Within the Board of Education, however, whose twenty-one members have never been able to agree very well with each other, disagreements with Mrs. Young and her policies have come to the surface, especially among the members of the board appointed by Mayor Harrison. He protests his preference for her administration and once before came to the support of her policies when she tendered her resignation rather than surrender the superintendent’s prerogative in the selection of textbooks. The mayor’s opposition to the acceptance of her resignation then kept enough members of the Board in line with her to warrant its withdrawal.
But the divisiveness of that controversy both widened and deepened at many points of personal and administrative difference. Except the two outspoken opponents, the other disaffected members of the board combined their opposition in silence and secrecy. To the surprise of the public, which the mayor, many members of the school board, and even the opposition itself, claimed to share, Mrs. Young failed to receive the eleven votes necessary for her reëlection. Ten members voted for her, six against her, and four were recorded as “not voting” in the secret ballot.
Mrs. Young immediately withdrew her name, claiming that no superintendent can succeed who requires a second ballot for election. The second ballot was taken at once, after reconsideration of the first ballot was refused and John D. Shoop, first assistant superintendent, was elected by a vote of eleven to five, without discussion. The president of the board immediately resigned, as did Dean Walter T. Sumner, from the chairmanship of the school management committee.
Instantly teachers’ organizations, parents’ societies, the Chicago Woman’s Club, the Woman’s City Club, and many other women’s organizations lined up for action. A mass meeting called by them crowded the Auditorium with 4,000 women and men on a Saturday morning. Rousing and determined speeches were made by many representative citizens, among whom were Jane Addams, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Harriet Vittum, and Margaret Haley of the Teachers’ Federation.
The meeting adopted resolutions calling upon the mayor to accept the responsibility for the reinstatement of Mrs. Young to her place in the school system, demanding the immediate resignation of the superintendency by John D. Shoop and appointing a committee to urge him to withdraw; asserting that two of the remaining members of the school board should add their resignation to the four already in the hands of the mayor and asking Governor Dunne to call a special session of the legislature to enact a law making the membership in the school board an elective office and giving the voters the right to recall board members.