LITTLE HALLS FOR RADICALS
The touchiest problem with all academic authorities is that of “outside
speakers.” They can handle their own professors; by care in selecting
instructors, and weeding out the undesirables before they get prestige,
they can keep dangerous ideas from creeping into the classrooms. But it
always happens there are half a dozen students who come from Socialist
homes, and these get together and call themselves some society with a
college name, and start inviting labor agitators and literary
self-advertisers, to disturb the dignity and calm of scholarship. This
puts the university administration in a dilemma; they are damned if they
do and damned if they don’t. If they refuse to let the radical
propagandist in, there is a howl that they are repressing freedom of
thought; on the other hand, if they do let him in, who can figure what
millionaire may be led to alter his will?
There is always a little group of disturbers at every large university;
and those at Chicago were moved to invite Upton Sinclair to come to
their campus and repeat his Wisconsin performance. I was not present at
the consultation between the president of the University of Chicago and
his loyal and efficient secretary; but I have been able to imagine the
scene. You understand, there isn’t a particle of prejudice against
radicals, and we have absolute freedom of speech at our university, we
are willing for the students to hear anyone they wish; but we decide
that we had better minimize the trouble by confining this literary
self-advertiser to a small hall, so that students will not announce the
meeting, and the newspapers won’t hear about it, and the wealthy
trustees and donors may not know that it has happened.
But the day before the lecture there is excitement in our president’s
office—Upton Sinclair has arrived in Chicago, and has telephoned asking
for an interview. He comes; and we discover that he has shaved off the
bushy black Bolshevik whiskers in which we had every right to expect to
find him; also he has left off his red necktie, and has adopted a gentle
and seductive smile—you know how cunning these Bolsheviks are! Our
president’s secretary tries to smooth him down—tells him what a great
novelist he is, and how delighted we are to have him speak at our
university, and how, of course, there is no particle of prejudice
against radicals. Then he is taken into the dark Gothic chamber where
our aged president sits by the dim light of arrow-proof windows.
Harry Pratt Judson has been at our university since it was founded
thirty years ago, and is a holder of ten college degrees, and a high
interlocking director in all the Rockefeller foundations for the
guidance of American intellectual life. Also he is the author of a
manual for college presidents entitled: “The Higher Education as a
Training for Business,” a book which deserves to be required reading for
every course in educational administration, a standard guide to the art
of persuading the rich to put up their money for mullioned windows and
crenellated battlements and moated draw-bridges. There has to be
somebody to keep the interlocking directorate aware of the importance of
culture, and Harry Pratt Judson is the boy for this job; showing how a
college education really does pay in dollars and cents, and putting it
in language so simple that the basest pork merchant over at the “yards”
can get the point. Says our President Judson: “Men buy and sell, not
merely for fun, but for profit.” And again: “A reputation for honest
dealing with customers is a valuable asset.” And again: “The habit of
sustained mental application is got only by persistently applying the
mind to work in a systematic way.” Can any one deny these statements? If
so, let him speak, or forever after hold his peace, while we, the
administration of the University of Chicago, assert and declare that our
Harry Pratt Judson is an educated educator and an inspired
inspirationalist.
The Bolshevik author enters the presidential sanctum, still with that
evil seductive smile. He explains that he has spoken to an audience of
two thousand people at the University of Wisconsin, and fears that a
hall seating only two hundred people will not accommodate those who wish
to hear him at Chicago. He understands there is a large auditorium,
Mandel Hall, which seats thirteen hundred——
“Ah, yes,” says our president, with that urbanity which distinguishes
him, “but we are accustomed to reserve Mandel Hall for speakers who are
invited by the university.”
“Well,” says the Bolshevik author—could anyone imagine the impudence?—“I
should be perfectly willing to be invited by the university.”
“I’m afraid that could hardly be arranged,” says our president, as
sweetly as ever. “Of course, Mr. Sinclair, you understand that we are
quite willing for our students to listen to anyone’s ideas; we have
absolute freedom of speech at this university, but we have our
established traditions regarding the use of our halls, and you could not
expect us to make an exception in your case.”
“Well,” says the Bolshevik author, “it would seem, President Judson,
that your idea of freedom of speech is that the radicals have a small
hall and the conservatives a large hall.”
But even that does not cause our president to waver in his urbanity. He
is an old and wise man, accustomed to handling many crude people—you
cannot imagine the things he has had said to him by pork merchants! He
smiles his gentle, rebuking smile, and says: “You must admit, Mr.
Sinclair, it would be better for you to have a hall that is too small
than to have one that is too large.”
To this the fellow answers that he is willing to take the risk. So our
president sees there is nothing to be gained by prolonging the
discussion, and tells him in plain words that the hall which has been
assigned him is the only hall he can have.
