Category: M.I.T.

M.I.T. Graduate Economics Association’s info-welcome letter to new cohort, April 1965

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-03-16

Sloan Building
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge 39, Massachusetts
April 21, 1965

Dear New Students:

On behalf of the Graduate Economics Association, I would like to welcome you to M.I.T. and Cambridge. This letter will try to tell you a little about your prospective surroundings at M.I.T. and in Boston, and about the GEA itself. If, after reading this letter, you have some unanswered questions, I heartily encourage your writing to me for more information. My address is on the last page of this letter.

M.I.T.

You have probably studied the Sears-sized catalogue of the Institute and found it an impressive document, if a bit forbidding. You will find that the Institute means business, but is run to make things reasonably smooth for the large body of students and staff. This means that it pays to read the notices, check mail boxes and announcements to meet deadlines, but that rules are made to be broken, given a good and sufficient reason. The idea is to ask the right person and keep asking until you get an authoritative answer.

The Economics Department

You will find that most of the time you spend and the contacts you make at M.I.T. will be within the department, especially if you do not live in the Graduate House. The department is located in the Sloan Building at the extreme east end of the campus, on the second and third floors (the latter housing the graduate registration officer and the head of the department). In the same building are the Sloan School of Management and the Faculty Club. Dewey Library, the Political Science Department and the Center for International Studies will be moving next door to quarters in the new Hermann Building. This may cause some confusion so be prepared to ask twice to find something. To reach the Sloan Building via public transportation you may either take a Massachusetts Avenue bus to any of the stops at the Institute, then proceed east along Memorial Drive (along the Charles River) about seven minutes walk; or you may take the Harvard-Ashmont MTA line to Kendall Square, then follow Wadsworth Street south (toward the River), and you are there.

You are about to begin graduate work with some of the finest economists in the world. We also like to feel that the group of graduate students here is an unusually stimulating and interesting one. There is an Institute rule that in effect requires residence until the thesis is completed. This rule is largely for your benefit, so that you can work alongside more advanced students. They are happy to talk to new students and should prove the best sources of more-or-less reliable information on all sorts of subjects. Incidentally, while you may feel that the most highly developed science among your colleagues is baseball, do not hesitate to ask for help in clearing up a point in economics. Some of us remember back to first-year courses.

The faculty are busy, but not too busy to see you if you have a question. Your initial faculty contact will be with Professor Kindleberger on Registration Day (September 20), whom you will deal with throughout the rest of the term regarding schedules, course changes, and other departmental affairs. Shortly after the beginning of the first term, we will arrange a short session for all first-year graduate students with one of the members of the department to enter your questions about department policy on graduate study in economics at M.I.T.

Most of the economics books and journals you will need can be found in Dewey Library. On Registration Day, beginning at about 3:00 p.m., Miss Klingenhagen, the head librarian will give entering students her Grand Tour of the library. You will find that it is quite easy to make use of Dewey’s reading and research facilities. You will also find that the freedom of individual movement is relatively greater than in most large institutional libraries (including some other M.I.T libraries). This, of course, behooves students to comply with a few wishes of the library staff regarding (the relative absence of) noise and the process of checking out, caring for, and returning books. If you have questions, suggestions, or complaints, see Miss Klingenhagen, Mr. Presson, or anyone else on the library staff. Do not hesitate to ask the library to get any books relating to economics which they do not have, or of which more copies are required. Of course, the longer lead time you give on your requests for books, the better the library is able to serve you.

The huge library resources of Harvard have become less accessible recently, but they can be used on occasion given sufficient ingenuity and a modicum of determination. Widener is the most attractive and of course the most restricted library at Harvard. Littauer (economics and public administration) and Baker (business school) are both available without much trouble, at least for in-room use and certain stack privileges. The surest way to gain access to all this wealth is to take a course at Harvard. Short of this direct (and perhaps painful?) approach, more devious and less certain means must be employed.

The Graduate Economics Association

As you may have guessed, the GEA is comprised of all graduate students in economics. Its functions are to provide services involving external economies. This includes a lounge, economics seminars, social functions, student-faculty liaison, and the present opus. All this is run on the paltry sum of $2.00 per member per year, payable at the cocktail party to be held on:

Registration Day, September 20, 1965

On Registration Day, the GEA will sponsor a cocktail party to celebrate your entrance and the beginning of classes the next day. TIME: 4:00 p.m. PLACE: Faculty Club Penthouse on the 6-1/2 floor of the Sloan Building. The first two drinks will be subsidized to the amount of $0.50; anyone who thinks he can stand a third (or fourth…) will have to subsidize himself (note we said “sponsor” a cocktail party). The primary purpose of the party is to afford everyone an opportunity to meet his colleagues, both new and “old” students and faculty.

Earlier in the day, from 10-12 a.m., the GEA will provide (not sponsor) a free advisory service to clear up confusion and to give life and meaning to catalogue course descriptions. GHQ for this service will be the Economics Lounge on the second floor of the Sloan Building.

LIVING IN THE BOSTON AREA

Geography

Boston, like all great metropolitan areas, is a slum-infested city surrounded by hundreds of suburbs. You will quickly find that each landlord sells the combination of housing and location, and that a good location may come dear. Yet it will also be discovered that the good locations and the popular may differ markedly, especially for you. The Sloan Building is located in an industrial district, and there is little in the way of living quarters in that part of Cambridge. On the other hand, just across the “Pepperpot” Bridge is Beacon Hill. This famous address is actually a paradoxical combination ranging from the homes of some of Boston’s venerable old families, to near-slums with various degrees in between which are acceptable to a struggling graduate student. The whole riverside area from there up to the Fenway lies within possible walking distance and abounds with possible living accommodations. Moving further back, rents become cheaper and flats more modest as we go into the Back Bay area. The adjacent suburbs such as Allston, Brighton, Brookline, Somerville, Watertown, and, for that matter, the other parts of Cambridge itself offer still more in the way of apartments, remodeled homes, and, for the single person, rooming houses. (There are some good rooming houses for singles just off Central Square.) Cambridge, especially in the Harvard Square area, tends to charge for location. Obviously you can evaluate this in terms of the time and money that the distance involves. Whether you have a car or whether you can get into a car pool with a fellow student will contribute to this decision. But don’t plan on parking privileges at M.I.T. The parking lot next to the Sloan Building is filled with construction. Even in better days students seldom qualify for “a parking sticker.” it would be wise to write the Campus Patrol for an application, but the general rule is you must live outside of Cambridge and off the MTA routes. Then available spaces are allotted by seniority (leaving Graduate Students next to last). The public transportation in Boston is probably more adequate than those who suffer with it like to think. Fares are 20 cents for the subway, and 10 cents for most surface transit.

Housing

Housing in the areas listed above is a problem for everyone, especially those who are on a tight budget (i.e., everyone). For unmarried students, the solutions are: the Graduate House, a room, or an apartment. The alternatives to the new M.I.T. housing for married students are an apartment or a house. Some sources of information on available accommodations are:

–the M.I.T. housing office in Building 7, Room 7-102. Up-to-date listings are available.

–Phillips Brooks House at Harvard (supposedly for Harvard students, but no questions are asked). Up-to-date listings are available.

–bulletin boards, at M.I.T.: Graduate House, Dewey Library (in Sloan Building), Building 10; at Harvard: ask bearded students; and at the Stop & Shop Supermarket on Memorial Drive, Cambridge.

–local newspapers, especially the Sunday Globe, Tech Talk, Harvard Crimson.

–real estate agents, pavement pounding, asking everyone, putting up notices, etc.

You will find that rents may be found in the neighborhood of $70 per month and (mostly) up for good apartments, $110 to $150 (for two persons), and that rooms may go for a little as $10 per week. If you can, come up early and spend a day or two looking. Don’t get discouraged by the places or prices, since there are good places available, particularly before the first week of September. Anyone who waits until after September first, however, will almost certainly find his choice limited. Most leases run for 12 months, expiring the end of August. As you shall probably have to pay for the entire month of September, this is an additional incentive to arrive early, whenever possible.

Furniture

Here again the situation is confusing. The extra cost of a furnished apartment may be far greater than the value in use of the furniture. There are numerous ways to obtain furnishings. First, check the bulletin boards, although these are the most fruitful in May and June. Second, call the M.I.T. Dames who hold a furniture sale each fall (M.I.T. Student Furniture Exchange, Ext. 4293). Rental services can be a good value, and there are a large number of secondhand dealers. Massachusetts Avenue, in Cambridge, between Central and Harvard Squares, is lined with these places. Charitable groups such as the Salvation Army, the Morgan Memorial, and the Saint Vincent de Paul Society also sell second-hand furniture. On the other hand, judicious shopping in the legitimate new furniture stores and discount houses such as Sears or Lechmere Sales may yield better values in the long run. As might be expected, those firms specializing in the student trade raise prices come September—therefore, early arrival and use of more general sources is advisable. Last fall I became the Chippendale of amateur furniture makers and would be happy to give advice on this, if requested.

Graduate House

For unmarried students who want to avoid housekeeping, the Graduate House may be the answer. On paper the House, with its activities, dining room, and proximity to campus, seems ideal. Prices range from $160 to $235 a semester, and it is quite likely that you will be paying the higher prices, as there are many more rooms available in this range—all triples. Singles are almost impossible to obtain as a first-year student; further, the chances of rooming with a fellow economist are quite small. However, it has been possible in the past to switch roommates and/or rooms during the year if desired.

The rooms are fully furnished, which is a help, and contain lamps, beds, desks, easy chair, and bureaus. With the latest rent increase, the Institute also cut down janitorial service and stopped providing linen. There are washing machines in the basement, where the showers are also located. It is an old but well-kept-up building. Some of the rooms are on the dingy side, but they are large if nothing else (except for some of the singles, which look like converted closets).

There is a cafeteria-dining room in the Graduate House, which serves somewhat-better-than-average institutional food on a pay-as-you-eat basis; meal costs here are likely to run close to $3.00 per day (for three meals). You can contract for commons meals, arranging for these either at the Grad House or at Walker Memorial, or a combination of the two (breakfast at the Grad House, lunch and dinner at Walker, has proven convenient for Grad House residents who spend their life in the relative isolation of the Sloan Building). Walker Memorial is close to 5 minutes walk from the Grad House, but on the way to the Sloan Building, and provides a gathering spot for many economics students at lunch and dinner. For the single student, these gatherings can be a valuable aspect of life around M.I.T. The Grad House sponsors assorted dances, teas, and lectures, and is equipped with ping-pong, television, a record player, and a darkroom. There are intramural sports and you are allowed to entertain guests at any time. There is generally a long waiting list for entry into the Grad House, but students who have lived there recommend it highly, and well worth the effort of applying. A check at the House on arrival may reveal that the waiting list has shortened considerably as people changed their mind, went elsewhere, or otherwise dropped out.

Parking around the Graduate House is quite difficult, but not impossible. Parking permits to the House parking lot are next to impossible to obtain unless there is a special reason. The lot is open to all, however, on weekends, and occasional weekday parking in the lot usually leads to no difficulty.

Roomates

While normally considered a personal problem, we sympathize with the desire of some incoming graduate students to make contact with other members of your class in hopes of sharing an apartment (sounds like a lonely hearts club). Therefore, for your convenience (and to satisfy your curiosity), we have included a list of students admitted for next fall. If any of you want to make contact with classmates, send your name back to me by the end of May, plus your summer address, and I will compile a short list of those desiring roommates. This will be returned to the interested parties. All further action must be initiated by you. Correspondence during the summer might more safely be addressed to Myra Strober. (See last page)

The Coop

You are entitled to be a member of the nation’s most successful consumers’ cooperative—the Harvard Cooperative Society (or Coop). Its main store in Harvard Square stocks a full line of clothing, supplies, books and other needed items, and its Technology Store—to be located on the first floor of the new M.I.T. Student Union—on Massachusetts Avenue across from the main building of M.I.T.—carries a moderate number of these items and can, if feasible, have others transferred. The big advantage is that you get a 10 per cent discount on your purchases payable the following fall. (Economists have often wondered how all the bookstores in Harvard Square meet this competition. Apparently they can survive without following the same course; but one, the Mandrake, does give a 10 per cent spot discount which is, of course, even better than the Coop’s deferred 10 per cent. However, some negotiating may prove that the practice is more widespread than that.)

Employment for Students

Summer jobs and part-time jobs are handled through the Placement Office and/or the Department of Economics. See Professor Kindleberger or Miss Tapley for this.

Employment for Wives

The search for jobs for students’ wives can be something of a struggle. As in all cities women will find:

–employers are more interested in secretarial skills than higher education

–the fields where women can use their special training are those in which there is a shortage of men—the sciences in particular

–the average Boston company has little faith in the career girl, and she is likely to get passed over in favor of the male

The large employers in Boston are the insurance companies and banks, and the schools such as M.I.T. and Harvard. They are all constantly searching for qualified people, though the emphasis is generally on secretarial and clerical rather than professional or administrative jobs. At the Institute, both the Office of Personnel Relations and the Technology Dames are particularly interested in helping students’ wives find jobs.

There are commercial employment agencies which charge a week’s salary (or more) for placement, but they tend to be fee-happy and should be a last resort. However, the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union at 264 Boylston Street, Boston, is said to combine real counseling, consideration of your interests, and wide variety of jobs. The Boston Globe has the best listing of employment opportunities of all the papers.

Another field worth exploring, as we are told, is teaching in one of the private schools which may be open to women with college degrees even if they have had no formal training in education. However, they may require experience. The public school systems are a mass of prejudices, arbitrary rules, and other impediments to hiring. As a start, on requires American citizenship and certification by the Massachusetts Department of Education. For such work you will obviously need education courses and may find bars against you due to lack of experience or because of marriage. Surprising as it may seem, the suburban public school systems, which are the more attractive from a teacher’s standpoint, seem to be more willing to hire working wives of students than do the Boston or Cambridge Systems.

Miscellaneous

Harvard and M.I.T. students put out various unofficial guides to graduate school life, full of information on the worldly temptations of the area (music, women, restaurants, etc.). These are worth reading even if you are sure you will never stray from the path of duty. A copy of M.I.T.’s guide is sent to American students only, with admissions material. We will have copies of the guide available for those who did not receive them at the desk of the registration officer’s secretary (room 52-380) on registration day.

Owning a car here is extremely expensive and inconvenient, but the alternatives do not appeal to many people. Since Massachusetts auto registration and insurance in the Cambridge-Boston area are very expensive, you will be well advised to maintain your home-state registration. Daytime parking around M.I.T. is difficult, unless you arrive by 8:00 a.m. or are prepared to pay or walk. As was noted above, Tech parking lots are for staff, employees, and those who live far away (in the past this has meant outside Cambridge and off the M.T.A. routes) or are disabled. If you get lost frequently while driving in Boston, you are normal, but otherwise traffic is no heavier than in other cities. The style of driving takes some getting used to, but you can stand up to anyone except taxis and pedestrians.

