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Columbia Economic History Economists

Columbia. Ph.D. Alumnus Isaac Aaronovitch Hourwich, 1893

Some Ph.D.’s in economics go on to contribute to the development of the science, others go on to contribute to the commonwealth outside the ivory tower and others leave you wondering what were they thinking when they decided to write a dissertation anyway. Most of my interest is in the first group but sometimes the lives led by the other two groups are just too interesting to merely mention the title and date of their dissertation without further notice.

Today’s post is dedicated to Columbia Ph.D. alumnus, Isaac Aaronovich Hourwich, whose dissertation was among the first ten economics doctoral dissertations accepted by the Columbia School of Political Science. I decided to look him up after seeing him listed as a Docent in Statistics for the Department of Political Economy at the University of Chicago in 1893/94.

Fun Fact: Isaac’s sister, Jhenya Hourwich, translated Marx’s Das Kapital into Russian, and he later translated Das Kapital into Yiddish in 1919.

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The Dissertation

Hourwich, Isaac Aaronovich. The economics of the Russian village. Columbia University Ph.D. dissertation published in Studies in History, Economics and Public Law. Volume II, 1892-1893.

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Teaching at the University of Chicago

 

Isaac A. Hourwich, Ph.D., Docent in Statistics.

Graduate, Classical Gymnasium, Minsk, Russia, 1877; Candidate of Jursprucence (Master of Law), Demidoff Juridical Lyceum, Yaroslavl, 1887; Member of the Bar, Court of Appeals of Wilno, Russia, 1887-90; Seligman Fellow, Columbia College, 1891-2; Ph.D., ibid., 1893.

Source: University of Chicago. Annual Register July, 1893—July, 1894. Chicago: 1894, p. 18.

 

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The following biographical note comes from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Center for Jewish History, Guide to the Papers of Isaac A. Hourwich (1860-1924).

Isaac A. Hourwich was born April 27, 1860 in Vilna to a middle-class maskilic family. His father, who worked in a bank and knew several European languages, made sure to give his two children a modern secular education. Hourwich graduated in 1877 from the classical gymnasium at Minsk, and later studied medicine and mathematics. As a student, he became interested in nihilistic propaganda. His activities with a revolutionary Socialist circle in St. Petersburg led to his arrest and imprisonment in 1879 on the charges of hostility to the government and of aiding to establish a secret press. He was sent to Siberia as a “dangerous character,” from 1881-1886. While in prison, he studied the settlement of Russian peasants in Siberia, and wrote a book in Russian, The Peasant Immigration to Siberia, which was published in 1888. After his release, he studied law at the Imperial University in St. Petersburg. He earned his legal degree from Demidoff Lyceum of Jurisprudence in Yaroslavl, Russia and was admitted to the Russian bar in 1887. He then practiced law in Minsk and continued his involvement in radical political movements. He helped to found the first secret Socialist circles among the Jewish workers in tsarist Russia, along with his wife Yelena (Kushelevsky) Hourwich and his sister Jhenya Hourwich, who later translated Marx’s Das Kapital into Russian.

In 1890, Hourwich fled Russia, leaving behind his first wife Yelena (Kushelevsky) Hourwich and four children, Nicholas Hourwich (1882-1934), who was later involved in the founding of the Communist Party, Maria (Hourwich) Kravitz (1883-), Rosa Hourwich (ca.1884-), and Vera (Hourwich) Semmens (1890-1976), although Hourwich’s parents continued to support his family. He first went to Paris but he had to leave there as well, at which point he immigrated to the United States. He divorced his first wife and married again, to Louise Elizabeth “Lisa” (Joffe) Hourwich (1866-1947). Lisa Hourwich had taught school in Russia, and, after immigrating to the United States with her family, attended law school, eventually passing the Illinois bar, although she never practiced as a lawyer. They had five children, Iskander “Sasha” Hourwich (1895-1968), Rebecca Hourwich Reyher (1897-1987), who was a prominent suffragist, Olga “Dicky” Hourwich (1902-1977), George Kennan Hourwich (1904-1978), and Ena (Hourwich) Kunzer (1906-1989).

In New York, Hourwich joined the Russian Workers Society for Self-Education, later the Russian Social Democratic Society, which was made up mostly of Jewish immigrants from Minsk. The Society helped to finance the Group for Liberation of Labor (1883-1903), which Georgi Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod and Lev Deutsch formed in Geneva, Switzerland for the dissemination of Marxist ideas in Russian. From 1891-1892 he was a fellow at Columbia University where he earned a Ph.D. in economics in 1893. His thesis was published under the title The Economics of the Russian Village and a Russian translation was published in Moscow in 1896. He then taught statistics at the University of Chicago from 1892-1893, after which he returned to New York City, where he practiced law while also contributing to Marxist legal magazines in Russia. In 1897-1898, after the creation of the Social Democratic Party by Eugene V. Debs, Hourwich founded the first party branch in New York City with Meyer London. He also edited a Russian Socialist newspaper, Progress, from 1901-1904.

Hourwich moved to Washington, D.C. in 1900, where he worked for the United States government for several years, first as a translator at the Bureau of the Mint in 1900-1902, then at the Census Bureau in 1902-1906 and in 1909-1913 as a statistician and expert on mining. He was a statistician for the New York Public Service Commission, 1908-1909. During this period he developed his knowledge of American politics and economics which he used in his writings in the English and Yiddish press. He briefly wrote for the Forward after it began publication in 1897, even though he did not then know much Yiddish and had to learn it as he went along. For his articles in the Forward and other Yiddish periodicals he used the pseudonyms “Marxist” and “Yitzhok Isaac ben Arye Tzvi Halevi” so as not to bring attention to the fact that a government employee was writing for radical newspapers. His articles about American politics and economic institutions, particularly for the Tog (Day), were important in popularizing Socialism and were often the main source for explaining American economics and politics to a Yiddish-speaking audience in the United States. In addition to various essays in the Yiddish press, Hourwich published: “The Persecutions of the Jews,” in The Forum in August 1901, “Russian Dissenters,” in The Arena in May 1903 and “Religious Sects in Russia,” in The International Quarterly in October 1903, to name only a few.

In the wake of the October 1905 revolution, Tsar Nicholas II declared amnesty for political prisoners and Hourwich took advantage of this to return to Russia where he ran for a seat in the second Duma in Minsk in 1906. He was the nominee of a new Democratic People’s Party. The Jewish Socialist parties resented his intrusion and his non-Socialist campaign, particularly the Bund, which was running its own candidate. He was elected and would most likely have gained the seat in the Duma but the senate in St. Petersburg annulled his election and his name was taken off the final list of candidates. When the Duma was dissolved in June 1907 Hourwich returned to the United States and his government job. He also continued to write for various English magazines. Hourwich was an expert on immigration, and his book Immigration and Labor was published in 1912. In this work, he defends unrestricted immigration by arguing that the influx of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe was beneficial to the American economy. This argument was based upon economic figures and was the first defense of open immigration based on economic, rather than humanitarian, reasons.

Hourwich was active in the garment workers union at the time the agreement known as the “Protocol of Peace” was in effect. Engineered by Louis D. Brandeis following the cloakmakers’ strike of 1910, the Protocol was a system for resolving conflicts between workers and manufacturers in the garment industry without resorting to arbitration. This system was proving difficult to implement when Hourwich was appointed Chief Clerk of the Cloak and Skirt Makers’ Union in early 1913. He was in favor of reforming the Protocol, including a change from conciliation to arbitration, exactly what Brandeis had been against when drafting the Protocol. Hourwich’s position earned him the enmity of other union leaders, of his old friend, Meyer London, and also of Brandeis, who had represented the garment employers in Boston against the union during the 1910 strike. In addition, the heads of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, Abraham Rosenberg and John Dyche, vehemently opposed Hourwich for asserting the power of the local union against its parent organization and were concerned that his actions would lead to another strike. The officers of the ILGWU tried unsuccessfully to force Hourwich out, although the majority of garment workers supported him for his populist views, despite his lack of trade union experience.

In November 1913, the Cloak, Suit and Skirt Manufacturers’ Association refused to negotiate with Hourwich as the union representative and demanded his resignation. Although the heads of the union were united in their dislike of Hourwich, they supported him in resisting the manufacturers’ pressure. However, in early 1914 when the manufacturers threatened to break off the Protocol and a strike appeared imminent, Hourwich stepped down rather than compromise, despite the protests of many rank-and-file union members. The so-called “Hourwich Affair” showed the weakness of the Protocol as a means of settling disputes and hastened its eventual reform. It also revealed the various power struggles taking place between the International and the local unions, as well as between the union leadership and the mass of garment workers.

Hourwich was an early critic of the totalitarian tendencies of the Bolshevik government. Nevertheless, he maintained some sympathy for the Marxist cause and served as legal advisor to the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Ludwig C.K. Martens. He was also connected with the weekly magazine, Friends of Soviet Russia, published by the Soviet Agency, although he never wrote in support of the Bolsheviks. A visit to the Soviet Union in 1922 disillusioned Hourwich, however, and he returned firmly opposed to the Soviet regime.

Despite his commitment to Socialism, Hourwich did not strictly adhere to party doctrine and often crossed political boundaries in his allegiances. For example, in 1912 he supported Theodore Roosevelt and ran for Congress on the ticket of Roosevelt’s Progressive Party, an unthinkable act for a Jewish radical, although he seems to have been unconcerned with any criticism this raised. He was involved with the Socialist Democratic Party but did not join the Socialist Party of America, despite its Marxist program. He wrote for various Yiddish newspapers of every political affiliation, including the Socialist Jewish Daily Forward, the anarchist Fraye Arbeter Shtimme (Free Workers Voice), where he published his unfinished memoirs Zikhroynes fun an Apikoyres (Memoirs of a Heretic), the Warheit (Truth), the Tog (Day), and the Tsukunft (Future). His non-ideological approach led some to label him a political opportunist. He was an ardent supporter of President Wilson and his advocacy of the New Freedom and social reform until Wilson’s 1916 appointment of Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court. Hourwich was still holding a grudge against Brandeis for his involvement in the “Hourwich Affair.”

In his later years Hourwich became active in the Zionist movement, and in 1917 he helped to organize the American Jewish Congress. Hourwich’s books in Yiddish include Mooted Questions of Socialism (1917), a Yiddish translation of Marx’s Das Kapital (1919), and a four-volume edition of his collected works (1917-1919). Hourwich died of pneumonia on July 9, 1924.

Source: Guide to the Papers of Isaac A. Hourwich (1860-1924).

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Personal Notes [1894]

Dr. Isaac Aaronovich Hourwich has been appointed Docent in Statistics at the University of Chicago. He was born April 26, 1860, at Wilno, Russia, and was educated at the Classical Gymnasium, at Minsk, from 1869-77. The year 1877-78 he spent at the Medioc-Chirurgical Academy at St. Petersburg, and 1878-79 at the University of St. Petersburg. Later he became a non-resident student of the Demidor Juridical Lyceum, at Yaroslavl, where in 1887 he graduated with the degree of LL.M. He was admitted to the bar at Minsk, and practiced law from 1887 to 1890. In 1891 he became a student of Columbia College, New York, and received in 1893 the degree of Ph.D. from that institution. Dr. Hourwich has published:

“Peasant Emigralion to Siberia.” Juridichesky Vestnik (Juridical Herald), Moscow, January, 1887.
“The Study of Peasant Emigration to Siberia.” Sibirski Sbornik (Siberian Magazine), 1887.
“Peasant Emigration t0 Siberia.” Pp. 160. Moscow, 1888.
“The Agrarian Question in Russia.” Ur Dagens Krönika. Stockholm, September, 1890.
“The Persecution of the Jews.” The Forum. August, 1891.
“The Russian Judiciary.” Political Science Quarterly, December, 1892.
“The Economics of the Russian Village.” Pp. 184. Columbia College Studies in History, Economics and Public Law.

Source:  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 4 (Jan., 1894), p. 156.

Image Source: Portrait of Isaac Aaronovich Hourwich from his Oysgeehle shrifn, Vol. I, frontispiece, copyright 1916.

 

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. Memorandum on a Fiscal Stimulus, 1932

Today’s post is a jewel of fiscal policy thought in a memorandum from the University of Chicago written in 1932 at the trough of the Great Depression in the United States. Looking at the signers of the memorandum that argues for aggressive fiscal stimulus (economists covering the ideological spectrum from Aaron Director through Paul Douglas), one is reminded of Ben Bernanke’s bon mot from the last big financial crisis: “There are no atheists in foxholes or ideologues in a financial crisis”.

Note: Bernanke’s crack appears to be a minor variation on Jeffrey Frankel’s twist.

Backstory

After WWI, veterans lobbied for “adjusted compensation” to partially make up the difference between their combat pay and the significantly higher wages that had been paid to workers at home during the War. Veterans preferred the term “adjusted compensation” to the term “bonus” (the latter term being construed as implying something that goes beyond full and fair compensation). In 1924 veterans were finally granted “adjusted universal compensation” in the form of certificates that credited $1.25 for each day served abroad plus $1.00 for those days served in the U.S. These certificates were essentially 20-year insurance policies equal to 125% of the service credit to be redeemed in full on the veteran’s birthday in 1945. (Exceptions for immediate cash payments were granted for amounts less than $50 and in order to settle estates of deceased veterans for payments of less than $500). More details can be found at this link. 

In 1932 the question arose whether an early payout of these certificates would be a prudent and effective fiscal stimulus and Congressman Samuel Barrett Pettengill (Democrat) of Indiana sent the questionnaire that follows to academic economists across the country to solicit their advice in the matter.

A month later protesting “Bonus Marchers” (ca 20,000 veterans) set up camps in Washington, D.C. that they were evicted from by regular troops of the U.S. Army let by General Douglas MacArthur. It wasn’t until 1936 that the WWI veterans were paid their adjusted compensation.

Responses to Congressman Pettengill’s inquiry were published in the Hearings of the House Committee on Ways and Means for:

Edwin Walter Kemmerer,  Princeton University
Frank Whitson Fetter, Assistant Professor of Economics, Princeton University
Thomas Nixon Carver, Professor of Economics, Harvard University
S. J. Coon, Dean of the College of Business Administration, University of Washington
Harry E. Miller, Professor of Economics, Brown University
C. W. Hasek, Head of the Department of Economics and Sociology, Pennsylvania State College
Walter W. McLaren, Department of Economics, Williams College
Harry L. Severson, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics and Sociology, Indiana University
Hiram L. Jome, Professor of Economics, DePauw University
Warren B. Catlin, Department of Economics and Sociology, Boudoin College
E. E. Agger, Professor of Economics and head of the Department of Economics, Rutgers University
Edwin R. A. Seligman, Columbia University
H. A. Millis et al., Department of Political Economy, University of Chicago
Jacob H. Hollander, Johns Hopkins University
William C. Schleter, University of Pennsylvania
Albert Bushnell Hart, Harvard University (historian)

 Today’s post begins with the cover statement of the memorandum found with the copy in the Papers of the President of the University of Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Box 72.  It is followed by Congressman Pettengill’s list of questions, as well as the Chicago memorandum submitted by H. A. Millis and eleven of his University of Chicago colleagues.

