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,