158. Fountains Of Business Wealth: The Underground History of American
Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org
Fountains
Of Business Wealth
The new American establishment of the
twentieth century was organized around the
fountains of wealth international corporate business provides. By 1900
huge businesses had begun already to
dominate American schooling, and the metropolitan clubs where business was transacted lay at the core of
upper-class authority in every major city in the nation. The men's club emerged as the
principal agency where business agreements were
struck and, indirectly, where school policy was forged.
In 1959, Fortune magazine shocked a
portion of our still innocent nation by announcing where national policy and important deals
really were made in New York City. If the
matter was relatively minor, the venue would be the Metropolitan, the
Union League, or the University; if it
were a middling matter it would be determined at the Knickerbocker or the Racquet; and if it required the utmost
attention of powerful men, Brook or Links.
Nothing happened in boardrooms or executive suites where it could be
overheard by outlanders. Each city had
this private ground where aristocracy met quietly out of the reach of prying eyes or unwelcome attendants.
In San Francisco, the Pacific Union; in
Washington, Cosmos or the Chevy Chase Club; the Sommerset in Boston;
Duquesne in Pittsburgh; the Philadelphia
Club in Philadelphia; the Chicago Club in Chicago. Once hands were shaken in these places, the
process of public debate and certification was
choreographed elsewhere for public and press. Government business came
to be done this way, too.
The entire web of affiliations among
insiders in business, government, and the nonprofit sector operates through interpersonal and
institutional ties which interconnect at the
highest levels of finance, politics, commerce, school affairs, social work,
the arts, and the media. Continuing
conflicts of value within the leadership community give an appearance of adversarial proceedings, but each passing
decade brings more and more harmony to
the unseen community which plans the fate of schools and work.
The
General Education Board And Friends
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