Tag: ClarkJM

Columbia. Reform of the PhD dissertation printing requirement, 1936-1940

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-04-29

The following extracts from the minutes of Columbia’s Faculty of Political Science (an amalgam of the Departments of History, Economics, Public Law, and Social Science) provide milestones along the tortuous bureaucratic road taken to implement a fairly modest reform in the publication-of-the-dissertation requirement for the Ph.D. at Columbia University back in the 1930s. The reform initiated sometime in early 1936 only saw the light of day first with the printed Faculty announcement published at mid-year 1940.

See: Courses Offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions 1940-1941 published in Columbia University Bulletin of Information, 40^th Series, No. 29 (June 29, 1940), p. 14.

______________________

April 17, 1936

Professor [James Waterhouse] Angell [Economics] presented for consideration a Memorandum on the Printing Requirement for Ph.D. Dissertations in the Faculty of Political Science, signed by Professors [Robert Morrison] MacIver [Political Philosophy and Sociology], [Robert Livingston] Schuyler [History], [Robert Emmet] Chaddock [Statistics], [Carter] Goodrich [Economics], and [James Waterhouse] Angell [Economics], a copy of which is attached to these minutes. He also presented, and moved the adoption of a resolution providing for a modification of the present printing requirement. After amendments, offered by Professors [Samuel McCune] Lindsay [Social Legislation] and [John Maurice] Clark [Economics], had been accepted, the resolution read as follows:

WHEREAS, the Faculty of Political Science believes that the University printing requirement for dissertations imposes a heavy financial burden on candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under this Faculty; that the printing requirement as it actually works does not impose equivalent burdens on the candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in certain other parts of the University; that the printing requirement operates as a severe property qualification impeding the access of otherwise competent students to receipt of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under this Faculty, and that the printing requirement on occasion impels first-class graduate students, who apart from financial considerations would prefer to do their work for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Columbia, to go elsewhere; and

WHEREAS, in 1932 the Committee on Publications of this Faculty made a Report to the Faculty, and recommended a reconsideration of the printing requirement with a view to its relaxation; and

WHEREAS, the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction, after considering this Report, went on record as it that time favoring retention of the printing requirement, and in the absence of any definite proposal by the Faculty of Political Science did not recommend any change; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the Faculty of Political Science now records itself as desiring a modification of the printing requirement with respect to dissertations offered under the Faculty of Political Science, so that the requirement may be met in any one of three ways, at the option of the candidate, subject to the approval of the committee examining the dissertation, as follows:

(1) By publication of the original approved dissertation in full through a recognized publisher, or otherwise in a form approved by the Dean of the Faculty; or,

(2) By publication of an article, presenting the essential content and results of the dissertation and accepted as satisfactory by the Committee which examined the original dissertation, in a professional journal, or otherwise acceptable to the examining Committee; or,

(3) By publication of an abstract of the dissertation, presenting the essential content and results of the dissertation and accepted as satisfactory by the Committee which examined the original dissertation, in a series of abstracts of dissertations to be published at intervals as volumes in the Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law. The abstracts should ordinarily not exceed 15 pages in length. The candidate will defray his pro rata share of the cost of publication.

Under the second and third alternatives, the candidate shall submit five copies of the proposed article or abstract at least three weeks in advance of the final examination in defense of the dissertation itself. Under such alterative, the requirements for the deposit of copies of the approved printed document and for its distribution to the members of the Faculty are those stated in the Graduate Announcement. In addition, if the dissertation is printed in abridged or abstracted form provision shall be made for preserving at least two legible copies of the original dissertation.

RESOLVED, further, that the foregoing Resolution be transmitted to the University Council, with the request that the Council take action permitting the Faculty of Political Science to realize its desire as above stated.

RESOLVED, further, that the attention of the University Council be also invited to the appended Memorandum on the Printing Requirement, prepared informally by certain members of the Faculty.

After a general discussion, in which fourteen members of the Faculty participated, Professor [Lindsay] Rogers [Public Law] moved that the following resolution be substituted for the resolution under consideration:

RESOLVED, that the Faculty of Political Science transit the pending resolution and the accompanying Memorandum prepared by certain or its members, to the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction and request that the Joint Committee inquire into the results of the publication requirement at Columbia University and the results of differing requirements at other universities and make the findings of such inquiry available to the Faculty of Political Science for the farther consideration of the publication requirement at the Faculty’s regular meeting in the autumn.

The Faculty being evenly divided, President [Nicholas Murray] Butler cast the deciding vote in favor of the resolution presented by Professor Rogers and it was adopted.

[…]

Appendix to Minutes

To the members of the faculty of Political Science:

We enclose herewith a memorandum on the printing requirement for Ph.D. dissertations in the Faculty of Political Science. It contains proposals which will be advanced formally at the meeting of the Faculty on April 17th next. By signing the memorandum we desire to indicate our belief that the questions raised and the proposals made deserve to be brought before the attention of the whole Faculty, but do not express our concurrence on all points.

R. M. MacIver
R. L. Schuyler
R. L. Chaddock
C. Goodrich
J. W. Angell

MEMORANDUM ON THE PRINTING REQUIREMENT FOR PH.D. DISSERTATIONS IN THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
[April 17, 1936]

The question of prolonging or abolishing the present temporary arrangement, under which Ph.D. dissertations may be offered for examination in typescript, must be passed on by the Faculty of Political Science at its meeting on April 17th. This provides on appropriate occasion for examining the whole question of the printing requirement in the Faculty.

At the present time, the situation is broadly this. The Faculty will accept dissertations in typescript for the purposes of the defense examination, and if the defense is successful a certification is given the candidate, announcing that he has met all the requirements for the Ph.D. degree except that of actual publication of the dissertation.

The degree itself is not awarded, however, until the candidate has secured actual publication — “publication” having recently been defined to include in effect some, though not all, of the non-printing forms of reproduction, such as photostating, and provided that certain conditions are met.

Columbia University and the Catholic University of America are apparently the only two large institutions of higher learning which have retained in full the printing requirement, which was once wide-spread in this country. By enforcing the requirement, Columbia imposes on itself a prime facie impairment of its power to attract first-class graduate students who will become candidates for the Ph.D. degree, and who are free to choose between the several leading institutions. No University has so many first-class students that it can afford to turn any away needlessly. If retention of the printing requirement is to be justified, it must be shown to yield benefits which offset this disadvantage.

In addition, the requirement works unevenly as between different, sections of the University. In the Faculty of Political Science, as in that of Philosophy, the requirement is extremely burdensome in financial terms to the average Ph.D. candidate. For that large proportion of candidates whose means are limited, its fulfillment imposes genuine hardship. In the Faculty of Political Science the typical dissertation is essentially literary in character, runs to at least 250 to 300 printed pages in length, and even after allowance for royalties usually costs the candidate $600 to $800 to publish — often much more. The fact that perhaps a quarter of the dissertations are published in the Studies at a saving to the candidate of 20% of the price charged by the University Press, does not greatly alter the situation, nor does it operate to lighten the average financial burden very much. For many students, the sum involved is equivalent to their total living expenses for 6 to 8 months or more: the burden is real. In the Faculty of Pure Science and in the Medical School, on the other band, the typical dissertation is not more than 20 or 25 pages in length (often less than 10), and is published in one of the technical or professional journals at no cost at all to the candidate. Moreover, though this is not relevant for present purposes, the Pure Science dissertation is commonly a joint product of the candidate and the supervising Faculty member, and is published under both signatures.

In defense of the retention of the printing requirement by the faculty of Political Science, the most common contention is that its abolition would lead to a disastrous lowering of our standards for the Ph.D. degree. This contention, of course, cannot be tested directly except from future experience. It is significant, however, that apparently none of the other leading American universities which had abolished the printing requirement has restored it. Moreover, it seems highly improbable that the existence of the printing requirement and the maintenance of high standards are related to one another as cause is related to effect. It could not be contended seriously that merely enforcing a printing requirement would enable a faculty of inadequate scholarly competence to maintain high standards, nor that the existence of a printing requirement would ensure, in such circumstances, the production of distinguished dissertations. Equally it cannot be contended that the modification or withdrawal of the printing requirement will alone cause a faculty of high scholarly competence to deteriorate its standards, nor that modification or withdrawal will alone lead to the production of low-grade dissertations under such a faculty. Indeed, to assert that such results would ensue is to imply that the members of such a faulty maintain high standards only from fear of being “found out”, should they lower their standards, through the publication of discreditable Ph.D. dissertations.

It is also contended that publication is an advantage to the candidate, in that it brings his name and work to the attention of other scholars and also helps him to get a better position. This is undoubtedly true to many cases. But the same or better general results can be obtained in a different way, to be suggested in a moment, which entails relatively little cost to the candidate. As things now stand, most candidates apparently feel that they would gladly forego the not always unequivocal advantages of this type of advertising, in order to void the expense and sacrifice now imposed upon them.

Finally, it is contended that the typescript dissertations found in the libraries of other Universities are in general less finished and sometimes less scholarly products then those which have undergone publication; and that they are less accessible to the generality of scholars. This last is of course true. The contention would have granter force as an argument in favor of retaining the publication requirement, however, if there were any way of shifting the bulk of the financial burden of publication to those other scholars who would allegedly be such large beneficiaries from the act of publication itself. It would also here greater force If any substantial number of other universities had indicated, by retaining the requirement, that they felt the cogency of these considerations. In actuality, and from their very nature, many and perhaps most Ph.D. dissertations in Political Science are not of sufficiently broad interest to merit publication as books. Some suggestions for publishing their essential contents, however, will be outlined presently. It is believed that adoption of these suggestions will give the authors and their work rather wider publicity than is now obtained, in the average case, and will do so without impairing the dissemination of scholarly knowledge.

The principal positive arguments against the retention of the printing requirement in the faculty of Political Science have already been indicated, directly or by implication. They are two in number. One turns on the financial costs and other burdens placed on the candidate. The great bulk of our students are not well-to-do. In the majority of cases, financing the publication of the dissertation exacts a genuine and often a disproportionately large sacrifice from the candidate or his family. It is not easy to see that the candidate of the University receives a return commensurate with this sacrifice. However, as the present system works out in practice it frequently means that the actual receipt of the Ph.D. degree itself is delayed by one or more years after the completion of the work, while the candidate is accumulating enough money to pay for publication. To the extent that this happens, as it seems to in what is not far from a majority of the cases, one of the alleged advantages of the publication requirement — that it helps the candidate secure a better position — may turn into a positive disadvantage, because of the delay involved. The present practice of examining on typescript has helped this situation somewhat, but apparently not as greatly as had been hoped; and of course, it still leaves the candidate with a serious financial burden to carry into future years, before he can obtain the actual Ph.D. degree. The fact that so large a proportion of our candidates now elect to be examined on typescript is surely not wholly unrelated to the matter of their financial ability or inability, at the time of the examination, to defray the cost of printing.

There is also some evidence that the existence of the printing requirement influences candidates to select topics for the Ph.D. dissertation with a view to the probable popularity of the topics, rather than with a view to their scholarly merit and interest alone, in order to lighten the burden of the printing costs.

The second argument against retention of the printing requirement in the faculty of Political Science turns on the best interests of the University itself. What we are really doing is to enforce a fairly severe property qualification for the Ph.D. degree, and one which is in effect inoperative in certain parts of the University. It is a property qualification imposed by only one other large University. There is much evidence to indicate that — as seems natural enough — this property qualification drives elsewhere many first-class students who would prefer, except for financial considerations, to come to Columbia for their Ph.D. work in the Political Science field. To repent what was said before, no University has so many first-class students that it can afford to turn any away needlessly. A property qualification is surely the wrong basis on which to select our Ph.D. candidates.

In connection with the earlier discussion of standards, it should also be pointed out that such a modification of the printing requirement as would eliminate its more serious disadvantages to the student would presumably contribute to the actual raising of the general standards of scholarship and performance prevailing, rather than to their deterioration. This would happen to the extent that the modification increased the number of high-calibre through impecunious students who come to us for their training.

Both the material evidence available and the logical argument against retention of the present form of publication requirement in the Faculty of Political Science are thus extremely strong. We therefore make two suggestions:

(1) At the meeting of the Faculty of Political Science on April 17th, action should be taken looking to the immediate modification of the printing requirement, in its present form, for Ph.D. dissertations under the Faculty. At the same time, however, in the interests of the Ph.D. candidates, of other scholars elsewhere, and of the University as a whole, it seems desirable to retain something of the advantages of the present requirement. Outright abolition of the requirement is therefore not proposed. It is suggested that it be modified as follows:

(2) Action should be taken by the Faculty to provide that, the printing requirement, subject to confirmation by the University Council, may be met in any one of three ways: namely either by,

(a) Publication of the complete dissertation under the present regulations; or, by,

(b) Publication of an article, presenting the essential features and results of the dissertation and to be approved by the examining committee, in one of the recognized professional journals; or by,

(c) Publication of an abstract of the dissertation, presenting briefly the essential features and results of the dissertation and to be approved by the examining committee, in a new annual or semi-annual volume of Abstracts to be published as a regular part of or supplement to the present Studies; the costs of publication and distribution of the volume to be paid by the candidates pro rata. The abstracts would not exceed perhaps 15 pages each, and the average cost to the individual candidate would probably be under $50. The numerical majority of the dissertations would presumably be handled through these new Abstracts.

In each of the three options, the present requirement for the deposit of 75 copies — whether of book, article or abstract — would be retained; and in the last two cases deposit of two copies of the original dissertation would also be required. Dissertations would be defended on typescript, unless the candidate himself preferred to defend on galleys.

These alternatives leave candidates who have the funds, or who can secure commercial publication without a subsidy, free to publish as heretofore. The alternatives take the present severe burden off those candidates who have not sufficient funds, however; and at the same time retain for them most of the advantages, from getting their names and work more widely known, which they obtain under the present arrangements. Indeed, it seems probable that the publicity they thus receive, and the accessibility of the main content of their work to other scholars, will be substantially greater under the proposed arrangements than under those now prevailing. The average sale of the present full-length dissertation hardly exceeds 250 to 300 copies; the circulation of the better-known professional journals runs to several thousand.

In order to make it easier to secure publication in full of most of the best dissertations, without placing an undue burden on the candidates, we also suggest that the present Studies be made substantially more selective in character than they now are, with a diminution in the number of volumes issued per year and with a higher average standard of quality required for acceptance. To illustrate, we suggest that not more than one or two full-length dissertations a year should be published in the Studies from each Department, apart from the proposed new volumes of Abstracts. We believe that the resulting increase in the average quality of the Studies, by increasing the average sales per volume would enable the Studies to carry a much larger proportion of the costs of publication then at present, perhaps 50% or more. We also believe that the improvement in quality and the decrease in number of issues per year would raise the general standing of the Studies to a basis of comparability with the similar series published by various other leading Universities. Probably the most nearly ideal arrangement would be one under which the publication of a dissertation in the studies would be in the nature of a prize award, entailing no cost at all to the successful candidate. Since financial limitations make this impossible at present, we suggest the arrangement just outlined.

R. M. MacIver
R. L. Schuyler
R. E. Chaddock
C. Goodrich
J. W. Angell

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science 1920-1939 (April 17, 1936) pp. 759-775.

December 11, 1936

For the information of the Faculty the following memorandum was presented, concerning the action of the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction on the subject of the printing requirement for doctoral dissertations. At its April, 1936, meeting the Faculty of Political Science adopted a resolution transmitting to the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction a memorandum by certain members of the Faculty urging modification of the printing requirement for doctoral dissertations. On May 19, following, the Joint Committee appointed a sub-committee to study and report on the subject.

The sub-committee submitted its report, accompanied by a digest of information, to the Joint Committee at its meeting on November 9, and on November 16, 1936, the Joint Committee adopted the sub-committee report and its opinions as follows:

“For the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction:

Your sub-committee empowered to consider the question of the printing of doctoral dissertations, composed of the undersigned as chairman and of Professors Angell, Gray, Patterson, Pegram, and Rogers, has duly elicited the information as to the practice in this matter in the leading American universities as well as the pertinent sentiment of three hundred and twenty-one of our own recipients of the doctoral degree in the decade from 1924 to 1933 inclusive. A digest of the information as elicited is now available for the members of the Joint Committee.

After full consideration of this digest and of all other aspects of the question, your sub-committee would submit the following opinions:

That the present requirement of printing should be maintained. Our vote on this recommendation stands four to two, Professors Angell and Patterson dissenting.
That we regret the hardship which the printing of the dissertation now entails on certain of the recipients of the degree.
That it is advisable to make due effort to relieve this hardship as much as possible by any reduction that may be feasible in the cost of printing, and in particular by the establishment, if possible, of a subsidy from University funds to aid in the cost of printing; and that the Joint Committee, or its chairman, should make due inquiry into this possibility.

The second and third opinions were unanimous.”

While opinion in the Joint Committee was not unanimous on point (1) of the adopted report, discussion on certain amendments that were offered and not carried led the Committee to agree as to the substance of two points of the rejected amendment. A sub-committee consisting of Professors Pegram, MacIver, Rogers, and Wright was appointed to rephrase these two points for communication to the Faculties, which they have done as follows:

“(a) It was the sense of the Joint Committee that there may be cases in which the Ph.D. Examining Committee may consider it unnecessary to require the printing of all the supporting date which the Examining Committee may have before it in the five typed copies required by the rules. In such a case the Examining Committee may, with the approval of the Dean, accept as the dissertation a shorter form of the manuscript, or an article or series of articles, provided five copies of the same in form for publication have been circulated to the Examining Committee with the additional materials, and are before the Committee at the time of the final examination.

(b) It was the sense of the Joint Committee that the Dean has authority under the present regulations to accept dissertations printed in part or in whole by photo offset process or other manifolding process when there are special reasons, arising out of the nature of the dissertation (tabular and statistical matter, reproductions of texts, etc.), making such offset process appropriate.”

For the information of members of the Faculty of Political Science, it is to be noted that the problem of printing dissertations under the Faculty of Pure Science is rarely a serious one to students. Dissertations are short as compared to those in the other Faculties and are usually published in the professional Journals. In the Faculty of Philosophy the cost of printing dissertations is serious. That Faculty, at its November meeting, unanimously voted to place on record its opinion in favor of the three numbered paragraphs of the sub-committee report adopted by the Joint Committee.

The Joint Committee will proceed further with inquiry into means of reducing the cost of printing dissertations and into the possibility of securing funds for aiding publication.

