This post turns out to include nearly twenty pages worth of artifacts bearing on the so-called Bemis controversy at the University of Chicago in 1895. Edward W. Bemis was a student of Richard T. Ely at Johns Hopkins University where he earned a Ph.D. in 1885 with the thesis “Local Government in Michigan and the Northwest.” Bemis was an early hire for the University Extension division at the University of Chicago, teaching courses in economics and sociology. I originally intended only posting three newspaper articles that presented claims and counterclaims regarding the grounds for his controversial dismissal. This academic affair was framed by the press as one of academic freedom being attacked by money-interests. The closer I looked at the case, the more complicated it seemed.
Once I gathered most of the artifacts transcribed below, I looked for secondary literature and found Harold E. Bergquist Jr.’s “The Edward W. Bemis Controversy at the University of Chicago” published in the AAUP Bulletin, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Dec., 1972), pp. 384-393. Looking at essentially the same material, Bergquist concluded that Bemis’s views on labor and municipal gas monopolies attracted so much negative attention that Chicago president William R. Harper chose to sacrifice the lone-scholar Bemis in the interests of the university. Compared to other attacks on academic freedom from about the same time at Stanford (Ross) and Wisconsin (Ely), the Bemis incident appears to me to be far-more of an in-house affair where the merit assessments of an individual professor and the institutional powers have significantly diverged.
Following a few biographical items, I present a roughly chronological set of artifacts that reveal the complexity of this one man’s academic fate. For what it is worth, I see the tale to be ultimately one of rejection of a Richard T. Ely transplant into the Chicago host departments. The university department heads of political economy (J. Laurence Laughlin) and sociology (AlbionW. Small) thought well enough of Bemis for the adult-education and outreach Extension program but didn’t really want him in their own departmental backyards. Bemis’ positions on labor disputes and municipal gas monopolies certainly attracted the displeasure of the actual and potential donors to the University of Chicago, but their displeasure appears much less important than the fact that Bemis had not been particularly successful in generating income for the infant university extension program as originally hoped.
For background a convenient first-stop: Edward W. Bemis, 1860-1930 at the History of Economic Thought Website. Includes a list of major works.
RESEARCH TIP: The Guide to the University of Chicago Office of the President, Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations Records 1869-1925 includes links to scans of the documents.
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Biographical Notes on Edward W. Bemis
Western Reserve Historical Society
BEMIS, EDWARD W. (7 Apr. 1860-25 Sept. 1930), a college professor, expert on public taxation, and proponent of municipal ownership, was a political ally of TOM L. JOHNSON, serving as superintendent of the Cleveland Water Works from 1901-09. Born in Springfield, Mass., Bemis, son of Daniel W. and Mary W. Tinker Bemis, was educated at Amherst College (A.B., 1880; A.M., 1884) and Johns Hopkins (Ph.D., 1885), studying history and economics. He reportedly taught the first university extension course in America, at Buffalo, N.Y., in 1885, then taught economics at Amherst (1885-86); Vanderbilt (1888-92); the University of Chicago (1892-95), which he had to leave because of his “radical” views; and Kansas State Agricultural College (1897-99). Bemis prolifically wrote about local government, tax policy, municipal ownership of utilities, working conditions, labor strikes, trade unions, socialism, and religion and social problems.
Tom Johnson gave Bemis an opportunity to enact his reforms as head of the municipal waterworks, a department described as “a nest of party hacks.” Bemis replaced the spoils system with the merit system, unleashing protests from both the department and the local Democratic organization. Bemis ran the department in a businesslike manner, installing a record 70,000 meters and reducing rates. The elimination of graft and incompetent workers enabled completion of the water-intake tunnel. Bemis also crusaded for higher tax evaluations on properties owned by utilities and railroads. After 1909, Bemis moved to New York City, where he served in similar capacities and worked as a consultant.
Married on 28 Oct. 1889 to Annie L. Sargent, Bemis had three children: Walter S., Alice L., and Lloyde E. Bemis died in Springfield, MO and was buried in New York City.
Source: Bemis, Edward W. in Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.
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From the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica
BEMIS, EDWARD WEBSTER (1860-[1930]), American economist, was born at Springfield, Massachusetts, on the 7th of April 1860. He was educated at Amherst and Johns Hopkins University. He held the professorship of history and political economy in Vanderbilt University from 1887 to 1892, was associate professor of political economy in the university of Chicago from 1892 to 1895, and assistant statistician to the Illinois bureau of labour statistics, 1896. In 1901 he became superintendent of the Cleveland water works. He wrote much on municipal government, his more important works being some chapters in History of Co-operation in the United States (1888); Municipal Ownership of Gas in the U.S. (1891); Municipal Monopolies (1899).
Source: 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol. 3, p. 714.
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A handwritten letter from J. Laurence Laughlin to President William R. Harper, August 1893
Beaver River Station,
via Herkimer, N.Y.
Aug. 31, 1893
My dear President Harper,
Yours of 29that hand.
The real difficulty in re Bemis, is that (1) he was acquiesced in solely for University Extension work, and I never for a moment thought of him as holding a permanent position in the regular officers of instruction. And (2) at that time also you emphasized the clear line of demarcation between the Extension Dep’ts & the University—proper. Now, nothing has occurred to change these two things. But from a desire for “uniformity” simply, a move is made which, in the judgment of a Head-Professor seriously impairs the morale of his department. It is my duty to enter my protest, both as a matter of policy & principle. (1) I do not believe Bemis is a man of such value to you that he is worth the injuring of a department. Consequently I suggest that he be transferred to another department. Would it not be perfectly easy to put both his courses into Social Science? Bemis really wishes to lecture on Labor etc rather than on Trades Unions etc., & the Labor course might go under Soc. Sci.—if Small does not object. Then, I have no objection to his remaining in charge of the Extension work in Economics; although I do not believe he is competent to treat a difficult economic problem. (2) Is it fair to hold a head-professor responsible for the working of his department if action is taken contrary to his judgment? In this case, I think your are unwittingly doing us harm; and consequently, I must ask to be relieved of settling questions arising from it, or of responsibility for the efficiency of the work. Of course, if it is your policy to take on yourself a large part of the responsibility hitherto laid on the head-professor, and yourself to watch many of the details, that is another matter; no doubt, you can do it far better than I. Only we should clearly understand what you expect me to do. I need not say it would be a great relief to have these matters taken off my mind; then I could occupy myself entirely with my own economic studies.
I am very sorry indeed to trouble you with this matter; but I should be disloyal to you and to the University if I did not point out the dangers inherent in this case. It is no easy matter to keep in harmonious adjustment the work and careers of six or seven men in a new department, as you will be the first to appreciate.
