For twenty-one years the public schools of Seattle have been under the control of a feudal lord of finance, by the melodramatic name of Ebenezer Shorrock. He was born under the flag of Queen Victoria, and acts as if he had been born under George III. A teacher asked for an advance in salary, and gave the excuse that he was paying for a piano. “A piano!” cried Banker Shorrock. “What business has a man in your position buying a piano?” To another teacher he made the statement that “No man who has any self-respect would work for the salary the teachers are paid.” Yet, in all his twenty-one years he has never voted for an increase to the teachers; and in June, 1922, he voted a decrease. In the arguments over this action he used his inside knowledge as head of a bank to attack his teacher slaves; he knew about their accounts, and many of them had “saved money!” We are told that these bankers are the proper persons to guard school finances; so let it be noted that Banker Shorrock has so run the schools into debt to the banks that now they are paying more than half a million dollars every year in interest. On his board this mighty plutocrat has a surgeon to the rich, who was asked by a labor leader to permit the “Nation,” the “New Republic,” and the “Freeman” to be used in high school civics classes. “Well,” said Dr. Sharples, “I cannot answer this question, as I am unacquainted with the journals you mention.” This from a professional man, presuming to direct education for a third of a million of people. But even that is not the limit in Seattle; another board member up to 1923 was a Stone and Webster engineer, who murdered the English of Banker Shorrock’s queen. Somebody said that a cut in wages would lower the morale of the teaching force. “That moral stuff don’t go with me,” declared Engineer Santmyer. “I know lots of them girls, and there ain’t anything wrong with their morals.” It is interesting to note that this engineer was also connected with the Pacific Coast Coal Company, from which the school board purchased most of its coal. Another board member who retired along with him was Mr. Taylor, Northwestern representative of a big school-book publishing house. He gave a written pledge that he would oppose any attempt to reduce the teachers’ salaries; he signed this pledge on April 19, 1922, and on June 10, 1923, he seconded Banker Shorrock’s motion to make a heavy cut in the teachers’ salaries. Mr. Santmyer also joined in this vote against the teachers, and when his victims protested, he got cross, and addressing a meeting of the school engineers, declared: “I just want one more crack at them damned teachers.”