FACULTIES OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND PURE SCIENCE
REPORT OF THE DEAN FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1931
To the President of the University
Sir:
As Dean of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science, I submit the following report for the academic year ending June 30, 1931.
The year was marked by a number of events of interest and importance to the Graduate Faculties. Scarcely was it under way when the University celebrated with appropriate dignity and simplicity the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Faculty of Political Science. The details of this celebration, having been elsewhere recorded in print, need not be repeated here. The presence on that occasion of the venerable founder of the Faculty, Emeritus Professor John William Burgess, still in vigor of mind and of personality, gave it peculiarly interesting and dramatic focus. It was a fortunate circumstance that this expression of the University’s homage and debt to him was given at that time. Only a few months thereafter, deservedly honored and mourned, he passed from the earthly scene.
As a permanently useful memento of this celebration there was published a Bibliography of the Faculty of Political Science containing the list of the several thousand books and important articles written by its members as well as the titles of the nearly seven hundred doctoral dissertations that have been prepared and published under its guidance. Important to our University life as the integrity and unity of this Faculty is both historically and presently, it is regrettable that because of this fact this Bibliography falls far short of including the total of our contributions to the field of the social sciences. A complete bibliography of our publications in this wide field would have included numerous books and articles by members of other faculties, notably the Faculties of Business and of Law.
But while the Faculty of Political Science momentarily paused on the threshold of the year to celebrate its semicentenary, to look back upon its achievements and modestly to rejoice in its traditions, its spirit was in 1930, as in 1880, the spirit of youth. Professor Burgess himself was only thirty-five when he fathered the Faculty. And of the early famous small group whom he called to aid him in his high adventure in scholarship Professors Mayo-Smith and Munroe Smith were only twenty-six, and Professors Goodnow and Seligman twenty-four. Even among later arrivals Professor John Bassett Moore was only thirty-one, Professor Dunning thirty-two, Professor Osgood thirty-five, and Professor Giddings thirty-seven, when they joined the Faculty. It was a youthful company courageously and energetically facing the future.
And so this Faculty continues. It was the Department of Economics that was especially called upon this year to take thought of tomorrow. It had suffered severe losses. Professor Henry L. Moore retired in the spring of 1930. Professor Seager died in August of the same year. Professor Seligman retired at the end of the year. Inevitably the School of Business and the Department of Economics have been developing along many related lines of teaching and research. It would have been calamitous had they developed at cross purposes or in ungenerous rivalry. Happily no such misfortune befell. From the inception of the School of Business these two units have been held to common purpose by ties of common sense and of that fine spirit of loyalty and of friendship that is so much a part of the Columbia spirit. But the breach in the ranks of the Department of Economics seemed an appropriate occasion for welding these separate units, at least in so far as graduate work is concerned, into closer organic integration. Everybody recognizes that under our more or less arbitrary, but certainly unavoidable, scheme of departmentalization there are subjects and interests appropriate to a professional school of business that might not properly be included under a graduate department of economics. Conversely, there are manifestly subjects and interests that not only may be, but also should be, included under both. We severed the knot of this difficult problem of University organization by asking five members of the Faculty of the School of Business to become members of the Department of Economics and accept seats in the Faculty of Political Science. These were Professors Bonbright, Haig, McCrea, Mills, and Willis. This is no mere paper arrangement; it means a vital amalgamation of intellectual forces working toward common ends.
In recognition of the growing rapprochement between law and the social sciences it seemed fitting also that two members of the Faculty of Law, whose fields of interest are considerably economic, should be invited into this enlarged departmental membership. Professors Llewellyn and Berle were in consequence drawn into the unit. This was in line with the historic dual relationship that has so long prevailed with profitable results to teaching and scholarship between the Department of Public Law and the School of Law.
In addition to these internal realignments several new members were added to the Department of Economics. These are: Leo Wolman, eminent economist and practitioner in the field of labor problems; Carter Goodrich, whose special field for development will be American economic history; and Harold Hotelling, a distinguished mathematician turned economist. Arthur R. Burns, Lecturer in Economics in Barnard College, will henceforth devote himself to graduate instruction and research upon problems of industrial and business organization. Michael Florinsky, working upon recent economic developments in Europe, and Joseph Dorfman upon the development of American economic thought, have been made Associates in the Department. The remolding of this important Department at a moment of unprecedentedly swift change in the economic world augurs for the years ahead rich results in scholarship and in service.
In the closely related Department of Social Science the appointment of Robert S. Lynd, distinguished sociological investigator and for some years past Secretary of the Social Science Research Council, is likewise an omen of certain promise. It can scarcely fail to quicken, expand, and deepen the activities of our sociologists in this great laboratory of society in which we live, the city of New York.
[…]
I express the deep grief of the University over the death in August, 1930, of Henry Rogers Seager, Professor of Political Economy, and in June, 1931, of Franklin Henry Giddings, Professor Emeritus in Residence of Sociology and the History of Civilization. For a quarter of a century or more here at Columbia, Professor Seager studied with and expounded to his students the problems of labor in a changing industrial society and the economic problems of corporations and trusts. Scholar, teacher, writer, humanitarian, active participant in welfare movements and organizations, he died at the age of sixty, depriving us of many years of companionship and service upon which we had never thought not to count. Beloved of both students and colleagues, his deep personal interest in and influence upon the former will not be easily supplied by another. His loss to the latter is irreparable.
Professor Giddings’ death brought to its close a long, rich life of labor, of profound reflection, and of purposeful achievement. Trail blazer in an almost unexplored and unstaked field of social inquiry he more than any other American gave meaning to the term sociology and direction to its course. His numerous writings attest the catholicity of his interests, the depth of his penetrating scholarship, and the clarity of his thinking on social problems and developments. Scholars the world over acclaimed him, while the large company of his students and the small company of his immediate colleagues held him in the affectionate regard which his rich humanity and his fineness of spirit inspired and compelled.
The end of the academic year brought with it the retirement from active service to the University of Edwin R. A. Seligman, McVickar Professor of Political Economy, and of Edward Delavan Perry, Jay Professor of Greek. Professor Seligman’s enormous and varied contributions to modern economic thought, especially in the field of public finance, as well as his numerous public and quasi-public services are so widely and so favorably known that it seems quite as useless as it is impossible summarily to estimate them here. His name is known and his views are valued wherever informed men in almost any land discuss problems of finance, and many are the important laws embodying fiscal policies of city, state, and nation that bear in their contours the impress of his studious acumen and practical genius. A scholar in affairs he was and continues to be. Happily he tarries with us in residence as active and as interested as ever. For him relief from classroom instruction can but mean an increase of productive scholarship and of public activity, if such a thing be conceivable.
The issue of academic freedom can shock the best and worst of economics departments. Like much of what is interesting in economics, it is important to distinguish between nominal and real shocks. In 1933 Columbia College, the undergraduate arm of Columbia University, found itself in a whirlwind of controversy following the non-renewal of a contract of a radical instructor of economics. I stumbled across this case from newspaper accounts and thought it would help spice up Economics in the Rear-view Mirror (much as the Harvard/UMass saga of young radical economists in the early 1970s has) to examine the case.
I have not ever looked for or seen any archival material at Columbia regarding the protagonist of this post, Donald Henderson. Economics in the Rear-View Mirror is primarily concerned with the nuts-and-bolts of the economics curricula across time and universities. Still my curiosity has led me to examine several online newspaper archives (The Columbia Spectator archive has been especially useful), the genealogical website ancestry.com, and the usual book/text sites (archive.org and hathitrust.org), to fill in missing details about the life of Mr. Donald Henderson.
Economics in the Rear-View Mirror, theory of the case: Columbia University’s upper administration appears to have had a “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” moment once alumni letters began to pour in following the arrest of its economics instructor, Donald Henderson, at a protest in October 1932 at C.C.N.Y. in support of the English instructor Oakley Johnson, who had been dismissed by City College President Frederick B. Robinson for his “communist sympathies” (a New York Times understatement). Having left the safe-space of what goes in Vegas, stays in Vegas (i.e. Columbia College), Donald Henderson was a low-value academic pawn offered as a sacrifice to satisfy the alumni gods. Henderson had not really displayed visible indicators of a future distinguished academic career and the Columbia administration most certainly underestimated the potential of the organized mobilization by militant agitators capable of leveraging such an issue for less than pure academic freedom principles. At the time the Columbia Spectator editorial board framed the problem essentially as one of academic freedom vs. academic license.
Who was Donald Henderson? In the historical record we find that Henderson went on to become a communist party labor organizer who had climbed high enough in U.S. union leadership circles to even attract a subpoena from no less an assistant United States Attorney than Roy M. Cohn (yes, that Roy M. Cohn, whose later client list would include… Donald J. Trump…small world?!). Some Congressional testimony with Henderson’s liberal invocation of the Fifth Amendment regarding his communist party activities is provided below. With this his labor organizing career ended in the early 1950s and he lived the rest of his life in obscurity in Miami, Florida.
Now some artifacts following a chronology of Donald Henderson’s life.
______________________
Donald James Henderson
Timeline
1902. Born February 4 in New York City to Jean Henderson née Crawford and Daniel Robert Henderson (occupation “coachman” according to the 1898 birth certificate for his older sister Marjorie Augusta Henderson).
1910. According to the 1910 U.S. census Mother Jean (“Married”) and all four children were living with their grandmother Estelle I. Crawford in Montpelier, Vermont where Donald went to grammar school. Donald’s father Daniel not yet found at this address or elsewhere).
1913. Donald’s father Daniel remarries August 18 to Hesper Ann Joslin.
1920. According to the 1920 U.S. census Mother Jean (“Divorced”) and all four children were still living with their grandmother Estelle I. Crawford in Dansville, New York where Donald went to high school.
1921-22. Likely start of Donald Henderson’s undergraduate studies at Columbia University.
1924. The Columbia Progressive Club reorganized November 13. Purpose of the club was the furtherance of a Third Party Movement. Members of the Executive Committee included Elinor Curtis and Donald Henderson.
1925. Donald J. Henderson married Elinor Curtis (Barnard, 1925) in Manhattan, August 31.
Elinor Curtis in the 1925 Barnard Yearbook
1925. A.B. with general honors, Columbia College.
1925-26. Garth Fellow, Columbia University.
1926. M.A. Columbia University.
1926. Birth of first son, Curtis Henderson (1926-2009) in New York City, September 28.
1926-27.Instructor in Economics, Rutgers University. Listed for a course on the economics (and regulation) of railroads, water, and motor transportation; a course on statistical principles.
1932. His wife, Elinor C. Henderson ran for Congress as an independent (i.e. as communists then did) in the 21st New York congressional district, receiving 7/10th of one percent of the vote.
Note: Donald Henderson was an instructor of economics, not professor. Daily News (Nov 2, 1932).
1932. Serving as executive secretary of the American Committee for Struggle Against War, the American branch of the World Congress Against War. Active in the Student Congress Against War and Fascism (established at Christmas).
1933.April. Donald Henderson’s appointment as instructor of economics is not renewed for the coming academic year. Joint committee [the Columbia Social Problems Club, Socialist Club, Barnard Social Problems Club, Economics Club, Mathematics Club, Sociology Club of Teachers College and the Social Problems Club of Seth Low] organizes campus protests for the reappointment of Henderson. May. Further demonstrations, Henderson case attracts national attention.
1933. Executive secretary of the United States League Against War and Fascism that met in New York on September 29.
1933-34. Began organizing agricultural workers across the United States for the American Federation of Labor.
1934.Daily News (New York). From Bridgeton, N.J., July 10. Wire photo caption: “Husky Official leads Donald Henderson by the wrist as police spirit the Red organizer away from meeting where striking workers at Bridgeton, N.J., threatened him with lynching.”
1935. Second son, Lynn Henderson born in New York, April 14.
1935. September. Wrote article “The Rural Masses and the Work of Our Party” in The Communist.
[e.g. “… during the past 2 years our party has been successful in developing policies and organization which are rapidly achieving a successful turn to mass revolutionary work and influence in the cities and among the industrial urban proletariat.”]
1937. Established the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, affiliated to the CIO. Elected as its international president, holding the post to 1949.
1938. [ca.] Third son, Donald Henderson, Jr. born.
1941. Wife, Eleanor [sic] Curtis Henderson died of poisoning June 11 in their home at 7750 South Sangamon Street, Chicago. “A coroner’s jury returned a verdict saying that it was unable to determine whether or not Mrs. Henderson took the poison accidentally.” Chicago Tribune (June 12, 1941, p. 12).
1943. Married South African born actress, Florence Mary McGee [formerly Thomas from her first marriage], in New York City, October 10.
1944. “United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America” changes its name to the “Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers Union”.
1948. From The South Bend Tribune, Indiana (November 23, 1948), p. 1. “Donald Henderson, of Philadelphia, Pa., president of the Food & Tobacco Workers, was halted repeatedly by CIO convention delegates booing the minority report he read at Portland, Ore., opposing continued CIO support of the Marshall plan.”
1949. April. Henderson attends the (Soviet dominated) World Federation of Trade Union meeting in Paris as president of the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers Union.
1949. Communist Daily Worker of August 15, 1949, entitled “FTA complies with NLRB rule”. Henderson quoted: “While it is true that I had been a member of the Communist Party, I have resigned my membership therein…” [For the union to be in compliance with the Taft-Hartley Act and have its officers sign the non-Communist affidavit, Henderson stepped down as president and was immediately appointed National Administrative Director.]
1950. October. Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers Union merged with the Distributive Workers Union and the United Office and Professional Workers Union to form a new international union called the Distributive, Processing and Office Workers Union of America (DPOWA). Served as administrative secretary of that international union for the first year.
1951. October. Reorganization of the DPOWA. Elected to national secretary-treasurer. [Henderson held post at least to Feb. 14, 1952 when he testified before U.S. Senate, Subcommittee to investigate the administration of the internal security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary.]
1951. Received a 30 day sentence for disobeying a Judge’s injunction against mass picketing during a brief strike at the Pasco Packing Company plant. “Donald Henderson of New York” head of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (Ind.). From an Associated Press report, Dade City (Sept. 26) in Pensacola News Journal Sept. 27, 1951, p. 9.
1953. From a United Press report from Washington, February 23 published in The Palm Beach Post (February 24, 1953): “Henderson, now secretary-treasurer of the Distributive, Processing and Office Workers of America (ind)” took the fifth amendment before the Senate Permanent Investigating Committee of Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy. He also refused to answer questions about Voice of America employees with suspected communist affiliations.
Post-McCarthy hearing years. “[Henderson] eventually had to become a salesman to earn a living.” [From his obituary in The Militant, December 28, 1964]
1957. The Miami News (January 26, 1957, p. 18). Report that Florence McGee moved to Miami recently with her husband, Donald Henderson, and their son. They have “been living quietly at 4335 [or 4345] SW 109th Ct.) She apparently resumed her long-paused acting career in the drama “Teach Me How to Cry” at Studio M.
1958. “By 1958 the illness which eventually took his life forced him into complete inactivity.” [From his obituary in The Militant, December 28, 1964]
1964. Donald Henderson died of a kidney ailment in Miami, Florida in December 12. [From his obituary in The Militant, December 28, 1964]
Donald Henderson, 62, a prominent early organizer of agricultural and cannery workers, died of a kidney ailment in Miami Dec. 12.
Henderson was an economics instructor at Rutgers and Columbia University in the mid-1920s. During this period he played a key role in the student and anti-fascist movements and was active in organizing the National Student Union and the American League Against War and Fascism. These activities led to his dismissal from Columbia.
He then devoted his efforts to the organization of agricultural workers, at that time completely unorganized in the U.S. Beginning by organizing workers in the truck farms of New Jersey, he established the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural workers union. The FTA under his leadership became one of the largest agricultural unions in the US, with a large membership of Southern Negroes, Mexican-Americans in southern California.
The deepening of the cold war, resulted in the expulsion of a large number of “left-wing” unions, including the FTA, from the CIO in 1950.
Henderson was an unco-operative witness at the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s and eventually had to become a salesman to earn a living. By 1958 the illness which eventually took his life forced him into complete inactivity.
Henderson Released on Bail
For Disorderly Conduct Hearing Columbia Instructor, Held After Meeting
at C.C.N.Y. to Face Trial
Donald Henderson, Instructor in the Department of Economics, who was arrested on Wednesday night on a charge of disorderly conduct in connection with a demonstration at City College, was released on bail yesterday after arraignment in Washington Heights Court.
Mr. Henderson and three C.C.N.Y. students, who were held following a meeting of the Liberal Club at City College to protest the dismissal of Oakley defendants. Magistrate Anthony F. Burke ordered bail of $500 for each of the four under arrest. Their release could not be secured until later in the afternoon.
The seizure of Mr. Henderson came after the Liberal Club had been ejected from its meeting room in the College and had taken its stand on the Campus. There, after several denunciatory speeches, he was apprehended by the police and taken to night court where Magistrate Dreyer postponed the hearing until yesterday.
It is understood that the Columbia Social Problems Club will take steps to protest Mr. Henderson’s detention at a meeting of that organization at noon today in Room 307 Philosophy.
Frank D. Fackenthal, Secretary of the University, when asked whether the University would make any official recognition of the case, said that., the “matter is out of my jurisdiction.”
About 100 students from Columbia and C.C.N.Y. jammed the courtroom to hear the trial, with an equal number milling about outside and listening to speeches condemning the police action…
Trial Begins For Henderson Hearing Opens Before Crowded Courtroom. Resumes Session Today
With the courtroom jammed to capacity and 200 students milling about in the streets outside listening to denunciations of the C.C.N.Y. administration, the trial of Donald Henderson, instructor in Economics at Columbia, arraigned on a charge of disorderly conduct, opened yesterday in Washington Heights Court before Magistrate Guy Van Amringe.
Mr. Henderson held with three City College students following a demonstration protesting the dismissal of Oakley Johnson from the C.C.N.Y. faculty, will reappear at 2:30 this afternoon for further hearing.
Session Lasted Three Hours
Yesterday’s session lasted for nearly three hours, with the proceedings devoted largely to the calling of witnesses for both sides. Mr. Henderson is expected to take the stand today, with Allan Taub acting as counsel for the defense.
Dr. George Nelson, assistant librarian at City College, testified yesterday that on the night of the disturbance which resulted in the arrests, he entered the history room of the College and found fifty students meeting there. They refused to leave, he said, and he summoned several policemen.
State Henderson Refused to Leave
Henderson: remained adamant, Nelson charged, and was finally pushed out of the room. Nelson added that he did not see the other defendants.
Oakley Johnson, whose removal led to the series of demonstrations in which Columbia students took a prominent part, appeared at the trial and was at first denied admittance. He finally gained entrance after several disputes.
Henderson on Probation
After Conviction For Disorderly Conduct
Donald Henderson, instructor in Economics, who was tried on a charge of disorderly conduct as a result of his participation in a demonstration protesting the dismissal of Oakley Johnson from C.C.N.Y., is on probation for six months after receiving a suspended thirty day sentence.
The trial, conducted before Magistrate Guy Van Amringe in Washington Heights Court, was brought to a close Monday after a week of prolonged hearings. Allen Taub acted as counsel for the defense….
Donald J. Henderson, instructor in economics and prominent radical leader, clashed with the University yesterday over the non-renewal of his appointment here, in the first phase of what loomed last night as a prolonged conflict between Mr. Henderson’s supporters and the Administration.
Mr. Henderson, in declaring that he had rejected a Fellowship tendered to him by the University following the termination of his teaching activities, said that the offer was “a maneuver to ease me out of the University without raising the issue of academic freedom.”
Concerning that allegation, Professor Roswell C. McCrea, head of the Department of Economics, maintained that Mr. Henderson, during his tenure at Columbia, “has engaged freely in any activities to which he may have been attracted.
“The fact that his position here,” Professor McCrea insisted, “was not a permanent one was clearly stated to him before he became actively connected with any political group.”
With Mr. Henderson’s stand apparently clearly defined by his statement, the Social Problems Club, with which he has been actively connected, revealed yesterday that it will meet at 3:30 this afternoon in Room 309 Business to develop “a line of action” to be followed in Mr. Henderson’s defense.
Immediately following the appearance of the College Catalogue on Monday, in which no mention is made of Mr. Henderson, widespread curiosity was current as to his future status. That question was clarified with the issuance of statements yesterday by Mr. Henderson and Professor McCrea.
The statements, sharply conflicting on several points, dealt with the circumstances of Mr. Henderson’s seemingly imminent departure from Morningside Heights.
Mr. Henderson, who has been a prominent figure in radical disputes on this Campus and elsewhere, charged that the University is “maneuvering to ease me out without raising any question of academic freedom,” whereas, he declared, “the facts in this situation raise clearly and definitely the issue of academic freedom.”
In regard to his radical exploits which have been the subject of frequent newspaper comment, Mr. Henderson said that he was told last Spring that “extreme pressure was being brought to bear for my removal.”
Says Protesting Letters Received
He maintained that Professor Rex C. Tugwell informed him the following summer that “a flood of letters from prominent Alumni” had been received protesting the activities of Mr. Henderson and his wife, who was jailed during a dispute over alleged discrimination against Negroes.
Declaring that Mr. Henderson has “failed consistently to apply himself seriously and diligently to his duties as instructor and to maintain the standards of teaching required by this Department,” Dean McCrea said that “those conditions make his further connection with the Department of Economics undesirable.”
Mr. Henderson made known that he had been offered a post as “Research Assistant” for one year by the University “at a salary $700 less than my present one.”
Cites Provision of Offer
“The one condition attached to this offer,” he claimed, “was that the year be spent in the Soviet Union… the subject matter of my thesis, with which Professor Tugwell is acquainted, requires research in the United States rather than the Soviet Union.”
Professor McCrea’s statement declared that non-renewal of Mr. Henderson’s contract “is consistent with long-established University policy.
“There never has been any understanding or intention that Mr. Henderson should stay permanently at Columbia…. An appointment to an instructorship does not imply, in any case, later appointment to a higher rank with more permanence of tenure. For this reason, such understandings are had with all graduate students who are appointed to instructorships in economics.”
Mr. Henderson said that in the summer of 1931 “I became more active in the revolutionary movement and received considerable publicity in the newspapers in connection with those activities.
“That fall,” he continued, “I was advised by Professor Tugwell to look for another job. He stated at that time that in case of lack of success in finding another position, I would not be dismissed.”
The statement issued yesterday by Mr. Donald Henderson obviously does not quite jibe with that of Professor Roswell McCrea. According to one statement, Mr. Henderson was not reengaged as an instructor because of his radical activities, while according to the other the close of his academic career in so far as Columbia is concerned was occasioned by his incompetence as a scholar and as a teacher. There is no denying that Donald Henderson was the most obstreperous of Columbia’s many radicals. As to his teaching ability only those who have been his pupils can testify. Radical activities are certainly not a just cause for dismissal from the faculty of a liberal university. But it is equally as certain that it is unjust to use an instructor’s radical activity as an implement with which to force a university to handle with kid gloves a disinterested and incompetent instructor.
