Chapter IV

of “The Brass Check.”

Not so very long ago Cornell had a famous president, Schurman, who had studied the Goose-step in three of the Kaiser’s universities. I received an interesting account of him from Mr. W. E. Zeuch, who was on the Cornell faculty, when the Bolshevik-hunters got hold of some letters, written to him by another professor. This other professor was quite a “red,” and Zeuch was trying to “tame him down”; the letters of Zeuch were not published, but he was represented as a Bolshevist, and his scalp was demanded. Cornell at this time was in the midst of a “drive” for ten millions, and a lumber magnate wrote to President Schurman that so long as Zeuch remained he would not lead the “drive.” The economics department of the university appointed a committee, which endorsed Zeuch and declared that a contract had been made, and that the university should stand by a competent man. In twenty-five years the university had never rejected the decision of such a faculty committee; nevertheless, President Schurman proposed that Zeuch should resign from the faculty, and accept a position as a “fellow,” to do the same amount of work and receive the same salary!

Also they had a flurry at Cornell over Thorstein Veblen three or four years ago. He had been scheduled for appointment; his courses had been listed, and the members of the economics department had sent out to various colleges a circular letter calling attention to the fact that Veblen was to come to Cornell, and that graduate students could get work with him there. But the interlocking trustees got busy, and the call was countermanded. Nevertheless, in the interest of discrimination it must be specified that Cornell is to be numbered among our less illiberal universities. One professor made so bold during the war as to advocate the financing of the war by taxation rather than by bonds. This would have meant that the plutocracy would have to pay at least a part of the costs instead of collecting it all by installments from you and me. The trustees of the university heard this professor explain his ideas; they did not take action to recommend this policy to the country—but they refrained from firing the professor. Also there is another professor, an elderly gentleman, who is a great favorite with the students, who take his liberal ideas with playful good humor. Several of this old gentleman’s friends assured me that he would tell me the story of his twenty-five years’ struggle for the right to think for himself; but apparently the old professor decided that he did not want to have any more struggles!

Henrik Willem Van Loon, author of “The Story of Mankind,” was also a member of this Cornell faculty, and gave me an amusing account of the atmosphere of the place. President Schurman was selling four hundred thousand dollars worth of education per year, “training boys to become superintendents of sewage disposal plants and presidents of Rotary clubs.” Van Loon was gravely rebuked by Schurman, because of a humorous remark which created a scandal; he had been writing on the blackboard, when a thunderstorm had come up, and he playfully compared himself to Moses writing the Ten Commandments amid the thunders of Sinai. Van Loon swears it is true, and I am compelled to believe him—that when he asked to see the Dante collection they took him to inspect an electric manure sprayer!

Or take Brown University, located at Providence, Rhode Island, on the familiar New Haven Railroad. Here is an extremely wealthy institution, catering to the sons of the plutocracy, and almost as snobbish as Princeton. It was built in part out of Rockefeller money, and the man who has been its president for the last twenty-three years is a Baptist clergyman, for ten years pastor of Rockefeller’s Fifth Avenue church in New York. For “chancellor” the university has an extremely wealthy cotton manufacturer, president of a bank; for treasurer it has the president of the Providence Banking Company, also treasurer of the United Traction and Electric Company, and of the Rumford Chemical Works. The three most active grand dukes of the board are Mr. Bedford, chairman of the Standard Oil Company, who represents the Rockefeller interests; Mr. Sharpe, head of the Brown & Sharpe Company, the largest manufacturers of tools in the United States; and Mr. Metcalf, a big textile manufacturer, president of the Providence “Journal” Company.

Also there is the manager of the Brown & Sharpe Company; the president of the Cadillac Motor Car Company; the head of a big New York banking company, president of a railroad and a coal company, director of three railroads, three trust companies, a milk company, a patent medicine company, and a brick company; a very wealthy manufacturing chemist; an influential New England textile manufacturer; a steel magnate; a lawyer, who is president of a land company and secretary of several railroads and trust companies; the treasurer of the largest textile manufacturing company in New England, who is director in half a dozen others, and in half a dozen of the largest financial institutions; another Providence banker; and, finally, Secretary of State Charles E. Hughes. Mr. Hughes first came under my observation when I studied the life insurance scandals in New York City. I noted that he sternly carried these investigations to the point necessary to put Morgan and his group in control, and stopped exactly at that point. For this service he was awarded a national reputation and the governorship of New York State. He has since occupied the Supreme Court bench, and come within a few votes of being president, and is now guiding the foreign affairs of our country, making a desperate and almost a successful effort to exceed the futility of the Wilson administration.

What happens to a great and wealthy university under such a regime? Brown has a high tradition, derived from Roger Williams, most famous of New England’s religious rebels. But in 1899 its president, Andrews, was ousted, because he had dared to back Bryan in the campaign of 1896. Quite recently occurred a similar case, when William MacDonald, professor of history, was forced out, to become one of the editors of the “Nation.” Brown in its day had such outstanding men as Lester F. Ward and Meikeljohn, now president of Amherst; but those days have passed, and there has followed a regime of intellectual dry-rot. It is a League of the Old Men, maintaining a caste system, based upon seniority; any young instructor who arises to suggest a new idea is quickly taught his place. A professor who knows the situation intimately writes:

In the fields of history, political science, economics and sociology the policy under Faunce has been silent and safe decay. These departments were once among the most eminent in the country. Now they are absolutely dead. Except for some formal texts by Professor Dealey no important publication has come from these departments in over a decade. The economics department is now being made over into a business school to train men to make more money. The general educational policy throughout the institution under Faunce has been that of comfortable quiescence. With the exception of one man in physics and three biologists there has been practically no intellectual activity or scholarly productivity at Brown for the last fifteen years. This situation cannot be excused on the ground of lack of resources. Brown has plenty of money and pays very high salaries. It could get some of the best and most productive men in any line of research and teaching if it cared to do so. The decline of scholarly interests at Brown has been accompanied by a parallel growth of interest in and expenditures for the safer field of physical outlet, namely, athletics.

Under such a regime what becomes of the students? Exactly the same thing as we found happening to students at Harvard, Wisconsin, and California; they get drunk. In “The Book of Life,”