All that is old is new again.

‘Employers, Backed by Klan, To Replace Science with Bible Dope in Nation’s Schools’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No. 96. My 5, 1925.

NEW YORK, May 3. A survey of the restrictions on teaching in schools and colleges just completed by the American Civil Liberties Union shows that more restrictive laws have been passed during the last six months than at any time in American history. These laws prohibit the teaching of evolution, require compulsory reading of the bible and forbid the employment of radical or pacifist teachers.

The survey shows that congress passed one such law as a rider to the 1925 appropriation bill for the District of Columbia, providing “that no part of this sum shall be available for the payment of the salary” of any educational director “who permits the teaching of partisan politics, disrespect of the holy bible, or that ours is an inferior form of government.” This law is now in force in the District of Columbia.

Expel Students.

Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware, West Virginia and Kentucky have laws requiring the daily reading of the bible in public schools “without comment,” and providing for the discharge and revocation of the certificate of a teacher who does not conform to the act. Similar bills have been introduced in the legislatures of Virginia, Texas, New Jersey and Washington.

A test of this type of statute was made in South Dakota in March, where Judge McNenny ruled that a school board has the authority to expel high school students who leave the class room during bible reading. Thirteen students were expelled in this controversy. The decision will be appealed to a higher court.

Afraid of Truth.

The first state law prohibiting the teaching of the doctrine of evolution in public schools and colleges was passed in Tennessee in March. Resolutions of state boards forbidding the teaching of evolution were previously adopted in North Carolina and Florida.

Missouri state colleges and schools are forbidden by a rider to the appropriation bill recently passed to employ any person “who teaches, or advocates in public or private that the citizens of this state should not protect the government of the United States from aggression by other nations.”

In the recent Ohio legislature a resolution was introduced authorizing an investigation of members of the faculties of three state universities, with the object of ousting “radicals and atheists.” This resolution was killed by the senate committee to which it was referred.

Klan Backs Gag Laws.

“Efforts to get court action on all these restrictive laws will be made thru our attorneys,” the Civil Liberties Union announces. “The constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state, it is believed, offers a ground for contesting the laws requiring bible reading. The U.S. supreme court already has before it one restrictive school law passed in Oregon and aimed at abolishing the parochial schools. The chief sources of inspiration for this new and unprecedented crop of gag laws on teaching are the ku klux klan, the fundamentalists, and the professional patriotic societies. The klan is back of the compulsory bible reading and anti-parochial school laws, the fundamentalists back of the anti-evolution bills and the professional patriots back of the anti-radical and anti-pacifist measures.”

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/1925/1925-ny/v02b-n096-NYE-may-05-1925-DW-LOC.pdf