What is a curator of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror to do when he stumbles across college exams in political economy from 1855 and 1863? Of course, there is no choice but to stop everything and post the material immediately. I had no reason to either like or dislike Francis Lieber when I started this post, but the more I see of him (not all posted here…yet), the more I get to like him as a scholar.
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Specimens of Francis Lieber’s Examinations
The numbers at the [left] of the questions in Sections A and B represent the point values of the questions.
A. South Carolina College.
Junior Class in Political Philosophy, 18551
[35 points] What is absolutism or an absolute Government: What is an absolute Monarchy, and what is absolute Democracy? Why is an absolute Democracy one of the worst governments? Compare the reality of power and the responsibility of the power-holder in the absolute Monarchy with those in the absolute Democracy.
[20 points] Define Obedience and state whether obeying is passive submission or an attribute of rational beings and free agents. Show how man is familiarized with the idea of authority before he becomes an active citizen, and show, moreover, how it is that we ought to obey laws which were made generations before us, and, in the making of which, consequently, we have no direct or indirect share.
[25 points] What is meant by the theory of the civil compact, implied or positive? Give the most serious objection to this theory.
[20 points] Give the first and the last division of the general classification of all governments and politics, written in such a way as to show the subordination of the different parts.
1Printed copy in Lieber papers, Columbia University Libraries. A handwritten note at the bottom reads: “N. B. These refer to a course which commenced Oct. 1, and ended Nov. 10. F. L.”
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B. South Carolina College. Senior Class in Political Economy, 18552
The Seniors stand on the entire annual course of Political Economy, including a course of lectures and the whole of Say’s Political Economy, except the Book on Distribution.
Subjects.
[25 points] Louis the Fourteenth was in the habit of saying that royal profusion is the charity of kings, or, that lavish governments are a blessing to the people. Show what is meant by this assertion and its grave error.
[10 points] Define the term “Itinerant Merchant” or Pedlar. Does the Itinerant form an essential link in the long chain of commerce?
[30 points] Enumerate the characteristics of a sound acceptable tax, according to Mr. Say, and also the characteristics as your teacher has given them — adding to each characteristic an explanatory note or two, in order to show what is meant by it.
[15 points] Is machinery objectionable on the ground that it saves labor? If this were so, would the objection apply to machinery alone?
[30 points (sic, perhaps only 20?)] A hotel or bridge is built for a capital, say, of $100,000. The undertakings prove failures in spite of the prudent management of the concern either, because the buildings were erected on an extravagant plan, or because the number of people making use of them, falls short of that calculated upon. The hotel, or the bridge, is sold for $25,000 and now the number of boarders in the hotel, or of the passengers over the bridge, is sufficient to pay for the interest of the latter sum, as well as for all other outlays, and yields a fair profit. Hereupon the general remark is made: “Well, the capitalist who first undertook the thing is ruined, it is true, but the people,” or “the community at large have gained by it; for, here, they are living in this fine hotel,” or “here is the bridge still standing.” Similar remarks are made on large, yet unprofitable, under takings, of governments, with this difference that, generally, it is added, “There is no harm in the original outlay, although it proves unprofitable, inasmuch as the capital laid out has returned to the people.” For instance, one hundred millions of dollars laid out by government for a railway to the Pacific, would be no loss, although the railway should yield no profit, nor even pay for the interest of the capital, because the whole amount of the capital, would have returned to the people, by the laying of the road itself.
You meet with this argument every day in the debates in Congress, as well as in common life. Show its utter fallacy, or which amounts to the same thing, answer the question: Can the capitalist who pays for a work, be ruined by it, yet the community, or people at the same time be benefitted? And is there any difference in point of political economy, whether government, or a private individual be the capitalist? And also, whether there be any difference if the iron, in the case of the railway, be American iron, or purchased abroad?
2A printed copy is in the Columbia University Libraries.
Lieber elaborated the answer to the main part of the fifth question in his Some Truths Worth Remembering, Given as a Recapitulation, in a Farewell Lecture to the Class of Political Economy of 1849, Published by the Class.
“No enterprise, failing by its own unprofitable nature, can be, at the same time, ruinous to the adventurers, yet advantageous to the community. If a railway cost $500,000, and shares fall to $25 in the hundred, because travelling and freight pay a fair interest of $100,000 only, in that case the community has for ever lost the value of $400,000, and the passengers and freight are carried at the regular and fair price plus the interest of $400,000 proportionately divided in the course of the year. Nothing is more common than to hear that a hotel or a canal has been ruinous to the adventuring individuals, but that the people have reaped the advantage of it. This cannot be. The case applies to government undertakings. They cannot be advantageous to the whole (as far as productive effects are concerned), although they would be ruinous to individuals.”
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Columbia College.
Senior Class in Political Economy, 18633
Definition of Money.
Immigration Into the U. States considered in an economical point of view.
Error of Montesquieu concerning Money.
Define direct and indirect taxation.
How does a Bill of Exchange become a commodity?
Communism and Socialism.
Enumerate the characteristics of an acceptable tax.
The N[ew] York Clearing House.
3In Lieber papers, Columbia University Libraries.
Source:Appendixto “Francis Lieber: German Scholar in America,” reprinted in the collection of essays by Joseph Dorfman and R.G. Tugwell, Early American Policy: Six Columbia Contributors (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 339-341. The article was originally published without the above appendix in Columbia University Quarterly, Vol. 30 (Sept. and Dec.), 1938, pp. 159-90; 267-93.
Today’s post introduces us to someone who was critical in creating the institutional infrastructure that promoted the development of economics at Columbia University. Samuel Bulkley Ruggles wanted political economy and public policy to be taught and as a trustee of Columbia College worked to have John W. Burgess hired in the first place and then supported Burgess’s plan to form a faculty of political science to fit between the School of Arts and the School of Law. There in the School of Political Science founded in 1880 would be the origins of the department of economics (sociology, mathematical statistics, public law, international institutes etc, etc).
Note: As far as the curator of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror can determine, there is no relation between Samuel Bulkley Ruggles and the Ruggles dynasty of modern economics.
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Biography of Columbia Trustee,
Samuel Bulkley Ruggles
RUGGLES, Samuel Bulkley, lawyer, b. in New Milford, Conn., 11 April, 1800; d. on Fire island, N. Y., 28 Aug., 1881. He removed at an early age to Poughkeepsie, was graduated at Yale in 1814, studied law in the office of his father, Philo, who was surrogate and district attorney at Poughkeepsie, and was admitted to the bar in 1821. He was elected a member of the assembly of 1888, and, as chairman of the committee on ways and means, presented a “Report upon the Finances and Internal Improvements of the State of New York,” which led the state to enter upon a new policy in its commercial development. This report proposed to borrow sums of money sufficient to enlarge the Erie canal within five years, and not, as had been at first decided, to rely upon part of the tolls to pay for the enlargement while waiting twenty years. The enlargement was not made at once, but Mr. Ruggles’s views, which were much assailed, were amply vindicated by the event. He was a commissioner to determine the route of the Erie railroad, and a director in 1833-’9, a director and promoter of the Bank of commerce in 1839, commissioner of the Croton aqueduct in 1842, delegate from the United States to the International statistical congresses at Berlin in 1863 and the Hague in 1869, U. S. commissioner to the Paris exposition of 1867, and delegate to the International monetary conference that was held there. He laid out Gramercy park, in the city of New York, in 1831, gave it its name, and presented it to the surrounding property-owners. He also had a considerable influence upon shaping Union square, where he resided, and he selected the name of Lexington avenue. He was for a long term of years a trustee of the Astor library, and he held the same office in Columbia college from 1836 till the end of his life. He was also a member of the Chamber of commerce of the state of New York, and of the General convention of the Protestant Episcopal church.
Source: Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, Vol. 5, Pickering-Sumter (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1888), pp. 343-344.
Excerpt from Joseph Dorfman’s 1955 History of the Economics Department of Columbia
…In 1876, four years after [Francis] Lieber’s death, John W. Burgess was called from Amherst to revive Lieber’s work in the College as well as in the School of Law; it was expected that he would teach political economy. The subject was especially important in the eyes of Samuel B. Ruggles, the Trustee who led this movement for the revival of Lieber’s chair and who was well aware of the developments at Yale, Harvard, and abroad. A lawyer by profession, with extensive business interests, Ruggles was genuinely interested in the advancement of learning in general and political economy in particular. He had a reputation as a statistician, especially in monetary matters. He had served as American Commissioner to a number of international statistical and monetary conferences, had taken an active interest in the enactment of the Coinage Act of 1873, and was one of the leaders in the subsequent controversy over bimetallism.
To Ruggles, Burgess looked like the right person to teach political economy, for Burgess had taught the subject at Knox College from 1869 to 1871 as Professor of English Literature and Political Economy and had subsequently studied at Leipzig under Wilhelm Roscher, the foremost figure in the German historical school of economics. Burgess felt, however, that he could not do justice to the field because of his already heavy program, and he proposed that an assistant be secured especially for instruction in economics. A report presented by Ruggles, for the Trustees’ Committee appointed to inquire into the matter, marked the first definite, explicit recognition by a leading institution of the “historical school.” The report, submitted on October 1, 1877, declared that since [Charles Murray] Nairne had not specialized in political economy, he taught it
“…in a rather peremptory way in conformity with the methods of the old text books, in which certain general principles are first assumed to be true, and are subsequently followed out to their natural conclusions by applying to them the processes of logic. That the results thus reached have failed to command general acceptance not merely among the uneducated, but also with many who have made questions of Political Economy the principal study of their lives, is made evident by the widely discordant opinions which continue to be maintained by writers of ability in regard to matters which concern the very fountain springs of national prosperity. Either the truth of the assumed general principles of the theoretic writers is denied, or it is claimed that these principles are only true with so many qualifications and limitations as to render them practically useless. During the past half century, however, there has arisen a school of political economists, principally on the continent of Europe, who have endeavored to apply to this branch of science the same methods which have long been recognized as the only sure methods in physics and natural history, viz., the methods of induction from ascertained facts. These investigators have, with great labor, brought together and classified the immense amount of varied information in regard to the industrial condition of different countries under different systems of legislation gathered by the statistical bureaus of the several governments, and from these have sought to infer, not what on abstract principles ought to be, but what actually is, the system most favorable to industrial development, to growth in national wealth and to the fairest and most equal distribution of the rewards of labor. It was in the hope that these later views of a subject of so vast importance to the future of the world, and especially of our own country, in which questions of public economy must soon absorb the attention of our lawgivers to the exclusion of almost every other, might be introduced into our course of instruction that the Committee of this Board on the course, when, in 1876, it was proposed to appoint a professor of History and Political Science, gave their assent to such appointment on the condition that the professor so appointed should be charged with the duty of giving instruction on Political Economy.”