Very sincerely yours,
Laurence Laughlin
Source: University of Chicago. Office of the President. Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations. Records, Box 57, Folder #13 “Laughlin, J. Laurence, 1892-1917”, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago.
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Bad news from Harper to Bemis
January 1894
Office of the President
The University of Chicago
Founded by John D. Rockefeller
Chicago January 1894
Copy.
My dear Prof. Bemis:-
I write you this letter because I think I can state what is in my mind more easily in writing than in conversation. You will remember that I was very anxious to have you take hold of the work with us in the University, and you will recall the battle I had with some of our gentlemen in reference to it, a battle fought and won. I counted upon great results from the Extension work, and I hoped that as time passed there would be opportunities for your doing a larger amount of work in the University Proper. As matters now stand the Extension work has been this year largely a failure so far as you are concerned, and instead of the opportunity becoming better on your part for work in the University Proper, the doors seem to be closing. You will perhaps be surprised, but it is necessary for me to say that it does not seem best for us to look forward to your coming more definitely into the work of the University Proper. After a long consideration of the matter, and a study of all circumstances; looking at it too from your point of view and with a view to your interests, I am persuaded that in the long run you can do in another institution because of the peculiar circumstances here, a better and more satisfactory work to yourself than you can do here. I am very sorry to say this, for as I need not assure you, I am personally very much attached both to you and to Mrs. Bemis. You are, however, man of the world enough to know that unless one is in the best environment, he cannot work to the best advantage. You are so well known and your ability so widely recognized that there will surely be no difficulty in securing for you a good position, one in which you will be monarch, and one in which you will be above all things else independent. I wish to say that I will do all I can, and I think I can do much to help you in this matter, and I beg you to understand that I have come to this conclusion after much study and with greatest reluctance. If you will accept this and allow me to help you, I am sure that we can arrange matters in a first rate way. The interests of all I think would be conserved if the new arrangement could be made for the year beginning July 1stor Oct 1st. I shall be very glad to meet you, not to discuss this, for I think it best to call it settled, but to discuss the question of your future work, in which I wish to express the deepest interest. You will, I am confident, distinguish in your mind between the official act which I am compelled to perform, and the personal attitude which I wish now and always to assume toward you. I should be glad to see you at your earliest convenience.
Yours very truly,
Source: University of Chicago. Office of the President. Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations. Records, Box 11, Folder #4 “Bemis, Edward W., 1892-1895”, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago.
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Handwritten letter from Bemis to Harper
July 1994
5835 Drexel St.
July 23-94
My dear President Harper!
Having been informed today on second hand but apparently trustworthy authority that some of the authorities (trustees I assume) of our University are displeased with what they suppose has been my attitude in this great RR strike, I write to correct any possible false reports.
I wrote a letter to Mr. Debs just before the strike urging him, for I knew him slightly, not to have the strike.
Then when all the trades were considering the propriety of a general strike in the city I spent several hours in trying to dissuade the leaders of some of the unions. Later when the officers of many national unions came here to consider the further extension of the strike I feel sure I contributed to strengthening the resolution of Pres’t Gompers & Sec’y Evans of the American Federation of Labor not to participate.
In every way have I tried to calm the troubled waters, while making use of the opportunity to urge upon large employers a conciliatory Christ-like attitude & the recognition of the trusteeship of wealth as suggested in the parable of the ten talents, and endorsed by modern philosophy.
I realize how easily in times of ferment one’s views may be misquoted as were yours last winter & trust you will believe me ever determined to be both scientific and judicial though earnest in treating these great problems & that you will always wait to hear both sides before judging.
Very sincerely yours
[signed]
Edward W. Bemis
Source: University of Chicago. Office of the President. Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations. Records, Box 11, Folder #4 “Bemis, Edward W., 1892-1895”, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago.
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From handwritten letter from J. Laurence Laughlin to President William R. Harper, Aug 1894
Newman, N. Y.
Aug. 6, 1894
Dear Pres. Harper,
[…]
This recalls Bemis. I fear the affair in Dr. Barrows’ church has been a last straw to some good friends of the University, like A. A. Sprague. And in antagonizing Pres. Hughitt he is quaking very hard the establishment of a great railway interest in the University. And Bemis is wholly one-sided on this railway question. I have looked into it, but I could do nothing without throwing out all his railway lectures. This was sometime ago. At every turn in Chicago, in July, I heard indignant remarks about Bemis, & I had nothing whatever to do in introducing the subject. I know you have done what seemed best to stop him; and Small has told me regretfully how he somewhat spoiled your arrangement; but in my opinion, the duty to the good name of the University now transcends any soft-heartedness to an individual. I do not now see how we can escape saving ourselves except by letting the public know that he goes because we do not regard him as up to the standards of the University in ability and scientific methods. It would have been better for him to have gone quietly. You probably know he told Small that his hold on the working classes was so strong that the University dare not drop him—or something to that purpose. I believe you will find the Extension men of my opinion—certainly Mr. Butler.
At any rate, I see Bemis is no longer in my department: and I understand that his economic lectures will not be announced next year by the Extension Division. The labor subjects will be covered by Brooks. As regards the money lectures, I have a suggestion. How would it do to tie to us in this way Prof. Kinley, of the University of Illinois? Is it feasible? Could he not be asked to give 6 or 12 lectures on money, appear in our list as an Extension lectures, & yet hold his position at Champaign? His work is of a radically different kind from Bemis’, & yet he was one of Ely’s men. You can also get Miller’s idea of Kinley. I quite like him; & he would, I think, welcome getting closer to us. His book on the “Independent Treasury” is quite good. This is only a suggestion. If it is worthless—then better no lectures at all on money than those Bemis gives.
[…]
Sincerely yours,
Laurence Laughlin
Source: University of Chicago. Office of the President. Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations. Records, Box 57, Folder #13 “Laughlin, J. Laurence, 1892-1917”, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago.
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From “Prof. Bemis’ Secret Out.”
Chicago, Ill., Aug. 17 [1895]
(Special Correspondence to The Voice]
… “President Harper and certain wealthy trustees of the university have at sundry times indicated to Professor Bemis that while his work was not radical nor inappropriate for universities in general, there were inflections of truth which the University of Chicago could utter more gracefully and sincerely than the principles of practical economics. It was not desirable, they intimated, for this institution, with its own particular way of being born and nurtured, to be in close touch either with the labor question or with municipal and monopoly problems.
In the presence of Professor Bemis’ success as a member of the university faculty, and in the absence of any enlightenment as to the cause of his “resignation,” people generally have had the effrontery to imagine that the fact that the president of the big Standard Oil Combine has been a heavy benefactor of the university, has in some way had something to do with the peculiar pedagogical disability hinted at from time to time by President Harper.