Problems Club Begins Defense of Henderson. Committee Formed to Outline Campaign for Reappointment of Radical Instructor – Attacks Dismissal
Mobilization of Donald Henderson’s defense in his clash with the University over non-renewal of his appointment was begun by the Social Problems Club yesterday.
While Mr. Henderson, an instructor in the department of economics and widely known radical leader, issued a second statement in which he characterized Professor Roswell McCrea’s assertions as “false” and “absurd,” the Club appealed for “effective and widespread action” in his support.
Committee of Ten Chosen
The latter move followed a meeting of the Club yesterday afternoon when a committee of ten was elected to direct the campaign for Mr. Henderson’s reappointment. The committee held its first session immediately after the club meeting and announced that it would convene again this afternoon to formulate “a complete program of action.”
At the same time Dr. Addison T. Cutler, instructor in economics and a member of the committee, made public four letters he said came from students who have studied under Mr. Henderson. These letters, “from students not affiliated with the Social Problems Club,” were introduced in defense of Mr. Henderson’s teaching ability.
Declares Action Due to ‘Pressure’
In his statement which was prompted by the declaration of Professor McCrea on Tuesday concerning Mr. Henderson’s status, the latter amplified his previous testimony in which he claimed that the University’s action was the result of “extreme pressure” growing out of his political activities.
“The assertion by Professor McCrea Mr. Henderson said yesterday, that I was engaged to teach in Columbia University on the condition that I finish my work for the doctor’s degree in two years is absolutely false.
Calls McCrea’s Statement ‘Absurd’
“As in the case of all instructors who are engaged at Columbia without doctor’s degrees, it was understood that I should continue my graduate work as rapidly as possible. The records will show that I have done this; all course credits and course requirements have been disposed of.”
Stating that he has been engaged in research on his thesis—”The History of the American Communist Party”—for the past two years, Mr. Henderson further charged that “the entire question of scholarly competence raised by Professor McCrea is absurd in view of the offering to me of a research assistanceship by the same department.
“The latter certainly could not be based on a disbelief in my scholarly competence.” The Problems Club will seek to enlist the support of other Columbia organizations, it was said yesterday.
The club’s statement asserted that “the Social Problems Club has been aware of administrative opposition to Mr. Henderson for many months. A careful effort has been made by the administration to get rid of Mr. Henderson without raising the issue of academic freedom.”
Charging that Mr. Henderson was “dismissed because of his political activities,” the statement called upon Spectator “to give the same dignified but vigorous support of academic freedom in Henderson’s case as did Henderson in the case of Spectatorat this time last year.”
In that regard, it was recalled yesterday that the strike on this Campus last year protesting the dismissal of Reed Harris took place exactly one year ago today.
Joint Committee Outlines Action On Henderson Issues Statement on Case Preliminary to Drive for Widespread Support 25,000 Leaflets To Be Distributed
In the first major move of what portends to be a nationwide campaign for the reappointment of Donald Henderson, the Columbia Joint Committee representing the Social Problems and Socialist Clubs yesterday issued a statement laying the groundwork for its program of action in Mr. Henderson’s defense.
The declaration was formulated in concert by the two organizations which are assuming the initiative in the movement for reappointment of the prominent Campus radical leader to his present post in the Economics Department.
To Seek Nationwide Aid
It deals with the case as presented by Mr. Henderson last week and as set forth by Professor Roswell C. McCrea in explanation of the Administration’s stand. Twenty-five thousand copies of the statement are being printed for distribution among organizations throughout the country in an effort to enlist “widespread and effective” support, it was announced last night.
The statement takes up successively the question of Mr. Henderson’s status under three main divisions —”The University’s Excuses,” “The Great Maneuvre That Failed” and “Pressure for Henderson’s Removal.” It concludes with a plea for “all students, student groups and faculty members to send letters of protest to Professor Roswell C. McCrea in Fayerweather Hall.”
Lays Dismissal to Radicalism
“No one knows better,” the declaration asserts, “than the Columbia administration that Mr. Henderson has been dropped because of his political activities and his leadership in the student movement of America.”
The committee outlines “The University’s Excuses” as based on three grounds—the non-permanence of Mr. Henderson’s appointment, non-completion of his degree and his teaching ability.
Questions Second Charge
On the first point, the statement says that “no one claims the University is violating a legal contract in dropping Henderson.” It takes issue, however, with Professor McCrea’s assertion that Mr. Henderson’s original appointment was made “on the condition that he finish his doctor’s degree within two years.” Concerning Mr. Henderson’s failure to achieve his Ph.D., the statement asserts that “neither have many other instructors who have been teaching for many years at Columbia” and states he “has finished all course and credit requirements.” Professor McCrea’s reference to Mr. Henderson’s teaching ability is branded “the most contemptible charge of all, unsupported by facts.”
Professor McCrea had said “Henderson has failed consistently to apply himself seriously and diligently to his duties as instructor and to maintain the standards of teaching required by the department.”
Cites Praise of Henderson
The Joint Committee here offers commendatory avowals “by former students who are neither personal friends of Henderson or associated with his political activities, including honor students, football players and others.”
The statement takes note of the action of Mr. Henderson’s Economics Seminar which unanimously voted him “a competent instructor” and “his analysis of economic theory… illuminating and intellectually stimulating.”
Statement Attacks Fellowship Move
Turning to “The Great Maneuvre That Failed,” the Committee considers the offer of a fellowship to Mr. Henderson by the University, which he declined, he said, as a move “to ease me out of the University without raising any question of academic freedom.”
In the section devoted to “Pressure for Henderson’s Removal,” the committee declares that at the time of the student strike last year in which Mr. Henderson played an active part, “Professor Tugwell said that it was only a question of time how long the pressure (for Mr. Henderson’s removal) could be withstood.
The following is a statement of facts concerning a conversation I had with Dean Herbert E. Hawkes; I pass it on to you in the hope that it may shed light on the refusal of the administration to renew the appointment of Donald Henderson:—
The conversation took place in the Dean’s office in January, 1932. Only the Dean and I were present. We were engaged in a discussion of the teaching staff of Columbia College.
It was Dean Hawkes’ contention that the quality of instruction afforded students in the College was fully as distinguished as that to be had in any other university in this country.
To illustrate this argument he placed before me a list of the professors and instructors in the College. He read the names of the instructors, amplifying his reading with short summaries of the merits of the men in question.
I remember very clearly that he had high praise for every name on the list except of Mr. Henderson. The Dean said: “Mr.” Henderson is the only weak man we have. We are not satisfied with his work. I don’t think he will be with us next year.”
Group Will Hold Protest Meeting On Henderson Joint Committee Fixes Next Thursday as Date Site Not Yet Chosen Will Picket Library on Wednesday
The campaign for the reappointment of Donald Henderson, instructor in economics, yesterday focused on the efforts of the Columbia Joint Committee, organized to carry on his defense on this Campus.
Following a meeting attended by representatives of Columbia organizations, two principal decisions emerged:
An outdoor demonstration will be held on Thursday, April 20, at a principal point, still undetermined, on the Campus.
Pickets will be designated to surround the Main Library a week from today in preparation for an open-air meeting the following day.
Seven Clubs Send Members
While non-Campus groups were coming to the aid of the Columbia Committee, seven clubs from the University sent delegates to the meeting which determined upon the outdoor demonstration and the picketing plan.
These groups include:
The Columbia Social Problems Club, the Socialist Club, the Barnard Social Problems Club, the Economics Club, the Mathematics Club, the Sociology Club of Teachers College and the Social Problems Club of Seth Low.
Leaflets Distributed on Campus
2,000 leaflets bearing the title, “The Henderson Case” and containing the statement issued last Sunday by the Joint Committee were distributed on the Campus yesterday with 3,000 additional copies to be delivered today.
Meanwhile, the plan to enlist support from organizations throughout the country continued apace with the National Student League circularizing groups on 100 campuses. A city-wide meeting on the case will be held this Saturday at the New School for Social Research when delegates will be sent from the National Student League, the Intercollegiate Council of the League for Industrial Democracy, the Student Federation of America and other groups.
Teachers Send Protest
The Association of University Teachers yesterday sent a telegram of protest to President Nicholas Murray Butler and Professor Roswell C. McCrea. It read: “The Association of University Teachers, having examined all evidence available believes the dismissal of Donald Henderson unjustified and urges his reappointment.”
It was also made known that the Association has appointed a committee to cooperate in the campaign for Mr. Henderson’s reappointment.
The pickets will be stationed at positions around the Main Library where the offices of several prominent administrative officers are situated.
The Joint Committee yesterday made public a letter from Professor McCrea addressed to Miss Margaret Schlauch, a graduate of the University. Miss Schlauch has written protesting the nonrenewal of Mr. Henderson’s contract.
McCrea Replies to Letter
Professor McCrea, in reply, stated that “unfortunately, I fear that the public fails to understand the real merits of the situation. “These I think were adequately set forth in a statement which was furnished to the press but which did not appear in its entirety,” he wrote.
Group Plans Picket Protest For Henderson Supporters Will Circle Main Library—Howe Bans Mail Distribution Of Campaign Leaflets in Dormitories
While organizations and individuals throughout the city were being enlisted in the campaign for reappointment of Donald Henderson, the Columbia Joint Committee yesterday speeded preparations for bringing the case before the Campus this week.
Preliminary to an outdoor meeting on Thursday at which representatives of Campus groups affiliated with the committee will speak, thirty pickets tomorrow will surround the Main Library, where the offices of Administrative leaders are situated.
Bans Distribution of Leaflet
Distribution of the leaflet entitled “The Henderson Case” which has been circulated on the Campus was temporarily halted yesterday when it was revealed that the University had denied the committee permission to insert the statements in dormitory mail-boxes.
Herbert E. Howe, director of Men’s Residence Halls, told Spectator yesterday that “the University does not allow advertising material in local mail distribution.” He said that he considered the leaflet in that classification.
Committee leaders asserted that the circular on “What Is the Social Problems Club” and the announcements of the Marxist lectures had been recently distributed in dormitory boxes with Mr. Howe’s permission.
To Demonstrate at Sun Dial
As the Association of University Teachers assumed a leading role in organizing city-wide groups for Mr. Henderson’s defense, the Columbia Committee announced that the first of a contemplated series of demonstrations will be held at the Sun Dial in front of South Field. Leaders said yesterday that the meeting will be a “Columbia demonstration limited to Columbia speakers.”
The Association of University Teachers is drawing up a detailed statement on the case, it was made known yesterday, with the intention of submitting it to individuals and groups as the basis of an appeal for widespread support.
Say Henderson Expelled for Beliefs
The Association stated that “it has considerable evidence justifying the opinion that Mr. Henderson was expelled for his political activities and beliefs” and declared that “this is the most important case of violation of academic freedom since the war.”
A committee representing eight college organizations in this city has been formed to aid the protest movement, it was learned yesterday, following a conference at the New School for Social Research last Saturday.
Professor Henry W. L. Dana, who was dismissed from the University during the World War and is now at Harvard, has written to Professor Roswell C. McCrea concerning the Henderson case, it was revealed yesterday, with publication of a copy of the letter by an official of the National Student League.
Text of Letter
Professor Dana wrote:
“Considering the cases of other teachers who have been forced to leave Columbia University in the past (Professors MacDowell, Woodberry, Ware, Peck, Spingarn, Cattell, Beard), not to mention my own name, I cannot help smiling at the unconscious irony in your statement that the case of Mr. Henderson ‘is consistent with long-established University policy.’ “
Members of the Joint Committee indicated yesterday that a strike may be called for next week if ensuing developments “warrant such a move.” They said that demonstrations at colleges throughout the city are being planned.
Will Picket Library Today Henderson Supporters To Stage Three-Hour Demonstration
Student pickets will surround the Main Library at ten o’clock this morning for a three-hour siege of administrative offices to protest against the non-renewal of Donald Henderson’s appointment.
Preparatory to an outdoor demonstration in front of South Field at noon tomorrow, thirty representatives of organizations affiliated with the Columbia Joint Committee will form a cordon encircling the Library where they will maintain their stand until 1 P.M. this afternoon.
15 of Class Sign Petition
Meanwhile, fifteen members of Mr. Henderson’s Economics 4 class yesterday signed a petition, circulated by a student, which terms him a “thoroughly competent instructor and a definite asset to the course.” There were seventeen students present at the class meeting. Twenty-one students are registered in the course, a member of the Economics department said.
This move followed the action of students in Mr. Henderson’s Economics Seminar who last week unanimously voted him “a competent instructor” and said “his analyses of economic theory have been illuminating and intellectually stimulating.”
Announcements Posted on Campus
Posters appeared on the Campus yesterday announcing tomorrow’s demonstration and stating that seven speakers from Columbia organizations would address the meeting. The protesting students will assemble at the Sun Dial. The Joint Committee yesterday released data that a Faculty member and student had compiled, relative to the number of staff members in Columbia College who have not yet received Doctor’s degrees. This investigation was prompted, it was said, by Professor McCrea’s reference to Mr. Henderson’s failure to achieve his Ph.D. during his tenure here.
The survey asserted:
Of ninety-four Faculty members with the rank of assistant professor or above, twenty-two have not obtained doctor’s degrees.
Of eighty instructors in Columbia College, fifty are without doctor’s degrees. Of those fifty, thirty-three have served four years or more at Columbia.
Of the thirty who have received Ph.D.’s, the average time for completion of all requirements was 4.9 years.
Of thirty-three instructors without doctor’s degrees, the average time elapsed since they received their last degree is 7.6 years.
This data was made public with a statement pointing out that Mr. Henderson is serving his fifth year at Columbia and received his M.A. degree in 1926. Committee leaders said yesterday that from present indications a series of demonstrations, leading to a call for a student strike next week, will be staged. They declared there is a possibility that later meetings would be transferred to the Library steps, despite the University ruling restricting outdoor assemblages to South Field.
Group to Stage Protest Meeting Henderson Adherents to Mass Today — Pickets Surround Library
A mass meeting to protest the University’s failure to renew Donald Henderson’s appointment will be staged at noon today at the Sun Dial in front of South Field.
The demonstration, called by the Columbia Joint Committee which organized in Mr. Henderson’s defense last week, will be addressed by two Faculty members and representatives of Campus groups.
Patrol Library Area
In preparation for the meeting, thirty student pickets yesterday patrolled the area around the Main Library, bearing placards which urged Mr. Henderson’s reappointment. The pickets maintained their stand for three hours, attracting curious groups of spectators and several newspaper photographers.
The Columbia Committee revealed last night that a delegation is being formed to confer with Dr. Butler tomorrow on Mr. Henderson’s status and to present its plea for renewal of his contract.
Cutler Will Speak
Dr. Addison T. Cutler, instructor in economics, and Bernard Stem, lecturer in sociology, will be the faculty speakers at today’s demonstration. Other addresses will be delivered by John Donovan ’31, president of the Social Problems Club; Ruth Reles, of Barnard; John Craze, of the Mathematics Club; Jules Umansky, of the Socialist Club; Edith Goldbloom, of New College and Nathaniel Weyl ’31, now a graduate student.
The picketing continued for three hours yesterday with some students carrying varied placards along the Library Steps, while others formed a cordon encircling the building.
Large Crowd Attends Protest For Henderson 150 Hear Addresses by Cutler, Donovan — Term Dismissed Instructor ‘Too Good for Most of People in University’
Agitation for the reinstatement of Donald Henderson continued yesterday when the Columbia Joint Committee staged a demonstration attended by about 150 students at the Sun Dial in front of South Field.
Leading off a series of addresses by members of the Faculty and Student Body, John Donovan ’31, president of the Social Problems Club, declared the Economics instructor was expelled “not because he was too poor a teacher but because he was too good for most of the people in this University.”
Cutler Praises Henderson
Dr. Addison T. Cutler of the Economics Department, one of the two Faculty speakers, stated that “Mr. Henderson has carried out as few educators have done, the maxim that theory and practice should be united.
“It has always been a Columbia tradition,” he declared, “that its teachers should be active in community life. It is now becoming recognized that this means they should be active in their communities along class lines. But if they want reconstruction of the social order they aren’t acceptable to the administration.”
Distribute Protest Postcards
Terming the charge of “academic incompetence” levelled at Mr. Henderson by the University a subterfuge, Dr. Cutler lauded the instructor’s ability and characterized the reasons given for his dismissal by Dean Roswell C. McCrea of the School of Business, as “the thinnest kind of a fictitious peg upon which to hang a hat.”
During the course of the demonstration, members of the Joint Committee distributed postcards addressed to President Butler and bearing the statement: “I, the undersigned student, join the protest against the dismissal of Donald Henderson and demand his reappointment.”
Committee to Meet Butler
A committee delegated by the protest group today will confer with Dr. Butler regarding the non-renewal of Mr. Henderson’s appointment and to urge his reinstatement. Meanwhile, petitions protesting the teacher’s dismissal will be ready for distribution Monday, Donovan stated.
Jules Umansky, of the Socialist Club, also spoke yesterday, asserting that “Mr. Henderson is incompetent from the point of view that he taught what he wasn’t supposed to teach. He is incompetent because he has been teaching young people to think in terms of current problems. He is the only one who has taught this subject.”
Group to Meet With Dr. Butler Henderson Supporters Pick Delegation to Seek Administration Stand
The Administration’s stand regarding the renewal of Donald Henderson’s appointment is expected to receive expression when a special delegation chosen by the Columbia Joint Committee confers today with Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler.
A conference with Dr. Butler was to have taken place last Friday, leaders of the protest group declared, but was postponed until this afternoon “because of some mechanical obstructions.” These, it was stated, were removed with the appointment of a special committee of ten students and one Faculty member and the arrangement with Dr. Butler for a definite appointment.
Delegation Has 11 Members
The delegation which will meet with the president at 3:45 this afternoon is composed of: Bent Andresen ’36; Reginald Call ’33; Dr. Addison T. Cutler, economics instructor; John L. Donovan ’31, president of the Social Problems Club; Edith Goldbloom, of New College; James E. Gorham ’34; Leonard Lazarus, Law School student; Angus MacLachlan ’33; Victor Perlo, graduate student; [a brief biography]; Ruth Relis, of Barnard College and Charles Springmeyer ’33.
National Campaign Planned
Meanwhile, Henderson sympathizers off the Campus moved to obtain widespread backing for their campaign. Invitations have been sent to ten nation-ally-constituted student, teacher and professional groups asking them to a conference for the organization of concerted action on the Henderson to be held Thursday of this week.
The Association of University Teachers has already entered the drive to reinstate Henderson, having sent a telegram to Dr. Butler protesting the dismissal of the instructor.
The Case of Donald Henderson [Spectator Editorial]
What is academic freedom? Obviously, the right of a faculty member to express his convictions, political or social, without the dread that such expression will cost him his position or his chances of promotion. Columbia University, despite Dr. Butler’s reputed statement to the contrary, has violated this code — notably, in the expulsion of outstanding Faculty members during the war hysteria of 1917.
Now comes the cry that the refusal of the University to renew the contract of Donald Henderson is another clear-cut case of disregarding academic freedom. The non-reappointment of Mr. Henderson is said to be a direct result of his economic and political creed. The obvious question is then — Has the University’s action been due to Mr. Henderson’s radical activities?
At Monday’s conference with President Butler, Dr. Addison T. Cutler, member of the Columbia Joint Committee, is quoted as having said:
“Mr. Henderson told me a year ago last Fall that he had been asked to get another job.”
A year ago last Fall would be 1931 — prior to the Reed Harris expulsion, prior to the Kentucky student trip, prior to his arrest at City College. Certainly, his activity in radical circles was: comparatively obscure up until the time when Mr. Henderson says he was told his contract would not be renewed.
From the evidence presented up to the present time, the case of Donald Henderson is not one of clear-cut violation of academic freedom even though his supporters have attempted to make it appear so.
The editorial in Wednesday morning’s Spectator concerning my case raises very sharply one question of fact which I feel requires a statement from me. This point concerns the time when pressure began to be applied for my removal, and the reason for this pressure.
During May 1931 Professor Tugwell informed me that my status as instructor at Columbia was not in question, that the people “downstairs” were satisfied with my work. In October 1931 during the first week of the session, Professor Tugwell. called me into his office and informed me that the situation had radically changed and that I had better look for a position…somewhere else for the following year. It was made clear, however that this was in no sense a case of “firing” but rather a suggestion that I find a position somewhere else if possible.
I immediately raised the question with Professor Tugwell concerning the abrupt change in attitude toward me between May 1931 and October 1931. No definite answer was given by Professor Tugwell beyond a general statement that I was spending too much time in “agitation” and not enough in “scholarly education.”
ln point of fact, what happened between May and was this. As my original statement pointed out I became extensively and publicly active in the Communist movement during the summer and though present members of the editorial board of Spectator may not have been aware of it at that time and know nothing of it now, these activities were attended with considerable publicity.
It is also true that with increased activity and publicity during the past year this pressure has taken on the form of blunt refusal to reappoint. The complaints about my activities were not in any way concealed from me. On the contrary they were several times brought to my attention, and it was well understood in the department that such was the case.
Groups Rally To Defense Of Henderson General Committee for Instructor’s Support Is Formed — Speakers at Meeting Call Educational System ‘Sterile’
The campaign for the reinstatement of Donald Henderson assumed nationwide significance over the week-end as the result of three conferences staged by the New York Committee for the instructor’s reappointment.
As the culmination of a week of general organization of the Henderson defense and presentation of the instructor’s case at several city colleges, a meeting was held at the Central Plaza last night at which addresses attacking the University’s failure to renew Mr. Henderson’s appointment were delivered by five speakers, including, for the first time in his own public defense, Mr. Henderson.
200 Attend Protest Meeting
Amid the sounding of a call for a “permanent organization to prevent future violations of academic freedom and to: put forward immediately mass pressure to reinstate Donald Henderson,” the speakers at the meeting, attended by 200 persons, generally condemned the “narrowness, dryness and intellectual sterility,” of the existing educational system.
Mr. Henderson termed Columbia “a liberal university where you may believe anything you please and discuss it freely under academic auspices, provided you hold these beliefs educationally and not agitationally.” Putting into practice personal doctrines which run counter to the “dominant social institutions” will result in “academic suicide,” he said.
Predicts Student Fascist Move
“Both for students and teachers the range of freedom in thought and action is constantly narrowing,” Mr. Henderson stated, predicting the crystallization of a Fascist student movement in America with increasing “tightening of educational lines.”
At an organization meeting Saturday, eight national student, teacher and professional groups, in addition to fifteen college clubs, allied themselves in a “General Committee for the Reinstatement of Donald Henderson.”
Donald Henderson, instructor in economics, will speak on the “Revolutionary Student Movement” at the next of the Social Problems Club’s Marxist Lectures tonight at 8:30 o’clock in Casa Italiana.
To Hold Protest At Noon Today Henderson Supporters Will Mass at Sun Dial For Demonstration
Three radical leaders and ten students will speak at noon today at the second Columbia outdoor mass meeting protesting the University’s failure to renew the appointment of Donald Henderson, instructor in economics.
Characterized by Henderson supporters as “undoubtedly the most important event in the fight,” the protest demonstration to be held at the Sun Dial is expected to draw a city-wide crowd of sympathizers.
