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The Black Hand was sending Colonel Andrew Copp, whose ideas on education we have learned, to denounce the “teachers’ soviets” before the City Club and the Woman’s City Club. The Chamber of Commerce resolved to make an “impartial investigation” of the question, and appointed a committee, and a teacher was invited to appear before it to defend the new idea. Two teachers went, and found Colonel Copp on hand. The teachers were permitted to speak briefly, and then they were questioned, in tones that might have been used to naughty pupils. “Suppose the board of education refuses to carry out the orders of your teachers’ councils, what are you going to do then?”—and so on. Colonel Copp spoke at length, making a series of false statements; after which he packed up his papers and marched out, refusing to answer a single question. The chairman declared the meeting adjourned, without permitting the teachers even to deny the falsehoods!

This was a regular habit of Colonel Copp, it appears; a group of high school teachers interviewed him after one of his addresses, and pointed out to him a number of flat misstatements he had made. He said he would “investigate”; but a day or two later he repeated the misstatements, and refused to correct them. When a teacher asked him how he could do such a thing, he turned his back upon her.