Chicago Convulsion

What has been called "the cheerful insanity of Chicago politics" last fortnight achieved a convulsion that had long been promised. Mayor William Hale Thompson obtained the suspension of William McAndrew, superintendent of Chicago's public school system.

Among the campaign utterances of Mayor Thompson had been a promise to oust "that stool pigeon of King George," Superintendent McAndrew. The color of the epithet was derived entirely from the Thompson campaign scheme. He and his friends were out to startle the electorate with an unrivaled display of Americanism, much as a vulgar hostess will try to startle society with her flamboyant Persian or Turkish or Hawaiian ball. It would be easy to burlesque Superintendent McAndrew as a British "spy," an under cover agent for Buckingham Palace--even though he was born in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Called to Chicago in 1924, Mr. McAndrew had injured the feelings of self-satisfied Chicago school teachers by setting to work on the supposition that he could make the Chicago schools more educational than he found them.

There had been loud complainings, for example, when logical Mr. McAndrew announced that the teachers would not hold any more meetings of their union to discuss their hardships during the time for which they were paid to teach. There had been blushing and anger among the teachers when cheerful Mr. McAndrew invited the public to "sample" the teachers' work, by quizzing and examining a group of representative pupils on a public platform.

More potent, politically, than the teachers were the contractors of Chicago. They were annoyed with Mr. McAndrew because he had insisted that appropriations and contracts for new school buildings be based upon actual requirements, as discovered by annual surveys, instead of voted and handed out with grandiose political generosity.

Mr. Thompson was elected last April because loud talk succeeds nowhere so well as in Chicago. But then Mr. Thompson was faced with the necessity of finding a legal way to oust Mr. McAndrew. It is easier to shout epithets than to prove them and the ousting of Mr. McAndrew dragged along until last month. Then President J. Lewis Coath of the Chicago school board, who had been charged with the "job," announced that a way had been found. Mr. Coath had not found the way himself. He had been told about it by James Todd, the school board's lawyer. Mr. Todd had advised that he thought Mr. McAndrew could be proved guilty of "insubordination."

This "guilt" had attached itself to Mr. McAndrew during a legal action against the school board the past summer. A group of 288 teacher-clerks had sought an injunction to prevent the school board from replacing them with civil service (political) appointees. In court, the teacher-clerks had sent for Mr. McAndrew to explain to the judge the nature of their duties. Mr. McAndrew had complied, saying, yes, the duties of teacher-clerks are predominantly educational. They assist the school principals in supervising classroom work; they interview parents, help with home work, aid discipline and even, when needed, teach classes. Their positions used to be filled by civil service clerks but the latter were removed in 1909 precisely because the positions called for persons trained in the teaching profession. Mr. McAndrew's testimony strenuously favored the teacher-clerks against the school board.

Defending himself against impending suspension, prearranged at last week's meeting of the school board, Mr. McAndrew rehearsed his teacher-clerk testimony and his conception of his duty so clearly, that the ouster vote was tied at 5 to 5. President Coath was obliged to perform a clumsy coup de grace with his deciding vote to make the Thompson campaign promise seem to come true.

The promise did not actually come true because Mr. McAndrew, though suspended, has yet to be tried. And none is more eager for his trial than himself. He will be defended by Lawyer Angus Roy Shannon, author of the Illinois law under which the Chicago school system operates. His defense will set forth that the intention of the law was to make the superintendent of Chicago's schools, not a "hired man" of Chicago's school board, but an executive which the board is required to appoint, drawing an independent authority from the same source that created the school board, i.e. the state legislature. Should this distinction be successfully made, politics will actually be further removed from public education in Chicago than they were before the McAndrew case was contrived.