To achieve a cultural understanding of modern economics, samples of successful and unsuccessful attempts at humor by economists are valuable artifacts seeking proper interpretation. The following five parody letters of recommendation were written by an economist for whom I have achieved a sort of archival sympathy. The reader can imagine my surprise upon transcribing (especially) letter II below that casts a fairly unflattering light on its author (even allowing for his genuine satiric intent seen in the letters regarded as a whole).
Without apologies, dear colleagues, five teachable moments….
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MEMORANDUM
To: Staff and Nonsense [presumably a joke at the expense of “Non-staff”], School of Business Administration, University of Minnesota
From: Administrative Assistant to the Assistant Administrator.
Subject: Letters of Recommendation.
The silly season is once more with us, when letters of recommendation are composed in connection with teaching and other positions. Five model forms are presented below. You will note that they are more than perfunctory, and show sincere interest in the candidates being recommended.
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I
Chairman, Department of Economics
Valley University
Death Valley, Cal.
Dear Sir:
We appreciate your inquiry regarding Dr. Wilfred (“Solid-State 880”) Jones in connection with a teaching position in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics at your eminent institution.
Minnesota is proud of Dr. Jones. In his graduate education we have established a record high marginal rate of substitution of mathematical training for native intelligence. Mr. Jones’ I.Q. was only 70 when he enrolled here. It has since been lowered systematically by special courses from the illiterate Japanese statisticians Mekura, Tsumbo, and Oshi in Summer Institutes at Swineford University. Dr. Jones has nevertheless produced a truly outstanding dissertation on the logical and topological foundations of strabismic [visual defect when both eyes are unable to focus together on an object due to an imbalance of the eye muscles] utility. This masterpiece, written under Professor Haffwitz’ [“half-wit”] O.N.R. research grant, explains not only the purchase of naval surplies [sic, either “supplies” or “surplus” or a deliberate synthesis] by cross-eyed and schizophrenic naval officers, but also the consumer behavior of civilian Siamese Twins.
The psychological trauma and Parrot Fever [disease humans can catch by inhaling bacteria from shed bird-feathers] involved in this accomplishment by a man with Dr. Jones’ handicaps have had their effects upon his personality. He started his graduate career a typical dead fish [a cold, nonresponsive person] wrapped in wet blankets [as in a wet blanket used to smother a fire, i.e. a kill-joy]. As his nickname indicates, he has been accused of becoming a desiccated robot, but we can assure you that he is not only clinically alive but likely to remain so for some time.
There are certain definite advantages to Valley University in employing Dr. Jones. Since he can no longer talk, there is no need to stockpile other econometricians or mathematical economists for him to talk to. Also, unlike many new Ph.D.s completely helpless without electronic computers, Dr. Jones can and does count on his fingers. (Also on his toes, when his shoes and stockings are taken off.)
We have humanitarian reasons for wishing particularly to place Dr. Jones at Valley University. The rigor of his Minnesota training has impaired his ability to come in out of the rain, but it never rains in Death Valley.
Cordially yours,
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II
Head, Division of Social Studies and Humanities
Everglades College and Seminary
Dismal Swamp, Fla.
Dear Sir:
Minnesota is delighted to hear of your interest in our Mr. Ebenezer Akubongo to teach Social Science, Economic Principles, Economic Development, Alligator Husbandry, and allied subjects at Everglades. Mr. Akubongo is perhaps the most under-developed economist in any American graduate school, just as Everglades is the most under-developed college in the country. Mr. Akubongo and Everglades fit each other very well, especially since, you tell us, Immigration Service agents have been unable to penetrate the Everglades as far as Dismal Swamp. It would be to everyone’s advantage, we are sure, for you to modify your segregationist policies in Mr. Akubongo’ s favor provided that, as you propose, he assumes full-time janitorial responsibilities in addition to your customary 24-hour weekly teaching load.
Mr. Akubongo was born in Karra-Wanga, one of the Cannibal Islands. Well-intentioned missionaries secured him a scholarship to the Minnesota Bible College in Minneapolis, but he found himself on the wrong side of University Avenue and enrolled here instead. (We have not yet determined why the University admitted him.)
