THE HOME FRONT
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN Legislators Kept After School LISTON M. OAK is practically reidy to give up cigarettes. Since he is ' a chain-smoker and tobacco in thgse funny little paper...
...You know what the words used in the Current Events classes and Social Studies really mean...
...So we protest on our own behalf as well as in defense of the CO's...
...I suggested that our educational form of matrimony indicated our high regard for the teaching profession...
...As • reward of merit he would excuse bright pupils from the pent-up activities of indoors ami allow them to disport themselves between tbe rows of vegetables...
...Repreaaatativea ef the Army Navy opposed amneety...
...The Uprlsing of the Pedagegs You may think that all ef this) has little te da with the Mrwclreoan reeelllei...
...What sort of education Is that...
...Spokesman fan- the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America wat Dr...
...You stand higher now in public estimation and in the minds of your pupils than you ever did...
...There was one great advantage about this...
...Still limping with a cane round th sidewalks of New York is a dignified old boy—refined features and longflowing white mane...
...You and the parents—yes, you and the Mayors and Governors—now speak the same language...
...teachers is cutting into the public consciousness...
...Ht read a statement made by Lewis P. Jones, Negro objector, when he refused to report for induction and presented himself to tsMffflstrict attorney for prosecution...
...Three of my youthful disciples gave proof of the energy and imagination with which I had inspired them by filling the hours between the dismissal of school and fall of night with activities which landed them in the County Jail...
...I had 49 children and 29 classes...
...In 1947 the demand of the teachers that they be paid, almost as much at carpenters and miners should be met...
...Editors write that teachers, being set on pedestals as examples for the young, should be models of dignity and poise...
...That is: "away back, when I was teaching, the experts were already saying that our educational system was deteriorating because of la<*k of adequate funds...
...What is being preached to them is that they should set an example of dignity and docility...
...Justin Feldman, representing the American Veterans' Committee, called for "an amnesty which would include all men who have been sentenced to prison under the Selective Service Act because of their religious, moral, or political convictions...
...There was never anything new for any of them...
...How he gd| from the backwoods of Ohio to this metropolis I shall never know...
...You, dear teacher, are surrounded by a cloud of allies...
...I.iston thought it might indicate something quite different...
...But, no, this was not quite the last note...
...Indeed, we feel strongly that the punishment ot these idealists should have strapped long ago...
...The statement said: "1 am simply a colored American wbo insists on hit constitutional right to serve his country, as a citizen unsegregaled and unhiimiliated in a jimcrdw army...
...God may have known how old they were...
...Everyone respects a good fighter...
...He bad the nerve to start it—believe it or not—like this: "When I was teaching school in the depths of the Imperial Valley away back in 111 1S the speakers at pedagogical revival services were already bewailing the sad lot of the pedagogs...
...While investigating peonage cases in Fort Lauderdale, F'la., Folmet was arrested on a charge of failure to register as a felon, in accordance with a local ordinance...
...This latter point has just been the matter of rather urgent debate...
...But it has...
...And tht main reason then as now is this: ws are spending too much to pay for tht last war and to prepare tor the coming one...
...He had previously received two sentences as a conscientious objector...
...He thinks that 1918 was "away back...
...We are very educational here in this office...
...Among his 40 children were Negroes, Mexicans and a few whites—these latter the offspring of poor-while share-croppers...
...And that notion is what gave Brother Oak his bdd case of conscience...
...Our treatment of dissenters in World War II is rot a civil liberties record of which we can be proud...
...O. Amnesty for Conscientious Objectors CoMPI.ETE amnesty was urged by tbe large majority of witnesses who testified February 18-19-20 before the President's Amnesty Board...
...And he thinks I was wonderful...
...This old man was ons of...
...And behold his ideas of education...
...They are fullblooded and adequately-alerted citizens...