But members, attachés of the University of Chicago, are not the only persons who have been unable to appreciate the naïve and reckless manner in which Professor Bemis has neglected to obscure the facts of the new political economy. The manager of the consolidated gas companies of this city refused, a short time ago, to allow to the university the customary reduction in gas rates, because Professor Bemis was a member of the faculty. A prominent officer of the largest gas trust in this country—a trust controlling the gas supply in over 40 cities—said to Professor Bemis not long ago: “Professor Bemis, we can’t and don’t intend to tolerate your work any longer. It means millions to us. And if we can’t convert you, we’re going to down you.” Such intellectual discharges, considered in connection with President Harper’s eloquent silence and capital’s fraternal relations to the university, are not absolutely meaningless…”
Source: University of Chicago. Office of the President. Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations. Records, Box 11, Folder #4 “Bemis, Edward W., 1892-1895”, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago.
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President Harper’s Statement
From a Convocation Address at the University of Chicago, Oct. 1 [1895]
From the beginning the university has believed in the policy of appointing to positions in the same department men who represent different points of view. No instructor in the university has been or will be asked to separate himself from the university because his views upon a particular question differ from those of another member of the same department, even though that member be the head.
From the beginning of the university, there has never been an occasion for condemning the utterances of any professor upon any subject, nor has any objection been taken in any case to the teachings of a professor, and in reference to the particular teachings of an instructor no interference has ever taken place.
The university has been, in a conspicuous way, the recipient of large gifts of money from wealthy men. To these men it owes a debt of sincere gratitude. This debt is all the greater, moreover, because in absolutely no single case has any man, who has given as much as one dollar to the university, sought by word or act, either directly or indirectly, to control, or even to influence, the policy of the university in reference to the teachings of its professors, in the departments of political economy, history, political science or sociology. To be still more explicit, neither John D. Rockefeller, Charles T. Yerkes, Martin A Reyerson, Marshall Field, Silas B. Cobb, Sidney Kent, George C. Walker, nor any other benefactor of the university, has ever uttered a syllable or written a word in criticism of any theory advocated by any professor in any department of the university.
This public statement is made because the counter statement has been published, far and wide, and because it is clear that a serious injury will be done the cause of higher education if the impression should prevail that in a university, as distinguished from a college, there is not the largest possible freedom of expression—a freedom entirely unhampered by either theological or monetary considerations.
Source: University of Chicago. Office of the President. Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations. Records, Box 11, Folder #4 “Bemis, Edward W., 1892-1895”, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago.
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Bemis sends three clippings to Walter F. Willcox of Cornell
477 Dearborn St.
Chicago
Oct. 25 [1895]
Dear Professor Willcox:
Please show the enclosed, which I send at your request to Prof. Jenks & write me what you both think.
Very sincerely
[signed]
Edward W. Bemis
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Chicago Chronicle
Oct 9, 1895
The controversy between Professor E. W. Bemis and the University of Chicago faculty and officials have led the dismissed instructor to issue a public statement giving his side of the matter. It is the first direct expression he has made since the trouble arose. Professor Bemis is to lecture at the University of Illinois four days next week, when it is expected that he may give public utterance to his views. The statement is as follows:
“Despite the urgent advice of many and the demand for the facts from the greater portion of hundreds of editorials in newspapers which have been sent me I have hitherto refused to publish the reasons for my leaving the University of Chicago. To injure the university or to have newspaper notoriety is as distasteful to me as to dwell on my personal relations with a great institution.
“The University of Chicago is doing an important work, and throughout the country there is sympathy with all our great universities which I would not wish in any way to disturb.
“During my three years’ connection with the university my personal relations with the president and my colleagues in the sociological department, where I have done all my work the past year and more, were always pleasant. But President Harper’s emphatic denial at convocation, Oct. 1, of any interference with college independence by Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Yerkes and other donors is producing the natural and apparently intended inference that the university had other and justifiable grounds for my dismissal.
REFUTES HARPER’S STATEMENT.
“I have also since Oct. 1 had conclusive evidence that the president is privately stating that I leave because incompetent. Silence is no longer possible, not alone from personal considerations, but because the vital principle of college freedom is also at stake.
“It has been stated by some influential papers on the authority of the president himself, as I am reliably informed, that I was engaged at the University of Chicago for a period of three or five years, and that period having expired the university simply did no renew the appointment.
“I desire to deny emphatically the truth of this statement. In none of the negotiations between the university and myself respecting my coming to the university was there a single word as to any limit of time.
“I was to devote at first two-thirds of the college year to university extension. But I insisted, as a condition of leaving what all assured me was practically a life position at Vanderbilt university to go to Chicago in 1892, that I should not only have one-third of the year for inside or class teaching, but that I should have a gradual increase of it. Both the presidents and the heads of the departments of economics and sociology gave me this assurance, as has often been admitted. Jan. 5, 1894, President Harper wrote me: ‘I hoped that as time passed there would be opportunity for your doing a larger amount of work in the university proper.’
ASKS HARPER TO EXPLAIN.
“Now what I wish the president to do is not to give a general denial of Mr. Rockefeller’s having criticized ‘any theory advanced by any professor,’ but to explain why the above ‘hope’ and understanding were not carried out, and what he meant by the following in the letter above quoted: ‘Instead of the opportunity becoming better for work on your part in the university proper, the doors seem to be closing. * * * I am persuaded that in the long run you can do in another institution, because of the peculiar circumstances here, a better and more satisfactory work to yourself than you can do here. I am personally very much attached to you. You are, however, man of the world enough to know that, unless one is in the best environment, he cannot work to the best advantage. You are so well known and your ability so widely recognized that there will be surely no difficulty in securing for you a good position, one in which you will be monarch, and one in which you will be, above all things else, independent.’
“I have never had occasion to doubt the president’s implication above that ‘the peculiar circumstances,’ and the ‘environment’ at the university were the true explanation of its action.
“On receipt of this letter I should have resigned had I not very soon been led to believe, erroneously as it proved, that the situation was improving.
“I very much regret the necessity of publishing this and other letters and conversations which, while not considered confidential, would not under any ordinary circumstances, be made public by me.
ASSOCIATES SATISFIED.
“I cannot have been dropped because of dissatisfaction on the part of my associates, for on Aug. 7, 1895, President Harper emphatically declared that the head of the economic department was not responsible for my going, and that the head of the sociological department had, almost to the very end, ‘pleaded for’ my retention.
“I cannot have been dismissed because personally not agreeable to the president, for his letter above quoted states: ‘I am personally very much attached to you.’