The Bolshevik author goes out, and doubtless would like to denounce us
in the newspapers, but our interlocking trustees have seen to that—they
own all the newspapers in Chicago, and Upton Sinclair stays in the city
a week, and not one pays any attention to his presence. More than that,
we have got things so arranged all over the United States that Upton
Sinclair can spend three months traveling over the country, stopping at
twenty-five cities, and in all that time have only two newspaper
reporters come to ask him for an interview!
However, we know that he is a dangerous customer, and we watch with some
trepidation to see what he will do. On the evening of the lecture we go
to the hall, and fifteen minutes before the time set we find a state of
affairs—truly, we don’t know whether to be amused or irritated. We can’t
think how the students managed to hear about this unadvertised lecture,
and it is a distressing thing to see so many young people with a craving
for unwholesome sensation. They have packed the little hall; the aisles
are solid with them; they are hanging from our mullioned windows, and
blocking all the corridors outside the many doors. And all the time more
of them coming!
The Bolshevik author arrives, accompanied by two or three professors. We
have always said that these “reds” ought to be kicked off the faculty,
and now we see the consequences of tolerating them! The author shoves
his way to the platform, and—we tremble with indignation even now as we
recall his proceedings—he tells the students about his interview with
our august president, and states plainly that he thinks we have
discriminated against him because he is a radical. He asserts, on the
authority of several students, that no difficulty has ever before been
raised about giving Mandel Hall for speakers invited by students; also
he mentions that the university has barred Raymond Robins and
Rabindranath Tagore. And we note that a large percentage of the audience
laugh and applaud, as if they thought such fellows ought to be heard! He
goes on to say that outside is a beautiful warm spring evening, and a
quadrangle with soft green grass, and thick Gothic walls to shelter it
from the wind. If they will go outside and squat, he will come and talk
to them, and there will be plenty of room for everyone who wishes to
hear his self-laudations.
The students laugh and cheer—what can you expect of young people, who
have little sense of dignity, and think this is a lark? They troop
outside, and more come running up from all directions. Never in the
thirty years of our university has there been such a violation of
propriety. For an hour the man delivers a rankly socialistic harangue to
fifteen hundred students, and when he tries to stop, they clamor for him
to go on, they crowd about and ask him questions, and he is kept talking
until eleven o’clock at night, telling our young men and women about
strikes and graft—all the most dangerous ideas, which we have been
working so hard to keep away from them! Even things right here in
Chicago—the fact that our biggest newspapers have their buildings upon
land which they have stolen from the city schools; the fact that our
school-board has been stealing several millions of dollars of the
people’s money, while a clerk of our city jail has got away with three
thousand dollars belonging to his prisoners!
However, we are happy to say that some of our students resisted these
Bolshevik blandishments, and gave proof of the principles we have
instilled into them. We have a university paper called the “Daily
Maroon,” which the radicals impudently dub the “Moron.” This paper next
day had a report of the meeting, and it certainly was delightful the way
they gave it to the oratorical author: “His talk was a more or less
skilful combination of a frenzied street corner gathering (to be sure,
there was no soap-box), and a lecture in Political Economy on capital
and labor and the feudal system. All the old platitudes used for the
last decade in liberal workmen’s papers were repeated.” You will not
fail to appreciate the gentlemanly tone of that rebuke; and then, this
most cruel cut of all: “One is tempted, too, to wonder what kind of
novels Mr. Sinclair writes; if they are as full of mistakes in grammar
as his address last night, his publishers must be gray around the
temples.” Reading the above, we were so much pleased that we sent marked
copies to all the directors of the Standard Oil Company and the packers,
so that our friends might have proof that the better classes of our
students do not read socialistic books.
That was the end of the incident, except for a trick which the wretched
Bolshevik played upon us. Would you believe it, he wasn’t cowed by the
rebuke of the “Daily Maroon,” but actually tried to seduce our student
body next afternoon by engaging in a tennis match with the champion of
our university. Our champion beat him, though by an effort so mighty
that it split his pants. But all the time the author was being beaten,
he kept up a hypocritical pretense of good nature, intending thereby to
win the regard of our young and unsophisticated undergraduates. In this
purpose we are sorry to say he seemed to be successful, for next day the
“Daily Maroon” appeared with a grave editorial, in which it took back at
least a portion of the previous day’s well-deserved rebuke:
Upton Sinclair plays tennis more pleasingly than he talks or writes.
Although he lost two sets to Captain Frankenstein yesterday afternoon,
he did it with a grace that does not characterize his books and
speeches. He played and lost like a sportsman. He gave no evident sign
of petty displeasure at being defeated. One admires manliness, and one
finds far more of it in witnessing Mr. Sinclair on the tennis court
than in reading one of his tearful harangues of the yellow press
which, he declares, has hounded him, and suppressed his thoughts.
All we can say about that is, how fortunate that so few Bolsheviks take
part in athletics!