Categories
Cowles Economists Seminar Speakers

Cowles and IMF seminars on social welfare functions. Abba Lerner, 1952

 

In this post we have material related to a seminar on social welfare functions that Abba Lerner gave on at least two occasions in the fall of 1952–once at the I.M.F. and once at the Cowles Commission. The three items transcribed below come from a single folder in the “Abba P. Lerner Papers” at the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. The first two items are typed notes Lerner kept for himself followed by a page of handwritten notes that presumably were his presentation notes (his class lecture notes are seldom, if ever, more than a page per lesson and often no more than a list of key words). Where I have been forced to guess a word, I use boldface. Simple typos and spelling mistakes have been corrected without fanfare, Lerner was a pretty lousy typist.

Transcribed notes for Abba Lerner’s five lectures about labor (1949) can be found in an earlier post.

__________________________

SOME ASPECTS OF WELFARE ECONOMICS
IMF 9-19-52
[Lerner’s own typed notes, followed by handwritten notes]

Western Humanism—Efficient use of resources for satisfying human wants.

adding utilities, measuring utility, complementarity, weighting

For analysis avoid by indifference curves, more generally, by ordering

For Welfare Economics avoid by social welfare function also an ordering.

Democracy means deriving social decision from individual preferences.

Bergson and Samuelson seem to suggest possibility of getting social ordering from individual ordering

Arrow on the derivation. The Paradox.

More generally. Five conditions. Free choice, positive, irrelevance non-dictatorial, non-imposed.

Serious for Democracy how much consensus is needed? (Single peaked pref[erences]s.)

Much Math. Reviewers gingerly defer and repeat the paradox.

Too loose. Too severe. at the same time.

Voting is weighting. cf. “unweighted index numbers” voting excluded.

If voting should be consistent. 1+1 =1. (single peaked prefs avoid the triangle)

The third postulate. Men, not preferences, born free and equal.

Majority rule not = democracy. (tho not minority rule)

must be checked for significance of the preference to the individual.

PR [preference revelation?] as concentrating of voting.

Scale of ordering.-1-100 (voting by differences between votes)

Republican Editorial after Democratic Conference.

Must weigh individuals. Must allow individuals to weigh their preferences.

voting and pricing

[Bottom half of paper has the following handwritten notes:]

Social Welfare Function vs. process for social division.

One Commodity World

A B C Total
x 3 1 2

6

y

2 3 1 6
z 1 2 3

6

the middle one cannot be the worst

“indifference” [not the same as] “cannot say”

consensus about rules, not content
values vs. prefs?

__________________________

Social Welfare Functions
Discussion at Cowles Commission 10-9-52
[Lerner’s own typed summary of comments he received]

The essence of Democracy is not giving everybody equal influence or voting power but the recognition of uncertainty so that policies can be corrected. Not the determination of policy but the election of official to whom authority can be delegated. Houthakker.

How can the greater needs of some be protected? One cannot rely on those majorities who care little about anything being prevented from oppressing minorities by devoting only a little of their voting power to the oppression—what if there are not many decisions but only one which matters very little to the majority but is very important to the minority? Koopmans

The conditions for a successful democracy do include some restrictions on the preference of the members of society. If conflicts are so strong that they mean more than the preservation of the unity of the society or the keeping of the rules then the democracy cannot persist. Koopmans

Arrow’s third postulate is unnecessarily strong. His purpose would be served by having a social welfare function derived from some set of “complete” private orderings which would then continue to be used even when some of the alternatives have disappeared.  Chairman

Economics is where division between the satisfaction of the desired of different individuals is possible. Each can then get (buy) what he wants without this affecting others. Where there is an indivisibility or a non-separability of the effects on different individuals we have political rather than economic problems. Discussion after the meeting with Colin Clark.

Where there is indivisibility we have to have government and must sacrifice freedom. Colin Clark

 

Source:  Library of Congress. Manuscript Division. Papers of Abba P. Lerner, Box 21, Folder 5 “Welfare Economics, Undated”.

__________________________

The following handwritten sheet was not stapled to the previous two which were stapled together, but it does have what appear to be matching staple holes, as if the notes had been taken and used for another lecture at some other time.

Welfare Economics—Social Welfare Functions
[Lerner’s handwritten notes
(boldface indicates uncertain transcription)]

Present concerns—Sustaining Forces—Psych[ological] Warfare

deeper to Basic Ec[onomic] Analysis, Basic Political Philosophy.

                        Keynes, Adam Smith              Wilson, Jefferson, Socrates

Democratic Society. Voting. Arrow Paradox. Social ordering from individual orderings.

Is democracy possible? (Single peaked pref[erence]s, single commodity)

Political Ec[onom]y—Welfare Economics—preferred in to “Economics”.

conforming

Summation & Measurement of U[tility]. Social Welfare Function. Social States

Behaviorism + ordering OK.

If no comparison unanimity reasoning. voting means comparing – weighting.

Analyze paradox — inconsistent w[eigh]ting 1 + 1 = 1. (all preferences born equal)

(unweighted)

1 + 1 = 2 give rank ordering (not reasonable—adjust pref[erence]s equal)

\left( \text{another case  }xyz\text{  or  }zxy\,\,\to \,\,\bar{x}\bar{z}\,,\,\bar{z}\bar{y}\text{  but  }xy \right)

diff[erent] low votes is the influencing power not [number] of votes (cf P.R. [preference revelation?] etc) or majority rule

add cardinal utilities (which must also be comparable) to get social ordering

How much for each individual? How democratic

S.W. Function really impor[tant]. But do we need one?

All we need is a democratic decision

Equal influence — given a democratic result

Principle of relevance—different use of voting power. Not a S.W. Function

Inconsistency ceases to be irrational—diff[erent] circumstances

 (games, influence, voting, force, smudged-word)

Over-ambition—cf compensation issue “can’t tell” or “indifference”

output and distribution.

Democracy depends on multiplicity of items.

Consensus + Possibility of Democracy.

 

Source:  Library of Congress. Manuscript Division. Papers of Abba P. Lerner, Box 21, Folder 5 “Welfare Economics, Undated”.

__________________________

From the Cowles’ record of Commission Seminars

Oct. 9 [1952] Abba P. Lerner, Roosevelt College, “Social Welfare Functions”

Source: Yale University. Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics. Webpage: Commission Seminars, 1943-1955.

Image Source: Publicity photo of Abba Lerner as Guest Speaker February 25, 1958 in the Beth Emet 1958 Forum. Library of Congress. Papers of Abba P. Lerner, Box 6, Folder 8.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Members of the Economics Seminary, 1897-1898

 

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has posted the names and topics for presentations from 1891/92 through 1907/08 from Harvard’s Seminary in Economics. These lists were published in the Harvard Catalogues for the following academic years, providing us with the actual names and topics. I came across the following announcement for the academic year 1897/98 that provides a bit more information about the presenters but also shows us that there were a couple of deviations from the original, planned schedule. When I compared the members to the list of Harvard economics Ph.D.’s for the 1875-1926, I was somewhat surprised that the majority of presenters did not go on to complete Harvard Ph.D.’s. I decided to track down everyone listed as a member of the seminary in 1897-98, to see what I could find. Actually, I found quite a lot to include in this post.

_________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
SEMINARY IN ECONOMICS.
[Announced]
1897-98.

INSTRUCTORS.

Professor C. F. Dunbar, 14 Highland St.
Professor W. J. Ashley, 6 Acacia St.
Professor Edward Cummings, Irving St.
Professor F. W. Taussig, 2 Scott St.

MEMBERS.

Morton A. Aldrich, A.B. (Harvard), Ph.D. (Halle). Henry Bromfield Rogers Memorial Fellow. 24 Thayer Hall.

Subject: The History of the American Federation of Labor.

Frederick A. Bushée, B.L. (Dartmouth). University Scholar. 7 Wendell St.

Subject: The Growth and Constitution of the Population of Boston.

Ralph W. Cone, A.B. (Kansas Univ.), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). University Scholar. 23 Hilton.

Subject: Railway Land Grants, with special reference to the Pacific railways.

Adolph O. Eliason, L.B. (University of Minnesota), A.B. (Harvard). 34 Divinity Hall.

Subject: The Distribution of National and State Banks [in] the United States, with special regard to the States of the Northwest.

John E. George, Ph.B. (North Western Univ.), A.M. (Harvard). Paine Fellow. 10 Oxford St.

Subject: The Condition and Organization of Coal Miners in the United States.

D. Frederick Grass, Ph.B. (Iowa Coll.). 14 Shepard St.

Subject: Antonio Serra, and the Beginning of Political Economy in Italy.

Charles S. Griffin, A.B. (Kansas), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). Assistant in Political Economy. 43 Grays Hall.

Subject: The Taxation of Sugar and the Sugar Industry in Europe and America.

W. L. Mackenzie King, A.M., LL.B. (Univ. of Toronto) Townsend Scholar. 14 Sumner St.C

Subject: The Clothing Trade and the Sweating System, in the United States, England, and Germany.

H.C. Marshall, A.B. (Ohio Wesleyan), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). Henry Lee Memorial Fellow. 29 Grays Hall.

Subject: History of Legal Tender Notes after the close of the Civil War.

Randolph Paine, Senior in Harvard College. 32 Mellen St.

Subject: The Growth of the Free Silver Movement since 1860.

C. E. Seaman, A.B., (Acadia), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). Assistant in Government. 31 Holyoke St.

Subject: The Intercolonial Railway of Canada.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1897-1898”.

_____________________________

Report of the actual meetings of the Seminary of Economics, 1897-98

At the joint meetings of the Seminary of American History and Institutions and the Seminary of Economics: —

Some results of an inquiry on taxation in Massachusetts. Professor F. W. Taussig.

The Making of a Tariff. Mr. S. N. D. North.

The currency reform plan of the Indianapolis convention. Professor Dunbar.

At the Seminary of Economics: —

Trade-unions in Australia. Dr. M. A. Aldrich.

The coal miners’ strike of 1897. Mr. J. E. George.

An analysis of the law of diminishing returns. Dr. C. W. Mixter.

The Secretary of the Treasury and the currency, 1865-1879. Mr. H. C. Marshall.

An inquiry on government contract work in Canada. Mr. W. L. M. King.

The sugar industry in Europe as affected by taxes and bounties. Mr. C. S. Griffin.

The security of bank notes based on general assets, as indicated by experience under the national bank system. Mr. A. O. Eliason.

The inter-colonial railway. Mr. C. E. Seaman.

Some results of the new method of assessing the income tax in Prussia. Dr. J. A. Hill.

Antonio Serra and the beginnings of political economy in Italy. Mr. D. F. Grass.

The American Federation of Labor. Dr. M. A. Aldrich.

The earlier stages of the silver movement in the United States. Mr. Randolph Paine.

The land grant to the Union Pacific Railroad. Mr. R. W. Cone.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1898-99, pp. 400-1.

_____________________________

Economic Seminar Members

 

 

Morton Arnold Aldrich.
(b. Jan. 6, 1874 in Boston; d. May 9, 1956 in New Orleans)

If you had to pick one individual most responsible for the founding of the A. B. Freeman School of Business [at Tulane University], that individual would be Morton A. Aldrich, the business school’s first and longest-serving dean. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard with a PhD from Germany’s University of Halle, Aldrich joined Tulane in 1901 as an assistant professor of economics and sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and he wasted little time making his intentions known. A 1902 article in the Times-Picayune describes a lecture in which Aldrich declared Tulane’s intention to establish a College of Commerce. “In New Orleans, it is unfortunate that so many businessmen come from the North and from abroad,” Aldrich is quoted as saying. “We are glad to have them, to be sure, but would it not be more satisfactory if we could educate Louisianians to become leaders to a greater extent?”

Aldrich was a man of contradictions. He was a worldly and erudite scholar yet at the same time an everyman who enjoyed swapping stories with trappers and fishermen at his camp on Lake Pontchartrain. Aldrich prided himself on his ability to get along with everyone, and it was that knack for bringing disparate groups together that ultimately helped him found Tulane’s College of Commerce and Business Administration.

In 1902, business education was still viewed by many as vocational training, a field not worthy of a university of Tulane’s stature. But even if there had been more widespread support for business education within the university, Aldrich still faced obstacles. Tulane President Edwin Alderman informed Aldrich in no uncertain terms that the cash-strapped university simply did not have the resources to establish a new college.

Undeterred, Aldrich turned his attention to the business community. In 1909, he founded the Tulane Society of Economics, which sponsored lectures that highlighted the intersection of economic theory and business practice. Many of the city’s most prominent businessmen became members of the society. In 1912, Aldrich drafted a tax reform proposal for the state of Louisiana that further established his reputation in the business community. A year later, he became a charter member of the New Orleans Association of Commerce, a new organization established to help promote the city’s economic interests. With the membership of the Association of Commerce in his corner, Aldrich realized he finally had the business support he had been cultivating for the previous 10 years.

In 1913, the Association of Commerce sent a letter to Tulane President Robert Sharp asking the university to establish a College of Commerce. Sensing the shift is public sentiment regarding business education, Sharp did not rule out the creation of a commerce college. Instead, he simply said that Tulane did not have the money. That response set in motion a whirlwind of activity at the Association of Commerce. By the fall of 1914, the association presented Tulane with a plan to underwrite the cost of establishing a business college. The Board of Tulane endorsed the proposal, and Sharp appointed Aldrich as the first dean of the newly formed Tulane University College of Commerce and Business Administration.

Aldrich went on to serve as dean of the college for 25 years. In that time, he built the college from a small, part-time program to a successful degree-granting institution with 871 students spread across day and evening programs. He also personally hired each of the college’s full-time professors—the so-called “Nine Old Men” of the business school—who would serve as the core of the faculty for the next 40 years.

In a very real sense, Aldrich helped to transform Tulane from a 19th century liberal arts college to a modern 20th century university with academic divisions spanning a variety of fields and disciplines.

Besides being a significant figure in business education at Tulane, Aldrich was also a pioneer in business education nationally. He helped to establish the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), which today is the leading worldwide accrediting organization for business schools, and he served as the organization’s secretary for the first six years of its existence.

Aldrich stepped down as dean in 1939 when he reached the mandatory faculty retirement age of 65. Although he was honored by alumni on several occasions and remained friends with Tulane President Rufus Harris, he never returned to campus.

Aldrich died in New Orleans on May 9, 1956.

Each week during our Centennial Celebration, the Freeman School is highlighting some of the well-known and not-so-well-known people who helped to make the first 100 years of business education at Tulane University so special.

Source: From the Morton A. Aldrich webpage at the Freeman School of Business – Tulane University Centennial website (2013).  Morton A. Aldrich from the 1915 edition of the Jambalaya student yearbook.

Dissertation (Halle-Wittenberg, 1897)

Morton Arnold Aldrich, Die Arbeiterbewegung in Australien und Neuseeland. (Published by Barras, 1897).

 

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Frederick Alexander Bushée
(b. July 21, 1872 in Brookfield, VT; d. Apr. 4, 1960 in Bolder, CO)

Harvard 1902 doctoral dissertation: Ethnic factors in the population of Boston. New York, Macmillan (London, Sonnenschein), 1903, 8°, pp. viii, 171 (Publ. Amer. Econ. Assoc., ser. 3, 4: no. 2). Preliminary portion pub. as “The growth of the population of Boston,” in Publ. Amer. Statist. Assoc., 1899, n. s., 6: 239-274.

Image Source:  University of Colorado yearbook Coloradoan 1922 (Vol. 24), p. 32.

Timeline from:
Reminiscence of the Bushees by Earl David Crockett, the son of Bushee’s successor at the University of Colorado

1872, July 21. Born in Brookfield, Vermont.
1894. Litt. B. Dartmouth College.
1894-95. Resident South End House, Boston.
1895-96. Hartford School of Sociology.
1896-97. Resident South End House, Boston.
1897-1900. Graduate student, Harvard University.
1898. Harvard University, A.M.
1900-01. Collège Libre des Sciences Sociales, Collège de France, Paris; University of Berlin.
1901-02. Assistant in Economics, Harvard University.
1902. Harvard University, Ph.D. in Political Science.
1902-03. Instructor in Economics and History in the Collegiate Department of Clark University.
1903-08. Assistant Professor in Economics, Clark University.
1907-08. Instructor in Economics and Sociology, Clark University.
1910-12. Professor of Economics and Sociology at Colorado College.
1912. Hired by University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1916. Professor of Economics and Sociology, and Secretary of the College of Commerce, University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1925-32. Professor of Economics and Sociology, and Acting Dean of the School of Business Administration, University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1939. Retired.
1960, April 4. Died in Boulder, Colorado.

Robert Treat Paine Fellowship
1899-1900

Frederick Alexander Bushée. Litt.B. (Dartmouth Coll., N.H.) 1894, A.M. 1898.—Res. Gr. Stud., 1897-99.—University Scholar, 1897-98; Townsend Scholar, 1898-99. Student of Economics, at this University.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1898-1899, p. 149.

 

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Ralph Waldo Cone
(b. April 21, 1870 in Seneca, KS; d. January 2, 1951 Kansas City, MO)

A.B. Univ. Kan. 1895; A.B. Harvard 1896.; A.M. Harvard 1897.

1899-1906. Assistant Professor of Sociology and Economics. University of Kansas.

1907-Associate Professor of Sociology and Economics.

1910 U.S. Census listed as professor, starting with the 1920/30/40 U.S. Census listed as farmer.

1910/11 University of Kansas Annual Catalogue (p. 194) lists Associate Professor Cone as “resigned”, probably as announcement for 1911/12.

Image Source: University of Kansas. The Jayhawker. Yearbook of the Senior Class, 1906. P. 20.

 

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Adolph Oscar Eliason
(b. May 26, 1873 at Montevideo, Minn; d. April 27, 1944 at Ramsey, Minn.)

Image Source: Harvard College Class of 1897, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Report.
1896-97 Harvard. A.B.; A.M. 1898; Litt. B. (Univ. of Minn., 1896); Ph.D. (Univ. of Minn., 1901)

“After graduating from Harvard I received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota in 1901. I then entered the banking business, being connected with the Bank of Montevideo, Minn., was identified with other business activities, and served as president of the Montevideo Commercial Cub. I lectured on banking at the University of Minnesota, and wrote some monographs on this subject…”

Source: Harvard College Class of 1897. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report [Number VI, 1922], pp. 173-174.

Ph.D. Thesis, University of Minnesota.

Adolph O. Eliason. The Rise of Commercial Banking Institutions in the United States. 1901.

Another Publication

Adolph O. Eliason. The Beginning of Banking in Minnesota, read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council of the Minnesota Historical Society, May 11, 1908.

 

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John Edward George
(b. May 12, 1865 near Braceville, IL; d. Jan. 18 1905)

Born 12 May 1865, near Braceville, Ill. Prepared in Grand Prairie Seminary, Onarga, Ill. Entered college on state scholarship. Ph.B. Hinman; Sigma Alpha Epsilon; Phi Beta Kappa. Member of United States Life-Saving Crew; Cushing prize in Economics. 1896-97, student at Harvard University on Chicago Harvard Club scholarship. 1897, A.M., ibid. 1897-98, Robert Treat Paine Fellow at Harvard University; reappointed in 1898, with leave to study abroad. 1899, Ph.D., University of Halle, Germany. Instructor in Economics and History, Grand Prairie Seminary, 1895-96; secretary and statistician of Improved Housing Association, Chicago, 1899-1900; Instructor in Roxbury Latin School, Boston, Mass., 1900; Instructor in Political Economy, Northwestern University, 1900-01; Assistant Professor, 1901–. Member of American Economic Association.

