More money is appropriated for the University of the Ore Trust, more buildings are erected, more students come piling in; but the soul of the place is poisoned. There is no solidarity in the faculty, there is only intrigue, jealousy and fear. There is an elaborate system of outside spying, and no one knows whom to trust. If you go to the faculty club and listen to the gossip about your associates, and take part in the petty politics of your department, then you are respectable, and they let you alone; but if you don’t do these things, then they know you must be some kind of crank, and it is the business of the spies to find out what you are doing with your spare time, and whether you have any dangerous ideas. If you make a public address, there will be volunteer patriotic organizations taking notes of your remarks, and a copy will be sent to the president of the university, or perhaps to the grand dukes of the board.
Meetings of the board of regents are by law required to be public, but they get around this by the simple device of having “executive sessions”—and once in a while a champagne picnic on Dr. Mayo’s private yacht! A member of the faculty will be hauled up—he has never seen one of the regents before, and has no idea who has accused him, or what are the accusations. They do not scruple to ask him the most personal questions, not merely about his beliefs, but about his private life. Is it true that he is separated from his wife? Is it true that he took a young lady to dinner? They will call in his dean and his fellow professors, and if the charge is a serious one, he is decapitated in advance. Here sit the angry plutocrats, brutal, full of hate—“I understand this”—“Is it true that”—and so on. “Did you vote for Debs?” “Did you belong to the Progressive party?” “Do you believe in God?” “Have you studied the constitution of the United States?” “Do you believe in abolishing the capitalistic system?” “What church do you go to?”
Sometimes a professor gets “sore,” and tells these mighty ones to go to hell; after that he can get no job in any American university. I was told of a leading authority on state government taxation and political science who is now making washboards. This man was listed as a “war case;” that is to say, he had served on a charter commission in Minneapolis, and had put through certain franchise provisions opposed by the public service companies; so when the war came he was called unpatriotic. He writes me as follows:
Usually the intimidation of a professor is so veiled and vague that he hardly knows what is wrong. A certain significant remark dropped at the right time, a certain coldness of attitude, failure to be included in certain social affairs, a certain slowness to get well earned increases, granted with gusto to others, many other little hints that his views do not meet with favor in certain quarters will serve to curb many a man with wife and babies to provide for. For instance, there were a score or more called before the regents at the time I was, every one of whom had opposed our entrance into the war and had not changed views as to the wisdom or justice of our going in, but they were willing to disavow their attitude, when confronted with instant dismissal. Some of these men told me they had to lie or starve their wives and babies, and they took the easier road.
Another man, a former professor, writes me of the present head of the university: “He does not hesitate to use the black-list to ruin a man’s career.” A professor now at the university writes me a long letter, telling me, among other cases, of a man summoned before the regents and later commanded to resign, for having stated in a private conversation to an old acquaintance that “now that the war is over, we ought to set the political prisoners free”; this man defended himself, and managed to hold on; but another instructor, an able man, was placed in peril of his job for having presided at a political meeting in his home ward, in favor of the labor candidate for mayor. This man was ousted a year later, under circumstances to be narrated.
You will wish to know something about the spy-system, maintained by the “Citizen’s Alliance,” with the cooperation of the trustees; so I submit a statement from Mr. Fred W. Bentley, who was for three years an instructor. His statement is dated August 20, 1919, and the essential parts of it are as follows:
One day last spring, I do not remember the exact date, I was called to the ’phone in my office, Room No. 111, Main Engineering Building, by a stranger who said his name was Miller. He first stated that he had a private matter to talk about, and asked if it were safe to talk to me where I was. I informed him that he could talk to me anywhere, that I had nothing to cover up.
He then told me that he was interested in a little enterprise and that some of my friends had recommended me to him as one who might help him a little financially. He said that he had never had the pleasure of meeting me but that he knew some of my friends. He asked me if I knew a man (I don’t remember the name) who ran a saloon on Seventh Street, but I informed him that I did not. He asked me if I had seen the publication called “Hunger” and I informed him that I had seen someone selling it on the street but that I had not read it.
He said that they were trying to get out another edition and would have to have some machine (I don’t remember what he called it) and asked if I would make a contribution toward it. I told him I didn’t mind giving a dollar or two, and he asked me if I would leave it with State Secretary Dirba, which I promised to do.
A few days after that I saw Dirba and asked him if he had been approached in the matter and he said he had not. I told Dirba that if anyone did come to him to send the party to me, and thought nothing further of the matter until one day, sometime later, Dean Allen came to me in the drafting room and told me that the Board of Regents was meeting in the president’s office and wanted to see me. I went immediately with Dean Allen to the meeting of the board, where I was informed that charges of disloyalty had been preferred against me. When I inquired what they were I learned that the above ’phone conversation was the basis for the charges.