The following records come from the President’s Office at Harvard University involving the terms of the reappointment of Paul Sweezy at the rank of Faculty Instructor in the Harvard economics department. Sweezy joined the army in the fall of 1942, so the debate about a two or five year reappointment turned out to be moot on account of the Second World War. What I found particularly interesting in these records is the last one posted below where we witness a member of the department’s visiting committee trying to scuttle Sweezy’s appointment because of his Keynesian fiscal proclivities.
“Mr. Bigelow presented newspaper and other clippings as evidence that Mr. Sweezy advocated economic doctrines in regard to the utility of government-spending in excess of income, and ways of meeting huge deficits, which characterized Mr. Sweezy in Mr. Bigelow’s opinion as an opponent of capitalism…”
In Sweezy’s defense the two members of the department present at the meeting with the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science felt it necessary to remind the others present that the department itself had nominated John Maynard Keynes to receive an honorary doctorate at the Tercentenary celebrations in 1936 (…but that honor somehow escaped Keynes…).
__________________________
Departmental Recommendation
to Appoint for a Five-year Term
(Copy)
February 23, 1940
Dear Dean Ferguson:
The Department of Economics has considered the reappointment of Paul Marlor Sweezy whose term as a Faculty Instructor expires in the current year. The Executive Committee voted unanimously that he be reappointed without specification of the term of such reappointment. It then voted to appoint him a Faculty Instructor for a period of five years. As indicated on the detailed record of this ballot, there were two dissenting votes. Letters from Professors Burbank and Slichter will explain in detail their reasons for not approving of the five-year term.
Mr. Sweezy’s instruction is in the fields of Industrial Organization and Socialism, and is primarily undergraduate. He is an experienced tutor, and at present is one of the two Examiners in Economics. He would at any time be considered a strong candidate for a Faculty Instructorship, and is especially valuable to the Department now in view of the recent departure of so many of our younger staff.
Biographical and bibliographical data are enclosed on separate sheets.
Yours very truly,
(S) E. H. Chamberlin
E. H. Chamberlin
Dean W. S. Ferguson
Copied by: MEH
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Departmental Vote
to Appoint for a Five-year Term
Paul Marlor Sweezy
At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Department of Economics on February 13, 1940, upon motion of Dean Williams, it was voted unanimously that we favor the reappointment of Paul Sweezy, without specification of term.
| Professor Black | Yes |
| Professor Burbank | Yes |
| Professor Chamberlin | Yes |
| Professor Crum | Yes |
| Professor Frickey | Yes |
| Professor Haberler | Yes |
| Professor Hansen | Yes |
| Professor Harris | Yes |
| Professor Leontief | Yes |
| Professor Mason | Yes |
| Dr. Monroe | Yes |
| Professor Schumpeter | Yes |
| Professor Slichter | Yes |
| Dr. Taylor | Yes |
| Professor Usher | Yes |
| Dean Williams | Yes |
| Professor Wilson | Yes |
Dean Williams then moved that we recommend the appoint of Paul Sweezy as Faculty Instructor for a five-year term. The motion was carried with two dissenting votes.
| Professor Black | Yes |
| Professor Burbank | No |
| Professor Chamberlin | Yes |
| Professor Crum | Yes |
| Professor Frickey | Yes |
| Professor Haberler | Yes |
| Professor Hansen | Yes |
| Professor Harris | Yes |
| Professor Leontief | Yes |
| Professor Mason | Yes |
| Dr. Monroe | Yes |
| Professor Schumpeter | Yes |
| Professor Slichter | No |
| Dr. Taylor | Yes |
| Professor Usher | Yes |
| Dean Williams | Yes |
| Professor Wilson | Yes |
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Burbank’s Dissent
to Appoint for a Five-year Term
(Copy)
February 17, 1940
Dear Dean Ferguson:
You are familiar with the recommendation of the Executive Committee of the Department of Economics regarding Dr. Paul Sweezy.
Since I voted against the recommendation which is in your hands, I should like to state the reasons for my action.
