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 Sliding Mode
Control in
Electro-Mechanical
Systems
Second Edition

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 AUTOMATION AND CONTROL ENGINEERING
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Sliding Mode Control in Electro-Mechanical Systems, Second Edition,

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TAF-65602-08-1101-C000.indd ii 3/31/09 7:44:07 PM

 Sliding Mode
Control in
Electro-Mechanical
Systems
Second Edition

Vadim Utkin
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.

Jürgen Guldner
BMW Group
Munich, Germany

Jingxin Shi
TTTech
Hettershausen, Germany

Boca Raton London New York

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 CRC Press
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 “To the memory of my parents, who gave me a good start and illuminate my way
now”–V.U.
“To my family, who always supports me strongly” –J.G.
“To my wife, my mother, and the memory of my father” –J.S.

© 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

TAF-65602-08-1101-C000.indd v 3/31/09 7:44:08 PM

 Contents

Preface ................................................................................................................... xiii

Authors ...................................................................................................................xv

Chapter 1 Introduction ......................................................................................1

1.1. Examples of Dynamic Systems with Sliding Modes ................................ 1
1.2. Sliding Modes in Relay and Variable Structure Systems ......................... 4
1.3. Multidimensional Sliding Modes .............................................................. 10
1.4. Outline of Sliding Mode Control Methodology ..................................... 13
References............................................................................................................... 15

Chapter 2 Mathematical Background ........................................................... 17

2.1. Problem Statement ....................................................................................... 17
2.2. Regularization .............................................................................................. 20
2.3. Equivalent Control Method ........................................................................ 28
2.4. Physical Meaning of Equivalent Control ................................................. 31
2.5. Existence Conditions ................................................................................... 33
References............................................................................................................... 40

Chapter 3 Design Concepts ............................................................................ 41

3.1. Introductory Example ................................................................................. 41
3.2. Decoupling ....................................................................................................42
3.3. Regular Form ................................................................................................ 46
3.4. Invariance ..................................................................................................... 49
3.5. Unit Control ................................................................................................. 51
3.6. Second-Order Sliding Mode Control ........................................................54
3.6.1. Preliminary Remarks ......................................................................54
3.6.2. Twisting Algorithm ........................................................................ 56
3.6.3. Super-Twisting Algorithm ............................................................. 60
References............................................................................................................... 62

Chapter 4 Sliding Mode Control of Pendulum Systems ..........................63

4.1. Design Methodology ...................................................................................63
4.1.1. Case 4.1 ..............................................................................................64
4.1.2. Case 4.2 ..............................................................................................65
4.1.3. Case 4.3 ..............................................................................................65
4.1.4. Case 4.4 .............................................................................................. 66
4.2. Cart Pendulum ............................................................................................. 67
4.3. Rotational Inverted Pendulum Model ...................................................... 72
4.4. Rotational Inverted Pendulum................................................................... 74

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 viii Contents

4.4.1. Control of the Inverted Pendulum ................................................ 74

4.4.2. Control of the Base Angle and Inverted Pendulum....................77
4.5. Simulation and Experiment Results for Rotational Inverted
Pendulum ...................................................................................................... 79
4.5.1. Stabilization of the Inverted Pendulum........................................ 82
4.5.2. Stabilization of the Inverted Pendulum and
the Base..............................................................................................84
References............................................................................................................... 91

Chapter 5 Control of Linear Systems ............................................................ 93

5.1. Eigenvalue Placement.................................................................................. 93
5.2. Invariant Systems......................................................................................... 96
5.3. Sliding Mode Dynamic Compensators .................................................... 97
5.4. Ackermann’s Formula ............................................................................... 103
5.4.1. Simulation Results ......................................................................... 107
5.5. Output Feedback Sliding Mode Control ................................................ 111
5.6. Control of Time-Varying Systems ........................................................... 117
References............................................................................................................. 121

Chapter 6 Sliding Mode Observers ............................................................ 123

6.1. Linear Asymptotic Observers .................................................................. 123
6.2. Observers for Linear Time-Invariant Systems....................................... 125
6.3. Observers for Linear Time-Varying Systems ......................................... 126
6.3.1. Block-Observable Form ................................................................. 126
6.3.2. Observer Design ............................................................................ 129
6.3.3. Simulation Results ......................................................................... 131
6.3.4. Case 6.1: The System with Zero Disturbances ........................... 133
6.3.5. Case 6.2: The System with Disturbances .................................... 134
6.4. Observer for Linear Systems with Binary Output ................................ 135
6.4.1. Observer Design ............................................................................ 135
References ............................................................................................................ 138

Chapter 7 Integral Sliding Mode ................................................................. 139

7.1. Motivation ................................................................................................... 139
7.2. Problem Statement ..................................................................................... 140
7.3. Design Principles ....................................................................................... 141
7.4. Perturbation and Uncertainty Estimation.............................................. 143
7.5. Examples ..................................................................................................... 145
7.5.1. Linear Time-Invariant Systems.................................................... 146
7.5.2. Control of Robot Manipulators .................................................... 147
7.5.3. Pulse-Width Modulation for Electric Drives ............................. 150
7.5.4. Robust Current Control for Permanent-Magnet
Synchronous Motors ..................................................................... 151
7.6. Summary ....................................................................................................... 157
References............................................................................................................. 158

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 Contents ix

Chapter 8 The Chattering Problem ............................................................. 159

8.1. Problem Analysis ....................................................................................... 159
8.1.1. Example System: Model ................................................................ 160
8.1.2. Example System: Ideal Sliding Mode.......................................... 161
8.1.3. Example System: Causes of Chattering ...................................... 164
8.1.4. Describing Function Method for Chattering Analysis ............ 168
8.2. Boundary Layer Solution .......................................................................... 172
8.3. Observer-Based Solution .......................................................................... 175
8.4. Regular Form Solution .............................................................................. 179
8.5. Disturbance Rejection Solution................................................................ 183
8.6. State-Dependent Gain Method ................................................................ 187
8.7. Equivalent Control-Dependent Gain Method ....................................... 189
8.8. Multiphase Chattering Suppression ....................................................... 193
8.8.1. Problem Statement ......................................................................... 193
8.8.2. Design Principle ............................................................................. 196
8.9. Comparing the Different Solutions ........................................................ 201
References............................................................................................................. 203

Chapter 9 Discrete-Time and Delay Systems ........................................... 205

9.1. Introduction to Discrete-Time Systems .................................................. 205
9.2. Discrete-Time Sliding Mode Concept ..................................................... 208
9.3. Linear Discrete-Time Systems with Known Parameters ..................... 212
9.4. Linear Discrete-Time Systems with Unknown Parameters................. 214
9.5. Introduction to Systems with Delays and Distributed Systems ......... 216
9.6. Linear Systems with Delays ..................................................................... 217
9.7. Distributed Systems................................................................................... 218
9.8. Summary .................................................................................................... 221
References.............................................................................................................222

Chapter 10 Electric Drives.............................................................................223

