“Yes, I have. But frankly, I’m afraid I’ve never had anything to say that was dangerous.”
“Afraid! Your talk with Miss Martin seems to have had a singular effect on your point of view.”
“It has,” admitted Clark. “I never put such new life into the thinking of any student as she put into mine last night. Six years ago in Chicago she was not unlike me. If the labor movement makes her what she is and the University makes me what I am—there’s something wrong with the University. I think we should try to understand her.”
“By all means—those of us who have not already done so.”
Clark smiled.
“Understanding her is one thing,” said the President, nettled, “and giving her violent doctrines such sanction by the University as you propose is quite another. You’ve been carried off your feet. When you regain your balance you’ll thank me for not granting this wild request of yours. Is there anything further you wish to say?”
Clark rose to go. “Only that I regret this failure—of the University.”
“It’s not the University that’s in danger of failing, Mr. Clark,” said the President significantly.
Having sufficiently endangered his career to no purpose, Mr. Clark strode out of the Liberal Arts’ Building, past the black bulletin boards on which the announcement of Vida Martin’s
lecture would not appear. He marched down the old flagstone walk beneath the oaks and budding maples and across to the hotel—a three-story brick building painted slate-grey.