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Harvard. Renewal of Faculty Instructorship. Case of Paul Sweezy, 1940

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

                  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.

Categories
Chicago Economists Money and Banking

Chicago. Ph.D. Thesis Committees in Monetary Economics. Patinkin’s Research, 1968

The first boxes of archival material that I examined as my research project on the evolution of graduate economics training was beginning to take shape came from Don Patinkin’s papers back when Duke’s Economists’ Papers Archive still bore the modest descriptor of “Economists’ Papers Project”.

This post transcribes some of the research material collected by Patinkin in his survey of Chicago style monetary economics. Fun Fact: his research assistant while on leave at M.I.T. was the graduate student Stanley Fischer, from whom incidentally I was to take my first graduate macroeconomics course (Patinkin’s book was on the reading list, surprise, surprise).

Doctoral theses advisers were identified for a dozen and a half Chicago theses that drew Don Patinkin’s attention. This is the sort of information that doesn’t normally jump at you in digitised form through a duly diligent internet search, so I thought it worth my time to file this information for now in a blog post. Minor additions have been added in square brackets for the sake of completeness.

______________________________

List of Patinkin’s copy request for Chicago Ph.D. theses

Author

 Article Details of parts photographed

Box No.

1.
Bach, George [Leland]

 Price Level Stabilization: [Some Theoretical and Practical Considerations]

[blank]

[blank]

2.
Bloomfield, Arthur [Irving]

 International Capital Movement and the American Balance of Payments 1929-1940 Title, Contents, Bibliography.
pp. 513-514, 578-579.

T-304

3.
Bronfenbrenner, Martin

 Monetary Theory and General Equilibrium Title, Preface, Bibliography.
Chaps. 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

T-10250

4.
Brooks, Benjamin [Franklin]

 A History of Monetary Theory in the United States Before 1860 Contents, Preface, Bibliography.
Chap. 11.

T-9885

5.
Caplan, Benjamin

 The Wicksellian School—A Critical Study of the Development of Swedish Monetary Theory, 1898-1932 Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-7847

6.
Cox, Garfield V.

 Business Forecasting in the United States 1919-1928 Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-17-91

7.
Daugherty Marion [Roberts]

 The Currency-Banking Controversy Title, Contents, Bibliography
pp. 41, 54, 130, 133, 246, 316.

T-10282

8.
Harper, [William Canaday] Joel

 Scrip and Other Forms of Local Money Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-145

9.
Leigh, Arthur Hertel

 Studies in the Theory of Capital and Interest Before 1870 Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-554

10.
Linville, Francis [Aron]

 Central Bank Co-operation Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-11508

11.
McEvoy, Raymond H.

 The Effects of Federal Reserve Operations 1929-1936 Title, Contents, Preface Bibliography.

T-7731

12.
McIvor R. Craig

 Monetary Expansion in Canadian War Finance, 1939-1946 Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-10268

13.
McKean, Roland Neely

 Fluctuations in Our Private Claim-Debt Structure and Monetary Policy Title, Contents, Bibliography.
Chaps. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

T-90

14.
Reeve, Joseph [Edwin]

 Monetary Proposals for Curing the Depression in the United States 1929-1935 [blank]

T-11022

15.
Shaw, Ernest Ray

 The Investment and Secondary Reserve Policy of Commercial Banks Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-8322

16.
Snider, Delbert [Arthur]

 Monetary, Exchange, and Trade Problems in Postwar Greece Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-1031

17.
Tongue, William [Walter]

 Money, Capital, and the Business Cycle Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-670

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Don Patinkin Papers, University of Chicago School of Economics Raw Materials, Box 2, Folder “Chicago, general (?). from binder: “U. Chicago Ph.D. Theses”, folder 1 of 2”.

______________________________

The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Department of Economics

August 21, 1968

Professor Don E. Patinkin
Economics Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Professor Patinkin:

            I am listing below the information (Committee members) you requested in your letter of July 8, 1968. I am also hoping that you have received your microfilm by now. The Photoduplication department was to have mailed them to you on August 13.

Bach, George [Leland] 1940 S. E. Leland
C. W. Wright
H. C. Simon
Bloomfield, Arthur [Irving] 1942 J. Viner
Lloyd W. Mints
O. Lange
Bronfenbrenner, Martin 1939 Frank Knight, chr.
S. E. Leland
Brooks, Benjamin [Franklin] 1939 Frank Knight, chr.
Lloyd Mints
[Viner also thanked in thesis preface]
Caplan, Benjamin 1942 J. Viner
O. Lange		 L. W. Mints
H. C. Simons
Cox, Garfield [V.] 1929 Lionel D. Edie, chr.
Jacob Viner
Chester W. Wright
Daugherty, Marion [Roberts] (Mrs.) 1941 Jacob Viner, chr.
Garfield Cox
Lloyd Mints
Harper, Joel [William Canady] 1949
[Summer 1948]		 F. Knight
O. Lange
H. Simons		 C. W. Wright
L. Mints
S. Leland
Leigh, Arthur [Hertel] 1946 Frank Knight, chr.
Jacob Viner
Oskar Lange
McEvoy, Raymond [H.] 1950 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Earl J. Hamilton
Lloyd A. Metzler
McIvor, Russel [Craig] 1947 Roy Blough, chr.
J. K. Langum
L.W. Mints [in thesis acknowledgement Mints as the doctoral committee chair]
McKean, Roland [Neely] 1948 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Lloyd A. Metzler
Earl J. Hamilton
A. Director
Reeve, Joseph [Edwin] 1939 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Garfield V. Cox
Jacob Viner
Shaw, Ernest [Ray] 1930 Lionel D. Edie, chr.
Lloyd W. Mints
Stuart P. Meech (Bus. School)
Snider, Delbert [Arthur] 1951 L. Metzler, chr.
R. Blough
Bert Hoselitz
Tongue, William [Walter] 1947 L. W. Mints, chr.
Frank H. Knight
H. Gregg Lewis

            As you can see in some instances the Chairman was not listed, but the examining committee was listed. I wrote to Professor Cox, 660 W. Bonita, Apt. 24 E, Claremont, California 91711, to get the committee members for him and for Professor E. Shaw. Professor Cox also gave me the address of Professor Lloyd W. Mints, 618 E. Myrtle St., Ft. Collins, Colorado, should you have any interest. I hope this is sufficient.

Yours truly,
[signed]
(Mrs.) Hazel Bowdry
Sec. to Professor Telser

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Department of Economics

October 23, 1968

Professor Don Patinkin
Department of Economics
The Eliezer Kaplan School of
Economics and Social Sciences
The Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel

Dear Professor Patinkin:

            In answer to your letter of October 4, I have rechecked the files and find the below listed information.

George Bach’s committee members:

L. W. Mints, chr.
S. E. Leland
C. W. Wright
Oskar Lange
F. H. Knight
H. C. Simons
Jacob Viner
Jacob Left
Maynard Krueger

This is the order in which the examining committee is listed.

Martin Bronfenbrenner:

Henry Schultz chr.
J. Viner
L. W. Mints
F. Knight
A. G. Hart
H. C. Simon

Joel Harper:

S. E. Leland, Chr.
H. Simons
L. W. Mints
Mr. Chatters

Benjamin Brooks:

L. Mints, chr.
J. Viner
F. Knight

            I checked Faculty records with Mrs. Mosby, and found a re-appointment for Henry Simons dated June 3, 1930.

            I hope this information is helpful, and I am sorry I cannot give more definite committee members in the case of Bach.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
(Mrs.) Hayzel Bowdry

P.S. I hope you have received the microfilm by now. It was mailed via airmail yesterday.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Don Patinkin Papers, University of Chicago School of Economics Raw Materials, Box 2, Folder “Chicago, general (?), Simons, Mints, Knight materials”.

Image Source: Don Patinkin article at Gonçalo L. Fonseca’s History of Economic Thought website. Colorized at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Berkeley Chicago Economists Michigan

Chicago. Oscar Lange appointment as assistant professor, 1938

 

Oscar Lange’s first appointment at the University of Chicago began July 1, 1938 at the rank of assistant professor for a term of three years. This post provides a transcription of the official form submitted to the University of Chicago administration by the economics department. The brevity of the form is rather striking to those of us 21st century academics for whom a paper trail is more like an infrastructure investment.