Finally, here is a way to be one-up around M.I.T. The secret is numbers. Buildings, courses (i.e. fields of study), subjects, rooms, and books carry numbers, as do students. Example: your number is 658350, as you find out from your registration card. You are in Course XIV (Economics and Social Science), you are taking 14.121 (a first-semester, graduate economics subject), which meets in room 52-143 (Sloan Building, first floor, room 43.)

If you have any questions in the meantime, I would be happy to hear from you: my address is listed below. When you arrive at M.I.T., others will be pleased to answer any questions, and I will usually be available around the Dewey Library or the Economics Department on weekdays. The place is small enough that there should be no difficulty finding me there.

In closing, let me once again encourage you to write me if you have any questions, problems—or just to say hello. In any case, I look forward to seeing you come September.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Lovell S. Jarvis

GEA Officers

President	Secretary-Treasurer	Seminar Chairman
Lovell S. Jarvis 417 East Tenth Street Winfield, Kansas (During April and May, Room 52-371, M.I.T.)	Myra H. Strober 368 Riverway Boston, Massachusetts	William M. Vaughn, III

Source: M.I.T. Archives. Department of Economics Records. Box 2, Folder “1969 G.E.A. 1970”

Source: Historical Working Papers on the Economic Stabilization Program …, Part 3, By United States. Department of the Treasury. Office of Economic Stabilisation, p. 1496.

Tags Jarvis, Kindleberger, Strober, Vaughn

Amherst Barnard Berkeley Brown Chicago Colorado Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Duke Harvard Illinois Indiana Iowa Johns Hopkins Kansas M.I.T. Michigan Michigan State Minnesota Missouri Nebraska North Carolina Northwestern NYU Ohio State Pennsylvania Princeton Radcliffe Rochester Stanford Swarthmore Texas Tufts UCLA Vassar Virginia Washington University Wellesley Williams Wisconsin Yale

U.S. Bureau of Education. Contributions to American Educational History, Herbert B. Adams (ed.), 1887-1903

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-02-22

I stumbled across this series while I was preparing the previous post on the political economy questions for the Harvard Examination for Women (1874). I figured it would be handy for me to keep a list of links to the monographs on the history of higher education in 35 of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Maybe this collection will help you too.

Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams

The College of William and Mary. Herbert B. Adams (1887)
Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. Herbert B. Adams (1888)
History of Education in North Carolina. Charles L. Smith (1888)
History of Higher Education in South Carolina. C. Meriwether (1889)
Education in Georgia. Charles Edgeworth Jones (1889)
Education in Florida. George Gary Bush (1889)
Higher Education in Wisconsin. William F. Allen and David E. Spencer (1889)
History of Education in Alabama. Willis G. Clark (1890).
History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education. Frank W. Blackmar (1890)
Higher Education in Indiana. James Albert Woodburn (1891).
Higher Education in Michigan. Andrew C. McLaughlin. (1891)
History of Higher Education in Ohio. George W. Knight and John R. Commons (1891)
History of Higher Education in Massachusetts. George Gary Bush (1891)
The History of Education in Connecticut. Bernard C. Steiner (1893)
The History of Education in Delaware. Lyman P. Powell (1893)
Higher Education in Tennessee. Lucius Salisbury Merriam (1893)
Higher Education in Iowa. Leonard F. Parker (1893)
History of Higher Education in Rhode Island. William Howe Tolman (1894)
History of Education in Maryland. Bernard C. Steiner (1894).
History of Education in Lousiana. Edwin Whitfield Fay (1898).
Higher Education in Missouri. Marshall S. Snow (1898)
History of Education in New Hampshire. George Gary Bush (1898)
History of Education in New Jersey. David Murray (1899).
History of Education in Mississippi. Edward Mayes (1899)
History of Higher Education in Kentucky. Alvin Fayette Lewis (1899)
History of Education in Arkansas. Josiah H. Shinn (1900)
Higher Education in Kansas. Frank W. Blackmar (1900)
The University of the State of New York. History of Higher Education in the State of New York. Sidney Sherwood (1900)
History of Education in Vermont. George Gary Bush (1900)
History of Education in West Virginia. A. R. Whitehill (1902)
The History of Education in Minnesota. John N. Greer (1902)
Education in Nebraska. Howard W. Caldwell (1902)
A History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania. Charles H. Haskins and William I. Hull (1902)
History of Higher Education in Colorado. James Edward Le Rossignol (1903)
History of Higher Education in Texas. J. J. Lane (1903)
History of Higher Education in Maine. Edward W. Hall (1903)

Image Source: Cropped from portrait of Herbert Baxter Adams ca. 1890s. Johns Hopkins University graphic and pictorial collection.

Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Dystopian Faculty Skit by Solow,1969

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-02-19

The current events of the late ‘sixties are the clear inspiration for this somewhat dark, dystopian skit for the M.I.T. economics departmental Christmas party of December 1969. According to the cover page, it was written by Robert Solow with input from Frank Fisher.

The skit was transcribed from the typed text [that includes a short handwritten addition] from Robert Solow’s papers in the Economists’ Papers Archive at Duke University. A grateful tip of the hat to Roger Backhouse for this artifact that should keep a cultural historian of economics busy for a few hours and be worth a few minutes of procrastination for working economists.

Pro-tip: you can summon all of the Economics in the Rear-view Mirror posts with economic humor content using the keyword “Funny Business”:

https://www.irwincollier.com/category/funny-business/

_______________________

Back-story for selected references in the text

SPECTRE. In Ian Fleming’s world of James Bond the acronym for the organization of international evil [Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion].

Chairman Edel. Assistant Professor Matthew D. Edel (Yale, Ph.D.) taught the course Economic Growth and Development. Presumably pronounced to rhyme with “Fidel”. Edel was a regional expert for Latin America, spoke at a colloquium February 4, 1970 on “The Strategy of Cuban Economic Development”

14.463 Monetary Economics in term I, 1969-70 was taught by four instructors.

According to the staffing report for that term in the departmental records at the MIT archive.

Karen H. Johnson, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1973),
Robert K. Merton, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1970), advisor Paul Samuelson
David T. Scheffman, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1971), advisor Paul Samuelson
Jeremy J. Siegel, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1971)

There is no record that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ever graduate students of economics in M.I.T.

Bread and Roses. Reference to the Women’s Liberation Organization in Boston, 1969-1971. The name chosen in memory of the Great Lawrence Strike of 1912.

Ted Behr. An M.I.T. Ph.D. (1969) who by 2009 had already gone through seven career changes and twelve jobs. Must have been quite a character judging from this interview.

I think we may assume that no Bulgarians were injured in the writing or performance of this skit.

_______________________

Some Obvious Context

Fall 1964. Berkeley Free Speech Movement

Wikipedia Entry on the Protest Year 1968

April 1968. Columbia Student Strike ; Harvard Student Strike

February 1969. Black student strike at the University of Wisconsin

_______________________

RIP VAN SAMUELSON RETURNS TO MIT AFTER THE REVOLUTION
FACULTY SKIT
Christmas 1969

CAST

P. Diamond
R. Eckaus
R. Engle
F. Fisher
C. Kindleberger
M. Piore

SCRIPTWRITER-IN-CHIEF — R. Solow

HELPED BY – F. Fisher

Is it really true that Samuelson has been asleep all these years? Then how come the 13^th and 14^th editions of the textbook came out on time?

Well, I don’t know. Samuelson isn’t talking.

Careful, there. If it’s not talking it’s not Samuelson.

It’s got to be. His broker recognizes his fingerprints from soiled sell orders. Actually, there are two schools of thought about how the textbook came out while Samuelson was sleeping. Modigliani claims that the 13^th and 14^th editions were simply forecasted by the FRB-MIT model, using a long lag. But some people believe that the 13^th and 14^theditions are just the 2^nd and 3^rd editions reprinted. Can’t verify that, though. Nobody’s been able to find a copy of the early editions.

Not that it matters. Must be a shock for Paul to realize that nobody uses the text any more, except of course for the Bulgarian translation. They’re the only people reactionary enough to go for that stuff any more.

You mean even Hanoi University has dropped it?

Oh sure, they adopted Best Known Thoughts of Chairman Edel, last year. You know, the one that begins “Equilibrium grows out of a barrel…”

Out of the barrel of a gun?

No, no, a barrel of rum. Chairman Edel never got over that trip to Cuba.

Did you fellows hear that Samuelson is back? When did he disappear anyway?

Oh, a long time ago. Even before Chomsky became President. It’s hard to know the exact date. Things were pretty clear up until April 1972, when we were supposed to have 31 days of moratorium, but the month only had 30 days, so we cancelled the first day of May, only you couldn’t cancel May Day — Christmas you could cancel, but not May Day. So we cancelled the second day of May. But then we were three days short to fit in the 32 days of moratorium for that month, so we had to run into June. From then on it was chaos.

Things are still a little funny. I can’t get used to having summer vacation in the middle of winter, and Fisher pretending to go off skiing when it’s 90 degrees in the shade, when we all know he’s leading rent strikes anyway.

Don’t complain. It might have been worse. Solow claimed to have a proof that the term would never end once we got up to 32 moratorium days a month. But one of the younger mathematical economists made a brilliant application of the theory of Riemann surfaces and showed that you could pack any finite number of moratorium days into one month if you did it right.

It was the last article anyone published in this department. Can you remember when we used to write articles and hope for tenure? That was before tenure was abolished. God, life was easy then. Nowadays it’s all action, action, action. And if you’re lucky, if you happen to win a rent strike, or destroy some draft records, or win an amateur topless contest, then maybe the central committee of SPECTRE will keep you on for a year. But suppose you lose the strike, or you let a white man go to work on a construction site, boy that SPECTRE can be tough. You remember when they threw Domar into the arena with Kampf and gave Kampf the bullhorn?

I looked away. Bloodthirsty crew — they awarded Kampf both ears and the tail that day. We had to take up a collection to send Ricky and Alice [note: Evsey Domar’s daughters] to Bread and Roses Karate School. And today they’re members of SPECTRE, the Student Power Electoral Committee for Teachers of Relevant Economics. It was better in the old days when appointments went on good looks and amiability. Even publishing was better than action all the time. That last piece of work I did, keeping the recruiter for Mars Bars from getting onto the campus, it went well but it was exhausting.

Why are we against Mars Bars?

Space, military, it’s all the same.

Anyhow, now that he’s back, what’s Paul going to do around the department? He’s getting a little old for real action, and he might find it hard to pass the monthly Relevance Check.

It’s going to be a problem. He was falling behind the times when he went to sleep. Of course he looks better now, with 10-15 years growth of beard, but he doesn’t dig the revolution. El Lider Maximo of the Graduate Student Commune asked him what he could contribute, and Samuelson said he’d like to teach the History of Economic Thought.

The History of WHAT???

That’s exactly what the Commune Lider said.

Poor old Samuelson doesn’t know that Thought isn’t Relevant. In fact he didn’t even know that Economics isn’t Relevant. When El Lider explained that it was all action now, old Samuelson said he thought there should be both Thought and Action just so their marginal net productivities were equal.

Gad, I haven’t heard anything like that since the day they fired Diamond for saying “Pareto-optimal” once too often.

Whatever happened to Diamond?

What else, he’s at B.I.T., the Bulgarian Institute of Technology. Boy, if the old stuff ever comes back in style, those Bulgarians will have it made. But go on, what happened when Samuelson pulled that bourgeois bit about marginal whatnots?

Well, Solow was standing there and he muttered something to Samuelson—it sounded like “Check the second-order conditions, Paul old boy”—and then went back to trying to look hip.

That’s living dangerously. Solow just barely passed last month’s Relevance Check, and he hasn’t been on a successful action in a long time. I don’t think that went over so good when he claimed that skiing Black Mountain was a real action. He better watch out — if B.I.T. won’t take an old man like that, SPECTRE may throw him to Kampf.

Right on. Nothing gets past El Lider. When Solow whispered that to Samuelson about second-order conditions, El Lider asked him right away — Did you say something? Solow replied Negative. Definite. That’s really living dangerously — I think it’s code of some kind.

It certainly doesn’t sound Relevant. I haven’t read anything like that in Ted Behr’s Newsweek column, at least not lately.

What’s going on this week in the department?

In the Theory course we’re holding an obstructive picket line at the drug counter of the Tech Store. Somebody discovered they were selling only white pills.

If I know what the pills are for, I hope the picket line isn’t too obstructive.

Of course not; I told you it was the Theory course. Then in the Economics of Education course we’re going to burn down a school. In the Money course, Johnson, Merton, Siegel, Bonnie, and Clyde are going to rob a bank and distribute the proceeds to the C.L.F.

Is that the California Liberation front?

Oh no, Berkeley has been a free-fire zone for months; nobody is left. It’s the Center for Love and Finance, our answer to the profit motive. Has anyone told you what the Econometrics Commune is doing?

No. Last week somebody had an idea for an empirical paper, but the results only came out at the 10% Relevance Level and half the commune was purged for Type One Error.

Served them right. Any Type II Error executions?

You know we have to have public trials for Type II error.

That’s right—Power to the People…. Well, it’s nice to see that the action curriculum is moving along. Sure beats the Old Days before chairman Edel — remember when they taught about Indifference curves? INDIFFERENCE curves, mind you, with innocent people being napalmed in Laos, Birmingham, Princeton, they taught about indifference curves.

Hard to believe. Of course now, ever since we adopted Bohmer’s best-selling text Economics for Good Guys we handle all that stuff by the tangency of the Relevance Map and the Isoconcern lines. Makes all the difference in the world, takes the subject out of the mind and puts it back in the gut, where it obviously belongs.

The Admissions Commune has been meeting all day.

How does the entering Movement look?

Terrific. There’s one girl who was heavyweight sugar-cane-cutting champion of the Big Ten, and another who had already led three successful rent strikes as a junior — two of them publishable, according to her advisor. Then there are a couple of Black Belts from Bread and Roses — they come on Karate Scholarships of course.

Any amateur topless contest winners?

We’re trying for a few, but most of them will go to Harvard—ever since they hired Brigitte Bardot for the economics faculty—

She was past her peak.

Peaks. And aren’t they all? Anyhow, all the amateur topless winners go to Harvard. But we’ve got some applicants who’ve starred in home movies. Not to mention a few school-burners and a couple of guys who have specialized in destroying computers.

How are their vibrations?

Good.

Fine. If there’s anything I can’t stand it’s bad vibrations. How about GRE scores.

The Graduate Relevance Exam grades just came — most of the people we’re accepting are in the 800’s on Obstructive and at least 750 in Vituperative. Looks like a good class — I mean Movement.

Has anyone heard what the Placement and Appointments Committees have decided?

They decided to eliminate the middleman and merge. That way everybody stays forever — once a Commune always a Commune. It gives new meaning to that old phrase about departmental inbreeding.

We still have this problem about what to do with Samuelson. Here he is after all those years asleep and hardly knowing anything about action and relevance and all the new things. The Bulgarians won’t take him — B.I.T. doesn’t mind using the old textbook, but they’re overloaded with these old-timers. If we can’t find something for him to do we may have to throw him to….