“Neither can the university’s action have been due to failure in my university extension work, which was done with constantly growing and, with the exception of a few places the first year, with almost uniform success. In judging of the success of extension courses designed to be educational in character, in economics and sociology, due regard must be had to the fact that the subjects do not appeal to so many of the usual supporters of extension courses, chiefly women, as do literature and history.
“In November and December, 1894, my extension work kept me busy nearly every night, and at least one long engagement had to be refused on this account. Yet in the face of my most popular and really most successful university extension season, my name was dropped from the budget or salary list by the trustees Christmas week, 1894, to take effect the following summer. The singular fact that I was not informed of the above action until March 7, 1895, more than two months afterward, I pass without comment.
NOT LACK OF ABILITY.
“President Harper’s reasons for dropping me could not have been lack of ability or personal character, for Sept. 29, 1894, after observing my work for two years, he wrote me: ‘I have great respect for you and your work.’ In view of this written statement, I cannot understand his recent private declaration that I was dropped for incompetency.
“March 7, 1895, speaking of the reason for my going he said: ‘It is not a question of competency; simply, the general situation is against you here. Of course you are an A No. 1 man, just as much as when we got you, but you are a misfit here.’
“I cannot have been dropped because of dissatisfaction with my classroom work, for Professor Small, under whom I carried on all my extension work and my spring and summer courses of class work in 1894 and 1895, to constantly growing classes of seniors and graduate students, has repeatedly declared to others and to myself that there was no fault or criticism of my class work.
“A considerable portion of my students have taken a second course with me, and I invite the fullest inquiry among them all as to my work. Their attitude was shown in an editorial in their organ, the University of Chicago Weekly, Aug. 1, 1895: ‘His work here has been of the best.’ The president’s comment to me on Aug. 7 last was: ‘Students don’t count. Anybody that knows how can get around students.’ Yet many of my pupils were graduate students and even teachers elsewhere. Again, I repeat, that only the most extreme provocation has overcome my great reluctance to publish such conversations.
QUOTES A LETTER.
“In this connection, I am permitted to quote the following letter to Dr. Charles B. Spahr of the Outlook, written Aug. 27, 1895, by the chancellor of Vanderbilt university, Dr. James H. Kirkland:
“It affords me greatest pleasure to testify to the high character of Professor Bemis’ work at Vanderbilt university. He had a strong hold upon his Students and was regarded by them as an unusually able and strong instructor. I give this communication cheerfully and without reserve. You may make whatever use of it you wish.’
“I am not a socialist, but I am a believer in the wisdom of a gradual taking over of some of our local monopolies by cities, as in Glasgow and Birmingham, but have never urged that it should be done at once in all places, and have held that many cities cannot be urged to go further at present than the leasing for moderate periods, as has been done with the street car lines in Toronto, Canada, with ample provision for city ownership on easy terms at the close of the lease, if then desired by the citizens. Yet the then president of the so-called gas trust of Chicago refused in 1893 to render a financial favor to the university because I was on the faculty. President Harper has since denied that he was influenced thereby.
“The manager of the largest aggregation of gas capital in America, outside of Chicago, referring to my monograph in the publications of the American Economic association, and to other writing on municipal gas works, such as in the February, 1893, issue of the Review of Reviews, declared to me in the summer of 1893: ‘If we can’t convert you we are going to down you. We can’t stand your writing. It means millions to us.’
HIS AID SOLICITED.
“As illustrative of how my work is regarded by many prominent businessmen acquainted with it, I may add that some weeks ago so conservative a magazine as the Bibliothecra Sacra, whose sociological department is edited by a conservative businessman of Chicago, asked me to become an associate editor.
“In an interview March 13, 1895, as at other times before and since, President Harper fully agreed with my assertion that I was not radical, and that it was true conservatism to favor moderate social changes; but when I asserted that the university ought to be in close touch with the labor question and with municipal and monopoly problems in the way I had been trying in a moderate spirit, in the Civic Federation and elsewhere, to effect, he replied: ‘Yes, it is valuable work, and you are a good man to do it, but this may not be—this is not the institution where such work can be done.’
“I spoke in the First Presbyterian church of Chicago July 15, 1894, in condemnation of the great railway strike, but ventured to suggest that the railroads had also been law-breakers in the past and should set a better example. Realizing the gravity of the situation and my position in the university, I spoke from carefully prepared manuscript, and can publish it, if any doubt the general verdict of very prominent men in the congregation who have commended its moderate tone. The only sentences afterward criticized were these:
“’If the railroads would expect their men to be law-abiding they must set the example. Let their open violation of the interstate commerce law and their relations to corrupt legislatures and assessors testify as to their part in this regard. I do not attempt to justify the strikers in their boycott of the railroads; but the railroads themselves not long ago placed an offending road under the ban and refused to honor its tickets. Such boycotts on the part of the railroads are no more to be justified than is a boycott of the railroads by the strikers. Let there be some equality in the treatment of these things.’ The rest of the address criticized the strikers more than their employers.
OFFERS THE PROOF.
“A prominent railroad president, immediately after the dismissal of the congregation, challenged me for proof of boycotting and I replied that not only were the newspapers full of such things, but I had proof in my study which I would send him in writing. He said: ‘It is an outrage. That a man in your position should dare to come here and imply that the railroads cannot come into court with clean hands is infamous.’ He complained to one or more trustees and to President Harper. The latter then wrote me, July 28, 1894: ‘Your speech at the First Presbyterian church has caused me a great deal of annoyance. It is hardly safe for me to venture into any of the Chicago clubs. I am pounced upon from all sides. I propose that during the remainder of your connection with the university you exercise great care in public utterances about questions that are agitating the minds of the people.’
“In view of this letter of President Harper, I am at a loss to understand the statement he made at convocation: ‘From the beginning of the university there never has been an occasion for condemning the utterance of any professor upon any subject.’
INFLUENCE OF MONEY.
“The benumbing influence of a certain class of actual or hoped-for endowments, whether this influence is directly exerted by donors or only instinctively felt by university authorities and instructors, is a grave danger now confronting some of the best institutions.
“A wealthy and leading trustee of the university spoke to me in 1893 of ‘our side’ in some club discussion of a noted strike. By ‘our side’ you mean–?’ I asked. ‘Why, the capitalists’ side, of course,’ was the quick reply.
“To a gentleman of unquestioned veracity the president, when referring to me, said in substance: ‘It is all very well to sympathize with the workingmen, but we get our money from those on the other side and we can’t afford to offend them.’
“The name of the last gentleman quoted cannot be given to the public or to the university, but he is ready to assert the truth of the above to any disinterested and honorable gentleman the president may name.
