Says ex-Comrade Ghent: “Never before has anything professing to be a constitution set up such elaborate safeguards against democracy.” The students will swallow that, without bothering to look into the constitution and see; but I did bother, and I quote you a few of the things expressly provided for: “The land to those who work it ... a general democratic peace ... the free determination of the peoples ... real freedom of conscience ... freedom of expression of the toiling masses ... free meetings ... full and free education ... equal rights to all citizens ... recall of deputies.” Do you think I would be exaggerating if I were to reverse Ghent’s statement and make it read: “Never before has anything professing to be a constitution set up such elaborate _protection_ of democracy?” CHAPTER LXIII PROFESSOR FACING BOTH-WAYS The situation confronting a would-be writer of school text-books in the United States is as follows: If he writes on astronomy, engineering, or Spanish grammar, he may write the truth; but if he writes on history, economics, or literature, he either writes dishonest books, or he writes no books. Says Professor James Harvey Robinson, author of “The Mind in the Making”: “No publisher of text-books for the schools would venture to permit a writer to give children the best and most authoritative knowledge that we have today.” Says Mr. Aaron Sapiro, attorney for the Farmers’ Co-operative Societies: “The text-books we now use are censored by political and social factions.” Says Mr. William McAndrew, member of the board of education in New York: “The text-books which are supposed to discuss our civic problems do not know enough to keep a women’s whist club from financial and moral bankruptcy.” I have a letter from Mr. S. M. Dinkins, principal of a private school at Selma, Alabama, who tells me about his experience with a text-book, “Problems of American Democracy,” by Professor R. O. Hughes. Mr. Dinkins found this book so unsatisfactory in its attitude toward modern questions that he wrote to the professor, and received in reply the statement: “I know my publishers would be pleased to learn that my readers cannot tell from my book what my own opinions about many questions really are.” Mr. Dinkins was so much troubled by this that he wrote to the publishers, Allyn and Bacon of Boston, to ask them if that could possibly be true; it took Mr. Dinkins two months of continuous letter-writing before he finally got from the publishers a reply to the effect that school authorities would not adopt any other kind of book, and publishers had to meet the demand; they did not care to publish a book that would not sell.