A cursory sweep of the web discovered that this Chicago memorandum has been reprinted as Appendix B in J. Ronnie Davis’s 1967 Virginia Ph.D. dissertation, “Pre-Keynesian economic policy proposals in the United States during the Great Depression.” A scanned version of the Congressional Hearings in which the Chicago memorandum was published can be found at Hathitrust.org. I have compared the published version from the House Ways and Means Committee Hearings with the typed copy filed with the papers of President Hutchins at the University of Chicago Archives. Other than minor differences in spelling (e.g. the capitalized form “Federal” is used in the published version), the memorandum was published by the House Ways and Means Committee exactly as received.

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A MEMORANDUM PRESENTED TO A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS, APRIL 26, 1932.

Two members of the staff of the Department of economics, at the University of Chicago, received letters from a member of the House Committee on Military Affairs, requesting answers to certain questions. Inasmuch as the views of a large number of economists were desired, the letter was circulated among and read by twelve men of the Chicago faculty; and steps were taken to prepare a memorandum covering the points raised….The memorandum, with the names of the twelve professors participating in its formulation, is reproduced in its entirety. Because of the character of the issues raised, it seemed better to prepare the memorandum in the form it has taken than to answer the specific questions, the one after the other.

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Hutchins Box 72. Folder 6 “Economics Department, 1932-1933”.

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STATEMENT OF HON. SAMUEL B. PETTENGILL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA

Mr. Pettengill. Mr. Chairman, I am not on the calendar this morning and therefore in justice to those who are here I have asked for only one minute.

Some time ago, before I knew when the Ways and Means Committee was to have hearings on this matter, on my own initiative I sent a questionnaire to 50 of the leading economists of the country on the Patman and the Thomas bills; also with reference to the benefit of “reflation” and the danger of inflation.

I have a very interesting file here, including letters from Mr. Kemmerer and Mr. King who have appeared before the committee.

In order to shorten the record as much as possible, I have briefed the replies somewhat. The entire letters, of course, are available.

[…]

Mr. Pettengill. Mr. Chairman, as I have stated, I endeavored to get the benefit of the best and most disinterested economic thought of the country with reference to the advisability of either borrowing money or printing money with which to liquidate the adjusted service certificates. In the main, I sent my letters to the economics department of our leading colleges and universities. In order to make their replies more intelligible to you, as many of them answered numbered questions in my letter, I attach, first, my original letter.

(The letter referred to is as follows:)

Dear Sir: I am writing you and other leading economists in the country with reference to the problem confronting Congress with regard to the proposed payment of the soldiers’ bonus. I trust that I will be able to secure a symposium of opinion by authorities such as yourself which will be of real value to Congress.

As you know, at the end of this fiscal year we will have an accumulated deficit of some $3,000,000,000. It is, I think, the largest peace-time deficit of any country in the world. It is rapidly getting larger. We are going into the red now $7,000,000 a day. United States obligations have recently sold below 85.

On the other hand, commodity, wage, land, and security prices are slowly drifting to levels so disastrous that they threaten the most widespread repudiation of debts and tax defaults, which may wipe out, along with the debtors, classes holding the obligations of individuals, corporations, States, and municipalities now totaling some one hundred fifty to two hundred billion dollars, which is about one-half the Nation’s wealth. For example, the conservative Washington Post, April 11, said:

“The dollar increases in value every day … unless this vicious movement is checked it will result in panic. The extension of credit will not be sufficient. Heroic emergency measures that will arrest the fall of prices seem to be in order. … This economic malady has reached a point where it can not be expected to cure itself without leaving horrible scars. … Some powerful agency must be thrown into the breach to restore the value of goods and services against this exaggerated value of money. … Emergencies of this kind call for drastic action. … It is time for the leaders in Government and financial circles to focus their minds upon realignment of values. The people would not countenance the manufacture of fiat money to make prices rise, But some method of currency expansion on a sound gold basis may be necessary.”

            The question is the advisability of paying the so-called soldiers’ bonus as an antideflationary, inflationary, “reflationary” or stabilizing measure. The name, of course, is not important.

A number of different bills have been proposed. H. R. 1, introduced by Mr. Patman, of Texas, calls for borrowing the $2,400,000,000 necessary to make payment.

  1. Do you think we can, or should, borrow this?

Sentiment here, however, is crystallizing around (for or against) Mr. Patman’s substitute, H. R. 7726; I inclose copy.
This bill simply proposes to print money to pay the debt. Is this sound, advisable, or defensible, in view of the existing emergency? And in the light of present gold reserves?

 It has been suggested that it could be strengthened as follows:
Call in the outstanding adjusted-service certificates now redeemable in 1945. Collateralize them together with 40 per cent gold which is said to be now available over and above the amount necessary for circulation now outstanding. Issue currency against this hypothecation and pay the veterans off. Then set up a sinking fund to retire the currency (together with the certificates) in whole or in part in 1945, or gradually before that time.

With reference to “excess reserves” see Federal Reserve Bulletin, March, 1932, page 143: “On the basis of these excess reserves, the Federal reserve banks could issue $3,500,000,000 of credit if the demand were for currency and $4,000,000,000 if it were for deposits at the reserve banks.”

  1. What credit do you give this statement as a basis for the proposed bonus payment?

There are, of course, all sorts of social and political features around this problem, but I direct your attention to its economic and fiscal aspects. It is a problem of the most tremendous consequences and Members here who are patriotically trying to do their best to cut the present vicious circle for the good of the entire country (not the veterans alone) need, and will appreciate, the advice of men like yourself, whose life study makes your judgment so valuable.

  1. Is the suggested alternative sound?
  1. Does it in reality add any element of safety to H. R. 7726, the outright issue of nonretirable currency?
  1. Can it be improved? If so, how?
  1. It is said the Europe holds $2,000,000,000 of deposits in this country. With their experience with “printing-press” money, would they become frightened for the solvency of the dollar, and cause disastrous liquidation and withdrawals here in America? Could such liquidation of foreign-held obligations be stopped unless we “went off gold,” or had available the precautionary device of authorizing the Treasury to change the amount of gold in our dollar along the lines advocated by Irving Fisher? If foreign exchange began to go against us, would it help Europe pay us her public and private debts, as an offset against our investment and deposit obligations held by Europeans?
  1. Would the introduction of $2,400,000,000 new currency into the pockets of the people necessarily result in the rise of commodity and other levels thus causing merchants to place orders for the products of farm and factory, thus starting production and accelerating employment?
  1. The Glass-Steagall bill, as you know, for the period of one year, authorized placing 60 per cent Government bonds plus 40 per cent gold behind Federal reserve money. This, of course, as I understand it, is 60 per cent “greenbackism,” placing one promise to pay (Government bond) behind another promise to pay (currency) to the extent of 60 per cent. Assuming that the adjusted-service certificates are also promises to pay, can the Glass-Steagall bill and the suggested method of handling the payment of the bonus be distinguished, from the standpoint of soundness?

The Glass-Steagall bill, as it appears to me, does not seem to have stopped the deflationary trend, for the reason that its potential currency expansion is based upon borrowing, and banks and individuals are not borrowing (or lending).
Recently I have heard Willford I. King, professor of economics, New York University, testify before the House Banking and Currency Committee. Although not directing his particular attention to the “bonus” he was quite clear that the currency must be expanded at the present time in order to start commodity prices upward and permit debts and taxes to be paid, as well as to start buying, and employment. However, he was equally clear that for such currency something of equal value should be taken in by the Government, e. g., Government bonds, thus temporarily substituting noncirculating certificates of indebtedness (bonds) for circulating certificates (currency). Then, he said, when commodity prices reach the desired level, e. g., 1926 commodity index, the process would be reversed, the bonds resold, and the currency retired. It was his opinion that such a device is necessary in order to stop the elevator at the right floor—i. e., prevent inflation beyond a certain point.
Neither the Patman nor the suggested alternative plan seems to me to contain this safeguard. That is, the adjusted-compensation certificates when once taken in would not be available for reissue.

            I need not state that every member here is anxious to solve the problem, not from the standpoint of helping the needy veteran and his family at the expense of the rest of the community, but only from the standpoint of benefiting the entire Nation, on the theory that a distribution to the veteran would, of course, be passed on at once in the payment of taxes, interest, land contracts, doctors’ and merchants’ bills, etc., and with the expectation that this would stop and reverse the trend of values. If the plan or any other conceivable plan at this time would bring only disaster to the Nation and thus to the veteran and his family we have no alternative except to wait until the present economic storm blows over.

Your thoughtful consideration of this matter is most earnestly requested. Your prompt reply will be a distinct public service.

I desire, of course, to use the substance of your reply, but will not quote you, by name, without your permission. Please let me know if you do give this permission.

Sincerely yours,

Samuel B. Pettengill, Member of Congress.

 

Source:  U. S. Congress (Seventy-Second Congress, First Session). Payment of Adjusted-Compensation Certificates in Hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives (April 11 to 29, and May 2 and 3, 1932),pp. 508, 511-513

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The University of Chicago,
Department of Economics,
April 26, 1932.

Hon. Samuel. B. Pettengill,
            House Office Building, Washington, D. C.

My Dear Mr. Pettengill: The inclosed memorandum has been prepared in an attempt to answer the questions put in your letter of April 13. It has been developed in a committee of two, in conference, and in round table. It is approved by all of the University of Chicago economists who participated in the discussion and formulation; their names appear at the end of the memorandum.

It has seemed better to answer your questions in a memorandum divided into five sections rather than to answer them specifically, the one after the other. I think all of your questions, save that relating to Professor King’s testimony, are answered. No direct reference is made to King’s position because it has seemed better to take a positive stand rather than to criticize.

You ask permission to use the replies to your questions. This is, of course, granted, but our preference would be to have the whole rather than a part of the memorandum given publicity.

Trusting that the memorandum will be of some assistance to you, I am

Very truly yours,

H. A. Millis.

 

(The memorandum referred to follows:)

I.

Severe depression and deflation can be checked, and recovery initiated, either by virtue of automatic adjustments, or by deliberate governmental action. The automatic process involves tremendous losses, in wastage of productive capacity, and in acute suffering. It requires drastic reduction of wage rates, rents, and other “sticky” prices, notably those in industries where readjustments are impeded by monopoly and exceeding politeness of competition. It must also involve widespread insolvency and financial reorganization, with consequent reduction of fixed charges, in order that firms may be placed in position to obtain necessary working capital when and where expansion of output becomes profitable. Given drastic deflation of costs and elimination of fixed charges, business will discover opportunities for profitably increasing employment, firms will become anxious to borrow, and banks will be more willing to lend.

As long as wage cutting is evaded by reducing employment, and as long as monopolies, including public utilities, resist pressure for lower prices, deflation may continue indefinitely. The more intractable the “sticky” prices, the further credit contraction will go, and the more drastic must be the ultimate readjustment. We have developed an economy in which the volume and velocity of credit is exceedingly flexible and sensitive, while wages and pegged prices are highly resistant to downward pressure. This is at once the explanation of our plight and the ground on which governmental action may be justified. Recovery can be brought about, either by reduction of costs to a level consistent with existing commodity prices, or by injecting enough new purchasing power so that much larger production will be profitable at existing costs. The first method is conveniently automatic but dreadfully slow; and it admits hardly at all of being facilitated by political measures. The second method, while readily amenable to abuse, only requires a courageous fiscal policy on the part of the central government.

(We agree entirely with your remarks as to the inadequacy of the Glass-Steagall bill and similar expedients. Little is to be gained merely by easing the circumstances of banks, in a situation where, by virtue of cost-price relations, everyone, including the banks, is anxious to get out of debt. Such measures may retard deflation and prepare the way for recovery; but they cannot much mitigate the fundamental maladjustments between prices and costs.)

II.

If action is needed to raise prices (and we believe it is), it should take the form of generous Federal expenditures, financed without resort to taxes on commodities or transactions. For the effect on prices, the direction of expenditure is not crucially important. Heavy Federal contribution toward relief of distress is the most urgent and, for reflation, perhaps the most effective measure. Large appropriations for public and semipublic improvements are also an attractive expedient, provided projects are chosen which can be started quickly and opportunely stopped. Generous bonus legislation would be the most objectionable of all available devices for releasing purchasing power. Purchase of the certificates at their present value, instead of at maturity value, is perhaps relatively unobjectionable.

Bonus legislation invites comparison with a program of Federal subsidy to agencies engaged in administering emergency relief. Both measures involve a sort of outright gift, the provision of funds to individuals or for their support. One involves allocation according to need, when need is dreadfully acute; the other ignores this criterion completely. Furthermore, funds spent for relief would certainly be spent for commodities, and very promptly, while less needy veterans might only use additional cash further to increase hoarded savings. Of the possible consequences of bonus concessions for the future of pension legislation, mere reminder should suffice. Congress has already capitulated to the veterans and their votes on the grounds that the Treasury was full, and the community prosperous. It is now on the verge of capitulating again, on the grounds that the Treasury is empty, and the community impoverished.

III.

It is impossible to estimate in advance how much Federal expenditure might be required to bring genuine revival of business. We are persuaded, however, that the automatic adjustments have already proceeded to a stage where the necessary inflationary expenditures would be handsomely rewarded, in greater production, larger employment, and higher tax revenues.

One should recognize at the outset a danger that any measures of fiscal inflation may be too meager and too short lived. Inadequate, temporary stimulation might well leave conditions worse than it found them. We might experience temporary revival and then serious relapse, followed by more drastic deflation than would otherwise have been necessary. If we indorse inflation, we should be prepared to administer heavy doses of stimulant if necessary, to continue them until recovery is firmly established, and to discontinue them when the emergency is ended. It is obvious that the bonus measures fail utterly to provide this necessary flexibility.

IV.

The question of how emergency expenditures, for whatever purposes, should be financed, is difficult and highly controversial. The wisest policy for the present, however, would seem to be one guided largely by psychological considerations. It is likely that adequate stimulus could be imparted, and recovery assured, without creating an excessive drain upon our gold reserves. Inflationary measures, in whatever form, will probably accelerate for a time the export of gold; but this strain we may well be able to endure until revival of business is assured. Domestic hoarding of gold, on the other hand, might force us to suspension of our currency laws; and this possibility dictates caution as to the technique of inflation. The problem is simply that of selecting the procedure which will be least alarming.

On other grounds, the issue of greenbacks seems most expedient; but this method must be ruled out unless one is ready to abandon gold immediately, for it would create the greatest danger of domestic drain. Large sales of Federal bonds in the open market would be much less alarming; but the probable effect upon the prices of such bonds must give us pause, especially since a marked decline might jeopardize the position of many banks. It would certainly be better for the Government to sell new issues directly to the reserve banks or, in effect, to exchange bonds for bank deposits and Federal Reserve notes. Much may be said, indeed, for issuing the bonds with the circulation privilege, thus permitting the Reserve Banks to issue Federal Reserve Bank notes in exchange; for this procedure does not much invite suspicion, has supporting precedent, and would greatly reduce the legal requirements with respect to gold.

It is well to face the possibility, though it seems remote, that adequate fiscal inflation might force us to abandon gold for a time. We must be prepared to see a sort of race between depletion of the gold holdings of the reserve banks and improvement of business. If definite business revival is attained before the gold position becomes acute, the hoarders will have missed some great investment bargains; if inflation must be carried beyond the limits tolerated by gold, the hoarders will reap a profit. Moreover, if other gold-standard countries follow our example, as is quite probable, the threat to our adherence to the gold standard will prove negligible.

But we would insist again that, once deliberate reflation is undertaken, it must be carried through, whatever that policy may mean for gold. To withdraw artificial support before genuine recovery is achieved, might create a situation worse than that which would have obtained in the absence of remedial efforts. If the time comes, as it probably will not, when we must choose between recovery and convertibility, we must then abandon gold, pending the not distant time when world recovery will permit our returning to the old standard on the old terms. The remote possibility of our being forced to this step, however, should not influence our decision now. The supposedly awful consequences of departure from gold are, as England has shown us so clearly, nothing but fantastic illusions.

V.

It is easy to be too greatly alarmed about the possibility of extreme and uncontrolled inflation. With improvement of business, Federal revenues will automatically increase. Expenditures may then be financed to a lesser extent by borrowing, and thus with less inflationary influence. Indeed, one might maintain that temporary inflation is the most promising means to restore a balanced Budget. Moreover, with proper precautions, it should not be difficult to effect drastic reduction of expenditures at the appropriate time. The emergency character of inflationary appropriations should be emphasized in the acts themselves; and Congress should record the intention of balancing expenditures and revenues over a period of, say four or five years. Incidentally, no emergency expenditures would permit of more opportune retrenchment than those for relief of distress.

We find it difficult, at the present juncture, to give due attention to the problem of preventing or modifying the next boom. Obviously, we should attend to getting out of the present emergency first. It demands emphasis, however, that successful resort to fiscal methods for terminating deflation will present the very serious problem of keeping recovery within safe bounds. A merely salutary inflation treatment will fail to satisfy many groups. There will certainly be demand for more inflation and more “prosperity” than we can afford or sanely endure. Fiscal inflation must be regarded as a means for meeting an acute emergency for industry as a whole. It should not be viewed as a means of solving the agricultural problem, nor as a method for deflating the rentier. It is properly a most temporary expedient, to be abandoned (and reversed) long before many individual industries and classes have obtained the measure of relief which justice might prescribe.

We have suggested that for the period of the ensuing five years all Federal expenditures, including those of an emergency character, should be covered by tax revenues. To minimize the total necessary outlay, outlays should be very generous now; parsimonious inflation is an illusory economy. It would also be eminently wise to avoid now any new taxes which fall at the producer’s (or dealer’s) margin. The levies on income, however, should be advanced immediately to the maximum levels which an imperfect, but improving, administrative system can support. While such levies will be rather unproductive for a time, they will have no very deterrent effect upon business; and, having gotten them into the statutes during a period of least political resistance, we may be assured of large revenues at the appropriate time. Even after recovery, additional commodity taxes should be resorted to only if more equitable levies prove inadequate to full completion of the “5-year plan.” Indeed, by 1940, our Federal debt should stand at a figure far below that contemplated by existing legislation. We should have high income taxes when incomes are high.

Sound fiscal management during the next few years should give close attention to indexes of production, employment, and wholesale prices. We shall not undertake at this time to indicate any definite rules. There is no immediate problem of excessive inflation—rather, a danger of doing nothing or of a too modest beginning. For the not distant future, however, most careful and intelligent management will be imperative. Once there is clear evidence of revival, of increased and profitable production, the mechanism of credit expansion will begin to operate, and to carry on the task which fiscal inflation has begun. As soon as this happens, retrenchment must be started; emergency expenditures must be reduced as rapidly as is possible without undermining recovery. We should not attempt, by deliberate inflation, to bring prices to any level which we choose to regard as normal; nor should artificial stimulus be continued until production and employment attain really satisfactory levels. Fiscal measures should only be used to give to recovery a sure start. When this is done, the real task will be that of preventing the recovery from becoming a boom; and a beginning must be made in this task long before any alarming signs appear. The seeds of booms are sown by innocent expansion of credit during years of seemingly wholesome revival. The task of control is easily neglected at such times; and there is grave danger that both the Reserve Board and the Treasury will adopt inadequately deflationary tactics in this period when it is so easy to have no policy at all.

In summary, it is our unequivocal position that drastic but temporary fiscal inflation can now be productive of tremendous gains, with no possible losses of compensating magnitude; further, that after genuine revival of business has occurred, and especially if it is attained by artificial stimulation, there will soon be urgent need for prompt and decisive action of a deflationary character.

Garfield V. Cox.         Lloyd W. Mints.
Aaron Director.         Henry Schultz.
Paul H. Douglas.       Henry C. Simons.
Harry D. Gideonse.   Jacob Viner.
Frank H. Knight.       Chester W. Wright.
Harry A. Millis.          Theodore O. Yntem.[sic]

 

Source: U. S. Congress (Seventy-Second Congress, First Session). Payment of Adjusted-Compensation Certificates in Hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives (April 11 to 29, and May 2 and 3, 1932), pp. 524-527.

Image Source:  Authentic History Center website: Page “Hoover & the Depression: The Bonus Army.”

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. History of Economics Department. Luncheon Talk by Arthur R. Burns, 1954

The main entry of this posting is a transcription of the historical overview of economics at Columbia provided by Professor Arthur R. Burns at a reunion luncheon for Columbia economics Ph.D. graduates [Note: Arthur Robert Burns was the “other” Arthur Burns of the Columbia University economics department, as opposed to Arthur F. Burns, who was the mentor/friend of Milton Friedman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Fed, etc.]. He acknowledges his reliance on the definitive research of his colleague, Joseph Dorfman, that was published in the following year:

Joseph Dorfman, “The Department of Economics”, Chapt IX in R. Gordon Hoxie et al., A History of the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955.

The cost of the luncheon was $2.15 per person. 36 members of the economics faculty attended, who paid for themselves, and some 144 attending guests (includes about one hundred Columbia economics Ph.D.’s) had their lunches paid for by the university.

_____________________________

[LUNCHEON INVITATION LETTER]

Columbia University
in the City of New York
[New York 27, N.Y.]
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

March 25, 1954

 

Dear Doctor _________________

On behalf of the Department of Economics, I am writing to invite you to attend a Homecoming Luncheon of Columbia Ph.D.’s in Economics. This will be held on Saturday, May 29, at 12:30 sharp, in the Men’s Faculty Club, Morningside Drive and West 117th Street.

This Luncheon is planned as a part of Columbia University’s Bicentennial Celebration, of which, as you know, the theme is “Man’s Right to Knowledge and the free Use Thereof”. The date of May 29 is chosen in relation to the Bicentennial Conference on “National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad” in which distinguished scholars and men of affairs from the United States and other countries will take part. The final session of this Conference, to be held at three p.m. on May 29 in McMillin Academic Theater, will have as its principal speaker our own Professor John Maurice Clark. The guests at the Luncheon are cordially invited to attend the afternoon meeting.

The Luncheon itself and brief after-luncheon speeches will be devoted to reunion, reminiscence and reacquaintance with the continuing work of the Department. At the close President Grayson Kirk will present medals on behalf of the University to the principal participants in the Bicentennial Conference.

We shall be happy to welcome to the Luncheon as guests of the University all of our Ph.D.’s, wherever their homes may be, who can arrange to be in New York on May 29. We very much hope you can be with us on that day. Please reply on the form below.

Cordially yours,

[signed]
Carter Goodrich
Chairman of the Committee

*   *   *   *   *   *

Professor Carter Goodrich
Box #22, Fayerweather Hall
Columbia University
New York 27, New York

I shall be glad…
I shall be unable… to attend the Homecoming Luncheon on May 29.

(signed) ___________

Note: Please reply promptly, not later than April 20 in the case of Ph.D.’s residing in the United States, and not later than May 5 in the case of others.

_____________________________

[INVITATION TO SESSION FOLLOWING LUNCHEON]

Columbia University
in the City of New York
[New York 27, N.Y.]
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

May 6, 1954

 

TO:                 Departments of History, Math. Stat., Public and Sociology
FROM:            Helen Harwell, secretary, Graduate Department of Economics

 

Will you please bring the following notice to the attention of the students in your Department:

            A feature of Columbia’s Bicentennial celebration will be a Conference on National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad, to be held May 27, 28 and 29.

            The final session of the Conference will take place in McMillin Theatre at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 29. The session topic is “Economic Welfare in a Free Society”. The program is:

Session paper.

John M. Clark, John Bates Clark Professor. Emeritus of Economics, Columbia University.

Discussants:

Frank H. Knight, Professor of Economics, University of Chicago
David E. Lilienthal, Industrial Consultant and Executive
Wilhelm Roepke, Professor of International Economics, Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva

 

Students in the Faculty of Political Science are cordially invited to attend this session and to bring their wives or husbands and friends who may be interested.

Tickets can be secured from Miss Helen Harwell, 505 Fayer.

_____________________________

[REMARKS BY PROFESSOR ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS]

Department of Economics Bicentennial Luncheon
May 29th, 1954

President Kirk, Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of the Department of Economics I welcome you all to celebrate Columbia’s completion of its first two hundred years as one of the great universities. We are gratified that so many distinguished guests have come, some from afar, to participate in the Conference on National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad. We accept their presence as testimony of their esteem for the place of Columbia in the world of scholarship. Also, we welcome among us again many of the intellectual offspring of the department. We like to believe that the department is among their warmer memories. We also greet most pleasurably some past members of the department, namely Professors Vladimir G. Simkhovitch, Eugene Agger, Eveline M. Burns and Rexford Tugwell. Finally, but not least, we are pleased to have with us the administrative staff of the department who are ceaselessly ground between the oddity and irascibility of the faculty and the personal and academic tribulations of the students. Gertrude D. Stewart who is here is evidence that this burden can be graciously carried for thirty-five years without loss of charm or cheer.

We are today concerned with the place of economics within the larger scope of Columbia University. When the bell tolls the passing of so long a period of intellectual endeavor one casts an appraising eye over the past, and I am impelled to say a few retrospective words about the faculty and the students. I have been greatly assisted in this direction by the researches of our colleague, Professor Dorfman, who has been probing into our past.

On the side of the faculty, there have been many changes, but there are also many continuities. First let me note some of the changes. As in Europe, economics made its way into the university through moral philosophy, and our College students were reading the works of Frances Hutcheson in 1763. But at the end of the 18th century, there seems to have been an atmosphere of unhurried certainty and comprehensiveness of view that has now passed away. For instance, it is difficult to imagine a colleague of today launching a work entitled “Natural Principles of Rectitude for the Conduct of Man in All States and Situations in Life Demonstrated and Explained in a Systematic Treatise on Moral Philosophy”. But one of early predecessors, Professor Gross, published such a work in 1795.

The field of professorial vision has also change. The professor Gross whom I have just mentioned occupied no narrow chair but what might better be called a sofa—that of “Moral Philosophy, German Language and Geography”. Professor McVickar, early in the nineteenth century, reclined on the even more generous sofa of “Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Rhetoric, Belles Lettres and Political Economy”. By now, however, political economy at least existed officially and, in 1821, the College gave its undergraduates a parting touch of materialist sophistication in some twenty lectures on political economy during the last two months of their senior year.

But by the middle of the century, integration was giving way to specialization. McVickar’s sofa was cut into three parts, one of which was a still spacious chair of “History and Political Science”, into which Francis Lieber sank for a brief uneasy period. His successor, John W. Burgess, pushed specialization further. He asked for an assistant to take over the work in political economy. Moreover, his request was granted and Richmond Mayo Smith, then appointed, later became Professor of Political Economy, which, however, included Economics, Anthropology and Sociology. The staff of the department was doubled in 1885 by the appointment of E. R. A. Seligman to a three-year lectureship, and by 1891 he had become a professor of Political Economy and Finance. Subsequent fission has separated Sociology and Anthropology and now we are professors of economics, and the days when political economy was covered in twenty lectures seem long ago.

Other changes stand out in our history. The speed of promotion of the faculty has markedly slowed down. Richmond Mayo Smith started as an instructor in 1877 but was a professor after seven years of teaching at the age of 27. E. R. A. Seligman even speeded matters a little and became a professor after six years of teaching. But the University has since turned from this headlong progression to a more stately gait. One last change I mention for the benefit of President Kirk, although without expectation of warm appreciation from him. President Low paid J. B. Clark’s salary out of his own pocket for the first three years of the appointment.

I turn now to some of the continuities in the history of the department. Professor McVickar displayed a concern for public affairs that has continued since his time early in the nineteenth century. He was interested in the tariff and banking but, notably, also in what he called “economic convulsions”, a term aptly suggesting an economy afflicted with the “falling sickness”. Somewhat less than a century later the subject had been rechristened “business cycles” to remove some of the nastiness of the earlier name, and professor Wesley Mitchell was focusing attention on this same subject.

The Columbia department has also shown a persistent interest in economic measurement. Professor Lieber campaigned for a government statistical bureau in the middle of the 19th century and Richmond Mayo Smith continued this interest in statistics and in the Census. Henry L. Moore, who came to the department in 1902, promoted with great devotion Mathematical Economics and Statistics with particular reference to the statistical verification of theory. This interest in quantification remains vigorous among us.

There is also a long continuity in the department’s interest in the historical and institutional setting of economic problems and in their public policy aspect. E. R. A. Seligman did not introduce, but he emphasized this approach. He began teaching the History of Theory and proceeded to Railroad Problems and the Financial and Tariff History of the United States, and of course, Public Finance. John Bates Clark, who joined the department in 1895 to provide advanced training in economics to women who were excluded from the faculty of Political Science, became keenly interested in government policy towards monopolies and in the problem of war. Henry R. Seager, in 1902, brought his warm and genial personality to add to the empirical work in the department in labor and trust problems. Vladimir G. Simkhovitch began to teach economic history in 1905 at the same time pursuing many and varied other interests, and we greet him here today. And our lately deceased colleague, Robert Murray Haig, continued the work in Public Finance both as teacher and advisor to governments.

Lastly, among these continuities is an interest in theory. E. R. A. Seligman focused attention on the history of theory. John Bates Clark was an outstanding figure in the field too well known to all of us for it to be necessary to particularize as to his work. Wesley C. Mitchell developed his course on “Current Types of Economic Theory” after 1913 and continued to give it almost continuously until 1945. The Clark dynasty was continued when John Maurice Clark joined the department as research professor in 1926. He became emeritus in 1952, but fortunately he still teaches, and neither students nor faculty are denied the stimulation of his gentle inquiring mind. He was the first appointee to the John Bates Clark professorship in 1952 and succeeded Wesley Mitchell as the second recipient of the Francis A. Walker medal of the American Economic Association in the same year.

Much of this development of the department was guided by that gracious patriarch E. R. A. Seligman who was Executive Officer of the Department for about 30 years from 1901. With benign affection and pride he smiled upon his growing academic family creating a high standard of leadership for his successors. But the period of his tenure set too high a standard and executive Officers now come and go like fireflies emitting as many gleams of light as they can in but three years of service. Seligman and J. B. Clark actively participated in the formation of the American Economic Association in which J. B. Clark hoped to include “younger men who do not believe implicitly in laisser faire doctrines nor the use of the deductive method exclusively”.

Among other members of the department I must mention Eugene Agger, Edward Van Dyke Robinson, William E. Weld, and Rexford Tugwell, who were active in College teaching, and Alvin Johnson, Benjamin Anderson and Joseph Schumpeter, who were with the department for short periods. Discretion dictates that I list none of my contemporaries, but I leave them for such mention as subsequent speakers may care to make.

When one turns to the students who are responsible for so much of the history of the department, one is faced by an embarrassment of riches. Alexander Hamilton is one of the most distinguished political economists among the alumni of the College. Richard T. Ely was the first to achieve academic reputation. In the 1880’s, he was giving economics a more humane and historical flavor. Walter F. Wilcox, a student of Mayo Smith, obtained his Ph.D. in 1891 and contributed notably to statistical measurement after he became Chief Statistician of the Census in 1891, and we extend a special welcome to him here today. Herman Hollerith (Ph.D. 1890) contributed in another way to statistics by his development of tabulating machinery. Alvin Johnson was a student as well as teacher. It is recorded that he opened his paper on rent at J. B. Clark’s seminar with the characteristically wry comment that all the things worth saying about rent had been said by J. B. Clark and his own paper was concerned with “some of the other things”. Among other past students are W. Z. Ripley, B. M. Anderson, Willard Thorp, John Maurice Clark, Senator Paul Douglas, Henry Schultz and Simon Kuznets. The last of these we greet as the present President of the American Economic Association. But the list grows too long. It should include many more of those here present as well as many who are absent, but I am going to invite two past students and one present student to fill some of the gaps in my story of the department.

I have heard that a notorious American educator some years ago told the students at Commencement that he hoped he would never see them again. They were going out into the world with the clear minds and lofty ideals which were the gift of university life. Thenceforward they would be distorted by economic interest, political pressure, and family concerns and would never again be the same pellucid and beautiful beings as at that time. I confess that the thought is troubling. But in inviting our students back we have overcome our doubts and we now confidently call upon a few of them. The first of these is George W. Stocking who, after successfully defending a dissertation on “The Oil Industry and the Competitive System” in 1925, has continued to pursue his interest in competition and monopoly as you all know. He is now at Vanderbilt University.

The second of our offspring whom I will call upon is Paul Strayer. He is one of the best pre-war vintages—full bodied, if I may borrow from the jargon of the vintner without offense to our speaker. Or I might say fruity, but again not without danger of misunderstanding. Perhaps I had better leave him to speak for himself. Paul Strayer, now of Princeton University, graduated in 1939, having completed a dissertation on the painful topic of “The Taxation of Small Incomes”.

The third speaker is Rodney H. Mills, a contemporary student and past president of the Graduate Economics Students Association. He has not yet decided on his future presidencies, but we shall watch his career with warm interest. He has a past, not a pluperfect, but certainly a future. Just now, however, no distance lends enchantment to his view of the department. And I now call upon him to share his view with us.

So far we have been egocentric and appropriately so. But many other centres of economic learning are represented here, and among them the London School of Economics of which I am proud as my own Alma Mater. I now call upon Professor Lionel Robbins of Polecon (as it used sometimes to be known) to respond briefly on behalf of our guests at the Conference. His nature and significance are or shall I say, is, too well known to you to need elaboration.

[in pencil]
A.R. Burns

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Bicentennial Celebration”.

_____________________________

[BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION FOR ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS]

 

BURNS, Arthur Robert, Columbia Univ., New York 27, N.Y. (1938) Columbia Univ., prof. of econ., teach., res.; b. 1895; B.Sc. (Econ.), 1920, Ph.D. (Econ.), 1926, London Sch. of Econ. Fields 5a, 3bc, 12b. Doc. dis. Money and monetary policy in early times (Kegan Paul Trench Trubner & Co., London, 1926). Pub. Decline of competition (McGraw-Hill 1936); Comparative economic organization (Prentice-Hall, 1955); Electric power and government policy (dir. of res.) (Twentieth Century Fund, 1948) . Res. General studies in economic development. Dir. Amer. Men of Sci., III, Dir. of Amer. Schol.

Source: Handbook of the American Economic Association, American Economic Review, Vol. 47, No. 4 (July, 1957), p. 40.

 

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”.

Categories
Chicago Columbia Cornell Harvard Johns Hopkins Statistics Wisconsin

Graduate Student Enrollments in Economics. Seligman’s Tally, 1909

Here we have a letter from the chairman of the Columbia University economics department, Edwin R. A. Seligman, to the chairman of the trustees of Columbia University, George L. Rives, boasting of the large market share of Columbia with respect to graduate education in economics and sociology. We’ve seen earlier (1900) that Seligman kept a jealous eye on Columbia’s competition.

_____________________________________

[carbon copy of letter Seligman to Rives]

No. 324 West 86 street
New York, February 13, 1909

My dear Sir:

You may be interested in the enclosed statistics which have been compiled by me from answers to questions sent out to the various universities. It shows the relative position of Columbia compared to its six leading competitors, and it is a curious coincidence that the totals of Columbia on the one hand, and of the six universities together on the other, should be precisely the same.

Faithfully yours,

Edwin R. A. Seligman

(Enclosure)

 

To Mr. George L. Rives,
New York City

_____________________________________

STUDENTS WITH DEGREES ENROLLED IN
GRADUATE COURSES, Dec. 1909

 

Economics Sociology Total of Economics and Sociology
Harvard

27

 —

27
Yale

16

 12

28
Cornell

10

 4

14
Johns-Hopkins

12*

 —

12*
Chicago

12

 19

31
Wisconsin

22

 4

26
Total in the 6 universities

99

 39

138
Columbia

67

 71

138

*including duplications

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890-, Box 338. Folder: “Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson. 1.1.110 2/5”

Image Source: Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2 (1899), pp. 485.

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. E.R.A. Seligman, biographical sketch. 1899

A later memoir composed by E. R. A. Seligman was published in 1929 in German: Felix Meiner, ed.  Die Volkswirtschaftslehre der Gegenwart: Selbstdarstellungen, Leipzig. According the U.S. Library of Congress record, three volumes were originally projected in this series. It appears that only two were ever published. [Vol. 1, 1924]: Eduard Bernstein, Karl Diehl, Heinrich Herkner, Karl Kautsky, Robert Liefmann, Heinrich Pesch S.J.,  Julius Wolf.  [Vol. 2, 1929]:  Irving Fischer [sic], Achille Loria, Franz Oppenheimer, Edwin A. Seligman, Camillo Supino, Leopold v. Wiese. 

A typed English draft copy of Seligman’s memoir (39 pages) is located in the Columbia University Archives: Joseph Dorfman papers, Box 52, Folder “E. R. A. Seligman, Biography published (in German) Volkswirtschaftslehre, Leipzig, 1931 [sic]”. This copy has been edited by Pier Francesco Asso and Luca Fiorito and published:

Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman (2006), Autobiography, in Warren J. Samuels (ed.) Documents from and on Economic Thought (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Volume 24 Part 3) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.149 – 187.

The short posting below along with the portrait comes from Seligman’s entry in the second volume of the reference work Universities and their Sons published in 1899.

________________________________

SELIGMAN, Edwin Robert Anderson, 1861-

Born in New York City, 1861; received his early education privately and at the Columbia Grammar School; A. B., Columbia, 1879; studied abroad during 1879-82; attended Columbia Law School and Columbia School of Political Science in 1882-84; A.M., 1883; LL.B., 1884; Ph.D., 1885; appointed Prize Lecturer on History of Political Economy at Columbia School of Political Science, 1885; Adjunct Professor of Political Economy, Columbia, 1888; Professor of Political Economy and Finance, 1891; has been on Board of Editors of Political Science Quarterly since 1886; Editor of Columbia Series in History, Economics and Public Law since 1891.

EDWIN ROBERT ANDERSON SELIGMAN, Ph.D., Professor at Columbia, was born in the City of New York April 25,1861. His father, Joseph Seligman, a native of Germany, had been educated in German Universities as a physician, but came to the United States as a young man and engaged in business in New York, ultimately founding the banking firm of J. & W. Seligman & Company. The subject of this sketch was educated at home until the age of eleven, under the direction of Horatio Alger, Jr., the celebrated author of fiction for the young. In 1872 he entered Columbia Grammar School, meanwhile studying French, German and music under private tutors. Graduating from there in 1875, he entered Columbia, taking his degree in 1879. In the same year he went abroad, and passed the three following years in the study of history, political science and jurisprudence in Paris and at the Universities of Berlin, Heidelberg and Geneva. He returned to America in 1882, and for two years attended Columbia Law School and Columbia School of Political Science, taking the degree of Master of Arts in 1883 and that of Bachelor of Laws in 1884. In July 1885 he was appointed Prize Lecturer on the History of Political Economy in the Columbia School of Political Science, receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Three years later he was made Adjunct Professor of Political Economy in the University, and in 1891 was promoted to the Professorship of Political Economy and Finance. Professor Seligman is the author of many works dealing with subjects connected with his profession. Among the most important are: Progressive Taxation in Theory and Practice [1894]; Essays in Taxation (now in second edition); The Shifting and Incidence of Taxation (now in second edition) [first edition 1895; fourth edition, 1903; seventh edition 1915; eighth edition 1913; ninth edition 1921]; Owen and the Christian Socialists [1886]; Railway Tariffs and the Inter-state Commerce Law [1887], Two Chapters on the Mediaeval Guilds of England [1887]; Finance Statistics of the American Commonwealths; The Commercial Policy of the United States of America, published in the Schriften des Vereins für Socialpolitik of Germany in 1892; and numerous articles in the leading scientific journals of this country and abroad. He has been a member of the Board of Editors of the Political Science Quarterly since 1886, and Editor of the Columbia Series in History, Economics and Public Law since 1891. He has also been since 1895 one of the Board of Managers of the School of Classical Studies in Rome. He married April 4, 1888, Caroline Beer. They have two children. Professor Seligman is the member of very many clubs and organizations, principally scientific, among them the Arts, Authors’, City and Political Economy Clubs, the Phi Beta Kappa, the Columbia Alumni Association, the American Economic Association, of which he was Treasurer from 1888 to 1892, the British Economic Association, the American Statistical Association, the American Historical Association, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Geographical Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Society of American Sculptors, the Society for Ethical Culture, the Archaeological Institute, the University Settlement Society, the New York Philharmonic Society. He is also a corresponding member of the Russian Imperial Academy of Science. He is deeply interested in the betterment of the condition of the poor in New York City, and was formerly on the Board of Managers of the Charity Organization Society. He is still a member of that Society, is President of the Tenement House Building Company, Chairman of the Committee on Education of the Educational Alliance, a member of the Sanitary Aid Society, of which he has been Secretary, a member of the People’s Institute, and of the Social Reform Club. He is a staunch friend of good government, and has taken an active part in the various movements looking to the overthrow of Tammany Hall, having been a member of the Committee of Seventy in 1895 and the Committee of Two Hundred and Fifty in 1897, the first of which brought about the election of William L. Strong as Mayor of New York City on a reform platform. He is also a member of the Civil Service Association, and of the Excise Reform Association. Professor Seligman also sympathizes with the University Extension work, and is a member of the University Settlement Society.

Source: Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2 (1899), pp. 484-6.

 

Categories
Columbia Courses Curriculum

Columbia. Report of the Dean of the School of Political Science, 1901

I reproduce here the report of the Dean of the School of Political Science at Columbia University for the academic year 1900-01 in its entirety so we have a fairly complete accounting of the graduate education activities of the entire administrative unit within which the Columbia economics department was embedded at the start of the twentieth century. The document provides enormous detail from course registration totals through seminar participants by name and presentations through the work of those on fellowships and finally to the job placements of its graduates. The structure of the report can be seen below from the links to its individual sections:

Course Registration Data
Seminar in European History
Seminar in American Colonial History
Seminar in American History
Seminar in Modern European History
Seminar in Political Philosophy
Seminar in Constitutional Law
Seminar in Diplomacy and International Law
Seminar in Political Economy
Seminar in Political Economy and Finance
Seminar in Economic Theory
Statistical Laboratory and Seminar
Seminar in Sociology
Work of Fellows
Publications under the Supervision of the Faculty
Educational Appointments
Governmental Appointments
Other Appointments

_______________________________________

[p. 114]

 

SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

REPORT OF THE DEAN
FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1901

To the President of Columbia University in the City of New York:

SIR:

I have the honor to submit the following report of the work of the Faculty of Political Science for the scholastic year 1900-1901. During the year 268 students have taken courses of instruction under the Faculty of Political Science, of whom 18 were women. Of these 68 students were also registered in the Law School, and 13 in the Schools of Philosophy, Pure Science, and Applied Science.

In the Report of the Registrar will be found tabular statements of the courses of study offered in the School, together with the attendance upon each, as follows:

Group I—History and Political Philosophy [page 270,  page 271]

A. European History. pages 270-271
B. American History, pages 270-271
C. Political Philosophy, pages 270-271

1900_01_HistPolPhilRegistrations1

1900_01_HistPolPhilRegistrations2

Group II—Public Law and Comparative Jurisprudence [page 291]

A. Constitutional Law, page 291
B. International Law, page 291
C. Administrative Law, page 291
D. Roman Law and Comparative Jurisprudence, page 291

1900_01_PublicLawRegistrations

Group III—Economics and Social Science [page 264]

A. Political Economy and Finance, page 264
B. Sociology and Statistics, page 264

1900_01_EconomicsRegistrations

[p. 115]

WORK IN THE SEMINARS

Seminar in European History

Professor Robinson. 2 hours fortnightly. 6 members.

The topic treated was the Development of the Papal Primacy to Gregory VII. Each student gave two or more reports on the various phases of the subject, dealing chiefly with the sources.

 

Seminar in American Colonial History

Professor Osgood. 2 hours a week. 27 members.

This course has been conducted as a lecture course and seminar combined. A paper was presented by each of the students and was discussed in the seminar. Among the subjects treated in these papers were:

Royal Charters and Governors’ Commissions;
Royal Instructions to Governors;
Salaries of Governors;
Agrarian Riots in New Jersey from 1745 to 1790;
Pirates and Piracy;
Paper Money in the Colonies;
Career of Robert Livingston;
Relations between the Executive in New York and the English Government;
Policy of the British Government toward the Charter Colonies subsequent to 1690.

A number of papers, also, were presented on subjects connected with Colonial defence.

 

Seminar in American History

Professor Osgood. 1 hour a week. 6 members.

In connection with the work of this Seminar the following Master’s theses have been prepared, read, and discussed:

System of Defence in Early Colonial Massachusetts, Sidney D. Brummer.
The Administration of George Clark in New York, 1736 to 1743, Walter H. Nichols.
The Relation of the Iroquois to the Struggle between the French and English in North America, Walter D. Gerken.

[p. 116]

Relations between France and England in North America from 1690 to 1713, Samuel E. Moffett.
France and England in America from 1713 to 1748, Henry R. Spencer.
Conflict between the French and English in North America, Walter L. Fleming.

 

Seminar in Modern European History

Professor Sloane. 6 members.

The following are the subjects which were discussed and upon which papers have been presented:

The Treaty of Basel, Guy S. Ford.
Hanover in the Revolutionary Epoch, Guy S. Ford.
The 18th Brumaire, Charles W. Spencer.
Beginnings of Administration under the Consulate, Charles W. Spencer.
Origins of the Continental System, Ulrich B. Phillips.
Development of the Continental System, Ulrich B. Phillips.
Napoleon and the Caulaincourt Correspondence, Ellen S. Davison.
Caulaincourt in Russia, Ellen S. Davison.
Custine in Metz, Walter P. Bordwell.
Hardenberg and Haugwitz, Paul Abelson.

 

Seminar in Political Philosophy

Professor Dunning. 1 hour a week. 1 member.

William O. Easton presented an elaborate paper on the Political Theories of Spinoza with Reference to the Theory of Hobbes.

 

Seminar in Constitutional Law

Professor Burgess. 1 hour a week. 27 members.

The work in this Seminar during the present year has been the study of the cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving private rights and immunities under the protection of the Constitution of the United States. Each member of the Seminar has prepared an essay upon the cases relating to a given point under this

[p. 117]

general subject, and has read the same before the Seminar, where it has been subjected to general comment and criticism.

 

Seminar in Diplomacy and International Law

Professor Moore. 2 hours a week. 12 members.

Papers were read as follows:

Decisions of the Courts in the United States on Questions Growing out of the Annexation of Territory, William H. Adams.
The Southwestern Boundary of the United States, James F. Barnett.
The Development of the Laws of War Walter P. Bordwell.
Treaties: Their Making, Construction, and Enforcement, Samuel D. Crandall.
The Diplomacy of the Second Empire, Stephen P. Duggan.
Blockades, Sydney H. Herman.
Diplomatic Officers, William C. B. Kemp.

 

Seminar in Political Economy

Professor Mayo-Smith. 1 hour a week. 9 members.

In addition to reading and discussing Marshall’s Principles of Economics, in which all the members of the Seminar participated, papers were read upon the following subjects:

Trusts in the United States Hajime Hoshi.
Trusts and Prices, Robert B. Olsen.
The Industrial Employment of Women, Charles M. Niezer.

 

Seminar in Political Economy and Finance

Professor Seligman. 2 hours fortnightly. 20 members.

The subject of work in this Seminar during the first term was “The Foundations of Economic Philosophy.” During the second term a variety of subjects was discussed. Each member of the Seminar also made a report at each meeting on current periodical literature in economics, including the literature of the following countries: United States, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan. The papers read were as follows:

[p. 118]

Natural Law and Economics, Robert P. Shepherd.
The Economic Motive, Holland Thompson.
The Law of Competition, Walter E. Clark.
The Theory of Individualism, Enoch M. Banks.
Social Element in the Theory of Value, John W. Dickman.
Theory of Insurance, Allan H. Willett.
Theory of Monopolies, Alvin S. Johnson.
Economic Doctrine of Senior, Albert C. Whitaker.
Bounties and Shipping Subsidies, Royal Meeker.
Legal Decisions on the Labor Question, Ernest A. Cardozo.
Commercial Policy of Japan, Yetaro Kinosita.
Early American Economic Theory, Albert Britt.
The Movement toward Consolidation, Robert B. Oken.

 

Seminar in Economic Theory

Professor Clark. 2 hours fortnightly. 12 members.

Papers were presented on the following subjects:

Labor as a Measure of Value, Albert C. Whitaker.
Value Theories of Say and Ricardo, Robert P. Shepherd.
Rent and Value, Alvin S. Johnson.
Monetary Theories, John W. Dickman.
The Influence of Insurance on Distribution, Allan H. Willett.
Early Socialism, Enoch M. Banks.
Louis Blanc, Royal Meeker.
Fabian Socialism, Albert Britt.
Commercial Crises, Ernest A. Cardozo.
Speculation, Yetaro Kinosita.
Labor Unions in North Carolina, Holland Thompson.
Welfare Institutions, Walter E. Clark.

 

Statistical Laboratory and Seminar

Professor Mayo-Smith. 2 hours fortnightly. 5 members.

The work of the year was devoted to developing the mathematical theory of statistics with practical exercises.

 

Seminar in Sociology

Professor Giddings. 2 hours fortnightly. 12 members.

The following papers were read and discussed.

Types of Mind and Character in Colonial Massachusetts, Edward W. Capen.

[p. 119]

Types of Mind and Character in Colonial Connecticut, William F. Clark.
Types of Mind and Character in Colonial New York, George M. Fowles.
Types of Mind and Character in Colonial Pennsylvania, Andrew L. Horst.
Types of Mind and Character in Colonial Virginia, Robert L. Irving.
Types of Mind and Character in the Early Days of North Carolina,Thomas J. Jones.
Types of Mind and Character in the Early Days of Kentucky, Edwin A. McAlpinJr.
Types of Mind and Character in the Early Days of Indiana, Daniel L. Peacock.
Types of Mind and Character in the Early Days of Wisconsin, Albert G. Mohr.
An Analysis of the Mental Characteristics of the Population of an East-Side New York City Block, Thomas J. Jones.
A Statistical Study of the Response to Lincoln’s First Call for Volunteers, Andrew L. Horst.
The Charities of Five Presbyterian Churches in Harlem, Robert L. Irving.
The Poor Laws of Connecticut, Edward W. Capen.
Parochial Settlement in England, Bertha H. Putnam.
A Critical and Statistical Study of Male and Female Birth Rate,s Daniel L. Peacock.

 

WORK OF FELLOWS

During the year the following persons have held Fellowships in subjects falling under the jurisdiction of this Faculty:

1. William Maitland Abell, Political Science.

Yale University, A.B., 1887; A.M., 1898.,New York University, LL.M., 1894. Columbia University, graduate student, 1898-1901; Fellow in Political Science, 1899-1900.

Mr. Abell, Honorary Fellow, continued his work in the Seminar in Constitutional Law, and made excellent progress in the preparation of his Doctor’s dissertation.

[p. 120]

2. Walter Percy Bordwell, International Law.

University of California, B.L., 1898. Columbia University, graduate student, 1898-1901.

Mr. Bordwell, the holder of the Schiff Fellowship, worked under the direction of Professor Moore upon his Doctor’s dissertation: “The Development of the Laws of War since the Time of Grotius.” He also took part in the Seminars of Professors Moore and Sloane, presenting a paper in each of these Seminars. He passed, in May, his oral examinations for the Doctor’s degree.

3. James Wilford Garner, Political Science.

Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College, B.S., 1892. University of Chicago, graduate student, 1896-99; Instructor in Bradley Polytechnic Institute, Peoria, Ill., 1899-1900. Columbia University, graduate student, 1900-01.

Mr. Garner worked under the direction of Professor Dunning in American Political Philosophy. Professor Dunning reports that his “Study of the Tendencies Manifested in the Amendments of State Constitutions from 1830-1860” is a noteworthy contribution to science. He also attended the Seminar in Constitutional Law and worked there upon the cases decided by the Supreme Court in the interpretation of private rights under the Constitution of the United States.

4. Alvin Saunders Johnson, Economics.

University of Nebraska, A.B., 1897; A.M., 1898. Columbia University, graduate student, 1899-1901; Scholar in Political Economy, 1899-1900.

Mr. Johnson read a paper in Professor Seligman’s Seminar on “The Theory of Monopolies.” He worked also in Professor Clark’s Seminar, and, in consultation with Professor Clark, upon the preparation of his Doctor’s dissertation, “The Classical Theory of Rent.” He passed, in May, his oral examinations for the Doctor’s degree.

5. Thomas Jesse Jones, Sociology.

Marietta College, A.B., 1897. Student at Union Theological Seminary, 1897-1900. Columbia University, A.M., 1899; graduate student, 1897-1901.

Mr. Jones worked under the direction of Professor Giddings upon his Doctor’s dissertation, “A Sociological Study of the Population of a New York City Block.” Professor Giddings reports that this dissertation promises to be one of the most minute investigations of modern city life yet undertaken. Mr. Jones also made the annual revision of the list and description of social settlements in New York City which is regularly expected of a Fellow in Sociology. He passed, in May, his oral examinations for the Doctor’s degree.

[p. 121]

6. Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, History.

University of Georgia, A.B., 1897; A.M., 1898. Tutor in History, 1899-1900. Columbia University, graduate student, 1900-01.

Mr. Phillips worked under the direction of Professor Dunning upon a “Study of the Political History of Georgia,” in connection with which he planned to make researches during the summer in the historical collections at Savannah, Atlanta, and other points in the State. Mr. Phillips also presented several papers on various phases of American Political Philosophy in connection with the course on that subject. He also worked in the Seminars of Professors Sloane and Robinson and presented reports in each.

 

7. Jesse Eliphalet Pope, Economics.

University of Minnesota, B.S., 1895; M.S., 1897. Columbia University, graduate student, 1897-1901: Fellow in Economics, 1898-1900.

Mr. Pope, Honorary Fellow, worked in Seminar with Professor Seligman, but took a less active part than he desired, owing to his having obtained a professorship in Economics at New York University. He had, however, passed his oral examinations for the Doctor’s degree in May, 1900, and was busy through the winter in preparing his Doctor’s dissertation.

 

8. Charles Worthen Spencer, American History.

Colby University, A.B., 1890. Chicago University, Fellow in Political Science, 1892-94. Columbia University, graduate student, 1894-95, 1900-01. Colgate University, Professor of History, 1895-1900.

Mr. Spencer worked under the direction of Professor Osgood upon the preparation of his Doctor’s dissertation, the subject of which is “New York as a Royal Province, 1690-1730.” He also read two papers in Professor Sloane’s Seminar, and participated generally in the work of this Seminar. He passed, in May, his oral examinations for the Doctor’s degree.

9. Earl Evelyn Sperry, European History.

Syracuse University, Ph.B., 1898; Ph.M., 1899. Columbia University, Scholar in History, 1899-1900; graduate student, 1899-1901.

Mr. Sperry worked under the direction of Professor Robinson, and besides preparing several reports for the Seminar in European History, completed the first draft of his Doctor’s dissertation upon ” The Celibacy of the Clergy in the Mediaeval Church.” He also passed, in May, the oral examinations for the Doctor’s degree.

[p. 122]

11. Albert Concer Whitaker, Economics.

Stanford University, A.B., 1899. Columbia University, Scholar in Economics, 1899-1900; graduate student, 1890-1901.

Mr. Whitaker worked in Seminar with Professor Seligman and also with Professor Clark. He made considerable progress in the preparation of his Doctor’s dissertation upon “The Entrepreneur,” and passed, in June, his oral examinations for the Doctor’s degree.

 

PUBLICATIONS UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF THE FACULTY

Of the Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, under the editorial management of Professor Seligman, there have appeared during the year six numbers.

Vol. XIII.

No. 1. The Legal Property Relations of Married Parties. By Professor Isidor Loeb.
No. 2. Political Nativism in New York State. By Louis Dow Scisco.
No. 3. Reconstruction of Georgia. By Edwin C. Woolley.

Vol. XIV.

No. 1. Loyalism in New York during the American Revolution. By Prof. Alexander C. Flick.
No. 2. Economic Theory of Risk and Insurance. By Allan H. Willett.

Vol. XV.

No. 1. Civilization and Crime. By Arthur Cleveland Hall.

The sale of these monographs and volumes has increased considerably during the past few years and some of the early volumes are now out of print. The foreign demand has also developed to such an extent that arrangements have now been made with agents, both in London and Paris, for placing them upon the European market.

The Political Science Quarterly has continued to prosper. With the close of the year 1900 it completed its fifteenth annual volume. In order to make available for students the great mass of scientific matter contained in these fifteen volumes, a general index has been prepared, to be published in a separate volume. This index will appear during the summer.

[p. 123]

Two very successful public meetings of the Academy were held during the winter. The first was addressed by Professor Goodnow, who had served as a member of the Commission to Revise the Charter of New York City. Professor Goodnow presented a careful analysis of the report and recommendations of the Commission. The second meeting was devoted to a discussion of Trusts by Professor J. W. Jenks, who gave the chief results of the investigations made by him on behalf of the Industrial Commission.

The History Club has about thirty members, and, with invited guests, an average attendance of about fifty persons. During the year it has held eight meetings, of which three were conducted solely by the students. At the other meetings papers were read by James Ford Rhodes, Frederic Harrison, Professor Robinson, and Professor George B. Adams.

I reported in 1899 that a number of former students of the School of Political Science had obtained positions either as teachers or in the administrative service of New York State. I have the pleasure now to report that during the past two years a much larger number have obtained first appointments, or have been advanced to better positions, not only as teachers and as state officers, but also in the Federal Civil Service. The lists appended are probably incomplete, but they will serve to show the widening influence of the School. The dates immediately following each name indicate the period of residence in the School.

 

I.—EDUCATIONAL APPOINTMENTS

Carl L. Becker, 1898-99, Univ. Fellow, 1898-99,
Instructor in Political Science and History, Pennsylvania State College.

Ernest L. Bogart, 1897-98,
Associate Professor of Economics and Sociology, Oberlin College, Ohio.

Lester G. Bugbee, 1893-95, Univ. Fellow, 1893-95,
Adjunct Professor of History, University of Texas.

William M. Burke, 1897-99, Univ. Fellow, 1897-99; Ph.D., 1899,
Professor of History and Economics, Albion College, Michigan.

[p. 124]

Charles E. Chadsey, 1893-94, Univ. Fellow, 1893-94; Ph. D., 1897,
Lecturer on History, University of Colorado.

Walter E. Clark, 1899-1901,
Tutor in Political Economy, College of the City of New York.

Walter W. Cook, 1898-1900, A.M., 1899,
Instructor in Constitutional and Administrative Law in the University of Nebraska.

Harry A. Cushing, 1893-95, Univ. Fellow, 1894-95; Ph.D., 1896,
Lecturer on History and Constitutional Law, Columbia University.

Ellen S. Davison, 1899-1901, Cand. Ph.D.,
Lecturer on History, Barnard College.

Alfred L. P. Dennis, 1896-99, Ph.D., 1901,
Assistant in History, 1900-01, Harvard University; Instructor in History, Bowdoin College.

Stephen P. H. Duggan, 1896-1900, A.M., 1899; Cand. Ph.D.,
Instructor in Political Science, College of the City of New York.

Charles F. Emerick, 1896-97, University Fellow, 1896-97; Ph.D., 1897,
Professor of Political Economy, Smith College, Mass.

Henry C. Emery, 1893-94, University Fellow, 1893-94; Ph.D., 1896,
Professor of Political Economy, Yale University.

John A. Fairlie, 1897-98, University Fellow, 1897-98; Ph.D., 1898,
Assistant Professor of Administrative Law, University of Michigan.

Guy S. Ford, 1900-01, Cand. Ph.D.,
Instructor of History, Yale University.

Delmer E. Hawkins, 1899-1900,
Instructor in Political Economy, Syracuse University.

Allen Johnson, 1897-98, University Fellow, 1897-98; Ph.D., 1899,
Professor of History, Iowa College, Grinnell ; also Lecturer on European History in the University of Wisconsin, Summer Session, 1901.

Alvin S. Johnson, 1898-1901, University Fellow, 1900-01; Cand. Ph.D.,
Assistant in Economics, Bryn Mawr College.

Lindley M. Keasby, 1888-90, Ph.D., 1890,
Professor of Economics and Social Science, Bryn Mawr College.

James A. McLean, 1892-94, University Fellow, 1892-94; Ph.D., 1894,
Professor of History and Political Science, University of Idaho.

Milo R. Maltbie, 1895-97, University Fellow, 1895-96; Ph.D., 1897,
Lecturer on Municipal Government, Columbia University.

Charles E. Merriam, Jr., 1896-98, Fellow, 1897-98; Ph.D., 1900,
Docent in Political Science, University of Chicago.

Walter H. Nichols, 1899-1901, Cand. Ph.D.,
Professor of History, University of Colorado.

Comadore E. Prevey, 1898-1900, University Fellow, 1898-1900; A.M., 1899; Cand. Ph.D.,
Lecturer on Sociology, University of Nebraska.

Jesse E. Pope, 1897-1900, University Fellow, 1898-1900; Cand. Ph.D.,
Adjunct Professor of Political Economy, 1900-01, New York University; Professor of Political Economy, University of Missouri.

[p. 125]

Charles L. Raper, 1898-1900, University Fellow, 1899-1900; Cand. Ph.D..
Lecturer on History, Barnard College, 1900-01; Assistant Professor of Economics and History, University of North Carolina.

William A. Rawles, 1898-99, Cand. Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor of Economics and Sociology, University of Indiana.

William A. Schaper, 1896-98, University Fellow, 1897-98; Ph.D., 1901,
Professor of Administration, University of Minnesota.

Louis D. Scisco, 1899-1900, Ph.D., 1901,
Teacher of History, High School, Stillwater, Minnesota.

William R. Shepherd, 1893-95, University Fellow, 1893-95; Ph.D.. 1896,
Tutor in History, Columbia University.

James T. Shotwell, 1898-1900, University Fellow, 1899-1900; Cand. Ph.D.,
Assistant in History, Columbia University.

William R. Smith, 1898-1900, University Fellow, 1898-1900; Cand. Ph.D.,
Instructor in History, University of Colorado.

Edwin P. Tanner, 1897-1900, A.M., 1898; University Fellow, 1899-1900; Cand. Ph.D.,
Teacher of History, High School, Stillwater, Minnesota.

Holland Thompson, 1899-1901, University Fellow, 1899-1900; A.M., 1900,
Tutor in History, College of the City of New York.

Francis Walker, 1892-94, University Fellow, 1892-94; Ph.D., 1895,
Associate Professor of Political Economy, Adelbert College, Western Reserve University.

Ulysses G. Weatherby, 1899-1900,
Professor of Economics and Social Science, University of Indiana.

 

2.—GOVERNMENTAL APPOINTMENTS

Frank G. Bates, 1896-97, Ph.D., 1899,
State Librarian, Providence, R. I.

John F. Crowell, 1894-95, University Fellow, 1894-95; Ph.D.. 1897,
Expert Agent on Agricultural Products, Industrial Commission.

John H. Dynes, 1896-98, A.M., 1897; University Fellow, 1897-98,
Student Clerk, Division of Methods and Results, Twelfth Census.

Charles E. Edgerton, 1898-99,
Special Agent, Industrial Commission.

Frederick S. Hall, 1896-97, Ph.D., 1898,
Clerk, Division of Manufactures, Twelfth Census.

Leonard W. Hatch, 1894-95,
Statistician, Bureau of Labor, Albany, New York.

Isaac A. Hourwich, 1891-92, Ph.D., 1893,
Translator, Bureau of the Mint, Washington, D. C.

Maurice L. Jacobson, 1892-95,
Librarian, Bureau of Statistics, Treasury Department, Washington, D. C.

William Z. Ripley, 1891-93, University Fellow, 1891-93; Ph.D., 1893,
Expert on Transportation, Industrial Commission.

Frederick W. Sanders, 1895-96,
Director, Agricultural Experiment Station, New Mexico.

Nahum I. Stone, 1897-99,
Expert on Speculation and Prices, Industrial Commission, Washington, D. C.

[p. 126]

Adna F. Weber, 1896-97, University Fellow, 1896-97; Ph.D., 1899,
Chief Statistician, Bureau of Labor, Albany. N. Y.

Walter F. Willcox, 1886-88, Ph.D., 1891,
Chief Statistician, Census Office, Washington, D. C.

 

Dr. Max West, 1891-93; University Fellow, 1892-93; Ph.D., 1893, should figure in both of the preceding lists; for he has been appointed Chief Clerk in the Division of Statistics, Department of Agriculture, and has also become Associate Professor of Economics in the Columbian University, Washington, D. C.

The direction of organized charity is a field of labor for which our students in Sociology receive an excellent training; and I am glad to report that Mr. Prevey, whose appointment as lecturer in the University of Nebraska is noted above, has also been made General Secretary of the local Charity Organization Society. I have also to report that Mr. Thomas J. Jones, a student in the School during the past four years and Fellow in Sociology, 1900-01, has been appointed Assistant Head Worker in the University Settlement, New York City.

“To give an adequate economic and legal training to those who intend to make journalism their profession” has always been announced as one of the objects of the School of Political Science; and a considerable number of our graduates have become editors. It is more difficult, however, to keep track of journalists than of teachers and governmental officers, and the only recent appointment in this field of which I have been informed is that of Dr. Roeliff M. Breckenridge, Ph.D., 1894, as financial editor of the New York Journal of Commerce.

 

Respectfully submitted,

John W. Burgess,

Dean.

June 10, 1901.

 

Source: Twelfth Annual Report of President Low to the Trustees. October 7, 1901.

 

 

Categories
Columbia Regulations

Columbia. Regulations for Ph.D. candidacy and general examination, 1916

This posting provides the menu of subject choices for the general examination to be admitted to Ph.D. candidacy in economics at Columbia as of 1916. We see that the history of economics and economic theory were still joined at the hip and that economic history was a compulsory field. Also interesting to note: the optional field “The labor problem”  included “Socialism”; two graduate courses in another social science or philosophy were required as was an ability to read at least one of French and German plus one additional language. 

To denote insertions in pencil, I have used bold-italics within square brackets. For text to be cut, I have included the original text, crossed-out.

__________________________________

[p. 410]

May 25, 1916

[…]

Professor Seligman, on behalf of the Committee on Instruction, recommended that the Faculty approve of the regulations governing admission to candidacy and the final examination for the doctorate of Philosophy as proposed by the various departments giving work under the jurisdiction of the Faculty of Political Science. This recommendation was adopted by the Faculty. The regulations of the several departments are as follows:

[…]

[p. 413]

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

REQUIREMENTS FOR ADMISSION TO CANDIDACY FOR THE DOCTORATE OF PHILSOPHY

Each [The] applicant for matriculation as a candidate for the degree of Ph.D. whose subject of major interest lies in the field of Economics must satisfy the Department

  1. That he is qualified in the general principles of Economics as taught in Columbia College or a full equivalent thereof.
  2. That he is qualified in such advanced or graduate work in the general field of Economics as is represented by approximately six full graduate courses in Columbia University or the equivalent thereof.
  3. That he is qualified in two full graduate courses as given at Columbia or the equivalent thereof under one of the following Departments:

Politics

Psychology

Public Law

Anthropology

History

Sociology

Philosophy
  1. That he is able to read French and German and to use these languages in seminar work and in research. In the discretion of the Department another language may be substituted for French or German.
  2. That he is able to express himself in correctly written English.

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE FINAL ORAL EXAMINATION

Every student [The candidate] presenting himself for the degree of Ph.D. under the Department of Economics will be examined in the following three topics:

1) The history and theory of Economics

2) Statistics

3) Economic History

He will also be expected to present for examination four out of the following eight topics:

1) Public finance

2) Money and banking

3) The labor problem (including Socialism)

[p. 414]

4) Trade and transportation

5) Corporations and trusts

6) Business economics, including accounting, business organization and allied topics

7) Insurance

8) Agriculture

He will also be examined in such cognate fields as are intimately related to the special topic of his dissertation.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of The Faculty of Political Science, May 25, 1916.

Image Source: Museum of the City of New York. Kent Hall, Columbia University (1910). McKim, Mead & White.

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. Henry L. Moore’s Memorial Minute, 1959. Salary issue, 1924.

 

 

We begin with an example of the honored academic tradition of a faculty minute entered into the record following the death of a present or former colleague. In the year that the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Angus Deaton, in part, for his work in applied consumption analysis, I post the Columbia University Faculty of Political Science memorial minute for Henry L. Moore.

I follow the Memorial Minute with a letter written by Moore to his chairman Edwin R. A. Seligman appealing for a pay raise on the grounds that his research performance had been undervalued relative to administrative work and teaching of a colleague.

________________________________

[Memorial Minute]

FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

April 17, 1959

Henry L. Moore

Henry Ludwell Moore was born in southern Maryland in 1869, the seventh in direct male line of descent from a Henry Moore who settled in Virginia in 1635 and who later moved to Maryland. After obtaining a B.A. at Randolph Macon in 1892, he pursued his studies at the University of Vienna and later received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1896. After one year as instructor of economics at Johns Hopkins and five years at Smith College, he came to Columbia in 1902 as adjunct professor, continuing as Professor of Political Economy from 1906 to his premature retirement from professional activity for reasons of health in April, 1929. He died at the age of 88 on April 28, 1958.

Professor Moore was a pioneer in the application of statistical theory, founded on the calculus of probabilities, to the evaluation of economic relationships in a context of a mathematically developed economic theory. Under the influence of his colleague John Bates Clark, 22 years his senior, and of Karl Pearson, Moore developed a statistical verification and extension of Clark’s theory of distribution in his “Laws of Wages,” published in 1911. In his “Forecasting the Yield and the Price of Cotton,” published in 1917, the inherent brilliance of his use of multiple correlation techniques by which he was able to outpredict, in retrospect at least, the elaborate crop forecasting machinery set up by the Department of Agriculture is in no way diminished, though somewhat disguised by the fact that the advent of the boll weevil completely upset the older relationships and made his formulas useless for subsequent forecasting, though the techniques remained valid.

In addition to his interest in economics, Moore had a deep attachment to classical philosophy and an interest ranging over many other fields; one of his courses was entitled “Interrelations of Political Economy and Sociology.” His interest in astronomy is perhaps responsible for his ill-fated attempt to relate the eight year business cycle, which he considered to be well established, to a corresponding weather cycle, and thereby to the corresponding periodicity of the transits and near-transits of Venus. In this he demonstrated a willingness to look for hypotheses to test wherever the data seemed to lead him, regardless of how remote the connection may initially seem, a procedure which, however dangerous it may be for the individual, is salutary for the progress of a science that finds it easier to weed out error than to develop new truth.

Moore’s pioneering steps have been to a considerable extent eclipsed in the minds of the current generation of economists by the tracks of those who have used the methods he pioneered. Henry Schultz’ all too brief but important career was given its initial impetus under Moore’s tutelage. Among the many others whose work was strongly influenced by Moore are Holbrook Working, Hugh Killough, Bradford Smith, Edmund Daggit, Fred Waugh, Louis Bean, and Mordecai Ezekiel. Moore’s final work, “Synthetic Economics” provided a significant bridge between the now classic work of Walras and Pareto in the field of mathematical economics and the more recent formulations of Hotelling and Samuelson.

In the nearly 30 years that have elapsed since his retirement, most of those who knew him intimately have left the science; yet it is appropriate to recall once more the significant role he had in the advancement of quantitative economics before the onrush of his successors hides his work completely from view.

 

Source: Department of Economics Collection, Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Box 8, Faculty of Political Science Minutes 1913-1959; Folder, “Faculty of Political Science Minutes”.

________________________________

The following letter of Henry L. Moore reflects a severe salary structure problem within the Columbia economics department going into 1924-25. Professors Wesley C. Mitchell, Henry L. Moore and Vladimir G. Simkhovitch were all receiving $6,000 annual salaries whereas the second-highest paid professor, Henry R. Seager, was getting paid $7,500. Highest paid was the chairman, Edwin R. A. Seligman at $10,000. In his departmental budget request to Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler (November 23, 1923), Seligman reminded Butler of an “understanding that the salaries of a number of professors now receiving $6,000 will be advanced next year to $7,500, the minimum, as everyone must agree, compatible with the maintenance of the standing of living desirable for Columbia professors” and made the case for pay raises for Mitchell, Moore and Simkhovitch. The pay raises were ultimately granted, not for 1924-25, but for the following year.

Henry L. Moore’s lament should probably be read as expressing as his disappointed hope and/or that he might have been unaware of Seligman’s efforts in 1923 to get him the parity with Henry R. Seager that he was petitioning for.

________________________________

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Faculty of Political Science

September 20, 1924

My dear Professor Seligman:

We are about to begin the work of another year and I am anxious to do all in my power to contribute toward the solution, within the Department, of the personal problem before us. I ask leave, therefore, to present to you and, if you think it advisable, to other members of the Department, a statement of the relative amounts received in salary by Professor Seager and myself from the University:

 

Year Prof. Seager Prof. Moore
1902-3 3000 3000 I have had to rely on my memory for the changes in Prof. Seager’s salary. The figures relating to my own income are taken from my records.
1903-4 3500 3500
1904-5 3500 3500
1905-6 3500 3500
1906-7 3500 3500
1907-8 3500 3500
1908-9 4000 4000
1909-10 4500 2800 Here Professor Seager’s salary went up $500 and mine down $1200
1910-11 4500 2800
1911-12 6000 2800
1912-13 6000 2800
1913-14 6000 2800
1914-15 6000 2800
1915-16 6000 2800
1916-17 6000 2800
1917-18 6000 2800
1918-19 6000 4500
1919-20 6000 4000
1920-21 7500 6000
1921-22 7500 6000
1923-24 7500 6000
$117500 $82200

Several facts in this table need comment:

(1) Our salaries and rank were the same until the year 1909-10 when, at my request, in order that I might devote more time to research, I was relieved of much teaching and administrative work. I gladly paid for the increased leisure by suffering a reduction of my salary from $4000 to $2800. The same year Professor Seager’s salary was increased from $4000 to $4500. This annual difference of $1700 continued until 1911-12.

(2) In 1911-12 Professor Seager’s salary was increased to $6000; mine remained at $2800. The annual difference of $3200 continued until 1918-19 when, during the War, I was transferred to Barnard College at a salary of $4500. Professor Seager’s salary was $6000.

(3) The next year, 1919-20, I was transferred to Columbia, with a salary of $4000. Professor Seager’s remained at $6000.

(4) In 1920-21 Professor Seager’s salary was increased to $7500 and mine to $6000. The annual difference of $1500 has continued to the present time.

It would appear from these figures that if no account be taken of the reduction in our pay when we have been on leave of absence, Professor Seager’s aggregate salary has exceeded mine by more than thirty five thousand dollars.

*   *

A few years ago there was a Convocation of the Faculties of the University to consider methods of promoting research. You made a memorable speech in which you went directly to the heart of the matter in saying: “The only way to promote research is to find a man who can do it and then let him alone”. You were absolutely right. But how does it work in the particular case of our own Department? For twenty odd years Professor Seager and myself, who entered Columbia together with the same rank and same salary, have pursued different ends. he has preferred administration and teaching and has justly prospered in honors and income. I have accepted the necessary isolation and incurred the risks of the investigator who attacks new problems and devises new methods, but after nearly a quarter of a century of unremitting labor I have received from the University some thirty thousand dollars less than my honored colleague.

*   *

I am grateful to the University for giving me the opportunity for creative thought, and you will bear witness that I have never evinced any other sentiment than pleasure in the progress of a colleague. But isn’t there a principle at stake? Is it just to permit the financial discrimination between us to continue?

Yours sincerely,

[signed]
Henry L. Moore

Source: Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Seligman Collection Box 37 (aggregation of original Seligman boxes 100-102). Folder: “Box 100, Seligman, Columbia 1924-30”.

________________________________

For more about Henry Moore, see George J. Stigler, Henry L. Moore and Statistical Economics. Econometrica, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan., 1962), pp. 1-21.

Image Source: Precedes the Stigler article.

Categories
Columbia Salaries

Columbia. 1931-50 graduate economics alumni survey 1950

Robert M. Haig was a public finance economist at Columbia University, the successor to Edwin R. A. Seligman as McVickar Professor of Political Economy. In Haig’s papers is the following memo from James Angell (the “Executive Officer”, i.e. chairperson, of the department of economics within Columbia’s faculty of political science) reporting the results of a 1950 survey of former graduate students in the department. Just under 1,200 questionnaires were sent out. The response rate was about one-third. Duration data for different stages of graduate study, occupations/salaries in 1950 by final completed stage of graduate study were tabulated.

A gender breakdown for occupation/salaries is also provided. It is interesting to note that the 1950 gender gap between men and women for people with economics Ph.D.’s from Columbia (1931-50) who were teaching was 7.2%.

In current prices, the average 1950 salaries of the economics Ph.D.’s from Columbia (1931-50) were: $59,000 (teaching); $88,500 (government); $94,000 (other economics related work); $108,000 (all non-economic-research related work).

Note: The urban CPI has increased by a factor of 9.9 since then: (CPI July 1950 24.1, July 2015 238.7).

_____________________________

June 20, 1951

To: The Members of the Department of Economics
From: James W. Angell
Subject: Occupations and Salaries of Our Former Graduate Students

Last summer, in order to improve our records on former graduate students in the Department, brief questionnaires were sent out to the 1,182 students who had received the M.A. degree, or passed the Ph.D. oral examination, or received the Ph.D. degree, in the twenty years 1931-1950. We were primarily concerned to obtain their present addresses and occupations, but we also asked for the dates when the several academic standings had been achieved, and for the latest (1950) salary.

We received only 377 replies, or 32 per cent of the number of questionnaires sent out. Of the total sent, 84 questionnaires, or 7 per cent, were returned because the Post Office could not locate the addresses.

It is probably that the replies received do not constitute a representative sample, especially with respect to salaries: in the main, the less successful students are presumably those who are less likely to reply to such inquiries. But a partial check of the names of those who did not reply shows that this was not always so. A number of the group who did not reply are known to be holding good positions.

An analysis of the replies has been made by our colleague, Frank W. Schiff chiefly with respect to (1) the time intervals between the dates of achievement of the several academic standings, (2) present (1950) occupation, and (3) present (1950) salary. Not all those who replied answered all the questions, and the several group totals are hence not always consistent. The various results are summarized in the following tables.

 

  1. Number of Replies, Grouped by Half-Decade When Highest Academic Standing Achieved by Student Was Attained: 1931-1950

 

Highest Standing Attained
Years

Total Replies

 M.A. Passed Orals

Ph.D.

1931-35

 39 18 4 17

1936-40

 60 26 11

23

1941-45

 68 26 12

30

1946-50

 210 126 48

36
1931-1950 377 196 75

106

 

Table 2 shows the arithmetic average of the number of years which were required to move from one level of academic standing to another. Because the number of observations is small, extreme values have considerable influence. It was felt that eliminating a few extreme values would hence give a more representative result; but the unadjusted totals are also shown, for comparison. The retarding effect of the war is conspicuous in most cases. Table 3 shows the distribution for each stage, over the period as a whole, of the numbers of years required; and the median values to the nearest whole year (these values in some cases differ markedly from the arithmetic averages shown in Table 2).

 

  1. Average (Arithmetic) Number of Years Elapsed Between Dates of Attainment of Levels of Academic Standing: 1931-1950 (Extreme Values Omitted)

Years

 A.B. to M.A.  A.B. to Orals A.B. to Ph.D. M.A. to Orals M.A. to Ph.D.

Orals to Ph.D.

1931-35

 2.8 6.2 9.4 3.7 6.3 2.5

1936-40

 2.4 5.2 10.8 3.1 7.6 3.1
1941-45 2.3 4.7 9.8 2.9 7.1

3.7
1946-50 3.6 6.6 11.7 2.2 9.3

5.6

1931-1950a

  

3.0

 

 5.8 10.6 2.8 7.8

4.1
Number of observations before adjustment

324

 155 98 145 87

78
Number omitted

20

 6 3 9 2

3
1931-50: unadjusted averagesa

3.8

 6.4 11.2 3.5 8.4

4.5
 

aArithmentc averages for the whole period, not of the averages for the sub-periods.

 

  1. Distribution, by Numbers of Years, of Periods Elapsed Between Dates of Attainment of Levels of Academic Standing, 1931-1950

Number of Years Elapsed

 A.B. to M.A. A.B. to Orals A.B. to Ph.D. M.A. to Orals M.A. to Ph.D.

Orals to Ph.D.

1-2

 179 31 0 78 3 28

3-4

 56 32 2 31 12 18

5-6

 36 28 11 12 19 15
7-8 19 26 19 13 18

8

9-10

 11 13 15 2 16 3
11-12 5 11 21 5 8

4

13-14

 6 7 13 3 3 1
15-16 7 2 7 0 5

0

17-19

 2 2 4 0 0 1
20-29 2 2 4 1 2

0
30-40 1 1 2 0 1

0
Totals

 

 324 155 98 145 87

78

Medians

 2 6 11 2 8

4

 

It is interesting to note that although the sum of the medians of the numbers of years elapsed between A.B. and M.A., plus M.A. to Orals, plus Orals to Ph.D. is only eight, the median for that relatively small number of students (less than one-third of the whole sample: Table 1.) who actually covered the whole course to the Ph.D. itself is 11 years. This is presumably due in largest part to the fact that relatively few students had the financial means to go straight through from A.B. to Ph.D. without interruption. Most of them had to take time out to earn more money.

Table 4, taken from a study by Professor Stigler, compares data for Harvard and Columbia.1 The Harvard students may or may not be brighter; but the substantially greater financial assistance given to students at Harvard must also help to account for the conspicuous differences in most years and fields.

 

  1. Average Number of Years Elapsed Between A.B. and Ph.D. at Columbia and Harvard, 1900-1940

1900

 1910 1930

1940
Natural Sciences

Columbia

 7.6 8.0 9.4 9.2
Harvard 6.8 8.3 6.2

6.1
Social Sciences

Columbia

 4.3 9.8 10.3 12.9
Harvard 4.8 4.5 10.5

8.7
Human-ities

Columbia

 4.7 9.3 13.9 14.3
Harvard [6.3] [9.2] [7.9]

[8.8]
All Fields

Columbia

 6.3 9.2 10.8 11.7
Harvard 6.2 8.4 8.0

7.8

1George J. Stigler, Employment and Compensation in Education (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1950), p. 37.

[Note to Table 4: I have added the figures for the row Humanities/Harvard from Stigler (1950). In the original memo this row was for some reason left blank.]

 

Table 5 shows the percentage distribution of students, by the highest academic standing achieved and by half-decades, according to their 1950 occupations. The category “Other Economic Work” includes those engaged in economic research and economic advisory work with business firms, banks and foundations, and those who are self-employed in such work. It excludes those who are in business management or operation. The absolute numbers in each group were given in Table 1, above.

 

  1. Occupations in 1950, Grouped by Half-Decades When Highest Academic Standing Was Attained: 1931-1950 (In Per Cents)

 

Occupation, and Highest Academic
Standing Attained		 Entire Period 1931-
50		 1931-
35		 1936-40 1941-
45

1946-50
M.A.
Teaching

29.1

 27.8 23.1 23.1

31.7
Govern-ment

24.5

 11.1 46.2 34.6

19.8
Other economic work

25.5

 33.3 11.5 34.6

25.4
All other

20.9

 27.8 19.2 7.7

23.1

100.0

 100.0 100.0 100.0

100.0
Passed Orals
Teaching

53.3

 0 36.4 50.0

62.5
Govern-ment

21.3

 50.0 27.2 50.0

10.4
Other economic work

22.7

 50.0 36.4 0

22.9
All other

2.7

 0 0 0

4.2

100.0

 100.0 100.0 100.0

100.0
Ph.D.
Teaching

59.4

 58.8 47.8 63.3

63.9
Govern-ment

17.9

 11.8 26.2 16.7

16.7
Other economic work

17.0

 17.6 21.7 20.0

11.1
All other

5.7

 11.8 4.3 0

8.3

100.0

 100.0 100.0 100.0

100.0
Totals
Teaching

42.4

 38.5 35.0 45.6

44.3
Govern-ment

22.0

 15.4 35.0 29.4

17.1
Other economic work

22.6

 28.2 20.0 22.1

22.4
All other

13.0

 17.9 10.0 2.9

16.2

100.0

 100.0 100.0 100.0

100.0

 

Finally, Table 6 shows the average sizes and distribution of salaries, by occupation and by highest academic standing attained, on the same general basis as Table 5. But not all the replies received contained data on salaries, so that this sample is 12 per cent smaller than that used for Table 5 (331 replies instead of 377). The omissions are fairly uniform by major groups, however, and to avoid complicating the Table, the absolute numbers of relies in each group are not given. The few groups in which high average salaries were reported each contain, regrettably, only 1 to 4 cases; even the $10,300 group (Ph.D.’s, Other Economic Work, 1936-40) has only 5 members. It should also be emphasized that the data cover salaries only, not total earnings. Royalties, lecture fees and the like are not included. Thirty-one, or 9.4 per cent of the total, reported salaries of $10,000 or more.

All figures are arithmetic averages for the relevant groups. Thus the first column shows the averages for the entire period, 1931-1950, not the averages of the sub-period averages. Since the lowest-paid group (1946-50) is also much the largest (Table 1), the averages for the period 1931-50 as a whole are in one sense heavily biased downward. For example, for the period as a whole the average salary as computed by averaging the sub-period figures is $6,579, not $5,714.

 

  1. Average Salaries in 1950, Grouped by occupations and by Half-Decades When Highest Academic Standing Was Attained: 1931-1950
 

Highest Academic
Standing Attained

Entire Period 1931-50

 1931-
35		 1936-
40		 1941-
45

1946-
50
M.A.: aver-ages

$4,772

 $6,709 $6,830 $5,534

$3,988
Teaching

3,891

 5,294 5,525 3,980

3,503
Govern-ment

5,436

 8,113 6,867 5,881

4,110
Other economic work

5,123

 7,890 11,150 5,371

4,240
All other

4,660

 4,625 4,900 12,000

3,935
Passed Orals: aver-ages  

5,862

 

 11,375 7,055 6,738

4,709
Teaching

4,066

 — 5,438 4,737

3,783
Govern-ment

6,993

 7,250 6,450 8,340

5,760
Other economic work

7,887

 15,500 8,975 —

5,711
All other

16,000

 — — —

16,000
Ph.D.: aver-ages  

7,175

 8,593 7,719 6,691

6,622
Teaching

5,964

 7,700 6,009 6,077

5,017
Govern-ment

8,936

 8,350 8,900 9,360

8,808
Other economic work

9,494

 17,250 10,300 6,480

11,167
All other

10,900

 — — —

10,900
Totals: aver-ages  

5,714

 

 8,089 7,240 6,306 4,679
Teaching

4,806

 7,023 5,786 5,531

3,979
Govern-ment

6,523

 7,904 7,358 7,628

5,331
Other economic work

6,592

 10,495 9,973 5,833

5,031
All other

5,963

 6,166 4,900 12,000

5,747

 

Table 6 makes no differentiation between men and women. Of the 377 replies received, 73 (19 per cent) were from women. Of these women, 49 were regularly employed in 1950 and reported their salaries. Of the remaining 24, most were apparently married (though information on marital status was not requested), and either not working for a salary or only working part-time.