I have also appended some information from Lange’s declaration of intention and his petition for naturalization that he filed while on the Chicago faculty. The limp indicated for his right leg is no doubt related to the differing lengths of his two legs that was noted in his selective service registration (Feb. 16, 1942), “right leg is shorter than other one.”

__________________________________

The University of Chicago

(FOR POSITIONS ABOVE THAT OF ASSISTANT)
TO BE TRANSMITTED TO THE DEAN OF FACULTIES

Date: January 31, 1938

To the Dean of Faculties:

Division of the Social Sciences. Department Economics.

The promotion/appointment of Oskar Lange to the position of

Assistant Professor is recommended, at a salary of
Four Thousand dollars ($4,000.00) beginning
July 1, 1938 for a period of Three years.

Mr. Lange has the following academic record:

A.B. (or B.S. or Ph.B.) (college) [left blank]; (year) [left blank]
Ph.D. or other higher degree (institution) LL.D., Cracow; (year) [left blank]

Previous experience in teaching:

Lecturer and Privatdozent at Cracow and Polish Free University;
one semester at Michigan; one year at California

Publications:

Partial list attached

Qualities as investigator:

Excellent

Qualities as a teacher:

Excellent. At California and Michigan said to be very successful.

Qualities as an administrator:

No knowledge.

Personality:

Good

Provision for salary:

General budget.

[signed] H. A. Millis, Chairman or head of department

The above recommendation has also been considered by Dean [signed] Robert Redfield

Further comments by Dean of Faculties: [left blank]

[signed] Emery T. Filbey, Dean of Faculties

 

PARTIAL LIST OF LANGE’S PUBLICATIONS

“Die Preisdispersion als Mittel zur statistischen Messung wirtschaftlicher Gleichgewichtsstörungen,” Veröffentlichungen der Frankfurter Gesellschaft für Konjunkturforschung (Herausgegeben von Dr. Eugen Altschul, 1932, Neue Folge Heft 4), pp. 7-56.

“Die allgemeine Interdependenz der Wirtschaftsgrössen und die Isolierungsmethode,” Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, Band IV, Heft 1, 1932, pp. 52-78.

“The Determinateness of the Utility Function,” The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 1 (1933-1934), pp. 218-225.

“A Note on the Determinateness of the Utility Function,” The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. II (1934-1935), pp. 75-78.

“Formen der Angebotsanpassung und wirtschaftliches Gleichgewicht,” Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, Band VI, Heft 3, 1935, pp. 358-65.

“Marxian Economics and Modern Economic Theory,” The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. II, No. 3, June, 1935, pp. 189-201.

“The Place of Interest in the Theory of Production,” The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. III, June, 1936, No. 3, pp. 159-192.

“On the Economic Theory of Socialism, Part I,” The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. IV, No. 1, October, 1936, pp. 53-71.

“On the Economic Theory of Socialism, Part II,” The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. IV, No. 2, February, 1937, pp. 123-42.

“Mr. Lerner’s Note on Socialist Economics,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. IV, No. 2, February, 1937, pp. 143-44.

“Professor Knight’s Note on Interest Theory,” The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. IV, No. 3, June, 1937, pp. 231-35.

Source: University of Chicago Library. Office of the President. Hutchins Administration. Records. Box 283. Folder 10 “Economics”.

__________________________________

From Oscar Lange’s Declaration of Intention

I, OSCAR RICHARD LANGE, now residing at 5617 Dorchester Ave. [Chicago, Illinois], occupation University Professor, aged 35 years, do declare on oath that my personal description is: Sex Male, color White, complexion Fair, color of eyes Blue, color of hair Blond, height 5 feet 6 inches; weight 176 pounds; visible distinctive marks none, race Polish; nationality Polish.
I was born in Tomaszow-Mazowiecki, Poland, on July 27, 1904. I am married. The name of my wife is Irena, we were married on January 3, 1932, at Cracow, Poland; she was born at Czestochowa, Poland, on October 1, 1906, entered the United States at New York, N.Y., on Aug. 20, 1937, for permanent residence therein, and now resides with me. I have no children…

I have not heretofore made a declaration of intention….
my last foreign residence was Czestochowa, Poland.
I emigrated to the United States of America from Havre, France,
my lawful entry for permanent residence in the United States was at New York, N.Y.
under the name of Oskar-Ryszard Lange, on August 20, 1937
on the vessel [SS] Paris…

[Signed]
Oscar Richard Lange

…at Chicago, Illinois this 18th day of November, anno Domini, 1939.

 

From Petition for Naturalization
September 17, 1942

The address for the Lange family changed to 6044 Stony Island Ave., Chicago, Illinois.

Added to “Visible distinctive marks limp on rt. leg”

New member of the Lange family noted: son, Christopher, born Feb. 11, 1940, Chicago, Illinois.

The affidavit of witnesses was signed by

Professor Chester W. Wright (5747 Blackstone Ave., Chicago) and
Professor Jacob Viner (5554 Kenwood Ave., Chicago).

Source: National Archives and Record Administration. U.S. Department of Labor, Immigration and Naturalization Service. Oscar Richard Lange’s Declaration of Intention, November 18, 1939 and Petition for Naturalization, September 17, 1942.

Image Source: National Archives and Record Administration. U.S. Department of Labor, Immigration and Naturalization Service. Oscar Richard Lange’s Declaration of Intention, November 18, 1939.

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Salaries

Chicago. Selected salaries. Hayek visiting, Friedman as associate professor, 1946

 

 

Since economists put much store in the notion of people putting their (own or other people’s) money where their mouths are, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror provides from time to time some historical faculty salaries to shine a little light on where those professors of economics before us stood in the willingness-to-pay of their respective departments and university administrations. In this post we see how the brief visiting professorship of Friedrich Hayek and the tenured associate professorship of Milton Friedman fit into the 1946 salary structure at the Univerity of Chicago’s department of economics.

Note: For his half-quarter service Hayek was offered $2,000 (quoted in a January 23, 1945 note  from the director of the U of Chicago Press to VP E. C. Colwell). I presume the $4,000 figure includes $2,000 compensation from (or on behalf of) Stanford University.

_______________________

Comparison: Selected 1945-46 Chicago Salaries
(and recommendations for 1946-47)

Jacob Viner. $10,000
Frank Knight. $9,000 ($10,000)
S.E. Leland. $9,000 ($9,500 Note: resigned to go to Northwestern)
T.W. Schultz. $9,000 ($9,000)
John U. Nef. $8,000 ($8,000)
Jacob Marschak. $8,000 ($8,500)
Paul H. Douglas. $7,000 ($8,000)
Oscar Lange. ($6,000) ($6,000) on leave 1 Oct 1945 to 30 June 1947
Henry Simons. $6,000 ($6,000)
L. W. Mints. $5,500 ($6,000)
Tjalling Koopmans $5250 ($6,740. Note: new salary effective 1 January 1946)

Source:  “Budget and Appointment Recommendations 1946-47 (December 7, 1945)”

_______________________

Hayek’s Half-Quarter, Spring 1946

 

May 10, 1946

Mr. Robert Redfield Social Sciences
R. G. Gustavson Central Administration

On May 9, 1946 the Board of Trustees approved the following recommendations:

It is recommended that Friedrich A. Hayek be appointed Visiting Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics for the period April 8, 1946 to May 11, 1946. For this service and a similar period of service at Stanford University it is recommended that an honorarium of $4,000 be approved.

cc:
Mr. T. W. Schultz
Mr. L. A. Kimpton)      Salary not mentioned
Mrs. K. Turabian)        Salary not mentioned

 

Board—5/9/46:

It is recommended that Friedrich a. Hayek be appointed Visiting Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics for the period April 8, 1946 to May 11, 1946. For this service and a similar period of service at Stanford University it is recommended that an honorarium of $4,000 be approved.

