had got his henchmen in all the Babbitt societies of the city—the Rotarians, the Kiwanis, the Lions, the Ad Clubs, the “High Twelve,” the “Knights of the Round Table.” And a few days before the election he took eight boys out of high school, without the permission or knowledge of their parents, and set them to distributing election cards in boats and trains. His ticket won; and so he now has everything his own way. The old board had persisted in keeping in office a “chief of construction” who was finishing the new school buildings. This man had required the contractors to live up to the specifications, and had thereby incurred the furious enmity of the grafters—and also, of course, of Mr. Hunter. The grafting contractors put up large sums of money to pay for the election of the new board, and the first action of Mr. Hunter when the new board came in was to recommend the discharge and force the resignation of the too honest chief of construction. In resigning, this official filed specific charges of fraud against the contractors, and Mr. Hunter’s school board majority utterly ignored the communication. It was left to the Civic Club, an independent organization, to force an investigation, which has shown substitution of inferior materials, meaning tens of thousands of dollars stolen from the people of the city. Some new buildings have been condemned as unsafe, and the work ordered done over. And note, please, that Hunter is on the building committee, and had full knowledge of what his gang was doing. The presidents of the various women’s clubs of Oakland unite in a statement: “We are told of fire hazards, faulty roof construction, and other grave dangers menacing the lives of our children. And yet we are told that no crime has been committed!” I entreat you to remember these things when, later on in this book, you are reading about Hunter of Oakland, and his career of glory at the annual conventions of the National Education Association.