Table 7 therefore shows the break-down for average salaries as between the 282 reporting men and the 49 reporting women who were regularly employed in 1950. There is no category for “unemployed;” no respondent, with one possible exception, reported difficulty in finding employment.

It is striking that although the average salaries for women usually run well below those for men in comparable brackets, the difference for teachers in the various categories is relatively small.1 The table also does not indicate the wide dispersions for the several groups of women. In 1950 2 women Ph.D.’s were earning $10,000 or more.

1No significance should be attached to the fact that the average salary for all women in teaching slightly exceeds the salary shown for men. These figures are not comparable because a much higher percentage of women teachers who reported were in the Ph.D. category than of men teachers.

For the group as a whole, 28 men and 3 women were earning $10,000 or more in 1950.

 

  1. Average Salaries in 1950 (Table 6), Grouped by Sex: for Entire Period, 1931-1950
 

 

Men

 Women

All Graduates
 

Num-ber

 Aver-age Salar-ies  

Num-ber

 Aver-age Salar-ies  

Num-ber

 Aver-age Salar-ies

M.A.: aver-ages

134

 $4,843 30 $4,455 164

$4,772
Teaching 43 3,923 7 3,695 50 3,891
Govern-ment 34 5,758 12 4,524 46 5,436
Other economic work 37 5,129 8 5,125 45 5,123
All other 20 4,734 3 4,173 23 4,660

Passed Orals: aver-ages

 62 5,939 6 5,066 68

5,862
Teaching 37 4,066 — — 37 4,066
Govern-ment 10 7,480 4 5,775 14 6,993
Other economic work 13 8,538 2 3,650 15 7,887
All other 2 16,000 — — 2 16,000

Ph.D.: aver-ages

 86 7,368 13 5,892 99

7,175
Teaching 53 6,033 10 5,600 63 5,964
Govern-ment 18 8,936 — — 18 8,936
Other economic work 13 10,100 3 6,666 16 9,494
All other 2 10,900 — — 2 10,900

Totals: aver-ages

282

 5,854 49 4,912 331

5,714
Teaching 133 4,803 17 4,816 150 4,805
Govern-ment 62 6,959 16 4,837 78 6,523
Other economic work 63 6,858 13 6,300 76 6,592
All other 24 6,186 3 4,173 27 5,963

 

Source: Robert M. Haig Papers, Columbia University Archives. Box 107, Folder: “Haig Correspondence A, 1949-1952”.

Image Source:Unveiling Alma Mater by Roberto Ferrari (July 15, 2014).

 

Categories
AEA Economists

AEA Twenty-fifth Anniversary Celebration, NYC 1909

December 27, 1907 at Carnegie Hall

MAYOR McCLELLAN, OF NEW YORK, ADDRESSING THE CONVENTION OF HISTORIANS AND ECONOMISTS AT CARNEGIE HALL, DECEMBER 27.

Others on the platform, beginning at left, are: William Jay Schieffelin, Isaac N. Seligman, Davis R. Dewey, John B. Clark, Albert Bushnell Hart, William M. Sloane, Ambassador James Bryce, Governor Hughes, Nicholas Murray Butler, Frank A. Vanderlip, Waldo Lincoln and Edwin R. A. Seligman.

____________________________________

The last posting came from the 25th anniversary celebration of the University of Chicago. It just so happens that I came across a clipping from the New York periodical The Independent in the John Bates Clark Papers in the Columbia University Archive that was about the joint 25th anniversary celebration of the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association held in New York City from December 27-31, 1909. Political Science, Sociology and Labor Legislation Associations also participated in the meetings. The report includes several photos of the men who were the movers-and-shakers of their respective associations (though none from the “playlet” and tableaux provided by the “ladies’ reception committee of the Waldor Astoria”).

As I like to provide the visitors of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror both accurate transcriptions and interesting images from yore, I hunted down scanned copies of The Independent at www.archive.org and www.hathitrust.org to extract a rough text file and better images than my amateur photographs of those in John Bates Clark’s clipping to create this posting.

 

____________________________________

A Notable Gathering of Scholars

BY REUBEN G. THWAITES

[Dr. Thwaites is secretary and superintendent of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. He was for ten years managing editor of the Wisconsin State Journal and is well known as an author and editor of historical works. He attended the recent convention in New York as a delegate from Wisconsin. — EDITOR.]

 

THE twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association, held in New York City from December 27 to 31, brought together the largest and doubtless the most distinguished assemblage of students of the social sciences ever convened in this country. In addition to the meetings of the two principal societies, which thus rounded out the quarter-centenary of their existence, were conferences by seven closely-related organizations—the American Political Science Association, the American Statistical Association, the American Sociological Society, the American Association for Labor Legislation, the American Social Science Association, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the American Society of Church History. Eleven hundred persons, engaged either in teaching or studying these several specialties, were gathered here from nearly every State or important institution of learning in the Union, and meetings, either — singly or jointly, occupied four busy days.

The attendance of several representative scholars from both Europe and Asia, who took part in many of the discussions, some of whom presented formal papers, and whose presence was recognized by numerous receptions and other social functions in their honor, gave to the gathering much of the significance of an international congress. Most prominent among the foreigners was the British Ambassador, Mr. Bryce, whose appearance at any of the meetings was invariably greeted with spontaneous applause, and whose many impromptu responses to calls by chairmen and toastmasters were never happier than on this anniversary occasion, into whose buoyant spirit he appeared keenly to enter.

Among other prominent foreign guests were: G. W. Prothero, of London, editor of the Quarterly Review, and former president of the Royal Historical Society; Prof. Herbert A. L. Fisher, fellow of New College, Oxford; Camille Enlart, director of comparative sculpture, of the Trocadero; Eduard Meyer, professor of ancient history, University of Berlin, exchange professor of Harvard; Dr. Cellenbrander, advisory secretary of the Dutch commission on governmental historical publications; Prof. Rafael Altamira y Crevea, professor-elect in the University of Madrid; Dr. Higgs, representing the Royal Economic Society of Great Britain, and Signor Maffeo Pantaleoni, of Rome, attending the Economic convention.

On occasions such as this presidential addresses are generally didactic, and by many of the older habitués are scrupulously avoided. But President Hart, of the Historical Association; President Lowell, of the Political Science, and President Dewey, of the Economic, always have something worth saying, and did not lack large and interested audiences. Dr. Hart’s discussion of “Imagination in history” was keen in its penetration and aglow with humor; he dwelt on the practical importance of the imaginative faculty on the part of the historian, but pointed out its manifest dangers, arising from a disposition to overemphasize dramatic episodes that really are rare in the history of a nation, whereas the most vital factors in its development are generally slow moving and commonplace. Dr. Lowell discussed “The physiology of politics”; while not deprecating the importance of library collections in the study of political science, the most useful laboratory work is, he said, the observation of the practical workings of political institutions, about which we are still insufficiently informed. Dr. Dewey spoke of “Observation in economics”; his thought being much in line with that of President Lowell, that field observation is of greater value than closet study, altho both are essential.

Ex-Presidents of the American Economic Association (S. N. Patten in the center, then clockwise from upper left are R. T. Ely, J. B. Clark, J. W. Jenks, F. W. Taussig.)
Ex-Presidents of the American Economic Association (S. N. Patten in the center, then clockwise from upper left are R. T. Ely, J. B. Clark, J. W. Jenks, F. W. Taussig.)

 

 

 

 

EARLY PRESIDENTS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Photograph by Brady, Washington, D. C. Beginning at left: William F. Poole, Justin Windsor, Charles Kendall Adams, George Bancroft, John Jay, Andrew D. White, Herbert B. Adams standing in rear.
EARLY PRESIDENTS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
Photograph by Brady, Washington, D. C.
Beginning at left: William F. Poole, Justin Windsor, Charles Kendall Adams, George Bancroft, John Jay, Andrew D. White, Herbert B. Adams standing in rear.
LIVING EX-PRESIDENTS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. (Clockwise from upper-left) James Ford Rhodes, Goldwin Smith, James Schouler, James Burrill Angell.

 

The programs of the nine associations were crowded with what the sporting gentry style “events,” but popular interest appeared chiefly to be with the joint sessions, some of which would have been noteworthy occurrences had they not jostled one another in this remarkable conference week. Wednesday morning’s joint session of the Historical and Economic associations called out a large and brilliant audience, with President Lowell in the chair. The general topic was “British constitutional and political development with special reference to the Gladstone centenary.” Professor Wrong, of Toronto, was hopeful concerning “Canadian nationalism and the imperial tie”; Professor Fisher, of Oxford, gave an exceptionally clear and informing account of the South African union, and Ambassador Bryce spoke forcefully on recent English history in its constitutional aspects.

Another excellent joint session was that held by the political scientists and the, association charging itself with scientific suggestion in the matter of labor legislation. The relation of the State to labor was interestingly and suggestively discussed by delegates from the Mississippi basin, where, perhaps, the best opportunities just now exist for trying out some of the theories of economic and sociological reformers.

The Historical Association, with its three thousand members, has of late years been doing its most effective work thru an admirable and impressive congerie of, commissions and conferences. This year’s meeting was chiefly noticeable for the variety and general success of these conferences, several of which were generally in session at one and the same time. One morning the topics were ancient, medieval, and American history and the treatment of archives. Later in the day the historians were conferring upon modern, European and American history, and relative to the methods and aims of State and local historical, a fertile theme, now engaging much attention in all parts of the country. One of the most interesting of the conferences was devoted to the consideration of “The contribution of the romance nations to the history of America,” in which Spain, France, Portugal and the Latin- American republics were represented either by scholars from those nations or by American specialists in the topics treated. A general session on Southern history brought out an interesting group of papers; while another on the work of historical societies in Europe was noticeable for careful reports from representatives of Great Britain, Germany, France. Holland and Spain, by the delegates from those countries.

The Economic Association has less varied interests, altho it also held a round-table conference on “Rural economics in relation to conservation.” At its first general session economic theory was treated both from the stand of “dynamic economics” and that of “theory of wages.” It was plain from the vigor of the discussion that economic theory, as doubtless it always will be, is in a state of flux, few men agreeing as to any one cure for the existing ills of the body politic. Another general session was held at the Chamber of Commerce, in connection with the financial magnates. Hereat was frankly considered “the causes and remedies for trusts,” in which the several divergent points of view, practical and theoretical, were squarely presented, presumably with mutual enlightenment.

For a young society, the Political Science people were exceptionally busy and vigorous. Ballot reform, the valuation of public service corporations (jointly with the economists), the relation of the State to labor (jointly with the labor legislation association), methods of instruction in municipal government and government of the Far East, were all duly considered, exhibiting a wide range of interest and possible future usefulness.

FRANK J. GOODNOW, Columbia University, first president American Political Science Association.

The sociologists were concerned (jointly with the Statistical Association) in such topics as the next census, the standardizing of units in studying public administration under democratic conditions, and the social marking system; and, individually, in the problems of methods in teaching psychological sociology, and in the religious factor in social revolution.

FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, Columbia University, vice-president Sociological Society.
FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, Columbia University, vice-president Sociological Society.

The labor legislation folk and the. statisticians chiefly held their sessions in conjunction with other bodies. For the most part the remainder of the participating societies confined themselves to listening to the usual presidential addresses and the transaction of necessary routine business.

HENRY W. FARNAM. Yale University, president of the American Association for Labor Legislation
HENRY W. FARNAM. Yale University, president of the American Association for Labor Legislation

The social side of the great conference was in every way notable. The entertainments offered to the thousand and more delegates ranged from receptions and breakfasts to formal dinners. The two most striking features of the daily and remarkably diverse program of hospitality were the great welcome meeting at Carnegie Hall, on Monday night, and the very attractive “historical playlet” and tableaux given by the ladies‘ reception committee at the Waldorf-Astoria (the headquarters of the several associations) on Wednesday night.

At Carnegie Hall the delegates were given the freedom of the city and State by Mayor McClellan and Governor Hughes. President Butler extended the welcome of Columbia University, and Mr. Joseph H. Choate and Professor Sloane spoke for the Committee of Arrangements. All were excellent addresses, but the Governor in particular rose to the occasion and earnestly commended the work of his hearers, who in their several ways are striving to find the correct principles underlying human society and seeking practically to apply these to the manifold problems of the State

In addition to the formal entertainments provided by the general committee were numerous unofficial attentions paid to various groups of visiting scholars. Among the most welcome of the unannounced gatherings of this character was the dinner given to fifty members of the American Antiquarian Society at the Metropolitan Club—the joyous forerunner, it was hoped, of annual banquets of these gentlemen at successive conferences of the American Historical Association. In all of these hospitalities practically every learned institution in the city, Columbia University properly leading, actively participated.

WALDO GIFFORD LELAND, A. M.,Carnegie Institution of Washington, secretary American Historical Association; THOMAS N. CARVER, Harvard University, secretary and treasurer, American Economic Association.
WALDO GIFFORD LELAND, A. M.,Carnegie Institution of Washington, secretary American Historical Association; THOMAS N. CARVER, Harvard University, secretary and treasurer, American Economic Association.

In every respect, professionally and socially, the great conference has been a marked success. The attendance was record-breaking, and the quality of the personnelle probably quite unexcelled in this country, even by the literary congresses at Chicago and St. Louis. The delegates, domestic and foreign, returned to their homes more than ever imprest [sic] by the hospitality, greatness and potentialities of America’s much favored metropolis.

Madison, Wis.

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Source:  Reuben G. Thwaites “A Notable Gathering of Scholars,” The Independent, Vol. 68, January 6, 1910, pp. 7-14.

  • Copy in John Bates Clark Papers, Series II.4, Box 9, Folder 11, Report on American Economic Association’s 25th Anniversary, 1910”.
  • At www.archive.org the 68th volume of The Independent.    There I downloaded “Single Page Original JPS TAR” (warning: > 1 GB and then extracted the pages of the article, from which I have clipped the photos.