An illustration of how Columbia gets rid of its “undesirables.” I was told by Professor Ashley Thorndike of my department (English) that a charge had been preferred against me by Dr. Butler acting for the trustees, and that therefore I could not be recommended for appointment the following year. He refused to tell me what the charge was, on the ground that he was pledged not to reveal it. I thereupon wrote to Dr. Butler requesting an interview. His secretary wrote that the president was too busy to see me. I then threatened to bring the matter to court, for though an instructor’s tenure of office is for one year only, I felt sure that the trustees had no right to make a charge of any kind against me without giving me an opportunity to answer it. After this, I obtained an interview with the president, during which he said that no charges of any sort had been made and that it was purely a departmental matter. He refused, however, to put this into writing, though he several times reiterated it. I returned to Professor Thorndike, and told him, as politely as circumstances would allow, that either he or Dr. Butler had “misinformed” me. He replied evasively that a man of my intelligence should have understood the whole matter from the beginning, and added significantly that I had been warned before in regard to my outside activities. I finally obtained from him an oral statement that there were no charges against me, as well as a grudging apology for the “misunderstanding.”
CHAPTER XII
THE ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT STORE
I have several times mentioned in this narrative Professor Cattell and his opinions of Columbia. My story would not be complete without an account of his adventures, for he was the one man who gave the interlocking directors a real fight.
James McKeen Cattell was a teacher at Columbia for twenty-six years. He was the first professor of psychology in any university in the world; he is the editor of four leading scientific journals. Cattell objected to some of Butler’s methods, such as the appointment of an unfit professor in his division, because this man brought with him a gift of a hundred thousand dollars. Cattell was left to learn of this appointment from the newspapers, and when he protested, Butler wrote him insolent letters, trying to force him to resign, as he had done with MacDowell and Woodberry. But Cattell stuck, whereupon Butler took from him the use of six rooms, a laboratory of psychological research which had been built with funds obtained by Cattell. The income of a trust fund of one hundred thousand dollars, which Cattell had got “to increase the facilities of his department,” was taken to pay Cattell’s own salary.
Cattell then withdrew as head of his department, and took no more part in Columbia’s politics. But he published articles criticizing the Carnegie pension scheme, in which Butler was a leading spirit. He showed how it was used to control the university professor, as seniority rights and pensions are used to keep employes in order. So in 1910 a resolution proposing to dismiss Cattell was before the trustees. In 1913 he published a book on “University Control,” in which he demonstrated that 85 per cent of the members of college and university faculties are dissatisfied with the present system of the management of scholars by business men. In punishment for this the trustees voted to retire him on a pension—taking the step without the knowledge of the faculty. There was unanimous protest, and the trustees yielded. In 1917 Professor Cattell wrote a letter to members of the Faculty Club, referring to “our much-climbing and many-talented president.” This, of course, was lese majesté, and for the third time a resolution proposing to dismiss Professor Cattell was presented to the trustees; but action was postponed, on the recommendation of a committee of deans and professors.
Nicholas Miraculous bided his time, and several months later came the chance to get rid of Cattell and at the same time to exhibit his new patriotism. Cattell wrote a letter to a congressman, in support of pending legislation exempting from combatant service in Europe conscripts who objected to war. The interlocking trustees, who had already conscripted themselves to make money out of the war, took the position that in writing this letter Cattell had committed a crime, and they suddenly dismissed him from the university. In spite of his twenty-six years’ service, they did not even take the trouble to notify him what they proposed to do, but left him to learn of their action from a newspaper reporter who waked him in the middle of the night. The trustees declared that a professor could not take a stand on any public question as his own personal opinion; to which Cattell replied: “When trustees announce that no statement can be made by a teacher that is not affirmed by Columbia University, they challenge the intellectual integrity of every teacher.”
These ferocious old men who had conscripted themselves to make money out of the war were not content to get rid of a too-independent professor; they wished to brand him for life, so they rushed to the press with a statement charging him with “treason,” “sedition,” and “obstruction to the enforcement of the laws of the United States.” And this although Professor Cattell was actively engaged in psychological work for the army, and his only son who was of war age had already volunteered! Professor Cattell, in his counter-statement, referred to the trustees as “men whose horizon is bounded by the two sides of Wall Street with Trinity Church at the end.” He described the university as a place “overrun with intrigue and secret diplomacy.” He said of President Butler: “He has run the university as a department store, playing the part of both proprietor and floor walker to the faculty, while an errand boy to the trustees.”[[A]] Cattell brought suit for libel and threatened to sue for the pension to which he was entitled. The trustees waited several years, until the libel case was about to come up for trial, and then admitted their guilt by paying forty-five thousand dollars of the university’s money.[money.]
[A]. The statements concerning Columbia University in the above paragraph were contained in a confidential statement sent by Professor Cattell to some of the Columbia faculty. In fairness to Professor Cattell, I wish to state that he did not furnish me with this statement, either directly or indirectly, and I have not asked his permission to quote from it.