Boston is one city in which they have teachers’ councils. “What freedom we have is due to these councils,” said a group of teachers to me; and I asked just what kind of freedom that meant. They might take up the question, at what hour should the janitor clean a certain room. They might take up the question, what credits should be allowed for certain courses. “But you have nothing to do with hiring and firing?” I asked, and there came a chorus: “Oh, no, no, no!” And, of course, they have nothing to do with salaries; their salaries have been held down, and when the women teachers agitated for increased pay, they were “put off.” They called a meeting in Faneuil Hall, “the cradle of liberty,” to discuss their problem; they invited the board members to attend, but not a single one was interested enough to come. Some teachers belong to a union, but they keep very quiet; they saw what happened to the policemen’s union in Boston. It is interesting to note that at the time of the Boston police strike the teachers of English and history received instructions from the school board not to permit any mention of it in classes.[I] ----- Footnote I: My account of the Boston police strike in “The Goose-step” was ridiculed by the Boston newspapers, and a Cambridge professor wrote me that he knew it was not true, because he had been on the ground—meaning that he had read what the Boston newspapers published concerning it, and had talked with other people who had read the same. I take this occasion to state that my account of what went on during this strike in the private offices of the Black Hand of Boston was furnished by one of Boston’s leading bankers. This old gentleman wrote it out for me with his own hand, and sent it to me—under the pledge that when I had read it and made notes concerning it, I would send it back. I am not sure that I would have had the nerve to publish what I did about Cal Coolidge and his black eye, if I had known that this strike-breaking hero was to become the next President of the United States. But I have published it now, and can’t unpublish it! -----