Form sent to Comptroller—5/13/46

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Milton Friedman’s tenured associate professorship
Effective October, 1946

March 19, 1946

Mr. Robert Redfield Social Sciences
R. G. Gustavson Vice President

On March 28, 1946 the Committee on Instruction and Research approved the following recommendation:

It is recommended that Milton Friedman be appointed Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics on indefinite tenure on a 4E Service basis at an annual salary of $6,000 effective October 1, 1946.

cc:
Mr. T. W. Schultz
Mr. L. A. Kimpton)      Salary not mentioned
Mrs. K. Turabian)        Salary not mentioned

 

I & R. 28 March 1946:

It is recommended that Milton Friedman be appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Economics on indefinite tenure on a 4E service basis at an annual salary of $6,000 effective October 1, 1946.

 

Source: University of Chicago Library. Department of Special Collections. Office of the President. Hutchins Administration Records. Box 284. Folder “Economics, 1943-1947”.

Image Source: National Portrait Gallery. Photographs Collection. NPG x187289. Friedrich August von Hayek by Walter Stoneman, half-plate glass negative, June 1945. The portrait has been cropped to fit the format of this webpage.
Creative Commons License Creative Commons license. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Categories
Chicago Economics Programs Economist Market

Chicago. Draft memo of a program to rebuild the department of economics by T.W. Schultz, 1956

 

The following draft memo by T. W. Schultz outlines the serious faculty replacement needs of the University of Chicago department of economics in the mid-1950s. Particularly noteworthy, aside from the impressive list of lost faculty, is the appended table listing the sponsored research/3rd party funders of the economics department at that time. One also sees that the department had been authorized to make offers to Kenneth Arrow, Robert Solow and Arthur F. Burns. So much for the best-laid plans of mice and men. A better historian of economics than I might spin a counterfactual tale of a post-Cowles Chicago with Arrow and Solow on the faculty.

Regarding the ICA Chile Enterprise: Economic Research Center, Schultz wrote “The Chilean enterprise will give us a fine ‘laboratory’ in which to test ourselves in the area of economic development– a major new field in economics.” This reminds me of the old Cold-War Eastern European joke about whether Marx and Engels were scientists (“No, real scientists would have tried their experiments on rats first”). What a “fine ‘laboratory'” for testing oneself!

_________________________

A Program of Rebuilding the Department of Economics
(first draft, private and confidential – T. W. Schultz, May 22, 1956)

Your Department of Economics has been passing through a crisis. Whether it would survive as a first rate department has been seriously in doubt, with one adversity following another as was the case up until last year. It is now clear, however, that we have achieved a turning point in that we can rebuild and attain the objective which is worth striving for – an outstanding faculty in economics.

The crisis came upon us as a consequence of a combination of things: (1) the department, along with others in the University, had been denied access to undergraduate students of the University who might want to become economists; (2) Viner left for Princeton, Lange for Poland, Yntema for Ford and Douglas for the Senate; (3) the Industrial Relations Center drained off some of our talent and when it jammed, Harbison left for Princeton; (4) Mr. Cowles’ arbitrary decision to shift “his” Commission to Yale was a major blow; (5) Nef been transferring his talents to the Committee on Social Thought, and (6) add to all these the retirement of Knight.

Meanwhile, there were several external developments which did not reduce our difficulties: (1) a number of strong (new) economic centers were being established – at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Vanderbilt, M.I.T. and with public funds at Michigan and Minnesota; (2) our salaries were falling behind seriously relative to some of the other places, and (3) recruiting of established, highly competent economists became all but impossible given the crisis that was upon us and the (then) low repute of the University neighborhood.

The ever present danger of the past few years has been that we would be in the judgment of competent colleagues elsewhere, in the beliefs of oncoming graduate students and in the eyes of the major foundations – not recover our high standing but instead sing to a second or even a third-rate department and in the process lose the (internal) capacity to recruit and rebuild.

We now have achieved a turning point distinctly in our favor.

The major efforts which have contributed most have been as follows:

  1. We have taken full advantage of our unique organization in combining real research with graduate instruction. Our research and instruction workshops are the result. The Rockefeller Foundation gave us three grants along the way – agricultural economics, money and public finance – to test this approach and advanced graduate work. The Ford Foundation has now financed our workshops with $200,000 (eight 5-year grant) (our proposal of January 1956 to The Ford Foundation states the theory and argues the case for this approach on the basis of the experiences we have already accumulated).
  2. We set out aggressively to recruit outstanding younger economists. The workshops were a big aid to us in doing this; so was the financial support of the University. We had the ability to “spot them”. We now have the best group of talented young economists, age 30 and less, to be found anywhere. This achievement is rapidly becoming known to others in keen “competition” is already upon us as a consequence.
  3. We need urgently to run up a lightning rod, a (rotating) professorship with a salary second to none, to attract talent and make it clear we were in business and would pay for the best. The Ford Foundation took favorably to the idea. (Thought so well of it that they will do the same for 3 other privately supported Universities – Columbia, Harvard and Yale!)
    The $500,000 endowment grant from them for a rotating research professorship is our reward.
  4. The foundations have given us a strong vote of confidence: grants and funds received by the Department of Economics during 1955-56 now total $1,220,000. (A statement listing these is attached).
  5. The marked turn for the better in the number and the quality of students applying for scholarships and fellowships is, also, an affirmative indication.
  6. The Economics Research Center is filling a large gap in providing computing, publishing and related research facilities which was formally a function of the Cowles Commission.
  7. The Chilean enterprise will give us a fine “laboratory” in which to test ourselves in the area of economic development – a major new field in economics.

There remains, however, much to be done. We must, above all, not lose the upward momentum which is now working in our favor.

Faculty and University Financial Support

To have and to hold a first rate faculty in economics now requires between $225,000 and $250,000 of University funds a year.

To have a major faculty means offering instruction and doing research in 8 to 10 fields. Up until two years ago we came close to satisfying the standard in our graduate instruction. We then had 11 (and just prior to that, 12) professors on indefinite tenure.

Then, Koopmans and Marschak were off to Yale, Harbison to Princeton and Knight did reach 70. And, then there were 7. On top of these “woes” came the serious illness of Metzler which greatly curtailed his role; and, Nef having virtually left economics. Thus, only 5 were really active in economics with Wallis carrying many other professional burdens. Meanwhile we added only one – Harberger was given tenured this year.

Accordingly at the indefinite tenure level we are down to about one-half of what is required to have a major faculty. Fortunately, several younger men have entered and have been doing work of very high quality.

It should be said that the Deans and the Chancellor have stood by, prepared to help us rebuild.

Major appointments were authorized – Arrow, Stigler, Solow and others. We still are hoping that Arthur F. Burns will come.

The resignations and the retirement, however, did necessarily reduce sharply the amount of financial support from the University.

In rebuilding, at least five additional tenure positions will be required:

  1. Labor economics (from within)
  2. Trade cycle (we hope it will be Arthur F. Burns, already authorized).
  3. Money
  4. Econometrics and mathematical economics.
  5. Business organization
  6. Consumption economics (when Miss Reid retires; next 3 years we shall have the extra strength of Dr. D. Brady with finances from The Rockefeller Foundation)
  7. International trade (pending Metzler’s recovery)
  8. Economic development.

The faculty and the University financial support recommended is as follows:

Tenured positions (for individuals fully committed to economics).

    1. Now in the harness

6: Friedman, Johnson, Harberger, Hamilton (Metzler), Wallis (Nef), Schultz

    1. To be added

5: Burns pending, (labor), (money), and two other fields, most likely econometrics and business organization

 

Budget:

11 [tenured positions]

  

$165,000
Metzler and Nef $15,000
$180,000
III. Supplementary non-tenure faculty $45,000
Altogether $225,000

 

Outside Financial Support for the Department of Economics

Grants

 Amount of grant Available 1956-57

A. Received during 1955-56.
1.     Sears Roebuck Fellowships

$4,000

$4,000
2.     National Science Foundation (2 years)

$13,000

$6,500
3.     Conservation Foundation (2 years)

$33,000

$16,500
4.     Rockefeller Foundation: consumption economics (3 years)

$45,000

$15,000
5.     American Enterprise (2 years)

$17,250

$8,625
6.     Ford Foundation: research and instructional workshops (5 years)

$200,000

$30,000
7.     Earhart Fellowships.

