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Teachers must keep aloof alike from politics and industrial discussions. Teachers are beginning to be regarded as wards of the State. Teachers, like soldiers, owe their first and only allegiance to the State.

The faculty at Jefferson High School decided that they would like to hear both sides on this problem of affiliation with labor, so they made up a questionnaire, and sent it, first, to fifty teachers’ organizations which were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor; second, to fifty which were not affiliated; and third, to all those which had been affiliated and had withdrawn. This would seem calculated to bring out all sides in the discussion; but the board of education issued a peremptory order that the procedure should cease. I have a written report of this incident from the teacher who interviewed Mr. Helm, the banker president of the board. Here is one paragraph:

Mr. Helm spoke very decidedly against the committee’s right to continue its investigation, stating that its plans were “propaganda of the worst sort.” He said the board had told the teachers what they (the teachers) were to do, and that was the end of it. He declared there was but one side of the question of injecting anything to do with “labor” into any teachers’ organization. He said it was impertinence to ask the board what it thought about such a matter, because it had put itself on record in no uncertain terms. He said the board reflected the “will of the people” in this regard. When questioned as to who “the people” are, he replied, such concerns as the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association and the Chamber of Commerce, “which are responsible for the upbuilding of the city.” He said when it was suggested to have “that man Stillman” (president of the American Federation of Teachers) to speak before the teachers at institute, these representative business men of Los Angeles asked, “You’re not going to permit that, are you?” And he told them, “No, indeed!” He remarked that the board expects the teachers to see to it that “labor” does not get any recognition in the teaching profession.