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Amherst Chicago Columbia Economists

Columbia. John Maurice Clark. Autobiographical notes, 1949

 

The following recollections of John Maurice Clark of his earliest contacts with economic problems is found in a folder of his papers containing notes about his father, John Bates Clark. The hand-written notes are fairly clear until we come to a clear addition on the final page. Abbreviations are used there and the handwriting is not always clear. Still the pages together provide a few nice stories and short lists of J.M. Clark’s teachers and students.

______________________

June 8, 1949

J.M.C.’s recollections of his earliest contacts with economic problems.

I think my earliest contact with an economic problem came on learning that the carpenter who sometimes came to do odd jobs for us at 23 Round Hill got $2.00 a day. I had a special interest in that carpenter. He was a tall man, with a full, dark beard; and it had been my imprudent interest in his operation with the kitchen double-windows (putting on? taking off?) that led me to lean out of a hammock and over the low rail of our second-story porch, to watch him (I was between two and three at the time). Mechanical consequences—I descended rapidly, landing on my head, but apparently suffering no injury except biting my tongue. Subjective consequences – maybe it pounded a little caution into me at an early age; but the present point is that it fixed that carpenter in my memory as “the man who picked me up.” It was some time later I learned that he got $2.00 a day.

I don’t remember whether I took the initiative and asked, or not. The cost of things was often discussed in our house, and my mother often talked of the difficulty of making both ends meet. I knew my father’s salary, though I can’t be sure now whether it was $3,500 or less. Anyhow, it was maybe eight or ten times the carpenter’s pay; and I began wondering how he made both ends meet, and remarked to my father that $2.00 a day wasn’t much to live on. He answered that it was pretty good pay for that kind of work. So I learned there were two ways of looking at a daily stipend—as income to live on and as the price of the service you gave your employer. Or perhaps simply the standpoints of the recipient and the payer. But especially I learned there were people who had to adjust their ideas of what they could live on, to a fraction of the income we found skimpy for the things we thought of as necessary. In short, I had a lesson in classes and their multiple standards to ponder over; without reaching any very enlightening conclusions.

I don’t think I connected this with our friends the Willistons (of the family connected with Williston seminary in Easthampton) who lived in the big house above us and from whom we rented ours. They were evidently much richer than we. They had gone to Europe (and been shipwrecked on the way, and had to transfer at sea to a lumber-schooner, which threw its deckload of lumber overboard to enable it to take on the people from the helpless steamship. — but that’s another story.)

To return to the carpenter. I suppose today he’d get perhaps $16, more?, and a Smith College salary, for a full professor, might be $7,000 or $8,000. The discrepancy has shrunk to maybe 2/5—certainly less than half—of what it was then. That puzzling discrepancy was my first lesson in economics—the first I remember.

There was another lesson—if you could call it that—the summer we spent a while at the Stanley House (now gone) in Southwest Harbor, on Mt. Desert. The rich people went to Bar Harbor. At Southwest, there was Mr. Brierly who had a yacht. We took our outings in a rowboat, sometimes with the help of a spritsail. One time we were going up Somes Sound, and were passed by one of the biggest ocean-going steam yachts—the “Sultana”. It was a very impressive sight, in those narrow waters, and looked about as big as the “Queen Mary” would to me now. I don’t remember anybody doing any moralizing; but if they did, the impression it left was that we, in our fashion, were doing the same kind of thing they were.

My first contact with economic literature (not counting the subversive economics of Robin Hood, which we boys knew by heart, in the Howard Pyle version) was at 23 Round Hill, so I must have been less than nine. I found a little book on my father’s shelves that had pictures in it – queer pictures done in pen and ink, which puzzled me. There was a boy not much bigger than I was, in queer little knee-britches, acting as a teacher to a class of grown men (including I think a Professor Laughlin, under whom I later taught at the University of Chicago.) And there were classical females being maltreated by brutal men, and other queer things. I was curious enough to read some of the text, to find out about the pictures. It was “Coin’s Financial School,” the famous free-silver tract.

I read enough to become a convinced free-silverite. And then I had the shock of discovering that my beloved and respected father was on the wrong side of that question. I decided there must be more to it than I’d gotten out of the queer picture-book. I suppose that was my first lesson in the need of preserving an open mind and holding economic ideas subject to possible reconsideration. Davenport and Veblen gave me more extensive lessons, fifteen or twenty years later, only this second time it was my father’s ideas I had to rethink, after reluctantly admitting that these opposing ideas represented something real, that needed to be reckoned with. One had to do something about it, though the something didn’t mean substituting Veblen for my father. It was a more difficult and discriminating adjustment that was called for.

To return to my boyhood. It may have been about this time that I learned something about mechanical techniques, when my father took me to see the Springfield Arsenal. They had a museum, with broadswords that had been used in battle—one was so nicked up that its edge had disappeared in a continuous series of surprisingly deep nicks—but the mechanical process that impressed me was a pattern-lathe, rough-shaping the stocks of Krags. On one side was a metal model of the finished stock revolving, with a wheel revolving against it. On the other side was the wooden blank revolving, and a wheel like the one on the model, and linked to it so as to copy its movements, and armed with knives. So the machine could make complicated shapes following any model you put into it, and do it faster and more accurately that a hand worker.

Incidentally (and as a digression) that was our first military rifle with smokeless powder, more powerful than black; our first regular military magazine rifle of the modern kind with a bolt action and a box magazine. The regulars were just getting them. The militia still had the black-powder 45-70 Springfields at the time of the Spanish War, and a Massachusetts regiment had to be ordered off the firing-line at El Caney because their smoke made too good a target. Teddy Roosevelt had pull enough to get Krag carbines for his Rough Riders plus the privilege of using their own Winchesters if individuals preferred, and, if they had the 30-40-220, which took the Krag cartridge.

But my regular education in economic theory began at the age of 9 or 10, in our first year at Amherst, when we lived on Amity Street, opposite Sunset Ave. My father had in mind James Mill’s training of his son, John Stuart Mill, and he copied the techniques of explaining something during a walk, but he didn’t follow James Mill’s example by making me submit a written report for criticism and revision. All he did was to explain about diminishing utility and marginal utility—using the illustration of the oranges. And he was satisfied that I understood it, and concluded that the simple fundamentals of economics could be taught to secondary school or “grammar-school” students. Later, my friend and former graduate student, Leverett Lyon, pithily remarked that I probably understood it better then than I ever had since. Maybe he was right. I know when I met Professor Fetter, the year the Ec. Ass. met in Princeton, he told me I didn’t understand the theory, because I had said (in print, I think) that there were some dangers about the concept of “psychic income.” I didn’t say it was wrong, but I did think it was likely to be misleading to use a term that was associated with accountants’ arithmetic. So I did probably understand the theory “better” at the age of 9 or 10. Twenty ears later, it didn’t look so simple. This was long before I disagreed with Fetter about basing-point pricing and the rightness of the uniform FOB mill price, as the price “true” competition would bring about.

