THE LARGE MUSHROOMS
America is half a continent, and its wealth is enormous, and there is a
constantly increasing swarm of young people who want the social prestige
which a college education gives. They have an opportunity to treat
themselves to four years of pleasant idleness on papa’s money, and they
avail themselves of that opportunity. So all over the country spring up
mushroom universities, swelling to unwieldy size, and making frantic
efforts to accumulate traditions and reputation. We have visited a dozen
of the great state universities, following our route along the Northern
tier of states. To complete our survey we should also visit the prairie
country, and see what this plutocracy of railroads and banks is doing to
its young people.
Let us begin with the University of Nebraska, the dominant institution
of the prairie country. This place contents itself with a small board of
the big insiders—Mr. Hall, president of one of the largest banks in the
state; Mr. Seymour, a banker of Elgin, and Mr. Landis, a banker of
Seward; Mr. Judson, the largest retail merchant of Omaha, and Mr. Bates,
wealthy rancher and insurance man. All of these gentlemen know money;
they know nothing whatever about education, yet they guide the thinking
of some eight thousand students. A study of promotions and salaries
reveals the usual fact, that instructors who deal with commercial
subjects have been advanced far beyond those whose humble task is the
improving of the students’ minds.
I am told of one professor who has been twenty years in the place, and
who is a liberal, though in no sense a Socialist. Being a staunch
believer in democratic institutions, he has criticized the
anti-democratic elements in the university, and has been called into
“conference” by those in control, and had the law laid down to him
concerning his teachings. He has been held back upon what amounts to a
starvation salary. Being an elderly man, he cannot make a change.
Another, a professor of economics, a widely-known authority on matters
of taxation, was appointed on a commission to study the revenue system
of the state. He proved his competence so thoroughly that he was invited
by the state legislature to appear before its committee on revenue and
taxation, and give them the benefit of his knowledge. One of this man’s
colleagues describes to me what happened:
Back-stair influences were instantly mobilized. The professor was
called into conference and warned not to meet with the committee,
because it was not advisable for an instructor of the university to
become involved in political questions. The professor insisted that he
ought to give a law-making body the benefit of his own information.
Suffice it to say, the professor never met with the committee, because
it was hinted to him that dire consequences might follow. This man
also is on a starvation salary.
Equally significant was the case of the gentleman who had charge of the
dairy department of the University of Nebraska. The dairy business of
Lincoln and vicinity is in the hands of a grasping corporation, which
flagrantly adulterates its products; so the head of the dairy department
conceived the idea of distributing the products of the College of
Agriculture at a price much below that charged by the corporation. The
dairy products of the university being genuine, there was great demand
for them, and as my informant tells me, “the upshot of the competition
on the part of the university led to a fight on the man who had charge
of the dairy department, and ultimately resulted in his dismissal.”
I explained my purpose to deal with “war cases” in this book, only when
the war was used as a pretext to get rid of liberals. There was a series
of such cases at the University of Nebraska in 1918. Several professors
were dismissed, but the records of the trial plainly show that they were
dismissed because of economic unorthodoxy. One taught mathematics, and
stated to the board of regents that he had not considered it his
business to teach his students about the war. We have noted many cases
of college professors being told that it is their duty to teach their
specialty, and not meddle in public questions; now again we note that
this rule applies only when they are advocating measures contrary to the
interests of the plutocracy. When the plutocracy wants to go to war,
then all professors have to teach war—even those who are supposed to be
teaching mathematics!
An interesting demonstration of the policy of depriving college
professors of their citizenship has just been given at the University of
Oklahoma. Here is a state of oil speculators and starving tenant
farmers. One of the products of their degradation is the squalid frenzy
known as the Ku Klux Klan; and the board of regents has just issued a
decree, declaring that the university must “keep the good-will of all
factions and parties,” and therefore members of the faculty are
forbidden to take part in the controversy over the Klan. What this means
is that they are forbidden to oppose it; I am told on good authority
that the president of this board is a member of the Klan, as also the
vice-president of the university, and about two-thirds of the faculty!