Terrible news. The students are revolting again. There’s a new movement sweeping all the Communes. They want one day of classes this month, two days of classes next month, three days the month after…there’s no telling where it will end, except that nobody can count over 30 any more.

Gad, we may have to go back to teaching again. Well, at least that gives something for Samuelson to do.

Oh didn’t they tell you. When Samuelson saw what the new system was like, he went back to sleep. Better get the Bulgarians on the phone.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Robert M. Solow, Box 83.

Image Source: Robert Solow in his office, MIT Museum Website.

Tags BehrT, Diamond, Domar, Eckaus, EdelMD, Engle, FisherF, JohnsonKH, Kindleberger, MertonRK, Modigliani, Piore, Samuelson, ScheffmanD, SiegelJ, Solow

Exam Questions Fields M.I.T.

M.I.T. General exams for international economics, 1959

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-02-13

It seems safe to assume that Charles Kindleberger was the principal author of these general exams for the field of international economics (i.e. international trade and finance) since the exams come from his papers at the M.I.T. archive. I don’t know whether he had been the sole author. Maybe Samuelson contributed an international trade question or two, but that is much more speculative than Kindleberger’s likely authorship.

The general exams in international economics for 1950-51 have been transcribed and posted earlier.

_____________________

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
February 16, 1959

Part I

Write an essay on any two or three of the following topics.

The gains from trade.
The effect of foreign trade on the distribution of income.
Structural disequilibrium in the balance of payments.
What determines the commodities and services a country will export and import?
Elasticity conditions in international trade.

Part II

Answer any two or three of the following questions.

A distinguished economist has stated that an underdeveloped country which is not developing balance of payments trouble, is not trying very hard to develop. Explain this view and discuss it critically.
The New York Times recently had an article explaining that the present favorable position of the British and other West European balances of payments was really a bad sign because it was accompanied by a reduction in the volume of world trade. In particular, the improvement in the British balance of payments was due to a sharp improvement in the terms of trade which could not help worsen the situation after a few months.
What have favorable or unfavorable terms of trade to do with the matter?
What is the purpose of two of the following. How well have they filled, or are they filling, that purpose?
1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
2. The International Monetary Fund.
3. The Colombo Plan.
4. The Marshall Plan.
5. The European Payments Union.
The following is a real quotation from a distinguished economist: “Under a system of free trade there would be conflicts in interests neither among different nations nor among corresponding classes of different nations.”
Discuss critically.
“If all countries pursued full employment policies and at the same time avoided inflationary pressures, the balance of payments would present no problem.” Discuss theoretically.
“There is no reason why a country could not pursue any domestic policy it liked provided it did not care about exchange stability.”
“A country could have any fixed exchange rate it chose provided it pursued the correct domestic policy.”
Discuss these quotations critically.
Write an essay on the advantages and disadvantages of aiding underdeveloped countries through private capital movements, governmental loans and gifts on a bilateral basis or through multilateral aid.
“It is frequently stated that aid should be given ‘with no strings attached.’ And this is a meaningless statement, because you can’t just send an anonymous check and say: do what you want.”
What is meant by such a statement? What conditions could be attached to aid to make it effective?
Write an essay on the instruments of commercial policy and discuss the effectiveness of each.

* * * * * * * * *

General Examination in International Economics
May 20, 1959

Answer any five questions

Discuss the relevance of the factor-price equalization theorem to the observed facts of international trade.
It has been said that the theory of international trade is peculiarly static and that this vitiates its applicability to the problems of growing economies. Do you agree or disagree? Discuss.
Analyze the relevance of international trade (and tariffs) to wages and employment in as many contexts as are significant.
What differences exist between internal trade in a single country, economic integration between sovereign countries, and international trade between unintegrated countries? Is there more content to economic integration than customs union?
Discuss the relative roles of income and price in international adjustment, not in theoretical models, but as they have operated in the real world as observed by historians, by econometricians, or by casual empiricists. What generalizations, if any, can be drawn from this experience regarding the efficacy of exchange depreciation in producing adjustment?
Argue for or against central bank intervention in the forward exchange market.
What can the economist say about foreign aid?
Compare and contrast the impact of foreign trade and lending on economic stability in a developed country and in an export economy? What monetary and commercial policy devices are available to the latter to promote stability?
Write brief didactic essays setting forth the “correct view” (conventional wisdom) of international trade economists on two of the following subjects:
1. the long-run terms of trade facing underdeveloped countries;
2. the persistent surplus in the German balance of payments;
3. the regional vs the universal approach to commercial policy and intergovernmental lending;
4. commodity price stabilization;
5. multiple exchange rates: blessing, menace, crutch for the feeble?
Argue the case for modifying the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund, or its procedures under the present articles, or for leaving both Articles and Procedures alone.

Source: M.I.T. Libraries. Institute Archives and Special Collections. Papers of Charles Kindleberger, 1934-99. Box 22, Folder “Examinations. International Economics, 1959-75”.

Image Source: M.I.T. Yearbook Technique, 1950.

Tags Kindleberger

Exam Questions Johns Hopkins M.I.T. Suggested Reading Syllabus

M.I.T. Readings and exam questions for fiscal and monetary policy. Domar, 1957

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-01-24

Evsey Domar’s first semester at M.I.T. was as a visiting professor according to the teaching records of the economics department. He taught one seminar on Russian Economics (14.292) and a graduate course with the nominal title “Fiscal Policy”. That course had been taught previously by E. Cary Brown (Spring 1954, 1955) and R. A. Musgrave, visiting Professor (Spring 1956).

Inspection of the ten-page course bibliography and the final examination questions along with two note-cards filed with these course materials, it appears that well over half the course was in all likelihood dedicated to fiscal policy topics with monetary policy for stabilization topics accouting for perhaps one-third of the course. Just as the length of the course bibliography (typical for Domar) is daunting, his use of asterisks to designate recommended reading was exceedingly liberal. An examination of the final examination questions leads me to conclude that it should be rather easy to reduce the course reading list (for examination purposes!) to less than two pages.

___________________________

Course Enrollment
(Second term, 1956-57

Instructor	Domar, E. D.
Rank	Prof. (Visit.)
Subj. No.	14.472
Subj. Title	Fiscal Policy
No. Class Hours/Week	3
No. Students	22

Source: M.I.T. Archives, Department of Economics Records 1947-, Box 3, Folder “Teaching Responsibility”.

___________________________

Typed notecards for an introduction to or a review of course.

The traditional arguments regarding the purposes of Monetary Policy:

Stabilization of general prices or of factor earnings—the Wicksell-Davidson controversy. The instrument was the relation between the natural and the market rates.
Stabilization of prices or of employment. Recent literature is full of this.
Stabilization of the general prices or of prices of Federal securities. See Douglas’s and other reports on this recent controversy.
Stabilization of employment or the achievement of growth. Any conflict?
Discretionary methods or automatic provisions? See Simons’ article in Readings in Monetary Theory.
To provide credit and currency, sound and in sufficient quantity.
To protect the international position of the country.
To have special effects, such as:

a. by region
b. by industry
c. by commodity consumed (such as tobacco) or housing
d. on population (by giving exemptions or subsidies for dependents)

Provide revenue [handwritten addition]
Distribution of income [handwritten addition]

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

The following limitations, some real, other imaginary, explain why Fiscal Policy is not as simple as Lerner makes it:

Income distribution
Size of the deficit
Size of the budget
Balance of payments
Special regional and industrial effects
Effects on incentives to work (in inflation)
Automaticity of the system (built-in-flexibility)
Monetary effects (on reserves, deposits)
Long-run effects (on growth and development)

Their presence complicates things and explains all the ingenious articles and tax devices frequently suggested. If not for them, fiscal policy would be very simple indeed: cut taxes or increase taxes, and the same with expenditures.

___________________________

READING LIST
14.472 Fiscal Policy
Spring Term 1956-57

Professor E. D. Domar

PART I—MONETARY POLICY

The purpose of this list is to suggest to the student the sources in which the more important topics in Monetary Policy are discussed from many points of view. His objective should be the understanding of these topics and not the memorization of who said what.

Most of the sources listed here, and particularly the Congressional materials, discuss a number of questions not only in Monetary but in Fiscal Policy as well. Hence it is difficult to classify them.

Items marked with an * are strongly recommended. (I don’t like to use the expression “required” in a graduate reading list.)

Factual Materials on Monetary Problems

Federal Reserve Bulletin.

Treasury Bulletin.

Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury and of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789-1945, and the Continuation to 1952.

Congressional Hearings, Reports and other Materials listed below.

Introduction

Hart, Albert Gailord, Money, Debt and Economic Activity, New York 1948.

Hicks*, J. R., “A Suggestion for Simplifying the Theory of Money,” Economica, 1935; reprinted in Readings in Monetary Theory.

Lerner*; Abba P., “Functional Finance and the Federal Debt,” Social Research, 1943, and Readings in Fiscal Policy, p. 468, also Chapter 24 in his Economics of Control, New York, 1944.

Poole, Kenyon E., ed. Fiscal Policies and the American Economy.

Sproul* Allan, “Changing Concepts of Central Banking,” Money, Trade and Economic Growth in Honor of John Henry Williams, New York, 1951.

Monetary Theory and Growth

Gurley*, John G. and Shaw, E. S., “Financial Aspects of Economic Development,” American Economic Review, September 1955, pp. 515-538.

Effectiveness of the Interest Rate

Ebersole*, J. F., “The Influence of Interest Rates,” Harvard Business Review, XVII, i, 1938, pp. 35-39.

Henderson*, R. D., “The Significance of the Rate of Interest,” Oxford Economic Papers, October 1938, I, pp. 1-13.

*Meade, J. E. and Andrews, P. W. S., “Summary of Replies to Questions on Effects of Interest Rates,” Oxford Economic Papers, October 1938, I, pp. 14-31.

Sayers, R. S. “Business Men and the Terms of Borrowing,” Oxford Economic Papers, Feb. 1940, III, pp. 23-31.

Andrews, P. W. S., “A Further Inquiry into the Effects of Rates of Interest,” Oxford Economic Papers, Feb. 1940, III, pp. 32-73.

White*, William H., “Interest Inelasticity of Investment Demand—The Case from Business Attitude Survey Re-Examined,” American Economic Review, September 1956, pp. 565-87.

Lutz, Friedrich A., “The Interest Rate and Investment in a Dynamic Economy,” American Economic Review, Dec. 1945.

General Surveys of Monetary Policy

Federal Reserve Board*, Tenth Annual Report for 1923. See pp. 29-39 particularly.

Chandler*, Lester V., “Federal Reserve Policy and the Federal Debt,” American Economic Review, 1949, and Readings in Monetary Theory, p. 394.

Hardy, Charles O., “Fiscal Operations as Instruments of Economic Stabilization,” American Economic Review, Supplement, 1948, pp. 395-403 and Readings in Monetary Theory, p. 394.

Hart, Albert Gailord, “Monetary Policy for Income Stabilization,” Income Stabilization for a Developing Democracy, ed. by Max F. Millikan, New Haven, 1953.

Williams, John H., “The Implications of Fiscal Policy for Monetary Policy and the Banking System,” AER Proceedings, March 1942; Readings in Fiscal Policy, p. 185.

Smith*, Warren L., “On the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy,” American Economic Review, September 1956, pp. 588-606.

Suggested Objectives and Policies

Hammarskjold, Dag, “The Swedish Discussion on the Aims of Monetary Policy,” reprinted in International Monetary Papers, No. 5, pp. 145-154.

Simons*, Henry C., “Rule versus Authorities in Monetary Policy,” JPE, 1936, and Readings in Monetary Theory, p. 337.

Simons, Henry, “On Debt Policy,” JPE, Dec. 1944, and Readings in Fiscal Policy.

Mints*, Lloyd, W., “Monetary Policy,” Review of Econ. and Stat., 1946 and Readings in Fiscal Policy, p. 344.

Bach*, G. L., “Monetary-Fiscal Policy Reconsidered,” JPE, Oct. 1949, and Readings in Fiscal Policy.

Friedman*, Milton, “A Monetary and Fiscal Framework for Economic Stability,” American Economic Review, 1949, and Readings in Monetary Theory, p. 369.

*United Nations. National and International Measures for Full Employment. Report by a group of experts appointed by the Secretary-General (Lake Success, New York, December 1949).

Viner*, Jacob, “Full Employment at Whatever Cost,” QJE, August 1950, pp. 385-407. Reproduced with omissions in Economic Policy, Readings in Political Economy, edited by William D. Grampp and Emanuel T. Weiler, Homewood, Ill., 1956, pp. 54-65.

Samuelson* Paul A., “Principles and Rules in Modern Fiscal Policy: A New-Classical Reformulation,” Money, Trade and Economic Growth in Honor of John Henry Williams, New York, 1951.

Seltzer* Lawrence H., “Is a Rise in Interest Rates Desirable or Inevitable,” American Economic Review, Dec. 1945; Readings in Fiscal Policy, p. 202.

Roosa, Robert V., “Interest Rates and the Central Bank,” Money, Trade and Economic Growth in Honor of John Henry Williams, 1951.

Roosa*, Robert V., “Integrating Debt Management and Open Market Operations,” American Economic Review, 1952, and Readings in Fiscal Policy, p. 265.

Hansen*, Alvin H., “Monetary Policy,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, May 1955, pp. 110-119.

Commodity Money

Graham, Benjamin, World Commodities and World Currency, New York 1944.

Graham*, Frank D., “Full Employment without Public Debt, Without Taxation, Without Public Works, and without Inflation,” Planning and Paying for Full Employment, edited by Abba P. Lerner and Frank D. Graham, 1946.

Congressional Materials

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. Money, Credit, and Fiscal Policies. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit and Fiscal Policies of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 81^st Congress, First Session, September 23, November 16,17,18,22,23 and December 1,2,3,5,7, 1949.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies. A Collection of Statements Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit and Fiscal Policies by Government Officials, Bankers, Economists, and Others. 1949.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report (The Douglas Subcommittee). A Compendium of Materials on Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies. A Collection of Statements Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies by Government Officials, Bankers, Economists, and Others. 81^st Congress, 2^ndSession, Senate Document No. 132, 1950.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report*. Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies. Report of the Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report. 81^st Congress, 2^ndSession, Senate Document No. 129, 1950.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. Monetary Policy and the Management of the Public Debt Hearings before the Subcommittee on General Credit Control and Debt Management of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 81^st Congress, 2^nd Session, March 1952.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. Monetary Policy and the Management of the Public Debt. Their Role in Achieving Price Stability and High-Level Employment. Replies to questions and other material for the use of the subcommittee on general credit control and debt management. 82^nd Congress, 2^nd Session, Senate Document No. 123, 1952.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. Monetary Policy and the Management of the Public Debt Report of the Subcommittee on General Credit Control and Debt Management of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 82^nd Congress, 2^nd Session, 1952.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. United States Monetary Policy: Recent Thinking and Experience Hearings before the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report. 83^rd Congress, 2^nd Session, December 6 and 7, 1954.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. January 1956 Economic Report of the President. Hearings before the Joint Committee on the Economic Report. 84^th Congress, 2nd Session, January 31, February 1,2,3,6,7,8,9,14,15,17 and 28, 1956.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report*. Conflicting Official Views on Monetary Policy; April 1956. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the Joint Committee on Economic Report, 84^thCongress, 2^nd Session, June 12, 1956.

