The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-03-13
By Bertram D. Wolfe.


lions wrung out of the American steel
workers by the late Andrew Carnegie,
is openly out to buy up and corrupt
with the philosophy of class collabo-
ration, the entire working class move
ment of the United States. 1t has al
ready given to the Workers Educa-
ton $4,000 at a clip for a publica,
ton fund, and it's resources for the
corruption of the first beginnings OF
a workers education movement in the
United States appear to be unlimited.
The consciousness Of this fact hung
like a shadow over the Third Annual
Conference of teachers engaged IN
workers education, called by Local
1879 of the American Federation OF
Teachers, at Brookwood College,
February 10, 1922. The agenda of the
Conference seemed to promise more
or less platonic discussion of the rel
atively non-essential matters con-
nected with workers education.
Questions of psychology, Of the main
tenance Of interest, Of the develop
ment of a demand for workers edu-
cation, of promotion and maintenance,
OF the use of the drama, etc.-such
were the formal subjects scheduled
for discussion. But, running thru
every paper and every general dis
cussion was always the underlying
preoccupation with two fundamental
questions: Why is workers educa-
ton? and how shall we resist the
financial octopus that threatens to
engulf it? The manner of deciding
both of these questions will determine
the fate of the movement for work
ers' education in America.
AS 1 expressed it in a conversation
with Lloyd M. Cosgrave, secretary Of
the Workers Education Bureau
working class education in America
has great future but no past" 1t
Is, in fact, in it's infancy. Hitherto
the American labor movement "has
always been interested in education,
but il, is only within recent years
that it has become interested in its
own education" and it has still to de-
termine what character its own edn-
cation shall take.
THE representation at the confer
Il ence ranged all the way from uni
versity professors who wanted to ex-
tend the benefits of bourgeois sweet
ness and light" to the working class,
. to coal miners who thought that the
purpose of workers education was to
teach the workers how to get more of
what they produced and take over the
government and the mines.
Thus the field Of workers educa
ton in America is at present a bat
tleground between these warning ten
denotes and one of the most heated
discussions at the conference was pre-
cipitated when l attempted to define
the class basis of workers education
| l pointed out that the university ex
tentionists, the cultural philanthro
! pists and the open shoppers were uni
| ted in claiming that 'the moment i
/ i(education) attempts to impose Ger
| tain curricula (sic) as representative
of the needs of wage earners, it mus
defeat its own purposes and the in
terests Of its supporters" Claw ant
Labor, Vol. s, No. Jan, 1926-Lay
and Labor is the legal organ of tn
open shoppers.) l tried further I
point out that education, controlle,
by the workers, financed by the work
ers and permeated with their point O
view was as necessary as were unions
controlled and financed by the worl
ers and expressing their point of viel
or as newspapers so controlled and s
| financed.
This elementary concept, that a
workers must hold, was attacked
| people at the conference as "ugl
| brutal and sdamnable." One speake
went 30 far as to declare, "Educatio
for the workers is not education Q
ALL" and another: Il hate the phras
the workers hate all generalizin
| phrases. hate this phrase to e