THE WIND OF FREEDOM
The poor old lady died at last, but she did not leave her fortune to be
adminstered by an eminent ichthyologist, badly tainted with democracy
and pacifism. On the contrary, she left it to a board of fifteen
trustees—the usual interlocking directorate. As first grand duke we find
none other than Mr. Timothy Hopkins, son of Senator Stanford’s colleague
in the “Big Four.” Mr. Hopkins is president of a milling company, and
director in a trust company, an ice company, and a telephone and
telegraph company. As second grand duke there is Mr. Frank B. Anderson,
president of the Bank of California, the great Standard Oil institution
of the state. I am told that Mr. Anderson is there to represent the
Morgan interests. He is vice-president of another bank, and director in
three gas and electric companies, and in numerous other great concerns,
including the Spring Valley Water Company, celebrated in the San
Francisco graft prosecutions.
Mr. Bourn, the president of this company, is also on the board; and Mr.
Grant, described to me by a friend who knows him as “an idle
millionaire, the son of an old money grubber”; but he can’t really be so
idle, being vice-president of a gas company and an oil company, chairman
of a power company, director of the Bank of California, another bank, a
trust company, another power company, a gas and electric company,
another gas company, and a steel company. Also there is Mr. Nickel, “who
married forty million dollars,” and is a director of the Bank of
California, president of an irrigation company, a live stock company,
and of the greatest land company in California; also Mr. Newhall, the
son of an old-time auctioneer, a dyed-in-the-wool reactionary,
vice-president of a great land company. In addition to these, there are
three prominent corporation lawyers, two judges, both very conservative,
a banker, an insurance man, and Mr. Herbert Hoover, than whom the
plutocracy has no more faithful servant in these United States. One of
the corporation lawyers, T. T. C. Gregory, is that Captain Gregory who
was Mr. Hoover’s representative in Hungary, and used his control of the
distribution of the relief funds and supplies furnished by the American
people, for the purpose of breaking the revolution of the workers of
Hungary, and bringing into power the infamous Horthy, who drowned the
hopes of the Hungarian workers in a sea of blood. Few blacker deeds have
been committed by American class-greed; but such is the state of our
public opinion, that Captain Gregory came home and boasted of it in a
series of articles in “World’s Work,” and Mr. Hoover stood back of him,
and the Stanford trustees elected him to their exclusive board, and made
him their secretary!
Such are the men in charge of the Stanford millions. David Starr Jordan
has retired, and the great university is governed from the cozy
arm-chairs of the Pacific Union Club of San Francisco. As president they
have appointed a physician, Dr. Wilbur, who learned the Goose-step at
two of the Kaiser’s universities. He aspires to be, like Colonel
Barrows, “a man on horseback.” In the days before America entered the
war some of the students of Stanford were taking military training, and
I am informed by one who was present at the graduating ceremonies that
President Wilbur shook hands with all those who were in uniform, and
refused to shake hands with those who were not in uniform. More
recently, at an alumni reunion, he gave a curious proof of the abject
condition of spirit to which the lackeys of the plutocracy have come. He
was describing how he went to the dock in New York to welcome Herbert
Hoover home from abroad; said President Wilbur: “I saw one of America’s
biggest bankers throw his arms around him, and I said to myself: ‘At
last Stanford has arrived’!” The gentleman who tells me of this
incident, a scholar and a scientist, reports: “He said it in sweet
unconsciousness, and at least half a dozen of my friends turned in my
direction and gave me appreciative glances.”
Stanford was founded for the purpose of giving the young people of
California a free education; that was the basis of its democratic
spirit—but the interlocking trustees have now decided to exclude all
those common people who cannot pay two hundred and twenty-five dollars a
year. So the tone of the place is rapidly altering, and on my recent
visit one member of the senior class remarked to me, “I have seen such a
change in my four years that I’m glad I’m through.” Two years ago a
group of the students wished to start a liberal club for free
discussion. A Chinese student writes me what happened, and I quote from
his letter, leaving his quaint English as it stands, because the fine
spirit of the writer shines through it so very clearly.
Then we received discouraging advices from outsiders, principally from
faculty members. None was willing to encourage us of such study.