Readings for Amusement

Outside Readings in Economics, second edition. Selected by Hess, Arleigh P. Jr., Gallman, Robert E., Rice, John P., and Stern, Carl, New York, 1956. The “Dialogue on Money,” by D. H. Robertson; “The Island of Stone Money,” by William H. Furness III; “The Paper Money of Kubla Khan,” by Marco Polo; and “The Edict of Diocletian,” by Humphrey Mitchell, pp. 314-335 are very amusing and instructive.

PART II—FISCAL POLICY

See the remarks in Part I.

Factual Materials of General Character

Joint Committee on the Economic Report.* The Federal Revenue System: Facts and Problems, 1956

Treasury Bulletin

Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury and of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue

Statistical Abstract of the United States

Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789-1945 (published by the U. S. Bureau of the Census)

U. S. Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income (an annual publication in two volumes)

U. S. Bureau of the Census, Summary of Governmental Finances (annual series)

The Budget of the U. S. Government

Commerce Clearing House, Inc., Tax Systems

West Publishing Co., Federal Tax Regulations, 1956

Congressional Hearings and Reports, listed in Part I and below

Textbooks on Public Finance and Fiscal Policy

Historical Studies

Ratner, S., American Taxation: Its History as a Social Force in a Democracy, New York, 1942

Fabricant*, S., The Trend of Government Activity in the United States since 1900, New York, 1952, Chapters 1, 6, 7

Studenski, P. and H. E. Kroos, Financial History of the United States, New York, 1952

Musgrave*, R. A. and J. M. Culbertson, “The Growth of Public Expenditures in the United States,” National Tax Journal, June, 1953, pp. 97-115

Paul, R. E., Taxation in the United States, Boston, 1954

Fundamental Assumptions

Hansen*, A. H., “The Stagnation Thesis,” Fiscal Policy and the Business Cycle, New York, 1941, pp. 38-46, and Readings in Fiscal Policy

Schumpeter*, J. A., “Economic Possibilities in the United States,” Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 1947, and Readings in Fiscal Policy

Domar*, E. D., “The Problem of Capital Accumulation,” The American Economic Review, December, 1948

Fellner*, W., “Relative Emphasis in Tax Policy on Encouragement of Consumption or Investment,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D.C., November 9, 1955, p. 210

Hansen*, A. H., “Economic Stability and Growth,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 14

Smithies*, A., “Economic Growth as a Policy Objective,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 32.

General Objectives and Policies

Keynes* J. M., “An Open Letter,” The New York Times, 1933, and Readings in Fiscal Policy

Lerner*, A. P., “Functional Finance and the Federal Debt,” Social Research, 1943, and Readings in Fiscal Policy. Also Chapter 24 in his Economics of Control, New York, 1944

Hart, A. G., “’Model-Building’ and Fiscal Policy,” American Economic Review, 1945, and Readings in Fiscal Policy

Committee for Economic Development, “Taxes and the Budget: A Program for Prosperity in a Free Economy,” Readings in Fiscal Policy, 1947

Colm* G., “The Government Budget and the Nation’s Economic Budget,” Public Finance, 1948, and Readings

Friedman*, M., “A Monetary and Fiscal Framework for Economic Stability,” American Economic Review, 1948, and Readings

National Planning Association, “Federal Expenditure and Revenue Policy for Economic Stability,” 1949, Readings

Bach*, G. L., “Monetary-Fiscal Policy Reconsidered,” Journal of Political Economy, October, 1949, and Readings

United Nations*, National and International Measures for Full Employment (report by a group of experts appointed by the Secretary-General), Lake Success, New York, December, 1949

Simons*, H. C., Federal Tax Reform, Chicago, 1950

Viner*, J., “Full Employment at Whatever Cost,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1950

Samuelson*, P. A., “Principles and Rules in Modern Fiscal Policy; A Neoclassical Reformulation,” Money, Trade, and Economic Growth: in Honor of John H. Williams, New York, 1951

Millikan, M., ed., Income Stabilization for a Developing Democracy, Yale, 1953

Rolph, E.R., The Theory of Fiscal Economics, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1954

U. S. Congress, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, December, 1955, Hearings

American Economic Association* Readings in Fiscal Policy, Homewood, Illinois, 1955

National Bureau of Economic Research, Policies to Combat Depression, a conference of the Universities-National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, 1956

Council of Economic Advisers*, the latest Annual Report

Institutional Factors

Bailey, S. K., Congress Makes a Law: the Story behind the Employment Act of 1946, New York, 1950

Bailey, S. K. and H. D. Samuel, Congress at Work, New York, 1952

Blough, R., The Federal Taxing Process, New York, 1952

Smithies*, A., The Budgetary Process in the United States, Committee for Economic Development, New York, 1955

Tax Incidence

Musgrave*, R. A., et al, “Distribution of Tax Payments by Income Groups,” National Tax Journal, March, 1951

Little, I. M. D., “Direct versus Indirect Taxes, Economic Journal, September, 1951

Musgrave*, R. A., “On Incidence,” Journal of Political Economy, August, 1953

Bach*, G. L., “The Impact of Moderate Inflation on Income and Assets of Economic Groups,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 71

Musgrave*, R.A., “Incidence of the Tax Structure and its Effects on Consumption,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 96

Cyclical Aspects

Slichter*, S. H., “The Economics of Public Works,” American Economics Review, 1934, and Readings in Fiscal Policy

Lutz, H. L., “Federal Depression Financing and its Consequences,” Harvard Business Review, 1938, and Readings

Myrdal* G., “Fiscal Policy in the Business Trade,” American Economic Review Supplement, 1939, and Readings

Hagen, E. E., “Timing and Administering Fiscal Policy,” American Economic Review, May, 1948

Committee on Public Issues of the American Economic Association*, “The Problem of Economic Instability,” American Economic Review, 1950, and Readings

Smithies*, A., “The American Economic Association Committee Report on Economic Instability,” American Economic Review, 1951, and Readings

Phillips, A. W., “Stabilization Policy in a Closed Economy,” The Economic Journal, June, 1954, pp. 290-323

Committee for Economic Development*, Problems in Anti-Recession Policy, September 1954

Alternative Budgets for Full Employment

Kaldor*, N., Appendix C in W. H. Beveridge, Full Employment in a Free Society, 1945

Musgrave*, R. A., “Alternative Budget Policies for Full Employment,” American Economic Review, 1945, and Readings

Musgrave*, R. A. and M. H. Miller, “Built-In Flexibility,” American Economic Review, 1948 and Readings

Bishop*, R. L., “Alternative Expansionist Policies,” Income, Employment and Public Policy: Essays in Honor of Alvin H. Hansen, New York, 1948

Stein, H., “Budget Policy to Maintain Stability,” Problems in Anti-Recession Policy, Committee for Economic Development, September, 1954

Hagen*, E. E., “Federal Taxation and Economic Stabilization,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, November 9, 1955, pp. 58-70

Lusher, D. W., “The Stabilizing Effectiveness of Budget Flexibility,” Policies to Combat Depression, a conference of the Universities-National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, Princeton, 1956

Balanced Budget Multiplier

Wallich*, H. C., “Income-Generating Effects of a Balanced Budget,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1944

Haavelmo*, T., “Multiplier Effects of a Balanced Budget,” Econometrica, 1945, and Readings

Haberler, G., “Multiplier Effects of a Balanced Budget,” Econometrica, April, 1946

Baumol, W. J. and M. H. Preston, “More on the Multiplier Effects of a Balanced Budget under Full Employment,” American Economic Review, March, 1955

The National Debt

Studenski, P., “The Limits of Possible Debt Burdens—Federal, State, and Local,” American Economic Review, Supplement, 1937

Haley*, R. F., “The Federal Budget: Economic Consequences of Deficit Financing,” American Economic Review, 1941, and Readings

Williams*, H. H., “Deficit Spending,” American Economic Review, February, 1941 and Postwar Monetary Plans and other Essays, 1944

Ratchford, B. U., “The Burden of a Domestic Debt,” American Economic Review, 1942, and Readings

Williams, J. H., “The Implications of Fiscal Policy for Monetary Policy and the Banking System,” Proceedings of the American Economic Association, 1942, and Readings

Domar*, E. D., “The ‘Burden of the Debt’ and the National Income,” American Economic Review, 1944, and Readings

Simons*, H., “On Debt Policy,” Journal of Political Economy, 1944, and Readings

Seltzer, L. H., “Is a Rise in Interest Rates Desirable or Inevitable?” American Economic Review, 1945, and Readings

Wallich, H. C., “Debt Management as an Instrument of Economic Policy,” American Economic Review, June, 1946

Roosa, R. V., “Integrating Debt Management and Open Market Operations,” American Economic Review, 1952, and Readings

Burkhead*, J., “The Balanced Budget,” Quarterly Journal of Economic, 1954, and Readings

Inflation and War Finance

Sprague, O. M. W., “Loans and Taxes in War Finance,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1917, and Readings

Keynes*, J. M., How to Pay for the War, London, 1940

Smithies*, A., “The Behavior of Money National Income under Inflationary Conditions,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1942, and Readings

Fellner*, W. J., “Postscript on War Inflation: A Lesson from World War II,” American Economic Review, 1947, and Readings

Fetter*, F., “The Economic Reports of the President and the Problem of Inflation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1949, and Readings

Wald, H. P., “Fiscal Policy, Military Preparedness, and Postwar Inflation,” National Tax Journal, 1949, and Readings

Hart, A. G., Defense Without Inflation, New York, 1951

Effect on Incentives: Incentive Taxation

Domar*, E. D., and R. A. Musgrave, “Proportional Income Taxation and Risk Taking,” Quarterly Journal of Economic, May, 1954

Butters, J. K., and J. Lintner, Effect of Federal Taxes on Growing Enterprises, Boston, 1945

Groves*, H. M., Postwar Taxation and Economic Progress, New York, 1946, Chapter 11

Shelton, J. P., and G. Ohlin, “A Swedish Tax Provision for Stabilizing Business Investment,” American Economic Review, June, 1952

Brown*, R. S., “Techniques for Influencing Private Investment,” Income Stabilization in a Developing Democracy, M. Millikan, ed., 1953, pp. 416-432

Domar*, E. D., “The Case for Accelerated Depreciation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1953

Butters*, J. K., “Taxation, Incentives, and Financial Capacity,” American Economic Review, Supplement, 1954, and Readings

Brown, E. C., “The New Depreciation Policy under the Income Tax: An Economic Analysis,” National Tax Journal, March, 1955

Goode*, R., “Accelerated Depreciation Allowances as a Stimulus to Investment,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1955

Break*, G. F., “Effects of Taxation on Work Incentives,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 192

Brown*, E. C., “Weaknesses of Accelerated Depreciation as an Investment Stimulus,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 495

Butters*, J. K., “Effects of Taxation on the Investment Capacities and Policies of Individuals,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 126

Greenewalt*, C. H., “Effect of High Tax Rates on Executive Incentive,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 185

Long*, C. D., “Impact of Federal Income Tax on Labor Force Participation,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 153

Kaldor*, N., “An Expenditure Tax,” London, 1955

Particular Taxes

Simons, H., Personal Income Taxation, Chicago, 1938

Brown*, E. C., “Analysis of Consumption Taxes in Terms of the Theory of Income Determination,” American Economic Review, March, 1950

Goode*, R., Corporation Income Tax, New York, 1951

Royal Commission on the Taxation of Profits and Income, First Report, February, 1953; Second Report, April, 1954; Final Report, June, 1955

Due, J. F., “Economics of Commodity Taxation and the Present Excise Tax System,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 547

Keith*, G., “Economic Impact of the Corporation Income Tax,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 658

Goode, R., “The Corporate Income Tax in a Depression,” Policies to Combat Depression, a conference of the Universities-National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, 1956

Merriam, I. C., “Social Security Programs and Economic Stability,” Policies to Combat Depression

Pechman, J. A., “Yield of the Individual Income Tax During A Recession,” Policies to Combat Depression

Inter-Governmental Fiscal Relations

Maxwell*, J. A., “Intergovernmental Fiscal Devices for Economic Stabilization,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 807

Heer*, C., “Stabilizing State and Local Finance,” Policies to Combat Depression, 1956

U. S. Treasury Department, Committee on Inter-Governmental Fiscal Relations, Federal, State, and Local Government Fiscal Relations, 78^th Congress, 1^st Session, Senate Document No. 69, 1943

U. S. Bureau of the Census, Compendium of State Government Finances (an annual series)

Same source, Compendium of City Government Finances (an annual series)

Tax Institute, Federal-State-Local Tax Correlation (A Symposium), December, 1953

The Council of State Governments, Federal Grants-in-Aid, 1949

Growth and Economic Development

Bernstein*, E. M. and I. G. Patel, “Inflation in Relation to Economic Development,” International Monetary Fund, Staff papers, II, 1951-52

United Nations*: Fiscal Division, “Taxation and Economic Development in Asian Countries,” Economic Bulletin for Asia and the Far East, Vol. IV, November, 1953

Gurley, J. A., “Fiscal Policy in a Growing Economy,” Journal of Political Economy, December, 1953

Papers and Proceedings of the Conference on Agricultural Taxation and Economic Development, H. P. Wald, and J. N. Froomkin, eds., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1954 (Harvard University Law School, International Program in Taxation)

Special Problems

Clark*, C., “Public Finance and Changes in the Value of Money,” The Economic Journal, December, 1945

Clark*, C., “The Danger Point in Taxes,” Harper’s Magazine, December, 1950

Goode*, R., “An Economic Limit on Taxes: Some Recent Discussion,” National Tax Journal, September, 1952

Caplan, B., “A Case Study: The 1948-1949 Recession,” Policies to Combat Depression, 1956

Fox, K. A., “The Contribution of Farm Price Support Programs to General Economic Stability,” Policies to Combat Depression, 1956

Gordon, R. A., “Types of Depressions and Programs to Combat Them,” Policies to Combat Depression

Grebler, L., “Housing Policies to Comat Depression,” Policies to Combat Depression

Johnson, D. G., “Stabilization of International Commodity Prices,” Policies to Combat Depression

Owen, W., “Self-Liquidating Public Works to Combat Depression,” Policies to Combat Depression

Source: Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Box 17, Folder “Fiscal and Monetary Policy”.

___________________________

FINAL EXAMINATION
14.472 Fiscal Policy
Monday, May 20, 1957

E. D. Domar

ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS. THE QUALITY OF YOUR REASONING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR ANSWERS.