“President Harper, as the press has intimated, has privately claimed that by speaking he can ruin me, and that he is keeping quiet on my account. It is time that these innuendoes ceased.
“Altogether aside from my personal interest in the question is the far larger issue of the subjection of college teaching to any lower aims than the pursuit of truth.”
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DR. HARPER REPLIES.
ANSWERS PROF. BEMIS’ CHARGES
Chicago Record, Oct. 18, 1895.
Says the Lecturer’s Financial Failure Was Alone Responsible for His Retirement from the University of Chicago—Letter in Full
President William R. Harper of the University of Chicago has written a reply to the statement made by Prof. Edward W. Bemis which was published in The Record Oct. 9.
The following is Dr. Harper’s reply in full, exactly as the president of the university, with the assistance of Prof. Albion W. Small, head professor of sociology, and Prof. Nathaniel Butler, director of the university extension department, prepared it:
“In view of the desire of the public as manifested in various ways to know the facts in reference to the work of Mr. Bemis as a university extension associate professor in the University of Chicago, and in order to remove certain impressions which his letter of a recent date occasions, we, who have been from the beginning most thoroughly conversant with the facts, and, indeed, connected officially with his work, desire to make the following statement:
“1. Mr. Bemis’ position in the university from the beginning has been that of a university extension associate professor, the understanding being that his work should be largely in this department, since his services were not needed in the class work of the university proper, in view of the large number of professors there employed.
Attendance at Lectures Decreased.
“2. During the first year (’92-’93) of his connection with the university he delivered fifteen courses of extension lectures. During the second year (’93-’94) he gave seven courses. During the third year (’94-’95) he gave six courses of lectures. It was a striking fact that, except in one instance, Mr. Bemis never returned to an extension center for a second course. In his course given during ’94-’95 in Joliet on ‘Questions of Labor and Social Reform’ the attendance at the first lecture was 124; second, 108; third, 76; fourth, 79; fifth, 75, and sixth, 44. The actual earnings of Mr. Bemis in university extension work were about $1,000 a year, his salary being $2,500 a year. A portion of this salary, it is true, was paid him for courses offered in the university proper, but he was permitted to offer a larger number of courses in the university than he would otherwise have done, because the administrative officers of the extension division were unable to persuade university extension centers to avail themselves of his lectures. It should be added that no man who has ever given a dollar to the university has ever directly or indirectly entered objection to the views taught by Mr. Bemis in his lectures; and that so far as the university knows, his teaching upon subjects of municipal reform, trusts, etc., are teachings to which the authorities would not think of interposing objection.
“3. In no discussion of Mr. Bemis’ relations to the university, between ourselves as officers of the university or with the president of the university, has the question of Mr. Bemis’ views on questions of political economy or sociology been raised. Mr. Bemis himself acknowledged in our presence early in August, 1895, that he was then convinced that no outside pressure had been brought to bear in reference to his resignation.
Dependent on the Fees.
“4. The simple fact is that the university extension division, which at present has no regular endowment to pay the salaries of professors engaged in this particular work, is dependent upon the fees received from the lecturers for the money with which to pay the salaries of such lecturers. Inasmuch as the officers of the department were not able to make arrangements with extension centers for Mr. Bemis to lecture before them it was evident from a business point of view that the work of Mr. Bemis in this division of the university must cease.
“5. The president’s letter to Mr. Bemis, in which he expressed cordial good will and appreciation of his ability represented the feelings of all who were associated with Mr.
Bemis at that time. It was, however, the opinion of the head of the university department in which Mr. Bemis worked, and of the director of the university extension division as well as the president, that Mr. Bemis could find a better field for his work in a smaller institution, in which he could be free to confine his teaching to the class-room, and not be dependent upon the general public through university extension centers.
“6. The letter of President Harper to Mr. Bemis in reference to his remarks in the First Presbyterian church was written at a time when the citizens of Chicago were in great anxiety because of the disturbed condition of affairs. It should be noted that President Harper’s request that Mr. Bemis should exercise care in his statements was not made with reference to any utterances which Mr. Bemis was making in university work or in a university extension lecture, but in an outside capacity before a promiscuous audience. This was, as already intimated, at a time when agitation of any kind was universally regarded as imprudent. It should not even then take issue with Mr. Bemis on any ‘doctrine,’ but that he requested him to be careful about making untimely and immature statements.
“7. Mr. Bemis was more than a year ago given to understand that it seemed desirable for the reasons recited above, that he should seek another field of usefulness. This intimation was made and was apparently received by him in the kindest spirit, and efforts were made on the part of the University of Chicago to secure him a position better adapted to his abilities. One of several such positions might have been secured had not Mr. Bemis himself by his public attitude rendered it out of the question that these positions should be offered him. We refer later to influences which may account for the unfortunate light in which Mr. Bemis allowed his personal affairs to be presented. The whole case is one in which a university instructor is found to be not well adapted to the position which he holds. Such cases arise almost continually in universities. In almost any other department of instruction than the one in which Mr. Bemis occupied a position such a case would attract no general comment, nor would it be regarded as involving injustice to the instructor. It was perhaps inevitable that Mr. Bemis’ department of teaching, and the fact that the University of Chicago has been generously endowed by private munificence, would occasion the construction which has been put upon this matter. That construction, however, is absolutely without foundation in truth.
As to Another Position.
“8. Mr. Bemis’ real complaint was not that he was asked to resign from the university extension staff, but that he was not transferred to a corresponding position on the staff of instructors inside the university. We state now only our opinion when we say that, so far as we are able to judge, every member of the faculty who is acquainted with Mr. Bemis would indorse the president’s conclusion that such transfer would have placed Mr. Bemis in a position which he is not strong enough to fill. Mr. Bemis dissents from this opinion and repeatedly urged the head of the department of sociology to recommend his appointment as a member of the sociological staff. The answer had to be made that if the trustees would appropriate money without limit to the sociological department, work might be assigned to Mr. Bemis which would be important and valuable in itself, but that the money which would be available for some time to come was much more needed for kinds of instruction which he was not competent to give.
“Some of the elements which entered into the failure of his extension work would be fatal objections to a university instructor. In attempting to be judicial he succeeded in being indefinite. Instead of erring by teaching offensive views the head and front of his offending was that he did not seem to present any distinct views whatever.
“9. We have urged President Harper, throughout the campaign of abuse which has been waged during the last summer, not to depart from his purpose of silence respecting the reasons which led him to call for Mr. Bemis’ resignation. We know that President Harper was more considerate of Mr. Bemis than the latter knew how to be for himself. We had and still have the most friendly feelings for our former associate and agreed with President Harper that the university could afford to suffer rather than cause needless injury to an individual by publication of facts which a discreet person would wish to suppress.
