Our story begins with the midwinter convention of the N. E. A. in 1918. Miss Frances Harden of Chicago was the first classroom teacher who ever attended a midwinter convention—and she had to pay her own substitute in order to do it! She saw the plot being hatched by the Department of Superintendence, and brought back word to the Chicago teachers, who got out a circular describing it, and pointing out what had happened in their own state of Illinois, which had just been “reorganized” and made a delegate body according to the new scheme. The first Illinois convention under this plan had been held in December, 1917; 1,360 teachers had attended, and the effect of the scheme had been that 1,193 of these teachers were disfranchised! There were only 167 delegates entitled to vote, and the occupations of these delegates were listed as follows: county superintendents, 42; city superintendents, 53; presidents of colleges, 4; principals of high schools, 12; principals of elementary schools, 24; teachers in colleges, 5; teachers in high schools, 13; teachers in elementary schools, 14. In other words, out of 167 delegates, 135 represented the supervising departments, and only 32 were teachers—only 14 of these being elementary classroom teachers! This Illinois reorganization was the work of Owen of Chicago; it was his pet scheme. At the Pittsburgh convention notice was given of intention to apply it to the N. E. A., and the gang set to work to line up the school bosses. Then came the Milwaukee convention of 1919; here Strayer presided, and the gang had a charming device to get rid of the teachers. The by-laws provided for the business meeting at 11 a. m. of the 4th of July. Milwaukee had a “sane Fourth” program for that day, and the teachers were supposed to be occupied in the parks; the gang, thinking to catch them off guard, called a “snap” meeting at nine in the morning. But the Milwaukee teachers have been trained in politics, and know its devices. They had arranged to have the “sane Fourth” program taken care of by those teachers who were “associate” members of the N. E. A., while the “active” members, who had votes, were to attend the business meeting. Some of them got wind of the 9 a. m. trick, and these went in and started singing “America.” They went right on singing “America” until 11 a. m.—they are so patriotic in Milwaukee, and that was their idea of a “sane Fourth!” To make sure of keeping it sane, these Milwaukee teachers omitted to eat any lunch, and stayed by the convention until it came to an end at 5 p. m.