$6,000

$6,000
8.     S.S.R.C. Student Grants

$5,000

$5,000
9.     Ford Foundation: 3 pre-doctoral grants

$10,200

$10,200
10.  Ford Foundation: faculty research grant (Hamilton)

$12,500

$8,000
11.  ICA Chile Enterprise: Economic Research Center Fellowships, research support (3 yrs)

$375,000

$125,000
12.  Ford Foundation: endowment for rotating research professor

$500,000

$25,000
13.  Rockefeller Foundation: Latin America (Ballesteros)

$5,000

$5,000

Sub-totals

$1,225,950

$264,825

B. Received prior to 1955-56 where funds are available for 1956-57.
1.     Rockefeller Foundation: workshop in money (3 years with one year to go)

$50,000

$20,000
2.     Rockefeller Foundation: workshop in public finance (3 years with one year to go)

$50,000

$20,000
3.     Resources for the Future (3 years with one year to go)

$67,000

$27,000
4.     Russian Agriculture (2 years with one to go)

$47,000

$22,000

B sub-totals

 $214,000 $89,000

A and B totals

$1,439,950

$353,825

 

Source:  University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics Records. Box 42, Folder 8.

Image Source: 1944 photo of T.W. Schultz from University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07479, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. Cf. Wikimedia Commons, same portrait (dated 1944) from Library of Congress.

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. Chancellor Hutchins interrogated regarding Lange’s leave of absence, 1949

 

One of the things that is so nice about stumbling through the hathitrust.org collection is that you really never know when you’re about to discover an interesting but really obscure publication. Today we get to attend hearings conducted  in the Spring of 1949 at the Illinois House of Representatives regarding communists among the students and faculty of the University of Chicago and Roosevelt College. In the excerpt below we have part of the opening statement of the Chancellor of the University of Chicago as well as his responses to a hostile line of questions regarding the distinguished Chicago economics professor, Oscar Richard Lange, who had been on leave from the University to serve as Polish Ambassador in Washington and whohad by 1949 returned to Poland. Chancellor Hutchins acquitted himself honorably.

Just how “red” was Oscar Lange in fact? I think the greatest lower bound lands him comfortably in the category “useful idiot economist”.

Notes from a 2 hour 15 minute official meeting of Oscar Lange with Joseph Stalin and V. M. Molotov, May 17, 1944.

One partially encrypted  message regarding Oscar Lange, a.k.a. “Friend” (August 1944) from the Venona project.

_____________________

Investigation of the University of Chicago and Roosevelt College, 1949, special report;
public hearings held in House of Representatives Chamber, State Capitol Building,
April 21, 22, 23, 1949, May 19, 1949.
(pp. 25-28 for Q&A)

Robert M. Hutchins, Chancellor of the University of Chicago
examined by Dr. J. B. Matthews, Chief Investigator

…Mr. Chairman, I should like, first of all, to express my appreciation for the courtesy shown me in allowing me to make my opening statement. My name is Robert M. Hutchins, and I have been chief executive officer of the University of Chicago for twenty years, and I am now Chancellor of the University. The subpoena which I have received summons me to testify concerning subversive activities at the University of Chicago. This is a leading question, and the answer is assumed in the question. I cannot testify concerning subversive activities at the University of Chicago because there are none….

…The Constitution of the United States guarantees freedom of speech and the right of the people peaceably to assemble. The American way has been to encourage thought and discussion. We have never been afraid of thought and discussion. The whole educational system, and not merely the University of Chicago is a reflection of the American faith in thought and discussion as the path to peaceful change and improvement. The danger to our institutions is not from the tiny minority who do not believe in them. It is from those who would mistakenly repress the free spirit upon which those institutions are built. The miasma of thought control that is now spreading over the country is the greatest menace to the United States since Hitler. There are two ways of fighting subversive ideas. One is the policy of repression. This policy is contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution of this country. It cannot be justly enforced, because it is impossible to tell precisely what people are thinking; they have to be judged by their acts. It has been generally thought that the widest possible latitude should be given to freedom of speech and publication, on the ground that the expression of differing points of view, some of which are bound to be unpopular, is the way to progress in the State. Hyde Park Corner in London, where anybody may say anything, has long been a symbol of the confidence of the Anglo-Saxon world in the ability of democratic institutions to withstand criticism and also even to nourish itself upon it. There are numerous laws already on the books which provide for the punishment of subversive acts. The policy of repression of ideas cannot work and never has worked. The alternative to it is the long and difficult road of education. To this the American people have been committed. It requires patience and tolerance, even in the face of intense provocation. It requires faith in the principles and practices of democracy, faith that when the citizen understands all forms of government he will prefer democracy, and that he will be a better citizen if he is convinced, rather than he would be if he were coerced….

Q. Doctor, you are quite definite in your statement that there are no subversive activities on the campus of the University of Chicago, is that my correct understanding?

A. I say that no professor is a Communist, or has ever advocated the overthrowing of the government by violence. I say that one or two students have announced publicly that they are Communists. However, if they have advocated the overthrowing of the government by violence, then the proper officials of this State should institute proceedings other than Seditious Activities, or rather, Seditious proceedings against them.

Q. If a professor’s name was carried as an active professor, or a professor emeritus, or on leave of absence, is it not true that that individual is still connected with the University?

A. I don’t understand the tendency of your question. I am sorry. Professor Oscar Lange, Professor of Economics, is listed as “on leave of absence”.

Q. Would you give us the present status of Professor Lange?

A. Well, the present status is that he is on leave of absence. He, therefore, is not in contact with our students or with his colleagues on the faculty. That’s all there is to it.

Q. But the fact that his name is still carried in the University’s catalogue means there is some kind of connection in that….

A. (Interrupting) …He has no connection with the University while on leave of absence, if that is what you mean.

Q. Just a minute…I did not finish my question. You interrupted me.

A. I beg your pardon. Go ahead.

Q. Would it be true that he is what is known as on Tenure?

A. He is on a leave of absence.

Q. Do you have any doubts about Professor Lange being a Communist?

A. Oh, yes.

Q. You know, do you not, that he renounced his American citizenship in order to become an ambassador to a Communist form of government?

A. If that is because he regarded it his patriotic duty to his native land, then it would be my guess that he would be assassinated rather shortly if he were here.

Q. Was that sentence concluded.

A. Oh, yes.

Q. Do you know where he is now at the moment?

A. No. I should think it would be very dangerous for him to be at home.

Q. You think, in other words, that it would be very dangerous for him to be in this country?

A. I believe I said “at home”.

Q. You stated, I believe, that his patriotic duty to the land of his birth compels him to renounce his American citizenship. Does anyone have a duty to the land of his birth if he is a citizen of the country in which he is residing?

A. You recall the situation when Professor Lange was repressed by the government of his country. The war had just been concluded. The Polish State has just been reconstructed. The choice he had to make was extremely difficult because both sides felt that he should make great contributions with, or to the leaders between the United States and Poland. He had that choice to make which was extremely difficult.

Q. Were you so apprized by the government at Washington…by the economic department of the University regarding that information?

A. I don’t know the sources of the information; but in view of the demand under which it was made, it should only be reasonable.

Q. Are you acquainted with the record of voting by Professor Lange at the United Nations?

A. I am.

Q. Did he vote with the so-called Soviet Block?

A. I don’t know that he did.

Q. Just a minute, Doctor. Let me ask the question this way: did he vote consistently with the so-called Soviet Block?

A. I don’t know that he did. It all depends upon what the word “consistently” means as you are using it. I don’t suppose that is correct, but if you mean that he usually did, I would say it was.

