The American Book Company had been represented for a couple of decades by a famous book man, an old soldier by the name of Major Clancy. I ask you to make particular note of this old gentleman; we shall meet him in several places, and in the end find him high up in the councils of the National Education Association. Major Clancy has only one arm, and this is a picturesque appurtenance of a military title—until you learn that the other arm was lost in a threshing machine! Citizens who were investigating school book graft in Minneapolis noticed that when they brought an indictment against one of the board members, the first thing he did was to make a beeline for Major Clancy, who got him a lawyer and saw to the putting up of his bail bonds. It was discovered that another member of the board, also a member of the normal school board, was attorney for the American Book Company. Text-books had been published in huge quantities, and had stayed on the shelves untouched, until the board had resolved that they were out of date, whereupon the companies had taken them back for a few cents a copy. Naturally, Lynn Thompson was interested in building. The average cost of school buildings in the United States is 37 cents a cubic foot. This labor agitator and walking delegate, under bonds for violating a court injunction, insisted upon the standardizing of all specifications, and contracts were let in Minneapolis at a cost of 21.7 cents. Nor were these cheap buildings—on the contrary, they were using brick that had been adjudged too high in price for the schools in Des Moines. On that same day the school board of Boston let a contract for a big building at 48.9 cents. It is worth noting that every step in this economy campaign was fought by a big contractor who was on the school board. There was a question of building three high schools, and three brick concerns bid $33 per thousand; it was manifest that they were in collusion. The price was eight dollars too high, and Thompson moved that they should buy in the open market for $24.10 per thousand. Two weeks later they got an offer at this price from one of the concerns which had bid $33—the same concern and the same bricks! And then came the question of sites. One man having a pull with the board asked $60,000 for a site; Thompson decided that it was worth $28,000 and the board offered him $40,000. He went to the courts, and the jury said $28,000, and the Supreme Court sustained that valuation. “For these efforts,” said Comrade Thompson, “I got some abuse—and sixty-five days in jail.” It is interesting to note that this $28,000 site was a trackage site, and the purchase was made necessary because a previous board had given away trackage to an automobile company.