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Libertarianism Philosophy Popular Economics Wing Nuts

Freedom School. Summer Prospectus. Robert LeFevre, 1962

We step outside the bounds of conventional economics education in this post to enter the intensive boot-camp for libertarians established in 1957 by Robert LeFevre in Colorado Springs. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror’s latest artefact is the 1962 Prospectus for the Freedom School transcribed below.

Like many prophets of new religions, Lefevre brought definite charismatic talent along with a checkered past to his job as entrepreneurial educator. 

In the libertarian encyclopedia article about LeFevre, an observer-participant of the movement (Brian Doherty, the leading historian of Libertarianism in the United States) wrote:

“LeFevre worked as an actor, radio broadcaster, door-to-door salesman, real estate speculator and manager, TV newsman, and assistant to a pair of charismatic American cult leaders in a religious movement known as the Mighty “I AM.”

A definitely non-libertarian journalist expands on “assistant to a pair of charismatic American cult leaders” as follows:

In 1940, LeFevre published his first book, I AM: America’s Destiny, claiming that he had once driven his car for twenty minutes with his eyes shut while his soul cavorted with Saint Germain somewhere over California’s Lake Shasta. “Now, as I watched, and listened, Saint Germain talked to me. He was real! The world I lived in was unreal. He was the true reality.”
LeFevre quickly discovered how popular he became by claiming this power. Women made themselves available; crowds would gather in apartments to hear his “dictations” from the spirit of Saint Germain. One married woman he lusted after invited LeFevre to live with her and her husband in their San Francisco penthouse, causing her husband to drink himself almost to death.
It’s hard to tell if LeFevre genuinely anguished over his con job; in his memoirs, his language suggests that more than anything, he feared being found out:
“…What if I suddenly announced to all these good people that the whole thing was a sham? I was tempted to do it.”
“Was I guilty of fraud? Had I (subliminally) perhaps been engaged in some monstrous pretense?”
LeFevre’s stint as cult leader was short-lived. In late 1940, the FBI indicted him and 23 other top “I AM” figures with felony mail fraud. LeFevre immediately turned states’ witness, and charges against him were dropped, while Edna Ballard [note: she was the Tammy Faye Bakker of the I AM cult] and her son were sentenced to prison.

Source: Mark Ames, “Meet Charles Koch’s Brain.”

In a future post we will examine Charles Koch’s personal link to LeFevre’s Freedom School as well as some of the economist friends of the Freedom School.

________________________________

1962 Prospectus
The Freedom School

A Call to Introspection
and Thoughtful Appraisal

Today a whole series of concepts alien to the American ideal of 1776 has become acceptable to a great number of American people.

American business finds its back to the wall, confronted by outrageously high taxes, by regulations which impair its ability to operate and, additionally, by union organizers who not only force wages to rise in a manner disassociated with production but who are now usurping the functions of management in the field of hiring and firing. Without deep and thoughtful study of the economic and moral principles underlying a free market, today’s executive is ill-equipped to withstand union and government interventions.

American workers, caught in a vise between mounting taxes and soaring prices, and conditioned by various public media of education and communications, find themselves individually confronted with what appear to be only two possible alternatives: submit to unionism, or face unemployment and economic strangulation.

American students seeking to acquire an education are confronted with compulsion, illogic and ineptitude. Those who express a love and devotion to the ideas and ideals of the American founders are scorned, and admonished to forget “old-fashioned notions” about the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. They are advised that capitalism is outmoded, that private ownership of the means of production and distribution is out-dated and improper, and that a brave new world awaits them if they will conform to governmental intrusion in their lives, submit to authority at every level and try always to keep in mind that Society has become responsible for everything and everybody.

In a climate sired by big government, enormous taxes, legal intrusions, union violence, the threat of war, inflation and educational paucity. the individual must equip himself with the proper means of combatting false ideas and of standing firm in a sea of confusion. Only YOU can decide where you will stand in the ideological warfare of freedom vs. slavery.

This is a call to all Americans who are in rebellion against the foregoing evils and who wish to discover practical ways and means of meeting the challenge to their businesses and industries. to their families, their jobs and their property, and to their own intellectual integrity.

Robert LeFevre

The Freedom School

In poetic harmony with the setting of tall Douglas firs, the buildings comprising the Freedom School reflect in craftsmanship and rough-hewn simplicity the philosophy of individualism. The American tradition is articulated by the log facades on the buildings.

In such an harmonious setting away from jangle and tension, without the pressures caused by appointments, and undistracted by ordinary routine affairs, rigorous study can be pursued. Reflection and intellectual exploration in the field of human action can best be achieved in a tranquil atmosphere.

The student is encouraged to enter classroom discussions to probe human action philosophically, historically, economically, politically, ethically and morally.

He will sweep back through history examining the bright stars of freedom illuminating the course of human progress. The student will awaken to what governments can and cannot do; to the full impact of the merit of private ownership of property and its relationship to liberty.

The student will discover that there is no conflict between the highest moral beliefs and sound economic understanding.

The student is encouraged to seek self-improvement and his own excellence is pointed out as more important than the needs of societal groups.

He will find that all of these ideas, and more, are encompassed in a modern, intelligent philosophy of individualism, which rests its case on the natural, functional, rights of man.

Classwork convenes daily at 1:00 p.m. and continues until 5:00 p.m. when the student has a free hour before dinner, after which he returns to evening class. Evening class starts at 7:00 p.m, and concludes at 9:00 p.m. The student will discover that the pure mountain air, the brisk atmosphere, the rigorous use of his mental faculties encourage an early retiring.

Breakfast is served at 7:30 a.m. after which the student is free to go horseback riding, hiking, or to relax on one of the verandas and enjoy the vista of nature spread before him. There is available a fine libertarian library in which the student may sit in comfortable chairs and enter into lively discussion with his classmates. Superior reference material is close at hand. Each student’s quarters is equipped with a comfortable and well lighted study table. Books may be removed from the library for the student’s personal use.

Weather permitting, luncheon is held out-of-doors. The famous Sunday morning barbecue breakfast is held outdoors in a wooded glen.

Meals are served informally in the western tradition of hearty food. Most students have proclaimed the cuisine to be among the finest. Mrs. Loy LeFevre, who manages the school’s kitchen, has been urged by students to publish a cookbook comprised of the many savory recipes served at the Freedom School

Many days of sunshine each year provide excellent lighting for camera fans. Some of the pictures which appear in the Freedom School publications were taken by students.

At the Freedom School you will sleep better, eat better, think better, and feel better as you examine each facet of individualism.

            One of the most telling statements pointing out a problem present in our country was volunteered by a Freedom School student: “I graduated from an American high school, I’m attending an American university, and I must ask the question: Why is it that I must travel 1100 miles to learn the facts that I have found at the Freedom School?”

Other graduates of the School described their experiences thusly:

*          *          *

“Before going to the Freedom School I considered myself a staunch supporter of liberty, but after experiencing the exchange of ideas that transpires there I discovered untenable taints of socialism remaining in me. These I have now discarded.”

Engineer, Northwest

*          *          *

“Your teachings opened up hitherto neglected directions in my thinking. I had been unknowingly utilizing methods of combating the activities of those who would destroy freedom which methods in themselves aided rather than opposed these activities.”

Former state legislator,
Southeast

*          *          *

“In our class without exception it was agreed that none of us had ever taken a course so thorough and dynamic, so enlightening as this one. We received inspiration and knowledge in the two weeks that would normally not be found in a quarter century. The professor from Milwaukee stated that it was more than a semester of college work so far as study goes.”

Businesswoman, Southwest

*          *          *

“It has provided me with the strongest philosophical underpinning that I have ever experienced. Since returning. I have had much more confidence in my politico-economic discussions and arguments.”

Graduate student, East

*          *          *

“The greatest intellectual challenge I ever encountered.”

Business executive — attorney,
Midwest

Comprehensive Course

This is an intensive, hard-hitting course of general instruction which is useful to any American of mature outlook who wishes to explore and discuss some of the basic questions of our time. The banalities of socialism are exposed. Our heritage of individual liberty and the philosophy of freedom and free enterprise are openly discussed. This course is particularly useful for instructors, ministers, editors, commentators, columnists — concerned with the dissemination of ideas. It is also well adapted for the businessman or for serious-minded students generally.

The Comprehensive Course is open to men and women, regardless of present academic rating, who are willing to work and apply themselves in a pursuit of philosophic and economic truths.

The 1961 Annual available upon request (limited supply).

Explorations in Human Action
(for Executives)

This is a special and definitive course of instruction reserved for executives only.

Executives may bring their wives if they choose; however, wives are excluded from class discussion, tho they may sit in as observers.

The instruction in this two-week period will place special emphasis upon economic problems to be found in today’s business and industrial operations.

Write for illustrated booklet. Do it today. Space is limited and only a few carefully selected executives are chosen each year.

This course is more intensive than the Comprehensive Course and is particularly adapted to the executive who is somewhat familiar with management and labor relations problems.

Explorations in Human Action brochure available upon request.

Workshop

One session is scheduled during 1962 for the accommodation of graduates, instructors in the libertarian philosophy, economists, philosophers, and others, so that they can meet in the atmosphere of the school for the purpose of discussion, sharing ideas in depth and the presentation of papers on a selected topic.

This four-day session will feature a number of the nation’s outstanding leaders in libertarian thought. They will be on hand to confer with students or guests, and to lecture on various phases of the understanding of liberty and economics. Their names will be announced later.

The topic will be: “Are Labor Unions Necessary?”

Graduates wishing to enroll in the Workshop are urged to prepare a formal paper on any phase of the labor union topic and may take any position they wish. A prize in the sum of $100 will be awarded for the best paper, plus a refund of tuition.

Graduates wishing to enroll without making a formal presentation may do so, altho they will not be eligible for the competition. Only graduates of the Comprehensive Course may compete.

Scholarships

Scholarships are available for the Comprehensive Course under three plans.

  1. Full scholarships are available on the basis of a competitive examination. These examinations will be mailed from the Freedom School upon request beginning January 15. All competitive examinations will be judged the week of April 1, 1962, and awards announced thereafter. Winners will receive full tuition for any Comprehensive Course they select, tuition covering all room and board, books, instruction, recreation, and so on.
  2. Full scholarships may also be obtained AFTER April 15, 1962, by application to the Board of Directors of the Freedom School. These scholarships will be awarded on the basis of sincerity and personal worth of application when financial need is demonstrated. In a limited number of cases, outright awards will be made. In other cases, a student loan fund can be utilized with the student agreeing to return funds borrowed without interest.
  3. Partial scholarships may sometimes be obtained by any student who is willing to pay a part of his tuition himself.

Full-tuition scholarships will be presented to 1962 winners of the Freedom School competitive examinations from

The Arthur M. Hyde Foundation
The Rose Wilder Lane Scholarship Fund
The Campaign for the 48 States
The Spruille Braden Scholarship Fund
The Freedom School Alumni Scholarship Fund
and from other interested groups and individuals.

Local committees, such as the Sacramento (Calif.) Freedom School Scholarship Committee, will select candidates and present full-tuition scholarships to their winners.

NOTE: The school does not provide scholarships for either the Workshop or the Explorations in Human Action courses.

1962 Schedule

All courses of instruction at the Freedom School take two weeks. A minimum of six hours per day is spent in classroom work. Customarily, mornings are devoted to study, recreation and free time. Classroom sessions occur in the afternoon and evening.

Here is the schedule of all classes for the 1962 season:

May 20 – June 2 incl. Explorations in Human Action
(for Executives)
June 3 – 16 incl. Comprehensive
June 17 – 30 incl. Comprehensive
July 1 – 14 incl. Comprehensive
July 15 – 28 incl. Comprehensive
July 31 – August 3 incl. Workshop*
August 5 – 18 incl. Comprehensive
August 19 – Sept. 1 incl. Comprehensive
Sept. 2 – 15 incl. Comprehensive
Sept. 16 – 29 incl. Comprehensive
Sept. 30 – Oct. 13 incl. Explorations in Human Action
(for Executives)
(Graduates and top-flight teachers and students only)

Pre-season or post-season courses can be arranged for special groups who wish to obtain exclusive use of the school for a stated period with instruction tailored to any particular business or industrial problem. Write for information.

Instructors
Associate instructors who have served at Freedom School:

R. W. Holmes
Design engineer, Boeing Aircraft, Seattle, Washington

Frank Chodorov
Editor, author, New York City, N.Y.

Elgie C. Marcks
Professor of economics, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee

V. Orval Watts, Ph.D.
Economist, author, Altadena, California

Oscar W. Cooley
Professor of economics, Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio

Ruth Alexander, Ph.D.
Nationally syndicated columnist, New Canaan, New York

James L. Doenges, M.D.
Surgeon; past president, Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, Anderson, Indiana

Ruth S. Maynard, Ph.D.
Professor of economics, Lake Erie Women’s College, Painesville, Ohio

Leonard E. Read
Founder-president, Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York

Rose Wilder Lane
Author, journalist, Danbury, Connecticut

F. A. Harper, Ph.D.
Economist, author, Burlingame, California

Salvatore Saladino, Ph.D.
Professor of history, Queens College, Flushing, New York

Wm. J. Grede
President and chairman of the board, J. I. Case Co., Racine, Wis.; past president, National Association of Manufacturers; chairman of the board, Grede Foundries

Wm. A. Paton, Ph.D.
Economist, professor of accounting, School of Business Administration, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Chas. E. Stenicka, III
Labor relations consultant, Midwest Employers Council, Lincoln, Nebraska

Transportation

Make your travel arrangements to come to Colorado Springs. It is serviced by leading airlines, bus and train companies. The school management will not guarantee to pick up students at any other destination.

You will be expected to be waiting at the Antlers Hotel in downtown Colorado Springs by 5 p.m. on the Sunday before your course begins. The school station wagon will pick you up from the lobby. You’ll be returned to the lobby of the Antlers Hotel on the Saturday following the conclusion of the course.

On your drive to the school (about 27 miles) you’ll glimpse the colorful rugged Colorado countryside, with Pikes Peak towering off to your left.

After registering, a delicious dinner with your fellow students will introduce you to life at the school, with your first night’s sleep in the pine-scented foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Meals

All meals are served buffet style. With the exception of the Sunday morning picnic, breakfast and dinner are eaten in the school dining room. Weather permitting, luncheon is eaten out-of-door at the tables adjacent to the kitchen.

Top-right: Following one week of intensive study, weather permitting, a barbecue breakfast is held Sunday at 8:30 a.m. in a wooded glen.
Lower-left: In the foreground is Thunderbird residence cabin, which is duplicated by Falcon cabin (not shown). The building in the upper right portion of the photograph is the dining room. Adjacent to the dining room is the school’s library.

Clothes

There will be no formal functions requiring “dressing up.” On nights when “open house” is held, ordinary street wear is appropriate. Otherwise, comfortable western clothes are preferable. Students who like horseback riding are encouraged to bring at least one pair of jeans. Sturdy shoes which give support to ankles are necessary if you are interested in either riding or hiking.

Resort wear is in keeping for recreational activities. For class, sport shirts and cotton dresses are suitable, with slacks and sweaters for cooler evenings. Clothes should be warm and serviceable. The elevation of the school is at 7,000 feet in the foothills of the Rockies. Days are warm but evenings are always cool.

Accommodations

The Freedom School is placed in a remote setting of woodland beauty. Accommodations are delightful and fully modern. Buildings are finished in natural logs to provide an atmosphere of early American simplicity. Most rooms accommodate from two to four students. There are ample porches, desks and chairs for study or relaxation.

Recreation

The school owns a small string of fine saddle horses which the students may ride during the morning hours. On the property are many fine hiking trails. There is a badminton court, a volleyball court and an archery range. All equipment is furnished by the school.

Library

In the school library is a fine collection of books on libertarian philosophy.

Included is a wide selection of titles on political science, history. biography, economics, philosophy and kindred subjects.

Philosophy

The Freedom School provides an intellectual avenue toward economic truths. From the primary and basic definitions of truth and freedom, the student moves rapidly through the philosophy of socialism, communism, and interventionism to individualism.

The course of instruction is intensive and demanding. It isn’t a “snap” affair. Ideas presented are far-reaching and challenging. To complete the course successfully, it is not necessary to agree with points of view offered. But individual effort is necessary even though conformity is neither required nor sought.

Accreditation

The school is not interested in issuing credits or diplomas.

Certificates of proficiency are presented to those who successfully complete any of the school’s courses. No certificates are awarded during Workshop attendance.

How Do I Enroll?

Make use of the appropriate enclosed enrollment form.

Await confirmation of your enrollment. We will be as prompt as possible.

Enrollment agreements are made for the FULL TWO-WEEK SESSIONS. No reduction or refund is made where a student withdraws during the session or is absent for part of the session, unless upon certification of a physician.

The school reserves the right to ask the withdrawal of a student whose health, in the judgment of the school’s medical advisor, is such as to endanger the student himself or the other students; or of a student who, in the judgment of the school administration, is not in sympathy with the standards, objectives and ideals of the school. A student who is asked to withdraw by the school will receive a pro-rata reduction in charges.

Who Can Attend?

The school is particularly designed for the enrollment of businessmen, executives, branch managers, department heads and others who carry the burden of free enterprise. Special courses limited to executives have been provided. However, executives may also enroll in any of the other courses offered.

The school is also eager to attract young men and women who are at least 16 years of age and who have a mature outlook.

Any American is eligible, man or woman, who is concerned with the conflicting philosophies apparent in our society and who wishes to study the economic truths respecting these philosophies. Prior scholastic achievement is not necessary.

The directors will make every effort to place applicants in courses with enrollees of similar backgrounds and interests. The right to approve or reject applications for enrollment is unconditionally reserved by the Board of Directors.

Tuition

Explorations in Human Action
(for Executives)
$350.00
Wives who wish to accompany husbands $175.00
Comprehensive Courses $275.00
(Scholarships are available for some of the Comprehensive sessions)
Workshop $ 60.00
NOTE: No scholarships are available for any sessions at Freedom School
except the Comprehensive sessions.

What Tuition Covers

Whether the student elects to pay his own tuition or obtains a full or partial scholarship, all tuitions listed are full-expense tuitions. There are NO extras required.

Tuition includes transportation to the school from Colorado Springs, Colorado, and return to Colorado Springs. It includes all meals and lodging while at the school. It includes all required books and study materials. Certain books will be presented to the student for his permanent use. It includes all costs of instruction and recreation, including horseback riding.

Students wishing to provide notebooks for themselves, to buy extra books, tape recordings of meetings, or photographs of the scenery, do so at their own expense,

How is School Supported?

To begin with, the school is NOT supported by tax money or by government handouts.

Its primary income comes from tuitions paid by students.

In addition, it receives grants, contributions and benefactions from individual Americans.

It has several scholarship funds which assist in providing tuition for students.

It receives assistance from certain business and professional groups, and has been remembered in several last wills and testaments.

All contributions to the Freedom School are exempt from the federal income tax.

Publications

This Bread is Mine” … $4.95
Robert LeFevre (American Liberty Press)

Rise and Fall of Society” … $3.95
Frank Chodorov (Devin-Adair Co.)

Why Wages Rise” (paperback ) … $1.50
F. A. Harper (Foundation for Economic Education)

Mainspring” (paperback) … $1.50
Henry Grady Weaver (Foundation for Economic Education).

Liberty – A Path to its Recovery” (paperback) … $1.50
F. A. Harper (Foundation for Economic Education).

The Nature of Man and his Government” (paperback) … $1.00
Robert Lefevre (Caxton Printers, Ltd.).

The Law” (paperback) … $1.00
Frederic Bastiat (Foundation for Economic Education)

“Should We Strengthen the United Nations?” (paperback) … $0.75
V. Orval Watts (Pine Tree publication).

“Jobs For All — Who Want To Work” (pamphlet) … $0.35
F. A. Harper (Pine Tree publication) [The Writings of F. A. Harper. Volume 2: Shorter Essays, pp. 184-206]

“Flight to Russia” (pamphlet) … $0.25
Frank Chodorov (Pine Tree publication)

Liberty Defined” (pamphlet) … $0.25
F. A. Harper (Pine Tree publication).

Anarchy” (pamphlet) … $0.15
Robert Lefevre (Pine Tree publication)

Quantity purchases are available for discount in some cases. Write for information.

Pine Tree

The Pine Tree is the Freedom School’s tabloid newspaper published every two weeks, with the exception of the period from December 15 through January 15. Subscription rates are $10.00 per year, two years for $17.50, single copies free on request.

