The Red Conspiracy Part 50

"Independence is one of the finest qualities of youth. In an inspiring postal card to her mother (copies of which might well be put into the hands of young children everywhere), Hilda Stydocker, 14, of 3 Was.h.i.+ngton Avenue, West Orange, states that she is going to 'earn her own living and take care of herself.' Previously gossip had been circulated to the effect that Hilda had been kidnapped."

In a previous issue of "The Call," April 4, 1919, part of a speech given by H. B. Shaen, president of the Brooklyn Sunday School Union, is quoted:

"It is a question of great moment," President Shaen said yesterday.

"It must be dealt with drastically, effectively and immediately.

Bolshevism is a greater menace than we like to believe. The proposed establishment of 3,000 so-called Socialist schools in this city will be a blow at religion, at government, at decency. It might be a fatal error to underestimate the pernicious influence of this organization that seeks to sow disquieting seeds by deceiving young America with false beliefs."

Mr. Woodworth Clum, of the Greater Iowa a.s.sociation, in volume 4, number 1, of "The Iowa Magazine," gives the following shocking account of Socialistic propaganda among school children carried on in the northwest by Townley's Non-Partisan League:

"The Non-Partisan League, under direction of Townley and Le Seur, has taken possession of the schools of North Dakota--and may get control of the schools of Minnesota.... Radical doctrines are becoming part of the regular curricula. I have a statement from O.

B. Burtness, representative in the North Dakota Legislature from Grand Forks. Here it is:

"'The board of administration has placed in charge of the state library, to select the reading for our schools, C. E. Strangeland.

He is telling our school children what to read. I found in our state library, the other day, a bundle of books, all ready to be sent to one of our country schools--a circulating library. If the farmers of North Dakota could have seen what I saw, they would have come to Bismarck and cleaned out the whole Socialist gang.

Here are the t.i.tles of some of those books I saw:

"'"Socialism and Modern Science," Ferri.

"'"Evolution and Property," La Farge.

"'"Not Guilty," Blatchford.

"'"Love and Marriage," Ellen Key.

"'"Love and Ethics," Ellen Key.

"'"The Bolshevik and World Peace," Leon Trotzky.

"'"The History of the Supreme Court," Meyers.

"'"The Profits of Religion," Sinclair.

"'"Anarchism and Socialism," Harris.'

"Ellen Key is a p.r.o.nounced advocate of free-love and the dissolution of marriage."

In high schools, especially those of New York City, many teachers have been using every opportunity for advocating Socialism and other radical doctrines in the cla.s.sroom and out of it. Students, in order to win favor with some of these teachers, at times show zeal for Socialistic tenets both in oral and written composition. Quite a number of the teachers are Socialists themselves, have become known as such throughout the schools and use their influence to win over others. Many books given by these teachers for outside reading are by Socialist or radical authors.

On the editorial page of "The New York Times," April 9, 1919, there is an article against the "Teachers' Union," a Socialist and radical organization of many of the teachers of New York City. Under the t.i.tle, "Forbidden to Preach Sedition," we read:

"There will be, presumably, much excited denunciation of the Board of Education for closing the public schools to meetings of the Teachers' Union. The familiar complaints about infringing the right of free speech will be heard, and--well, the complaints will be as ill-based as they usually are.

"In the first place, while speech is free in this country, it is not, any more than it is or can be, anywhere, free to the extent that anybody is free to say anything at any time and any place.

Restrictions of several kinds there are and must be, including those by which decency and the safety of our inst.i.tutions are protected. On the other hand, the members of the Teachers' Union have not been reduced--as yet--to silence. They have simply been told that they cannot use the city's property in the campaign which they have undertaken against an important branch of the City Government. They are still privileged to hire as many halls as they please in which to accuse the Board of Education of tyranny, and to protest against the enforcement of discipline against teachers with a leaning toward Bolshevism, and a tendency to mingle Socialistic and pro-German propaganda with instruction in the three R's.