______________________

J.M.C. later history.

Amherst, C in Ec tho 85 on exam, & written work not credited. (cf French A from Wilkins, C from [William Stuart] Symington (father of present (1951) W. Stuart Symington, head of nat security Resources Board). Symie sized my attitude up as that of a gentleman & gave me a gentleman’s mark)ache Crook said he “didn’t get hold” of me. He was correct.

 

Columbia: Giddings, A. S. Johnson, H.L. Moore, Seligman, Seager, Hawkins [?], Chaddock, Agger, Jacobstein. indoctrinated: J. B. C. orthodoxy modified by overhead costs (catalogued as “dynamics”) Dynamics (defined as) everything statics leaves out. & much induction. Take “Essentials” on slow dictation.

Veblen: slow infiltration of its logical & progre[?] rel. to the abstractions of J.B.C.: reverse normalizing might make[?] an arguable claim to equal legitimacy.

1912 ed. of Control of Trusts

“Contribution to theory of competive price” [QJE, August 1914] forerunner of “mon-comp”, largely empirical basis.

Germs of social & inst. ec. Rich-poor, Freedom as val in ec.[??] B. M. Anderson cf. Cooley

Revs of Hobson?, Pigou, Davenport Economics of Enterprise [Political Science Quarterly, Vol 29, no. 2]

 

To Chi. 1915 Changing basis of economic responsibility [JPE, March 1916] on moving to Chi. open declar[ation] of non-Laughlinism: backfire to an Atlantic article of Laughlin’s.

Modern Psych.

1917-18. War-ec. (“basis of war-time collectivism.”)

Students: Garver oral. Slichter, Lyon, Innis, Martin [?], Goodrich, Copeland, O’Grady [John O’Grady ?]

Ayres, Knight on faculty.

Ov. C. [Studies in the Economics of Overhead Costs]

Social Control [of Business]

 

Columbia. Students, Friedman, Ginzberg, Salera, Kuznets’ oral

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. John M. Clark Collection. History of Economic Thought. Box 37, Folder “J. B. Clark, 1847-1938”.

Image Source: John Maurcie Clark. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-0171.  Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

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Barnard Columbia Courses Curriculum

Columbia. Economics Courses with Descriptions, 1905-07

 

 

From time to time I mistakenly repeat the preparation of an artifact, as is the case with this list of instructors and courses offered in economics and social sciences by the Columbia University Faculty of Political Science in 1905-07. Still, I am getting better with respect to formatting, so I am replacing the V1.0 with this V2.0 today.

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OFFICERS OF INSTRUCTION
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
[Economics and Social Sciences (1905-07)]

EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN, Ph.D., LL.D., McVickar Professor of Political Economy
[Absent on leave in 1905-06.]
FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Sociology
JOHN B. CLARK, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy
HENRY R. SEAGER, Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy, and Secretary
HENRY L. MOORE, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Political Economy
VLADIMIR G. SIMKHOVITCH, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Economic History
EDWARD THOMAS DEVINE, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Social Economy

OTHER OFFICERS

ALVIN S. JOHNSON, Ph.D., Instructor in Economics
GEORGE J. BAYLES, Ph.D Lecturer in Ecclesiology [A.B., Columbia, 1891; A.M., 1892; LL.B., 1893; Ph.D., 1895.]
ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS, Ph.D., Lecturer in Sociology in Barnard College

________________________________

GROUP III—ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

GRADUATE COURSES

It is presumed that students who take economics, sociology or social economy as their major subject are familiar with the general principles of economics and sociology as set forth in the ordinary manuals. Students who are not thus prepared are recommended to take the courses in Columbia College or Barnard College designated as Economics 1 and 2 (or A and 4) and Sociology 151-152.

The graduate courses fall under three subjects: A—Political Economy and Finance; B—Sociology and Statistics; C—Social Economy.

Courses numbered 100 to 199 are open to Seniors in Columbia College.

Courses numbered 200 and above are open to graduate women students upon the same terms as to men.

All the courses are open to male auditors. Women holding the first degree may register as auditors in Courses numbered 200 and above.

Subject A—Political Economy and Finance

ECONOMICS 101-102—Taxation and Finance. Professor SELIGMAN.
M. and W. at 1.30. 422 L.

This course is historical, as well as comparative and critical. After giving a general introduction and tracing the history of the science of finance, it treats of the various rules of the public expenditures and the methods of meeting the same among civilized nations. It describes the different kinds of public revenues, including the public domain and public property, public works and industrial undertakings, special assessments, fees, and taxes. It is in great part a course on the history, theories, and methods of taxation in all civilized countries. It considers also public debt, methods of borrowing, redemption, refunding, repudiation, etc. Finally, it describes the fiscal organization of the state by which the revenue is collected and expended, and discusses the budget, national, state, and local. Although the course is comparative, the point of view is American. Students are furnished with the current public documents of the United States Treasury and the chief financial reports of the leading commonwealths, and are expected to understand all the facts in regard to public debt, revenue, and expenditure contained therein.

Given in 1906-07 and in each year thereafter.

ECONOMICS 103—Money and Banking. Professor H. L. MOORE.
Tu. and Th. at 10.30, first half-year. 415 L.

The aim of this course is (1) to describe the mechanism of exchange and to trace the history of the metallic money, the paper money, and the banking system of the United States; to discuss such questions as bi-metallism, foreign exchanges, credit cycles, elasticity of the currency, present currency problems, and corresponding schemes of reform; (2) to illustrate the quantitative treatment of such questions as variations in the value of the money unit, and the effects of appreciation and depreciation.

ECONOMICS 104—Commerce and Commercial Policy. Dr. JOHNSON.
Tu. and Th. at 10.30, second half-year. 415 L.

In this course the economic bases of modern commerce, and the significance of commerce, domestic and foreign, in its relation to American industry, will be studied. An analysis will be made of the extent and character of the foreign trade of the United States, and the nature and effect of the commercial policies of the principal commercial nations will be examined.

ECONOMICS 105—The Labor Problem. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, first half-year. 415 L.

The topics considered in this course are: The rise of the factory system, factory legislation, the growth of trade unions and changes in the law in respect to them, the policies of trade unions, strikes, lockouts, arbitration and conciliation, proposed solutions of the labor problem, and the future of labor in the United States.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 106—The Trust Problem. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, second half-year. 415 L.

