So the teachers took up the idea of affiliation with the American Federation of Teachers; there was a mass meeting, and the president of a “co-operative” organization of the teachers, supposed to be representing their interests, got them started at singing, and after they had sung for a while he let them hear some “hand-picked” speakers; then, just when everybody was expecting to hear a speech on the subject they were all interested in, an increase in wages, he had them sing one more song—and then declared the meeting adjourned! For this service he was awarded with a five thousand dollar position in the school system of another city. Kansas City has a kind of Margaret Haley of its own; she is Mrs. Sarah Green, president of the Woman’s Trade Union League, and her organization took up the fight for the teachers’ salaries. A mass-meeting was called, and Mrs. Green called up the president of the board of education, and asked permission to distribute announcements of the meeting to the teachers in the schools; this permission was refused. Then Mrs. Green asked the superintendent of schools for permission to hold the meeting in a high school building; this permission also was refused. The meeting was held outside, and a great many teachers got up the courage to attend, and in the end they got about half the salary increase they should have had. The cultured lady-teachers were shocked at the idea of joining a trade union and identifying themselves with common working girls. “But,” said Mrs. Green to me, “I know of girls who work in factories in this city, and don’t even know how to read, who have more courage than our teachers, and would not submit to the humiliations which the teachers have to endure.” That is something for school-teachers, and all other white-collared wage-slaves, to think seriously about! Mrs. Green has also made herself a great nuisance to the school authorities by butting in on debates in the public schools. You see, they cannot keep the students from wanting to discuss that livest of all live issues in Kansas City, the open shop. Mr. Cammack and his supervisors and principals naturally plan to have the opponents of union labor win these debates; but the students persist in coming to Mrs. Green, who takes them in off hours and provides them with the facts—with the result that out of ninety-seven she had trained, only seven have lost the debates! You can imagine what a terrible thing that is for the morale of an open-shop city!