Source: Northwestern University. Alumni Record of the College of Liberal Arts, 1903, p. 257.

Ph.B. (Northwestern Univ., 1895). John Edward George. The Saloon Question in Chicago. American Economic Association, Economic Studies. Vol. II, No. 2 (April, 1897).

“Mr. George’s essay was awarded the Cushing prize, offered in Northwestern University, for the best essay on the subject.”

John E. George. The Settlement in the Coal-Mining Industry. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 12, No. 4 (1898), pp. 447-460.

Robert Treat Paine Fellowship
1897-98.

John Edward George. Ph.B. (Northwestern University) 1895, A.M., 1897.—Res. Gr. Stud., 1896-97.—Scholar of the Harvard Club of Chicago, 1896-97.—Student of the Ethical Problems of Society, at this University.
Now continuing his studies in Germany.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-1898, p. 142.

Robert Treat Paine Fellowship
1898-99.

John Edward George. Reappointed.
Ph.B. (Northwestern Univ., Ill.) 1895, A.M., 1897.—Res. Gr. Stud., 1896-98.—Non-Res. Stud., 1898-99.—Student of the Ethical Problems of Society, at this University (1897-98) and in Germany (1898-99).
Engaged in sociological investigation, in Chicago. 

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1898-1899, p. 149.

Passport application
(sworn Boston, June 29, 1898)

John Edward George for a passport for self and wife. Born near Braceville, Illinois on May 12, 1865. “I follow the occupation of student at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.” Intend to return to U.S. in a year.  Stature 5 feet 7 ¾ inches.

Ph.D. dissertation, 1899

Die Verhältnisse des Kohlenbergbaues in den Vereinigten Staaten, mit besonderer Bezugnahme auf die Lage der Bergarbeiter seit dem Jahre 1885. Halle a.S. (Frommann in Jena), 1899.

1900 U.S. Census. Cambridge, Irving Street.

Listed as visitor (with his wife Adda G., born Sept. 1874 Illinois) of Harvard Professor Charles Eliot Norton.

Obituary

DR. JOHN EDWARD GEORGE DEAD.
Former Professor of Economics at Northwestern University Succumbs After Long Illness.
Chicago Tribune (Friday Jan 20, 1905), p. 5.

Dr. John Edward George, who was compelled to resign his position as assistant professor of economics at Northwestern university because of illness two years ago, died of heart trouble at the Wesley hospital Wednesday night.

He was graduated from Northwestern in 1895, and during the following two years studied at Harvard and then at the University of Halle, where he received the degree of doctor of philosophy. He became a member of the faculty of Northwestern in 1900.

Dr. George was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Phi Beta Kappa fraternities and of the American Economic association. It was in the publications of the last named organization that he won a name that has hardly been excelled by so young a student of economics. Ile left a widow and one daughter. The funeral will be held In the town of his birth, Braceville, Ill., Saturday afternoon.

 

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Donald Frederick Grass
(b. May 5, 1873 in Council Bluffs, IA; d. Oct. 2, 1941 in Sacramento, CA)

Donald Frederick Grass, Ph.D.  Professor of Business Administration. 923 Seventh
Ph.B., Grinnell; A.B., A.M., Harvard; Ph.D., Stanford. Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Grinnell, Second Semester, 1917; Associate Professor, 1918; Professor of Business Administration, 1919—.

SourceGrinnell College Bulletin, Vol. XX, No. 1 (May, 1922), p. 17.

The decade 1900-1909

From his 1902 Iowa marriage record one finds that he was working as a bank cashier in Macedonia, Iowa.

Entries for “Donald Frederick Grass” in the Stanford Alumni Directory (1920)

“Assistant Professor of Economics. At Stanford 1910-17.” (p. 31)

“Ph.D. Econ., May ’14; A.B. and A.M., Harvard, ’98 and ’99; PhB., Grinnell College, ’94. m. March 30, 1904, Minnie Jones. Professor of Business administration, Grinnell College. Residence, 923 Seventh Ave., Grinnell, Ia.” (p. 234)

Source: Stanford University. Alumni Directory and Ten-Year Book (Graduates and Non-Graduates) III. 1891-1920.

Listed as Instructor in the Department of Economics and Social Science at Stanford 1912/13
Source:  Graduate Study 1912-13. Bulletin of Leland Stanford Junior University, No. 63 (April 1913), p. 28.

Listed as Assistant Professor 1916/17.
Source:  Graduate Study 1916-17. Bulletin of Leland Stanford Junior University, No. 92 (June 16, 1913), p. 34.

Sept. 12, 1918 Draft Registration Card

Donald Frederick Grass. b. May 5, 1873
Present Occupation: Professor at Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa
Nearest relative: wife Minnie Grass (also residing at 1120 Broad St. Grinnell, Iowa).

Obituary
reported in The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) October 3, 1941, Friday. Page 6.

“Donald F. Grass, professor emeritus of business administration at Grinnell college, died Thursday in Sacramento, California, according to word received here Friday morning.
Professor Grass retired from the Grinnell faculty in June. He and Mrs. Grass had been living with a daughter in Sacramento.
He came to Grinnell as an assistant professor of business in 1917. In 1919 he became a full professor and was made head of the department, a post he held until he retired.”

Image Source: Donald F. Grass in the Grinnell college yearbook The Cyclone 1931, p. 12.

 

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Charles Sumner Griffin
(b. Oct. 15, 1872 in Lawrence, KS; d. Sept. 10, 1904 at Hakone, Japan.)

Charles Sumner Griffin, A.B. (Kansas, 1894), A.B. (Harvard, 1895), A.M. (Harvard). Assistant in Political Economy.

Passport application. June 1898

Charles Sumner Griffin, born at Lawrence, Kansas on 15 October 1872, occupation student.

Charles Sumner Griffin.
Lawrence Daily Journal
October 15, 1904, p. 1.

The receipt of letters giving the circumstances of his death make it possible to write a full and final account of the life of our late friend and former townsman, Professor Charles S. Griffin. The first twenty-two years of his life were spent In Lawrence where he was born, October 15th, 1872. He received his early education in the schools of this city, graduating from the high school in 1890. He entered the university of Kansas the next autumn and received his bachelor’s degree in 1894 and with it membership in the Phi Beta Kappa society. He entered Harvard university the following fall and received the Harvard A. B. in ’95, the A.M. in ’96. In 1897 he was appointed instructor in economics In Harvard and the next year received a traveling fellowship. After holding this for one year and while still abroad he was appointed, on the nomination of the Harvard authorities, professor of political economy and finance in the Imperial University of Tokio, where he had completed five years of service at the time of his death.

Although he had been in Lawrence but little since his graduation ten years ago, Professor Griffin was well known to all but the most recent comers, having assisted his father, Mr. A. J. Griffin, in his business. Personally he was serious yet at the same time genial and he had a circle of staunch friends among the best of his instructors and his classmates. While he did not learn easily his earnestness and persistence won for him in all the institutions he attended a reputation for solid and reliable scholarship.

His special study at Harvard was the sugar industry, and his two papers on this subject, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, were regarded by Professor Taussig and other authorities as real contributions to knowledge. He had published also in Japan an edition of Rlcardo’s Essays on Currency and Finance, Tokio 1901. Notes on Commercial Policy and Modern Colonization, pp. 130, and Notes on Transportation and Communication, pp. 215, the latter two printed privately at Tokio, 1902. In March in this year the N. Y. Evening Post printed an article by Professor Griffin on the present situation in Japan. For several years he had been preparing to write a Financial History of Japan Previous to the Present Era. To this end he had diligently applied himself to the acquisition of the written and printed languages and was making rapid progress. During the summer just past he had with him on his vacation two Japanese students who were assisting him in the difficult task of learning the Japanese characters, of which there are some ten thousand, and indexing appropriate literature for him. It is not known whether his work on the history had progressed far enough to leave any portion of it in shape for publication, but It is feared not.

Mrs. A. J. Griffin and Miss Edith Griffin visited Mr. Griffin in 1900 and found him happily situated and enthusiastic over the country and his work. In July, 1901 he was married to Mary Avery Greene, daughter of Rev. Daniel C. Greene, the first missionary sent to Japan by the American Board, and to them had been born two children, Charles Carroll and Mary Avery. Professor Griffin spent his summer vacation on the shore of Lake Hakone, about sixty miles from Tokio. As the vacation was almost over, the family was to take a last picnic tea on the shore of the beautiful lake, half an hour from the village. Before tea Mr. Griffin went to the water’s edge for a plunge. He dived in and rose but once. Either he was seized with a cramp or was, stunned by a blow on the head. He was unable to grasp an oar thrown to him and sank before his wife’s eyes in thirty feet of water By the time the body was recovered life was extinct although military surgeons from the near by hospital worked over it for four hours. He was buried September 11, on the top of a hill near the village of Hakone, the coffin decked with Japanese and American flags and covered with flowers, among them a cross sent by Japanese veterans to whom he had endeared himself. The Episcopal service was read and two of Professor Griffin’s favorite hymns sung, one of them a portion of Whitter’s “The Eternal Goodness” containing the stanza,

“I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air,
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.”

Although there is no present palliative for the sense of loss both to his friends and to the world of learning, the memory of Charles Griffin will long remain a grateful inspiration to those who knew him well. His career, though brief, brings honor to his parents, his native city, his alma mater and his state. W.H.C.

 

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Joseph Adna Hill
(b. May 5, 1860, Stewartstown, New Hampshire; d. December 12, 1938 in Washington, D.C.)

Passport application: September 1889. Permanent residence at Temple in New Hampshire, occupation: student. About to go abroad temporarily, to return within three years.

1892 Ph.D. Dissertation

Joseph Anna Hill. Das “Interstate Commerce”-Gesetz in den Vereinigten Staaten. Halle a.S : Frommannsche Buch dr. in Jena, 1892.

1894 translation of Cohn’s History of Political Economy

Gustav Cohn. A History of Political Economy, translated by Joseph Adna Hill. Published as a Supplement to the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 1894. [Volume One, Book One, Chapter Three, pp. 91-181 of Cohn’s System der Nationalökonomie, 2 vols. pp. 649 and 796. Stuttgart, 1885.]

 Taught Professor Dunbar’s course in 1896

[Economics] 82. Dr. J. A. Hill.—History of Financial Legislation in the United States. Hf. 2 hours, 2d half-year

Total 64: 5 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 18 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 4 Law, 9 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1895-1896, p. 64.

Dr. Joseph Adna Hill, Census Bureau Aide, Dies Here at 78
Held Post of Chief Statistician of Research Division Since 1933

Dr. Joseph Adna Hill, 78, chief statistician of the Division of Statistical Research, Census Bureau, died last night of a heart attack at his home 1826 Irving street N.W. Dr. Hill had been engaged in statistical work at the bureau since 1898. He was named chief statistician of a division there in 1909. In 1921 he was appointed assistant director of the 14th census, and in 1930 was made assistant director for the 15th census. He had been chief statistician of the Division of Statistical Research since 1933. He was chairman of the committee appointed by the Secretaries of State, Commerce and Labor to determine immigration quotas.

Dr. Hill was an uncle of Gen. John Philip Hill, former Representative from Maryland and former United States district attorney of that State, who lives here at the Army and Navy Club. Other survivors include a brother, the Rev. Dr. Bancroft Hill of Vassar College and two other nephews. Dr. Eben Clayton Hill, Baltimore physician, and Bancroft Hill, president of the Baltimore Transit Co. Dr. Hill was unmarried.

Secured Ph.D. in Germany.

Born in Stewartstown, N. H., Dr. Hill was a son of the late Rev. Dr. Joseph Bancroft Hill and the late Mrs. Harriet Brown Hill. He prepared for Harvard University at Exeter Academy. He was graduated with an A. B. from Harvard in 1885, received an M.A. degree there in 1887 and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Halle, Germany, in 1892. He lectured at the University of Pennsylvania in 1893 and was an instructor at Harvard University in 1895.

Last year Dr. Hill represented this country at a statistical conference in Athens. Greece. Prominently identified with many organizations, Dr. Hill was a member of the American Economic Association. the American Statistical Association, serving the latter as president in 1919, and the International Statistical Institute. He also belonged to the Cosmos Club here, the Harvard Club of New York and the Harvard Club of Boston.

Active as Harvard Alumnus.

Dr. Hill had continually maintained an active interest in Harvard University, where his father was graduated in 1821 and his grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Ebenezer Hill, was graduated there in 1786. Dr. Hill was a cousin of the historian and diplomat, George Bancroft, who served as Secretary of the Navy under President Polk.

Active as a writer, Dr. Hill was author of the “English Income Tax,” 1899; “Women in Gainful Occupations,” 1929, and had contributed to economic journals and prepared census reports on illiteracy, child labor, marriage and divorce, etc. Dr. Hill formerly lived at No. 8 Logan Circle, until moving, a short while ago, to his Irving street home.

Funeral arrangements were to be announced later.

Source: Evening Star, Washington, D.C. December 13, 1938, page 10.

 

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Willian Lyon Mackenzie King
(b. Dec. 17, 1874 in Berlin, Ontario; d. July 22, 1950 at Kingsmere, Quebec )

A.B. University of Toronto, 1895; LL.B. University of Toronto, 1896; A.M. University of Toronto, 1897; A.M. Harvard University, 1898.

Harvard Ph.D. Thesis title (1909): Oriental immigration to Canada. Pub. in “Report of the royal commission appointed to inquire into the methods by which Oriental labourers have been induced to come to Canada,” Ottawa, Government Printing Bureau, 1908, pp. 13-81.

 

1921–1926, 1926–1930 and 1935–1948. Prime Minister of Canada.

Industry and humanity: a study in the principles underlying industrial reconstruction (Toronto, 1918) was King’s report to the Rockefeller Foundation.

Image Source: “William Lyon Mackenzie King” in Wikipedia.

 

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Herbert Camp Marshall
(b. March 8, 1871 at Zanesville, OH; d. May 22, 1953, Washington, DC)

A.B. Ohio Wesleyan University, 1891; A.B. Harvard University, 1894; A.M. Harvard University, 1895.

Harvard 1901 Ph.D. thesis title: The currency and the movement of prices in the United States from 1860 to 1880.

A Later Publication

Herbert C. Marshall, Specialist in Economic Research, Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Retail marketing of meats : agencies of distribution, methods of merchandising, and operating expenses and profits.  U. S. Department of Agriculture. Department Bulletin No. 1317 (June, 1925).

Obituary
The Times Recorder (Zanesville, OH)
May 25, 1953

Dr. Marshall Succumbs Friday

Dr. Herbert C. Marshall, 83, retired economist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, died Friday at his home in Washington, D.C. He was a native of Muskingum county.

Dr. Marshall, a brother of Carrington T. Marshall of Columbus, a former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme court, and of Charles O. Marshall of Pleasant Valley, was born in Falls township and was a graduate of Zanesville high school.

He also was graduated from Ohio Wesleyan university and received several degrees from Harvard.

He spent his boyhood in Muskingum county but had not resided in the area since that time.

He practiced law in New York city until 1916, when he Joined the federal department of agriculture, a post he held until he retired in 1941.

He was a member of the New York Bar association, the American Economics society, Phi Beta Kappa, the Harvard club of Washington and the Cosmos club of Washington.

His wife, the former Mary Emma Griffith, died in 1925.

In addition to Carrington and Charles O. Marshall, he is survived by another brother, Leon C. Marshall, of Chevy Chase, Md., and a daughter, Miss Eleanor Marshall of Washington.

Funeral services will take place in Washington but burial will be in the Bethlehem cemetery between Pleasant Valley and the Newark road.

 

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Charles Whitney Mixter
(b. Sept. 23, 1869 in Chelsea, MA; d. Oct. 21, 1936 in Washington, D.C.)

A.B. Johns Hopkins University (Md.), 1892; A.M. Harvard University, 1893.

1897 Harvard Ph.D.

Thesis title: Overproduction and overaccumulation: a study in the history of economic theory.

Edited Work

John Rae. The Sociological Theory of Capital, being a complete reprint of the New Principles of Political Economy, 1834Edited with biographical sketch and notes by Charles Whitney Mixter, Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy in the University of Vermont. New York: Macmillan, 1905.

OBITUARY
The Burlington Free Press (Oct. 22, 1936), p. 14

Charles Whitney Mixter, for nine years a member of the University of Vermont faculty, died at a hospital in Washington, D. C., on Tuesday evening. [October 20]

Dr. Mixter was born in Chelsea, Mass., in 1867. He received his early education at Thayer Academy and Williston Seminary, and received his A.B. degree from John Hopkins University in 1892.

This was followed by graduate studies at Berlin, Goettingen and Harvard, from which he received his doctorate in 1897. Then followed a series of teaching positions: Assistant in economics at Harvard, 1897-98; Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., 1899-1900; instructor in economics, Harvard, 1901-1903; professor of economics, University of Vermont, 1903-1912.

Then Dr. Mixter served as efficiency expert for Towne and Yale at New Haven, Conn., and later for several manufacturing concerns in New Hampshire. For a year he was professor of economics at Clark University, and for a brief period he was an investigator in the service of the United States Chamber of Commerce.

For the last 13 years he had been connected with the tariff commission in Washington.

Professor Mixter had an unusually fertile mind, was an accomplished scholar in his special field, and widely read in related subjects. he became an enthusiastic student of scientific management introduced by the late Frederick W. Taylor and an active exponent of the system. He was a member of the leading economic organizations and a frequent contributor to economic journals.

He was a strong advocate of free trade. Interment was made in Plymouth, Mass.

 

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Simon Newton Dexter North
(b. Nov. 29, 1848 in Clinton, NY; d. Aug. 3, 1924 in Wilton, CT)

S. N. D. North. Old Greek: An Old Time Professor in an Old Fashioned College. New York, 1905.  The story of his father Edward North, Professor of Ancient Languages in Hamilton.

Obituary, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.)
August 4, 1924, p. 7.

SIMON D. NORTH, EX-OFFICIAL DIES
Former Director of Census Succumbs in Summer Home in Connecticut.

Word was received here last night of the death in Wilton, Conn., of S. N. D. North, former director of the United States Census Bureau and a resident of this city for more than 25 years. Mr. North was accustomed to going to Connecticut each summer, and, with his wife, Mrs. Lillian Comstock North, he was spending the summer there. He lived at 2852 Ontario road here.

Mr. North first came to this city as chief statistician of manufacturers for the twelfth census, and in 1903 he was made director of the census. He had been prominently connected with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with headquarters here, since that organization’s foundation.

Born at Clinton, N. Y.