I strongly favor continuing the present appointment of Dr. Sweezy for two years, or voting him a five-year appointment from 1937. Either action would give him a full five-year faculty term.
I take this position because I believe his status should be reviewed in about two years. The members of the Executive Committee have known Sweezy for a long period. We are, or should be, altogether familiar with his work and his promise for growth and accomplishment. I place two more years rather than four or five as the better time for revision both from Sweezy’s point of view and from the point of view of the Department.
I have had many years of experience in placing men in other institutions. It has been our experience that it is extremely difficult to place the better men advantageously after they have passed the early thirties. In this particular category the matter of a few years is of real significance. If, in 1945, Sweezy should not be advanced, the difficulties in securing an acceptable place for him will be increased. I hope this can be avoided. I believe that the colleagues who are the principal supporters of the motion for the longer term would declare that this argument carries little or no weight. However, the fact that Dr. Sweezy has no invitations from other institutions of high standing carries very considerable weight in its bearing on this problem.
I was reluctant to recommend a longer appointment at this time because of my estimate of Dr. Sweezy’s promise.
In the immediate past men have not been advanced and have gone elsewhere who were regarded, I believe, by a majority of the members of the Committee as superior to Dr. Sweezy. There are a number of men on the ground whom I regard as more promising.
Further, I believe that in our present situation our Instructorships should be well staggered and filled with regard for our long-time development. Considering the urgent needs of the Department in particular areas, I think it unwise to fill too many places immediately. I urge this policy strongly, since I am convinced that in some fields it is likely to be exceedingly difficult to uncover the requisite ability. It may be decidedly to our advantage to develop competition in these areas, — that is, two Instructors in the subjects involved. I would not urge this course for all areas of study and instruction, but in Agriculture and related problems, and in Labor and related problems I believe such competition may be essential.
Very sincerely yours,
(s) H. H. Burbank
H. H. Burbank
Dean W. S. Ferguson
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Copied by: MEH
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Slichter’s Dissent
to Appoint for a Five-year Term
(Copy)
February 19, 1940
Dean W. S. Ferguson
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Dear Dean Ferguson:
At a meeting of the Department of Economics on February 13, I voted for the reappointment of Mr. Paul Sweezy as faculty instructor but against a term of five years. I favor a two-year term.
Mr. Sweezy is just completing a three-year term as faculty instructor. Consequently appointment for two more years would convert his three-year term into a five-year term which is more normal. On the other hand, appointment for five years following three would put Mr. Sweezy in a special class among faculty instructors and would easily be interpreted as a stronger endorsement of his work and qualifications than I think we are warranted in giving.
No one, of course, knows how rapidly Mr. Sweezy will develop during the next few years but I think that the chances are against our desiring to offer him a permanent place. If that is so, a two-year appointment is fairer than a five-year both to him and to the University.
Sincerely yours,
(S) Sumner H. Slichter
Copied by: MEH
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Appendix: Sweezy c.v.
Paul Marlor Sweezy
Biography
Born April 10, 1910
A.B., Harvard, 1931
A.M., Harvard, 1934
Ph.D., Harvard, 1937
Married
1934-37 Annual Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government and Economics, Harvard.
1937-40 Faculty Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government and Economics, Harvard, for three years.
Bibliography
“A Note on Relative Shares,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. I, No. 1, October 1933.
“Pigou’s Theory of Unemployment,” Journal of Political Economy, December, 1934.
“Economics and the Crisis of Capitalism,” The Economic Forum, Spring, 1935.
“John Strachey’s Theory and Practice of Socialism,” review in The Nation, December 5, 1936.
“On the Definition of Monopoly,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1937.
“Review of The United States: A Graphic History, by Louis Hacker et al.,” The Nation, December 11, 1937.
“Review of Economics for Everybody, by Mervyn Crobaugh,” The Nation, December 25, 1937.
“Review of Socialism versus Capitalism, by A. C. Pigou,” The Nation, February 5, 1938; and Plan Age, March 1938.