Mr. Akubongo’s Americanization has been proceeding apace for the past decade. He now wears shoes and headgear habitually during the winter months. His few recent reversions into cannibalism have been inspired by succulent milk-fed Minnesotans under the age of five. (We have no evidence that he would eat a Florida Cracker [Note: not necessarily intended as a racial epithet for a white person. Apparently also a self-description by families having lived generations in Florida] or Seminole Indian of any age, but perhaps you should pay him somewhat above the usual church-related-college scale, for insurance purposes.) Although he still has communication difficulties with others, we have reason to believe that Mr. Akubongo himself understands more than half of what he says in English. After bringing to this country his wife and four children, Mr. Akubongo was passed in his M.A. examinations on his third attempt. He now has two wives and eight children, and may pass his Ph.D. examinations on his nth attempt. His thesis, however, will be delayed until September, as explained below.
Mr. Akubongo is writing his doctoral thesis on the Economic Development of Karra-Wanga, and has been waiting for Karra-Wangan source materials. Their receipt involves certain difficulties; Analgesic [drug to relieve pain], the literary language of Karra-Wanga, has not been reduced to writing. Mr. Akubongo, however, is willing to compose his own source materials to whatever extent necessary to meet a reasonable thesis deadline.
In reply to your query regarding Mr. Akubongo’s loyalty to the Free Market and the American Way of Life, we doubt that Mr. Akubongo has ever had any ideas of any kind relating to these subjects. If he had, he could express them only in Karra-Wangan, which could not be understood by your students, trustees, and American Legion post. Your cherished traditions of economic freedom (which Minnesota shares with you) are therefore entirely consistent with your employment of Ebenezer Akubongo.
Sincerely yours,
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III
Dean, School of Business
Hog Hollow State College
Hog Hollow, Mo.
Dear Mr. Dean:
We hear you have a vacancy in General Business, and present the name of Mr. August Dummkopf Sitzfleisch as the most vacant candidate available here or anywhere else. Gus’ devotion to Business and Education may be known to you, since your school is largely responsible for him. Unable to qualify as an Office Boy after High School graduation, he tried twice more after B.S.B. [probably “Bull-shit Bachelor”] and M.B.A. degrees from Hog Hollow State. Two more failures discouraged him not; Gus will receive his Ph.D. in Business Administration at Minnesota this June, but his age now disqualifies him for Office Boy positions and he plans to teach instead. We feel that you should have the first opportunity to hire Gus, since it was your recommendation which first won him admission to our doctoral program. If you do not hire him, we should be glad to do so ourselves—except for our reluctance to inbreed. This leaves the C.I.A. and F.B.I. as Gus’ last resorts, if you reject him now.
Gus’ record in useless abstract theory has, we admit, not been exactly outstanding but even here his manner of expressing himself has won widespread admiration. Whatever he says and writes in such courses manifests the usual effects of overindulgence in alcohol and opium derivatives, but Gus has satisfied our Dean of Students, our Health Service Psychiatrist, and several campus clergymen that the cause is pure and simple confusion! Gus has done better in such applied courses as Salesmanship, Office-Boymanship, Pickpocketry, Embezzlement, and Fraud. He has worked his way through school by practical experience in certain of these fields, and become a specialist in the production and distribution of automobile license plates in several communities. [i.e., has served time in prison, manufacturing license plates]
Gus’ Ph.D. thesis leans heavily, we are proud to say, on Professor Sodapopopoulos [“Soda-pop”-opoulos] famous course in Research Methodology in Business and Economics. Here he learned to use not only Scissors and Paste, but scotch Tape and Thermofax as well. The resulting 1500-page thesis, weighing 25 pounds (bound), which took Gus six years to write, is a veritable gold mine of case materials on all aspects of Business Administration. It is organized along strictly stochastic and aleatory [literally, “dicey”] lines, and unfortunately lacks an Index. Its French title, “Collage Commerciale,” which has no precise English equivalent, bears witness to Gus’ literary and artistic culture, unusual in most doctoral candidates in this field.
Forever thine,
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IV
Personnel Office,
Minnesota Manacle, Mace, and Maul Company
Mayhem and Massacre Roads, WSE
Minneapolis, Minn.