[35%] Compare and contrast monetary and fiscal policies as methods of achieving a steadily expanding economy (without inflation or depression). Include, but don’t limit yourself to, the following points:
1. 1. The theoretical foundation of each.
  2. Methods used.
  3. Effects on distribution of income and wealth.
  4. Social and political repercussions of each.
  5. The effectiveness and limitations of each.

Do they overlap? Can you work out a synthesis?

[20%] “Government spending tends to be like a drug, in that it takes larger and larger doses to get results, and all the time debt and taxes get higher and higher.”
Analyze this statement and comment as fully as you can. Compare the effect of government expenditures with that of private.
[15%] “The best cure against inflation is increased production.”
Analyze this statement and comment on it. Include in your comments the monetary and fiscal implications of this statement.
[15%] What are the so-called “Built-in-Stabilizers?” Discuss fully and indicate how they operate in (a) depression and (b) inflation.
[15%] “The purpose of taxation is never to raise money but to leave less in the hands of the taxpayer.”
Comment fully and indicate the limitations of this statement. Can you identify the author? (No great penalty if you cannot.)

Source: Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Box 16, Folder “Examination. Public Finance and Fiscal Policy”.

Notes on Final Exam:

Question II comes from a review of Stuart Chase, Where’s the Money Coming From? Published in the Monthly Bulletin of the National City Bank of New York that I was fortunate to find inserted into the Congressional Record Volume 93—Part 4 (May 8, 1947, p. 4827);

Question III. Domar liked this question enough to have used it at least twice. See January 23, 1958 Exam at Johns Hopkins; January 26, 1966 at M.I.T.;

Question V. The sentence quoted comes from Abba Lerner’s The Economics of Control, p. 307.

___________________________

Image Source: Evsey D. Domar at the MIT Museum legacy website.

Tags BrownEC, Domar, Musgrave

Funny Business Gender M.I.T. Policy Popular Economics

M.I.T. Washington Post op-ed by Samuelson on Sound Debt Policy, 1963

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-12-19

Source: Paul A. Samuelson, “We can have sound debt policy” from the Washington Post, included with Extention of remarks of Hon. Jeffery Cohelan of California in the House of Representatives, Friday, May 31, 1963 in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates. Volume 109, part 25—Appendix, May 31, 1963, p. A3510

Also found as a mimeographed copy in Harvard University Archives. Papers of Alvin Harvey Hansen, Box 1, Folder “Business Cycles.”

Image Source: Samuelson Memorial Information Page/Photos from Memorial Service. Accessed via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Tags Samuelson

Exam Questions M.I.T.

M.I.T. General Examination in Advanced Economic Theory. Sept 1962 and May 1963

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-12-14

Edwin Burmeister received an M.A. from Cornell in September 1962 before going on to M.I.T. to complete his Ph.D. in economics in 1965. His papers at the Duke Economists’ Papers Archive include a folder of advanced economic theory general examinations at M.I.T. (May and September 1962; May 1963). The copy of the May 1962 exam has been transcribed and posted earlier. This post adds the remaining two exams to the collection of artifacts. Pro-tip: Burmeister’s papers includes his solutions to the September 21, 1962 exam, most likely prepared during his preparation for the May 1963 exam.

I should mention that on none of the three exams is “M.I.T.” actually written. However, since Samuelson and Solow’s names are typed on the copy of the Sept 1962 exam and since Burmeister was a M.I.T. graduate student for certainly the May 1963 examination (and, like many before and after him, cast an eye on previous exam questions), it is pretty obvious where the exam questions must have come from.

________________________

General Examination
Advanced Economic Theory

Professors P. A. Samuelson and R. M. Solow
Friday, September 21, 1962

Do as many problems as you have time.

Derive the demand function, X_i = Dⁱ(I, p₁, …, p_n) ≥ 0 for a consumer with income I and having positive prices and having respectively preferences satisfying the following utility functions:
1. 1. U = k₁ log X₁ + … + k_n log X_n
  2. U = mX₀ +logX₁ [Be careful!]
  3. U = a₁X₁ + a₂X₂ + … + a_nX_n [where] a_i≥0

Extra credit

1. 1. U = Min (X₁/b₁, X₂/b₂, …, X_n/b_n)

A firm owning some fixed and non-transferable “capital” has a production function

Q = f(labor, land) = 20L^.5T^.25

It sells in a competitive market at $P_q. It rents labor in a competitive factor market at $W and rents land at $R.
What are its demand relations for factors, and its supply relation for output? What are its “profits” or “quasi-rents to owned capital.”
It will suffice for you to write down all the relations that define these desired functions and describe how they could be solved. (In other words, you don’t have to do the explicit solving.)

In a Hicksian general equilibrium model all income effects turn out to be negligible. Comment decisively on its

(a) Property of dynamic stability (or possible instability)
(b) Property of imperfect stability (or possible instability)
(c) Property of perfect stability (or possible instability)

Let H(X,y) be a function of non-negative vectors X(of dimension m) and y (of dimension n). Define X*, y* as a saddle point of H if

H(X*,y) ≥ H(X*,y*) ≥H(X,y*)

For all non-negative (X,y).
Prove that X* and y* are optimal vectors for a pair of dual linear programs if and only if they provide a saddle point for the function

H(X,y) = C’X+b’y – y’AX.

Show that a simple Leontief model is capable of producing any positive vector final demands (given enough labor) if and only if (I-A)^-1 is non-negative.

Consider the von-Neumann model with 3 activities and 4 commodities and with input matrix

$\text{A}=\left[ \begin{matrix} 0 & 1 & 0 \\ 1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \\ 0 & 1 & 0 \\ \end{matrix} \right]$ and output matrix $\text{B}=\left[ \begin{matrix} 1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \\ 0 & 2 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \\ \end{matrix} \right]$

Find the optimal activity and price vectors in the von-Neumann sense, and the associated expansion rate.

________________________

General Examination in Advanced Economic Theory: May 1963

Answer any 4 questions.

Suppose all of the N people in a market have identical indifference maps, that are homothetic (i.e., with unitary income elasticities everywhere). Let each j^th man have his endowment

$\left( \bar{Q}_{1}^{j},\bar{Q}_{2}^{j},\ldots ,\bar{Q}_{r}^{j} \right)$

1. 1. Show that the final equilibrium of exchange is quite independent of the distribution among men of the fixed totals
$\begin{array}{l}\bar{Q}_{1}^{1}+\bar{Q}_{1}^{2}+\ldots +\bar{Q}_{1}^{N}={{A}_{1}}\\...................................\\\bar{Q}_{r}^{1}+\bar{Q}_{r}^{2}+\ldots +\bar{Q}_{r}^{N}={{A}_{r}}\end{array}$
1. Show that the equilibrium prices can be found by treating any man as the single Robinson-Crusoe living under autarky.
2. What can you, therefore, state about the i) Imperfect, ii) Perfect, and iii) Dynamic stability of the equilibrium?
A Kaldor-Goodwin model defines[sic]
$\text{a}\frac{\text{dK}}{\text{dt}}=\beta \text{Y}-\text{K, }\left( \text{a,b,}\beta \right)>0$
$\text{b}\frac{\text{dY}}{\text{dt}}=\frac{\text{dK}}{\text{dt}}-\text{S}\left( \text{Y} \right)$
(i) Explain the meaning of each equation. (ii) Give an equation for its stationary equilibrium solution. (iii) What does its local stability and oscillation depend on? (iv) What shape for the only arbitrary function will give rise to unique-amplitude oscillation?
In Mitopia
$\text{C}+\frac{\text{dK}}{\text{dt}}=\sqrt{\text{KL}}\text{ and L = }{{\text{L}}_{0}}{{\text{e}}^{\text{gt}}}$ .
How must K(t) grow if C/L, per capita consumption, is to remain at a maximum constant level? What will then be the interest rate, and the relative share of labor?
A machine with a length of life T costs $f(T). The machine is known with certainty to yield a net income stream of $a per year steadily throughout its lifetime. Find the equation determining the optimal length of life of a machine under each of the following assumptions.
1. The instantaneous rate of interest in a perfect capital market is r; the length of life is chosen to maximize the present value of net cash flow (including initial cost).
2. The interest rate r is used to discount net income, and durability is chosen to maximize the capital value of a new machine per dollar of initial cost.
3. The internal rate of return (i.e. the discount rate that equates capital value and initial cost) is maximized.

Suppose that in cases (a) and (b) the interest rate is such that the capital value of the machine equals its initial cost. Show that all three solutions then coincide. Which is the “right” way to look at the problem?

In a Leontief system with n commodities and one primary factor, labor, let P_i be the money price of commodity i, P₀ the money wage, a_oithe direct labor input per unit output of commodity i, X_i the output of commodity i, and C_i the final demand for commodity i. Show that the increase in P_j/P₀ resulting from a unit increase in a_0iequals the increase in X_ineeded for a unit increase in C_j.
Consider an individual whose life is divided into two periods, Present and Future. He is endowed with some physical good in each period.
1. Show how to construct a supply curve relating the amount of saving he will do in the Present as a function of the rate of interest.
2. Show that in a society of identical individuals with no time preference, the equilibrium rate of interest is zero if corresponding to each individual with endowment X in the Present and Y in the Future, there is another individual with endowment Y in the Present and X in the Future.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Edwin Burmeister papers. Box 23, (unlabeled) Folder.

Tags Burmeister, Samuelson, Solow

M.I.T. Wing Nuts

M.I.T. Wingnut inspiration for Du Pont’s crusade against Paul Samuelson’s textbook, 1947

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-12-01

What is the natural habitat of wing-nuts and fanatical partisans of zombie economic ideas? While Economics in the Rear-View Mirror specializes in the collection and curation of artifacts bearing on the general academic environment within which economists have been trained in the United States since about 1870, there are moments when a field trip to the lunatic fringe is warranted. It is there where we can observe the margins of the chattering class, working politicians, and wealthy businessmen as they poke their noses into curriculum decisions and professional debates regarding the scope and methods of economics. As the vaudeville comedian Jimmy Durante cracked, “Everyone wants ta get inta da act.”

Executive summary:

Members of the M.I.T. Corporation hostile to Paul Samuelson’s textbook and even the President of M.I.T. appear to have found a kindred spirit in Rose Wilder Lane whose anti-Keynesian review of Lorie Tarshis’ textbook was published in 1947 by the Franco admirer and later John Birch activist Merwin K. Hart.

This post began innocently enough when I selected an exchange of letters concerning the teaching of the principles of economics at M.I.T. in general and the new textbook by Paul Samuelson in particular. The famous controversy involved members of the M.I.T. Corporation, the M.I.T. Administration, and the M.I.T. department of economics and social science and has been most ably presented by Yann Giraud and Roger Backhouse and in the literature they cite.

Yann Giraud. Negotiating the “Middle-of-the-Road” Position: Paul Samuelson, MIT, and the Politics of Textbook Writing, 1945-55. Paper included in MIT and the Transformation of American Economics, Annual Supplement to Volume 46, History of Political Economy edited by E. Roy Weintraub. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2014, pp. 134-152.

Earlier draft: The Political Economy of Textbook Writing: Paul Samuelson and the Making of the first Ten Editions of Economics (1945-1976). Working Paper 2011-18 of Université de Cergy Pontoise (France).

Giraud’s blog: https://ygiraud.wordpress.com

Also: Roger Backhouse’s Becoming Samuelson (Oxford University Press, 2017), chapter 26.

This post provides a few letters from four of the individuals involved in the Samuelson controversy to provide a taste of that discussion. What caught my eye and what I call the reader’s attention to in this post is the repeated reference to an unnamed critical review of another unabashedly Keynesian textbook, The Elements of Economics by Lorie Tarshis of Stanford University. It is worth noting that Samuelson’s textbook was already receiving incoming fire from members of the M.I.T. Corporation before that review was published in August 1947, so the attack on Tarshis was merely adding water to the Anti-Samuelson mill. The head of the economics department, Ralph Freeman, notes in his defense of Samuelson that the organization that had published the Tarshis review was known to have “a fascist flavor” and was run by a man named Hart who was “involved in some way in a treason charge during the war”. Seeing the words “fascist” and “treason”, I could not resist donning my investigative garb to uncover the back-story of the man Hart, his organization and the anti-Tarshis screed by the author unnamed in the letters. But first I share the sample letters from 1947 in the Samuelson controversy at MIT.

Dramatis Personae

Walter J. Beadle (Vice President, Treasurer and member of the Board of Directors at Du Pont and life member of the M.I.T. Corporation, 1943-88)

Lammot du Pont II (President of Du Pont (1926-40), Chairman of the Board of Directors and former member of the M.I.T. Corporation (1928-33))

President of M.I.T. Karl T. Compton (b. 14 September, 1887; d. 22 June, 1954)

Head of M.I.T.’s department of economics and social science, Ralph Evans Freeman (b. 23 July 1894; d. 12 May 1967)

Source (DuPont officers): “DuPont Officers Reelected, James New Treasurer Aide” in The Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware) April 22, 1947, p. 12.

Fun Fact:

The great-great grandfather of Lammot Du Pont, the chairman of the Board of Directors at Dupont in 1947, was Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a disciple of the Physiocrat author of the Tableau Oeconomique, François Quesnay.

The genealogical line from the Physiocrat du Pont de Nemours to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of DuPont in 1947.

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (b. 14 Dec 1739; d. 7 Aug 1817)

Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours (b. 24 June 1771; d. 31 Oct 1834)

Alfred V. du Pont (b. 11 Apr 1798; d. 4 Oct 1856)

Lammot du Pont I (b. 13 Apr 1831; d. 29 Mar 1884)

Lammot du Pont II (b. 12 Oct 1880; d. 24 Jul 1952)

Image Sources: Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours (Wikipedia Commons); Lamott Du Pont II in Du Pont: The Autobiography of an American Enterprise. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952. (Lammot Du Pont, p. 86).

_______________________

Beale to Compton
(original)

Walter J. Beadle
DuPont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

September 15, 1947

Dr. Karl T. Compton, President
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Dr. Compton:

When you were on vacation, Mr. C. E. Spencer, Jr. sent me a copy of the Economic Council Review of Books for August 1947. Since this seemed to point up better than anything I have read the general problem in connection with teaching of economics in this country, I sent it to Jim Killian in advance of our luncheon meeting and he in turn passed it on to Professor Freeman.

On the chance that you have not seen this review, I attach a copy of it which has just come to me from Mr. Lammot du Pont. I enclose also Mr. du Pont’s letter of transmittal dated September 12^th which I am sure will be of interest to you. As I told Jim at our Boston meeting, I acquainted Mr. du Pont with the developments in connection with the teaching of economics at M.I.T. because I know of his very sincere interest in the Institute as a life member of the Corporation.[sic, not listed as a Life Member At MIT’s website]

I hope that your vacation proved to be a very enjoyable and refreshing one.

With kind regards, I am

Sincerely,
[signed] Walter
Walter J. Beadle

WJB:k
enc.