10.1. DC Motors ................................................................................................... 224
10.1.1. Introduction .................................................................................... 224
10.1.2. Model of the DC Motor ................................................................ 224
10.1.3. Current Control ..............................................................................225
10.1.4. Speed Control ................................................................................. 226
10.1.5. Integrated Structure for Speed Control ...................................... 227
10.1.6. Observer Design ............................................................................ 228
10.1.7. Speed Control with Reduced-Order Model ............................... 232
10.1.8. Observer Design for Sensorless Control..................................... 236
10.1.8.1. Estimation of the Shaft Speed ....................................... 236
10.1.8.2. Estimation of Load Torque ............................................ 238
10.1.9. Discussion ....................................................................................... 239
10.2. Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Motors .............................................. 240
10.2.1. Introduction .................................................................................... 240
10.2.2. Modeling of Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Motors ............ 243

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 x Contents

10.2.3. Sliding Mode Current Control ..................................................... 249

10.2.3.1. First Method for Current Control ................................. 249
10.2.3.2. Second Method for Current Control ............................ 253
10.2.4. Speed Control ................................................................................. 258
10.2.5. Current Observer ........................................................................... 261
10.2.6. Observer for Speed Sensorless Control ...................................... 264
10.2.6.1. Current Observer for EMF Components ..................... 265
10.2.6.2. Observer for EMF Components .................................... 266
10.2.7. Discussion ....................................................................................... 269
10.3. Induction Motors ...................................................................................... 271
10.3.1. Introduction .................................................................................... 271
10.3.2. Model of the Induction Motor ...................................................... 272
10.3.3. Rotor Flux Observer with Known Rotor Speed ........................ 278
10.3.3.1. Online Simulation of Rotor Flux Model ..................... 278
10.3.3.2. Sliding Mode Observer with Adjustable Rate of
Convergence ................................................................... 279
10.3.4. Simultaneous Observation of Rotor Flux and
Rotor Speed ..................................................................................... 283
10.3.4.1. Analysis of Current Tracking ........................................284
10.3.4.2. Composite Observer-Controller Analysis ................... 287
10.3.4.3. Simulation Results .......................................................... 290
10.3.4.4. Experimental Results ...................................................... 290
10.3.5. Speed, Rotor Time Constant Observer, and Experimental
Results ............................................................................................ 299
10.3.6 Direct Torque and Flux Control ..................................................306
10.3.6.1. Supplement: Cascaded Torque and Flux Control
Via Phase Currents ......................................................... 316
10.4. Summary..................................................................................................... 318
References............................................................................................................. 319

Chapter 11 Power Converters ....................................................................... 321

11.1. DC/DC Converters .................................................................................... 321
11.1.1. Bilinear Systems ............................................................................ 322
11.1.2. Direct Sliding Mode Control ........................................................ 324
11.1.2.1. Buck-Type DC/DC Converter........................................ 325
11.1.2.2. Boost-Type DC/DC Converter...................................... 327
11.1.3. Observer-Based Control................................................................330
11.1.3.1. Observer-Based Control of Buck Converters .............. 333
11.1.3.2. Observer-Based Control of Boost Converters ............. 337
11.1.4. Multiphase Converters .................................................................343
11.2. Boost-Type AC/DC Converters ................................................................ 352
11.2.1. Model of the Boost-Type AC/DC Converter ............................. 356
11.2.1.1. Model in Phase Coordinate Frame ............................... 358
11.2.1.2. Model in (d, q) Coordinate Frame ............................... 359

© 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

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 Contents xi

11.2.2. Control Problems ........................................................................... 362

11.2.2.1. Sliding Mode Current Control ...................................... 363
11.2.2.2. Output Voltage Regulation ............................................ 367
11.2.2.3. Simulation Results .......................................................... 369
11.2.3. Observer for Sensorless Control .................................................. 369
11.2.3.1. Current Observer for Source Phase Voltage ............... 373
11.2.3.2. Observer for Source Voltage .......................................... 374
11.2.3.3. Known Supply Frequency ............................................ 374
11.2.3.4. Unknown Supply Frequency ........................................ 375
11.2.3.5. Simulation Results .......................................................... 376
11.3. DC/AC Converter ...................................................................................... 376
11.3.1. Dynamic Model.............................................................................. 377
11.3.2. Control Design: Sliding Mode PWM .......................................... 378
11.3.2.1. Lyapunov Approach ....................................................... 382
11.3.2.2. Decoupling Approach .................................................... 383
11.3.2.3. Possible Applications of vn Control .............................. 385
11.3.2.4. Simulation Results .......................................................... 386
11.3.2.5. Experimental Results...................................................... 387
11.4. Summary..................................................................................................... 390
References............................................................................................................. 396

Chapter 12 Advanced Robotics .................................................................... 397

12.1. Dynamic Modeling.................................................................................... 397
12.1.1. Generic Inertial Dynamics ........................................................... 398
12.1.2. Holonomic Robot Model ............................................................... 399
12.1.2.1. Mass Matrix .....................................................................400
12.1.2.2. Skew Symmetry ..............................................................400
12.1.2.3. Boundedness of Dynamic Terms .................................. 401
12.1.3. Nonholonomic Robots: Model of Wheel-Set..............................404
12.2. Trajectory Tracking Control .....................................................................405
12.2.1. Componentwise Control .............................................................. 407
12.2.2. Vector Control ................................................................................ 412
12.2.3. Continuous Feedback/Feedforward Control with
Additional Discontinuity Term for Sliding Mode..................... 416
12.2.4. Discussion of Sliding Mode Control Design Choices............... 421
12.3. Gradient Tracking Control........................................................................423
12.3.1. Control Objectives ......................................................................... 426
12.3.2. Gradient Tracking Control Design for Holonomic Robots ...... 429
12.3.3. Gradient Tracking Control Design for Nonholonomic
Robots ..............................................................................................430
12.4. Application Examples ...............................................................................434
12.4.1. Torque Control for Flexible Robot Joints ....................................434
12.4.2. Collision Avoidance for Mobile Robots in a Known
Planar Workspace .......................................................................... 438

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 xii Contents

12.4.3. Collision Avoidance in Higher-Dimensional Known

Workspaces .....................................................................................443
12.4.4. Automatic Steering Control for Passenger Cars ........................447
References............................................................................................................. 452

Chapter 13 Automotive Applications ......................................................... 455

13.1. Air/Fuel Ratio Control .............................................................................. 455
13.2. Camless Combustion Engine ................................................................... 460
13.3. Observer for Automotive Alternator....................................................... 468
References ............................................................................................................ 474

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 Preface to the Second Edition

The authors accepted enthusiastically the opportunity offered by Taylor &

Francis to publish a second edition of our book for two reasons: On the one
hand, the proposal itself means that the interest in sliding mode control has
remained at a high level even 10 years after publication of the first edition.
On the other hand, it is a good opportunity to include new results into the
book related to both the control design methodology and applications.
The chapters and sections related to the new theoretical developments
embrace results on second order sliding mode with continuous control
actions, state observers with simple binary sensors, and methods of analysis
and chattering suppression—the phenomenon known to be the main obsta-
cle for sliding mode control implementation. The above list is complemented
by design principles for simultaneous estimation of state and parameters of
electric motors and for designing multiphase power converters with chatter-
ing (ripple) suppression.
Results in automotive application of sliding mode control are presented in
the concluding chapter.

