Once more I am sorry to seem to play the game of the Grand Imperial Kleagles; nevertheless, it must be stated that two forces have had control of the San Francisco public schools for the past twenty years: First, the big and little business grafters, and second, Archbishop Hanna, who is pledged ex-officio to the undermining of the public school system and the building up of the Catholic parochial schools. The Catholic superintendent and the Catholic board had deliberately held down the construction program of the public schools. The money intended for these schools was stolen by the grafters, while building materials were sold at bargain prices or stolen outright for the parochial schools. The very furniture out of the public schools was taken—the Catholic children were sitting on chairs taken from the public schools, while the children in the public schools had to sit on soap-boxes. You may find this incredible, but it is a matter of public record; it was proven before the grand jury, and the documents are available for those who care to consult them.

Needless to say, not many take that trouble; the newspapers of San Francisco follow the rule of the capitalist press throughout the United States—attacks on Catholic institutions are barred. Public speakers were forbidden to hold meetings and to lecture on this question, by order of the chief of police. Colonel J. Arthur Petersen asked in the office of the superintendent of schools for certain records concerning school affairs, and Mr. Roncovieri threatened to shoot him. Later on, a mob set upon Colonel Petersen and tried to murder him in broad daylight on the streets of the city.

The most curious story is that of the sale of school desks. By order of the school director, Miss Jones, a Catholic, there were sold to the parochial schools nearly three thousand school desks, at from fifteen to fifty cents apiece. They were delivered by the city’s trucks to the various parochial schools, and the Catholic fathers and sisters signed receipts for them, and the city’s workmen, paid out of the city’s money, installed the desks, and cleaned and varnished them, using the city’s tools and materials. And three thousand children of the city were told that there were no accommodations for them in the public schools, but there was plenty of room in the church schools nearby!

I send the manuscript of this chapter to my friend, Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco “Call,” and he writes me that he has never heard of these incidents. I take this as a curious illustration of the power of the Catholic church over public opinion. The facts concerning the theft of school furniture, books and building materials constituted the principal issue in the school election of 1921. I have before me seven pamphlets of the Public Schools Defense Association, in which the facts are given in minute detail; especially Bulletin No. 2, dated October 10, 1921, and Bulletin No. 3, dated October 20, 1921. The facts were also published and republished in a paper called the “Crusader,” especially the issues of June, September, and October, 1921. Mr. H. H. Somers was an active worker in the association, and he has sent me transcripts of the sales of school desks, which he personally rechecked from the records of the board of education.

The president of this board came to the defense of the gang declaring that the desks had been sold “to anyone who might want them.” But practically nobody got them except the parochial schools, and nobody knew anything about the sales but these same schools. The city charter provides that all public property which is “usable” must be sold at public auction, after being advertised for five days; a law which was not once complied with over a period of five years. The president of the board furthermore argued that the desks “were sold in small lots.” Concerning that you may judge for yourself; I quote from the records: Father W. H. O’Mahoney received two lots, a total of 235 desks, voucher 960, dated May 8, 1920, and voucher unnumbered, dated September 27, 1919. Father Peter C. Yorke received two lots a total of 200 desks, vouchers 812, November 26, 1917, and 912, September 22, 1919. Father Sullivan received 200 desks, voucher 610, September 8, 1916. Father Doran received one lot of 375 desks, voucher 816, December 2, 1918. This makes a total of 971 desks delivered in six lots. In addition to these, more than 2,000 desks went in lots of from 20 to 60 per delivery.

So great was the public excitement over these matters that on September 15, 1921, a crowd of five hundred women stormed the city hall. A Mrs. McCarthy declared that children at the Portola and Buena Vista public schools, from which desks had been sold, were having to sit on soap-boxes; another woman declared that her own child was sitting on a soap-box. The newspapers reported the incident, but briefly, and without mentioning the dread word Catholic. The grand jury took up all the charges, and conducted very thorough investigations.^[E]

Nor was it desks alone. Thousands of sacks of cement, intended for the public schools, were stolen from the board of public works, and other material, wood, steel, etc., was likewise delivered to the parochial schools. Because of the overcrowding in the public schools, the city had built over five hundred temporary shacks, costing one or two thousand dollars each; and it was estimated that more than half this amount had gone into graft. A school official in the course of his duties sent a cement man to estimate on cement repair work; the price asked was two hundred dollars; the official told him to add fifty dollars, “And you know what it is for.” On another job the man estimated two hundred and fifty dollars; he was told to add fifty dollars for the official; then he was told to add ninety dollars to this. A former storekeeper of the schools received fifty reams of paper, and was asked to sign for one hundred; because he refused to do this he was discharged from his position. It was shown that the city had furnished its Catholic board president an automobile costing over five thousand dollars. Other members of the board had had homes built at the expense of the city; the material was taken from the board of public works, the employes of this board helped to construct the buildings, and the time was charged to “school repairs.”