Niebuhr to Speak
Speakers at the meeting, according to a statement issued yesterday by the Columbia Joint Committee for the Instructor’s reinstatement will be Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr of Union Theological Seminary, J. B. Matthews of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Robert W. Dunn of the Labor Research Association. Ten students will also deliver addresses, representing various Campus organizations.
Charging that American college faculties have failed to give support to student radical movements, Donald Henderson, instructor in economics, declared yesterday evening in one of the Social Problems Club’s series of Marxist Lectures that members of the Columbia teaching staff quit the Reed Harris and other cases “cold” when they thought they might “burn their fingers.”
With a plea for solidarity among student bodies of the nation on issues of importance, Mr. Henderson told a small audience at the Casa Italiana that “it is doubly important to get students of other campuses to come and demonstrate at Columbia.” The most pressing problem facing organized student movements, he said, is the “isolated character” of the individual student bodies.
Students Not Revolutionary
“The total student body in the United States is not revolutionary material,” Mr. Henderson declared, pointing out that the great bulk of present undergraduates came to college in the period when they were justified in looking forward to “a hopeful cultural future,” as well as important jobs on graduation. The depression has not greatly altered the points of view of many students, declared the instructor whose reappointment is being sought by the National Student League.
A fight on academic freedom should not be undertaken only on the basis of its own importance, but should be regarded as “merely the reflection of the broader social situation,” Mr. Henderson declared. Struggles taken up at colleges must be carried on with the intention of calling attention to the revolutionary program as a whole, he added.
A protest demonstration for the reappointment of Mr. Henderson will be held this noon at the Sun Dial in front of South Field, according to supporters, yesterday’s meeting having been postponed on account of rain.
500 Attend Demonstration For Henderson Instructor’s Case Held An Instance of General ‘Academic Repression’ in U. S. — Sykes Presents Opposition Viewpoint
The case of Donald Henderson is merely a single instance of a general situation of academic repression in this country, it was asserted yesterday by eleven of twelve speakers addressing a demonstration in protest against the failure of the University to renew Mr. Henderson’s appointment.
A crowd of 500 persons, assembled at the Sun Dial, variously expressed, by either cheering or booing, their opinions of the several speakers, among whom was J. B. Matthews, of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He demanded student support of the Henderson case “as part of an issue we shall be forced in the future to combat in a bigger way, an issue which is now raising its head on the Columbia Campus.”
Tells Group to Organize
“This is the time to awaken, to organize, to stop now the tendency toward academic repression and servility to the prevailing social order,” he declared.
Mr. Henderson’s crime consisted in “functioning effectively in the social order and getting his name in the papers,” according to Robert W. Dunn of the Labor Research Association. “Had he been a respectable liberal and confined himself to harmless academic matters he would have been retained, at full pay, even if he never met his classes,” Mr. Dunn asserted.
Will Picket Today
During the demonstration two committees were organized to picket, commencing at noon today, the home of Dr. Butler and the Columbia University Club rooms. Agitation for Mr. Henderson’s reinstatement will continue Tuesday with another demonstration, followed by a march around the Campus, it was announced to the assembled crowd. An opposition viewpoint was expressed at the meeting by Macrae Sykes ’33, Student Board member who, when asked his opinion of the case, declared “there is a confusion of issues in this case. Academic freedom is not involved in Mr. Henderson’s expulsion. Many teachers at Columbia are expressing to their students the same ideas for which you claim Henderson was fired. These teachers weren’t asked to resign.
“This is no question of academic freedom,” Sykes continued, “but of the right of department heads to hire and fire their subordinates at will.”
On April 28, Mr. Donald Henderson, in reply to an editorial published two days previous, stated:
In May, 1931, Professor Rexford C. Tugwell had told Mr. Henderson that his status as an instructor “was not in question.”
In October of the same year, Mr. Henderson said in his letter, Professor Tugwell “called me into his office and informed me that the situation had radically changed and that I had better look for a position somewhere else for the following year.”
When Mr. Henderson asked Professor Tugwell the reason “for the abrupt change in attitude toward me between May, 1931, and October, 1931,” the letter declares, “no definite answer was given by Professor Tugwell beyond a general statement that I was spending too much time in ‘agitation’ and not enough in ‘scholarly education.'”
Mr. Henderson’s statements are serious enough to warrant an answer. What happened between the months of May and October, 1931, is a question which silence on the part of Professor Tugwell cannot clear up.
Broun, Harris Will Address Mass Meeting Will Speak Today at Henderson Protest — 26 Prominent Liberals Ask A. A. U. P. tor Inquiry Of Instructor’s Case
Preparations for the third outdoor protest demonstration in behalf of Donald Henderson were completed yesterday as leaders of the Columbia Joint Committee for the instructor’s reappointment made public a letter sent by twenty-six educators, writers and radical leaders, to the American Association of University Professors requesting an investigation of the Henderson case.
Heywood Broun, columnist, Reed Harris, former Spectator editor and Joshua Kunitz, author, in addition to ten student speakers, will deliver addresses in Mr. Henderson’s defense in another protest meeting at noon today at the Sun Dial.
The signers of the communication declare themselves to be “deeply concerned with the issues of academic freedom and free speech” raised in the Henderson case, and request the Association to conduct a “thoroughgoing” investigation.
The full text of the letter follows:
“Professor Walter Wheeler Cook, President,
The American Association of University Professors
Johns Hopkins University
Dear Sir:
The undersigned individuals are deeply concerned with the issues of academic freedom and free speech raised by the release from Columbia University of Donald Henderson, instructor of economics. Mr. Henderson, who has been an instructor at Columbia for four years, has been notified that he will not be reappointed for 1933-34. The alleged reasons for this refusal to reappoint him are failure to complete work for a Ph.D. degree, and his poor teaching.
“Students and teachers at Columbia and other universities charge that the reasons given by the University for this action are hypocritical and misleading, and that the real reason for his release is his continued radical student and labor activities.
“We believe that the issues involved in Mr. Henderson’s release are of sufficient importance to justify a thoroughgoing inquiry by the American Association of University Professors. Accordingly, we ask you to instigate such an investigation at the earliest possible moment, and to make a report of your findings to the American people.”
The communication was signed by the following: George Soule and Bruce Bliven, of The New Republic; Lewis Gannett, of The New York Herald-Tribune; Freda Kirchway, of The Nation; Alfred Bingham and Selden Rodman, of Common Sense; Harry Elmer Barnes; Sidney Howard; Waldo Frank; Granville Hicks; Professors Broadus Mitchell, Johns Hopkins University; Newton Arvin, Smith College, Robert Morss Lovett and Maynard C. Krueger, University of Chicago, Harry A. Overstreet, C.C. N.Y., Willard Atkins, Edwin Burgum, Margaret Schlauch and Sidney Hook, New York University; Dr. Bernhard J. Stern, Columbia; Norman Thomas, A. J. Muste, Corliss Lamont, Elizabeth Gilman, Paul Blanshard and J. B. Matthews.
Broun Asks Student Strike For Henderson Calls University’s Action ‘Unfair’ — ‘Liberalism’ of Butler Hit by Instructor, Speaking on Own Case — Reed Harris Talks
Heywood Broun, noted columnist, yesterday called upon Columbia students to strike in protest against the University’s “unfair treatment” of Donald Henderson.
Declaring the economics instructor was “fired” solely for his radical activity, Mr. Broun told a crowd of 750 at a protest meeting on 116th Street that they should “come out and fight openly” to affirm the fact that “this University is ours and belongs to nobody else.”
Calls Students’ Judgment Important
“It is a strange thing,” the newspaper man asserted, “that an instructor is incompetent as soon as he becomes interested in radical activities. A remote Administration is not a judge of competence in this matter. The most important thing is what his classes think of Donald Henderson.”
In his second public address on his own case, Mr. Henderson, last speaker at the demonstration, attacked Columbia’s “liberal reputation,” declaring that “the essence of Columbia University’s liberalism is that it permits you freedom of thought as long as you don’t carry your beliefs into action.”
Attacks Liberals’ Policies
The practical application of such doctrines, if they run counter to the “dominant institutions,” causes the University to “distinguish between academic freedom and academic incompetence,” he declared.
“Effective unity of opposing thought and action of this sort,” Mr. Henderson stated, “immediately puts the liberal in a position where he must join the forces of reaction.”
He called upon teachers and students everywhere to “rouse into action and discover the meaning of this liberalism and all the other doctrines that are hung around our necks.”
Reed Harris, former Spectator editor, returning to the University to defend the Faculty member who supported him after his expulsion from Columbia last year, also spoke. He termed Mr. Henderson “one of the most important instructors in America” and called his non-reappointment “a rotten deal for Mr. Henderson and for the students.”
“Education,” he declared, “is a little like beer. It needs ferment to keep it from becoming flat. It needs activity, and teachers like Henderson provide this activity, dispel the unhealthy serenity bred of College Studies and dimly lighted rooms.”
Says Officials Are ‘Hypocrites’
Attacking the Administration’s stand on the case, Harris charged Columbia officials with being “hypocrites.” A charge of “absolute incompetence” and “nincompoopery” was levelled at a majority of Faculty members, some by direct reference, by Joshua Kunitz, writer and Phi Beta Kappa member who received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees here.
Plans for continuance of agitation were drawn up by Henderson adherents immediately after the protest meeting. Two principal decisions emerged:
Will March by Torchlight
A torchlight procession around the Campus will take place tonight, commencing at 8:30 o’clock from the Sun Dial. Preliminary to this event, sympathizers will picket the Main Library steps for two hours.
Tomorrow, a mass picketing of the grounds, conducted by a city-wide group of Henderson supporters, will be held. Dr. Butler’s home will also be picketed.
Other speakers at yesterday’s demonstration included Nathaniel Weyl ’31; Robert Gessner, of the N. Y. U. faculty.
Last night the supporters of the movement to reinstate Donald Henderson held a demonstration on 116th Street. Their intentions were simply to carry on the fight for a cause which they felt was justified.
But the self-styled “intelligent group of Columbia students” determined that the only way to beat the Henderson supporters was by egg-throwing. Dr. Addison T. Cutler, a courageous member of the Faculty, was subjected to the humiliation of having his coat spattered with eggs thrown by a gentleman who dared not come up front and state his case.
This exhibition by a supposedly intelligent group of undergraduates—their complete reversion to howling lynch-law—must leave the-ordinary bystander amazed.
When an alumnus of Columbia College—not a supporter of Mr. Henderson, but one who was merely passing by—got up and pleaded with the undergraduate group to be square and decent, he was greeted with hoots and jeers. It was rowdyism of the worst sort. It was inexcusable.
Students of this calibre will someday be graduated from Columbia College as capable, competent and educated young men.
Joint Committee Calls Strike For Henderson Instructor’s Backers to Stage Walkout Monday – Ask General Student Participation—Will Issue Leaflet on Case Today
A call to all University students to strike Monday in protest against the “continued silence” of the administration regarding the reappointment of Donald Henderson was sounded yesterday by the Columbia Joint Committee for the instructor’s reinstatement.
Declaring that “increasing manifestations of student sympathy and the incontrovertible evidence which has been presented” justify a general walkout, a statement issued yesterday by the Henderson defense group urged students to employ “the most potent weapon of student expression” to fight “this latest attempt to stifle freedom of action.”
Administration Is Silent
“Our campaign has moved forward,” the statement asserted, adding that the administration has been silent “despite the mass of testimony” offered to answer its original statement of the reasons for not reappointing Mr. Henderson.
Complete plans for the strike were speeded overnight with student sympathizers throughout the city voicing support of the move. Pickets to dissuade Columbia students from attending classes Monday will be selected over the weekend, leaders of the protest group announced.
Will Distribute Leaflets
This morning leaflets will be distributed on this and other campuses reviewing the case of Donald Henderson and urging students to participate in the walkout.
It is planned to circulate a petition urging the instructor’s reappointment among members of the teaching departments in an attempt to line up concerted student and Faculty opposition.
From noon till late afternoon yesterday Henderson adherents picketed the Main Library steps and the home of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, bearing twenty-foot banners stating “Reappoint Henderson,” and numerous placards.
Many Students Indifferent
Repercussions of the open battle Wednesday night between Henderson supporters and the newly-manifested student opposition sounded from all quarters of the Campus yesterday. While many students hitherto undecided as to their sentiments on the Henderson case have definitely aligned themselves with either opposing or supporting forces as a result of the clash, many expressed continued indifference to the matter.
The opposition ranks, as yet not openly organized, were silent last night regarding plans for further action, but it was considered likely in informed circles that they will intensify their activity and seek to enlarge their numbers, preliminary to a mass counter-move on the day of the walkout.
100 to Picket University in Henderson Strike Today Walkout to Last All Day— ‘To Be Peaceful, Disciplined Meeting,’ Committee Promises—Rivera to Speak
Culminating six weeks of continuous agitation, the supporters of Donald Henderson will go on strike today.
One hundred pickets, drawn from Columbia and other colleges in the city, will patrol all University buildings commencing at 9 o’clock this morning to dissuade students from attending classes in protest against the Administration’s failure to reappoint Mr. Henderson, Henderson sympathizers will enter classrooms to urge students and Faculty to join the protest forces.
Strike to Last Until 5 P.M.
The walkout, continuing until 5 o’clock this afternoon, will be a “disciplined, peaceful affair,” leaders of the Columbia Joint Committee for the economics instructor’s reinstatement promised yesterday. Pickets and striking students have been instructed to “cause no trouble.”
Throughout the day, a continual procession of speakers will mount the Sun Dial to lead protest meetings demanding Mr. Henderson’s reappointment. Included in the list are the following: Diego Rivera, Mexican artist; McAlister Coleman, Socialist leader; Donald Henderson; Paul Blanshard, of the City Affairs Committee; Joseph Freeman, editor of New Masses; Alfred Bingham, son of Senator Hiram Bingham of Connecticut and editor of “Common Sense”; Clarence Hathaway, Communist Party Leader; William Browder; and E. C. Lindeman, of the Social Science Research Council.
Opposition to Demonstrate
Opposition forces could not be reached last night, but it was reporter [that a] counter-demonstration is planned for today. Having organized over the weekend, they are understood to be enlarging their ranks and are expected to offer resistance to pickets and protesting groups for the duration of the walkout.
Friday members of the Joint Committee distributed leaflets urging students to Strike Monday to Reappoint Henderson.” Reviewing the Henderson case thus far, the paper declares
“On Monday students of; Columbia University will once again be called to strike in defense of academic freedom. The time has come when we must resort to that weapon to protect the right of Donald Henderson and instructors after him to carry their beliefs into effective action.”
Leaflet Discusses Case
Discussing the case under four headings, “Why Was Henderson Fired?” “Facts,” “Who Supports Henderson?”, and “Who Opposes Henderson?” the leaflet points out that Mr. Henderson “has been dismissed from his teaching position at Columbia because of his activities in the revolutionary student and labor movement.”
Following a list of the student, teacher and professional groups supporting the economics instructor, the statement of The Joint Committee challenges the opposing student faction, and concludes: “At one and the same time they (the opposition) maintain ‘this is no case of academic freedom and Henderson Should be fired for his Communism! Sweep all radicals Out of Columbia!’ “
“Which is it, ‘gentlemen’ of the opposition,” the leaflet asks, was Henderson fired for radicalism or not? Do you or do you not want Columbia closed to all but goose-steppers? Make up your minds!”
Today a group of students sincerely devoted to the fight for the reappointment of Donald Henderson will leave their classes and hold an all-day demonstration in front of the Sun Dial. Thus far they have carried on their activities with as much dignity as the opposition would allow. In one specific case they were treated to an adolescent display of rowdyism by a group of students.
We believe that student expression should have every opportunity for full and unrestricted expression, bounded only by certain standards of courtesy and fairness. The Henderson supporters have invited their opponents to speak. They have striven to prevent their meetings from degenerating into brawls upon provocation by a band of egg-throwers.
We hope that the Columbia College students who have made of themselves public examples of irresponsibility will be absent today. By staying away from that which they don’t want to hear, they will restore to themselves some of their fast disappearing dignity.
______________________
Seabrook Farms, N.J. Strike
Daily News (New York, 11 July 1934).
N.Y. Red Run Out as Farm Strike Ends By Robin Harris (Staff Correspondent of TheNews)
Bridgeton, N.J., July 10.—The sixteen-day strike of the Seabrook Farms workers whose riots and disorders reached a climax in yesterday’s “Bloody Monday” gas bomb attacks was ended today when the strikers overthrew Communistic leadership and threatened to lynch Donald Henderson, Red organizer and former Columbia University economics instructor.
As the resentment of the strikers flamed into anger toward their discredited leader, the authorities slipped Henderson out of town in an automobile, taking him to his bungalow at Vineland, about eight miles from here.
Workers Against Him.
Henderson, whose wife, Eleanor (sic), was one of the twenty-seven strike leaders arrested after yesterday’s riots, found the opinion of the workers solidly against him when he urged them to reject the peace agreement drawn up by Federal Mediator John A. Moffitt.
Shouts of “Run him out of town!” and “Lynch him!” interrupted the pint-sized [According to Henderson’s 1942 Draft registration card his approximate height and weight were 5 foot 10 inches, 140 lbs.] agitator’s flow of oratory when he persisted in addressing the highway mass meeting at which the workers voted 2 to 1 to accept the Moffitt agreement.
Surrounded by deputy sheriffs, Henderson left the meeting and returned to the offices of the Seabrook Farms, where he was greeted with jeers and renewed threats from the workers.
While police officials and members of the farmers’ vigilantes committee strove to mollify the booing crowd, County Detective Albert F. Murray slipped Henderson out of the rear door and departed for Vineland….
The twenty-eight prisoners, twenty-seven seized after the riots yesterday and the other when recognized today, were ordered released by Cumberland County Prosecutor Thomas Tuso after he learned of the strike settlement.
Twenty-one of the prisoners were granted unconditional freedom, while the other seven, including Henderson, his wife, and Vivian Dahl, were continued in $500 bail pending the action of the Grand Jury, which meets in September.
The seven continued in bail were charged with inciting to riot and suspicion of possessing dangerous weapons.
Following the release of the prisoners, Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf [Fun Fact: father of Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. commander of U.S. Central Command who led coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War], head of the New Jersey State Police, announced that he would give the New York Reds twenty-four hours to leave town. Those failing to get out under the deadline will be clamped into jail.
“A nationwide search by the Government for Donald Henderson, president of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union of America, independent, was called off yesterday after the leftist labor leader agreed by telephone to appear here tomorrow before the Federal grand jury investigating subversive activities.
Roy M. Cohn, assistant United States Attorney in charge of the investigation, said that since last Wednesday United States marshals had been trying to locate Mr. Henderson to serve a grand jury subpoena. Late yesterday afternoon, Mr. Henderson called Mr. Cohn from Charleston , S. C., and agreed to appear before the panel.
The grand jury has been questioning labor officials who signed the non-Communist affidavit under the Taft-Harley Law after resigning from the Communist party. …
…Yesterday three other leftist union officials were witnesses before the grand jury. They were James H. Durkis, president of the United Office and Professional Workers of America, independent, who resigned publicly from the Communist party, and Julius Emspak, secretary-treasurer, and James Maties, (or Matles) director of organization, of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers, independent….
At the conspiracy trial of the eleven convicted Communist leaders, Louis F. Budenz, former editor of The Daily Worker, testified that Mr. Emspak attended a June 1945 meeting of the Communist party national committee….
______________________
February 14, 1952 Testimony
U.S. Senate, Subcommittee to investigate the administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary. [pp.165-185]
[p. 166] …Mr. Arens. Will you kindly give us the date and place of your birth?
Mr. Henderson. I was born in New York City, February 4, 1902.
Mr. Arens. And where were you educated? Give us a word about your education, if you please.
Mr. Henderson. I went to grammar school in Montpelier, Vt. I went to high school at Dansville, N.Y. I went to college at Columbia University.
Mr. Arens. Give us, if you please, a brief résumeé of your occupation after you completed your formal education.
Mr. Henderson. I taught at Columbia University for 7 years as an instructor in economics, and since that time I have been a labor organizer in one or another labor union.
Mr. Arnes. Could you be a little bit more specific on the labor organizations which you have been identified with?
Mr. Henderson. Starting in 1933-34, I started organizing agricultural workers throughout the country.
Mr. Arens. For what organization, if you please?
Mr. Henderson. For the American Federation of Labor. And in 1937, we established an international union affiliated to the CIO.
Mr. Arens. What was the name of that union?
Mr. Henderson. It was called the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America. That changed its name to the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers Union in 1944. It affiliated to the CIO in 1937.
Mr. Arens. And what was your particular office or position with the union?
Mr. Henderson. I was elected international president of that union in 1937 and held that post until 1949. In October 1950, we merged with two other organizations, the Distributive Workers Union and the United Office and Professional Workers Union, to form a new international union called the Distributive, Processing and Office Workers Union of America, and I am the national secretary-treasurer of that new international union.
Mr. Arens. And how long have you held this post of national secretary-treasurer of DPOWA?
Mr. Henderson. At the time of the merger, I held the post of administrative secretary of that international union until October of 1951, when there was a reorganization and I was elected to the post of national secretary-treasurer of that union, and I have held that post since that time.
Mr. Arens. Would you give us, if you please, just a word of your personal history? Are you a married man?
Mr. Henderson. I am married; have been married twice. My first wife died. I have three children by my first wife, aged 25, 16, and 14, living on Long Island at the present time.
[…]
[p. 172] …Mr. Arens. Did you join the Communist Party in 1931?
Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that question on the same ground. [5th amendment]
Mr. Arens. I put it to you as a fact that on or about August 4, 1931 you joined the Communist Party and I ask you to affirm or deny that fact.
Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that question on the same ground, sir.
[…]
Mr. Arens. The Daily Worker, Mr. Henderson, of August 4, 1931, contains an article which states that you had rejected socialism and [p. 173] joined the Communist Party. Do you have any recollection of that article?
Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer on the same ground.
Mr. Arens. I lay before you, Mr. Henderson, a photostatic copy of an article appearing in the Communist Daily Worker of August 4, 1931, and I ask you if you recognize that article.
[…]
Mr. Arens. Now I lay before you an article, a photostat of an article, in the Communist Daily Worker of August 15, 1949, entitled “FTA complies with NLRB rule” in which the following appears:
… “While it is true that I had been a member of the Communist Party, I have resigned my membership therein…”
[…]
[p. 176]
…Mr. Arens. Why did you sever your connections with Columbia University?
Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that on the same ground, sir.
Senator Watkins. Were you teaching at Columbia University?
Mr. Henderson. Yes, sir.
Senator Watkins. What position did you occupy?
Mr. Henderon. I was an instructor there for 7 years in the department of economics. [sic, probably added one year Rutgers and six years at Columbia, see timeline above]
Senator Watkins. Department of economics?
Mr. Henderson. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Arens. What period of time?
Mr. Henderson. 1926 to 1933, I believe, were the years.
Mr. Arens. Did you resign, or was there a severance of relationships?
Mr. Henderson. There was a severance of relationships.
Mr. Arens. At whose request was there a severance of relationships?
Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that question on the same ground.
