2

I saw him pushed aside into the ditch at the side of the road, and then the strikers . . . swept toward Lattimer, and in a minute or two were in front of the deputies." Guscott told the same version on the witness stand later. John Eagler says the men behind cried, "Go on; go on!" when the sheriff opposed them, and crowded forward. Finally, "an intelligent Hungarian from Mt. Pleasant," Martin Roski, who was shot in the arm, gave out this laconic version:*

"We were going along the road to Lattimer, and the deputies were lined across the road barring our progress. We tried to get through them and did not attempt to hit or molest them, when they fired upon us. We ran, but they kept on shooting on us while we ran. It is all their fault."

This has been the popular verdict. The deputies opposed the strikers twice, the last time lined up to defend the men working at the Lattimer mines. Judging from the acts of violence which unfortunately had not been uncommon for some days in the vicinity, they thought the men at work were in immediate danger of intimidation and perhaps assault. The sheriff met the strikers fifty yards before his line, halted them, expostulated with them, read them the Riot Act, when that availed nothing attempted to put two under arrest, and only when they pushed him aside and swept onward, ordered his deputies to fire. And yet we say, "It is all their fault."

If these men were on a peaceful errand, why did they try to get through the deputies? Why did they resist the sheriff's arrest with turbulence?

Shall we think the sheriff hasty in giving the command? He tried every means, orders, proclamations, arguments, the moral effect of arrests, and found himself unable to influence these men. All through the week marchers had dispersed at his orders. Once he had coped with a crowd of three hundred, singlehanded. But these men with the avowed intention of having the men at Lattimer quit work got beyond his control. He was duty bound to protect the men at Lattimer, for he had certainly no

1 New York Herald, September 12.

2 Philadelphia Ledger, September 22. 8 New York World, September 13.

+ Philadelphia Press, September 11; Philadelphia Ledger, September 11.

assurance that the marchers would use them more gently than they did an officer of the law. And Martin knew that if the strikers were given the upper hand they would not be powerless against the deputies. Earlier in the strike, at Coffeen, Illinois,1 strikers had managed to throw the deputy sheriffs aside and invade the town. Nearer home, at Hazelton, on August twentyseventh, the Beaver Meadow miners brushed aside the “coal and iron police," and drove carpenters and blacksmiths from work.2 Here the Harwood miners had twice confronted the sheriff and now brushed him aside. The deputies could not act without orders, and the command was given.

In what stage of the sheriff's patient forbearance, in his arguments to persuade the men to be reasonable, in his endeavors to awe them into obedience, do we see his malice cropping out? There had been an excellent chance to gratify malice at the Hazel workings, which the sheriff appears to have let slip. But it is ridiculous to talk of his giving the order through malice. If malice had prompted him he would never have thought of putting himself in danger. When the command to fire was given, Martin was some distance in front of his deputies, in among the strikers, and stood full as good a chance as any of them of being killed.3

4

It has been suggested by London papers that we should have less bloodshed if we had a well-organized and more complete police force to take charge of entire regions where strikes might happen to occur. The point is well taken. Police are trained officers of the law, constantly used to handling bodies of men and estimating the temper of crowds. By dint of long practice they acquire patience in dealing with opposition. Deputy sheriffs on the other hand are inexperienced, often in the eastern states even unused to firearms. The opposition of a crowd goes far toward putting their inner selves in a panic, and when an outbreak comes they are far more reckless in putting it down than are trained police or soldiers. In England in the thirties and forties they had many such industrial misfortunes as the tragedy at Lattimer, but since the perfecting of their constabulary such occurrences have been fewer. The writer in the Spectator predicts that the United 1 Philadelphia Press, August 18. Ibid., etc. September 11. 2 Ibid. August 28.

3

4

Spectator, September 18.

States will soon travel the same satisfactory road, to the mutual advantage of labor and capital.

Until we do, however, if our deputies are by lack of training and discipline flighty and unsteady, it is through no fault of theirs. The evil lies in the system. If, when it comes to the point of shooting, their cooler judgment is shaken and they continue longer than in thinking the matter over afterwards we deem advisable, longer perhaps than trained soldiery would have persisted, we cannot at once support the system, commit ourselves to its protection, and denounce its administrators. If the deputies at Lattimer seem to have prolonged their volley unnecessarily, and on this point as on so many others accounts disagree, if they seem to have done more execution than needful, we must remember that they were under a severe and unusual strain, that they were doing their best to carry out the commands of their sheriff, who appeared to be faring ill in an attempt to make good the law's protection over peaceful workmen.

