At the time of his “dismissal” Bemis was in the extension division. His appointment ran out and he was offered re-appointment, his remuneration to come from the fees of students. This action might, of course, be described in Mr. Bemis’ phrase, “dropped me from the faculty.”
I submitted that statement to Professor Bemis, who answered by wire:
My letter which you quote is absolutely correct. No proposition for continuance of my work, half of which was to advanced students within the university walls, was ever made to me.
Another of the casualties of Mr. Rockefeller’s university was Professor Triggs, as I have told in “The Brass Check,” and I gather they were not sorry when Veblen moved West. I was told that one professor had recently been “on the carpet for excess of radical zeal,” and I wrote to ask him if this was true. He answered that the trouble he had got into was for being away too much. Said he: “I have never known of anyone at Chicago being interfered with in any way ‘for excess of radical zeal.’ To be sure, no such excess exists.” Which I find a charming reply!
To the same effect is the testimony of John C. Kennedy, formerly a professor at the University of Chicago. Questioned by Chairman Walsh of the Industrial Relations Commission, Professor Kennedy stated concerning the faculty: “A sincere desire to deal with fundamental conditions does not seem to be there in most cases.... I think they are a poor crowd among which to look for leaders to bring about any fundamental change in social conditions.” The reason for Professor Kennedy’s discontent was that he had been engaged by the University of Chicago Settlement to make a survey of labor and living conditions among the Stockyards workers. He had prepared an elaborate and thoroughly documented report, which several of the packers found satisfactory; but Swift & Company—which has a member of the firm on the board of the University of Chicago—objected that Professor Kennedy had drawn “political conclusions” from his data; that is, he had suggested a remedy for the evil conditions in the Stockyards, for the workers to organize to protect themselves! These portions of the report were cut out before it was published, and the whole matter was hushed up, both by the university authorities and by the newspapers of the interlocking directorate in Chicago.
They have one “renommir professor” at Chicago, and are very proud of him. I don’t think I exaggerate in saying that out of the score of faculty members I talked with on the subject of academic freedom, not one failed to mention Robert Morss Lovett as the university’s certificate of emancipation from Standard Oil. Out of the warmth of his big heart Professor Lovett gives his help to Hindoo revolutionists thrown into jail, and to Russian sweat-shop workers clubbed over the head by the police. I asked him to read this manuscript, and he tells me that he thinks I am too severe upon the university. He wonders what I will have to say about places like Minnesota and Illinois, which are so much worse. To avoid misunderstanding, let me state that I have not been able to find a single one of the great American universities which is truly liberal or truly free; but there are degrees of badness among them, and the University of Chicago is one of the best. I have no desire to deny it due credit, therefore I note Professor Lovett’s comment—that during the early days of the university President Harper stood for liberalism in religion, and thereby lost much Baptist money; also that the university made an enviable record during the war, in that there was no interference with the private views of any professor on this question.
Shortly after the war there developed a strong movement to refuse diplomas to about a dozen of the students who were accused of radical activities, but this movement was defeated at the last minute. I talked with several of these students, and with others who are now struggling to defend ideas of social justice at the university. They had a little paper, called “Chanticleer,” and were so indiscreet as to reprint an article from the Seattle “Union Record” praising the paper. So the student daily hailed them as the “boy Bolsheviks” of the university, and both students and professors joined in a campaign of ridicule and sneering. The climax came with the fourth issue, containing an article by Clarence Darrow; not twenty students could be found to distribute this. Among the most active in attacking the little paper was a dean who has just died; he never lost an opportunity to denounce the radicals, and gave no scholarships or honors to such. I am presenting in this book many cases of college professors “let out” for speaking intemperately about conservatives; I am wondering if anyone will answer me by telling of a single professor “let out” from an American college for speaking intemperately about radicals!
I talked with another professor at Chicago, who does not want his name used. I asked him what he thought about the status of his profession, and he gave the best description of academic freedom in America that I have yet come upon. He said: “We are good cows; we stand quietly in our stanchions, and give down our milk at regular hours. We are free, because we have no desire to do anything but what we are told we ought to do. And we die of premature senility.”
They have another professor at the University of Chicago who is not entirely satisfied with America as it is, and that is Robert Herrick, the novelist. He expressed the fear that I might try to write the same kind of book as “The Brass Check”; that is, to show direct pressure of financial interests upon college professors—whereas the way it is done is by class feeling, by the tradition of academic dignity, the prestige of old and established things, “the tone of the house.” I took the liberty of telling Professor Herrick of a few cases I had collected, and he admitted that he had had no idea there were things like that going on.
Robert Herrick would, of course, never fail in urbanity and graciousness; but fundamentally, I think he is more pessimistic about American education than I am. He said: “Universities can’t get money except by getting great numbers of students; so they dare not set any higher standards than rival institutions in the same neighborhood. So the American soul stays flabby; all that counts is show, and in every department you get by with superficiality. It is a lunch-counter system of education; read a novel and get a credit; then go out into the world, and use your college prestige to make a fortune; and then give your name to a college building. We do absolutely nothing for men and women who come to college, in the way of giving them true culture, higher standards of thought or conduct. I go to any university club and look over the alumni, and I see that we have given them no distinction—in dress, in speech, in morals, in ideas. You cannot tell them from the bathtub salesmen or the agents of barbers’ supplies you meet in the lobby of the Blackstone Hotel.”