Believes Bemis Was Influenced.
“10. We have changed our view of what is just to all interests concerned, because we are obliged to believe that the prominence which this case has attained through the press is not the result of misunderstanding, but that it is the carrying out of a deliberate design to misrepresent the facts. We believe that Mr. Bemis has received advice which has made him the tool of private animosity toward the university, under the mistaken notion that he is vindicating his violated rights. Our reasons for this view are in part as follows:
“Soon after Mr. Bemis was informed, more than a year ago, that his services were no longer desired by the university, one of the signers of this paper was notified by a friend of Mr. Bemis, first by letter and afterward verbally, that ‘If Prof. Bemis is not retained a newspaper agitation will be begun from which the university will not recover in a generation.’ The reply was that if this was intended as a threat, no more direct means could be taken to hasten the termination of Mr. Bemis’ connection with the university. That it was intended as a threat was evident from the response that ‘the newspapers are all ready to begin the attack if Bemis is sent away, and the University will drop him at its peril.”
“The name of the person who made the threat has repeatedly crept into the published statements for which Mr. Bemis has been directly or indirectly responsible. Both Mr. Bemis and his mentor have refused to act in accordance with the positive testimony of those who knew the facts and have persisted in misconstruction of indirect evidence to suit their purpose of detraction. We therefore think it our duty to the university to add these things to previous official statement in behalf of the university.
Compelled to Discuss the Case.
“11. To summarize, Mr. Bemis has compelled us to advertise both his incompetency as a university extension lecturer and also the opinion of those most closely associated with him that he is not qualified to fill a university position. We wish to make the most emphatic and unreserved assertion which words can convey that the ‘freedom of teaching’ has never been involved in the case. The case of Mr. Bemis would have been precisely the same if his subject had been Sanskrit or psychology or mathematics.
“12. As final evidence that the university had no quarrel with Mr. Bemis’ ‘doctrines’ we add that the university offered to continue to announce Prof. Bemis’ extension courses in the university lists to give him all possible assistance to make lecture engagements, Mr. Bemis to retain all the fees, without the customary deduction for office expenses. This offer was to hold good until Jan. 1, 1896, and Mr. Bemis did not decline it until August 1895. Had he not chosen to represent himself as a martyr he might have been lecturing today under the auspices of the university, although on his own financial responsibility.
“Albion W. Small,
“Head Professor of Sociology.
“Nathaniel Butler,
“Director the University Extension Division.”
Concurred in by President Harper.
“The above has my concurrence and approval. I think that this recital of facts will be sufficient to assure all candid persons who have become interested in the case, first, that no principle has been involved about which there was occasion ro public solicitude; second, that the university was guarding Prof. Bemis’ interest in attempting to avoid the necessity of publishing an official judgment about the value of his services.
“William R. Harper, President”
Chicago, October 16, 1895.
Source: U. S. Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. The Papers of Walter Willcox, Box 3, Folder “General Correspondence A-C”.
* * * * *
The above statement was prepared and put in type for the purpose of submitting it to the trustees and leaving the question of its publication to their decision. The proofs of the statement were stolen from the University printing office and given to the public. The employé who committed the theft has been discovered and discharged. If it had been decided to publish the statement, the phraseology would probably have been somewhat changed, and certain additions would have been made. The statement, however, as it was published, is correct. Under the circumstances it seems proper to add the following:
- The statement placed in my mouth: “It is all very well to sympathize with the workingmen, but we get our money from those on the other side, and we cannot afford to offend them,” I absolutely deny. I have never even entertained the thought implied in the statement. The University has received contributions from hundreds of workingmen. One, however, can feel no sympathy with those agitators who draw lines between the rich and the poor and seek to array them against each other. It is, of course, true that the president of a university could have no wish to offend the patrons of his institution. But the patrons of the University embrace all classes in the community. The issue raised is an entirely false one, and based on charges without the shadow of a foundation.
- Mr. Bemis, recognizing that there was no longer a work for him to do in ordinaryUniversity Extension, proposed that the University pay his salary and allow him to work in the city in connection with the Civic Federation and other public and charity organizations, this work being, as he suggested, University Extension work in a broad sense. To thisproposition it was, of course, necessary to reply that it was a valuable work, and he a good man to do it, but that it was a kind of work which the University could not undertake.
- It is understood that when an instructor withdraws at the request of the University, his case shall, in no instance, be prejudiced before the public. The University will assist him in every possible way. The real facts in the case of Mr. Bemis would, under ordinary circumstances, never have been given to the public. In the convocation statement care was taken to utter no word which would in the slightest degree injure him. His recent publication of abstracts of letters, in which the facts were grossly misrepresented, has made this statement necessary.
- Once more it is desired to say that neither the expressed nor the supposed wishes and views of the patrons of the University have had anything to do with the case in hand. It has been merely a question of finance, in the effort to bring the expenditures of the division of University Extension within its income. There is not an institution of learning in the country in which freedom of teaching is more absolutely untrammeled than in The University of Chicago. The history of the University during its first three years is sufficient guarantee to those who will examine into it that the policy of the Trustees of the University in reference to this whole subject will not be changed.
William R. Harper.
October 21 [1895]
Source: University of Chicago. Office of the President. Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations. Records, Box 11, Folder #4 “Bemis, Edward W., 1892-1895”, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago.
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PROF. BEMIS’ DEFENSE.
REPLY TO PRESIDENT HARPER.
Chicago Record, Oct 19, 1895
The Professor of Sociology Makes Vigorous Rejoinder to the Head of the University of Chicago—Chance for Harper to Explain.
The celebrated case of Harper vs. Bemis was given an interesting airing exclusively in the columns of The Record yesterday, the plaintiff filing his brief, as it were in reply to the statement of the defense which appeared in The Record Wednesday, Oct. 9. Now comes Prof. Bemis, the defendant, with a vigorous rejoinder, which he prepared for The Record last evening and which is reproduced in full.
“When I issued my first statement, Oct. 9, I realized the limits to which the university might go in seeking to reply, for on Aug. 7 President Harper said to me: ‘If I speak you will be damned forever. If we say we did not like you here you can’t get another college place in America.’ He then made some such denial of monopoly influence as at convocation and, having held up a sufficiently frightful fate in store for me, said: ‘I have a stenographer waiting in the next room. I desire to call him in have you make a statement to the public at once that proof has been shown you (for I have said so, and you don’t believe me a liar) that you were entirely mistaken in supposing that monopoly influence had anything to do with your leaving here.’
“It is possible that in the excitement of the moment I admitted a general belief in the truthfulness of the president, but I declined to sign such a statement, saying, however, that I was willing to state that he then denied monopoly influence.