...Frederick L. Fagley, vlce-chairmaa of the Oeneral Commission on Araf and Navy Chaplains and chairman ef the National Committee on Army tad Navy Chaplains of tbs Congregstional Christian Churches...
...There was one class division among them...
...When I read the pitiful tales of the starving pedagogs 1 keep thinking: "There, but for the g ace of the devil and a certain Board of Regents, go I." The argument started here in the office when I.iston undertook to write an essay about "The Rebellion of the Schoolma'ams...
...But the way in which those of the lower ami unjailed class strove merrily and persistently to win their way into the ranks of the higher-ups was a joy to behold...
...You have taken part in the rowdy goings-on whereby the problem of our time are settled...
...You see how it is...
...1 forgot to report that 1 was at the age_of 16 when forming the minds of future citizens was turned oyer to me...
...We closed the year's educational effort with an elaborate "commencement...
...Those who had been in jail regarded themselves as inconteHtably superior...
...As we proceed into tht "progress" of the atomic age and our weapons improve, our schools will continue to retrograde and at intervals tht Times at al will bewail the fact...
...When we no longer are forced to make atombombt maybe we can make it possible for children in Mississippi and Nevada to have, not only good teachers, but even doctors, and a decent diet...
...It all goes back to the sainted* Times, which is, of course, the most disturbing paper in this country, Alt the members of legislatures and school boards who are so red in tbe face, should not attempt to trace their troubles to Communists...
...Testyfying for the CIO was the representative of its Veterans' Committee, Meyer Bernstein...
...It just goes to show how this march of tht...
...From our place on the aide-lines we ex-pedagogs are waving our banners and sending up shouts of encouragement...
...He started a garden and tried to give the parents Ideas of diversified farming...
...The reason I have not learned the details of his biography is that I cannot endure hia society for long...
...If there is no chanca to duck out of sight he will bail me with: "AhI My eld teacher I" I cannot deny the soft impeachment...
...There are almost a milliea_Jnstructors in this country...
...The urgency of amnesty for objectors to army jimcrow and for men who, because of lack of education and social advantages, failed to get recognition at CO's, was emphasized by Leon A. Ransom, Washington attorney, who spoke for the National Assoociation for tht Advancement of Colored People...
...They know that dignity and docility speak the stuffed shirt and the empty head...
...We think the right of conscientious objection to tht bearing of arms Is basic in a democracy...
...Teachers were leaving the profession...
...It is the editor of the solemn Times who is the real stirrer up of the people...
...It is said thaf government employees must never rebel...
...Ihe re must be, at the very least, another million who, like Litton and me, are refugees from the profession...
...I will be going down Fifth Avenue or along 12th Street, and 1 will see him ahead of me with bis cane...
...But such examinations in those days were not designed to mar the forehead of youth with the wrinkles that care leaves behind...
...They are as good as teamsters and steel workers...
...I hav» deemed it unnecessary to record that all of this happened in Ohio...
...Y'ou have proved yourr°« s^WdA-Tfireil Sebeal wentj far - tesS^MMaf yen te*.* a good teaeber as aaa$g* hoi turfjtoil of these teeont TEMJft, * FOOTNOTI ON ATOMIOMBS AND TEACHERS • Bill Balm omits the main point I made in my casual comments on the plight ef the teachers...
...Without fear you have asserted yourselves...
...Among us ex-educators there must be plenty of governors, members of legislatures and...
...It was his man, Benjamin Fine, who spilled the fact that we spend more for tobacco than for education...
...Dignitaries from governors on down do not overawe them...
...If you could tell right quick in what year the War of 1812 was fought you were sure to come through with flying colors...
...They will have none of it...
...The last that I heard of the neighborhood was that my graduates- had given well-advertized proof of their quality...
...This is not a plea for pacificism, but merely a stats, ment of fact...
...A moderately bright kid in his first year would take in what was being taught to all of his assorted or unassorted seniors...
...It is not tobacco or liquor that it consuming wealth that should go into the school system, but war...