In this course special attention is given to the trust problem as it presents itself in the United States. Among the topics considered are the rise and progress of industrial combinations, the forms of organization and policies of typical combinations, the common law and the trusts, anti-trust acts and their results, and other proposed solutions of the problem.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

[ECONOMICS 107—Fiscal and Industrial History of the United States. Professor SELIGMAN.
M. and W. at 3.30, first half-year. 415 L.

This course endeavors to present a survey of national legislation on currency, finance, and taxation, including the tariff, together with its relations to the state of industry and commerce. The chief topics discussed are: The fiscal and industrial conditions of the colonies; the financial methods of the Revolution and the Confederation; the genesis of the protective idea; the fiscal policies of the Federalists and of the Republicans; the financial management of the War of 1812; the industrial effects of the restrictive and war periods; the crises of 1819, 1825, and 1837; the tariffs of 1816, 1824, and 1828; the distribution of the surplus and the Bank war; the currency problems before 1863; the era of “free trade,” and the tariffs of 1846 and 1857; the fiscal problems of the Civil War; the methods of resumption, conversion and payment of the debt; the disappearance of the war taxes; the continuance of the war tariffs; the money question and the acts of 1878, 1890, and 1900; the loans of 1894-96; the tariffs of 1890, 1894, and 1897; the fiscal aspects of the Spanish War. The course closes with a discussion of the current problems of currency and trade, and with a general consideration of the arguments for and against protection as illustrated by the practical operations of the various tariffs.

Not given in 1905-07.]

[ECONOMICS 108— Railroad Problems; Economic, Social, and Legal. Professor SELIGMAN.
M. and W. at 3.30, second half-year. 415 L.

These lectures treat of railroads in the fourfold aspect of their relation to the investors, the employees, the public, and the state respectively. A history of railways and railway policy in America and Europe forms the preliminary part of the course. The chief problems of railway management, so far as they are of economic importance, come up for discussion.

Among the subjects treated are: Financial methods, railway constructions, speculation, profits, failures, accounts and reports, expenses, tariffs, principles of rates, classification and discrimination, competition and pooling, accidents, and employers’ liability. Especial attention is paid to the methods of regulation and legislation in the United States as compared with European methods, and the course closes with a general discussion of state versus private management.

Not given in 1905-07.]

ECONOMICS 109 — Communistic and Socialistic Theories. Professor CLARK.
Tu. and Th. at 2.30, first half-year. 406 L.

This course studies the theories of St. Simon, Fourier, Proudhon, Rodbertus, Marx, Lassalle, and others. It aims to utilize recent discoveries in economic science in making a critical test of these theories themselves and of certain counter-arguments. It examines the socialistic ideals of distribution, and the effects that, by reason of natural laws, would follow an attempt to realize them through the action of the state.

ECONOMICS 110 — Theories of Social Reform. Professor CLARK.
Tu. and Th. at 2.30, second half-year. 406 L.

This course treats of certain plans for the partial reconstruction of industrial society that have been advocated in the United States, and endeavors to determine what reforms are in harmony with economic principles. It treats of the proposed single tax, of the measures advocated by the Farmers’ Alliance, and of those proposed by labor organizations, and the general relation of the state to industry.

ECONOMICS 201—Economic Readings I: Classical English Economists. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, first half-year. 415 L.

In this course the principal theories of the English economists from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill are studied by means of lectures, assigned readings and reports, and discussions. Special attention is given to the Wealth of Nations, Malthus’s Essay on Population, the bullion controversy of 1810, the corn law controversy of 1815, and the treatises on Political Economy of Ricardo, Senior, and John Stuart Mill.

Given in 1905-06 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 202—Economic Readings II: Contemporary Economists. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, second half-year. 415 L.

In this course the theories of contemporary economists are compared and studied by the same methods employed in Economics 201. Special attention is given to Böhm-Bawerk’s Positive Theory of Capital and Marshall’s Principles of Economics.

Given in 1905-06 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 203-204—History of Economics. Professor SELIGMAN.
M. and W. at 3.30. 415 L.

In this course the various systems of political economy are discussed in their historical development. The chief exponents of the different schools are taken up in their order, and especial attention is directed to the wider aspects of the connection between the theories and the organization of the existing industrial society. The chief writers discussed are:

I. Antiquity: The Oriental Codes; Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Cato, Seneca, Cicero, the Agrarians, the Jurists.

II. Middle Ages: The Church Fathers, Aquinas, the Glossators, the writers on money, trade, and usury.

III. Mercantilists: Hales, Mun, Petty, Barbon, North, Locke; Bodin, Vauban, Boisguillebert, Forbonnais; Serra, Galiani ; Justi, Sonnenfels.

IV. Physiocrats: Quesnay, Gournay, Turgot, Mirabeau.

V. Adam Smith and precursors: Tucker, Hume, Cantillon, Stewart.

VI. English school: Malthus, Ricardo, Senior, McCulloch, Chalmers, Jones, Mill.

VII. The Continent: Say, Sismondi, Cournot, Bastiat; Herrmann, List, von Thünen.

VIII. German historical school: Roscher, Knies, Hildebrandt.

IX. Recent Development—England: Rogers, Jevons, Cairnes, Bagehot, Leslie, Toynbee, Marshall; Germany: Wagner, Schmoller, Held, Brentano, Cohn, Schäffle; Austria: Menger, Sax, Böhm-Bawerk, Wieser; France: Leroy Beaulieu, Laveleye, Gide, Walras; Italy: Cossa, Loria, Pantaleoni; America: Carey, George, Walker, Clark, Patten, Adams.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 205—Economic Theory I. Professor CLARK.
M. and W. at 2.30, first half-year. 406 L.

This course discusses, first, the static laws of distribution. If the processes of industry were not changing, wages and industry would tend to adjust themselves according to certain standards. A study of the mechanism of production would then show that one part of the product is specifically attributable to labor, and that another part is imputable to capital. It is the object of the course to show that the tendency of free competition, under such conditions, is to give to labor, in the form of wages, the amount that it specifically creates, and also to give to capital, in the form of interest, what it specifically produces. The theory undertakes to prove that the earnings of labor and of capital are governed by a principle of final productivity, and that this principle must be studied on a social scale, rather than in any one department of production. The latter part of this course enters the field of Economic Dynamics, defines an economic society and describes the forces which so act upon it as to change its structure and its mode of producing and distributing wealth.

ECONOMICS 206—Economic Theory II. Professor CLARK.
M. and W. at 2.30, second half-year. 406 L.

