But suddenly a cloud rose upon the educational sky. A thing happened which had never before happened in the history of the N. E. A.—a classroom teacher rose up from the floor of the convention and asked to speak! To make matters worse, it was a woman teacher. This female rebel declared that she for one was glad that the American public schools had not got any money from Rockefeller, and she hoped they would keep clear of all corporation influence. If the rich wanted to help the schools, let them pay their taxes; let the railroads, for example, pay taxes on their franchise valuations, which they were everywhere evading. You may not need to be told that this was Margaret Haley, making her debut to the N. E. A. twenty-three years ago. The great assemblage was stunned; to attack the railroads, the N. E. A.’s main source of revenue! At that time, you see, when you bought your ticket to the convention, the ticket included your dues, and the N. E. A. got the rake-off! The aged commissioner felt called upon to put down this insurrection. He got up again and stated that all the wealth of the railroads had come from economy in administration—he knew, because he was a personal friend of Commodore Vanderbilt. As for the attitude of the lady teacher, these meetings were held at the end of the school year, when all the teachers were tired; if there were any more such hysterical outbursts, he would insist upon having the time of the convention changed. He urged the delegates to pay no attention to this; the teachers were worn out from the school routine, and were not in condition to think soberly. Moreover, the delegates must bear in mind that Chicago was no criterion of the rest of the country; Chicago was “morbid and cyclonic.” You can imagine how the Chicago newspapers appreciated this compliment from Detroit! Sixteen years passed, and revolution came in Russia, and our school superintendents realized the danger of permitting the lower classes to get out of hand. They resolved to put down the classroom teachers in the N. E. A., and to keep them down. The procedure by which they did it constitutes one of the most amazing public crimes in the history of the United States. Bear in mind: this National Education Association was a public institution, with a charter from Congress, according to which it was controlled by its members. Any educator—including teachers—might pay four dollars and become an active member, and these active members met in convention once a year, and there voted and elected officers. This was democracy, as our ancestors understood it; and this was the thing which was suddenly discovered by school superintendents and their capitalist masters to be a menace to the American schools.