Then—so the boy explained to me—one of his teachers labored with him, explaining to him that he was under a misapprehension about the flag. To be sure it was used by capitalism at the present time, but that was only because it had been stolen; in reality the flag stood for the highest ideals ever conceived by mankind, and it was our business to preserve it for those ideals, and to take it away from the exploiters and rascals. Alpert agreed to that, and went back to Miss Andrus and told her that he had realized his mistake, and that he was now ready to salute the flag as she required. But she declared that he was a hypocrite and a coward, and should not stay in the school. I went to a friend of mine, a wealthy man who happens to be a liberal. He called up a member of the school board, who went to see Miss Andrus; so in two or three days the boy was restored to school, from which he has since been graduated. The schools are starting in this fall with what they call “codified patriotism”; a whole outfit of flummery contrived by the American Legion and the professional hundred percenters. The flag must be exactly at the top of the staff, and you must raise it briskly, and lower it slowly and reverently; you must raise your hat with your right hand, and women must put their right hand over the heart. The legislature has passed a bill, requiring that American history shall be taught “from the American viewpoint”; no longer is it to be taught from the viewpoint of truth! The children are to learn that Alexander Hamilton was a good American, but the soft pedal will be put on Thomas Jefferson. They will not be taught that the Mexican War was a disgraceful foray of greed, and that Abraham Lincoln denounced it in Congress. Instead, they will be taught all about the “Red” menace—with the columns of the “Times” for source material. At last commencement time at least six addresses by students, dealing with this subject, were featured by the “Times” in its radio service, which is devoutly followed by hundreds of thousands of wage-slaves in our community. All these addresses, of course, had been carefully censored; one or two of them were “repeated by request,” and the announcement was made that you could have a printed copy of them by application to the “Times.” CHAPTER XII THE SCHOOLS OF MAMMON