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This kind of thing had been going on in the New York school system for five years when I visited the city in the spring of 1922. At this time the state commissioner of education, in pursuance of the Lusk laws, had appointed an “advisory council” to investigate suspected teachers and deny them licenses. One of the members of this council was Archibald Stevenson, fanatical attorney for the Luskers. Another was Conde B. Pallen, editor of the Catholic Encyclopedia, and snooper-in-chief for the National Civic Federation. Another was Finley J. Shepard, husband of Helen Gould; you may read about this gentleman’s activities on behalf of the plutocracy in two chapters of “The Goose-step,” entitled “The Helen Ghouls” and “The Shepard’s Crook.” Another member was Hugh Frayne, Catholic labor leader, who has climbed to power upon the faces of the deluded wage-workers of New York.

The council was holding sessions at the Bar Association. I went up there, hoping to attend and to tell you about it; but I could not even learn in what room the sessions were being held. All I got to see was a row of suspected teachers, humbly waiting their turn to be browbeaten. And each morning I would read in the newspapers a relay of information, supplied by the Chief Spy. One teacher had said that he “wouldn’t believe atrocity stories unless they were given out by the government.” Another teacher had said that “the Russians were happier now than they had been under the Czar”; another that “Colonel Robins had not been given a hearing”; another that “New York couldn’t be worse run if the Germans were here”; another that “If we go to war I’ll run away and spend a year in the North Woods.” Even school teachers sometimes joke, you know, and I have already mentioned the fact that these teachers did not run away. Mr. Garibaldi Lapolla served as an artillery officer in France; and now he was one of those sitting on the bench, humbly waiting his turn to be browbeaten! Chief Spy Dotey admitted that he had given information against Mr. Lapolla to the Lusk committee!