At the hour that I was chasing about Los Angeles, interviewing school authorities and trying to save this debate, two enormous bruisers were pummeling each other into insensibility at the Polo Grounds in New York City. One was the champion bruiser of North America, and the other was the champion bruiser of South America, and the two Americas held their breath, awaiting the outcome. That was entirely respectable; that did not threaten the capitalist system, so no one stopped the pummeling, and no one stopped the school children of Los Angeles from reading the newspaper bulletins about the great event. But here were three serious students who were not interested in bruisers; three self-supporting boys had put in all their spare time during vacation, preparing to defend the faith of the schools; and the school superintendent of the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association steps in and frightens these boys into silence, and disappoints an audience of a thousand working people who have assembled for an intellectual treat. Such is “culture” under the Black Hand! CHAPTER XIII THE TAMMANY TIGER You shake your head and say: “I had no idea of such things; yes, Southern California must be very bad indeed!” But I beg you not to fool yourself in that way. Southern California is exactly the same as the rest of industrial America. In the course of this book we shall visit the Bay Cities of California, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley; also Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, in the far Northwest. We shall visit a number of cities scattered across the continent—Spokane, Butte, Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit; on the Atlantic coast we shall visit New York, Boston, Worcester, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington. We shall have glimpses of many towns, and of the rural schools in many states; also we shall not overlook the private schools and the big “prep” schools, where our youthful aristocracy is made ready for the gladiatorial combats and the social intrigues of college. In all these regions we shall find the plutocracy in control of business and politics; and we shall find the very same interests, and as a rule the very same individuals, in control of the schools. Whether or not they use the methods of the Black Hand depends purely and simply upon one question—to what extent the subject classes are attempting to protest. If the subject classes make no protest, there is no violence by the master class. If the subject classes attempt to protest, then there is whatever amount of violence is necessary to hold them down. I begin with New York City, because that is the headquarters of our financial, and therefore of our intellectual life. It is from New York that we are controlled, both in body and in mind, whether we have any idea of it or not. As it happens, I know New York and its schools at first hand, having spent my boyhood and youth in the city.