...Rut we harbor no bitterness toward them...
...I never asked...
...It' they feel as we do—all roused and ready to go—it means aJ^f...
...He told the Board: "The AVC certainly does not agree'with the stand that opponents of the draft took during the war...
...The rebellions from Minneapolis to Wilmington are the answers which the teachers fling to this preachment...
...is in a most ironical situation when it professes concern over harsh treatment of political dissenters abroad and yet fails to grant an amnesty at home...
...He confesses that before ha began his labors he attended th.: Teachers College of ths University of California...
...Little docs he know what things were like in the really early days when Horace Mann, Bronson Alcott, a couple of other guys and I got this school system of ours in working order.* Before he reaches ths end of the first paragraph of his essay the erstwhile Instructor of the young from the belowsea-level valley of California gives himself away completely...
...I cannot tight Fascism in an army where I am treated as an inferior citizen...
...school boards and plenty of others in high places...
...And one thing, especially, I want to say to al) the fighters for fair salaries and better educational provisions...
...In tendering the Board the amnesty resolutions of tat country's most Important religious organisations, he called for amnesty no* only for eaplleitly religious CO's but also far ether types of objectors whose grounds were "truly religious," whether or net they admitted It...
...Once in a very long time he is...
...my youngest pupils...
...We therefore most respectfully urge you to recommend a presidential amnesty for all conscientious objectors," Hew Joe Pelmet, souths rn field see rata ry ef the Workers Defense League, wat recently punished far hie beliefs was told the Board by Norman Thomas...
...Educators are, in a sense, in the lead of the whole white-collar cTass...
...But the oldest ones...
...He looks a banker or something...
...Characterizing "the arrest of CO's who struck against forced labor," Bernstein stated: "We of organized labor have suffered from this sort of abuse ourselves...
...Their determined efforts even extended into vacation time...
...It is, 1 take it, sufficiently known that education started in that state...
...Everything that follower' was repetition...
...All this effervescence in the educational world—in Minneapolis, Buffalo, New York and Wilmington—has brought this business of school-teaching back to the center of my mind...
...but in 1957 we will face the same problem unless the world finds some way to stop the armaments race...
...More than twelve times the number of World Wsr I objectors were imprisoned in World Wsr II...
...It leaks out, too, that he had been corrupted with Ideas of modern progressive education...
...In the really early days ws had rta tdHt falderal, Ws depended on Me* Ueffef's Readers, Bernei' History and the National Arithmetic books...
...I had taken some sort of examination set by the School Board of Cuyahoga County...
...Mississippi spends ;i.4 percent of her state budget on schools while New York spends only 2.6 percent...
...But what I started to report on was the age of the pupils...
...They had been sitting on those benches for years and years, proving their durability by the slightness of the changes that were recorded...
...We long ago deserted the desk, "the blackboard, the ruler and the pedagogical piece of chalk, but our hearts are with you still...
...He may be right...
...Since he is ' a chain-smoker and tobacco in thgse funny little paper tubes costs him .'ttic a day, the very idea is revolutionary...
...All of The pupils listened to all the recitations...
...There is a lot of pious talk about whether members of a dignified profession should go on strike...
...I.iston and I, whose desk chairs are back-to-back, both began as teachers, had great notions'of saving mankind through education and—this is the main point—we both married teachers...
...The youngest were charming children in pigtails and pinafores...
...Furthermore, the reason Mississippi spends only $400 while New York spends $4,400 is not that Southerners don't want good odrfcation but that they can't afford it...
...When they are wronged they will fight back...
...What tricks eld age plays on us I I have proof, at least, that one of my scholars managed te remain out of jail...
...Listen and I, yon see, have ' been all pepped Bp by the sight of the embattled teachers...
...The road to learning was ungraded...
...Maybe he has been a clergyman or highschooj principal...
...The United States Government...
Vol. 30 • March 1947 • No. 10