Q. You would not state then, Doctor, that he consistently voted that way?

A. That is not my recollection.

Q. In view of this, would Professor Lange be received back at the University of Chicago if he asked to come back?

A. I am not acquainted with Professor Lange’s present views. If his views are now what they were when he went on leave of absence…if we had the money to pay his salary…he would be welcome back. I don’t know if his views are different now from what they were.

Q. Do you recall that he made a statement renouncing the United States?

A. I do.

Q. But he will be taken back, as a professor at the University of Chicago, if he so desires, is that right, even though he is an objector of this form of government?

A. This certain policy of the United States is the same to which many loyal Americans objected.

Q. How long is it a practice to carry such a professor as he on leave of absence status?

A. Well, we carried the present vice-president of the Marshall-Field Company for ten years; and the vice-president of the Ford Motor Company for ten years….J. O. McKenzie also for about ten years.

Q. Since you do not know where Professor Lange is at the present time, are you prepared to state when the University last heard from him?

A. I do not know. It is not my understanding that your information is correct. It is not my understanding that he is carried in the catalogue of the University.

Q. For your information, Doctor Hutchins, I would like to note here that the latest available catalogue from the University of Chicago was dated May 25, 1948, and is the catalogue from which I take the information that he is still listed, although designated as on leave of absence.

A. To my knowledge, that is incorrect.

Q. Then there is a later catalogue?

A. Yes. [Note: Lange was not listed in the 1949-50 catalogue published July 1, 1949]

Image source: Wikipedia/commons.

 

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. Economics department in WWII. Excerpt from letter to President Butler, Nov. 1942

 

There is a lot of information packed into the annual budget requests submitted by an economics department. Below I have limited the excerpt from the November 30, 1942 budget submission by the head of the economics department to Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler to a brief introduction that provides an executive summary of the state of staffing and enrollment one year into the Second World War for the U.S. 

_____________________

Excerpt from R. M. Haig’s Budgetary Requests for 1943-44

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

File: R. M. Haig
November 30, 1942

President Nicholas Murray Butler
Columbia University

My dear Mr. President:

[…]

Introductory

Before turning to the detailed proposals, it may be helpful to outline certain facts regarding the general situation we face.

  1. The war has made heavy inroads on both our staff and our students. Two ([James W.] Angell and [Arthur R.] Burns) of our ten regular professor offering graduate instruction are in Washington on war service and most of those who remain are devoting a substantial portion of their time to the war effort. The staff of Columbia College has been even more heavily hit. Of the men giving instruction in the college in 1940-1941, [Carl Theodore] Schmidt and [Charles Ashley] Wright are now army officers, [Hubert Frank] Havlik, [Clement Lowell] Harriss, [Walt Whitman] Rostow and [Donald William] O’Connell are in war work in Washington, and [Robert] Valeur is devoting most of his time to aiding the Free French. However, we have been exceedingly fortunate in the substitutes we have been able to secure and (especially as compared with other institutions) we present a strong front in spite of our losses.
  2. It was apparent a year ago that the demand from Washington for persons with graduate training would sweep large numbers of our students from their classrooms before the completion of their courses. Requisitions for economists continue to arrive in almost every mail although we have long since placed in positions everyone on our eligible lists. Yet, as we anticipated last year, our body of graduate students still remains at a figure that makes it desirable and necessary to offer substantially all of our fundamental courses. The decline in the number of our students since our peak year (1938-1939, when 340 were registered) has been very great. However, we still are the largest graduate department of economics in the country by a wide margin. I am told that at Harvard, where there were 115 students last year, only 33 are in attendance this semester, and that at Chicago a similar loss has been suffered. In my letter dated December 30, 1941, it was suggested that we might have as many as 150 graduate students registered in our department this year. The latest count shows 130, with a fair prospect that the figure of 150 will be reached in the Spring session. A poll of the staff shows that, in the opinion of some, the number will be fully as large next year and the consensus is that the number will not be less than 100. Moreover all agree that with the coming of peace we shall be faced with an influx of students which may easily swamp the facilities of our graduate staff. For Columbia College, where this year the enrollment has been large, the outlook for economics in 1942-1943 is very obscure. At this time, it appears probable that the regular offering of courses, at least in skeleton form, will be required to serve a small number of regular students. Fortunately the commitments of the University to individuals on the College staff are such that the situation is highly flexible and can be accommodated with relative ease to whatever special program may be adopted for the undergraduates. In this budget, request is made for appropriations in blank for several instructorships, to be utilized only in case the need for them develops as plans for the college become more definite.
  3. Because of retirements, actual or more or less immediately impending, the department is faced with a serious problem of wise replacement of staff in its graduate division, if we are to maintain in the future the position of eminence we have held in the past. In view of this problem, it has seemed wise to make a virtue of our necessities and to utilize the need for temporary replacements for professors absent on leave during the emergency as an opportunity to invite as visiting professors certain men whom we rate high in the list of possible future staff members. This year we have three such men on the campus ([Oskar] Lange, Arthur F. Burns and [Clarence Arthur] Kulp). We believe that it will be wise to continue this policy of exploration and experimentation next year with funds released from the appropriations for the salaries of [James W.] Angell and Arthur R. Burns, in case the war continues and they do not return to their regular posts.
  4. As an incident to the policy referred to in the preceding paragraph, we have been able this year to offer a remarkably strong series of courses in the field of economic theory. However, we are this year relatively weak in economic history, socialism and industrial organization, offering no courses at all in the last-named subject. The chief embarrassment experienced this year by the unsettled staff situation has been in connection with the supervision of student research. Some of our students who have dissertations in progress have been seriously inconvenienced by the absence of the professors under whom they initiated their studies.

[…]

Source: Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890-. Box 386, Folder “Haig, Robert Murray 7/1942—1/1943”.

Categories
Bibliography Chicago Columbia Yale

Chicago. French/German/Italian Public Finance Bibliography. Bloch, ca. 1944

 

The backstory to the following list of French, German, and Italian works on public finance that was given to students at the University of Chicago sometime in the early to mid-1940s is illustrative of the forensic effort to prepare such posts. 

Henry Simon Bloch (1915-1988)  was born in Kehl (Germany) and emigrated to the U.S. in 1937 after having received his doctorate from the University of Nancy for a dissertation on Carl Menger.  I ran across two bibliographies he had put together in the files of Robert M. Haig at Columbia University. Both cover letters were written by Bloch on University of Chicago economics department stationary. The bibliography transcribed for this post came without a date, but the course number and senior faculty member,  Simon Leland, were easy to confirm. Still, Bloch only appears once or twice in the departmental list of faculty (at the rank of instructor), but never actually listed as an instructor for Economics 360 “Government Finance”.    

Bloch left Chicago in 1945 about the same time that Oskar Lange did. Because Bloch wrote in the cover letter to the bibliography below that it hardly seemed as though four years had passed since he had visited New York and his other bibliography had been mailed in January 1940, it seems reasonable to assume that the today’s list was sent in 1944.

Last speculation: in the New York Times obituary linked above it mentions that Bloch was honorary associate fellow of Berkeley College of Yale University. Robert Triffin  was master of that residential college at Yale from 1969 until 1977. This likely connection is perhaps related to Bloch’s honorary doctorate from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles?

__________________

 Partial timeline
of Henry Simon Bloch

1915. Born April 6 in Kehl, Germany.
1937.  Dr. en Droit (Econ) at the University of Nancy with the dissertation La théorie des besoins de Carl Menger.
1937. Emigration to the United States.

University of Chicago

1938. Research assistant.
1941-42. Lecturer, Institute for Military Studies.
1943. Instructor economics, Institute for Military Studies.
1943-45. Research supervisor, Civil Affairs Training School (CATS) for Army and Navy Officers.

1945. Consultant, Foreign Economics Administration.
1945-46. Economist, Treasury Department.
1946. Member Treasury delegate for tax treaty negotiations, Treasury Department, France, United Kingdom, Benelux.
1947-49. Section chief, United Nations.