Respectfully submitted,
George B. Pegram,
Chairman
Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction

In connection with the proposal of the Joint Committee that an effort be made to establish a subsidy from University funds to aid graduate students in the printing of doctoral dissertations, the President pointed out some of the administrative problems involved in providing for the judicious and far allotment of such aid. He stated, however, that if a satisfactory administrative method could be devised, a revolving fund of $25,000 or $30,000 would go far toward lightening the financial burden which the present printing requirement imposes on certain candidates for the doctoral degree.

The Chairman of the Committee on Instruction presented a memorandum (a copy of which is appended to these Minutes) reminding the Faculty that at its meeting in April, 1986, it had neglected to provide for the dissertation examination on typescript beyond June 30, 1936, but that the privilege had been extended to candidates under the Faculty with the consent of the Dean’s office. After discussion of the memorandum Professor [Vladimir Gregorievitch] Simkhovitch [Economic History] moved that the motion concerning examination on typescript, which lapsed on June 30, 1938, be re-enacted and remain in effect for a term of one year. The motion was adopted, after Professor [Philip Caryl] Jessup’s [International Law] amendment substituting “until revoked by the Faculty” for the words “for a term of one year”, had been accepted. As re-enacted, the resolution then read:

“RESOLVED; that candidates for the doctorate under the Faculty of Political Science, upon recommendation of the Department concerned, may be granted the privilege of examination on dissertations presented in typescript — five or more legible copies to be deposited in the Dean’s office for the inspection of the examiners at least three weeks prior to the examination, it being understood that the dissertations which in the judgment of the examining committee require extensive revision shall be rejected, without prejudice to subsequent examination after such revision.”

Discussion of the resolution emphasized the fact that permission to be examined on typescript is granted only on recommendation by the department. It would appear, therefore, that a department may refuse to make any recommendation, require its candidates to stand examinations on galley proofs, or it may recommend in some cases and refuse to recommend in other cases.

[…]

Memorandum Concerning Dissertation Examination on Type-script

At the meeting of the faculty of Political Science on December 9, 1932, Professor Schuyler, as chairman of the Committee on Publications, raised the question of substituting for the then requirement that the examination must be on galley proof, a requirement that dissertations must be presented in typescript. After discussion the Faculty amended Professor Schuyler’s proposal. The resolution as passed provided that for the remainder of the academic year, 1932-33, candidates for the doctorate under the Faculty of Political Science could be granted, upon the recommendation of the department concerned, the privilege of examination upon typescript four or more legible copies to be deposited in the Dean’s office for the inspection of the examiners at least three weeks prior to the examination, it being understood that dissertations which in the judgment of the examining committee required extensive revision should not be accepted subject to such revision, but should be rejected, without prejudice to subsequent examination after such revision. (Minutes, p. 699)

At its April meetings in 1933, 1934, and 1935 the Faculty continued the provisions of this resolution in affect for the ensuing academic years.

At the November 1935 meeting of the Faculty the Dean called attention to the fact that the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction had discussed the desirability or requiring five typescript copies of dissertations. the Faculty thereupon amended its regulations to require five instead of four copies.

At the April 1936 meeting the Faculty discussed the modification of printing requirement for dissertations. By inadvertence the Faculty neglected to provide for the examination on typescript alternative. with the consent of the Dean’s office, however, candidates under the Faculty of Political Science have been permitted to present their dissertations in typescript even though technically this privilege lapsed as of June 30, 1936.

Earlier this month a question rose in respect of the period which shall elapse between the presentation of the typescript copies and the date of the final examination. Under the terms of the resolution adopted by the Faculty of Political Science the period was three weeks. Under the printed terms of the regulations of the Faculties of Philosophy and of Pure Science the period is three weeks. As a matter of fact, this regulation is not enforced. Two weeks is deemed a sufficient period.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science 1920-1939 (April 17, 1936) pp. 783-790.

April 21, 1939

The Chairman of the Committee on Publications further reported that, on the initiative of the Managing Editor of the Studies, the Committee had given consideration to the problem of reducing the financial burden upon doctoral candidates who publish their dissertations in the Studies. In consequence of this discussion, upon the recommendation of the Managing Editor, and in accordance with a unanimous resolution of his Committee, he offered the following resolution which was unanimously passed;

Be it RESOLVED; That in order to afford to doctoral candidates an alternative method of publishing dissertations in the Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law at a lower cost than is possible under the existing requirements, these requirements be so modified as to permit, after October 1, 1939, at the option of the candidate,
1. the use of paper binding
2. the use of a double-column format, and of type smaller than that now employed, and
3. the relegation of footnotes to the end of each chapter.
Be it RESOLVED: That the Faculty of Political Science request the Trustees of the University to advance the sum of fifty dollars to each student publishing his dissertation in the Studies, said sum to be a first claim against the author’s royalties. In the event that said author’s royalties do not total fifty dollars within three years after the publication of the dissertation, the full receipts thereafter accruing to such volume shall be paid over to the University until such a time as the University is fully reimbursed for its advance.
Be it RESOLVED: That the Faculty of Political Science request the Trustees of the University to authorize the Library to pay to each doctoral candidate who had published his dissertation in the Studies, the sum of fifty dollars, upon his depositing with the Library one hundred copies of the said dissertation.

[…]

The Chairman of the Committee on Instruction reported that since receipt of the report of the Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (of which Professor Woodbridge was Chairman) the Committee on Instruction had given further consideration to the printing requirements. He submitted the following motions which were passed:

BE IT RESOLVED, that this Faculty favored such modification of the present requirement for the printing of the doctoral dissertation as would allow candidates certain options, as follows:
1. The dissertation may be printed from type and published in book form.
2. The dissertation may be published as an article or series of articles in a scholarly journal.
3. The dissertation may be reproduced by an offset process approved by the Dean of the Graduate Faculties.
BE IT RESOLVED, that it is the sense of the Faculty that there may be cases in which the Ph.D. Examining Committee may consider it unnecessary to require the printing of all the supporting data which the Examining Committee may have before it in the five typed copies required by the rules. In such a case the Examining Committee may, with the approval of the Dean, accept as the dissertation a shorter form of the manuscript, or an article or series of articles, provided five copies of the same in form for publication have been circulated to the Examining Committee with the additional materials, and are before the Committee at the time of the final examination.
BE IT RESOLVED, that this Faculty, realizing that in the past insufficient attention has sometimes been paid to a student’s choice of subject, resulting in the necessity of the preparation of a manuscript of unreasonable length, calls attention to the need for considering the scope of the task when a topic for a dissertation receives its preliminary approval.
BE IT RESOLVED, that the next available edition of the Bulletin of the Faculty include the first resolution on this subject stated abo e, setting forth the three options, and that in the Bulletin this be followed by a paragraph substantially as follows:

The departmental approval mentioned above relates to both the content of the dissertation and to the form in which it is printed. Students are therefore advised to consult their departmental representatives before exercising the option.

BE IT RESOLVED, that the Faculty authorize its Committee on Instruction to prepare a special leaflet for the benefit of candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under this Faculty, the leaflet to contain a full explanation of all the regulations on this subject.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science 1920-1939 (April 21, 1939) pp. 842-3, 845-846.

Image Source: Low Memorial Library, Columbia University from the Tichnor Brothers Collection, New York Postcards, at the Boston Public Library, Print Department.

Tags AngellJW, Chaddock, ClarkJM, Goodrich, Simkhovitch

Agricultural Economics Chicago Economists

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Edwin Ferdinand Dummeier, 1926

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2021-11-19

From the University of Chicago economics department records we can assemble a fairly complete account of the process of earning a doctorate in economics for the agricultural economist Edwin F. Dummeier who entered the Chicago program with a year’s worth of graduate credit. Dummeier’s five quarters in Chicago (from Summer 1925 through Summer 1926) in residence seems to be a lower bound at a time when the official regulations had been changed to state that as a general rule three years residence in graduate studies were expected of Ph.D. degree candidates.

It appears to me that Dummeier’s undergraduate degree at L.S.U. was the result of regular summer school attendance while teaching/administering during the regular school year. His collection of graduate credits from the Universities of California, Wisconsin, and Colorado also show a considerable portion of summer school credit. It is interesting to see that he could apparently be appointed the principal of a Louisiana high school without having a completed college education.

________________________

Brief c.v. of Edwin Ferdinand Dummeier

1887, April 4. Born in Metropolis, Illinois.

1910-1917. Principal of Leesville, Louisiana High School

1917-1918. Principal of Minden High School, Webster Parish, Louisiana.

1918. A.B. Louisiana State University

1921. M.A. University of Colorado.

1921-23. Instructor in economics, Washington State College (Pullman, WA).

1923-1925. Assistant Professor, Washington State College (Pullman, WA).

1926. Ph.D. University of Chicago. Thesis: The marketing of Pacific coast fruits in Chicago.

1926-46. Professor of Economics, State College of Washington, Pullman, Wash.

1944, June 19. Married Binna Mason, school teacher

1946, June 17. Died in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Biggest publication:

Edwin F Dummeier and Richard Brooks Heflebower. Economics: with applications to agriculture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1940.

________________________

Dummeier’s application for graduate credit towards an economics Ph.D. from Chicago

The University of Chicago
The Graduate School of Arts and Literature
Office of the Dean

August 19, 1925

Mr. J. A. Field
Faculty Exchange:

I enclose application for graduate credit from Mr. Edwin F. Dummeier who is a graduate student in residence this quarter. While he is doing most of his work in Commerce and Administration at present, he wishes to go into Political Economy, and so I am asking you to estimate the amount of credit in Pol. Econ. that ought to be given in majors and in quarters for the work he lists. Please return the certificates from the University of California and the University of Wisconsin.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
G. J. Laing
Dean

GJL:M

________________________

Department will recognize three quarters of graduate work

August 29, 1925

Dean G. J. Laing
University of Chicago
Faculty Exchange

My dear Mr. Laing:

I enclose herewith application for graduate credit for Edwin F. Dummeier which I have certified as representing in my judgment the substantial equivalent of three quarters of graduate work in Political Economy.

Sincerely yours,

[unsigned copy, J.A. Field]

JAF:MLH
Enclosure

________________________

Dummeier proposing his examination fields and requesting departmental review of all his coursework to identify any further course requirements

5757 University Avenue, Chicago, Illinois,
January 21, 1926

Professor L.C. Marshall, Chairman,
Department of Political Economy
The University of Chicago.

Dear Sir:

Announcements from the Department of Political Economy to persons intending to become candidates for the Ph.D. degree state that “the candidate, subject to the advice and approval of the Department,” may choose his fields for specialization and written examination from designated lists. Other announcements of the University state that in the Graduate Schools of Arts, Literature and Science the courses to be offered must be “approved by the Deans of the Graduate Schools at least six months before the degree is conferred. The individual courses must receive the approval of the heads of the departments concerned.” It is also stated that the Department of Political Economy will ordinarily approve as an essential part of a student’s preparation for the degree a considerable amount of work in allied departments.”

In consideration of these announcements I am herby submitting the following statement of fields which, with the approval of the Department, I propose to designate as fields of specialization and examination: (1) General Economic Theory; (2) Market Structures and Functions, this being the thesis field; (3) The Pecuniary and Financial System; (4) Transportation and Communication.

Furthermore, I am submitting a list of courses in the past pursued and a statement of courses which I have taught, in order that the Department may take definite action of a character which will enable me to plan my work in the future with an assurance that all course requirements are being met.

My undergraduate work included courses in the principles of economics and accounting. It also included courses in history and political science.

Graduate work thus far completed and courses for which I am registered for this quarter are as follows:

Political Economy

At the University of Colorado, six quarters, 1919-1921
Money and Banking	24 weeks	2 hours per week
Taxation	36 weeks	2 hours per week
Socialism	24 weeks	2 hours per week
Immigration	6 weeks	5 hours per week
Business Organization	6 weeks	5 hours per week
Seminar in Economics	12 weeks	2 hours per week
Thesis, “Financing Public Education in Colorado,” 6 quarter hours credit.

At the University of California, summer 1923
Transportation, principles [& Hist. (Dixon)]	6 weeks	5 hours per week
Transportation, current problems	6 weeks	5 hours per week
Pacific Coast Rate Problems	6 weeks	5 hours per week

At the University of Wisconsin, summer 1924
The Classical Economists [Physiocrats thru J. S. Mill]	6 weeks	5 hours per week
Farmer Movements	6 weeks	5 hours per week
Statistics	6 weeks	7½ hours per week

At the University of Chicago, summer, spring, and winter Qtrs. 1925-26
Course No.
334	Money and Prices	1 major
388A	Cooperative Marketing	1 major
388B	Marketing Farm Products	1 major
301	Neoclassical Economics	1 major
345	Personnel Administration	1 major
386	Terminal Marketing Research	1 major
C & A. 375	Business Forecasting	1 major
335	Bus.Finance and Investment	1 major
499	Terminal Marketing Research	1 major

Sociology

At the University of Colorado, 1919-1921
Social Problems (poverty)	12 weeks	2 hours per week
Rural Sociology	12 weeks	2 hours per week
Psychological Sociology	6 weeks	5 hours per week
Social Viewpoints and Attitudes	6 weeks	5 hours per week
Criminology	12 weeks	2 hours per week

History

At the University of Colorado, 1919-1921
Colonization of North America	24 weeks	2 hours per week
The Westward Movement	6 weeks	5 hours per week

Education

At the University of Colorado, 1919-1921
History and Philosophy of Education	24 weeks	3 hours per week
Seminar in Education	24 weeks	2 hours per week

Political Science

At the University of Colorado, 1919-1921
Municipal Functions and Problems	12 weeks	3 hours per week
International Law	12 weeks	3 hours per week
World Govt. and Politics	6 weeks	5 hours per week
Political Parties and Party Problems	24 weeks	2 hours per week

Summary	Majors
Work in Political Economy at other institutions, certified by the Department of Political Economy of the University of Chicago as equivalent to…	8½
Work in Political Economy at the University of Chicago…	9
Work in Sociology at other institutions, certified by the Dept. of Sociology of the Univ. of Chicago as equiv. to …	2½
Work in History at other institutions, certified by the Dept. of History of the Univ. of Chicago as equiv. to…	1½
Work in Education at other institutions, certified by the School of Education of the Univ. of Chicago as equiv. to…	2
Work in Pol. Science at other institutions, certified by the Dept. of Pol. Science of the Univ. of Chicago as equiv. to…	3
Total majors in Political Economy…	17½
Total majors in other subjects…	9
Grand Total…	26½

For the past four years I have been a member of the faculty of the Department of Economics of the State College of Washington, for the past three years with the rank of assistant professor of economics. During this time I have taught the following subjects, having given courses in all of these subjects several times: (1) Economic Geography; (2) Foreign Trade; (3) Railway Transportation; (4) Agricultural Economics; (5) Marketing Farm Products; (6) Co-operative Marketing of Farm Products; (7) Money and Banking; (8) Principles of Economics, elementary and intermediate courses.

For the spring quarter I am planning to register for Political Economy 303, Modern Tendencies in Economics, to continue the research work on my thesis subject, and if advised to do so to register for one additional course. I do not expect to be able to complete the thesis by the close of the spring quarter, but am trusting that I may be able to meet all course requirements and to complete the thesis and take the thesis examination before the close of the summer quarter.

It appears evident that my course requirements are dependent upon the amount of work in allied departments, consisting of courses already completed in other institutions, which will be approved by the Department as a part of the preparation for the degree. I am submitting this statement in the hope that I may have from the Department at an early date definite notification of the courses which I shall have yet to complete in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree.

Certified transcripts of records of courses completed at other institutions and of the valuations placed upon this work by the various departments of the University of Chicago, as enumerated in this communication, are on file in the office of the Deans of the Graduate Schools.

Respectfully yours,
[signed]
Edwin F. Dummeier

________________________

Dummeier proposing his doctoral thesis subject

5757 University Avenue, Chicago, Illinois,
January 21, 1926

Professor L.C. Marshall, Chairman,
Department of Political Economy
The University of Chicago.

Dear Sir:

I am hereby presenting for your approval the subject and a brief prospectus of the thesis which I propose later to submit in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Economy. The subject of the proposed thesis is “The Marketing of Pacific Coast Fruits in Chicago”.

While the prospectus is designed to give some idea of the general nature of the proposed study, it does not indicate the degrees of relative intensity with which it is proposed to treat the various phases of the general subject. All phases will be treated to the extent of critically surveying the existing literature pertaining to them and making some supplementary field study. But the study as a whole will be based not on existing literature, but on original field observations and a study of commercial records. As an exhaustive study of all phases of proposed subject by these methods is beyond the capacity of any one individual it is proposed to investigate with much more detail some phases than others. The degree with which this specialization will be devoted to particular ones of the subheads listed in the outline will depend in part upon the degree of cooperation received from the trade and, therefore cannot be definitely stated in advance. Representative, however, as a phase of the general subject in regard to which there is at the present time only the most meager published information and which may be studied is the fruit and vegetable auction as a marketing institution. As the auction is mostly used in connection with the marketing of Pacific Coast products this would be a natural subdivision of the main subject.

The whole study has as its primary object the evaluation of existing methods in regard to these products as to their social efficiency and social significance.

Yours respectfully,
[signed]
E. F. Dummeier

Thesis
THE MARKETING OF PACIFIC COAST FRUITS IN CHICAGO

Chapter

Introduction
1. The importance of the study
2. Method of treatment
  1. Emphasis on a few commodities, especially apples
  2. Emphasis on change and development in marketing methods
3. Specific objectives
  1. Primary objective: To evaluate comparative merits of different methods of performing marketing services.
  2. Secondary objectives: To show the relation of Chicago to the producing areas; to describe physical facilities of the market and the physical movements of these products thru the market; to determine costs of marketing these products and reasons for these costs; to examine factors influencing demand and to examine trends of change and their causes.
Chicago and the Regions of Supply
1. Data on production, arrivals, and unloads at Chicago. Data on storage movements and reshipments from Chicago.
2. The historical development of the industry, its present status, and its current trends.
The Physical Facilities of the Market and Physical Commodity Movements
1. Transportation services and facilities
2. Wholesale receiving
3. Auctions
4. Peddlers
5. Retailers
Carload Distributors, Brokers, and Carload Receivers
1. Numbers and classes of dealers
2. Marketing services performed and trade practices
3. Charges for services
Auctions
1. Extent of movement thru auctions
2. Auction methods
3. Auction charges
Jobbers and Shippers
1. Numbers and classes of dealers
2. Methods of buying and selling
3. Margins and costs
Retailers
1. Numbers and classes of dealers
2. Methods of buying and selling
3. Margins and costs
Marketing Costs
1. Critical consideration of marketing costs, especially of oranges and apples, on the basis of differences in marketing methods employed until time of sale to jobbers.
2. Particular consideration of the desirability of selling at auction.
Marketing Costs (Continued)
1. Critical consideration of marketing costs subsequent to time of sale to jobbers
Factors Influencing Demand
Summary and General Conclusions

________________________

Department approves Dummeier’s thesis subject

January 27, 1926

Mr. E. F. Dummeier
5757 University Avenue
Chicago, Illinois

My dear Mr. Dummeier:

The Department of Political Economy accepts as your thesis subject “The Marketing of Pacific Coast Fruits in Chicago.”

It is our understanding that you will carry on work in connection with this thesis under Mr. Duddy.

Yours very sincerely,
[Unsigned copy, L.C. Marshall]

LCM:MLH

________________________

Department Head Marshall asks his colleague to double-check the Dummeier transcripts for possible feedback

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy
February 1, 1926

Mr. C. W. Wright
University of Chicago
Faculty Exchange

My dear Mr. Wright:

I enclose a letter from Mr. Dummeier. I have written him concerning the field “Transportation and Communication.” Perhaps you will wish to look over his statement of courses and credits to see if any action needs to be taken concerning them.

Yours very sincerely,
[signed]
L.C. Marshall

LCM:MLH
Enclosure

________________________

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

Edwin F. Dummeier

A. B. University of Louisiana, 1918
A. M. University of Colorado, 1921

Summer Quarter, 1925

Pol Econ. 334	A
C & A 388	A
C & A 388B	A

French and German Exams. Passed. Sept. 1, 1925

Grad. Work in other insti. September 1, 1925

University of Colorado
Soc. (Faris)	2½ majors
Residence credit	1 Quarter

Grad. work in other insti. September 3, 1925

University of Colorado
Pol. Econ. (Field)	5½ majors
Residence credit	2 Quarters

University of California and Wisconsin
Pol. Econ. (Field)	3 majors
Residence credit	1 Quarter

Autumn Quarter, 1925

Pol Econ. 301	A
C & A 313	[blank]
C & A 345	A
C & A 385	A
C & A 386	A

Grad. work in other insti. Jan 4, 1925

University of Colorado
Educ. (C.H. Judd)	2
Pol. Sci. (C.E. Merriam)	3
Residence Credit	1 Quarter
History (C.F. Huth)	1 ½
Residence Credit	½ Quarter

________________________

Department requests clarification regarding the proposed field “Transportation and Communication”

February 1, 1926

Mr. E. F. Dummeier
5757 University Avenue
Chicago, Illinois

My dear Mr. Dummeier:

It seems entirely probable that the Department will approve the four fields suggested in your letter of January 21^st.

The Department has, however, asked me to secure from you a more detailed statement of your understanding of the territory that would be covered by the field “Transportation and Communication.”

Yours very sincerely,

[Unsigned: L. C. Marshall]

LCM:MLH

________________________

Schedule of written field examinations

February 2, 1926

Mr. E. F. Dummeier
5757 University Avenue
Chicago, Illinois

My dear Mr. Dummeier:

This is just to let you know that I have you scheduled to take the following examinations on the dates mentioned.

February 13, Economic Theory. 8:30 A.M.

February 20^th, Pecuniary and Financial Systems, 8:30 A.M.

February 27^th, Transportation and Communication 8:30 A.M.

The questions will be given out at Harper E 57. Please let me know at once if the above schedule is incorrect.

Yours very sincerely,
[Unsigned copy: Margaret McKugo]

MM:MLH

________________________

Dummeier clarifies his understanding of the field “Transportation and Communication”

5757 University Avenue, Chicago, Illinois,
February 4, 1926

Professor L.C. Marshall, Chairman,
Department of Political Economy
The University of Chicago.

Dear Sir:

In reply to your letter of February 1^st I am hereby submitting the following as my understanding of the territory that would be covered by the field “Transportation and Communication”, which was proposed by me as one of my fields of specialization in my candidacy for the Ph.D. degree.

As to agencies, I understand the field to include all the agencies of land and water transportation. Major emphasis should, however, be placed upon railway transportation in the United States. Agencies supplying communication other than physical transportation would include the telephone and telegraph. As compared with railway transportation these are of less importance, and as they present relatively few distinctive problems they may be said to be somewhat incidental to the main field.

With regard to the above mentioned agencies consideration should be given to phenomena and problems of the character of those with which Political Economy in general concerns itself. These should include the following:

The historical development of the various transportation agencies,
The services performed and economic significance of the various agencies,
Theories of rate making, particularly railway rates,
Rate making practices and rate systems,
Railroad finance,
Sufficient knowledge of the technic of operation to be able to consider intelligently questions of public policy with regard to railroads and other transportation agencies,
The economic and legal bases of the regulation of public carriers and the history of their public promotion and regulation,
Various present day transportation problems in which the general public has an interest, such as valuation, consolidation, and government ownership or operation.

The above indicates the general scope and to some extent the relative emphasis of the constituent parts of the field of Transportation and Communication as a field of Political Economy as I understand it.

Most respectfully yours,
[signed]
Edwin F. Dummeier

________________________

Wright’s Response to Marshall’s Feb. 1, 1926 Inquiry

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
The School of Commerce and Administration

Memorandum to Marshall from Wright
[no date, but probably early Feb. 1926]

After surveying Mr. Dummeier’s record of courses taken, it seems to me that in the four fields chosen he has not covered the following.

Theory: History of Theory. Only partly covered.

Unsettled Problems. He plans to take this in the Spring.

Marketing: Advertising. I am not certain as to this.

Transportation: Public Control of Railroads.

Of the specific general requirement he has covered Statistics and Accounting but not Economic History of the U.S. I gathered from the discussion at the Dept. meeting that the members of the Department would refuse to tell him specific courses that were required, though personally I do not consider this a reasonable attitude.

C.W.W.

________________________

Response of Department to Dummeier’s follow-up regarding his examination field “Transportation and Communication”

March 2, 1926

Mr. E. F. Dummeier
5737 University Avenue
Chicago, Illinois

My dear Mr. Dummeier:

I spoke to Mr. Wright and he told me that your recommendation had come before the Department, but he could not at this time give you a written statement concerning it. He is turning your letter over to Mr. Marshall who will write you as soon as he returns to the office.

Yours very sincerely,
[Unsigned copy: Margaret McKugo]

MM:MLH

________________________

Economics Department Record of Dummeier’s Written Ph.D. Examination Grades
(First attempt)

Winter Qr. 1926

E. F. Dummeier

Economic Theory

Viner — Pass Fair
Clark — B

Pec. And Fin. Sys.

Mints — Failed
Wright — C
Meech — Failed

Trans. & Com.

Clark — Passed
Sorrell — [Blank]
Duddy — Passed

________________________

Department’s decisions
regarding credits recognized
plus advice on “possible gaps”

March 16, 1926

Mr. E. F. Dummeier
5757 University Avenue
Chicago, Illinois

My dear Mr. Dummeier:

After examining your credits as officially certified by various departmental representatives it seems clear that you have met the general requirements as far as the total number of majors is concerned.

The only issues outstanding are these:

There is a requirement that a candidate for the doctor’s degree shall have covered work in the Economic History of the United States. I am uncertain whether you have taken care of this requirement.
You will, of course, need to be prepared to pass the examinations in four fields. As you know no specific courses are required in connection with these examinations. The candidate is expected to work up each field in a rather comprehensive way.

Certain questions arise in my mind with respect to these examinations. Have you prepared yourself in the field of Public Control of Railroads? Have you done so in the general field of Advertising? Have you done so in the History of Economic Thought? You will, I am sure, realize that these inquiries do not indicate the necessity of your taking specific courses in these territories. I mention them merely as possible gaps in your thinking in these fields.

Yours very sincerely,
[Unsigned copy: L. C. Marshall]

LCM:MLH

________________________

Dummeier informed that he passed two of his three written examinations
[Carbon copy]

March 24, 1926

Mr. E. F. Dummeier
5757 University Avenue
Chicago, Illinois

My dear Mr. Dummeier:

The final reports for the written examinations taken by you during the Winter Quarter, 1926 in partial satisfaction for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy are as follows:

Economic Theory — Passed

Pecuniary and Financial System — Failed

Transportation and Communication — Passed

Yours very sincerely,
[Unsigned copy: L. C. Marshall]

LCM:MLH

________________________

Economics Department Record of Dummeier’s Written Examination Grades
(Second attempt: Pecuniary and Financial Systems Field)

Pecuniary and Financial Systems

Mints — Pass
Cox — Pass

________________________

Dummeier told he successfully passes his third written examinations
[Carbon copy]

June 8, 1926

Mr. E. F. Dummeier
5757 University Avenue
Chicago, Illinois

My dear Mr. Dummeier:

I am pleased to report that you have passed the Pecuniary and Financial System examination, taken in the Spring Quarter, 1926, in partial satisfaction for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Yours very sincerely,
[Unsigned copy: L. C. Marshall]

LCM:MLH

________________________

Dummeier’s Principal Advisor not in Chicago during the summer quarter (when the thesis is expected to be completed and submitted)

The University of Chicago
Local Community Research Committee
Address: Faculty Exchange. The University of Chicago

June 7, 1926

Mr. L.C. Marshall, Dean
Department of Political Economy
University of Chicago

Dear Mr. Marshall:

My absence during the Summer Quarter means that some one must supervise the students who have been working under me in community research. Mr. Dummeier, who plans to get his degree in Political Economy, is quite well along with his work and I should like to recommend that either Mr. Wright or Mr. Viner look after him. He is going to develop a section on price study and Viner would be a help there.

The other men, Davidson, Journey and Weaver, are planning to come up in Commerce and Administration, and I am making recommendations to Mr. Spencer to take care of them. In the case of all of these men, I shall want to read copies of their theses as they come in. Both Mr. Dummeier and Mr. Journey have their outlines fully developed and have begun to write.

Yours very truly,

[signed]
E.A. Duddy

EAD:JS

________________________

Department Head Marshall turns to Jacob Viner
for last-minute thesis advice

June 8, 1926

[Memorandum to:] Jacob Viner

[From:] L. C. Marshall

Mr. Dummeier has been working with Mr. Duddy, but Mr. Duddy is to be away this coming summer. I wonder if you would be willing to look after Mr. Dummeier’s work on the thesis since he is planning to develop a section on price study.

The matter is one upon which the Department needs to take action in view of the fact that Mr. Dummeier plans to take his degree in Political Economy.

LCM:MLH

_______________________

Viner “gratefully” accepts the “chore”

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

June 10, 1926

Mr. L. C. Marshall
Faculty Exchange

My dear Mr. Marshall:

You may send on Mr. Dummeier to me. I will take over the job of supervision of his research during Mr. Duddy’s absence, inasmuch as I have been unable to think up a good excuse for evading the chore.

Gratefully yours,
[signed]
Jacob Viner

_______________________

Notification that Viner Will Serve as Substitute Research Supervisor

June 17, 1926

Mr. E. F. Dummeier
5757 University Avenue
Chicago, Illinois

My dear Mr. Dummeier:

I have had a note from Mr. Viner indicating his willingness to supervise your research in Mr. Duddy’s absence.

Yours very sincerely,
[Unsigned copy: L. C. Marshall]

LCM:MLH

________________________

Official Examination Notice for E. F. Dummeier
(with Prof. Meech’s scribbled note that he will be unable to attend)

________________________

COURSES PRESENTED BY EDWIN F. DUMMEIER
FOR THE DEGREE Ph.D. IN ECONOMICS
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

		Majors
Pol. Econ. 334	Money and Prices. Hardy	1
C & A 388 B	Marketing Farm Products, Weld	1
C & A 388 A	Cooperative Farm Marketing. Jesness	1
Pol. Econ. 301	Neo-Classical Economics. Viner	1
C & A 345.	Personnel Administration. Stone	1
C & A 386	Terminal Marketing Research. Duddy	1
C & A 355	Business Finance and Investment. Meech	1
C & A 375	Business Forecasting. Cox	1
Pol. Econ. 499	Terminal Marketing Research Duddy	3
Pol. Econ. 499	Terminal Marketing Research. Viner	3
	TOTAL	14

Graduate Work at Other Institutions

Economics
Transportation. Principles	Univ. of Cal.	Dixon
Transportation. Current Problem[s].	Univ. of Cal.	Dixon
Pacific Coast Rate Problems.	Univ. of Cal.	Harraman
Farmer Movements.	Univ. of Wis.	Hibbard
The Classical Economists.	Univ. of Wis.	Scott
Statistics.	Univ. of Wis.	Lescohier
Money and Banking.	Univ. of Colo.	Ingram
Taxation.	Univ. of Colo.	Ingram
Immigration.	Univ. of Colo.	Ingram
Business Organization.	Univ. of Colo.	Ingram
Seminar in Economics.	Univ. of Colo.	Bushee
Thesis “Financing Public Education in Colorado.”
Total (Field)		8½

Economics Total		22½

Education Total	Judd	2
Sociology Total	Faris	2½
Political Science Total	Merriam	3
History Total	Huth	1½

Grand Total		31½

________________________

Memo from Millis announcing/reminding about oral examination date
[Carbon copy]

The University of Chicago
The Department of Political Economy

August 17, 1926

Memorandum to:

N. W. Barnes [Associate Professor of Marketing]
P. A. Douglas [Associate Professor of Industrial Relations]
L. H. Grinstead [Visiting Assistant Professor from Ohio State University]
G. G. Huebner [Visiting Professor from the U. of Pennsylvania]
L. C. Sorrell [Assistant Professor of Transportation and Communication]
Jacob Viner [Professor of Political Economy]
C. W. Wright [Professor of Political Economy]

From: H. A. Millis

This is just to let you know that E. F. Dummeier will come up for his oral examination on Monday, August 23, at 3 o’clock in Harper E 57.

If it is impossible for you to be present will you please notify Miss McKugo in Harper E 57?

________________________

Memo from Millis announcing/reminding about oral examination date
[Carbon copy]

[Memorandum To:] L. S. Lyon [Visiting Professor from Robert Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government]

[From: H. A. Millis]

August 18, 1926

This is just to let you know that E. F. Dummeier will come up for his oral examination on Monday, August 23, at 3 o’clock in Harper E 57.

If it is impossible for you to be present will you please notify Miss McKugo in Harper E 57?

________________________

A “Thank-you” to Marshall for his support
Note: Dunnmeier’s article on auctions apparently never published

The State College of Washington
Pullman, Washington
Department of Business Administration

December 28, 1926.

Professor Leon C. Marshall
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

Dear Professor Marshall:

I am enclosing herewith a review of Benton’s “Marketing of Farm Products” for the Journal of Political Economy. I had hoped to have gotten this review to you at an earlier date, but teaching duties have kept me so busy as to delay its completion somewhat longer than I anticipated.

Not long ago I received a letter from professor Duddy, in which he stated that you had spoken to him with regard to my writing an article for the Journal on the fruit auction as a marketing agency, the article to be based on my first hand research work in Chicago. I have started the preparation of such an article and hope to submit it within the very near future.

I have found on my return to my duties here that my year at the University of Chicago has been of very large benefit to me, and I continue to feel most grateful to you for your part in making that year possible.

Most cordially yours,
[signed]
E. F. Dummeier

EFD/EIB

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Economics Department. Records & Addenda. Box 6, Folder 12.

Image: “Dummeier Rites Are Held Today,” Spokane Chronicle, June 18, 1946.

Tags ClarkJM, Cox, Douglas, Duddy, Dummeier, MarshallHC, Meech, Mints, Sorrell, Viner, WrightCW

Barnard Columbia Economist Market Economists

Columbia. Early Industrial Organization. Career of Arthur Robert Burns, husband of Eveline M. Burns

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2021-11-07

In the previous post we encountered social security pioneer Eveline Mabel Burns née Richardson at the point in her career when the Columbia University economics department signaled a definitive end to any hopes for promotion from the rank of lecturer to a tenure track assistant professorship in economics for her with them. In this post we follow the parallel case of her economist husband, Arthur Robert Burns (and no, not the Arthur F. Burns of Burns-Mitchell fame!), who cleared the promotion to assistant professor hurdle at Columbia relatively easily, but was stuck at that rank for nine years, in spite of repeated proposals by the department to promote him sooner.

The heart of this post can be found in the exchange between the Arthur Robert Burns and then economics department head R. M. Haig in November 1941. Biographical and career backstories for Arthur R. Burns through 1945 can be found in excerpts posted below from budgetary proposals submitted by the economics department over the years. Burns was seen as a pillar of Columbia University’s Industrial Organization field at that time and remained at Columbia through his retirement (ca. 1965) while his wife took up a professorship in Social Work.

____________________________

From: Seligman’s 1929-30 budget recommendation to President Butler (December 1, 1928)

“During [Clara Eliot’s] absence [from Barnard College) Mr. A. R. Burns has been acting as substitute. In our judgment he has been a valuable addition to the staff, and we recommend that he be reappointed as instructor. In Miss Eliot’s absence the course in statistics has been reduced from two semesters to one. There is a distinct demand for an additional course, though it would be on a different basis from formerly, and our proposal is that Miss Eliot be appointed solely to give two three-point courses in statistics, conducting a statistical laboratory as part of this work. This would relieve Mr. Burns from the course in statistics, and enable him to offer a new course of a somewhat more theoretical character than any now given at Barnard, on “the price-system and the organization of society”, a course which would distinctly help to round out the present offerings in Economics”.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Department of Economics Budgets, 1915-1934 (a few minor gaps)”.

____________________________

Biographical and professional background through 1930-31
of Arthur R. Burns

…Arthur R. Burns was born in London, in 1895. He served in the army from September, 1914, to April, 1917, when he was discharged as no longer fit because of wounds. He entered the London School of Economics at once, took his B.Sc. degree with honors in 1920, taught economics in King’s College for women (University of London) for four years, and took his doctor’s degree in 1926. The award of Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fellowships brought Dr. Burns and his wife to this country, where they traveled somewhat widely for two years, studied competitive conditions in industries characterized by large business units, and where they were induced to stay by Columbia.

Dr. Burns has now been a lecturer in economics at Barnard College for three years. Members of our department have thus had an opportunity to become well acquainted with his quality. We think that he is by native ability, temperament and training an investigator, and that, given such opportunities as the graduate department affords, he will make significant contributions to economic science. His publications include several technical papers and two books: Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times, 1926, (a learned treatise on the origin and early history of coinage and monetary practices), and The Economic World, 1927 (written in collaboration with Mrs. Burns).

Source: Letter outlining plans for the future development of the economics department by Wesley C. Mitchell to President Butler. January 16, 1931. In Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890-, Box 667, Folder 34 “Mitchell, Wesley Clair, 10/1930 – 6/1931”. Carbon copy also in Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Department of Economics Budgets, 1915-1934 (a few minor gaps)”.

____________________________

Department recommends promotion to Associate Professorship
already in 1937-38
[Note: actual promotion only occurred Apr. 3, 1944]

[…] I would make the following budgetary recommendations for the coming academic year [1937-1938]:

(1) That the salary of Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be advanced from $3,600 to $4,000. In the opinion of his colleagues Mr. Burns is an indispensable member of our group whose scholarly competence and accomplishments entitle him to recognition far beyond that yet accorded him by the University. At the earliest possible moment he should be advanced to an Associate Professorship.”

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1937-1938”.

____________________________

Department again recommends promotion to Associate Professorship
[Note: Burns was given the salary increase this time]

[…] I would respectfully make the following budgetary recommendations for the coming academic year [1938-1939]:

(1) That the salary of Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be advanced from $3,600 to $4,000. In the opinion of his colleagues Mr. Burns is an indispensable member of our group whose scholarly competence and accomplishments entitle him to recognition far beyond that yet accorded him by the University. At the earliest possible moment he should be advanced to an Associate Professorship.”

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1938-1939”.

____________________________

Department then begins unsuccessfully to push for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship
[Nov. 28, 1938]

[…] I respectfully recommend budgetary changes for the coming academic year 1939-1940, involving increase of compensation to the following members of the staff:

[…]

3. Arthur R. Burns from $4,000 to $4,500;

[…]

[Assistant] Professor Arthur R. Burns has established himself as an authority in his chosen field, and it is the desire of his colleagues that he be advanced to a full professorship as rapidly as university resources will allow. His tenure has already been long, and his advancement slow. It is our thought that he be given current recognition and enccouragement, with hope of promotion to rank commesurate with his repute among economists.”

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, “Economics Budget 1938-1939”. [note: incorrectly filed!]

____________________________

Requesting unpaid leave for a Twentieth Century Fund project

March 1, 1939

Nicholas Murray Butler, LL.D.
President of Columbia University

Dear President Butler:

Professor Arthur R. Burns has been invited to take the directorship of a study of the public utility industry, under the auspices of the Twentieth Century Fund. We of the Department think it wise that he do this and recommend that he be granted leave of absence without pay for the academic year 1939-40. I shall be prepared before long to make recommendation of some outstanding person to serve as a partial substitute for Professor Burns during the coming academic year with a stipend which will absorb approximately three-fifths of Professor Burns’ current compensation.

Very sincerely yours,

Executive Officer
Department of Economics

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1939-1940”.

____________________________

Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship
[Nov. 18, 1939]

[…] I respectfully make the following recommendations affecting the budget of 1940-41:

[…]

6. That Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be granted added compensation of $500 [i.e. from $4,000 to $4,500].

[…]

[Assistant] Professor Arthur R. Burns has served a long apprenticeship with subordinate rank in the Department. At the moment, either from the standpoint of scholarly attainment or from that of efficiency in graduate instruction he suffers not at all by comparison with the best endowed and most effective of his colleagues. Because of his merits and of the importance of the field he covers, he should be advanced rapidly to full professorial status.

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1939-1940” [note: incorrectly filed!]

____________________________

Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary reducing promotion to Associate Professorship
[October 27, 1941]

MEMORANDUM
Department of Economics
October 27, 1941

[…]

Arthur R. Burns. Proposed: Advancement–assistant professor to associate professor.
Present salary $4,500
Proposed salary. $5,000

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Budget Material from July 1941-June 1942”.

____________________________

Arthur R. Burns demands promotion to the rank of professor

3206, Que Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.

November 1^st 1941.

Dear Professor Haig,

As I shall not be in New York this year to talk about the departmental plans for next year I must write. It seems to me that the question of my status in the department now calls for definitive action. Doubtless the unsettled times will be advanced as a reason for postponing promotion. At the outset, therefore, I wish to emphasise that I should regard any such attitude as entirely unfair. If the University is to go through hard times (as well it may) its misfortunes should be shared equitably among all the members of the faculty. To be frank, I feel that I have already been asked to bear an altogether unreasonable share of such financial stringencies as the University may have suffered. There have been many occasions in the past thirteen years on which I have been told that my promotion has been recommended (and more in which I have been told that it would have been recommended) but that no action has been taken for general financial reasons. I fully expect to bear my share of the burden of contemporary events but I feel that the time has come for my position to be given special consideration irrespective of those events, no matter how serious.

Various reasons have been given to me during my thirteen years of service to the University for its failure to promote me. But I think I am justified in believing that there has been less than the usual amount of criticism of my scholarship or my teaching capacity. The number of my students who have progressed in the outside world (sometimes already beyond my own rank and salary) indicates that I have been reasonably effective. Furthermore, I think that you will find that in recent years there has been an increasing number of graduate students coming to Columbia to work with me.

I now ask you, therefore, to have my academic status reviewed, whether or not the University wishes on principle again to avoid promotions. And after this long delay promotion only to an associate professorship will not, in my opinion, be compatible with my professional reputation and status. For six or seven years now my recognition outside the University has been widely at variance with my academic rank. My salary as Director of Research for the Twentieth Century Fund was $10,000 per annum. I have recently been invited to join the Anti Trust Division of the Department of Justice at a salary of $8,000 per annum. I am now the Supervisor of Civilian Allocation in the Office of Production Management. I suggest that this evidence justifies promotion to a full professorship. If economies are necessary, I am ready, as I have said, to accept them on the same basis as my colleagues.

I have written to you with complete frankness because I have been keenly disappointed with the disposal of suggestions for my promotion and I am anxious that you shall be clearly informed as to my feelings. I gather that for a number of years now there has been no serious objection but also no vigorous effort in my behalf. I now feel that if after all these long delays Columbia is unwilling to take special action to recognize my professional status I had better know before I am much older. I am now forty six years of age and if I must seek academic recognition elsewhere I must obviously begin to take the necessary steps without delay. I would of course prefer to stay with Columbia. I think you will agree that these long years of patient waiting are evidence of my loyalty but I think you will also agree that I cannot continue much longer to accept the present wide discrepancy between my status inside and outside the University.

Very sincerely yours,

[signed]

Arthur R. Burns

Professor Robert Murray Haig,
Chairman,
Department of Economics,
Fayerweather Hall,
Columbia University,
NEW YORK CITY

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection. Box 2: “Faculty”, Folder: “Faculty Appointments”.

____________________________

Department responds to Burns’ demands:
Associate professorship when your rejoin the faculty

November 22, 1941

Professor Arthur R. Burns
3206 Que Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.

Dear Professor Burns:

Last night our group met at dinner to consider the budget. This afforded an opportunity to comply with your request that your academic status be reviewed. I wish you could have listened to the discussion that took place. It was highly friendly and appreciative in tone, but at the same time it was pervaded by a deep sense of responsibility for the ultimate objectives for which we are striving. I am sure that it would have impressed you, as it did me, with the essential soundness of the policy of placing heavy dependence upon the deliberate, critical judgment of one’s colleagues in considering questions of promotion.

Your letter of November 1^st, which I read to the brethren in full, arrived at a time peculiarly unfavorable for the consideration of finalities and ultimatums. Moreover, I regret to have to report some of the statements and implications of that letter were not altogether fortunate in the reactions they inspired. Let me elaborate on this last statement first.

(1) You state that you gather that in the past there has been “no vigorous effort” in your behalf. I can speak with full knowledge only regarding last year. If the implication is that your failure to secure more adequate recognition is ascribable to lack of vigor on the part of your colleagues as a group, or of the chairman of the Department in particular, I wish to state that I know it to be untrue with respect to last year and have reason to believe it to be untrue of several previous years. As a matter of fact, last year as the program moved forward from the Faculty Committee on Instruction, the recommendation for your promotion was placed at the very top above all others in the Faculty of Political Science. Until the very end, when the Trustees at their March meeting ruthlessly scuttled the program, I had high hopes that the effort would be successful. The only budgetary changes last year in this entire Department of 32 members were a) a $300 increase for which the College authorities had obligated themselves to secure for Barger and b) the temporary allocation of $600 to Wald for one year only from a sabbatical “windfall”.

(2) The citation of the salaries and fees you have been able to command in the government service and in the service of private research organizations as evidence that “justifies promotion to a full professorship” does not greatly impress your colleagues. We rejoice in the recognition and rewards that have come to you in return for your efforts while on leave of absence from your post at Columbia. Certainly the work of the Department has been carried on under a distinct handicap when your courses haven manned by part-time substitutes and we should like to believe that the sacrifices involved had borne rich fruits in professional and material rewards to you personally as well as to the general cause of science. However, you will readily agree, I take it, that our promotion and salary policy cannot be based on the principle you seem to suggest, viz., that the University must be prepared to match, dollar for dollar, the potential earning power of the staff on outside jobs. The rate of compensation for such outside work is, to my certain knowledge, likely to run over four or five times the rate of University compensation. Indeed, I can think of many of our colleagues who, on the basis of such a principle, could cite evidence even more convincing than your own.

(3) In the next place your letter seems to imply an understanding of the nature of the University connection that is not in complete harmony with our own. While it may be the policy elsewhere that mere length of service by a person who joins the staff at an early age, even though that service be reasonably effective and untouched by unfavorable criticism, carries assurance of promotion to the highest rank, this is definitely not the policy at Columbia University. Theoretically, at least, the University retains complete freedom of action to withhold advancement subject to a continuing critical appraisal of the individual’s value to the institution, against the background of changing circumstances, among which the University’s ability to supply funds must be listed near the top. Everyone is continually on trial to the very end of his career. This is evidenced in the practice regarding early retirement, the working of which I have recently had an opportunity to observe. Assurance regarding stability of tenure at a given level is a different point and mere humanitarian considerations are given generous weight. However, fundamentally the University connection is to be regarded as an opportunity (an opportunity, incidentally, of which you, in the opinion of your colleagues have, on the whole, made very good use) and promotion and early retirement are certainly affected and, in many cases at least, determined by the manner in which a member of the staff rises to that opportunity. Moreover, when such heavy dependence is placed upon the continuing critical appraisal by one’s colleagues, each man must have regard for his responsibility for the long-run interests of the department and of science. If, as the years roll along, the department is to contain a reasonably large percentage of intellects of the highest order, the critical appraisal must be a continuing process and sufficient freedom of action must be retained in promotion and salary policy to enable the group to make reasonably effective its collective judgment as to what is best for the department in the light of the individual’s developing record and the fluctuations of the resources available for supplying opportunities. I hope that you will forgive me for laboring this point but it is important that you understand what I am certain is the sentiment of the group of which you are a valued member, viz., that no matter on what basis of rank you may return to us, say, for example, as an associate professor, further recognition in rank or salary will be dependent upon decisions reached in harmony with the general policies outlined above.

I now revert to my earlier statement that your letter arrived at a peculiarly unfavorable time.

(1) On November 13^th a letter was received from the President of the University indicating that Draconian economies were indicated for this year’s budget. Our own enrolment in the graduate department of economics has shrunk this year about 25 per cent and this shrinkage is on top of last year’s substantial shrinkage. Even in advance of the preparation of the formal budget letters, the department chairmen were summoned before a special committee at the behest of the trustees and urged by the elimination of courses and other means to contract the normal budget to smaller proportions. Consequently only in emergency cases where the interests of the University are considered to be vitally affected, will serious consideration be given to recommendations involving an increased expenditure.

(2) With the retirement of McCrea, the question of the future of the School of Business has been thrown open for discussion. Under the new Dean a radical revision of policy is being formulated, including as one item the transfer of the School to a strictly graduate level. The intimate interrelationships of staff and curriculum between our department and the school are being reexamined. Plans are still in a state of flux but your particular field of interest is involved. So highly dynamic is the situation that the budget letters of both the Department and the School are to be considered tentative documents, subject to modification as decisions of policy are taken during the weeks that lie ahead.

(3) The situation is further complicated by the fact that within our Department itself we have reached the stage, which arises every decade or so, when long-time plans require consideration. Not only are we faced with an important retirement problem, but we are also asked to have regard for the situation that will result if the present trend toward lower enrolments continues. To deal with this situation, a special committee has been set up in the department, headed by Professor Mitchell, to formulate plans for the future. A series of meetings is being held at which the present and probable future importance of the various subjects falling within the scope of the departments are being discussed and questions of staff and curriculum are being intensively studied. Here also important decisions are in the making but definite conclusions have not yet been reached.

I am writing at such length in order that you may understand clearly and fully the background against which we were called upon to consider your letter and the reasons underlying the action that was taken in your case.

The recommendation that I am instructed by our colleagues to include in the budget letter is that I renew the recommendation made last year that you be promoted to the rank of associate professor at a salary of $5,000. I realize that this will be a disappointment to you. You have stated that you consider this degree of recognition, if we are successful in securing it for you, would not be compatible with your professional reputation and status. I infer from your letter that you consider it so inadequate that you are not prepared to accept it. However, you do not make yourself unequivocally clear on this point. If your mind is definitely made up, it will simplify the procedure if you will inform me of the fact at once. On the other hand, there is no disposition to press you for an early answer in case you are not as far along toward a decision as your letter would seem to imply.

In considering the problem of your probable future with us, as compared with the various flattering alternatives open to you, I feel that I should make the following statements:

(1) I have no assurance that the recommendation will be adopted. It will carry the vigorous support of the department and of the Chairman. I have already raised the question informally before the Committee on Instruction of the Faculty and am happy to be able to report that this committee is warmly friendly to your cause. Frankly, however, I am not as optimistic as I was last year at this time regarding the outlook for a favorable outcome when the trustees finally take action.

(2) I should report that, in view of all the circumstances, including the state of ferment that exists at the moment regarding future plans for the department, your colleagues would not be willing to urge your appointment to a full professorship immediately, even if they were convinced that such a recommendation would stand a chance of acceptance by the trustees. You are highly regarded and much appreciated. Your colleagues regret the harsh circumstances that have made it impossible to give you more recognition than you have already received. They consider you an excellent gamble for the long future. They consider the fields of your special interest important. However, it is hoped and believed that you have not yet reached a full development of your potentialities. When faced with the question as to whether they are convinced that, on the record to date, you are reasonably certain to be generally regarded, during the next twenty years, as one of the dozen or so most distinguished economists in active service, there is a general disposition to reply “not yet proven beyond a reasonable doubt”. Although they have no illusions about the difficulty of carrying out this policy with success, they have decided to take the position that they will henceforth recommend for a full professorship no one who does not meet such a test. They prefer to have you return with the clear understanding all around that the final issue, the question of the full professorship, shall not be decided in your case until more evidence is in. They take this position with the best of will and with a considerable degree of confidence that the final decision will be favorable. In connection with this, they feel that the important work upon which you are now engaged should contribute substantially to your “capital account” and should have a highly favorable effect upon your future record as a scholar and teacher.

You paid me the compliment of writing me a candid and forthright letter. In return I have attempted to lay before you with complete frankness all the considerations I know of that bear upon the question you have to consider.

Finally, I should like to say, speaking both in a personal capacity and as the chairman of the department, that I hope you will find it possible to send me word that you desire to continue as a member of our group under these conditions. We have an interesting and important task before us. I believe that you have a rôle to play in its accomplishment. If, unhappily for us, your decision takes you away from us, we shall sincerely regret the termination of our close association with you. To a remarkable degree you have earned for yourself not only the respect but the affection of your colleagues at Columbia.

Faithfully yours,

R.M. HAIG

P.S. At your early convenience will you be good enough to send me a note of any items that should be added to your academic record for use in my budget letter.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection. Box 2: “Faculty”, Folder: “Faculty Appointments”.

____________________________

From: Economics Department’s Proposed Budget for 1946-1947
November 30, 1945
[Burns recommended for professorship]

[…]

We recommend that Arthur Robert Burns, now an associate professor at a salary of $5,000, be promoted to a professorship at $7,500. Professor Burns, who has been connected with the University since 1928, was appointed an assistant professor in 1935, an associate professor in 1944. He has returned this year to his academic work, after a six-year leave of absence devoted to research and to important governmental service. His war-time activities have included service as Chief Economic Adviser and deputy Director of the Office of Civilian Supply, Deputy Administrator of the Foreign Economic Administration, and a mission to Europe in 1945 as a member of the American Group of the Allied Control Commission, advising on economic and industrial disarmament of Germany.
Professor Burns is carrying one of the fundamental graduate courses on Industrial Organization. He has agreed to offer one of the courses that will be central in the curriculum of the School of International Affairs–a course on “Types of Economic Organization”. His close acquaintance with the organization of the economies of the United States, Britain, and Germany, and his scholarly background in the field are of great value in this development of systematic academic work on comparative economic systems. Burn’s scholarly reputation is high. His study of The Decline of Competition, which is accepted as a standard in the field, is one of the major products of the Columbia Council on Research in the Social Sciences. He has served the country in recent years in administrative and advisory posts of high responsibility. We believe that he should have the rank of full professor.

[…]

Annex C

ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS

Academic Record

1918. Gladstone Memorial Prize, London School of Economics, London.
1920. B.Sc. (Economics) degree with First Class Honors, University of London.
1926. Ph.D. degree, University of London.
1926-28. Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship.

Teaching

1922-26. University of London.
1928-31. Lecturer in Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University.
1931-35. Lecturer in Economics, Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.
1935-44. Assistant Professor of Economics, Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.
1939. Special Lecturer, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Leaves of absence without salary for 1940-41 through 1944-45.
1944-45. Promoted to Associate Professor of Economics
Returned to Columbia University for 1945-46.

Published Work

“Indian Currency Reform.” Economica, about 1925.
“The Effect of Funding the Floating Debt,” Economica, about 1933.
“Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times.” London: Kegan Paul & Co., 1927. About 650 pp.
“The Economic World.” London, University of London Press, 1928. [sic: co-authorship of wife Eveline M. Burns was not included in the citation].
“The Quantitative Study of Recent Economic Changes in the United States.” Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, 31: 491-546, April, 1930.
“Population Pressure in Great Britain.” Eugenics, 3: 211-20, June, 1930.
“The First Phase of the National Industrial Recovery Act 1933”. Political Science Quarterly, 49:161, June, 1934.
“The Consumer under the National Industrial Recovery Act.” Management Review, 23:195, July 1934.
The Decline of Competition. New York, McGraw Hill, 1936. 619 pp.
[not listed: “The Process of Industrial Concentration” 47 Q.J.E. 277 (1933)]
“The Anti-Trust Laws and the Regulation of Price Competition.” Law and Contemporary Problems, June, 1937.
“The Organization of Industry and the Theory of Prices.” Journal of Political Economy, XLV: 662-80, October, 1937.
“Concentration of Production,” Harvard Business Review, Spring Issue, 1943.
“Surplus Government Property and Foreign Policy”, Foreign Affairs, April, 1945.

Unpublished Studies

1935-38. Investigation of the pricing of cement with special reference to the basing point system (in collaboration with Professor J. M. Clark).
1939. Report on the pricing of sulphur.
1938-39. Study of distribution costs and retail prices.
1939-41. Director of Research, Twentieth Century Fund study of “Relations between Government and Electric Light and Power Industry.” Has been completed and is now in hands of the Twentieth Century Fund.

Other Work

1935. Alternate member. President’s Committee to report on the experience of the National Recovery Administration.
1938-39. Chairman, Sub-Committee of Price Conference on Distribution Costs and REtail Prices.
1939-41. Member of Board of Editors, American Economic Review.
1941. Supervisor of Civilian Supply and Requirements, Office of Production Management.
1942. Chief Economic Adviser, Office of Civilian Supply, War Production Board.
1942 (July-August). Member of mission to London to study British methods of concentration of industry.
1943. Deputy Director, Office of Civilian Supply.
1943. Director of Planning and Research, Office of Civilian Requirement
1943, December to March, 1945. Special assistant to Administrator, Deputy Administrator to the Foreign Economic Administration.
1945-continuing. Consultant to Enemy Branch of the Foreign Economic Administration.
1945, Summer. In Europe with the American Group of the Allied Control Commission to advise on the economic and industrial disarmament of Germany.

___________________________

Obituary: “Arthur Robert Burns dies at 85; economics teacher at Columbia“, New York Times, January 22, 1981.

Image: Arthur Robert Burns. Detail from a departmental photo dated “early 1930’s” in Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Photos”.

Tags BurnsAR, BurnsEM, ClarkJM, Haig, McCrea, Mitchell, Seligman

Cornell Economist Market Economists Michigan

Michigan. Henry Carter Adams’ Plea on Own Behalf, 1887

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-12-28

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.

_________________________

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.

_________________________

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)

_________________________

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).

_________________________

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.

_______________

[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.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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.

Tags AdamsHC, ClarkJM, Ely

Chicago Economics Programs Economist Market Economists

Chicago. Memos discussing guests to teach during summer quarter, 1927

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-12-23

Apparently the 1926 summer quarter course planning at the Chicago department of political economy in 1926 was so wild that the head of the department, Leon C. Marshall, decided to start the discussion for 1927 on the second day of Summer, 1926. Four of the seven colleagues responded with quite a few suggestions.

This post provides the first+middle names where needed in square brackets. Also links to webpages with further information about the suggested guests have been added.

______________________

Copy of memo from
Leon Carroll Marshall

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Department of Economics

Memorandum from L. C. Marshall. June 22, 1926

To: C. W. Wright, J. A. Field, H. A. Millis, J. Viner, L. W. Mints, P. H. Douglas, W. H. Spencer

We really must break through the morass we are in with respect to our summer quarter. Partly because of delayed action and partly because of an interminable debating society in such matters we finally get a patched up program which is not as attractive as it should be.

I shall proceed on the basis of the homely philosophy that the way to do something is to do something. I shall try to secure from every member of the group a statement of his best judgment concerning the appropriate course of action for the summer of 1927 and then move at once toward rounding out a program.

Won’t you be good enough to turn in to E57 within the next few days your suggestions and comments with respect to the following issues.

Do you yourself expect to be in residence the summer quarter of 1927?
If you do, what courses do you prefer to teach? Please list more than two courses placing all of the courses in your order of preference. In answering this question, please keep in mind the problem of guiding research. Should you offer a research course?
What are your preferences with respect to hours? Please state them rather fully and give some alternatives so that a schedule may be pieced together.
What courses or subject matter should we be certain to include in the summer of 1927?
What men from outside do you recommend for these courses which we should be certain to include? Please rank them in the order of your preference.
Quite aside from the subject matter which you have recommended above, what persons from the outside ought we try to make contact with if our funds permit? This gives an opportunity to aid in making up the personnel of the summer quarter in all fields.
Please give any other comments or suggestions which occur to you.

Yours very sincerely,

LCM:G

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Response from
Jacob Viner

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

July 1, 1926

Dear Mr. Marshall

I will want to offer 301 (Neo-class Ec.) & 353 (Int Ec. Pol) as usual next summer, though if we have a good outside theorist to give 301, I would like to give a course on Theory of Int Trade in addition to 353. I think we need someone especially in Banking, next in theory. Beyond these we should offer work in some of the following, if we can get first rankers: statistics, private finance, transportation, economic history of Europe & ec. Hist. of U.S.

I suggest the following from which selections could be made:

Banking

Theory

Statistics

Transportation

Ec. Hist.

[Eugene E.]
Agger

[Benjamin Haggott] Beckhart

[Allyn Abbott]
A.A. Young

[Chester Arthur]
C. A. Phillips

[Oliver Mitchell Wentworth]
Sprague

[James Harvey] Rogers

[Ernest Minor] E.M. Patterson

[Allyn Abbott]
Young

[Jacob Harry]
Hollander[Frank Hyneman] Knight

[Albert Benedict] Wolfe

[Herbert Joseph] Davenport

[Henry Roscoe] Trumbower

[Homer Bews] Vanderblue

[Melvin Moses] M.M. Knight

[Abbott Payson] A.P. Usher

As other possibilities I suggest [George Ernest] Barnett, [James Cummings] Bonbright, [Edward Dana] Durand, [Edwin Griswold] Nourse, [Sumner Huber] Slichter, John D. [Donald] Black, Holbrook Working, [Alvin Harvey] Hansen.

[signed]
J Viner

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Response from
Paul Howard Douglas

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration

June 29, 1926

Professor L. C. Marshall
Faculty Exchange

Dear Mr. Marshall:

You have hit the nail on the head in your proposal to get under way for next summer, and I am very much pleased at your action. Answering your questions specifically may I say—

That I do not expect to be in residence for the summer quarter of 1927.
&3. Since I shall not be in residence no answers to these questions are, I take it, necessary.

We should, I think, be certain to include adequate work in the following fields (a) Economic theory, (b) Monetary and banking theory, (c) Labor problems, (d) Statistics and quantitative economics, (e) Taxation and Public finance, (f) Economic history.
As regards men from outside, I would recommend the following in each field: (a) Economic theory—[Herbert Joseph] H. J. Davenport, [John Rogers] J. R. Commons, [Frank Hyneman] F. H. Knight; (b) Monetary and banking theory—[Allyn Abbott] A. A. Young, [Oliver Mitchell Wentworth] O.M.W. Sprague, [James Waterhouse] James W. Angell; (c) Labor problems—Selig Perlman, Alvin [Harvey] H. Hansen; (d) Statistics and quantitative economics—[Frederick Cecil] F. C. Mills, [Robert Emmet] R. E. Chaddock, [William Leonard] W. L. Crum; (e) Taxation and public finance—[Harley Leist] H. L. Lutz, [William John] William J. Shultz; (f) Economic history—[Norbert Scott Brien] N. S. B. Gras.
As people from outside to try for, might it not be possible to secure some one from England, such as [John Atkinson] John A. Hobson, Henry Clay, or [Dennis Holme] D. H. Robertson? Might it not also be possible to get Charles Rist from France or [Werner] Sombart from Germany?

Faithfully yours,
[signed]
Paul H. Douglas

P.S. The news that [Henry] Schultz and [Melchior] Palyi are to be with us next year is certainly welcome. Should we not let everyone know that they are coming, and should not a news note to this effect be sent on to the American Economic Review? [Handwritten note here: “Mr. Wright doing this”]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Response from
Lloyd Wynn Mints

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration

July 16, 1926

Memorandum to L. C. Marshall from L. W. Mints, concerning the work of the summer quarter, 1927.

It is my present intention not to be in residence during the summer quarter, 1927, although I will be in the city, I suppose.
It appears to me that we should attempt to get men from the outside who would represent some of the newer points of view rather than the orthodox fields. I should suppose that it would be desirable to have a man in statistics and, if he could be found, somebody to do something with quantitative economics. For the statistics I would suggest [William Leonard] Crum, [Frederick Cecil] Mills, [Frederick Robertson] Macaulay, [Willford Isbell] King, [Bruce D.] Mudgett, [Robert] Riegel. I am ignorant of the particular bents of some of the statistical men, but I should suppose that in quantitative economics [Holbrook] Working, [Alvin Harvey] Hansen, or [William Leonard] Crum might do something. Perhaps [Edmund Ezra] Day should be added to the men in Statistics.
In economic history, as I remember it, we have had no outside help for a long time. I should like to see either [Noman Scott Brien] Gras or Max [Sylvius] Handman give some work here in the summer.
Particular men who represent somewhat new points of view, and who might be had for the summer, I would suggest as follows: [Lionel Danforth] Edie, [Oswald Fred] Boucke, [Morris Albert] Copeland, [Sumner Huber] Slichter.
In addition I should like very much to see either [Edwin Robert Anderson] Seligman or [John Rogers] Commons here for a summer.

[signed]
L.W.M.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Response from
Harry Alvin Millis

Answers to questions re Summer Teaching, 1927

Yes, I feel that I must teach next summer unless that plan you have been interested in goes through.
342 [The State in Relation to Labor] and 440 [Research].
342 at 8; 440 hour to be arranged.
5. 6.: Should get a better rounded program than we have had. Should have an outstanding man in economic theory and another in Finance. For the former I would mention [John] Maurice Clark, [John Rogers] Commons, and [Frank Hyneman] Knight—in order named. For the latter I would mention [Allyn Abbott] Young, [James Harvey] Rogers. If we can get the money I should like to see [George Ernest] Barnett brought on for statistics and a trade union course.

Would it be possible to have a seminar which would bring together the outside men and some of the inside men and our mature graduate students—these hand-picked? It might be made very stimulating.

[Signed]
H. A. Millis

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Response from
Chester Whitney Wright

The University of Chicago
The Department of Political Economy

Memorandum to Marshall from Wright

Summer 1927
First term some aspects of economic history
1:30 or 2:30
May have to teach the whole summer but hope I can confine it to first term.
Can teach any phases of subjects in any fields suitable for term.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Response from
James Alfred Field

[No written answer in the folder: however L. C. Marshall noted that Field would not be teaching in the summer term of 1927]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Response from
William Homer Spencer

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration
Office of the Dean

July 12, 1926

Mr. L. C. Marshall
The Department of Political Economy

My dear Mr. Marshall:

As Mr. [Garfield Vestal] Cox does not wish to teach during the Summer Quarter of 1927, I wish the Department of Political Economy would try to get Mr. [Edmund Ezra] Day of Wisconsin [sic, Michigan is correct] who could give both a course in statistics and a course in forecasting. Forecasting is not given this summer and unless we get someone from the outside to give it, I presume it will not be given next summer.

Why does not the Department of Political Economy for the coming summer get someone like Mr. [Leverett Samuel] Lyon to give an advanced course in economics of the market for graduate students? The Department of Political Economy could handle half of his time and I perhaps could handle the other half for market management

Now that it appears that the Department of Political Economy cannot get any promising young men in the Field of Finance, why do you not try for [Chester Arthur] Phillips of Iowa? He will give good courses and will draw a great many students from the middle west to the University.

So far as my own program is concerned, I have not made much progress. I tried to get [Roy Bernard] Kester of Columbia, but he turned me down. I am placing a similar proposition before [William Andrew] Paton of Michigan. In the Field of Marketing, I am trying for [Frederic Arthur] Russell of the University of Illinois to give a course in salesmanship primarily for teachers in secondary schools. Otherwise I have made no progress in getting outside men for next summer.

Yours sincerely,
[signed]
W. H. Spencer

WHS:DD

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics. Records. Box 22, Folder 7.

Tags Agger, Angell, Barnett, Beckhart, BlackJD, Bonbright, Boucke, Chaddock, ClarkJM, Clay, Commons, Copeland, CoxGV, Crum, CW Wright, Davenport, Day, Douglas, Durand, Edie, Elkington, Field, Gras, Handman, Hansen, Hobson, Hollander, Kester, Knight, KnightMM, LutzHL, Lyon, Macaulay, MarshallLC, Millis, MillsFC, Mints, Mudgett, Nourse, Palyi, Paton, PattersonEM, PerlmanS, Phillips, PhillipsCA, Riegel, Rist, RobertsonDH, RogersJH, RussellFA, Schultz, Seligman, ShultzWJ, Slichter, Sombart, Spencer, Sprague, Trumbower, Usher, Vanderblue, Viner, Wolfe, WorkingH, Young

Columbia Suggested Reading Syllabus

Columbia. New Seminar. Outline with readings, Economic Theory and Change. Mitchell and Ginzberg, 1937

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-12-04

Wesley Clair Mitchell left voluminous course lecture notes found with his other papers at the Columbia University Archives. On the whole his notes are very neatly written by hand so that any typed pages among his lecture notes immediately catch the attention of the tired eyes of this archival junkie working the boxes. My presumption was that this typed material was probably someone else’s work and the pencilled “Eli Ginzberg” on one of the course outlines provided an obvious lead. Ginzberg received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1934 and held the rank of Lecturer in economics at Columbia at the time of this course. Chapter 2 (“The Education of an Economist”) in his book The Skeptical Economist (1987) provides the necessary back-story for the course materials transcribed for this post.

From Mitchell’s notes to the first session from the Winter session of the course in 1937-38, we learn that a dress rehearsal was held as a seminar during the Spring 1937 course for which we have the following list of participants. Definitely worth noting is that William Vickrey and Anna Jacobson Schwartz participated in that preliminary seminar.

____________________

Handwritten: Economics Seminar. March-May 1937
(Signatures of student participants. Note: “not complete”)

William Vickrey, Ruth Cleve [?], Pauline Arkus, Anna Jacobson [Note: this is Milton Friedman’s collaborator Anna Schwartz], [First name illegible] Louise Boggen, Konrad Bekker, Mark S. Massel, Eileen M. Conly, John I. Griffin, Alan Pope, Bela Gold, Burnham P. Beckwith, Herman Zap, Moore

Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “3-5/37 A”.

____________________

Origin of the seminar

“In 1932-1933, a group of us brought about the first change in the curriculum: We persuaded Mitchell, Clark, and Angell to offer a seminar on economic theory. In the mid-1930s, when I had begun to teach as an assistant in the School of Business, I was instrumental in establishing several further reforms, largely through persuading its dean, Roswell C. McCrea, who also served as chairman of the Economics Department, to do the following: to reduce the number of subjects on which doctoral candidates were examined from seven to six, to invite Milton Friedman to give a course on ‘Neoclassical Economics,’ to have Wesley Mitchell substitute for his lectures on ‘Current Types of Economic Theory’ a new seminar on ‘Economic Theory and Economic Change,’ in which I would serve as his assistant. Furthermore, McCrea obtained the consent of the Committee on Instruction in the School of Business for me to offer a new course on ‘Economics and Group Behavior,’ which was cross-listed in the Department of Economics’ offerings. This was probably the first course in what later became known as ‘human resources.’”

Source: Eli Ginzberg, The Skeptical Economist (Westview Press, 1987), p. 16.

____________________

Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy
From Mitchell’s handwritten notes for the first meeting
Sept. 28, 1937

An experimental course. 1^st time given, aside from a brief trial run in seminar last spring.
Title not felicitous: perhaps it will prove not very accurate. Explanation of view[?] called for.

Past 2 generations have seen vigorous development of three or four different approaches to study of economic behavior.

Economic theory of several types ranging from mathematical economics on one flank to institutional economics on other flank.

Economic history of recent and more remote past

Economic statistics have multiplied in the leading commercial nations and technique of using them has been improved.

Relation of these approaches to one another

Difficult to find investigation in which one approach only is used.

Economic theorist seldom disregards wholly the historical setting of his problem, or quantitative importance of its components. Whether they recognize it or not, these factors count in their thinking.

Economic historians and statisticians cannot dispense wholly with qualitative analysis.

Their selection and arrangement of materials imply classification: they take materials that are pertinent and pass on others that are not. What is pertinent in their judgment is decided whether they realize it or not, by the organization of their ideas.

Can find many investigations in which an attempt is made to use all three approaches

Schmoller’s Allgemeine Vokswirtschaftslehre, Webbs’ History of British T. U.‘s and Industrial Democracy.Marshall’s Industry and Trade. Cassel’s Social Economics. Keynes‘ Theory of Money, Pigou’s Industrial Fluctuations, Sombart’s Moderne Kapitalismus. A brilliant older example Marx’s Capital; indeed Wealth of Nations except that Adam Smith had a poor opinion of ‘political arithmetic’.

But, to a large extent, the theoretical, historical, and statistical approaches have been developed by three groups of workers

Each of whom is especially adept in one approach and makes incidental rather than systematic and thorough use of the other approaches

And there are

Economic theorists
Economic historians
Economic statisticians

who seem not to realize the extent to which their thinking is influenced by elements derived from the other approaches.

In general we cannot claim that the three approaches have been perfectly blended

Schmoller a particularly good example because he tried as hard to use all three. He knew certain phases of economic history well: but not all the phases on which he touched. He was a slovenly theorist and a gullible statistician.

Hence one of the great tasks before the generation of economists to whom members of this class belong is to utilize the knowledge of economic processes provided by the 3 approaches more effectively than their predecessors have done.

Primary aim of the course is to aid in that effort.

Method is to take up certain economic processes that have been studied for both the theoretical angles and for the historical or statistical angles or for both and to inquire whether the realistic approaches call for modification of the theoretical analyses: quite as much

Whether the theoretical approach calls for modification of the realistic investigations.

How much we can get out of this experiment for the improvement of our own investigations remains to be seen.

Will depend not only upon the industry with which we are ready to devote to study of the materials assigned but also upon the ability to think we are able to develop.

Mode of conducting course

Dr. G. and I will select problems, at least at beginning, and assign readings. Members of class will present reports to the class Written or oral. Discussion in class.

As work goes on we may well turn up problems of which Dr. Ginzberg and I have not thought in advance.

Interest of the meetings and value of the work are necessarily conditioned by the clarity of the reports made by the members of the group.

Please try hard to get your notes[?] well organized and lucidly presented. So well presented that other members who listen once only can understand and expect questions of others as you present reports.

So much for the general aims of the course and how it will be conducted. Begin work with an attempt to characterize broadly the conceptions of economic change that are held by investigators.

Or rather, what types of movements occur in economic life.

1^st assignment

Let each member of class consult one or more of the statistical treatises that deal with time-series analysis to find out what types of movements are recognized.

What is basis of classification used? In what are these movements all alike? In what do the types differ? Are all of these types recognized by economic theory? For what types do economic theorists offer explanations? What relation if any do the movements of the statisticians bear to the ‘disturbing circumstances’ of economic theory and to the movements by which economic equilibrium is restored after a disturbance, and maintained in the absence of further disturbances (equilibrating movements)? Are the criteria used by economic statisticians in classifying movement like those used by time-series analysts? Can we expect inductive testing of economic laws?

Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “9/28/37 A”.

____________________

Handwritten draft of course announcement

December 19, 1936
Announced for 1936-37

Cumulative Changes in Economic Processes

A critical survey of realistic studies of population growth, natural resources, occupations, capacity to produce, standards of living, national income and its distribution, ownership of property, business organization and methods, labor conditions, capital accumulation, the role played by government in economic affairs, and national planning, accompanied by study of the relations of the findings to economic theory.

Readings, reports and class discussions. Limited to twenty students. Admission by permission of the instructor.

2 hours a week, both semesters.
4-6 Thursdays.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “12/19/36 A”.

____________________

Course Announcement
1937-38

Economics 201-202—Secular and structural changes in a modern economy. 3 points each session. Professor Mitchell with the assistance of Dr. Ginzberg.

Tu., 4:10-6. 102 Low.

The theoretical, institutional, historical, and statistical approaches to the study of economic changes. Critical survey of investigations into recent changes in important factors. Relations of the findings to current economic theory.
Readings, reports, and class discussions.
Admission only with permission of the instructor.

Source: Columbia University. Bulletin of Information (July 23, 1938). Courses offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions, 1937-1938, p. 30.

____________________

Course Announcement
1938-39

Economics 201-202—Economic changes and economic theory. 3 points each session. Professor Mitchell assisted by Dr. Ginzberg.

Tu., 4:10-6. 502 Business.

Admission only with permission of the instructor.

Source: Columbia University. Bulletin of Information (July 23, 1938). Courses offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions, 1938-1939, p. 31.

____________________

Jan. 14, 1937

TENTATIVE OUTLINE FOR COURSE ON CUMULATIVE CHANGES IN ECONOMIC PROCESSES

Introduction: The theoretical, the historical, and the statistical approaches to the study of Economic Changes.

The concepts of economic ‘statics’ and economic ‘dynamics’ in the work of J. S. Mill, Marx, J. B. Clark, Alfred Marshall, Gustav Cassel.
What ‘dynamic’ problems are treated by these writers? How far does the treatment build upon ‘static’ theory?
Theoretical treatment of cumulative changes in institutions by Marx, Veblen and Commons.
Historical accounts of economic changes.
What ‘explanations’ are given of significant changes by such writers as Ashley, Schmoller, the Webbs, Sombart, Clapham?
Time-series analysis
Types of changes commonly recognized: seasonal variations, random perturbations, cyclical fluctuations, secular trends.
The problem of ‘long cycles’. Kondratieff, Simiand, Kuznets, Burns.
The problem of structural changes.
What types of these changes have been explained theoretically?
What relations have these explanations to economic theory at large?
What relations exist between secular, cyclical, random, seasonal and structural changes?
Relations among the three approaches
The injunction to combine causal analysis with statistical description.
Dangers of statistical work not guided by theoretical concepts.
Dangers of theoretical speculation not checked by statistical observation
Difficulties in fusing the two approaches
Causal analysis of problems in which many variables are interrelated, and in which effects become causes in a process of cumulative change
The theoretical uses of history.
The historical applications of theory.
Statistics and history.

Classification of investigations available for the study of economic changes

Studies of recognized types of economic changes
The abundant literature upon business cycles
A few studies of seasonal variations
A few studies of secular trends and of long cycles
No systematic literature upon random perturbations; but many casual references in books on business cycles.
Many studies of structural changes, particularly those produced by legislations—for example, the Independent Treasury system, tariff acts, etc. Also numberless discussions under next heading.
Studies of changes in single economic factors
A vast literature is available upon such subjects as
Growth of population and its geographical distribution
Developments of the arts of production: histories of industries
Natural resources of different districts; their exploitation; problems of conservation
Changes in business organization: rise of corporations, different forms of corporate organization, banking systems; histories of particular business enterprises, and so on.
Organization of labor
Shifting importance of agriculture, transportation, manufactures, trade, finance in the national economy.
Changes in economic relations among nations:: commercial policies, international investments, shifts from debtor to creditor position.
Changes in the system of prices: their relations to monetary laws and practices; the relative importance of competitive versus regulated prices, private versus public regulation; the degree of flexibility in prices
Changes in standards of living
Economic changes during certain periods
Most of the books on economic history might be listed here, in so far as they do not belong under previous heading.
Also a few studies primarily statistical in character, such as
Recent Economic changes
Recent Social Trends
Social England—Booth’s survey and the recent many-volume study.
Mills’ Economic Tendencies in the U.S.
Work to be undertaken by the members of the course
To read critically and report upon significant studies of recent economic changes.
Avoid so far as feasible the subjects that are treated elaborately in other courses, for example money and banking, labor problems, business cycles, public utilities.
Stress the effort to grasp the inter-relations among the changes studied.
In each case consider in how far the changes are or can be ‘explained’, and what relation these explanations have or should have to economic ‘theory’.

Among the books to be consider for assignment the following are possibilities:

W. S. Thompson and P. K. Whelfton, Population Trends in the U.S. N.Y. 1933
R. D. McKenzie, The Metropolitan Community, N.Y., 1933
Carter Goodrich and others, Migration and Economic Opportunity, Philadelphia, 1936
Wyand, Economics of Consumption, N.Y., 1937
C. C. Chapman, Development of American Business and Banking Thought, 1913-1936. New York, 1937
Twentieth Century Fund, Big Business: Its Growth and its Place. N.Y., 1937
A. A. Berle and G. C. Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, N.Y., 1932
A. R. Burns, The Decline of Competition, N.Y., 1936
R. C. Epstein, Industrial Profits in the U.S., N.Y., 1934
Harry Jerome, Mechanization in Industry, N.Y., 1934
F. C. Mills, Prices in Recession and Recovery, N.Y., 1936
‘The Brookings Study’, Washington, 1934 and 1935

America’s Capacity to Produce
America’s Capacity to Consume
The Formation of Capital
Income and Economic Progress

H. G. Moulton and Associates, The American Transportation Problem, Washington, 1933
National Resources Board, Report December 1, 1934, Washington 1934.
W. I. King, The National Income and Its Purchasing Power, N.Y., 1930
(S. Kuznets), National Income, 1929-32, Washington, 1934
Our Natural Resources and their Conservation, A symposium edited by A. E. Parkins and J.R. Whitaker. N.Y., John Wiley & Sons, 1936
A. F. Burns, Production Trends in the U.S. Since 1870. N.Y. 1934. See review by F. A. Fetter JPE Feb. 1937
W. Sombart, Hochkapitalismus
W. H. Lough, High-Level Consumption, N.Y., 1935
W. V. Bingham. Aptitudes and Aptitude Testing, N.Y., 1937.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “1/14/37 A”.

____________________

[Handwritten note at top of page: “Eli Ginzberg Jan 18 1937”]

CUMULATIVE CHANGES IN A MODERN ECONOMY

Introduction

The Method of the Classicists

Ricardo—Chapter I ff.
Marshall—Book V

Supplementary:

Knight—Introduction to Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit—2d ed.
Ibid—The Ethics of Competition and Other Essays
Robbins—Nature and Significance of Economic Science
Clark, J. M. Preface to Social Economics (the essay on “Statics and Dynamics”)
Moore, H.L.—
Hotelling, H.—

Historical-Statistical Approach

(a) Case study of: Industrial Revolution

Toynbee
Hammonds
Webbs
Lipson
Clapham

Supplementary: see

Mantoux—
Nef—in Economic History Review.
Reconstructions, in Economic History Review

(b) Case study of: Profits and Wages in the United States

1. Profits

Epstein
Patten
Mills

Supplementary:

Knight—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences—article on Profits
Knight—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences—article on Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit
Reports of the S.E.C.
Senate Committee on Foreign Bonds

1. Wages

Douglas—Recent Economic Changes
Wolman, L.—R.E.C. and 3 Bulletins Bureau of Labor Statistics

Supplementary:

Douglas—Theory of Wages
Beveridge—Unemployment
Clay, H.—Essays in Industrial Relations

Institutional-Theoretical

Marx—Communist Manifesto
Ibid.—Capital—vol. I
Veblen—Theory of Business Enterprise
Mitchell—Business Cycles
Clark, J.M.—Economics of Overhead Costs

Supplementary:

Souter-Prolegomena to Relativity Economics
Hamilton—Encyclopedia of the Social sciences Article on “Competition”
Knight—Ethics of Competition, etc.
Clark, J. M.—Preface to Social Economics
American Economic Association—Round Tables

Conclusion: Methodology

Cohen—Reason and Nature
Weber, Max—Wissenschaftslehre
Whitehead—Adventure in Ideas
Simkhovitch—Approaches
Sombart—Drei Nationalökomien
Carnap—Unity of Science
MacIver—Harvard Lecture

PART I—Cumulative Changes in Economic Institutions

(General aim to study changes in degree and kind in the institutional setting explicit and implicit in neo-classicists; to gauge interrelations in these changes).

The Large Corporation

Berle and Means—The Modern Corporation
Twentieth Century Fund: Big Business
A. R. Burns—Decline of Competition

Supplementary:

Commons—Legal Foundations of Capitalism
Holmes, O. W.—Representative Opinion
Brandeis, L.—Social and Economic Views
Hamilton, W.—Industries affected with the Public Interest
Clark, J. M.—Social Control of Business
Handler—Trade Regulation

The Credit System

Annual Reports of Federal Reserve Board
Moulton—The Formation of Capital
Brookings—The Recovery of Business
Hardy—Credit Policies of the F. R. S.
Keynes—The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.
Angell—The Behavior of Money
Reports of Senate Sub-committee on Banking
Reports of Senate Committee on S. E. C.
Reports of Senate Committee on Foreign Bonds
Clark, J. M.—Economic of Planning Public Works
Chapman, C. C.—American Business and Banking Thought
Currie, L.—The Supply of Money

Supplementary:

Articles in Economic Journal, Q.J.E., S.[sic, J.?] of P. E.

The Problem of Consumption

(a) Numbers

Thompson and Whelfton—Population Trend
McKenzie—Metropolitan Community
Goodrich—Migration and Economic Opportunity
Recent Social Trends

(b) Psychology

Veblen—The Theory of the Leisure Class
Hearings on Pure Foods Drug Act
Reports of Federal Trade Commission
Bulletins of Consumers Research
Schlink—
Chase, Stuart—

Brookings—America’s Capacity to Consumer
Brookings—Income and Economic Progress
Wyand—Economics of Consumption
Recent Social Trends
Seligman—Installment Selling
Keynes—Appendix to General Theory

PART II—Cumulative Changes in the Short-Run

(Contrast with equilibrium approach of neo-classicists).

Case Study: Post-War Expansion

The automobile: building and new industries

(a) Source of capital
(b) Entrepreneurs’ expectations
(c) Exploitation of demand

Secondary Results: Structural Changes

(a) Relocation of Industry
(b) Urbanization—suburbs
(c) Standard of living—mores—instalment credit
(d) Incidence of Transportation
(e) Complex of Industry—of steel, glass, gasoline

Literature

Recent Economic Changes
Recent Social Trends
Goodrich et al—
Epstein, R.—Automobile Industry
Facts and Figures—Automobile Industry-1919 ff.
Clark, J. M.—Strategic Factors in Business Cycles
Warburton, C.—In Mitchell volume
Moulton et al—The American Transportation Problem
National Resources Board—Report 12/1/34
Burns, A. F.—Production Trends
Trade Journals—Steel, distribution, etc.
Annalist

PART III: The Interrelations of Economic Institutions and Market Phenomena

How do the existing legal, banking, and distributive institutions help to condition—and how are they conditioned by the following?

1. Capital accumulation
2. Profitability of industry
3. National income—wages—agriculture
4. Behavior of prices and costs

Literature

Mills—Economic Tendencies
Mills—Prices in Recession and Recovery
King—National Income and its Purchasing Power
Kuznets, S.—National Income. 1929-32
Mitchell—Business Cycles
Clark, J. M.—Strategic Factors in Business Cycles
Keynes, J. M.—General Theory of Employment
Brookings—Recovery of Business
Brookings—N. R. A.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “1/18/37 A”.

____________________

OUTLINE
Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy

[Handwritten: Eli Ginzberg]

February 23, 1937

* * * * * * * * *

OUTLINE
Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy.

INTRODUCTION: The theoretical, the historical, the institutional, and the statistical approaches to the study of economic changes.

“Statics and Dynamics” in the works of:
J. S. Mill, J. B. Clark, Alfred Marshall, Gustav Cassel.
“Explanation” of economic changes by:
Ashley, Schmoller, Webbs, Sombart, Clapham
Cumulative changes in institutions:
Marx, Veblen, Commons.
Time-Series Analysis: seasonal variations, cyclical fluctuations, secular trends and random perturbations. “Long cycles”:
Kondratieff, Simiand, Kuznets, Burns.

Summary: The limitations of isolated techniques and the difficulties of fusion

Theory and statistics; history and theory; statistics and theory
Multiple variables in a process of cumulative change.

* * * * * * * * *

Secular changes in the industrial unit, the financial system, the organization of labor, and the ideology of the public during the periods:

1870-1890
1890-1914
1914-1937

The Industrial Unit: The changing pattern of competition
1. Economic aspects
  1. Adjustment to technology and to a national market
  2. Location of plant and transportation
  3. Integration: to raw materials; to distribution; to finance
2. Law and Social Control
  1. Trademarks and Patents
  2. Governmental Regulation: License, taxes, etc.
  3. Trade Associations
  4. Management vs. Ownership

*Emphasis to be placed upon changing relative positions of the industrial unit to the total economy; upon the influence of size to competitive behavior; upon economic implications of individual vs. corporate forms.

Financial System—The rôle of money in a modern economy.
1. The Changing Structure of Banking
  1. Loans and investments
  2. Active money
2. The Problems of Debt and Liquidity
  1. Private vs. Public Debt
  2. Collateral for private debt
  3. Insurance—private and public
3. Implications: Economic and Social
  1. Economic: The interrelations of interest rates, savings, and the formation of capital.
  2. Social: The political control over the creation of money and the use of this control for the eradication of the business cycle.

Labor: not solely a commodity
1. Unionization
  1. Members
  2. Objectives
  3. Potential threats and consequences
2. Supply
  1. Changes in requirements of skill
  2. The relative shrinkage in agriculture
  3. The additions from women of the middle class
  4. Mobility
3. Rôle of the Government
  1. Free Services
  2. Enforcement of minimum standards
  3. Relief payments and work creation
  4. Re Bargaining between Labor and Capital

*Emphasis: Implication of these changes for

1. Rate of wages
2. Total wages—cf. monopoly analysis
3. Class-struggle analysis

The Changing Ideology: The influence of money making upon the attitudes of people—
Upon their behavior in
1. Spending: price vs. quality; advertising; women as buyers
2. Accumulating: liquid vs. fixed assets; speculation; insurance; goods vs. family
3. Playing: The esoteric vs. the stable; Wanderlust; the shift from church and home to club and movie.
4. Occupational adjustment: sensitivity to monetary stimuli; civil service; money and the arts.

Conclusions: An approach to isolating and treating the strategi9c factors in a dynamic economy—

1. The emergence of profitability
2. The cumulative process and the breakdown
3. The absorption of technological developments and the tendency towards retardation of growth.
4. The closely allied patterns of change; their interaction with the economic. 1. Political/2. Legal/3. Ideological

Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “2/23/37 A”.

____________________

[Pencil: “April 1937”]

SECULAR AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES
IN A
MODERN ECONOMY

OUTLINE

1. The Study of Economic Change
2. Population
3. Migration and Location
4. The Business Unit
5. Psychology and Social Classes
6. Technology
7. The Legal Framework
8. Government
9. Dynamics of the Market
10. Cumulative Factors

I

THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC CHANGE

Introduction
The Classicists and the Institutionalists

*Preface to First and 8^th editions of Marshall’s Principles and Bk. V—Chapter XV
*Marx—Communist Manifesto—Part I

1. The Classicists

J. S. Mill—Principles of Political Economy—Bk IV
J. B. Clark—Essentials of Economic Theory—Preface, Chapters XII, XIII, XIV, XV, and XXX
Marshall—Principles—Bk I—Chap. III; Bk V—Chaps. I, II, III, V, and XV
Cassel—Social Economy—Bk I, Chaps. I #5,6; Bk. IV

1. The Institutionalists

Marx—Communist Manifesto—Part I
Veblen—Business Enterprise—Chpas. II, VII, IX, X
Commons—Legal Foundations of Capitalism—Chapters I, II, III, VII, IX, vi

The Historians and the Statisticians

*Heckscher, Eli—“Aspects of Economic History” in Essays in Honor of Gustav Cassel
*Mitchell—“Business Cycles”—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences

1. The Historians

Webbs—History of Trade Unionism—Chapters II, III
Clapham—Economic History of Modern Britain—Vol I, Chapter XIV
Sombart—Der Moderne Kapitalismus—Vol. III, Part I—Chapters 22-25

1. The Statisticians

Simiand—La Crise Mondiale—pages 1-14; pages 114-35
Burns, A. F.—Production Trends—Foreword; Chapters III;ii, iii; IV: iv; V:v, vi.
Mitchell—“Business Cycles”—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
Kuznets—Seasonal Variations in Industry and Trade—Chapter I, Concluding Notes—pp. 355 ff.

Theory, History, and Statistics
*J. M. Clark—“Statics and Dynamics” in Preface to Social Economy
*F. H. Knight—New Introduction to Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit
*W. C. Mitchell—“Quantitative Measurement” in Backward Art of Spending Money and Other Essays

1. Cohen and Nagel—Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method Bk II: Chaps. X, XI, XVI, XVII, XIX sec. 3
2. Robbins—Nature and Significance of Economic Science. Chapters II 4,5; III 4,5; IV; VI 5,6
3. J. M. Clark—“Socializing Theoretical Economics” in Preface to Social Economics

II

POPULATION

The Data, Method, and Deductions about population in economic theory
*Malthus—Population—Chapters I, II
*Marshall—Bk IV, Chapters IV, V
1. Ricardo—Principles II, V, XXXII
2. J. S. Mill—Principles—Chapter X, 2, 3
3. Pigou—Economics of Welfare—Part I, chapters IX, X
The Contemporary Data, Methods, Deductions as to Trends
*“Population”—Encyclopedia of Social Sciences
1. Thompson and Whelpton—Population Trends in U. S.—Chapters I: pp. 2267;257-61;288-91; IX, X, and XI
2. Carr-Saunders—World Population (1936)—Chapters I, II, XVI, XVII, XXII, Note on Overpopulation
3. Kucyznski—Births and Death, Vol I. Chaps. I, II, III, IV; II. Chaps. I, VI
The Economic Implications of the Population Problem
*Myrdal—“Industrialization and Population” in Essays in Honor of Gustav Cassel
1. On Unemployment
  Beveridge—Unemployment—Chapter XVII
2. On Imperialism
  W. S. Thompson—Danger Spots in World Politics—Chapters X, XII, XIII, XIV
3. On Consumption
  Lynd—Middletown—Chapters V, XI
  J. M. Keynes. Economic Consequences of a Declining Population. Eugenics Review, April 1937, vol. XXIX, 13-17.

III

MIGRATION AND LOCATION OF PEOPLE AND INDUSTRY

*Marshall—Principles—pp. 199-203, Book IV—Chapter X, Appendix A-#13
*Weber, A.—Theory of Location of Industries—

Editor’s Introduction
Author’s Introduction
Chapters I, VII

*Semple—American History, its Geographic Conditions—Chapters XV, XVI, XVII

1. Goodrich—Migration and Economic Opportunity—Introduction: Chapters I, VI, VII, IX, XII
2. Mackenzie—The Metropolitan Community—Chapters I, III, V, VI, XII, XVII, XXIII

IV

THE BUSINESS UNIT

*Marshall—Principles—Bk IV—Chapter XII
*Twentieth Century Fund—Big Business—Summary

1. Distribution of the Working Population

The National Income in the United States (1929-35). Department of Commerce

1. The Problem of Control: Private

Berle and Means—Modern Corporation and Private Property, Bks I, VI
Twentieth Century Fund—Big Business Summary, Chaps. I, VIII
Laidler—Concentration of Control in American Industry, Parts I, VI.

1. The Problem of Control: Public

Jones and Bingham—Principles of Public Utilities—Chapters I, II, and XII
Moulton Associates—American Transportation Problem—Report of Committee—Chapters I, II, XII, XXI, XXIV, XXV, XXX, XXXI

1. Planning

Parkins and Whitaker—Our Natural Resources and their Concentration—Chapters I, II, IX, X, XI, XVI, XVIII
National Resources Board—1934—Part I—Sec. I, Sec. V.

V

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL CLASSES

*Marshall—Principles—Bk I—Chapter II
*Weber—General Economic History—Chapter XXX

1. The Spirit of the Capitalist

M. Weber—The Protestant Ethic—Foreword, Introduction, Chapters II, III, V

1. Modern Psychology and Aggression

Abrahams, K.—Selected Essays on Psycho-Analysis—Chapters XXIII, XXIV, XXV
Horney, K.—The Neurotic Personality of Our Times—Chapters [blank]
Mead, M.—Competition and Cooperation in Primitive Societies. Interpretive Statement.

1. The American Scene

Veblen—Absentee Ownership—chapters VI, VII I, ii, iii
Parker—The Casual Laborer and Other Essays—Recent Social Trends—Chapter VIII
Taussig and Joslyn—American Business Leaders—Chapters X, XI, XVI, XVII, XIX, XX

VI

TECHNOLOGY

*Marshall—Principles—Bk IV—Chapter IX
*Veblen—Theory of Business Enterprise—Chapter IX

1. America’s Capacity to Produce—Introduction, Chapters VI, XIV, XV, XVI, XIX, XX

Jerome—Mechanization in Industry—Introduction, Summary, Chapters III, IV

1. –Recent Social Trends—Volume I—Chapter III

Weintraub and Posner—Technological Tendencies and their Social Implications
Jerome—Mechanization—Chapters IX, X

VII

THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK

*J. S. Mill—Principles of Political Economy—Bk II—Chapter II
*Veblen—Theory of Business Enterprise—Chapter VIII

1. Commons—Legal Foundations of Capitalism. Chaps. I, II, III, VII, IX
2. Handler—Trade Regulation, Chapters I, II
3. Bonbright—The Valuation of Property—Chapters I, II, III, IV, V, XXX, XXXII

VIII

THE GOVERNMENT

*J. S. Mill—Principles of Political Economy—Bk V—Chapter XI
*H. Laski—The State—Chapter IV

1. Re Taxes

Shoup—Facing the Tax Burden—Chaps 2, 3, 6, 7, 8
Recent Social Trends—Volume II—Chapters XXV, XXVI

1. Re Banking

Willis—Central Banking—Part I, Chapters XVI, XVII, XVIII, XXVI
Hardy—Credit Policies of the Federal Reserve System—Part I

1. Re Labor

Commons and Associates—History of Labor in the U.S.

Volume III, Section I, Chapters XI, XII, Labor legislation
Volume IV, Chapters I, II, XVI, XXXII, XXXVIII, XLIV, XLV

Epstein—Insecurity—Parts I, X, XI

IX

DYNAMICS OF THE MARKET

*Marshall—Principles—Book V
*J. M. Clark—Economics of Overhead Costs—Chapters XXIII, XXIV

1. Production: 1922-36

Mills—Economic Tendencies—Chapters VI, X

1. Prices: 1922-36

Mills—Economic Tendencies—Chapter VII
Prices in Recession and Recovery—Chapters I, III, V, VI, IX

1. Wages: 1922-36

Douglas—Real Wages in the United States—Chapters XXII, XXVI, XXX, XXXI
Recent Economic Changes—Volume II—Chapter VI
Wolman—N.B.E.R. Bulletins #46, 54, 63

1. Profits: 1922-36

Epstein—Industrial Profits in the United States—Introduction, Book I, Book IV

1. Money: 1922-36

Currie—The Supply and Control of Money in the United States—Chapter III
Fed. Res. Board—Annual Reports. 1934, 1935, 1936

X

CUMULATIVE FACTORS

*Marshall—Principles—Book VI—Chapters XI, XII, XIII
*J. M. Clark—Strategic Factors in Business Cycles—Parts I and VI

1. The War, Changing Attitudes, and the Economy
2. The Automobile and the Economy
3. The Creation and Destruction of Bank Deposits and the Economy

Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “4/?/37 A”.

Image Source: From the cover of Eli Ginzberg’s book The Eye of Illusion (Transactions Publishers, 1993).

Tags Angell, ClarkJM, Friedman, Ginzberg, McCrea, Mitchell, Schwartz, Vickrey

Chicago Economist Market Economists Teaching

Chicago. Laughlin’s observations on state of economics department, 1924

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-09-20

This post features a memorandum from 1924 that summarizes a conversation between the president of the University of Chicago and the first head of the department of political economy called in after retirement to help the department in covering a vacancy in its professorial ranks. Among other things we learn that Laughlin’s pension from the university was $3000/year.

Backstory 1: Shortly after being promoted to professor of economics, Harold G. Moulton left the University of Chicago in September 1922 to head the Institute of Economics established by the Carnegie Corporation in Washington, D.C. The department had trouble finding a successor, so among temporary measures it brought James Laurence Laughlin out of retirement during the academic year 1924-25 to help cover the money field. The last item transcribed below summarizes Laughlin’s observations on the state of the department ca. eight years after his retirement in 1916.

Backstory 2: L. C. Marshall’s request to resign both the Deanship of the school of Commerce and Administration [succeeded by W. H. Spencer] and school of Social Service Administration [succeeded by Edith Abbott] was accepted to take effect 31 December 1923. He agreed to continue on as Chairman of the Department of Political Economy under the condition that funds be provided for additional clerical services.

____________________

Letter from Chairman L. C. Marshall to President Ernest D. Burton

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

June 1, 1924

My dear Mr. Burton:

The department of Political Economy sees no way of filling Mr. Moulton’s place in terms of the present situation. We turn, therefore, to temporary measures.

As one phase of the matter, will you approve of bringing Mr. Laughlin back for the Autumn Quarter, in case he is available? The 1924-25 budget contains the funds. I am at this same time asking Mr. Plimpton what would be involved as far as the relationship of stipend to retiring allowance is concerned.

A carbon of this letter is going to Mr. Tufts and Mr. Laing for their information.

Yours very sincerely,
[signed] L C Marshall

LCM:OU

____________________

Letter from Chairman L. C. Marshall to Nathan C. Plimpton, comptroller

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

June 2, 1924

My dear Mr. Plimpton:

In case Mr. J. L. Laughlin should be engaged to give work with us this coming Autumn Quarter would his compensation for this work be in addition to his retiring allowance for that period, or would the allowance be discontinued for that period?

The department is thinking in terms of a stipend of about $2500 if his allowance continues. If it does not, probably $3000 would suffice even though this would less than $2500 plus allowance.

Yours very sincerely,
[signed] L C Marshall

LCM:OU

____________________

Letter from Chairman L. C. Marshall to President Ernest D. Burton

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

May 29, 1924

President Ernest DeWitt Burton
The University of Chicago

My dear Mr. Burton:

This is a request to include in the Political Economy budget for the year 1924-25 the sum of $1,500.00 for clerical assistance.

In order that you may not need to consult files I give below an abstract of the situation up to the present time.

Along about January 1 you expressed a willingness to take up with the expenditures committee the provision of clerical assistance. While you were on your vacation I took the matter up through Mr. Dickerson and a sum was granted providing for clerical assistance during the remainder of this current budgetary year.
I asked Mr. Tufts to insert in the 1924-25 budget a request for $1,500.00 but he indicated the need of awaiting your return before taking action on the matter.
Sometime after your return I asked Mr. Tufts whether he wished to take the matter up with you or whether I should take it up. The reply received indicated that Mr. Plimpton was under the impression that you had some understanding on the matter.
The official copy of the budget received from Mr. Tufts a day or two ago contains no such item.

Yours very sincerely,
[signed] L C Marshall

LCM:EL

____________________

Carbon copy of letter
from President Ernest D. Burton to L. C. Marshall

June 4, 1924

My dear Mr. Marshall:

In reference to your letter of May 29 I am glad to be able to state that the budget of next year as approved by the Board of Trustees carried with it an appropriation of $1500 for clerical service for your department. The statement sent to you by Mr. Tufts was intended to cover only the salaries of the teaching staff.

I am sure the Board of Trustees would approve the recommendation of the department that Mr. Laughlin be invited to give lectures in the autumn quarter. As respects his compensation, concerning which you wrote to Mr. Plimpton, the custom has been to add a stipend for such service to the retiring allowance which is continued without interruption. Mr. Small [Department of Sociology] and Mr. Coulter [Department of Botony] are both being retained next year on this basis, each of them rendering substantially half service throughout the year. The extra compensation is, in one case, $1500, in the other $2000. May I raise the question whether either sum would not be sufficient in Mr. Laughlin’s case also? In other words, $2000 for the special service, in addition to the $3000 of his regular retiring allowance?

Very truly yours,

Mr. L.C. Marshall
The University of Chicago

EDB:HP

____________________

Memorandum of Conversation with
Professor Laughlin
—November 19, 1924

On returning to the University Mr. Laughlin is struck with two things in respect to the Department of Political Economy.

1) The introductory courses are not as well conducted as they were in 1916. Then some of the abler men of the department were giving them. Now they are largely in the hands of instructors and assistants.

2) There has been a large increase in the number of graduate students.

There are four Universities that have graduate departments in Political Economy that need to be taken into account by us.

Columbia has the largest department.

Chicago is second in size.

Harvard is falling off.

Wisconsin is falling off.

The task of meeting graduate students and overseeing their work is an arduous one. We must, however, hold our own in dealing with this class of students. It would be desirable to raise the level of undergraduate work, but not at the expense of sacrificing our graduate work.

We must hold our present staff. Marshall, Clark and Viner are the best men. Wright is a good man. Field and Millis are pretty set in their ways, but this whole staff should be retained.

(In subsequent conversation with Marshall he said Field was the best man of the whole group, but that his Harvard inhibitions made it impossible for him to bring things to pass. He is afraid of what people will say and of the tendency of things. Millis is a good man, but no longer capable of much re-adjustment.)

Mr. Laughlin urges that we must get a first class man in money. He believes that the business interests should be asked to give money for this particular purpose.

The weakness of the undergraduate department is due to the lack of good men and salaries to pay them. C & A is doing most of the undergraduate work. This is not in itself objectionable. The spirit of C & A is good.

It is very desirable to unify the Department of Economics and the School of Commerce and Administration further.

Source: The University of Chicago Archives. Office of the President. Harper, Judson and Burton Administration Records. Box 23, Folder 6 “Department of Political Economy, 1894-1925) Part 2”

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-03687, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Tags ClarkJM, Edith Abbott, Field, Laughlin, MarshallLC, Millis, Moulton, Viner

Columbia

Columbia. Alvin S. Johnson recounts exams with Franklin Giddings, 1951

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2018-07-26

Perhaps I lived a blessed student life. I never felt that I had been particularly ill-treated in an examination, though I should add that I have fortunately been spared the trauma of an oral examination, except for matters involving my dental health. I once spoke with Kenneth Arrow, on the day before his 90th birthday, and was surprised to hear just how salient a memory was of an injustice that had been inflicted upon him by John Maurice Clark in an oral examination some seven decades earlier. Apparently Alvin Johnson nursed an analogous decades-long grudge as a result of his oral exam at the hands of the sociologist Franklin Giddings. In his letter to Joseph Dorfman transcribed in this post, we see that he was later able to leverage a poor exam performance of a Giddings’ student into a sweet payback of sorts.

____________________

Letter from Alvin Johnson to Joseph Dorfman

THE NEW SCHOOL
66 West 12^thSt. New York 11
[Tel.] Oregon 5-2700

August 21, 1951

Dear Joe:

You haven’t answered my query as to whether it wouldn’t suit your purpose better to substitute for the piece I sent you on the School of Political Science my experience of the economics department proper.

I think my second minor was in Constitutional History under Burgess. At my doctor’s exam Burgess asked me three questions, but to be fair he elaborated them so much that he answered them himself, and I had only to nod assent.

Not so with Giddings. He was having a feud with Seligman and set about taking it out of my hide. I had attended a course with him on the English Poor Laws, a course that bored Giddings stiff. He came to my exam with a sheet of details he couldn’t have remembered himself.

“What was the Statute of Laborers? What year of what reign?
“What law was enacted in the third year of Edward VI?
“What was the ‘Speenhamland Act?’ What year of what reign?”

About forty such questions. After I had retired for the Faculty to vote[,] Giddings, who after all was my friend, came out first, slapped me on the back and said:

“Well you passed. But by God, I made you sweat.”
“I’d have made you sweat yourself if I had had the written sheet and you hadn’t loaded up for me.”
“You bet.”

I had my revenge a few months later, when one of Giddings’ protégés came up with a thesis on Puerto Rico. He was a theologue [sic], savagely Protestant, who ascribed all the woes of Puerto Rico to the Catholic Church. His book was full of fishy figures, the worst on the food situation. The Puerto Ricans were starved; they produced practically no food but lived on imported rice, the figures for which the thesis gave. I used my arithmetic and found that the figures gave fifty pounds of rice daily per capita.

“And you say they are underfed,” I added, not very humanely.

When the candidate had retired Goodnow moved, first that the candidate be flunked; second that Giddings be censured for bringing such a fool before the Faculty; third that I be censured for making a Faculty member laugh right out in meeting. All three votes carried.

Sincerely,
[signed]
Alvin Johnson

Dr. Joseph Dorfman
Columbia University
Faculty of Political Science
New York 27, N.Y.

aj:ar

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Joseph Dorfman Collection, Box 13, Folder “C.U. Dept.^alhistory”.

Image Source: From the cover of Alvin S. Johnson’s 1952 autobiography.

Tags Arrow, ClarkJM, Dorfman, Giddings, Goodnow, JohnsonA

Amherst Columbia Economists Germany Wisconsin

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus, James Walter Crook, 1898

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-11-26

This posting is another in the irregular series, “Get to know an economics Ph.D. alum”. I stumbled upon Professor James Walter Crook’s photo while working on the previous autobiographical posting for John Maurice Clark who was a student of his at Amherst and later a colleague. Crook spent a year in Berlin as a student and overlapped with W.E.B. Du Bois there and to whom we see below he had been introduced.

____________________

James Walter Crook (1859-1933)
Columbia Ph.D., 1898

James Walter Crook was born Dec. 21, 1859 in Ontario, Canada. His family emigrated to the U.S. in 1868. According to the 1880 U. S. Census he was the Census Enumerator for the 1^st Ward of the City of Manistee in Manistee county, Michigan where he (21 years of age) lived with his mother and six younger brothers. While a few younger brothers were registered employed in a saw mill, James Walter Crook was listed as attending school. He married Eva Maria Lewis Sept 16, 1881 in Manistee. His occupation was “school teacher” according to the record of marriage.

Crook received his B.A. from Oberlin College in 1891 where he stayed on as a history instructor the following year. This was followed by a year of graduate work at the University of Wisconsin where he was listed as a Fellow in Economics, 1892-93.

He studied at the University of Berlin in 1893-94 where he happened to be introduced to W. E. B. Du Bois, himself an American student in Berlin. In Dubois’ papers there is a letter Crook wrote (January 21, 1905): “I suppose you do not remember me, but I recall with pleasure my meeting you in Berlin, Germany introduced by our mutual friend Knowlton, now of Fargo, N. Dakota.” In particular Crook was looking for advice regarding a sociological survey he wished to conduct among the ca. 200 African-Americans living in Amherst (population about 3,000 total).