It acts as a forum answering questions sent in by its subscribers. Regular columnists include: George Boardman, Ph.D., Chloride, Arizona; Roger Lea McBride, Esq., New York, N.Y.

Robert LeFevre, editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph. Libertarians and economists of note will contribute guest columns.

Board of Directors

Ruth Dazey
William J. Froh
Lois Lefevre
Robert Lefevre
Marjorie Llewellin
Edith Shank
Robert B. Rapp

Board of Trustees

Robert W. Baird, Jr.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

James L. Doenges, M. D.
Anderson, Indiana

Wm. J. Grede
Racine, Wisconsin

Harry H. Hoiles
Colorado Springs, Colorado

R. W. Holmes
Bellevue, Washington

Ned W. Kimball
Waterville, Washington

Board of Graduate Fellows

Mrs. Mabelle Acorn
Colville, Washington
Mr. Ira T. Langlois, Sr.
Madison, Wisconsin
Mr. C. W. Anderson
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Mr. J. Dohn Lewis
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Mr. Harold Angier
San Francisco, California
Prof. Elgie C. Marcks
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Dr. Lyman W. Applegate
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Mr. John H. Marsh
New York, New York
Mrs. Hermona C. Beardslee
Woodstock, Illinois
Rev. Warren L. Norton
Greeley, Colorado
Mr. Robert E. Borchardt
Rockford, Illinois
Mr. Rodney H. Peck
Seattle, Washington
Mr. George A. Brightwell, Jr.
Houston, Texas
Mr. Fred C. Petersen
Mexico City. Mexico
Mr. Thomas C. Buckley
Los Angeles, California
Mr. Sartell Prentice, Jr.
Pasadena, California
Mr. John J. Callahan, Jr.
Reading, Massachusetts
Mr. Bryson Reinhardt
Cloverdale, Oregon
Mr. William J. Colson
Palm Springs, California
Mr. George Resch
Burlingame, California
Prof. Oscar W. Cooley
Ada, Ohio
Mr. O. R. Riddle
Eagle Pass, Texas
Mr. Jim Dean
Houston, Texas
Mr. Pat O. Riley
Lima, Ohio
Mr. W. Dewey DeFlon
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Mr. Richard D. Schwerman
Hales Corners, Wisconsin
Mr. Dan Foley
Fairmont, West Virginia
Mr. Roland R. Selin
Salt Lake City, Utah
Mr. R. N. Gatewood
Samnorwood, Texas
Mr. Elwood P. Smith
Chicago, Illinois
Mr. Robert M. Gaylord, Jr.
Rockford, Illinois
Mr. R. J. Smith
Menlo Park, California
Mr. Frederick C. Gosewisch
Elm Grove, Wisconsin
Mr. Charles E. Stenicka III
Lincoln, Nebraska
Mr. G. F. Grant
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Mr. R. J. Sumners
Muskegon, Michigan
Mr. J. W. Greene
Spartanburg, South Carolina
Mr. Leonard A. Talbot
Santa Rosa, California
Mr. Gene Hausske
Palmer Lake, Colorado
Mr. John E. Tate
Omaha, Nebraska
Mrs. Evis S. Mays
Pueblo, Colorado
Mr. Herman A. Tessmann
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Mr. James D. Heiple
Pekin, Illinois
Mr. Walter B. Thompson
Fort Worth, Texas
Mr. Roland H. Hennarichs
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Mr. Ross Thoresen
Salt Lake City, Utah
Mr. Frederick M. Hoagland
Chicago, Ilinois
Mrs. Louise Young
Pasadena, Texas
Mr. James Kolb
Edmond, Oklahoma

These graduates are among those who serve as a point of reference for the school. Their own experience enables them to vouch for the work being done at Freedom School.

Source: Images and text from the 1962 Prospectus of the Freedom School found in the Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of V. Orval Watts, Box 4.

Categories
Columbia Economists Undergraduate Wing Nuts

Columbia. Economics instructor not rehired. Academic freedom vs. academic license. Henderson, 1933

The issue of academic freedom can shock the best and worst of economics departments. Like much of what is interesting in economics, it is important to distinguish between nominal and real shocks. In 1933 Columbia College, the undergraduate arm of Columbia University, found itself in a whirlwind of controversy following the non-renewal of a contract of a radical instructor of economics. I stumbled across this case from newspaper accounts and thought it would help spice up Economics in the Rear-view Mirror (much as the Harvard/UMass saga of young radical economists in the early 1970s has) to examine the case.

I have not ever looked for or seen any archival material at Columbia regarding the protagonist of this post, Donald Henderson. Economics in the Rear-View Mirror is primarily concerned with the nuts-and-bolts of the economics curricula across time and universities. Still my curiosity has led me to examine several online newspaper archives (The Columbia Spectator archive has been especially useful), the genealogical website ancestry.com, and the usual book/text sites (archive.org and hathitrust.org), to fill in missing details about the life of Mr. Donald Henderson.

Economics in the Rear-View Mirror, theory of the case: Columbia University’s upper administration appears to have had a “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” moment once alumni letters began to pour in following the arrest of its economics instructor, Donald Henderson, at a protest in October 1932 at C.C.N.Y. in support of the English instructor Oakley Johnson, who had been dismissed by City College President Frederick B. Robinson for his “communist sympathies” (a New York Times understatement). Having left the safe-space of what goes in Vegas, stays in Vegas (i.e. Columbia College), Donald Henderson was a low-value academic pawn offered as a sacrifice to satisfy the alumni gods. Henderson had not really displayed visible indicators of a future distinguished academic career and the Columbia administration most certainly underestimated the potential of the organized mobilization by militant agitators capable of leveraging such an issue for less than pure academic freedom principles. At the time the Columbia Spectator editorial board framed the problem essentially as one of academic freedom vs. academic license. 

Who was Donald Henderson? In the historical record we find that Henderson went on to become a communist party labor organizer who had climbed high enough in U.S. union leadership circles to even attract a subpoena from no less an assistant United States Attorney than Roy M. Cohn (yes, that Roy M. Cohn, whose later client list would include… Donald J. Trump…small world?!). Some Congressional testimony with Henderson’s liberal invocation of the Fifth Amendment regarding his communist party activities is provided below. With this his labor organizing career ended in the early 1950s and he lived the rest of his life in obscurity in Miami, Florida.

Now some artifacts following a chronology of Donald Henderson’s life.

______________________

Donald James Henderson
Timeline

1902. Born February 4 in New York City to Jean Henderson née Crawford and Daniel Robert Henderson (occupation “coachman” according to the 1898 birth certificate for his older sister Marjorie Augusta Henderson).

1910.  According to the 1910 U.S. census Mother Jean (“Married”) and all four children were living with their grandmother Estelle I. Crawford in Montpelier, Vermont where Donald went to grammar school. Donald’s father Daniel not yet found at this address or elsewhere).

1913. Donald’s father Daniel remarries August 18 to Hesper Ann Joslin.

1920. According to the 1920 U.S. census Mother Jean (“Divorced”)  and all four children were still living with their grandmother Estelle I. Crawford in Dansville, New York where Donald went to high school.

1921-22. Likely start of Donald Henderson’s undergraduate studies at Columbia University.

1924. The Columbia Progressive Club reorganized November 13.  Purpose of the club was the furtherance of a Third Party Movement. Members of the Executive Committee included Elinor Curtis and Donald Henderson.

1925. Donald J. Henderson married Elinor Curtis (Barnard, 1925) in Manhattan, August 31.

Elinor Curtis in the 1925 Barnard Yearbook

1925. A.B. with general honors, Columbia College.

1925-26. Garth Fellow, Columbia University.

1926. M.A. Columbia University.

1926. Birth of first son, Curtis Henderson (1926-2009) in New York City, September 28.

1926-27. Instructor in Economics, Rutgers University. Listed for a course on the economics (and regulation) of railroads, water, and motor transportation; a course on statistical principles.

1927-28. Summer Session [rank unclear], Columbia University.

1928-29. Instructor of Economics, Columbia University.

1929-30. Instructor in Economics. Columbia University.

1930-31. Instructor in Economics. Columbia University.

1931-32. Instructor in Economics. Columbia University.

1931. Communist Daily Worker of August 4, 1931. Henderson declared that he had rejected socialism and joined the Communist Party.

1932-33. Instructor in Economics. Columbia University.

1932. His wife, Elinor C. Henderson ran for Congress as an independent (i.e. as communists then did) in the 21st New York congressional district, receiving 7/10th of one percent of the vote.

1932. Arrested October 26 with three C.C.N.Y. students for disorderly conduct after police broke up a meeting protesting the dimissal of English instructor at C.C.N.Y., Dr. Oakley Johnson.

Note: Donald Henderson was an instructor of economics, not professor. Daily News (Nov 2, 1932).

1932. Serving as executive secretary of the American Committee for Struggle Against War, the American branch of the World Congress Against War.  Active in the Student Congress Against War and Fascism (established at Christmas).

1933. April. Donald Henderson’s appointment as instructor of economics is not renewed for the coming academic year. Joint committee [the Columbia Social Problems Club, Socialist Club, Barnard Social Problems Club, Economics Club, Mathematics Club, Sociology Club of Teachers College and the Social Problems Club of Seth Low] organizes campus protests for the reappointment of Henderson.
May. Further demonstrations, Henderson case attracts national attention.

Diego Rivera Addressing Striking Students at Columbia,” New York Times, May 16, 1933, p. 3.
Note: The painter Diego Riviera was Frida Kahlo’s husband.

1933. Executive secretary of the United States League Against War and Fascism that met in New York on September 29.

1933-34. Began organizing agricultural workers across the United States for the American Federation of Labor.

1934. Daily News (New York). From Bridgeton, N.J., July 10. Wire photo caption: “Husky Official leads Donald Henderson by the wrist as police spirit the Red organizer away from meeting where striking workers at Bridgeton, N.J., threatened him with lynching.”

1935. Second son, Lynn Henderson born in New York, April 14.

1935. September. Wrote article “The Rural Masses and the Work of Our Party” in The Communist.
[e.g. “… during the past 2 years our party has been successful in developing policies and organization which are rapidly achieving a successful turn to mass revolutionary work and influence in the cities and among the industrial urban proletariat.”]

1937. Established the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, affiliated to the CIO. Elected as its international president, holding the post to 1949.

1938. [ca.] Third son, Donald Henderson, Jr. born.

1941. Wife, Eleanor [sic] Curtis Henderson died of poisoning June 11 in their home at 7750 South Sangamon Street, Chicago. “A coroner’s jury returned a verdict saying that it was unable to determine whether or not Mrs. Henderson took the poison accidentally.” Chicago Tribune (June 12, 1941, p. 12).

1943. Married South African born actress, Florence Mary McGee [formerly Thomas from her first marriage], in New York City, October 10.

1944. “United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America” changes its name to the “Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers Union”.

1948. From The South Bend Tribune, Indiana (November 23, 1948), p. 1. “Donald Henderson, of Philadelphia, Pa., president of the Food & Tobacco Workers, was halted repeatedly by CIO convention delegates booing the minority report he read at Portland, Ore., opposing continued CIO support of the Marshall plan.”

1949. April. Henderson attends the (Soviet dominated) World Federation of Trade Union meeting in Paris as president of the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers Union.

1949. Communist Daily Worker of August 15, 1949, entitled “FTA complies with NLRB rule”. Henderson quoted: “While it is true that I had been a member of the Communist Party, I have resigned my membership therein…” [For the union to be in compliance with the Taft-Hartley Act and have its officers sign the non-Communist affidavit, Henderson stepped down as president and was immediately appointed National Administrative Director.]

1950. October. Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers Union merged with the Distributive Workers Union and the United Office and Professional Workers Union to form a new international union called the Distributive, Processing and Office Workers Union of America (DPOWA). Served as administrative secretary of that international union for the first year.

1951. October. Reorganization of the DPOWA. Elected to national secretary-treasurer. [Henderson held post at least to Feb. 14, 1952 when he testified before U.S. Senate, Subcommittee to investigate the administration of the internal security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary.]

1951. Received a 30 day sentence for disobeying a Judge’s injunction against mass picketing during a brief strike at the Pasco Packing Company plant. “Donald Henderson of New York”  head of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (Ind.). From an Associated Press report, Dade City (Sept. 26) in Pensacola News Journal  Sept. 27, 1951, p. 9.

1953. From a United Press report from Washington, February 23 published in The Palm Beach Post (February 24, 1953): “Henderson, now secretary-treasurer of the Distributive, Processing and Office Workers of America (ind)” took the fifth amendment before the Senate Permanent Investigating Committee of Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy. He also refused to answer questions about Voice of America employees with suspected communist affiliations.

Post-McCarthy hearing years. “[Henderson] eventually had to become a salesman to earn a living.” [From his obituary in The Militant, December 28, 1964]

1957The Miami News (January 26, 1957, p. 18). Report that Florence McGee moved to Miami recently with her husband, Donald Henderson, and their son. They have “been living quietly at 4335 [or 4345] SW 109th Ct.) She apparently resumed her long-paused acting career in the drama “Teach Me How to Cry” at Studio M.

1958. “By 1958 the illness which eventually took his life forced him into complete inactivity.” [From his obituary in The Militant, December 28, 1964]

1964. Donald Henderson died of a kidney ailment in Miami, Florida in December 12. [From his obituary in The Militant, December 28, 1964]

2000. Florence McGee Henderson (97 years) died in Miami, Florida on June 16.

_________________________

Obituary

THE MILITANT
(New York, NY)
28 Dec 1964

Early Organizer of Tobacco Union Dies in Florida

Donald Henderson, 62, a prominent early organizer of agricultural and cannery workers, died of a kidney ailment in Miami Dec. 12.

Henderson was an economics instructor at Rutgers and Columbia University in the mid-1920s. During this period he played a key role in the student and anti-fascist movements and was active in organizing the National Student Union and the American League Against War and Fascism. These activities led to his dismissal from Columbia.

He then devoted his efforts to the organization of agricultural workers, at that time completely unorganized in the U.S. Beginning by organizing workers in the truck farms of New Jersey, he established the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural workers union. The FTA under his leadership became one of the largest agricultural unions in the US, with a large membership of Southern Negroes, Mexican-Americans in southern California.

The deepening of the cold war, resulted in the expulsion of a large number of “left-wing” unions, including the FTA, from the CIO in 1950.

Henderson was an unco-operative witness at the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s and eventually had to become a salesman to earn a living. By 1958 the illness which eventually took his life forced him into complete inactivity.

______________________

Articles in
Columbia Daily Spectator

Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 22, 28 October 1932.

Henderson Released on Bail
For Disorderly Conduct Hearing

Columbia Instructor, Held After Meeting
at C.C.N.Y. to Face Trial

Donald Henderson, Instructor in the Department of Economics, who was arrested on Wednesday night on a charge of disorderly conduct in connection with a demonstration at City College, was released on bail yesterday after arraignment in Washington Heights Court.

 

Mr. Henderson and three C.C.N.Y. students, who were held following a meeting of the Liberal Club at City College to protest the dismissal of Oakley defendants. Magistrate Anthony F. Burke ordered bail of $500 for each of the four under arrest. Their release could not be secured until later in the afternoon.

 

The seizure of Mr. Henderson came after the Liberal Club had been ejected from its meeting room in the College and had taken its stand on the Campus. There, after several denunciatory speeches, he was apprehended by the police and taken to night court where Magistrate Dreyer postponed the hearing until yesterday.

 

It is understood that the Columbia Social Problems Club will take steps to protest Mr. Henderson’s detention at a meeting of that organization at noon today in Room 307 Philosophy.

Frank D. Fackenthal, Secretary of the University, when asked whether the University would make any official recognition of the case, said that., the “matter is out of my jurisdiction.”

About 100 students from Columbia and C.C.N.Y. jammed the courtroom to hear the trial, with an equal number milling about outside and listening to speeches condemning the police action…

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 25, 2 November 1932.

Trial Begins For Henderson
Hearing Opens Before Crowded Courtroom.
Resumes Session Today

With the courtroom jammed to capacity and 200 students milling about in the streets outside listening to denunciations of the C.C.N.Y. administration, the trial of Donald Henderson, instructor in Economics at Columbia, arraigned on a charge of disorderly conduct, opened yesterday in Washington Heights Court before Magistrate Guy Van Amringe.

 

Mr. Henderson held with three City College students following a demonstration protesting the dismissal of Oakley Johnson from the C.C.N.Y. faculty, will reappear at 2:30 this afternoon for further hearing.

 

Session Lasted Three Hours

 

Yesterday’s session lasted for nearly three hours, with the proceedings devoted largely to the calling of witnesses for both sides. Mr. Henderson is expected to take the stand today, with Allan Taub acting as counsel for the defense.

 

Dr. George Nelson, assistant librarian at City College, testified yesterday that on the night of the disturbance which resulted in the arrests, he entered the history room of the College and found fifty students meeting there. They refused to leave, he said, and he summoned several policemen.

 

State Henderson Refused to Leave

 

Henderson: remained adamant, Nelson charged, and was finally pushed out of the room. Nelson added that he did not see the other defendants.

 

Oakley Johnson, whose removal led to the series of demonstrations in which Columbia students took a prominent part, appeared at the trial and was at first denied admittance. He finally gained entrance after several disputes.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 29, 9 November 1932.

Henderson on Probation
After Conviction For Disorderly Conduct

Donald Henderson, instructor in Economics, who was tried on a charge of disorderly conduct as a result of his participation in a demonstration protesting the dismissal of Oakley Johnson from C.C.N.Y., is on probation for six months after receiving a suspended thirty day sentence.

 

The trial, conducted before Magistrate Guy Van Amringe in Washington Heights Court, was brought to a close Monday after a week of prolonged hearings. Allen Taub acted as counsel for the defense….

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 112, 5 April 1933.

Henderson Appointment Ended;
Conflicting Explanations Issued

Donald J. Henderson, instructor in economics and prominent radical leader, clashed with the University yesterday over the non-renewal of his appointment here, in the first phase of what loomed last night as a prolonged conflict between Mr. Henderson’s supporters and the Administration.

 

Mr. Henderson, in declaring that he had rejected a Fellowship tendered to him by the University following the termination of his teaching activities, said that the offer was “a maneuver to ease me out of the University without raising the issue of academic freedom.”

 

Concerning that allegation, Professor Roswell C. McCrea, head of the Department of Economics, maintained that Mr. Henderson, during his tenure at Columbia, “has engaged freely in any activities to which he may have been attracted.

“The fact that his position here,” Professor McCrea insisted, “was not a permanent one was clearly stated to him before he became actively connected with any political group.”

With Mr. Henderson’s stand apparently clearly defined by his statement, the Social Problems Club, with which he has been actively connected, revealed yesterday that it will meet at 3:30 this afternoon in Room 309 Business to develop “a line of action” to be followed in Mr. Henderson’s defense.

 

Immediately following the appearance of the College Catalogue on Monday, in which no mention is made of Mr. Henderson, widespread curiosity was current as to his future status. That question was clarified with the issuance of statements yesterday by Mr. Henderson and Professor McCrea.

 

The statements, sharply conflicting on several points, dealt with the circumstances of Mr. Henderson’s seemingly imminent departure from Morningside Heights.

 

Mr. Henderson, who has been a prominent figure in radical disputes on this Campus and elsewhere, charged that the University is “maneuvering to ease me out without raising any question of academic freedom,” whereas, he declared, “the facts in this situation raise clearly and definitely the issue of academic freedom.”

 

In regard to his radical exploits which have been the subject of frequent newspaper comment, Mr. Henderson said that he was told last Spring that “extreme pressure was being brought to bear for my removal.”

 

Says Protesting Letters Received

 

He maintained that Professor Rex C. Tugwell informed him the following summer that “a flood of letters from prominent Alumni” had been received protesting the activities of Mr. Henderson and his wife, who was jailed during a dispute over alleged discrimination against Negroes.

 

Declaring that Mr. Henderson has “failed consistently to apply himself seriously and diligently to his duties as instructor and to maintain the standards of teaching required by this Department,” Dean McCrea said that “those conditions make his further connection with the Department of Economics undesirable.”

 

Mr. Henderson made known that he had been offered a post as “Research Assistant” for one year by the University “at a salary $700 less than my present one.”

 

Cites Provision of Offer

 

“The one condition attached to this offer,” he claimed, “was that the year be spent in the Soviet Union… the subject matter of my thesis, with which Professor Tugwell is acquainted, requires research in the United States rather than the Soviet Union.”

 

Professor McCrea’s statement declared that non-renewal of Mr. Henderson’s contract “is consistent with long-established University policy.