The report agreed with Burgess’s view that his value lay in the other branches in which he had specialized. Consequently, he should have an assistant to handle political economy. The report went on to point out that there was available for this post a former student of Burgess’s, a man who had for the “past two years been pursuing a course of instruction in Political Economy under the ablest teachers of this Science in Germany.” Accordingly, Richmond Mayo-Smith was, at the same Trustees’ meeting, appointed as an instructor to assist the Professor of History and Political Science. This was the first time in the College’s history that an appointment depended primarily on the candidate’s qualifications in political economy. Two years later he was promoted to Adjunct Professor of History, Political Science and International Law, and in 1883, at the age of twenty-seven, he obtained a full professorship. It is interesting that among the grounds given for his promotion was the fact that he had spent “three entire summers, in recent years, in study with his old instructors at Heidelberg and Berlin.” At first, half his teaching time was devoted to English constitutional history, which he taught until 1890. From the very beginning, however, he tripled the time allotted to the instruction in political economy. To the two-hour, one-semester course required of all juniors he added an elective, two-hour, one-year course for seniors. He gave the juniors “systematic work” with the aid of the familiar elementary textbooks of Fawcett or Rogers and the use of quizzes. For the seniors, however, he used the more sophisticated and advanced Principles of Political Economy of John Stuart Mill, the great codifier of classical economics.* Mayo-Smith supplemented it with lectures on “practical economics” and with “statistical and documentary works” that reflected the controversies over the tariff, bimetallism, greenbacks, the stir over Irish land reform, and Henry George’s single tax. His lecture topics included land tenure in Europe, monetary systems of Europe and America, and the financial history of the United States.
*The term “political economy” was then generally used in official records, but “economics” was often used, certainly as early as 1878. The printed form of the student’s periodical report card sent to the parent, lists “economics.” (See the report entry November 27, 1878, on E.R.A. Seligman, in Seligman Papers.)
Source: Joseph Dorfman, Chapter 9, “The Department of Economics” in A History of the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), pp. 169-172.
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Burgess Recounts Ruggles’ Role in the Establishment of the School of Political Science
In the early autumn of 1875 I received from Professor Theodore W. Dwight, warden of Columbia Law School in New York City, a communication to the effect that the trustees of Columbia College had voted to invite me to deliver a course of lectures on political science to the students of the Law School during the following winter and had authorized him to transmit the invitation to me and to request from me an early reply. This was the second or third time that they had made this offer to me. I had declined it on account of lack of time to prepare the course, but now that I was to have no graduate students in the year 1875-76, I accepted the call and occupied all of my surplus time and energy during the autumn of 1875 in constructing the desired lectures. The month of January, 1876, was employed in the delivery of the same. The audiences were very large, consisting of the trustees of the college, members of the faculty, and the students of the Law School.
It was on the occasion of the first lecture that I made the acquaintance of Mr. Samuel B. Ruggles, the chairman of the committee of the trustees on the Law School, one of the most extraordinary men whom it has ever been my privilege to know. Mr. Hamilton Fish once said to me: “Ruggles can throw off more brilliant and pregnant ideas in a given moment than any man I ever saw.” He was then already seventy-five years of age and I but thirty-one, but from the first moment of our meeting we flew together like steel and magnet. He came to every lecture, and at the end of the course he said to me, “You are the man we have been looking for ever since Lieber’s death. You must come to Columbia.”…
… The months of February, March, April, and May of the year 1876 were among the most distressing of my life. Mr. Ruggles was continually writing and urging me to give my consent to his bringing my name before the trustees of Columbia College for election to a chair in that institution. Professor Dwight and President Barnard were doing likewise, and I was inventing all sorts of subterfuges for delay. At last, on the first Monday of May, 1876, the trustees, on recommendation of the committee of which Mr. Ruggles was chairman, backed by the approval of Professor Dwight and President Barnard, unanimously elected me professor of history, political science, and international law, without my having given any assurance of accepting the office. The action of the trustees was so cordial and complimentary that I cannot refrain from transcribing the resolution in the language of their own records. It ran as follows:
At a meeting of the Trustees of Columbia College of the City of New York on Monday, May 1st, 1876, it was
RESOLVED, that during the pleasure of the Trustees the salary of the Professor of History, Political Science and International Law shall be. . . . The Board then proceeded to an election for Professor and on counting the ballots Professor John W. Burgess was found to be unanimously elected.
Whereupon it was
RESOLVED, that Professor John W. Burgess be appointed Professor of History, Political Science and International Law to hold his office during the pleasure of the Trustees.
Notwithstanding this unanimous and hearty invitation, I still hesitated. Towards the end of the month of May I received a letter from Mr. Ruggles and also one from President Barnard urging me to send my answer before the meeting of the trustees on the first Monday of June following. At the last moment, with a heavy heart and many misgivings, I accepted the call….
…With the assistance of Mayo-Smith alone, I had worked on thus through the four years from 1876 to 1880, both in the School of Arts and in the School of Law, with some moderate measure of success, and had learned the obstacles to greater success and had felt the way towards it. My first plan was to have a third year added to the curriculum of the School of Law and expand the courses in political science and public law in the law curriculum. But Professor Dwight was distinctly opposed to this as impairing the practical nature of the law instruction according to his view. The peculiar relation of the Law School to the college at that time, which I have already stated, made his opposition to any project for change therein fatal to the undertaking. In the School of Arts all the time had been assigned to the courses in history and political economy which could be afforded in the stiff, required program of studies then obtaining in this school. No relief could be found there.
There was only one other way out of the cramping, unbearable situation, and that was to found a new faculty and a new school for the study, teaching, and development of the historical, political, economic, and social sciences. This was so progressive an idea that I did not dare to broach it for a long time to anybody. I had learned from experience with the vanity of man, to say nothing of that of woman, that the way to succeed in realizing any idea when it must be done through the will of another or others is to make the person or persons in the controlling position think that the idea emanates from him or them. This is not always an easy thing to do. It requires a good deal of skill in psychology to construct approaches through suggestion to the customary obstinacy and obstructiveness of American character. I felt almost instinctively that the man to whom I should turn was Mr. Ruggles. On the evening of the fifth of April, 1880, I went by appointment to his house, then 24 Union Square, for an interview with him. I found two other men with him, his nephew Mr. Robert N. Toppan and Mr. Toppan’s bosom friend John Durand, the American translator of the works of the French author Taine. At first I thought that their presence would prevent me from saying anything to Mr. Ruggles on the subject which I had been for months revolving in mind. But to my surprise and delight I found that Mr. Ruggles had asked them to come in for the purpose of talking with me on points nearly related to my intended proposition. Toppan had taken great interest in my work in the Law School from the beginning and had founded and endowed an annual prize for the best work in public law and political science, and Durand had just returned from Paris and had been telling Toppan about a project in which some of their French friends were participants. Mr. Ruggles immediately opened the conversation and asked me how things were going in my department. I told him and his visitors very frankly of the obstacles in the way of developing these studies in manner and degree as I thought required in a great republic like ours.
They all listened with great attention and evident interest, and when I finally paused in my account of the situation, Mr. Ruggles spoke up quickly and, as was his habit, with apparent impatience, and said: “Well, I do not see but we shall have to found a school for the political sciences separate from both the School of Arts and the School of Law.” At this my heart leaped with gladness into my throat, and it was with a great effort that I restrained myself from saying, “That is the idea I have been for some time entertaining.” I was happily, however, able to modify this into the reply that this would presumably solve the question, but that I knew of no precedent, except perhaps the faculty of “Cameralwissenschaften,” as it was called, of the German Imperial University at Strasbourg very recently founded. At this Mr. Durand said that he had just returned from Paris and while there had by his friend Taine been introduced to one Émile Boutmy, who, with such publicists as Casimir-Périer and Ribot and several others had just founded in Paris the École libre des sciences politiques and had already put it into successful operation. Mr. Ruggles suggested that I draw up a plan for a separate faculty and school of political science in Columbia College and put it into his hands and go myself immediately to Paris, enter the École libre as a student and study carefully its scheme and methods. This suggestion was seconded by both Mr. Toppan and Mr. Durand.
To me it promised the fulfillment of the hope which had been my life’s guide for more than fifteen years. So soon as proper courtesy would allow, I took my leave and hastened home to begin the draft of the proposed new development and to prepare for my journey to Paris. I did not sleep any that night. I did not even retire to rest, but spent the entire night in my study formulating my project. The next morning I summoned Richmond Mayo-Smith to my house and related to him the results of the conference at Mr. Ruggles’s house on the evening before. He, also, was overjoyed at the turn things had so suddenly taken. We talked over the general outline of the plan which I had drawn up and made a few modifications in it, and he agreed to join me in Paris so soon as his duties at the college would allow. I handed the plan to Mr. Ruggles after a few days of reflection upon it, and he assumed the burden of laying it before the trustees and of securing leave of absence for both Professor Mayo-Smith and myself in order that we might have as full an opportunity as possible to investigate the organization and operation of the École libre in Paris….