Mr. Arnens. I respectfully suggest that the witness be ordered and directed to answer the question: At whose request was there a severance of relationships between this witness and Columbia University?
Senator Watkins. You are ordered and directed to answer.
Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer on the same ground.
Mr. Arens. I put it to you as a fact that you were forced to resign from the faculty of Columbia University because of your activities in behalf of the Communist Party, and I ask you to affirm or deny that fact.
Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer the question on the same ground.
Mr. Arens. In 1937 you registered to vote as a Communist, did you not?
Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that on the same ground.
Mr. Arens. Did you attend the Tenth National Convention of the Communist Party as a delegate in 1938?
Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that question on the same ground, sir.
Mr. Arens. I put it to you as a fact that, on November 16, 1940, you attended the 1-day national emergency convention held by the Communist Party in New York City, and I ask you to affirm or deny the fact.
Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that question on the same ground.
[…]
[p. 177]
…Mr. Arens. Did you ever live in Chicago, Ill.?
Mr. Henderson. I did.
Mr. Arens. Did you ever live at 234 South Wells Street, Chicago?
Mr. Henderson. That may have been, I don’t recall the exact number. I lived at three diffent places there.
Mr. Arens. Did you ever live on South Wells Street, in Chicago?
Mr. Henderson. I think so; yes.
Mr. Arens. I put it to you as a fact that on February 1, 1941, you were present at a Communist Party executive board meeting held at 234 South Wells, Chicago, Ill., and ask you to affirm or deny that fact.
Mr. Henderson. I must refuse to answer that on the same ground, sir.
______________________
From the CIO Convention in Portland, Oregon (Nov. 1948)
Murray Lashes Leftist Head of CIO Union
By Seymour Korman Chicago Tribune (November 23, 1948, p. 26)
Portland, Ore., Nov. 22 — With hoots, jeers and shouts of “go back to Russia,” right wing delegates at the CIO convention today lashed out at the leftist minority in one of the most tumultuous sessions in the labor organization’s history. For more than three hours, the pro and anti-Communist factions hurled bombastic rhetoric at each other before the report of CIO President Philip Murray, embodying support of the Marshall plan, was carried with only one small leftist group abstaining among the 600 delegates.
[…]
The oratorical explosion was touched off by Donald Henderson, leftist president of the Food and Agricultural Workers union. In a minority report, he condemned the Marshall plan as being an aid to Fascists. He was interrupted by the shouts of, “Go back to Russia.”…
… Murray accused Henderson and the other leftists of employing the same tactics as European Communists and styled the Henderson group “ideological dive bombers.”
______________________
Image Source: Press photo of Donald Henderson in Daily News (New York, NY). July 11, 1934.
In the previous post we encountered social security pioneer Eveline Mabel Burns née Richardson at the point in her career when the Columbia University economics department signaled a definitive end to any hopes for promotion from the rank of lecturer to a tenure track assistant professorship in economics for her with them. In this post we follow the parallel case of her economist husband, Arthur Robert Burns (and no, not the Arthur F. Burns of Burns-Mitchell fame!), who cleared the promotion to assistant professor hurdle at Columbia relatively easily, but was stuck at that rank for nine years, in spite of repeated proposals by the department to promote him sooner.
The heart of this post can be found in the exchange between the Arthur Robert Burns and then economics department head R. M. Haig in November 1941. Biographical and career backstories for Arthur R. Burns through 1945 can be found in excerpts posted below from budgetary proposals submitted by the economics department over the years. Burns was seen as a pillar of Columbia University’s Industrial Organization field at that time and remained at Columbia through his retirement (ca. 1965) while his wife took up a professorship in Social Work.
____________________________
From: Seligman’s 1929-30 budget recommendation to President Butler (December 1, 1928)
“During [Clara Eliot’s] absence [from Barnard College) Mr. A. R. Burns has been acting as substitute. In our judgment he has been a valuable addition to the staff, and we recommend that he be reappointed as instructor. In Miss Eliot’s absence the course in statistics has been reduced from two semesters to one. There is a distinct demand for an additional course, though it would be on a different basis from formerly, and our proposal is that Miss Eliot be appointed solely to give two three-point courses in statistics, conducting a statistical laboratory as part of this work. This would relieve Mr. Burns from the course in statistics, and enable him to offer a new course of a somewhat more theoretical character than any now given at Barnard, on “the price-system and the organization of society”, a course which would distinctly help to round out the present offerings in Economics”.
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Department of Economics Budgets, 1915-1934 (a few minor gaps)”.
____________________________
Biographical and professional background through 1930-31
of Arthur R. Burns
…Arthur R. Burns was born in London, in 1895. He served in the army from September, 1914, to April, 1917, when he was discharged as no longer fit because of wounds. He entered the London School of Economics at once, took his B.Sc. degree with honors in 1920, taught economics in King’s College for women (University of London) for four years, and took his doctor’s degree in 1926. The award of Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fellowships brought Dr. Burns and his wife to this country, where they traveled somewhat widely for two years, studied competitive conditions in industries characterized by large business units, and where they were induced to stay by Columbia.
Dr. Burns has now been a lecturer in economics at Barnard College for three years. Members of our department have thus had an opportunity to become well acquainted with his quality. We think that he is by native ability, temperament and training an investigator, and that, given such opportunities as the graduate department affords, he will make significant contributions to economic science. His publications include several technical papers and two books: Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times, 1926, (a learned treatise on the origin and early history of coinage and monetary practices), and The Economic World, 1927 (written in collaboration with Mrs. Burns).
Source: Letter outlining plans for the future development of the economics department by Wesley C. Mitchell to President Butler. January 16, 1931. In Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890-, Box 667, Folder 34 “Mitchell, Wesley Clair, 10/1930 – 6/1931”. Carbon copy also in Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Department of Economics Budgets, 1915-1934 (a few minor gaps)”.
____________________________
Department recommends promotion to Associate Professorship
already in 1937-38
[Note: actual promotion only occurred Apr. 3, 1944]
[…] I would make the following budgetary recommendations for the coming academic year [1937-1938]:
(1) That the salary of Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be advanced from $3,600 to $4,000. In the opinion of his colleagues Mr. Burns is an indispensable member of our group whose scholarly competence and accomplishments entitle him to recognition far beyond that yet accorded him by the University. At the earliest possible moment he should be advanced to an Associate Professorship.”
[…]
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1937-1938”.
____________________________
Department again recommends promotion to Associate Professorship
[Note: Burns was given the salary increase this time]
[…] I would respectfully make the following budgetary recommendations for the coming academic year [1938-1939]:
(1) That the salary of Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be advanced from $3,600 to $4,000. In the opinion of his colleagues Mr. Burns is an indispensable member of our group whose scholarly competence and accomplishments entitle him to recognition far beyond that yet accorded him by the University. At the earliest possible moment he should be advanced to an Associate Professorship.”
[…]
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1938-1939”.
____________________________
Department then begins unsuccessfully to push for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship
[Nov. 28, 1938]
[…] I respectfully recommend budgetary changes for the coming academic year 1939-1940, involving increase of compensation to the following members of the staff:
[…]
3. Arthur R. Burns from $4,000 to $4,500;
[…]
[Assistant] Professor Arthur R. Burns has established himself as an authority in his chosen field, and it is the desire of his colleagues that he be advanced to a full professorship as rapidly as university resources will allow. His tenure has already been long, and his advancement slow. It is our thought that he be given current recognition and enccouragement, with hope of promotion to rank commesurate with his repute among economists.”
[…]
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, “Economics Budget 1938-1939”. [note: incorrectly filed!]
____________________________
Requesting unpaid leave for a Twentieth Century Fund project
March 1, 1939
Nicholas Murray Butler, LL.D.
President of Columbia University
Dear President Butler:
Professor Arthur R. Burns has been invited to take the directorship of a study of the public utility industry, under the auspices of the Twentieth Century Fund. We of the Department think it wise that he do this and recommend that he be granted leave of absence without pay for the academic year 1939-40. I shall be prepared before long to make recommendation of some outstanding person to serve as a partial substitute for Professor Burns during the coming academic year with a stipend which will absorb approximately three-fifths of Professor Burns’ current compensation.
Very sincerely yours,
Executive Officer
Department of Economics
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1939-1940”.
____________________________
Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship
[Nov. 18, 1939]
[…] I respectfully make the following recommendations affecting the budget of 1940-41:
[…]
6. That Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be granted added compensation of $500 [i.e. from $4,000 to $4,500].
[…]
[Assistant] Professor Arthur R. Burns has served a long apprenticeship with subordinate rank in the Department. At the moment, either from the standpoint of scholarly attainment or from that of efficiency in graduate instruction he suffers not at all by comparison with the best endowed and most effective of his colleagues. Because of his merits and of the importance of the field he covers, he should be advanced rapidly to full professorial status.
[…]
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1939-1940” [note: incorrectly filed!]
____________________________
Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary reducing promotion to Associate Professorship
[October 27, 1941]
MEMORANDUM
Department of Economics
October 27, 1941
[…]
Arthur R. Burns. Proposed: Advancement–assistant professor to associate professor.
Present salary $4,500
Proposed salary. $5,000
[…]
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Budget Material from July 1941-June 1942”.
____________________________
Arthur R. Burns demands promotion to the rank of professor
3206, Que Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
November 1st 1941.
Dear Professor Haig,
As I shall not be in New York this year to talk about the departmental plans for next year I must write. It seems to me that the question of my status in the department now calls for definitive action. Doubtless the unsettled times will be advanced as a reason for postponing promotion. At the outset, therefore, I wish to emphasise that I should regard any such attitude as entirely unfair. If the University is to go through hard times (as well it may) its misfortunes should be shared equitably among all the members of the faculty. To be frank, I feel that I have already been asked to bear an altogether unreasonable share of such financial stringencies as the University may have suffered. There have been many occasions in the past thirteen years on which I have been told that my promotion has been recommended (and more in which I have been told that it would have been recommended) but that no action has been taken for general financial reasons. I fully expect to bear my share of the burden of contemporary events but I feel that the time has come for my position to be given special consideration irrespective of those events, no matter how serious.
Various reasons have been given to me during my thirteen years of service to the University for its failure to promote me. But I think I am justified in believing that there has been less than the usual amount of criticism of my scholarship or my teaching capacity. The number of my students who have progressed in the outside world (sometimes already beyond my own rank and salary) indicates that I have been reasonably effective. Furthermore, I think that you will find that in recent years there has been an increasing number of graduate students coming to Columbia to work with me.
I now ask you, therefore, to have my academic status reviewed, whether or not the University wishes on principle again to avoid promotions. And after this long delay promotion only to an associate professorship will not, in my opinion, be compatible with my professional reputation and status. For six or seven years now my recognition outside the University has been widely at variance with my academic rank. My salary as Director of Research for the Twentieth Century Fund was $10,000 per annum. I have recently been invited to join the Anti Trust Division of the Department of Justice at a salary of $8,000 per annum. I am now the Supervisor of Civilian Allocation in the Office of Production Management. I suggest that this evidence justifies promotion to a full professorship. If economies are necessary, I am ready, as I have said, to accept them on the same basis as my colleagues.
I have written to you with complete frankness because I have been keenly disappointed with the disposal of suggestions for my promotion and I am anxious that you shall be clearly informed as to my feelings. I gather that for a number of years now there has been no serious objection but also no vigorous effort in my behalf. I now feel that if after all these long delays Columbia is unwilling to take special action to recognize my professional status I had better know before I am much older. I am now forty six years of age and if I must seek academic recognition elsewhere I must obviously begin to take the necessary steps without delay. I would of course prefer to stay with Columbia. I think you will agree that these long years of patient waiting are evidence of my loyalty but I think you will also agree that I cannot continue much longer to accept the present wide discrepancy between my status inside and outside the University.
Very sincerely yours,
[signed]
Arthur R. Burns
Professor Robert Murray Haig,
Chairman,
Department of Economics,
Fayerweather Hall,
Columbia University,
NEW YORK CITY
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection. Box 2: “Faculty”, Folder: “Faculty Appointments”.
____________________________
Department responds to Burns’ demands:
Associate professorship when your rejoin the faculty
November 22, 1941
Professor Arthur R. Burns
3206 Que Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Professor Burns:
Last night our group met at dinner to consider the budget. This afforded an opportunity to comply with your request that your academic status be reviewed. I wish you could have listened to the discussion that took place. It was highly friendly and appreciative in tone, but at the same time it was pervaded by a deep sense of responsibility for the ultimate objectives for which we are striving. I am sure that it would have impressed you, as it did me, with the essential soundness of the policy of placing heavy dependence upon the deliberate, critical judgment of one’s colleagues in considering questions of promotion.
Your letter of November 1st, which I read to the brethren in full, arrived at a time peculiarly unfavorable for the consideration of finalities and ultimatums. Moreover, I regret to have to report some of the statements and implications of that letter were not altogether fortunate in the reactions they inspired. Let me elaborate on this last statement first.
(1) You state that you gather that in the past there has been “no vigorous effort” in your behalf. I can speak with full knowledge only regarding last year. If the implication is that your failure to secure more adequate recognition is ascribable to lack of vigor on the part of your colleagues as a group, or of the chairman of the Department in particular, I wish to state that I know it to be untrue with respect to last year and have reason to believe it to be untrue of several previous years. As a matter of fact, last year as the program moved forward from the Faculty Committee on Instruction, the recommendation for your promotion was placed at the very top above all others in the Faculty of Political Science. Until the very end, when the Trustees at their March meeting ruthlessly scuttled the program, I had high hopes that the effort would be successful. The only budgetary changes last year in this entire Department of 32 members were a) a $300 increase for which the College authorities had obligated themselves to secure for Barger and b) the temporary allocation of $600 to Wald for one year only from a sabbatical “windfall”.
(2) The citation of the salaries and fees you have been able to command in the government service and in the service of private research organizations as evidence that “justifies promotion to a full professorship” does not greatly impress your colleagues. We rejoice in the recognition and rewards that have come to you in return for your efforts while on leave of absence from your post at Columbia. Certainly the work of the Department has been carried on under a distinct handicap when your courses haven manned by part-time substitutes and we should like to believe that the sacrifices involved had borne rich fruits in professional and material rewards to you personally as well as to the general cause of science. However, you will readily agree, I take it, that our promotion and salary policy cannot be based on the principle you seem to suggest, viz., that the University must be prepared to match, dollar for dollar, the potential earning power of the staff on outside jobs. The rate of compensation for such outside work is, to my certain knowledge, likely to run over four or five times the rate of University compensation. Indeed, I can think of many of our colleagues who, on the basis of such a principle, could cite evidence even more convincing than your own.
(3) In the next place your letter seems to imply an understanding of the nature of the University connection that is not in complete harmony with our own. While it may be the policy elsewhere that mere length of service by a person who joins the staff at an early age, even though that service be reasonably effective and untouched by unfavorable criticism, carries assurance of promotion to the highest rank, this is definitely not the policy at Columbia University. Theoretically, at least, the University retains complete freedom of action to withhold advancement subject to a continuing critical appraisal of the individual’s value to the institution, against the background of changing circumstances, among which the University’s ability to supply funds must be listed near the top. Everyone is continually on trial to the very end of his career. This is evidenced in the practice regarding early retirement, the working of which I have recently had an opportunity to observe. Assurance regarding stability of tenure at a given level is a different point and mere humanitarian considerations are given generous weight. However, fundamentally the University connection is to be regarded as an opportunity (an opportunity, incidentally, of which you, in the opinion of your colleagues have, on the whole, made very good use) and promotion and early retirement are certainly affected and, in many cases at least, determined by the manner in which a member of the staff rises to that opportunity. Moreover, when such heavy dependence is placed upon the continuing critical appraisal by one’s colleagues, each man must have regard for his responsibility for the long-run interests of the department and of science. If, as the years roll along, the department is to contain a reasonably large percentage of intellects of the highest order, the critical appraisal must be a continuing process and sufficient freedom of action must be retained in promotion and salary policy to enable the group to make reasonably effective its collective judgment as to what is best for the department in the light of the individual’s developing record and the fluctuations of the resources available for supplying opportunities. I hope that you will forgive me for laboring this point but it is important that you understand what I am certain is the sentiment of the group of which you are a valued member, viz., that no matter on what basis of rank you may return to us, say, for example, as an associate professor, further recognition in rank or salary will be dependent upon decisions reached in harmony with the general policies outlined above.
I now revert to my earlier statement that your letter arrived at a peculiarly unfavorable time.
(1) On November 13th a letter was received from the President of the University indicating that Draconian economies were indicated for this year’s budget. Our own enrolment in the graduate department of economics has shrunk this year about 25 per cent and this shrinkage is on top of last year’s substantial shrinkage. Even in advance of the preparation of the formal budget letters, the department chairmen were summoned before a special committee at the behest of the trustees and urged by the elimination of courses and other means to contract the normal budget to smaller proportions. Consequently only in emergency cases where the interests of the University are considered to be vitally affected, will serious consideration be given to recommendations involving an increased expenditure.
(2) With the retirement of McCrea, the question of the future of the School of Business has been thrown open for discussion. Under the new Dean a radical revision of policy is being formulated, including as one item the transfer of the School to a strictly graduate level. The intimate interrelationships of staff and curriculum between our department and the school are being reexamined. Plans are still in a state of flux but your particular field of interest is involved. So highly dynamic is the situation that the budget letters of both the Department and the School are to be considered tentative documents, subject to modification as decisions of policy are taken during the weeks that lie ahead.
(3) The situation is further complicated by the fact that within our Department itself we have reached the stage, which arises every decade or so, when long-time plans require consideration. Not only are we faced with an important retirement problem, but we are also asked to have regard for the situation that will result if the present trend toward lower enrolments continues. To deal with this situation, a special committee has been set up in the department, headed by Professor Mitchell, to formulate plans for the future. A series of meetings is being held at which the present and probable future importance of the various subjects falling within the scope of the departments are being discussed and questions of staff and curriculum are being intensively studied. Here also important decisions are in the making but definite conclusions have not yet been reached.
I am writing at such length in order that you may understand clearly and fully the background against which we were called upon to consider your letter and the reasons underlying the action that was taken in your case.
The recommendation that I am instructed by our colleagues to include in the budget letter is that I renew the recommendation made last year that you be promoted to the rank of associate professor at a salary of $5,000. I realize that this will be a disappointment to you. You have stated that you consider this degree of recognition, if we are successful in securing it for you, would not be compatible with your professional reputation and status. I infer from your letter that you consider it so inadequate that you are not prepared to accept it. However, you do not make yourself unequivocally clear on this point. If your mind is definitely made up, it will simplify the procedure if you will inform me of the fact at once. On the other hand, there is no disposition to press you for an early answer in case you are not as far along toward a decision as your letter would seem to imply.
In considering the problem of your probable future with us, as compared with the various flattering alternatives open to you, I feel that I should make the following statements:
(1) I have no assurance that the recommendation will be adopted. It will carry the vigorous support of the department and of the Chairman. I have already raised the question informally before the Committee on Instruction of the Faculty and am happy to be able to report that this committee is warmly friendly to your cause. Frankly, however, I am not as optimistic as I was last year at this time regarding the outlook for a favorable outcome when the trustees finally take action.
(2) I should report that, in view of all the circumstances, including the state of ferment that exists at the moment regarding future plans for the department, your colleagues would not be willing to urge your appointment to a full professorship immediately, even if they were convinced that such a recommendation would stand a chance of acceptance by the trustees. You are highly regarded and much appreciated. Your colleagues regret the harsh circumstances that have made it impossible to give you more recognition than you have already received. They consider you an excellent gamble for the long future. They consider the fields of your special interest important. However, it is hoped and believed that you have not yet reached a full development of your potentialities. When faced with the question as to whether they are convinced that, on the record to date, you are reasonably certain to be generally regarded, during the next twenty years, as one of the dozen or so most distinguished economists in active service, there is a general disposition to reply “not yet proven beyond a reasonable doubt”. Although they have no illusions about the difficulty of carrying out this policy with success, they have decided to take the position that they will henceforth recommend for a full professorship no one who does not meet such a test. They prefer to have you return with the clear understanding all around that the final issue, the question of the full professorship, shall not be decided in your case until more evidence is in. They take this position with the best of will and with a considerable degree of confidence that the final decision will be favorable. In connection with this, they feel that the important work upon which you are now engaged should contribute substantially to your “capital account” and should have a highly favorable effect upon your future record as a scholar and teacher.
You paid me the compliment of writing me a candid and forthright letter. In return I have attempted to lay before you with complete frankness all the considerations I know of that bear upon the question you have to consider.
Finally, I should like to say, speaking both in a personal capacity and as the chairman of the department, that I hope you will find it possible to send me word that you desire to continue as a member of our group under these conditions. We have an interesting and important task before us. I believe that you have a rôle to play in its accomplishment. If, unhappily for us, your decision takes you away from us, we shall sincerely regret the termination of our close association with you. To a remarkable degree you have earned for yourself not only the respect but the affection of your colleagues at Columbia.
Faithfully yours,
R.M. HAIG
P.S. At your early convenience will you be good enough to send me a note of any items that should be added to your academic record for use in my budget letter.
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection. Box 2: “Faculty”, Folder: “Faculty Appointments”.
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From: Economics Department’s Proposed Budget for 1946-1947
November 30, 1945
[Burns recommended for professorship]
[…]
We recommend that Arthur Robert Burns, now an associate professor at a salary of $5,000, be promoted to a professorship at $7,500. Professor Burns, who has been connected with the University since 1928, was appointed an assistant professor in 1935, an associate professor in 1944. He has returned this year to his academic work, after a six-year leave of absence devoted to research and to important governmental service. His war-time activities have included service as Chief Economic Adviser and deputy Director of the Office of Civilian Supply, Deputy Administrator of the Foreign Economic Administration, and a mission to Europe in 1945 as a member of the American Group of the Allied Control Commission, advising on economic and industrial disarmament of Germany.
Professor Burns is carrying one of the fundamental graduate courses on Industrial Organization. He has agreed to offer one of the courses that will be central in the curriculum of the School of International Affairs–a course on “Types of Economic Organization”. His close acquaintance with the organization of the economies of the United States, Britain, and Germany, and his scholarly background in the field are of great value in this development of systematic academic work on comparative economic systems. Burn’s scholarly reputation is high. His study of The Decline of Competition, which is accepted as a standard in the field, is one of the major products of the Columbia Council on Research in the Social Sciences. He has served the country in recent years in administrative and advisory posts of high responsibility. We believe that he should have the rank of full professor.
[…]
Annex C
ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS
Academic Record
1918. Gladstone Memorial Prize, London School of Economics, London.
1920. B.Sc. (Economics) degree with First Class Honors, University of London.
1926. Ph.D. degree, University of London.
1926-28. Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship.
Teaching
1922-26. University of London.
1928-31. Lecturer in Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University.
1931-35. Lecturer in Economics, Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.
1935-44. Assistant Professor of Economics, Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.
1939. Special Lecturer, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Leaves of absence without salary for 1940-41 through 1944-45.
1944-45. Promoted to Associate Professor of Economics
Returned to Columbia University for 1945-46.
Published Work
“Indian Currency Reform.” Economica, about 1925.