 

“There never has been any understanding or intention that Mr. Henderson should stay permanently at Columbia…. An appointment to an instructorship does not imply, in any case, later appointment to a higher rank with more permanence of tenure. For this reason, such understandings are had with all graduate students who are appointed to instructorships in economics.”

 

Mr. Henderson said that in the summer of 1931 “I became more active in the revolutionary movement and received considerable publicity in the newspapers in connection with those activities.

 

“That fall,” he continued, “I was advised by Professor Tugwell to look for another job. He stated at that time that in case of lack of success in finding another position, I would not be dismissed.”

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 112, 5 April 1933.

Somebody’s Wrong
[Spectator editorial]

The statement issued yesterday by Mr. Donald Henderson obviously does not quite jibe with that of Professor Roswell McCrea. According to one statement, Mr. Henderson was not reengaged as an instructor because of his radical activities, while according to the other the close of his academic career in so far as Columbia is concerned was occasioned by his incompetence as a scholar and as a teacher. There is no denying that Donald Henderson was the most obstreperous of Columbia’s many radicals. As to his teaching ability only those who have been his pupils can testify. Radical activities are certainly not a just cause for dismissal from the faculty of a liberal university. But it is equally as certain that it is unjust to use an instructor’s radical activity as an implement with which to force a university to handle with kid gloves a disinterested and incompetent instructor.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 113, 6 April 1933.

Problems Club Begins Defense of Henderson.
Committee Formed to Outline Campaign for Reappointment of Radical Instructor
– Attacks Dismissal

Mobilization of Donald Henderson’s defense in his clash with the University over non-renewal of his appointment was begun by the Social Problems Club yesterday.

 

While Mr. Henderson, an instructor in the department of economics and widely known radical leader, issued a second statement in which he characterized Professor Roswell McCrea’s assertions as “false” and “absurd,” the Club appealed for “effective and widespread action” in his support.

 

Committee of Ten Chosen

 

The latter move followed a meeting of the Club yesterday afternoon when a committee of ten was elected to direct the campaign for Mr. Henderson’s reappointment. The committee held its first session immediately after the club meeting and announced that it would convene again this afternoon to formulate “a complete program of action.”

 

At the same time Dr. Addison T. Cutler, instructor in economics and a member of the committee, made public four letters he said came from students who have studied under Mr. Henderson. These letters, “from students not affiliated with the Social Problems Club,” were introduced in defense of Mr. Henderson’s teaching ability.

 

Declares Action Due to ‘Pressure’

 

In his statement which was prompted by the declaration of Professor McCrea on Tuesday concerning Mr. Henderson’s status, the latter amplified his previous testimony in which he claimed that the University’s action was the result of “extreme pressure” growing out of his political activities.

 

“The assertion by Professor McCrea Mr. Henderson said yesterday, that I was engaged to teach in Columbia University on the condition that I finish my work for the doctor’s degree in two years is absolutely false.

 

Calls McCrea’s Statement ‘Absurd’

 

“As in the case of all instructors who are engaged at Columbia without doctor’s degrees, it was understood that I should continue my graduate work as rapidly as possible. The records will show that I have done this; all course credits and course requirements have been disposed of.”

 

Stating that he has been engaged in research on his thesis—”The History of the American Communist Party”—for the past two years, Mr. Henderson further charged that “the entire question of scholarly competence raised by Professor McCrea is absurd in view of the offering to me of a research assistanceship by the same department.

 

“The latter certainly could not be based on a disbelief in my scholarly competence.” The Problems Club will seek to enlist the support of other Columbia organizations, it was said yesterday.

 

The club’s statement asserted that “the Social Problems Club has been aware of administrative opposition to Mr. Henderson for many months. A careful effort has been made by the administration to get rid of Mr. Henderson without raising the issue of academic freedom.”

 

Charging that Mr. Henderson was “dismissed because of his political activities,” the statement called upon Spectator “to give the same dignified but vigorous support of academic freedom in Henderson’s case as did Henderson in the case of Spectatorat this time last year.”

 

In that regard, it was recalled yesterday that the strike on this Campus last year protesting the dismissal of Reed Harris took place exactly one year ago today.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 115, 10 April 1933

Joint Committee Outlines Action On Henderson
Issues Statement on Case Preliminary to Drive for Widespread Support
25,000 Leaflets To Be Distributed

In the first major move of what portends to be a nationwide campaign for the reappointment of Donald Henderson, the Columbia Joint Committee representing the Social Problems and Socialist Clubs yesterday issued a statement laying the groundwork for its program of action in Mr. Henderson’s defense.

 

The declaration was formulated in concert by the two organizations which are assuming the initiative in the movement for reappointment of the prominent Campus radical leader to his present post in the Economics Department.

To Seek Nationwide Aid

 

It deals with the case as presented by Mr. Henderson last week and as set forth by Professor Roswell C. McCrea in explanation of the Administration’s stand. Twenty-five thousand copies of the statement are being printed for distribution among organizations throughout the country in an effort to enlist “widespread and effective” support, it was announced last night.

 

The statement takes up successively the question of Mr. Henderson’s status under three main divisions —”The University’s Excuses,” “The Great Maneuvre That Failed” and “Pressure for Henderson’s Removal.” It concludes with a plea for “all students, student groups and faculty members to send letters of protest to Professor Roswell C. McCrea in Fayerweather Hall.”

 

Lays Dismissal to Radicalism

 

“No one knows better,” the declaration asserts, “than the Columbia administration that Mr. Henderson has been dropped because of his political activities and his leadership in the student movement of America.”

 

The committee outlines “The University’s Excuses” as based on three grounds—the non-permanence of Mr. Henderson’s appointment, non-completion of his degree and his teaching ability.

 

Questions Second Charge

 

On the first point, the statement says that “no one claims the University is violating a legal contract in dropping Henderson.” It takes issue, however, with Professor McCrea’s assertion that Mr. Henderson’s original appointment was made “on the condition that he finish his doctor’s degree within two years.” Concerning Mr. Henderson’s failure to achieve his Ph.D., the statement asserts that “neither have many other instructors who have been teaching for many years at Columbia” and states he “has finished all course and credit requirements.” Professor McCrea’s reference to Mr. Henderson’s teaching ability is branded “the most contemptible charge of all, unsupported by facts.”

 

Professor McCrea had said “Henderson has failed consistently to apply himself seriously and diligently to his duties as instructor and to maintain the standards of teaching required by the department.”

 

Cites Praise of Henderson

 

The Joint Committee here offers commendatory avowals “by former students who are neither personal friends of Henderson or associated with his political activities, including honor students, football players and others.”

 

The statement takes note of the action of Mr. Henderson’s Economics Seminar which unanimously voted him “a competent instructor” and “his analysis of economic theory… illuminating and intellectually stimulating.”

 

Statement Attacks Fellowship Move

 

Turning to “The Great Maneuvre That Failed,” the Committee considers the offer of a fellowship to Mr. Henderson by the University, which he declined, he said, as a move “to ease me out of the University without raising any question of academic freedom.”

 

In the section devoted to “Pressure for Henderson’s Removal,” the committee declares that at the time of the student strike last year in which Mr. Henderson played an active part, “Professor Tugwell said that it was only a question of time how long the pressure (for Mr. Henderson’s removal) could be withstood.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 117, 12 April 1933

To the Editor of Spectator:

 

The following is a statement of facts concerning a conversation I had with Dean Herbert E. Hawkes; I pass it on to you in the hope that it may shed light on the refusal of the administration to renew the appointment of Donald Henderson:—

 

The conversation took place in the Dean’s office in January, 1932. Only the Dean and I were present. We were engaged in a discussion of the teaching staff of Columbia College.

It was Dean Hawkes’ contention that the quality of instruction afforded students in the College was fully as distinguished as that to be had in any other university in this country.

To illustrate this argument he placed before me a list of the professors and instructors in the College. He read the names of the instructors, amplifying his reading with short summaries of the merits of the men in question.
I remember very clearly that he had high praise for every name on the list except of Mr. Henderson. The Dean said: “Mr.” Henderson is the only weak man we have. We are not satisfied with his work. I don’t think he will be with us next year.”

DONALD D. ROSS ’33 A.M.

 

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 117, 12 April 1933

Group Will Hold Protest Meeting On Henderson
Joint Committee Fixes Next Thursday as Date
Site Not Yet Chosen
Will Picket Library on Wednesday

The campaign for the reappointment of Donald Henderson, instructor in economics, yesterday focused on the efforts of the Columbia Joint Committee, organized to carry on his defense on this Campus.

 

Following a meeting attended by representatives of Columbia organizations, two principal decisions emerged:

  1. An outdoor demonstration will be held on Thursday, April 20, at a principal point, still undetermined, on the Campus.
  2. Pickets will be designated to surround the Main Library a week from today in preparation for an open-air meeting the following day.

Seven Clubs Send Members

 

While non-Campus groups were coming to the aid of the Columbia Committee, seven clubs from the University sent delegates to the meeting which determined upon the outdoor demonstration and the picketing plan.

 

These groups include:

 

The Columbia Social Problems Club, the Socialist Club, the Barnard Social Problems Club, the Economics Club, the Mathematics Club, the Sociology Club of Teachers College and the Social Problems Club of Seth Low.

 

Leaflets Distributed on Campus

 

2,000 leaflets bearing the title, “The Henderson Case” and containing the statement issued last Sunday by the Joint Committee were distributed on the Campus yesterday with 3,000 additional copies to be delivered today.

 

Meanwhile, the plan to enlist support from organizations throughout the country continued apace with the National Student League circularizing groups on 100 campuses. A city-wide meeting on the case will be held this Saturday at the New School for Social Research when delegates will be sent from the National Student League, the Intercollegiate Council of the League for Industrial Democracy, the Student Federation of America and other groups.

 

Teachers Send Protest

 

The Association of University Teachers yesterday sent a telegram of protest to President Nicholas Murray Butler and Professor Roswell C. McCrea. It read: “The Association of University Teachers, having examined all evidence available believes the dismissal of Donald Henderson unjustified and urges his reappointment.”

 

It was also made known that the Association has appointed a committee to cooperate in the campaign for Mr. Henderson’s reappointment.

 

The pickets will be stationed at positions around the Main Library where the offices of several prominent administrative officers are situated.

 

The Joint Committee yesterday made public a letter from Professor McCrea addressed to Miss Margaret Schlauch, a graduate of the University. Miss Schlauch has written protesting the nonrenewal of Mr. Henderson’s contract.

 

McCrea Replies to Letter

 

Professor McCrea, in reply, stated that “unfortunately, I fear that the public fails to understand the real merits of the situation. “These I think were adequately set forth in a statement which was furnished to the press but which did not appear in its entirety,” he wrote.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 118, 18 April 1933

Group Plans Picket Protest For Henderson
Supporters Will Circle Main Library—Howe Bans Mail Distribution Of Campaign Leaflets in Dormitories

While organizations and individuals throughout the city were being enlisted in the campaign for reappointment of Donald Henderson, the Columbia Joint Committee yesterday speeded preparations for bringing the case before the Campus this week.

 

Preliminary to an outdoor meeting on Thursday at which representatives of Campus groups affiliated with the committee will speak, thirty pickets tomorrow will surround the Main Library, where the offices of Administrative leaders are situated.

 

Bans Distribution of Leaflet

 

Distribution of the leaflet entitled “The Henderson Case” which has been circulated on the Campus was temporarily halted yesterday when it was revealed that the University had denied the committee permission to insert the statements in dormitory mail-boxes.

 

Herbert E. Howe, director of Men’s Residence Halls, told Spectator yesterday that “the University does not allow advertising material in local mail distribution.” He said that he considered the leaflet in that classification.

 

Committee leaders asserted that the circular on “What Is the Social Problems Club” and the announcements of the Marxist lectures had been recently distributed in dormitory boxes with Mr. Howe’s permission.

 

To Demonstrate at Sun Dial

 

As the Association of University Teachers assumed a leading role in organizing city-wide groups for Mr. Henderson’s defense, the Columbia Committee announced that the first of a contemplated series of demonstrations will be held at the Sun Dial in front of South Field. Leaders said yesterday that the meeting will be a “Columbia demonstration limited to Columbia speakers.”

 

The Association of University Teachers is drawing up a detailed statement on the case, it was made known yesterday, with the intention of submitting it to individuals and groups as the basis of an appeal for widespread support.

 

Say Henderson Expelled for Beliefs

 

The Association stated that “it has considerable evidence justifying the opinion that Mr. Henderson was expelled for his political activities and beliefs” and declared that “this is the most important case of violation of academic freedom since the war.”

 

A committee representing eight college organizations in this city has been formed to aid the protest movement, it was learned yesterday, following a conference at the New School for Social Research last Saturday.

 

Professor Henry W. L. Dana, who was dismissed from the University during the World War and is now at Harvard, has written to Professor Roswell C. McCrea concerning the Henderson case, it was revealed yesterday, with publication of a copy of the letter by an official of the National Student League.

 

Text of Letter

 

Professor Dana wrote:

 

“Considering the cases of other teachers who have been forced to leave Columbia University in the past (Professors MacDowell, Woodberry, Ware, Peck, Spingarn, Cattell, Beard), not to mention my own name, I cannot help smiling at the unconscious irony in your statement that the case of Mr. Henderson ‘is consistent with long-established University policy.’ “

 

Members of the Joint Committee indicated yesterday that a strike may be called for next week if ensuing developments “warrant such a move.” They said that demonstrations at colleges throughout the city are being planned.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 119, 19 April 1933

Will Picket Library Today
Henderson Supporters To Stage Three-Hour Demonstration

Student pickets will surround the Main Library at ten o’clock this morning for a three-hour siege of administrative offices to protest against the non-renewal of Donald Henderson’s appointment.

 

Preparatory to an outdoor demonstration in front of South Field at noon tomorrow, thirty representatives of organizations affiliated with the Columbia Joint Committee will form a cordon encircling the Library where they will maintain their stand until 1 P.M. this afternoon.

 

15 of Class Sign Petition

 

Meanwhile, fifteen members of Mr. Henderson’s Economics 4 class yesterday signed a petition, circulated by a student, which terms him a “thoroughly competent instructor and a definite asset to the course.” There were seventeen students present at the class meeting. Twenty-one students are registered in the course, a member of the Economics department said.

 

This move followed the action of students in Mr. Henderson’s Economics Seminar who last week unanimously voted him “a competent instructor” and said “his analyses of economic theory have been illuminating and intellectually stimulating.”

 

Announcements Posted on Campus

 

Posters appeared on the Campus yesterday announcing tomorrow’s demonstration and stating that seven speakers from Columbia organizations would address the meeting. The protesting students will assemble at the Sun Dial. The Joint Committee yesterday released data that a Faculty member and student had compiled, relative to the number of staff members in Columbia College who have not yet received Doctor’s degrees. This investigation was prompted, it was said, by Professor McCrea’s reference to Mr. Henderson’s failure to achieve his Ph.D. during his tenure here.

 

The survey asserted:

  1. Of ninety-four Faculty members with the rank of assistant professor or above, twenty-two have not obtained doctor’s degrees.
  2. Of eighty instructors in Columbia College, fifty are without doctor’s degrees. Of those fifty, thirty-three have served four years or more at Columbia.
  3. Of the thirty who have received Ph.D.’s, the average time for completion of all requirements was 4.9 years.
  4. Of thirty-three instructors without doctor’s degrees, the average time elapsed since they received their last degree is 7.6 years.

This data was made public with a statement pointing out that Mr. Henderson is serving his fifth year at Columbia and received his M.A. degree in 1926. Committee leaders said yesterday that from present indications a series of demonstrations, leading to a call for a student strike next week, will be staged. They declared there is a possibility that later meetings would be transferred to the Library steps, despite the University ruling restricting outdoor assemblages to South Field.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 120, 20 April 1933

Group to Stage Protest Meeting
Henderson Adherents to Mass Today — Pickets Surround Library

A mass meeting to protest the University’s failure to renew Donald Henderson’s appointment will be staged at noon today at the Sun Dial in front of South Field.

 

The demonstration, called by the Columbia Joint Committee which organized in Mr. Henderson’s defense last week, will be addressed by two Faculty members and representatives of Campus groups.

 

Patrol Library Area

 

In preparation for the meeting, thirty student pickets yesterday patrolled the area around the Main Library, bearing placards which urged Mr. Henderson’s reappointment. The pickets maintained their stand for three hours, attracting curious groups of spectators and several newspaper photographers.

 

The Columbia Committee revealed last night that a delegation is being formed to confer with Dr. Butler tomorrow on Mr. Henderson’s status and to present its plea for renewal of his contract.

 

Cutler Will Speak

 

Dr. Addison T. Cutler, instructor in economics, and Bernard Stem, lecturer in sociology, will be the faculty speakers at today’s demonstration. Other addresses will be delivered by John Donovan ’31, president of the Social Problems Club; Ruth Reles, of Barnard; John Craze, of the Mathematics Club; Jules Umansky, of the Socialist Club; Edith Goldbloom, of New College and Nathaniel Weyl ’31, now a graduate student.

 

The picketing continued for three hours yesterday with some students carrying varied placards along the Library Steps, while others formed a cordon encircling the building.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 121, 21 April 1933

Large Crowd Attends Protest For Henderson
150 Hear Addresses by Cutler, Donovan — Term Dismissed Instructor ‘Too Good for Most of People in University’

Agitation for the reinstatement of Donald Henderson continued yesterday when the Columbia Joint Committee staged a demonstration attended by about 150 students at the Sun Dial in front of South Field.

 

Leading off a series of addresses by members of the Faculty and Student Body, John Donovan ’31, president of the Social Problems Club, declared the Economics instructor was expelled “not because he was too poor a teacher but because he was too good for most of the people in this University.”

 

Cutler Praises Henderson

 

Dr. Addison T. Cutler of the Economics Department, one of the two Faculty speakers, stated that “Mr. Henderson has carried out as few educators have done, the maxim that theory and practice should be united.

 

“It has always been a Columbia tradition,” he declared, “that its teachers should be active in community life. It is now becoming recognized that this means they should be active in their communities along class lines. But if they want reconstruction of the social order they aren’t acceptable to the administration.”

 

Distribute Protest Postcards

 

Terming the charge of “academic incompetence” levelled at Mr. Henderson by the University a subterfuge, Dr. Cutler lauded the instructor’s ability and characterized the reasons given for his dismissal by Dean Roswell C. McCrea of the School of Business, as “the thinnest kind of a fictitious peg upon which to hang a hat.”

 

During the course of the demonstration, members of the Joint Committee distributed postcards addressed to President Butler and bearing the statement: “I, the undersigned student, join the protest against the dismissal of Donald Henderson and demand his reappointment.”

 

Committee to Meet Butler

 

A committee delegated by the protest group today will confer with Dr. Butler regarding the non-renewal of Mr. Henderson’s appointment and to urge his reinstatement. Meanwhile, petitions protesting the teacher’s dismissal will be ready for distribution Monday, Donovan stated.

 

Jules Umansky, of the Socialist Club, also spoke yesterday, asserting that “Mr. Henderson is incompetent from the point of view that he taught what he wasn’t supposed to teach. He is incompetent because he has been teaching young people to think in terms of current problems. He is the only one who has taught this subject.”

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 122, 24 April 1933

Group to Meet With Dr. Butler
Henderson Supporters Pick Delegation to Seek Administration Stand

The Administration’s stand regarding the renewal of Donald Henderson’s appointment is expected to receive expression when a special delegation chosen by the Columbia Joint Committee confers today with Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler.

A conference with Dr. Butler was to have taken place last Friday, leaders of the protest group declared, but was postponed until this afternoon “because of some mechanical obstructions.” These, it was stated, were removed with the appointment of a special committee of ten students and one Faculty member and the arrangement with Dr. Butler for a definite appointment.

 

Delegation Has 11 Members

 

The delegation which will meet with the president at 3:45 this afternoon is composed of: Bent Andresen ’36; Reginald Call ’33; Dr. Addison T. Cutler, economics instructor; John L. Donovan ’31, president of the Social Problems Club; Edith Goldbloom, of New College; James E. Gorham ’34; Leonard Lazarus, Law School student; Angus MacLachlan ’33; Victor Perlo, graduate student; [a brief biography]; Ruth Relis, of Barnard College and Charles Springmeyer ’33.

 

National Campaign Planned

 

Meanwhile, Henderson sympathizers off the Campus moved to obtain widespread backing for their campaign. Invitations have been sent to ten nation-ally-constituted student, teacher and professional groups asking them to a conference for the organization of concerted action on the Henderson to be held Thursday of this week.

