THE ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT STORE
I have several times mentioned in this narrative Professor Cattell and
his opinions of Columbia. My story would not be complete without an
account of his adventures, for he was the one man who gave the
interlocking directors a real fight.
James McKeen Cattell was a teacher at Columbia for twenty-six years. He
was the first professor of psychology in any university in the world; he
is the editor of four leading scientific journals. Cattell objected to
some of Butler’s methods, such as the appointment of an unfit professor
in his division, because this man brought with him a gift of a hundred
thousand dollars. Cattell was left to learn of this appointment from the
newspapers, and when he protested, Butler wrote him insolent letters,
trying to force him to resign, as he had done with MacDowell and
Woodberry. But Cattell stuck, whereupon Butler took from him the use of
six rooms, a laboratory of psychological research which had been built
with funds obtained by Cattell. The income of a trust fund of one
hundred thousand dollars, which Cattell had got “to increase the
facilities of his department,” was taken to pay Cattell’s own salary.
Cattell then withdrew as head of his department, and took no more part
in Columbia’s politics. But he published articles criticizing the
Carnegie pension scheme, in which Butler was a leading spirit. He showed
how it was used to control the university professor, as seniority rights
and pensions are used to keep employes in order. So in 1910 a resolution
proposing to dismiss Cattell was before the trustees. In 1913 he
published a book on “University Control,” in which he demonstrated that
85 per cent of the members of college and university faculties are
dissatisfied with the present system of the management of scholars by
business men. In punishment for this the trustees voted to retire him on
a pension—taking the step without the knowledge of the faculty. There
was unanimous protest, and the trustees yielded. In 1917 Professor
Cattell wrote a letter to members of the Faculty Club, referring to “our
much-climbing and many-talented president.” This, of course, was lese
majesté, and for the third time a resolution proposing to dismiss
Professor Cattell was presented to the trustees; but action was
postponed, on the recommendation of a committee of deans and professors.
Nicholas Miraculous bided his time, and several months later came the
chance to get rid of Cattell and at the same time to exhibit his new
patriotism. Cattell wrote a letter to a congressman, in support of
pending legislation exempting from combatant service in Europe
conscripts who objected to war. The interlocking trustees, who had
already conscripted themselves to make money out of the war, took the
position that in writing this letter Cattell had committed a crime, and
they suddenly dismissed him from the university. In spite of his
twenty-six years’ service, they did not even take the trouble to notify
him what they proposed to do, but left him to learn of their action from
a newspaper reporter who waked him in the middle of the night. The
trustees declared that a professor could not take a stand on any public
question as his own personal opinion; to which Cattell replied: “When
trustees announce that no statement can be made by a teacher that is not
affirmed by Columbia University, they challenge the intellectual
integrity of every teacher.”
These ferocious old men who had conscripted themselves to make money out
of the war were not content to get rid of a too-independent professor;
they wished to brand him for life, so they rushed to the press with a
statement charging him with “treason,” “sedition,” and “obstruction to
the enforcement of the laws of the United States.” And this although
Professor Cattell was actively engaged in psychological work for the
army, and his only son who was of war age had already volunteered!
Professor Cattell, in his counter-statement, referred to the trustees as
“men whose horizon is bounded by the two sides of Wall Street with
Trinity Church at the end.” He described the university as a place
“overrun with intrigue and secret diplomacy.” He said of President
Butler: “He has run the university as a department store, playing the
part of both proprietor and floor walker to the faculty, while an errand
boy to the trustees.”[A] Cattell brought suit for libel and threatened
to sue for the pension to which he was entitled. The trustees waited
several years, until the libel case was about to come up for trial, and
then admitted their guilt by paying forty-five thousand dollars of the
university’s money.
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Footnote A:
The statements concerning Columbia University in the above paragraph
were contained in a confidential statement sent by Professor Cattell
to some of the Columbia faculty. In fairness to Professor Cattell, I
wish to state that he did not furnish me with this statement, either
directly or indirectly, and I have not asked his permission to quote
from it.
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With Professor Cattell there went out Professor H. W. L. Dana, a
grandson of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and of Richard Henry Dana; his
crime was that he had belonged to the People’s Council—with the
knowledge of President Butler. Shortly after this went Beard, and Henry
Mussey, one of Columbia’s most loved professors; also my old teacher,
James Harvey Robinson.
I write the above, and then the door-bell of my home rings, and there
enters another man who went out—Leon Ardzrooni, an Armenian with an
irrepressible sense of humor, who for two years was a professor of
economics. I do not have to ask Ardzrooni about his success as a
teacher, because his reputation has preceded him. He brought Columbia
twelve thousand dollars a year in tuition fees, of which they paid him
three thousand to lecture on labor problems; and every now and then they
would send for him and make anxious faces over the fact that he taught
the realities of modern industry. Professor Seligman, his dean, heard
the distressing report that he made some of his young ladies—graduate
students out of Barnard—“unhappy.” “It would be all right for older
people,” said Professor Seligman; “but not for the young, who are so
impressionable.” Said Ardzrooni; “What’s the use of teaching them when
they’re so old that I can’t make any impression?”
The students asked him about an I. W. W. strike, and he told how such a
matter appeared to the strikers. “Don’t they get enough to eat?” asked
one, a young army officer. “Yes, I suppose so,” said the professor; “but
so do the owners get enough to eat. That isn’t the only issue.”
Professor Ardzrooni gave that answer at ten o’clock in the morning, and
at twelve he went to the Faculty Club for lunch, and there on the faces
of his colleagues he saw written the dreadful tidings—he had been
reported! The busy telephone system of the university had informed the
whole campus that the genial Armenian had been discovered to be a member
of the I. W. W.; he had boasted to his classes of carrying a red card,
and all his colleagues were so sorry for him!
Ardzrooni was summoned before Butler, and instead of taking it meekly,
he demanded a showdown. Who was it that accused him of belonging to the
I. W. W. and of carrying a red card? Butler refused to tell him, evading
the issue, so the professor went on the warpath. It happens that he is a
rich man, not dependent upon anybody’s favor, so he went to Woodbridge,
dean of the faculty, announcing that he was going to bring suit against
the university that very day; he would put Butler on the witness stand,
and find out whether a college professor has any rights, or can be
slandered at will!
Instantly, of course, the whole machinery of intimidation collapsed; it
had never occurred to anyone that a college professor might act like a
man! They would drop the whole matter, say nothing more about the red
card, give Ardzrooni promotion and increase his salary—anything to keep
out of court! The professor of labor problems laughed at them, and
following the example of all other self-respecting men, went out into
the free world.