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The next teacher to fall a victim was Mr. Benjamin Glassberg, of the Commercial High School of Brooklyn, who was notified that he was suspended without pay. Mr. Glassberg’s hard luck was that a boy in his class had asked him “whether or not Lenin and Trotsky were, in his opinion, German agents or German spies.” I quote the exact words of Mr. Glassberg’s answer, as sworn to by thirty-five boys in the class; eight of these boys testified, and then the board got tired of hearing them, and the testimony of the other twenty-seven was entered by stipulation—that is, both sides agreed upon a statement of what the twenty-seventwenty-seven would testify in substance. Mr. Glassberg’s reply was that: “he did not think so, as Lenin and Trotsky had been busy circulating propaganda literature against the war among the Germans, thereby undermining their morale, and weakening their power in the war.”

Here was another Socialist teacher whom it was desired to “get,” and this was the chance to “get” him. There were forty-three boys in the class, and more than thirty were Jewish. The principal summoned before him, one at a time, two Jewish boys and ten Gentile boys, and questioned them as to what had happened in the class, trying to get them to say the worst possible things against Mr. Glassberg. A stenographer was present and took down what the boys said; then, according to the testimony of one of the boys, a most eager opponent of Mr. Glassberg, the principal “made an arrangement of little bits” of what the boys had said, and made it into a statement. The boys were summoned several times—for a period of eight weeks this coaching and rehashing of the charges went on, and meantime Mr. Glassberg was suspended without pay, and could not get the copy of the charges to which he was legally entitled! It finally became necessary for his lawyers to apply to the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus, compelling the service of the charges upon Mr. Glassberg!