ABSTRACT
In the spring of 1931, as winter waned and the depression deepened, newspaperman Floyd Gibbons regaled his fellow New York writers, who wondered about the meaning of Easter, with the following story about "Billy Wirt, the great schoolbuilder who lives out in Gary, Ind."
He had thousands of kids in his schools, divided among fifty or sixty nationalities and all races, colors and creeds. Those nice school ma'ams descended on his office and wanted to know what the dickens they were going to do about their Easter school programs. Couldn't tell those Mohamedan boys and gals about the great Biblical story. Couldn't have those Chinese and Japanese youngsters taking part in things their folks wouldn't approve. Russian and Greek Easter a week or so later. It was all mixed up, this business of making Easter programs.
Never stumped Billy Wirt though. Just called all the teachers together and this is what he told 'em—Easter means lots more than all of us think. Resurrection—that's what it means in every sense of the word. The old earth's a wakening at this time of the year. All those flowers and trees and everything on the face of this planet are springing into new life. Man's hopes spring up anew. People are better for the riddance of depressing winter. Just tell the boys and girls that and you'll have an Easter merrymaking that'll make every body [sic] happy.—Well, I saw one of those school pageants and sat between a swarthy Oriental woman and a high-cheeked Russian mother. And when their little boys came out on the stage and sang their songs, those mothers both looked so doggone happy that I wondered why the whole world doesn't adopt Billy Wirt's philosophy.
The Gary superintendent wondered the same thing. For over twenty years through the work-study-play program he had helped mold the city's heterogeneous population into a somewhat unified whole, providing an ever-increasing multitude of services for children and adults alike. He had also retained his power over school matters, despite the continuous input from a variety of organizations and individuals, including business interests, labor unions, civil rights organizations, civic groups, and the mass media. Now, as the depression worsened and entered its long winter, all of his skills, he thought, were necessary to resurrect the educational (and economic) system. 1