“The Effect of Funding the Floating Debt,” Economica, about 1933.
“Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times.” London: Kegan Paul & Co., 1927. About 650 pp. “The Economic World.” London, University of London Press, 1928. [sic:co-authorship of wife Eveline M. Burns was not included in the citation].
“The Quantitative Study of Recent Economic Changes in the United States.” Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, 31: 491-546, April, 1930.
“Population Pressure in Great Britain.” Eugenics, 3: 211-20, June, 1930.
“The First Phase of the National Industrial Recovery Act 1933”. Political Science Quarterly, 49:161, June, 1934.
“The Consumer under the National Industrial Recovery Act.” Management Review, 23:195, July 1934. The Decline of Competition. New York, McGraw Hill, 1936. 619 pp.
[not listed: “The Process of Industrial Concentration” 47 Q.J.E. 277 (1933)]
“The Anti-Trust Laws and the Regulation of Price Competition.” Law and Contemporary Problems, June, 1937.
“The Organization of Industry and the Theory of Prices.” Journal of Political Economy, XLV: 662-80, October, 1937.
“Concentration of Production,” Harvard Business Review, Spring Issue, 1943.
“Surplus Government Property and Foreign Policy”, Foreign Affairs, April, 1945.
Unpublished Studies
1935-38. Investigation of the pricing of cement with special reference to the basing point system (in collaboration with Professor J. M. Clark).
1939. Report on the pricing of sulphur.
1938-39. Study of distribution costs and retail prices.
1939-41. Director of Research, Twentieth Century Fund study of “Relations between Government and Electric Light and Power Industry.” Has been completed and is now in hands of the Twentieth Century Fund.
Other Work
1935. Alternate member. President’s Committee to report on the experience of the National Recovery Administration.
1938-39. Chairman, Sub-Committee of Price Conference on Distribution Costs and REtail Prices.
1939-41. Member of Board of Editors, American Economic Review.
1941. Supervisor of Civilian Supply and Requirements, Office of Production Management.
1942. Chief Economic Adviser, Office of Civilian Supply, War Production Board.
1942 (July-August). Member of mission to London to study British methods of concentration of industry.
1943. Deputy Director, Office of Civilian Supply.
1943. Director of Planning and Research, Office of Civilian Requirement
1943, December to March, 1945. Special assistant to Administrator, Deputy Administrator to the Foreign Economic Administration.
1945-continuing. Consultant to Enemy Branch of the Foreign Economic Administration.
1945, Summer. In Europe with the American Group of the Allied Control Commission to advise on the economic and industrial disarmament of Germany.
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Department of Economics Budget ’46-47 and related matters”.
Image: Arthur Robert Burns. Detail from a departmental photo dated “early 1930’s” in Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Photos”.
This post is the first of two-parts dealing with a married economics couple who taught at the Columbia economics department during the second quarter of the twentieth century, Eveline Mabel Burns and Arthur Robert Burns. [Warning: not Arthur F. Burns!] Both of the Burns felt themselves relatively undervalued by their Columbia colleagues, but the case for Eveline Burns is particularly clear. She was the weaker spouse but in hindsight the stronger economist of the two. This post presents the end-game correspondence for Eveline Burns with respect to the Columbia economics department. She was quite remarkable, someone who can be credited as being the midwife for the birth of the U.S. Social Security System (to use a gendered metaphor for a gendered case). The post closes with a list of her publications and her c.v. that is conclusive (ex post) documentation of just how wrong the Columbia economics department got it in the early 1940s. Brava, Eveline Burns!
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Department to Eveline Burns
Meet your glass ceiling
Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (no signature, no printed letterhead):
December 9, 1940
Dr. Eveline M. Burns,
2121 Virginia Avenue N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
My dear Dr. Burns:
As you may have heard, Professor McCrea is retiring at the end of the current academic year and the chairmanship of our Department has been passed along to me. After extensive conferences to ascertain the sentiment of our colleagues, I have prepared my first budget letter. In fairness to you as well as to the Department, I feel that I should report to you in very definite terms the attitude of your colleagues toward your future as a member of the staff.
I understand that you are well aware that in previous years opposition has developed to the proposal to advance you from your present position as Lecturer to that of Assistant Professor, an advancement which would carry with it, of course, some intimation of an intention to promote you later to still higher rank and to a permanent career in the Department. I regret to say that in the course of the budget discussions this year it has become apparent that this opposition has not diminished. It is indeed now so substantial that clearly it will be necessary for you to plan your future on the assumption that there is no possibility of advancement to professorial rank or to permanent status in the Faculty of Political Science.
Since I share the admiration that your colleagues in the Department feel for your many admirable qualities and your many impressive achievements, it is not an easy thing to send this message, which, in spite of previous notice, will doubtless cause you pain and disappointment. The plain fact is, however, that even your most enthusiastic friends agree that viewing the situation in all its aspects, you should not be encouraged to believe that your connection can be made more permanent, or that your rank can be advanced. This conclusion has been reached after extended consideration and will not, I feel certain, be modified by further discussion or debate.
In the budget letter you are being recommended for an appointment for the academic year 1941-42 as Lecturer at a stipend of $3,000.
Faithfully yours,
ROBERT M. HAIG
Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1940-1941”.
____________________________
Eveline Burns was not amused
Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (no signature, no printed letterhead):
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
National Resources Planning Board
Washington, D.C.
January 21, 1941
Professor Robert M. Haig
Faculty of Political Science
Columbia University
New York, N.Y.
My dear Professor Haig:
I have now had an opportunity of reading with more care your letter of December 9th which you handed to me yesterday and I find it is of a nature which obviously calls for a formal acknowledgment from me. Will you therefore please accept this letter as such? Since no reasons are given for the decision you have conveyed to me there is clearly no comment that I can make, ever were any comment appropriate.
I understood you to say that it would be unnecessary for me formally to give you in writing my reasons for being unwilling to accept a full time appointment as lecturer at a stipend of $3,000, and that you would explore the possibilities of a part time arrangement.
There is, however, one phrase in your letter to which I must take exception for the purposes of the record. In the last paragraph but one of your letter you use the words “in spite of previous notice.” I should like to state formally that to the best of my knowledge no such clear statement of the intentions of the faculty has ever been given to me. On the contrary, on each occasion when I have sought a clarification of the situation from the Dean or, at his suggestion, from other members of the faculty, I have always been given to understand that the individual approached was personally sympathetic to my cause and anxious to see my position regularized but that it would take time for this result to be achieved because of certain admitted difficulties which it was hoped would ultimately be removed.
At varying times I have been informed that there were difficulties because of: (a) my sex, (b) the fact that my husband was also on the staff, (c) the personal objections of an individual faculty member; or that it was undesirable to make a formal recommendation at the time because: (a) a recommendation was being made in favor of my husband and it would be unwise to make recommendations for both husband and wife simultaneously, or (b) that there were staff members, junior to myself, whose economic situations were more pressing than mine, or (c) that it would be advisable to wait until my book on British Unemployment Relief was published, or (d) that there was a general shortage of funds in the university.
In these circumstances I feel that it was not unreasonable for me to draw the conclusion, especially in view of the evident validity of the last consideration cited, that the problem was one of “when”, rather than “whether”, my position would be regularized.
The only occasion on which I was given any indication that this might not be the correct interpretation was in December 1938 when Professor McCrea informed me that while the Department was anxious to expand the work in Social Security, there was some disposition on the part of certain members with whom he had talked to feel that they would like to bring in some outside person to head up the work. I immediately offered my resignation to the Dean, on the ground that for me to continue at Columbia University under such circumstances would not be consistent with my standing in my field and the fact that I had for so long been teaching this subject. Moreover, I pointed out that such a decision implied the negation of any hopes of promotion that I might have formed.
At the request of the Dean, I withdrew my resignation until he could call a meeting of the faculty to discuss the question of my future in the University and at his request I furnished him with a list of my professional activities and publications and the names of outstanding experts in my field from whom he could obtain an opinion as to my standing. That meeting was held in January or February of 1939 and I subsequently received a letter from the Dean (which I do not have with me in Washington) informing me that the decision had been “favorable to my cause” or words to that effect. In those circumstances I felt, wrongly as it now appears, that I was justified in not proceeding with my resignation.
I wish to make it very clear that I am calling attention to these facts solely for the purposes of the record. Even had your letter not emphasized the finality of the judgment, I feel that if my colleagues were prepared to reach such a decision after my thirteen years of service without giving me any reasons therefor, it is unrealistic to expect that their attitude would be changed by any reminder of the facts that I have reported. Nor have I any desire to claim, on the grounds of obligation, expressed or implied, a recognition which the faculty is unwilling for other reasons to give me.
May I say how very sincerely I appreciate your frankness and friendliness yesterday in performing a task which I know could not have been a pleasant one for you. I cannot but feel that had my other colleagues displayed an equal candor and courage during the last seven or eight years, the problem of planning my professional and personal life would have been greatly simplified.
Yours very sincerely,
Eveline M. Burns
Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1940-1941”.
____________________________
Department to Eveline Burns
Terms of ex-dearment
Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (no signature, no printed letterhead):
February 15, 1941
Dr. Eveline M. Burns,
2121 Virginia Avenue N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Eve Burns:
This is to report to you that on behalf of the Department I have today sent to the Provost of the University a recommendation that you be appointed Lecturer for the academic year 1941-1942, on a part-time basis, at a stipend of $2,500. This, I understand, conforms to your wishes. This appointment contemplates that you will offer one course and will be available for dissertation, essay, and general Departmental work within the area of your special field. It is understood that the arrangement is for a single year, with no commitment by either of us for the period beyond June, 1942.
I have placed your letter of January 21st in the University file.
I had thought of the New York School of Social Work, but I am told that, for the present at least, there is no opening there that would be attractive to you. There is, however, an opening at Hunter College (which may involve the chairmanship of the Department at $6,000 or more) and I have suggested you name to them.
Faithfully yours,
[unsigned, presumably Robert M. Haig]
Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1940-1941”.
____________________________
Eveline Burns to Department
Roger that.
Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (no signature, no printed letterhead):
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
National Resources Planning Board
Washington, D.C.
February 27, 1941
Dr. Robert M. Haig
Faculty of Political Science
Columbia University
New York, N.Y.
Dear Mr. Haig:
I wish to thank you for your letter of February 15th stating that you have sent forward a recommendation for my appointment as Lecturer for the academic year 1941-42 on a part-time basis at a stipend of $2,500. I have also noted your statement that the arrangement is for a single year with no commitment for the period beyond June 1942.
Sincerely yours,
Eveline M. Burns
Director of Research, Committee on
Long Range Work and Relief Policies
Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1940-1941”.
____________________________
Department to Eveline Burns
Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (appreares to have been dictated) no signature, no printed letterhead):
November 22, 1941
Dr. Eveline M. Burns,
3206 Que [sic] Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Doctor Burns:
Last January, after you had expressed your unwillingness to accept reappointment as full-time lecturer at $3,000, the part-time arrangement presently in force was made with the understanding that it involved no commitment beyond June, 1942.
In accordance with a decision reached at a conference of members of the department last night, I have included in the budget letter a recommendation that no provision be made for the continuance of your connection with the department beyond the end of the current academic year.
As I send you this communication I am certain that I speak for all of the members of the department in expressing regret for the circumstances which have prevented the realization of some of our hopes and in expressing appreciation of the contribution you have made to our joint product during the period of your association with Columbia.
With renewed assurances of my personal esteem, I am
Faithfully yours,
ROBERT MURRAY HAIG
Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 2 Folders “Faculty Appointments”.
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Department to Eveline Burns
Repeat: you quit, you were not fired
December 22, 1941
Dr. Eveline M. Burns,
3206 Q Street N.W.,
Washington D.C.
My dear Dr. Burns:
I beg to acknowledge your letter of December 10th.
My understanding of the course of events in your case, based on the written record and upon my recollection of our conversation on January 20th, 1941, is this:
1) You demanded promotion and expressed an unwillingness to return to us as a full time lecturer at $3,000;
2) You were then told, both orally and in writing, that there was no possibility of advancement to professorial rank or to permanent status in the Faculty of Political Science;
3) Thereupon you suggested a special arrangement for 1941-2, stated, both orally and in writing, to be temporary in character, and to involve no commitment on either side beyond June 30, 1942.
It would seem to be correct to describe what happened as a voluntary withdrawal by you from your position as lecturer because of your dissatisfaction with that status and your unwillingness to continue in it in the face of the University’s inability to promise advancement. It would seem to be incorrect to describe it as a “dismissal”. We decline to regard it as such in our discussions with you and certainly shall not describe it as such in any communications with outsiders who may have an interest in you.
Since, according to my understanding, you were not dismissed, but withdrew, I cannot supply you with the reason for your “dismissal”. You insisted upon promotion. Your colleagues regretfully decided that it was not possible to encourage you to expect promotion to professorial rank and a permanent career in the department.
With respect to the confidential character of the statements at the decisive meeting, I should like to make it clear that, while we agreed not to report each others’ remarks at the meeting, there was no agreement that would preclude any individual who felt so inclined from giving you his own opinion of your qualities in such detail as he might desire.
Yours truly,
ROBERT MURRAY HAIG
Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 2 Folders “Faculty Appointments”.
____________________________
Department to Eveline Burns
We said: you weren’t fired, you quit
Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (no signature, no printed letterhead):
January 6, 1942
Dr. Eveline M. Burns,
3206 Q Street N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Dr. Burns:
I beg to acknowledge your letter of December 30th, 1941. [Not found in my files]
I am sorry that my recollection of what occurred at our oral interview on January 20th, 1941 does not substantiate in all particulars the statements you make in this letter. My recollection of what occurred is set forth in my letter of December 22d, 1941.
Yours truly,
ROBERT M. HAIG.
Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1940-1941”.
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Salary Structure of Economics Staff at Columbia and Barnard
1941-42
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS The Budget as Adopted for 1941-42
Office or Item
Incumbent
1941-1942 ActualAppropriations
McVickar Professor Political Economy
Robert M. Haig
$9,000.
Professor of Political Economy
Leo Wolman
$9,000.
Professor of Economic History
V. G. Simkhovitch
$9,000.
Professor
Wesley C. Mitchell
$9,000.
Professor
John Maurice Clark
$9,000.
Professor
James Waterhouse Angell
$7,500
Professor
Carter Goodrich
$7,500
Professor
Harold Hotelling
$7,500
Professor
Horace Taylor
$6,500
Assistant Professor
Arthur R. Burns
$4,500.
Assistant Professor
Robert L. Carey
$3,600.
Assistant Professor
Boris M. Stanfield
$3,600.
Assistant Professor
Joseph Dorfman
$3,600.
Honorary Associate
Richard T. Ely
($1,000.)
Instructor
Hubert F. Havlik
$3,000.
Instructor
C. Lowell Harriss
$2,400.
($300.)
Instructor
Walt W. Rostow
$2,400.
Instructor
Courtney C. Brown
$2,700.
Instructor
Harold Barger
$3,000.
Instructor
Donald W. O’Connell
($2,400.)
Lecturer
Carl T. Schmidt
$3,000.
Lecturer (Winter Session)
Robert Valeur
($1,500.)
Lecturer
Eveline M. Burns
$2,500.
Lecturer
Louis M. Hacker
$3,000.
Lecturer
Michael T. Florinsky
$2,700.
Lecturer
Abraham Wald
$2,400.
($600.)
Visiting Lecturer
Arthur F. Burns
($2,000.)**
Departmental appropriation
$800.
Assistance
$1,200.
$118,400.
** Chargeable to salary of Prof. Mitchell, absent on leave.
BARNARD COLLEGE: Economics Budget for 1941-42
Associate Professor
Elizabeth F. Baker
$5,000.
Assistant Professor
Raymond J. Saulnier
$3,600.
Instructor
Donald B. Marsh
$2,400.
Instructor
Mirra Komarovsky
$2,700.
Lecturer
Clara Eliot
$2,700.
Assistant in Economics and Social Science
Mary M. van Brunt
$1,000
$17,400.
Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folders “Economics Budget, 1940-1941” and “Budget Material from July 1941-June 1942”.
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But don’t cry for Eveline M. Burns
She did very well for herself.
A Festschrift was published in honour of Professor Burns in 1969 under the title: Social Security in International Perspective: Essays in Honor of Eveline M. Burns, Ed. Shirley Jenkins, New York and London, Columbia University Press.
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Eveline M. Burns’ Publications:
“The French Minimum Wage Act of 1915” in Economica, III, 1923;
“The Economics of Family Endowment” in Economica, V, 1925;
Wages and the State: A Comparative Study of the Problems of State Wage Regulations, London, P. S. King and Son, 1926;
The Economic World: A Survey (with A. R. Burns), London, Oxford University Press, 1927;
“Achievements of the British Pension System” in Old-Age Security: Proceedings of the Second National Conference, New York, American Association of Old-Age Security, 1929;
“Planning and Unemployment” in Socialist Planning and a Socialist Program, Ed. H. W. Laidler, New York, Falcon Press, 1932;
“Misconceptions of European Unemployment Insurance” in Social Security in the United States: 1933, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1933;
“Lessons from British and German Experience” in Social Security in the United States: 1934, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1934;
“Can Social Insurance Provide Social Security?” in Social Security in the United States: 1935, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1935;
“The Lessons of German Experience with Unemployment Relief” in Lectures on Current Economic Problems, Washington, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Graduate School, 1936;
“Basic Principles in Old-Age Security” in Social Security in the United States: 1936, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1936;
Memorandum on “Wall Street Journal” Articles, Washington, Bureau of Research and Statistics (Memorandum No. 3), 1936
Towards Social Security: An Explanation of the Social Security Act and a Survey of the Larger Issues, London, Whittlesey House, and New York, McGraw-Hill, 1936;
“Social Realities versus Technical Obfuscations” in Social Security in the United States: 1937, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1937;
The Arguments for and against the Old-Age Reserve, Washington, Social Security Board, 1938;
“Some Fundamental Consideration in Social Security” in Social Security in the United States: 1940, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1940;
British Unemployment Programs 1920-38 (Report prepared for the Committee on Social Security), Washington, Social Science Research Council, 1941;
Security, Work and Relief Policies (Report of the Committee on Long-Range Work and Relief Policies to the National Resources Planning Board: Eveline M. Burns, Director of Research), Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942;
“Building for Economic Security—Six Foundation Stones” in The Third Freedom: Freedom from Want, Ed. H. W. Laidler, New York, League for Industrial Democracy, 1943;
“Equal Access to Health” and “Equal Access to Economic Security” in National Resources Development Report for 1943 (Part I), Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943;
Discussion and Study Outline on Social Security, Washington, National Planning Association (Planning Pamphlets No. 33), 1944;
“Social Security” in Economic Reconstruction, Ed. S. E. Harris, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1945;
“Economic Factors in Family Life” in The Family in the Democratic Society, New York, Columbia University Press, 1949;
“How Much Social Welfare Can America Afford?” in The Social Welfare Forum, 1949, Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, New York, Columbia University Press, 1950;
“Social Insurance in Evolution” in Readings in Labor Economics, Ed. F. S. Doody, Cambridge (Mass.), Addison Wesley Press, 1950;
The American Social Security System, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 2nd edition, 1951;
The Social Security Act Amendments of 1950: An Appendix to The American Social Security System, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1951;
“An Expanded Role for Social Work” in Social Work Education in the United States, Ed. E. V. Hollis and A. L. Taylor, New York, Columbia University Press, 1951;
“Fifteen Years under the Social Security Act: An Evaluation” in Current Issues in Social Security, Ed. L. MacDonald, New York University, Institute of Labor Relations and Social Security, 1951;
“The Doctoral Program: Progress and Problems” in Social Work Education in the Post-Master’s Program. No. 1: Guiding Principles, New York, Council on Social Work Education, 1953;
Comments on the Chamber of Commerce Social Security Proposals, Chicago, American Public Welfare Association, 1953;
Private and Social Insurance and the Problem of Social Security, Ottawa, Canadian Welfare Council, 1953;
“Significant Contemporary Issues in the Expansion and Consolidation of Government Social Security Programs” in Economic Security for Americans: An Appraisal of the Progress made from 1900 to 1953, New York, Columbia University Graduate School of Business, 1954;
“The Role of Government in Social Welfare” in The Social Welfare Forum, 1954, Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, New York, Columbia University Press, 1954;
“The Financing of Social Welfare” in New Directions in Social Work, New York, Harper, 1954;
America’s Role in International Social Welfare (Editor), New York, Columbia University Press, 1955;
Social Security and Public Policy, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1956;
“Welfare Assistance” in A Report to the Governor of the State of New York and the Mayor of the City of New York, by the New York City Fiscal Relations Committee, New York, The Committee, 1956;
Papers and Proceedings of the Conference on Social Policy and Social Work Education, Arden House, April 1957 (Editor), New York, New York School of Social Work, Columbia University, 1957;
“Social Policy and the Social Work Curriculum” in Objectives of the Social Work Curriculum of the Future, by W. W. Boehm, New York, Council on Social Work Education, 1959;
“The Government’s Role in Child and Family Welfare” in The Nation’s Children, Vol. III: Problems and Prospects, Ed. Eli Ginsberg, New York, Columbia University Press, 1960;
“A Salute to Twenty-Five Years of Social Security” in Social Security: Programs, Problems and Policies, Ed. W. Haber and W. J. Cohen, Homewood (Illinois), R. D. Irwin, 1960;
“Issues in Social Security Financing” in Social Security in the United States: Lectures Presented by the Chancellor’s Committee on the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Social Security Act, Berkeley, University of California, Institute of Industrial Relations, 1961;
A Research Program for the Social Security Administration, Washington, U.S. Government Printer, 1961;
“Introduction” in Federal Grants and Public Assistance: A Comparative Study of Policies and Programmes in U.S.A and India, by Saiyid Zafar Hasan, Allahabad, Kitab Mahal, 1963;
“The Functions of Private and of Social Insurance” in Studi sulle assicurazione raccolti in occasione del cinquanterario dell’Istituto Nazionale della Assicurazioni, Ed. A. Giuffre, Milan, 1963;
“The Determinants of Policy” in In Aid of the Unemployed, Ed. J. M. Becker, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1965;
“Social Security in America: The Two Systems—Public and Private” in Labor in a Changing America, Ed. W. Haber, New York, Basic Books, 1966;
“Income Maintenance Policies and Early Retirement” in Technology, Manpower, and Retirement Policy, Ed. J. M. Kreps, Cleveland, World Publishing Co., 1966;
“The Challenge and the Potential of the Future” in Comprehensive Health Services for New York City (Report of the Mayor’s Commission on the Delivery of Personal Health Services), New York, The Commission, 1967;
“Foreword” in Poor Law to Poverty Program, by Samuel Mencher, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967;
“The Future Course of Public Welfare” in Position Papers and Major Related Data for the Governor’s Conference, Albany (New York), New York State Board of Social Welfare, 1967;
Social Policy and the Health Services: The Choices Ahead, New York, American Public Health Association, 1967;
“Productivity and the Theory of Wages” in London Essays in Economics, Ed. T. E. Gregory and H. Dalton, London, G. Routledge, 1927; republished, Freeport (New York), Books for Libraries Press, 1967;
Children’s Allowances and the Economic Welfare of Children (Editor and Contributor), New York, Citizen’s Committee for Children, 1968;
“Needed Changes in Welfare Programs” in Urban Planning and Social Policy, New York, Basic Books, 1968;
“Social Security in Evolution—Towards What?” in Unions, Management and the Public, New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, 3rdedition, 1968;
“A Commentary on Gunnar Myrdal’s Essay on the Social Sciences and their Impact on Society” in Social Theory and Social Invention, Ed. H. D. Stein, Cleveland, Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1968;
“Welfare Reform and Income Security Policies” in The Social Welfare Forum, 1970, Proceedings of the National Conference on Social Welfare, New York, Columbia University Press, 1970;
“Health Care System” in Encyclopedia of Social Work, New York, National Association of Social Workers, 1971
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Eveline Mabel Burns
C.V.