"In this instance, as in so many others, the use of schoolhouses for meetings of adults with opinions to express and doctrines to preach has resulted unhappily. The adults who gather seem always, or almost always, to be, not average, well-disposed citizens, but a more or less incendiary minority who want to change things--and to change them a lot and very quickly. That aspiration is not wholly indefensible, for a good many things would be the better for changing, but real light and leading have not often been found on top at meetings in schoolhouses, and experience has proved that the Teachers' Union has neither to offer."

The following is from the "New York World" of November 20, 1919:

"Fifteen teachers in city schools will appear before Deputy Attorney General Berger tomorrow afternoon to be questioned to determine if they are dangerous radicals. Examination of the records of the Communist Party seized in recent raids has resulted in evidence indicating that each of the teachers is a member of that organization....

"Superintendent of Schools Ettinger revoked the license, yesterday, of Sonia Ginsberg, a teacher in School No. 170 in Brooklyn, who admitted she would like to see the United States Government displaced by one similar to the Bolshevist regime in Russia. Miss Ginsberg, born in Russia, was naturalized as a citizen last June."

For many years the Intercollegiate Socialist Society has been winning college and university students to the doctrines of the Social Revolution through the medium of the various branches that it establishes in such inst.i.tutions. The Intercollegiate Socialist Society sometime ago had, in the different colleges and universities of our country, between 60 and 70 chapters, or Socialist local societies, with Socialist libraries, and lecturers in frequent attendance. Every year chapter-delegates are sent to an intercollegiate convention from nearly all the important American universities, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Barnard, Amherst, Brown, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, and Chicago. Even Va.s.sar, which had 86 members in the first year in which the Intercollegiate was organized, is included in the long list. Harry W. Laidler, organizer of the Socialist chapters and secretary of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, claims that all the universities now throw open their large a.s.sembly rooms for addresses by the visiting lecturers, give quarters in the college buildings to the Socialist chapters, and permit the use of the college publications in the dissemination of propagandist literature, if it is written by bona fide students.

We shall reproduce a letter which shows what is going on in our colleges and universities. The identification of the writer, person addressed, and others mentioned in the letter, is made on the authority of Mr.

Woodworth Clum, of the Greater Iowa a.s.sociation, Davenport, Iowa.

The letter was written July 29, 1919, by Arthur W. Calhoun, then instructor in sociology and political economy at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. It was written to Professor Zeuch, then instructor at the University of Minnesota, now an instructor at Cornell University.

"Gras," mentioned in the letter, is Professor N. S. B. Gras, a member of the Faculty of the University of Minnesota. The letter also mentions E.

C. Hayes, who is professor of sociology at the University of Illinois, President Grose of DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, and E. A.

Ross, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin and Advisory Editor of the American Journal of Sociology. The "Beals" mentioned in the letter, says Mr. Clum, "was formerly a university professor and old friend of Calhoun's. He is now openly advocating Bolshevism." Toward the end of the letter, Calhoun says: "Greencastle is too small to do much with the co-op." This "co-op" is the Tri-State Co-operative Society of Pittsburg, and, says Mr. Clum, "the society's business is the production and distribution of vicious 'red' propaganda." Calhoun is or was one of its directors.

The letter, copied from a fac-simile of the original in volume 4, number 1, of "The Iowa Magazine," Davenport, Iowa, is as follows:

"55 E. Norwich Av., Columbus, O., _July 29._

"Dear Zeuch:--

"I think I accept all you say about the condition of the proletariat and the impossibility of the immediate revolution. But I am less interested in the verbiage of the Left Wing than in the idea of keeping ultimates everlastingly in the center of attention to the exclusion of mere puttering reforms. One of the things that will hasten the revolution is to spread the notion that it _can_ come soon. If the Left Wing adopts impossibilist methods of campaign, I shall stand aloof, but if they push for Confiscation, Equality of Economic Status, and the speedy elimination of cla.s.s privilege, and keep their heads, I shall go with them rather than the yellows.