Vadim Utkin, Jürgen Guldner, and Jingxin Shi

xiii
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TAF-65602-08-1101-C000.indd xiii 3/31/09 7:44:10 PM

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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.
 CHAPTER XXV
THE UNIVERSITY GANG

We cross San Francisco Bay to Berkeley, and here is a city of sixty

thousand people, cut in half by a broad avenue; on the one side live
well-to-do commuters, retired army and navy officers, capitalists,
and university students and professors; on the other side live
shipyard and railroad workers, and servants of the rich. The city,
both the rich part and the poor, is completely dominated by a
medieval fortress on a hill, which I have called the University of the
Black Hand, and which is officially known as the University of
California. It has eleven thousand students, a completely intrenched
bureaucracy, and a board of regents made up of the worst
plutocratic elements in the state. Desiring to show how much he
cares for “The Goose-step,” the newly elected governor of the Black
Hand has just added to the board the greatest enemy of the public
welfare in California, Harry Chandler, publisher and owner of the Los
Angeles “Times.”
In 1911 the workers of Berkeley took thought of their own
interests, and elected a Socialist clergyman as their mayor. This, of
course, was terrible to the plutocracy, and they waged incessant war
upon the Socialists, one of their principal agencies being the political
science department of their university. You understand that the
purpose of “political science” is to maintain the capitalist state; and
what better practice for the students than to hold down the working
class of their university town?
The head of this department was David P. Barrows, whom I have
called the Dean of Imperialism: one of these military figures who
make our cause easy by caricaturing his own. I have told the story
of his career in “The Goose-step”—how he went to Siberia and
directed President Wilson’s private war on the Russian people, and
then came home and clamored for the shooting of all the Bolsheviks
in America. On the strength of this program the Black Hand made
him president of the university; a position he has just quit, because
the Black Hand discovered that it needs, not merely a man who is
“strong,” but one who is not stupid.
What do you do when you are Dean of Imperialism of a state
university, and are set to hold down the local populace? You build up
a political machine, precisely like Tammany Hall or any other
machine. You pick a university representative to become mayor of
the town, and you pick another university representative to run the
school board. You have your experts draw up the city charter and all
the laws and ordinances, so as to make it possible for you to have
your way and for the people not to have their way. You summon
your fraternities and put them into politics on the side of their
fathers. You vote your students en masse in the city, in spite of the
fact that they are not legally entitled to vote there. Your fraternity
political leader gets five thousand dollars from the Key Route (street
railways), and when a student exposes this fact on a public platform,
you see this student mobbed and beaten. You collect campaign
funds from the public service corporations and big business grafters
in the usual political fashion, and pay them with the promise that
when there are strikes you will use the students of the university to
break the strikes; and whenever the occasion arises you carry out
this promise. You drive from your university every professor who
dares to lift his voice against the regime of the Black Hand. You kick
out unceremoniously a student who dares to publish a paper reciting
the facts about your activities. Such is “political science” in an
American state university; such are the lessons which the students
of the Black Hand learn in Berkeley, and go back to apply in their
home cities and towns.
You might have the idea that at least a university administration
would do something in the way of improving the schools of its city;
but if so, you would be as naive as the people of Berkeley have
been. The university-controlled system of Berkeley turns out
precisely the same products as the New York system dominated by
“Democratic” Tammany Hall, and the Chicago system dominated by
the Thompson “Republican” machine, and the San Francisco system
dominated by Banker Fleishhacker and Archbishop Hanna; those
products being G, F, P, and R—Graft, Favoritism, Propaganda and
Repression.
In the year 1913, when the Socialists carried their second election
and got control of the schools, the school buildings were run down
and filthy, with no paint and with vile, unsanitary toilets. Large sums
of money had been voted, and nobody could find out where they
went; the accounts were purposely confused for the concealment of
graft. The school board was made up of political “dead beats” and
grafters, representing all the business interests, including
prostitution and booze. The teachers were browbeaten, the parents
were insulted and driven from the schools when they tried to find
out what was going on. The pupils were “fired” because of their own
political activities, or the activities of their parents in opposition to
the gang.
The Socialists came into power, and their first demand was for the
building up of the school system. They called a bond election, and
the interests defeated this; subsequently the bond issue was carried,
and there was a possibility of several hundred thousand dollars
being spent without consideration for the grafters. This, of course,
would never do; so the political science department of the university
was called on, and it drew up a plan, which the city council put
through, to appoint a special committee to handle this money; a
“committee of citizens”—that is to say, the business grafters of
Berkeley, in sufficient number to outvote the Socialists!
Mrs. Elvina S. Beals was a Socialist member of this school board,
and also of the next school board, on which she constituted an
unhappy minority. She has told me the story of her experiences, and
put the documents into my hands. To become a Socialist school
board member is like stepping into a lion’s den; save that there is no
wall against which you can back up—the lions are on every side of
you! There is nothing you do or attempt to do for the schools in
which you do not encounter some business interest trying to make
profit out of them.
If you tried to obtain a fair price for a building site, you made
mortal enemies of some fellow board member, whose relatives were
expecting to retire with a life competence from this particular deal. If
you insisted upon enforcing the law requiring bids for school
furnishings, you made enemies of those board members who had
“friends” among the wholesalers. If you tried to have the board
furnish stationery to the high school students at cost, the merchants
of your city came in a body to make a protest to the board—you
were ruining their business. The secretary of the Chamber of
Commerce made an eloquent speech, asking who it was that paid
the taxes to support the schools, if not the business men. If you
tried to establish school cafeterias, so that poor children could get
wholesome food at cost, you were ruining the restaurant keepers
and the bakers. All these people would combine and form a little
local Black Hand; they would start a scandal bureau and fill the kept
press with misrepresentations; they would start a “recall” campaign
against you, and pour out floods of slander upon you, and make you
spend a small fortune to defend yourself.
And here is the most significant fact: at the very front of this
campaign of rascality and falsehood would be the university
machine! Here was a school board giving away old houses to real
estate men without bids; here was a coal man on the board giving
furniture contracts to a friend; and in every such issue the university
vote would be on the side of the grafters! The Socialists brought up
the question of fire insurance graft. It seemed that whenever the
local insurance men got hard up and needed cash, they went and
insured a school; they had even insured one building which didn’t
exist!
They had been charging as high as four dollars per hundred; but
now the Socialists demanded bids, and forced the local agents down
to a dollar-sixty per hundred, and in one case as low as sixty cents
per hundred. The representative of a Pennsylvania company made
this bid, and the law required that the city should take the lowest
bid. Mrs. Beals urged that the law be obeyed; against her on the
board was an official of the Federal Coal Company, whose president
and secretary were at that time in San Quentin penitentiary, charged
with defrauding the government by short-weight—and getting fifteen
hundred dollars a month salary from the company while in jail! Also
a prominent politician, who frequently came to board meetings with
so much liquor in him that you could smell it across the table. Also a
local political woman and finally the university professor. Here was a
plain issue of whether or not the school board should obey the law;
and the university professor of the Black Hand voted to disobey the
law. After a whole day’s fight, Mrs. Beals forced a reconsideration on
this matter; the professor stuck by the gang, but the woman and the
coal dealer changed, and so the city of Berkeley was saved five
thousand dollars.
Then came an old settler trying to sell some property to the board
for many times its value. There was mysterious pulling of wires, and
it was evident that the board was again going to disobey the law. So
the Socialists raked up a forgotten statute, to the effect that the
board could not buy land without the consent of the people. Under
another forgotten statute they called a town meeting, which was
most embarrassing to the grafters. The board dropped this
proposition; also they dropped Mrs. Beals from the sites committee
of the board, and put her on the supplies committee instead. Thus
she saw another side of the system; one of the agents who sold
school supplies told her he was glad there was now one school
supplies committee in the state of California which did not have its
hands held out!
The board, following the lead of President Barrows at the
university, had made a ruling that the superintendent might dismiss
teachers on recommendation from the principal, and without the
right to see the board. But Mrs. Beals made it her business to see
every teacher who was let out, and also to see those who were
newly engaged. Iron fire-escapes were desperately needed, and with
the help of the fire-chief Mrs. Beals got them. Also she got
kindergartens in every primary school. Giving her entire time for the
munificent salary of fifteen dollars a month, she had saved the city
of Berkeley a hundred thousand dollars. But now came war and
glory; the board members were called upon to sign a resolution to
the effect that they would perform any service that Woodrow Wilson
might request; and when Mrs. Beals very wisely hesitated at this,
the Associated Press flashed her over the United States as disloyal.
So the gang came in waving the stars and stripes, and everything is
now back where it was. You will find this happening in city after city
—America has been made safe for capitalism.
Berkeley now has as superintendent an amiable but feeble
lecturer-pedagogue, who told the California Teachers’ Association
that “the teachers and the public should get together in prayer-
meeting”; he went on to explain what he meant by the public,
naming the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotarians, the Kiwanis—and
not a single labor body! The overhead expenses of the schools have
increased five times—but they have put out all the Montessori work,
because they cannot afford it! In charge of the spending of the
money is a board made up as follows: a coal and wood dealer; a dry
goods merchant of the Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce type;
the wife of an attorney; a political woman affiliated with the oil
interests and the Barrows machine; and a professor of the
agricultural department of the university. How aggressively the Black
Hand is at work you may judge from the fact that the children of
Berkeley were required to answer a questionnaire, disguised as a
“social survey.” Among fifty questions were such as these: “How
does your father spend his spare time? What does he do Sundays?
What books does your mother read?” The child was assured that all
this would be “confidential”; but he was not permitted to take the
questions home to his parents!
 CHAPTER XXVI
THE WARD LEADER