“’Oh, that will do no good,’ he replied; ‘people won’t believe it. They would say that of course I would deny it.’
“But, while I realize the seriousness of the situation, I cannot rest under such unfounded charges of incompetency as are publicly made, with the president’s indorsement, this morning, and which I first learned of on my return to Chicago this afternoon.
Charges Answered Seriatim.
“Time at my disposal does not admit of an adequate reply, but a few things must be said:
“1. With regard to my university extension work. In order to make up a case against me the attendance at Joliet is given, showing a marked falling off the last night as compared with the first. Now, as I have repeatedly stated, this is the one and only center among all the ten where I gave twelve courses in 1894 where there was want of enthusiasm in my work. On the first night at Joliet, if I remember correctly, many complimentary tickets were issued, while the last lecture was suddenly and without due notice changed to another evening in the week to enable courses to begin elsewhere.
“That was the place, too, which complained that I too much avoided making positive statements. It was the first place where I lectured after receiving that letter from President Harper quoted in my previous statement and ending with ‘I propose that during the remainder of your connection with the university you exercise great care in public utterances about questions that are agitating the minds of the people.’ From even Joliet, however, business men have come to me unsolicited to tell me how much they valued my course.
Opinions of the Lectures.
“Relative to a course in Washington, Iowa, early in 1894, the secretary of the center, the Rev. Arthur Fowler, wrote, Feb. 24, 1894, to the head of the university-extension department of the University of Chicago: ‘Nothing but favorable reports have been given of Prof. Bemis’ lectures. He is well liked here.’ To another he wrote, June 8, 1895: ‘Our engagement with Mr. Bemis was entirely satisfactory. The audience increased with each successive lecture. He did us much good.’
“Relative to a course given in Quincy, Ill., early in 1894, the secretary of the center, Edwin A. Clarke, wrote the head of the University of Chicago extension department, March 19, 1894: ‘The course given us by Dr. Bemis has been to those few who attended the lectures the most interesting and valuable of any we have had so far.’
“Relative to a course at Mason City, Iowa, in the fall of 1894, the Rev. C. C. Smith wrote a gentleman in Montana:
“ ‘In the beginning we had considerable fears as to the result, because of the difficulty we have had in making anything in the line of lectures succeed in this town. Now, however, the success of another course is insured, the enthusiasm is great, and this is due wholly to Prof. Bemis as a man and to the excellency of his lectures. He is a teacher, clear, concise, conclusive. His lectures bristle with facts and figures up to date and each has a point and pertinency to the present pressing problems. His patriotism is free from party prejudice, so far, at least, as his lectures are concerned.’
More Words of Praise.
“Relative to two courses at Burlington, Iowa, in the fall and early winter of 1894, the secretary, E. M. Neally, wrote the University of Chicago:
“ ‘We believe Prof. Bemis to be unusually qualified for this sort of work and the desire has even been expressed that we may arrange for a further course by the same lecturer at some future date.’
“In a letter in August, 1895, to a large newspaper Mr. Neally wrote:
“ ‘Having had occasion, as secretary of the Burlington center, to look into the record of Prof. Bemis’ work at various centers, I find it almost invariably described by the secretaries as very successful. No adverse criticism from any local secretary has ever come to my notice.’
“The secretary of the Waterloo (Iowa) center wrote to an inquirer relative to my course there in 1894:
“ ‘His audiences were attentive and the numbers kept up. Prof. Bemis, in my individual opinion, has the right idea of the extension lecture and carried it out.’
“Relative to a course at Osage, Iowa, in the fall of 1894, the Rev. W. W. Gist, secretary of the center, wrote the university Jan. 2, 1895: ‘Dr. Bemis gave us a good, strong course of lectures here.’
“In short, I can quote favorable letters from the secretaries of at least eight of my ten centers in 1894 and from a good proportion of those in the preceding years.
An Error Corrected.
“It is claimed that I never returned to an extension center for a second course, save one. In fact, I did so three times, for I gave twelve lectures at Burlington and two courses to the wage-workers of Chicago. To be sure, the Burlington center engaged the two courses at the start, but they did not manifest the slightest regret over this when the first six lectures were finished. One of the other extension lecturers, who is retained in full favor, was only recalled a second time to three centers prior to this fall, and two prominent officials in the office tell me that it is customary to advise a place not to recall the same lecturer for some time, but to try variety.
“The university has always claimed that its extension work was scientific and worthy of indorsement by a great university because of its strictly educational features. Yet the university now attempts to apply rigid financial tests, as though the extension lecturers must return to the university in fees all their salary, as in a girls’ ‘finishing’ school. March 7 last President Harper told me that every lecturer must earn his own salary in this work. Such conditions were never mentioned to me when I agreed to take hold of the work.
The Financial Account.
“Yet, as a matter of fact, prior to Christmas week, 1894, when the trustees dropped me from the salary list, to take effect this last summer, the university had paid me only $5,625 and had received from my extension fees about $3,600, and the salary for my two and one-half quarters of inside work equaled the entire balance of the $5,625. Though the university now states that some of my inside work was given simply to atone for some lack of extension courses, it certainly was not true of any of the above, however true it may have been of my work in July and August of this year. During 1894 the university received in fees for my work $1,335 or more than my salary for that part of the year devoted to extension work, and as given in my previous statement my last two months of work before the action of the trustees Christmas week, 1894, were crowded with courses, and these the most successful I had ever given.
A Breach of Agreement.
“2. The university does not deny that the understanding under which I came was that I should have a gradual increase of inside or class teaching. Neither does the president explain what he meant in his letter of Jan. 15, 1894, when he intimated that I had better leave and could not have more inside work ‘because of the peculiar circumstances here,’ adding:
“ ‘You are man of the word enough to know that, unless one is in the best environments, he cannot work to the best advantage. You are so well known and your ability so well recognized that there will be surely no difficulty in securing for you a good position, one in which you will be monarch and one in which, you will be, above all things else, independent.’
“3. As to my inside work—does Prof. Small deny having repeatedly told myself and others, as late even as last August, that he had never had any fault or criticism to find with my class work and scientific writing?
“4. On March 9, 1895, Prof. Small told me: ‘When President Harper claims that I stand in your way he is joking, and you know it.’ I replied: ‘Do you mean that the president is speaking in a Pickwickian sense?’ ‘Certainly I do, and you can see it all the time,’ was Prof. Small’s rejoinder.
“On Aug. 7 last he admitted using that exact language, but said he was joking when he said it! Perhaps a similar humorous interpretation is to be put upon the statement in The Record this morning.