[gap to be filled]

1955. Visiting professor economics Yale University.
1955-62. Director fiscal and financial branch, United Nations.
1958-1959. Acting director, Bureau Economics Affairs.
1959-1962. Director, Bureau Technology Assistance.
1961-1962. Deputy commissioner for technical assistance, Bureau Technology Assistance.
1962-1966. President, Zinder International Ltd.
1967-1970. Vice-president, director, Engineer of Mines Warburg & Company, Inc.
1970-1975. Senior vice president, Engineer of Mines Warburg, Pincus & Company, Inc.
1976-1981. Executive vice president, Engineer of Mines Warburg, Pincus & Company, Inc.
1982-1988. Managing director, Engineer of Mines Warburg, Pincus & Company, Inc.
1988. Died in Manhattan, February 28.

Columbia University

Lecturer, 1955-1963.
Adjunct Professor law and international relations, 1963-1985.
Professor emeritus, 1985-1988.
Member international advisory board School International and Public Affairs, 1986-1988.

Source:   From the Henry Simon Bloch page at the Prabook website of biographies of professionals.

__________________

Budget and Appointment Recommendations 1944-45
February 21, 1944
Economics Department
Item 16

It is recommended that the appointment of Henry S. Bloch as instructor [10/1/1943-9/30/44, $3,600] be renewed [10/1/44 to 9/30/45, $3,600]. Bloch at present is devoting his time exclusively to the CATS program, where his salary is charged. Should that training program be liquidated, Bloch’s services can be transferred immediately to Departmental teaching, research, and assistance in advising students. During the past year such needs have arisen, but because of the demands of the miitary program Bloch has not been able to assist the Department in its civilian program. Attention is called to the fact that Bloch’s salary is on a four-quarter basis.

Source:  University of Chicago Archives. Records of the Hutchins Administration, Office of the President, Box 284, Folder “Economics , 1943-47”.

___________________

Course Description 1944-45

[Economics] 360. Government Finance. A survey course covering the main topics dealt with in standard treatises, but emphasizing analysis of the economic effects of various fiscal practices. Prereq: Two years’ work in the Division of the Social Sciences, or equiv. But: MWF 8; Leland.

Source:  Annual Register of the University of Chicago. Announcements: The College and the Divisions, Sessions of 1944-45. Volume XLIV, No. 8 (May 15, 1944), p. 279.

___________________

The University of Chicago
Department of Economics
Oct 1

Dear Professor Haig,

I thought this might be of interest to you. It is just a list for our students.

It seems as if I had seen you only yesterday and when I was out at Riverdale it seemed as if there had not been more than 4 years interval. It was so nice.

I assume that you met Oscar Lange in the meanwhile.

Regards,

Henri.

___________________

Economics 360
SELECTED LIST OF FRENCH, GERMAN AND ITALIAN WORKS ON PUBLIC FINANCE

by
S. E. Leland and H. S. Bloch

Authors of the French language group

Allix, E. Traité élémentaire de science des finances et de législation financière française, 4th ed., 1921. Paris, 1931.

Allix, E., and Lecerclé, M. L’impôt sur le revenu. Paris, 1927.

Colson, Clément. Les finances publiques et le budget de la France. Cours d’économie politique, vol. v (2d rev. ed.). Paris, 1931.

De Greeff, Guillaume. L’économie publique et la science des finances. Bruxelles, 1907.

Denis, M. H. L’Impôt sur le revenu. Brussels, 1881.

Garnier, Joseph. Traité de Finance, 3d ed. Paris, 1872.

Jèze, Gaston. Cours élémentaire de science des finances et de législation financière française. Paris, 1912.

__________. Cours de science des finances (Théorie de l’impôt). 1936/37.

__________. Cours de finances publiques. Théories générales sur les phénomènes financiers, les dépenses publiques, le crédit public, les taxes, l’impôt. Paris, 1931.

__________. Théorie générale du budget. Paris, 1922.

__________. Cours élémentaire de science des finances et de législation financière française. Paris, 1932.

__________. Cours de science de finances et de législation financière française. Technique du Crédit Public. Paris, 1923.

__________. «Le rôle du ministre des finances dans une démocratie, » Revue de Science et de Législation Financières, Vol. XXVII (1929), pp. 7-24.

__________. Le remboursement des emprunts publics d’état. Paris, 1927.

Jèze-Boucard, M. Éléments de la science des finances et de la législation financière française, 2 vols. 1902.

Leroy-Beaulieu, Paul. Traité de la science des finances. 2 vols. 1899.

Marion, Marcel. Histoire financière de la France, depuis 1715, 6 vols. Paris, 1914/1931.

Marquis de Mirabeau. Théorie de l’impôt. 1760.

Say, Jean Baptiste. Cours complet d’économie politique pratique. 1828-9.

Say, Léon. Les finances. Paris, 1892.

__________. Dictionnaire des finances, 2 vols. Paris : Nancy, 1891/1894.

__________. Les Solutions démocratiques de l’impôt. 1886.

Stourm, R. Cours des finances. 1906.

__________. Le budget. Tr. in English—The Budget. 1917.

Trotabas, L. Précis de science et législation financières. Paris, 1936.

Vauban. Dixme royale. 1707.

Walras, L. Théorie critique de l’impôt. Paris, 1861.

 

Authors of the German language group

Büsch, Johann Georg. Abhandlung vom dem Geldumlauf in anhaltender Rücksicht auf die Staatswirtschaft und Handlung. Hamburg, 1780. [2nd edition, 1800]

Cohn, Gustav. Finanzwissenschaft, 1889. The Science of Finance (tr. by T. B. Veblen). Chicago, 1895.

__________. System der Finanzwissenschaft. 1889.

Colm, G. Volkswirtschaftliche Theorie der Staatsausgaben. Tuebingen, 1927.

Eheberg, Karl. Finanzwissenschaft, 18th ed. Berlin, 1930.

Földes, B. Finanzwissenschaft. 1920.

Gerloff, W. Steuerwirtschaft und Sozialismus. Leipzig, 1922.

Gerloff, W., and Meisel, F. Handbuch der Finanzwissenschaft. Tübingen, 1926.

Goldscheid, Rudolf. Handbuch der Finanzwissenschaft. Tübingen, 1926.

Hock, Karl V. Öffentliche Abgaben und Schulden. 1862.

Jecht, Horst. Wesen und Formen der Finanzwissenschaft. Jena, 1928.

Jèze-Neumark, F. Allgemeine Theorie des Budgets. 1927.

Lindahl, E. R. Die Gerechtigkeit der Besteuerung. Lund, 1919.

Lotz, W. Finanzwissenschaft. 1917.

Mann, Fritz Karl. « Steuerpolitische ideale, » Finanzwissenschaftliche Forschungen. Jena, 1937.

__________. Deutsche Finanzwirtschaft. Jena, 1929.

Moll, Bruno. Lehrbuch der Finanzwissenschaft. Berlin, 1930.

Nebenius, Karl Friedrich. Der öffentliche Kredit. 1820.

Neumark, Fritz. Reichshaushaltplan. 1929.

Rau, Karl. Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie. 1826-37.

Ritschl, Hans. Theorie der Staatswirthschaft und Besteuerung. Bonn, 1925.

Sax, Emil. Grundlegung der theoretischen Staatswirtschaft. Vienna, 1887.

Schaeffle, Albert, E.F. Die Steuern. Leipzig, 1895.

Roscher, Wilhelm. System der Finanzwissenschaft. 1886.

Schanz, G. V. Der Einkommensbegriff und die Einkommensteuergesetze, Finanzarchiv. 1896.

Stein, L. V. Lehrbuch der Finanzwissenschaft, 4 vols. 5th ed. 1885/1886.

Sultan, H. Die Staatseinnahmen: Versuch einer soziologischen Finanztheorie als Teil einer Theorie der politischen Oekonomie. 1932.

Tehralle, Fritz. Finanzwissenschaft. Jena, 1930.

Teschemacher, Hans. Handbuch der Finanzwissenschaft. Tübingen, 1927.

Wagner, A. Finanzwissenschaft. 1889.