This course continues the discussion of the dynamic laws of distribution. The processes of industry are actually progressing. Mechanical invention, emigration and other influences cause capital and labor to be applied in new ways and with enlarging results. These influences do not even repress the action of the static forces of distribution, but they bring a new set of forces into action. They create, first, employers’ profits, and, later, additions to wages and interest. It is the object of the course to show how industrial progress affects the several shares in distribution under a system of competition, and also to determine whether the consolidations of labor and capital, which are a distinctive feature of modern industry, have the effect of repressing competition. It is a further purpose of the course to present the natural laws by which the increase of capital and that of labor are governed and to discuss the manner in which the earnings of these agents are affected by the action of the state, and to present at some length the character and the effects of those obstructions which pure economic law encounters in the practical world.

ECONOMICS 207—Theory of Statistics. Professor H. L. MOORE.
Tu. and Th. at 1.30, first half-year. 418 L.

The aim of this course is to present the elementary principles of statistics and to illustrate their application by concrete studies in the chief sources of statistical material. The theoretical part of the course includes the study of averages, index numbers, interpolation, principles of the graphic method, elements of demography, and statistical principles of insurance. The laboratory work consists of a graded series of problems designed to develop accuracy and facility in the application of principles. (Identical with Sociology 255.)

ECONOMICS 208—Quantitative Economics I: Advanced Statistics. Professor H. L. MOORE.
W. and F. at 11.30, second half-year. 418 L.

Quantitative Economics I and II (see Economics 210) investigate economics as an exact science. This course treats economics from the inductive, statistical side. It aims to show how the methods of quantitative biology and anthropology are utilized in economics and sociology. Special attention is given to recent contributions to statistical theory by Galton, Edgeworth, and Pearson. Economics 207, or an equivalent, is a prerequisite.

Given in 1905-06 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 210—Quantitative Economics II: Mathematical Economics. Professor H. L. MOORE.
W. and F. at 11.30, second half-year. 418 L.

This course treats economics from the deductive side. It aims to show the utility of an analytical treatment of economic laws expressed in symbolic form. The work of Cournot is presented and used as a basis for the discussion of the contributions to the mathematical method by Walras, Marshall, and Pareto. Economics 207, or an equivalent, is a prerequisite.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

ECONOMICS 241—The Economic and Social Evolution of Russia since 1800. Professor SIMKHOVITCH.
M. and F. at 9.30, first half-year. 418 L.

This course describes the economic development of the country, the growth of slavophil, liberal and revolutionary doctrines and parties, and the disintegration of the autocratic régime. (Identical with History 281.)

ECONOMICS 242—Radicalism and Social Reform as Reflected in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century. Professor SIMKHOVITCH.
M. at 9.30 and 10.30, second half-year. 418 L.

An interpretation of the various types of modern radicalism, such as socialism, nihilism, and anarchism, and of the social and economic conditions on which they are based.

ECONOMICS 291-292—Seminar in Political Economy and Finance. Professors SELIGMAN and CLARK.
For advanced students. Tu., 8.15-10.15 P.M. 301 L.

 

Subject B—Sociology and Statistics

SOCIOLOGY 151-152—Principles of Sociology. Professor GIDDINGS.
Tu. and Th. at 3.30. 415 L.

This is a fundamental course, intended to lay a foundation for advanced work. In the first half-year, in connection with a text-book study of theory, lectures are given on the social traits, organization, and welfare of the American people at various stages of their history and students are required to analyze and classify sociological material of live interest, obtained from newspapers, reviews, and official reports. In the second half-year lectures are given on the sociological systems of important writers, including Montesquieu, Comte, Spencer, Schäffle, De Greef, Gumplowicz, Ward, and Tarde. This course is the proper preparation for statistical sociology (Sociology 255 and 256) or for historical sociology (Sociology 251 and 252).

SOCIOLOGY 251—Social Evolution—Ethnic and Civil Origins. Professor GIDDINGS.
F. at 2.30 and 3.30, first half-year. 415 L.

This course on historical sociology deals with such topics as (1) the distribution and ethnic composition of primitive populations; (2) the types of mind and of character, the capacity for coöperation, the cultural beliefs, and the economic, legal, and political habits of early peoples; (3) early forms of the family, the origins, structure, and functions of the clan, the organization of the tribe, the rise of the tribal federations, tribal feudalism, and the conversion of a gentile into a civil plan of social organization. Early literature, legal codes, and chronicles, descriptive of the Celtic and Teutonic groups which combined to form the English people before the Norman Conquest, are the chief sources made use of in this course.

SOCIOLOGY 252—Social Evolution—Civilization, Progress, and Democracy. Professor GIDDINGS.
F. at 2.30 and 3.30, second half-year. 415 L.

This course, which is a continuation of Sociology 251, comprises three parts, namely: (1) The nature of those secondary civilizations which are created by conquest, and of the policies by which they seek to maintain and to extend themselves; (2) an examination of the nature of progress and of its causes, including the rise of discussion and the growth of public opinion; also a consideration of the policies by which continuing progress is ensured,—including measures for the expansion of intellectual freedom, for the control of arbitrary authority by legality, for the repression of collective violence, and for the control of collective impulse by deliberation; (3) a study of the nature, the genesis, and the social organization of modern democracies, including an examination of the extent to which non-political associations for culture and pleasure, churches, business corporations, and labor unions, are more or less democratic; and of the democratic ideals of equality and fraternity in their relations to social order and to liberty. The documents of English history since the Norman Conquest are the chief sources made use of in this course.

SOCIOLOGY 255—Theory of Statistics. Professor H. L. MOORE.
Tu. and Th. at 1.30, first half-year. 418 L.

This course is identical with Economics 207 (see [above]).

SOCIOLOGY 256—Social Statistics. Professor GIDDINGS.
Tu. and Th. at 1.30, second half-year. 418 L.

Actual statistical materials, descriptive and explanatory of contemporaneous societies, are the subject-matter of this course, which presupposes a knowledge of statistical operations (Sociology 255) and applies it to the analysis of concrete problems. The lectures cover such topics as (1) the statistics of population, including densities and migrations, composition by age, sex, and nationality, amalgamation by intermarriage; (2) statistics of mental traits and products, including languages, religious preferences, economic preferences (occupations), and political preferences; (3) statistics of social organization, including families, households, municipalities, churches, business corporations, labor unions, courts of law, army, navy, and civil service; (4) statistics of social welfare, including peace and war, prosperity, education or illiteracy, vitality, and morality, including pauperism and crime.

SOCIOLOGY 259—Ecclesiology. Dr. BAYLES.
Tu. and F. at 4.30, first half-year. 405 L.

