The Goose-step: A Study of American Education

by Upton Sinclair

He hung up the receiver, and blandly explained to my friend that he was the fortunate possessor of a tongue of land between two lakes which blocked the development of the city of Madison, and real estate values were increasing there very rapidly! To a student of my acquaintance this old gentleman recently made the statement that “one who talks about unearned increment shows by that very act that he has not brains enough to be a graduate student.” It is interesting to note that when the President of the United States was appointing a commission to settle an important public question, it was this man he selected to represent the economists of the United States.

They had their war hysteria in Wisconsin, as everywhere. Senator LaFollette made a speech in which he said we had “a grievance” against the German Government, and the Associated Press took out the word “a” and substituted the word “no”—such a little lie, but it caused the whole country to shriek for LaFollette’s blood. A petition for his expulsion from the senate was circulated among the university faculty—the same thing the German reactionaries did with their university professors at the outbreak of the war. It is not recorded how many professors in Germany refused to sign; but there were six courageous men at Wisconsin. One of these was Professor Kahlenberg, whose father refused military service in Germany. Professor Kahlenberg lost the leadership of the chemistry department, and most of his worthwhile courses, and has not yet regained them.

Also, there was George F. Comings, a lecturer in the Extension Department, who after the war advocated an amnesty resolution at a meeting of the American Association of Equity, a farmers’ organization. The resolution was laid on the table; letters of protest were written to the board of regents, and the lecturer was summoned to appear before the regents to submit to a rebuke. He refused to appear, and was dismissed, and became candidate for lieutenant-governor of the LaFollette party, receiving the largest majority of any candidate on the ticket. When Kate Richards O’Hare was refused permission to speak in a university hall, Lieutenant-Governor Comings introduced her, and defended her from organized rowdies, at a meeting in the assembly chamber of the state capitol. He presided at a dinner of the Federated Press, at which I spoke in Madison, and presented a resolution in favor of free speech. It is interesting to note that while he was in the university his most ardent opponent was a very wealthy dean, who is interested in several banks and a power company, and sells stock to the other professors.

Some thirty years ago, during a controversy over academic freedom, the board of regents of Wisconsin adopted a resolution, as follows: “Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great State University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.” A tablet containing this statement was presented by the class of 1910, but it was hidden in the cellar, covered with dust for many years, because the regents refused to allow it to be placed upon the building. It is now in place on Bascom Hall; and during the controversy over my address, the regents reaffirmed this motto as the policy of the board. But they refused to permit a committee of students and the faculty to determine what speakers should be heard. It appears that their understanding of freedom is the ancient one of freedom for those who rule.

I have referred to the fate of the weaker and the younger members of the faculty. Let me tell you one story; I do it with much hesitation, because the man who told it to me begged me not to repeat it, and I can only do so by taking care to give no hint of his identity. Suffice it to say that he is a young instructor, a self-made and self-taught man, who has worked his way up from bitter poverty in the face of severe physical handicaps. Life has meant continual suffering to him, but he is one of those natures which manage to use their trials as a means of self-discipline. He is one of the gentlest and sweetest natures it has ever been my fortune to meet. I wish he were a bold man and a fighter, but it happens to be the essence of his nature to shrink from strife and notoriety.

I introduce to you another gentleman, who loves attention, and does not hesitate to thrust himself forward—the Honorable David Jayne Hill, ex-president of Rochester University and ex-ambassador to Germany; a public personage of wealth and reactionary views, who founded an organization, the National Association for Constitutional Government, for the purpose of distributing his convictions to the people of the United States. The National Association for Constitutional Government, with David Jayne Hill as president, mailed out to all educators in the United States a pamphlet by David Jayne Hill, setting forth the importance of preserving those features in the constitution of the United States which enable the rich to become richer and compel the poor to become poorer. Along with the pamphlet went a personal letter, inviting the recipient to express his opinion of the views set forth in the pamphlet, and stating, among other things, that the pamphlet was not circulated for propaganda purposes, but purely to ascertain the views of others upon the question.

The young instructor received a copy of this letter; his opinion was asked for, and he gave it; he said that he thought the views expressed in the pamphlet were wrong, and he added: “When you state that you are not circulating it for propaganda purposes, I must say plainly that I think you are lying.”

Let me point out that the young instructor did not rush to the newspapers with this opinion; he wrote it in a private letter, at request. He was specifically invited to say frankly what he thought, and he said frankly what he thought, to the organization which asked his opinion and no one else.

But, of course, he had insulted one of the great moguls of the plutocracy; he had committed lese majesté in its grossest form. It is easy to imagine what happened; the huffy mogul sent the letter to some mogul regent, or perhaps to a mogul administrator, and before many days the young instructor was summoned to appear before his mogul dean. Maybe you imagine that the dean pointed out in a friendly way that the youngster had been injudicious in using a short and ugly word, and ought to use longer words while he was connected with a state university. If that is what you imagine, you know very little about universities.

What actually happened was something I had to drag from the young man by half an hour of tactful questioning. It was evident that the experience had been a cruel one; he did not want to think about it, he could not speak about it without his hands trembling, and his voice also. He had been stormed at and denounced, he had been told that he was a fool and a puppy, and that he should there and then take his pen in hand and write an abject apology to the great mogul he had so insulted. And here was a young man trying to exist upon the pitiful salary of a university instructor, and with a young wife expecting a baby. He demanded twenty-four hours to think it over, and he went away and wrestled it out with himself. He wrote the letter, and since that time has retired into his own shell; he never thinks about public questions, he writes no letters to anyone, he hardly even reads a newspaper, but lives and labors in a little specialty, where he hopes to make some contribution to human knowledge. Meantime, the dean who did this thing is one of the most prominent and powerful persons in the university, in charge of the moral destinies of several thousand future citizens of the state of Wisconsin. And that is what “academic freedom” means in America’s freest university!