 

The Association of University Teachers has already entered the drive to reinstate Henderson, having sent a telegram to Dr. Butler protesting the dismissal of the instructor.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 124, 26 April 1933

The Case of Donald Henderson
[Spectator Editorial]

What is academic freedom? Obviously, the right of a faculty member to express his convictions, political or social, without the dread that such expression will cost him his position or his chances of promotion. Columbia University, despite Dr. Butler’s reputed statement to the contrary, has violated this code — notably, in the expulsion of outstanding Faculty members during the war hysteria of 1917.

 

Now comes the cry that the refusal of the University to renew the contract of Donald Henderson is another clear-cut case of disregarding academic freedom. The non-reappointment of Mr. Henderson is said to be a direct result of his economic and political creed. The obvious question is then — Has the University’s action been due to Mr. Henderson’s radical activities?

 

At Monday’s conference with President Butler, Dr. Addison T. Cutler, member of the Columbia Joint Committee, is quoted as having said:

 

“Mr. Henderson told me a year ago last Fall that he had been asked to get another job.”

 

A year ago last Fall would be 1931 — prior to the Reed Harris expulsion, prior to the Kentucky student trip, prior to his arrest at City College. Certainly, his activity in radical circles was: comparatively obscure up until the time when Mr. Henderson says he was told his contract would not be renewed.

 

From the evidence presented up to the present time, the case of Donald Henderson is not one of clear-cut violation of academic freedom even though his supporters have attempted to make it appear so.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 126, 28 April 1933

From Mr. Henderson

To the Editor of Spectator:

 

The editorial in Wednesday morning’s Spectator concerning my case raises very sharply one question of fact which I feel requires a statement from me. This point concerns the time when pressure began to be applied for my removal, and the reason for this pressure.

 

During May 1931 Professor Tugwell informed me that my status as instructor at Columbia was not in question, that the people “downstairs” were satisfied with my work. In October 1931 during the first week of the session, Professor Tugwell. called me into his office and informed me that the situation had radically changed and that I had better look for a position…somewhere else for the following year. It was made clear, however that this was in no sense a case of “firing” but rather a suggestion that I find a position somewhere else if possible.

 

I immediately raised the question with Professor Tugwell concerning the abrupt change in attitude toward me between May 1931 and October 1931. No definite answer was given by Professor Tugwell beyond a general statement that I was spending too much time in “agitation” and not enough in “scholarly education.”

 

ln point of fact, what happened between May and was this. As my original statement pointed out I became extensively and publicly active in the Communist movement during the summer and though present members of the editorial board of Spectator may not have been aware of it at that time and know nothing of it now, these activities were attended with considerable publicity.

 

It is also true that with increased activity and publicity during the past year this pressure has taken on the form of blunt refusal to reappoint. The complaints about my activities were not in any way concealed from me. On the contrary they were several times brought to my attention, and it was well understood in the department that such was the case.

DONALD HENDERSON

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 127, 1 May 1933

Groups Rally To Defense Of Henderson
General Committee for Instructor’s Support Is Formed — Speakers at Meeting Call Educational System ‘Sterile’

The campaign for the reinstatement of Donald Henderson assumed nationwide significance over the week-end as the result of three conferences staged by the New York Committee for the instructor’s reappointment.

 

As the culmination of a week of general organization of the Henderson defense and presentation of the instructor’s case at several city colleges, a meeting was held at the Central Plaza last night at which addresses attacking the University’s failure to renew Mr. Henderson’s appointment were delivered by five speakers, including, for the first time in his own public defense, Mr. Henderson.

 

200 Attend Protest Meeting

 

Amid the sounding of a call for a “permanent organization to prevent future violations of academic freedom and to: put forward immediately mass pressure to reinstate Donald Henderson,” the speakers at the meeting, attended by 200 persons, generally condemned the “narrowness, dryness and intellectual sterility,” of the existing educational system.

Mr. Henderson termed Columbia “a liberal university where you may believe anything you please and discuss it freely under academic auspices, provided you hold these beliefs educationally and not agitationally.” Putting into practice personal doctrines which run counter to the “dominant social institutions” will result in “academic suicide,” he said.

 

Predicts Student Fascist Move

 

“Both for students and teachers the range of freedom in thought and action is constantly narrowing,” Mr. Henderson stated, predicting the crystallization of a Fascist student movement in America with increasing “tightening of educational lines.”

 

At an organization meeting Saturday, eight national student, teacher and professional groups, in addition to fifteen college clubs, allied themselves in a “General Committee for the Reinstatement of Donald Henderson.”

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 129, 3 May 1933

Henderson to Lecture

Donald Henderson, instructor in economics, will speak on the “Revolutionary Student Movement” at the next of the Social Problems Club’s Marxist Lectures tonight at 8:30 o’clock in Casa Italiana.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 129, 3 May 1933

To Hold Protest At Noon Today
Henderson Supporters Will Mass at Sun Dial For Demonstration

Three radical leaders and ten students will speak at noon today at the second Columbia outdoor mass meeting protesting the University’s failure to renew the appointment of Donald Henderson, instructor in economics.

 

Characterized by Henderson supporters as “undoubtedly the most important event in the fight,” the protest demonstration to be held at the Sun Dial is expected to draw a city-wide crowd of sympathizers.

 

Niebuhr to Speak

 

Speakers at the meeting, according to a statement issued yesterday by the Columbia Joint Committee for the Instructor’s reinstatement will be Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr of Union Theological Seminary, J. B. Matthews of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Robert W. Dunn of the Labor Research Association. Ten students will also deliver addresses, representing various Campus organizations.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 130, 4 May 1933

Flays Faculty In Marxist Talk
Henderson Says Staff Quit Harris ‘Cold’-Plan Demonstration Today

Charging that American college faculties have failed to give support to student radical movements, Donald Henderson, instructor in economics, declared yesterday evening in one of the Social Problems Club’s series of Marxist Lectures that members of the Columbia teaching staff quit the Reed Harris and other cases “cold” when they thought they might “burn their fingers.”

 

With a plea for solidarity among student bodies of the nation on issues of importance, Mr. Henderson told a small audience at the Casa Italiana that “it is doubly important to get students of other campuses to come and demonstrate at Columbia.” The most pressing problem facing organized student movements, he said, is the “isolated character” of the individual student bodies.

 

Students Not Revolutionary

 

“The total student body in the United States is not revolutionary material,” Mr. Henderson declared, pointing out that the great bulk of present undergraduates came to college in the period when they were justified in looking forward to “a hopeful cultural future,” as well as important jobs on graduation. The depression has not greatly altered the points of view of many students, declared the instructor whose reappointment is being sought by the National Student League.

 

A fight on academic freedom should not be undertaken only on the basis of its own importance, but should be regarded as “merely the reflection of the broader social situation,” Mr. Henderson declared. Struggles taken up at colleges must be carried on with the intention of calling attention to the revolutionary program as a whole, he added.

 

A protest demonstration for the reappointment of Mr. Henderson will be held this noon at the Sun Dial in front of South Field, according to supporters, yesterday’s meeting having been postponed on account of rain.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 131, 5 May 1933

500 Attend Demonstration For Henderson
Instructor’s Case Held An Instance of General ‘Academic Repression’ in U. S.
 — Sykes Presents Opposition Viewpoint

The case of Donald Henderson is merely a single instance of a general situation of academic repression in this country, it was asserted yesterday by eleven of twelve speakers addressing a demonstration in protest against the failure of the University to renew Mr. Henderson’s appointment.

 

A crowd of 500 persons, assembled at the Sun Dial, variously expressed, by either cheering or booing, their opinions of the several speakers, among whom was J. B. Matthews, of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He demanded student support of the Henderson case “as part of an issue we shall be forced in the future to combat in a bigger way, an issue which is now raising its head on the Columbia Campus.”

 

Tells Group to Organize

 

“This is the time to awaken, to organize, to stop now the tendency toward academic repression and servility to the prevailing social order,” he declared.

 

Mr. Henderson’s crime consisted in “functioning effectively in the social order and getting his name in the papers,” according to Robert W. Dunn of the Labor Research Association. “Had he been a respectable liberal and confined himself to harmless academic matters he would have been retained, at full pay, even if he never met his classes,” Mr. Dunn asserted.

 

Will Picket Today

 

During the demonstration two committees were organized to picket, commencing at noon today, the home of Dr. Butler and the Columbia University Club rooms. Agitation for Mr. Henderson’s reinstatement will continue Tuesday with another demonstration, followed by a march around the Campus, it was announced to the assembled crowd. An opposition viewpoint was expressed at the meeting by Macrae Sykes ’33, Student Board member who, when asked his opinion of the case, declared “there is a confusion of issues in this case. Academic freedom is not involved in Mr. Henderson’s expulsion. Many teachers at Columbia are expressing to their students the same ideas for which you claim Henderson was fired. These teachers weren’t asked to resign.

 

“This is no question of academic freedom,” Sykes continued, “but of the right of department heads to hire and fire their subordinates at will.”

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 132, 8 May 1933

An Unanswered Question
[Spectator Editorial]

On April 28, Mr. Donald Henderson, in reply to an editorial published two days previous, stated:

  1. In May, 1931, Professor Rexford C. Tugwell had told Mr. Henderson that his status as an instructor “was not in question.”
  2. In October of the same year, Mr. Henderson said in his letter, Professor Tugwell “called me into his office and informed me that the situation had radically changed and that I had better look for a position somewhere else for the following year.”
  3. When Mr. Henderson asked Professor Tugwell the reason “for the abrupt change in attitude toward me between May, 1931, and October, 1931,” the letter declares, “no definite answer was given by Professor Tugwell beyond a general statement that I was spending too much time in ‘agitation’ and not enough in ‘scholarly education.'”

Mr. Henderson’s statements are serious enough to warrant an answer. What happened between the months of May and October, 1931, is a question which silence on the part of Professor Tugwell cannot clear up.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 133, 9 May 1933

Broun, Harris Will Address Mass Meeting
Will Speak Today at Henderson Protest — 26 Prominent Liberals Ask A. A. U. P. tor Inquiry Of Instructor’s Case

Preparations for the third outdoor protest demonstration in behalf of Donald Henderson were completed yesterday as leaders of the Columbia Joint Committee for the instructor’s reappointment made public a letter sent by twenty-six educators, writers and radical leaders, to the American Association of University Professors requesting an investigation of the Henderson case.

 

Heywood Broun, columnist, Reed Harris, former Spectator editor and Joshua Kunitz, author, in addition to ten student speakers, will deliver addresses in Mr. Henderson’s defense in another protest meeting at noon today at the Sun Dial.

 

The signers of the communication declare themselves to be “deeply concerned with the issues of academic freedom and free speech” raised in the Henderson case, and request the Association to conduct a “thoroughgoing” investigation.

The full text of the letter follows:

 

“Professor Walter Wheeler Cook, President,
The American Association of University Professors
Johns Hopkins University

Dear Sir:

The undersigned individuals are deeply concerned with the issues of academic freedom and free speech raised by the release from Columbia University of Donald Henderson, instructor of economics. Mr. Henderson, who has been an instructor at Columbia for four years, has been notified that he will not be reappointed for 1933-34. The alleged reasons for this refusal to reappoint him are failure to complete work for a Ph.D. degree, and his poor teaching.

 

“Students and teachers at Columbia and other universities charge that the reasons given by the University for this action are hypocritical and misleading, and that the real reason for his release is his continued radical student and labor activities.

 

“We believe that the issues involved in Mr. Henderson’s release are of sufficient importance to justify a thoroughgoing inquiry by the American Association of University Professors. Accordingly, we ask you to instigate such an investigation at the earliest possible moment, and to make a report of your findings to the American people.”

 

The communication was signed by the following: George Soule and Bruce Bliven, of The New Republic; Lewis Gannett, of The New York Herald-Tribune; Freda Kirchway, of The Nation; Alfred Bingham and Selden Rodman, of Common Sense; Harry Elmer Barnes; Sidney Howard; Waldo Frank; Granville Hicks; Professors Broadus Mitchell, Johns Hopkins University; Newton Arvin, Smith College, Robert Morss Lovett and Maynard C. Krueger, University of Chicago, Harry A. Overstreet, C.C. N.Y., Willard Atkins, Edwin Burgum, Margaret Schlauch and Sidney Hook, New York University; Dr. Bernhard J. Stern, Columbia; Norman Thomas, A. J. Muste, Corliss Lamont, Elizabeth Gilman, Paul Blanshard and J. B. Matthews.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 134, 10 May 1933

Broun Asks Student Strike For Henderson
Calls University’s Action ‘Unfair’ — ‘Liberalism’ of Butler Hit by Instructor, Speaking on Own Case — Reed Harris Talks

Heywood Broun, noted columnist, yesterday called upon Columbia students to strike in protest against the University’s “unfair treatment” of Donald Henderson.

 

Declaring the economics instructor was “fired” solely for his radical activity, Mr. Broun told a crowd of 750 at a protest meeting on 116th Street that they should “come out and fight openly” to affirm the fact that “this University is ours and belongs to nobody else.”

 

Calls Students’ Judgment Important

 

“It is a strange thing,” the newspaper man asserted, “that an instructor is incompetent as soon as he becomes interested in radical activities. A remote Administration is not a judge of competence in this matter. The most important thing is what his classes think of Donald Henderson.”

 

In his second public address on his own case, Mr. Henderson, last speaker at the demonstration, attacked Columbia’s “liberal reputation,” declaring that “the essence of Columbia University’s liberalism is that it permits you freedom of thought as long as you don’t carry your beliefs into action.”

 

Attacks Liberals’ Policies

 

The practical application of such doctrines, if they run counter to the “dominant institutions,” causes the University to “distinguish between academic freedom and academic incompetence,” he declared.

 

“Effective unity of opposing thought and action of this sort,” Mr. Henderson stated, “immediately puts the liberal in a position where he must join the forces of reaction.”

He called upon teachers and students everywhere to “rouse into action and discover the meaning of this liberalism and all the other doctrines that are hung around our necks.”

Reed Harris, former Spectator editor, returning to the University to defend the Faculty member who supported him after his expulsion from Columbia last year, also spoke. He termed Mr. Henderson “one of the most important instructors in America” and called his non-reappointment “a rotten deal for Mr. Henderson and for the students.”

 

“Education,” he declared, “is a little like beer. It needs ferment to keep it from becoming flat. It needs activity, and teachers like Henderson provide this activity, dispel the unhealthy serenity bred of College Studies and dimly lighted rooms.”

 

Says Officials Are ‘Hypocrites’

 

Attacking the Administration’s stand on the case, Harris charged Columbia officials with being “hypocrites.” A charge of “absolute incompetence” and “nincompoopery” was levelled at a majority of Faculty members, some by direct reference, by Joshua Kunitz, writer and Phi Beta Kappa member who received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees here.

 

Plans for continuance of agitation were drawn up by Henderson adherents immediately after the protest meeting. Two principal decisions emerged:

 

Will March by Torchlight

  1. A torchlight procession around the Campus will take place tonight, commencing at 8:30 o’clock from the Sun Dial. Preliminary to this event, sympathizers will picket the Main Library steps for two hours.
  2. Tomorrow, a mass picketing of the grounds, conducted by a city-wide group of Henderson supporters, will be held. Dr. Butler’s home will also be picketed.

Other speakers at yesterday’s demonstration included Nathaniel Weyl ’31; Robert Gessner, of the N. Y. U. faculty.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 135, 11 May 1933

Roar, Lion, Roar
[Spectator editorial]

Last night the supporters of the movement to reinstate Donald Henderson held a demonstration on 116th Street. Their intentions were simply to carry on the fight for a cause which they felt was justified.

 

But the self-styled “intelligent group of Columbia students” determined that the only way to beat the Henderson supporters was by egg-throwing. Dr. Addison T. Cutler, a courageous member of the Faculty, was subjected to the humiliation of having his coat spattered with eggs thrown by a gentleman who dared not come up front and state his case.

This exhibition by a supposedly intelligent group of undergraduates—their complete reversion to howling lynch-law—must leave the-ordinary bystander amazed.

 

When an alumnus of Columbia College—not a supporter of Mr. Henderson, but one who was merely passing by—got up and pleaded with the undergraduate group to be square and decent, he was greeted with hoots and jeers. It was rowdyism of the worst sort. It was inexcusable.

 

Students of this calibre will someday be graduated from Columbia College as capable, competent and educated young men.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 136, 12 May 1933

Joint Committee Calls Strike For Henderson
Instructor’s Backers to Stage Walkout Monday – Ask General Student Participation—Will Issue Leaflet on Case Today

A call to all University students to strike Monday in protest against the “continued silence” of the administration regarding the reappointment of Donald Henderson was sounded yesterday by the Columbia Joint Committee for the instructor’s reinstatement.

 

Declaring that “increasing manifestations of student sympathy and the incontrovertible evidence which has been presented” justify a general walkout, a statement issued yesterday by the Henderson defense group urged students to employ “the most potent weapon of student expression” to fight “this latest attempt to stifle freedom of action.”

 

Administration Is Silent

 

“Our campaign has moved forward,” the statement asserted, adding that the administration has been silent “despite the mass of testimony” offered to answer its original statement of the reasons for not reappointing Mr. Henderson.

 

Complete plans for the strike were speeded overnight with student sympathizers throughout the city voicing support of the move. Pickets to dissuade Columbia students from attending classes Monday will be selected over the weekend, leaders of the protest group announced.

 

Will Distribute Leaflets

 

This morning leaflets will be distributed on this and other campuses reviewing the case of Donald Henderson and urging students to participate in the walkout.

 

It is planned to circulate a petition urging the instructor’s reappointment among members of the teaching departments in an attempt to line up concerted student and Faculty opposition.

 

From noon till late afternoon yesterday Henderson adherents picketed the Main Library steps and the home of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, bearing twenty-foot banners stating “Reappoint Henderson,” and numerous placards.

 

Many Students Indifferent

 

Repercussions of the open battle Wednesday night between Henderson supporters and the newly-manifested student opposition sounded from all quarters of the Campus yesterday. While many students hitherto undecided as to their sentiments on the Henderson case have definitely aligned themselves with either opposing or supporting forces as a result of the clash, many expressed continued indifference to the matter.

 

The opposition ranks, as yet not openly organized, were silent last night regarding plans for further action, but it was considered likely in informed circles that they will intensify their activity and seek to enlarge their numbers, preliminary to a mass counter-move on the day of the walkout.

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 137, 15 May 1933

100 to Picket University in Henderson Strike Today
Walkout to Last All Day—
‘To Be Peaceful, Disciplined Meeting,’ Committee Promises—Rivera to Speak

Culminating six weeks of continuous agitation, the supporters of Donald Henderson will go on strike today.

One hundred pickets, drawn from Columbia and other colleges in the city, will patrol all University buildings commencing at 9 o’clock this morning to dissuade students from attending classes in protest against the Administration’s failure to reappoint Mr. Henderson, Henderson sympathizers will enter classrooms to urge students and Faculty to join the protest forces.

 

Strike to Last Until 5 P.M.

 

The walkout, continuing until 5 o’clock this afternoon, will be a “disciplined, peaceful affair,” leaders of the Columbia Joint Committee for the economics instructor’s reinstatement promised yesterday. Pickets and striking students have been instructed to “cause no trouble.”

 

Throughout the day, a continual procession of speakers will mount the Sun Dial to lead protest meetings demanding Mr. Henderson’s reappointment. Included in the list are the following: Diego Rivera, Mexican artist; McAlister Coleman, Socialist leader; Donald Henderson; Paul Blanshard, of the City Affairs Committee; Joseph Freeman, editor of New Masses; Alfred Bingham, son of Senator Hiram Bingham of Connecticut and editor of “Common Sense”; Clarence Hathaway, Communist Party Leader; William Browder; and E. C. Lindeman, of the Social Science Research Council.

 

Opposition to Demonstrate

 

Opposition forces could not be reached last night, but it was reporter [that a] counter-demonstration is planned for today. Having organized over the weekend, they are understood to be enlarging their ranks and are expected to offer resistance to pickets and protesting groups for the duration of the walkout.

Friday members of the Joint Committee distributed leaflets urging students to Strike Monday to Reappoint Henderson.” Reviewing the Henderson case thus far, the paper declares

“On Monday students of; Columbia University will once again be called to strike in defense of academic freedom. The time has come when we must resort to that weapon to protect the right of Donald Henderson and instructors after him to carry their beliefs into effective action.”

 

Leaflet Discusses Case

 

Discussing the case under four headings, “Why Was Henderson Fired?” “Facts,” “Who Supports Henderson?”, and “Who Opposes Henderson?” the leaflet points out that Mr. Henderson “has been dismissed from his teaching position at Columbia because of his activities in the revolutionary student and labor movement.”