Simon Newton Dexter North was born in Clinton, N. Y., November 29. 1849. He was the son of Dr. Edward and Mrs. Mary F. Dexter North. He was graduated from Hamilton College in 1869 and received an LL.D. degree from Bowdoin in 1902 and later the same degree from the University of Illinois in 1904. He was married to Miss Lillian Sill Comstock of Rome. N. Y., July 8, 1875.

He was a prominent newspaper man and was well known in journalistic circles. He was editor of the Utica Morning Herald from 1869 to 1886 and the Albany (N. Y.) Express from 1886 to 1888. He also was prominently connected with business organizations, having been secretary of the National Association of Woolen Manufacturers at Boston and editor of that organization’s quarterly bulletin from 1888 to 1903. He also had served as a member of the United States Industrial Commission and as president of the New York State Associated Press.

Wrote Many Pamphlets.

Mr. North was a member of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Cosmos Club and the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity of New York. He also was editor of several historical magazines, of industrial publications and numerous memoirs and pamphlets. Outstanding among these were his works, “An American Textile Glossary” and “A History of American Wool Manufacture.” In addition to this, he wrote many pamphlets and delivered lectures on economics. He was for many years a member of the board of trustees of the National Geographic Society.

Besides his wife, he is survived by a son, Dexter North of the United States Tariff Commission, and two daughters, Mrs. Eloise C. Jenks of Philadelphia and Miss Gladys North. No definite arrangements have been made for the funeral, but interment will be in Clinton, N. Y.

 

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Randolph Paine
(b. 
Nov 3 November 1873 in Denton, TX; d. June 13, 1937 in Dallas TX)

Harvard A.B. 1898; Harvard LL.B. 1901

1900 U.S. Census.

Randolph Paine: Born Nov 1873 in Texas. Residing in Cambridge, Mass

Harvard Law School.  

Paine, Randolph, A.B. 1898, Denton, Tex. 32 Mellen St.

Source:  Harvard University Catalogue 1898/1899, p. 130.

1910 U.S. Census.

Randolph Paine:  36 years old, born in Texas. Attorney. Living in Dallas, Texas. Wife Maude

Obituary
Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, TX) June 14, 1937, p. 5

Former Denton Man Dies in Dallas

Randolph Paine, 63, veteran Dallas attorney, who was born in Denton in 1873, died in a Dallas hospital Sunday after a brief illness. He had retired from active law practice four years ago…Surviving Paine are his widow and three sons, Dr. John R. Paine of Minneapolis; Henry C. Paine and Roswell Paine, both of Dallas.

 

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Charles Edward Seaman
(b. Oct. 4, 1866 in Picton, Canada; d. Aug. 19, 1937 in Los Angeles)

A.B. 1892, Acadia. A.B. 1895 and A.M. 1896 Harvard.

University of Vermont

Officers of Instruction and Government, 1901. Professor of Political Economy and Constitutional Law. University of Vermont.  p. 33.

Instructor:  1900-01 of Political Economy and Constitutional Law. University of Vermont., p. 21

Source: General Catalogue of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College. 1791-1900.

 

Ariel vol. 17 (1904) University of Vermont yearbook

Charles Edward Seaman, A.M., 49 Williams St. Professor of Political Economy and Constitutional Law, 1901; and Dean of the Department of Commerce and Economics. Instructor of Political Economy and Constitutional Law, 1900-01.

Declaration of Intention for Naturalization.
Los Angeles County. 18 September 1908.

Charles Edward Seaman aged 41 years, occupation retired. Born in Picton, Canada on 4th day of October 1866. Residing at 2151 Harvard Blvd, Los Angeles.

Married into a wealthy Indiana family

Charles Edward Seaman and Florence Leyden DePauw married 10 Sept 1902 in Marion, Indiana.

From obituary [ Los Angeles Express, Apr. 2, 1913] for wife’s mother (Frances Marion DePauw, widow of Washington Charles DePauw who endowed DePauw university at Greencastle, Ind.): “Mrs. DePauw is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Charles Edward Seaman, 2151 Harvard boulevard, whose husband formerly held the chair of economics in the University of Vermont.

1913 Harvard University Alumni directory

Charles Edward Seaman, 2151 Harvard Blvd. Los Angels, CA.

Obituary
August 19, 1937. The Los Angeles Times, p. 42

Seaman. August 19, Charles Edward Seaman, beloved husband of Florence De Pauw Seaman and loving father of Mrs. William D. Witherspoon and Mrs. James H. Meriwether. Services at the residence, 2151 South Harvard Boulevard, Saturday at 2:30 p.m.

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Principles Suggested Reading Syllabus Teaching Undergraduate

Harvard. Principles of Economics. Reading assignments, Exams, 1928

 

Partial course outlines from Harvard’s principles of economics course from 1927-28 and 1928-29 were found filed with the economics course outlines for 1938-39 in the Harvard Archives. The principal instructors for the courses in both years were Harold Hitchings Burbank and Edward Hastings Chamberlin, so combining the first semester outline from 1928-29 with the second semester outline from 1927-28 as transcribed below gives us a synthetic syllabus for the 1927-29 years. This post also includes enrollment figures for the two academic years as well as the corresponding semester final exams for the course. Links to the assigned textbooks have been added to complete the package.

____________________________

Course Announcement and Description

ECONOMICS
GENERAL STATEMENT

Course A is introductory to the other courses. It is intended to give a general survey of the subject for those who take but one course in Economics, and also to prepare for the further study of the subject in advanced courses. It may not be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor. Students concentrating in Economics should elect Course A in their Sophomore year, except in unusual cases. History 1 or Government 1, or both of these courses, will usually be taken to advantage before Economics A…

INTRODUCTORY COURSES
Primarily for Undergraduates

A. Principles of Economics

Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Professor [Harold Hitchings] Burbank, Dr. [Edward Hastings] Chamberlin, Dr. [Charles Holt] Taylor, and Messrs. [John Bever] Crane, [Melvin Gardner] de Chazeau, [Edgar Jerome] Johnson, [Delmar] Leighton, [Talcott] Parsons, [Carl Johann] Ratzlaff, [James Harold] Shoemaker, [Samuel Sommerville] Stratton, [John Phillip] Wernette, [Harry Dexter] White and [Earle Micajah] Winslow; with lectures on selected subjects by Professor [Frank William] Taussig and other Members of the Department.

Course A gives a general introduction to economic study, and a general view of Economics for those who have not further time to give to the subject. It undertakes an analysis of the present organization of industry, the mechanism of exchange, the determination of value, and the distribution of wealth.

The course is conducted entirely by oral discussion in sections. Taussig’s Principles of Economics is used as the basis of discussion.

Course A may not be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor.

SourceOfficial Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXV, No. 29 (May 26, 1928). Division of History, Government, and Economics 1928-29, pp. 63-64.

____________________________

Enrollment in Economics A, 1928-29

[Economics] A. Professor Burbank and Dr. Chamberlin, Dr. Taylor and Messrs. Leighton, Stratton, Winslow, O.H. Taylor, E.J. Johnson, de Chazeau, Parsons, Wernette, H.D. White, and Ratzlaff, Crane and Shoemaker. — Principles of Economics.

Total 477: 55 Seniors, 127 Juniors, 242 Sophomores, 26 Freshmen, 27 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1928-29, p. 71.

 

____________________________

EXHIBIT D
First Half

OUTLINE OF STUDY FOR ECONOMICS A
1928-29

Hubert D. Henderson. Supply and Demand. (New York: 1922).

D. H. Robertson. The Control of Industry (London: 1923).

Frank W. Taussig. Principles of Economics, Vol. I, 3rd edition, (New York: 1921).

Sept. 27
Sept. 29
Lecture.
Lecture.
Oct. 1 – 6 Taussig, Principles 1. Wealth and Labor.
2. Labor in Production.
3. Division of Labor and Development of Modern Industry.
Oct. 8 – 13


Robertson
4. Large Scale Production.
5. Capital.
6. Corporate Organization of Industry.
1 – 3. Control of Industry.
Oct. 15 – 20 Taussig

8. Exchange, Value, Price.
9. Value and Utility.
10. Market Value. Demand and Supply.
Oct. 22 – 27

17. Coinage.
18. Quantity.
19. Secs. 2, 3, 4: History of Prices.
Oct. 29 – Nov. 3

20. Bimetallism.
22. Changes in Prices.
23. Government Paper Money
Nov. 5 – 10
24. Banking and Medium of Exchange.
25. Banking Operations.
Nov. 12 – 17

27. Banking System of United States
28. Crises.
29. Panics.
Nov. 19 – 24

Hour Exam
30. Prices.
31. Reform.
Nov. 26 – Dec. 1


Henderson
Review 8, 9, 10.
12. Constant Cost.
13. Diminishing Returns.
Demand and Supply (Nov. 26 to Dec. 15).
Dec. 3 – 8 Taussig
14. Varying Cost.
15. Monopoly.
Dec. 10 – 15
Henderson:
16. Joint Cost and Joint Demand.
Ch. 5. Demand and Supply.
Dec. 17 – 22 Taussig 32. The Foreign Exchanges
RECESS Dec. 23 to Jan. 2
Reading Period Jan. 2 to 16  [No additional reading requirements]
Jan. 2 – 7 Taussig
33. International Payments.
34. International Trade.
Jan. 9 – 14
36. Protection.
37. Free Trade.
MIDYEARS:

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2; Folder “Economics, 1938-1939 [sic].”

____________________________

1928-29
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS A
[Mid-Year Examination, 1929]

  1. Many business men are hoping for a period of rising prices; some financial writers are prophesying that it is inevitable. Assuming no change in our existing monetary and banking laws, what causes might lead to an increase in prices? How would such rising prices tend to affect the holders of various types of securities?
  2. “Some people argue that price is determined by cost of production; and yet they admit that producers with too high costs have to drop out. Thus it is clear that in reality a producer’s cost is determined by the price he can get, consequently price cannot be determined by cost of production.” Comment on this statement.
  3. What influence has the existence of joint cost upon the development of large scale production?
  4. It has been stated that with the Federal Reserve System in operation there will never be a recurrence in the United States of such (a) crises and (b) panics as occurred in 1893 and 1907. Do you agree?
  5. What attitude toward the tariff would you expect to be taken by a banker who has made large loans abroad, by a manufacturer of woolen cloth, by a professor of economics, by a Louisiana politician?
  6. Explain briefly:
    1. The principles of subsidiary coinage.
    2. The relation between markets and the division of labor.
    3. The distinction between consumers’ goods and producers’ goods.
    4. The significance of the following: “The plentifulness of money is in itself a matter of indifference.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-Year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 11, Bound volume: Examination Papers: Mid-Years 1929, Papers Printed for Mid-Year Examinations [in] History, New Testament, Government, Economics….Military Science, Naval Science. January-February, 1929.

____________________________

Enrollment in Economics A, 1927-28

[Economics] A. Professor Burbank and Dr. Chamberlin and Messrs. K.W. Bigelow, [Theodore John] Kreps, Stratton, Winslow, O.H. Taylor, E.J. Johnson, de Chazeau, Parsons, Wernette, H.D. White, and D.V. Brown, with lectures on selected subjects by Professor Taussig and other Members of the Department. — Principles of Economics.

Total 532: 61 Seniors, 165 Juniors, 258 Sophomores, 20 Freshmen, 28 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1927-28, p. 74.

____________________________

OUTLINE OF ASSIGNMENTS FOR ECONOMICS A
1927-28, 2nd. Half year.

Thomas Nixon Carver. The Distribution of Wealth (New York: 1921).

Hubert D. Henderson. Supply and Demand. (New York: 1922).

D. H. Robertson. The Control of Industry (London: 1923).

Frank W. Taussig. Principles of Economics, 3rd edition, (New York: 1921). Volume I, Volume II.

Feb. 6

Feb. 11

Review
Value
Diminishing Returns
Carver:

Distribution of Wealth
Ch. I. Value
Ch. II. Diminishing Returns
Feb. 13

Feb. 18

Rent Carver:
Taussig:
V. Rent
Ch. 44. Rent (esp. Capitalization)
Ch. 43. Urban Site Rent
Feb. 20

Feb. 25

Interest Carver:
Taussig:
Ch. VI. Interest
Ch. 40. Interest
Feb. 27

Mar. 3

Wages Carver:
Taussig:
Ch. IV. Wages
Ch. 47. Social Stratification
Mar. 5

Mar. 10

Profits, Population Carver:
Taussig:
Ch. VII. Profits
Ch. 53. Population
Ch. 54. Population, continued
Mar. 12

Mar. 17

Inequality Taussig:


Ch. 7. Productiveness
Ch. 45. Monopoly
Ch. 51. Great Fortunes
Ch. 55. Inequality
Mar. 19

Mar. 24

Land, Risk, Labor, etc. Henderson:



Ch. VI. Land
Ch. VII. Risk Bearing Enterprise
Ch. VIII. Capital
Ch. IX. Labor
Ch. X. Real Costs of Production
Mar. 26

Mar. 31

Labor Taussig:

Ch. 56. Wages system
Ch. 57. Labor Unions
Ch. 58. Labor Legislation
Apr. 2

Apr. 7

Labor

Ch. 59. Industrial Peace
Ch. 60. Workmen’s Insurance
Ch. 61. Coöperation
RECESS April 8-14
Apr. 16

Apr. 21

Railways
Ch. 62. Railways
Ch. 63. Railway Problems, continued.
Apr. 23

Apr. 28

Public Ownership & Combinations
Ch. 64. Public Ownership & Control
Ch. 65 Combinations & Trusts
Apr. 30

May 5

Industry and Capitalism Robertson:


Review
Ch. V. Capitalism of Industry
Ch. VI. Finance and Industry
Ch. VII. Survey of CapitalismCh. X. Workers’ Control
May 7
READING PERIOD BEGINS
May 12
Socialism Taussig:
Ch. 66. Socialism
Ch. 67. Socialism, continued.
May 14

May 19

Social Reform Robertson:

Ch. IX. Collectivism
Ch. X. Workers Control
Ch. XI. Joint Control
May 21

May 26

Taxation

Taussig:

Ch. 68. Principles Underlying Taxation
Ch. 69 Income and Inheritance Taxes
REVIEW
EXAMINATIONS

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2; Folder “Economics, 1938-1939 [sic].”

____________________________

1927-28
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS A
[Final End-year Examination]

Allow one hour and one-half for the first question.

  1. Explain how the distribution of wealth is affected by the following:
    1. Large and rapid changes in the supply of money.
    2. Labor saving inventions.
    3. A rise in the standard of living of the wage earning classes.
    4. The opening for settlement of new areas of good agricultural land.
    5. The government regulation of public utilities.
  2. Discuss the accuracy of the following statements:
    “Three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves.”
    “The rich are becoming richer and the poor poorer.”
    “To abolish wage slavery we must abolish the wages system; only through socialism can the wages system be forced to disappear.”
    “The one way a union can help its members is by limitation of the supply of hands.”
  3. What does each of the following propose: collectivism, single tax, producers’ coöperation, syndicalism?
  4. Explain briefly the case for and against minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, progressive taxation of incomes, the restriction of immigration.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, Finals (HUC 7000.28). Bound Volume 70 (1928). Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, Church History,…Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science, June 1928.

Image Source: Harold Hitchings Burbank from Harvard Class Album 1934.

Categories
Chicago Economists Princeton

Chicago to Princeton. Jacob Viner’s Resignation Letter, 1946

 

 

Jacob Viner was 53 years old when he decided to leave the University of Chicago for Princeton. The letter transcribed below presents the personal and professional reasons for his resignation. Viner’s letter reveals the soft note of a late mid-life crisis motivating the move — no need for a new wife and fancy sports car, but rather the scholar sought retreat to an ivory-tower library, comfort from the families of his adult children and a significantly shorter commute to points East. 

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Resignation Letter of Jacob Viner

COPY SENT TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON INSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH.
ORIGINAL TO MISS STROMWALL

 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Chicago 37, Illinois
Department of Economics

January 24, 1946

Chancellor Robert M. Hutchins
Office of the Central Administration
Faculty Exchange

Dear Mr. Hutchins:

I am sorry to have to tell you that I am hereby resigning from the University of Chicago as of the end of this academic year to take a professorship at Princeton University. As I am to be at the London School of Economics from April to July, I am leaving the University in March, on leave without pay for the spring quarter.

The Princeton offer first came to me over a year ago, and I definitely declined it twice. It has been renewed and I now have definitely accepted it. For many reasons the offer had great attractions for me from the start, and I am sure that it was loyalty to Chicago which led me at first to decline it — as was true also in the case of Yale. I have been associated with the University of Chicago for 30 years, and the University has always treated me, both before and since your regime, with the utmost generosity. I have never in the thirty years had any cause to feel a personal grievance against you, or any other administrative officer, or any colleague. I am not leaving because of any dissatisfaction with the way the University has treated me, or with my colleagues, with you, or with any of your aides. I did disapprove at times of some aspects of what I thought to be your policy for the University. I still do on some points. But I had my full day in court; and my disapproval of some of your ideas — which it is not impossible that I misunderstood — never carried with it any lessening of my respect for yourself, or any ill-will toward you, and was always accompanied by enthusiastic approval of other of your educational ideas. I have been very happy about the way the new Council of the University has been operating, and if there were any criticism I would venture to offer of your behavior as its presiding officer, it would be that you have been too self-effacing and have not given as much leadership as the Council would welcome and would benefit from. I assure you that when I leave it will be with the friendliest feeling toward you and with strong affection for the University which I so cherish and which has dealt so kindly with me.

Why then am I leaving? A variety of factors have played their part. Most important, probably, is that our children, although born here, never took root in Chicago, that our daughter is already living in New York, and that our son, when he gets out of the Coast Guard, is sure of only one thing, that he will not live in Chicago. They have been pressing us very hard to move East, and what with their four years at eastern colleges, Arthur’s military service, and Ellen’s removal to New York, we have not been able to have the family together except for very short intervals over a period of some seven years. While we don’t expect them to live in Princeton, we do hope that we will at least have them frequently for week-end and vacation guests.

As for myself, as I get older, the physical aspects of the routines of teaching and of committees, of inadequate secretarial help, of a library physically difficult to use, and of frequent inescapable trips East, have grown progressively more burdensome to me. I know that as time goes on, these matters will become still more important to me. In the past ten years I have done what looks to me like a great deal of research, but most of it was done while I was on leave of absence from the University and I have put little of it into print. Even when I was in Washington, the secretarial and library privileges I had enabled me to do nearly as much of my personal research in my spare time as I could do in all my time while at the University.

It is not that the University imposed unfair burdens on me. Some of my heaviest chores were self-imposed. But at Chicago I did not want special privileges which equally-deserving colleagues did not have, and some of the things I wanted badly I would for this reason not have accepted at Chicago if they had been offered to me. At Princeton I come now, without obligations going beyond my contract, and with no reason for not accepting all the facilities voluntarily offered me. If after a while I should acquire Princeton loyalties which consume time and energy, I will at least have had a long spell during which I had been free to realize some of my ambitions as a scholar. I want to be able to get some of my accumulated research into shape for print, and if I don’t succeed, it will not be Princeton’s fault, provided it delivers on all the things I have been promised. These things are not financial: my salary will be the same at Princeton as here, and was not an issue. It’s all a matter of easy access to a library easy to use, light teaching load, no journal to edit, no burdensome eastern trips for committees, government advice, work on eastern library collections, etc., a secretary, a research assistant, a good office layout, and so forth. As I could not ask you to build a new library building for me, or to give me facilities that my colleagues could not get, or to transfer the University to the East, I thought it would be easier for all concerned if I did not let anyone here  know about my negotiations.