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Lammot Du Pont to Beadle
(copy)

LAMMOT DU PONT
Du Pont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

September 12, 1947

Mr. Walter J. Beadle;
B u i l d i n g.

Dear Walter:

Your file is returned herewith, and there is also enclosed a leaflet of the National Economic Council, giving a review of college textbook, “The Elements of Economics,” by Lorie Tarshis. You can get an idea of the nature of the review by reading the few paragraphs on the first page, which I have marked.

I take it that this textbook is an aggravated example of what the M.I.T. professor [Paul Samuelson] has done in a milder way. You will note on page 7 a list of the colleges which have adopted this textbook, and I am pleased to note that M.I.T. is not among them. Will you use your judgment as to sending this copy of the review to Dr. Compton as an illustration of what can happen?

Recently, I was talking with an Economist, who is a professor at a well-known university in the east. I have entire confidence in this Economist’s truthfulness and accuracy, but maybe I did not understand him exactly right. The gist of what he told me was as follows:

At this university there are 11 professors in the Department of Economics. Of these, 7 are Leftist. Four, including himself, are what I would call “sound.” There are two vacancies among the 11 professorships, and it is indicated that they will be filled only with men who meet with the approval of the present 9 incumbents. This is called “a democratic process.” With the odds 7 to 2, it is a foregone conclusion that another Leftist will be added.

In addition to the above, my friend tells me that he has been advised by a man acting as Assistant to the President of the University, with respect to faculty appointments, that he, my friend, had better withdraw from the University, or look for a position elsewhere. My friend informs me that he does not intend to withdraw, and does not think they can oust him. He believes that it is his duty to remain at the University and do what he can to expound to students sound economics. The University is among those listed on page 7 of this leaflet.

I am not urging that you send this review to Dr. Compton, or that you send him this letter, but if you care to do so, you have my permission, for I don’t think I have violated any confidence in what I have written.

Yours sincerely,
(s) Lammot du Pont

LduP/MD

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Compton to Beadle
(copy)

September 18, 1947

Mr. Walter J. Beadle
du Pont Building
Wilmington 98, D.C. [sic]

Dear Walter:

Thanks ever so much for sending me the copy of the Economic Council Review of Books for August, which discusses the book by Professor Tarshis of Stanford University.

My brother Wilson showed me a copy of this while we were together at our family camp, and I had made a memorandum to send for a copy for my own use. It seems to me to be an exceedingly effective statement.

Incidentally, have you noticed the comment among the book reviews in the September issue of Fortune with reference to another book by one of Samuelson’s students [Lawrence Klein]?

I am just getting squared away after return from vacation and the process is somewhat delayed because I got mixed up in a fire and am still somewhat bandaged up,–nothing permanently serious, however.

With best regards,

Very sincerely yours
[unsigned]
President

KTC/L

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

December 15, 1947

Personal

Professor R.E. Freeman
Dept. of Econ. and Soc. Sci.

Dear Ralph:

Apropos of the discussions which we had some weeks ago about Professor Samuelson and the textbook on economics, I have accidentally run into several interesting discussions recently concerning the Keynesian theories of economics on the part of several groups of top economists. From these I gained the impression that Keynes’ theories were brilliant and stimulating but inclined to be based more on a logic derived from a limited set of postulates than on actual test from all the factors involved. The comment was made that Lord Keynes himself was sufficiently flexible to modify his views when the facts indicated to him that this was necessary, but that many of Keynes’ disciples have been so wedded to the beautiful logic that they have had a tendency to base their faith on this logic rather than on an objective evaluation of factors by which the conclusions might be tested.

The work of the American Economic Council [sic], (I am not sure that I have the name just right), was described as especially valuable and effective because of its objective search for facts, as opposed to argument on theory.

At a meeting with Harold Moulton some weeks ago I asked his opinion of Samuelson and he replied that Samuelson is a very brilliant young man but that he is a “dogmatist”. In this connection Moulton dug out the enclosed reprint which he thought might be helpful to us in our evaluation of economic research methods. I thought you might be interested in this, though you have perhaps already read it. Please return it at your convenience,

Very sincerely yours,
[unsigned]
President.

KTC/L

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

_______________________

Freeman to Compton
(original)

Personal

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of
Economics and Social Science

Cambridge, Mass.
17 December 1947

Dr. Karl T. Compton
Room 3-208
M.I.T.

Dear Dr. Compton:

Many thanks for your comments regarding Keynes, Samuelson et al. I was interested in Moulton’s brochure which I am returning herewith.

A good deal of misunderstanding has arisen because of a failure to distinguish between Keynesianism as a conceptual apparatus and Keynesianism as a policy. It is the former which has been adapted by the younger economists of this country such as Paul Samuelson—and many of the older ones as well. I use the word adapted, because some of the ideas of Keynes have been rejected. On the policy level two Keynesians may arrive at quite different conclusions.

The charge that such thinkers base their faith on logic rather than on facts, is to my mind unjustified. The classical economists built up their whole system on the assumption of full employment. The modern approach is not only to question this assumption but also to try to understand why our economy so often fails to provide full employment.

It has been a common belief in the past that because the rate of saving was assumed to vary with the interest rate, there could be no under or over savings—that changes in the interest rate would provide the necessary correction. A study of the facts indicates that this position was erroneous. Much of “modern economics” is concerned with the implications of under-saving and over-saving.

I have taken the liberty of enclosing a recent bulletin of the United Business Service for which I write the first page every week. This brief article designed for popular consumption entitled “How Inflation Could Be Halted” illustrates the use of the savings concept in analyzing current problems. Incidentally, Moulton in the latter part of the pamphlet you sent me indicates that he has incorporated into his thinking the Keynesian approach to the saving process.

It is significant, I believe, that the new approach to economic problems has developed as our knowledge of the facts of the economic process has become more extensive. Today we know vastly more about what is going on in economic society than we did a half or even a quarter of a century ago. The young men who have been and are now the main fact gatherers are in overwhelming numbers using the Keynesian concepts as tools of analysis.

The “American Economic Council” [sic] to which you refer in your letter is I believe an organization with a Fascist flavor which is of course opposed to the “new economics.” If I have identified the organization correctly, it is a front for a man named Hart who was involved in some way in a treason charge during the war. It recently issued a review of a book by Tarshish [sic]—a review which was grossly unfair to the writer.

I am not sure what Moulton means by referring to Paul Samuelson as “dogmatic.” Paul certainly is capable of supporting his views with factual data and reasoned arguments. Moulton’s effort to defend a recent Brookings publication—“A National Labor Policy”—against the criticism of Wayne Morse was not an effort which would inspire confidence in Moulton’s own objectivity.

I don’t know whether Bob Caldwell passed to you the information that Paul will be presented with the John Bates Clark Medal at the coming meetings of the American Economic Association in Chicago. This medal is being presented for the first time by the Association to the living economist under 40 “who has made the most distinguished contribution to the main body of economic thought and knowledge.” The name of the recipient of the award will not be published until December 28.

Probably you will agree with me that we don’t need to worry too much about what the economists of the country think about Paul Samuelson.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Ralph
Ralph E. Freeman

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

_______________________

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

December 19, 1947

Professor Ralph E. Freeman
Department of Economics and Social Science
M. I. T.

Dear Ralph:

Thanks ever so much for your letter and the enclosed copy of United Business Service.

One way or another I seem to be getting some elements of an education in economics, long deferred. At least no one can criticize my own education in this field on the ground that it has not brought contact with plenty of divergent points of view.

I was glad to have your distinction between conceptual apparatus and policy in reference to the influence of Lord Keynes.

I am delighted to know that Paul Samuelson is to receive the John Bates Clark Medal. That, coming from the American Economic Association, is certainly an honor and should be a reassurance to some of our “worriers”.

With many thanks,

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned]
President

KTC/h

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

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Back to the Chase

Thanks to my reading of Giraud and Backhouse, it didn’t take much effort to establish the identity of the unnamed reviewer of Tarshis, none other than the libertarian diva, Ms. Rose Wilder Lane (b. 5 December 1886; d. 30 October 1968). Economics in the Rear-View Mirror has posted the story of Rose Wilder Lane’s 1946 report for the Foundation of Economic Education on Milton Friedman and George Stigler’s famous pamphlet on rent-control, Roofs or Ceilings. Lane was certain that Messrs. Friedman and Stigler were communists in deep disguise…really. Interested readers can find out more about her together with the complete text to the third printing of her 1947 review of Tarshis in the rich paper with its document-filled appendix by Levy, Peart and Albert (2012).

David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart and Margaret Albert. Economic Liberals as Quasi-Public Intellectuals: The Democratic Dimension in Marianne Johnson (ed.) Documents on Government and the Economy Vol. 30-B (2012) of Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, pp. 1-116.

Especially the transcription of the Rose Wilder Lane review of the textbook The Elements of Economics by Lorie Tarshis published in Economic Council Review of Books, Vol. IV, No. 8, August 1947), pp. 49-64.

More about Merwin Kimball Hart can be found at:

Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy. F. A. Hayek and the “Individualists”, Chapter 2 in F. A. Hayek and the Modern Economy: Economic Organization and Activity, eds. Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), especially pp. 30-37.

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But wait, there’s more

For those wanting to learn even more about the publisher of the National Economic Council’s Review of Books, Mr. Merwin Kimball Hart (b. 25 June 1881; d. 30 November 1962), U.S. government files are available at archive.com that were obtained through Ernie Lazar’s FOIA applications. There you will find around six hundred pages of F.B.I. investigative reports, letters, and newspaper clippings regarding the Merwin Hart case that are easily consulted on line.

The tidbit that I find that ties this post together is the clear evidence that Lammot Du Pont was a financial supporter of Hart’s National Economic Council precisely at the time that he and the Du Pont vice-president and lifetime member of the M.I.T. corporation were on a crusade against Paul Samuelson’s textbook. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Links to the Merwin Kimball Hart files

Hart, Merwin K.—NYC 100-21056 (243 pages)

14 page New York City F.B.I. investigative report November 17, 1942
6 page Albany F.B.I. report Jan 22, 1943 on Utica background of Merwin K. Hart

Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials (278 pages)

[note:it is necessary to view the file in single-page mode, when in double page mode only the odd numbered pages are displayed.]

Hart, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142 (58 pages)

Hart, Merwin K.—Army Intel Report (48 pages)

A selection from these FOIA files now follows:

_______________________

A Memorandum for the Director of the F.B.I. (February 8, 1940) prepared by E. A. Tamm

The FBI report refers to a woman informant working within the New York State Economic Council.

“From what can be gathered from the informant the Council was apparently originally engaged in a fight against Communism. It then became involved in the fight to support the Franco rebellion in Spain, and has now passed into not only opposition to the present Federal administration but has gone further and become actually opposed to the existing form of government in this country. The inner circle of the NYSEC in one way or another is now considering setting up an independent union movement to combat the CIO and other so-called radical unions, and to set up what would amount to company-controlled unions.

The informant advises [deletion of 2/3 line] Hart, John Eoghan Kelly, Jane Anderson, and various Catholic priests, she is convinced of the existence of a plot, presumably centering around the Council and directed by Catholic church leaders to reestablish the Holy Roman Empire with certain nations so aligned as to make it possible for the Catholic church to control the balance of power through its control of the government of Spain.” Page 3 of memo

[…]

“Hart is general manager of the Cream of Wheat Corporation, and his home is understood to be at Utica, New York…The informant expresses her belief that Hart is a sincere, fiery patriot who honestly believes the country is in serious danger from a “red menace.” However, she stated he is being used by certain Fordham University clerics who decide on certain action in conferences with John Eoghan Kelly, Allen Zoll and similar persons, and then prevail on Hart to make such contacts, presumably Protestant, as will facilitate the promotion of the action desired.

“Hart has written a book entitled ‘America—Look at Spain’, and from purported copies of correspondence exhibited by the informant it would appear that this book was partly edited by the Catholic clergy in so far as that portion of it which treats the Catholic church is concerned. Hart has visited Spain, Germany and Italy and has made an intensive study of conditions in these places. He has communicated with the Bureau in the past relative to cooperating on matters pertaining to the national defense. By letter dated April 10, 1939 he wrote the Bureau requesting a copy of the report on the German-American Bund investigation, and was advised that same was not available, and his letter was referred to the Department.

It is impossible to fully set out all the connections that Hart may possibly have, but it is probably safe to say from those he is known to have that he is connected at least with every group of any prominence in the United States whose aims are anti-administration or anti-Communist.” Page 5 of memo.

[…]

“DuPonts of Wilminton, Delaware:

The informant advises that these persons were at one time strong financial supporters of the NYSEC but have not contributed recently.” Page 21 of memo.

Source: Memorandum for the Director of the F.B.I. (19 February 1940) in the Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation, N.Y.C. Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials.

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From an investigative report dated July 2, 1942

“…On January 27,1940 Confidential Informant [deleted] was interviewed by Assistant Director E. J. Connelley regarding any information informant might have concerning MERVIN K. HART. Informant informed [ca. 2 lines deleted] whose offices are located in Room 417, 17 East 442 Street, New York City. Informant advised that she met subject HART through [deleted] who was an acquaintance of HART as a customer of the bank [deleted] started to work for HART [line deleted] HART advised informant that he had just returned from Spain where he was in touch with the Nationalist Leader and believed that they were saving the world form Communism. He wanted to write a book to show that the same thing might occur here in the United States.

She advised that HART had published a book entitled AMERICA LOOKS AT SPAIN which was published by Kennedy and Company. HART advised informant that in this book he wanted to show that Communism was overthrowing the world and that something must be done about it in this country. In connection with the luncheon held for MARTIN DIES, which was mentioned previously, [one line deleted] this luncheon for Dies was given by the New York State Economic Council at the Bellmore Hotel, New York City. Informant advised that JAMES WHEELER-HILL, Second in Command of the German-American Bund, was there along with [deleted] The luncheon was open to the public. She stated that the presence of [deleted] and JAMES WHEELER-HILL did not mean that they were connected with the Economic Council as tickets were on sale to the public; however, informant said that the people actively working for HART considered [deleted] and WHEELER-HILL as martyrs fighting for a cause.

Informant said [deleted] he formed the American Union for Nationalist Spain and, in that connection, was constantly in touch with various religious leaders. Informant, continuing, said that the Council is financed through subscriptions and donations made by the Texas Company and by Lamont [sic] Dupont. According to informant, HART’s most intimate associate is Captain JOHN T. TRAVER, the head of the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Report date: 2 July 1942.