…At the meeting of the trustees of the college on the first Monday in May, 1880, Mr. Ruggles secured leave of absence for me to go immediately to Paris for the purpose above mentioned, and for Professor Mayo-Smith to go at the end of the month, and laid the plan for the new faculty and School of Political Science before them. This plan was in outline as follows:
A faculty of Political Science should be created, composed of all professors and adjunct and associate professors already giving instruction in history, economics, public law, and political science to the senior class in the School of Arts and the classes of the School of Law and of such other officers of these grades as might be called to chairs in the new faculty.
The plan provided a program of studies in history, economics, public law, and political philosophy, extending over a period of three years, and for a degree of Ph.B. or A.B. to be conferred upon students completing successfully the curriculum of the first year and of Ph.D. to be conferred upon students completing successfully the curricula of the three years and presenting an approved thesis.
The plan provided, further, that members of the senior class of the School of Arts of Columbia College might elect the curriculum of the first year in the School of Political Science and have it take the place of the senior curriculum in the School of Arts and that members of the School of Law who had advanced successfully to the end of the junior year in any college of equal standing with Columbia might enter the School of Political Science as fully qualified candidates for the degrees conferred by recommendation of the faculty of that school.
It provided, finally, that all “persons, of the male sex, having successfully completed the curricula of the first three years of any American college having the same standing as the School of Arts of Columbia College, were qualified to enter the proposed School as candidates for the degrees conferred upon recommendation by the Faculty of the School.”
Such was, in brief, an outline of the project which Mr. Ruggles laid before the trustees of the college at their regular meeting on the first Monday of May, 1880. The trustees referred the proposition to a committee for examination, report, and recommendation at their meeting to be held on the first Monday of the following June, and also granted leave of absence to Professor Mayo-Smith and myself to go to Paris…
…[In Paris] on Tuesday morning after the first Monday of June, I was awakened by a loud knock on the door of my sleeping room about five o’clock. On going to the door, an American cablegram was handed me. It read: “Thank God, the university is born. Go ahead.” It was signed “Samuel B. Ruggles.” This meant that the trustees of Columbia College had, on the day before, adopted the plan for founding the School of Political Science in the college and had authorized me to invite Edmund Munroe Smith, then student in Berlin, and Clifford R. Bateman, then student in Heidelberg, to join Mayo-Smith and myself in forming the new faculty and putting the new school into operation at the beginning of the academic year 1880-81, in the following October.
Resolution of the Columbia College Trustees to Establish a School of Political Science
§. 4. SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE.
June 7th, 1880.
Resolved, That there be established to go into operation at the opening of the academic year next ensuing, a school designed to prepare young men for the duties of public life to be entitled a School of Political Science, having a definitely prescribed curriculum of study extending over a period of three years and embracing the History of Philosophy, the History of the Literature of Political Sciences, the General Constitutional History of Europe, the Special Constitutional History of England and the United States, the Roman Law and the jurisprudence of existing codes derived therefrom, the Comparative Constitutional Law of European States and of the United States, the Comparative Constitutional Law of the different States of the American Union, the History of Diplomacy, International Law, Systems of Administrations, State and National, of the United States, Comparison of American, and European Systems of Administration, Political Economy and Statistics.
Resolved, That the qualifications required of the candidate for admission to this School, shall be that he shall have successfully pursued a course of undergraduate study in this College or in some other, maintaining an equivalent curriculum to the close of the Junior year.
Resolved, That the students of the School, who shall satisfactorily complete the studies of the first year, shall be entitled on examination and the recommendation of the Faculty to receive the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, and those who complete the entire course of three years, shall on similar examination and recommendation, be entitled to receive the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Resolved, That the annual tuition fee required of students of this School shall be one hundred and fifty dollars ($150).
Resolved, That Edmund Munroe Smith be appointed Lecturer on Roman Law in the School of Political Science, to enter upon his duties on the first day of October next, and to hold office for one year, or during the pleasure of the Board, at a compensation of fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500) per annum.
Resolved, That Clifford Rush Bateman be appointed Lecturer on Administrative Law and Government in the School of Political Science, to enter upon duty on the first day of October, 1881, and to serve for the term of one year, or during the pleasure of the Board, at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500) per annum.
Image Source: Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, Vol. 5, Pickering-Sumter (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1888), p. 344.
Every so often I make an effort to track down students whose names have been recorded in course lists. I do this in part to hone my genealogical skills but primarily to obtain a broader sense of the population obtaining advanced training in economics beyond the exclusive society of those who ultimately clear all the hurdles in order to be awarded the Ph.D. degree. This post began with a simple list of the participants in Professor Edwin R.A. Seligman’s seminar in political economy and finance at Columbia University in 1901-02 published in the annual presidential report for that year (p. 154).
John L. Tildsley’s seminar topic was “Economic Aspects of Colonial Expansion.” I began to dig into finding out more about this Tildsley fellow, who was completely unknown to me other than for the distinction of having attended a graduate course in economics at Columbia but never having received an economics Ph.D. from the university.
It turns out that this B.A. and M.A. graduate from Princeton had indeed already been awarded a doctorate in economics from the Friedrichs Universität Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), renamed the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in 1933, before he took any coursework at Columbia. A link to his German language doctoral dissertation on the Chartist movement is provided below.
I also found out that John Lee Tildsley went on to a distinguished if controversial career [e.g., he had no qualms about firing teachers for expressing radical opinions in the classroom] in the top tier of educational administration for the public high-schools in New York City. No less a critical writer than Upton Sinclair aimed his words at Tildsley.
For the purposes of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror John L. Tildsley is of particular interest as someone who had done much to introduce economics into the curriculum of New York City public schools.
Following data on his life culled from Who’s Who in America and New York Times articles on the occasions of his retirement and death, I have included his March 1919 essay dedicated to economics and the economics teacher in New York City high schools.
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Life and Career
of John Lee Tildsley
from Who’s Who in America, 1934
John Lee Tildsley, educator
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mar. 13, 1867;
Son of John and Elizabeth (Withington) Tidsley;
Married Bertha Alice Watters, of New York City, June 24, 1896;
Children—Jane, John Lee, Margaret, Kathleen (deceased).
B.A., Princeton, 1893 [Classmate of A. Piatt Andrew], M.A. 1894;
Boudinot fellow in history, Princeton, 1893-94;
Teacher Greek and history, Lawrenceville (New Jersey) School, 1894-96;
Studied Universities of Halle and Berlin, 1896-98, Ph.D., Halle, 1898;
Teacher of history, Morris High School, New York City, 1898-1902;
Studied economics, Columbia, 1902;
Head of dept. of economics, High School of Commerce, 1902-08;
Principal of DeWitt Clinton High School, 1908-14;
Principal of High School of Commerce, 1914-16;
Associate Superintendent, Oct. 1916-July 1920;
District Superintendent, July 1920, City of New York.
Formulated and introduced into public schools of New York City, courses in economics and civics for secondary grades. Speaker and writer on teaching and problems of school administration.
Dr. John L. Tildsley, Associate Superintendent of Schools, retired on Sept. 1, 1937.
One of Dr. Tildsley’s pet ideas has been the formation of special schools for bright pupils. As a result of his efforts two such schools are to be established in this city, the first to be opened next February in Brooklyn.
‘This new school will develop independent habits of work on the part of the superior student,’ he has explained. ‘Special emphasis will be placed upon the development of social-mindedness.’
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New York Times, November 22, 1948
Dr. John L. Tildsley died November 21, 1948 in St. Luke’s Hospital, New York, N.Y.
In 1920, having fallen out of the graces of Mayor John F. Hylan because of a political speech, he was denied a second term as associate superintendent.
At the urging of many admirers, he was assigned to the position of assistant superintendent which he held until the Fusion Board of Education restored him to his former rank in the spring of 1937.
When Dr. Tildsley was demoted he refused to be silenced, constantly championing controversial causes. He attacked the ‘frontier thinkers’ of Teachers College, and charged that under the existing high school set up much waste resulted to the city and to the pupil.
He urged the development of ‘nonconformist’ pupils, and angered patriotic organizations by suggesting that patriotic songs and holidays have little value in the schools.
Born in Pittsburgh of British parents, Dr. Tildsley received his early education in schools in Lockport, N.Y., and at the Mount Hermon School. Instead of becoming a minister, as he originally had planned, he decided to study at Princeton University, where Woodrow Wilson was one of his instructors for three years.
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Tildsley became a target of Upton Sinclair’s critical pen for his campaign to regulate teachers’ opinions expressed in school
HISS TILDSLEY FOR PRAISE OF GERMANS School Superintendent Aroused Criticism by Talk in Ascension Parish House. LIKES TEUTON DISCIPLINE When He Said Their Military Success Was a Credit to Them the Trouble Began.
The New York Times, December 10, 1917.
Dr. John L. Tildsley, Associate Superintendent of Schools in charge of high schools, whose investigation of the opinions of the teachers at the De Witt Clinton High School resulted in the suspension and trial of three of them and in the transfer of six others, was hissed last night in the parish house of the Church of the Ascension, Fifth Avenue and Eleventh Street, when he said that the success of the Germans in military affairs was a credit to them rather than a discredit, and that their “good qualities” ought not to be ignored even if “they happen to be our enemies.”
Dr. Tildsley was also denounced as a “Prussian by instinct and education,” because of his laudation of family life in Germany and because he asserted that it was desirable to have in this country more obedience instinctively to authority as exemplified by the obedience of the German child to its father. The denouncer was Adolph Benet, a lawyer, who said that Dr. Tildsley’s sojourn in Germany, where he studied at the University of Halle, caused him to misunderstand Germany.