The trolley cars take us a few miles south to the city of Oakland,
where we find a still larger population of shipyard workers,
longshoremen and factory hands, having ideas of their own, and
therefore having to be taken in charge by the Black Hand. The
situation in Oakland is of especial importance, for the reason that
the school superintendent of the Black Hand in this city is one of the
big chiefs of the National Education Association. Fred M. Hunter was
the 1921 president of the Association, and at the convention where
he was chosen the gang put through a “reorganization,” whereby it
was made forever certain that the class-room teachers of America
shall remain impotent in their own organization, while their opinions
are voiced for them and their money is spent for them by the bosses
of the educational Tammany Hall.
I wish you to understand that when I speak of the N. E. A. as an
educational Tammany Hall, I am not slinging language, but giving a
precise description of a sociological phenomenon. The N. E. A. is run
by a political gang, and the bosses in it are exactly the same kind of
people, functioning in exactly the same way as the ward leaders of
Tammany. Fred M. Hunter is one of these ward leaders, and he uses
the schools of Oakland, in no sense for the benefit of the city or its
people, but solely for the building up of the N. E. A. machine, and of
his power in this machine. As you read the story, therefore, bear this
wider aspect of the matter in mind. The city of Oakland, with its
quarter of a million people, mostly workers, contributes the sum of
eighteen thousand dollars a day for the education of its children, and
this sum is used by a school politician to reward his friends and
punish his enemies. Incidentally, of course, this ward leader sees to
it that our education, both local and national, remains plutocratic;
just as the ward leaders of Tammany see to it that the “traction
crowd” and the other big exploiters are protected.
The City of Oakland voted five million dollars for new schools, and
Mr. Hunter explained publicly his idea that the proper people to
handle these bonds were the business men; therefore he appointed
a special committee known as the “Bond Expenditure Committee.”
This committee proceeded to appoint a prominent politician as “land
agent,” to handle the buying of sites, at a salary of three hundred
dollars a month. The opposition members of the school board
objected to this program, and forced the resignation of the Bond
Expenditure Committee; whereupon, Mr. Hunter caused to be
printed in the Oakland “Tribune,” kept newspaper of the gang, an
interview proclaiming to the citizens that the school system was
about to be disrupted.
You will appreciate the humor of this when you are told that
during the previous year the schools had had to be closed for two
weeks because of the wasting of school money; but at the same
time the board had increased Mr. Hunter’s salary to ten thousand
dollars per year! (It has since been raised to eleven, and is about to
be raised again.) When the school board, in the effort to keep the
schools open, tried to take control of the business department from
Mr. Hunter, he caused the big business men of Oakland to come
before the board and protest; and one of these men stated that he
didn’t think it was so bad for the city to lose two weeks of school—a
small matter of a hundred and eighty thousand dollars—as it would
be to “injure the prestige of so big a man as Mr. Hunter!”
Not merely must the money put up by the Oakland taxpayers be
sacrificed to Mr. Hunter’s “prestige,” but also the teaching in the
Oakland schools must be sacrificed to the same end. Mr. Hunter
promotes teachers who serve his political ambitions, and this without
relation to their ability. The convention at which the National
Education Association was “reorganized” was held in Salt Lake City in
1920; and Mr. Hunter’s right-hand man in putting this through was J.
Fred Anderson, president of the Utah Educational Association. He
delivered the votes of the Utah teachers, and immediately was made
principal of one of Oakland’s large high schools, with salary and
allowances amounting to $4,390 per year.
Also there is Miss Elizabeth Arlett, who, while supposed to be
teaching the school children of Oakland, was touring the United
States, shortly before the convention, in the interest of Mr. Hunter’s
candidacy for the presidency of the N. E. A. Miss Arlett was
promoted to be principal of a high school in Oakland, and I am told
that many teachers in Oakland have heard her boast that she can
have anything she wants in the Oakland school system.
On the other hand, there have been some teachers who have
failed to carry out Mr. Hunter’s will—just as there are some labor
leaders who will not sell out their union, but persist in representing
the workers. Mr. Hunter wished to put his own henchman in the
position of president of the Oakland Teachers’ Association. Here,
please understand, were the teachers of the city, supposed to be
electing the head of their own professional organization; but they
were not permitted to cast their ballot secretly, they had to vote in
the presence of the principal, and they got their orders for whom to
vote. One young woman teacher failed to vote according to orders,
and she was so persecuted in her school that she felt compelled to
resign.
You might think that would have ended the matter, but if so, you
don’t know the methods of the gang. This teacher applied for a
position as secretary to a corporation, and was promised the
position, but when she went to begin her work she was told by the
manager that Mr. Hunter had reported her as having been “disloyal”;
consequently this corporation could not employ her. And if you think
that an unusual kind of thing, let me mention that only yesterday I
was talking with a school teacher in Los Angeles, who told me about
a friend of hers who had fought the gang, and then had left Los
Angeles to seek a position elsewhere; for years afterwards she lost
every position she held, because the gang ferreted her out and
wrote letters about her to her new school employers.
There has just been a new school election in Oakland. In
preparation for it, Mr. Hunter had got his henchmen in all the Babbitt
societies of the city—the Rotarians, the Kiwanis, the Lions, the Ad
Clubs, the “High Twelve,” the “Knights of the Round Table.” And a
few days before the election he took eight boys out of high school,
without the permission or knowledge of their parents, and set them
to distributing election cards in boats and trains. His ticket won; and
so he now has everything his own way.
The old board had persisted in keeping in office a “chief of
construction” who was finishing the new school buildings. This man
had required the contractors to live up to the specifications, and had
thereby incurred the furious enmity of the grafters—and also, of
course, of Mr. Hunter. The grafting contractors put up large sums of
money to pay for the election of the new board, and the first action
of Mr. Hunter when the new board came in was to recommend the
discharge and force the resignation of the too honest chief of
construction. In resigning, this official filed specific charges of fraud
against the contractors, and Mr. Hunter’s school board majority
utterly ignored the communication.
It was left to the Civic Club, an independent organization, to force
an investigation, which has shown substitution of inferior materials,
meaning tens of thousands of dollars stolen from the people of the
city. Some new buildings have been condemned as unsafe, and the
work ordered done over. And note, please, that Hunter is on the
building committee, and had full knowledge of what his gang was
doing. The presidents of the various women’s clubs of Oakland unite
in a statement: “We are told of fire hazards, faulty roof construction,
and other grave dangers menacing the lives of our children. And yet
we are told that no crime has been committed!” I entreat you to
remember these things when, later on in this book, you are reading
about Hunter of Oakland, and his career of glory at the annual
conventions of the National Education Association.
You will not need to be told that a Black Hand such as this rules
firmly the thinking of the people of Oakland. How they do it was
narrated at a meeting of the Better America Federation at the
Oakland Hotel, where Mr. Levenson, manager of the biggest
department-store, stated that the police under his direction had
undertaken to crush street speaking, and had crushed it. Also the
school department under Fred M. Hunter was put to work, and the
Honorable Leslie M. Shaw, author of “Vanishing Landmarks,” was
brought to Oakland, and all the teachers in the school system were
compelled by official order to listen while he denounced the
referendum and woman’s suffrage.
Then came Woodworth Clum, of the Better America Federation, to
tell the high school children that a proposition to amend the
Constitution of the United States is “akin to treason.” The Black Hand
shipped up from Los Angeles eleven thousand copies of Clum’s
pamphlet, “America Is Calling,” the substance being that America is
calling her school children to mob their fellow students with whose
opinions they do not agree. The Black Hand gave them a practical
demonstration of this program by mobbing the editor of the Oakland
“Free Press,” who was too freely exposing graft.
It was proposed to distribute Mr. Clum’s pamphlet to every pupil in
the high schools, but the Central Labor Council made a protest to
the state board of education, and the state superintendent, acting
by vote of the board, forbade the distribution. Here comes an
interesting test of the Black Hand. The thing they are in business to
protect is “law and order”; their one purpose in getting the school
children into their military classes is that the children may learn
discipline and subordination to authority. Now the state
superintendent of education is the superior of the Oakland
superintendent, and under the law it was his right and his duty to
forbid the distribution of propaganda in the schools. In issuing his
order to Hunter, he was acting by vote of the state board; and what
did Hunter do about it? Why, he went ahead and distributed the
pamphlets, and the Better America Federation proclaimed him a hero
throughout the state!
Every once in a while a hero like this arises: first Ole Hanson of
Seattle, then Cal Coolidge of Massachusetts, then President Atwood
of Clark University, who leaped into the limelight upon the face of
Scott Nearing. I invite you once more not to forget Fred M. Hunter,
Oakland superintendent of schools. There is a strong movement
under way to establish a new cabinet position, a secretary of
education, and Hunter has his eye on this goal, and is bending every
effort toward it. How beautifully he would fit in the cabinet of Cal
Coolidge, strike-breaking hero of Massachusetts! What a
demonstration of national unity—from Boston Bay to San Francisco
Bay, one country, one flag, and one goose-step! Black Hands across
the continent!
 CHAPTER XXVII
THE ROMEO AND JULIET STUNT