The purpose of this course is to define the present relations of the ecclesiastical institutions to the other institutions of American society: the state, the government, marriage, family, education, and public wealth. An analysis is made of the guarantees of religious liberty contained in the federal and commonwealth constitutions; of the civil status of churches in terms of constitutional and statute law; of the methods of incorporation, of the functions of trustees, of legislative and judicial control; of denominational polity according to its type; of the functional activity of churches in their departments of legislation, administration, adjudication, discipline, and mission; of the influence of churches on ethical standards; of the distribution of nationalities among the denominations, of the territorial distribution of denominational strength, of the relation of polity to density of population, and of the current movements in and between various organizations tending toward changes of functions and structure.

SOCIOLOGY 279-280—Seminar in Sociology. Professor GIDDINGS.
W. at 3.30 and 4.30, bi-weekly. 301 L.

The Statistical Laboratory, conducted by Professors GIDDINGS and H. L. MOORE, is equipped with the Hollerith tabulating machines, comptometers, and other modern facilities.

Subject C—Social Economy

SOCIAL ECONOMY 281—Poverty and Dependence. Professor DEVINE.
Th. and F. at 4.30, first half-year. 418 L.

The purpose of this course and of Social Economy 282, which follows, is to study dependence and measures of relief, and to analyze the more important movements which aim to improve social conditions. An attempt is made to measure the extent of dependence, both in its definite forms, as in charitable and penal institutions, and in its less recognized and definite forms, as when it results in the lowering of the standard of living or the placing of unreasonably heavy burdens upon children or widows. Among the special classes of social debtors which are studied, besides the paupers, the vagrants, the dissipated, and the criminals, who require discipline or segregation as well as relief, are: Orphans and other dependent children; the sick and disabled; the aged and infirm; the widow and the deserted family; the immigrant and the displaced laborer; the underfed and consequently short-lived worker.

Given in 1905—06 and in alternate years thereafter.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 282—Principles of Relief. Professor DEVINE.
Th. and F. at 4.30, second half-year. 418 L.

In this course the normal standard of living is considered concretely to secure a basis from which deficiencies may be estimated. A large number of individual typical relief problems are presented, and from these, by a “case system,” analogous to that of the modern law school, the principles of relief are deduced. Among the larger movements to be considered are: Charity organization; social settlements; housing reform; the elimination of disease; the restriction of child labor; and the prevention of overcrowding, and especially the congestion of population in the tenement-house districts of the great cities.

Given in 1903-06 and in alternate years thereafter.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 283—Pauperism and Poor Laws. Professor SEAGER.
M. at 3.30 and 4.30, first half-year. 418 L.

This is an historical and comparative course intended to supplement Social Economy 281 and 282. Lectures on the history of the English poor law are followed by discussions of farm colonies, the boarding-out system for children, old-age pensions, and other plans of relief currently advocated in England. On this basis the public relief problems of New York State and City and the institutions attempting their solution are studied by means of excursions, lectures, and discussions.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 285—The Standard of Living. Professor DEVINE.
Th. and F. at 4.30, first half-year. 418 L.

A concrete study of the standard of living in New York City in the classes which are above the line of actual dependence, but below or near the line of full nutrition and economic independence. While this course will not be given in the year 1905-06, assignments will be made in the School of Philanthropy for research in such portions of this field as suitably prepared students may elect to undertake.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 286—The Prevention and Diminution of Crime. Professor DEVINE.
Th. and F. at 4.30, second half-year. 418 L.

This course will deal with the social function of the penal and police systems. Special attention will be given to such subjects as juvenile courts; the probation system; indeterminate sentence; treatment of discharged prisoners; the system of local jails; segregation of incorrigibles, and prison labor.

Given in 1906-07 and in alternate years thereafter.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 290—Crime and Criminal Anthropology. Professor GIDDINGS.

Students desiring to make a special study of crime, criminal anthropology, and the theory of criminal responsibility may take the lectures of Sociology 256 or of Social Economy 286 and follow prescribed readings under the direction of Professor GIDDINGS.

SOCIAL ECONOMY 299-300—Seminar in Social Economy. Professor DEVINE.
Two hours a week. Hours to be arranged.

The work of the Seminar for 1905-07 will be a study of recent developments in the social and philanthropic activities of New York City; e. g., the social settlements; parks and playgrounds; outside activities of public schools; children’s institutions; relief societies; agencies for the aid of immigrants, and the preventive work of organized charities.

COURSES IN THE SCHOOL OF PHILANTHROPY

The School of Philanthropy, conducted by the Charity Organization Society, under the direction of Professor Devine, offers courses* aggregating not less than ten hours a week throughout the academic year, and also a Summer School course of six weeks in June and July. These courses are open to regular students of Columbia University who satisfy the director that they are qualified to pursue them with profit, and are accepted as a minor for candidates for an advanced degree.

The program of studies for 1905-06 is as follows:

            A—General survey (forty lectures) ; B—Dependent families (fifty lectures); C—Racial traits and social conditions (thirty-five lectures); D—Constructive social work (fifty lectures) ; E—Child-helping agencies (forty lectures); F—Treatment of the criminal (thirty lectures); G—Administration of charitable and educational institutions (thirty lectures); H—The State in its relation to charities and correction (forty lectures).

* These courses are given in the United Charities Building, corner Fourth Avenue and 22d Street.

 

COURSES IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE

ECONOMICS 1-2—Introduction to Economics—Practical Economic Problems. Professors SELIGMAN and SEAGER, and Dr. JOHNSON.
Section 1, M. and W. at 9.30, and F. at 11.30. Section 2, M., W., and F. at 11.30. M. and W. recitations in 415 L. F. lecture in 422 L.

 

COURSES IN BARNARD COLLEGE

ECONOMICS A—Outlines of Economics. Professor MOORE and Dr. JOHNSON.
Three hours, first half-year.
Section 1, Tu., Th., and S. at 9.30. Section 2, Tu. and Th. at 11.30, and S. at 9.30.

ECONOMICS 4—Economic History of England and the United States. Professor MOORE and Dr. JOHNSON.
M., W., and F. at 10.30, second half-year.

ECONOMICS 105—The Labor Problem. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 1.30, first half-year.

The topics treated in this course are the rise of the factory system, factory legislation, the growth of trade unions and changes in the law in respect to them, the policies of trade unions, strikes, lockouts, arbitration and conciliation, proposed solutions of the labor problem, and the future of labor in the United States.

ECONOMICS 120—Practical Economic Problems. Professor SEAGER.
Tu. and Th. at 1.30, second half-year.

The topics treated in this course are the defects in the monetary and banking systems of the United States, government expenditures and government revenues, protection vs. free trade, the relation of the government towards natural monopolies, and federal control of trusts.

ECONOMICS 121—English Social Reformers. Professor MOORE.
W. and F. at 1.30, first half-year.

A critical study of the social teachings of Carlyle, Ruskin, John Stuart Mill, Kingsley, and Thomas H. Green.
Open to students that have taken Course A or an equivalent.