“There is one thing that is bad in Germany,” declared Mr Benet. “That thing is unqualified and instinctive respect for authority. And Dr. Tildsley, after living in Germany and observing the country, would come here and try to introduce here the worst part of the whole German system. I say Dr. Tildsley is a Prussian by instinct and a Prussian by education. Why did he not say these things two months ago when many were denouncing a Judge who is now Mayor-elect?”
The stormy part of the evening took place in the parish house, where the audience repaired to ask questions after Dr. Tildsley delivered an address in the church on “Regulation of Opinion in the Schools.” The hissing of the speaker occurred during his explanation of his ideas on obedience. He explained the system of instinctive obedience to authority which marks all Germans, and then said: “German family life is magnificent, and we ought to emulate it.” Here the hissing began. A minute later it began again and grew in volume for about minute, when it stopped.
In reply to another question relating to his charges against teachers, Dr. Tildslev. said that teachers have too much protection in the schools, and that not a single high school teacher in nineteen years has been brought up on charges. In this connection he declared that when a teacher is brought up on charges the Board of Education is handicapped in the handling of the case because must accept such a lawyer as it gets from the Corporation Counsel while the teacher may get the cleverest lawyer that money can buy. This was taken by the high school teacher in the audience to mean that Dr. Tildsley was dissatisfied with handling of the trial against the three teachers by the Corporation Counsel.
In his formal address Dr. Tildsley said that the teachers who were tried and those who were transferred were not accused of disloyalty. Later. in the parish house. he said he believed they were all internationalists and doubted whether a teacher who had the spirit of internationalism had the spirit necessary to teach high school students.
He said the teachers he investigated held that unrestricted expression of opinion was the best means of developing good citizenship. With this point of view he said, he and others differed. He quoted one teacher as being a believer in Bertrand Russell and he read from one of Russell’s works a passage which said in substance that it did not matter what the teacher said but what he felt and that it was what he felt that reached the consciousness of the pupils. It was Dr. Tildsley’s belief that the opinions which the teachers hold are accepted by the pupils, even if they if they were unexpressed. Dr. Tildsley read the letter of Hyman Herman, the sixteen-year-old pupil whose composition was the basis for a charge against Samuel Schmalhauser one of the suspended teachers. In this letter President Wilson was denounced as a “murderer.” Dr. Tildsley said the teacher was in in no way responsible for the letter.
While the speaker said that the teachers loyal he investigated were not disloyal and declared their convictions were honest, he also said that though the nation had gone to war they were unable to subscribe to the decision of the majority. He divided the radical group among the teachers into three classes, those who believe in absolute and unrestrained expression by the students, those who are opposed to the war and do not believe in it, and a third class, born in Germany, , who cannot be blamed for feeling as they do about Germany. The last mentioned he declared, must not allow any of their feelings to escape into their teaching. He gave a clean bill oi health as to loyalty to all the teachers in the De Witt Clinton High School.
“A teacher is not an ordinary citizen who has the right to express his opinions freely,” continued Dr. Tildsley. “Every teacher always teaches himself, and if he has not the right ideas toward the Government he has no right to accept payment from the taxpayers. We make no claim that any of these teachers were consciously disloyal, but if because of this belief in unrestricted utterance they spread disloyalty they are not persons to be intrusted with the teaching of citizenship to students.”
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From the New York Times, November 5, 1918:
…the dismissal of Thomas Mufson, A. Henry Schneer, and Samuel D. Schmalhausen in the De Witt Clinton High School was upheld by Acting New York Commissioner of Education E. Thomas Finegan.
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ECONOMICS AND THE TEACHER OF ECONOMICS IN THE NEW YORK CITY HIGH SCHOOLS
John L. Tildsley,
Associate Superintendent in Charge of High Schools.
[March 1919]
Every student graduated in June, 1920 and thereafter from the general course of the high schools of New York City, must have had a course in economics of not less than five periods a week for one-half year. This requirement, recently adopted by the Board of Superintendents, is one of the changes which may be charged directly to the clearer vision of our educational needs which the war has brought us. Many of us have long believed that economics is an essential element in the curriculum of the public high school, whose fundamental aim is to train the young to play their part in an environment whose ruling forces are preeminently industrial and commercial. But it has required the revelation of the dangers inherent in our untrained citizenship to cause us to force a place for the upwelcome intruder among the college preparatory subjects whose vested rights are based on immemorial possession of the field of secondary education.
One of the chief aims of the Board of Superintendents in establishing this new requirement is, without doubt, to give high school students a specialized training which shall bring to them some understanding of the forces economic and political which so largely determine their happiness and general well being, to the end that these students shall discharge more intelligently their duties as citizens in a democracy, and shall develop their productive capacity to the increase of their own well being and to the resulting advancement of the common good. A further reason for introducing economics is the belief that the boys and girls who have had this training will be better able to analyze the various remedies proposed for the evils of our social organization and to detect the iallacies which are so often put forth as measures of reform. These students should find in such training an antidote to the movements which have as their aim the over throw of institutions which the experience of our race has evolved through the centuries.
Because of this realization that economics deals not only with the conduct of business enterprises but also with political institutions and with movements for social amelioration, it is apt to enroll among its teachers the enthusiastic social reformer whose sympathies are all-embracing, who readily becomes a propagandist for his or her pet project of reform, and who finds it impossible to resist the temptation to enroll converts among the trusting students of his or her classes. It is because of this conception of the nature of economics teaching in our educational program that the new subject has been some what despised by the teachers of the sterner disciplinary subjects.
With full sympathy with the vocational aim of economics, I would offer as its chief claim for a place in our high school curriculum, that it is essentially a disciplinary subject, that it can be taught and should be taught so as to yield a training of the highest order, somewhat different in its processes, but no less searching in its demands upon the students, than mathematics or physical science.
It is a subject, therefore, to be taught by the man with the keenly analytical mind, by the man who can detect the untruth and train pupils to detect the untruth in the major premise, by the man who from tested premises can proceed to a valid conclusion. Economics is essentially applied logic rather than a confused program of social reform, as too many of its advocates have led the layman to believe.
Economics in the past has been for the most part a college and university subject. Consequently the well-trained student of economics has found his work in the college, in government service, on newspaper or magazine, and, in ever-increasing numbers, in bank ing and finance. Practically none has sought to find a career for himself in secondary work.
With full knowledge of this fact, we have added economics to the high school curriculum in the hope that ultimately the demand will create a supply of teachers thoroughly trained in economic theory before they begin their teaching. Meanwhile, we confidently expect that men thoroughly trained in other subjects which require a high degree of analysis and synthesis, will come to the rescue as they see the need. Applying the knowledge of scientific method which they possess to the new subject matter, these teachers may speedily acquire that mastery of principles which is necessary for the effective teaching of economics.
In my own experience, as I sought for economics teachers in the High School of Commerce, I found them among the teachers of mathematics and of biology. Certain of these teachers, who had an interest in business and public affairs and who were masters of scientific methods, became in the course of a single term expert teachers of economics. They even preferred the new subject to the old, because of the greater interest manifested by the students in this subject which never fails to enlist the enthusiastic interest of students when properly taught.
I trust, therefore, that some of our teachers who enjoy close, accurate thinking will take up some economic text, such as Taussig, Seligman, Seager, Carver, or Marshall, and, having read this, will follow it up with other texts on the specific fields of economics to which they find themselves attracted. Very soon, I believe, such teachers, in view of the urgent need for teachers of economics, will realize the very great service they can render our schools by utilizing their knowledge of boys and girls, their mastery of method, their awakened interest in economics and social phenomena, in training these boys and girls in this most vital subject.
As a text book for classroom use, I recommend a systematic book, such as Bullock’s Introduction to [the Study of] Economics, which lays the emphasis on principles rather than on descriptions of industrial processes or on the operation of social agencies. There are several books which are more interestingly written, but in the hands of most teachers they will lead to a descriptive treatment of industry and social institutions, to discussions for which the students are not qualified because of their ignorance of and want of drill in economic principles.
Our students need to be trained in economic theory before they attempt to discuss measures of social reform. They need to grasp the meaning of utility, value, price, before they take up the study of industrial processes. It is because of hazy conception of these primary elements that we fall so readily into error. The key to economic thinking lies in a clear understanding of the terms margin and marginal. The boy who has digested the concept “marginal utility” is already on the way to becoming a student of economics. Until he has arrived at an understanding of the nature of value, he is hardly ready to discuss socialism, wage theories, the single tax or other like themes.
The temptation for the untrained or inexperienced teacher is to begin with the study of actual business, partly as a means of interesting the student by causing him to feel that he is dealing with practical life, partly because he conceives business as a laboratory and desires as a scientist to employ the inductive method. The study of the factory or store takes the place of the study of the crayfish. The analogy does not hold. Induction in economics is the method of discovery, it is not the method of teaching, especially of secondary teaching. The method is deductive. The teacher must assume that certain great principles have been shown to be valid. He should drill on these principles and their application till the pupil has mastered them.
Let no one believe that this means a dull grind. Even such a subject as marginal utility can be made interesting to every student. It is altogether a matter of method. The concept must be presented from a dozen different angles. There must be no lecturing, no mere hearing of recitations. The pupil must not be assigned a few pages or paragraphs in the book and then left to work out his salvation. The real teaching must be done in the recitation period, with the teacher at the blackboard with a piece of chalk in his hand, ready to answer all questions and with a dozen illustrations at his command with which to drive home the principle, illustrations with which the pupils are thoroughly familiar because taken from the daily occurrences about them. For example, to explain the principle that the value of any commodity is determined by its marginal utility and that its marginal utility is the lowest use to which any commodity must be put in order to exhaust its supply, take the teacher’s desk as the illustration. Elicit from the pupils the different uses to which that desk may be put, and write the list as it is given on the blackboard. Some boy will remark that the desk could be used for firewood and will ask why the value of the desk is not determined by its utility as firewood; then comes the query, will not the supply of desks be exhausted before it is necessary to use them as firewood? As a result of this give and take process, the boys, in one recitation, may grasp this principle which is the very keystone of our modern economics.