We move north to Portland, which is the harbor of the lumber

country, a relatively old city with an aristocracy of merchant princes,
like Baltimore or Boston. Ten years ago Oregon had a strong
progressive movement, it was the pioneer in direct legislation. Today
the old guard rules, and Portland is in the grip of a Black Hand which
imports its ideas direct from Los Angeles. Curiously enough, they
had a strike of the longshoremen and seamen, at the same time as
Los Angeles; and here also the I. W. W. attacked the very basis of
American civic life by closing up the boot-legging dives and dumping
the liquor into the gutters. The insurrection was put down by the
same methods as in Los Angeles—the throwing of hundreds of men
into jail and holding them incommunicado without warrant or
charge.
A number of Portland’s old and ineffably haughty families got their
wealth by stealing the school lands which the government had given
to the people of the state; now other families are on the way to
becoming haughty upon the basis of real estate manipulations of the
school board, and the sale of school supplies at double prices. The
boss of the Oregon political machine is Mr. A. L. Mills, president of
the First National Bank; for the past ten years he has kept a political
agent to run the state legislature. The machine sent down to Los
Angeles for copies of Woodworth’s Clum’s pamphlet, “America Is
Calling,” for distribution in Oregon; and from these dragon’s teeth
resulted a whole crop of legislative vermin—a bill requiring every
school teacher to take an oath of loyalty, a bill forbidding aliens to
teach in the schools; a bill barring any teacher who “either publicly
or privately engages in destructive or undermining criticism of our
government”; a bill requiring “the teaching of the Constitution in all
public and private schools”—meaning, of course, the teaching of the
Constitution as a bulwark of special privilege.
As the directing staff of the public schools of Portland, Mr. Mills
has selected a group of educators about whom I have yet to hear
anything good. To call them uneducated educators would not tell
you much; so come with me and make the acquaintance of Mr. D. A.
Grout, superintendent of schools for a quarter of a million people.
Mr. Grout is clammy and cold in his personal dealings, but in literary
composition and oratory he expands and reveals himself. He takes a
parental attitude towards his teachers, gathering them in large
assemblies to instruct and inspire them. He composes verses, and
has the teachers learn and recite these verses before him. He tells
them stories with moral lessons, and then prints the stories in the
official “School Bulletin.” One of these stories had to do with the
philosophy of an old Negro, who was accustomed to say on all
occasions: “Make the most of life today, ’caze you don’t know what
may come along tomorrow.” A group of teachers declared to me that
in telling the story Mr. Grout repeated this formula eight times; but I
suspect these teachers of inaccuracy—because, as Mr. Grout
publishes the story in the “School Bulletin,” September 6, 1919, he
repeats it only three times, and then varies it for another three times
as follows: “Make the most of life today, ’caze we do know what may
come along tomorrow.”
Two or three years ago Mr. Grout went East to attend a convention
of the National Education Association. His expenses were paid by the
city; he has done considerable traveling at the city’s expense—
$4,995.08 in the past three years. Superintendents do this traveling
upon the theory that they will meet other great educators and bring
home new ideas and inspirations. “We do get so tired,” said one of
Mr. Grout’s flock, in telling me about it. “We do so crave a little bit of
enthusiasm, something to make us think it’s worth while to go on
with the old, dead routine!”
Portland’s great educator comes home from his six thousand mile
trip, and the twelve hundred teachers of the city are summoned to a
general assembly to receive the new ideas and inspiration. The
proceedings are opened with music; there is a supervisor of singing,
who stands upon the platform, with the bulk of the men teachers on
the ground floor, and the bulk of the women up in the gallery. The
men are directed to sing: “Soft o’er the fountain, ling’ring falls the
Southern moon.” They do not sing loud enough, and the music
supervisor jumps up and shouts: “Sing until you break the
chandeliers.” After which it is the women’s turn; they answer: “Nita!
Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part.” The men sing another verse,
and the women answer—the sarcastic young lady teachers who told
me about this performance described it as “the Romeo and Juliet
stunt.” Next they sing, “In the gloaming, oh, my darling”—in the
same “Romeo and Juliet” fashion. I have before me the “School
Bulletin” for two successive years, which provides the texts of these
chandelier-breaking melodies; also, “Just a song at twilight, When
the lights are low,” and “Maxwelton’s braes are bonnie, Where early
fa’s the dew.”
Now Mr. Grout rises, and a hushed silence falls upon the twelve
hundred men and women teachers. The time for new ideas and
inspirations has come. Mr. Grout has brought a really new idea:
poetry is to be taught to the children, and he opens a normal school
right there and then, to teach the teachers how to teach it. His
method is to repeat one line of the poem, and then have the twelve
hundred teachers recite this after him; then he repeats another line
of the poem, and the teachers recite that; then he repeats the two
lines together, and the teachers recite the two; then he goes on to
the next two lines, and so on, until all the twelve hundred teachers
are able to recite the entire poem correctly. Such is the newest
pedagogic discovery, for which the people of Portland were paying a
salary of six hundred and twenty-five dollars per month, plus a car
allowance of fifty dollars per month, plus a traveling allowance of a
hundred and thirty-eight dollars and sixty-one cents per month.
It depends upon the poem, you may say. So I give you the poem
which Mr. Grout thus taught to the twelve hundred assembled
teachers of Portland. Lest you find it incredible, I specify that when
the teachers recited it to me, I also found it incredible; I made two
or three of them recite it in turn, so as to make sure they really
knew it. Later on, I made them send me a copy of the “School
Bulletin,” in which the poem was printed for the benefit of any of the
twelve hundred who might have forgotten it. Here it is, word for
word, and punctuation mark for punctuation mark:
/* “There was a crooked man Who walked a crooked mile; But I,
when I go walking, Don’t walk in crooked style. I keep my chin and
stomach in And hold my chest up higher, And step along so straight
and strong, And never, never tire.” */
You can imagine the silence which prevailed in the auditorium
after this course in poetry. Could it be that some faint uneasiness
penetrated the mind of the Portland superintendent of schools?
Apparently it did, for he now told the assembled twelve hundred
teachers that he had a story to teach them. There were some
teachers who were dissatisfied with the school system, and were
accustomed more or less surreptitiously to criticize it; for the benefit
of such teachers Mr. Grout mentioned that once upon a time he had
owned a dog, and this dog had acquired the habit of running out on
the highway and barking at everybody and everything that went by.
Once a big automobile had come along, and the dog had rushed out
at that, and afterwards the dog had been buried at the foot of a big
tree, and had made excellent fertilizer for the tree. The fate of this
dog was one for all teachers to bear in mind and apply the moral in
their lives. After which the twelve hundred teachers joined in
singing: “Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, Which I
gaze on so fondly today”; and the assembly was adjourned.
I was solemnly assured by five teachers at once, that at the
assembly of the following year Mr. Grout started out to ascertain if
the teachers still remembered the poem which he had taught them;
but one of the board members seated on the platform burst out
laughing, and brought the poetical proceedings to an end. The board
member thought it was funny, and maybe you think it is funny; but I
don’t. I think it one more proof of the deliberate conspiracy which
the masters of our plutocratic empire have hatched, to keep the
American people at the mental age of eight. The schools are now
conducted upon the basis of keeping the pupils at that age; and of
course the safest way to do this is to keep the teachers at the same
age, and likewise the principals, and the supervisors—and the
superintendents.
But it may be that I do an injustice to the mentality of Portland’s
high-priced educators; it may be that they are not so naive as they
appear, and really know what they are doing to earn their keep. The
teachers have a pension fund, to which all have to belong. The
amount of the fund is over three hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
and some school officials are ex officio members of the board of
directors of this fund. The board loaned the sum of sixty-five
hundred dollars to a firm of lawyers, and there was a rumor that one
school official had got the use of this money. One of the teachers
came upon a newspaper clipping, telling how an official in the
Philippines had been sent to jail for taking money from a fund of
whose board he was a member. This clipping was mailed
anonymously to the school official; and immediately afterwards the
firm of lawyers began to pay up that sixty-five hundred dollars! At
one time it was reported that the fund was on the rocks, and the
teachers were going to lose all their money. May be it really was in
danger; and again, may be somebody wanted to throw it into the
hands of a receiver, so that the politicians could get it. Big Business
of course wants the teachers to take out insurance with private
companies; to this end the Portland “Oregonian,” organ of the Black
Hand, cited seventeen cases of the bankruptcy of teachers’ pension
funds!
One incident from the administration of the previous
superintendent, just to show you what happens to school teachers in
the days of “progressive” politics. The teachers’ organizations
worked out plans for certain changes in the school system, which
changes were calculated to cause inconvenience to the
superintendent. The teachers went out on the streets, they went to
the restaurants at night, and to the market places, and got the
necessary thirty thousand signatures to petitions. (This is the thing
called “direct legislation,” you understand; this is what the Honorable
Leslie M. Shaw, and the Dishonorable Harry Atwood and Woodworth
Clum describe as “Treason to the Republic.”) The teachers gathered
in the superintendent’s office with their signatures; they took them
to the office of a lawyer who was a friend of the superintendent, and
locked them in his safe. After supper they found that the door of the
building had been unlocked, the office door had been unlocked, the
safe had been unlocked, and the petitions were gone! The politicians
had made off with the thirty thousand signatures, and no more was
heard of that treasonable referendum!
 CHAPTER XXVIII
THE INVENTOR OF FIVE SCIENCES

