THE UNIVERSITY OF THE GRAND DUCHESS
We take the Illinois Central Railroad, with its Columbia trustee, a
recent University of Chicago trustee, a Knox College and a Rockford
College trustee, and an Armour Institute trustee, and one First
National, one Guaranty Trust, and two National City Bank directors, and
find ourselves in the town of Urbana, where the state university is
located. Here is another of these terrible mushroom places, with a
thousand instructors, and ten thousand students exposed to all the
ravages of commercialism. I first heard of this university after the
publication of “The Jungle,” when the Chicago packers flew to their
interlocking regents for protection, and a committee of the university
faculty was appointed to inspect the stockyards and report that
everything was all right. In return for this, Mr. Armour gave some money
for a veterinary college, and Mr. Armour’s partner, Arthur Meeker, was
made a regent, and his portrait now hangs in the Sanhedrim where the
interlocking regents meet.
This University of Illinois has made itself conspicuous in the
glorification of trade; they have a whole college devoted thereto, with
an especially large building, and ten years ago they had a solemn
ceremonial in which they dedicated this temple to Mammon. The affair was
known as a “Conference on Commercial Education and Business Progress,”
and doubtless it caused great progress in the business of getting
contributions from the plutocracy and its politicians. It lasted two
days, and was addressed by such dignitaries as the president of the
Chamber of Commerce of the United States, the president of the Chicago
Association of Commerce, the dean of the College of Commerce and
Administration of the University of Chicago, and the President of the
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, who was, and still is,
chief operating engineer of Edison Electric. There was an invocation to
the God of Commerce by the Reverend President of Knox College, and an
address by the President of the Illinois Bankers’ Association, who
opened the Hall of Fame of the University by presenting a portrait of a
lately deceased banker; then there was a prayer of dedication to the God
of Bankers by the Reverend President McClelland; and on the evening of
the last day there was a banquet tendered by the Commercial Club of
Urbana, with all the big business potentates above-mentioned listed as
“honored guests,” and preceded by an invocation to the God of
Gastronomy.
The university traditions thus established have been reverently
cherished. In 1916 the college put on three lectures, under the auspices
of the Chicago Board of Trade, dealing with the art of gambling in the
staff of your life and mine. A gentleman living in Urbana writes me:
These lectures were illustrated by lantern slides, conspicuous among
which was one giving the signals used on the Board of Trade in the
rapid gambling when the Board is in session. This was minutely dwelt
upon and the manual code of signs fully explained. After the close of
the lecture I went to a fine old professorial acquaintance. I said: “I
know now where my children are taught grain-gambling. If they are to
be gamblers I want them to be first-class gamblers. Where do you teach
poker, baccarat and other games?” He said: “Upon my word, I never knew
any such thing was carried on by the University of Illinois.” He
appeared much disconcerted, blushing greatly.
Needless to say, such an institution is profoundly and reverently
religious. It is at this place that the various sects have been able to
get credits for their teachings. The laws of the state prohibit
religious instruction in public institutions; nevertheless, you can go
to the University of Illinois and study in the Bible classes of the
Baptists, or the Methodists, or the Lutherans, or the Campbellites, or
the Seventh Day Adventists—and some day, no doubt, the Holy Rollers; you
may learn about how Jonah swallowed the whale, and how David killed Cock
Robin with his little bow and arrow; and as a reward for these labors
you may receive a university degree—having just as much cultural
significance as if it were conferred by the king of Dahomey.
I visited Urbana, and took occasion to inspect a file of the student
paper, “The Daily Illini.” A Jewish student had written to this paper a
polite and respectful letter, suggesting that the university authorities
should open the libraries and tennis courts on Sunday, for the benefit
of such as might care to make use of them. The reply was a letter from
the “dean of men,” a piece of insolent rudeness. With elaborate sneering
he informed the heathen student that he lived in a Christian community,
and must make up his mind that this community intended “to preserve the
Christian traditions.”
Of course, there would be no use talking about a little thing like the
constitution of the United States to so mighty a person as a dean of men
in a state university. Nevertheless, I mention in passing that our
forefathers put into the constitution a provision that “Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion”; and this,
according to decisions of the Supreme Court, means state legislatures
and all bodies deriving their authority therefrom, including regents of
state universities and their presidents and deans. Perhaps it will be
more to the point if I quote the second letter of the Jewish student,
who suggested that the dean of men should investigate how students
really pass their Sunday afternoons and evenings at Illinois: “Shooting
craps in the privacy of one’s room, playing cards amidst dense clouds of
smoke, or shimmying to the strains of some horrible piece of canned
jazz.”