John Bates Clark, our foremost theorist, once said to me that there is no principle in economics so difficult that it cannot be understood by a ten year old child if it is properly taught. But how often it is not properly taught! Teaching economics is like kneading bread. The teacher must turn over these principles again and again until they are kneaded into the boy so thoroughly that they have become a part of his mind stuff. When he has once had kneaded into him the concepts of the margin, marginal utility, the marginal producer, the marginal land, the marginal unit of capital, the marginal laborer, he can move fearlessly forward to the conquest of the most involved propositions of actual business. In business, in government, in all the multitudinous activities of life, we come to grief because our concepts are not clearly defined. Because of deficient analysis, we accept wrong premises and because of muddy reasoning, we allow factors to enter into the conclusion which were not in the premises. If economics be taught with the same degree of analysis of conditions, with the same accuracy in checking the reasoning as in geometry, the teacher will find himself surprised by the ability of the students to solve a most difficult problem in the incidence of taxation or one in the operations of foreign exchange. As a means of testing whether the student has gained a clear concept, problem questions should be assigned at the close of every discussion, to be answered at home in writing by the pupil, and written tests should be given at least once a week. Purely oral work makes possible much confusion of thought on the part of the pupil without the knowledge of the teacher. The slovenly thinking which may thus become a habit will produce a wrongly-trained citizen more dangerous than one who has had no training in economics at all. The problems which this training fits the student to solve are precisely the kind of problems that every businessman is called upon to face every day of his life. For example, the man who keeps the country store at Marlborough or Milton on the Hudson will soon need to decide how large a stock of goods he will order for the fall trade. This may seem to be a simple problem and yet he needs all his experience to enable him to analyze the problem of demand for his goods. This involves the effect of the mild weather on the vines and peach trees, the possibility of his customers again securing boys and girls from New York to pick the crops, the matter of freight rates on fruit, the buying capacity of the people of New York which, in turn, involves a knowledge of conditions in many industries. After he has considered all of these elements, he has come to a conclusion as to demand for his goods, but he has not yet touched the question whether the cost of his goods is to be higher or lower before September next. Do we wonder that failures are so common when we realize that few of our people, even our college graduates, are trained in accurate observation, keen analysis, rigid reasoning? The development of these powers in his pupils should be the fundamental aim of every teacher of economics this coming year. If this aim should be realized for every high school pupil in this country, we should not need to fear for the future of our city, our state, our nation. Inefficient government is due chiefly to the failure of our people to realize the connection between incompetent or dishonest officials and the well-being of the individual. Dangerous movements like the I. W. W. and Bolshevism are due to slovenly thinking, poor analysis of conditions by both the members of these organizations and those responsible for the conditions which breed these dangerous movements. Marxian socialism is based on premises which will not bear analysis, namely, the Marxian theory of value, which is not evolved from experience, the resulting expropriation theory, which depends upon this false theory of value, and the inevitable class struggle and the ultimate triumph of the proletariat, an unwarranted conclusion from invalid premises.
I have indicated that the primary aim of the Board of Superintendents in making economics a required subject was vocational in character. Through the medium of this subject it seeks to train good citizens. I trust I have made clear that this vocational aim can be best realized by making all aims subsidiary to the disciplinary aim; that we should, therefore, make the recitation periods in this subject exercises in exact analysis and rigid reasoning. If our schools can produce a generation of students with trained intelligence, students who can see straight, and think straight on economic data, we need not fear the attacks on our cherished institutions of the newcomers from lands where they have not been permitted to be trained and where the nursing of grievances has so stimulated the emotional nature as to render the dispassionate analysis of industrial movements and civil activities almost an impossibility.
Effective teaching in economics brings to the teacher an immediate reward, for the efficient teacher of economics must keep in touch not only with the changes in economic theory but with the movements in industry and finance, with problems of labor, problems of administration, local and national, with the vast field of legislation, and these not only in America, but in Asia, Australia, South America and Europe as well. Every newspaper, every periodical yields him material for his classroom. Almost every man he meets may be made to contribute to his work. The boundaries of his subject are ever widening. There is, moreover, no need of the stultifying repetition of subject matter, for there is no end to the material for the elucidation of economic principles. Nor is the teacher of economics in the high school compelled to create in his pupils an interest in the subject. for every New York boy is an economist in embryo. Questions of cost, price, wages, profits, labor, capital, are already the subjects of daily discussion.
The complaint so often heard that the teacher is academic, that he is removed from the world of practical affairs, and has little touch with the man in the street, cannot be made of the teachers of economics, who is vitally interested in his teaching. The more he studies his subject, the more he becomes a citizen of the world with an ever-deepening interest in all kinds of men and in all that pertains to man, the broader becomes his sympathies, the wider his vision.
The New York high schools offer great opportunities for men and women who, whether trained students of economics or not, are students of life. Here they may serve the state as effectively as the soldier in the field. Here they may train the young for lasting usefulness to themselves and to the city, while at the same time they are broadening their interests, expanding their vision and growing in intellectual vigor under, the compulsion of keeping pace with the demands of a subject which reflects as a mirror the changing needs and desires of men. The teaching of economics in high schools demands our strongest teachers. There is no place for the man who has finished his growth, who cannot change to meet changed conditions; nor is there place for the man who loves change just because it is change. The teacher of economics in the New York City high schools should be a co-worker with all those who seek to preserve and to develop those institutions, economic and civic, which have stood the test and gained the approval of the wise among us through the years. He should be a man who is fundamentally an optimist, constructive in his outlook on life, not destructive. If his motto be, “All’s wrong with the world,” there should be no place for him as a teacher of economics in a high school in New York City or in any other American city.
Economics is closely allied with the study of civics or government. In every school where there is not a full program in economics, the teacher of economics should also teach the civics. With the great increase in our civics work, there should be established in each school a department of economics and civics. For each of these subjects a license is being issued and separate examinations are being held. For the new department first assistants may be appointed and will be appointed.
May we not, therefore, confidently expect that some of our strongest teachers shall prepare themselves for this most interesting and vital work which will be given in every high school beginning September next?
Image Source: Photo of Dr. John L. Tildsley in “Modern Girls Not All Wild; Here is Proof” [Construction of a new building to house Girls’ Commercial High on Classon Avenue, near Union Street] Sunday News,Brooklyn Section, p. B-15.
The following paragraphs come from Alvin S. Johnson’s 1952 autobiography that is filled with many such nuggets of fact and context that are relevant for the work of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. The institutional histories from which departments of economics have emerged provide some of the initial conditions for the evolution of organized economics education. Like Johns Hopkins and unlike Harvard and Chicago, Columbia University economics was to a large part made in Germany.
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[p. 164] …Munroe Smith gave me detail after detail of the history of the faculty. Dean Burgess, as a cavalry officer in the Civil War, had had much time for reflection on the stupendous folly of a war in which citizens laid waste other citizens’ country and slaughtered each other without ill will. All the issues, Burgess believed, could have been compromised if the lawyers who controlled Congress and the state legislatures had been trained in history, political science, and public law. As soon as he was discharged from the army, after Appomattox, he set out for Germany to study the political sciences. He spent several years at different universities, forming friendships with the most famous professors and imbuing himself thoroughly with the spirit of German scholarship. On his return he accepted an appointment in history at Columbia College, then a pleasant young gentlemen’s finishing school. He was permitted to offer courses in public law. Although these could not be counted for credit toward the A.B., many of the ablest students were drawn to his lectures.
From among his students he picked out four and enlisted them in a project for transforming Columbia College into a university. The four were Nicholas Murray Butler, E. R. A. Seligman, Frank Goodnow, and Munroe Smith. They were to proceed to Germany to get their doctorates. Butler was to study philosophy and education; Seligman, economics; Goodnow, administration; Munroe Smith, Roman law. The young men executed Burgess’s command like good soldiers and in due time returned to offer non-credit courses at Columbia College.
Burgess’s next move was to turn his group into a graduate faculty. Such a faculty had been set up at Johns Hopkins, the first in America, and commanded nationwide interest among educators. Burgess argued with President Frederick Barnard on the need of a graduate school in the greatest city of the country. After some years the Board of Trustees authorized in 1886 the setting up of a graduate School of Political Science, manned by Burgess and his disciples, now advanced to professorial rank.
Butler early stepped aside to develop courses he later organized into Teachers College. Burgess and his three younger colleagues watched for opportunities to enlist additional abilities: William A. Dunning in political theory, Herbert L. Osgood in American history, John Bassett Moore in international law, John Bates Clark in [p. 165] economics Franklin Giddingsin sociology. This process of expansion was going on energetically while I was on the faculty; Henry R. Seager and Henry L. Moore were enlisted for the economics department, Edward T. Devine and Samuel McCune Lindsay for sociology, James Harvey Robinson and later Charles A. Beard for history. In the meantime other graduate courses were springing up throughout the institution. The towering structure of Columbia University had risen up out of Burgess’s small bottle.
Still in my time the controlling nucleus of our faculty consisted of Burgess, Seligman, Goodnow, and Munroe Smith. They all knew American colonial history well and had followed the step-by-step evolution of Massachusetts Bay from a settlement governed by a chartered company in England to a free self-governing community, germ of American liberty. Step by step Burgess and his lieutenants built up the liberties of the School of Political Science. They got the Board of Trustees to accept the principle of the absolute freedom of the scholar to pursue the truth as he sees it, whatever the consequences; the principle of absolute equality of the faculty members; the principle that no scholar might be added to the faculty without the unanimous consent of the faculty. The principle was established that the president and trustees could intervene in the affairs of the faculty only through the power of the purse.