I may be wrong in deciding that I will be happier and a more productive scholar at Princeton. No matter how well things go there, I know that I will always have a warm feeling for Chicago and a regret that I did not prove to be one of those rare creatures: a professor who passed all his working life at a single institution of which he was not a graduate. I will always be ready upon request to render any service to the University within my power, and I will carry out scrupulously my obligations to Chicago students who are working on theses under my direction or have any other claims upon me.

I hope it will be satisfactory to you if President Dodds announces my appointment on February 1st. I think it only fair to resign at once as a member of the Council and also as a member of the Social Science Research Committee where I would be participating in the making of decisions without staying to take the blame should there be any. I will continue on my other committees at your pleasure and the pleasure of their Chairmen until I leave.

I have never written an academic letter of resignation before. If there is any further action I need to take, I trust you will let me know. I am sending a copy of this letter to Dean Redfield, who has also deserved better of me.

Very sincerely yours,
/a/ Jacob Viner

JF-w

Source: University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center. Office of the President, Hutchins Administration Records 1892-1951. Box 73, Folder “Economics Department, 1946-1950”.

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Noted Economist Is Appointed To Princeton Staff

Princeton, Feb. 27. The appointment of Professor Jacob Viner, of the University of Chicago, internationally known as one of America’s most distinguished economists and editor of the “Journal of Political Economy,” to the faculty of Princeton University was announced today by President Harold W. Dodds. He will join the Princeton faculty next September.

“The addition of Professor Viner to the Department of Economics and Social institutions will contribute to the attractiveness of the university as a center of under graduate and post-graduate studies. President Dodds said. “He is distinguished as a professor and as an economist in the fields of international finance and trade. The program of our International Finance Section will benefit, but his usefulness to the university will not be limited to the activities of the section. He is a scholar whose Interests embrace the whole field of economics.”

Professor Viner, a native of Montreal, received his B.A. degree from McGill University in 1914; his M.A. from Harvard University in 1915, his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1922 and an LL.D. degree from Lawrence College in 1941.

He was a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, 1916-17; special expert with the U.S. Tariff Commission, 1917-19, and the U.S. Shipping Board during part of 1918. He returned to the University of Chicago in 1919 as an assistant professor of economics, was appointed associate professor in 1923 and professor in 1925. Since 1940 he has been Morton Hull Distinguished Service Professor at that institution.

Meanwhile, he has served variously as visiting professor at the Institute Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, Geneva. Switzerland, 1930-31 and 1933-34 visiting professor at Yale University, 1942-43; special assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, dur[ing] part of 1934; consulting expert to the U.S. Treasury, 1935-39; special assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury during parts of 1939 and 1942; and consultant U.S. Department of State since 1943.

Professor Viner is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He is a member and former president of the American Economical [sic] Association and the author of: “Dumping a Problem in International Trade”; “Canada’s Balance of International Indebtedness”; “Studies in the Theory of International Trade”; and numerous articles on economic subjects.

Source: The Morning Call (Paterson, N.J.), February 28, 1946. Page 7.

Image Source: Jacob Viner (left); Theodore W. Schultz (right).  University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07483, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final Exams for Railways and Other Public Works. Meyer, 1901

 

Hugo Richard Meyer received his A.M. in economics from Harvard and went from his instructorship in political economy there (1897-1903) to an assistant professorship in political economy at the University of Chicago (1904-05). While at Harvard he taught courses involving the regulation of railways and municipal utilities. This post provides the examination questions for his two-semester sequence “Railways and other Public Works” that was offered in 1900-01 at Harvard.

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Course Enrollments

[Economics] 51 hf. Mr. Meyer.— Railways and other Public Works, under Public and Corporate Management.

Total 86: 4 Graduates, 52 Seniors, 17 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 9 Others.

[Economics] 52 hf. Mr. Meyer.— Railways and other Public Works (advanced course).

Total 9: 3 Graduates, 4 Seniors, 1 Junior, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1900-1901, p.64.

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Final Examination
(First half-year, 1900-01):
Railways and other Public Works, under Public and Corporate Management

ECONOMICS 51

Omit the last question if the paper seems too long

  1. The construction put upon the long and short haul clause: by the Interstate Commerce Commission; by the Supreme Court.
  2. The decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission on group rates.
  3. The railway rate situation in Germany [Prussia]; does it throw any light on the railway problem in the United States?
  4. “If pooling produces any beneficial result, it necessarily does so at the expense of competition. It is only by destroying competition that the inducement to deviate from the published rate is wholly removed….By the legalizing of pooling the public loses the only protection which it now has against the unreasonable exactions of transportation agencies.”—Give your reasons for accepting or rejecting this statement.
    Alternative:—
    The reasons for the instability of pools in the United States.
  5. The Iowa Railroad Commission.
    Alternative:—
    To what extent was the long and short haul clause of the Interstate Commerce Act enforced; what was the effect of that enforcement: on railway revenues; on intermediate shipping or distributing points?
  6. The body of administrative law to be found in the decisions of the Massachusetts Gas and Electric Light Commission’s decisions upon petitions for reductions in the price of gas.
  7. (a) Is it to the public interest to insert in street railway charters provisions seeking to secure to the municipality or the state a share in any excess of profit over the normal rate?
    Alternative: (b) and (c).
    (b) The evidence as to the return on capital obtainable in street railway ventures.
    (c) What questions of public policy were raised in the case of the Milwaukee Street Railway and Electric Light Co. vs. The City of Milwaukee?
  8. What statistics were used in illustrating in a general way the statement that railway charges are based upon what the traffic will bear; in discussing the bearing of stock-watering upon railway rates; in discussing the return obtained by capital invested in railway enterprises in the United States?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5. Bound Volume: Examination Papers 1900-01. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Design, Music in Harvard College. June, S. Pages 24-25.

Final Examination
(Second half-year, 1900-01)
Railways and other Public Works
(advanced course)

ECONOMICS 52

  1. The railways and the national finances in Prussia and Australia.
  2. Railway rates and the export trade of the United States since 1893, or, 1896.
  3. The economic situation in Australia since 1892, and the Australian railways.
  4. “A fatal objection to the income or preference bond is that it is an attempt to combine two contradictory commercial principles.”
    Discuss this statement fully. What does it mean? Is it true?
  5. If you had access to all the accounts of a railroad, how should you determine the value to it of one of its branch lines?
  6. To what accounts would you charge the following expenditures? (If you do not remember the exact Interstate Commerce Commission classification, use your best judgment.) State reasons in each case.
    Engineer’s wages on a special train conveying the general manager to an extensive flood covering the line.
    Fireman’s wages on an engine employed exclusively in switching to and from the repair shops.
    Conductor’s wages on a worktrain engaged in taking up rails on an abandoned branch.
    Brakeman’s wages on a train engaged solely in hauling company’s coal for company’s use.
    Cost of taking up comparatively new sound rails judged too light for heavy rolling stock.
    Cost at a competitive point of a new station to replace an old one which was large enough but old-fashioned.
  7. State the commonest problems facing a reorganization committee for an insolvent road, and then suggest and defend one course of procedure for each problem.
  8. Combine and arrange the following items so as to give the best information about the operation and condition of the road. (Do not rewrite the names but use the corresponding numbers where possible.)
1. Passenger train miles

2,000,000

2. Freight train miles

3,400,000

3. Passenger train earnings

$2,400,000

4. Freight train earnings

$5,500,000

5. Income from investments

$100,000

6. Dividends

$500,000

7. Operating expenses

$4,700,000

8. Av. no. pass. cars per train

4

9. Av. no. passengers per car

11

10. Tons freight carried

2,800,000

11. Av. load per car (loaded and empty), tons

8.2

12. Av. no. loaded cars per train

12.3

13. Av. no. empty cars per train

6.7

14. Interest charge for year

$2,200,000

15. Due other roads

$100,000

16. Stocks and bonds owned

$4,900,000

17. Supplies on hand

$500,000

18. Taxes for the year

$300,000

19. Accounts receivable

$500,000

20. Cash

$1,000,000

21. Surplus for the year

$300,000

22. Profit and loss account

$1,000,000

23. Taxes accrued but not due

$100,000

24. Capital stock

$50,000,000

25. Interest due

$700,000

26. Funded debt

$45,000,000

27. Due from other roads

$100,000

28. Interest accrued not due

$300,000

29. Franchises and property

$90,400,000

30. Bonds of the company in its treasury

$800,000

31. Accounts payable

$1,000,000

32. No. of passengers carried

2,300,000

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5. Bound Volume: Examination Papers 1900-01. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Design, Music in Harvard College. June, 1901. Pages 25-27.

Image Source: Portrait of Hugo Richard Meyer from the Minneapolis Messenger (October 12, 1905), p. 4. Wikimedia Commons.

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists Gender Wellesley

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumna, Anna Prichitt Youngman, 1908

 

This entry in the series “Get to know an economics Ph.D. alumna/us” is dedicated to the life and professional career of Anna Prichitt Youngman, the third woman to receive a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. I have spent several hours verifying that her middle name is indeed spelled “Prichitt”, though even University of Chicago alumni publications and references have sometimes gotten it wrong as have later historians.

A timeline, a linked list of publications, and miscellaneous artifacts documenting her life, e.g. courses taught at Wellesley and salaries paid her while working at the Federal Reserve Board have been assembeled for this post.

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Barbara Libby provides a brief discussion of Youngman’s more important publications in “Anna Pritchett [sic] Youngman” in A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists, Robert W. Dimand, Mary Ann Dimand, and Evelyn L. Forget (eds.). Northampton, Mass : Edward Elgar, 2000. Pages 486-489.

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Anna Prichitt Youngman.

1882, August 21. Born in Lexington, Kentucky.
1901. Graduated from Female High School in Louisville, Kentucky. Highest grade point average of her class, winning her a scholarship to University of Chicago.
1904. Ph.B. University of Chicago.
1908. Ph.D. University of Chicago.
1908-14. Instructor in economics, Wellesley College.
1911-2. Winter Semester at the University of Berlin. Later at the University of Frankfurt/Main.  August 1911 to July 1912 in Germany.
1914-20. Associate Professor, Wellesley College.
1919-20. Leave of absence from Wellesley College to work at the Federal Reserve Board.
1920-21. Lecturer in Banking, School of Business, University Extension, Columbia University.
1921-22. Research Assistant, Division of Analysis and Research, Federal Reserve Board;
1922. July 5.  Sailed from New York for a three month trip to Europe: countries listed on passport application were Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, British Isles.
1924-1933. Editorial writer, Journal of Commerce, 46 Barclay St., New York, N.Y.
1933-52. Editorial Writer, The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
1974. February 16. Died in Silver Spring, Maryland.
1974. February 21. Buried in Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville Kentucky

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Publications of Anna Prichitt Youngman

The Growth of Financial Banking,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 14, No. 7 (July, 1906), pp. 435-443.

The Tendency of Modern Combination. I,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 4 (April, 1907), pp. 193-208.

The Tendency of Modern Combination. II,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 5 (May, 1907), pp. 284-298.

The Fortune of John Jacob Astor. [I],” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 16, No. 6 (June, 1908), pp. 345-368.

The Fortune of John Jacob Astor. II. Investments in Real Estate,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 16, No. 7 (July, 1908), pp. 436-441.

The Fortune of John Jacob Astor. III. Conclusion,Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 16, No. 8 (October, 1908), pp. 514-530.

The Economic Causes of Great Fortunes [University of Chicago Ph.D. Thesis]. New York: Bankers Publishing, Co., 1909.

The New York Times Saturday Review for February 12, publishes a review of Miss Youngman’s new book which considers the source of some of our large American fortunes. We quote the first paragraph of the review:
“There is nothing feminine about the discussion of the ‘Economic Causes of Great Fortunes,’ by Anna Youngman, Ph.D., (the Bankers’ Publishing Company). She is Professor of Economics in Wellesley College for Women, but she writes as a man to men, rather than as a woman to women…”

SourceWellesley News (February 16, 1910), p. 6.

The Tobacco Pools of Kentucky and Tennessee,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 18, No. 1 (January, 1910), pp. 34-49.

Review of History of the Great American Fortunes by Gustavus Myers. Journal of Political Economy Vol. 18, No. 8 (October, 1910), pp. 642-643.

Review of Untersuchungen zum Maschinenproblem in der Volkswirtschaftslehre. Ruckblick und Ausblick. Eine dogmengeschichtliche Studie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der klassischen Schule by Carl Ergang. American Economic ReviewVol. 1, No. 4 (December, 1911), pp. 806-808.

Frankfort-on-the-Main: A Study in Prussian Communal Finance Part I,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 27, No. 1 (November, 1912), pp. 150-201.

Frankfort-on-the-Main: A Study in Prussian Communal Finance Part II,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 27, No. 2 (February, 1913), pp. 329-372.

Review of Der Wandel des Besitzes. Versuch einer Theorie des Reichtums als Organismus by Emaneul Sella (trans. by Dr. Bluwstein). American Economic ReviewVol. 3, No. 3 (September, 1913), pp. 627-629.

Review of Die Lohntheorien von Ad. Smith, Ricardo, J. St. Mill und Marx by Fredinand von Degenfeld-Schonburg. American Economic ReviewVol. 5, No. 1 (March, 1915), p. 55.

The Revenue System of Kentucky: A Study in State Finance,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 32, No. 1 (November, 1917), pp. 142-205.

Review of The Conflict of Tax Laws by Rowland Estcourt. American Economic ReviewVol. 8, No. 4 (December, 1918), pp. 831-832.

The Efficacy of Changes in the Discount Rates of the Federal Reserve Banks,American Economic Review, Vol. 11, No. 3 (September 1921), pp. 466-485.

A Popular Theory of Credit Applied to Credit Policy,” American Economic Review, Vol. 12, No. 3 (September, 1922), pp. 417-446.

Review of Money, Banking and Exchange in India by H. Stanley Jevons. American Economic ReviewVol. 13, No. 3 (September, 1923), pp. 512-513.

Participant in Discussion: Liquidating the War. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, Vol. 14, No. 2 (January, 1931), pp. 45-50.

The Federal Reserve System in wartime. National Bureau of Economic Research Occasional Paper No. 21, Jan 1945.

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High School Class Rank

Miss Anna Prichitt Youngman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C.A. Youngman, of 1313 Second street, received the highest average of the class of 1901 at the Female High School, and by a unanimous vote of the faculty she was awarded the scholarship at the Chicago University.

Source: The Courier-Journal of Louisville Kentucky (June 8, 1901), p. 6.

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Appointed at Wellesley to succeed Edith Abott in 1908

The fact that Dr. Edith Abbott of the Economics Department has refused reappointment in order to take up research work in Chicago is a source of sincere regret to all who have been brought into contact with her here this year. Miss Abbott will live at Hull House and work in the research department of the Chicago Institute of Social Science.

Dr. Abbott’s successor in the department of Economics is to be Miss Anna Youngman of Louisville, Kentucky. Miss Youngman graduated from the University of Chicago in 1904 and since that time has been doing graduate work in Economics and Political Science. She has held one of the University Fellowships in Political Economy and will receive the Ph.D. degree in June. Miss Youngman’s special studies have been in the line of Trusts and Corporation Finance. During the past year she has published a series of articles in the Journal of Political Economy on “Tendencies in Modern Combination” and her doctor’s thesis on “Great Fortunes” is already in press. Miss Youngman has been assisting in editorial work on the Journal of Political Economy during the past year.

Source: [Wellesley] College News (May 13, 1908), p. 3.

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Berlin and Frankfurt a.M.
Winter Semester, 1911/12

…During her stay at Wellesley, Youngman took time off to study economics at Berlin for the Winter Semester of 1911/12. At Berlin and later at the University of Frankfurt/Main, she concentrated on taxation and banking.
In 1919 Youngman took a leave of absence from Wellesley to work as an economist for the Federal Reserve Board. Youngman then resigned from Wellesley to continue her work with the Federal Reserve Board. From 1924 to 1933 she held a position as an eidtorial writer for the Journal of Commerce in New York City. She left that position to become an editorial writer for the Washington Post, where she remained until her retirement in 1952. At the Post, she wrote columns on financial and business topics. After retiring, Youngman continued to write for the Journal of Commerce.

Source: Sandra L. Singer. Adventures Abroad: North American Women at German-speaking Universities. Contributions in Women’s Studies, Number 201 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 203) p. 141.

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Wellesley College
1912-13
ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY

Professor: Katherine Coman, Ph.B. (on leave 1912-13)
Associate Professor: Emily Greene Balch, B.A.
Instructors: Anna Youngman, Ph.D., Emilie Josephine Hutchinson, M.A.

 

  1. Elements of Economics. I

Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, but intended primarily for sophomores. Three hours a week for the year.

Miss Youngman

An introductory course designed to give the student acquaintance with economic facts and training in economic reasoning. Illustrations will be drawn from actual observation of the conditions determining prices, land values, wages, profits, and standards of living. In the second semester, certain legislative problems relating to currency, banking, the tariff, etc., will be discussed in class.

[…]

  1. Statistical Study of Certain Economic Problems. III [not offered 1912-13]

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed two courses in Economics. Three hours a week for the first semester.

Miss Youngman

The course is introduced by lectures on the principles of statistical research. Each member of the class undertakes the investigation of a particular problem, and reports the results of her inquiry in the form of a final paper. Emphasis is placed upon the critical examination of statistical methods.

[…]

  1. The Trust Problem. III.

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed one course in Economics. Three hours a week for the second semester.

Miss Youngman

This course will deal with the various forms of monopolistic organization, the growth of the movement toward large scale production, the history of characteristic combinations, federal and state legislation and judicial decisions relating to the subject, the alleged advantages and evils of trusts, and proposed remedies for the latter.

[…]

  1. Money and Banking. III.

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed one course in Economics. Three hours a week for the first semester.

Miss Youngman

This course deals mainly with the principles of money and banking, but it is also designed to give the student some acquaintance with the history and chief characteristics of typical modern systems of banking.

[…]

  1. Conservation of our Natural Resources. III.

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed two courses in Economics. Three hours a week for the second semester.

Miss Youngman

A consideration of the wastes involved in the exploitation of forests, mineral resources, soil and water power, and the means proposed for scientific conservation. The work of the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Forestry, the Reclamation Service, the Bureau of Mines, etc., will be studied in detail.

 

  1. The Distribution of Wealth. III. [not offered 1912-13]

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed course 1 or 15. Three hours a week for the second semester.

Miss Youngman

A discussion of the principles regulating wages, interest, and rent. The course will involve a critical and comparative examination of the distributive theories of such leading exponents of the classical school, as Ricardo, Mills, and Cairnes, and of certain important economists of the present day.

SourceWellesley College Bulletin, Calendar 1912-13, pp. 72-77.

