THE UNIVERSITY OF STANDARD OIL
Providence arranged it that soon after the University of Chicago was
built, the oil king’s digestion gave out, and he retired to the country
to live on graham crackers and milk and play golf all day. The job of
turning his two hundred million dollars into two billions was left to
his efficient subordinates, and they were not so much interested in the
old man’s advertising ventures, so that the university was left to run
itself. Veblen describes its spirit as “a ravenous megalomania.” For
years President Harper followed the plan of buying everything he wanted,
and sending the bill to John D. But that was stopped, and now the
running of the university is seen to by the usual board of interlocking
directors, mostly elderly Baptists. They have had in past times some
first-rate scientists; what they have now is a faculty of aged dotards,
who set the tone of the place, and the young men try to act dotards to
the best of their ability.
They are sensitive on the subject of petroleum at the university; they
blush at mention of the word, and do not admit the conventional
book-plates showing the lamp of knowledge. Some time ago a wag composed
a “doxology” for use by the students, and the young radicals have fun
with this—
Praise God from whom oil blessings flow,
Praise him, oil creatures here below,
Praise him above, ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son—but John the most.
I met one professor at the University of Chicago who insisted that
teaching was entirely free. He added, with some asperity: “Of course you
will do the Bemis story! We shall never hear the end of the Bemis
story.”
“Too bad!” I said, sympathetically. “I haven’t heard that story; what is
it?”
“Just a piece of slander,” said the professor. “I know positively that
the case of Bemis was not a case of academic freedom at all, and he
himself admits it.”
That was something definite. I ascertained that Edward W. Bemis is an
economist and engineer, with offices in Chicago and New York, so I wrote
and asked him about the matter. I quote his letter, and leave it for you
to form your own judgment:
I was called from Vanderbilt University to the University of Chicago
to the chair of Associate Professor of Economics and Sociology, at the
opening of the University of Chicago in October, 1892. In March, 1895,
President Harper informed me that the trustees had dropped me from the
faculty the previous December, to take effect in July, 1895. He
informed me then and in subsequent conversations that my attitude on
public utility and labor questions was the cause, and that if he cared
to talk about the reasons for my dismissal, I could not secure any
other college position in the country.
A great deal was made of the matter in the newspapers all over this
country, under the heading of College Freedom, and many papers took it
up. I did teach after that, for two years, 1897-9, in the Kansas State
Agricultural College, but, finding no openings in the larger
universities, I turned my attention exclusively to the investigation
of public utility questions, and to assisting states, cities and
commissions in such matters. I found a congenial field as head of the
Cleveland, Ohio, Water Department, under Tom L. Johnson, from
September, 1901, to 1910, and have since then spent my strength on
building up an organization of engineers and accountants devoted to
assisting cities and states and other public bodies, including the
national government, in appraisals and rate adjustments of public
utilities.
I received no calls for teaching, save as above mentioned, since I was
forced out of the University of Chicago, and for over twenty years
have sought none. I have never been a Socialist, or an extremist along
any line, but have investigated and to some degree favored public
ownership of public utilities, and have had a friendly relation with
the American labor movement.
My opposition to the efforts of certain Chicago utilities to secure
lighting and street railway franchises, while I was at the University
of Chicago, and the public address which I made during the famous
Pullman strike in 1894, wherein I did not endorse the strike but did
say that the railroads had often boycotted each other, violated law,
etc., as well as had the men, were features assigned by President
Harper for the opposition to me, resulting in my dismissal by the
trustees of the university.
A professor at the University of Chicago who read this manuscript
volunteered to get for me the university’s side of the story, and he
wrote me:
At the time of his “dismissal” Bemis was in the extension division.
His appointment ran out and he was offered re-appointment, his
remuneration to come from the fees of students. This action might, of
course, be described in Mr. Bemis’ phrase, “dropped me from the
faculty.”
I submitted that statement to Professor Bemis, who answered by wire:
My letter which you quote is absolutely correct. No proposition for
continuance of my work, half of which was to advanced students within
the university walls, was ever made to me.
Another of the casualties of Mr. Rockefeller’s university was Professor
Triggs, as I have told in “The Brass Check,” and I gather they were not
sorry when Veblen moved West. I was told that one professor had recently
been “on the carpet for excess of radical zeal,” and I wrote to ask him
if this was true. He answered that the trouble he had got into was for
being away too much. Said he: “I have never known of anyone at Chicago
being interfered with in any way ‘for excess of radical zeal.’ To be
sure, no such excess exists.” Which I find a charming reply!
