schools. Several persons were nominated candidates for the office of chairman, but one after another they declined the candidature.

The teacher Piven agreed to be the chairman.

The teachers Miss Vladimirova and Mr. Grigoriev were elected secretaries.

P. Remenchik, Moseyenko and Sabodakha were elected members of the Committee on Credentials.

Fourteen delegates were elected to represent the schools.

Have the teachers a deciding vote at the conference or only a deliberative one?

3

The discussion of this question aroused the passions of the disputants.

Delegate Shklar says that the teachers participated on equal terms with all others in the election of delegates and by their votes have given expression to the fact that they trust the elected delegates. If the casting of a decisive vote would be given to all teachers the conference would not be a truly representative one, for there are schools where the number of teachers is larger than the number of delegates.

I. Voronko, a teacher, answered this speech. "Until now we have had the right to a decisive vote," he said. "All the work was laid on the shoulders of the teachers, who know better than they do all what is going on in the schools, the moods of the pupils, their souls.

4

We teachers have a perfect right to decide about the affairs of our schools.

"The most important question is that as to the basis of the school, the system of teaching. Who is going to work this out, to discuss it? Are the parents of the children going to do that?

"I reject with scorn the thought that we teachers have been working for the sake of our wages.

"Everywhere the teachers have been entitled to a decisive vote.

"We teachers will leave this conference and wait until the talk will 5be about the schools, not about jobs. We must have the right to a decisive vote, as we used to have it before."

A. Zmagar, another teacher, spoke as follows: "Let us stop that dividing! Both the teachers and the delegates are cultural workers on the educational field. We see already the results of these efforts to divide us. It is time for us to start working together. The teacher, by all his activity,leads the children to a bright future.

"There should be only one family of teachers and members of the school organizations. We must unite for the common good."

After some further discussion of the pros and cons of this question, - a burning question for the teachers, - the motion was made that only delegates should have the right to cast a decisive vote, and 6the teachers should have only a deliberative voice. Eight persons voted for this motion.

For the second motion, - that only the teachers should be entitled to decisive votes, - only three votes were cast.

Only delegates have been voting.

In the order of the business of the day there stood many important questions: the state of affairs in the Russian schools for children in Chicago; reports of the local representatives of the schools; revision of programs; text books, libraries, the publication of a bulletin of the federation; organization of educational courses for adults as a means of liquidating illiteracy.

7

After the report on the state of affairs in the Russian schools for children in Chicago, the delegates of the various schools read reports about the local state of affairs in each separate school.

I. S.

Session of July 3, 1924, by "A Teacher." At about 7:30 P. M. there came to the conference the editor of the Russian Herald, N. G. Kaluzhin (Dr. L. G. Percy). He begged to be allowed the right of the floor in order to make an announcement which was not in the order of the business of the day. After having been granted the right of the floor, he spoke as follows:

"I have been just speaking at a massmeeting where the band was playing the "Internationale," a meeting called by the Labor Party of America 8with the purpose of protesting against the Fascist regime of Mussolini in Italy. I regret very much that I have not been able to welcome you at the inauguration of this conference. The newspaper which I represent here is the only non-partisan labor newspaper in America; it has always been, and will always be the champion of the cause of labor. Some persons known to the colony and, fortunately, forming only an insignificant minority of it, have been trying to foster an antagonism between our paper and the schools. The Russian Herald has never upheld a position antagonistic to the schools; on the contrary, our paper has always been struggling for a unification of the colony on the basis of enlightenment and economic activities. The Russian Herald has been struggling, and will go on struggling against the introduction of politics into the schools, into the work of educating our future generations. We shall not tolerate the disorganization of our schools.

9

We shall not allow to make of them copies of the Moscow schools which are already outlived and have been condemned by the leaders of the Communist Party themselves. In this matter the toiling masses of Chicago are with us. There is no room for pseudo-Communists in the delicate matter of education. I repeat, the Russian Herald is glad to welcome the conference of cultural workers holding its session here."

The odd Communists who were present at the conference began to hiss when Kaluzhin was speaking, but order was quickly restored and the session was adjourned at 12 P. M.