Also this grand jury committee brought out the fact that the laws had been repeatedly broken in the purchase of text-books for the San Francisco schools. Books had been bought in large quantities in defiance of state provisions, and at prices higher than those permitted. The committee listed a total of 11,161 books which could not be used at all. Among those who appeared before the grand jury was a Catholic member of the school board, Miss Alice Rose Power, who admitted that she had formerly owned five thousand shares of stock in a text-book company, and had assigned half this stock to the head of the company and the other half to her nephew. She still had a desk in the office of this company, and at the same time, as a member of the school board, had authorized purchases of text-books from this company.

I was told by teachers in San Francisco that there were store-rooms full of unused books, which had been purchased at much higher than the authorized prices; scarcely a teacher who did not report basements and cupboards in his or her school, piled up with books which could not be used. One teacher told me how, when it was known that this book graft was being looked into, great quantities of books were shipped to another school, and others were given to the pupils to be carried home. I recalled the stories I heard nearly twenty years ago, when I was investigating the glass factories in South Jersey; the state child labor inspector would telephone to a certain factory that he was about to make an inspection, and all the child workers would be gathered up and hidden away in the big passage through which the fresh air was driven to the blast furnaces!

Under the law, all these book companies could have been fined and made to take back the books; also the bondsmen of the school board members were liable for the amount of the graft. Some citizens hoped that this money might be collected, but their hope was vain. The foreman of the grand jury requested that while the investigation was under way, the Public Schools Defense Association would hold no more public meetings and give no more information to the press; the grand jury likewise gave out nothing, and so gradually the excitement died down. Then, to the dismay of the association, the grand jury adjourned without taking any action; and the members of the association investigated, and discovered that the foreman of the grand jury was a Catholic!

The book graft is an ancient and honored one in San Francisco history. If you visit the University of California you will be shown with pride the magnificent Bancroft library of old Spanish manuscripts. You are told that this is a memorial to H. H. Bancroft, the historian of California; and you get the impression that Mr. Bancroft donated it. As a matter of fact, he sold it to the state for a quarter of a million dollars; also, he sold his books to the schools—his great store-house of culture, the “History of California” by Hubert Henry Bancroft, three volumes at five dollars per volume. It was published by the author, and wide-awake young agents explained to school boards and superintendents that the great work was not yet complete; there was a shrewdly worded clause in the contract, whereby the purchaser agreed to take the succeeding volumes of the series.

The school authorities signed this contract by the thousands, and then the Bancroft mills began to grind! “The History of California” extended to thirty-three volumes, and then it was continued in the form of histories of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Central America, Alaska; it was like the magic salt-mill which made the sea salty! These volumes would appear every six months or so; they would be delivered at the schools, and the innocent teachers would take them in and put them on the shelves. Nothing was said about payment, and so nobody worried about it; until finally, after the series was completed, the bills were delivered—and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth among school boards of California. Many refused to pay, but Bancroft sued, and got judgments amounting to over a million dollars. I am told that there are schools way up in the hills which have a shelf of Bancroft’s history as their sole instrument of general culture. After that the Bancroft concern was a power in the school-book business of the state; it got the agencies for many of the big book concerns, and carried the school superintendents in its pocket.

Some time ago the people of California got tired of being robbed by book companies, and put through a provision for the manufacture of elementary school text-books by the state. All over the United States I found the book men incensed concerning this California procedure. They would present me with pocketfuls of literature, expensive pamphlets demonstrating the futility and extravagance of the California text-book program. I would listen politely, and accept the literature and ship it home, where it still forms a pile upon my shelves; but I do not need to go into it, because, having investigated the California situation, I know how the political machine is occupied to sabotage the public text-book scheme. The former state printer, Richardson, is now our governor, put in office by the Black Hand to starve the schools and build up the jails.

To return to San Francisco: there was an election campaign over the issue of reorganizing the school system, and this became of necessity an anti-Catholic campaign. The Catholics fought vigorously—some three hundred nuns were marched to the polls to cast their votes for the Catholic program, and the archbishop formally granted them absolution for the crime of taking part in politics! Nevertheless, the awakened people of San Francisco had their way. Mr. Addicott was reinstated, and Superintendent Roncovieri and President Gallagher of the school board retired.

San Francisco now has a new board of education. The president of this board is a department-store proprietor and strong Chamber of Commerce man, who admitted that he had completed his scanty education in a parochial school. The grand duchess of the board is the mother-in-law of Congressman Kahn, one of our most ardent militarists, and a close friend of the archbishop’s. The rest of the board consists of the sister-in-law of the mayor’s secretary; a prominent tobacco merchant; a prominent lumber merchant; a labor official who is employed in a bank at a salary of $150 a week, and who sends his children to the parochial schools; and finally, Miss Alice Rose Power of the Catholic church.

This board has imported a new superintendent from New Orleans, and I find a long article in the “Sierra Educational News,” state organ of the school machine, telling what a great educator he is. We shall see in due course how greatness is manufactured by these school machines, and for what purpose it is used. We shall see Superintendent Gwinn working with the gang when they stole the National Education Association away from the teachers; also we shall see him drawing up the “patriotism program” under which the N. E. A. turned its conscience over to the keeping of the American Legion. It is worth noting that he retains from the days of the trombones his deputy superintendent, who at the last election was caught taking eight hundred dollars from the Power Trust, for propaganda among the teachers against the public ownership bill.