Many of "our great authorities" are mere sycophants of wealth, creatures of the millionaire, placed by him in the same category as his musician, his ballet dancer or chaplain, all valuable dependents. The money lord of creation often builds the college (Chicago University, for example), places the poor book-worm in the position that makes him a "recognized authority," and the "authority" must dish up statistics as a cook dishes up his delicacies to suit the taste of his master. If he refuses he loses his job, and is no longer a "recognized authority."
Young men are not only taught in many instances that the rights of monopoly and money are more sacred than the rights of men and women, but are shown frequently that if they want to make a success in life, and be an honor to their family and their college they must ally themselves with the powerful corporations and trusts and keep their skirts clear of all popular and reform movements.
The recent action of the Yale students who brutally attempted to insult the honored guest of their city, Mr. Wm. J. Bryan, is not without significance.
The authorities and the respectable element among the students were no doubt, deeply humiliated by such a disgrace. Yet it is fairly plain that the dogmatic, uncharitable and violent opposition to Free Silver indulged in by the professors, has contributed its part toward causing this exhibition of anarchy and puppyism.
There is a wide distinction however, between professors and professors.
There are numerous truly great men who are aristocrats at heart, who love luxury and culture and refinement, whose friends are principally among the rich, whose sympathies are with the rich, and whose interests in life are bound up with the prosperity of the wealthy classes. These men oppose popular rights as conscientiously as did the old Feudal Lords. They all oppose the New Democracy.
There are many others—men of splendid intellect, but utterly without principle—who are mere dishonest, mercenary tools of the highest bidder, willing to distort and manufacture history, tamper with statistics, and lie like "shyster lawyers."
As, for instance, the learned professor of the Chicago University, who declared with brazen effrontery that whatever might be charged against Mr. Rockefeller of the Standard Oil Trust, no one could say that he had accumulated his millions in any way that interfered with the accumulations of others.[9]
Again there are a few university "authorities" who, at the risk of their living and the success of the institutions they represent, have told the truth fearlessly. They oppose monopoly and the gold standard. But their testimony is buried beneath the overwhelming mass of prejudice, sophistry and misinformation supplied by their colleagues.
Very distinct from any of these classes is that swarm of cowardly pusillanimous book-worms, who, as underlings in the large universities, and as full-fledged professors in the small colleges, retail at second-hand with stupid pertinacity and pig-headed bitterness, all the errors of the "authorities," together with new ones of their own special brew.