Well done comrade Laemont.

‘Young Pioneer is Suspended for Doubting History Teacher and Not Signing ‘Pledge’’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 3 No. 278. December 8, 1926.

Because he disagreed with his history teacher’s ideas on the American government and refused to sign the “pledge of allegiance” demanded of all Chicago public school children, 11-year-old Vetold Laemont, member of the Young Pioneers of America, was suspended from the Sumner school here Monday. Vetold was told by Principal Trout of the school that he could not come back until he consented “to abide by the rules of the school,” which meant retracting his statements on the government and submitting to signing the pledge. Vetold was in the fifth grade.

The wrath of the school first descended on Vetold when he told his history teacher that he didn’t believe the things she told the class about American ideals of “liberty and justice and equal opportunity.”

Teacher Horrified.

The teacher was horrified when the young student pointed out to her that the way newsboys and bootblacks had to slave didn’t coincide with what the textbooks said. Vetold was made the subject of cross-examination on his ideas in front of the class, and each statement she made in defense of capitalism was refuted by Vetold. Finally the teacher thuoght that if Vetold was made to write out the pledge of allegiance that would cure him. She told him to do so.

Instead of writing: “I pledge my allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” Vetold wrote: “I pledge my allegiance to my flag, and the cause for which it stands–one aim thruout my life, freedom for the working class.”

Vetold was then ordered to see the principal of the school. Principal Trout attempted to weedle Vetold into apologizing, by recounting all of “glories that your wonderful the country has and the opportunities that every one has in America.” He told Vetold that he should be proud of the country that gave him such fine schools. But when Vetold, unafraid, answered him the same way he did his teacher, and told him that “the schools were merely tools of the capitalist class,” the school official became angry and attempted to force Vetold to retract. He quizzed him about the Pioneers and demanded “Who told you all that stuff? And who is behind that organization?”

He said that Vetold could remain in school only on condition he signed the pledge of allegiance. When Vetold said he could not, because he thought it was wrong, he was suspended.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1926/1926-ny/v03-n278-NY-dec-08-1926-DW-LOC.pdf