The Goose-step: A Study of American Education

by Upton Sinclair

And of course, if Stanford has a stadium, the University of California must have one. Her alumni and athletic boosters set to work to raise a million dollars, using the methods of intimidation they had learned during the war-time “drives.” One member of the faculty, full professor and dean, became especially truculent about the meaning of “California spirit”—to be proven by putting up money for the stadium. Students were compelled to subscribe, and in the fall, when some of them found that they had not been able to earn money to pay their full subscriptions, they were refused admission to the university; that is, the university refused to accept their registration fees, until their stadium pledges had been paid!

Ex-President Jordan talked to me very emphatically about the athletic evil at Stanford and at other institutions. There was a famous coach at Stanford, who was taken to a university of the Middle West many years ago; he gathered in among his gladiators men who were too ignorant to speak English correctly, and some one paid them with cash, and with promises of college promotions, which the faculty duly delivered. Thus a certain famous football champion published in his home paper in California the statement that he had been offered fifteen hundred dollars and an education, to play football at this university. He went to the Law School, with less than a high school education, and he was graduated from the Law School the year he would only have entered Stanford. There was a gathering of college heads in Chicago, to consider the problem of professional athletics, and President Jordan was invited by a professor of the university in question to tell about his experiences with this coach. The result was that the alumni organized to demand the resignation of this professor. Concerning one of these gladiators President Jordan writes me: “After leaving college, he used to stand in a San Francisco saloon where he collected small sums for letting men feel of his muscles. He is not now living.” It would seem that one needs more than muscle to secure survival in modern society!

That was ten or fifteen years ago, and the exploiting of muscle has grown like all other kinds of American big business. At Princeton, which is especially notorious for the purchasing of athletes, President Hibben called a conference with the presidents of Yale and Harvard, to see what could be done about it; they solemnly passed a series of resolutions to the effect that the athletic managers must obey the amateur rules—which they knew all about and laughed at; they laughed none the less after this conference. I talked with a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who saw at first-hand the process whereby Princeton bought a champion hammer thrower and shot putter from that institution. It fell to my friend to answer the telephone in the athletic association office while the Princeton alumni were trying to get this man. The students at Tech are bitter about the way their athletes are bought or stolen—they haven’t as much money as Princeton. Another all-around athlete was not allowed to run by Tech, but this did not worry him very much—because he had such a handsome offer from Bowdoin!

To get a famous athlete is the only way these little colleges know to “put themselves on the map.” They make desperate efforts, and sometimes the results are comical. For example, in Kentucky is a little religious institution known as Center College. No one had ever heard of it before, but a couple of years ago it turned up with a carefully selected assortment of gladiators, and beat Harvard at football. I happen to know about one of the leading athletic lights who achieved this triumph; he was a pool-room hanger-on before he was brought to the college, and now that his brief day of glory is past, he is a farm-hand!

Everywhere these mighty men of muscle and money are coming to feel their power. Speaking at an alumni meeting of the University of Pennsylvania, a British rowing coach laid down the law to the vice-provost of the university:

You, Mr. Vice-provost, as representing the faculty, have told us that the university has added from eight buildings in ’76 to eighty now; that the students have grown from one thousand to seven thousand, but what has made your university? Why, athletics. Athletics are the biggest advertisement for any university, and athletics have made Pennsylvania. What has the faculty ever done for athletics? Nothing.... Get busy and alter it all.... Pressure on the faculty quick, and you can do it.

Thorstein Veblen, in his book, “The Higher Learning in America,” gives an amusing illustration of the methods used to get these professional gladiators “by” in their classes. The athletic committee, casting around for “snap” courses, selected Italian as a likely one, and when examination time came round the gladiators were required to read a passage in Italian—the passage submitted being the Lord’s Prayer! Professor Veblen does not name the university at which this happened, but I have ascertained that it was Mr. Rockefeller’s University of Chicago.

A curious illustration of the operation of the athletic system in our smaller colleges is found in the January, 1922, bulletin of the American Association of University Professors, dealing with the affairs of Washington and Jefferson College, a religious institution located at Washington, Pennsylvania. All these little toadstools are trying to turn into big mushrooms, and there are two essentials to the procedure; one is—if you will pardon the mixed metaphor—the harpooning of whales, and the other is the winning of football victories. At Washington and Jefferson there was one member of the faculty, a professor of chemistry by the name of H. E. Wells, who failed to appreciate the supreme importance of football victories in college life. He had his mind set on the upholding of academic standards, and he ruthlessly “flunked” some prominent athletes, who had failed to make good in their class work.

Naturally, this roused the indignation of the athletic alumni, who were putting up their good money to pay the tuition and college fees, board and room rent of members of the football team. (This was proved by a committee of the trustees appointed to investigate the athletic situation.) The athletic alumni set out to “get” the cantankerous professor of chemistry, using for their purpose a man who was listed as “general secretary” of the college, but had been energetic and successful as a “field agent,” recruiting students for athletics. This man, backed by the alumni, caused the publication in their interlocking newspaper, the Washington “Reporter,” of an article attacking Professor Wells’ record as a teacher, and presenting statistics as to the number of students he had “flunked.” These statistics were entirely false, and Professor Wells sent in a correction—which correction was, as usual, buried in an obscure part of the paper. The American Association of University Professors points out the important fact that the college administration made no move to protect Professor Wells against these false charges; on the contrary, says the report, “the administration permitted a professor to be struck below the belt in such a way that his popularity with students and with alumni was extensively damaged.” After that, of course, it was easy for a committee of the athletic alumni to appear before the trustees and charge that Professor Wells was “unpopular among the students.” So Professor Wells was dropped by the trustees at three months’ notice, without giving him a hearing, without giving him a right to face his accusers, in fact without his even knowing some of the charges against him.

Still more curious was the case of George Winchester, professor of physics. He had raised the money for the only first class laboratory at the college, and he had given more money than the majority of the trustees; but he committed the offense of putting studies above football, and for that he was punished. In March, 1918, the board of trustees granted to Professor Winchester “a leave of absence for the duration of the war, or so long as he remains in the service of the allies.” After the armistice the board wrote to Professor Winchester, to ask him when he would be ready to take up his work again, and Professor Winchester cabled that he would be ready to resume work on July 1, 1919; after cabling, he went to Toulon to do work with the French Admiralty. Meantime, the athletic alumni got busy with the board, and the board summarily dropped Professor Winchester, and appointed his successor! Says the committee of the Professors’ Association: