Arthur Norman Holcombe (1884-1977) was awarded a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard in 1909. In the Preface to his doctoral thesis he thanked “Professor Gustav Schmoller of Berlin, Professor Lujo Brentano of Munich, and above all Professor F. W. Taussig of Harvard.”
Thesis title: Public ownership of telephones on the continent of Europe. Boston, etc., Houghton, Mifflin, 1911, 8°. pp. xx, 482 (Harv. Econ. Stud., 6).
Biographical/Historical Note
Arthur Norman Holcombe was born in Winchester, Massachusetts, on November 3, 1884. He graduated from Harvard with an AB in 1906, and a Ph.D. in 1909. On August 30, 1910, he married Carolyn H. Crossett; they had five children. In 1964, he married Hadassah Moore Leeds Parrot. Holcombe split his career between public service and teaching. He was credited with establishing political philosophy and theory as basic disciplines in Harvard’s government curriculum. Among his students were Henry A. Kissinger and Henry Cabot Lodge. In 1949, he assisted Chiang Kai Shek in the drafting of a constitution for the Republic of China. In 1955, he retired as Eaton Professor of the Sciences of Government to become chairman of the Committee to Study the Organization of Peace, an affiliate of the American Association for the United Nations. He died on December 9, 1977.
Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Arthur N. Holcombe Personal Papers. Guide to the papers.
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Course Announcement
1909-10
[Economics] 24 2hf. Problems of Municipal Ownership and Control in Europe and Australia. Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 9. Dr. Holcombe.
The purpose of this course is to study the policy in leading countries of Europe in regard to so-called municipal monopolies, such as water, gas, electric lighting works, and street railways. A description of the historical development and of the present situation of such municipal undertakings is followed by a comparison with the results of private enterprise where such comparison is possible. An examination is made of the attitude of the municipality towards private franchise seekers and franchise holders, and towards its own employees when it undertakes the management of municipal enterprises. In conclusion, there is discussed the question of municipal ownership in relation to that of state ownership and of “municipal socialism” with regard to socialism in general. The work of the course includes the writing of one thesis and assigned reading in the English, French, and German literature of the subject.
Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VI, No. 29 (23 July 1909). History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1909-10, pp. 60-61.
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Course Enrollment
1909-10
Economics 24. 2hf. Dr. Holcombe. — Problems of Municipal Ownership and Control in Europe and Australia.
Total 34: 4 Seniors, 21 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 3 Others.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1909-1910, p. 45.
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ECONOMICS 24
Year-end Examination, 1909-10
- Discus the following quotations from authors read in the course:—
- “We have more street railway facilities, electric lighting facilities, and telephonic facilities than have our British cousins; and we make more use of our ample facilities than our British cousins make of their restricted facilities. This shows that the prices charged to us by our companies under the stimulus of an enlightened self-interest are better adapted to our purses, than are the prices charged to our British cousins by their city fathers.”
[Hugo Richard Meyer, Municipal Ownership in Great Britain (1906), p. 331] - “Thus while the development of electric light and power was delayed in Great Britain, the public has been the gainer by reason of the fact. Not only has the country been saved the costly experimentation that America and Germany are even now paying for, but by the time the industry was an accepted success the cities were convinced that it was an undertaking that should not be left in private hands.”
[Frederic Clemson Howe, The British City, The Beginnings of Democracy (1907), p. 114] - “There are no particular reasons why the financial results from private or public operation should be different if the conditions are the same. In each case it is a question of the proper man in charge of the business and of local conditions.”
[Report to the National Civic Federation, Commission on Public Ownership and Operation, (3 vols, 1907). Part I, Vol. I, General Conclusions and Reports, p. 23] - “The wage worker who reads the labor report cannot but perceive that municipalization in various ways carries peril to the trade union.”
[J. W. Sullivan, Municipal and Private Operation of Public Utilities, Relative to the Laobr Report of the National Civic Federation, Commission on Public Ownership and Operation, (1908), p. 70] - “I take it that the key to the whole question of municipal or private ownership is the question of politics.”
[John R. Commons, “Labor and Politics” in Report to the National Civic Federation, Commission on Public Ownership and Operation, (3 vols, 1907). Part I, Vol. I, General Conclusions and Reports, p. 89 ff.]
- “We have more street railway facilities, electric lighting facilities, and telephonic facilities than have our British cousins; and we make more use of our ample facilities than our British cousins make of their restricted facilities. This shows that the prices charged to us by our companies under the stimulus of an enlightened self-interest are better adapted to our purses, than are the prices charged to our British cousins by their city fathers.”
- What is the place of the municipality in the execution of the policy of a “national minimum,” as set forth by Sydney Webb? Compare this program with the municipal program of the German Social-Democracy.
- Compare the power and the practice, with respect to the regulation of the prices of gas and electricity, of the British Board of Trade, the Massachusetts Board of Gas and Electric Lighting Commissioners, and the Wisconsin Public Utilities Commission.
- What is an indeterminate franchise? What are the conditions essential to its satisfactory operation?
- Discuss N. P. Gilman’s “case for legal regulation of industrial disputes in monopolistic industries,” in its bearings on the situation in the so-called public service industries, whether under private or public ownership.
[Nicholas Paine Gilman, Methods of Industrial Peace (1904), Chapter 15, “The Case for Legal Regulation”, pp. 401-408.]
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 9, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1910-11; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1910), pp. 54-55.