To the same effect is the testimony of John C. Kennedy, formerly a
professor at the University of Chicago. Questioned by Chairman Walsh of
the Industrial Relations Commission, Professor Kennedy stated concerning
the faculty: “A sincere desire to deal with fundamental conditions does
not seem to be there in most cases.... I think they are a poor crowd
among which to look for leaders to bring about any fundamental change in
social conditions.” The reason for Professor Kennedy’s discontent was
that he had been engaged by the University of Chicago Settlement to make
a survey of labor and living conditions among the Stockyards workers. He
had prepared an elaborate and thoroughly documented report, which
several of the packers found satisfactory; but Swift & Company—which has
a member of the firm on the board of the University of Chicago—objected
that Professor Kennedy had drawn “political conclusions” from his data;
that is, he had suggested a remedy for the evil conditions in the
Stockyards, for the workers to organize to protect themselves! These
portions of the report were cut out before it was published, and the
whole matter was hushed up, both by the university authorities and by
the newspapers of the interlocking directorate in Chicago.
They have one “renommir professor” at Chicago, and are very proud of
him. I don’t think I exaggerate in saying that out of the score of
faculty members I talked with on the subject of academic freedom, not
one failed to mention Robert Morss Lovett as the university’s
certificate of emancipation from Standard Oil. Out of the warmth of his
big heart Professor Lovett gives his help to Hindoo revolutionists
thrown into jail, and to Russian sweat-shop workers clubbed over the
head by the police. I asked him to read this manuscript, and he tells me
that he thinks I am too severe upon the university. He wonders what I
will have to say about places like Minnesota and Illinois, which are so
much worse. To avoid misunderstanding, let me state that I have not been
able to find a single one of the great American universities which is
truly liberal or truly free; but there are degrees of badness among
them, and the University of Chicago is one of the best. I have no desire
to deny it due credit, therefore I note Professor Lovett’s comment—that
during the early days of the university President Harper stood for
liberalism in religion, and thereby lost much Baptist money; also that
the university made an enviable record during the war, in that there was
no interference with the private views of any professor on this
question.
Shortly after the war there developed a strong movement to refuse
diplomas to about a dozen of the students who were accused of radical
activities, but this movement was defeated at the last minute. I talked
with several of these students, and with others who are now struggling
to defend ideas of social justice at the university. They had a little
paper, called “Chanticleer,” and were so indiscreet as to reprint an
article from the Seattle “Union Record” praising the paper. So the
student daily hailed them as the “boy Bolsheviks” of the university, and
both students and professors joined in a campaign of ridicule and
sneering. The climax came with the fourth issue, containing an article
by Clarence Darrow; not twenty students could be found to distribute
this. Among the most active in attacking the little paper was a dean who
has just died; he never lost an opportunity to denounce the radicals,
and gave no scholarships or honors to such. I am presenting in this book
many cases of college professors “let out” for speaking intemperately
about conservatives; I am wondering if anyone will answer me by telling
of a single professor “let out” from an American college for speaking
intemperately about radicals!
I talked with another professor at Chicago, who does not want his name
used. I asked him what he thought about the status of his profession,
and he gave the best description of academic freedom in America that I
have yet come upon. He said: “We are good cows; we stand quietly in our
stanchions, and give down our milk at regular hours. We are free,
because we have no desire to do anything but what we are told we ought
to do. And we die of premature senility.”
They have another professor at the University of Chicago who is not
entirely satisfied with America as it is, and that is Robert Herrick,
the novelist. He expressed the fear that I might try to write the same
kind of book as “The Brass Check”; that is, to show direct pressure of
financial interests upon college professors—whereas the way it is done
is by class feeling, by the tradition of academic dignity, the prestige
of old and established things, “the tone of the house.” I took the
liberty of telling Professor Herrick of a few cases I had collected, and
he admitted that he had had no idea there were things like that going
on.
Robert Herrick would, of course, never fail in urbanity and
graciousness; but fundamentally, I think he is more pessimistic about
American education than I am. He said: “Universities can’t get money
except by getting great numbers of students; so they dare not set any
higher standards than rival institutions in the same neighborhood. So
the American soul stays flabby; all that counts is show, and in every
department you get by with superficiality. It is a lunch-counter system
of education; read a novel and get a credit; then go out into the world,
and use your college prestige to make a fortune; and then give your name
to a college building. We do absolutely nothing for men and women who
come to college, in the way of giving them true culture, higher
standards of thought or conduct. I go to any university club and look
over the alumni, and I see that we have given them no distinction—in
dress, in speech, in morals, in ideas. You cannot tell them from the
bathtub salesmen or the agents of barbers’ supplies you meet in the
lobby of the Blackstone Hotel.”
The above is from a man who has been teaching for twenty-nine years at
the University of Chicago; and you may compare it with the pungent
remark of Professor Cattell, who was a teacher for twenty-six years at
Columbia: “The average university club in America could more easily
dispense with its library than with its bar.”