The dirtiest my hands have ever become from archival work was during my exploration of Columbia University’s collection of John Maurice Clark’s papers. Now having the luxury of digital images to scroll through, I can work without forsaking the pleasures of biting my finger nails, rubbing my eyes and scratching my nose. The younger Clark was quite a paper hoarder so it pays to return to my folders with the images of his documents.
This post builds on notes Clark took after a talk given by his colleague Joseph Dorfman on the economist Henry Carter Adams. Clark was struck by a phrase used by Adams, “all power carries responsibility,” that was a recurring theme in Clark’s own “preaching”. Attached to his brief note was a typed copy of a transcribed letter that Henry Carter Adams had written to the President of the University of Michigan to plead the case that he wished to be judged for a professorial appointment for the right reasons, i.e. not for any particular policy positions he might be thought not to hold but for exhibiting high scholarly virtues in his research and teaching.
Adams had earlier managed to attract the ire of a Cornell trustee, businessman Henry Williams Sage, much in the way Paul Samuelson was to attract the ire of the former member of the M.I.T. corporation, Lamott Dupont II, some 60 years later. Clearly not wanting his Cornell history to repeat itself, Henry Carter Adams successfully went pro-active with the University of Michigan in lobbying on his own behalf. He did get the appointment.
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Socialist Tease?
Henry C. Adams along with Richard T. Ely was attacked for “Coquetting with Anarchy” in The Nation (September 9, 1886), pp. 209-210. In that article Adams was incorrectly identified as President [C. K.] Adams of Cornell. The correction was immediately forthcoming in the following issue, September 16, 1886 issue, p. 234. The essay by Henry Carter Adams being attacked was “Principles that Should Control the Interference of the States in Industries” that was read before the “Constitution Club”of New York City.
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Several biographical accounts of Adams
Joseph Dorfman. The Economic Mind in American Civilization, vol. 3. Pp. 164-174.
S. Lawrence Bigelow, I. Leo Sharfman, and R. M. Wenley, “Henry Carter Adams,” The Journal of Political Economy, April 1922, pp. 201-11 (includes a selected bibliography);
“Memorial to Former President Henry C. Adams,” The American Economic Review, September 1922, pp. 401-16.
Mark Perlman’s review of the 1954 publication of Henry Carter Adams’ Relation of the State to Industrial Action (1887) and his American Economic Association Presidential Address (1896) edited by Joseph Dorfman with introductory essay. [Note: this re-publication of two of Adams’ essays includes the letter transcribed from Dorfman’s copy in J. M. Clark’s papers.]
A. W. Coats. Henry Carter Adams: A Case Study in the Emergence of the Social Sciences in the United States, 1850-1900. Journal of American Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 (October 1968), pp. 177-197.
Nancy Cohen. The Reconstruction of American Liberalism, 1865-1914. University of North Carolina Press, 2002. (Especially Chapter 5 “The American Scholar Revisited”, pp. 154-158, 162-164, 169-174)
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Henry C. Adams, some early publications
The Position of Socialism in the Historical Development of Political Economy. Penn Monthly, April 1870, pp. 285-94.
Outline of Lectures upon Political Economy (Baltimore: privately printed, 1881); (second edition, Ann Arbor: privately printed, 1886).
“The Labor Problem,” Sibley College Lectures.—XI. Scientific American Supplement, August 21, 1886.
Adams’ statement in The Labor Problem, edited by William E. Barns (New York: Harper, 1886), pp. 62-63.
“Principles that Should Control the Interference of the States in Industries” read before the “Constitution Club” of the City of New York. [Fun Fact: Frank Taussig’s copy]
Relation of the State to Industrial Action. Publications of the American Economic Association, 1887. Pp. 471-549.
Public Debts: An Essay in the Science of Finance (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887).
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Note by John Maurice Clark attached to transcribed copy of Henry Carter Adams’ letter
Letter of Henry Carter Adams (1851-1921)
to President James B. Angell, March 15, 1887.
J.M.C. Nov. 27, 1951, Comment, from memory of Dorfman’s remarks yesterday.
President Angell appointed Adams professor after receipt of this letter, and Thomas Cooley (father of Charles Horton Cooley?) who was on the original Interstate Commerce Commission, got Adams the job of chief statistician of the Commission, where he created the system of control of accounts of railroads aiming at enough uniformity to make financial and operating reports comparable, so totals for the country and comparisons of companies would mean something.
Adams had already commented on Jevon’s “The State in Relation to Labor[”] and Adams’ original paper on this theme was later (later than Mar 15, 1887) worked over and enlarged, and came to be regarded as a classic by economists between Adams’ generation and mine.
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[Clark’s note] This is the letter of a man 36 years old who had earned his academic freedom by a sober and responsible attitude. From my standpoint, it is especially interesting because Adams gives such central importance to the principle that all power carries responsibility (presumably inner responsibility plus subjection to checks and controls where appropriate). This is the principle I’ve been preaching (or announcing factually) as the only alternative to regimentation or chaos.
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COPY
Ithaca, N.Y. March 15, 1887.
Dear Dr. Angell:
I don’t think there is any danger of my misunderstanding your letter or the spirit in which it was written. Last year, your questions came to me with the shock of a complete surprise, but I am coming to be pretty well accustomed to such expressions now.
You ask if I can help you any more so you can see your way clear on my nomination. I don’t see as I can, except it be to suggest that, in my opinion, your point of view in this matter is not the right one. If you make a man’s opinions the basis of his election to a professorship, you do, whether you intend it or not, place bonds upon the free movement of his intellect. It seems to me that a board has two things to hold in view. First, is a man a scholar? Can he teach in a scholarly manner? Is he fair to all parties in the controverted questions which come before him? Second, is he intellectually honest? If these two questions are answered in the affirmative, his influence upon young men cannot be detrimental.
Upon these points, certainly, nothing new can be said. I have served for five years as an apprentice and you have had opportunity to know. Or, with regard to the fairness in which topics are presented in the classroom, you have the outline of (the) lectures. My conscious purpose in teaching is two-fold. To portray social problems to men as they will find them to be when they leave the University and to lead men to recognize that morality is an every day affair.
But all this, you will say, is by the point. You say you do not know what my views are on capital and labor. I am not surprised at that for I have intentionally withheld them. No one knows them and I had madeup my mind to keep them to myself until I had worked through my study of the industrial society. My reason for such a decision was, that, in my study of social questions I had found myself on all sides of the question, I started as an individualist of the most pronounced type. But my advocacy of it led me to perceive its errors, and my criticisms were formulated before I read any literature of socialism. But when, upon coming into contact with socialistic writers I found their criticisms were the same as my own I was for a while carried away by their scheme. But upon further study, I found their plans to be, not only as I though impracticable, but contrary to the fundamental principles of English political philosophy, in which I still believed. You can imagine that was not a pleasant condition for one appreciative of logical symmetry. You said a year ago that my views were not logical, that is, that some of my expressions were contradictory to each other. I don’t doubt that they appeared so, it seems bad logic to admit the purpose of individualism and the criticism of socialists at the same time. You say now in your letter that I have not worked out my ideas into clear and definite shape. That is true, but I am doing it as fast as I can and in my own way. My book upon Pub. Debts is one stage in this direction.
But to go back to the development of this subject in my own mind. The illogical position into which my mind had drifted as the result of the first five years of study, was the occasion of keen intellectual pain: but the sense of the necessity of harmony led me finally to discover a principle, which I thought, and still think, adequate to bridge over the chasm between the purpose of individualism and the criticisms of socialism. This principle is the principle of personal responsibility in the administration of all social power, no matter in what shape that power may exist. This principle has given form to our political society: I wish it to be brought over into industrial relations. Its realization will cure the ills of which socialists complain, without curbing or crushing that which is the highest in the individual. I thought, at first, this principle to be so simple that its statement must gain for it quick recognition. But when I tried to make that statement, and work the theory out, I was at once surprised and chagrined to see what a task lay before me. It is useless to deny that the interests of the privileged classes in our civilization is against responsible administration of industrial power. I worked at it for a year, and then came to the conclusion that I did not yet know enough, nor was I sure enough of my position, to make public the thought which had assumed direction of my studies. It was then that I took up the study of finance and went to work upon Pub. Debts. This is the most simple of any of the topics which must be treated as the subject of constructive economics opened before me: it was also furthest removed from the points likely to cause controversy. I thought I might, perhaps, gain the reputation of a sound thinker so that expressions of views more unusual might attract a candid reading from scholarly men. It has taken a year and a half longer than I had anticipated, and now that it is done seems to have dwarfed in importance.
I do not think this narration will relieve you from embarrassment. I do not see that anything can do that, except a promise on my part to give expression only to orthodox views of social relations. But it has relieved me somewhat and I trust you will consider that an adequate apology. I have of course full confidence in your personal friendship: I only wish you might have equal confidence in my scholarly purposes.
Very truly yours,
H.C. ADAMS.
P.S.
May I add a postscript, for I am sure it is an unjustifiable pride which kept me from inserting it in the body of the letter. I presume the expression(s) of my views which have given you the greatest solicitude are to be found in the Sibley address of last year, and in the syndicate article which I wrote on the Knights of Labor. I do not wish to recall anything said, but I am willing to say that these expressions were as unwise as they were unpremeditated. In justice to myself I should say: that the Sibley address was on Friday afternoon and my invitation was on the Wednesday previous. Professor [R. H.] Thurston said he had been disappointed in his lecturer for the afternoon, that he did not like to postpone the meeting, and that he would like me to open a discussion on the labor problem. He told me, who besides myself would speak, and they were all decidedly opposed to any expression of sympathy with the struggle of the Knights then going on. After my opening address, the man against whom I talked, who, it was said, would reply to me, took his hat and left. Others spoke, among them President [Charles Kendal] Adams, Mr. Smith [sic, perhaps Mr. Frank B. Sanborn?] and Henry [W.] Sage. The President was not dogmatical but did not understand what I tried to say. The others were. My part in the discussion has cost me a professorship, for I do not see how, with the views of Mr. Sage to the functions of a teacher, he can vote for me. It was after the address was made that the talk began, and I thought it then cowardly not to let it be printed, and dishonest to change it. So it went in, as nearly as I could remember as it was given. I think it unfair to judge of my classroom work on this address.
With regard to the syndicate article [“What Do These Strikes Mean?”, a copy attached to Adams’ letter to James B. Angell dated March 25, 1887], I confess myself to have been deceived by the attitude of the Knights of Labor during their strike on the Gould system or I should not have written it. In their articles of complaint, they said certain things which I believed to be true, and I thought the men who drew them up had thought the labor problem through to its end, and had made a stand on a principle in harmony with English Liberties. If so, it was time for men of standing to declare themselves. But it turns out that the Knights hit the mark by a chance shot. They did not know what they were about and got whipped as they deserved. The result of this unfortunate venture is, that I believe more strongly than ever in the necessity of scholarship as one element in the solution of this terrible question that is upon us.
Have you seen “The Ind. Revolution” by Arnold Toynbee? His death is a loss. The scraps of his lectures and letters show him to have had much the same purpose as myself in his studies.
Respectfully
H.C.A.
Source: Columbia University Archives. John M. Clark Collection, Economic Theory and Methodology, Box 28. Folder “Group Power carries moral responsibility”.
Image Source: Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries, graphic and pictorial collection. Henry Carter Adams (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins, 1878). Photograph by Sam B. Revenaugh (1847-1893), Ann Arbor, Mich.