Mr. Johnson was running for re-election to a public office, and Miss Hesse, a citizen of St. Louis, was being asked for her vote; she thought she had a right to be informed about the matter, and she said to Mrs. Gellhorn, privately and politely: “Is it true, as has just been stated at an open men’s meeting, that Mr. Johnson is the head of a sweat-shop, and is connected with a real estate company doing business with the board?” That was all of the conversation; and for it Miss Hesse, who was head assistant of the Franz Sigel School, and had been a teacher in St. Louis for thirty-one years, was driven from her position and from the school system. Mr. Johnson himself got hold of the story, and the matter was brought up before the board. A motion was made for the expulsion of Miss Hesse, and when the motion was about to die, Mr. Johnson himself seconded it. Miss Hesse managed to get a public trial, and at this trial Mr. Johnson served in the triple capacity of complainant, prosecutor and judge. Three other members of the board gave testimony against the teacher, and then voted as judges against her. I am told by one who has investigated the matter that the charge concerning Mr. Johnson’s connection with a real estate company was false; but the charge had been made in a public meeting, and so Miss Hesse thought she had a right to inquire about it. Whether Mr. Johnson’s large box and basket factory is properly described as “a sweat-shop” I can not say; if I should call it that, Mr. Johnson, who is a contentious person, might put me on trial also. But I presume I may quote a physician in St. Louis, Dr. H. W. Faber, who writes me that he had to attend girls who worked in this basket factory, and had worn down the skin of their fingers until the blood oozed out on the baskets. I presume also it is permissible to say that one of the ladies who testified to having heard Miss Hesse’s question about a “sweat-shop,” belongs to a family which ran a sweat-shop in the Missouri penitentiary! Miss Hesse’s expulsion made a great stir in the city; a petition was circulated for her restoration, and twenty-five thousand people signed it. The Central Trades and Labor Union appointed a committee to take up the matter; but the board declared that it had no power to advise the superintendent to reappoint a teacher. We may venture to guess that if the board had made a polite recommendation, the superintendent would not have ignored it. But they preferred to leave matters as they stood; and the rule for teachers in St. Louis was stated to the newspapers by a Jewish rabbi: “Do nothing, say nothing, be nothing!” CHAPTER XXXVI INTRODUCING COMRADE THOMPSON