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

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In apologizing for telling so much about the harbor strike, I promised to prove that the same men who smashed this strike were running the school system of Los Angeles, and smashing the teachers. Now comes the proof. As it happened, the campaign for the election of the school board was going on all through the harbor strike and the formation of our Civil Liberties Union; and among the few who came forward to stand for this union was the Reverend G. Bromley Oxnam, pastor of the Church of All Nations, and candidate for the school board on the “teachers’ ticket.” At our first mass meeting of protest, held in Los Angeles three days after the release of Hopkins, Hardyman, Kimbrough and myself, Mr. Oxnam was asked to lead the singing of “America” and to open the proceedings with a prayer. This he did; and so all the fury of the enemy was turned upon him. The kept preachers of the Black Hand denounced him from their pulpits, and also before the Ministerial Union, and before the City Club. Nothing more was needed to defeat a candidate for the school board than to associate him with Upton Sinclair, notorious Socialist and muckraker. Day after day the “Times” pounded upon this theme, both in editorials and in news. The Better America Federation circulated alleged stenographic transcripts of speeches by Mr. Oxnam, which “transcripts” were made up in their own offices, and were the opposite of Mr. Oxnam’s beliefs.