The Session of July 4. What was happening at the conference on Friday can hardly be regarded as a discussion of matters pertaining to the 10school problem. The session was converted into a political meeting. The Communists tried by all means to pass all the resolutions they had worked out beforehand and to achieve that in the smoothest possible way, but they did not quite succeed.

The chairman was one of the delegates from the new East Chicago school and could hardly connect two or three sentences in an intelligible way. Owing to the unanimous demand of the delegates who had gathered he had been removed from his office already in the morning, and Piven took his place. Shklar, Stolar and Eberhardt, an ex-White guard from Bessarabia who had quite recently joined the Communists, tried to conduct the conference in a truly Communist fashion. A majority of delegates obedient to them, whom they had succeeded to entrap by some trick, was helping them assiduously; but owing to the active attitude of the teachers 11who had been deprived of the right to vote, the Communists were often interrupted by their opponents, who were telling them the truth to their faces.

The motion of the Communists to welcome the Novy Mir (New World), the paid organ of the Russian Bolshevist government, fell through ignominiously in spite of the fact that the leading Communists had all the delegates ruled by them under strict supervision, checking whether they were all raising their hands at the proper time when votes were counted.

At the initiative of the home-made pseudo-Communists the representative of the Russian Herald was deprived of any opportunity to express his views. Moreover, after that the conference of the so-called federation wanted the independent Russian Chicago press to put at its disposal 12its pages. In spite of the warning voiced by the chairman Mr. Piven, who pointed out that to grant that would be a blunder, this measure was accepted by the "majority."

Shklar, a poor speaker, tried to persuade the meeting in a speech that sounded more like mumbling that the right of the floor should be given to the representative of the Russian Herald, if the latter would promise that no more attacks on the so-called federation would appear on the pages of the Russian Herald.

A pedagogue, J. Voronko, who was revolted by this speech, pointed out that in the USSR, when the Chekists drag some victim into the basement of the building of the Cheka, if they decide to let that victim go they first of all exact from him the promise that he or she will never undertake in the future anything against the Soviet authorities. "The proposal of the Chekist Shklar is contemptible, 13and we protest against it," said Voronko.

The right of the floor was given after that to the editor of the Russian Herald. He was revolted by the proposal made by the Chekist Shklar, and said with indignation:

"A free and independent press cannot give any binding promises to the Communist blockheads. It is fortunate that in the United States, though it is a capitalistic republic, there still exists the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. There is no censorship here. I repudiate with indignation the disgusting, - to put it mildly, - proposal of the delegate Shklar. An independent newspaper which is not in the pay of Moscow has no need of exculpating itself before you. The Russian Herald has been sufficiently appreciated lately by the toiling masses of Chicago. The colony sides with us, with 14the representatives of an independent labor newspaper."

Having told finally that the paper would in the future also fight against the desorganization of the schools which the Communist chatter-boxes want to bring about, and for a more effective realization of the ultimate aims of these schools, the representative of the Russian Herald left the tribune.

A Teacher.

Session of July 5, 1924, by "A Teacher." The session opened at about 8 P. M. Piven was the chairman. It is evident that the Communists are afraid to claim the office of chairman after their nominee, Sabotakha, the man who had lost his tongue, had received a skillfully 15directed thrust from the teacher Zmagar, who had pointed out that Sabotakha did not know how to conduct a meeting. Sabotakha had to abandon, probably once for all, all hopes of holding the office of chairman. The session opened with a systematic study of each paragraph of the laws of the federation. This was the first dull session. Nobody seemed to be interested in the constitution and by-laws of the federation. The chairman, Mr. Piven, admonishes in vain the delegates to pay attention to the constitution. The four leading Communists, Stolar, Shklar, Klimov and Zhestkov, keep silent. The teachers also appear to be in the blues.

The elaborate lengthy by-laws are read without the omission of a single paragraph. "Are the by-laws accepted?" asked the chairman. "The usual way!" exclaims some delegate. Now they have reached already the question as to the funds of the federation. The teachers [gap]