President Seth Low, regarding himself justly as a recognized authority on administration, sought admission to the meetings of the faculty. He was turned down. A university president could not conduct himself as an equal among equals. When Nicholas Murray Butler became president he thought it would be a good idea for him to sit in with the faculty. After all, he had been one of Burgess’s first panel. We voted the proposition down, unanimously.
Since my time the faculty has grown in numbers and its relations with other departments of the university have become closer. But the spirit of liberty and equality, established by Burgess and his lieutenants, still lives on at Columbia and has overflowed into the universities of America. From time to time a board of trustees steps outside its moral sphere and undertakes to purge and discipline the faculty. But established liberties stricken down are bound to rise again.
Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952.
ImageSource: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Columbia College, Madison Ave., New York, N.Y” [Architect: C. C. Haight] The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1886-09-04. Image of the Mid-town Campus from The American Architect and Building News, September 4, 1886. (cf. https://www.wikicu.com/Midtown_campus)
"He had a catholic mind and found some good in every author, no matter how crackbrained."
Alvin Saunders Johnson’s 1952 autobiography, A Pioneer’s Progress, provides us a treasure chest of granular detail regarding his academic and life experiences. This co-founder of the New School for Social Research in New York City went on to live another 19 years after publishing his autobiography to reach the age of 96.
Economics in the Rear-View Mirror will clip personal and departmental remembrances of Johnson’s own economics training and teaching days. This post shares a transcription of his impressions of Edwin R. A. Seligman.
Previously posted Johnson observations: John W. Burgess, Franklin H. Giddings.
[p. 123] Edwin R. A. Seligman was head of the Department of Economics.
He was a strikingly handsome figure, with his thick dark beard, wavy in structure, with mahogany overtones. We called it an ambrosial beard; I doubt great Zeus had a handsomer.
No economist living had read so widely in the literature of the social sciences as Seligman. He had a catholic mind and found some good in every author, no matter how crackbrained. A man of large income, he was the foremost academic advocate of progressive income and inheritance taxes at a time when all regular economists abominated the idea of the income tax as a Populist attack on the wealthy and cultured classes. He was a staunch supporter of trade unionism and government regulation of railway rates. It was hard for me to distinguish between Seligman’s populism and mine.
As a lecturer he was systematic and eloquent. He never appeared before a class without thorough preparation, and in the seminar meetings at his house he was always primed with all the facts and ideas that might supplement the students’ papers. He was a great teacher, and most of the graduate students turned to him for direction…
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[p. 137]…As the doctoral examinations approached in the spring of 1901, three of our group of students — Jesse Eliphalet Pope, Allan Willett, and I — spent much time together cramming. We were to be examined on the entire literature of our major economics — and on the courses in the minors for which we had registered, in my case sociology under Giddings. It goes without saying that we hadn’t a chance to load ourselves up for the particular questions we might be asked in a three-hour oral examination. Still we boned manfully.
Our Columbia professors were as a rule very humane. If a student seemed to be floored by a question the examiner made haste to substitute another and easier question. I felt I was getting on very satisfactorily under the questioning of Seligman and Clark. But then Giddings pounced on me with blood in his eye. He was having a feud with Seligman at the time and meant to take it out of my hide. He did, and I resented it, for he was my friend.
After the examination I waited in the corridor to hear the results of the examiners’ deliberations. Soon Seligman came out and announced that I had passed with flying colors….
We were all three candidates for teaching positions, and Seligman had a powerful reach out into the colleges of the country. Three openings came to his jurisdiction: an associate professorship at New York University, which he awarded to Pope, the faculty favorite; an instructorship at Brown University, which went to Willett; and a position as Reader at Bryn Maw College, which he reserved for me. I was [p. 138] so very young, he said — all through my undergraduate life I had felt reprehensibly old. At Bryn Maw I would give only one three-hour course and have nearly all my time for finishing my doctor’s thesis.
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[p. 151] … [At] Columbia and Barnard, in the fall of 1902, instruction presented problems quite new to me. Sometimes the problems were perplexing, often annoying, but usually capable of some sort of solution. By the end of my four years at Columbia I had been whipped into the shape of a fairly good teacher, although I was quite incapable of rising to the quizmaster heights many heads of departments at that time regarded as ideal.
My principal function was to drill classes of juniors, at Columbia and Barnard, in Bullock’s Introduction to Economics. At Columbia, Professor Seligman would lecture one hour to the assembled classes.
At Barnard, Professor Henry L. Moore would likewise assemble all the students for a general lecture. Then I would take over the students in smaller, though still large, groups and try to polish them off by quizzing them. It was on the whole a bad method.
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Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952.
"...a large, genial man, with bluntly pointed red beard and a markedly dolichocephalic skull, of which he was very proud..."
Alvin Saunders Johnson’s 1952 autobiography, A Pioneer’s Progress, provides us a treasure chest of granular detail regarding his academic and life experiences. This co-founder of the New School for Social Research in New York City went on to live another 19 years after publishing his autobiography to reach the age of 96.
Economics in the Rear-View Mirror will clip personal and departmental remembrances of Johnson’s own economics training and teaching days. This post shares a transcription of his impression of the sociologist Franklin H. Giddingsand his experience with him as one of his doctoral examiners. Economist readers are gently reminded that at the turn of the twentieth century sociology was still regarded by many economists (and sociologists) as a subfield of economics.
Trigger warning: Giddings appears to have been both an academic bully and one who spoke fluent anti-semitic speech.
[p. 122] …Columbia men swore by Franklin H. Giddings as the greatest living sociologist. He was a large, genial man, with bluntly pointed red beard and a markedly dolichocephalic skull, of which he was very proud. In his view, all distinction in the world, all energy, all genius, were carried by the dolichocephalic blonds Aryans, we called them then. Other peoples might acquire merit by imitation.
“Look at the Jews,” he would say in the privacy of the Sunday evening meetings at his house. “They are middlemen in economic life and middlemen in the world of ideas.”
Down the corridor from Giddings’ office was the office of Franz [p. 123] Boas, anthropologist. Logically he belonged in the School of Political Science, and in scholarly attainment, originality, and intellectual leadership he ranked with the best of them. Years later, when I was a member of the faculty, I urged the annexation of Franz Boas, then recognized throughout the world as the foremost anthropologist. Giddings vetoed the idea with the vigor of a Gromyko. Anthropology was either a natural science, having no proper place in a School of Political Science, or an amateurish sociology we could not afford to recognize…
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[p. 137] … the doctoral examinations approached in the spring of 1901 …. We were to be examined on the entire literature of our major economics — and on the courses in the minors for which we had registered, in my case sociology under Giddings. It goes without saying that we hadn’t a chance to load ourselves up for the particular questions we might be asked in a three-hour oral examination. Still we boned manfully.
Our Columbia professors were as a rule very humane. If a student seemed to be floored by a question the examiner made haste to substitute another and easier question. I felt I was getting on very satisfactorily under the questioning of Seligman and Clark. But then Giddings pounced on me with blood in his eye. He was having a feud with Seligman at the time and meant to take it out of my hide. He did, and I resented it, for he was my friend.
After the examination I waited in the corridor to hear the results of the examiners’ deliberations. Soon Seligman came out and announced that I had passed with flying colors. Giddings followed, jovially slapped me on the back, and said, “Well, Johnson, I made you sweat. I knew it wouldn’t hurt you. Seligman would have bulled you through if you had flunked every question. But say, you knew more of the answers than I’d have known if I hadn’t loaded up for you.
So it was just good, clean fun, like pushing an absent-minded companion off an embankment…
* * * * * * * * * * *
[pp. 163-164] … There was, to be sure, a certain amount of personal friction, particularly between Giddings and Seligman. It was aired in the offices, not at faculty meetings. Giddings would encounter Seligman in the Political Science Quarterly office, where I was working, and would roar out his discontent with some plan of Seligman’s. Seligman always remained imperturbably courteous.Once I asked Giddings what he really had against Seligman.
“What I’ve got against him? I can’t get under the skin of that infernal Christian. You know, Johnson, I sometimes think only Jews can really behave like Christians. The Jews created that religion, and it suits their temperament. It doesn’t suit the temperament of us Aryans.”…
Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952.
Alvin Saunders Johnson’s 1952 autobiography, A Pioneer’s Progress, provides us a treasure chest of granular detail regarding his academic and life experiences. This co-founder of the New School for Social Research in New York City went on to live another 19 years after publishing his autobiography to reach the age of 96. In his New York Times obituary that starts on page one of the June 9, 1972 edition one reads:
“When he retired from the New School, Dr. Johnson did not leave the academic world. He came to the school each morning, and served as its elder statesman.”
What a way to go!
Economics in the Rear-View Mirror will clip personal and departmental remembrances of Johnson’s own economics training and teaching days. This post includes his first encounter with the founder of the Columbia School of Political Sciences, John W. Burgess, together with a tiny capsule of Burgessian Weltanschauung.
[p. 120] … So here was I [in October 1898], a provincial, bound to Columbia for life by the calm magnificence of the Seth Low Library.
Entering, I met a janitor who directed me to the dean’s office on the third floor. The dean, John W. Burgess, looked classic too, with the classicism of highbred British stock, or rather, of the cavalier stock that first settled in Virginia. Though he had enlisted in the Northern cavalry from Tennessee, he was Virginian in his melodiously fluent speech. He treated even the rawest student or a janitor’s assistant with high courtesy and consideration….
I exhibited my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees [from the University of Nebraska] — the latter won without examination by the patriotic action of the state legislature, which voted the appropriate degrees for all volunteers who were approaching the conclusion of their requirements. He glanced at the diplomas and asked me what I wanted to study.
International relations, I said, political science, economics.
Then, he said, it would be best for me to major in economics, the strongest department. I’d need to make sociology one of my minors, according to the rules of the faculty. I could later decide what other minor I might like to take. He’d advise me to browse around freely the first year. Everybody ought to have some philosophy, and there was a famous course given by Professor Nicholas Murray Butler. Also, a course in literature might be useful.