“Review of The Promises Men Live By, by Harry Schernan,” The Nation, March 26, 1938.
“Review of Socialism, by Ludwig Mises,” Science and Society, Spring, 1938.
“Wage Policies and Investment,” American Economic Review, Supplement, March, 1938.
“Review of On the Economic Theory of Socialism, by Oskar Lange and Fred M. Taylor,” The Nation, June 25, 1938.
“Expectations and the Scope of Economics,” Review of Economic Studies, June, 1938.
“Review of Confessions of an Economic Heretic, by J. A. Hobson,” The Nation, August 27, 1938.
An Economic Program for American Democracy. With R. V. Gilbert, G. H. Hildebrand, Jr., A. W. Stuart, W. Y. Sweezy, L. Tarshis, and J. D. Wilson. The Vanguard Press. 1938.
Monopoly and Competition in the English Coal Trade, 1550-1850. (Wells Prize essay 1937-38.) Harvard Economic Studies Vol. LXIII. Harvard University Press. 1938.
“Demand under Conditions of Oligopoly,” Journal of Political Economy, August 1939.
“The Thinness of the Stock Market,” American Economic Review, December, 1938.
“Review of Full Recovery or Stagnation, by A. H. Hansen,” The Nation, November 19, 1938.
“The Power of the Purse,” The New Republic, February 8, 1939.
“Marx on the Significance of the Corporation,” Science and Society, Spring 1939.
“Review of The Brandeis Way, by A. I. Mason,” Harvard Law Review, April, 1939.
“Review of Jobs for All, by Mordecai Ezekiel,” The New Republic, April 19, 1939.
“Government Spending, its Tasks and Limits,” (discussion), Social Research, May, 1939.
“Is Further Debt Financing Sound?” (symposium), The Business Bulletin, May, 1939.
“Review of Man’s Estate, by Alfred M. Bingham,” The Boston Transcript, July 22, 1939.
“Public Works as an Aid to Private Investment,” The American City, July, 1939.
“Review of Henry George, by Albert Jay Nock,” The Nation, October 28, 1939.
“Review of Ideas are Weapons, by Max Lerner,” The Nation, December 2, 1939.
“Major Interest Groups in the American Economy,” Appendix No. 11 in The Structure of the American Economy, National Resources Committee, 1939.
In preparation:
Lectures on Marxian Economic Theory. Accepted for publication by the Oxford University Press. (Eight chapters completed in first draft.
“A Contribution to the Economic History of the Law of Corporations.” Accepted for publication by The Quarterly Journal of Economics.
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Dean Signals Green Light
to Appoint for a Five-year Term
C O P Y
February 26, 1940.
Dear Mr. Chamberlin:
I confirm herewith the message I gave you by telephone this morning, that we are agreed to have Dr. Paul Sweezy appointed as Faculty Instructor for five years beginning on September 1, 1940. It is part of this transaction that you and we are agreed that Dr. Sweezy should be informed (first) that this appointment involves no commitment for his election to a vacancy on the permanent staff, (second) that he will be considered for election to such a vacancy in competition both with other Faculty Instructors on the staff and with outsiders, and (third) that in all likelihood this competition will be severe.
Will you kindly write to him to this effect and send to me both a copy of your letter and of his acknowledgment of its receipt?
I am
Yours sincerely,
[unsigned]
Professor E. H. Chamberlin
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Chairman Informs Sweezy
of the Appointment Decision
COPY
February 29, 1940
Dear Paul:
This letter is to confirm our conversation of several days ago. The Department of Economics has voted for you a five-year appointment as Faculty Instructor dating from September 1940, and this appointment has been approved by both Dean Ferguson and by President Conant. It goes without saying that it is an expression of a belief in your promise as an economist and in your continued usefulness to the Department over the five years to come.