The board of this university is distinguished in that it has a grand
duchess, who makes her home in Urbana, and runs both the university and
the town. She is Mrs. Mary E. Busey, wife of a former Democratic
congressman; she is president of the Busey National Bank, and a large
landowner, and in the year 1913, while a regent, she sold a tract of
land to the university for $160,000 or $1,000 per acre, while land
adjoining the tract was purchased for $600 per acre. Mrs. Busey herself
attended these meetings and voted for this purchase from herself.
(Attention Professor Brander Matthews of Columbia University!)
For president of her university Mrs. Busey selected an aged and
venerable product of the university’s own regime, who began his career
twenty-eight years ago as director of the School of Commerce. He is
David Kinley, locally known as “King David.” I am told by several who
have been his victims that he never fails to question an applicant for a
position as to whether he is a Socialist. “This is no time for
disloyalty,” he says; nor will it ever be such a time while King David
reigns.
Before the war the university was not so careful, and agitators and
disturbers of the academic peace crept in. There was one young member of
the faculty who had acquired at the University of Oxford the evil habit
of going without his hat, and in October, 1917, the dean of the Graduate
School delivered an address to the graduate students, formally
condemning this practice. Other members of the faculty were seen to be
smoking on the street—whereas we have learned from the Jewish student
that university smoking is done only at poker and jazz parties. Another
member was reported to the president by the dean of the college, on the
charge of having accepted an invitation to speak on the topic,
“Philosophical Reasons for the Non-existence of God.” Fortunately, he
was able to prove that he had not accepted such an invitation; also that
he had not received it.
Another member of the faculty received an elaborate letter from the head
of the sociological department, reporting several evil remarks he was
said to have made to other professors, regarding his having taken some
whiskey with him on a camping trip, and other such matters. This
professor was placed on trial before his dean, and was acquitted of the
evil remarks. Later there were dreadful allegations concerning members
of the faculty having been seen to be drinking at a supper-party at the
country club. All the servants of the club were interviewed by a faculty
committee, and denied the charges, and the agitation died down.
Nevertheless, the activities of the scandal bureau continued, and the
grand duchess became fearfully wrought up. Another investigation was
conducted, this time by secret service agents of the United States
government. Five professors were summoned, one of them a lady, Miss
Shepherd, and she was told that she was “a rank, rotten, vicious
Socialist and Anarchist.” Mrs. Busey was terribly upset, and wrung her
hands, exclaiming, “To think that members of my faculty should behave in
this way!” “My faculty?” questioned Professor Tolman. “Do you mean to
say we are your hired servants?” “Well,” replied Mrs. Busey, “you are in
my employ!” This was one of the incidents I mentioned to Professor
Robert Herrick, who lives in his ivory tower at the University of
Chicago, only a hundred miles away, and thinks that college professors
are controlled by “the tone of the house,” and never get direct orders
from the plutocracy!
The upshot of the matter was a formal trial before the interlocking
regents, with the dean of the Graduate School presiding. A great array
of witnesses were summoned, and several of the victims described the
scene to me. The affair was carried through with the utmost solemnity;
the master of ceremonies would enter and announce: “Two witnesses wait
without.” The two witnesses would be led in, and questioned as to what
evil things they knew about the radical professors. One old lady, wife
of a high-up faculty-member, had a dreadful charge: “Well, they sit next
us in the Faculty Club, and it’s very unpleasant; Mr. Stevens laughs a
great deal!”
The ceremonies lasted from ten o’clock in the morning until ten o’clock
at night, and every now and then the accused professors would demand a
chance to cross-question this or that witness, and they would be told:
“Wait; you will have your chance.” Witness after witness testified as to
their political and religious beliefs, but they themselves were given no
chance to be heard, neither were they permitted to call any witnesses
for their side. Late at night the proceedings were adjourned, and the
chance they had been promised was never given.
Even with this one-sided procedure, nothing wrong could be found with
them, and the report of the regents exonerated them completely.
Nevertheless, two of them were let out at the end of the year, and a
third, Professor Richard C. Tolman, resigned. It is amusing to note that
the charge against him had been disloyalty to his government, and as
soon as he quit the university he was taken by his government into its
most difficult and confidential service—the Department of Chemical
Warfare! Apparently he gave satisfaction, for his government made him a
major, and later on put him in charge of nitrogen fixation work.