Teachers & Boys

''The East and South are lined up solidly behind us and a great portion of the Middle West as well." So spoke last week neither Republicans nor Democrats but the campaign managers of School Superintendent William Henry Holmes of Mount Vernon, N. Y., candidate for the presidency of potent National Education Association. To choose a new president, to spend five days in exciting talk about their profession, 15,000 U. S. teachers and school officials journeyed to Portland, Ore., for NEA's 74th annual convention.

In Portland's Municipal Auditorium NEA's retiring President Agnes Samuelson of Iowa picked up her gavel, banged it unceremoniously, keynoted: "Democracy must preserve education if education is to preserve democracy!" From that moment broad-beamed President Samuelson had to pound her gavel incessantly, finally smashed it, as the NEA party turned into a loud, nervous assault on the Association's two prime whipping boys.

Boy No. 1 was the oath of allegiance to the Constitution now exacted from teachers in 23 States and the District of Columbia. Since no other U. S. professional class is thus singled out to affirm its patriotism, teachers have keenly resented their oath as a special indignity. Warmly cheered was National Director Thomas Warrington Gosling of the American Junior Red Cross when he cried: "Compulsory oaths of allegiance are flagrant examples of dictatorship!"

High point of the Teachers' Oath movement was reached last year when Congress, in the course of appropriating funds for District of Columbia schools, ordered all Washington school employes, including janitors, to swear before receiving each month's pay that they had not "taught or advocated Communism" during the month past. Author of this legislative rider was Texas' blatant Red-hating Representative Tom Blanton, from whom District of Columbia teachers meanwhile received a questionnaire with a franked reply envelope.

Last week NEA delegates clutched at mimeographed copies of the questionnaire, indignantly read therein: "Do you believe in God? Do you believe in any of the doctrines of Communism? Have you ever been in Russia? Do you approve of the writings of Charles A. Beard?" Stormed wiry, liberal U. S. Commissioner of Education John Ward Studebaker: "The implications of the situation in the District of Columbia are of great significance. . . . We can tolerate no dictatorial censorship of thinking and learning." Promptly the convention thundered through a resolution condemning loyalty oaths, the Blanton Rider, "curbs on freedom of teaching."

Meanwhile the American Legion, which in 1934 called on State legislatures to enact the hateful Oaths as part of its "Americanism Program," humbly recanted. Dispatched to Portland to eat crow was Agnes Samuelson's good friend, Editor Frank Miles of the Iowa Legionnaire, who announced: "The national commander [James Raymond Murphy] authorizes me to say that he believes the Legion would make a mistake if it advocated the Teachers' Oath Bill." Explained Legionary Miles: "The Legion wants the youth of America to think."

Whipping Boy No. 2 proved more recalcitrant. Although the Federal Government has given many a lift to students and teachers through relief projects, it has so far refused direct subsidies to schools. Last week NEA voted to ask for an immediate $100,000,000 Federal annuity to U. S. schools with no strings attached, to be upped to a maximum of $300,000,000. Delegates were enthusiastic, if mystified, when Secretary Willie A. Lawson of the Arkansas Education Association declared: "We think that a government which . . . refused to consider permanent Federal aid is using us as a cat's-paw to scorch our fingers with the burning chestnuts of political favoritism."

Last week's delegates also:

P: Rejected a proposal to switch control of the Association's $827,000 treasury from the tight, autocratic board of directors to a new board of trustees chosen by the democratic assembly. P: Listened to speeches by onetime R publican Representative Burton L. French of Idaho, Democratic Governor Paul V. McNutt of Indiana, Socialist Norman Thomas, refused to pay to have them broadcast. P: Voted to oppose "war and military training," but turned down a resolution condemning the Reserve Officers Training P: Censured the school boards of Valhalla N. Y., Alexandria, Ind., Corunna, Mich., Lock Haven State Teachers College, Pa. for "unwarranted" dismissal of teachers. P: Elected not confident Superintended Holmes but Superintendent Orville Clyde Pratt of Spokane, Wash., as NEA's president for 1936-37. Big, solemn, bespectacled President-elect Pratt, at 55 ai authority on school finance, has kept Spokane's School Board firmly under hi thumb. His platform: More Members Democratic Control, Teacher Participation on School Boards.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.