THE GARY SYSTEM IN NEW YORK CITY (1917) School Riots And the Gary System, The Outlook

Was it politics, Socialism, and Tigerism that was stirriⁿg the children to riot in the Bronx against the Gary schools? To children politic, in themselves could mean nothing. But were they being urged on to striking, excitement, and rebellion by any insidious motives that they were too young to understand?

For many blocks I walked, inquiring of every one the way to Public School 50. All knew. It was the most recent school to be of interest. It was exciting-this rioting-and they were either directly or indirectly tremendously interested. The first lad I saw carried a club. He was a round-faced, chubby boy, with high color, sparkling eyes, and naturally good spirits.

"What is the reason for the strike?" I asked; "and were you one of the rioters?" He looked at me for a moment doubtfully. He had heard of detectives. He had so recently seen patrol wagons, and he wanted to be quite safe-even if he did carry a club ready to smash windows. I assured him I had no power, so he spoke quite willingly.

"Yes ma'am," he said, "I was one of the rioters. And I'm on my way to another school now where lots of the fellows have gone to start a new riot. Gee! They're great!"

"Do you like the Gary system?" I asked.

"No; they make me walk up and down stairs too much," he said. He was so corpulent a little chap that I thought in his individual case walking up and down stairs might have no ill effect.

"It was just this morning we started," the lad continued. "All the fellows didand sure I was one of them."

I questioned him more, but out of all his talk I could gather only one adverse opinion to his school life-he had had to walk up and down stairs twice a day. Also it was great fun to riot in the morning instead of doing sums.

I talked to another child, a block away. A small girl she was, with big brown eyes and a soft, delicate voice.

"I like the Gary system," she said, "but my mother took me away from school to-day. She said those rough boys would kill me."

"Does your mother like the system?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am," she answered. "My mother thinks the Gary system is nice. But theother parents don't. They are speeching up the street. They're speeching so you car scarce hear them. Each mother's speeching, about her own children and no one inlistening to any one else. It's terrible, ma'am, and the Gary system is so nice."

"Do the teachers like it?" I asked. I had heard they opposed the longer hour^, and I felt that many (not the great majority, but many) were so misplaced. It was as though surgeons cared not for the outcome of their operations nor for the good of .' their patients, but only for the pay and to have their patients get out of the ether :: a hurry. So many were teaching for "something to do to earn money." Not because they loved their work, nor because there was so much money in it. But it was a w^as to pay for their clothes and support themselves until a nice man came along ,:. : they could sit at home and not have to get up every morning when the alarm

off.

"They didn't like it at all," the child continued, "up to this morning. But t1. - morning they got hurted-some of them-and I guess they don't hate anything that I talked to group after group of parents as I walked to the school. I talked policemen who were standing around with many of the small boys. The policemen carried clubs, the small boys carried sticks and improvised clubs. They were thoroughly^, enjoying themselves-at least the boys were."

I asked them of the opposition to the Gary plan. "Sure, every one in this par the city is against it," they said. "Most of them are Socialists."

"Politics?" I queried. I received no answer.

I saw the principal of Public School No. 50. To speak the truth, indeed. I repeated again that I saw him. He would do no "speeching." He would talk to me after November's first week had gone by, he said. I had been told he was against the Gary plan. I informed him of this knowledge, but he would say nothing.

Again I questioned: "How about politics?" But he would not answer.

On the principal's desk I saw the Hylan button. "Going to vote for Hylan?” I asked. He looked a trifle astonished and said:

"Oh, the District Attorney put that there."

I left. He was not going to tell me anything-not now when politics were it a keen and critical point. And out into the street I went. I looked up at the Windows broken and laughing children rioting. How irrelevant! How incongruous

and yet how pitiful! Fighting for something they did not clearly understand. Child after child told me that they had to walk up and down stairs in the Garv plan. The mother were indeed "speeching." At the street corners groups had grown into crowds, and angry^, voices were protesting, protesting, protesting-against what, they weren't quite so sure.

I had taken a young friend with me-the wife of a man who had given up a splendid and promising law practice for the sake of his country. I heard her telling a

group that her husband had riot received his pay on time-but he understood this was war.

"Yes, war time," they flung back. "What do we know of war?" "I guess it's hit us all," I said.

"Hit us!" one woman veiled at me. "Prices hit us. But Mitchel with his swelled head goes around with a high hat and has the money. It's all his fault, this talk of war, and he keeps the money."

"Did the children riot of their own accord'?" I asked.

"No," admitted one woman. "They were put up to it. But I don't blame them. What do they learn there? Nothing but to be slaves of the rich. Yes, there'll be two classes in this town, the rich and the poor, the Rockefellers and we-their slaves."

And so that was at the back of it. Into the lives of these children, into their homes, into their parents' lives, had come politics. Of that I felt convinced. The fact that children would have an opportunity such as they had never had before, an opportunity to be something else besides sweatshop workers, to do something else besides slave and toil and grow old and die, a chance to live-to live and to have the opportunities of the rich children in private schools, to have a life's work they wanted, to be trained for what they had talent-none of this had entered their heads.

Never had I made a speech before, never had I spoken in public; but here were crowds of people-crowds of parents opposing a system because their children would be owned by the Rockefeller Foundation, they thought. Their children would have to toil for the rich. There had been two big factors at work, and at work with a vengeance; Socialism and the Tiger's paw had clutched them. They were amazed at what I had to tell them of what vocational work meant, and of what the Gary system would mean for them. For a long time they felt that there was some ulterior motive in my talk. I must have been paid by some political party or I must be one of the rich. "Where's your automobile?" one surly youth shrieked at me. Nevertheless, I continued to argue. I told them of the school farther up in the Bronx which had had the Gary system for several years and where it had worked such marvels. I told of the visits T had paid to parents up there and of their enthusiasm. And I told them what vocational training meant-a chance for every boy and girl under the stars to be free-free and to live-to be of some importance

"Mitchel, Mitchel," they sneered. "'The man with the tall hat and the swelled head, who likes the rich to rule and who makes the prices go up high^.”

I heard a woman late that evening talk. Her speech started with the Gary system. She assured her auditors that Mr. Mitchel was at the root of it all-she had been told by folks who knew.

"Yes," she shrieked at the mob before her, "they want our children to work for the rich, so that fine ladies can ride in automobiles and have us for their servants. And then they talk of Liberty bonds. We'll tell them that we won't subscribe to their bonds until they make the prices of sugar and flour and potatoes different. It's a rich man's war-let him pay for it. And it's Mitchel's war. Win this war, he thinks, and bring in the Gary system, and the world will be owned bv the rich, and he can still wear his high hat."

As I listened and talked alternately, as I walked from corner to corner, from neighborhood to neighborhood, I discovered indeed what it was all about-whv these children had been rioting. They had not liked walking up and down stairs, to be sure. And some of their teachers had not liked the change in routine, and had, for this reason, encouraged criticism. But back of these children, back of these parents, stands the giant specter of Tammany Hall and the uncompromising pacifists who imply to will votes for their respective candidates, are attacking a system of education which will give every child, not onlya a chance to be “created equal,” but to live “equal” and so escpae the sweatshops of his parents’ early days. The pity of it is that the children have been dragged into this kind of political warfare without a knowledge on their part of what is being done to them. What condemnation too severe can be visited on our politicians who dare to prostitute our public school system this wary?