THE PRICE OF LIBERTY
The University of Wisconsin has the reputation of being the most liberal
institution of higher education in the United States, and on the whole I
think the reputation is deserved. I have shown what a struggle it took
to introduce one little impulse of new thinking into the place; and you
must realize that every mite of freedom has been won by the same
struggle, and the maintaining of it depends upon somebody’s willingness
to be disagreeable. I talked with one professor, who is known throughout
the United States as a writer and lecturer, not a Socialist, but a
tireless advocate of social justice. This man has won, and he holds
grimly the right to have his own say and his own way. He assigns to his
graduate students “The Brass Check” as required reading, and as their
thesis they make a study of some capitalist newspaper in its handling of
half a dozen crucial public issues, such as the steel strike and Mexican
intervention.
The rub comes when the professor goes outside and lectures to city clubs
and chambers of commerce, and gets into the newspapers in favor of the
recognition of Soviet Russia. Then all the reactionaries in the state
clamor for his scalp. He said to me: “They say a fox learns to enjoy
being chased, and in the same way I have had to learn to enjoy
outmatching my enemies. I feel that I am being stalked by a band of
thugs; I have to set out deliberately and consciously to build up my
prestige throughout the state, to keep myself in the public mind, so
that my enemies won’t dare go beyond abusing me. Manifestly, that means
that academic freedom is only for the man who has a tough skin and can
be happy in a fight. The young man, also the weak man, is helpless; if
he tries to tell the truth about anything, he’ll have to go out and
write life insurance for a living.”
Such is the judgment, after nearly two decades’ experience, of one of
America’s freest college professors, in America’s freest university.
That many men should fail in such a test is inevitable. There is another
professor in the university, an elderly man, who began his career as a
Socialist of the academic type; he is the author of standard books on
Socialism, and all through the years when he made his reputation he
recognized the unearned increment of land as a grave form of social
injustice. He has now changed his views, and has become the tamest of
conservatives, a pitiable figure. It happened recently that a friend of
mine was in his office, and discovered an economic basis for this
transformation. Some one wanted to buy some lots from the old professor;
and the price was two thousand dollars each, he said. He listened to
some protest of the would-be purchaser; then he said: “I know; the price
was eighteen hundred a couple of weeks ago, but it has now gone up.”
He hung up the receiver, and blandly explained to my friend that he was
the fortunate possessor of a tongue of land between two lakes which
blocked the development of the city of Madison, and real estate values
were increasing there very rapidly! To a student of my acquaintance this
old gentleman recently made the statement that “one who talks about
unearned increment shows by that very act that he has not brains enough
to be a graduate student.” It is interesting to note that when the
President of the United States was appointing a commission to settle an
important public question, it was this man he selected to represent the
economists of the United States.
They had their war hysteria in Wisconsin, as everywhere. Senator
LaFollette made a speech in which he said we had “a grievance” against
the German Government, and the Associated Press took out the word “a”
and substituted the word “no”—such a little lie, but it caused the whole
country to shriek for LaFollette’s blood. A petition for his expulsion
from the senate was circulated among the university faculty—the same
thing the German reactionaries did with their university professors at
the outbreak of the war. It is not recorded how many professors in
Germany refused to sign; but there were six courageous men at Wisconsin.
One of these was Professor Kahlenberg, whose father refused military
service in Germany. Professor Kahlenberg lost the leadership of the
chemistry department, and most of his worthwhile courses, and has not
yet regained them.
Also, there was George F. Comings, a lecturer in the Extension
Department, who after the war advocated an amnesty resolution at a
meeting of the American Association of Equity, a farmers’ organization.
The resolution was laid on the table; letters of protest were written to
the board of regents, and the lecturer was summoned to appear before the
regents to submit to a rebuke. He refused to appear, and was dismissed,
and became candidate for lieutenant-governor of the LaFollette party,
receiving the largest majority of any candidate on the ticket. When Kate
Richards O’Hare was refused permission to speak in a university hall,
Lieutenant-Governor Comings introduced her, and defended her from
organized rowdies, at a meeting in the assembly chamber of the state
capitol. He presided at a dinner of the Federated Press, at which I
spoke in Madison, and presented a resolution in favor of free speech. It
is interesting to note that while he was in the university his most
ardent opponent was a very wealthy dean, who is interested in several
banks and a power company, and sells stock to the other professors.