 

Following a list of the student, teacher and professional groups supporting the economics instructor, the statement of The Joint Committee challenges the opposing student faction, and concludes: “At one and the same time they (the opposition) maintain ‘this is no case of academic freedom and Henderson Should be fired for his Communism! Sweep all radicals Out of Columbia!’ “

 

“Which is it, ‘gentlemen’ of the opposition,” the leaflet asks, was Henderson fired for radicalism or not? Do you or do you not want Columbia closed to all but goose-steppers? Make up your minds!”

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Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LVI, Number 137, 15 May 1933

Manners
[Spectator editorial]

Today a group of students sincerely devoted to the fight for the reappointment of Donald Henderson will leave their classes and hold an all-day demonstration in front of the Sun Dial. Thus far they have carried on their activities with as much dignity as the opposition would allow. In one specific case they were treated to an adolescent display of rowdyism by a group of students.

 

We believe that student expression should have every opportunity for full and unrestricted expression, bounded only by certain standards of courtesy and fairness. The Henderson supporters have invited their opponents to speak. They have striven to prevent their meetings from degenerating into brawls upon provocation by a band of egg-throwers.

 

We hope that the Columbia College students who have made of themselves public examples of irresponsibility will be absent today. By staying away from that which they don’t want to hear, they will restore to themselves some of their fast disappearing dignity.

______________________

Seabrook Farms, N.J. Strike

Daily News (New York, 11 July 1934).

N.Y. Red Run Out as Farm Strike Ends
By Robin Harris (Staff Correspondent of TheNews)

Bridgeton, N.J., July 10.—The sixteen-day strike of the Seabrook Farms workers whose riots and disorders reached a climax in yesterday’s “Bloody Monday” gas bomb attacks was ended today when the strikers overthrew Communistic leadership and threatened to lynch Donald Henderson, Red organizer and former Columbia University economics instructor.

            As the resentment of the strikers flamed into anger toward their discredited leader, the authorities slipped Henderson out of town in an automobile, taking him to his bungalow at Vineland, about eight miles from here.

 

Workers Against Him.

 

            Henderson, whose wife, Eleanor (sic), was one of the twenty-seven strike leaders arrested after yesterday’s riots, found the opinion of the workers solidly against him when he urged them to reject the peace agreement drawn up by Federal Mediator John A. Moffitt.

 

            Shouts of “Run him out of town!” and “Lynch him!” interrupted the pint-sized [According to Henderson’s 1942 Draft registration card his approximate height and weight were 5 foot 10 inches, 140 lbs.] agitator’s flow of oratory when he persisted in addressing the highway mass meeting at which the workers voted 2 to 1 to accept the Moffitt agreement.

Surrounded by deputy sheriffs, Henderson left the meeting and returned to the offices of the Seabrook Farms, where he was greeted with jeers and renewed threats from the workers.

 

            While police officials and members of the farmers’ vigilantes committee strove to mollify the booing crowd, County Detective Albert F. Murray slipped Henderson out of the rear door and departed for Vineland….

 

            The twenty-eight prisoners, twenty-seven seized after the riots yesterday and the other when recognized today, were ordered released by Cumberland County Prosecutor Thomas Tuso after he learned of the strike settlement.

 

            Twenty-one of the prisoners were granted unconditional freedom, while the other seven, including Henderson, his wife, and Vivian Dahl, were continued in $500 bail pending the action of the Grand Jury, which meets in September.

 

            The seven continued in bail were charged with inciting to riot and suspicion of possessing dangerous weapons.

 

            Following the release of the prisoners, Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf [Fun Fact: father of Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. commander of U.S. Central Command who led coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War], head of the New Jersey State Police, announced that he would give the New York Reds twenty-four hours to leave town. Those failing to get out under the deadline will be clamped into jail.

______________________

Grand Jury Probing

The New York Times Sept 11, 1951

“A nationwide search by the Government for Donald Henderson, president of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union of America, independent, was called off yesterday after the leftist labor leader agreed by telephone to appear here tomorrow before the Federal grand jury investigating subversive activities.

 

Roy M. Cohn, assistant United States Attorney in charge of the investigation, said that since last Wednesday United States marshals had been trying to locate Mr. Henderson to serve a grand jury subpoena. Late yesterday afternoon, Mr. Henderson called Mr. Cohn from Charleston , S. C., and agreed to appear before the panel.

 

The grand jury has been questioning labor officials who signed the non-Communist affidavit under the Taft-Harley Law after resigning from the Communist party. …

 

…Yesterday three other leftist union officials were witnesses before the grand jury. They were James H. Durkis, president of the United Office and Professional Workers of America, independent, who resigned publicly from the Communist party, and Julius Emspak, secretary-treasurer, and James Maties, (or Matles) director of organization, of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers, independent….

At the conspiracy trial of the eleven convicted Communist leaders, Louis F. Budenz, former editor of The Daily Worker, testified that Mr. Emspak attended a June 1945 meeting of the Communist party national committee….

______________________

February 14, 1952 Testimony

U.S. Senate, Subcommittee to investigate the administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary.  [pp.165-185]

[p. 166]
…Mr. Arens. Will you kindly give us the date and place of your birth?

Mr. Henderson. I was born in New York City, February 4, 1902.

Mr. Arens. And where were you educated? Give us a word about your education, if you please.

Mr. Henderson. I went to grammar school in Montpelier, Vt. I went to high school at Dansville, N.Y. I went to college at Columbia University.

Mr. Arens. Give us, if you please, a brief résumeé of your occupation after you completed your formal education.

Mr. Henderson. I taught at Columbia University for 7 years as an instructor in economics, and since that time I have been a labor organizer in one or another labor union.

Mr. Arnes. Could you be a little bit more specific on the labor organizations which you have been identified with?

Mr. Henderson. Starting in 1933-34, I started organizing agricultural workers throughout the country.

Mr. Arens. For what organization, if you please?

Mr. Henderson. For the American Federation of Labor. And in 1937, we established an international union affiliated to the CIO.

Mr. Arens. What was the name of that union?

Mr. Henderson. It was called the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America. That changed its name to the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers Union in 1944. It affiliated to the CIO in 1937.

Mr. Arens. And what was your particular office or position with the union?

Mr. Henderson. I was elected international president of that union in 1937 and held that post until 1949. In October 1950, we merged with two other organizations, the Distributive Workers Union and the United Office and Professional Workers Union, to form a new international union called the Distributive, Processing and Office Workers Union of America, and I am the national secretary-treasurer of that new international union.

Mr. Arens. And how long have you held this post of national secretary-treasurer of DPOWA?

Mr. Henderson. At the time of the merger, I held the post of administrative secretary of that international union until October of 1951, when there was a reorganization and I was elected to the post of national secretary-treasurer of that union, and I have held that post since that time.

Mr. Arens. Would you give us, if you please, just a word of your personal history? Are you a married man?

Mr. Henderson. I am married; have been married twice. My first wife died. I have three children by my first wife, aged 25, 16, and 14, living on Long Island at the present time.

[…]

[p. 172]
…Mr. Arens. Did you join the Communist Party in 1931?

Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that question on the same ground. [5th amendment]

Mr. Arens. I put it to you as a fact that on or about August 4, 1931 you joined the Communist Party and I ask you to affirm or deny that fact.

Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that question on the same ground, sir.

[…]

Mr. Arens. The Daily Worker, Mr. Henderson, of August 4, 1931, contains an article which states that you had rejected socialism and [p. 173] joined the Communist Party. Do you have any recollection of that article?

Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer on the same ground.

Mr. Arens. I lay before you, Mr. Henderson, a photostatic copy of an article appearing in the Communist Daily Worker of August 4, 1931, and I ask you if you recognize that article.

[…]

Mr. Arens. Now I lay before you an article, a photostat of an article, in the Communist Daily Worker of August 15, 1949, entitled “FTA complies with NLRB rule” in which the following appears:

… “While it is true that I had been a member of the Communist Party, I have resigned my membership therein…”

[…]

[p. 176]
…Mr. Arens. Why did you sever your connections with Columbia University?

Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that on the same ground, sir.

Senator Watkins. Were you teaching at Columbia University?

Mr. Henderson. Yes, sir.

Senator Watkins. What position did you occupy?

Mr. Henderon. I was an instructor there for 7 years in the department of economics. [sic, probably added one year Rutgers and six years at Columbia, see timeline above]

Senator Watkins. Department of economics?

Mr. Henderson. That is correct, sir.

Mr. Arens. What period of time?

Mr. Henderson. 1926 to 1933, I believe, were the years.

Mr. Arens. Did you resign, or was there a severance of relationships?

Mr. Henderson. There was a severance of relationships.

Mr. Arens. At whose request was there a severance of relationships?

Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that question on the same ground.

Mr. Arnens. I respectfully suggest that the witness be ordered and directed to answer the question: At whose request was there a severance of relationships between this witness and Columbia University?

Senator Watkins. You are ordered and directed to answer.

Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer on the same ground.

Mr. Arens. I put it to you as a fact that you were forced to resign from the faculty of Columbia University because of your activities in behalf of the Communist Party, and I ask you to affirm or deny that fact.

Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer the question on the same ground.

Mr. Arens. In 1937 you registered to vote as a Communist, did you not?

Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that on the same ground.

Mr. Arens. Did you attend the Tenth National Convention of the Communist Party as a delegate in 1938?

Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that question on the same ground, sir.

Mr. Arens. I put it to you as a fact that, on November 16, 1940, you attended the 1-day national emergency convention held by the Communist Party in New York City, and I ask you to affirm or deny the fact.

Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that question on the same ground.

[…]

[p. 177]
…Mr. Arens. Did you ever live in Chicago, Ill.?

Mr. Henderson. I did.

Mr. Arens. Did you ever live at 234 South Wells Street, Chicago?

Mr. Henderson. That may have been, I don’t recall the exact number. I lived at three diffent places there.

Mr. Arens. Did you ever live on South Wells Street, in Chicago?

Mr. Henderson. I think so; yes.

Mr. Arens. I put it to you as a fact that on February 1, 1941, you were present at a Communist Party executive board meeting held at 234 South Wells, Chicago, Ill., and ask you to affirm or deny that fact.

Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that on the same ground, sir.

______________________

From the CIO Convention
in Portland, Oregon (Nov. 1948)

Murray Lashes Leftist Head of CIO Union

By Seymour Korman
Chicago Tribune (November 23, 1948, p. 26)

Portland, Ore., Nov. 22 — With hoots, jeers and shouts of “go back to Russia,” right wing delegates at the CIO convention today lashed out at the leftist minority in one of the most tumultuous sessions in the labor organization’s history. For more than three hours, the pro and anti-Communist factions hurled bombastic rhetoric at each other before the report of CIO President Philip Murray, embodying support of the Marshall plan, was carried with only one small leftist group abstaining among the 600 delegates.

[…]

The oratorical explosion was touched off by Donald Henderson, leftist president of the Food and Agricultural Workers union. In a minority report, he condemned the Marshall plan as being an aid to Fascists. He was interrupted by the shouts of, “Go back to Russia.”…

… Murray accused Henderson and the other leftists of employing the same tactics as European Communists and styled the Henderson group “ideological dive bombers.”

______________________

Image Source: Press photo of Donald Henderson in Daily News (New York, NY). July 11, 1934.

 

Categories
Economics Programs Economists Harvard Socialism Wing Nuts

Harvard. Veritas investigating Keynesian economics, 1960

 

It’s that time again to venture into the loony-fringe. There once were (ahem) woke Harvard alumni who wished to save the world from “Keynesism” among other dangers. They had their own modest foundation founded by the son of President Theodore Roosevelt and John Bircher, Archibald B. Roosevelt of the class of 1917. This post shares reports from the Harvard Crimson as well as a transcription of a four page pamphlet put out by the Veritas foundation with the title “Keynesism-Marxism at Harvard.”

In an earlier draft, I unfortunately confounded father with son, both Harvard alums, both Archies. I still include the obituary for President Theodore Roosevelt’s grandson, Archibald B. Roosevelt, Jr. who had quite a  C.I.A. career, if for no other reason than to offer some anecdotal evidence regarding the proposition that apples don’t fall far from their respective trees.

There is also some archival irony in the fact that the copy of the pamphlet “Keynesism-Marxism at Harvard” comes from the W.E.B. Du Bois papers at the University of Massachusetts.

__________________________

Veritas Foundation Given $10,000 For Probe of Economics Teaching
Pamphlet Raises Funds

By Michael Churchill, The Harvard Crimson, January 13, 1960.

The Veritas Foundation has raised “around $10,000” towards its goal of $25,000 in order to investigate the teaching of Economics at Harvard, according to Archibald B. Roosevelt [Sr.] ’17.

The money has come in response to a pamphlet circulated recently by the Foundation, “Keynesism-Marxism at Harvard” which charges that “the teaching of Economics has been abandoned at Harvard, and a political-Marxian-Keynesian-socialist propaganda has been substituted.”

A major portion of the pamphlet is devoted to attacking Keynesian theory as un-American and totalitarian. “Even a cursory analysis reveals that Keynesism is not an economic science, but is a political credo which in its main essentials coincides with the communist teachings of Karl Marx.” It specifically contends that “Keynesians attack the principle of individual thrift and personal savings” in order to undermine American initiative and freedom.

“The fountain-head of Keynesian socialism in America has been, and still is, Harvard University,” the Foundation claims, adding that its center within the University lies in the Economics Department.

“Professor Seymour E. Harris is probably the leading propagandist of Keynesism in the United States today. He has been backed by such well known economists as J.K. Galbraith, Alvin H. Hansen and Paul M. Sweezy. Other supporters of Keynesism are some remnants of the now defunct Socialist Party and a larger number of miscellaneous ‘left-wingers’ of the ADA stripe, including certain known partisans of the Soviet system,” the pamphlet declares.

Harris and Galbraith were the only active Harvard professors mentioned, Roosevelt said, because of space limitations in the four page article.

Roosevelt refused to disclose the names of the persons who prepared the preliminary report, saying that due to the battle between Keynesians and anti-Keynesians it would jeopardize the jobs of the two outside economists who contributed to its preparation.

The Foundation circular notes “Keynesian ideas enjoy almost a monopoly” in American colleges. The effect of this monopoly is that “pessimism, discouragement and the credo of despair have been skillfully instilled into the minds of our youth. It has been done with planned premeditation.”

“The prestige of Harvard University has been used to promote a destructive ideology,” it charges. Followers of the doctrine include “the whole gamut of the totalitarian world. Socialists, Nazis, Fascists, Argentine Peronistas, followers of Nehru and those in the United States who yearn for a ‘man on horseback’ have embraced the socio-economic thinking of Keynes.”

__________________________

‘Veritas’ Report To Reach 30,000

The Harvard Crimson, January 17, 1961.

A Veritas Foundation report accusing the Harvard faculty of left-wing activities will be circulated to 20,000 additional alumni, according to Kenneth D. Robertson, Jr. ’29, one of the founders of the Foundation.

The second printing will boost to 30,000 the number of copies of the study, which is called Keynes at Harvard, and is subtitled “Economic Deception as a Political Credo.”

Left wingers–“Fabians and Keynesians” have turned the Economics Department into a “virtual Keynesian monopoly,” the report claims. Citing Seymour E. Harris, Alvin H. Hansen, and other professors of Economics by name, the study points to the Department as “the breeding ground of much of the leftism in Harvard.”

A form letter was sent to thousands of Alumni urging them to buy the 114 page pamphlet, Robertson said.

The $25,000 report was financed by Alumni in response to a letter sent out by the Foundation. “Veritas” is headed by three Harvard graduates: Arthur B. Harlow ’25, William A. Robertson ’31, and Archibald Roosevelt ’31 [sic, should be class of ’17]

__________________________

KEYNESISM-MARXISM AT HARVARD

In the brief span that the Veritas Foundation has been in existence it has received an unusual number of complaints from alumni, parents, students and others who are disturbed by the twisted economic and social thinking of growing numbers of graduates and undergraduates of our colleges and universities. Large numbers of graduates entering into adult society were found to be obsessed with the concept that our free enterprise society is doomed. For years many of them have felt that it is of little use to enter into private enterprises, since such institutions are only surviving relics of the dying capitalist system which is not worth the political efforts necessary to save it.

Much of today’s college thinking reflects the following premises:

  1. The private enterprise system of the United States is full of basic contradictions and fundamental flaws which inevitably will relegate it to the scrap heap. At best, some of the useful features of the private enterprise system will be tolerated but only under government control and domination until a transition to something different is evolved.(1)
  2. Manufacturers, merchants, bankers and the host of corporate executives of the country are hopelessly reactionary and incapable of understanding the need of the “new order”.(2) These same “leaders” are somehow not so “good” or not so “kind of heart” as are those who belong to the ranks of “organized” labor. They are incapable of concern for the “social good”.
  3. Thrift, savings, ownership and accumulation of private property are harmful to society and are not socially compatible with the “new order” which is rising out of the ashes of the “old capitalist” system throughout the, world. In fact, the new Welfare State will handle entirely the basic security of the individual by dominating and regimenting all segments of society so that there will always be “full” employment and “maximum” production. This will eliminate the need for a personal nest egg for the future and thus savings and accumulations of wealth become unnecessary to the individual, who becomes a “ward” of the state.(3)
  4. Society is composed of classes and these classes are consciously banded together to protect their overall group interests. Persons who possess property, operate industry, direct the banks, and own stocks and bonds, as well as those who engage in transport and exchange goods and services are members of the capitalist class. This class is more selfish, grasping, hard hearted, calculating and reactionary than the rest of the population. This class also bands together in a conscious plot to keep the rest of society in economic and political subjection.(4)
  5. The scope of government must be expanded to stand as a “third force”, gradually expropriating or redistributing the wealth of existing capitalists through unrestricted powers of taxation and at the same time preventing the accumulation of any new capital. This philosophy is represented as essential to any “progressive” or “liberal” society. The process of gradual taking over by government of all productive enterprise, accompanied by less and less private saving and unlimited national debt will somehow eliminate recurring cycles of mass unemployment and depression, followed by short lived prosperity. Government must control all fiscal and monetary policies as well as all production, distribution of goods and services.(5)
  6. College and university graduates can insure their personal future by attaching themselves to government bureaucracy, which is destined to expand indefinitely. Other alternatives presented are large corporate “bureaucracies” which are destined to socialization by government, or the huge tax-free foundations which are considered mere precursors of future government agencies.

The above philosophy may sound like communist Marxist propaganda, but it isn’t. It is a basic pattern for “sneaking into socialism”. It is a type of thinking which is identified as Keynesism after an English economist, the late John Maynard Keynes. It was this pattern that the Labor Party in Great Britain followed in its efforts to convert that nation into a Welfare State.

The type of thinking and planning that goes under the “Keynesian” label represents one of the slickest and most deceptive economic and political philosophies in the free world today. Keynesian propaganda is usually prefaced by the claim that its purpose is to “save” the free enterprise system from itself. Almost every book written by Keynesians opens with that theme. However, the remedies suggested represent some form of “creeping” socialism which will by degrees bring about a regimented society in which the government becomes the sole controlling and directing force.(6)

Since Keynes wrote his sensational work “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money” — (1936), the socialist movements in the United States, Great Britain and Germany have adopted his economic and social theories as the theoretical sinews of the “new” socialism”.(7)

The campaign to picture Keynes as the outstanding economist of “private enterprise” is a gross misrepresentation. For a number of years (prior to his 1936 book) Keynes’ ideas were considered as an important theoretical bulwark for the older doctrine of Fabian socialism. The Fabian movement was, however, the chief impetus behind the theory and early planning of British socialism, with overtones in the communist direction. Some Fabians were later identified as part of the Soviet espionage apparatus. Another (Sir Oswald Mosley) later led a movement in support of Nazism as a totalitarian prototype for the western world to follow. A book officially endorsed by Mussolini stated flatly that Keynesian principles were in operation under Fascism.