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Salaries of the Federal Reserve Board Employees, 1919

ANALYSIS & RESEARCH Present Basic Salary, including Extra Compensation (1919)
Olive M. Bode $1,200
Ruth Cornwall $1,800
Mary Johnson $1,320
W. H. Steiner $2,750
Anna Youngman $2,500

Source: Meeting Minutes of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, December 18, 1919, 3:30 PM, Volume 6, Part 3, page 5.

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Salaries of the Federal Reserve Board Employees, 1920

Dated June 21st [1920] recommending approval of increases in salaries of employees of the Division of Analysis and Research, as follows:

From To
W. H. Steiner $3,500 $4,000
Miss Anna Youngman $2,750 $3,000
Miss Katherine Snodgrass $2,000 $2,750
F. W. Jones $2,400 $2,750
Miss Ruth Cornwall $2,000 $2,400
Miss Faith Williams $1,800 $2,250
J. M. Chapman $1,200 $1,500 ($750 half time)
M. R. Adams $1,500 $1,560
Miss Alice Ross $1,500 $1,560
Miss Rose Heller $1,080 $1,440
Miss Mary Johnson $1,440 $1,560
Miss Helen S. Grant $1,440
Miss Olive M. Bode $1,500

Approved.

Source: Meeting Minutes of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, June 22, 1920, 11:00 AM, Volume 7, Part 2, page 7.

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Anna Youngman’s (final) annual salary, 1922

“Letter dated May 8th, from the Director of the Division of Analysis and Research, requesting approval of the appointment of Mr. Woodlief Thomas as an employee in that Division at annual salary of $2600, said authority being requested in view of the retirement of Miss Anna Youngman, who has previously been employed in the Division of Analysis & Research, at annual salary of $3500.”

Source: Meeting Minutes of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, May 10, 1922, Volume 9, Part 1, page 1.

________________________

From Passport Application.
Sworn May 3, 1922

Permanent residence 35 Schermerhorn St., Brooklyn, New York.
Occupation: research assistant.
Height: 5 feet 7 ½ inches

July 5, 1922 to sail from New York on the “Mongolia” to Europe: Germany, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, British Isles (“intend to return to the United States within 3 months”)

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Internal Memorandum

February 18, 1954
Washington, D.C.

Interview with Miss Anna Youngman at her new
residence in the Marlyn Apartments

Miss Youngman worked with Parker Willis on the Journal of Commerce. She was an editorial writer but the rumor that she wrote some of the Willis editorials is something which she denies. She says she did not agree with Mr. Willis on banking policies and would not have written editorials attributed to him. She has kept no files and was by no means as useful in connection with the Willis papers as I had had reason to think she would be.

Miss Youngman confirmed what I had heard from other sources that Mr. Willis headed the first Research Division of the Federal Reserve Board and that on being asked to teach at Columbia he took the Division to New York and kept it there for three years. During this time a running fight went on with Mr. Jacobson (now deceased) and Mr. Goldenweiser and Mr. Adolf Miller.

Obviously the distance between the Research Division and the Board for which research was being done caused a great deal of the difficulty and at the end of three years the division was restored to Washington and put into other hands.

When Mr. Eugene Meyer bought the Washington Post he took Miss Anna Youngman with him to write editorials there. She did financial editorials for the Post for many years. Her last job at the Post was the classification of Mr. Myer’s own papers. Miss Youngman says that these papers have now been brought from New York and the summer place belonging to Mr. Meyer at White Plains and are in Washington. She says that they include seven or eight volumes of diaries carefully typed and indexed.

Obviously some of these diaries which, according to Miss Youngman, are better in the earlier period than the later ones will have material which is important to this project. Miss Youngman says that Mr. Floyd Harrison, who is Mr. Meyer’s right hand man in New York, is the person who can give further information about the papers and who will know if any provision has been made for their disposal after Mr. Meyer’s death.

Miss Youngman lives alone with her sister. Both ladies are far from young and any information which is needed from Miss Youngman should be gained as soon as possible.

Concerning Mr. Willis she said that he was not a difficult man to work with because he protected the people who worked with him. Assumed responsibility for the things they did and gave them credit when he thought they deserved it. He was on the other hand a man of lively mind and extremely fond of argument. She suggested that Mr. Jules Bogen, Mr. John M. Chapman of the school of business at Columbia University, who was at one time assistant to Mr. Williams and Mr. W. H. Stiner (correction that might be Steiner but I am not sure [Note: “W. H. Steiner” is correct spelling). At 328 Riverside Drive, New York[.] Might at all of them have further information about Mr. Willis.

Source: Committee on the History of the Federal Reserve System. Interview with Miss Anna Youngman at her new residence in the Marlyn Apartments, Washington, D.C. (February 18, 1954). Entry 167, Box 2, Folder 1, Item 42.

Image Source: Passport application of Anna Youngman (May 3, 1922).

 

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Syllabus and exams for Government Policy Toward Business. Kaysen, 1961

 

Carl Kaysen
from the 1958 Harvard yearbook

Carl Kaysen, who just this year [1958] was promoted to the position of Professor of Economics, has risen quickly up the educational ladder and has a distinguished record of non-academic accomplishments as well. At the age of 20, he served on the National Bureau of Economic Research, two years later he joined the Office of Strategic Services, and he served in the Air Force from 1943 to 1945. At thirty, he became an Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard, and was promoted to Associate Professor two years ago. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and a Guggenheim Fellow.

Professor Kaysen is primarily interested in industrial organizations and monopoly practices. He is a co-author of The American Business Creed and is currently engaged in a study of the complexity of modern business firms.

Source: Harvard Class Album 1958.

______________________

Course Description

Economics 144. Government Policy Toward Business
Half course (spring term). M., W., F., at 10. Professor Kaysen.

This course surveys the major areas of government regulation of the functioning of markets in the United States. Anti-trust policy, agricultural policy, public utility regulation, and the regulation of transportation are examined with an eye to both their underlying economic rationale and their outcome in practice.

Source: Courses of Instruction: Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. LVII, No. 21 (August 29, 1960), p. 96.

______________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 144. Government Policy Toward Business. Professor Kaysen. Half course.

(Spring) Total 88: 2 Graduates, 29 Seniors, 32 Juniors, 19 Sophomores, 5 Radcliffe, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1960-61, p. 76.

______________________

Economics 144
Government Policy Toward Business

Professor Kaysen        Littauer 212    MW 11-12
Dr. Fromm                  Littauer 214    MW 11-12
Mr. Wilson                  Littauer 214 Tues 4-6

  1. Policy Goals, Economic Systems, and Policy Instruments (Feb. 6-17)

Watson, Donald S., Economic Policy: Business and Government, Part I, pp. 3-196.

  1. Competition: Enough and Just Enough (Feb. 20 – March 20)

Wilcox, Clair, Public Policies Toward Business, Revised Edition, Chapters 3-5, pp. 49-123.

Bain, Joe S., Industrial Organization, Chapter 13, pp. 477-539.

United States, Department of Justice, Report of the Attorney General’s National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws, Chapters 1 and 3, pp. 1-64 and 115-128.

Stelzer, Irwin M., Selected Antitrust Cases: Landmark Decisions in Federal Antitrust, Chapter 1 (except Yellow Cab Company, et al.) pp. 3-40, 44-59, Chapter 3, pp. 79-94, Chapter 4, pp. 95-105.

Oppenheim, S. Chesterfield, Recent Cases on Federal Anti-Trust Laws, 1951 Supplement to Cases on Federal Anti-Trust Laws;

United States v. American Can Co., pp. 434-451
Tag Mfrs. Institute, et al. v. Federal Trade Commission, pp. 304-318
United States v. Aluminum Company of America, pp. 209-289

Federal Supplement, United States v. Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co., 168 F. Supp. 576.

Levitan, Sar A., Federal Assistance to Labor Surplus Areas, A Report to the Committee on Banking and Currency, United States House of Representatives, 85th Congress, 1st Session, April 15, 1957, pp. 5-35.

Watson, Donald S., Economic Policy: Business and Government, Chapter 25, pp. 658-691.

Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Staff Report on Employment, Growth, and Price Levels, December 24, 1959, Chapter 7, pp. 189-204.

  1. Monopolies, Near Monopolies (March 22 — April 17)

Wilcox, Clair, Public Policies Toward Business, Revised Edition, Chapters 19-22, pp. 539-642.

Watson, Donald S., Economic Policy: Business and Government, Chapter 16, pp. 391-421.

Meyer, J.R., Peck, M.J., Stenason, J., and Zwick, C., The Economics of Competition in the Transportation Industries, Chapters 6-9, pp. 145-273.

  1. External Effects and Ignorance (April 19-28)

Rostow, Eugene V., A National Policy for the Oil Industry, Chapters 3-6, pp. 16-53.

Bain, Joe S., The Economics of the Pacific Coast Petroleum Industry, Volume III, Chapter III, pp. 23-67.

Owen, Wilfred, Cities in the Motor Age, Chapter 2, pp. 18-41, Chapter 8, pp. 138-150.

Haar, Charles M., “The Master Plan: An Inquiry in Dialogue Form,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, August 1959, pp. 133-142.

  1. General Overview (May 1-3)

To be announced.

Reading Period assignment to be announced.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 7, Folder “Economics, 1960-1961 (1 of 2)”.

______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Reading Period Assignments
Spring Term, 1960-61

Ec. 144:

J. E. Meade, Planning and the Price Mechanism, Ch. I, III, IV, AND W.A. Lewis, Principles of Planning, Ch. I, II, IV, VI, VII-IX
OR E. Devons, Planning in Practice.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 8, Folder “Economics, 1960-1961 (2 of 2)”.

______________________

ECONOMICS 144
Hour Examination
April 14, 1961

Answer ALL questions.

PART I
20 Minutes

  1. Some economists have suggested that a “market power” standard should be used in judging monopolization cases under Section 2 of the Sherman Act. What would the differences between this standard and the exiting performance standard be? What would be achieved by adopting the proposed standard? What new problems might it create?

 

PART II
30 Minutes

  1. Outline the role of government economic policy as interpreted by:
    1. reform liberals
    2. neo-liberals
    3. conservatives
  2. What is the essential economic problem presented by the agricultural sector and the depressed areas? [handwritten note: “allocation of resources + factor mobility”]
  3. There is wide agreement that some regulation of the utility industries, such as electric power, is necessary. What economic facts and judgments underlie this agreement?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 7, Folder “Economics, 1960-1961 (1 of 2)”.

______________________

ECONOMICS 144
Final Examination

PART I

Answer both questions.

  1. (a) Some problems in anti-trust regulation are:
    1. Parallel pricing vs. collusive behavior
    2. Monopolizing vs. monopoly
    3. Market power vs. monopoly

Discuss each in the light of Sherman Act enforcement and the cases you have read.

  1. Assume that you were an economic adviser to the Anti-trust Division during the Dupont Cellophane case. After you had heard Dupont present its defense, what arguments would you have given the Government’s lawyers in order to help them prepare their reply?
  1. (a) Why does the market fail to allocate resources properly in the oil industry? What possible remedies would you recommend and why?

(b) Discuss briefly the arguments why interference with the market mechanism is necessary in order to achieve an optimal allocation of land uses in a city. What do you consider to be the most difficult problems that an urban planning authority would face?

 

PART II

Answer one question only.

  1. (a) What are some of the difficulties encountered by the regulatory authorities when they attempt to set utility rates so as to guarantee a “fair return on investment”?

(b) Give reasons why the present system of pricing by electric utilities leads to misallocation of power uses. Set up a utility pricing scheme that would remove this misallocation.

  1. (a) What accounts for the existence of natural monopoly elements in the transportation industries? What distinguishes these industries from “pure” natural monopolies, such as electric utilities?

(b) Some economists have argued that railroads should be subject to less rather than more regulation. What arguments can be used to support their position? What problems would arise if the railroads were subject to no special regulation at all?

 

PART III

Answer one question only.

  1. Evaluate some of the arguments put forward by Meade and by Lewis to support their contention that some state planning is necessary to improve the functioning of the economic system. Discuss to what extent each of their proposals is an attempt to improve the functioning of competitive markets and to what extent it is an attempt to supplant market determined goals.
  2. Discuss Devon’s account of the problems that arise when planning is carried out in the absence of prices. Why would the use of prices help to solve some of these problems?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final Examinations 1853-2001 (HUC 7000.28). Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Final Examinations [for] History, History of Religions,…, Economics,…Naval Science, Air Science  in (Bound) Volume 134, Social Sciences. Final Examinations, June 1961.

Image Source:  Carl Kaysen in the Harvard Class Album 1958.

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists Gender Minnesota Social Work

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus Max Ira West, 1893.

 

 

Max Ira West (b. Nov. 11, 1870 in St. Cloud, MN; d. Jan 7, 1909 in Washington, D.C.) entered government service relatively soon after being awarded his Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University with a dissertation on the inheritance tax. He was a student of E.R.A. Seligman. West died at age 38, leaving a wife and five children. 

Max West and his future wife Mary Mills were fellow officers of the University of Minnesota’s Class of 1890. She was the designated class “prophet” and he served as the class “statistician”. Max was a professional economist of the family and rightly the main subject of this post. Max’s widow deserves some mention in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror for her later work. Mary attained great prominence for her pamphlets on pre-natal and infant care for the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor that were analogous to Dr. Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care for later generations of parents. The Children’s Bureau was an absorbing state for the careers of many a professional woman economist of the time.

________________________

Announcement of death of Max Ira West

The following communication with reference to the unfortunate death of Dr. Max West is printed at the request of the committee whose names appear below:

The members of the Association have no doubt read of the recent death, under most unfortunate circumstances, of Dr. Max West, of the Bureau of Corporations, Department of Labor, Washington, D. C.

Dr. West died after a short illness, a slight cold developing into pneumonia. He has left a wife and five children, ranging from thirteen years to only nine months, with no visible means of support, save a very small annuity terminable in ten years. Friends in Washington have contributed a considerable sum for immediate needs, including the expenses pertaining to Dr. West’s sickness and death, and have secured for Mrs. West a temporary position in the Government, which we hope will become a permanent position. This, with the closest economy, will enable Mrs. West to look after the bare physical needs of her five little children, but will leave no margin at all either for education or for contingencies.

It has therefore occurred to us and to some of the other friends of Dr. West that it might be possible to solicit and collect a fund for such a purpose. It is hoped to raise a fund of at least $5000. The suggestion is to be sent to all those who may be supposed to have known Dr. West personally, or to be in sympathy with the scholarly work for which he stood, and the committee will be very glad to receive any subscriptions that you may deem fit to make.

Checks may be sent to Mr. Edwin R. A. Seligman, at No. 324 West 86th street, New York, who has consented to act as treasurer for the committee.

Respectfully yours,

EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN, Columbia University.

JACOB H. HOLLANDER, Johns Hopkins University.

E. DANA DURAND, Dept. of Commerce and Labor, Washington.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Dr. Max West died of pneumonia at his home in Washington, D. C., on January 7, 1909.

Dr. West was born at St. Cloud, Minnesota, in November, 1870. He was graduated from the University of Minnesota at nineteen, and went at first into newspaper work. In 1891 he went to Columbia University as a fellow in economics. There he received his master’s degree the next year, and his doctorate the year following. From 1893 to 1895 he was connected with the University of Chicago, first as an honorary fellow and then as a docent. The great railroad strike of 1894 drew him again into newspaper work; he reported it for the Chicago Herald. In 1895 he was an editorial writer for the Chicago Record. During the academic year 1895-1896 he lectured at Columbia.

In 1896 he entered the government service, to which the rest of his life was chiefly devoted. For four years he was connected with the Division of Statistics of the Department of Agriculture, and for nearly two years with the Industrial Commission. During the latter part of this period, from 1900 to 1902, he was also associate professor of economics in Columbian University, Washington, and in 1902 he again lectured at Columbia. In that year he became assistant registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City. In 1903 he went to Porto Rico as chief of the island Bureau of Internal Revenue. His health did not permit him to continue there, and in 1904 he returned to Washington as a special examiner of the Bureau of Corporations. Here he remained until his death.

Dr. West’s chief published work was The Inheritance Tax, which appeared in 1893, was translated into French in 1895, and was republished in a revised and enlarged edition in 1907. A projected work, entitled Principles of Taxation, is left unfinished. He wrote many articles for periodicals, dealing oftenest with taxation, but sometimes with sociological subjects, questions of constitutional law, and other topics.

More of Dr. West’s scanty strength than he could well spare was devoted to the promotion of public well-being. During his two years in Chicago he was a resident successively of Hull House, the University of Chicago Settlement, and the Chicago Commons. At Washington he was warmly interested in social settlement work and in the Associated Charities, and he was the most active and efficient member of the Civic Center.

Source: American Economic Association, The Economic Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Apr., 1909), pp. 12-14.

________________________

Mary Mills West, ca. 1926

The following photograph was from a short alumna feature in the University of Minnesota yearbook The Gopher (1926). It is noted there that she was a member of the class of 1890, an editor of that year’s Gopher, and a member of the Delta Sigma literary society. The entry adds:

In 1909, she entered the Government service and filled various offices for the following ten years. She took a great interest in the newly created Children’s Bureau, and while there wrote three pamphlets regarding the health and care of mothers and babies which are widely distributed throughout the United States.

Mrs. West resigned her position with the Children’s Bureau in 1919, and moved to Berkeley where she engaged in newspaper syndicate work and other writings. She is, at present, an instructor in short-story writing for the University of California, and is gaining a considerable foothold in fiction writing for herself. She recently submitted a story to the Forum short story contest of 1924 and was awarded second place by a jury of noted writers and critics.

Image Source: University of Minnesota, The Gopher, 1926, p. 181.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Production of Mary Mills West’s pamphlets

West’s publications became the best-selling pamphlets of the Government Printing Office in the 1910s. The first edition of West’s pamphlet, Prenatal Care, sold out in two months. Only six months later, the Bureau had distributed 30,000 coopies and could have sent out twice that number but for the inability of the printeres to keep up with the demand. …Nearly a million and a half copies of West’s second pamphlet, Infant Care, were disseminated between 1914 and 1921.

Source:  Robyn Muncy. Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 (Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 55.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Children’s Bureau Publications of Mary Mills West

(with Nettie McGill) Child-Welfare Programs: Study Outlines for the Use of Clubs and Classes. U.S. Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau. Bureau Publication No. 73, Children’s Year Follow-up Series, No. 7. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1920.

Prenatal Care. Care of Children Series, No. 1 Children’s Bureau Publication No. 4. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913.

Infant Care. Care of Children Series, No. 2 Children’s Bureau Publication No. 8 (Revised) Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1921. (first published in 1914)

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Mary Mills West’s obituary

Mrs. Mary West, Writer, Dies at 88

BERKELEY, Aug. 13. Mrs. Mary Mills West, whose pamphlets’ on infants and children’s care have been distributed by the United States Children’s Bureau to millions of American homes, died here yesterday. Her home was at 549 Santa Barbara Road.

Mrs. West, 88, was the widow of Dr. Max West, an economic consultant for the U.S. Departments of Labor and Commerce. She became associated with the Children’s Bureau when it was organized in 1915. After moving to Berkeley 30 years ago, she was associated with the University of California Extension Division as a writing instructor.

