Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-05-26 | Page 6 | How Trouble Grows

HOW TROUBLE GROWS. A forest fire starts from a spark cast by a passing locomotive. Within an incredibly short space of tims it spreads until great areas of valuable timber arc destroyed. Similarly, trouble and strife, starting .from insignificant happenings, spread until they stir a community to its foundation ami array one half of a town's population against the other half. An instance in point is the squabble in a Philadelphia suburb. An instructor instruc-tor in one of the schools was dismissed for ''insubordination." Investigation showed that the man's refusal to obey orders without question was the extent of the " insubordination. " The row was the oulgrowth of his declining to teach his pupils a song beginning "Dearie, I love you. Tell me that you love mo true." The instructor is a musician, and he remonstrated with tho principal of tho school, a woman, against teaching the 'song. He told the principal it was not the kind of song to teach the "well bred children of Blank." The principal retorted that not all of the children of Blank wore well bred. "So much the more reason for not teaching them this song," protested pro-tested the teacher. That was the heginning. From that point the controversy took on proportions. propor-tions. Tho school board dismissed the instructor. 31 i s friends charged that music dealers filled the schools with ragtime music through "unsuspecting and sometimes conniving" principals. Tho principals denied the accusation, of course. Next it was asserted by opponents of the young 'man that he had been re: miss in his duty in respect of the Victory Vic-tory loan campaign. That imputation stirred tho teacher's friends to action. The latest development is the preparation prepara-tion of papers in a suit for libel which the man's adherents say will be filed against his "defamers. " Sometimes it doesn't take very long to "start something," but it takes an everlastingly long time to finish it.