He gave me some blanks to fill out, accepted them, and sent me to the bursar, who collected my semester’s tuition and minor fees for privileges I didn’t need.
So I was a registered graduate student in the School of Political Science. No question had been raised as to my antecedent scholarly preparation. Of course, I thought, the faculty would discover soon enough my ignorance of the field. They never did. I must have hidden it well…
[p. 122] …The Columbia School of Political Science, under which I was to work for three years, was manned by professors too distinguished to be called anywhere, except to university presidencies or high administrative office. Naturally I could not work under all of them in my first year, but I could visit all their classes and judge for myself what men of top distinction were like.
Foremost stood the dean, John W. Burgess, gentleman and scholar, reputed first authority on American constitutional history and constitutional law. He was an imperialist. At the time the problems of war and peace occupied my mind, and I classified men’s positions accordingly. Burgess had a grandiose idea of a permanent coalition among the three vital nations, America, England, and Germany, to rule the world. The decadent Latin nations were to be thrust into the role of charming museum pieces; the colored peoples and the half-Tartar Slavs were to be ruled with the firmness and justice of British rule in India…
Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952.
Image Source: John W. Burgess in Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2. Boston: R. Herndon Company, 1899, p. 481. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.
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.
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.
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.
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]
1957. The 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]
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.
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…
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.
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….
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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:
An outdoor demonstration will be held on Thursday, April 20, at a principal point, still undetermined, on the Campus.
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.
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.
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:
Of ninety-four Faculty members with the rank of assistant professor or above, twenty-two have not obtained doctor’s degrees.
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.
Of the thirty who have received Ph.D.’s, the average time for completion of all requirements was 4.9 years.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.”
On April 28, Mr. Donald Henderson, in reply to an editorial published two days previous, stated:
In May, 1931, Professor Rexford C. Tugwell had told Mr. Henderson that his status as an instructor “was not in question.”
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.”
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!”
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.
“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….
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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.
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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.”
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Image Source: Press photo of Donald Henderson in Daily News (New York, NY). July 11, 1934.
Joseph Schumpeter spent the 1913-14 academic year as Austria’s first exchange professor at Columbia University. But before heading home, he went on a whirlwind tour of American universities as documented in the following collection of news reports. Cornell, George Washington, Johns Hopkins, the Universities of Illinois, Wisconsin, and California, and apparently culminating with lectures in Taussig’s Ec 11 course at Harvard. All this between mid-January and mid-March 1914.
I have not seen the above portrait of Schumpeter before. He looks much less like Nosferatu’s twin and one could say has even leading-man material if only his ears were pinned back a notch.
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Dr. Schumpeter Near End of Course as Austrian Exchange Professor at Columbia University
Professor Joseph A. Schumpeter, who was sent to this country by the Austrian Government as an exchange professor, will soon complete his course of lectures on economic theory and on the problem of social classes, at Columbia University, where he has been since last October, and will visit a number of other leading universities in this country.
Professor Schumpeter was born in 1883, in Triesch in the Austrian Province of Moravia, and was educated at the “Theresianum” in Vienna. Then he entered the University of Vienna where he took his degree of Doctor in Law and Political Science in 1906, and gained locally some representation within the little circle of students of economic theory called the Austrian School. After spending some years in travel, he began lecturing on economies at the same university from which he was, at the age of 26, called to the chair of Political Economy in the University of Gernowitz. In 1911 he accepted a call to the University of Graz in Styria. When the Austrian Government, following the example given by the German Government, concluded an agreement with Columbia University for the exchange of professors, Schumpeter was selected to be the first visiting professor in this country.
Source: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. January 14, 1914, p. 12.
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Predicts More War in Balkan Frontier
“Conditions as they exist in the Balkans now cannot last, I am sorry to say that the sad story of crime and suffering that we have been witnessing we shall have to see over again before long,” said Prof. Joseph Schumpeter in his lecture last night on “Austria’s Balkan Policy.”
“The Balkan situation awakens in us a multitude of passions,” said Dr. Schumpeter. “We see burning and murdered villages, and conditions growing worse and worse. Austria is very little known.
“A lot of false notions have arisen concerning Austria. It is a country of 50,000,000 inhabitants composed of a combination of different races and therefore gives statesmanship tasks of a peculiar kind. It is impossible to appeal to national patriotism in Austria for it is composed of several races apathetic to each other. The majority of the people are Slavs, but there are a great many Germans, Romanians, Italians and Servians. It is very difficult to adjust their claims for national supremacy.
“To keep the Turkish frontier is still Austria’s main care.
“What Austria wanted, and wants still, is to have a group of states on national lines so arranged that they will last for some time and not be under the influence of Russia. The Albanians held their own against Turkey for some time and finally Austria made a treaty with Italy that, no matter what happened to Turkey, they should combine to save the Albanian state.”
Source: The Ithaca Journal. January 17, 1915, p. 5.
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Admires Quick Wit Found in America
Professor Joseph Schumpeter of the University of Graz, Austria, expresses himself as delighted with Cornell University and everything he has seen here. Professor Schumpeter, who gave the lecture on “The Balkan Policies of Austria,” is now Exchange Professor at Columbia University. He has gained the reputation of being one of the most promising economists of Europe.
“You have a wonderful University here, splendidly equipped,” he declared. “The situation is ideal. I have been very much interested in my work at Columbia and feel that we Europeans can learn a lot from you. My work at Columbia has been mostly with the graduate students and I have not been able to get into as close touch with the undergraduates as I would have liked to. I have been especially struck by the quick-wittedness and energy of the American undergraduates. They also have an aptitude for intelligent discussion which is lacking in Europe. The whole spirit of fellowship is so splendid.
“The social life in America is remarkably pleasant. In other countries you take much longer to make friends. In my short stay here I have already made scores of excellent friends. American audiences are also so pleasant to talk to. I feel less intellectual sympathy while talking before a German audience than I do here. Unlike Europe all classes of society seem equally interested, the workingmen as much so as the richest families.”
Source:The Ithaca Journal, Jan 19, 1914, p. 9.
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Talk on the Balkans by Prof. Schumpeter University of Gratz Educator Entertains Audience at National Museum
Prof. Joseph Schumpeter delivered a lecture on the present and prospective situation in the Balkans at the New National Museum last night, to which the general public was invited, the audience including students of the eastern question and a number of diplomats. Dr. Schumpeter is exchange professor between the University of Gratz, where he is professor of political science and economics, and Columbia University, New York, where he has just completed his series of lectures.
Last night’s address was delivered under the auspices of George Washington University, and Dr. Schumpeter was introduced by Rear Admiral Charles Herbert Stockton, U. S.N., retired, president of George Washington.
Dr. Schumpeter gave an historical account of the development of the Ottoman empire from the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 up to the present time. He declared that outside of Greece, where the situation has been practically clarified, the Balkan troubles have not been set at rest, and that further trouble may be expected in the Balkan countries at any time.
Real Root of Troubles.
He pointed out that the real root of many of the troubles of those countries has been differences because of race, the clash between Mohammedan and Christian, which he said is likely to continue to the end of the world. He offered, for example, the experiences of Great Britain, in charge of the largest number of Mohammedans in the world, in India.
Dr. Schumpeter devoted considerable attention to the part that Austria-Hungary is playing in the Balkan situation. Since 1908 the Balkan provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina have been recognized as a part of Austria, and it is around the possession of these provinces that considerable interest lies. Austria-Hungary was permitted by the congress of Berlin in 1878 to occupy and administer these two Balkan provinces, but it was not until 1908 that they were formally annexed.
Source:Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), February 5, 1914, p. 9.
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Balkan War Policy of Austria Defended Prof. Schumpeter Says Nation Must Control of Principalities Along the Danube. Great Britain is Criticised.
John Bull was said to have in his charge the greatest Mohammedan power in the world by Prof. Joseph Schumpeter, professor of political science and economics at the University of Gratz, Austria, in an Interesting lecture last night at the National Museum.
“No less than 90,000,000 Mohammedans are under British rule, yet England has seen fit to attack the right of Austria to establish a mere legal pact by taking over Herzegovina and Boris and assuring to these two countries safety and security,” said Prof. Schumpeter.
Rear Admiral Stockton, president of Georgetown University, under the auspices of which institution the lecture was given, presided.
Prof. Schumpeter gave a comprehensive historical account of the development of the Ottoman empire since the conquest of Constantinople, in 1453, up to the present day.
In closing, Prof. Schumpeter asserted that in his opinion, outside of Greece, where he said the situation has been pretty well clarified, the Balkan troubles have not been definitely put at rest. He made it clear that he looked for further trouble.
Source:The Washington Herald, February 5, 1914, p. 3.
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Predicts Third Balkan War. Prof. Schumpeter of Austria, Is Pessimistic in Lecture.
Under the auspices of George Washington University, Prof. Joseph Schumpeter, dean of political science and economics at the University of Gratz, Austria, and exchange professor between his university and Columbia, spoke Wednesday in the auditorium of the new National Museum on “The Balkan Situation from the Austrian Viewpoint.” Among those present were Konstantin von Masirevich, first secretary, and the Baron Freudenthal, attache of the Austrian embassy; Rear Admiral C. H. Stockton, president of George Washington, Prof. Richard Cobb, secretary of the university; Dean Charles E. Munroe, Dean Charles Noble Gregory and L. Cleveland McNemar, assistant professor of international law.
Prof. Schumpeter claimed that the Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Herzogovina in 1910 was warranted by circumstances. He said that Balkan peace is merely transitory; that another war is sure to come.
Source: The Washington Post, February 8, 1914, p. 2.
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Johns Hopkins University.
Two foreign educators lectured at the Johns Hopkins university last week. Dr. Joseph Schumpeter, of the University of Gratz, and first Austrian exchange professor at Columbia, delivered five lectures before the department of political economy….