ECONOMICS 122—Economic Theory. Professor MOORE.
W. and F. at 1.30, second half-year.

A critical study of Marshall’s Principles of Economics. The principal aim of this course is to present the methods and results of recent economic theory.
Open to students that have taken Course A or an equivalent.

ECONOMICS 109—Communistic and Socialistic Theories. Professor CLARK.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, first half-year.

In this course a brief study is made of the works of St. Simon, Fourier, Proudhon, Owen, and Lassalle, and a more extended study is made of Marx’s treatise on capital. Recent economic changes, such as the formation of trusts and strong trade unions, are examined with a view to ascertaining what effect they have had on the modern socialistic movement.

ECONOMICS 110—Theories of Social Reform. Professor CLARK.
Tu. and Th. at 11.30, second half-year.

In this course a study is made of modern semi-socialistic movements and of such reforms as have for their object the improvement of the condition of the working class. Municipal activities, factory legislation, the single tax, recent agrarian movements and measures for the regulation of monopolies are studied.

SOCIOLOGY 151-152—Principles of Sociology. Professor GIDDINGS.
Tu. and Th. at 2.30.

This is a fundamental course, intended to lay a foundation for advanced work. In the first half-year, in connection with a text-book study of theory, lectures are given on the social traits, organization, and welfare of the American people at various stages of their history, and students are required to analyze and classify sociological material of live interest, obtained from newspapers, reviews, and official reports. In the second half-year, lectures are given on the sociological systems of important writers, including Montesquieu, Comte, Spencer, Schäffle, De Greef, Gumplowicz, Ward, and Tarde.

SOCIOLOGY 153-154 —Family Organization. Dr. ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS.
Tu. at 3.30, bi-weekly.

Field work in the study of family groups. Consultations.
Open to Seniors.

In connection with the lectures and field work of this course opportunities are given to students to become acquainted with the more important private institutions for social betterment in New York City, and to study the organization and activity of the various public agencies charged with the welfare of the community.

 

COURSES IN THE SUMMER SESSION

sA—Economic History of England and America. Lectures, recitations, and essays. Dr. JOHNSON.
Five hours a week at 1.30. 501 F. Credit I
(Equivalent, when supplemented by prescribed reading, to Economics 4.)

sB—Principles of Economics. Lectures and class discussions. Dr. JOHNSON.
Five hours a week at 2.30. 501 F. Credit I.
(Equivalent, when supplemented by prescribed reading, to Economics 1.)

sA1—Principles of Sociology. Descriptive and theoretical. Professor GIDDINGS.
Five hours a week at 10.30. 415 L. Credit I, II.
(Equivalent to Sociology IS1-)

sA2—Principles of Sociology. History of sociological theory. Professor GIDDINGS.
Five hours a week at 9.30. 415 L. Credit I, II.
(Equivalent to Sociology 152.)

Source: Columbia University. Bulletin of Information. Courses Offered by the Faculty of Political Science and the Several Undergraduate Faculties. Announcement 1905-07. pp. 3, 24-36.

Image Source: Roberto Ferrari, Unveiling Alma Mater [Sept 23, 1903]. Columbia University Libraries. July 15, 2104.

Categories
Bibliography Columbia Economists

Columbia. Publications of Henry Ludwell Moore, 1895-1929

 

 

The Johns Hopkins Ph.D., Henry Ludwell Moore, was a pioneer in the application of statistics to neoclassical economics. His most famous students were Paul H. Douglas and Henry Schultz. 

______________________

[Bibliography through 1930]
HENRY LUDWELL MOORE
1869-[1958]

A.B., Randolph-Macon, 1892; Ph.D., Johns Hopkins, 1896.

Instructor in Economics, 1896-1897, Lecturer in Political Economy, Johns Hopkins, 1897-1898; Professor of Political Economy, Smith, 1897-1902; Adjunct Professor of Political Economy, 1902-1906, Professor of Political Economy, Columbia, 1906-1929.

Books

Laws of Wages; An Essay in Statistical Economics. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1911. viii, 196 p.

Economic Cycles: Their Law and Cause. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1914. viii, 149 p. [Japanese translation, Tokyo, 1926]

Forecasting the Yield and Price of Cotton. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1917. vi, 173 p.

Generating Economic Cycles. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1923. xi, 141 p.

Synthetic Economics. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1929. vii, 186 p.

 

Articles

Von Thunen’s Theory of Natural Wages. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Apr., July 1895, IX, 291-304, 388-408.

Antoine-Augustin Cournot. Revue de métaphysique et de morale, May 1905, XIII, 521-543.

The Personality of Antoine Augustin Cournot. Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1905, XIX, 370-399.

Paradoxes of Competition. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Feb. 1906, XX, 211-230.

The Variability of Wages. Political Science Quarterly, Mar. 1907, XXII, 61-73.

The Differential Law of Wages. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Dec. 1907, LXX, 638-651.

The Efficiency Theory of Wages. Economic Journal, Dec. 1907, LXIII, 571-579.

The Statistical Complement of Pure Economics. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Nov. 1908, XXIII, 1-33.

Crop-Cycles in the United Kingdom and in the United States. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, May 1919, LXXXII, 373-389.

Empirical Laws of Demand and Supply and the Flexibility of Prices. Political Science Quarterly, Dec. 1919, XXXIV, 546-567.

Crop-Cycles in the United Kingdom and in France. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, May 1920, LXXXIII, 445-454.

Forecasting the Crops of the Dakotas. Political Science Quarterly, June 1920, XXXV, 204-235.

Generating Cycles of Products and Prices. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Feb. 1921, XXXV, 215-239.

Generating Cycles Reflected in a Century of Prices. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Aug. 1921, XXXV, 503-526.

The Origin of the Eight-Year Generating Cycle. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Nov. 1921, XXXVI, 1-29.

Elasticity of Demand and Flexibility of Prices. Journal of the American Statistical Association, Mar. 1922, XVIII, 8-19.

An Eight-Year Cycle in Rainfall. Monthly Weather Review, July 1922, L, 357-359.

Economic Cycles. Geographical Review, Oct. 1923, XIII, Sup., 662.

A Moving Equilibrium of Demand and Supply. Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1925, XXXIX, 357-371.

Partial Elasticity of Demand. Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1926, XL, 393-401.

Pantaleoni’s Problem in the Oscillation of Prices. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Aug. 1926, XL, 586-596.

A Theory of Economic Oscillations. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Nov. 1926, XLI, 1-29.

 

Source: A Bibliography of the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University 1880-1930. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), pp. 104-105.

______________________

For more about Henry Moore, see George J. Stigler, Henry L. Moore and Statistical Economics. Econometrica, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan., 1962), pp. 1-21.

Image Source: Precedes the Stigler article.