The same decree forbids members of the faculty to take part in politics;
but this does not interfere with five out of seven members of the board
of regents being actively engaged in putting down the Farmer-Labor party
by every means of intimidation and corruption.
Next let us glance at the University of Iowa, which has nearly six
thousand students, and is controlled by the railroads which run this
“rock-ribbed” Republican state. A member of the faculty writes me that
its president is “politically a Harding Republican, and personally he
has no curiosity about or sympathy with liberal thought of any kind. His
attitude toward freedom of teaching in his faculty is a purely pragmatic
one. Since his main job is to get funds from the state legislature, he
does not propose to allow the ‘indiscretions’ of a professor to damage
the cause of the university there. In other words, a professor can say
anything he wants to in the class-room, if his students don’t talk too
much and thus arouse sentiment in the state unfriendly to the
university. An ‘injudicious’ remark might cost the university a
half-million dollars in much needed appropriations.” An excellent motto
for this state of Iowa has been composed by Ellis Parker Butler, as
follows:
“Three millions yearly for manure,
And not one cent for literature.”
Or take Ohio State University, with nine thousand students. Here the
president is a clergyman—“missionary and pastor,” he describes himself;
also he is a coal merchant and farmer, vice-president of a bank and
president of an insurance company, and faculty committees have to wait
while he keeps his important business appointments. His professors are
underpaid, and when they get into debt, he doesn’t increase their
salaries, but loans them money from his City National Bank at the
prevailing rate of interest. This, you perceive, offers a quite unique
method of controlling academic activities. President Thompson, I am
told, is frequently quite kind-hearted to those who conform to primitive
Calvinism in their personal righteousness; but on the other hand, a man
who does not subject himself to the established order is sternly
disciplined—for his own good, of course, as when a child is spanked.
Ludwig Lewisohn was on the faculty for six years, and tells me of one
professor who struggled many years to pay off a debt incurred for the
funeral of his wife; another, an excellent teacher and scholar, who did
not indulge in riotous living, but found that with the increase of
prices during the war his family could hardly keep alive, delayed to pay
a bill for a pair of shoes, and the shoe store sent the bill to the
president of the university, and this guardian of the business
proprieties fired the professor, stating that he “lacked integrity.”
Lewisohn declares that at the faculty gatherings in this university he
never in his life heard a fundamental discussion of any subject;
everything was “silence and stealth.” Another professor writes,
describing the extreme patriotism prevailing: “A bugler plays taps every
Wednesday at convocation hour, and everyone is supposed to stand still
with bared head. The president is attended at all functions by his
‘military staff.’ All instructors must swear to an oath of allegiance in
the presence of a notary before they can receive their salaries.” This
correspondent tells me how a member of the staff was forced out because
he had separated from his wife; also how the “university pastors” on the
campus are trying to establish a School of Religion, at state expense,
and to get their courses listed for university credits. With a clergyman
for president, this ought to be easy; especially when the president
holds the opinion which President Thompson expressed in answer to a
suggestion that his professors ought to have more opportunity to study
and improve their education. He said that most of them held Ph. D.
degrees, therefore their education was a closed matter, and their only
duty henceforth was to teach, both in the regular session and in the
summer schools!
A gentleman who was a member of President Thompson’s faculty for more
than ten years writes me about the place as follows:
“My personal difficulties were primarily with the head of the
institution, who is a Presbyterian minister, a man who would not tell a
lie, but a man whose word cannot be depended upon; very jealous,
sensitive to criticism, apparently always your friend to your face and
your bitterest foe to your back. My observation is that ninety per cent
of the faculty at Ohio State are afraid to offend the president for fear
he will make them suffer for it, either in failing to promote them or to
raise their salaries. The result of this condition is a servile faculty
that are working harder to have a good ‘stand-in’ with the president
than they are to develop their subjects. I think another result of this
condition is to make narrow-minded, selfish, self-seeking men. One of
the reasons that prompted me to leave teaching was the little
narrow-minded individuals with whom I was compelled to associate, men
whose chief thought seemed to be, how can I get my salary raised. I am
farming now, and I must say that I find the companionship of my cows and
horses a great improvement over some of my associates in university
circles.”