Some thirty years ago, during a controversy over academic freedom, the
board of regents of Wisconsin adopted a resolution, as follows:
“Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we
believe that the great State University of Wisconsin should ever
encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which
alone the truth can be found.” A tablet containing this statement was
presented by the class of 1910, but it was hidden in the cellar, covered
with dust for many years, because the regents refused to allow it to be
placed upon the building. It is now in place on Bascom Hall; and during
the controversy over my address, the regents reaffirmed this motto as
the policy of the board. But they refused to permit a committee of
students and the faculty to determine what speakers should be heard. It
appears that their understanding of freedom is the ancient one of
freedom for those who rule.
I have referred to the fate of the weaker and the younger members of the
faculty. Let me tell you one story; I do it with much hesitation,
because the man who told it to me begged me not to repeat it, and I can
only do so by taking care to give no hint of his identity. Suffice it to
say that he is a young instructor, a self-made and self-taught man, who
has worked his way up from bitter poverty in the face of severe physical
handicaps. Life has meant continual suffering to him, but he is one of
those natures which manage to use their trials as a means of
self-discipline. He is one of the gentlest and sweetest natures it has
ever been my fortune to meet. I wish he were a bold man and a fighter,
but it happens to be the essence of his nature to shrink from strife and
notoriety.
I introduce to you another gentleman, who loves attention, and does not
hesitate to thrust himself forward—the Honorable David Jayne Hill,
ex-president of Rochester University and ex-ambassador to Germany; a
public personage of wealth and reactionary views, who founded an
organization, the National Association for Constitutional Government,
for the purpose of distributing his convictions to the people of the
United States. The National Association for Constitutional Government,
with David Jayne Hill as president, mailed out to all educators in the
United States a pamphlet by David Jayne Hill, setting forth the
importance of preserving those features in the constitution of the
United States which enable the rich to become richer and compel the poor
to become poorer. Along with the pamphlet went a personal letter,
inviting the recipient to express his opinion of the views set forth in
the pamphlet, and stating, among other things, that the pamphlet was not
circulated for propaganda purposes, but purely to ascertain the views of
others upon the question.
The young instructor received a copy of this letter; his opinion was
asked for, and he gave it; he said that he thought the views expressed
in the pamphlet were wrong, and he added: “When you state that you are
not circulating it for propaganda purposes, I must say plainly that I
think you are lying.”
Let me point out that the young instructor did not rush to the
newspapers with this opinion; he wrote it in a private letter, at
request. He was specifically invited to say frankly what he thought, and
he said frankly what he thought, to the organization which asked his
opinion and no one else.
But, of course, he had insulted one of the great moguls of the
plutocracy; he had committed lese majesté in its grossest form. It is
easy to imagine what happened; the huffy mogul sent the letter to some
mogul regent, or perhaps to a mogul administrator, and before many days
the young instructor was summoned to appear before his mogul dean. Maybe
you imagine that the dean pointed out in a friendly way that the
youngster had been injudicious in using a short and ugly word, and ought
to use longer words while he was connected with a state university. If
that is what you imagine, you know very little about universities.
What actually happened was something I had to drag from the young man by
half an hour of tactful questioning. It was evident that the experience
had been a cruel one; he did not want to think about it, he could not
speak about it without his hands trembling, and his voice also. He had
been stormed at and denounced, he had been told that he was a fool and a
puppy, and that he should there and then take his pen in hand and write
an abject apology to the great mogul he had so insulted. And here was a
young man trying to exist upon the pitiful salary of a university
instructor, and with a young wife expecting a baby. He demanded
twenty-four hours to think it over, and he went away and wrestled it out
with himself. He wrote the letter, and since that time has retired into
his own shell; he never thinks about public questions, he writes no
letters to anyone, he hardly even reads a newspaper, but lives and
labors in a little specialty, where he hopes to make some contribution
to human knowledge. Meantime, the dean who did this thing is one of the
most prominent and powerful persons in the university, in charge of the
moral destinies of several thousand future citizens of the state of
Wisconsin. And that is what “academic freedom” means in America’s freest
university!