Surviving Mrs. West are two daughters, Mrs. W. R. Lorimer of Honolulu and Mrs. Charles Manson of Wausau, Wis., and a son, Philip S. West of Berkeley. Three grandchildren also survive.

Funeral services will be held at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow; in the Berkeley Hills Chapel, Shattuck Ave. and Cedar St .The Rev. Ray L. Wells, assistant pastor of the First Congregational Church, will officiate.

SourceOakland Tribune (Oakland, California), August 3, 1955, p. 30.

________________________

Image Source: Alumnus feature on Max West published in University of Minnesota, The Gopher, 1896, p. 133.

 

 

Categories
Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Economics Faculty Skit à la Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh-In”, December 1968

 

This post continues our series “Funny Business” that features successful and less-than-successful attempts at humor by economists. Reading one of these historical skits demands the reader to concede that the defense, “It seemed funny at the time,” might actually be valid for fifty year old jokes.  At the December 1968 Graduate Economics Association party the M.I.T. economics faculty offered its version of the wildly popular, frenetic comedy series “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” (like “Sit-in”, get it? As I just said, “it seemed funny at the time”). 

For young and non-U.S. historians of economics, remote learning of the original Laugh-In content is easy:

Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In information at IMDb.
Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In highlights on YouTube.

The tag-line “Sock it to me” was a creation of the 1960s and made a meme by Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Paul Samuelson closing the skit with that line is almost up there with 1968 Presidential candidate Richard Nixon’s saying it in his cameo appearance on Laugh-In.

The skit transcript below includes some square-bracketed comments to help the reader. Of course, nothing says “joke” more than a good footnote.

______________________

Reminder/Invitation

December 11, 1968

Graduate Students, Faculty Members
and Secretaries

DON’T FORGET!!

            A week from today is the GEA Christmas Party—Tuesday, December 17th. The festivities will begin at 8:00 pm in the Campus Room of Ashdown House. Admission is only $1.00 and the entertainment is free.

______________________

GEA CHRISTMAS SKIT 1968
[Faculty]

 

Music

[Franklin M.] Fisher: It’s the Faculty Laugh-In.

Music

(Enter [E. Cary] Brown, [Paul A.] Samuelson and [Robert L.] Bishop,
Brown and Samuelson sit.)

Samuelson: For the first question on your advanced theory oral:
Who was the greatest economist of all time?
Bishop (After much thought) Pigou…

Music

[Morris] Adelman: It is written: when offer curve bend backwards, then is time to send [Walt] Rostow to Texas.
[For background to Rostow Affair, see Appendix below]

Music—through

[Matthew D.] Edel (carries sign) “Economics is a dismal science”

([Peter] Temin and [Duncan] Foley enter as Rowan and Martin)

Foley: It certainly was a swell idea to put on a faculty laugh-in.
Temin: It’s so much easier than thinking up a connected skit.
Foley: Well, what cute laugh-in type feature do we have coming up next?
Temin: I see by my script here that we’re going to have a “Laugh-in looks at…” next.
Foley: Yes, it says: Faculty laugh-in looks at the new [Nixon] administration.

Music

[Jerome] Rothenberg: Washington: James Reston has expressed outrage at news reports that the University of Maryland has no plans to hire Spiro T. Agnew.
[Motivation for James Reston mention here see, Appendix “Rostow Affair” below]
Temin: Meanwhile at the Council of Economic Advisers, Republicans begin to grapple with the unaccustomed complexities of the Federal budget.

(enter Bishop and Foley)

Bishop: They always said Art Okun could do it with a pencil on the back of an envelope.
[See Appendix below]
Foley: I still think we’d better wait for the computer printout.
Bishop: No, look, its easy. Let’s see, how does it go? Is it Y = C + the deficit, or does the deficit = Y + C?

Music

Temin: At the same time we hear the swan song of liberals seeking sanctuary on college campuses.
Fisher: Song “Hey Dick [Nixon]”
[presumably to the tune of “Hey Jude”, lyrics to parody not in the file]
Rothenberg: Washington: the M.I.T. economics department has again startled Washington circles by announcing that it will not hire Henry Kissinger in 1972.
[cf. Appendix below on “Rostow Affair”]
Foley: Why don’t we just use their budget?
Bishop: And give up on the job? It can’t be that hard.
Foley: We don’t even have the computer printout yet.
Bishop: Doesn’t investment come in here someplace?

Music

Rothenberg: Washington: It has just been learned that the M.I.T. economics department, responding to the furor over the Rostow affair has abolished its economic history requirement.
[see Appendix below]

Music

(Man seated, knock on door: goes to answer, returns)

Adelman: Dear, Mr. Brower is here to fix the point (calling).
[Punny reference to Brower’s fixed-point theorem  that is a building block for the proof of the existence of a general equilibrium.]

Music—through

Edel (carries sign) “Pigou Power”

(Enter Bishop, Brown, Samuelson)

Brown: Describe an Edgeworth-Bowley Box.
Bishop: (gesturing) It’s about so wide…

Music

(Enter Foley and Temin)

Foley: What movie did you see last night?
Temin: “Thoroughly Modern Miltie”
[clearly “Milton Friedman”, the film’s title was “Thoroughly Modern Miltie”]

Music—through

Fisher (carries sign) “Nest principal minors”
[Linear algebra joke, written like a creepy, even pedophilic, command here, “nested principal minors” or “nest of principal minors” would be proper.]
Rothenberg: The negative definite is equivalent to the lie direct.
[Shakespeare As You Like It, V:iv in Appendix below]

Music

Foley: The computer printout is here!

(enter tons of printout)

Bishop: I think I’ve got it!
Foley: What?
Bishop: One of Okun’s envelopes. How old do you think this is anyway?

Music

Samuelson:

A Poem
by Paul A. Samuelson

Some people cover lots more ground
But no one handles the New York Times like Carey Brown.

[Likely another reference to the Rostow Affair, see Appendix Below]

Music

(Adelman seated, door knock)

Adelman: Dear, Mr. [Evsey] Domar is here to compare the systems.
[One of Evsey Domar signature courses was “Comparative Economic Systems”]

Music

Foley: What movie did you see last night?
Temin: Ride the high Pontry
[“Ride the High Country”, 1962 Western film by Sam Peckinpah]
Foley: What Pontry again?
[A punny reference to Pontryagin’s maximum principle in optimal control theory.]

Music

(Enter Bishop, Samuelson, Brown)

Brown: What was Marshall’s greatest contribution?
Bishop: In 1903, Marshall gave £1500 to King’s College.

Music

(Enter Fisher and Temin with box)

“2 squares least stage”
(sign)
[“2-stage least squares” is the name of statistical procedure, here Fisher and Temin are the two “squares“.]

Music

Adelman: Mark Hopkins said the ideal education is a professor and a student sitting on a log, with the professor talking to the student. I sometimes think I would get the same results sitting on the student and talking to the log.

Music

Bishop: Sock it to me

Music

(Enter Temin and Foley)

Temin: Here we are out here again imitating Rowan and Martin.
Foley: Shouldn’t you be standing on the other side? What now?
Temin: Now we’re giving the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fat Award” just like on TV.
Foley: And who gets the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fat Award”?
Temin: Fate. The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award goes to…

(Music cue—fanfare)

Temin: Kenneth Boulding for receiving a vote of confidence from…himself.
[Boulding gave his Presidential address to the American Economic Association a few weeks later on “Economics as a Moral Science”. For likely background to the joke see the Appendix below.]

Music

Fisher: A Bordered hessian is a German mercenary surrounded by continentals.

Music

Samuelson:

(carries sign) “I am an external economist.”

Music

Foley: What movie did you see last night?
Temin: “Closely watched brains”
[“Closely watched trains”, 1966 Czech film directed by Jiří Menzel]

Music

Foley: (Poring over computer printout). I think the whole idea of the budget is a stupid, dumb, stupid idea. Why do we even need a budget?
Bishop: Look, we’ve got to have something to send down to the Congress tomorrow.
Foley: I’m going to hold my breath until the stupid deficit comes out right.
Bishop: Just try to remember whether capital gains are part of income or not.

Music cue

(Enter Fisher, Temin, Edel)
“3 squares least stage”
(sign)
[“3-stage least squares” is a statistical procedure, and Fisher, Temin and Edel are the three “squares“.]

Music

Brown: The students are revolting.
Bishop: Yes, I’ve though so for a long time.

Enter Everybody

Rothenberg: SDS Sam
[SDS=Students for a Democratic Society…
(wild guess) impression of Bogart saying “Play it Again Sam”?]
Foley: Well, here we are out here again, and it’s time to say…
Temin: Long joke.
Foley: Say goodnite, Peter.
Temin: Goodnite, Peter.
Samuelson: Sock it to me.

Source: M.I.T. Archives.  Folder “GEA 1967-68”.

_________________________

Appendix

 

Rostow Affair

Source: Howard Wesley Johnson, Holding the Center: Memoirs of a Life in Higher Education. From Chapter 8, pp. 189-90.

*   *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

 

Art Okun’s Reputation as an economic forecaster “on the back of an envelope”

Source: Joseph A. Pechman contribution for In Memoriam: Arthur M. Okun. November 28, 128–March 23, 1980 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1980), p. 14.

*   *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

 

From Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Act V, Scene 4.

JAQUES

Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?

TOUCHSTONE

O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have
books for good manners: I will name you the degrees.
The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the
Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the
fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All
these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may
avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven
justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the
parties were met themselves, one of them thought but
of an If, as, ‘If you said so, then I said so;’ and
they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the
only peacemaker; much virtue in If.

Source: From the Shakespeare homepage at M.I.T.

*   *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

 

Kenneth Boulding’s Vote for AEA to Meet in Chicago in 1968

 

Source:  Robert Scott, Kenneth Boulding: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

 

 

Categories
Bibliography Socialism Suggested Reading

League for Industrial Democracy. Updated syllabus on recent history of socialism. Laidler, 1922.

 

American colleges and universities have historically served as an important feeding ground for research and teaching of socialist political and economic ideas. Harry W. Laidler (b. 1884; d. 1970) was the junior among the founding fathers of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS) in 1905 who included Upton Sinclair and Jack London. Laidler, who received his Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University in 1914, headed the ISS and its successor organization, the League for Industrial Democracy, from 1914 until 1957. Counted among the membership were the University of Chicago economist, later Senator from Illinois, Paul H. Douglas,  the public intellectual Walter Lippmann (himself a member of visiting committees for the Harvard economics department) and the Harvard sociologist, Talcott Parsons.

Harry Laidler served as president of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1930 to 1932 and from 1948 to 1949. He was the head of the NBER Board of Directors from 1932 to 1934. It may come as a surprise to many of those active in today’s NBER research networks that Laidler was a trusted confidante and campaign adviser of the Socialist Party candidate for the U.S. Presidency in 1928 and 1932, Norman Thomas. In other words, Laidler was sort of a fringe-establishment Bernie Bro and a life-long Brooklynite!

Laidler’s father was a salesman and he was raised by his uncle Theodore Atworth, who himself was a socialist and former president of the Photo Engravers Union. Laidler graduated from Wesleyan University in 1907, having earlier attended the newly established American Socialist College in Wichita, Kansas from 1903-1904. Before earning his doctorate in economics from Columbia, he graduated in 1910 with a law degree from Brooklyn Law School where he attended classes in the evenings while working as a reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper. Boycotts and the Labor Struggle was the subject of his 1914 doctoral dissertation, supervised by Professor Henry R. Seager. Over his career Harry Laidler wrote or edited some fifty books and pamphlets.  In his New York Times obituary his books Social-Economic Movements (1949) and The History of Socialism (1968) were named.

The Harry W. Laidler Papers are kept at the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive of New York University’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library.

The following pamphlet provides a very handy bibliographic guide to the enormous changes that took place in the socialist movements across the world in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the end of “The Great War”. It updates a 1919 pamphlet that was clearly superseded by subsequent events.

Pro-tip: The keyword “Socialism” links you to many other related artifacts here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

______________________

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SOCIALISM
with Bibliographies and Directory

COMPILED FOR THE
LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY
70 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY

BY HARRY W. LAIDLER, PH.D.

Since the armistice of November, 1918, significant changes have taken place within the Socialist and labor movements of the world. At the time of the armistice, revolutions were sweeping Europe. The Russians were celebrating the first anniversary of their November revolution. Hungary was plunging into Communism. Germany and Austria were undergoing political revolutions; new republics, such as Czecho-Slovakia, were springing up almost daily. The Italian workers were in revolt. The Belgians were rejoicing in their new boon of equal suffrage. The Social Democrats were in control in Germany, Austria and Czecho-Slovakia, and exerted a strong influence in the cabinets of other countries. To many the only alternative to a Social Democratic Europe seemed to be a Communist Europe.

The Socialist and Communist offensive, however, spent it self—at least for the time being—and, during the last few years, a distinct capitalist and monarchist reaction has set in. These movements are far stronger than they were before the war, but, at present writing, they are distinctly on the defensive. Their position has been rendered ever more difficult by the numerous splits in their own ranks. The reaction is fortunately welding the workers together again and labor is now preparing to “come back” as the one great, constructive force to be found on the European continent.

These developments have had a profound effect on Socialist theory and tactics. They have given world-wide circulation to the doctrines of Bolshevism or the newer communism, and have brought to the fore the conflict between the ideals of democracy and dictatorship and those of parliamentary representation and Sovietism.

In February, 1919, the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, the predecessor of the League for Industrial Democracy, published a pamphlet, “Study Courses in Socialism”, briefly outlining the developments of the movement to that period.*

The present pamphlet is an attempt to supplement the 1919 publication and bring it up-to-date. It is prepared primarily for college discussion classes, but may be of interest to the general reader.

_______________

*The League has a few more of these pamphlets in stock, for use in study classes. This former pamphlet is rather a detailed syllabus of the theory and practice of the movement until the close of the war.
_______________

THE INTERNATIONALS.

Prior to the World War Socialists of Europe were united in the Second International. The war split this body into two or more hostile camps. It was some months before any conference was called among the Socialists of different nations. In the beginning of 1915, demands that the Socialists act in behalf of peace began to make themselves heard and during the next few years frequent conferences were held by comrades of the allied and neutral nations for the purpose of considering the best way of bringing about an early peace. The 1918 Inter-Allied Socialist conference denounced all imperialistic designs of the warring countries, favored the principle of self-determination, and condemned the idea of an economic war after the peace. The one group of Socialists including in their conferences, comrades from both the Allies and the Central Powers were the “Zimmerwaldians”, most of them extreme, anti-war Socialists. These conferences were in a sense the forerunners of the Third International.

During the war, differences of opinion arose regarding the relation of labor to the warring governments, and later concerning the tactics adopted by the Russian Bolsheviks. With the coming of peace, these differences gave rise to the formation of a number of “internationals” bitterly opposed to one another.

  1. The moderate Socialists who, for the most part, had supported their respective governments during the war, remained in the Second International. These included the British and Belgian Labor parties, the German Social Democratic party, the Swedish Socialists and similar groups.
  2. Those Socialists who had taken a more militantly anti-war position, but who refused to commit themselves to the Bolshevik tactics, formed the so-called “Vienna” or “Second-and-a-Half” International. Under the banner of this organization were included the Austrian and Swiss Social Democracies, the British Independent Labor party, the German Independent Socialists, the French Socialists, and, more recently, the American Socialist party.
  3. The Russian Bolsheviks formed the Third International. The Bolsheviks agreed with the members of the Vienna group in their anti-war position. They differed, however, in their advocacy of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, of the Soviet form of government, and of immediate social revolutions throughout Europe through the employment of Bolshevik tactics. The last demand was based upon the belief that the European masses were ready for revolution and were waiting only for the leadership of a determined revolutionary minority; furthermore, that only through social revolution in western and central Europe could the fruits of the Russian revolution be preserved. The Third International, organized in Moscow in March, 1919, was dominated almost entirely by the Russian Bolsheviks. The chief members of the party outside of Russia were the French and German communists.
  4. A small group of communists in Germany, England, Holland and one or two other countries formed, in 1921, a Fourth International, in the belief that the Third had become the agent of the compromising Russian government, and could no longer lead the revolution.

A split also developed within the trade union movement of Europe with the organization of the “Red” Trade Union International, as opposed to the “Amsterdam” International Federation of Trade Unions—the latter still representative of the great mass of organized workers outside of Russia.

The formation of communist parties in the various European countries failed to produce the hoped-for revolution. Instead, the spasmodic and often ill-advised rebellions of the communists, the weakened condition of the movement as a result of its internal fights, the intense period of unemployment and the war-weariness of the masses, gave added impetus to the forces of reaction. The unexpected strength of this reaction, among other forces, led “Moscow” to demand that the European workers join once more in a “united front”. During the Spring of 1922, the three Internationals sought some method of federation, but conferences looking to that end were unsuccessful. Present indications point to a union of the Second and Vienna Internationals within the next few months and to a more gradual rapprochement with the Communist International.

EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

During the last two years, the European Socialists have been engaged largely in defensive warfare.

The British Labor party during 1920–22 gained a number of seats in by-elections and entered the November General Elections with a representation of about 74 in the House of Commons. This was increased as a result of the elections of 1922 to about 140 seats, thus making Labor the second party in the country. In Sweden, the leader of the Swedish Socialists, Branting, was chosen Premier.

In Germany, the Independent Socialists split, a strong minority forming a communist party. The failure of the March “putsch” of 1921 greatly weakened this party, and, at present writing, its influence is waning. The Independent Socialists, in the early fall of 1922, joined forces again with the Majority Socialists, thus forming the most powerful single party in the country. The United Social Democratic party (the new consolidated party) and the communists control over 40 per cent of the seats in the Reichstag. President Ebert, the moderate Social Democratic president, will retain office, as a result of a recent vote in the Reichstag, until 1925. The Socialists and trade unionists in 1920 crushed, largely by means of a general strike, the attempt of Kapp to place the monarchists in power. Many prominent Socialists, including Hugo Haase, were assassinated during the course of the reaction by the bullets of their opponents. While the socialists are at present represented in the Wirth cabinet, they are not as yet in the majority.

Since the social revolution of November, 1917, in Russia, the Soviet government has been compelled to give its main attention to fighting foes without and within. During the last year, on account of insurmountable obstacles confronting a thorough going communist industrial order, they have adopted a new economic policy, and have granted extensive concessions to private owners. They have, however, retained in governmental hands the main industries of the country. Chief attention has of late been directed to the opening up of commercial relations with other countries.

Following the World War, the Italian Socialists won a notable victory, increasing their representation from between 70 and 80 to 156—about one-third the entire parliamentary representation. In the summer and early fall of 1920, during a strike of the metal workers, factories were seized throughout the country, employers were ousted and the metal workers proceeded for a short period to run industry. Later they com promised and returned the factories to their original owners. This action gave to Mussolini, former Socialist, and his followers, the ultra-nationalistic Fascisti, an excuse for a relentless campaign of violence against the Socialist, trade union and cooperative movements. The split of the movement into the Socialist and communist branches further weakened the radicals and whetted the enthusiasm of the Fascisti.