Keynesism has been accepted in the whole gamut of the totalitarian world. Socialists, Nazis, Fascists, Argentine Peronistas, followers of Nehru and those in the United States who yearn for a “man on horse­back” have embraced the socio-economic thinking of Keynes. Even Communists (who are supposed to be wedded only to Marx) have espoused the Keynesian dogma. Earl Browder, former head of the U. S. Com­munist Party was an open advocate of Keynes’ principles.(8)

The spread of Keynesian concepts throughout American colleges and universities has been phenomenal. It has grown to such dimensions that today in both the graduate and undergraduate fields of political economy the Keynesian ideas enjoy almost a monopoly. Except in our schools of Business Administration, the classical concepts of capitalism, private property, and the market economy have either been completely excluded from our colleges or are given a twisted and perverted presentation by Keynesian advocates. Sound economic principles are pictured as obsolete and inadequate for a modern industrial society.(9)

In tracing the growth of these ideas it soon becomes obvious that the fountain-head of Keynesian socialism in America has been, and still is, Harvard University. Harvard, on account of its academic prestige, was chosen the “launching pad” for the Keynesian rocket in America. Although the Keynesian concepts have spread throughout various departments of Iearning at Harvard the source and center of this ideology can be traced to the economics department of the college and its graduate school. The current chairman of this department, Professor Seymour E. Harris, is probably the leading propagandist of Keynesism in the United States today. He has been backed by such well known economists as J. K. Galbraith, Alvin H. Hansen and Paul M. Sweezy. Other supporters of Keynesism are some remnants of the now defunct Socialist Party and a larger number of miscellaneous “left-wingers” of the ADA stripe, including certain known partisans of the Soviet system.

In spite of some differences as to how to reach their goal, the advocates of Keynesism, like all the “left­wing” groups, belong to what may be called a political underworld. In the criminal underworld the various elements may cheat, shoot and kill one another, but they nevertheless present a general united front against their common foe, the police. The “left-wing” political underworld is likewise composed of elements that can fight each other, even unto death, but they consistently present a united front against the capitalist system.

The roster of those who have joined the Keynesian band wagon ranges from moderate socialistic “liberals” to the most ardent pro-soviet protagonists. The bulk of them, while claiming to be non-communists, eagerly join in the chorus against those who investigate communism, be they Congressional Committees, independent organizations or private individuals. The Keynesian crowd, in large measure, furnish support for the defense of those accused as Soviet spies and militantly uphold the right of communists to practice their subversion.(10)

Even a cursory analysis reveals that Keynesism is not an economic science, but is a political credo which in its main essentials coincides with the communist teachings of Karl Marx. Official communist publications accuse the Socialists of plagiarizing Karl Marx by offering Marxian theories under a Keynesian coating. Essentially the communist complaint against Keynesism is correct. Keynesism is basically Marxist in content. It is the same old wine in the same old bottles, but the labels are different.(11)

Keynesism, however, has a more subtle and deceptive approach than Marxism. Marxism openly announces its intent to overthrow the capitalist system. Keynesism gives lip service to the saving of capitalism, while its covert policies are calculated to make capitalism unworkable.

Marxism uses the regularly recognized economic terms in propounding its theory while Keynesism has invented an entire new nomenclature to replace the accepted terminology used in our classical economics.(12) Thus, in one fell swoop, the Keynesians have attempted to side track, by-pass and confuse, all minds previously educated in economic thinking, relegating them, so to speak, to the scrap heap. The new terms which are more abstract and vague than the time tested old ones, make it possible to indoctrinate an entire generation of college students exclusively with Keynesian dogma; while leaving it totally ignorant of the workings and benefits of our classical economic society. Keynesism (with its accompanying partner Marxism) dominates the sociological thinking in the academic world today. Students today cannot even understand the language of the pre-Keynesian treatises.(13)

A whole generation of college trained youth has been infected with the virus of Keynesism and Marxism.

Tens of thousands of young minds have been taught to lose faith in the economic system that has made the United States what it is today. Thousands of our future leaders have been discouraged from applying their personal initiative and talents towards the strengthening and perfection of the private enter­prise system. Pessimism, discouragement and the credo of despair have been skillfully instilled into the minds of our youth. It has been done with planned premeditation.

Keynesians attack the principle of individual thrift and personal savings. Their policy is fundamentally contrary to a “peoples capitalism” which encour­ages the small investors to become the owners of American corporations on an ever-increasing scale.

Tyrannies of all kinds, in the course of history, have always stifled individual savings. It is the savings of millions of Americans that have made it possible for our people to remain free. Corporations and governments that depend on the contributions of citizens to maintain operations must be the servants and not masters of these millions.

The modern political “left-wing” is fully aware of this fact. That is why they are so unanimous in branding the thrifty as “anti-social” and “producers of panics.” All collectivists are deathly afraid that, if the principle of saving is allowed to continue, a genuine “peoples capitalism” will continue to improve, expand and strengthen our modern American society.

Preliminary research has uncovered a mass of evidence in support of the thesis outlined above. The prestige of Harvard University has been used to promote a destructive ideology which has spread into practically every great American university. Entire departments, bureaus, and other agencies of government on the federal, state and local level have been flooded with personnel steeped in Keynesian and Marxist thinking.(14)

Banking and business institutions, industrial corporations, trade associations and labor unions have found it increasingly difficult to employ economists that are not infected with the destructive and dangerous social philosophy of Keynesism. Some of them have been forced to train their own economists to insure the sound, productive, realistic and constructive thinking necessary for the operation and preservation of the private enterprise system.

Educational institutions that train our economics instructors, at the graduate level, have been for some thirty (30) years almost exclusively devoted to the Keynesian theory. Consequently this country is faced with the tragic fact that teachers of economics  throughout the nation are predominantly Keynesian or Marxist. For years, these Keynesian professors have infected, yearly, several hundred students who in turn became instructors and indoctrinated thousands more. Thus the process snow-balls on.

Marxism-Keynesism in our academic institutions has thus far been winning by default. There has been a lack of factual exposure. Keynesians keep repeating, in their text books, the theme that their theories are too deep and complex for the ordinary layman to understand. They lay exclusive claim to a profundity which builds a “Chinese Wall” around their dogmas. This is obviously done to discourage people outside their own inner circle from probing into their motives and intentions. The whole miasma of Keynesism is given the protective cover of “science.”(15)

The Veritas Foundation is not overawed by such claims of omniscience on the part of a group of would­be-bosses over all of society.

The text books, treatises, lectures and articles of those who run the economics department at Harvard represent the backbone of the Keynesian forces in the United States.

With your help we can get the true facts before the American people. We will unmask the methods by· which the Keynesian revolutionary virus is being injected, by degrees, into the life blood of our free society.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE OF VERITAS FOUNDATION
AS GIVEN IN ITS DECLARATION OF TRUST

To educate the officials, teaching staffs, governing bodies, under-graduates and graduates of American colleges and universities, upon the subject of communism, the international communist conspiracy and its methods of infiltration into the United States.

[NOTES]

  1. Financing American Prosperity (A symposium of Economists) published by The Twentieth Century Fund (1945) Chapter no. 4 by Professor Howard S. Ellis.

  2. The National Debt and The New Economics by Seymour E. Harris, published by McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. (1947).

  3. Ibid.

  4. Saving American Capitalism edited by Seymour E. Harris Chapter XXXI (1948).

  5. Ibid. Chapter XIII.

  6. The Failure of the New Economics by Henry Hazlitt, published by D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., (1959).

  7. Outline of the Political History of the Americas by William Z. Foster published by International Publishers.Socialists Abandon Marx (U.S. News and World Reports, October 12, 1959).

  8. Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain, 1919-1931, published by The Heritage Foundation, lnc., (1954) by Sister M. Margaret Patricia McCarran, Ph.D. The Universal Aspects of Fascism, by James Strachey Barnes, F.R.G.S., published by Williams and Norgate, Ltd., 0928). Outline of the Political History of the Americas by William Z. FosterJawaharlal Nehru by Frank Moraes, published by The MacMillan Co. (1956).The Twenty-Year Revolution by Chesly Manly.

  9. The Failure of the New Economics by Henry Hazlitt.

  10. Saving American Capitalism, edited by Professor Seymour E. Harris. Chapter 11 by Chester Bowles.

  11. Political Economy by John Eaton, published by the International Publishers (1949)

  12. The Failure of the New Economics by Henry Hazlitt. Chapter XXlX.

  13. Ibid.

  14. Financing American Prosperity (A Symposium of Economists) published by The Twentieth Century Fund (1945). Chapter no. 2 by Benjamin M. Anderson.

  15. The National Debt and The New Economics by Seymour E. Harris. Chapter II.

Source: UMassAmherst.  W.E.B. DuBois Papers/ Series 1. Correspondence/Keynesism-Marxism at Harvard, ca. February 1961.

__________________________

HON. MARY ROSE OAKAR
in the House of Representatives
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 1990

Ms. OAKAR. Mr. Speaker, I was saddened by the recent passing of Archibald Roosevelt, Jr. Mr. Roosevelt lived a full life and spent 27 years as a public servant to our country. I include in the Record his obituary, which recently appeared in the Washington Post.

The article follows:

(BY J.Y. SMITH)

Archibald B. Roosevelt Jr., 72 a retired intelligence officer who served as chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s stations in Istanbul, Madrid and London, died yesterday at this home in Washington. He had congestive heart failure.

A grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and a soldier, scholar, linguist and authority on the Middle East, Mr. Roosevelt viewed his calling–and its faceless, anonymous half-world of nuance and seemingly random fact–with a hard-headed realism leavened by a kind of romanticism that that has echoes of an earlier time.

After retiring from the CIA in 1974, he became a vice president of Chase Manhattan Bank and director of international relations in its Washington office. Well known in Washington social circles in his own right, he was particularly active on the diplomatic circuit during the Reagan administration, when his wife, Selwa Showker ‘Lucky’ Roosevelt, was chief of protocol at the State Department.

In 1988, he published a memoir called ‘For Lust of Knowing: Memoirs of an Intelligence Officer,’ in which he adhered so strictly to this oath to keep the CIA’s secrets that he did not even identify the countries where he had served. And although he was happy to tell interviewers that they could figure it out from his entry in ‘Who’s Who in America,’ he also was quick to explain that some Americans have forgotton what an oath is and that he would not break his even if the government told him to.

Instead, he gave his views on such questions as the nature of the CIA and why it attracted him, and on what intelligence officers should be and how they should see themselves in relation to their own country and the rest of the world.

‘We in the CIA were always conscious of having a special mission, of being the reconaissance patrols of our government,’ he wrote. Despite such vicissitudes as the Bay of Pigs disaster in Cuba in 1961, he said, the agency kept its esprit de corps even though with the passage of time it `was no longer a band of pioneers, but an organization.’

As for intelligence officers, Mr. Roosevelt said he thought of them in ‘the old-fashioned sense, perhaps best exemplifed in fiction by Kipling’s British political officers in India.’

His notion embodied a high ideal, indeed, for the intelligence officer ‘must be able to empathize with true believers of every stripe in order to understand and analyze them. …. He must, like Chairman Mao’s guerrillas, be able to swim in foreign seas. But then he must be able to pull himself to shore, and look back calmly, objectively, on the waters that immersed him.’

Most important, he said, the intelligence officer ‘must not only know whose side he is on, but have a deep conviction that he is on the right side. He should not imitate the cynical protagonists of John Le Carre’s novels, essentially craftsmen who find their side no less by his own account, the product of a ‘conventional, Waspish, preppy world’ and was destined for a conventional career on Wall Street. He managed to escape this fate, he said, because he `lived in another world of my imagination.’

Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt Jr. was born in Boston on Feb. 18, 1918. He graduated from Groton School and then went to Harvard, where he graduated in the class of 1940. While an undergraduate, he was chosen as a Rhodes Scholar, but was not able to accept because of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. His first job was working for a newspaper in Seattle.

During the war, he became an Army intelligence officer. He accompanied U.S. troops in their landing in North Africa in 1942 and soon began to form views on the French colonial administration and the beginnings of Arab nationalism. Later in the war he was a military attache in Iraq and Iran.

In 1947, he joined the Central Intelligence Group, the immediate forerunner of the CIA. From 1947 to 1949, he served in Beirut. On that and on all of his subsequent assignments abroad, he was listed in official registers as a State Department official.

From 1949 to 1951, he was in New York as head of the Near East section of the Voice of America. From 1951 to 1953, he was station chief in Istanbul. From 1953 to 1958, he had several jobs at CIA headquarters in Washington. In 1958, he was made CIA station chief in Spain. From 1962 to 1966 he held the same job in London. He finished his career in Washington.

Through it all he pursued an interest in languages. A Latin and Greek scholar when he was a boy, he had a speaking or reading knowledge of perhaps 20 languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili and Uzbek.

Mr. Roosevelt’s marriage to the former Katherine W. Tweed ended in divorce.

In addition to Selwa Roosevelt, to whom he was married for 40 years, survivors include a son by his first marriage, Tweed Roosevelt of Boston, and two grandchildren.

Source:  https://web.archive.org/web/20200525140528/https://fas.org/irp/congress/1990_cr/h900607-tribute.htm

Categories
M.I.T. Wing Nuts

M.I.T. Wingnut inspiration for Du Pont’s crusade against Paul Samuelson’s textbook, 1947

 

 

What is the natural habitat of wing-nuts and fanatical partisans of zombie economic ideas? While Economics in the Rear-View Mirror specializes in the collection and curation of artifacts bearing on the general academic environment within which economists have been trained in the United States since about 1870, there are moments when a field trip to the lunatic fringe is warranted. It is there where we can observe the margins of the chattering class, working politicians, and wealthy businessmen as they poke their noses into curriculum decisions and professional debates regarding the scope and methods of economics. As the vaudeville comedian Jimmy Durante cracked, “Everyone wants ta get inta da act.”

Executive summary:

Members of the M.I.T. Corporation hostile to Paul Samuelson’s textbook and even the President of M.I.T. appear to have found a kindred spirit in Rose Wilder Lane whose anti-Keynesian review of Lorie Tarshis’ textbook was published in 1947 by the Franco admirer and later John Birch activist Merwin K. Hart.

This post began innocently enough when I selected an exchange of letters concerning the teaching of the principles of economics at M.I.T. in general and the new textbook by Paul Samuelson in particular. The famous controversy involved members of the M.I.T. Corporation, the M.I.T. Administration, and the M.I.T. department of economics and social science and has been most ably presented by Yann Giraud and Roger Backhouse and in the literature they cite.

Yann Giraud. Negotiating the “Middle-of-the-Road” Position: Paul Samuelson, MIT, and the Politics of Textbook Writing, 1945-55. Paper included in MIT and the Transformation of American Economics, Annual Supplement to Volume 46, History of Political Economy edited by E. Roy Weintraub. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2014, pp. 134-152.

Earlier draft: The Political Economy of Textbook Writing: Paul Samuelson and the Making of the first Ten Editions of Economics (1945-1976). Working Paper 2011-18 of Université de Cergy Pontoise (France).

Giraud’s blog: https://ygiraud.wordpress.com

Also: Roger Backhouse’s Becoming Samuelson (Oxford University Press, 2017), chapter 26.

This post provides a few letters from four of the individuals involved in the Samuelson controversy to provide a taste of that discussion. What caught my eye and what I call the reader’s attention to in this post is the repeated reference to an unnamed critical review of another unabashedly Keynesian textbook, The Elements of Economics by Lorie Tarshis of Stanford University. It is worth noting that Samuelson’s textbook was already receiving incoming fire from members of the M.I.T. Corporation before that review was published in August 1947, so the attack on Tarshis was merely adding water to the Anti-Samuelson mill. The head of the economics department, Ralph Freeman, notes in his defense of Samuelson that the organization that had published the Tarshis review was known to have “a fascist flavor” and was run by a man named Hart who was “involved in some way in a treason charge during the war”. Seeing the words “fascist” and “treason”, I could not resist donning my investigative garb to uncover the back-story of the man Hart, his organization and the anti-Tarshis screed by the author unnamed in the letters. But first I share the sample letters from 1947 in the Samuelson controversy at MIT.

Dramatis Personae

Walter J. Beadle (Vice President, Treasurer and member of the Board of Directors at Du Pont and life member of the M.I.T. Corporation, 1943-88)

Lammot du Pont II (President of Du Pont (1926-40), Chairman of the Board of Directors and former member of the M.I.T. Corporation (1928-33))

President of M.I.T. Karl T. Compton  (b. 14 September, 1887; d. 22 June, 1954)

Head of M.I.T.’s department of economics and social science, Ralph Evans Freeman (b. 23 July 1894; d. 12 May 1967)

Source (DuPont officers): “DuPont Officers Reelected, James New Treasurer Aide” in The Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware) April 22, 1947, p. 12.

Fun Fact:

The great-great grandfather of Lammot Du Pont, the chairman of the Board of Directors at Dupont in 1947, was Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a disciple of the Physiocrat author of the Tableau Oeconomique, François Quesnay.

The genealogical line from the Physiocrat du Pont de Nemours to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of DuPont in 1947.

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (b. 14 Dec 1739; d. 7 Aug 1817)

Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours (b. 24 June 1771; d. 31 Oct 1834)

Alfred V. du Pont (b. 11 Apr 1798; d. 4 Oct 1856)

Lammot du Pont I (b. 13 Apr 1831; d. 29 Mar 1884)

Lammot du Pont II (b. 12 Oct 1880; d. 24 Jul 1952)

 

Image Sources: Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours (Wikipedia Commons); Lamott Du Pont II in Du Pont: The Autobiography of an American Enterprise. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952. (Lammot Du Pont, p. 86).

_______________________

Beale to Compton
(original)

Walter J. Beadle
DuPont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

September 15, 1947

Dr. Karl T. Compton, President
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Dr. Compton:

When you were on vacation, Mr. C. E. Spencer, Jr. sent me a copy of the Economic Council Review of Books for August 1947. Since this seemed to point up better than anything I have read the general problem in connection with teaching of economics in this country, I sent it to Jim Killian in advance of our luncheon meeting and he in turn passed it on to Professor Freeman.

On the chance that you have not seen this review, I attach a copy of it which has just come to me from Mr. Lammot du Pont. I enclose also Mr. du Pont’s letter of transmittal dated September 12th which I am sure will be of interest to you. As I told Jim at our Boston meeting, I acquainted Mr. du Pont with the developments in connection with the teaching of economics at M.I.T. because I know of his very sincere interest in the Institute as a life member of the Corporation.[sic, not listed as a Life Member At MIT’s website]

I hope that your vacation proved to be a very enjoyable and refreshing one.

With kind regards, I am

Sincerely,
[signed] Walter
Walter J. Beadle

WJB:k
enc.

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Lammot Du Pont to Beadle
(copy)

LAMMOT DU PONT
Du Pont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

September 12, 1947

Mr. Walter J. Beadle;
B u i l d i n g.

Dear Walter:

Your file is returned herewith, and there is also enclosed a leaflet of the National Economic Council, giving a review of college textbook, “The Elements of Economics,” by Lorie Tarshis. You can get an idea of the nature of the review by reading the few paragraphs on the first page, which I have marked.

I take it that this textbook is an aggravated example of what the M.I.T. professor [Paul Samuelson] has done in a milder way. You will note on page 7 a list of the colleges which have adopted this textbook, and I am pleased to note that M.I.T. is not among them. Will you use your judgment as to sending this copy of the review to Dr. Compton as an illustration of what can happen?

Recently, I was talking with an Economist, who is a professor at a well-known university in the east. I have entire confidence in this Economist’s truthfulness and accuracy, but maybe I did not understand him exactly right. The gist of what he told me was as follows:

At this university there are 11 professors in the Department of Economics. Of these, 7 are Leftist. Four, including himself, are what I would call “sound.” There are two vacancies among the 11 professorships, and it is indicated that they will be filled only with men who meet with the approval of the present 9 incumbents. This is called “a democratic process.” With the odds 7 to 2, it is a foregone conclusion that another Leftist will be added.

In addition to the above, my friend tells me that he has been advised by a man acting as Assistant to the President of the University, with respect to faculty appointments, that he, my friend, had better withdraw from the University, or look for a position elsewhere. My friend informs me that he does not intend to withdraw, and does not think they can oust him. He believes that it is his duty to remain at the University and do what he can to expound to students sound economics. The University is among those listed on page 7 of this leaflet.

I am not urging that you send this review to Dr. Compton, or that you send him this letter, but if you care to do so, you have my permission, for I don’t think I have violated any confidence in what I have written.

Yours sincerely,
(s) Lammot du Pont

LduP/MD

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Compton to Beadle
(copy)

September 18, 1947

Mr. Walter J. Beadle
du Pont Building
Wilmington 98, D.C. [sic]

Dear Walter:

Thanks ever so much for sending me the copy of the Economic Council Review of Books for August, which discusses the book by Professor Tarshis of Stanford University.

My brother Wilson showed me a copy of this while we were together at our family camp, and I had made a memorandum to send for a copy for my own use. It seems to me to be an exceedingly effective statement.

Incidentally, have you noticed the comment among the book reviews in the September issue of Fortune with reference to another book by one of Samuelson’s students [Lawrence Klein]?

