There are some universities which were not satisfied with the amount of attention they received in “The Goose-step,” and came forward to demand more. Most prominent among these is the University of Tennessee. I told how by devious intrigue its president got rid of a friend of mine, an excellent professor, on the ground that he was a Unitarian. Two months after “The Goose-step” was out, the president proceeded to fire Professor Sprowls, for the crime of having ordered some copies of James Harvey Robinson’s “The Mind in the Making.” That wasn’t all there was to it, of course; it had been discovered that Professor Sprowls was a believer in evolution. Another member of the faculty, Mrs. Hamer of the history department, was accused of having voted in the recent Knoxville charter election! “Women have no business to vote,” said President Morgan; and he told Mrs. Hamer that she would be dismissed if she went to Nashville to represent some women’s clubs in the interest of equal rights for women.
Because of these incidents the faculty of Tennessee proceeded to organize; they drew up a project for faculty representation in the government of the university, and some of the students who were ardent in their support published a little paper called the “Independent Truth.” Whereupon President Morgan prepared a questionnaire, and summoned the professors before him and grilled them in the presence of a stenographer. Had they had anything to do with the proposed constitution for the University of Tennessee? Were they in sympathy with the administration and its way of doing things? Had they had anything to do, directly or indirectly, with the publication of the “Independent Truth?” Had they attended any meetings dealing with the case of Dr. Sprowls? Had they signed a petition asking the American Association of University Professors to investigate conditions at the University of Tennessee? All whose answers to this questionnaire were not satisfactory were summarily discharged. One of them was Judge Neal, for thirteen years a member of the Law School faculty, and the best professor at the university. Another was a dean, whose crime had been an effort to reconcile the two factions. The student publications were forbidden to discuss the issue in any way; and in general the University of Tennessee got a thorough drilling in the goose-step.
The Fundamentalists are going right on kicking out teachers of evolution from colleges. I note an amusing incident at Kentucky Wesleyan: an instructor of physics and mathematics signed an apology for believing in evolution, regretting the harm that he had done to the college, and agreeing not to discuss the subject during the remainder of his stay. He did this on April 10th, and his job was up on May 29th; the poor fellow could not afford to pay forty-nine days’ salary to keep his self-respect! I am told of a less tragic incident at Morningside College, Sioux City, Iowa, where a professor with a twelve years’ record was slated to be fired as a believer in evolution, and hit upon a most ingenious way of saving himself. There was an “examining committee” appointed—and the professor recommended the head of this committee to receive an honorary degree of doctor of divinity!
Some of the professors and students of the University of Missouri were distressed because their institution got left out of “The Goose-step.” The president here was determined to get into this volume, so he canceled a speaking date of Kate Richards O’Hare before the Liberal Club of the university. Two days later the editor of the St. Louis “Post-Dispatch” addressed the students of the School of Journalism, declaring that “the rising tide of intolerance is the greatest menace our country faces today. The freedom of speaking outright guards our other privileges; it must be unrestrained, accountable only under the necessary laws of libel.” And at the end of this address the president of the university came up to the lecturer, shook his hand and said: “Sound doctrine; I agree with you.” Lest you be tempted to think that this university president is mentally irresponsible, I mention that the board of curators of the university was at this time asking the state legislature for five million dollars. Also I mention that the students of this wonderful university took part a few days later in the lynching of a Negro within sight of the West Campus.
Also you will wish to know what happened at the University of North Dakota, where a group of professors, learning from a former colleague that I was to deal with their cases, united in a written request that I should refrain from doing so. The latest news from North Dakota runs as follows:
I am sorry to say that Professor Ladd seems definitely out at North Dakota. The Board exonerated him of charges, but will not give him back his post or reply to his request for a personal hearing. It is a sad commentary that the faculty up there seem so cowed that it was difficult to find a few men who would sign a request for the American Association of University Professors to come in and make an investigation. The request, of course, has to be made by members of the local group at North Dakota. One of them recently wrote to me, “I suppose Ladd feels pretty sore at us because we do not throw ourselves into it, but some of us have families to consider and we may be too old to find other positions, especially if we lose our present ones under these conditions.” The rumor reaches me that the slick Tracy Bangs is the man who is secretly responsible for the refusal to give Ladd a square deal. But Libby hasn’t much to brag of, for he is merely restored, as the letter to him says, “during good behavior.” I have tried to do what I can for Ladd at long range, and have written over my signature to various prominent men in North Dakota, but the replies show me how reluctant these people are to contend against the forces at work.
When I visited Pittsburgh I was told a good deal about the rule of the Black Hand in that community, especially over the Carnegie Institute of Technology. I omitted these stories at the request of the victims. But now comes a letter from a student, telling me that some of these men are gone, and there is to be “another house-cleaning” this year. The student tells how the secretary of the Pennsylvania State Federation of Labor spoke to a group of students, and a few days later an instructor stated to a class that there had come to Carnegie Tech a notice from the United States Steel Corporation, reading in substance as follows: Last week, on such and such a day, at the bidding of your economic staff, so-and-so spoke before a group of students at your school. He spoke in such and such a room, and said this and that. If the person who is responsible for this meeting is kept on the faculty at Carnegie Tech, do not expect any further aid from the United States Steel Corporation. So came the house-cleaning.
Another institution which escaped my attention was the Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia. Immediately after “The Goose-step” appeared, the board dismissed a professor of seventeen years’ standing, refusing any explanation or charges. Thirty of the faculty resigned in protest, among them a number of leading physicians of Philadelphia.
Also you will be interested to learn that the University of Minnesota has been saved from Socialism by the intervention of the governor of the state, who put his foot down on a co-operative book-store which the students were starting. The governor did not think it proper to have “a commercial enterprise” on the campus—so the sons of Minnesota farmers will step across the street and buy their books from a private dealer at thirty or forty per cent higher prices.
You will also wish to hear the latest news from the University of Jabbergrab, which has graduated a class of fifteen hundred students, more than half of them receiving commercial degrees. I have a clipping from the New York “World,” March 11, 1923, occupying the top of four columns:
Also I quote a headline from my own Pasadena newspaper:
Let no one say after this that there is no academic freedom in America! Also let no one say that colleges and universities are not really useful. From “Printer’s Ink,” January 18, 1923, I quote:
M. F. Hilfinger, vice-president of the A. E. Nettleton Shoe Company, Syracuse, speaking before the Greater Buffalo Advertising Club, declared that the new University of Buffalo will be the greatest advertising asset the city has. He said that it is estimated that Syracuse University brought at least $5,000,000 worth of business to that city.
Also Secretary Weeks of the War Department has paid honor to higher education: twenty-five of our principal colleges were designated for special honors as reward for their services in teaching young men to plunge bayonets into imitation human bodies. At the same time the secretary of the navy went to Princeton and made a patriotic speech, while the new Art and Architecture Building was dedicated to the honor of the harvester machinery king. Mr. Mellon, secretary of the treasury, and one of the three richest men in America, received an honorary degree from the University of Jabbergrab; he marched through the Hall of Fame, and listened to the Reverend Woelfkin, Mr. Rockefeller’s pastor, denounce the Bolsheviks. Mr. Mellon also collected a degree from Rutgers, together with the “wet” Governor Silzer of New Jersey, and the dry Mr. Edward Bok, and the magnetic president of the General Electric Company. Readers of “The Goose-step” have sent me quite a stack of newspaper clippings, with the annual orations of the interlocking directorate at the commencements of their intellectualintellectual munition factories. They range all the way down from the chairman of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, and include every reactionary idea that ever sprouted in the head of a prosperous but worried plutocrat.