Читать книгу The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools онлайн

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Henrietta, like myself, supported the war. She was head of a “team” that sold fifteen thousand dollars worth of Liberty bonds; but that did not save her from being “investigated” by military intelligence agents. They got hold of her pupils while she was away; the agents were suspicious, because she had been teaching from Frederic C. Howe’s book, “European Cities at Work.” They discovered that what she had been teaching from the book was city planning. But it was an offense at that time to let children know that the Germans planned their cities well!

Henrietta was summoned by Superintendent Tildsley. She had been making a disturbance because the spy department was having the pupils write essays on Bolshevism as a means of finding out what the children were being taught at home. Henrietta brought along a stenographer to take down the interview—so little trust did she have in Dr. Tildsley; but they would not let the stenographer take notes. They summoned her again before the board. She had written a letter to the Brooklyn “Eagle,” and the “Eagle” had not published it, but had turned it over to the board. They had an assistant district attorney present to try to twist her statements; they had no evidence, but they tried to get some out of her, luring her into testifying against herself. They furnished a stenographer for this meeting, and when she got the stenographer’s transcript it had been “doctored.” In American political life today you must realize that you are dealing, quite literally, with criminals in office, and there is no limit to what they will do to you.