The appointment, made during the transition from the old system to the new, in effect continues your tenure on a non-permanent basis over a period of eight years from your Ph.D. which is perfectly normal, but has the unusual result of extending over the entire eight-year period your status as “Faculty Instructor.” For this reason apprehension has been expressed both in the Department and by the University administration lest it be misinterpreted. In fairness to you it should be made perfectly clear that no one regards this appointment as involving any commitment whatever for subsequent election for a permanent position at Harvard. When such a permanent position is to be filled, the competition will include, as well as yourself and other Faculty Instructors on the ground, former members of the Department and still others from the outside. It looks now as if this competition would be severe.
I trust that you will understand the importance of avoiding any misunderstanding at this time. Will you please let me have an acknowledgement to this letter.
Sincerely yours,
(s) E. H. Chamberlin
Dr. Paul M. Sweezy
10 Forest Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Sweezy Confirms Understanding
Tenure Review will be Competitive
COPY
March 3, 1940
Professor Edward H. Chamberlin,
Department of Economics,
Littauer Center,
Cambridge, Mass.
Dear Professor Chamberlin,
I have your letter of February 29th regarding my appointment to a five year term as Faculty Instructor beginning next fall. Needless to say I am happy that the Department and the Administration feel the confidence in my work to date which this appointment implies.
I note that both the Department and the Administration are anxious to make it quite clear that this appointment carries with it no implication of further commitments. You may rest assured that I understand the situation in this respect completely; this letter will serve to furnish a formal record of the fact.
Sincerely,
(sgd.) Paul M. Sweezy
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Official Announcement
of the Appointment Decision
PAUL MARLOR SWEEZY
Recommendation of the Dean of the Faculty:
I recommend the appointment of Dr. Paul Sweezy as Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Department of Economics for five years from September 1, 1940. Dr. Sweezy’s three-year term as Faculty Instructor expires this year. Prior to his present appointment he served three years as Annual Instructor before receiving his doctorate. Consequently he is entitled under our rules to the five-year Faculty Instructorship for which he is recommended. He is thirty years of age.
The vote of the Department on which this recommendation is based was not unanimous. The two dissenters preferred to have the five-year period divided into two periods, one of two years and the other of three. This division seems to me to conflict with the essential idea on which the new type of Faculty Instructorship rests. It denies him the opportunity of sufficient time, free from the consequences on himself and his work of an intervening judgment, in which to demonstrate his scholarship. On the plan of the dissenters Dr. Sweezy would come up for consideration again a year hence. It is not urged that the Department would be in a better position to reach a definite decision regarding him twelve months from now than it is in at present. The action recommended by the great majority of the Department is best calculated to give Dr. Sweezy a fair chance. The Department has only one other Faculty Instructor on the five-year tenure at present and he has just been appointed. Their quota is six. Hence they could have another man in direct competition with Dr. Sweezy in 1944. Dr. Sweezy is comparatively young. There is, therefore, little risk in keeping him on for five years longer. In a subject like Economics the five years between the ages of 30 and 35 constitute the period in which a man ordinarily comes to maturity.
The enclosed letter from me to Professor Chamberlin makes clear to Dr. Sweezy the situation in which he stands on entering on his five-year term.
[signed] W. S. Ferguson
March 20, 1940.
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Memorandum of the discussion between Mr. Albert Bigelow, Professors Burbank and Chamberlin, and Assistant Dean Buck, and myself [W. S. Ferguson, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences] Thursday, May 9, 1940.
Dramatis Personae
Albert Francis Bigelow. Harvard Class of 1903. Harvard Law Graduate. Member of the Economics Visiting Committee. Republican member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives 1925-1944. [His son, Albert Bigelow, was a prominent pacifist.]
Paul Herman Buck. Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, associate professor in history as of 1939. He received the Pulitzer prize in American History in 1938 for his book on the Reconstruction Period after the Civil War.
William Scott Ferguson. Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History (Fun fact: Ferguson invented the reading period at Harvard)
Harold Hitchings Burbank, David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy. Former chairman of the Department of Economics, chairman of the Board of Tutors in the Division of History, Government and Economics.
Edward Hastings Chamberlin, Professor of Economics and Chairman of the Department of Economics.