In the 1921 elections Socialists and communists elected 125 representatives, despite the Fascisti terrorism at the polls. Since then scores of labor groups have joined the Fascisti movement, which is now in part a nationalistic syndicalist movement, and the Fascisti have become the undisputed rulers of Italy. Whether it will have to make great concessions to the masses in order to keep their allegiance, or will be the tool of the reaction until driven from power, it is too early to say.

The French Socialists also split, following the war, into the Communist party, the majority group, and the Socialist party. The communists have at present the larger party membership, though the French Socialist party has the greater number of adherents in the Chamber of Deputies. The two parties are represented in the Chamber of Deputies by between 60 and 70 seats, as against 101 prior to the war. The trade union movement has been greatly weakened in recent years.

The 1921 election of the Belgian Labor party gave that party some 66 seats in the lower house and over 40 in the senate. Before the war there were 40 in the house and a mere handful in the senate. Belgium now enjoys universal and equal manhood suffrage.

The Socialists in Austria and Czecho-Slovakia were in power immediately after the revolution, but, as a result of the split, later became minority forces. The Austrian Social Democracy controls between 35 per cent and 40 per cent of the seats in the national chamber. The Czecho-Slovakian Social Democratic party is represented also in the cabinet by several members. In Hungary, Jugo-Slavia and Rumania, the reactionary governments have done their best to suppress the radical movements in their respective countries.

While in the large majority of the European countries, the working class political movements are proportionately far more influential than in 1914, they have, for the most part, been compelled to mark time during the past two years, and in a number of instances have retrogressed. Between 1914 and 1920 the trade union movement more than doubled in numbers. The past year of unemployment and reaction has caused a consider able loss in membership, due in part to economic depression and unemployment, in part to the pressure of the reaction, and in part to excesses and to dissensions within the ranks of labor.

THE UNITED STATES.

The Socialist movement in the United States during and after the war was profoundly influenced by the political and economic currents abroad. Throughout the war the Socialist party maintained a consistent anti-war attitude. In the latter part of 1917 this position led to a considerable increase in its membership. As the war advanced, however, and the government began its prosecutions, the party membership and the party votes decreased.

During the early part of 1919, opposition manifested itself within the party on the ground that its anti-war position had not been militant enough and that it had failed to adopt the tactics of the Russian Bolsheviks. This opposition at first organized itself into a distinct “Left Wing” within the Socialist party. A portion of the Left Wing, composed largely of the Russian federations, broke away from the party during the spring and summer of 1919, and in the fall of that year formed the Communist party. Another portion seceded from the party during the fall convention in Chicago, and organized a Communist Labor party—the chief difference between the Communist party and the Communist Labor party being the dominance in the former of the Russian group. The Communist Labor party later amalgamated with the non-Russian elements in the Communist party. forming the United Communist party.

In the meanwhile many leaders in these organizations were arrested under State syndicalist laws and sentenced to prison. The party headquarters were entered, the literature and other property confiscated or destroyed. “Agents provocateurs” were hired to spy on the members and no stone was left unturned in an effort to suppress the “red peril”.

These parties were thus compelled to function, in part at least, as “underground” organizations. One of the charges which the remnants of the Communist party made against the United Communist party was that the latter made no guaranty in its constitution that it would remain underground. They claimed that it might at any moment come out as an open-and above-board group.

In the meanwhile another Left Wing group was developing within the Socialist party. After the Socialists had refused to join the Third International, this group likewise seceded, joined hands in the late fall of 1921 with various communist elements and formed a “legal communist party”, known as the Workers’ party.

Bereft of its left-wingers, the Socialist party—now greatly reduced in membership—sought an alliance with other groups. In February, 1922, it sent representatives to a conference called by some of the leaders of the railway brotherhoods, and unofficially assisted in launching the rather loose organization known as the Conference for Progressive Political Action.

In New York State, the party participated, in the summer of 1922, in the formation of the American Labor party, consisting of a number of trade unions, the Farmer–Labor party and the Socialist. The American Labor party was modeled somewhat after the British Labor party. The party is now strongest in Wisconsin, where it elected Victor L. Berger to Congress in the November, 1922, elections, and controls the office of mayor in Milwaukee.

Another Labor party was formed in Chicago in 1919, and in the succeeding year, as the Farmer–Labor party, nominated a presidential ticket headed by Parley Parker Christensen, and secured 265,411 votes, as compared with 919,799 obtained by Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist party candidate, then, in prison. Other radical or progressive movements functioning during the past few years have been the National Non-Partisan League, which, at times, completely controlled the State of North Dakota; and the Committee of Forty-eight, which has recently helped in the organization of several Liberal parties, primarily in the western states. The November, 1922, elections which sent to the U. S. Senate Shipstead, representing the Farmer-Labor party in Minnesota, Frazier, of the North Dakota Nonpartisan League, Brookhart of Iowa, Dill of Washington, La Follette of Wisconsin, etc., and that elected Sweet to the governorship of Colorado, is indicative of the wide-spread dissatisfaction existing with the conservative group in the old parties, a dissatisfaction which seems likely ultimately to express itself in a powerful labor and farmer party.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY ON “POST-WAR DEVELOPMENTS.”

The Internationals: Laidler, “Socialism”, etc., pp. 283-307; Dutt, “The Two Internationals” (London, Labour Pub. Co.); Labour Research Department, “International Labour Handbook” (London, Labour Pub. Co.); Rand School, “American Labor Year Book,” 1919-20, p. 311-20; 1921-22 (N.Y., Hanford Press); Postgate, “Workers’ Internationals” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920). Zimand, “Modern Social Movements,” p. 127; Lenin, “The Collapse of the Second International,” (Glasgow, Socialist Labor Press). See also files of Labour Monthly, Labor Age, The Nation, Current History, Socialist Review.

Russia.—(1) Bibliography: Zimand, “Modern Social Movements” (N.Y., H. W. Wilson, 1921), pp. 231-251; Clark, Evans, “Facts and Fabrications About Soviet Russia” (N.Y., Rand School, 1920; pamphlet); International Labor Office, Bibliography on Russia, 1920; Bloomfield, in selected articles on Modern Industrial Movement, 1919.

(2) Descriptive: Brailsford, “Russian Workers’ Republic” (N.Y., Harper, 1921); Ransome, “Russia in 1919” (N.Y., Huebsch, 1919); Williams, Albert Rhys, “Through the Russian Revolution” (N.Y., Boni & Liveright, 1921); Goode, “Bolshevism at Work” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920); Russell, Bertrand, “Bolshevism, Practice and Theory” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920, Pt. 2); Humphries, “The Structure of Soviet Russia” (Chicago, Kerr, 1920; pamphlet); Hard, William, “Raymond Robins’ Own Story” (N.Y., Harper, 1920); Price, Phillips, “The Old Order in Europe and the New Order in Russia,” (N Y., Soc. Pub. Soc.); Labour Party Delegation, “British Labor Delegation to Russia 1920” (London, Labour Party); Wells, H. G., “Russia in the Shadows” (N.Y., Doran, 1921); Ross, “Russia in Upheaval” (N.Y., Century, 1918); Lansbury, “What I Saw in Russia” (N.Y., Boni & Liveright, 1920); Bullitt, “The Bullitt Mission to Russia” (N.Y., Huebsch, 1919); McBride, “Barbarous Soviet Russia” (N.Y., Seltzer, 1920); Bullard, “The Russian Pendulum” (N.Y., Macmillan, 1919); Williams, A. R., “Lenin, the Man and His Work” (N.Y., Seltzer, 1919); Leary, “Education and Autocracy in Russia” (Buffalo, Univ. of Buffalo, 1919); Lomonossoff, “Memoirs of the Russian Revolution” (N.Y., Rand School, 1919; pamphlet); Albertson, “Fighting Without a War” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920); Buxton, “In a Russian Village” (London, Labour Pub. Co., 1922); Hunt, A. R., “Facts About Communist Hungary” (N.Y., People’s Print, 1919); Brailsford, H. N., “Across the Blockade” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1919); Heller, “Industrial Revival in Soviet Russia” (N.Y., Seltzer, 1922); Masaryk, “The Spirit of Russia” (N.Y., Macmillan, 1918); Foster, “The Russian Revolution” (Chicago, Trade Union Educational League, 1922).

(3) Documentary: “Decrees and Constitution of Soviet Russia,” Reprinted from The Nation; Magnes, “Russia and Germany at Brest-Litovsk” (N.Y., Rand School, 1919); Gumming and Pettit, “Russian-American Relations” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920); U.S. State Department, “The Second Congress of the Communist International” (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1920); “Education and Art in Soviet Russia” (N.Y. Socialist Pub. Soc.; pamphlet); Files of The Nation, Class Struggle, Socialist Review, Labour Monthly, etc.

Great Britain. Zimand, “Modern Social Movements”, pp. 168-173; Gleason, “What the Workers Want” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920); Laidler, “Socialism”, etc., pp. 409-20; Labour Research Department, “International Labour Handbook”, pp. 252-258; Thomas, “When Labour Rules” (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1920); Webb, “Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain” (N.Y., Longmans, 1920); Stewart, “J. Keir Hardie” (London, I.L.P., 1922); Macdonald, “A policy for the Labour Party” (London, Leonard Parsons, 1920); Files of Labour Monthly, Labor Age, Socialist Review, etc.

Continental European Countries, Outside of Russia.—Zimand, “Modern Social Movements”, pp. 160 seq.; Labour Research Department, “International Labour Handbook”, 1919-1920; Young, “The New Germany” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920); Dannenberg, “Revolution in Germany” (N.Y., Radical Rev. Pub. Assn., 1919); Matthaei, “Germany in Revolution” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920); Zimand, “German Revolution and After”, in Intercollegiate Socialist, April-May, 1919; Beard, “Cross Currents in Europe Today” (Boston, Marshall Jones Co., 1922); Files of Socialist Review (Dec., 1919, to April-May, 1921); Labor Age (Nov., 1921); The Nation, Labour Monthly, Liberator, Current History, etc.

The United States. Benedict, “The Larger Socialism”; Laidler, “Socialism”, etc., pps. 454-474; in The Socialist Review, “Present Status of Socialism in America”, Jan., 1920; Socialist Party of the U. S., “Political Guide for the Workers” (Chicago, Soc. Pty., 1920); Solomon, Charles, “Albany Trial” (N.Y., Rand School, 1920); Hillquit, “Socialism on Trial” (N.Y., Huebsch, 1920); Karsner, “Debs: His Authorized Life” (N.Y., Boni & Liveright, 1919); Zimand, “Modern Social Movements”, p. 177ff; Rand School, “American Labor Year Book”; see files of The Nation, Labor Age, Liberator, etc.; Russell, C.E., “The Story of the Non-Partisan League” (N.Y., Harper & Bros., 1920); National Non-Partisan League, “Origin, Purpose and Method” (St. Paul, Nat. Non-Partisan League); Gaston, H.E., “Non-Partisan League” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920).

 

BOLSHEVISM.

Bolshevism or modern communism differs from Socialism not so much in the ends to be attained as in the means used to attain these ends. The ultimate aim of the Bolshevists is similar to that of the Socialists, a system of industry socially owned and democratically managed for the common good. Bolsheviks contend, however, that labor cannot depend upon the ballot or upon political democracy as a means to that goal. If labor had to wait until it elected a majority of representatives to a national legislature, it would, in most countries, contend the Bolsheviks, take many weary years, especially in view of the corrupting power of the press and other forces of public opinion. And even after labor had attained a majority of seats, there still would be no guarantee that the labor representatives would undertake to socialize industry.

The Bolshevik method of procedure is to organize the intelligent, aggressive, militant minority of the working class population for revolutionary action. Efforts should be made toward this end particularly in “strategic” or “key” industries such as the railroads, telegraphs, telephones, electric lights, mines, etc., as well as in the army and navy. The members of these revolutionary groups, Bolsheviks say, should be subjected to strong discipline. Local groups should give implicit obedience to central committees of action, and should do their best to permeate the rank and file of labor with the Bolshevik philosophy.

At a favorable moment, they should begin a concerted effort for the capture of the government. The army and navy or important portions of it should be swung into the ranks of the revolutionists. The agencies of transportation and communication and the public press should be seized, and utilized in behalf of the revolution; old officials should be ousted; the old democratic forms abolished, and Soviets of workers, peasants and soldiers should supplant representative legislatures.

According to Bolshevik tactics, this capture of the state should be succeeded by a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. In establishing this dictatorship, the workers should disfranchise non-producers, extending the right to vote only to workers. The farming population should be represented, but should have proportionately a smaller representation than has the city worker. Opposition papers should be temporarily suppressed; counter-revolutionary movements put down with an iron hand, and the Soviets should proceed immediately upon a comprehensive program of socialization. Side by side with this action, an international of the workers should be formed for the purpose of stimulating immediate revolution in other countries. Following the transition period, freedom of discussion should be restored and, with the elimination of parasitism, the franchise should again be made practically universal.

The Soviet form of government, as advocated by the Bolsheviks, is pyramidal in form. Groups of workers in local districts elect delegates to the local Soviets; these delegates, in turn, elect representatives to the provincial Soviets and the latter chose the representatives to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The national congress elects a central executive committee of 200. This executive committee chooses the Commissars, which constitute the most important administrative body. The Commissars are in charge of foreign affairs, education, finance, justice, etc. The economic functions are centralized in the Supreme Economic Council, a cabinet department whose membership of 69 consists of 30 representatives from industrial unions, 20 from regional councils, 10 from the central executive committee, 7 from the council of peoples commissaries, and 2 from cooperatives.

The original Bolshevik tactics have been considerably modified during the past few years, owing largely to the failure of social revolutionary movements in other parts of Europe, and to the fact that the peasants, who constitute the great majority of the population, had to be conciliated. The Bolsheviks have recently granted an increased measure of free discussion to their opponents, have brought numerous non-Bolshevik elements into the government, are granting to private employers the right to own and operate certain industries and are leasing out other industries to private managers.

The critics of Bolshevism maintain that the Bolsheviks erred in basing their tactics so largely on the assumption that revolutions were about to break out in other European countries; in adopting anti-social means, such as violence, to attain social ends; in assuming that such a semi-feudalistic system as existed in Russia could be transformed at a single step into a cooperative commonwealth, and that a highly centralized and comparatively inexperienced Soviet government, after thus socializing the entire industrial structure, could run this structure efficiently; in failing adequately to consider the economic beliefs and the potential power of the large mass of slowly moving peasants; in excluding from the government the non-Bolshevik revolutionary elements; in failing to bring to its aid from the very beginning the technicians and other intellectual forces of the community; and in trying to superimpose upon the labor movements of other countries tactics which may have been necessary and desirable in a semi-feudal, agricultural country like Russia, but which are not adaptable to countries with a widely different economic, social and political background.

The recent change in front of the Soviet government indicates that the Bolsheviks themselves now admit, at least in part, the justice of many of these criticisms.

Socialist, critics of the Bolsheviks, however, maintain that much of the present distress in Russia today is due largely to the blockade and to the fact that the Bolsheviks were compelled to divert most of their attention from economic reconstruction to military operations against internal and external forces that were assisted with money and ammunition supplied by the capitalist governments of Western Europe.

Socialists maintain that the Russian government should be immediately recognized, and that all trade restrictions with Russia should be removed. Russia is now a great laboratory of economic experimentation. The world should know the value of this experiment to economic progress. But it is impossible to know what elements in this experiment may be valuable, what elements should be discarded, unless Russia is given a free hand to work out its own destiny.

It must be added that the success or failure of Bolshevism in a country like Russia proves little regarding the probable success of social ownership in a country where economic and social conditions are more advanced

(1) Favoring: Postgate, “The Bolshevik Theory” (N.Y., Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920); Lenin, “The State and Revolution” (London, Socialist Labour Press); Paul, Eden and Cedar, “Creative Revolution” (London, Geo. Allen & Unwin, 1920); Marchand, Rene, “Why I Support Bolshevism” (London, British Socialist Party); Litvinoff, “The Bolshevik Revolution—Its Rise and Meaning” (Chicago, Socialist Party, 1920); Kameneff, “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat” (London, Communist Party of Great Britain; pamphlet); Lenin, “Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?” (London, Labour Pub. Co., 1922); Lenin, “The Land Revolution in Russia” (London, Indep. Labour Party, 1919; pamphlet); Lenin, “Left Wing” Communism (London, Communist Party); Lenin, “The Soviets at Work” (N.Y., Rand School, 1918; pamphlet); Lenin, and Trotsky, “Proletarian Revolution in Russia” (N.Y., Communist Press, 1918); Trotsky, “From October to Brest-Litovsk” (Brooklyn, N.Y., Soc. Pub. Soc., 1919); Trotsky, “A Defence of Terrorism”; Losovsky, “The International Council of Trade and Industrial Unions” (N.Y., Union Pub. Co.; pamphlet); Trotsky, “Dictatorship vs. Democracy” (N.Y., Workers’ Party, 1922).

(2) Critical of: Russell, Bertrand, “Bolshevism; Practice and Theory” (N.Y., Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1920, Part 2); Kautsky, “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” (Girard, Ks. Appeal to Reason, 1920); Spargo, “Bolshevism” (N.Y., Harpers, 1919); Russell, C. E., “Bolshevism and the U. S.” (Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1919); Walling, W. E., “Sovietism” (N.Y., Dutton, 1920); Kerensky, “Prelude to Bolshevism” (N.Y., Dodd, Mead & Co., 1919); Hillquit, “From Marx to Lenin” (N.Y., Hanford Press, 1921).

 

RECENT LITERATURE ON SOCIALIST THEORY.

“Study Courses in Socialism”, referred to above, mentioned the most important books published prior to 1919 on such phases of Socialism as Utopian Socialism, Marxism, Guild Socialism, etc., as well as on the facts of the present system. In the following pages we are adding to that list some of the most significant additions.

For thorough bibliographies on Socialism, Guild Socialism, Syndicalism, Bolshevism, and other fundamental social solutions, together with summaries of these movements, the student’s attention is called to the recent volume by Savel Zimand’s “Modern Social Movements, published 1921 by the H. W. Wilson Company ($1.00; 260 pages). No group should be without this invaluable guide to social literature the most comprehensive volume of its kind in any language. This volume also contains bibliographies on the trade union movement, cooperation, copartnership, national industrial councils, single tax, anarchism, etc.

May we add to the list of text books presented in our former syllabus, Laidler’s “Socialism in Thought and Action”, published by Macmillan Company in 1920 ($2.60; 574 pages), and used as a text book in more than a score of colleges. This book follows the general outline of the syllabus and describes Socialist development up to January, 1920. Beer’s “History of British Socialism”, in two volumes is the most important contribution of the period to Socialist history. (Published by Harcourt, Brace & Howe). Additions to the literature on various phases of Socialist thought following the 1919 syllabus, include:

 

SECTION I INDICTMENT OF CAPITALISM.