This is not a question which can expect a hasty decision. But if you will carefully consider the evidence, if you will not blind yourselves to the ill-advised course of the marchers in persistently defying the law, and will pass judgment fairly and candidly on the actions of the officers in the case, you will, I feel sure, believe that Sheriff Martin and his deputies were justified in shooting on the miners at Lattimer.

XXVII

A GOOD FORENSIC

FORENSIC D

Should the Elective System be introduced in all Public High Schools?

The contemporary discussion concerning the elective system for public high schools suggests the exhortation of a negro cab driver. Glad of the lightning which showed him the road, but terrified by repeated peals of thunder, he cried, "O Lord, if it's all the same to you, send us more light and less noise." It is only with the hope of revealing some light on this problem that one is warranted in making more noise.

For nearly a century the elective system has been pushing its way into our colleges and schools. In 1825 elective courses were offered to the upper classes of Harvard College. Since then the elective principle has been working down to the lower grades; in 1846 to the Senior and Junior classes of Harvard College, in 1867 to the Sophomore class, in 1884 to the Freshman class. The influence of this action by Harvard College was inevitably to send the elective system down to the upper classes of secondary schools; within a few years it has reached all classes in the public high schools of Boston and other cities. Down, down it has gone through college, high school, and grammar school, until, as Dean Briggs says, "not even the alphabet can stop it."

The growth of this free-choice principle — fixed quantity and quality of work with variable topic has no doubt been due largely to the growing diversity of knowledge, to the breaking down of the old ideal of the scholar, to the need of specialization, and to the opening of educational opportunities to all the people. Whatever the causes may be, the elective principle is established, its benefits are recognized, and all are agreed that at some place in our educational system the studies should be wholly elective. But at what point? The question is pertinent whether in escaping the Scylla of total prescription we are not in danger of being wrecked upon the Charybdis of total election.

Whether free choice should begin in the first year of the public high-school course is a question concerning which there has been much writing, some thinking, and a little scientific investigation. Many individual opinions have been given; the arguments on each side have been partly stated; some evidence has been presented, usually without consideration of its full bearing on all phases of the question; but has anyone sought to discover the truth through bringing together all the arguments on both sides and viewing them in the light of facts? I have found no such attempt. My present purpose is to make that attempt, first of all through reducing the arguments of both sides to their lowest terms, in order to see in brief compass just what are the vital differences of opinion; and, second, through considering those issues one by one in connection with the investigations I have made concerning the working of the elective system in the United States.

First, then, what is said against the elective system for public high schools. The arguments may be considered conveniently in four main divisions: the first concerning the ability of high-school pupils to choose; the second concerning possible compromises between complete election and complete prescription; the third concerning the effect of each system on teachers and principals; the fourth concerning the relative moral worth of the old system of prescription and the new system of election.

The first of these arguments contends that those in charge of the schools can choose better for all than can each individual pupil for himself. This is held to be true for three reasons: there are certain studies which are essential for all pupils, of which Latin, algebra, geometry, and English are often urged; pupils will not of their own choice elect these necessary studies; pupils will choose foolishly, for they will elect easy courses, or those for which they are not prepared, or those taught by favorite teachers, or those of little value, or disconnected courses.

As a second main argument, two compromises are proposed, either of which is held to be superior to the elective system in its entirety. Since there are certain studies which constitute an essential foundation, and since pupils, left to their own choice, will neglect these studies, a programme of partial prescription or a group system seems to many people far better than "a frolic of unbridled fancy." Such is the name applied to the elective idea by an extreme opponent who refuses to call it a "system."

Of those who favor partial prescription, some would have the greater part of school work required and allow the pupil to choose only the "fringe." Others would establish a system of restricted choice, requiring the pupil to take at least one study from each of the great divisions of human knowledge say language, history, mathematics, and science. The other suggested compromise, called the group system, offers several complete programmes of studies, one of which the pupil must elect, but the studies within each group are wholly prescribed. The argument in favor of this system is that each pupil, whether preparing for college, for technical school, or for business, whether wishing a classical, scientific, or commercial course, can elect one wellplanned group of related studies. Many believe that thus the benefits of the elective system are secured and its evils eliminated.