Occasionally individuals received discourtesy from their society,
because of being connected to this movement. For instance, I was
dismissed from a position soon after I was found out that I was “an
ardent student of Socialism.” Another illustration, I was short in
finance once. Went to see the Dean of Man to ask for a loan from the
university. Was at first refused this request because I was reported
to that office being “socialistic in belief.” Shortly after, a great
majority of us left Stanford on account of their graduation, the
movement died down gradually.
Now it is starting once more. I have a letter from another student, who
is going to try again, in spite of warning from the older students that
it may result in his not getting his diploma. The motto of Stanford used
to be “the wind of freedom blows”; but this sentiment was expressed in
German, and so a few years ago the trustees dropped it. Of course we
know that talk about “freedom” nowadays is German propaganda, or else
Bolshevik.
In the effort to introduce a little democracy into the faculty,
President Jordan established an Academic Council, which was supposed to
deal with questions suitable to the intelligence of professors. The
educational affairs of the state were in a bad way, and some professors
thought that was a proper subject for their attention. The Progressive
administration of Hiram Johnson had just come into power, and the
academic council adopted a resolution, favoring a commission to
reorganize the educational system of the state. But the interlocking
trustees would not stand for any dealings between their professors and a
state administration which was pledged to put them out of politics.
Grand Duke Timothy Hopkins came hurrying down, and ordered the Academic
Council to withdraw their resolution—which they did. To one of the
professors Mr. Hopkins made the grim statement, “We are coming back;”
meaning thereby that the railroad and other big grafters were going to
take over the government of California again—which they have done.
In her decree concerning the Stanford trust, Mrs. Stanford laid down the
rule, phrased as a request, that no Stanford professor “shall
electioneer among or seek to dominate other professors or the students
for the success of any political party or candidate in any political
contest.” This rule, like all other such rules, is interpreted to mean
that Stanford professors renounce their rights as citizens—when they do
not happen to agree with the politics of the plutocratic trustees. Thus
I note that no one makes any objection when President Wilbur joins with
President Barrows of California in issuing a manifesto to the people of
the state, opposing some of the constitutional amendments now being
submitted to the ballot. Neither do the Stanford authorities object that
Professor “Jimmie” Hyde spends two months campaigning with Mr. Moore,
candidate of the power interests and other reactionary business groups
for the Republican nomination for senator.
I have shown you the University of California regents dominating
politics and finance through the great companies which turn water power
into electricity and distribute it over the state. I have shown you the
University of California helping these power companies to defeat the
bill for the public development and operation of hydro-electric power.
And now we come to Stanford and we find one trustee heavily interested
in power companies, and several others in electric companies, and others
acting as bankers, lawyers and judges for such companies. And what does
Stanford have to say officially on the campaign for this hydro-electric
power bill?
There is in California a “League of Municipalities,” an official
organization of the communities of the state. They hold a convention
once a year; the officials of cities and towns attend as delegates,
and deal with all matters concerning the welfare of their
communities—sanitation, health, paving, taxes, public utilities, etc.
This summer Stanford University extended the hospitality of its
buildings for the sessions of the convention, and of its dormitories
as lodgings for the delegates; but the faculty of the University and
the citizens of Palo Alto learned to their surprise that one of the
sessions of the convention was to be held at the Community House in
the town of Palo Alto, instead of being held in the university hall. I
have a letter from a gentleman who was present as an official guest at
this session, and he explains the mysterious change of location.
At its opening the President, Mayor Louis Bartlett, of Berkeley, said
that the delegates should be informed why this particular session was
being held in a different place from the others, and then proceeded to
read a letter from President Newhall of the Board of Trustees, asking
them to omit the Water and Power Act from their program in the
University buildings, as the university did not wish to be understood
as taking sides, and any action they might take might be interpreted,
incorrectly, as being the action of the university. There appeared to
be no objection to the danger of the university’s being similarly
misunderstood in regard to half a dozen other proposed constitutional
amendments! The stupid officers of the League didn’t take the hint, as
gentlemen should, and drop the offending subject from the program
entirely. They merely called the session meeting in the Community
House in Palo Alto (which has nobly served as an open forum upon other
critical occasions) and there we listened to a vigorous debate all
afternoon, led by Rudolph Spreckels and Francis J. Heney on the one
side and Allison Ware and Eustace Cullinan on the other, at the close
of which a vote was taken which was unanimous for the Water and Power
Act, with the exception of the vote of San Francisco, the most
prominent figure in whose delegation was Supervisor (ex-Mayor) Eugene
Schmitz—with some public corporation corruption record!