CHAPTER LII

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

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