Come now to Salt Lake City, and see why the N. E. A. machine selected it for their next convention. Externally there are reasons, in the form of beautiful temples and educational institutions, erected by the devotees of a weird religious cult. This cult is based upon “certain tablets having the appearance of gold,” which were dug out of the ground by an ignorant New York farmer-youth named Joseph Smith, and were found to be miraculously inscribed with fantastic chronicles in biblical language; Smith was able to interpret them by the aid of two magic stones, and they are now the inspired word of God to half a million people. One of the customs recommended in this “word” is the patriarchal Old Testament virtue of polygamy, and the United States government fought a little war with the Mormons over this issue, and Utah was not admitted as a state until the chiefs had agreed to follow the example of the rest of our plutocracy, and keep their polygamy under cover.

This is not a work on religion, but on economics, and what here concerns us are the two great Mormon virtues of industry and submissiveness. Seldom has a priestly caste evolved a more perfect system for separating its devotees from their cash. The Mormon hierarchy is a Big Business institution, which works hand in glove with the great corporations of Utah, and their political representative, the Grand Old Party. The Mormon church is practically the same thing as the Sugar Trust in the state, and also the Smelter Trust and the railroads; their two representatives in the United States Senate are equally active in the affairs of God and Mammon. The church machine has its own educational institutions, and at the same time, like the Catholic church in other parts of the United States, it controls the public schools. I have portrayed in “The Goose-step” its domination of the University of Utah, and how sixteen professors resigned at once in protest against its policy.

So you begin to see why the N. E. A. machine picked out Salt Lake City. Utah is a long way off, and few classroom teachers could afford the journey. As for the teachers of Utah, the majority of them are Mormons, and the rest either take the orders of the church or move out. It takes no stretch of the imagination to picture Professor Driggs, the great Mormon educator, telling Owen and Strayer and Hunter and Pearse and the other great educators how we manage things in Utah—so much better than in Milwaukee! And how beautifully the great Mormon “tabernacle” would serve as a setting for this “reorganization” drama! I remember in my childhood reading a fearsome story about an innocent American virgin lured into the clutches of a diabolical Mormon patriarch; and here is the story made real—the victim being the associated school-marms of America.

The delegates arrived, and were welcomed by the entire hierarchy—the Mormon governor, the Mormon mayor, the Mormon bishops, the presidents and professors of the Mormon colleges and universities, and the two United States senators from the Sugar Trust. You may imagine the effect upon the Salt Lake City school teachers of this array of religious and financial power; but even so, it was not enough! Church and State and Big Business combined could not prevail against a few simple facts put before the teachers of the city! At the very outset of the convention there was a meeting of classroom teachers, with Margaret Haley and Ethel Gardner and the rest on hand, and Mr. Magill, field secretary of the N. E. A., was so indiscreet as to come upon the platform and face the questions of these teachers. At the end of the session the gang could not muster three votes among those present; rebellion was spreading, and the great educators were frantic.

That night hundreds of telegrams were sent out all over the state of Utah. Superintendents and principals of schools summoned their teachers to Salt Lake City. It was J. Fred Anderson, president of the Utah Educational Association, who knew these teachers; and we have seen in our story of Oakland how Superintendent Hunter presented to him a high salaried position in the Oakland schools. Hunter was here, hard at work, and received his reward by being elected president at this convention.

The master of ceremonies of course was Howard Driggs, who was on his home ground, and had guaranteed to put the job through. With the help of the Mormon hierarchy, both religious and educational, he got the teachers of Utah into a caucus on the night preceding the business meeting of the convention. These teachers were told nothing whatever about the significance of the issue; they were merely told how to vote. The radicals, of course, got wind of this meeting, and came to it, but some of them were excluded, and the stenographer they had brought was ordered to leave. A motion was made that none should be granted the floor except Utah state teachers, or those who might be invited by them. Once during the proceedings a man ventured to ask if they might not hear the other side and know what were the objections to this plan. Chairman J. Fred Anderson glowered at the assembly, and roared: “If there is anyone from the state of Utah who objects to this plan, we’ll listen to him!”

An important part of the plot was a series of amendments to the by-laws, providing for great numbers of “ex officio delegates” to N. E. A. conventions. All the officers and all past presidents were to be such delegates, likewise all state superintendents, and all N. E. A. directors in each state—every such personage was to have a vote, and every such vote was to be equivalent to the vote of from one hundred to five hundred classroom teachers! Naturally, some one asked for an explanation, and so was born the classic jest of the American school world. You might be puzzled to understand why a superintendent of schools should be referred to as an “oil-dome”; but Professor Howard Driggs explained the symbolism to the Utah teachers. When you saw a train of oil-cars on the railroad track, you noted that these cars had little domes on top. The reason was that on curves the oil would acquire momentum which would throw the cars off the track, but these domes served to change the direction of the momentum and so prevented an accident. And the “oil-domes” of the N. E. A. machine were the superintendents!

If I thought you could possibly do it, I would ask you to imagine the mentality of a country school-marm from the far-off mountains and deserts of Utah, brought up to a devout belief in the golden tablets of Joseph Smith. Suffice it to say, that at this group meeting the Mormon ladies listened patiently, and not a single classroom teacher opened her mouth. Mr. Magill gave them printed statements containing the arguments of the gang, adding that of course they would vote as they saw fit. But the Mormon managers were not satisfied with such a careless formula, and one of them got up and pointed out that it was sometimes a difficult matter to follow the technicalities of business meetings, and the Utah teachers ought to take precautions to keep from getting lost in the parliamentary labyrinths. These managers knew they had to come out on the floor of the convention next day, and face Margaret Haley and Ethel Gardner and the rest of the “Bolsheviks”; so they had reason to be nervous!

It was arranged that the Utah teachers should sit together in a group, and in their voting they should follow the example of a leader, saying “aye” when he said “aye,” and “nay” when he said “nay.” And who was that leader to be? Whom would you guess but Howard Driggs, professor of English at the University of Utah, author of “Live Language Lessons,” vice-president of the N. E. A., and president of the Utah Educational Association? And lest perchance these teachers from the mountains and deserts of Utah might never have seen the great Mormon professor, the professor was invited to stand up and display his impressive presence to the assemblage. It was furthermore ordered that the Utah teachers were to be on hand in their Mormon Tabernacle half an hour in advance of the opening of the business session.

Immediately after this meeting there was a secret session in the room of President Pearse of Milwaukee, at the Utah Hotel. At this meeting the gang leaders staged a full-dress rehearsal of the proceedings. They had someone to play the part of Margaret Haley, and to make all the motions and objections which they expected her to make; they worked out the method of foiling her, with each one’s duty assigned, each part learned and recited. This secret meeting lasted until one o’clock in the morningmorning, and goes down into educational history as “the midnight rehearsal.”