is
an article against the "Teachers' Union," a Socialist and radical
organization of many of the teachers of New York City. Under the title,
"Forbidden to Preach Sedition," we read:

"There will be, presumably, much excited denunciation of the Board
of Education for closing the public schools to meetings of the
Teachers' Union. The familiar complaints about infringing the right
of free speech will be heard, and--well, the complaints will be as
ill-based as they usually are.

"In the first place, while speech is free in this country, it is
not, any more than it is or can be, anywhere, free to the extent
that anybody is free to say anything at any time and any place.
Restrictions of several kinds there are and must be, including
those by which decency and the safety of our institutions are
protected. On the other hand, the members of the Teachers' Union
have not been reduced--as yet--to silence. They have simply been
told that they cannot use the city's property in the campaign which
they have undertaken against an important branch of the City
Government. They are still privileged to hire as many halls as they
please in which to accuse the Board of Education of tyranny, and
to protest against the enforcement of discipline against teachers
with a leaning toward Bolshevism, and a tendency to mingle
Socialistic and pro-German propaganda with instruction in the three
R's.

"In this instance, as in so many others, the use of schoolhouses
for meetings of adults with opinions to express and doctrines to
preach has resulted unhappily. The adults who gather seem always,
or almost always, to be, not average, well-disposed citizens, but a
more or less incendiary minority who want to change things--and to
change them a lot and very quickly. That aspiration is not wholly
indefensible, for a good many things would be the better for
changing, but real light and leading have not often been found on
top at meetings in schoolhouses, and experience has proved that the
Teachers' Union has neither to offer."

The following is from the "New York World" of November 20, 1919:

"Fifteen teachers in city schools will appear before Deputy
Attorney General Berger tomorrow afternoon to be questioned to
determine if they are dangerous radicals. Examination of the
records of the