THE UNIVERSITY OF WHEAT
The state of North Dakota is small in population, likewise in its
influence in the academic world; but its story is important, because its
people have blazed a path upon which the rest of us are destined to
travel for the next decade. What has happened in North Dakota education
will happen in hundreds of our institutions, and therefore it is
desirable that academic liberals should know the story.
The University of North Dakota is located at Grand Forks. The president
from 1909 to 1913 was Frank L. McVey, who was chairman of a tax
commission in Minnesota, and got in the way of “Jesse James” Hill, and
was shunted off to North Dakota to get rid of him. That he was not a
dangerous radical may be judged from the fact that in 1912 he objected
to three of his professors taking part in the Progressive movement. In
1914 Professor Lewinsohn of the law school resigned his position with a
dignified statement, and the president replied by a letter, in which he
set up the contention that college professors are in the same position
as judges.
The grand duke of the board of regents at this time was Judge N. C.
Young, railroad attorney. Needless to say, Judge Young did not refrain
from politics; on the contrary, he ran the Republican machine of the
state—and incidentally never hesitated to denounce the liberals at his
university. Judge Young’s assistant was Mr. Tracy Bangs, aggressive
attorney for the Northern States Power Company and the Northwestern Bell
Telephone Company. Mr. Bangs defended in a murder case the son of a rich
farmer, and got his client off on a plea of “self-defense,” despite the
fact that the victim, a farm-hand, had been shot in the back. Thereupon,
several hundred of Mr. Bangs’ fellow citizens, including many university
professors, signed a petition to the grand jury, charging him with
jury-bribing and demanding his indictment. One professor, A. J. Ladd,
asked him to resign from the board of trustees while he was under this
indictment. Mr. Bangs did not resign, but he bided his time, and as I
write he is seeing to it that Professor A. J. Ladd is separated from the
university!
In 1915, when the Non-partisan League was started, the university
“opposed it by nature”—so a former professor phrased it to me. One man,
Professor Gillette, consented to speak at the first meeting of the
league, and his life has been one long struggle with the reactionaries
ever since. In 1917 President McVey resigned, and the board hastened to
nominate his successor, before the Non-partisans got in and appointed
Frederick C. Howe! They selected President Kane of the University of
Washington—upon the reputation which he had made for himself by
forgiving the crimes and accepting the chimes of the Seattle “Times.”
A professor at North Dakota, who got to know President Kane very well,
describes him to me in these words: “He has less sense of honor than any
man I ever knew.” It was not long before he had proved his incapacity in
North Dakota, and there was a storm of protest concerning him; by way of
defending himself he set up the claim that the opposition was due to his
refusal to appoint nominees of the Non-partisan League to posts as
teachers. The statement was absurd on the face of it, because all
nominations were made by the heads of departments; but it served to
bring the support of the reactionaries. I am told on good authority that
President Kane made a deal with the I. V. A.—“Independent Voters’
Association,” camouflage for big business—that he was to be retained and
allowed to “swing the axe,” in return for his using the university
influence against the Non-partisan League.
The president had an organization all ready-made, in the fraternities
and sororities; and in 1920, when the faculty petitioned for his
removal, he and his reactionaries went to these groups for support. They
incited a student rebellion—and I find this especially significant, in
view of the insistence of all interlocking trustees and newspapers upon
academic order and authority. What could be more shocking to a believer
in propriety than for college students to organize and try to force the
hands of their superiors? But of course that does not apply in a case
where the sons of bankers and railroad attorneys and public utility
magnates are endeavoring to cripple a political movement of “rubes” and
“hicks” and “hayseeds.”
The active agent in this student rebellion was the wife of an employe of
the Grand Forks “Herald,” whose owner, Mr. Jerry Bacon, represents the
Twin City milling and railroad interests in North Dakota. Mr. Bacon had
fought the movement for faculty control, calling it “sovietism in the
university.” I am told by one of his friends that in this matter of the
student uprising he went up to Minneapolis and got his orders from Louis
Hill, son and heir of “Jesse James.” Whether he got the money from Mr.
Hill I do not know, but I do know that the presses of his newspaper
printed cards, supposed to be voicing the students of the university,
urging the student-body to refuse to attend classes of those professors
who demanded the president’s resignation. A student strike to keep
President Kane in office! It must have been much pleasanter for him than
that other strike, back in Washington, when the students made rhymes
denouncing the crimes and rejecting the chimes of the Seattle “Times”!
Last year, when the “I. V. A.” came into power, the new Governor Nestos
came to the university to deliver the Founders’ Day address, and
revealed the new scheme of his crowd—to “get” the liberal professors on
the issue of religion. In the North Dakota legislature a representative
of the “I. V. A.” had proclaimed the terrible tidings that the state
library was circulating “The Profits of Religion.” He described the
pages referring to the Catholic political machine as “so sacrilegious,
so terrible, that I would not read it in this house or any other place.”
According to the Bismarck “Tribune,” he “called the attention of every
minister in North Dakota to this book”—apparently overlooking the
inconsistency of asking the ministers to read the book, and at the same
time forbidding the state library to furnish it to them!
Now came Governor Nestos, accusing the professors of “undermining the
faith of the students”; and President Kane wrote letters to three of the
liberals, O. G. Libby, A. J. Ladd, and Dean Willis of the Law
School—several pages of virulent abuse, culminating in the announcement
of their dismissal. Under the constitution, this matter should have been
taken up by the dean, and the professors had the right of appeal to the
university council. This council appointed a committee, consisting
exclusively of Kane supporters; nevertheless, after hearing the
evidence, this committee unanimously exonerated the professors, and the
board of administration did the same. The board tried to settle the
matter by requesting both Kane and the professors to resign, but the
railroad attorneys who are now running the university will not permit
that. The struggle is still on, and the outcome uncertain as I write.
One man who has got away tells me how it feels to teach under the
control of big business in North Dakota:
“It means the surrender, not merely of your mind, but of your character;
a man who stands it for two or three years becomes wholly unfit to
influence the young. It has been less than a year since I left, yet I
have had letters from probably twelve men at the university, asking me
to help them to get positions elsewhere!”
Finally, in justice to the liberal professors, I think I should state
that no person now at the university has furnished me any information
about it. Several were asked to do so, and declined.