The so-called strike of the Wisconsin Student Workers’ Union has much
of instruction for those who have been watching the trend of University
development during the past few years and are inclined critically to
examine the effect upon the student of modern educational methods.
The strike occurred in an institution that is recognized as the leader
in progressive education; that has given extraordinary liberties to the
student body; that is probably working more directly for the material
interests of the people than is any other American university; and it
occurred in a State that is convinced of the expediency of generously
maintaining an institution of higher education, and is levying taxes
therefore which during ten years have increased more than threefold.
Largely under the initiative of the University, but with faith, often
fully justified, in the practical value of the instruction therein
given, the State has adopted many of the principles enunciated in the
class room, and has accepted as advisors, or taken over and appointed
on its commissions, practically every professor and instructor
whose counsel might be of direct service in its legislative and
executive efforts, or of indirect service to the people at large.
The professional staff of the University, and the legislative and
executive staff of the State, have thus organized what might be called
a beneficent interlocking directorate, which is expressed more or less
truthfully in the local aphorism: “The State University is destined to
produce a University State.”
During the past decade, influenced by and participating in the
political and social changes that have made Wisconsin conspicuous,
and encouraged by the large enrollment in the so-called social and
political sciences--an enrollment of nearly two thousand students,
containing a generous representation from the congested districts of
American cities, from the oppressed people of Europe and from formative
governments generally--the University has added to its staff of
professors and instructors, until these departments are not surpassed
in attractiveness by any institution in America or indeed in Europe.
There is, then, among the student body a liberal admixture of those
whose social and political convictions, so far as they are definitely
formed, are not in entire accord with prevailing conventions. Some of
the more restless have organized a Socialists Club, and affiliations
have been established with Socialist organizations at Milwaukee
and elsewhere, and speakers of advanced anarchistic views, such as
Emma Goldman, on coming to Madison, draw large and not entirely
unsympathetic student audiences.
Within the University, and justified under the plea for a more perfect
democracy, the presence of strong class distinction and party feeling
often introduces an earnestness and bitterness into student gatherings
which is much more intense than in our older institutions of the east.
Moreover, the discussion of party differences is not confined to the
campus. The contestants, even though students, are accustomed to air
their views in the public press; and the state legislature--in which
there is a liberal admixture of representatives of all political
parties--is occasionally called upon to adjust real or imaginary
student wrongs.
To the Wisconsin student there is no mystery about the making or
unmaking of law; to him the capitol is a place of recreation, and the
legislators, many of them alumni, are his companions. The freshman
comes under the control of a student legislative body that defines
his privileges and attempts to control his liberties. This elective
body not only assumes jurisdiction over the student as an individual,
but, like an interstate commerce commission, it regulates the
activities of various student organizations, particularly those
alleged to have aristocratic tendencies. It fixes penalties for the
infraction of student laws, authorizes arrests, and sees that culprits
are brought before the Student Court, where they are tried and
sentenced. This student legislative body, through its representation
on student publications, and in other ways, is an active agency in
making and molding student opinion, and the faculty has already
recognized its jurisdiction. The Regents have agreed not to alter
or abridge the control of Student Self-Government, except through
process of conference. The student body has thus assumed, in certain
respects at least, the same attitude toward the administration of the
University that the University is accused of having assumed toward the
administration of the State; or, to paraphrase the aphorism already
given, “The University Student is destined to produce a Student
University.”
The student labor trouble, therefore, is not to be looked upon as the
result of a justifiable grievance between a handful of waiters, and the
Steward in control of the University Commons. The relations between the
student workers and the Steward had been cordial, and the reduction
in the number of student employees was an economic necessity, and
ordinarily would have excited no particular opposition. But under the
peculiar conditions existing at Madison, where there are students who
do not believe in the present order of things, where it is thought,
by not a few, that legislation by labor will bring better social
conditions, where machinery for organized resistance is fabricated as
a pastime, where the tactics of “collective bargaining” are thoroughly
understood, and where there are impulsive students anxious to assume
leadership, the temptation to translate static into kinetic energy
became irresistible.