“5. My classes at the university averaged about four students to a class the first year and over ten the last quarter, while I know of other men conducting similar graduate work without criticism at the university to-day, and even in sociology, to classes of one. Although my classes averaged as large in size as did most of the others, they would probably have been larger had not Prof. Laughlin, head of the department of political economy and of my work the first two years, advised students not to elect my courses.
As to Prof. Bemis’ Qualifications.
“6. Since the university has seen fit in a most unjust and unwarranted way to attack my class work, I will quote the following from a letter of one of the most famous economic and sociological teachers and writers of the world, Prof. John B. Clark. He thus wrote to a college president April 27 last:
“ ‘I should like to say that Dr. Bemis has unusual qualifications for giving instruction in sociology in an institution where this branch of science is to be taught in a scientific way. His range of learning is very extensive and his training in economics has been very thorough. He has clear insight and sound judgment. His views are conservatively progressive, and he seems to me to be a safe guide for students.’
“The chancellor of Vanderbilt university, where I was professor for the third year preceding my call to Chicago, wrote April 27 to the same president:
“ ‘I have a very high regard for Prof. Bemis both as a scholar and as a teacher. His work with us was very successful in both respects, and it was a source of great regret that we could not keep him. I wish we were able to call him back again.’
Questions for the President.
“7. Does President Harper deny having told me Aug. 7 that he had decided as he had, despite the fact that the head professor of sociology had ‘pleaded for’ my retention and had used an almost convincing argument therefor?
“I do not find in the statement by the university this morning any denial of the president’s remark to me, March 13 last, that for the university to be in close touch with the labor question and with municipal and monopoly problems in a moderate spirit was ‘valuable work and you are a good man to do it; but this may not be, this is not the institution where such work can be done.’ Indeed, I hardly find a denial of anything in my previous statement except in the implication that what was there quoted of the letters and words of the president relative to the excellence of my class work was not to be taken seriously.
“Too Close to Social Movements.”
“8. On Jan. 15, 1895, Prof. Small told me that I was too much identified with modern social movements, while the necessities of the case forced him in his own lectures to go off more and more into ‘transcendental philosophy.’
“9. Since the university tries to make out my incompetency for inside or class work at so large a university, perhaps an explanation will be given of the statement of Prof. Small, March 7, in the presence of the president, that I was the best man in the country to write books on many of the following—immigration, population, cooperation, profit-sharing, building and loan associations, life insurance, labor organizations, arbitration, factory and other labor legislation, but these subjects were ‘too specialized for university instruction.’
“10. In the university’s statement this morning there is no denial of the absolute contradiction between a letter of the president’s July 28, 1894, and his convocation address. In the former he declares that because of my address at the First Presbyterian church (which was very moderate and wholly true ‘it is hardly safe for me to venture into any of the Chicago clubs,’ and ‘proposes’ that I exercise ‘great care in public utterances’ henceforth. In the latter he states: ‘From the beginning of the university there never has been an occasion for condemning the utterance of any professor upon any subject.’
Peculiar Use of Language.
“11. The president’s peculiar use of language was illustrated by his statement to me March 7, that a signed resignation, which at his request I soon gave, was no resignation, and we could both so state, until he chose to date it, the date being left blank by me at his suggestion.
“12. I desire to deny that my action in making my previous statement was due to the ‘mentor’ that the university seems to have in mind. I had not seen the one I suppose to be referred to for some time and acted contrary to his advice anyway, but in conformity to the advice of all but two of the many prominent friends heard from since Oct. 1.
An Unmade Denial.
“13. It will be noticed that President Harper does not deny having told a gentleman of unquestioned veracity, when referring to me: ‘It is all very well to sympathize with the workingmen, but we get our money from those on the other side and we can’t afford to offend them.’
“14. Another gentleman—one of national and very high reputation—is prepared to assert to any honorable and disinterested third party the president may name that the latter stated to him: ‘I am on the capitalist side. There is where I get my money.’
“In conclusion, and I wish to speak judicially and fairly, I must say that the statement of certain professors, as indorsed by the president, seems to me evasive and disingenuous and not at all worthy of a great institution of learning. I regret, exceedingly, that the unfounded and injust attacks of the university upon my work have compelled me to make the above statement. Edward W. Bemis.”
Source: U. S. Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. The Papers of Walter Willcox, Box 3, Folder “General Correspondence A-C”.
* * * * *
DR. HARPER WAS EMBARRASSED.
Chicago Record, Oct 19, 1895
Says That the Statement Signed by Him Was Meant to Be Kept Secret.
Dr. Harper was asked yesterday why he had made answer to Prof. Bemis at this late day, after having declared that he would not notice the professor’s letter.
“I have made no statement,” said the doctor, “and the publication in The Record this morning was embarrassing to me. The matter was prepared for submission to the board of trustees this afternoon, and if they had desired to make it public they could, of course, have done so. But it is unfair to say I have made any public statement concerning the matter.”
“The document published was the one prepared with your knowledge and consent, was it not?”
“Yes, I do not intend to assert that there is anything wrong with the document, but if it had been prepared for the public no doubt many things it does not contain would have been incorporated.”
“In the printed statement it is said that the extension lectures of Prof. Bemis were a failure financially. Does this mean that the extension work is languishing?”
“Not at all. It only means that Prof. Bemis did not succeed, and there was no sense in our keeping him when we could get men who would put money in our treasury instead of being a drag upon us.”
Source: U. S. Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. The Papers of Walter Willcox, Box 3, Folder “General Correspondence A-C”.
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MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT between E. W. BEMIS and WILLIAM R. HARPER:
[undated]
- Bemis agrees to give Mr. Harper his resignation as University Extension Associate Professor in the University of Chicago, the date to be left blank and to be filled out by Mr. Harper, but not before Mr. Bemis has secured a position in another institution, provided that the date shall in no case be later than July 1, 1896.
- Bemis agrees to receive as compensation for his services in the University after July 1, 1895, in case service is rendered, the receipts from such lecture courses as he may give in the Extension Division and the sum of Six Hundred and Twenty-five ($625.00) dollars, for six weeks of instruction during the summer quarter of 1895.
- Bemis agrees, in case the above arrangement is carried out by Mr. Harper, to release the University from any obligation to pay him a fixed salary for the year beginning July 1, 1895, should he remain connected with the University during that year.
- Harper agrees to carry out the above arrangements in connection with University Extension work and in connection with University work during the summer quarter of 1895.
[Signed by both]
Edward W. Bemis
William R. Harper
Source: University of Chicago. Office of the President. Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations. Records, Box 11, Folder #4 “Bemis, Edward W., 1892-1895”, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago.
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Image Source: Chauncey L. Moore (Springfield, MA) photograph of Edward Webster Bemis from Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries, Graphic and Pictorial Collection.