The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-03-26
COURT BACKS UP
SPIES BOUNDING
GIRL STUDENTS
Michigan Normal Deans
Are Vicious Stools
By SHERMAN BOWMAN
Especial to The Daily WOrkerl


the Chicago convention of the women |
deans of schools, who are organizers
and directors of campus espionage, /
the Michigan Supreme Court, IN an !
opinion in an appealed case involving |
girl college student, gave the states
ultimate legal support to the highly 4
organized spy system at the Michigan |
State Normal College at Ypsllantl.
At Ypsilanti the college registrar,
C. P. Steimle, a man next in admin
istrative authority to the president,
Charles F. McKenny, goes on noe +,
turnal spying expeditions to nearby |
towns, watching dance hall doors |
from behind trees. And the girl |
college student, involved in the Su-
preme Court opinion, was expelled |
from the Ypsilanti institution by rea-
son of the lascivious curiosity of the
husband Of the landlady of her room
ing house. When the girl was absent
from the house attending classes, this
husband crept into her room, found
a package of cigarets in the drawer
of a bureau where she kept her I'M
derwear and found two cigaret stubs
by groveling at the bottom Of her
waste basket.
Spy System Al Work.
He completed his mission by telling
Bessie Leach Priddy, the dean OF
women at the college. No notlilca-
ton of the resultant dismissal OF the
girl was made until she had gone
home at vacation time, leaving her
trunks behind. Then the dean wrote
her father a letter. The father drove
the girl from home, forcing her to
take refuge with her sister, a steno-
grapher. She said, thru her tears,
that she had used the cigarets to
char the edges of posters for her
walls. An inspection of her room
bore this out. Her scholarship was
fair: she had not failed in any
courses; other charges against her
concerned harmless frivolity only
and would not have been brought
against her had it not been for the
covert" act which gave the Unsuitable
muck-rakers their opportunity. Her
name is Alice Tanton, of Detroit.
Even the dean was forced to admit
she believed Miss Tanton had prob
ably not pulled at a cigaret more
than three or four times in her life.
But she was not re-instateds and
the Supreme Court has upheld the
college heads. Seventeen other girl
students were told not to return at
the end Of that term and the one pre-
ceding. Some of the others were
taken back, however, because their
parents went to the girls defense in
the Office of the president. Even
they, however, will continue thru
school on probation, which amounts
to blacklistinR. Public school su.
perintendents at the end of the year
on going to Ypsilanti to interview
prospective teachers, will be shown
the probation record and will shake
their heads. The school superinten
dents know that back home they mus
Justify themselves before a schoo
board composed of representatives Of
the moneyed interests and the Chris
tiaA group which thrives on persecu
ton.
And at the very time the sessions
Of the Chicago convention were being
held, there was being demonstrated
at the University of Michigan at AM
Arbor, the manner in which, in A. d
1924, a young idealist working as al
instructor, even in mathematics, ma.
cruelty himself on the cruel spikes o
the iron cross of the old order.
Students Organize Protest.
When it became known on tn
campus that Sallade, who is about 3
years old, had been notified by tn
head of the department not to retur
next year, hundreds of students 70
two hours packed a mass meeting j
his defense, urging his retention.
"He gives us something beside
mathematicsw was the phrase deli'
cred time after time from tn
rostrum by the student speakers VIII
rose to defend him. And ever
time the phrase brought cheers.
Il appears that what Sallade gay
the students besides mathematics W;
a certain idealism which, without a.
proximating Communism, impht
somehow there was vacuum insiC
the shell of the institution. And Il
thing which made the matter mo
than ever delicate for the Old Guar
was that Sallade gave mathemati
also. He would take up about half
class period with mathematics. b
his students learned mathematics.
one said, "The guys'll work like HI
for him."
The break between the universe
heads and Sallade came when q
head of his department began cuttil
Sallade's divisions in half. And 4
break was inevitable because Salad
after only two years on the campr
had begun turning them away
Students waited in line on enrollme
day 10 get into his courses. He "
an instructor in mathematics in t
engineering department
UNINTERRUPTED by Vacuum Minds
One of the unfortunate parts
the affair was that the campaign
Gust Sallade had something of I
nature Of persecution. 1t must ha
been a little insidious. Sallade
sensitive. And he has a wife a
child and needed Job The resi-