The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1914-02-19
THE WORKING CLASS AND
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Stroll into any school room and pick
up school history or reader or
a book, even an arithmetic, and there
you will see reflected and glorified the
capitalist system. Once there was
published a geography that gave the
average American worker credit With
having produced over two thousand
dollars worth of goods a year; but
that book is very scarce now. The
whole trend the last few years is to-
ward a sugar coated reaction that
amply demonstrates the decay of capi-
talist education.
We have seen how the perpetuation
of antiquated ideas can be made pos
sible through artificial means and we
know that the schools are now striv-
ing most valliantly to keep alive ideas
that have a deadening effect on the
minds of the workers.
Hero worship is one of the most ef-
fective ways of keeping alive outworn
ideas. Were these fossilized school
authorities capable of selecting real
men for heroes the working class
would not object. But their heroes
are almost without exception butchers.
The pages of their histories TEEN with
sword bearers, battle scenes, battle
ships, carnage, and slaughter. When
these pail a series of political trick
sters is sprung. Webster, Clay, Cal
houn, and the long series of politi-
clans that have been flounted in the
faces of the children of America were
in every case the peculiar product of
an economic condition that has since
passed away Their deeds were the
outcome of that condition and cannot
be interpreted in terms of today with
full knowledge of the industrial his
tory that connects our time with
theirs. And this industrial history is
the very thing that the capitalist
pedagogues know nothing about Or
if they chance to know anything about
it they see it through law books and
not through belts and pulleys and
mine shafts. az
Workers Must Face Facts.
1t is certainly to be regretted that
men who pretend to believe in the or
ganization of labor, men who are real
ly proud to be called union men, should
10 ho n
terest of the very crowd that aims to
crush out every vestige of working
class organization. Unless all signs
fail next year will witness the great
est labor conflict on the Pacific Coast
that we have ever had. Already the
forces of capitalism are preparing for
the fray. AS a matter of fact they
have been preparing for years. They
have been using the schools as scab
factories in which scab teachers have
been teaching scab ethics 1t is time
that every intelligent worker faced
these facts squarely
The enemy may shout, mo politics
in the school," but we know that all
through their schools there turks the
rotten politics and the still more rot
ten ethics of the reaction. In the old
sense they are non-partisan. Few
schools are strictly republican or
democratic, but all schools worthy of
mention are anti-labor in the true
sense. Profit is their god. Look into
any arithmetic and see.
Must Be Politics in Schools.
The fight that has been made
against Socialist teachers during the
past year should convince any think
ing worker that there must be politics
of some kind in the schools. In any
event economic determinism is work
ing there against the producing
The Arlington fight, which
has degenerated into a miserable farce
in the hands Of the selfappointed pat
riots, has amply demonstrated the
need for working class solidarity at
the polls at every school election.
On the first Saturday in March let
the producers win control Of their
schools and then let them show the
enemy that efficient teachers Of the
working class are not lacking Meet
and nominate your candidates now.
Get ready for the labor war that Is
coming Seize the schools.
j. T.. SINCLAIR