The school situation in Portland assumes to some extent the

aspect of a sex-war; the women teachers do the work and the men
bosses get the salaries. After a long campaign the taxpayers voted
money to raise the teachers’ salaries, but some of the teachers got
no increase, and others got only fifty dollars a year, and others a
hundred dollars a year, while the principals got four hundred dollars!
Even when the teachers got the “increase,” they didn’t always get
the money. Some of them told me their misadventures, trying to get
this money; but when I wrote out the stories, they got scared—
somebody might recognize them! So you don’t get the stories, any
more than the teachers got the salaries!
I am free to mention, however, that teachers’ salaries are delayed
for one week, and in the meantime the money lies in somebody’s
bank. That may seem a small matter, until you figure that the
interest on two million dollars for one week amounts to three
thousand dollars a year—a sum worth anybody’s taking!
The women teachers complain also of male parasites, who do little
work, but draw high salaries. Many of the supervisors draw an extra
salary from the state university, and seldom come to the schools; the
teachers until recently had to go to them and pay to be taught.
There is a drawing supervisor drawing pay in the state university;
there is another supervisor who is paid twenty-nine hundred dollars
a year, who also teaches in the state university, and whom you may
see smoking every afternoon in a hotel lobby. Teachers assure me
that he has not visited some schools in three years.
 There is the usual graft in the purchase of supplies, and the usual
inability of the teachers to get supplies. When they make public
complaint about this, they read items in the “Oregonian” to the
effect that the reason there is no money for school supplies is that it
all goes for teachers’ salaries. Hardly ever is the problem of school
funds discussed, that this little sneer does not emerge. Some
teachers became indignant, and started to investigate the
expenditure of school money; the principal of their school became
interested, and took the investigation off their hands, and discovered
so much that he was made an assistant superintendent to keep him
quiet; three other men were promoted to be principals, as a result of
this little affair! They have taken out cooking, sewing, and manual
training from the sixth grade in the elementary schools; last year
they threatened to take out more subjects—because they are so
poor. But they are not too poor to pay eight hundred and thirteen
dollars and sixty-one cents per month for the teaching of poetry at
the assemblies!
They have in Portland a system whereby the teachers are
supposed to have something to do with the selecting of text-books.
There was a sort of “book-election,” at which the teachers were to
indicate their choice. Swarms of book men descended upon the city,
and were charming to the teachers; then the ballot boxes were
taken secretly to the court house, where they were kept all night—
open. Ginn & Company got four of the principal books, and the
agent laughed and said he hadn’t had to work very hard.
Having heard about Portland’s banker-boss, Mr. Mills, you will not
be surprised to learn that the Portland schools are active in the
interest of commercialism. In the last few weeks the bankers have
been giving lectures every week; the Navy got its “day,” and then
the “Oregonian” with a spelling-bee! As a means of teaching Big
Business in the schools, they introduced what they called the
“Business Science Normal”; there were two meetings a week for
three weeks, and each meeting was repeated twice, so that all the
teachers might attend. At the suggestion of the superintendent,
invitation cards were sent in bulk to the principals, and by them
distributed to the teachers; the schools were closed early, so that
every teacher might be on hand. In addition to lectures, there were
fifty-two printed articles about business, twelve issues of “Business
Philosophy,” the official organ of the “Business Science Society,” and
“a year’s council privilege with the educational director of this
society.” Here was a wizard without peer in all the realms of
Mammon—as you learned from a circular got out by the Portland
Chamber of Commerce, which described him as “known wherever
the English language is spoken as one of the world’s greatest
business scientists. He is the author of five sciences dealing with
human relationships.” Did you ever hear anything so wonderful? A
man who created five new sciences, all out of one head and in one
lifetime! I wonder how many Newton created!
While I was in Portland this wide-awake Chamber of Commerce
had taken up propaganda for a “world’s fair” to celebrate the
discovery of the Northwest. Of course they thought first of the
school children: Let the children write compositions upon the
desirability of this world’s fair! The Chamber of Commerce would
supply the arguments, and the children would copy out maxims, and
take them home to their parents, and so the people would be
induced to pay the cost of the fair out of public taxes!
Also, the city has a “Rose Festival” every year, the purpose being
to exhibit advertising “floats” of the various stores. The children are
supposedly not required to appear in this parade, but schools which
neglect their duty are considered disloyal. The children spend two or
three weeks being drilled, and of course lose that time from study.
They have to stand round in the streets all day; there are no toilets
available, and some of the children became seriously ill.
I talked with a group of high school teachers. At the Washington
High School they have a Junior Chamber of Commerce; one of the
teachers asked me to imagine a Junior Central Labor Council, but my
imagination was not equal to this flight. Some of the teachers had
wanted to discuss a teachers’ union, but the principal of the school
forbade it. Finding it impossible to keep the high school students
from sometimes hearing of modern ideas, the business men
abolished outright the departments of economics and sociology. The
students signed a petition for the restoration of these courses; a
group of thirty of them went to interview Superintendent Grout and