Vital information:
Born: Eveline Mabel Richardson on March 16, 1900 in Norwood, London.
Married: Arthur Robert Burns (b. December 2, 1895; d. January 20 1981) of London, 1922.
U.S. Citizenship: 1937.
Died: September 2, 1985 in Newton, Pennsylvania.
Education:
B.Sc. (Econ.), Ph.D. (London), Honorary D.H.L. (Western College; Adelphi; Columbia), Honorary LL.D. (Western Reserve University). Professor Emeritus, Columbia University, since 1967; and Consultant Economist, Community Service Society, New York, since 1971.
Streatham Secondary School, 1913-16; London School of Economics and Political Science, 1916-20; London County Council Tuition Scholarship; B.Sc. (Econ.), 1st Class Honors in Economics, 1920; Ph.D., 1926; Adam Smith Medal for outstanding thesis of the year, 1926.
Positions Held
(1) Normal Full-time Positions
Title of Position. Name of Institution/Organization. Years of Tenure. Compensation
Assistant Lecturer, London School of Economics, University of London. 1921-28 (On Leave 1926-8). £ 350
Lecturer, Graduate Department of Economics, Columbia University. 1928-42 (on leave 1940-2). $ 3000-3500
Chief, Economic Security and Health Section, National Resources Planning Board, Washington, D. C. 1940-3. $ 7500
Professor of Social Work and Chairman and Administrative Officer, Doctoral Committee, New York School of Social Work, Columbia University. 1946 to [retired 1967] $ 9500
(2) Special Assignments
London School of Economics. Asst, Editor, Economica, 1922-6.
University of London Social Security Committee. Senior Staff Officer, 1937-9. $6500
Social Science Research Council
National Planning Association, Washington, D. C. Consultant on Social Security, 1943-4. $7000
(3) Visiting Professorships
Anna Howard Shaw Lecturer, Bryn Mawr College, 1944
Visiting Professor, Bryn Mawr College, 1945-6
Visiting Professor, Princeton University, 1951
I have also given short courses or individual lectures at the following institutions:
Department of Economics, University of Chicago
Smith College School for Social Work
Littauer Graduate School of Public Administration, Harvard Univ.
School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Pittsburgh
School of Applied Sciences, Western Reserve University
For several years I have conducted the Advanced Seminar arranged by the Social Security Administration for its senior staff, and have given brief seminars for foreign social security experts brought to this country by the Mutual Security Agency
(4) Consultantships
Consultant, Committee on Economic Security, Washington, 1934-5
Principal Consulting Economist, Social Security Board, 1936-40
Consultant, Social Security Administration, 1948 to date
I have also served as consultant on specific issues to the:
United States Treasury
The Federal Reserve Board
The Works Progress Administration
The New York State Department of Labor
OTHER DISTINCTIONS
Adam Smith Medal for outstanding thesis of the year, 1926
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Fellowship, 1926-8
Guggenheim Fellowship, 1954-5
Florina Lasker Award (“for outstanding contributions in the field of Social Security”), 1960
Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters, Western College, 1962
Honorary LLD, Western Reserve University, 1963
Honorary Fellow, London School of Economics, 1963
Bronfman Lecturer, American Public Health Assn., 1966
Ittelson Medal (“for contributions to Social planning”), 1968
Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters, Adelphi University, 1968
Woman of Achievement Award, American Assn. of University Women, 1968
Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters, Columbia University, 1969
POSITIONS OF CIVIC OR NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY, MEMBERSHIP OF LEARNED SOCIETIES, ETC.
Member American Economic Association (Member of Executive Ctte, 1951-3 and Vice-President, 1953-4)
National Conference on Social Welfare (Secretary, 1955, First-Vice President, 1956 and President, 1957-58)
American Public Health Association (Vice-President, 1969-70)
Vice-President and President, Consumers’ League of New York, 1935-8
Member and Chairman of various committees, Federal Advisory Council on Employment Security, 1952-70
Member, Legislative Policy Committee, American Public Welfare Assn., 1956-68
Member, Steering Committee, White House Conference on Children, 1959-60
Member, Federal Advisory Committee on Area Redevelopment, Subsequently the National Committee on Regional Economic Development, 1961-69
Member, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Hobby’s Advisory Committee on Coverage Extension of the Social Security Act, 1953-4
American Delegate to International Conference on Social Welfare, 1958, and member of Steering Ctte and Vice-Chairman of Commission I
Chairman, Social Security Administration Advisory Committee on Long Range Research, 1961-5
Member, President Johnson’s Task Force on Income Security Policy, 1964
Member of Sub-Committee on Social Policy for Health Care and member of its Executive Committee, N. Y. Academy of Medicine 1964 to date
Member, Mayor Lindsay’s Commission on Delivery of Health Service in New York City, 1967-8
Member, National Council, American Assn. of University Professors 1961-4
Original Source: Eveline Burns Papers. Box 1. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Social Welfare History Archives. Minneapolis, MN.
Image: Eveline Mabel Burns. Detail from a departmental photo dated “early 1930’s” in Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Photos”.
Early in the twentieth century disciplinary borders in the social sciences were considerably more porous than by mid-century. Sociology, while already a distinct department at Chicago on a par with the department of political economy, either shared a broader social scientific condominium with economics and other disciplines as in the Faculty of Political Science at Columbia or it was a subordinate field within an economics department, e.g. at Harvard. This is the main reason for residual ambiguity in the attribution of a disciplinary identity to some of the scholars who earned their doctorates back in that day.
Today’s addition to the series “Meet an economics Ph.D. alumnus/a” is precisely such a case. The African American George Edmund Haynes (Columbia Ph.D., 1912) was the first African American to be awarded a doctorate by Columbia University and like the first African American to be awarded a Ph.D. at Harvard, W.E.B. Du Bois (1895), taught both economics and sociology during his early academic career. Where Du Bois brought an historian’s lens to his work, Haynes brought that of a social worker to his, having studied at the New York School of Philanthropy following his M.A. from Yale.
In the current discussion of structural racism in U.S. society in general and in academic economics in particular, the careers of Du Bois and Haynes suggest that “The Negro Problem” had been outsourced from academic economics in a way that “The Labor Problem” never was. African American men and women interested in the economics of race found homes in schools of social work and separate departments of sociology (or in traditional Black colleges). Analogously those women interested in the economics of families and consumption more often were expected to enter departments of home economics.
This post provides three brief internet biographies about George Edmund Haynes in which I have linked wherever possible to his writings available on the internet. Details of Haynes’ academic whereabouts were confirmed from official publications of Fisk University and Columbia University and appended to the post.
The next post provides the social science curriculum developed by Haynes at Fisk University shortly after he was awarded his doctorate from Columbia.
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Fun Fact: Jared Bernstein received his Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the Columbia University School of Social Work, the ultimate successor to the New York School of Philanthropy (that in 1917 had morphed into the New York School of Social Work). Jared Bernstein served as Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden so perhaps we find ourselves on the cusp of an inclusionary revolution in economics.
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Research Tip
“Memoirs” ca. 1950 unpublished autobiography “in the possession of his widow” cited p. 482 in Guichard Parris and Lester Brooks Blacks in the City: A History of the National Urban League. Little, Brown, 1971.
Where are the memoirs now?
“This study was begun as one of the several researches of the Bureau of Social Research of the New York School of Philanthropy, largely at the suggestion of Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay, the director, to whose interest, advice and sympathy its completion is largely due…
…The material was gathered between January, 1909, and January, 1910, except about four weeks in August, 1909, during the time that I was pursuing studies at the School of Philanthropy and at Columbia University…
…I wish to acknowledge especially the help of Dr. William L. Bulkley in making possible many of the interviews with wage-earners, or Dr. Roswell C. McCrea for criticism and encouragement in preparation of the monograph, and of Dr. E.E. Pratt, sometime fellow of the Bureau of Social Research; Miss Dora Sandowsky for her careful and painstaking tabulation of most of the figures.”
Dr. George Edmund Haynes (1880 – January 8, 1960)
Social Worker, Reformer, Educator and Co-Founder of the National Urban League.
NOTE: … Much of the entry was excerpted from the booklet “The National Urban League: 100 years of Empowering Communities” authored by Anne Nixon and produced by The Human Spirit Initiative, an organization with a mission to inspire people to desire to make a difference and then act on it….
Introduction: The National Urban League was established in 1910 through the efforts of George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin, the Urban League is the nation’s oldest and largest community- based movement devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream. Today, the National Urban League, headquartered in New York City, spearheads the non-partisan efforts of its local affiliates. There are over 100 local affiliates of the National Urban League located in 35 states and the District of Columbia providing direct services to more than 2 million people nationwide through programs, advocacy and research. The mission of the Urban League movement is to enable African Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights. (Source: www.nul.org, July 2006)
Background: The National Urban League was founded in 1910. The Civil War between North and South had ended forty-five years before, but the country was still deeply divided, and most former slaves remained locked in a system of political powerlessness and economic inequality. The new organization set two major goals – remove barriers to racial equality and achieve economic empowerment for the country’s Negro citizens.
Slavery had been abolished in 1865 by the 13th amendment to the United States Constitution. The 14th and 15th amendments went further and guaranteed equal treatment to Negroes and gave Negro men the right to vote. Despite these Constitutional protections, the civil war continued to rage in the hearts and minds of white Southerners. They were resigned to the abolition of slavery but were not willing to accept either social change or political domination by former slaves.
[…]
The alternatives for former slaves were limited. They could work for white farmers as tenants or sharecroppers, barely a step above slavery, or they could leave the South. Many opted to migrate and moved north to find a better life. Two people stepped forward at this time to provide leadership and help build an organization dedicated to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream – one Negro, one white; one man, one woman – and together, they founded the National Urban League.
Their names were George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin. Mrs. Baldwin came from a family of early New England colonists with a history of social activism. Her father was the editor of the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican. A graduate of Smith College, she was the wife of William Henry Baldwin, Jr., president of the Long Island Railroad. She was active in the National League for the Protection of Colored Women (NLPCW) – an organization formed to help protect Negro women new to Northern cities.
George Edmund Haynes, unlike Ruth Standish Baldwin, did not come from a background of privilege. His father was a laborer, and his mother was a domestic servant with great ambitions for her son. When George Haynes completed his elementary education, the family moved from his birthplace in Pine Bluff, Arkansas to the more cosmopolitan community of Hot Springs. At a point in history when educational opportunities for Negroes ranged from limited to nonexistent, George Haynes’ achievements were astonishing. In Hot Springs, he completed the limited educational opportunities available and went on to take high school level courses and college preparatory studies at the Agricultural and Mechanical University in Huntsville, Alabama. He received his bachelor’s degree from Nashville, Tennessee’s Fisk University and then a master’s degree from Yale. Because he was an outstanding student, Yale awarded him an academic scholarship, and he waited tables and stoked furnaces for his room and board.
His varied and distinguished career began immediately after the Yale years. His first job was with the Colored Men’s Department of the International YMCA, where his visits to Negro colleges and universities broadened his horizons. But his academic studies continued, and he added to his reputation as a brilliant scholar. While studying at the University of Chicago during the summers of 1906 and 1907, Dr. Haynes became interested in social problems affecting black migrants from the South. This interest led him to the New York School of Philanthropy, from which he graduated in 1910. Two years later he received a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Columbia University Press published his doctoral dissertation, The Negro at Work in New York City [— A Study in Economic Progress]. He had the distinction of being the first Negro to receive a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University.
Within this period, he also involved himself in the activities of the American Association for the Protection of Colored Women, the Committee for Improving the Industrial Conditions of Negroes in New York, and the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes. Dr. Haynes was a man of many talents with an extraordinary number of professional commitments. In addition to being a co-founder of the National Urban League, he also founded and directed the Department of Social Sciences at Fisk University. At Fisk, his students trained at the Bethlehem Training Center that he had established as part of the Social Science Department. As part of their training, they did field work in existing agencies, and many were assigned to local affiliates of the National Urban League (i.e., Philadelphia, St. Louis, Nashville, Baltimore, Memphis, and Louisville). This model program was repeated at the University of Pittsburgh, Columbia University, and New York University.
Dr. Haynes served as executive director of the National Urban League from 1910 to 1918. He also established the Association of Negro Colleges and Secondary Schools, and served that organization as secretary from 1910 to 1918. He helped the New York School of Philanthropy and NLUCAN in collaborative planning that led to the establishment of the first social work training center for black graduate students at Fisk, and he directed that center from 1910-1918.
From 1918 to 1921, he served as Director of Negro Economics in the United States Department of Labor. As a special assistant to the Secretary of Labor, he was involved in matters of racial conflict in employment, housing, and recreation. He continued his earlier studies of exclusion of black workers from certain trade unions, interracial conditions in the workplace, and child labor. These studies resulted in numerous scholarly works. One of the most significant of these was The Negro at Work During the World War and During Reconstruction. The work’s widespread and profound impact resulted in his appointment as a member of the President’s Unemployment Conference in 1921.
In 1930 Dr. Haynes conducted a survey of the work of the YMCA in South Africa, and in 1947 he managed a similar study of the organization’s activities in other African nations. These efforts resulted in his being chosen as consultant on Africa by the World Committee of YMCAs. His book, Trend of the Races (1922), reflected his belief in the union of all people.
For the last nine years of his life, Dr. Haynes taught at the City College of New York and served as an officer of the American Committee on Africa. Dr. Haynes died in New York City in 1960.
Dr. George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin have been memorialized with a plaque in the The Extra Mile — Points of Light Volunteer Pathway located on the sidewalks of downtown Washington, D.C. The Extra Mile Pathway is a program of Points of Light Institute, dedicated to inspire, mobilize and equip individuals to volunteer and serve. The Extra Mile was approved by Congress and the District of Columbia. It is funded entirely by private sources.
In 1917, Dr. Haynes made a presentation at the National Conference on Social Welfare on the migration of Negroes to northern cities. It can be viewed on the ERAS section under Civil Rights or linked directly: The Migration Of Negroes Into Northern Cities: By George E. Haynes, Ph. D., Executive Secretary of the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes
Source: Nixon, A. (n.d.). Julia Clifford Lathrop (1858-1932): Dr. George Edmund Haynes (1880 – January 8, 1960) – Social worker, reformer, educator and co-founder of the National Urban League. Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved July 31, 2020 from http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/social-work/haynes-george-edmund/
Archived copy at the Internet Archive WaybackMachine.
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George Edmund Haynes
by Reavis L. Mitchell, Jr.
Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, George E. Haynes was the only child of Louis and Mattie Sloan Haynes. At a young age he moved with his parents to New York, where he spent his youth. In 1903 he received his B.A. from Fisk University, he earned his M.A. from Yale University in 1904, and in 1912 he became the first African American awarded the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Columbia University.
In 1910 George Haynes married Elizabeth Ross of Montgomery, Alabama; they became the parents of one child, George Edmund Haynes Jr. After their marriage, the couple resided in New York, where Haynes studied social science and economics. He developed an acute awareness of the impact of socioeconomic readjustment upon African Americans who migrated northward from the South. Shortly after his marriage in 1910, he joined with Frances Kellor and Ruth Baldwin to establish the National Urban League for assisting those making the transition from agrarian to urban living.
Haynes accepted a faculty position at Fisk University in 1912. His intense interest in America’s changing social fabric prompted his leadership in establishing Fisk’s department of social sciences and an academic program to train professional social workers. By 1914 he had developed the first college-level course on the history of African Americans. His research on the African American adjustment to a predominately white society earned Haynes acclaim as a leader in the study of racial affairs.
Haynes emerged as a leader in efforts to bring Nashville’s white and African American communities together. Bethlehem House, a settlement house first proposed in 1907 by Fisk graduate Sallie Hill Sawyer and enlarged in 1913 by the addition of a kindergarten and clinic, became the “hands-on” training center for Professor Haynes’s social science students. The settlement house concept, patterned after the British movement of the 1880s, began to gather momentum in America in the early 1900s. By 1915 the Bethlehem Settlement House was the product of very advanced social theory put into action–especially in the turn-of-the-century South. Fisk University’s involvement with Bethlehem House supported the reality of whites and African Americans working together to provide social services.
In 1916, when a fire devastated East Nashville, the African American community suffered extensively. In the charred aftermath of this horrendous fire, Haynes’s Fisk University students offered assistance to the fire victims as they struggled to cope with their losses.
Two years later, Haynes left Tennessee for Washington, where he was appointed special assistant to the U.S. secretary of labor, serving until 1921, when he became cofounder and first executive secretary of the Department of Race Relations of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. For the next twenty-six years, he remained with the council in New York City and became a visionary leader of the city’s African American community. In the late 1940s, for example, Haynes organized the Interracial Clinic, which promoted interracial understanding and easing of racial tensions. In 1955 he was appointed to the New York University Board of Trustees, becoming the first African American appointed to a major American university’s board. After his wife’s death in 1953, Haynes remarried in 1955 to Olyve Jeter of Mount Vernon, New York, where the couple made their home. Haynes died in 1960 at Mount Vernon.
Suggested Reading
Reavis L. Mitchell Jr., Fisk University Since 1866: The Loyal Children Make Their Way (1995).
Author, educator and organizer George Edmund Haynes was a social scientist, religious leader and pioneer in social work education for African Americans. Born in 1880 to Louis and Mattie Haynes in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, George Haynes was the oldest of two children of a domestic worker mother and day laborer father. He was educated in the segregated and unequal school system of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Eventually his family moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas to pursue greater educational opportunities for the Haynes children.
In 1893 at the age of thirteen, Haynes attended the Chicago World’s Fair where for the first time he witnessed discussions about the problems affecting African Americans. It was here he first heard about the “Negro Problem” and a variety of possible solutions including emigration to Africa.
Haynes’s experience at the World’s Fair motivated him to pursue higher education. With the support of his mother he enrolled at the Agriculture and Mechanical College for Negroes at Normal, Alabama. After a year he transferred to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he eventually earned his B.A. degree in 1903. Haynes was admitted to Yale Graduate School where he earned his M.A. in 1904.
Haynes in 1905 began his career at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) working with African American youth in the Association’s Colored Men’s Department. In 1905 and 1906, with the support of the YMCA, he toured the South and visited almost all of the African American colleges to assess black higher education. During this time Haynes met and married Elizabeth Ross who was engaged in similar work with African American women.
While working at the YMCA, he enrolled at the University of Chicago during the summers of 1906 and 1907. He then moved to New York and attended the New York School of Philanthropy (later called the New York School of Social Work of Columbia University) and was its first African American graduate in 1910. Two years later he became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia.
George Haynes, upon graduation found himself in New York at the beginning of the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the urban North, and in particular, New York City. The migration became an important issue for social scientists. Haynes, the activist, became involved with various organizations that hoped to ease the transition of the Southern newcomers to the city. The organizations included the Association for the Protection of Colored Women, the Committee for Improving the Industrial Conditions of the Negroes of New York, and the Committee on Urban Conditions among Negroes. In 1910 Haynes and white reformer, Ruth Standish Baldwin, brought these three organizations together into the National League on Urban Conditions or the National Urban League (NUL). Haynes became the first Executive Secretary of the NUL, a post he held between 1910 and 1917.
Haynes, used his work with black migrants as the basis for his 1912 Columbia University dissertation, “The Negro at Work in New York” which was later published by Columbia University Press under the same title.
After completing his dissertation Haynes was hired by Fisk University. Between 1913 and 1917, he split his time between New York and Nashville, working directly on black community issues related to the Great Migration while teaching the next generation of social scientists who would succeed him.
In 1918, Haynes went to Washington, D.C. where he became a special assistant (with the title Director of Negro Economics) to the Secretary of Labor, a post he held until 1921. While at the Department of Labor, Haynes conducted surveys and provided analysis and recommendations to the U.S. government on the most effective way to utilize the new Northern black industrial workers. Much of his federally-sponsored research was published in 1921 as The Negro at Work During the World War and During Reconstruction. Haynes and Emmett Scott who worked in a similar capacity in the War Department during this period, were the highest ranking black federal employees and the first to have influence at the Cabinet level.
In 1921 Haynes became the first Executive Secretary of the Department of Race Relations for the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. Here he applied his study and analysis to the question of race and religion in Ameican society for the Council until his retirement in 1947. In 1930 Haynes conducted surveys for the YMCA of South Africa and in the 1940s did much the same for other African nations. His Africa work brought international prominence to his research.
Even after retirement in 1947, Haynes remained involved in race relations work while teaching courses at the City College of the City University of New York including one of the first courses on African American history presented in a predominately white institution. In 1948 Haynes was appointed to the first Board of Trustees of the new State University of New York (SUNY) system. He also published one book, Africa, the Continent of the Future in 1950.
George Edmund Haynes died in New York City in 1960. Many of his manuscript and papers are preserved in the George Edmund Haynes Collection at Yale University and at the Erastus Milo Cravath Library at Fisk University.
“Co-operation with Colleges in Securing and Training Negro Social Workers for Urban Conditions,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections 38: 384-387.
Ph.D., 12; A.B., 03, Fisk Univ.; A.M., 04, Yale; Prof. Social Science Fisk Univ.; Ex-Sec. Natl. League on Urban Conditions among Negroes; mem. Am. Acad. Pol. And Social Sci.; Am. Economics Assn.; Am. Social and Natl. Geographic Socs. Fisk University and 1611 Harding St., Nashville, Tenn.
George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Yale University, 1904; Junior Fellow, Bureau of Social Research, The New York School of Philanthropy; Graduate Student Columbia University; 219 West 134th Street, New York City.
George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Yale University, 1904; Junior Fellow, Bureau of Social Research, The New York School of Philanthropy; Graduate Student Columbia University; 219 West One-Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street, New York City.
George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; M.A., Yale University, 1904; Graduate, The New York School of Philanthropy, 1910; Associate Professor Sociology [sic], Fisk University, 1033 Twelfth Avenue, N., Nashville.
George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; M.A., Yale University, 1904; Graduate, The New York School of Philanthropy, 1910; Professor Social Science, Fisk University; Director, National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, 1033 Twelfth Avenue, N., Nashville.
