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Delinquency & Communism. Pasadena did vote no, but the council was not through with Goslin yet. It demanded a full "ideological investigation" of the entire school system, hinted that the school program was "part of a campaign to 'sell' our children on the collapse of our way of life." The council's Chairman Frank Wells used the writings of rabble-rousing Allen Zoll, onetime advocate of Father Coughlin, to back up his charge that progressive education fosters juvenile delinquency. Wells's successor, Osteopath Ernest Brower, was convinced that sex education (a pre-Goslin innovation) would lead straight to free love, which would lead straight to Communism.
In the face of these snowballing attacks, the school board began to weaken in its support of Superintendent Goslin. Finally, while he was in Manhattan to attend a national school meeting, it sent him a telegram asking him to resign. With that, the pro-Goslin forces sprang into action, but it was too late. The board insisted that Goslin must go. "He didn't have the right rapproach," explained one member. "That's the word, 'rapproach' to the grassroots problem."
Whether Goslin's "rapproach" was wrong or right, Author Hulburd is sure of one thing. The campaign that forced his resignation was a sorry example of the sort of attack that hurls irresponsible charges without denning terms, or even finding out whether the charges are true or not. The result is that the attack not only damages the schools, but debases the honest criticisms of thoughtful citizens as well. Concludes Author Hulburd: "What . . . happened in Pasadena could easily happen in other cities where modern educational systems [come] under attack."