Wicksell, K. Finanztheoretische Untersuchungen. Jena, 1896.

 

Authors of Italian language group

Barone, Enrico. Principii di economia finanziaria. Rome, 1920.

Conigliani, Carlo. De diritto pubblico nei sistemi finanziari; Studi di teoria finanziaria; e’indrezzo teorico nella Scienza finanziaria. Turin, 1903.

__________. Le leggi scientiche della finanza. 1903.

Cossa, L. “Scienze delle finanze”—Translated excerpts, by H. White. Taxation: Its principles and methods. New York and London, 1893.

Del Vecchio, Gusatavo. Lezioni di scienze delle finanze, 2d ed. Padua, 1923.

De Viti de Marco. Il carattero teorico della economia finanziaria. 1890.

De Viti de Marco, Antonio. Principii di economia finanziaria. Turin, 1934. Translation: First Principles of Public Finance, by Edith Pavlo Marget. New York, 1936.

Einaudi, L. Corso di scienza della finanza, 3rd ed. Turin, 1914.

__________. Principii di scienza della finanza. Turin, 1932.

Fasolis, G. Scienza delle finanze e diritto finanziario. 1933.

Flora, F. Manuale della scienze delle finanze, 6th ed. 1921.

Graziani, A. Istituzioni di scienza delle finanze. Torino, 1897.

Griziotti, B. Considerazioni sui metodi; limiti e problemi della Scienze pure delle Finanze. 1912. Pp. 39.

__________. Principii di politica, diritto e scienza delle tinanze. 1929.

__________. Studi di diritto tributario. 1931.

Loria, Achille. The Economic Synthesis: A study of the laws of income. Tr. by Eden Paul. London, 1914.

Mazzola. Dati scientifica della finanza pubblica. 1890.

Murray, Roberto. Principi fondamentali di scienza pura delle finanze. 1914.

Nitti, F. S. Principi di scienze delle finanze, 5th ed. Rome, 1922.

Pantaleoni, Moffea. Teoria della pressione tributaria. 1887.

Pareto, Vilfredo. “I debiti pubblici dopo la guerra,” (Rivista di Scienze Bancaria—February-March, 1916), Fatti e Teorie, p. 57-62. Firenze, 1920.

Pugliese, Mario. L’imposizione delle imprese di carattere internazionale. 1930.

Ricca-Salerno, G. Scienza della finanze. 1888.

__________. Storia delle Dottrine Finanziane in Italia. Translated. Rome, 1881.

__________.History of Fiscal Doctrines in Italy. Translated. 1890.

Rignano, Eugenio. Social Significance of the Inheritance Tax. Translated by Wm. J. Shultz. New York, 1924.

Rignano, Eucenid. Una Riforma socialista del diritto successorio. Bologna. 1920.

Roncali, A. Corso elementari di scienza finanziaria. Parma, 1887.

Tangorra, V. Trattato di Scienza delle Finanza.

Vanoni, Ezio. Natura ed interpretazione delle leggi tributarie. 1932.

 

Source: Columbia University Archive. Robert M. Haig Papers. Box 16, Folder “Bibliography”.

Image Source: Social Science Research Building. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf2-07466, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. Simons urges the recruitment of Milton Friedman, 1945

Simons

 

 

The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki was less than two weeks history and the declaration of the surrender of Imperial Japan only five days old. Nothing says “back to business as usual” at the university better than active lobbying on behalf of one’s preferred candidate for an upcoming vacancy, as we see in the following memo for the 33 year old Milton Friedman written by Henry C. Simons to the Chicago economics department chair, Simeon E. Leland. The copy of this memo comes from the President’s Office at the University of Chicago. Simons’ grand strategy was to seamlessly replace the triad Lange-Knight-Mints with his own dream team of Friedman-Stigler-Hart. He feared that outsiders to the department might be tempted to appoint some convex combination of New Dealer Rexford Tugwell and trust-bustin’ George W. Stocking Sr., economists of the institutional persuasion who were swimming on the edges of the mainstream of the time.

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror also has transcribed excerpts from an earlier 77 page (!) memorandum (10 April, 1945) to President Robert M. Hutchins from Simeon E. Leland entitled “Postwar Plans of the Department of Economics–A Wide Variety of Observations and Suggestions All Intended To Be Helpful in Improving the State of the University”.

____________________________

 

Henry C. Simons Urges his Department Chair to Recruit Milton Friedman

August 20, 1945

To: Simeon E. Leland           Economics

From: Henry C. Simons        Economics

 

If Lange is leaving, we should go after Milton Friedman immediately.

It is a hard choice between Friedman and Stigler. We should tell the administration that we want them both (they would work together excellently, each improving what the other did), Friedman to replace Lange, Stigler to replace Knight and to be with us well ahead of Knight’s retirement. We might also say that we want Hart to replace Mints at Mints’s retirement, and also to be with us in advance, but are happy to have him financed by C.E.D. [Committee for Economic Development] for the present.

Yntema evidently is thinking of getting Friedman shortly. We should exploit this possibility. Milton has now a great yen for a University post and would probably turn down an offer from C.E.D., even at much financial sacrifice, if a good academic post were the alternative (as it might be, at Minnesota or elsewhere). He is rather footloose—not anxious to go back either to the Treasury or to the National Bureau. We should grab him now, offering temporary joint appointment with C.E.D. and full-time, permanent appointment when he is through with C.E.D.

Friedman is young, flexible, and available potentially for a wide variety of assignments. He is a first-rate economic theorist, economic statistician, and mathematical economist, and is intensely interested over the whole range of economic policy. He has been outstanding in every organization where he has worked—here with Henry Schultz, at the National Bureau, at the Treasury, and now recently in the Army project at Columbia. Moreover, he is one of those rare cases of able young men who have enjoyed large experience and responsibility in Washington without being at all disqualified thereby for academic work.

The obvious long-term arrangement is a joint appointment with the Cowles Commission. Marschak would, I’m sure, like to have him; and Milton would like to settle into a major project of empirical research, e.g., on enterprise size and productional efficiency. Bartky may be expected strongly to support the appointment, for its strengthening of the University in statistics. The School of Business could well use Milton, to give its few advanced courses in statistics, if Yntema continues to price himself out of the University. Moreover, Milton probably would be delighted to work partly in the Law School, and be extremely useful there. In the Department, he would be available for statistics, mathematical economics, pure economic theory, taxation, and almost any field where we might need additional courses.

If University officers want outside testimony, they could get it from Randolph Paul or Roy Blough (as regards the Treasury), from Arthur F. Burns (National Bureau), from Abraham Wald, Allen Wallis, and Barky (as regards war research), and from Bunn at Wisconsin (as regards possible usefulness to the Law School)—not to mention George Stigler, Harold Groves, Wesley Mitchell, Simon Kuznets, Erwin Griswold, et al.

Perhaps the best thing about Milton, apart from his technical abilities, is his capacity for working as part of a team. He is the gregarious kind of intellectual, anxious to try out all his ideas on his colleagues and to have them reciprocate. He would doubtless be worth his whole salary, if he neither taught nor published, simply for his contribution to other people’s work and to the Department group as a whole. But he is also intensely interested in teaching, and far too industrious not to publish extensively. Our problem would be not that of finding ways to use him but that of keeping him from trying too many tasks and, especially, of leaving him enough time for his own research.

It would, I think, be good policy and good tactics to submit a major program of appointments, including [Frank W.] Fetter, Friedman, Stigler, Hart, and an economic historian (Innis or Hamilton), in the hope of getting them all within a few years, some on joint appointments with, notably, the Cowles Commission, the Law School, the School of Business (?) and, temporarily, the C.E.D. Research Staff. Such a program would serve to protect us against administration pressure for less good appointments (e.g.,  Stocking [George Ward Stocking, Sr., Ph.D. Columbia, 1925]), and from Hutchins’s alleged complaint that, while he wanted to consider major appointments in economics, the Department simply would not make recommendations. We should, in any case, err on the side of asking for more appointments than we can immediately get. Otherwise, available funds may go largely elsewhere—e.g., into Tugwell-like, lame-duck appointments, and into Industrial Relations, Agricultural Economics, and other ancillary enterprises, at the expense of the central field of economics.

