In the face of such obstacles, a few devoted souls labor to save the children of the city. The schools have been shockingly overcrowded—with classes in cook-rooms, in hallways, in basements, in rooms without light or air. And, of course, the school board has made to the teachers the usual explanations why the city could not pay them a living wage. The high school teachers called a mass meeting, intending to affiliate with labor; whereupon the school authorities rushed to head them off—by bringing in a famous orator of the National Education Association, and then by granting the raise in wages! When the president of the Denver Labor College asked for the right to use school rooms for classes, the board with seven representatives of business and not one of labor turned him down in horror; if they allowed a working-class school, they would have to allow a capitalist school! Let the labor college allow the board to appoint the instructors, and then they might consider the matter. “Won’t you walk into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly! For ten years the progressives have pleaded with the school board to permit school buildings to be used by the citizens for public meetings—but in vain. As I write, they are winning a long struggle to have some attention paid to the health of the school children; the “interests” denounce this as Bolshevism—though just why it is Bolshevism to take care of the children’s bodies, when it is not Bolshevism to take care of their minds, is not explained. There is one devoted friend of the children in Denver, Judge Lindsey of the Juvenile Court; all over the United States he has spoken to great gatherings in the schools—but not in Denver! He tells me that he hopes to get back this fall; if so, it will be the first time in ten years that he has spoken in a Denver school! The officials have told him quite frankly that “business” would not permit it.[F] ----- Footnote F: In December, as I am reading the proofs of this book, Mrs. Lindsey writes me that he has not yet spoken, and she knows of no prospect. ----- So we see the same thing that we saw in Los Angeles and Spokane—the children, being deprived of the joys and excitements of the intellectual life, follow the example of their elders and go “wild.” If I had the power to gather all the parents of America for one hour, and make them listen to whatever I chose, I think I should put them in the private chambers of Judge Lindsey. I had the pleasure of spending several days with him. I thought I knew something about what is going on among the school children, but I was staggered when I heard Lindsey’s story. I am going to tell it, but later on—for the reason that these conditions are not peculiar to Denver, they are a problem of the entire country. After we have satisfied ourselves what plutocratic education is, we shall want to know what it has done to our children, and how our grand-children are to be saved.