Fellow-Americans!
The Industrial Relations Center is disappointed at your reluctance to include Simon Legree II in your distinguished organization. Perhaps you will reconsider after we answer the questions you have raised about the Center itself.
In the first place, Si is a hundred-percent 4-M type. He once killed a man with a whip at his fraternity initiation. After exhausting his athletic eligibility, he put himself through school at Minnesota as a masked wrestler, under the name of “Mr. 4-M.” What greater proof do you need?
It is true that our milk-and-water State Legislature makes the Center provide training for labor agitators as well as personnel men. But these classes are not given at the same time, so red-blooded Americans are protected from contamination. It is also true that University rules require management people to take a few courses in parlor-pink “social science” outside the Center’s jurisdiction but before each class of this sort we supply sleeping pills, for your protection as well as their own.
Only one professor within the Industrial Relations Center teaches both personnel men and labor fakers. This is Professor Adolf Hitler K.M. Doppelganger, but I know your criticism of Professor Doppelganger is unfair. His heart is in the right place. Every Monday and Wednesday night he re-reads the collected works of Henry Hazlitt and also his file of the Reader’s Digest, so the Commies cannot lead him astray next day. He spends every week-end painting swastikas on synagogues somewhere in the Twin Cities. He spends every Summer in Mississippi setting up White Citizens’ Councils all over the State. Next year he will go to Spain and West Germany on sabbatical leave, helping the Government hold the line against Communist subversion by agents of the Kremlin.
Under these circumstances, I know you will want to withdraw your attacks upon Professor Doppelganger, whose distasteful affiliations with Leftist organization have been undertaken only at the special request of the House Un-American Activities Committee. And then, once Professor Doppelganger’s true position is clear, won’t you give Si Legree a personnel-office job? He lives just to be a 4-M man, and to honor the best traditions of the Industrial Relations Center in its own home town.
Yours for Free Enterprise!
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V
Local 1, Organizers Union
Communist Party of U.S.A.
State Department
Washington 25, D.C.
Comrades!
The Industrial Relations Center is disappointed at your reluctance to include Jefferson Lincoln Washington in your revolutionary vanguard. Perhaps you will reconsider after we answer the questions you have raised about the Center itself.
In the first place, Jeff is a hundred-percent C.P. type. He once killed a scab with one blow of his fist on the picket line. After exhausting his athletic eligibility, he put himself through school at Minnesota as a masked wrestler, under the name of “Red October.” What greater proof do you need?
It is true that our reactionary State Legislature makes the Center provide training for Fascist bloodsuckers as well as leaders of the toiling masses. But these classes are not given at the same time, so single-minded revolutionaries are protected from contamination. It is also true that University rules require revolutionary proletarians to take a few courses in bourgeois “social science” outside the Center’s jurisdiction, but before each class of this sort we supply sleeping pills, for your protection as well as their own.
Only one professor within the Industrial Relations Center teaches both fighters for labor’s rights and their mercenary exploiters. This is Professor Karl Marx A.H. Doppelganger, but I know your criticism of Professor Doppelganger is unfair. His heart is in the right place. Every Tuesday and Thursday night he re-reads the works of Nikolai Lenin and his file of Masses and Mainstream, so the Fascists cannot lead him astray next day. He spends every week-end photographing R.O.T.C. preparations for the Cuban invasion somewhere in the Twin Cities. He spends every summer in Mississippi organizing Freedom Riders all over the State. Next year he will go to Hungary and East Germany on sabbatical leave, helping the People’s Democracies hold the line against capitalist subversion by agents of Wall Street.
Under these circumstances, I know you will want to withdraw your attacks upon Professor Doppelganger, whose distasteful affiliations with Rightest organizations have been undertaken only at the special request of the Soviet Embassy. And then, once Professor Doppelganger’s true position is clear, won’t you give Jeff Washington an organizing job? He lives just to be a C.P. organizer, and to honor the best traditions of the Industrial Relations Center in the nation’s capital.
Yours for the Revolution!
Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Martin Bronfenbrenner Papers. Box 7, Folder “McCarthyism, 1953-62”.
Image Source: Martin Bronfenbrenner. University of Minnesota Archives/Libraries/Umedia.