There is, I trust, substantial agreement within the Department, on the men mentioned above. This fact, if fact it is, should be made unmistakably clear to the administration.

Incidentally, if we are going to explore possibilities of an appointment in American economic history (and I’m probably alone in opposing), we should do so only in co-operation with the History Department and with (from the outset) joint plans for joint appointments.

 

HCS-w

 

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Office of the President. Hutchins Administration. Records. Box 73, Folder “Economics Dept., 1943-45”.

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07613, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. Historical Enrollment Trends, Economics Faculty by Age and Educational Background. 1944-45.

__________________________

On April 10, 1945, the chairman of the University of Chicago’s economics department, Professor Simeon E. Leland, submitted a 77 page (!) memorandum to President Robert M. Hutchins entitled “Postwar Plans of the Department of Economics–A Wide Variety of Observations and Suggestions All Intended To Be Helpful in Improving the State of the University”.

In his cover letter Leland wrote “…in the preparation of the memorandum, I learned much that was new about the past history of the Department. Some of this, incorporated in the memorandum, looks like filler stuck in, but I thought it ought to be included for historical reasons and to furnish some background for a few of the suggestions.” 

In a recent post I provided a list of visiting professors who taught economics at the University of Chicago up through 1944 (excluding those visitors who were to receive permanent appointments). For this post I have selected a few supporting tables from the memo providing data on the age distribution and educational backgrounds of the economics faculty along with time series on enrollments and registrations.  A later post provides talent-scouting lists for possible permanent, visiting and joint appointments.

______________________________

In making his plea for administration support for new additional hires, Chairman Leland began by noting that in 1944 Professor Chester Wright “was transferred to the emeritus status”. Negotiations with Professor H. A. Innis of the University of Toronto to succeed Wright were taking place but Leland did not appear to be overly confident, having written “If he [Innis] does not [accept a Chicago offer], due to the scarcity of men in Economic History, the post occupied by Professor Wright will be very difficult to fill.”

Looking ahead over the six years before the retirements of Knight and Kyrk were scheduled, Leland hoped to get support to begin the process of hiring younger faculty (only three of the staff were under 40 years of age as of the end of 1944), so that  (1) gaps in the existing program would not occur and (2) promising new fields could be covered.

Furthermore Leland argued “…the Department does not seem to have enough young men as instructors and assistant professors. As a result, the chores of running a department, including sharing in administration and advising students, fall heavily on the older, higher-salaried men on the staff.”

 

Ages of Staff Members
(as of December 31, 1944)

Name

 Rank Age

Came to University of Chicago
Bloch, Henry Simon

Instructor

 29

1939
Douglas, Paul Howard

Professor*

 52

1920
Harbison, Frederick Harris

Assistant Professor

 33

1940
Knight, Frank Hyneman

Professor

 59

1917-19; 1927
Kyrk, Hazel

Professor; also Home Economics

 59

1925
Lange, Oscar

Professor

 40

1938
Leland, Simeon Elbridge

Professor; also Political Science

 47

1928
Lewis, Harold Gregg

Instructor*

 30

1939
Marschak, Jacob

Professor

 46

1943
Mints, Lloyd Wynn

Associate Professor

 56

1919
Nef, John Ulric

Professor; also History

 45

1929
Schultz, Theodore William

Professor

 42

1943
Simons, Henry Calvert

Associate Professor

 45

1927
Viner, Jacob

Professor

 52

1916

This list does not include part-time instructors (3), research associates (3), lecturers, or members of the college staff (3).

*On leave for military service

______________________________

To reassure the President that the department was not in danger of “inbreeding” the following table was included in the memo. Leland’s first comment was that the educational backgrounds of the economics faculty included some 18 U.S. and 13 foreign institutions. While noting a significant concentration of Harvard and/or Chicago training of the economics faculty, only five of the fourteen actually had advanced training at Chicago and of those just two held Ph.D.’s from Chicago as of 1945 (Kyrk and Leland).

 

Educational Institutions Attended by Members of the Department of Economics

 

Name and Rank Degrees or Advanced Training Other Work
A.B. A.M. Ph.D.
H. S. Bloch
(Instructor)		 Nancy* Nancy Strasbourg*
Paris’
Nancy (Dr. en Droit)		 Acad. Int’l. Law
The Hague
P. H. Douglas
(Professor)		 Bowdoin Columbia Columbia Harvard
F. H. Harbison
(Asst. Prof.)		 Princeton Princeton Princeton
F. H. Knight
(Professor)		 Tennesee(B.S.)
Milligan (Ph.B.)		 Tennessee Cornell University American University, Harriman, Tennessee
H. Kyrk
(Professor)		 Ohio Wesleyan*
Chicago (Ph.B.)		 Chicago
O. Lange
(Professor)		 Poznan* Cracow (LL.M.) Cracow (LL.D.) London
S. E. Leland
(Professor)		 De Pauw Kentucky Chicago Harvard Law School
H. G. Lewis
(Instructor)		 Chicago Chicago* Chicago*
J. Marschak
(Professor)		 Oxford Heidelberg Technolog. Institut, Kiev
Berlin
L. W. Mints
(Assoc. Prof.)		 Colorado Colorado Chicago*
J. U. Nef
(Professor)		 Harvard (B.S.) Paris*
London*
Montpellier*		 Brookings
T. W. Schultz
(Professor)		 South Dakota State Wisconsin Wisconsin
H. C. Simons
(Assoc. Prof.)		 Michigan Michigan* Iowa*
Chicago*
Columbia*
Berlin*
J. Viner
(Professor)		 McGill Harvard Harvard

*Work taken at this level; no degree conferred.

______________________________

 

Two time series were included in Leland’s memo to provide evidence for an upward trend in the demand for economics courses: enrollments and course registrations.

It is difficult to forecast the postwar enrollment in Economics. Since 1928 there has been a steady upward trend in the number of students majoring in the Department, as is shown in the following table. Even the depression only slightly retarded the growth of our student body. Part of the increase was due to the emphasis given our subject matter by the events of the Thirties. Another factor responsible for the gain in students was the strength of the faculty—its reputation in the United States and abroad.

 

Total Number of Different Graduate Students Majoring in the Department of Economics Who Have Been in Residence a Part or All of the Years Indicated Below

 

Years

 Number of Students
1943-44

57

1942-43

77

1941-42

 133
1940-41

162

1939-40

 156
1938-39

144

1937-38

 133
1936-37

113

1935-36

 111
1934-35

98

1933-34

 114
1932-33

111

1931-32

 125
1930-31

113

1929-30

 118
1928-29

101

 

The trend of registrations in the Department for “200- and 300-level courses” (roughly corresponding to former undergraduate and graduate registrations) is shown in the following table. Data are shown only since 1931-32 inasmuch as statistics prior to that date included introductory courses for College freshmen and sophomores. This inflates all statistics prior to 1931 and destroys their validity for comparative purposes. The peak of enrollment in Economics came in 1938-39. It is believed that comparable enrollments will reappear soon after the cessation of hostilities.

 

Registration in Courses Offered by the Department of Economics

Years

Quarters
Summer Autumn Winter

Spring

First Term

Second Term

1944-45

 74
1943-44 62 202 138

185

1942-43

 252 237 249 207 153
1941-42 214 206 329 396

406

1940-41

 264 225 455 529 516
1939-40 262 224 431 589

583

1938-39

 277 244 560 516 689
1937-38 249 214 477 447

592

1936-37

 243 206 407 438 457
1935-36 245 218 367 503

534

1934-35

 239 206 325 460 398
1933-34 183 174 361 371

396

1932-33

 278 244 337 427 244
1931-32 233 224 443 411

339

 

Source: University of Chicago Library, Department of Special Collections. Office of the President. Hutchins Administration Records. Box 73, Folder “Economics Dept., “Post-War Plans” Simeon E. Leland, 1945″.