Recent Books: Chase, “The Challenge of Waste”, with bibliography on waste (L.I.D. pamphlet, 1922, 10 cents); Laidler, “Socialism in Thought and Action”, Chs. I-II; Committee of Federated American Engineering Societies (Hoover Engineers), “Waste in Industry” (Chicago, McGraw-Hill Co.); Bruere, “The Coming of Coal” (N.Y., Association Press);Archbald, “The Four-Hour Day in Coal” (N.Y., Harcourt, Brace & Co.); Page, “Industrial Facts” (N.Y., Doran, 10 cents); National Bureau of Economic Research, “The Income in the United States” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1921); Committee of Inquiry of Interchurch World Movement, “Report of the Steel Trust, 1920”, “Public Opinion and the Steel Strikes, 1921” (N.Y., Harcourt); Sinclair, “The Brass Check” (Pasadena, Cal., Sinclair); Veblen, “The Engineers and the Price System” (N.Y., Huebsch, 1921); Howard, “The Labor Spy” (N.Y., New Republic, 1921); Pettigrew, “Triumphant Plutocracy” (N.Y., Academy Press, 1921); Angell, “The Press and the Organization of Society” (London, Labour Pub. Co., 1922); Claessens, “The Trinity of Plunder” (N.Y., Academy Press, 1922); Nearing, “The American Empire” (N, Y., Hanford Press, 1921).

Attention is particularly called to Stuart Chase’s admirable pamphlet referred to above. It would be well for student groups to obtain a copy of this pamphlet for each of their members (special rates for students) and use it as the basis for discussion at one or more meetings. “Industrial Facts”, by Kirby Page, another 10 cent pamphlet, is also strongly urged for study classes. The most comprehensive study of waste is that of the Hoover engineers. The best study of the division of the national income is the National Bureau of Economic Research findings. A most interesting development of recent years has been the growing acknowledgment on the part of engineers and business men that the present way of doing business is exceedingly wasteful and inefficient.

 

SECTION II. UTOPIAN SOCIALISM.

Add: Zimand, “Modern Social Movements,” p. 149.

 

SECTION III. MARXIAN SOCIALISM.

Add: Hillquit, “Socialism from Marx to Lenin” (N.Y., Hanford Press, 1921); Laidler, “Socialism”, etc., Chs. III-IV; Zimand, “Modern Social Movements,” pp. 150-2; Loria, “Karl Marx” (N.Y., Seltzer, 1920); Beer, “The Life and Teachings of Karl Marx” (London, National Labour Press, 1921); Portus, “Marx and Modern Thought” (New South Wales, Workers’ Educational Association, 1921); Benedict, “The Larger Socialism” (N.Y., Macmillan, 1921); Le Rossignol, “What Is Socialism?” (Anti-Marxist), (N.Y., Crowell, 1921).

 

SECTION IV. THE SOCIALIST STATE.

Add: Webb, “A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain” (N.Y., Longmans, 1920); Laidler, “Socialism”, etc., Ch. V.; Glasier “The Meaning of Socialism” (N.Y., Seltzer, 1920); Rathenau, “The New Society” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1921); Hunter, “Why We Fail as Christians” (N.Y., Macmillan, 1919); Vandervelde, “Socialism vs. The State” (Chicago, Kerr & Co., 1919); Nearing, “The Next Step” (Ridgewood, N. J., The Author, 1922).

 

SECTION V. GUILD SOCIALISM AND SYNDICALISM.

Add: (1) Cole, “Guild Socialism (Restated)” (N.Y., Fred. Stokes, 1920); Hobson (S. G.), “National Guilds and the State” (N.Y., Macmillan, 1920); Reckitt and Bechhofer, “The Meaning of National Guilds” (Revised edition, N.Y., Macmillan, 1920); Zimand, “Modern Social Movements”, pp. 175-207. (2) Scott, “Syndicalism and Philosophic Realism” (London, A. C. Black, 1919); Laidler, “Socialism”, etc., Ch. VI; Zimand, “Modern Social Movements”, pp. 207-227.

The Guild Socialists of England during the last few years have been rent by a conflict between the communists, who emphasized the need of a strong, centralized state, at least during the transitional period, and those who emphasized decentralized producers’ control. Mr. Cole, the leading figure in the movement, has gradually swung around to the point of view that the guildsmen erred in working out their future state in too great detail. The Orage group in the movement is giving increasing attention to the transformation of the credit system.

 

SECTION VI. TENDENCIES TOWARD SOCIALISM.

Add: Zimand, “Modern Social Movements”, pp. 5-113; Laidler, “Socialism”, etc., Ch. VII; Goodrich, “The Frontier of Control” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920); Chiozza-Money, “The Triumph of Nationalization (London, Cassell, 1920); Savage, “Industrial Unionism” (N.Y., Button, 1922); Webb, “Consumers’ Cooperative Movement” (N.Y., Longmans, 1922); Woolf, “Cooperation and the Future of Industry” (London, Geo. Allen & Unwin, 1919); Sennichsen, “Consumers’ Cooperation” (N.Y., Macmillan, 1919); Redfern, “The Consumer’s Place in Society” (Manchester, Cooperative Union, 1920); Gleason, “What the Workers Want” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920); Beer, “History of Socialism” (N.Y., Harcourt, Vol. 2, pp. 363-72, 1920); Howe, “Denmark, A Cooperative Commonwealth” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1921); Nationalization Research Committee, United Mine Workers, “How to Run Coal” (N.Y., Bureau of Industrial Research, 1922); Hodges, Frank, “Nationalization of the Mines” (London, Leonard Parsons, 1920); Foster, “The Railroaders’ Next Step” (Chicago, Trade Union Educational League, 1922); Baker, “The New Industrial Unrest” (N.Y., Harpers, 1920).

The Workers’ Council Movement in Europe is one of the most significant of post-war developments. In this country among the most important steps toward industrial democracy are the gradual emergency of a labor-farmer party, the demand of the miners for social ownership of the mines, the growth of labor banking, labor education, labor research and a labor press service and the increased hold of consumers’ cooperation on the masses.

 

SECTION VII. OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM.

Add: Hobson, “Incentives in the New Industrial Order” (N.Y., Seltzer, 1922); Dell, “Socialism and Personal Liberty” (N.Y., Seltzer, 1922); Laidler, “Socialism,” etc., Ch. VIII; Glasier, “The Meaning of Socialism”; Boucke, “Limits of Socialism” (N.Y., Macmillan, 1920).

 

SECTION VIII. DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SOCIALISM.

Add: Postgate, “The Workers’ Internationals” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920); Beer, “History of British Socialism”, 2 Vols. (N.Y., Harcourt, 1919-1921); Laidler, “Socialism”, etc., Pt. II; Hillquit, “From Marx to Lenin” (N.Y., Hanford Press, 1921); Files of Socialist Review, Dec., 1919-April, May, 1921; Labour Herald, .Labor Age, Nov., 1921; Labour Monthly (British), August, 1921 to; Bulletin of U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 268, “Historical Survey of International Action Affecting Labor” (Washington, U. S. Dept. of Labor, 1920).

 

SECTION IX. SOCIALISM AND THE GREAT WAR.

Add: Kellogg and Gleason; “British Labour and the War” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1919); Bevan, “German Social Democracy During the War” (N.Y., Dutton, 1919); Laidler, “Socialism”, etc., Chs. X-XIV; Zimand, “Modern Social Movements,” pp. 123 ff; Oneal, “Labor and the Next War” (Chicago, Socialist Party, 1922).

 

SECTION X. RECONSTRUCTION NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL.

Add: Gleason, “What the Workers Want” (N.Y., Harcourt, 1920); Hobson, “Problems of the New World” (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1921); Committee on the War and Religious Outlook, “The Church and Industrial Reconstruction” (N.Y., Association Press, 1920); Chiozza-Money, “The Triumph of Nationalization” (London, Cassell & Co., 1921); Ward, “The New Social Order” (N.Y., Macmillan, 1919); Villiers, “Britain After the Peace” (N.Y., Dutton, 1918); Carter (Editor), “Industrial Reconstruction,” a Symposium, (N.Y., Dutton, 1918); Nearing, “Irrepressible America”; Brailsford, “After the Peace” (London, Leonard Parsons, 1920); Turner, “Shall It Be Again?” (N.Y., Huebsch, 1922).

Unfortunately most of these reconstruction plans have thus far failed to materialize.

 

PARTIAL DIRECTORY OF SOCIAL AGENCIES.

American Labor Party, 3. W. 16th St., N.Y.C. A New York State party composed of trade unionists, Socialists and Farmer-Laborites.

American Association for Labor Legislation, 131 E. 23rd St., N.Y.C. Publishes monthly, “American Labor Legislation Review.”

American Civil Liberties Union, 100 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C. Distributes a weekly service on civil liberties and publishes numerous pamphlets.

American Federation of Labor, Federation Building, Washington, D.C. Publishes monthly, “American Federationist.”

American Federation of Teachers, 166 W. Washington St., Chicago, Ill.

Bureau of Industrial Research, 289 Fourth Ave., N.Y.C. Special research on reorganization of the coal mining industry. Publishes valuable pamphlets.

Church League for Industrial Democracy, 6140 Cottage Grove Ave., Chicago, Ill. Regular membership confined to members of the Episcopal Church.

Committee of Forty-eight, 15 East Fortieth St., N.Y.C. Seeks to crystallize progressive sentiment of the country into liberal party.

Conference for Progressive Political Action, Machinist Building, Washington, D. C. Formed by the railway brotherhoods, machinists, etc. Contains representatives of the Socialist, Farmer-Labor and other parties. Seeks to work out a program of effective political action in behalf of labor.

Co-operative League of America, The, 167 W. 12th St., N.Y.C. Central education bureau of consumers’ cooperative movement of America. Publishes monthly, “Co-operation” and pamphlets on cooperation.

Farmer-Labor Party, 166 W. Washington St., Chicago, Ill.

Farmers’ National Council, Bliss Building, Washington, D. C. A progressive organization of “dirt” farmers.

The Federated Press, 511 N. Peoria St., Chicago, Ill. Labor press bureau supplying daily news service to more than 100 labor papers. Also issues weekly service.

Fellowship of Reconciliation, 396 Broadway, N.Y.C. Stresses the ethical aspects of pacifism and of industrial reorganization.

Friends of Soviet Russia, 201 W. 13th St., N.Y.C. Organized for relief work for Russia. Publishes monthly, “Soviet Russia.”

Industrial Workers of the World, 1001 W. Madison St., Chicago, Ill. Publishes weekly, “Solidarity”, and pamphlets.

International Relation. Clubs, 419 W. 117th St., N.Y.C. College section of the Institute of International Education, formed to throw light on international problems.

The Labor Bureau, Inc., 1 Union Square, N.Y.C. Formed to supply trade unions with statistical information and advice.

League for Industrial Democracy, 70 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C. Object: “Education for a new social order based on production for use and not for profit.” Works within and without the colleges. Publishes literature, schedules lecturers, conducts research, publicity, etc.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 70 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C. Publishes monthly, “The Crisis.”

National Bureau of Economic Research, 465 W. 13th St., N.Y.C. An impartial fact-finding agency. Has published valuable material on distribution of incomes, unemployment, business cycles, etc.

National Council for Prevention of War, 532 Seventeenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C.

National Consumers’ League, 44 E. 23rd St., N.Y.C. Has specialized on labor legislation for women.

National Student Forum, 2929 Broadway, N.Y.C. Seeks to stimulate students to investigate all phases of public questions.

National Women’s Trade Union League, 311 S. Ashland Blvd., Chicago, Ill.

Nationalization Research Committee, United Mine Workers of America, Merchants’ Bank Building, Indianapolis, Ind.

National Non-Partisan League, St. Paul, Minn.

People’s Legislative Service, Southern Building, Washington, D.C. Seeks to keep the country informed regarding federal legislation.

Public Ownership League of America, 127 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill. Publishes monthly, “Public Ownership,” and pamphlets. Specializes on question of municipal and federal ownership.

Rand School of Social Science, 7 E. 15th St., N.Y.C. The Rand Book Store, connected with the school, has the best equipment of books on industrial democracy of any store in the country.

Research Bureau, Social Service Commission of the Federal Council of Churches of America, 105 E. 22nd St., N.Y.C. A research and publicity organization among the churches on social and labor problems.

Social Service Committee of Methodist Church, 150 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C. Research and publicity service.

Socialist Party, 2418 W. Madison St., Chicago, Ill. Publishes weekly, “The Eye Opener”, monthly, “The Socialist World”, and book and pamphlet literature.

Trade Union Educational League, 118 N. LaSalle St., Chicago, Ill. Seeks to promote program of industrial unionism. Publishes monthly, “Labor Herald”, and pamphlets.

Workers’ Education Bureau, 465 W. 23rd St., N.Y.C. Central bureau of the American workers’ educational movement. Publishes text-books and pamphlets.

The Workers’ Party, 799 Broadway, N.Y.C. The “above-ground” communist party of America. Weekly journal, “The Worker”.

Women’s Peace Society, 505 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C.

Women’s Peace Union of the Western Hemisphere, 70 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C.

 

Among the progressive and radical journals not listed above are:

Monthlies: “Labor Age”, 41 Union Square, N.Y.C.; “World Tomorrow”, 396 Broadway, N.Y.C.; “The National Leader”, 427 Sixth Ave., S. Minneapolis, Minn.; “Locomotive Engineers’ Journal”, B. of L.E. Building, Cleveland, Ohio; “Machinists’ Monthly Journal,” Machinist Bldg., Washington, D.C.; “Survey Graphic”, 112 E. 19th St., N.Y.C.; “Liberator”, 138 W. 13th St., N.Y. C.; “Arbitrator”, 114 E. 31st St., N.Y.C.

Weeklies: “The Nation”, 20 Vesey St., N.Y.C.; “New Republic”, 421 W. 21st St., N.Y.C.; “The Survey”, 112 E. 19th St., N.Y.C.; “New Majority”, 166 W. Washington St., Chicago, Ill.; “The Searchlight”, Woodward Bldg., Washington, D.C.; “Labor”, Machinist Building, Washington, D. C.; “The Freeman”, 116 W. 13th St., N.Y.C.; “Justice” (organ of International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union), 3 W. 16th St., N.Y.C.; “Advance” (organ of Amalgamated Clothing Workers), 31 Union Square, N.Y.C..

Labor Dailies: “N.Y. Call”, 112 Fourth Aye., N.Y.C.; “Milwaukee Leader”, Brisbane Bldg., Milwaukee, Wisconsin; “Minneapolis Daily Star,” 427 Sixth Ave., Minneapolis, Minn.; “Seattle Record,” Seattle, Washington.

 

The following publishers have devoted very considerable attention to labor and socialist literature:

Chas. H. Kerr & Co., 341 E. Ohio St., Chicago, Ill.; Hanford Press, 7 E. 15th St., N.Y.C.; Academy Press, 112 Fourth Ave., N.Y.C.; Bureau of Industrial Research, 289 Fourth Ave., N.Y.C.; Thos. Seltzer, 5 W. 50th St.; Macmillan Co., 64 5th Ave., N.Y.C.; Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1 W. 47th St., N.Y.C.; B. W. Huebsch, 116 W. 13th St., N.Y.C.; Boni & Liveright, 105 W. 40th St., N.Y.C.

 

ORGANIZATIONS AND PUBLICATIONS ABROAD.

International Labour Office, Geneva, Switzerland (also 7, Seamore PL, Curzon St., London, W.I. Eng.). The labour bureau of the League of Nations. Publishes a comprehensive monthly, “The International Labour Review”, and a large number of studies on various aspects of the labour movement.

International Cooperative Alliance, 4 Great Smith St., Westminster, London, Eng. The central organization of the international consumers’ movement. Publishes monthly, “The International Cooperative Bulletin”.

The International Federation of Trade Unions, 61 Vondelstraat, Amsterdam, Holland. The federation containing most of the trade unions of the world outside of those in Russia and the United States. Publishes monthly, and supplies a news service.

International Council of Trade and Industrial Unions, Moscow, Russia. The Communist “Red” trade union international.

World Association for Adult Education, 13 John St., Adelphi, London, S.C.2, England.

Political Internationals—For further information concerning the “Second International”, apply to British Labour Party; for “Vienna International”, to Independent Labor Party; for “Third International’ , to Communist Party of Great Britain (address below).

Labour Research Department, 34 Eccleston Square, London, S.W.I., England. A central clearing house for information concerning the international labor, socialist and communist movements. Publishes the “Labour Monthly”, a well-informed journal of the international labor movement, with a communistic slant. Prepared International Labour Handbook and numerous other publications.

Fabian Society, 25 Tothill St., London, S.W.I., England. Makes specialty of scientific and popular pamphlet literature. Publishes monthly, “The Fabian News”.

Guild Socialist League, 39 Cursitor St., London, Eng. Central organization  for Guild Socialist movement in England. Publishes monthly, “The Guild Socialist”, and numerous pamphlets.

Labour Publishing Company, 6 Tavistock Square, London, England. Publishes a large number of important books on the socialist and communist movements.

Daily Herald, 2 Carmelite St., Fleet St., London, E.C.4, England. The official newspaper of the Labour party.

The New Statesman, 10 Great Queen St., London, W.C., England. A weekly of moderate socialist thought.

Foreign Affairs, Great Smith St., Westminster, London, England. A weekly emphasizing the need of a broad internationalism.

The New Age, 38 Cursitor St., London, E.C.4, Eng. Guildsman weekly, interested chiefly in Douglas’ credit plan.

British Labour Party, 33 Eccleston Square, London, S.W.I., England. Publishes weekly news service, a monthly, “The Labour Review” and numerous pamphlets.

Independent Labour Party, 8 and 9 Johnston’s Court, London, E.C.4, Eng. The socialist branch of the British Labour party. Publishes weekly, “The New Leader”, edited by H. N. Brailsford, and monthly, “The Socialist Review”, edited by Ramsay Macdonald.

British Communist Party, 16 King St., Covent Garden, London, W.C.2, Eng. Publishes weekly, “The Communist”, and many leaflets.

University Labour Federation, 33 Eccleston Square, London, S.W.I.,

Eng. University Socialist Federation, 34 Eccleston Square, London, S.W.I., Eng.

For a more complete list of labor and socialist organizations and papers abroad see “International Labour Handbook”, published by Labour Publishing Co., London, Eng., and the “International Labour Directory”, published by the International Labour Office, Geneva, Switzerland.

 

This syllabus is published by the LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY. For further information regarding the League’s college and city groups, lectures, literature, conferences, etc., write to the League headquarters, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Among the League pamphlets recommended are “Challenge of Waste”, Stuart Chase (10¢) “Irrepressible America”, Dr. Scott Nearing (10¢); “Express Companies of the U.S.”, Bertram Benedict (10¢); “Freedom in the Workshop”, Felix Grendon (10¢); “Public Ownership Throughout the World”, Harry W. Laidler (10¢); “ Study Courses in Socialism”, Harry W. Laidler (10¢); “A Study Course in Socialism” (a sketch), Jesse Lynch Williams (1¢).

 

LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY
70 Fifth Avenue, New York City

This Pamphlet 10¢. a Copy (December, 1922). 15 Copies for $1.00

 

Source: Hathitrust Digital Library. Copy also at archive.org.

Image Source: Poster for League for Industrial Democracy, designed by Anita Willcox during the Great Depression, showing solidarity with struggles of workers and poor in America (Wikipedia).