It seems that about one hundred and thirty students had been given
positions in the University as waiters, kitchen helpers, etc.,
receiving in compensation a substantial meal for each hour or fraction
thereof of service. There was no dispute concerning the amount of
service or the value of the compensation. The students admitted that
the work was light, the board excellent; and the positions were
considered the most desirable of their kind in the city. The body
waited upon some two hundred and fifty men students, and upon nearly
three hundred women students. (Thirteen women student waiters and
helpers, employed in one of the dormitories, did not join the Union,
and took no active part in the agitation.)
The completion of a new central kitchen had led to economies, and a few
weeks before the end of the semester--it was thought in ample time for
the young men to find employment elsewhere--preliminary announcement
was made that the staff of student employees would be reduced,
and twenty students out of a total of one hundred and thirty were
individually so informed. Since it was perfectly obvious that their
services were in fact not needed, the waiters received the announcement
in good spirit and without serious question.
It was at this point, however, that certain other students, who were
not employed by the University, but were generally interested in
organized agitation, called a mass meeting of the student workers both
of the University and of the city, and through the vigorous application
of well-known forensic excitants, brought about a condition of
hysteria, which affected a large proportion of the student employees,
although the general student body remained immune.
The waiters and helpers found themselves organizing a Union,
subscribing to extravagant declarations, and electing as their officers
representatives from the most violent of the agitators. It was
alleged that the organization had more than four hundred members. The
president of the Union, a student in Law, was not a University worker.
The secretary was the president of the local Socialist Club, and
originally registered at the University as from New York City.
The leaders of the “strike” (a strike was only threatened) took the
position that they would protect the student waiters, that the number
of waiters should not be reduced, that economies, if necessary, should
be effected in some other way, and that dire consequences would result
if the plans of the University administration were carried into effect.
In any event, nothing should be done until the organization was duly
recognized by the University authorities, until proposed changes in the
method of conducting the business of the Commons had been submitted to
the Student Union for its approval, and until it was agreed that all
present and future grievances and difficulties should be submitted to a
board of arbitration satisfactory to the Union.
At Madison it is customary to adjust differences through conferences,
or a series of conferences, but here was a case that affected the
business management of the University, and where delay would involve
loss to the State. The situation was also extremely amusing, because
of the fact that the longer a settlement could be deferred, the longer
the student waiters would continue to be fed at the expense of the
University. It resembled some of the difficulties our government
experienced in the neighborhood of the Rio Grande.
As a coercive measure, the leaders submitted a document to the effect
that if the original plans of the administration were not altered there
would be a sympathetic “walkout” on the part of a hundred or more
boarders.
Startling articles appeared in the press, syndicalism and sabotage were
academically discussed, and there were threats that unless “justice”
were shown the students, every dining room in Madison would be closed.
As time went on, the general disturbance had its effect upon the
regular kitchen staff of the University, composed of paid employees,
who saw, or thought they saw, in the rising power of the student
body, their own impending extinction. At this time, a strike or
walkout on the part of the regular paid force would have been serious:
for the University was practically under contract to house and feed
approximately three hundred women students, enrolled residents of the
dormitories.
Hearings were held before the Regents, but all efforts on the part of
the management to change the attitude of the leaders were futile, and
the appetites of the aggrieved seemed to increase with the vigor of the
agitation.
At a critical moment the cooks sent in their ultimatum, calling the
Steward to declare allegiance either to the insurgents or to the
regulars; or in default of such declaration, operations in the kitchen
would abruptly terminate. This announcement was decisive: for
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
The administration ordered the doors of the dining halls closed,
locked, and guarded; service within the women’s dormitories was
conducted as is customary in convents, and the debarred student
waiters, boarders, and guests gathered without on the campus,
dumfounded that a public institution should close its doors to the
populace. It certainly looked like a “lockout,” and it was alleged that
the plant was being operated by “scabs.”