I am just getting squared away after return from vacation and the process is somewhat delayed because I got mixed up in a fire and am still somewhat bandaged up,–nothing permanently serious, however.

With best regards,

Very sincerely yours
[unsigned]
President

KTC/L

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

December 15, 1947

Personal

Professor R.E. Freeman
Dept. of Econ. and Soc. Sci.

Dear Ralph:

Apropos of the discussions which we had some weeks ago about Professor Samuelson and the textbook on economics, I have accidentally run into several interesting discussions recently concerning the Keynesian theories of economics on the part of several groups of top economists. From these I gained the impression that Keynes’ theories were brilliant and stimulating but inclined to be based more on a logic derived from a limited set of postulates than on actual test from all the factors involved. The comment was made that Lord Keynes himself was sufficiently flexible to modify his views when the facts indicated to him that this was necessary, but that many of Keynes’ disciples have been so wedded to the beautiful logic that they have had a tendency to base their faith on this logic rather than on an objective evaluation of factors by which the conclusions might be tested.

The work of the American Economic Council [sic], (I am not sure that I have the name just right), was described as especially valuable and effective because of its objective search for facts, as opposed to argument on theory.

At a meeting with Harold Moulton some weeks ago I asked his opinion of Samuelson and he replied that Samuelson is a very brilliant young man but that he is a “dogmatist”. In this connection Moulton dug out the enclosed reprint which he thought might be helpful to us in our evaluation of economic research methods. I thought you might be interested in this, though you have perhaps already read it. Please return it at your convenience,

Very sincerely yours,
[unsigned]
President.

KTC/L

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

_______________________

Freeman to Compton
(original)

Personal

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of
Economics and Social Science

Cambridge, Mass.
17 December 1947

Dr. Karl T. Compton
Room 3-208
M.I.T.

Dear Dr. Compton:

Many thanks for your comments regarding Keynes, Samuelson et al. I was interested in Moulton’s brochure which I am returning herewith.

A good deal of misunderstanding has arisen because of a failure to distinguish between Keynesianism as a conceptual apparatus and Keynesianism as a policy. It is the former which has been adapted by the younger economists of this country such as Paul Samuelson—and many of the older ones as well. I use the word adapted, because some of the ideas of Keynes have been rejected. On the policy level two Keynesians may arrive at quite different conclusions.

The charge that such thinkers base their faith on logic rather than on facts, is to my mind unjustified. The classical economists built up their whole system on the assumption of full employment. The modern approach is not only to question this assumption but also to try to understand why our economy so often fails to provide full employment.

It has been a common belief in the past that because the rate of saving was assumed to vary with the interest rate, there could be no under or over savings—that changes in the interest rate would provide the necessary correction. A study of the facts indicates that this position was erroneous. Much of “modern economics” is concerned with the implications of under-saving and over-saving.

I have taken the liberty of enclosing a recent bulletin of the United Business Service for which I write the first page every week. This brief article designed for popular consumption entitled “How Inflation Could Be Halted” illustrates the use of the savings concept in analyzing current problems. Incidentally, Moulton in the latter part of the pamphlet you sent me indicates that he has incorporated into his thinking the Keynesian approach to the saving process.

It is significant, I believe, that the new approach to economic problems has developed as our knowledge of the facts of the economic process has become more extensive. Today we know vastly more about what is going on in economic society than we did a half or even a quarter of a century ago. The young men who have been and are now the main fact gatherers are in overwhelming numbers using the Keynesian concepts as tools of analysis.

The “American Economic Council” [sic] to which you refer in your letter is I believe an organization with a Fascist flavor which is of course opposed to the “new economics.” If I have identified the organization correctly, it is a front for a man named Hart who was involved in some way in a treason charge during the war. It recently issued a review of a book by Tarshish [sic]—a review which was grossly unfair to the writer.

I am not sure what Moulton means by referring to Paul Samuelson as “dogmatic.” Paul certainly is capable of supporting his views with factual data and reasoned arguments. Moulton’s effort to defend a recent Brookings publication—“A National Labor Policy”—against the criticism of Wayne Morse was not an effort which would inspire confidence in Moulton’s own objectivity.

I don’t know whether Bob Caldwell passed to you the information that Paul will be presented with the John Bates Clark Medal at the coming meetings of the American Economic Association in Chicago. This medal is being presented for the first time by the Association to the living economist under 40 “who has made the most distinguished contribution to the main body of economic thought and knowledge.” The name of the recipient of the award will not be published until December 28.

Probably you will agree with me that we don’t need to worry too much about what the economists of the country think about Paul Samuelson.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Ralph
Ralph E. Freeman

 

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

_______________________

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

December 19, 1947

Professor Ralph E. Freeman
Department of Economics and Social Science
M. I. T.

Dear Ralph:

Thanks ever so much for your letter and the enclosed copy of United Business Service.

One way or another I seem to be getting some elements of an education in economics, long deferred. At least no one can criticize my own education in this field on the ground that it has not brought contact with plenty of divergent points of view.

I was glad to have your distinction between conceptual apparatus and policy in reference to the influence of Lord Keynes.

I am delighted to know that Paul Samuelson is to receive the John Bates Clark Medal. That, coming from the American Economic Association, is certainly an honor and should be a reassurance to some of our “worriers”.

With many thanks,

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned]
President

KTC/h

 

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

_______________________

Back to the Chase

Thanks to my reading of Giraud and Backhouse, it didn’t take much effort to establish the identity of the unnamed reviewer of Tarshis, none other than the libertarian diva, Ms. Rose Wilder Lane (b. 5 December 1886; d. 30 October 1968). Economics in the Rear-View Mirror has posted the story of Rose Wilder Lane’s 1946 report for the Foundation of Economic Education on Milton Friedman and George Stigler’s famous pamphlet on rent-control, Roofs or Ceilings. Lane was certain that Messrs. Friedman and Stigler were communists in deep disguise…really. Interested readers can find out more about her together with the complete text to the third printing of her 1947 review of Tarshis in the rich paper with its document-filled appendix by Levy, Peart and Albert (2012).

David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart and Margaret Albert. Economic Liberals as Quasi-Public Intellectuals: The Democratic Dimension in Marianne Johnson (ed.) Documents on Government and the Economy Vol. 30-B (2012) of Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, pp. 1-116.

Especially the transcription of the Rose Wilder Lane review of the textbook The Elements of Economics by Lorie Tarshis published in Economic Council Review of Books, Vol. IV, No. 8, August 1947), pp. 49-64.

More about Merwin Kimball Hart can be found at:

Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy. F. A. Hayek and the “Individualists”, Chapter 2 in F. A. Hayek and the Modern Economy: Economic Organization and Activity, eds. Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), especially pp. 30-37.

_______________________

But wait, there’s more

For those wanting to learn even more about the publisher of the National Economic Council’s Review of Books, Mr. Merwin Kimball Hart (b. 25 June 1881; d. 30 November 1962), U.S. government files are available at archive.com that were obtained through Ernie Lazar’s FOIA applications. There you will find around six hundred pages of F.B.I. investigative reports, letters, and newspaper clippings regarding the Merwin Hart case that are easily consulted on line.

The tidbit that I find that ties this post together is the clear evidence that Lammot Du Pont was a financial supporter of Hart’s National Economic Council precisely at the time that he and the Du Pont vice-president and lifetime member of the M.I.T. corporation were on a crusade against Paul Samuelson’s textbook.  “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

 Links to the Merwin Kimball Hart files

Hart, Merwin K.—NYC 100-21056 (243 pages)

14 page New York City F.B.I. investigative report November 17, 1942
6 page Albany F.B.I. report Jan 22, 1943 on Utica background of Merwin K. Hart

Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials (278 pages)

[note:it is necessary to view the file in single-page mode, when in double page mode only the odd numbered pages are displayed.]

Hart, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142 (58 pages)

Hart, Merwin K.—Army Intel Report (48 pages)

A selection from these FOIA files now follows:

_______________________

A Memorandum for the Director of the F.B.I. (February 8, 1940) prepared by E. A. Tamm

The FBI report refers to a woman informant working within the New York State Economic Council.

“From what can be gathered from the informant the Council was apparently originally engaged in a fight against Communism. It then became involved in the fight to support the Franco rebellion in Spain, and has now passed into not only opposition to the present Federal administration but has gone further and become actually opposed to the existing form of government in this country. The inner circle of the NYSEC in one way or another is now considering setting up an independent union movement to combat the CIO and other so-called radical unions, and to set up what would amount to company-controlled unions.

The informant advises [deletion of 2/3 line] Hart, John Eoghan Kelly, Jane Anderson, and various Catholic priests, she is convinced of the existence of a plot, presumably centering around the Council and directed by Catholic church leaders to reestablish the Holy Roman Empire with certain nations so aligned as to make it possible for the Catholic church to control the balance of power through its control of the government of Spain.” Page 3 of memo

[…]

“Hart is general manager of the Cream of Wheat Corporation, and his home is understood to be at Utica, New York…The informant expresses her belief that Hart is a sincere, fiery patriot who honestly believes the country is in serious danger from a “red menace.” However, she stated he is being used by certain Fordham University clerics who decide on certain action in conferences with John Eoghan Kelly, Allen Zoll and similar persons, and then prevail on Hart to make such contacts, presumably Protestant, as will facilitate the promotion of the action desired.

“Hart has written a book entitled ‘America—Look at Spain’, and from purported copies of correspondence exhibited by the informant it would appear that this book was partly edited by the Catholic clergy in so far as that portion of it which treats the Catholic church is concerned. Hart has visited Spain, Germany and Italy and has made an intensive study of conditions in these places. He has communicated with the Bureau in the past relative to cooperating on matters pertaining to the national defense. By letter dated April 10, 1939 he wrote the Bureau requesting a copy of the report on the German-American Bund investigation, and was advised that same was not available, and his letter was referred to the Department.

It is impossible to fully set out all the connections that Hart may possibly have, but it is probably safe to say from those he is known to have that he is connected at least with every group of any prominence in the United States whose aims are anti-administration or anti-Communist.” Page 5 of memo.

[…]

DuPonts of Wilminton, Delaware:

            The informant advises that these persons were at one time strong financial supporters of the NYSEC but have not contributed recently.” Page 21 of memo.

 

Source: Memorandum for the Director of the F.B.I. (19 February 1940) in the Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation, N.Y.C. Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials.

_______________________

From an investigative report dated July 2, 1942

“…On January 27,1940 Confidential Informant [deleted] was interviewed by Assistant Director E. J. Connelley regarding any information informant might have concerning MERVIN K. HART. Informant informed [ca. 2 lines deleted] whose offices are located in Room 417, 17 East 442 Street, New York City. Informant advised that she met subject HART through [deleted] who was an acquaintance of HART as a customer of the bank [deleted] started to work for HART [line deleted] HART advised informant that he had just returned from Spain where he was in touch with the Nationalist Leader and believed that they were saving the world form Communism. He wanted to write a book to show that the same thing might occur here in the United States.

She advised that HART had published a book entitled AMERICA LOOKS AT SPAIN which was published by Kennedy and Company. HART advised informant that in this book he wanted to show that Communism was overthrowing the world and that something must be done about it in this country. In connection with the luncheon held for MARTIN DIES, which was mentioned previously, [one line deleted] this luncheon for Dies was given by the New York State Economic Council at the Bellmore Hotel, New York City. Informant advised that JAMES WHEELER-HILL, Second in Command of the German-American Bund, was there along with [deleted] The luncheon was open to the public. She stated that the presence of [deleted] and JAMES WHEELER-HILL did not mean that they were connected with the Economic Council as tickets were on sale to the public; however, informant said that the people actively working for HART considered [deleted] and WHEELER-HILL as martyrs fighting for a cause.

Informant said [deleted] he formed the American Union for Nationalist Spain and, in that connection, was constantly in touch with various religious leaders. Informant, continuing, said that the Council is financed through subscriptions and donations made by the Texas Company and by Lamont [sic] Dupont. According to informant, HART’s most intimate associate is Captain JOHN T. TRAVER, the head of the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies.

 

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Report date: 2 July 1942.

_______________________

From November 17, 1942 FBI Internal Security Case Report
Merwin K. Hart

…Confidential Informant [deleted] stated that she first met HART during the winter of 1938-1939 at a party at the home of [deleted] of the famous [deleted] of China. HART at that time had just returned from Spain. [Deleted] had just returned from Munich and was disgusted with the Chamberlain appeasement policy. She thereafter disliked HART’S theories from the start. For quite some time HART continued to send her a copy of his Economic Letter, which she said she tore up and refused to pay any attention to it. According to [deleted] HART has constantly criticized the ROOSEVELT administration; is violently anti-Communistic; has said that HITLER has done some good things for Germany; that the German American Bund is a harmless organization; and that the Franco Policy is satisfactory. She said further, however, that since December 7, 1941 HART has been openly advocating unity withi9nAmerica. He confines his criticism now only to Government spending and then only to expenditures which are not for the war effort. However, she believes he is still a Fascist in his theories of Government but is smart enough to hold his tongue now. She said that a while ago he was so anti-Communistic he was literally seeing “a Communist under every chair.” She believes he might still be regarded as dangerous in that his constant criticisms creates a disturbing element. She does not believe that he is subsidized by foreign funds. She said further that HART had told her in the past of attending some Bund meetings simply to find out what went on in the meetings. [Deleted] was of the opinion that HART’S theories are too extreme, and that HART has been and in her opinion still is against labor agitation…”

 

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Report date: 17 November 1942.

_______________________

Memo for J. Edgar Hoover Jan 26, 1944.

 

Item in summary table of correspondence with Merwin K. Hart:

From Lammot du Pont to M.K.H. 1/2/42. Encloses check for $4,000. “Subscription to the work of the organization for 1942”

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Memo to Hoover (26 January, 1944).

_______________________

Newspaper clipping, syndicated columnist Marquis W. Childs

Marquis W. Childs. The State of the Nation.
[FBI time stamp: Jan 15, 1948]

Washington.

The self-appointed thought police are on the loose again, their attack this time is directed against a textbook on economics used in many of the leading universities of the country.

The attack began with the National Economic Council, whose head, Merwin K. Hart, has been one of the principal American supporters of Spain’s dictator, Franco. It took the form of a so-called review of the book—“The Elements of Economics” by Prof. Lorie Tarshis of Stanford University.

The review twists the meaning of the book to try to show that its author supports the government spending theories of the late Lord Keynes. Therefore, the review concludes, the book must be subversive and un-American.

Wide circulation of this review through the mails was only the first step. In Arkansas, an American Legion post and something called the Arkansas Free Enterprise association have taken the next step. They have demanded an investigation of the textbook, used in economics classes at the University of Arkansas.

President Lewis W. Jones of the university replied that he thought the sanest procedure would be to submit the book to an impartial group capable of judging it, such as the American Economics [sic] association. He added that he saw nothing subversive in the text, which he considered a thoroughly objective study of the economic system.

Here is a pattern of behavior that endangers fundamental American freedoms of speech and thought. The concept of thought police, whether amateur or professional, is repugnant to free Americans.

The American legion recently held here in Washington a counter-subversive seminar. Seventy-five representatives from Legion posts around the country attended the three-day session. They heard lectures by some so-called experts on Communism. It is interesting incidentally, that among these experts are several men who were once Communists. Having at one time embraced a totalitarian faith, they now make a profession of denouncing it.

Seven State Legion organizations have held or will hold such seminars, taking their cue from the National organization. Both Georgia and Indiana have just had two-day sessions on subversion.

If one is to judge from the speech made by Georgia’s Rep. James C. Davis at the meeting in Atlanta, it was given over entirely in the subversion of communism. They might well have devoted part of their time to such home-grown subversion as the Ku Klux Klan. It is a fairly safe guess that there are more Klansmen than Communists in Georgia.

Training Legionnaires to “spot and counter subversive activities, as National Commander O’Neil put it, is a hazardous business. The FBI gives its agents months of instructions in such matters, and they are told to avoid possible infringement of fundamental rights of speech and thought. Yet here we have amateurs turned loose after two days to do sleuthing on their own.

An example of what this can mean occurred in California at about the time the Legion was holding its counter-subversive seminar in Washington. Twenty-five men wearing Legion hats bearing the insignia of Glendale, Cal., Post No. 127 invaded the meeting of a Democratic club and demanded that it break up immediately.

A slight error had been made. The club was duly chartered by the County Democratic Central committee. In the midst of the indignation and the corresponding embarrassment that followed, State Legion Commander Harry L. Foster condemned the act.

“The rights of free speech and assembly,” he said, and it might be a good idea to frame these words in every Legion hall, “are part of our cherished Bill of Rights and we of the Legion should be the first to insist on these rights. Should there is an unlawful meeting, it should be reported to the duly constituted civil authorities for their action.

“Thought police on the Japanese model are an insult to American integrity. That is especially true when zealous guardians of pure thought seek to protect the young. If young men and women in college who have grown up under the advantages of the American system cannot use judgment for themselves, then the system has failed. The generation that fought the recent war does not need to be sheltered by meddling zealots. They are a lot more clear-eyed and clear–headed than most of their elders.

 

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. N.Y.C. File No. 100-21056 page 179.  Copy from the FOIA file is partially illegible and the newspaper was not identified. A less edited version of the article was published in The Eau Claire Leader (Wisconsin), Sunday, January 18, 1948, p. 12.

_______________________

J. Edgar Hoover’s Memo
March 29, 1948

100-128996-94

Date: March 29, 1948

To: [deleted]

BY SPECIAL MESSENGER

Attention: Reading Center

From: John Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Subject: MERWIN KIMBALL HART, wa,
Mervin Kimball Hart
National Economic Council, Inc.
INTERNAL SECURITY-X

Reference is made to your communication of March 17, 1948 your [deleted] where you informed that [deleted] was en route to New York City at the invitation of the National Economic Council.

[paragraph deletion]

Biographical information, the accuracy of which is unknown, reflects that Merwin Kimball Hart was born on June 21, 1881, at Utica, New York. He graduated from Harvard in 1904, receiving an A. B. degree. In 1906 he was elected for a two year term to the General Assembly of the State of New York. Hart, by this time, was married to Catherine Margaret Crouse of Utica. He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1911 and became a member of the law firm Hart and Senior. In 1914 Hart and several prominent businessmen in Utica organized the Utica Mutual Insurance Company. A few years later when the United States entered the war, Hart, although possessing defective eyesight, enlisted in the Army and when released in 1918 he had attained the rank of Captain in a non-combatant unit. After the war Hart devoted several years attempting to place the Hart and Crouse Company in Utica on a sound financial basis. This firm, which manufactures furnaces and heating equipment, was founded by Hart’s father and Hart’s wife’s father. The firm is presently owned by other persons. Following this, Hart became active in numerous movements to reduce expenditures in the State government of New York. Subsequently in about 1932 he organized the New York State Economic Council, now known as the National Economic Council, Inc., with offices in New York City and Utica, New York. His annual salary from the inception thereof was reported to be $10,000. The organization was originally financed by manufacturing and financial concerns located in the State of New York.

Hart was described by an old acquaintance as having come from one of the old established families in Utica, was a brilliant and well educated man was thoroughly patriotic and loyal, and taken part in numerous business enterprises, and was one time a member of one of the leading law firms in Utica. In this latter connection this informant stated it was not known whether Hart went to law school or that he ever appeared in court as a lawyer.

Another source stated Hart was very influential and respected in his own community, but had few intimate friends. He said Hart was known as the type who knew “everybody that counted” and acted in a formal and aloof manner. His personal unpopularity in Utica was attributed in part to the fact that he was too outspoken, tactless, bull-headed, and possessing a peculiar type of personality.

Hart was described as believing in the capitalistic system and particularly opposed to Communism and the New Deal Administration. It was said that the citizens of Utica generally considered him sincere and 100% American in spite of his unfavorable publicity. Some people, it was claimed who did not know him, might think him to be opposed to the country’s war aims at that time.

Information of a current nature regarding the National Economic Council, Inc., is not known. From various sources in the past it was described as being an organization of about 17,000 members drawn from throughout the State of New York. Its headquarters were said to have been located at 17 East 42nd Street, New York City, with a branch office at Utica. A folder distributed by the Council in 1940 described as the Council’s purposes: 1. To curb Government spending; 2. To reduce oppressive tactics; 3. To oppose subversive groups; 4. To oppose stifling restrictions of private enterprises, and 5. To promote true recovery. The officers of the Council as listed in the folder are as follows: President—Merwin K. Hart; Treasurer—George D. Graves; Vice-President— [name missing] Chase National Bank, New York City; Chairman of the Finance Committee—William Fellows Morgan, New York City; Vice-Presidents—Elon Hooker—President Hooker Electrochemical Company, New York City; Thomas M. Peters, New York City; Alexander D. Falck, Chairman, Corning Glass Works, Elmira, New York.