Wesley Clair Mitchell left voluminous course lecture notes found with his other papers at the Columbia University Archives. On the whole his notes are very neatly written by hand so that any typed pages among his lecture notes immediately catch the attention of the tired eyes of this archival junkie working the boxes. My presumption was that this typed material was probably someone else’s work and the pencilled “Eli Ginzberg” on one of the course outlines provided an obvious lead. Ginzberg received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1934 and held the rank of Lecturer in economics at Columbia at the time of this course. Chapter 2 (“The Education of an Economist”) in his book The Skeptical Economist (1987) provides the necessary back-story for the course materials transcribed for this post.
From Mitchell’s notes to the first session from the Winter session of the course in 1937-38, we learn that a dress rehearsal was held as a seminar during the Spring 1937 course for which we have the following list of participants. Definitely worth noting is that William Vickrey and Anna Jacobson Schwartz participated in that preliminary seminar.
William Vickrey, Ruth Cleve [?], Pauline Arkus, Anna Jacobson [Note: this is Milton Friedman’s collaborator Anna Schwartz], [First name illegible] Louise Boggen, Konrad Bekker, Mark S. Massel, Eileen M. Conly, John I. Griffin, Alan Pope, Bela Gold, Burnham P. Beckwith, Herman Zap, Moore
Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “3-5/37 A”.
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Origin of the seminar
“In 1932-1933, a group of us brought about the first change in the curriculum: We persuaded Mitchell, Clark, and Angell to offer a seminar on economic theory. In the mid-1930s, when I had begun to teach as an assistant in the School of Business, I was instrumental in establishing several further reforms, largely through persuading its dean, Roswell C. McCrea, who also served as chairman of the Economics Department, to do the following: to reduce the number of subjects on which doctoral candidates were examined from seven to six, to invite Milton Friedman to give a course on ‘Neoclassical Economics,’ to have Wesley Mitchell substitute for his lectures on ‘Current Types of Economic Theory’ a new seminar on ‘Economic Theory and Economic Change,’ in which I would serve as his assistant. Furthermore, McCrea obtained the consent of the Committee on Instruction in the School of Business for me to offer a new course on ‘Economics and Group Behavior,’ which was cross-listed in the Department of Economics’ offerings. This was probably the first course in what later became known as ‘human resources.’”
Source: Eli Ginzberg, The Skeptical Economist (Westview Press, 1987), p. 16.
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Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy
From Mitchell’s handwritten notes for the first meeting
Sept. 28, 1937
An experimental course. 1st time given, aside from a brief trial run in seminar last spring.
Title not felicitous: perhaps it will prove not very accurate. Explanation of view[?] called for.
Past 2 generations have seen vigorous development of three or four different approaches to study of economic behavior.
Economic theory of several types ranging from mathematical economics on one flank to institutional economics on other flank.
Economic history of recent and more remote past
Economic statistics have multiplied in the leading commercial nations and technique of using them has been improved.
Relation of these approaches to one another
Difficult to find investigation in which one approach only is used.
Economic theorist seldom disregards wholly the historical setting of his problem, or quantitative importance of its components. Whether they recognize it or not, these factors count in their thinking.
Economic historians and statisticians cannot dispense wholly with qualitative analysis.
Their selection and arrangement of materials imply classification: they take materials that are pertinent and pass on others that are not. What is pertinent in their judgment is decided whether they realize it or not, by the organization of their ideas.
Can find many investigations in which an attempt is made to use all three approaches
Schmoller’s Allgemeine Vokswirtschaftslehre, Webbs’ History of British T. U.‘s and Industrial Democracy.Marshall’s Industry and Trade. Cassel’s Social Economics. Keynes‘ Theory of Money, Pigou’s Industrial Fluctuations, Sombart’s Moderne Kapitalismus. A brilliant older example Marx’s Capital; indeed Wealth of Nations except that Adam Smith had a poor opinion of ‘political arithmetic’.
But, to a large extent, the theoretical, historical, and statistical approaches have been developed by three groups of workers
Each of whom is especially adept in one approach and makes incidental rather than systematic and thorough use of the other approaches
who seem not to realize the extent to which their thinking is influenced by elements derived from the other approaches.
In general we cannot claim that the three approaches have been perfectly blended
Schmoller a particularly good example because he tried as hard to use all three. He knew certain phases of economic history well: but not all the phases on which he touched. He was a slovenly theorist and a gullible statistician.
Hence one of the great tasks before the generation of economists to whom members of this class belong is to utilize the knowledge of economic processes provided by the 3 approaches more effectively than their predecessors have done.
Primary aim of the course is to aid in that effort.
Method is to take up certain economic processes that have been studied for both the theoretical angles and for the historical or statistical angles or for both and to inquire whether the realistic approaches call for modification of the theoretical analyses: quite as much
Whether the theoretical approach calls for modification of the realistic investigations.
How much we can get out of this experiment for the improvement of our own investigations remains to be seen.
Will depend not only upon the industry with which we are ready to devote to study of the materials assigned but also upon the ability to think we are able to develop.
Mode of conducting course
Dr. G. and I will select problems, at least at beginning, and assign readings. Members of class will present reports to the class Written or oral. Discussion in class.
As work goes on we may well turn up problems of which Dr. Ginzberg and I have not thought in advance.
Interest of the meetings and value of the work are necessarily conditioned by the clarity of the reports made by the members of the group.
Please try hard to get your notes[?] well organized and lucidly presented. So well presented that other members who listen once only can understand and expect questions of others as you present reports.
So much for the general aims of the course and how it will be conducted. Begin work with an attempt to characterize broadly the conceptions of economic change that are held by investigators.
Or rather, what types of movements occur in economic life.
1st assignment
Let each member of class consult one or more of the statistical treatises that deal with time-series analysis to find out what types of movements are recognized.
What is basis of classification used? In what are these movements all alike? In what do the types differ? Are all of these types recognized by economic theory? For what types do economic theorists offer explanations? What relation if any do the movements of the statisticians bear to the ‘disturbing circumstances’ of economic theory and to the movements by which economic equilibrium is restored after a disturbance, and maintained in the absence of further disturbances (equilibrating movements)? Are the criteria used by economic statisticians in classifying movement like those used by time-series analysts? Can we expect inductive testing of economic laws?
Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “9/28/37 A”.
____________________
Handwritten draft of course announcement
December 19, 1936
Announced for 1936-37
Cumulative Changes in Economic Processes
A critical survey of realistic studies of population growth, natural resources, occupations, capacity to produce, standards of living, national income and its distribution, ownership of property, business organization and methods, labor conditions, capital accumulation, the role played by government in economic affairs, and national planning, accompanied by study of the relations of the findings to economic theory.
Readings, reports and class discussions. Limited to twenty students. Admission by permission of the instructor.
2 hours a week, both semesters.
4-6 Thursdays.
Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “12/19/36 A”.
____________________
Course Announcement
1937-38
Economics 201-202—Secular and structural changes in a modern economy. 3 points each session. Professor Mitchell with the assistance of Dr. Ginzberg.
Tu., 4:10-6. 102 Low.
The theoretical, institutional, historical, and statistical approaches to the study of economic changes. Critical survey of investigations into recent changes in important factors. Relations of the findings to current economic theory.
Readings, reports, and class discussions.
Admission only with permission of the instructor.
Source: Columbia University. Bulletin of Information (July 23, 1938). Courses offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions, 1937-1938, p. 30.
____________________
Course Announcement
1938-39
Economics 201-202—Economic changes and economic theory. 3 points each session. Professor Mitchell assisted by Dr. Ginzberg.
Tu., 4:10-6. 502 Business.
The theoretical, institutional, historical, and statistical approaches to the study of economic changes. Critical survey of investigations into recent changes in important factors. Relations of the findings to current economic theory. Readings, reports, and class discussions.
Admission only with permission of the instructor.
Source: Columbia University. Bulletin of Information (July 23, 1938). Courses offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions, 1938-1939, p. 31.
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Jan. 14, 1937
TENTATIVE OUTLINE FOR COURSE ON CUMULATIVE CHANGES IN ECONOMIC PROCESSES
Introduction: The theoretical, the historical, and the statistical approaches to the study of Economic Changes.
The concepts of economic ‘statics’ and economic ‘dynamics’ in the work of J. S. Mill, Marx, J. B. Clark, Alfred Marshall, Gustav Cassel.
What ‘dynamic’ problems are treated by these writers? How far does the treatment build upon ‘static’ theory?
Theoretical treatment of cumulative changes in institutions by Marx, Veblen and Commons.
Historical accounts of economic changes.
What ‘explanations’ are given of significant changes by such writers as Ashley, Schmoller, the Webbs, Sombart, Clapham?
Time-series analysis
Types of changes commonly recognized: seasonal variations, random perturbations, cyclical fluctuations, secular trends.
The problem of ‘long cycles’. Kondratieff, Simiand, Kuznets, Burns.
The problem of structural changes.
What types of these changes have been explained theoretically?
What relations have these explanations to economic theory at large?
What relations exist between secular, cyclical, random, seasonal and structural changes?
Relations among the three approaches
The injunction to combine causal analysis with statistical description.
Dangers of statistical work not guided by theoretical concepts.
Dangers of theoretical speculation not checked by statistical observation
Difficulties in fusing the two approaches
Causal analysis of problems in which many variables are interrelated, and in which effects become causes in a process of cumulative change
The theoretical uses of history.
The historical applications of theory.
Statistics and history.
Classification of investigations available for the study of economic changes
Studies of recognized types of economic changes
The abundant literature upon business cycles
A few studies of seasonal variations
A few studies of secular trends and of long cycles
No systematic literature upon random perturbations; but many casual references in books on business cycles.
Many studies of structural changes, particularly those produced by legislations—for example, the Independent Treasury system, tariff acts, etc. Also numberless discussions under next heading.
Studies of changes in single economic factors
A vast literature is available upon such subjects as
Growth of population and its geographical distribution
Developments of the arts of production: histories of industries
Natural resources of different districts; their exploitation; problems of conservation
Changes in business organization: rise of corporations, different forms of corporate organization, banking systems; histories of particular business enterprises, and so on.
Organization of labor
Shifting importance of agriculture, transportation, manufactures, trade, finance in the national economy.
Changes in economic relations among nations:: commercial policies, international investments, shifts from debtor to creditor position.
Changes in the system of prices: their relations to monetary laws and practices; the relative importance of competitive versus regulated prices, private versus public regulation; the degree of flexibility in prices
Changes in standards of living
Economic changes during certain periods
Most of the books on economic history might be listed here, in so far as they do not belong under previous heading.
Also a few studies primarily statistical in character, such as
Recent Economic changes
Recent Social Trends
Social England—Booth’s survey and the recent many-volume study.
Mills’ Economic Tendencies in the U.S.
Work to be undertaken by the members of the course
To read critically and report upon significant studies of recent economic changes.
Avoid so far as feasible the subjects that are treated elaborately in other courses, for example money and banking, labor problems, business cycles, public utilities.
Stress the effort to grasp the inter-relations among the changes studied.
In each case consider in how far the changes are or can be ‘explained’, and what relation these explanations have or should have to economic ‘theory’.
Among the books to be consider for assignment the following are possibilities:
W. S. Thompson and P. K. Whelfton, Population Trends in the U.S. N.Y. 1933
R. D. McKenzie, The Metropolitan Community, N.Y., 1933
Carter Goodrich and others, Migration and Economic Opportunity, Philadelphia, 1936
Wyand, Economics of Consumption, N.Y., 1937
C. C. Chapman, Development of American Business and Banking Thought, 1913-1936. New York, 1937
Twentieth Century Fund, Big Business: Its Growth and its Place. N.Y., 1937
A. A. Berle and G. C. Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, N.Y., 1932
A. R. Burns, The Decline of Competition, N.Y., 1936
R. C. Epstein, Industrial Profits in the U.S., N.Y., 1934
Harry Jerome, Mechanization in Industry, N.Y., 1934
F. C. Mills, Prices in Recession and Recovery, N.Y., 1936
‘The Brookings Study’, Washington, 1934 and 1935
America’s Capacity to Produce
America’s Capacity to Consume
The Formation of Capital
Income and Economic Progress
H. G. Moulton and Associates, The American Transportation Problem, Washington, 1933
National Resources Board, Report December 1, 1934, Washington 1934.
W. I. King, The National Income and Its Purchasing Power, N.Y., 1930
(S. Kuznets), National Income, 1929-32, Washington, 1934
Our Natural Resources and their Conservation, A symposium edited by A. E. Parkins and J.R. Whitaker. N.Y., John Wiley & Sons, 1936
A. F. Burns, Production Trends in the U.S. Since 1870. N.Y. 1934. See review by F. A. Fetter JPE Feb. 1937
W. Sombart, Hochkapitalismus
W. H. Lough, High-Level Consumption, N.Y., 1935
W. V. Bingham. Aptitudes and Aptitude Testing, N.Y., 1937.
Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “1/14/37 A”.
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[Handwritten note at top of page: “Eli Ginzberg Jan 18 1937”]
CUMULATIVE CHANGES IN A MODERN ECONOMY
Introduction
The Method of the Classicists
Ricardo—Chapter I ff.
Marshall—Book V
Supplementary:
Knight—Introduction to Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit—2d ed. Ibid—The Ethics of Competition and Other Essays
Robbins—Nature and Significance of Economic Science
Clark, J. M. Preface to Social Economics (the essay on “Statics and Dynamics”)
Moore, H.L.—
Hotelling, H.—
Historical-Statistical Approach
(a) Case study of: Industrial Revolution
Toynbee
Hammonds
Webbs
Lipson
Clapham
Supplementary: see
Mantoux—
Nef—in Economic History Review.
Reconstructions, in Economic History Review
(b) Case study of: Profits and Wages in the United States
Profits
Epstein
Patten
Mills
Supplementary:
Knight—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences—article on Profits
Knight—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences—article on Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit
Reports of the S.E.C.
Senate Committee on Foreign Bonds
Wages
Douglas—Recent Economic Changes
Wolman, L.—R.E.C. and 3 Bulletins Bureau of Labor Statistics
Supplementary:
Douglas—Theory of Wages
Beveridge—Unemployment
Clay, H.—Essays in Industrial Relations
Institutional-Theoretical
Marx—Communist Manifesto
Ibid.—Capital—vol. I
Veblen—Theory of Business Enterprise
Mitchell—Business Cycles
Clark, J.M.—Economics of Overhead Costs
Supplementary:
Souter-Prolegomena to Relativity Economics
Hamilton—Encyclopedia of the Social sciences Article on “Competition”
Knight—Ethics of Competition, etc.
Clark, J. M.—Preface to Social Economics
American Economic Association—Round Tables
Conclusion: Methodology
Cohen—Reason and Nature
Weber, Max—Wissenschaftslehre
Whitehead—Adventure in Ideas
Simkhovitch—Approaches
Sombart—Drei Nationalökomien
Carnap—Unity of Science
MacIver—Harvard Lecture
PART I—Cumulative Changes in Economic Institutions
(General aim to study changes in degree and kind in the institutional setting explicit and implicit in neo-classicists; to gauge interrelations in these changes).
The Large Corporation
Berle and Means—The Modern Corporation
Twentieth Century Fund: Big Business
A. R. Burns—Decline of Competition
Supplementary:
Commons—Legal Foundations of Capitalism
Holmes, O. W.—Representative Opinion
Brandeis, L.—Social and Economic Views
Hamilton, W.—Industries affected with the Public Interest
Clark, J. M.—Social Control of Business
Handler—Trade Regulation
The Credit System
Annual Reports of Federal Reserve Board
Moulton—The Formation of Capital
Brookings—The Recovery of Business
Hardy—Credit Policies of the F. R. S.
Keynes—The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.
Angell—The Behavior of Money
Reports of Senate Sub-committee on Banking
Reports of Senate Committee on S. E. C.
Reports of Senate Committee on Foreign Bonds
Clark, J. M.—Economic of Planning Public Works
Chapman, C. C.—American Business and Banking Thought
Currie, L.—The Supply of Money
Supplementary:
Articles in Economic Journal, Q.J.E., S.[sic, J.?] of P. E.
The Problem of Consumption
(a) Numbers
Thompson and Whelfton—Population Trend
McKenzie—Metropolitan Community
Goodrich—Migration and Economic Opportunity
Recent Social Trends
(b) Psychology
Veblen—The Theory of the Leisure Class
Hearings on Pure Foods Drug Act
Reports of Federal Trade Commission
Bulletins of Consumers Research
Schlink—
Chase, Stuart—
(c) Economics—
Brookings—America’s Capacity to Consumer
Brookings—Income and Economic Progress
Wyand—Economics of Consumption
Recent Social Trends
Seligman—Installment Selling
Keynes—Appendix to General Theory
PART II—Cumulative Changes in the Short-Run
(Contrast with equilibrium approach of neo-classicists).
Case Study: Post-War Expansion
The automobile: building and new industries
(a) Source of capital
(b) Entrepreneurs’ expectations
(c) Exploitation of demand
Secondary Results: Structural Changes
(a) Relocation of Industry
(b) Urbanization—suburbs
(c) Standard of living—mores—instalment credit
(d) Incidence of Transportation
(e) Complex of Industry—of steel, glass, gasoline
Literature
Recent Economic Changes
Recent Social Trends
Goodrich et al—
Epstein, R.—Automobile Industry
Facts and Figures—Automobile Industry-1919 ff.
Clark, J. M.—Strategic Factors in Business Cycles
Warburton, C.—In Mitchell volume
Moulton et al—The American Transportation Problem
National Resources Board—Report 12/1/34
Burns, A. F.—Production Trends
Trade Journals—Steel, distribution, etc.
Annalist
PART III: The Interrelations of Economic Institutions and Market Phenomena
How do the existing legal, banking, and distributive institutions help to condition—and how are they conditioned by the following?
1. Capital accumulation
2. Profitability of industry
3. National income—wages—agriculture
4. Behavior of prices and costs
Literature
Mills—Economic Tendencies
Mills—Prices in Recession and Recovery
King—National Income and its Purchasing Power
Kuznets, S.—National Income. 1929-32
Mitchell—Business Cycles
Clark, J. M.—Strategic Factors in Business Cycles
Keynes, J. M.—General Theory of Employment
Brookings—Recovery of Business
Brookings—N. R. A.
Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “1/18/37 A”.
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OUTLINE
Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy
[Handwritten: Eli Ginzberg]
February 23, 1937
* * * * * * * * *
OUTLINE
Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy.
INTRODUCTION: The theoretical, the historical, the institutional, and the statistical approaches to the study of economic changes.
“Statics and Dynamics” in the works of:
J. S. Mill, J. B. Clark, Alfred Marshall, Gustav Cassel.
“Explanation” of economic changes by:
Ashley, Schmoller, Webbs, Sombart, Clapham
Cumulative changes in institutions:
Marx, Veblen, Commons.
Time-Series Analysis: seasonal variations, cyclical fluctuations, secular trends and random perturbations. “Long cycles”:
Kondratieff, Simiand, Kuznets, Burns.
Summary: The limitations of isolated techniques and the difficulties of fusion
Theory and statistics; history and theory; statistics and theory
Multiple variables in a process of cumulative change.
* * * * * * * * *
Secular changes in the industrial unit, the financial system, the organization of labor, and the ideology of the public during the periods:
1870-1890
1890-1914
1914-1937
The Industrial Unit: The changing pattern of competition
Economic aspects
Adjustment to technology and to a national market
Location of plant and transportation
Integration: to raw materials; to distribution; to finance
Law and Social Control
Trademarks and Patents
Governmental Regulation: License, taxes, etc.
Trade Associations
Management vs. Ownership
*Emphasis to be placed upon changing relative positions of the industrial unit to the total economy; upon the influence of size to competitive behavior; upon economic implications of individual vs. corporate forms.
Financial System—The rôle of money in a modern economy.
The Changing Structure of Banking
Loans and investments
Active money
The Problems of Debt and Liquidity
Private vs. Public Debt
Collateral for private debt
Insurance—private and public
Implications: Economic and Social
Economic: The interrelations of interest rates, savings, and the formation of capital.
Social: The political control over the creation of money and the use of this control for the eradication of the business cycle.
Labor: not solely a commodity
Unionization
Members
Objectives
Potential threats and consequences
Supply
Changes in requirements of skill
The relative shrinkage in agriculture
The additions from women of the middle class
Mobility
Rôle of the Government
Free Services
Enforcement of minimum standards
Relief payments and work creation
Re Bargaining between Labor and Capital
*Emphasis: Implication of these changes for
Rate of wages
Total wages—cf. monopoly analysis
Class-struggle analysis
The Changing Ideology: The influence of money making upon the attitudes of people—
Upon their behavior in
Spending: price vs. quality; advertising; women as buyers
Accumulating: liquid vs. fixed assets; speculation; insurance; goods vs. family
Playing: The esoteric vs. the stable; Wanderlust; the shift from church and home to club and movie.
Occupational adjustment: sensitivity to monetary stimuli; civil service; money and the arts.
Conclusions: An approach to isolating and treating the strategi9c factors in a dynamic economy—
The emergence of profitability
The cumulative process and the breakdown
The absorption of technological developments and the tendency towards retardation of growth.
The closely allied patterns of change; their interaction with the economic. 1. Political/2. Legal/3. Ideological
Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “2/23/37 A”.
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[Pencil: “April 1937”]
SECULAR AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES
IN A
MODERN ECONOMY
OUTLINE
The Study of Economic Change
Population
Migration and Location
The Business Unit
Psychology and Social Classes
Technology
The Legal Framework
Government
Dynamics of the Market
Cumulative Factors
I
THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC CHANGE
Introduction
The Classicists and the Institutionalists
*Preface to First and 8th editions of Marshall’s Principles and Bk. V—Chapter XV
*Marx—Communist Manifesto—Part I
The Classicists
J. S. Mill—Principles of Political Economy—Bk IV
J. B. Clark—Essentials of Economic Theory—Preface, Chapters XII, XIII, XIV, XV, and XXX
Marshall—Principles—Bk I—Chap. III; Bk V—Chaps. I, II, III, V, and XV
Cassel—Social Economy—Bk I, Chaps. I #5,6; Bk. IV
The Institutionalists
Marx—Communist Manifesto—Part I
Veblen—Business Enterprise—Chpas. II, VII, IX, X
Commons—Legal Foundations of Capitalism—Chapters I, II, III, VII, IX, vi
The Historians and the Statisticians
*Heckscher, Eli—“Aspects of Economic History” in Essays in Honor of Gustav Cassel *Mitchell—“Business Cycles”—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
The Historians
Webbs—History of Trade Unionism—Chapters II, III
Clapham—Economic History of Modern Britain—Vol I, Chapter XIV
Sombart—Der Moderne Kapitalismus—Vol. III, Part I—Chapters 22-25
The Statisticians
Simiand—La Crise Mondiale—pages 1-14; pages 114-35
Burns, A. F.—Production Trends—Foreword; Chapters III;ii, iii; IV: iv; V:v, vi.
Mitchell—“Business Cycles”—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences Kuznets—Seasonal Variations in Industry and Trade—Chapter I, Concluding Notes—pp. 355 ff.