All the stage machinery that accompanies a real strike and lockout
was brought into requisition--circulars were issued appealing for
the sympathy of the public, and implying that poor students had been
discharged for no other reason than that they had belonged to the
“Union,” and stating that girls working their way through college had
been dismissed because they had expressed sympathy. Mass meetings were
called, speakers were imported, inflammatory addresses were delivered,
additional resolutions adopted, and appeals made to the Federation of
Labor, to the State Industrial Commission, and to the Governor.
But in due time the members of the Student Workers’ Union found that
their services were not indispensable, that State institutions do
not invariably yield to the pressure of organized resistance, and as
chastened individuals they applied for such positions as remained
vacant, and went back to work.
* * * * *
The recital of these occurrences as a trivial circumstance has no place
in a publication of this kind, but the significance, so far as it
may throw light upon the general path of university development, and
may help to determine the kind of mind and men that universities are
producing or may produce, justifies serious contemplation.
It is generally admitted that universities are destined to become
something different from what they now are. University men have a
duty to perform, not only in watching the trend of this inevitable
drift, and determining its probable course, but they are in a measure
responsible for the course.
Not all institutions move with the same rapidity. Some possess a power
that takes them away from their companions and into new territory. The
records of their movements and the attendant results are generally
looked upon as public property. It thus becomes possible for the
conservative university, or the university that is not inclined, or
does not have the means, to go into expensive experimentation, to learn
much through the inexpensive process of observation.
What have we to learn from the conditions and occurrences above
outlined?
Are we really getting all of the good things out of our institutions of
higher culture that we think we are getting?
When the citizens of a commonwealth tax themselves in order to give
university instruction to their children, does it necessarily follow
that the university life will develop the highest citizenship? Does
it develop a feeling of pride in the State and of loyalty to it? Is
the position of the State as an instrument of modern civilization
strengthened or weakened thereby?
Does university training tend to produce an accelerated or a deferred
maturity of the judicial sense--the power to distinguish between what
is reasonable and what is unreasonable, what is genuine and what is
false; and to distinguish promptly between the man that is frankly
striving for principle, and the one who is falsely striving for
position?
If any considerable number of college graduates should be of the
opinion that the State, in addition to providing some twenty-five years
of free instruction, should also provide free board, is it not obvious
that difficulties akin to those that surround the issue of fiat money
would quickly arise on the issue of fiat food?
If graduates on becoming citizens believe that they are entitled
to anything and everything that can be extracted from the State,
and if their lives are to be spent under this obsession, ought not
the community to prepare itself for a long series of constitutional
amendments?
Is a university graduate sufficiently prepared to meet the strife of
adult life if he leaves his institution wise with facts, emotional to
the spell of the professional agitator, and innocent of the craft of
the publicity agent?
Our institutions may teach what is right, but what is being done to
develop the moral fibre and personal independence that will put the
right into operation? What forces are at work to encourage open and
vigorous opposition to social doctrines that are generally considered
damaging to the State?
Does free and excessive opportunity engender a feeling of gratitude
on the part of the recipient, or are such feelings inconsistent with
modern conventions?
When the lust for individual gain and personal possession on the
part of the few, is legitimatized at the expense of many, are the
results more reprehensible when the process has been conducted by the
aristocratic adult, than when conducted by the proletariat youth?
When students have listened to and communed with the most eminent
instructors in social and political science that the State can furnish,
why should they believe that labor, when organized, has inherent rights
that labor individualized does not possess?
Are the cardinal principles of our form of constitutional government
being upheld when it becomes necessary for the individual to declare
allegiance to some party or organization before he can enjoy the
ordinary privileges of citizenship?
Why should a body of university students--men that have enjoyed the
privileges of education--take the position that unless the prerogative
of the few is promptly recognized and implicitly followed, the innocent
will be harassed, and the entire community made to suffer?
Is it not possible that in our effort strictly to maintain the
principles of academic freedom, we are giving instruction with such
impartial neutrality that those who have worthy views conclude that
their convictions are subject to question, and those who have ulterior
motives are encouraged to believe themselves justified?
What the State really needs at the present time is some agency
that will develop the powers of discrimination, that will enable
its citizens to arrive at conclusions independent of plausible
presentations.