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Mr. Bigelow presented newspaper and other clippings as evidence that Mr. Sweezy advocated economic doctrines in regard to the utility of government-spending in excess of income, and ways of meeting huge deficits, which characterized Mr. Sweezy in Mr. Bigelow’s opinion as an opponent of capitalism and, on this basis, queried “whether or not he arrived at his views by thorough scholarship and by intellectual processes which command the respect of his peers” — that is to say, met the conditions formulated in the Report of the Visiting Committee of the Economics Department for 193[last digit omitted]. General discussion followed. Professor Chamberlin pointed out that the position taken by Mr. Sweezy was substantially that held by Professor Keynes of Cambridge University, scholar to whom Harvard had tendered an honorary degree at the Tercentenary. Neither Professor Burbank nor Professor Chamberlin was able to define the degree of Mr. Sweezy’s radicalism and affirmed vigorously that in making their recommendation the Department was not actuated for or against him by considerations of his politico-economic opinions. They regarded Mr. Sweezy as a well-trained economist, a man of real ability, and an excellent teacher. Mr. Bigelow raised the question whether the point of view advocated sympathetically by Mr. Sweezy was not considered dispassionately by other members of the Department in their teaching. Professor Burbank affirmed that this was the case, adding that the men who agitated irresponsibly on matters of current controversy were not in the Harvard Department of Economics.
Mr. Bigelow also inquired whether Mr. Sweezy was not likely to influence emotionally the opinions of young men predisposed by present conditions to seek, by any or every means, an escape from their immediate troubles. The point was made that individual undergraduates were taught economics not by one man alone but by at least four or five, among them men who were more orthodox than he in their economic theories. Professors Burbank and Chamberlin were clear that it was impossible not to have instruction on socialism in the Economics Department at Harvard and that without the services of Sweezy they would be very hard put to give it. Accordingly somebody else would be needed to replace Mr. Sweezy; and, according to Mr. Burbank, there was only one man in the country whom they regarded as his superior (Lange of Chicago) and whom in his opinion they would prefer to Sweezy when and if they contemplated making a permanent appointment in this field. He is not procurable on an Instructor’s salary. Professor Burbank thought that the needs of the Department on its permanent staff placed Labor, Economic History, and Agricultural Economics prior to the field represented by Mr. Sweezy. It was pointed out by Mr. Buck that with its quota of six Faculty Instructors, the Department could easily provide for these permanent needs and yet retain Mr. Sweezy as a Faculty Instructor of the new type. He pointed out that since the Department would have at best only two Faculty Instructors next year (excluding Sweezy) they had a real need for Sweezy to insure greater continuity in tutoring and to perform other departmental duties such as the conduct of General Final Examinations. This was admitted by both Mr. Burbank and Mr. Chamberlin.
I took the point of view that I was recommending Mr. Sweezy’s appointment on the grounds of his training in Economics and his intellectual distinction and his excellence as a teacher, adding that since the question of his opinions had been raised I should like to urge that neither at the present time nor a year from now* could an explanation be given which would seem to Mr. Sweezy or his friends to be at all adequate for our failure to reappoint him: in view of our agreement as to his qualifications he would be entitled to think that he was denied the type of appointment granted to his competitors primarily because of his political opinions, whereas should he be given his five-year appointment and not elected to a permanency at its termination (which Professor Burbank thought highly probable) there would be an explanation for letting him go which he could not contest; namely, the prior needs for men in other fields, the fact that, however good they were, only one Faculty Instructor out of every two would find a vacancy open for him, and the regularity of turn-over at that stage.
Mr. Bigelow intimated that he might wish to discuss the matter further with me and with President Conant. (Mr. Bigelow called me up later to say that he would ventilate the problem on Monday but would not press for adverse action.
[signed] W. S. Ferguson
* The date at which a decision would have to be made if he were given a two-year appointment only.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Records of President James B. Conant, Box 154, Folder “Economics, 1939-1940”.
Image Source: Paul Sweezy in the Harvard Class Album 1942.