Source:The Oregon Daily Journal. February 15, 1914, p. 48.
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Vienna Man at Madison. Exchange Professor Studies Wisconsin Industrial Laws.
(Special to The Northwestern.) Madison, Wis., Feb. 10. — Dr. J. A. Schumpeter, exchange professor from Vienna to Columbia university, spent today here investigating the work of the state industrial commission. He will leave tonight for St. Paul, where he intends to make a similar investigation. Dr. Schumpeter is a recognized expert on labor legislation, and in addition to investigating the work of the commission held a conference with Prof. John R. Commons.
Source: The Oshkosh Northwestern, February 10, 1914, p. 9.
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Professor Schumpeter has very busy two days here. Austrian makes four addresses and attends several affairs.
Four addresses were given by Prof. Josef Schumpeter during his stay here from last Saturday morning until Sunday night, when he left for the University of California via Chicago. All of his addresses were along the line of the social sciences in which he enjoys wide fame for his great ability.
Professor Schumpeter’s first talk was given Saturday noon to the University Club where he took lunch. There he gave a talk on smoke. His second, and most important address, was to the combined seminars of the social science departments. It was given in room 304 of Lincoln Hall to an audience which contained almost every faculty and student member of the two seminars. His discussion was upon the theory of economic development. The lecturer paid especial attention to the place of interest and economic crises in static and dynamic states. Although he is an Austrian. and from the University of Graz, his lecture was delivered in perfect English, and was of profound interest to those who were privileged to attend.
With some eighteen University people, Professor Schumpeter took dinner at the Beardsley Saturday evening. Here again he spoke, this time giving an address on “The Austrian Attitude to the Balkan Situation.” He was followed by Professors E. B. Greene, A. H. Lybyer, L. M. Larson and W. F. Dodd, each of whom spoke on some aspect of world politics.
A reception was given the Professor at the home of Dean Kinley on Sunday afternoon. Here he addressed those present on “The Aspects of Austrian Social and Political Life in University Government.” Sunday night, Professor Schumpeter took the train for Chicago.
Source: The Daily Illi (Urbana, Illinois). February 17, 1914. Page 4.
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Talks of Marx’ Economy
University of California, Feb. 25. — Dr. J. A. Schumpeter, eminent Austrian economist, addressed an audience at California hall yesterday on “The Economy of Karl Marx.” Among the points he made were that one could believe in Marx’ doctrines without being a Socialist; his theories of value and exploitation of the working class were receiving more and more general acceptance; he was a “flaming propagandist whose followers regarded him as little less than inspired.”
He addressed also during the day classes in economics on interest rates and classical and modern economic theories.
Source: Oakland Tribune. February 25, 1914, p. 4.
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Brings Austria’s Message to Both Columbia and Harvard
The first Austrian exchange professor at Columbia will deliver a series of lectures on economic theory at Harvard in March. His lectures will be in connection with some of the courses given by Professor Taussig on economic theory.
Professor Schumpeter was born in Triesch, Moravia, in 1883, and received his early education in Vienna, where he also attended the University. He was awarded the degree of doctor of law and political science in 1906 and after spending several years in travel, established himself as a docent at the University of Vienna in 1909. A few months later, he was appointed professor of political economy in the University of Czernowitz, and in 1911 he was appointed professor of political economy in the University of Graz.
Professor Schumpeter’s own system of economic theory is developed in two books, “Wesen und Hauptinhalt der Theoretischen Nationalökonomie” and “Theorie der Wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.” In addition, he has published a number of important papers. He has also contributed a history of economic theory to Schönberg’s “Handbuch der Politischen Oekonomie,” which is to appear shortly, and has furthermore prepared a treatise on banking law for a manual of mercantile law to be published in the near future.
In recent years Professor Schumpeter’s interest has been largely in the field of sociology, but he has not yet published anything in this department. As an economist, Professor Schumpeter is a member of the Austrian school — the brilliant group of writers headed by Böhm-Bawerk and Wieser of the University of Vienna, who have rescued economic theory from the eclipse with which it was for a time threatened by the able but exaggerated criticisms of the leaders of the German historical school. Though agreeing with his Viennese colleagues in many of their theories, he has shown great independence and originality in his treatment of the phases of economics, such as the interest problem, to which he has given particular attention. Thus, in spite of his comparative youth, he has won a place in the very front rank of contemporary European economists. His fluent command of spoken English and his intimate knowledge of American economic literature make him a most attractive lecturer.
Source: Boston Evening Transcript. February 4, 1914.
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“The Theory of Crises”at 4.30 March 16, 1914
Professor Josef Schumpeter, an Austrian economist of the University of Vienna, will lecture upon “The Theory of Crises” before the Seminary of Economics in Upper Dane this afternoon at 4.30 o’clock. Professor Schumpeter has written two books upon Economic. Theory which are of high quality, and have attracted a great deal of attention.
All members of the University interested in economics are invited to hear Professor Josef Schumpeter, of the University of Vienna, lecture upon “Economic Theory” in Professor Taussig’s course, Economics 11, this afternoon at 2.30 o’clock. This will be the last of a series of lectures given by Professor Schumpeter, who is this year conducting courses at Columbia University. The lecture will take place in Emerson H.
Prof. Schumpeter Sails. Says That America Made a Deep Impression on Him.
Professor Joseph Schumpeter, the first Austrian exchange professor in America, who is returning to his home University of Graz, Austria, sailed on the Martha Washington yesterday. The professor has lectured on social problems, money systems, democracy and other branches of science, has been with Columbia University until the end of January, when he left for a tour through all of the leading universities of this country, the tour extending to San Francisco. Mr. Schumpeter said that he was sorry to leave America, which had made a deep impression upon him.
“The big American universities,” the professor stated, “are far better than the average Austrian and even European university. America has a bigger and better body of scientists at each university, and the student’s material is of a much higher type than that of European schools. The American student wants to learn. He has the earnest desire to go to the bottom of science. He wants to make headway in the world, whereas the Austrian student visits a university for reasons of tradition, social standing and title.”
Asked what he thought the greatest American achievement, the professor answered that the “one-man management” was most appealing to him. It was far better, he claimed to have one man run a business, a university, and even a political party, than to have the European system of sharing power and responsibilities.
Four pretty young sisters, all of whom are ardent suffragists, left on board the big Austrian liner for Italy, France and Germany. The fair travelers are Misses Catherine, Ella S., Grace and Margaret Switzer of Manhattan. Their purpose is to show their European sisters how superfluous man really is, for never during their trip will they tolerate or accept the services of any man nor will they speak to any man or stand for being addressed by a man.
Source: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. March 22, 1914, p.74
Image Source: Boston Evening Transcript. February 4, 1914. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.
Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has sought from time to time (more accurately, from post to post) to contribute to the cause of documenting the careers of women economists who have historically been kept far from the academic and professional limelight. Scrolling through the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellows in economics, I stumbled across Katharine Snodgrass and I figured that she fit the bill. Good enough to be awarded a Guggenheim fellowship yet a name unknown to me (and I am hardly sticking my neck out when I hazard a guess that very few economists today would have heard of her). So what became of Katharine Snodgrass, born May 8 or 9, 1893 in Marion, Indiana?
It is a sad story, but instead let us begin with what I have been able to learn about her life and career.
Her story in the history of economics met a tragic end. Two local newspaper accounts of her suicide on September 25, 1930 (only nine days after her early return from England) complete this post.
As published in the Foundation’s Report for 1929–30:
Snodgrass, Katharine: Appointed to make a study of the dietary fats of Northern Europe, with particular reference to the displacement of dairy fats by vegetable fats, being a study in the economics of food substitution; tenure, nine months from June 15, 1930.
Education:
Bryn Mawr College, A.B., 1915;
Columbia University, A.M., 1918;
Stanford University, 1928-29.
Employment:
Research Assistant, 1918–19, War Industries Board; Research Assistant, 1919–22, Federal Reserve Board;
Associate Editor, 1923, New York Journal of Commerce;
Research Associate, 1924–29, Food Research Institute, Stanford University.
Publications:
“Price of Wool and Wool Products,” 1919;
“Copra and Coconut Oil,” 1928;
“Margarine as a Butter Substitute” (in collaboration), 1930.
Articles in Wheat Studies, Stanford University, Food Research Institute.
Source: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Katharine Snodgrass, Fellow 1930.
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Guggenheim Grant Financed European Research Trip Cut Short
Katharine Snodgrass was listed as outward passenger from Southampton (New York via Cherbourg) on the United States Lines “Leviathan” August 28, 1930 departure. [Not clear was the voyage cancelled, or was she unable to embark.]
Katharine Snodgrass arrived 16 September 1930 in New York from London on the S.S. Minnekahda. Her ship departed London on Sept. 6, 1930.
California “U” Teacher Found Dead in Her Home (sic)
Minneapolis, Sept. 25. (UP)—Katherine Snodgrass, 35, University of California instructor (sic), was found dead today below her open fourth floor window at the university hospital here.
Miss Snodgrass was visiting her sister, Mrs. Margaret Harding, member of the University of Minnesota teaching staff on a leave of absence from the California school [Stanford!].
Miss Snodgrass was suffering from an acute nervous ailment and had been placed in the university hospital for treatment. The coroner’s verdict was suicide.
St. Cloud Times. (25, September 1930), p. 17.
Woman Dies in Four-Story Leap
Despondent because of her illness, Miss Katherine Snodgrass, 35-year-old patient at University hospital, leaped to her death from a fourth floor window of the institution early today. The woman, formerly an instructor at the University of California [sic], came here for treatment two weeks ago because a sister is a member of the faculty at the university here. Miss Snodgrass suffered a breakdown while touring Europe.
Attendants saw Miss Snodgrass at 2 a.m. and two hours later, when a nurse again entered her room, she was missing. Search disclosed the body in a court below the window. She had died of a skull fracture.
“