 

Categories
Columbia Economists Johns Hopkins

Columbia. Professor Henry L. Moore’s Undergraduate and Graduate Transcripts, 1890-96

 

For an earlier post I transcribed the faculty memorial minute for Columbia’s Henry L. Moore along with his request to the department chair in 1924 for a salary adjustment. Today I provide a couple of items that George Stigler had acquired during the course of his research for the paper commissioned by the editors of Econometrica in honor of the Henry L. Moore’s pioneering work in econometrics (Stigler, George J. “Henry L. Moore and Statistical Economics.” Econometrica, vol. 30, no. 1, 1962, pp. 1–21). In addition to some biographical data provided by the alumni office of the Johns Hopkins University, we find the transcripts of both Moore’s undergraduate and graduate courses. One is hardly surprised to see a brilliant undergraduate performance by Moore, though his undergraduate exposure to economics was limited to a single year course in political economy and his undergraduate math courses did not go beyond analytical geometry.

______________________________

 

Carbon Copy of George Stigler’s letter to Johns Hopkins Professor Heberton Evans

 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Chicago 37, Illinois

Charles R. Walgreen Foundation for the Study of American Institutions
1126 East 59th Street

June 3, 1959

Professor Heberton Evans Jr.
Department of Political Economy
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland

 

Dear Heb:

Econometrica has asked me to prepare an essay on Henry L. Moore and I have agreed to undertake it because I think he is one of the major figures in American economics in the last half century. He took his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1896 and I hpe you will be kind enough to see if you cannot obtain for me a copy of the transcript of his record at Johns Hopkins and any other material pertaining to him that may be in the University file.

Cordially,

George J. Stigler

Source: University of Chicago Archives, George Stigler Papers. Box 2, Folder “Moore: Data gathered by correspondence”.

______________________________

 

Letter from Johns Hopkins Alumni Office to George Stigler

 

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
BALTIMORE 18, MARYLAND

Alumni Records Office

June 8, 1959

Professor George J. Stigler
Haskell Hall
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

 

Dear Professor Stigler:

Dr. G. Heberton Evans called me this morning and stated that you were interested in having what biographical information we have on Dr. Henry Ludwell Moore, who died on April 28, 1958. He also stated that you wanted a transcript of his work here.

I have talked with the Registrar about a transcript and she has had this looked up for you. Unfortunately in those days—when Dr. Moore was attending Hopkins—the courses were not as clearly outlined as they are now. Miss Davis will have to clarify some of the credits and the courses given and she will send you her findings when she does this. The Registrar’s Office is in quite a whirl at the moment because of Commencement tomorrow and it will probably be some days before Miss Davis can get this information for you.

I am enclosing a sheet giving an obituary which appeared in the Baltimore SUN at the time of Dr. Moore’s death and also a biographical sketch from Who’s Who. For your information I am giving the addresses of his sisters in Baltimore, which I have taken from the telephone directory:

Mrs. R(obert) Maurice Miller, 406 Hawthorne Road, Baltimore 10
Mrs. J(ohn) Talbot Todd, 100 W. University Parkway, Baltimore 10
Mrs. William P. Cole, 100 W. University Parkway, Baltimore 10

Dr. Moore entered Johns Hopkins in 1892 and was a graduate student in Economics through 1896, when he received the Ph.D. degree. His thesis was Von Thünen’s Theory of Natural Wages.

In the President’s Report for 1892-93 mention is made of “The Wage Theory of Von Thünen,” by Dr. Moore, published in abstract in the Johns Hopkins University Circular for May, 1893. Also, in the President’s Report for 1895-96 two papers by Dr. Moore were read discussed in Economic Conferences (a membership of eighteen students who met one evening fortnightly). The titles of these papers are: “The Personality of Professor Carl Menger,” and “Ricardo’s Attack Upon Malthus’s Doctrine of Rent.”

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Josephine Cole

 

 

[Attachments from Alumni Files]

 

Obituary from the Baltimore Sun

Dr. Henry Moore Dies at Age 89

Dr. Henry Ludwell Moore, Maryland-born retired professor of economics and sociology at Columbia University, died yesterday in a Baltimore hospital after a long illness. He was 89 years old.

He had received his doctorate in 1896 at the Johns Hopkins University and was a former instructor of economics on the Hopkins faculty.

In 1902 he became an associate professor of economics and romance languages at Columbia where he served until his retirement several years ago. He also taught at Smith College.

Son of the late William Hanson and Sophia Moore, Dr. Moore was born at “Moore’s Rest,” the family home in Charles county. He earned his bachelor degree at Randolph-Macon College and then studied at the University of Vienna and the Hopkins.

He was a pioneer of the application of mathematics and statistical methods to economic theory and wrote numerous articles and books in the field.

His wife was the late Mrs. Jane Armstrong Moore.

Surviving him are three sisters, Mrs. R. Maurice Miller, Mrs. J. Talbot Todd and Mrs. William P. Cole, Jr. all of Baltimore.

The funeral will be private.

 

From—WHO’S WHO

Moore, Henry Ludwell, political economist; b. Charles Co., Md., Nov. 21, 1869; s. William Henry and Alice (Burch) M.; B.A., Randolph-Macon Coll., Va. 1892; U. of Vienna, 1894-95; Ph.D., Johns Hopkins, 1896; m. Jane Armstrong Shafer, of Richmond, Va., June 16, 1897. Instr. Johns Hopkins U., 1896-7; prof. polit. economy, Smith Coll., Mass., 1897-02; prof. polit. economy, Columbia U., 1902–*. Author: Laws of Wages, 1911; Economic Cycles, Their Law and Cause, 1914; Forecasting the Yield and the Price of Cotton, 1917; Generating Economic Cycles, 1923; also articles in scientific jours. on the math. and statis. phases of polit. economy. Home: Cornwall, N.Y.

*Dr. Moore retired from Columbia in 1929. The above does not state that Dr. Moore was also Lecturer in Political Economy at Johns Hopkins in 1897-98, during his first year at Smith College.

 

 

We do not know the source of the clipping which gives the following:

The John Marshall prize for the year 1913 has been awarded to Henry Ludwell Moore as a recognition of the value of his work entitled, “Laws of Wages.” The prize, which was established in 1891, consists of a bronze likeness of Chief Justice Marshall, and is given to a graduate of the University who has produced the best work during the preceding year upon some subject in historical or political science.

Source: University of Chicago Archives, George Stigler Papers. Box 2, Folder “Moore: Data gathered by correspondence”.