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From November 17, 1942 FBI Internal Security Case Report
Merwin K. Hart

…Confidential Informant [deleted] stated that she first met HART during the winter of 1938-1939 at a party at the home of [deleted] of the famous [deleted] of China. HART at that time had just returned from Spain. [Deleted] had just returned from Munich and was disgusted with the Chamberlain appeasement policy. She thereafter disliked HART’S theories from the start. For quite some time HART continued to send her a copy of his Economic Letter, which she said she tore up and refused to pay any attention to it. According to [deleted] HART has constantly criticized the ROOSEVELT administration; is violently anti-Communistic; has said that HITLER has done some good things for Germany; that the German American Bund is a harmless organization; and that the Franco Policy is satisfactory. She said further, however, that since December 7, 1941 HART has been openly advocating unity withi9nAmerica. He confines his criticism now only to Government spending and then only to expenditures which are not for the war effort. However, she believes he is still a Fascist in his theories of Government but is smart enough to hold his tongue now. She said that a while ago he was so anti-Communistic he was literally seeing “a Communist under every chair.” She believes he might still be regarded as dangerous in that his constant criticisms creates a disturbing element. She does not believe that he is subsidized by foreign funds. She said further that HART had told her in the past of attending some Bund meetings simply to find out what went on in the meetings. [Deleted] was of the opinion that HART’S theories are too extreme, and that HART has been and in her opinion still is against labor agitation…”

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Report date: 17 November 1942.

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Memo for J. Edgar Hoover Jan 26, 1944.

Item in summary table of correspondence with Merwin K. Hart:

From Lammot du Pont to M.K.H. 1/2/42. Encloses check for $4,000. “Subscription to the work of the organization for 1942”

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Memo to Hoover (26 January, 1944).

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Newspaper clipping, syndicated columnist Marquis W. Childs

Marquis W. Childs. The State of the Nation.
[FBI time stamp: Jan 15, 1948]

Washington.

The self-appointed thought police are on the loose again, their attack this time is directed against a textbook on economics used in many of the leading universities of the country.

The attack began with the National Economic Council, whose head, Merwin K. Hart, has been one of the principal American supporters of Spain’s dictator, Franco. It took the form of a so-called review of the book—“The Elements of Economics” by Prof. Lorie Tarshis of Stanford University.

The review twists the meaning of the book to try to show that its author supports the government spending theories of the late Lord Keynes. Therefore, the review concludes, the book must be subversive and un-American.

Wide circulation of this review through the mails was only the first step. In Arkansas, an American Legion post and something called the Arkansas Free Enterprise association have taken the next step. They have demanded an investigation of the textbook, used in economics classes at the University of Arkansas.

President Lewis W. Jones of the university replied that he thought the sanest procedure would be to submit the book to an impartial group capable of judging it, such as the American Economics [sic] association. He added that he saw nothing subversive in the text, which he considered a thoroughly objective study of the economic system.

Here is a pattern of behavior that endangers fundamental American freedoms of speech and thought. The concept of thought police, whether amateur or professional, is repugnant to free Americans.

The American legion recently held here in Washington a counter-subversive seminar. Seventy-five representatives from Legion posts around the country attended the three-day session. They heard lectures by some so-called experts on Communism. It is interesting incidentally, that among these experts are several men who were once Communists. Having at one time embraced a totalitarian faith, they now make a profession of denouncing it.

Seven State Legion organizations have held or will hold such seminars, taking their cue from the National organization. Both Georgia and Indiana have just had two-day sessions on subversion.

If one is to judge from the speech made by Georgia’s Rep. James C. Davis at the meeting in Atlanta, it was given over entirely in the subversion of communism. They might well have devoted part of their time to such home-grown subversion as the Ku Klux Klan. It is a fairly safe guess that there are more Klansmen than Communists in Georgia.

Training Legionnaires to “spot and counter subversive activities, as National Commander O’Neil put it, is a hazardous business. The FBI gives its agents months of instructions in such matters, and they are told to avoid possible infringement of fundamental rights of speech and thought. Yet here we have amateurs turned loose after two days to do sleuthing on their own.

An example of what this can mean occurred in California at about the time the Legion was holding its counter-subversive seminar in Washington. Twenty-five men wearing Legion hats bearing the insignia of Glendale, Cal., Post No. 127 invaded the meeting of a Democratic club and demanded that it break up immediately.

A slight error had been made. The club was duly chartered by the County Democratic Central committee. In the midst of the indignation and the corresponding embarrassment that followed, State Legion Commander Harry L. Foster condemned the act.

“The rights of free speech and assembly,” he said, and it might be a good idea to frame these words in every Legion hall, “are part of our cherished Bill of Rights and we of the Legion should be the first to insist on these rights. Should there is an unlawful meeting, it should be reported to the duly constituted civil authorities for their action.

“Thought police on the Japanese model are an insult to American integrity. That is especially true when zealous guardians of pure thought seek to protect the young. If young men and women in college who have grown up under the advantages of the American system cannot use judgment for themselves, then the system has failed. The generation that fought the recent war does not need to be sheltered by meddling zealots. They are a lot more clear-eyed and clear–headed than most of their elders.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. N.Y.C. File No. 100-21056 page 179. Copy from the FOIA file is partially illegible and the newspaper was not identified. A less edited version of the article was published in The Eau Claire Leader (Wisconsin), Sunday, January 18, 1948, p. 12.

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J. Edgar Hoover’s Memo
March 29, 1948

100-128996-94

Date: March 29, 1948

To: [deleted]

BY SPECIAL MESSENGER

Attention: Reading Center

From: John Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Subject: MERWIN KIMBALL HART, wa,
Mervin Kimball Hart
National Economic Council, Inc.
INTERNAL SECURITY-X

Reference is made to your communication of March 17, 1948 your [deleted] where you informed that [deleted] was en route to New York City at the invitation of the National Economic Council.

[paragraph deletion]

Biographical information, the accuracy of which is unknown, reflects that Merwin Kimball Hart was born on June 21, 1881, at Utica, New York. He graduated from Harvard in 1904, receiving an A. B. degree. In 1906 he was elected for a two year term to the General Assembly of the State of New York. Hart, by this time, was married to Catherine Margaret Crouse of Utica. He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1911 and became a member of the law firm Hart and Senior. In 1914 Hart and several prominent businessmen in Utica organized the Utica Mutual Insurance Company. A few years later when the United States entered the war, Hart, although possessing defective eyesight, enlisted in the Army and when released in 1918 he had attained the rank of Captain in a non-combatant unit. After the war Hart devoted several years attempting to place the Hart and Crouse Company in Utica on a sound financial basis. This firm, which manufactures furnaces and heating equipment, was founded by Hart’s father and Hart’s wife’s father. The firm is presently owned by other persons. Following this, Hart became active in numerous movements to reduce expenditures in the State government of New York. Subsequently in about 1932 he organized the New York State Economic Council, now known as the National Economic Council, Inc., with offices in New York City and Utica, New York. His annual salary from the inception thereof was reported to be $10,000. The organization was originally financed by manufacturing and financial concerns located in the State of New York.

Hart was described by an old acquaintance as having come from one of the old established families in Utica, was a brilliant and well educated man was thoroughly patriotic and loyal, and taken part in numerous business enterprises, and was one time a member of one of the leading law firms in Utica. In this latter connection this informant stated it was not known whether Hart went to law school or that he ever appeared in court as a lawyer.

Another source stated Hart was very influential and respected in his own community, but had few intimate friends. He said Hart was known as the type who knew “everybody that counted” and acted in a formal and aloof manner. His personal unpopularity in Utica was attributed in part to the fact that he was too outspoken, tactless, bull-headed, and possessing a peculiar type of personality.

Hart was described as believing in the capitalistic system and particularly opposed to Communism and the New Deal Administration. It was said that the citizens of Utica generally considered him sincere and 100% American in spite of his unfavorable publicity. Some people, it was claimed who did not know him, might think him to be opposed to the country’s war aims at that time.

Information of a current nature regarding the National Economic Council, Inc., is not known. From various sources in the past it was described as being an organization of about 17,000 members drawn from throughout the State of New York. Its headquarters were said to have been located at 17 East 42^nd Street, New York City, with a branch office at Utica. A folder distributed by the Council in 1940 described as the Council’s purposes: 1. To curb Government spending; 2. To reduce oppressive tactics; 3. To oppose subversive groups; 4. To oppose stifling restrictions of private enterprises, and 5. To promote true recovery. The officers of the Council as listed in the folder are as follows: President—Merwin K. Hart; Treasurer—George D. Graves; Vice-President— [name missing] Chase National Bank, New York City; Chairman of the Finance Committee—William Fellows Morgan, New York City; Vice-Presidents—Elon Hooker—President Hooker Electrochemical Company, New York City; Thomas M. Peters, New York City; Alexander D. Falck, Chairman, Corning Glass Works, Elmira, New York.

A confidential source advised that early in 1940 the headquarters of the Council seemed to be a meeting place for groups of people who were apparently interested in setting up a totalitarian form of government. This organization was also said to furnish material to Reverend Charles Coughlin for his use. Starting in late 1939 it was reported that the Council devoted about 90% of its efforts to the distribution of propaganda on behalf of the Spanish Republican Government.

The answer to question “d.” is not known to this Bureau. Accordingly, appropriate inquiry is being instituted in an effort to ascertain the desired information. Upon receipt of the results of this inquiry I shall promptly advise you.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation, N.Y.C. Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials. pp. 187-189.

_______________________

WASHINGTON CITY NEWS SERVICE
[teletype]
File Time Stamp: August 14, 1950

MERWIN K. HART, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL, INC., SAID TODAY THE WORD “DEMOCRACY” IS CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH COMMUNISM AND SHOULD BE DISCARDED.

HE TOLD THE SPECIAL HOUSE COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING LOBBYING THAT THE U.S. IS A REPUBLIC AND THAT “IT IS TIME FOR US TO RETURN TO THAT CONCEPTION.”

THE TERM “DEMOCRACY” GAINED ITS CURRENT STATUS AFTER IT WAS USED BY GEORGEI DIMITROV AT A MEETING OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL IN MOSCOW IN 1935, HART SAID.

REPEATING WHAT HE SAID IN A SPEECH TO THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB OF NEW YORK IN 1940, HART TOLD THE COMMITTEE:

“I WONDER SOMETIMES IF ONE OF THE CAUSES OF OUR TROUBLE TODAY DOES NOT ARISE FROM THE FACT THAT WE HAVE BEEN OVER-DRILLED INTO BELIEVING WE ARE A DEMOCRACY, THIS, TOO, MAY BE ONE OF THE LATEST ‘INSIDIOUS WILES OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE…IT IS TIME TO BRUSH ASIDE THIS WORD WITH ITS ‘CONNOTATIONS.’”

HART WAS CALLED BEFORE THE LOBBY COMMITTEE BECAUSE OF THE EFFORTS MADE BY HIS ORGANIZATION TO INFLUENCE LEGISLATION IN WHICH IT IS INTERESTED. THE COUNCIL IS CLASSIFIED BY BOTH DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN AS RIGHT-WING.

IN ONE OF SEVERAL PREVIOUS STATEMENTS MADE BY HART, WHICH WERE PUT INTO THE COMMITTEE RECORD, HE SAID THERE IS AN “EXTREMELY ACTIVE GROUP” ATTEMPTING TO CONVERT THE UNITED STATES FROM A REPUBLIC TO A DEMOCRACY—“THAT IS, FROM A REPRESENTATIVE FORM OF GOVERNMENT INTO A MOBOCRACY, GOVERNED EVENTUALLY BY A DICTATOR.”

ALSO PUT INTO THE COMMITTEE RECORD WERE NUMEROUS EXCHANGES OF LETTERS IN WHICH CONTRIBUTIONS AND GIFTS TO THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL WERE DISCUSSED.

THE LETTERS SHOWED THAT TWO OF THE ACTIVE CONTRIBUTORS TO THE COUNCIL ARE LAMMOT DU PONT AND IRENEE DU PONT, BOTH OF WILMINGTON, DEL. THE RECORDS SHOWED THAT IRENEE DU PONT GAVE THE COUNCIL $11,000 IN 1948 TO PAY FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS TO PAMPHLETS THAT WERE SENT TO COLLEGES, CHURCHES AND LIBRARIES.

HART SAID IN ONE LETTER TO FORMER U.S. SEN. JOESPH R. GRUNDY, OF BRISTOL, PA., THAT THE COUNCIL’S LEGAL STAFF HAD FOUND A METHOD OF HELPING ITS CONTRIBUTORS SAVE ON THEIR INCOME TAX PAYMENTS.

“MAY I SAY THAT WHILE UNDER A RULING OF THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT OUR NON-NEW DEAL NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL IS NOT ABLE TO OFFER THE DEDUCTIBILITY PRIVILEGE TO ITS CONTRIBUOTRS, YET WE ARE ABLE TO GET SUBSTANTIAL BENEFIT FROM THE FACT THAT A CONTRIBUTION MADE TO US OF MONEY TO PURCHASE SUBSCRIPTIONS AT $10 EACH TO OUR COUNCIL PUBLICATIONS TO GO TO EDUCATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IS DEDUCTIBLE UNDER THE INCOME TAX LAW,” HART WROTE GRUNDY.

HART’S LETTER SAID THAT FROM TIME TO TIME GRUNDY HAD SHOWN INTEREST IN THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL. THE FORMER PENNSYLVANIA SENATOR WAS INVITED TO MAKE A “FAIRLY SUBSTANTIAL” CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL.

THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE PRODUCED AT THE COMMITTEE HEARING TO SHOW WHAT GRUNDY’S REPSONSE WAS.

6/21—N122P

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.

ADD 1 LOBBYING (122P)

THE HOUSE LOBBY INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE DISCLOSED THAT CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION ABOUT ONE OF ITS SECRET MEETINGS HAD LEAKED OUT TO A LOBBY WHICH IT IS INVESTIGATING.

HARRY S. BARGER, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL, DECLINED TO TELL THE COMMITTEE HOW HE GOT INSIDE INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMMITTEE’S JANUARY 17 MEETING.

IN A MEMO FROM BARGER TO ERWIN K. HART, NEC PRESDIENT, BARGER SAID “A FRIEND OF MINE” SAW A REPORT OF THE MEETING. BARGER DECLINED TO NAME THE FRIEND AND ASKED THE COMMITTEE FOR A RULING ON WHETHER HE WOULD BE COMPELLED TO ANSWER.

CHAIRMAN BUCHANAN SAID THE PROBLEM WOULD BE TAKEN UP IN CLOSED SESSION.

IN BARGER’S MEMO, INTRODUCED AS EVIDENCE, HE WROTE HART THAT THE COMMITTEE HAD FOUND THAT $90,000 HAD BEEN CONTRIBUTED TO NEC “FROM THE DUPONTS,” AND THAT THE COMMITTEE THOUGHT NEC WAS “SOMEWHAT SUBVERSIVE IN CHARACTER.”

BARGER WROTE THAT “THE CIO AND KINDRED SPIRITS” WERE RUNNING THE COMMITTEE AND “THAT THE SETUP SHOULD BE VERY CAREFULLY EXPOSED IF AND WHEN REPRESENTATIVES OF THE COUNCIL ARE CALLED BEFORE THE BUCHANAN COMMITTEE X X X.”