A confidential source advised that early in 1940 the headquarters of the Council seemed to be a meeting place for groups of people who were apparently interested in setting up a totalitarian form of government. This organization was also said to furnish material to Reverend Charles Coughlin for his use. Starting in late 1939 it was reported that the Council devoted about 90% of its efforts to the distribution of propaganda on behalf of the Spanish Republican Government.

The answer to question “d.” is not known to this Bureau. Accordingly, appropriate inquiry is being instituted in an effort to ascertain the desired information. Upon receipt of the results of this inquiry I shall promptly advise you.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation, N.Y.C. Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials.  pp. 187-189.

 

_______________________

WASHINGTON CITY NEWS SERVICE
[teletype]
File Time Stamp: August 14, 1950

MERWIN K. HART, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL, INC., SAID TODAY THE WORD “DEMOCRACY” IS CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH COMMUNISM AND SHOULD BE DISCARDED.

HE TOLD THE SPECIAL HOUSE COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING LOBBYING THAT THE U.S. IS A REPUBLIC AND THAT “IT IS TIME FOR US TO RETURN TO THAT CONCEPTION.”

THE TERM “DEMOCRACY” GAINED ITS CURRENT STATUS AFTER IT WAS USED BY GEORGEI DIMITROV AT A MEETING OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL IN MOSCOW IN 1935, HART SAID.

REPEATING WHAT HE SAID IN A SPEECH TO THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB OF NEW YORK IN 1940, HART TOLD THE COMMITTEE:

“I WONDER SOMETIMES IF ONE OF THE CAUSES OF OUR TROUBLE TODAY DOES NOT ARISE FROM THE FACT THAT WE HAVE BEEN OVER-DRILLED INTO BELIEVING WE ARE A DEMOCRACY, THIS, TOO, MAY BE ONE OF THE LATEST ‘INSIDIOUS WILES OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE…IT IS TIME TO BRUSH ASIDE THIS WORD WITH ITS ‘CONNOTATIONS.’”

HART WAS CALLED BEFORE THE LOBBY COMMITTEE BECAUSE OF THE EFFORTS MADE BY HIS ORGANIZATION TO INFLUENCE LEGISLATION IN WHICH IT IS INTERESTED. THE COUNCIL IS CLASSIFIED BY BOTH DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN AS RIGHT-WING.

IN ONE OF SEVERAL PREVIOUS STATEMENTS MADE BY HART, WHICH WERE PUT INTO THE COMMITTEE RECORD, HE SAID THERE IS AN “EXTREMELY ACTIVE GROUP” ATTEMPTING TO CONVERT THE UNITED STATES FROM A REPUBLIC TO A DEMOCRACY—“THAT IS, FROM A REPRESENTATIVE FORM OF GOVERNMENT INTO A MOBOCRACY, GOVERNED EVENTUALLY BY A DICTATOR.”

ALSO PUT INTO THE COMMITTEE RECORD WERE NUMEROUS EXCHANGES OF LETTERS IN WHICH CONTRIBUTIONS AND GIFTS TO THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL WERE DISCUSSED.

THE LETTERS SHOWED THAT TWO OF THE ACTIVE CONTRIBUTORS TO THE COUNCIL ARE LAMMOT DU PONT AND IRENEE DU PONT, BOTH OF WILMINGTON, DEL. THE RECORDS SHOWED THAT IRENEE DU PONT GAVE THE COUNCIL $11,000 IN 1948 TO PAY FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS TO PAMPHLETS THAT WERE SENT TO COLLEGES, CHURCHES AND LIBRARIES.

HART SAID IN ONE LETTER TO FORMER U.S. SEN. JOESPH R. GRUNDY, OF BRISTOL, PA., THAT THE COUNCIL’S LEGAL STAFF HAD FOUND A METHOD OF HELPING ITS CONTRIBUTORS SAVE ON THEIR INCOME TAX PAYMENTS.

“MAY I SAY THAT WHILE UNDER A RULING OF THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT OUR NON-NEW DEAL NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL IS NOT ABLE TO OFFER THE DEDUCTIBILITY PRIVILEGE TO ITS CONTRIBUOTRS, YET WE ARE ABLE TO GET SUBSTANTIAL BENEFIT FROM THE FACT THAT A CONTRIBUTION MADE TO US OF MONEY TO PURCHASE SUBSCRIPTIONS AT $10 EACH TO OUR COUNCIL PUBLICATIONS TO GO TO EDUCATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IS DEDUCTIBLE UNDER THE INCOME TAX LAW,” HART WROTE GRUNDY.

HART’S LETTER SAID THAT FROM TIME TO TIME GRUNDY HAD SHOWN INTEREST IN THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL. THE FORMER PENNSYLVANIA SENATOR WAS INVITED TO MAKE A “FAIRLY SUBSTANTIAL” CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL.

THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE PRODUCED AT THE COMMITTEE HEARING TO SHOW WHAT GRUNDY’S REPSONSE WAS.

6/21—N122P

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.

ADD 1 LOBBYING (122P)

THE HOUSE LOBBY INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE DISCLOSED THAT CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION ABOUT ONE OF ITS SECRET MEETINGS HAD LEAKED OUT TO A LOBBY WHICH IT IS INVESTIGATING.

HARRY S. BARGER, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL, DECLINED TO TELL THE COMMITTEE HOW HE GOT INSIDE INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMMITTEE’S JANUARY 17 MEETING.

IN A MEMO FROM BARGER TO ERWIN K. HART, NEC PRESDIENT, BARGER SAID “A FRIEND OF MINE” SAW A REPORT OF THE MEETING. BARGER DECLINED TO NAME THE FRIEND AND ASKED THE COMMITTEE FOR A RULING ON WHETHER HE WOULD BE COMPELLED TO ANSWER.

CHAIRMAN BUCHANAN SAID THE PROBLEM WOULD BE TAKEN UP IN CLOSED SESSION.

IN BARGER’S MEMO, INTRODUCED AS EVIDENCE, HE WROTE HART THAT THE COMMITTEE HAD FOUND THAT $90,000 HAD BEEN CONTRIBUTED TO NEC “FROM THE DUPONTS,” AND THAT THE COMMITTEE THOUGHT NEC WAS “SOMEWHAT SUBVERSIVE IN CHARACTER.”

BARGER WROTE THAT “THE CIO AND KINDRED SPIRITS” WERE RUNNING THE COMMITTEE AND “THAT THE SETUP SHOULD BE VERY CAREFULLY EXPOSED IF AND WHEN REPRESENTATIVES OF THE COUNCIL ARE CALLED BEFORE THE BUCHANAN COMMITTEE X X X.”

REVELATION OF THE MEMO BROUGHT SHARP COMMENTS FROM COMMITTEE MEMBERS, ESPECIALLY REP. CLYDE DOYLE, D., CAL., WHO DECLARED “I EMPHATICALLY RESENT” THE CHARGE THAT THE COMMITTEE IS UNDER DOMINATION OF ANY ONE.

BARGER SAID THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMMITTEE’S SECRET MEETING “WAS GIVEN TO ME IN CONFIDENCE” AND COULD HAVE COME FROM ANY ONE OF “THREE OR FOUR FRIENDS.”

“I DON’T THINK I SHOULD BE CALLED UPON TO NAME MY SOURCES ANY MORE THAN A NEWSPAPER MAN SHOULD BE,” HE SAID.

6/21—WM611P

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.

_______________________

And no counterrevolution would be complete without the guns
Reported June 1950 in the Washington Post

It was brought out, however, that Hart warned subscribers in his economic council letter in January, 1948, to arm themselves with pistols and rifles to resist the Communist threat.

“We have one concrete suggestion to make to every citizen who is impressed by the potential danger,” he wrote. “Let him possess himself of one or more guns making sure they are in good working condition and that other members of his family know how to use them.”

After the letter was read, Hart explained it had been written after a trip to Europe. He said it seemed to him that laws against the possession of firearms discriminate against law-abiding citizens because Communists and others ignore them.

Washington Post clipping “circa 6/_/50, p. 5.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.

Categories
Economists Harvard Sociology Wellesley Wing Nuts

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus. Vervon Orval Watts, 1932

 

You are about to encounter a Harvard Ph.D. economist, vintage 1932, who illustrates just how deep the roots of American right-wing economics can be traced. 

A disciple of Harvard Professor Thomas Nixon Carver, Vervon Orval Watts evolved from his checkered pre- and post-Harvard Ph.D. (1932) academic career to become an apostle of laissez-faire, anti-Keynesianism, anti-globalism, and anti-communism — first as chief economist of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and later as an editor/economist with the Foundation for Economic Education. In 1963 he became a leading figure at the young conservative business college, the Northwood Institute (now Northwood University) in Michigan, where he headed the Division of Social Studies over the next two decades.

Watts was hired by Leonard Read [greatest hit “I, Pencil”] in 1939 to become the chief economist for the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, where Leonard Read was executive director. Read later made Watts the leading economist at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). From Watts’ papers at the Hoover Institution Archives, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror was able to provide some of the back-story to the publication of the FEE publication “Roofs or Ceilings?, a famous Friedman-Stigler anti-rent-control pamphlet from 1946.

Birth/Death Dates for Vervon Orval Watts:

Born: March 25, 1898 in Walkerton, Bruce County, Ontario, Canada
Died:  March 30, 1993 in Palm Springs, California.

Fun Facts: Northwood University is home to the DeVos Graduate School of Management. The DeVos family (Amway) was married into by Elisabeth (Betsy) Dee Prince who is currently serving as the United States Secretary of Education. Her brother Erik Prince is the founder of Blackwater USA.

__________________

From Harvard University sources

1926-27. Vervon Orval Watts was the Christopher M. Weld Scholar in Economics. Fifth-Year Graduate Student. Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1926-1927, p. 111.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Ph.D. awarded in 1932

Vervon Orval Watts, A.B. (Univ. of Manitoba) 1918, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1923.
Subject, Economics. Special Field, Sociology. Thesis, “The Development of the Technological Concept of Production in Anglo-American Thought.”
Associate Professor of Economics, Antioch College.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1931-1932, p.124.

__________________

Vervon Orval Watts
(1898-1993)
c.v.

Taught in Gilbert Plains High School in Ontario, Canada.

1923-26. Instructor in Sociology, Clark University.

1927-29. Instructor Harvard University.

1930. Visiting lecturer, Wellesley College.

1930-36. Associate professor of economics, Antioch College.

1936-39. Associate professor of economics, Carleton College.

1939-46. Economic counsel, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

1946-49. Editorial director and economist, The Foundation for Economic Education.

1949-51. Visiting professor of economics, Claremont Men’s College.

1949-64. Economic counsel, Southern California Edison Company.

1951-57. Columnist, Christian Economics.

1961-63. Visiting professor of economics, Pepperdine College.

1963–84. Professor of economics and chairman of the Division of Social Studies, Northwood, Institute.

1975-76. First Lundy Professor of the Philosophy of Business at Campbell University, N.C. [on leave of absence from Northwood Institute].

Producer and moderator of radio and television forum programs.
Regular contributor to The Freeman and The National Review.

Books:

Why Are We So Prosperous.[1938]
Do We Want Free Enterprise
? [1944]
Away from Freedom, the Revolt of the College Economists. [1952]
Union Monopoly: Cause and Cure. [1954]
The United Nations: Planned Tyranny.[1955]
Politics vs. Prosperity. [author and editor, 1976]

Sources: V. Orval Watts (Co-Author and Editor). Free Markets or Famine.[link to 1975 second edition] Midland, Michigan: Ford Press, 1967, p. 578. Copy in the Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of V. Orval Watts. Box 17. Obituary in the Los Angeles Times, 1 April 1993.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Obituary by a comrade-in-arms

Murray N. Rothbard, “V. Orval Watts: 1898-1993” reprinted in Making Economic Sense (2nded., 2006), pp. 450-452.

__________________

Vervon Orval Watts (1898-1993)
Selected Awards

1918. Gold Medalist in political economy, University of Manitoba.

1967. Liberty Award, Congress of Freedom, Birmingham, Alabama.

1967. Honor Certificate Award, Freedom Foundation, Valley Forge.

Source: Southwest Dallas County Suburban (Jan. 21, 1971) p. 9.

__________________

Obituary

V. Orval Watts; Chamber of Commerce Economist
by Myrna Oliver

Los Angeles Times, April 01, 1993

V. Orval Watts, the first full-time economist employed by a chamber of commerce in the United States, has died in Palm Springs at the age of 95.

Watts, who died Tuesday, was named in 1939 as economic counsel for the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, which at the time was the largest organization of its kind in the world. He continued in the position until 1946, when he became editorial director for the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Before the United States was thrust into World War II, Watts advised businessmen convening in Los Angeles that “Europe’s war” should teach Americans four things–to avoid war, to avoid monopolies and price-fixing, to avoid restrictions on trade and output designed to make work or maintain prices, and to remember that credit is sound only when based on production.

Once the United States was in the war, Watts repeatedly cautioned that wartime inflation created only the illusion of prosperity rather than actual prosperity.

Vervon Orval Willard Watts was born March 25, 1898, in Manitoba [sic, Ontario], Canada, and earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Manitoba in 1918. He later earned master’s and doctoral degrees in economics at Harvard University.

He taught for more than six decades–at Gilbert Plains High School in Ontario, Canada; Clark University; Harvard; Wellesley; Antioch College; Carlton College; Claremont Men’s College; Pepperdine University, and Campbell College. He was professor emeritus of Northwood University, where he served as director of economic education and chairman of the Division of Social Studies from 1963 to 1984.

Watts also served during the 1950s as economic counsel for Southern California Edison, Pacific Mutual and other companies in Los Angeles. He contributed regularly to publications such as “Christian Economics,” “The Freeman” and “National Review.”

His books included “Why Are We So Prosperous?” in 1938, “Do We Want Free Enterprise?” in 1944, “Away from Freedom” in 1952, “Union Monopoly” in 1954, “United Nations: Planned Tyranny” in 1955, “Free Markets or Famine” in 1967 and “Politics vs. Prosperity” in 1976.

Watts is survived by his wife, Carolyn Magill Watts; a son, Thomas; daughters Joan Carter, Carol Higdon and Louise Crandall; nine grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren…

Source: Los Angeles Times. April 1, 1993.

__________________

Brief, Official History of Northwood University

On March 23, 1959, two young men with an idea, a goal, and a pragmatic philosophy to encompass it all, broke away from their careers in a traditional college structure to create a new concept in education.

Their visionary idea became a reality when Dr. Arthur E. Turner and Dr. R. Gary Stauffer enrolled 100 students at Northwood Institute. They used a 19th-century mansion in Alma, Michigan, as a school building, a small amount of borrowed money for operating expenses and a large amount of determination.

Northwood was created as the world was changing. The Russians had launched Sputnik and America was soon to follow. Stauffer and Turner watched the race to space. They envisioned a new type of university – one where the teaching of management led the way. While the frontiers of space were revealing their mysteries, Stauffer and Turner understood all endeavors – technical, manufacturing, marketing, retail, every type of business – needed state-of-the-art, ethics-driven management.

Time has validated the success of what these two young educators called “The Northwood Idea” – incorporating the lessons of the American free-enterprise society into the college classroom.

Dr. David E. Fry took the helm in 1982 and then Dr. Keith A. Pretty in 2006, each continuing the same ideals as Stauffer and Turner, never wavering from the core values. The University grew and matured. Academic curricula expanded; Northwood went from being an Institute to an accredited University, the DeVos Graduate School of Management was created and then expanded; the Adult Degree Program and its program centers expanded to over 20 locations in eight states; international program centers were formed in Malaysia, People’s Republic of China, Sri Lanka, and Switzerland; and significant construction like the campus Student Life Centers added value to the Northwood students’ experience. New endeavors such as Aftermarket Studies, entertainment and sports management and fashion merchandising, along with a campus partnership in Montreux, Switzerland, demonstrate an enriched experience for all our students.

With a clearly articulated mission to develop the future leaders of a global, free-enterprise society, Northwood University is expanding its presence in national and international venues. Professors are engaged in economic and policy dialogue; students are emerging as champions in regional and national academic competitions. At all campuses and in all divisions, Northwood University is energized and is actively pursuing dynamic programming and increased influence.

Northwood University educates managers and entrepreneurs – highly skilled and ethical leaders. With more than 57,000 alumni and a vibrant future ahead, The Northwood Idea is alive and well.

 

Source: Northwood University website.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1932.

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Wing Nuts

Wing-nuts. Rose Wilder Lane on Stigler and Friedman, 1946

 

Visitors to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror today have a special treat: the very first artifact in a gallery of this virtual museum dedicated to the many wing-nuts who have felt a calling to reveal the true error(s) in the ways of economists. 

At the Hoover Archives I found some fascinating letters written to the Foundation for Economic Education’s chief economist, Vervon Orval Watts  (1898-1993). Watts received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1932 with the doctoral thesis “The Development of the Technological Concept of Production in Anglo-American Thought”.  The letters transcribed below were written by the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder (author of Little House on the Prairie), Rose Wilder Lane, who was asked if she would review the famous Friedman-Stigler pamphlet published by the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946, “Roofs or Ceilings? The Current Housing Problem”.

From the Stigler-Friedman correspondence scholars have been long aware of the difficulties the FEE editors had with Friedman and Stigler’s use of the word “rationing” in the context of market allocation and their willingness to discuss income distribution policy at all.  George Stigler was absolutely outraged and puzzled at such an attempt at editorial control. I am sure he would have been at least as amused as shocked by the accusations that he and Milton Friedman had been found guilty of writing a “most damnable piece of communist propaganda”.

 

On Vervon Orvall Watts:

V. Orval Watts’ obituary in the Los Angeles Times (April 1, 1993).

Watts’ 1952 Book Away from Freedom: The Revolt of the College Economists was republished by the Ludwig von Mises Institute (Auburn, Alabama) in 2008. “This book had a powerful impact on a generation — a kind of primer on Keynesian fallacies that still pervade the profession if not by that name.“

On Rose Wilder Lane:

Judith Thurman, “A Libertarian House on the Prairie, The New Yorker, August 16, 2012.

Judith Thurman, “Wilder Women: The Mother and Daughter behind the Little House Stories”, The New Yorker, August 10 & 17, 2009.

Ayn Rand’s Reception

For Ayn Rand’s reception of Rents and Ceilings, see Jennifer Burns. Goddess of the Market. Ayn Rand and the American Right. (2009), pp. 116-8.

 

____________________

From Rose Wilder Lane letter to V. Orval Watts
October 11, [1946]

“…I have re-read RENTS AND CEILINGS with the intention of reviewing it. I am appalled, shocked beyond words. This is the most damnable piece of communist propaganda I have ever seen done. And I can prove that it is, sentence by sentence and page by page. What is the Foundation doing, good God, and WHY? Honest American writers in this country are hungry and desperate, blacklisted by the solid communist front holding the publishing field; why in decency (or lack of it) does the Foundation feed a couple of borers-from-within?…the Foundation writes checks for two of the most damnably clever communist propagandists that I’ve read for a long time. I’m physically sick about it.”

 

From Rose Wilder Lane’s letter to Orval Watts,
October 22, 1946

“…As to ROOFS OR CEILINGS, I think, from internal evidence, that the authors are consciously collectivists; I suspect, from the same evidence, that they intentionally did a piece of propaganda, a piece of “infiltration.” I did not see any of this at first; it seems clear to me now. If you will remember the pictures we used to see when we were children, a picture of trees and flowers that you suddenly saw was a picture of faces or of animals, that was the change in this piece of writing. I think those two men are dangerous. I have no other evidence, I know nothing whatever about them; I am convinced that they have had communist training. I say this confidentially at present, because I have only the internal evidence of this pamphlet.

I can of course explain in detail, and will if necessary. It is a laborious job, however, to analyze and explain the argument hidden under the surface argument and to put it so clearly that you will see it, when it is done to be concealed and in so skillfully done that it is concealed and works into a reader’s mind only by its implications. It is this skill which convinced me that it was not done accidentally, that it was done by trained men. The training is intended to defeat persons like me. It does; and I am not too hopeful that it won’t, in this instance. If you feel that you can ask Ayn Rand to do this job for you, I am sure she can do it much better than I.”

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of V. Orval Watts, Box 13.

Image Source: Rose Wilder Lane, 1942. Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Museum, in Boston Globe series “Little Libertarians”.