take him this petition, and he insulted them, informing them that the
Portland schools were not being run on petitions of the pupils. This
school was forbidden to debate the Plumb Plan, and also to debate
Socialism. The teachers have been forbidden to allow any discussion
of the creation, of evolution, of the Hebrews in history, and of the
birth of Christ.
The Portland forbidders, resolving to make a clean sweep, also
forbade the “New Republic” and the “Survey.” A committee of
teachers went to protest in the matter of “The Survey,” and were
told that this magazine was “one-sided” in its treatment of capital;
they were advised to content themselves with such publications as
the “Outlook,” the “Independent,” and the “Literary Digest.” They
pointed out that it might be possible to regard these magazines as
“one-sided” in their treatment of labor, but no answer to this
argument was returned. At the Washington High School the
students, with the help of the history department, gave an
entertainment for the benefit of the school library. They earned
three hundred dollars, but they were not permitted to select their
own books—the list had to be passed by the superintendent’s office.
Also, the pupils are forbidden to invite outside speakers. I assume
that this school is named after George Washington, so I recommend
an inscription to be carved across the front of the building—some
words taken from the letters of the Father of his Country, as follows:
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence—it is force! Like fire it is a
dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to
irresponsible action.”
That government is a fearful master has been thoroughly proven
to the teachers of Portland; the White Terror has raged in the
schools, and has taken all the ugly forms of spying and treachery
and brutality. The first teacher I talked with told me how she had
seen a shadow on a window curtain, and had discovered the
superintendent listening outside her class-room window. The second
teacher I talked with had discovered the second assistant
superintendent hiding in a cloak-room watching the teachers. Of
course, all the agents of the Black Hand were training their children
to bring tales home from the school-room. The Portland “Oregonian”
exploded in a furious editorial, revealing that a teacher had actually
defended the “Survey”; another teacher had maintained that the
Socialists who had been elected to the Assembly in New York state
had a right to demand their seats. That Charles E. Hughes agreed
with this school teacher made no difference to the editor of the
“Oregonian.”
During war-time, when everybody was selling Liberty bonds, a
rumor spread that the librarian of the public library refused to buy.
She was “grilled” by the city commission, and said: “I have been
doing my work as librarian and minding my own affairs. But if you
question me, and insist upon a reply, why then I inform you that I
am a pacifist.” One commissioner’s answer was: “Would you want a
German to ravish you?” You remember how they used to settle the
anti-slavery question in the old days: “Would you want a Negro to
marry your sister?” Of course the librarian went out, and her
persecutor was elected to the school board.
This ultra-patriotic official was a wholesale druggist, and I had a
friend who, in the early days of the war, was talking with an employe
in this establishment, and was told that they had two clerks at work
all day marking up prices. The employe said this in all innocence; he
was proud of being part of such a busy and thriving institution! The
druggist-hero was a Four-Minute Man, whose especial enemy was
German literature and history; he did not rest until he had routed
Goethe from the Portland schools. This reminds me of our adventure
here in Pasadena, where our patriots discovered “The Psychology of
the Unconscious,” by Jung; this great authority happens to be a
Swiss, but he has a German name, and moreover, he was rumored
“obscene,” so out he went from our public library!
There are Catholics in Portland, and they work for their faith; they
get on the school board, and then there are anti-Catholic campaigns,
and they get off again. But one member, thus put off, laughed to a
friend of mine, saying that he didn’t mind, he had accomplished his
purpose—he had sold the Archbishop’s property to the city! Now
Oregon has passed a bill requiring all children to attend public
schools; the Catholics are testing this in the courts—and meantime
three public school buildings have been mysteriously burned down.
Not long ago there was a Catholic chairman of the school board, a
prominent judge and politician. The alarming discovery was made
that there was a teacher of manual training in one of the high
schools who was a Socialist and believer in evolution; he was
brought to trial, and Professor Rebec of the state university took the
stand, and testified that it was quite the common custom among
scientific men to believe in evolution. The chairman of the school
board interrupted in rage! “That’s an exploded standpoint, and we
won’t have it here!” The trial lasted for a week, and was a grand
farce comedy. But, of course like all these Black Hand trials, its end
was predetermined, and the teacher was fired.
I asked a large group of teachers what had become of the
youngsters, under this regime of hundred per cent capitalism. Their
testimony was unanimous upon the point that the schools are
retrograding and that the children are not learning as they should.
Home study has become a lost art. In the first place, the children
have no room to study at home; in the second place, they go to the
movies. Their parents permit them the freedom of the streets at
night; and what can a teacher do, when she herself is condemned
by official decree to be a mere phonograph? “It wouldn’t be so bad,”
said one teacher, “if the phonograph had interesting records. But you
can imagine what kind of lessons He picks out!” She had used this
word “He” several times in our talk, and finally I asked, “Who is He?”
There came a chorus from several at once: “When we say He, we
always mean Mr. Grout!” Since this was written, “He” has been re-
engaged for a term of three years.
 CHAPTER XXIX
THE LAND OF LUMBER