REVELATION OF THE MEMO BROUGHT SHARP COMMENTS FROM COMMITTEE MEMBERS, ESPECIALLY REP. CLYDE DOYLE, D., CAL., WHO DECLARED “I EMPHATICALLY RESENT” THE CHARGE THAT THE COMMITTEE IS UNDER DOMINATION OF ANY ONE.

BARGER SAID THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMMITTEE’S SECRET MEETING “WAS GIVEN TO ME IN CONFIDENCE” AND COULD HAVE COME FROM ANY ONE OF “THREE OR FOUR FRIENDS.”

“I DON’T THINK I SHOULD BE CALLED UPON TO NAME MY SOURCES ANY MORE THAN A NEWSPAPER MAN SHOULD BE,” HE SAID.

6/21—WM611P

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.

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And no counterrevolution would be complete without the guns
Reported June 1950 in the Washington Post

It was brought out, however, that Hart warned subscribers in his economic council letter in January, 1948, to arm themselves with pistols and rifles to resist the Communist threat.

“We have one concrete suggestion to make to every citizen who is impressed by the potential danger,” he wrote. “Let him possess himself of one or more guns making sure they are in good working condition and that other members of his family know how to use them.”

After the letter was read, Hart explained it had been written after a trip to Europe. He said it seemed to him that laws against the possession of firearms discriminate against law-abiding citizens because Communists and others ignore them.

Washington Post clipping “circa 6/_/50, p. 5.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.

Tags FreemanRE, HartMK, Samuelson, Tarshis, Wilder Lane

Cal Tech Columbia Fields M.I.T. Michigan Princeton Stanford

Columbia. Memo advocating the establishment of an Industrial Relations Section. Wolman, 1944

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-11-18

The following brief memo written by Leo Wolman was commissioned in 1943 by an informal committee to provide a case for establishing an Industrial Relations Institute at Columbia. Besides identifying the existing centers of industrial relations research and teaching in the U.S. and Canada, Wolman also points to the key role played by “C. J. Hicks, the dean of American industrial relations men, adviser to the Rockefellers on policies and problems in this field and, until his retirement some 15 years ago, the director of labor relations for the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey.”

_____________________

Leo Wolman, Biographical Note

1890, Feb. 24. Born, Baltimore, Md.
1914. Ph.D. in political economy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.
1916. Published The Boycott in American Trade Unions. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press
1918. Appointed head of section on production statistics, War Industries Board
1919. Attached to American peace mission, Paris, France
1919-1928. Member, faculty, New School for Social Research, New York, N.Y.
1920-1931. Director of research, Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union
1920-1934. Editor, Journal of American Statistics Association
circa 1925. Became freelance researcher for the National Bureau of Economic Research, formally joining the staff in 1931 and later becoming director-at-large for research. NBER publications by Leo Wolman.
1931-1958. Professor of economics, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.
1933. Appointed to staff of National Recovery Administration
1936. Published Ebb and Flow in American Trade Unionism. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research
1961, Oct. 2. Died, New York, N.Y.

Source: Library of Congress. Leo Wolman Papers. Biographical Note.

_____________________

COPY TO DR. FACKENTHAL

October 23, 1944

Dean George B. Pegram,
201 Low Memorial Library.

Dear Dean Pegram:

I enclose a copy of a statement prepared by Professor Wolman on “Industrial Relations Sections or Departments in American Universities”. This was prepared in compliance with the recommendation made by the informal committee that met last year to consider the possibility of our setting up an Industrial Relations Institute at Columbia. I have had some two dozen copies of this statement mimeographed. These will be available for distribution if you plan to call another meeting to explore this matter further.

Faithfully yours,

_____________________

Industrial Relations Sections or Departments

During the past 15 years, a number of American universities, and one Canadian, have organized sections or departments of industrial relations. The earliest of these was the Industrial Relations Section of Princeton University. Since 1930, similar sections have been established at the University of Michigan, Stanford, California Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Queens University, Canada. These sections are integral parts of the graduate departments of the several institutions. The moving spirit in initiating and finding financial resources for the sections, already established, was C. J. Hicks, the dean of American industrial relations men, adviser to the Rockefellers on policies and problems in this field and, until his retirement some 15 years ago, the director of labor relations for the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey.

The purposes of this departure were several—to keep members of the faculty and students abreast of the very rapid developments in this important area of private and public policy, to make available to employers, managers, labor, and public officials comparative data as to practices, rules, procedures and policies, to enable students desiring to specialize in labor, labor relations and related subjects to observe and study the practical workings of industrial relations, to push forward the boundaries of knowledge through research, and to establish a closer relation between the scientific activities of universities and the problems of industry, labor, government, and the public. In carrying out these purposes, the various sections have built up libraries of current materials, have published studies dealing with current developments, such as the reemployment of veterans, or of historical importance, such as labor banking in the United States, have trained graduate students, and have held conferences, annual as a rule, for persons working in labor relations.

Depending on their location, age, and industrial environment, the sections now in operation have emphasized different practices. California Technology, operating in a region where large-scale industry is relatively new and personnel men are scarce, has devoted much of its time and resources to bringing to bear the knowledge and experience of other parts of the country on the problems and needs of Southern California. The Massachusetts Institute, operating in an area concerned with unemployment and industrial contraction, has concentrated on research in wages, labor mobility, unemployment, and the like. But all of the sections study, teach, and write about the large issues of private and public policy.

The funds for these enterprises come largely from business, usually in the form of annual contributions pledged for periods of 3 or 5 years. Occasionally a specific piece of research is financed by one of the Foundations but this source of funds has not been counted on for current expenses. Contributions by labor unions have been only a small fraction of total income, though they generally participate in the conferences, and make use of available materials.

There can be little question that the establishment of an industrial relations section at Columbia (associated with the faculties of Political Science and Business) would confer many benefits upon the University. It would make available to students in this field facilities, publications, and contacts with labor and industry which they now lack. It would open up for graduate students new opportunities for employment. It would make available to the university facilities and funds for research. It would create for interested numbers of the faculty, working in the related areas of labor economics, theory, public law, sociology, and labor law, the occasions for using the materials, experience, and problems of industry, labor, and government, not now available to them. It would enable the University to enlarge the range of its public service by serving some of the needs of the enormous and variegated industry, located in this city and the surrounding industrial area of New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York State.

The funds for such an undertaking are probably available in industry. At any rate the other universities had no difficulty raising money. What is needed at Columbia is endorsement of the idea by the faculty, administration, and trustees and the appointment of a small committee instructed to make the plans, raise the funds and find the man capable of directing a section of industrial relations at Columbia.

Leo Wolman

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Faculty. Box 2, Folder “Department of Economics—Faculty. Beginning Jan. 1, 1944”.

Image Source: Detail from a faculty group picture (early 1930’s). Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Box 9, Folder “Photos”.

Tags HicksCJ, Wolman

Economics Programs Faculty Regulations M.I.T.

M.I.T. “Industrial Economics” Ph.D. name changed to “Economics”, Economics S.M. recognized as exit ramp, 1965

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-11-09

Somewhat surprising is the late date (1965!) of the name-change for the economics Ph.D. at M.I.T. from “Industrial Economics” to “Economics”. Also interesting in the transcribed memorandum below is the request to lower the math and science prerequisites for the economics S.M. to that of the Ph.D. in order to facilitate the graceful, early exit of graduate students unlikely to complete the Ph.D.

____________________

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Department of Economics and Social Science

MEMORANDUM

February 5, 1965

To: Committee on Graduate School Policy
From: Robert L. Bishop, Head, Department of Economics and Social Science

For some time now, there has been a strong sentiment in our Department that our graduate degree programs should be changed and supplemented. The changes that we should now like to propose officially will require action by the Faculty and the Corporation, because they involve changes in degree titles, in one instance a change in prerequisites and content of the degree, and in another instance the addition of a new degree. On the other hand, the changes are not really of a radical nature and will not involve any additional staff or any augmenting of the numbers of our graduate students.

At present we have programs for a Ph.D. in Industrial Economics, a Ph.D. in Political Science, and an S.M. in Economics and Engineering or in Economics and Science. Our proposals are: (1) to change the title of the Ph.D. in Industrial Economics to a Ph.D. in Economics; (2) to substitute for the present S.M. degrees a single S.M. in Economics, with admission requirements the same as for the Ph.D. in Economics; and (3) to add an S.M. in Political Science, having an analogous relationship to the existing Ph.D. in Political Science.

Dropping the adjective “Industrial” from the title of our Economics Ph.D. is merely a belated recognition of the considerable broadening of that program that has taken place since it was first established in the years just prior to World War II. At that time, the designation of Industrial Economics appropriately reflected the limited kind of study that was then visualized. Since then, however, our program has expanded in its scope and diversity so that the original designation has become a decided anachronism for the majority of our Ph.D. recipients.

Even in the beginning, as now, the admission requirements for our Economics Ph.D. have differed from those in most Departments, in that they did not include the amount of mathematics and science taken by M.I.T. undergraduates. Instead, only one full year of college mathematics and one full year of college work in science have been required. These requirements reflect, of course, a desire to make our program accessible to most Economics majors in liberal arts colleges. The requirements for our present S.M. degrees, by contrast, constitute essentially the subjects taken by an undergraduate in the Economics option of Course XIV. It is those admission requirements that we propose to change, so that a candidate for the Ph.D. might alternatively be a candidate for an S.M.

Professional training for a career in Economics is such that the Ph.D. has really become the essential degree for anyone who aspires to the fullest professional status. Nor is it our intention to admit candidates solely for the S.M., except in very special circumstances. Over the years, however, we have felt the desirability of being free to award and S.M. in Economics to some students. These include some foreign students, often connected with research programs at the Center for International Studies, who can profit significantly from graduate study at M.I.T. but who are unable to stay long enough for the full Ph.D. program. In all frankness, too, it must be confessed that we have sometimes wished that we were free to divert a Ph.D. candidate toward the lesser degree because of inadequacies of performance after enrollment at the institute. Naturally, the student whose performance is acutely disappointing should not be given any favorable consideration. In many cases, however, performance is not up to the high standard that I think we have maintained for the Ph.D., but still high enough to merit continuance for an S.M.

The reasons supporting a new S.M. degree in Political Science are exactly the same. The only difference here is that there is no S.M. of any kind available in Political Science.

These changes involving S.M. degrees are also in line with some changes that we are simultaneously proposing to the Committee on Curricula with respect to our undergraduate degrees in Course XIV. It is being proposed that these degrees be redesignated more simply as in Economics (Course XIV-A) or in Political Science (Course XIV-B). A copy of these proposals is attached.

Provided that both the undergraduate and graduate program changes are approved, we shall then adopt the same distinction between Course XIV-A and Course XIV-B at the graduate level as at the undergraduate. This will achieve the important administrative reform of distinguishing, as is not now the case, the Economics and Political Science graduate students.

As to the details of the revised graduate degrees, I enclose alternative catalogue copy that would replace the descriptions on pages 142-144 in the present catalogue.

To the extent that the Committee on Graduate School Policy may wish some further discussion of these changes, my colleagues and I will be very pleased to provide it.

RLB:e

Source: MIT Institute Archives. Department of Economics records. Box 1, Folder “Comm. On Grad. School Policy”.

Tags Bishop

M.I.T.

The Economics Department

The Graduate Economics Association

Registration Day, September 20, 1965

LIVING IN THE BOSTON AREA

Geography

Housing

Furniture

Graduate House

Roomates

The Coop

Employment for Students

Employment for Wives

Miscellaneous

GEA Officers

Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams

Back-story for selected references in the text

Some Obvious Context

RIP VAN SAMUELSON RETURNS TO MIT AFTER THE REVOLUTION FACULTY SKIT Christmas 1969

CAST

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS February 16, 1959

Part I

Part II

General Examination in International Economics May 20, 1959

Course Enrollment (Second term, 1956-57

Typed notecards for an introduction to or a review of course.

The traditional arguments regarding the purposes of Monetary Policy:

The following limitations, some real, other imaginary, explain why Fiscal Policy is not as simple as Lerner makes it:

READING LIST 14.472 Fiscal Policy Spring Term 1956-57

Professor E. D. Domar

FINAL EXAMINATION 14.472 Fiscal Policy Monday, May 20, 1957

E. D. Domar

General Examination Advanced Economic Theory

Professors P. A. Samuelson and R. M. Solow Friday, September 21, 1962

General Examination in Advanced Economic Theory: May 1963

Executive summary:

Dramatis Personae

Fun Fact:

The genealogical line from the Physiocrat du Pont de Nemours to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of DuPont in 1947.

Beale to Compton (original)

Walter J. Beadle DuPont Building Wilmington 98, Delaware

Lammot Du Pont to Beadle (copy)

LAMMOT DU PONT Du Pont Building Wilmington 98, Delaware

Compton to Beadle (copy)

Compton to Freeman (copy)

Freeman to Compton (original)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Economics and Social Science

Compton to Freeman (copy)

Back to the Chase

But wait, there’s more

Links to the Merwin Kimball Hart files

A selection from these FOIA files now follows:

A Memorandum for the Director of the F.B.I. (February 8, 1940) prepared by E. A. Tamm

From an investigative report dated July 2, 1942

From November 17, 1942 FBI Internal Security Case Report Merwin K. Hart

Memo for J. Edgar Hoover Jan 26, 1944.

Newspaper clipping, syndicated columnist Marquis W. Childs

Marquis W. Childs. The State of the Nation. [FBI time stamp: Jan 15, 1948]

J. Edgar Hoover’s Memo March 29, 1948

WASHINGTON CITY NEWS SERVICE [teletype] File Time Stamp: August 14, 1950

And no counterrevolution would be complete without the guns Reported June 1950 in the Washington Post

Leo Wolman, Biographical Note

COPY TO DR. FACKENTHAL

Industrial Relations Sections or Departments

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Department of Economics and Social Science

MEMORANDUM

RIP VAN SAMUELSON RETURNS TO MIT AFTER THE REVOLUTION
FACULTY SKIT
Christmas 1969

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
February 16, 1959

General Examination in International Economics
May 20, 1959

Course Enrollment
(Second term, 1956-57

READING LIST
14.472 Fiscal Policy
Spring Term 1956-57

FINAL EXAMINATION
14.472 Fiscal Policy
Monday, May 20, 1957

General Examination
Advanced Economic Theory

Professors P. A. Samuelson and R. M. Solow
Friday, September 21, 1962

Beale to Compton
(original)

Walter J. Beadle
DuPont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

Lammot Du Pont to Beadle
(copy)

LAMMOT DU PONT
Du Pont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

Compton to Beadle
(copy)

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

Freeman to Compton
(original)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of
Economics and Social Science

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

From November 17, 1942 FBI Internal Security Case Report
Merwin K. Hart

Marquis W. Childs. The State of the Nation.
[FBI time stamp: Jan 15, 1948]

J. Edgar Hoover’s Memo
March 29, 1948

WASHINGTON CITY NEWS SERVICE
[teletype]
File Time Stamp: August 14, 1950

And no counterrevolution would be complete without the guns
Reported June 1950 in the Washington Post

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Department of Economics and Social Science