After Germany Crook went on to do graduate work at Columbia University in 1894-95. The next year he was hired to teach Political Economy at Amherst where he worked through retirement. Crook was awarded a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1898, publishing his dissertation as German Wage Theories: A History of Their Development. Vol. IX, No. 2 of Studies in History, Economics and Public Law. New York: Columbia University, 1898.

According to the U.S. Census reports he and his wife Eva lived at 21 Main Street in Amherst for at least the four censuses 1900-1930.

James Walter Crook, died in Springfield, MA 1933.

Source: From faculty pages in the Amherst College Yearbook, Olio, 1905, page 24. Also the Dubois papers at the University of Massachusetts and U.S. Census reports.

________________________

PROFESSORS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
Amherst College (1877-1910)

1877	Anson Daniel Morse, LL.D.	1878
1892	John Bates Clark, Ph.D.	1895
1892	Charles Augustus Tuttle, Ph.D., Associate Political Economy and International Law	1893
1895	James Walter Crook, Ph.D., Assistant	1899
1899	James Walter Crook, Ph.D., Associate	1907
1907	James Walter Crook, Ph.D.
1908	Glover Dunn Hancock, Ph.D., Assistant	1910
1910	John Maurice Clark, Ph.D., Associate

Source: General Catalogue of Amherst College including the Officers of Government and Instruction, the Alumni and Honorary Graduates, 1821-1910. Amherst, Mass., p. 9.

Image Source: From faculty pages in the Amherst College Yearbook, Olio, 1905, page 24.

Tags ClarkJB, ClarkJM, Crook, DuBois

Amherst Chicago Columbia Economists

Columbia. John Maurice Clark. Autobiographical notes, 1949

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-11-25

The following recollections of John Maurice Clark of his earliest contacts with economic problems is found in a folder of his papers containing notes about his father, John Bates Clark. The hand-written notes are fairly clear until we come to a clear addition on the final page. Abbreviations are used there and the handwriting is not always clear. Still the pages together provide a few nice stories and short lists of J.M. Clark’s teachers and students.

______________________

June 8, 1949

J.M.C.’s recollections of his earliest contacts with economic problems.

I think my earliest contact with an economic problem came on learning that the carpenter who sometimes came to do odd jobs for us at 23 Round Hill got $2.00 a day. I had a special interest in that carpenter. He was a tall man, with a full, dark beard; and it had been my imprudent interest in his operation with the kitchen double-windows (putting on? taking off?) that led me to lean out of a hammock and over the low rail of our second-story porch, to watch him (I was between two and three at the time). Mechanical consequences—I descended rapidly, landing on my head, but apparently suffering no injury except biting my tongue. Subjective consequences – maybe it pounded a little caution into me at an early age; but the present point is that it fixed that carpenter in my memory as “the man who picked me up.” It was some time later I learned that he got $2.00 a day.

I don’t remember whether I took the initiative and asked, or not. The cost of things was often discussed in our house, and my mother often talked of the difficulty of making both ends meet. I knew my father’s salary, though I can’t be sure now whether it was $3,500 or less. Anyhow, it was maybe eight or ten times the carpenter’s pay; and I began wondering how he made both ends meet, and remarked to my father that $2.00 a day wasn’t much to live on. He answered that it was pretty good pay for that kind of work. So I learned there were two ways of looking at a daily stipend—as income to live on and as the price of the service you gave your employer. Or perhaps simply the standpoints of the recipient and the payer. But especially I learned there were people who had to adjust their ideas of what they could live on, to a fraction of the income we found skimpy for the things we thought of as necessary. In short, I had a lesson in classes and their multiple standards to ponder over; without reaching any very enlightening conclusions.

I don’t think I connected this with our friends the Willistons (of the family connected with Williston seminary in Easthampton) who lived in the big house above us and from whom we rented ours. They were evidently much richer than we. They had gone to Europe (and been shipwrecked on the way, and had to transfer at sea to a lumber-schooner, which threw its deckload of lumber overboard to enable it to take on the people from the helpless steamship. — but that’s another story.)

To return to the carpenter. I suppose today he’d get perhaps $16, more?, and a Smith College salary, for a full professor, might be $7,000 or $8,000. The discrepancy has shrunk to maybe 2/5—certainly less than half—of what it was then. That puzzling discrepancy was my first lesson in economics—the first I remember.

There was another lesson—if you could call it that—the summer we spent a while at the Stanley House (now gone) in Southwest Harbor, on Mt. Desert. The rich people went to Bar Harbor. At Southwest, there was Mr. Brierly who had a yacht. We took our outings in a rowboat, sometimes with the help of a spritsail. One time we were going up Somes Sound, and were passed by one of the biggest ocean-going steam yachts—the “Sultana”. It was a very impressive sight, in those narrow waters, and looked about as big as the “Queen Mary” would to me now. I don’t remember anybody doing any moralizing; but if they did, the impression it left was that we, in our fashion, were doing the same kind of thing they were.

My first contact with economic literature (not counting the subversive economics of Robin Hood, which we boys knew by heart, in the Howard Pyle version) was at 23 Round Hill, so I must have been less than nine. I found a little book on my father’s shelves that had pictures in it – queer pictures done in pen and ink, which puzzled me. There was a boy not much bigger than I was, in queer little knee-britches, acting as a teacher to a class of grown men (including I think a Professor Laughlin, under whom I later taught at the University of Chicago.) And there were classical females being maltreated by brutal men, and other queer things. I was curious enough to read some of the text, to find out about the pictures. It was “Coin’s Financial School,” the famous free-silver tract.

I read enough to become a convinced free-silverite. And then I had the shock of discovering that my beloved and respected father was on the wrong side of that question. I decided there must be more to it than I’d gotten out of the queer picture-book. I suppose that was my first lesson in the need of preserving an open mind and holding economic ideas subject to possible reconsideration. Davenport and Veblen gave me more extensive lessons, fifteen or twenty years later, only this second time it was my father’s ideas I had to rethink, after reluctantly admitting that these opposing ideas represented something real, that needed to be reckoned with. One had to do something about it, though the something didn’t mean substituting Veblen for my father. It was a more difficult and discriminating adjustment that was called for.

To return to my boyhood. It may have been about this time that I learned something about mechanical techniques, when my father took me to see the Springfield Arsenal. They had a museum, with broadswords that had been used in battle—one was so nicked up that its edge had disappeared in a continuous series of surprisingly deep nicks—but the mechanical process that impressed me was a pattern-lathe, rough-shaping the stocks of Krags. On one side was a metal model of the finished stock revolving, with a wheel revolving against it. On the other side was the wooden blank revolving, and a wheel like the one on the model, and linked to it so as to copy its movements, and armed with knives. So the machine could make complicated shapes following any model you put into it, and do it faster and more accurately that a hand worker.

Incidentally (and as a digression) that was our first military rifle with smokeless powder, more powerful than black; our first regular military magazine rifle of the modern kind with a bolt action and a box magazine. The regulars were just getting them. The militia still had the black-powder 45-70 Springfields at the time of the Spanish War, and a Massachusetts regiment had to be ordered off the firing-line at El Caney because their smoke made too good a target. Teddy Roosevelt had pull enough to get Krag carbines for his Rough Riders plus the privilege of using their own Winchesters if individuals preferred, and, if they had the 30-40-220, which took the Krag cartridge.

But my regular education in economic theory began at the age of 9 or 10, in our first year at Amherst, when we lived on Amity Street, opposite Sunset Ave. My father had in mind James Mill’s training of his son, John Stuart Mill, and he copied the techniques of explaining something during a walk, but he didn’t follow James Mill’s example by making me submit a written report for criticism and revision. All he did was to explain about diminishing utility and marginal utility—using the illustration of the oranges. And he was satisfied that I understood it, and concluded that the simple fundamentals of economics could be taught to secondary school or “grammar-school” students. Later, my friend and former graduate student, Leverett Lyon, pithily remarked that I probably understood it better then than I ever had since. Maybe he was right. I know when I met Professor Fetter, the year the Ec. Ass. met in Princeton, he told me I didn’t understand the theory, because I had said (in print, I think) that there were some dangers about the concept of “psychic income.” I didn’t say it was wrong, but I did think it was likely to be misleading to use a term that was associated with accountants’ arithmetic. So I did probably understand the theory “better” at the age of 9 or 10. Twenty ears later, it didn’t look so simple. This was long before I disagreed with Fetter about basing-point pricing and the rightness of the uniform FOB mill price, as the price “true” competition would bring about.

______________________

J.M.C. later history.

Amherst, C in Ec tho 85 on exam, & written work not credited. (cf French A from Wilkins, C from [William Stuart] Symington (father of present (1951) W. Stuart Symington, head of nat security Resources Board). Symie sized my attitude up as that of a gentleman & gave me a gentleman’s mark)ache Crook said he “didn’t get hold” of me. He was correct.

Columbia: Giddings, A. S. Johnson, H.L. Moore, Seligman, Seager, Hawkins [?], Chaddock, Agger, Jacobstein. indoctrinated: J. B. C. orthodoxy modified by overhead costs (catalogued as “dynamics”) Dynamics (defined as) everything statics leaves out. & much induction. Take “Essentials” on slow dictation.

Veblen: slow infiltration of its logical & progre[?] rel. to the abstractions of J.B.C.: reverse normalizing might make[?] an arguable claim to equal legitimacy.

1912 ed. of Control of Trusts

“Contribution to theory of competive price” [QJE, August 1914] forerunner of “mon-comp”, largely empirical basis.

Germs of social & inst. ec. Rich-poor, Freedom as val in ec.[??] B. M. Anderson cf. Cooley

Revs of Hobson?, Pigou, Davenport Economics of Enterprise [Political Science Quarterly, Vol 29, no. 2]

To Chi. 1915 Changing basis of economic responsibility [JPE, March 1916] on moving to Chi. open declar[ation] of non-Laughlinism: backfire to an Atlantic article of Laughlin’s.

Modern Psych.

1917-18. War-ec. (“basis of war-time collectivism.”)

Students: Garver oral. Slichter, Lyon, Innis, Martin [?], Goodrich, Copeland, O’Grady [John O’Grady ?]

Ayres, Knight on faculty.

Ov. C. [Studies in the Economics of Overhead Costs]

Social Control [of Business]

Columbia. Students, Friedman, Ginzberg, Salera, Kuznets’ oral

Source: Columbia University Archives. John M. Clark Collection. History of Economic Thought. Box 37, Folder “J. B. Clark, 1847-1938”.

Image Source: John Maurcie Clark. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-0171. Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Tags Agger, Anderson, Chaddock, ClarkJB, ClarkJM, Copeland, Friedman, Garver, Giddings, Goodrich, Innis, Jacobstein, JohnsonA, Knight, Kuznets, Laughlin, Lyon, Moore, Seager, Seligman, Slichter, Veblen

April 17, 1936

Appendix to Minutes

MEMORANDUM ON THE PRINTING REQUIREMENT FOR PH.D. DISSERTATIONS IN THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE [April 17, 1936]

December 11, 1936

Memorandum Concerning Dissertation Examination on Type-script

April 21, 1939

Brief c.v. of Edwin Ferdinand Dummeier

Dummeier’s application for graduate credit towards an economics Ph.D. from Chicago

The University of Chicago The Graduate School of Arts and Literature Office of the Dean

Department will recognize three quarters of graduate work

Dummeier proposing his examination fields and requesting departmental review of all his coursework to identify any further course requirements

Political Economy

Sociology

History

Education

Political Science

Summary

Majors

Dummeier proposing his doctoral thesis subject

5757 University Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, January 21, 1926

Thesis THE MARKETING OF PACIFIC COAST FRUITS IN CHICAGO

Department approves Dummeier’s thesis subject

Department Head Marshall asks his colleague to double-check the Dummeier transcripts for possible feedback

The University of Chicago Department of Political Economy February 1, 1926

The University of Chicago Department of Political Economy

Department requests clarification regarding the proposed field “Transportation and Communication”

Schedule of written field examinations

Dummeier clarifies his understanding of the field “Transportation and Communication”

Wright’s Response to Marshall’s Feb. 1, 1926 Inquiry

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO The School of Commerce and Administration

Memorandum to Marshall from Wright [no date, but probably early Feb. 1926]

Response of Department to Dummeier’s follow-up regarding his examination field “Transportation and Communication”

Economics Department Record of Dummeier’s Written Ph.D. Examination Grades (First attempt)

Winter Qr. 1926

Department’s decisions regarding credits recognized plus advice on “possible gaps”

Dummeier informed that he passed two of his three written examinations [Carbon copy]

Economics Department Record of Dummeier’s Written Examination Grades (Second attempt: Pecuniary and Financial Systems Field)

Dummeier told he successfully passes his third written examinations [Carbon copy]

Dummeier’s Principal Advisor not in Chicago during the summer quarter (when the thesis is expected to be completed and submitted)

The University of Chicago Local Community Research Committee Address: Faculty Exchange. The University of Chicago

Department Head Marshall turns to Jacob Viner for last-minute thesis advice

Viner “gratefully” accepts the “chore”

The University of Chicago Department of Political Economy

Notification that Viner Will Serve as Substitute Research Supervisor

Official Examination Notice for E. F. Dummeier (with Prof. Meech’s scribbled note that he will be unable to attend)

COURSES PRESENTED BY EDWIN F. DUMMEIER FOR THE DEGREE Ph.D. IN ECONOMICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Memo from Millis announcing/reminding about oral examination date [Carbon copy]

The University of Chicago The Department of Political Economy

Memo from Millis announcing/reminding about oral examination date [Carbon copy]

A “Thank-you” to Marshall for his support Note: Dunnmeier’s article on auctions apparently never published

The State College of Washington Pullman, Washington Department of Business Administration

From: Seligman’s 1929-30 budget recommendation to President Butler (December 1, 1928)

Biographical and professional background through 1930-31 of Arthur R. Burns

Department recommends promotion to Associate Professorship already in 1937-38 [Note: actual promotion only occurred Apr. 3, 1944]

Department again recommends promotion to Associate Professorship [Note: Burns was given the salary increase this time]

Department then begins unsuccessfully to push for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship [Nov. 28, 1938]

Requesting unpaid leave for a Twentieth Century Fund project

Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship [Nov. 18, 1939]

Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary reducing promotion to Associate Professorship [October 27, 1941]

MEMORANDUM Department of Economics October 27, 1941

Arthur R. Burns demands promotion to the rank of professor

Department responds to Burns’ demands: Associate professorship when your rejoin the faculty

From: Economics Department’s Proposed Budget for 1946-1947 November 30, 1945 [Burns recommended for professorship]

Annex C

ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS

Socialist Tease?

Several biographical accounts of Adams

Henry C. Adams, some early publications

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.

COPY

Copy of memo from Leon Carroll Marshall

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Department of Economics

Response from Jacob Viner

The University of Chicago Department of Political Economy

Response from Paul Howard Douglas

The University of Chicago The School of Commerce and Administration

Response from Lloyd Wynn Mints

The University of Chicago The School of Commerce and Administration

MEMORANDUM ON THE PRINTING REQUIREMENT FOR PH.D. DISSERTATIONS IN THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
[April 17, 1936]

The University of Chicago
The Graduate School of Arts and Literature
Office of the Dean

5757 University Avenue, Chicago, Illinois,
January 21, 1926

Thesis
THE MARKETING OF PACIFIC COAST FRUITS IN CHICAGO

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy
February 1, 1926

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
The School of Commerce and Administration

Memorandum to Marshall from Wright
[no date, but probably early Feb. 1926]

Economics Department Record of Dummeier’s Written Ph.D. Examination Grades
(First attempt)

Department’s decisions
regarding credits recognized
plus advice on “possible gaps”

Dummeier informed that he passed two of his three written examinations
[Carbon copy]

Economics Department Record of Dummeier’s Written Examination Grades
(Second attempt: Pecuniary and Financial Systems Field)

Dummeier told he successfully passes his third written examinations
[Carbon copy]

The University of Chicago
Local Community Research Committee
Address: Faculty Exchange. The University of Chicago

Department Head Marshall turns to Jacob Viner
for last-minute thesis advice

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

Official Examination Notice for E. F. Dummeier
(with Prof. Meech’s scribbled note that he will be unable to attend)

COURSES PRESENTED BY EDWIN F. DUMMEIER
FOR THE DEGREE Ph.D. IN ECONOMICS
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Memo from Millis announcing/reminding about oral examination date
[Carbon copy]

The University of Chicago
The Department of Political Economy

Memo from Millis announcing/reminding about oral examination date
[Carbon copy]

A “Thank-you” to Marshall for his support
Note: Dunnmeier’s article on auctions apparently never published

The State College of Washington
Pullman, Washington
Department of Business Administration

Biographical and professional background through 1930-31
of Arthur R. Burns

Department recommends promotion to Associate Professorship
already in 1937-38
[Note: actual promotion only occurred Apr. 3, 1944]

Department again recommends promotion to Associate Professorship
[Note: Burns was given the salary increase this time]

Department then begins unsuccessfully to push for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship
[Nov. 28, 1938]

Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship
[Nov. 18, 1939]

Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary reducing promotion to Associate Professorship
[October 27, 1941]

MEMORANDUM
Department of Economics
October 27, 1941

Department responds to Burns’ demands:
Associate professorship when your rejoin the faculty

From: Economics Department’s Proposed Budget for 1946-1947
November 30, 1945
[Burns recommended for professorship]

Letter of Henry Carter Adams (1851-1921)
to President James B. Angell, March 15, 1887.

Copy of memo from
Leon Carroll Marshall

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Department of Economics

Response from
Jacob Viner

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

Response from
Paul Howard Douglas

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration

Response from
Lloyd Wynn Mints

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration

Response from
Harry Alvin Millis

Response from
Chester Whitney Wright

The University of Chicago
The Department of Political Economy

Response from
James Alfred Field

Response from
William Homer Spencer

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration
Office of the Dean

Handwritten: Economics Seminar. March-May 1937
(Signatures of student participants. Note: “not complete”)

Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy
From Mitchell’s handwritten notes for the first meeting
Sept. 28, 1937

1^st assignment

Course Announcement
1937-38

Course Announcement
1938-39

OUTLINE
Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy

OUTLINE
Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy.

SECULAR AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES
IN A
MODERN ECONOMY

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

Carbon copy of letter
from President Ernest D. Burton to L. C. Marshall

Memorandum of Conversation with
Professor Laughlin
—November 19, 1924

THE NEW SCHOOL
66 West 12^thSt. New York 11
[Tel.] Oregon 5-2700