CHAPTER LXVIII

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.”

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