A still more curious incident occurs while I am finishing this book. There is in Los Angeles an organization called the Young Workers’ League, an educational society of the Communists; they held a debate on the subject of Communism versus Capitalism, and not being able to get anybody to defend capitalism, they appointed their own speakers, who naturally didn’t do it very ardently. Three lads, one of them a high school student, the other two just graduated, attended the meeting and found themselves dissatisfied with this defense; they rose up and said they could do better, and the result was the planning of a debate. The Young Workers’ League hired a hall, and the three students spent a good part of their summer vacation preparing for the contest. Two or three days before it came off, the Young Workers’ League distributed announcement cards in the high schools, erroneously referring to the students as “three representatives of a high school debating society.” Immediately thereafter the one high school student was informed by Principal Dunn of the Polytechnic High School that he must not take part in the affair. Mr. Dunn did not take this action on his own initiative, he explained, but under instructions from Mrs. Dorsey, who had investigated the matter. On the afternoon of the day set for the debate, the secretary of the Young Workers’ League appealed to me. Being interested in the cause of free speech, I went to see Mr. Robert Odell, attorney and president of the school board. After hearing my account of the matter, Mr. Odell said that the only objection he could think of was that the debate might not be fair, the audience might be packed against the students. My answer was that I would agree to act as chairman, and see that there was no interruption of the speakers. Mr. Odell agreed to ask Mrs. Dorsey to see me immediately. It was then four o’clock in the afternoon, and I called on the superintendent, and listened while she explained to me at great length that the schools could not under any circumstances permit students to represent them in public debates unless the students had been selected by the schools. In reply I assured Mrs. Dorsey that I agreed with her absolutely; but if that was all the school authorities wanted, why not require the high school student to state to the audience that he spoke as an individual, and without authorization from his school? I offered as chairman of the debate to make this announcement with the utmost explicitness.