"If Gras is doing what he says and I am doing what he says, he is right in saying that he is doing the better job. I wonder, however, how many of his students draw the 'necessary' conclusions: and I wonder whether I do all my students' thinking for them.

"Ellery is feeling at Columbus and also at Illinois. I had a letter from Hayes about him.

"I have accepted the professors.h.i.+p of Sociology at De Pauw University. The job pays $2200 this year with a.s.surance of $2400 if I stay a second year. The president has been here three times and had long interviews with me. Besides we have written a lot. I told him I belong to the radical Socialists. I expounded my general principles on all important points. He knows also of the circ.u.mstances of my leaving Clark and Kentucky. He says he is in substantial agreement with most of what I have said and that he sees no reason why I can not get along at De Pauw. He says he feels confident it will be a permanency. Ross had some hand in the game.

Pres. Grose interviewed him at Madison last week and Ross wrote encouraging me to take the place. I did not make any great effort.

Grose knew that I did not care much one way or the other. He took the initiative almost from the start and I sat back and waited. I'm afraid Greencastle is too small to do much with the co-op.

Population 4000, 30 miles north of Bloomington. 800 students, mostly in college, a few in School of Music, a few graduate students. Hudson is prof. of Ec. there.

"Beals was here last week. He is pus.h.i.+ng the 'Nation.' Says the circulation has quadrupled since they became Bolshevist.

"As ever,

"AWC"

The Rand School, in New York City, is known as the University of Socialism and is said to have had 5,000 attending its lectures in the year 1918. The purpose of the school, as originally conceived, and as adhered to throughout, is twofold, first, to offer to the general public facilities for the study of Socialism and related subjects. This is done by its reference library and reading-room and by its large book store, in which are sold not only Socialist books, but books on atheism as well; not only the more conservative Socialist papers, but ultra revolutionary papers such as "The Revolutionary Age," "The Proletarian,"

many Bolshevist publications, and "The Rebel Worker" and "The New Solidarity," the latter two being I. W. W. papers.

The last time the author of "The Red Conspiracy" visited the Rand School book store, there was on sale a pile of Birth Control Reviews several feet high, "The One Big Union Monthly," the I. W. W. organ, and enough foul and revolutionary matter to satisfy the filthiest or most blood-thirsty wretch in the United States.

The second purpose of the Rand School is to offer to Socialists such instruction and training as may make them more efficient workers for the Socialist movement. This is done by means of lectures, some 5,000 students attending, on an average, 20 lectures each in the year 1918.

The school also directs extension cla.s.ses in outlying parts of the city and neighboring places and correspondence courses for study cla.s.ses and individual students in all parts of the country. It conducts a bureau to provide lectures on Socialism for clubs, trade unions, forums and other organizations not otherwise connected with the school. For years this school, which was raided under the direction of the Lusk Committee, has been sowing the seeds of cla.s.s hatred and cla.s.s discrimination, now everywhere springing up round about us. The laws have been too tolerant, and it has been permitted to go on without interference far too long. In referring to doc.u.ments seized in the raids in the summer of 1919, Deputy Attorney General Conklin said that the papers "are so carefully and cleverly phrased" that no single sentence can be picked out as in violation of the law. "Yet," he adds, "taken as a whole, the doc.u.ments are seditious, in my opinion." They were made a matter of record, awaiting the disposition of the District Attorney of New York.

These facts speak for themselves. It scarcely need be said that unless this propaganda is checked, the power and strength of the Socialist Party will soon a.s.sume tremendous proportions, imperilling the existence of our nation.

Another field of work to which the enemies of our country have been devoting special attention is the propagation of revolutionary doctrines among the non-English speaking residents of the United States. Page 69 of the "Proceedings of the 1910 National Congress of the Socialist Party" informs us that "the American people are, after all, a nation of immigrants. We count our Americanism by a very few generations, and the foreign population has always played an important part in the industrial and political life of the country. At this time there are over ten million foreign born persons in the United States. Most of them are workers, and most of them still speak, write and read in their native tongues.