"Walks" in Chicago

Paul Schneider, 44, had taught manual training in Chicago's Washburne School since 1919. Like Chicago's other 14,000 teachers he had long been unpaid. He had borrowed to the limit on his life insurance, then let the policy lapse. Teacher

Schneider owned the two-story apartment in which he and his family lived, but taxes and mortgage payments had piled up. Neighborhood stores were tired of giving him credit and taking tax anticipation warrants. Mrs. Schneider had to go 50 blocks to shop, at the Peoples' Store in Roseland which had helped other teachers. Teacher Schneider's health was poor. . . . One morning last week Mrs. Schneider awoke alone. She felt beneath the pillow for the revolver her husband kept there. Not finding it she arose, called, followed her husband through the kitchen into the yard. The three Schneider daughters heard them talking, heard their mother pounding on the basement door. Then in the basement Paul Schneider put a bullet through his head. Chicago had heard of a school janitor dying of starvation, of 20 teachers going mad during months past (TIME, April 24). Destitution among teachers was the rule not the exception. But individual cases, even the case of Paul Schneider, were only grim footnotes last week to the mass activities of the embattled teachers. Chicago's unorganized teachers are now more organized and more vigorous than the impotent Teachers' Association and the Men Teachers' Union. Last week they were getting action in Chicago. The man who led them in getting it was John M. Fewkes, 33, spokesman and chairman of a loose coalition of teachers' groups in scattered high schools. Broad-shouldered, clear-eyed, Chairman Fewkes is athletic director and swimming coach at Tilden Technical High School. He has two children, the younger of whom (3 months) has not yet been paid for. He owes $50 to the telephone company. His doctor owns his bungalow and has not pressed him for rent. Chairman Fewkes organized Tuesday parades, which the Chicago teachers politely called '"walks," during the month past. Meeting in Grant Park, the teachers hauled down the flag of the Chicago World's Fair, hoisted the Stars & Stripes and marched off with banners of their own, always responding docilely to Leader Fewkes's directions. Last week was Chicago's spring vacation. Leader Fewkes planned three walks. Monday the teachers in groups of 200 to 1,000, swarmed around five banks, disrupted business in three of them. Where there was any consistency in their shouts it was to the effect that the banks should buy more tax warrants. Banker Melvin Alvah Traylor received a delegation quietly. At City National Bank and Trust Co., 500 teachers jammed the lobby shouting "We want Dawes!'' Peppery General Charles Gates Dawes, board chairman, appeared, began by saying: "You want to get something done. . . . Well, so do I want to get something done." The teachers milled about him. Heckled one: "There's the man who borrowed $80,000,000 from the Government for his own bank but won't lend any to the teachers!" Heckled another: "He went along with Sam Insull in cheating us!" Banker Dawes's sidelong snap at the loudest hecklers--"To hell with trouble makers!"--was broadcast through the land next morning and at the next teachers' walk, two days later, someone carried a sign: We called on cursing Charley Dawes To ask about our money, You ought to see him show his claws, Perhaps he thinks it's funny. Cursing Charley, guard your tongue. Your record's not too pretty. You may come begging round again.

Oh, that would be a pity! This time, mounted police patrolled Loop streets, regular and special police stood in corridors. Teachers surged through the streets by thousands, singing and shouting. The biggest group, headed by John M. Fewkes, advanced upon Chicago Title & Trust Co. which they knew holds in escrow $10,000,000 for tax payments of property owners. Leader Fewkes and a committee gained access to the bank's President Holman Pettibone. Meanwhile the teachers were trying to swarm upstairs past the guards. A policeman flourished his night stick. A teacher named Ted Farrington ducked, took a resounding blow on the neck instead of the head. He toppled and the crowd surged up to mob the guards. Women screamed, fainted. Windows crashed. Teachers hurled school books. A second teacher was supposed to have been clubbed in the melee. Outside the bank a larger crowd grew restless; excited male teachers and bystanders tussled among themselves. Anything might have happened had not shrewd Leader Fewkes brought President Pettibone to a window, helped him over the ledge, held him in place while he ad- dressed the mob.

That afternoon Leader Fewkes took a delegation to City Hall, talked with Mayor Edward Joseph Kelly. He agreed to call off further demonstrations for a week, Mayor Kelly assuring him that he was trying to get the Illinois Legislature to put teeth in tax-collection laws. Later, teachers applauded when Leader Fewkes told them: "I am willing to go along with Mayor Kelly. He is a fighter. He didn't tremble when he was talking to us as some of the so-called bigwigs did." Next day Leader Fewkes and his committee were to have had lunch with the "bigwigs" at the swank Union League Club. But they changed their minds and let the bankers (including Messrs. Dawes & Traylor) cool their soup for 20 minutes before announcing that they did not wish to appear under obligation to the bankers.

The teachers looked to Springfield for salvation, and at last there came something hopeful. The Legislature passed the first of six measures designed to break up Chicago's $250,000,000 tax jam and release $30,000,000 to the teachers. The bill provided that the county treasurer may take over properties delinquent in taxes, operate them in receivership until income is produced to pay the taxes.

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