OUT OF DAWES

Former Vice President Dawes by characterizing the Chicago school teachers as "troublemakers" when they recently conducted riots in demand for back pay, has very adequately described the situation; and his shout, "to hell with them" shows quite as fully the attitude which has been and will continue to be taken to such demands.

Chicago has weakened the morale of its school system by economic deflation, however unavoidable, to the point where its teachers, men and women of discretion, are prepared to use force to obtain the money that is due them. A case of definite class antagonism has arisen, with the political machinery of the ruling class refusing to pay its employees, in this case the teachers, for services rendered. Just such situations as these, Lenin pointed out, are conducive to revolution; and although there is small possibility for armed revolt in the windy city, the government may yet find that it has turned five thousand school teachers into five thousand radicals who will not be likely to teach children a proper respect for the present political system. Chicago in the past by its demonstrations against evictions has shown that it has the germ of such a radical group.

The most powerful weapon possessed by any social order for its continued existence is the education of the children born under the system to a belief in the worth of the existing social structure. The biggest stumbling block to the spread of Communism in the United States is the control of the schools by those of capitalist persuasion. Any situation which tends to weaken the education system and to expose it to revolutionary ideas should, from the standpoint of the capitalist, be immediately remedied. Chicago may choose between loss of propagandist power and paying its teachers.