We continue north to Seattle, another metropolis of fir and cedar.

Here organized labor has been active; the city came near having a
Socialist mayor, and the struggle of Big Business to keep its grip on
the schools has been intense. The state university, located in Seattle,
is safe in the hands of the gang, with a president by the name of
Suzzallo, who acquired his finish at Columbia University, and has
made himself a little miniature Nicholas Miraculous. Last spring he
appeared before the legislature, and explained why he was worth
$18,000 a year to the state; he had effected many economies—and
when pressed to cite these, he stated that he had kept the
professors from getting salary increases, and had reduced the
standard salary for incoming instructors! The poor college slaves are
strictly forbidden to take part in politics—which means that they dare
not resent such incidents.
For twenty-one years the public schools of Seattle have been
under the control of a feudal lord of finance, by the melodramatic
name of Ebenezer Shorrock. He was born under the flag of Queen
Victoria, and acts as if he had been born under George III. A teacher
asked for an advance in salary, and gave the excuse that he was
paying for a piano. “A piano!” cried Banker Shorrock. “What business
has a man in your position buying a piano?” To another teacher he
made the statement that “No man who has any self-respect would
work for the salary the teachers are paid.” Yet, in all his twenty-one
years he has never voted for an increase to the teachers; and in
June, 1922, he voted a decrease. In the arguments over this action
he used his inside knowledge as head of a bank to attack his teacher
slaves; he knew about their accounts, and many of them had “saved
money!” We are told that these bankers are the proper persons to
guard school finances; so let it be noted that Banker Shorrock has so
run the schools into debt to the banks that now they are paying
more than half a million dollars every year in interest.
On his board this mighty plutocrat has a surgeon to the rich, who
was asked by a labor leader to permit the “Nation,” the “New
Republic,” and the “Freeman” to be used in high school civics
classes. “Well,” said Dr. Sharples, “I cannot answer this question, as
I am unacquainted with the journals you mention.” This from a
professional man, presuming to direct education for a third of a
million of people.
But even that is not the limit in Seattle; another board member up
to 1923 was a Stone and Webster engineer, who murdered the
English of Banker Shorrock’s queen. Somebody said that a cut in
wages would lower the morale of the teaching force. “That moral
stuff don’t go with me,” declared Engineer Santmyer. “I know lots of
them girls, and there ain’t anything wrong with their morals.” It is
interesting to note that this engineer was also connected with the
Pacific Coast Coal Company, from which the school board purchased
most of its coal.
Another board member who retired along with him was Mr. Taylor,
Northwestern representative of a big school-book publishing house.
He gave a written pledge that he would oppose any attempt to
reduce the teachers’ salaries; he signed this pledge on April 19,
1922, and on June 10, 1923, he seconded Banker Shorrock’s motion
to make a heavy cut in the teachers’ salaries. Mr. Santmyer also
joined in this vote against the teachers, and when his victims
protested, he got cross, and addressing a meeting of the school
engineers, declared: “I just want one more crack at them damned
teachers.”
The friends of education in the state of Washington brought
before the voters in 1922 a “tax equalization” measure, whose
purpose was to compel the big corporations, and especially the
lumber interests, to pay their proper share of school taxes. Against
this measure all the organizations of the Black Hand lined up—the
Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the Central Committee of the
Republican Party, the reactionary governor, the Seattle Board of
Education, the kept newspapers, the state university, the
Weyerhaeuser lumber interests, the president of Whitman College—
to which the Weyerhaeusers had just contributed seventy-five
thousand dollars—and finally the state superintendent of education,
Mrs. Josephine C. Preston. Remember this lady, because when we
come to study the National Education Association, we shall find her
as its president, occupying the throne of power at the Salt Lake City
convention of 1920, where the gang turned out the teachers from
control.
I have shown in Los Angeles, and will show in many other cities,
how the Black Hand bars “politics” from the schools. Here in Seattle
the board of education offered a classic demonstration of what this
means. Some of the teachers in the high schools presumed to have
class discussions in which both sides of the equalization amendment
were heard. At five o’clock on the afternoon of Friday, October 27,
1922, the school board of Seattle passed a resolution absolutely
forbidding teachers to engage in any kind of political propaganda in
the schools, or to post on the bulletin boards any notices except
those pertaining strictly to school business. Eighteen hours later, at
eleven o’clock on Saturday morning, October 28, Dr. Sharples of the
board, Mr. Santmyer of the board, and also the secretary of the
board, appeared before a meeting of school janitors, engineers and
custodians, in a school building, and there spoke in opposition to the
equalization amendment. The secretary of the board traveled to
other parts of the state to oppose this amendment, and he spoke at
meetings during business hours—that is, during the time he was
being paid by the people of Seattle to do his work as school board
secretary.
Another incident, to give you an idea what it means to be a
teacher in Seattle. Early in 1923 eight or ten high school teachers
received notice from the superintendent that their names were being
withheld for reappointment, until the board could complete an
investigation concerning a teachers’ meeting which had been held
the previous summer, at which a resolution had been adopted
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