The day book. [volume], November 19, 1912, Image 21

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
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ANOTHER WAY TO FIGHT LABOR UNIONS
The National Association of Manufacturers, bitterest enemy,
of organized labor in the country, originated the Edwin G-. Cooley
vocational school plan.
It was just five years ago that the National Association of
Manufacturers first got the idea of making scabs through the
schools. s "
At that time, the association decided to spend $500,000 to fight
organized labor, and one of the chief things for which that $500,000
was to be used was:
"To aid and promote the establishment of industrial schools."
Industrial is the proper name for the kind of schools Cooley
wants to have in Illinois, but vocational sounds better, and besides
everybody doesnot know what it means.
Soon after the $500,000 a year appropriation, the association
got Frances Blair, then state superintendent of schools in Illinois,
to boost the industrial schobl idea here.
Miss Blair failed to have anyone pay any attention to the idea,
and now the association has got other hands to do its work.
These "other hands" are tworth examination. First there is
Clayton Mark, who robbed the school children by giving away their
land in: midnight leases. Then there is Donald Morrell, who was
attorney for the board of education when the midnight leases were
given, but who became attorney for the Tribune when the people
tried to get back the land stolen from their children. Lastly, there
isEdwin G. Cooley.
Denouncing the Cooley plan before the Chicago Federation of
Labor, Margaret Hajey said that it would make the state of Illinois,
the parent of a lot of scab factories.
But the Cooley bill would do much worse than this if ever it
were passed. It would begin in Illinois the enactment of class legis
lation of the worst sort.
The Cooley plan is to have two school systems, one just as it is,
just now and the other an industrial one.
When Ella Flagg Young asked 'Cooley what object there could'
be in thus separating tlie two systems absolutely, Cooley replied:
"6h, .children who warited character could go to the present,
schools, and -children who wanted efficiency could go to the voca-,
tional schools."
That is bunk, of course. There can Te no character without
efficiency, no efficiency without character.
But it is in the two systems plan that the real evil of the Cooley
bill lies.
By that system, the children of the plain people would be urged.