Theory, History, and Statistics
*J. M. Clark—“Statics and Dynamics” in Preface to Social Economy
*F. H. Knight—New Introduction to Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit
*W. C. Mitchell—“Quantitative Measurement” in Backward Art of Spending Money and Other Essays
Cohen and Nagel—Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method Bk II: Chaps. X, XI, XVI, XVII, XIX sec. 3
Robbins—Nature and Significance of Economic Science. Chapters II 4,5; III 4,5; IV; VI 5,6
J. M. Clark—“Socializing Theoretical Economics” in Preface to Social Economics
II
POPULATION
The Data, Method, and Deductions about population in economic theory *Malthus—Population—Chapters I, II
*Marshall—Bk IV, Chapters IV, V
Ricardo—Principles II, V, XXXII
J. S. Mill—Principles—Chapter X, 2, 3
Pigou—Economics of Welfare—Part I, chapters IX, X
The Contemporary Data, Methods, Deductions as to Trends
*“Population”—Encyclopedia of Social Sciences
Thompson and Whelpton—Population Trends in U. S.—Chapters I: pp. 2267;257-61;288-91; IX, X, and XI
Carr-Saunders—World Population (1936)—Chapters I, II, XVI, XVII, XXII, Note on Overpopulation
Kucyznski—Births and Death, Vol I. Chaps. I, II, III, IV; II. Chaps. I, VI
The Economic Implications of the Population Problem
*Myrdal—“Industrialization and Population” in Essays in Honor of Gustav Cassel
On Unemployment Beveridge—Unemployment—Chapter XVII
On Imperialism W. S. Thompson—Danger Spots in World Politics—Chapters X, XII, XIII, XIV
On Consumption Lynd—Middletown—Chapters V, XI
J. M. Keynes. Economic Consequences of a Declining Population. Eugenics Review, April 1937, vol. XXIX, 13-17.
III
MIGRATION AND LOCATION OF PEOPLE AND INDUSTRY
*Marshall—Principles—pp. 199-203, Book IV—Chapter X, Appendix A-#13
*Weber, A.—Theory of Location of Industries—
Editor’s Introduction
Author’s Introduction
Chapters I, VII
*Semple—American History, its Geographic Conditions—Chapters XV, XVI, XVII
Goodrich—Migration and Economic Opportunity—Introduction: Chapters I, VI, VII, IX, XII
Mackenzie—The Metropolitan Community—Chapters I, III, V, VI, XII, XVII, XXIII
IV
THE BUSINESS UNIT
*Marshall—Principles—Bk IV—Chapter XII
*Twentieth Century Fund—Big Business—Summary
Distribution of the Working Population
The National Income in the United States (1929-35). Department of Commerce
The Problem of Control: Private
Berle and Means—Modern Corporation and Private Property, Bks I, VI
Twentieth Century Fund—Big Business Summary, Chaps. I, VIII
Laidler—Concentration of Control in American Industry, Parts I, VI.
The Problem of Control: Public
Jones and Bingham—Principles of Public Utilities—Chapters I, II, and XII
Moulton Associates—American Transportation Problem—Report of Committee—Chapters I, II, XII, XXI, XXIV, XXV, XXX, XXXI
Planning
Parkins and Whitaker—Our Natural Resources and their Concentration—Chapters I, II, IX, X, XI, XVI, XVIII
National Resources Board—1934—Part I—Sec. I, Sec. V.
V
PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL CLASSES
*Marshall—Principles—Bk I—Chapter II
*Weber—General Economic History—Chapter XXX
The Spirit of the Capitalist
M. Weber—The Protestant Ethic—Foreword, Introduction, Chapters II, III, V
Modern Psychology and Aggression
Abrahams, K.—Selected Essays on Psycho-Analysis—Chapters XXIII, XXIV, XXV
Horney, K.—The Neurotic Personality of Our Times—Chapters [blank]
Mead, M.—Competition and Cooperation in Primitive Societies. Interpretive Statement.
The American Scene
Veblen—Absentee Ownership—chapters VI, VII I, ii, iii
Parker—The Casual Laborer and Other Essays—Recent Social Trends—Chapter VIII
Taussig and Joslyn—American Business Leaders—Chapters X, XI, XVI, XVII, XIX, XX
VI
TECHNOLOGY
*Marshall—Principles—Bk IV—Chapter IX
*Veblen—Theory of Business Enterprise—Chapter IX
America’s Capacity to Produce—Introduction, Chapters VI, XIV, XV, XVI, XIX, XX
Jerome—Mechanization in Industry—Introduction, Summary, Chapters III, IV
–Recent Social Trends—Volume I—Chapter III
Weintraub and Posner—Technological Tendencies and their Social Implications Jerome—Mechanization—Chapters IX, X
VII
THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK
*J. S. Mill—Principles of Political Economy—Bk II—Chapter II
*Veblen—Theory of Business Enterprise—Chapter VIII
Commons—Legal Foundations of Capitalism. Chaps. I, II, III, VII, IX
Handler—Trade Regulation, Chapters I, II
Bonbright—The Valuation of Property—Chapters I, II, III, IV, V, XXX, XXXII
VIII
THE GOVERNMENT
*J. S. Mill—Principles of Political Economy—Bk V—Chapter XI
*H. Laski—The State—Chapter IV
Re Taxes
Shoup—Facing the Tax Burden—Chaps 2, 3, 6, 7, 8
Recent Social Trends—Volume II—Chapters XXV, XXVI
Re Banking
Willis—Central Banking—Part I, Chapters XVI, XVII, XVIII, XXVI
Hardy—Credit Policies of the Federal Reserve System—Part I
Re Labor
Commons and Associates—History of Labor in the U.S.
Volume III, Section I, Chapters XI, XII, Labor legislation
Volume IV, Chapters I, II, XVI, XXXII, XXXVIII, XLIV, XLV
Epstein—Insecurity—Parts I, X, XI
IX
DYNAMICS OF THE MARKET
*Marshall—Principles—Book V
*J. M. Clark—Economics of Overhead Costs—Chapters XXIII, XXIV
Production: 1922-36
Mills—Economic Tendencies—Chapters VI, X
Prices: 1922-36
Mills—Economic Tendencies—Chapter VII Prices in Recession and Recovery—Chapters I, III, V, VI, IX
Wages: 1922-36
Douglas—Real Wages in the United States—Chapters XXII, XXVI, XXX, XXXI Recent Economic Changes—Volume II—Chapter VI
Wolman—N.B.E.R. Bulletins #46, 54, 63
Profits: 1922-36
Epstein—Industrial Profits in the United States—Introduction, Book I, Book IV
Money: 1922-36
Currie—The Supply and Control of Money in the United States—Chapter III
Fed. Res. Board—Annual Reports. 1934, 1935, 1936
X
CUMULATIVE FACTORS
*Marshall—Principles—Book VI—Chapters XI, XII, XIII
*J. M. Clark—Strategic Factors in Business Cycles—Parts I and VI
The War, Changing Attitudes, and the Economy
The Automobile and the Economy
The Creation and Destruction of Bank Deposits and the Economy
Source: Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “4/?/37 A”.
Image Source: From the cover of Eli Ginzberg’s book The Eye of Illusion (Transactions Publishers, 1993).
Today we meet a Columbia Ph.D. alumnus who was brought to the Department of Political Economy at the University of Chicago in 1926 by Paul H. Douglas. He was mentioned in the course description of the previous post. Both Douglas as well as the University of Chicago publications people consistently misspelled William J. Shultz’s last name as “Schultz”. We can be sure that the correct spelling of the last name is without the Chicago “c”. Cf. both the Columbia College yearbook of 1922 and his obituary in the New York Times (below).
While Shultz did not write a dissertation in economics, he immediately produced a work on inheritance taxation that won him the first prize in the Hart, Schaffner and Marx prize in economics. He went on to teach economics and later marketing.
While the New York Times obituary (see below) stated that Shultz was an assistant professor at the University of Chicago in 1926, the University of Chicago’s Annual Register covering the Academic Year Ending June 30, 1926, with Announcements for the Year 1926-1927 (p. 137) gives his rank as “instructor” for the summer quarter of 1926 and lists him as “lecturer” for the 1926-27 academic year.
Shultz is a nice specimen of the utterly brilliant young graduate whose great expectations resulted in just a pretty good career without leaving a lasting impression in the history of economics.
____________________________
Abstract of Shultz’s dissertation
“The book written by William J. Shultz introduces us to the Humane Movement in America that is dedicated to the protection of animals and children. It represents a continuation of an older work by Professor Roswell C. McCrea. At the present time in America there are 539 organizations with approximately 200,000 members active in this movement: 307 link the protection of animals with the protection of children and 175 are dedicated strictly to the protection of animals. The common motive here is the Prevention of Cruelty. The author documents the development of these organizations during the period 1910-1922, together with the organizational structures, methods of fund-raising and their inner-workings….”
The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration
October 22, 1925
Professor J.A. Field
Faculty Exchange
My dear Field:
I quite forgot the other day in the Department meeting to suggest Dr. William J. Schultz [sic] as a person that I thought we ought to keep our eye on.
I got acquainted with Schultz’s work last year as a result of his application for an Amherst Memorial Fellowship and he seemed to me the most brilliant youngster that I have ever known, with the exception of Viner. Schultz took his Ph.D. at Columbia in 1924 at the age of 23. He wrote his dissertation on “The Humane Movement in the United States” which was published in the Columbia Studies. In addition to that, he has translated the important portions of Rignano’s book on the inheritance tax and Knopf has published this with an introduction by Seligman. On top of all this, in collaboration with another person he has written a history of commerce; while he submitted last June a manuscript on the inheritance tax in the Hart, Schaffner & Marx series, which Viner tells me was easily the best in its completed form. Viner thinks it was really a marvelous piece of work.
In addition to all this, Schultz is an accomplished musician and has command over some four or five European languages. He spent a summer in Mexico and has written on that country.
During the last year he was teaching at Hunter College but had some thought this year of going to Japan if he received an appointment at one of the universities there.
I met him and liked him very much. Seligman thinks him very brilliant, although one or two men at Columbia complained of his artistic temperament. I was in favor of his receiving an Amherst Fellowship, but the business men on the committee were afraid of his precocious brilliance and were fearful that he might “blow up.” It may be that he is somewhat unsteady, although I detected no signs of it. On the other hand, he is certainly close to being a genius, and there are all too few of those in economics. It would be a great card for us to get him in the Department, or in some way attached to the University of Chicago. It would be easier to get him before he wins the Hart, Schaffner & Marx prize, if he does.
He seems to be a person that we should fish for and that at the very least we should try to get him for next summer and then possibly we might also make connections with him for a later engagement.
Faithfully yours,
[signed] Paul H. Douglas
Source: The University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics. Records. Box 6, Folder 7.
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1922 Columbia College Yearbook
William J. Shultz….BROOKLYN, N.Y.
Freshman Fencing Team (1), Morningside (3), History Club (2)(3)(4), Junta (3), Assistant in History Department (4).
Bill enjoys the distinction of being the only Columbia man who raised a mustache at the age of eighteen. He is also quite proud of his curly locks. “That,” said Bill as he pointed to one of his raven curls, “is what makes ‘em fall.” Bill is also a history shark. He can tell you when Abe Lincoln first donned long trousers and what size collar Napoleon wore at Waterloo. If Bill can do other things as well as he can sell books, he will not only read history but also make it.
Dr. William J. Shultz, economist and author, who retired in 1964 as professor of business administration at the Bernard M. Baruch School of Business Administration of the City University of New York, died Saturday of a heart attack in Camden, Me. He was 68 years old and lived in New Harbor, Me.
Dr. Shultz was the author of several books in his field, the last of which was “American Marketing,” published in 1961.
He was born in Brooklyn on April 25, 1902, and graduated in 1922 from Columbia College, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University in 1924 and an LL.B. degree from New York Law School in 1930.
Early in his career he lectured on history at Columbia and taught history at City College and social science at Hunter College. He was assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago in 1926.
Dr. Shultz was a financial consultant to the National Industrial Conference Board from 1926 to 1930, and joined the faculty of Baruch School in 1932.
The following memo with its cover letter was later attached as “Exhibit B” to a general statement submitted October 25, 1939 to Professor Austin P. Evans, Chairman, Committee on Instruction, Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.
“There is appended a confidential memorandum submitted to the executive officer of the Department by a graduate student committee which contains interesting comment and suggestions. (Exhibit B).”
__________________
Cover letter for the graduate students’ memo
Columbia University
May 9, 1939
Dean R. C. McCrea,
Columbia University,
New York City.
Dear Dean McCrea:
As we agreed at luncheon with you and Professor Mills the other day, we are sending you the typed notes of student suggestions to the Department of Economics. We believe that these represent the concurrence of general student opinion, plus the thought we have given these matters.
Hoping that the notes will prove useful to you,
Sincerely yours,
WYLLIS BANKDLER
DICKSON RECK
VON DUSEN KENNEDY
FRANK PIERSON
* * * *
Notes on some student suggestions for the operation of the Department of Economics, Columbia Graduate Faculty. 5/7/39.
The suggestions concern chiefly gaps that are felt to exist in the offering of the department. There are also a few notes on the method of conducting various types of course, and on the requirements placed on students, and on the allotment of credits.
1) History of Economic Thought. Intrinsic interest in this subject is amplified by a) Oral requirement, and b) the fact that many students feel that they will some day be called upon to teach it. Some feel that the subject is already overemphasized. In any case, there is the feeling that students should not be held responsible for so large a topic unless it is offered.
Various treatments are possible. a) A mere recital of doctrines. b) A tracing of current ideas. c) A combination with Economic History, concerned with the influence of the times on the theories, and vice versa. Treatment (c) is that followed by Professor Mitchell in his former course, and in the extremely useful Lecture Notes made from it.
Student feeling is against being held for “all the doctrines, man by man, and all the men, doctrine by doctrine”. A combination of (b) and (c) above would probably be well received.
2) Economic theory. Statements in the first paragraph under (1) above hold here. This topic is understood to include (a) Systematic presentation of current schools of thought, and (b) in particular, the structure of Neo-Classical (and derivative) Theory. The material under (b) is very well handled by Milton Friedman’s Extension course. Convenience would be served by bringing this into the Graduate Catalogue, so that it would count, without special action, for the 15 central points for Master’s candidates.
Further particular large branches include c) Socialist Theory and d) Institutionalism. Student objection to the existing offering of Socialist Theory falls under two heads. First, it is claimed that the subject matter is not covered adequately in class, that the treatment is diffuse, incomplete and wandering. Second, it is protested that the treatment is not either so fair or so sympathetic as that given, say, Neo-Classical Doctrine.
Institutionalism is handsomely handled by Dr. Dorfman. There is some feeling that the material might be expanded to cover modern Institutionalists and their work and problems more intensively.
3) Economic History. Dr. Hacker’s treatment of American Economic History is very popular, as is Professor Burn’s course in modern capitalism. A course in Modern European Economic History, from the breakdown of Feudalism, would be very well received in addition, although the Burns course could be expanded to fill this need.
There is dissatisfaction with the existing Seminar. Auspices that would concentrate more closely on the material are rather widely held to be desirable. Professor Stockder’s seminar might fill this gap were it admitted to graduate economics standing. A suggestion for procedure should this prove impossible is included under “Catalog” below.
4) Labor. This may be discussed under two heads, a) Offering for the student specializing elsewhere, and b) Specialization in Labor Economics.
a) A General Survey Course in Labor Economics under capable, sympathetic auspices will be subject to very wide demand. Students whose major interest is elsewhere seem to feel quite generally that so important a branch of economics should not be left blank in their education. A large demand will also be forthcoming from first-year students who have not previously studied labor, either at all or adequately, whether or not they intend to specialize here. Such a course is of necessity a large lecture type, and requires in its instructor the specific technique relevant.
A counter-suggestion by the Faculty is that Professor Wolman expand the subject-matter of his course. A very wide and almost unopposed sector of student feeling would prefer bringing in an outsider more cordial to the material and more tolerant of the viewpoints and questions of the members of the class.
b) A Seminar in Labor Relations for the specialist would find many applicants. Student desires as to the auspices are in agreement with the above comments. No university adequately specializes in training labor economists, and it is suggested that Columbia might consider filling this more than local gap.
5) Public Economic Policy. It is safe to say that no subject arouses wider interest among students. At present, public policy is dealt with piecemeal among the several courses, with by no means all the most important aspects being covered at all. (The most thoroughly considered section is monetary policy, both existing and proposed.) It is submitted that this is an important need which Columbia is well fitted to meet without much extra trouble.
Suggestions on this score represent the fusion of two streams of thought; a) The proposal of a joint seminar to explore specific areas of planning and policy, and to be conducted by academic experts in the various fields (Angell, Bonbright, Gayer, Orchard, Macmahon, Lynd, etc.); b) The feeling that contact with people actually engaged in forming and executing public policy would provide a realistic knowledge of problems actually faced (economically, politically, administratively, etc.), as well as valuable personal relations. The suggestion under (b) would involve the invitation to Columbia for one, several, or all meetings of the seminar such men as Berle, Ezekiel, Currie, Tugwell, Mumford, Wallace, etc. etc.
Experience with the mere importation of outside lecturers, as in an instance in the Public Law Department, seems to show that a course so built lacks continuity and depth in grappling with such problems as would be considered under (a) above.
Yet to define the benefits of (b) to the membership of a seminar of manageable size would be wasteful and otherwise undesirable. Two solutions have been advanced, which are not mutually exclusive. The first involves the holding of “public” and “private” meetings in the manner of the Banking Seminar. This could be assisted by co-operation with the Economics Club, that is, the visitors could partially be drained off into luncheon meetings. This solution suffers from several difficulties including the discontinuity of having each outsider only once. The second solution is embodied in the suggestion for Panel Seminars below.
Students would greatly like to co-operate in the organization of this seminar.
6) Agricultural Economics. While this is already a subject of inter-university specialization, a survey course is part of a rounded general offering.
7) Population. Students do not feel that this is ably handled. The suggestion has been made that Professor Goodrich’s course in Internal Migration could be expanded to cover this, and also Regionalism (see under (8) below).
8) Economic Geography. The offering in the School of Business is excellent, and needs only to be given graduate economics status. See also under (7) above and “Catalogue” below.
9) Method and Technique of Research. This includes a thousand little troublesome matters that each professor assumes that the student learns elsewhere. What are the Journals in economics and related fields? How do we keep up with current developments in economics? What are the basic sources in various branches? Where are all these things scattered in the library? How do we begin the investigation of a new topic? How doe we prepare a bibliography? And many others.
The suggestions here fall under three heads. First, it is felt that a booklet answering the above and related questions would prove extremely helpful. Second, instructors should keep this need in mind, and clarify the portions of techniques and bibliography that fall in their sphere. Third, careful bibliographies already existing for various courses, and others that may arise, could be assembled and sold at cost.
10) Panel Seminar. This refers to a method of conducting seminars that shows promise of solving the dilemma of the unwieldiness of large numbers on the one hand, and the wastes of exclusiveness on the other. The discussion is conducted by a panel, consisting of one or more instructors and visitors and a carefully selected small group of students. Where student reports are to be presented, the selection is keyed to guaranteeing excellence and pointedness. An “audience” of students interested in the topic may ask occasional questions from the floor, but does not act to lower the tone of the discussion nor to encumber its progress. The “audience” may be regularly enrolled, receiving attendance credit, or may vary with the particular meeting’s content. Large and varying “audiences” are probably too much for this structure to carry.
It is felt that this method would meet the need in several situations. It should operate to raise the quality of the reports, doing away with the boredom and consequent loss of enthusiasm and tempo that so often assails large seminars now. But at the same time, it would avoid the narrow exclusiveness that operates to keep interested students from an organized study of subjects offered only in seminars.
The seating arrangements suggested by the above description seem rather stiff and stilted and disruptive. In point of fact, they are not a necessary corollary of this division of labor. Ordinary seminar seating can be used, the only requirement being that there is a staff of students who are considered capable, intelligible and interesting, and who do the reporting.
The panel seminar method is especially suggested for the discussion of public economic policy advocated in (5) above, where it is felt that wide student interest would be aroused and should be encouraged.
11) Doctor’s Oral Examinations. Under existing conditions, orals engender a period of rather heavy strain in most students. This period is of the order of two weeks or so, and is not related to the quantity of work being done, but rather to the crisis quality of the examinations. No useful purpose is served by this strain, in fact it is generally considered a hindrance to efficiency.
The remedy seems to be a removal of some of the critical focus upon orals. This may be accomplished, with no loss of academic standards or relevant rigor, by the process of having the true examination take place informally with each of the professors involved before the formal oral is taken. The formal assembled examination then assumes the character of a more official formality, in which passing is nearly certain barring a strong reason to the contrary. This division between the investigation of proficiency and ability on the one hand, and the ceremonial opportunity to forbid the banns on the other, should not only relieve most of the strain on the candidate, but also afford the faculty a more intensive chance to satisfy itself as to the student’s competence.
There are some indications that the present situation approximates this suggestion more closely than appears on the surface. Insofar as this is true, all that is necessary is to let this true state of affairs become clear to the candidates. In any event, more could be done along these lines with benefit and relief to all concerned.
12) Training for Careers. It is important periodically to review the types of career for which students in economics at Columbia are acquiring training, and at the same time to survey the curriculum with respect to the kind of training it chiefly affords. The student body is divided in proportions unknown at present* mainly among those preparing for teaching, for research, and for government service. The curriculum is skewed in the direction of training research workers. This fundamental educational divergence is worth noting, and worth investigating in its effects upon the value of the Economics offering to the students.
*One of the questions on this year’s questionnaire will be directed to this problem.
Many of the curricular suggestions above are directed as much to the problem “what kind of work” as to the problem “research in what field”, and are worthy of reconsideration in this light.
13) Catalog. The arrangement of the catalog, and the standing given by it to various courses, can prove a powerful aid in broadening the area of endeavor for which preparation may be secured here, as well as filling many of the lesser holes mentioned above.
In regard to the standing given courses in other departments, particularly in the School of Business, the effort has been made above to mention fields in which benefit would accrue to Master’s candidates if Graduate Economics Standing were given to certain courses. Particularly does this apply to the offerings of Brissenden, Stockder, perhaps Morgan, and to the advanced courses in Economic Geography. Where this is not feasible, something can be done by way of the advisory committee, see below.
Positive encouragement rather than permission can be given to students to broaden the scope of their studies if the catalog, or if necessary a separate printed or mimeographed announcement, would list as fully as possible all courses in related fields, or isolated courses of interest, that would be profitable to economists. In this way many gaps that the Economics Department cannot hope to fill itself would be plugged, and the benefits of intra-University division of labor would be received.
14) Advisory Committee. This has proved itself useful this year, and should certainly be continued. Its mention here is in connection with the potentialities of cooperation between it and the administration and faculty.
Many of the suggestions in these notes that may prove impossible of fulfillment, particularly those which come together under “Catalog”, may be aided by the unofficial action of the advisory Committee. If the committee is in possession of information concerning related courses, for instance, then even in the absence of official action the broadening of courses of study can be advanced. In this and many similar cases, the worthwhileness of the Department to new students can be increased.
Source: Columbia University Archives. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Box 1 “General departmental notices, memoranda, etc. Curriculum material”, Folder “Committee on Instruction”.
Image Source: Butler Library, 1939. Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library blog. April 19, 2018.
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