Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1943-04-20
Socialism Instead Of history
By E. F. TOMPKINS

past ana present, anu continually em-1
phasizing the loyalties of the American
people.
"Whie some of my cOlleag ~
SPONSOR THE FORMER, l, in compd
with others, FOLLOW and ADVOCATEE
the latter"
IN SIMPLER language, the Ruggs
Strategy as explained by him was toS
present HIS social theories, and those:
of his colleagues" under the guise of
presenting American hstory-that Isl
to "help bring about social change in:
America" by teaching young America to-
believe that the institutions of it's fore
fathers should be abandoned and the
competitive free-enterprise system shouldi
be supplanted by 'collectivism.'
In the same revealing article Ruggs
evidenced HIS OWN attitude toward the
defenders of the American tradition
toward patriotism itself-by sneeringly1
characterizing the Daughters of the Ameri-1
can Revolution and the veterans in the
A m eri C n Legion as "chauvinistic-i
patriotic gangs
Riggs textbooks exhibited in numer-
= Gus phrases and paragraphs a similar
attitude toward the immortal patriots Of
fections of the Constitution of the United
States.
And these books. composed bv-such a
mind. were adopted by hundreds of, school
boards and endorsed by thousands of
educators -and became, more than any
other books, the American history
course in a multitude of unsupported
schools
faIr haC e nj IF nh
Harold Laski correctly called IAN edu-
cational program for Socialist Ameri
IT HE whole record-involving as it does
L the American Historical Association,
the Progressive Education Association"
and the Department of Superintendence
of the National Education Association
stands forth as a gigantic LEFT-WING
CONSPIRACY working in the schools and
colleges against the American system Of
government and Of economy: and the re-
cent revelations made by the New York
Times merely furnish PROOF that the
conspiracy has progressed far along the
road to success -,
For the tactics of creating ignorance
or misunderstanding of American history
and instilling distrust of American politi-
cal, social and economic institutions in the
minds of an entire generation Of Ameri-
cans is not only a SUBTLE way Of
introducing socalism-it is moreover an
INFALLIBLE way if it be permitted to
go on.
In fact. If the movement is not
checked and reversed the final outcome
will be not.some milder form of socialism,
but COMMUNISM. for which socialist
agitation prepares the ground
That circumstance explains why.
wherever the so-called Progressive Edu-
cation movement or the Rugg textbooks
have been under attack. to them has rallied
the support not only of left-wing Socialist
organizations like the League for In.
dustrial Democracy, but likewise s0f the
Communist Party with its Daily Worker
and other publications
Notable, too, is the fact that leaders
in the Progressive Education moyemznt
have been also leaders of the opposite
teachers oath of loyalty laws in the staee.
IN THE light of what has been disclosed.
1 certain and tremendous duty rests
upon the trustees of education in America.
Throwing such works as those of
Harold Rugg out Of the schools is not
enough.
Nothing can be accomplished by
simply causing vacuum in the curricula
of the schools
The void must be filled-flled with honestly
written, PATRIOTIC textbooks which tell az
Daniel Webster and Abraham Lincoln and Theo-
dore Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland understood
1t, the REAL story Of America
Americans must not be permitted to forget
or never to know-WIIAT they have Inherited
from heroic ancestors and why they must trans
init that heritage TO posterty, undefed
In American history. for the purposes Of
loyal citizenship. the central fact that must he
taught is THE CONSTITUTION, not as radicals
and demagogs and serve judges have mjsin.
terpreted and distorted it, but as Washington
and Hamilton and Madison and Franklin and
their great compatriots devised it, ..
Americans must know that over period Of
centuries, beginning in England with the Magma
Carta in 1918; continued in the founding of The
English Parliament under Edward I; extending
through the commissions of the Great Rebellion3
led by Cromwell, Milton Hampden and Pyn and
of the English Revolution that dethroned the
tyrant James III and evoked the first Bill NJ
Rights; continued in the throeS of Ar,orc.n