>> In 1950 with America's Cold War with the Soviet Union running at high tide and with the Korean War underway, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin took command of an investigative apparatus in the US Senate to root out alleged Communists in the US Government. McCarthy also lent his name to a national witch hunt to ferret out communists in all public service venues, including education. In the schools, McCarthyism aligned progressive educators as Communist sympathizers and subversents. >> Mm-hm. 1McCarthyism had its greatest impact on the New York City Schools. Recall East Harlem's Benjamin Franklin High School whose principal was the great Italian-American educator Leonard Covello. In 1951 the Herald Tribune accused Franklin's Speech Department Chair Rita Morgan of being quote red by having spoken at a peace rally attended by communists. Morgan successfully defended herself against the charge on first amendment grounds. Aided by the intercession of Covello and Superintendent of schools William Jansen. In Morgan's case, Superintendent Jansen played the role of a benevolent despot. Other New York teachers weren't so fortunate. >> In the summer of 1952 Superintendent Jansen appointed City Corporation Counsel Sal Moscoff to investigate suspected communist party activity among the city's teachers. According to the Labor Historian Marjorie Murphy. Quote, Moscoff collected all the lists he could find from communist party nominating petitions to license plates numbers of cars observed at rallies for the Rosenbergs and he looked for teachers name. Moscoff and the Board of Education's primary target was a heavily Jewish Teachers Union, which as local five had been ousted from the American Federation of Teachers in 1941, because of members ties to the communist party. Most of the teachers who were dismissed in the late 40's and 50's were Jewish unionists. Indeed, the inquisition had a strong anti-Semitic flavor. While superintendent Jansen would on occasion intercede on behalf of an accused teacher, as Rita Morgan's case illustrates. More often, he endorsed the racking and head chopping. In one notorious case, Jansen sent a teacher to the block for refusing to participate in the celebration. The superintendent had ordered in honor of general Douglas MacArthur's homecoming. >> Greasing the skids for the purge was a New York Supreme Court justices ruling in 1950. It allowed the board of education to dismiss teachers under Section 203 of the City Charter of 1936 for refusing to answer questions. By the end of the 50s, Moskoff and his henchmen had exacted a pound or more of flesh from 447 teachers. 38 teachers were fired, 283 resigned or retired either before or after being interrogated and 126 were reinstated only after completely and convincingly repudiating their former ties to the communist party. Apparently, the critical factor weighing in the purges was membership in the teachers' union. The board of education's bet in the McCarthy era. Given the union's past association with the communist party it was a magnet for harassment and public humiliation if not dismissal by the board. The union teachers who were fired worked in high schools and grade schools in Brooklyn and in the Bronx. >> At Benjamin Franklin High School teachers were affiliated with the socialist leading teachers guild. The teacher's union major competitor. The guild was not on Moskoff's hit list. Prominent Franklin High School teachers, such as Lao Laan, an African-American socialist had played leading roles in the AFT's ouster of the local five communists and the establishment of the teacher's guild, the forerunner of today's United Federation of Teachers. Principal Leonard Covello, a former teacher unionist himself broke with the union to join the fledgling guild. This is not to say that the Franklin High teachers were unaffected by all the hysteria, which had an incalculable ripple effect across the city schools. With the precarious toll hold on the ladder of social mobility, teachers of the immigrant origin felt particularly vulnerable. The 1940s generation of teachers interviewed by the historian, Ruth Markowitz, claimed that quote, almost all Jewish teachers, communists or not believe themselves to be potential suspects. >> Hm. >> End quote. >> Louis Ralin, a former Benjamin Franklin English teacher, who had played a prominent role in the high school's intercultural programs in the East Harlem Housing Campaign. Fell pray to the amu, anti-communist dragnet at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. After 19 years of teaching, Ralin, a Teacher's Union member was fired by the Board of Education on October 2, 1952 for violating Section 203 of the New York City Charter. Quote, any city employee refusing to testify about his work before a legally constituted body shall be dismissed, unquote. Standing on the principal of academic freedom, Ralin took the fifth amendment before a subcommittee the US Senate Judiciary Committee, which was charged to investigate subversive activities in New York City schools. Later wrote, I'm a teacher, I was a darn good one and my supervisors will tell you. The 100 of us dismissed without justification, victims of McCarthyite lunacy were the very ones most dedicated to the welfare of our young citizens of tomorrow. >> McCarthyism waned when the US Senate discredited and censored McCarthy after a congressional hearings in 1954. But the damage to the teachers caught in his follower's dragnet was irreparable. Louis Ralin became the salesman. We turn in our next episode to the Federal Government's educational response to real and imagined threats posed by the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. [MUSIC]
