A teacher friend of mine traveled all the way from the East to attend the N. E. A. convention of 1923 at Oakland; on the day before the opening of the convention she visited the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, where in the lobby she observed Major Clancy in conversation with Principal Olive Jones of New York. This conference lasted for a couple of hours, and other members of the gang took part in it from time to time. My friend wondered what it was about; she never found out, but she noted that before the convention came to a close, Principal Olive Jones of New York was chosen as the new president of the N. E. A. The Major had had advance information, you may be sure; and likewise the rest of the gang had had it. In fact, this 1923 convention had been held in Oakland, because it was the bailiwick of Hunter, and he and Strayer had promised the honor to Miss Jones when they asked her influence at Salt Lake City. This promise had been for 1921, but the gang had fallen to quarreling among themselves—Owen of Chicago had broken with Strayer, and Miss Williams had got the prize in 1921, and Owen had grabbed it for himself at Boston in 1922. You see what the inside ring is giving its time to, and why the great national organization of the school world is an object of contempt to every educator who has a truly professional ideal. CHAPTER LV TEACHERS TO THE REAR The National Education Association now stands complete, according to the design of its architects. It is a political machine, maintained by Big Business to do a certain job in the interest of Big Business. And just as in any other great factory, the workers are deprived of all power, but are cajoled into thinking themselves free citizens. At the annual conventions you will hear floods of oratory in praise of democracy, while every precaution is taken to keep the rank and file from having any say whatever about their own affairs. All the power is in the hands of one little group; they put themselves in the key positions—each one on six or eight committees. They make the plans, and when the time comes they jam them through. The classroom teachers form a large group at each convention, but they are helpless. They are outside the circle, a floating group, untaught, untrained, without a background or policy. At Salt Lake City Miss Harden attended a meeting of seventy-five of them, and she asked how many of them had ever come to a previous N. E. A. convention, and found that only eight or ten had had this experience. What do such delegates know about the machine and its tricks? What chance do they stand against the gang?