______________________________

 

Letter from Registrar’s Office of Johns Hopkins to George Stigler

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
BALTIMORE 18, MARYLAND

Office of the Register

April 5, 1960

Professor George J. Stigler

Haskell Hall
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Dear Professor Stigler:

From your letter of March 18, 1960, addressed to Miss Josephine Cole, it appears that I owe you an apology for not taking earlier action upon your request for information on Dr. Henry L. Moore. I am sorry to say that I have neither notes nor recollection of talking about this with Miss Cole last summer. I hope that the enclosed information will reach you in time to be of service.

I think it is in order to say a few words of explanation concerning the academic records of the early years of the University. No effort was made to keep track of a student’s enrollment in individual courses. Grades and points credit were not thought of, and apparently the student had nothing to show except some letters from his professors if he discontinued his studies here before receiving a degree. The final examinations for the degree and the dissertation were recorded, and they were, apparently, considered to be all important.

My source of information, in trying to reconstruct a record of this period, is a publication called “The University Circular”, which listed for each term the seminars and courses of lectures given, and the names of the professors and the students who attended. I thought it would interest you to see the names of the men under whom Dr. Moore studies.

Sincerely yours,

[signed]

Irene M. Davis
Registrar

 

HENRY LUDWELL MOORE
PH.D: 1896
[handwritten: “Johns Hopkins”]

Year Course Instructor
1892-93
(Graduate student)		 Historical Seminary Prof. Adams
Germanic History Prof. Adams
Church History Prof. Adams
English Constitutional Law & History Prof. Emmott
Economic Theory of Distribution Prof. J.B. Clark
Social Science Pres. Gilman
Ethnological History of the Indo-European Peoples Prof. Bloomfield
Methods of Historical Research Dr. Vincent
1893-94
(Graduate student)		 Historical Seminary Prof. Adams
Prussian History Prof. Adams
Railway Problems Prof. H.C. Adams
Administration Prof. W. Wilson
Social Economics Dr. Gould
Theory of Consumption Dr. Sherwood
Recent Economic Literature Dr. Sherwood
Economic Conference Dr. Sherwood
Elements & History of Political Economy Dr. Sherwood
Economic & Social History of Europe Dr. Vincent
1894-95
(Graduate student)		 University of Vienna
1895-96
(Fellow)		 Historical Seminary Prof. Adams
History of the Nineteenth Century Prof. Adams
Economic Conference Dr. Sherwood
Physiocrats Dr. Sherwood
Credit and Money Dr. Sherwood
History of Economic Theories Dr. Hollander
Advanced Economic Elective Dr. Sherwood
Social Economics Prof. Gould
Conditions and Remedies of Non-Employment Prof. Dewey

Source: University of Chicago Archives, George Stigler Papers. Box 2, Folder “Moore: Data gathered by correspondence”.

______________________________

Transcript from Randolph-Macon College

Randolph-Macon College
Ashland, Virginia

June 23, 1959

Henry L. Moore         307 St. Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland

1st Report 2nd Report 3rd Report Exam
Term Ending:
Feb. 1890
English 95 98 98 —
Latin 98 97 99 —
German 98 97 97 —
Algebra 100 100 — —
Geometry 100 100
Term Ending:
June 1890
English 99 99 99 —
Latin 99 100 100 —
German 99 98 ½ 98 ½ —
Algebra 97 — — —
Geometry 100 100 99 ½
Term Ending:
Feb. 1891
English 100 99 100 95 ¾
Latin 100 99 100 98.7
Trigonometry 100 100 — —
Physics 96 100 100 100
Anal. Geom. — — 100 98
Pol. Economy 100 99.5 100 —
Term Ending:
June 1891
English 99 100 98 96 ¾
Latin 100 100 100 99.1
Anal. Geom. 100 100 100 99 ¾
Physics 100 100 100 100
Pol. Economy 100 100 — 100
Phys. Culture 100 100 100 —
Elocution — — 100 —
Term Ending:
Feb. 1892
English 100 100 100 99 ½
Latin 100 100 100 99
French 100 99 99 98 ½
Chemistry 99 100 — 98.5
Geology 100 100 — —
Physiology 95 100 100 98
Psychology 100 99 — —
Logic — — 100 —
Phys. Culture 80 — — —
Term Ending:
June 1892
English 99 100 99 98 ¾
Latin 100 100 100 99.3
French 98 93 99 95
Chemistry 100 98 98 99
Geology 100 100 99 —
Astronomy 100 98 100 98.5
Logic 100 99 99 99

 

Source: University of Chicago Archives, George Stigler Papers. Box 2, Folder “Moore: Data gathered by correspondence”.

______________________________

From the Catalogue of Randolph-Macon College for the Collegiate Year 1890-91

POLITICAL ECONOMY
[Taught by Professor of Moral Philosophy and Biblical Literature, John A. Kern D.D.]

This class meets twice a week throughout the session. It is usually taken separately from the other classes of the school, and for satisfactory attainments in it a certificate of distinction is awarded. The study of some question in practical economics is assigned as parallel work. The book used for this purpose last session, is Ely’s “The Labor Movement in America.“

Text-book: F. A. Walker’s Political Economy.

Source: Catalogue of Randolph-Macon College for the Collegiate Year 1890-91: , p. 24.

______________________________

 

Image Source: Cropped from portrait of Moore in Econometrica, Vol. 30, No. 1 (precedes the Stigler article).

 

 

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Syllabus for Money, Banking & Commercial Crises. Anderson, 1917-18.

Benjamin McAlester Anderson (1886-1949) was awarded a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University in 1911. His dissertation, Social Value–A Study in Economic Theory Critical and Constructive was published in the Hart, Schaffer & Marx Prize Essays series. From 1913-18 he held the rank of Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Today I post his syllabus for the course “Money, Banking and Commercial Crises” from 1917-18 that is wonderfully detailed  both with respect to topics and detailed reading assignments. The final examination questions for the second-term of the two-term course have been transcribed and posted too. I have included Anderson’s c.v. as of the publication of his dissertation in November, 1911 below. I’ll next post the University of California’s brief biography of Anderson published in its “In Memoriam” series.

_______________________

VITA
[Benjamin M. Anderson 1911]

The author was born in Columbia, Missouri, May 1, 1886. He was prepared for college in the high
school in Columbia, and attended the State University of Missouri, receiving the A. B. degree from that institution in 1906. His work in economics at Missouri was chiefly with Professor J. E. Pope. He was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha of Missouri, in 1905. He filled a temporary vacancy in the chair of history at the State Normal School in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, during the summer session of 1905. He was Professor of Political Economy at Missouri Valley College, Marshall, Missouri, 1906-7, and from 1907 to 1911 was Head of the Department of History and Political Economy in the State Normal School at Springfield, Missouri, though on leave of absence during the years 1909-10 and 1910-11. He was Fellow in Economics at the University of Illinois during the term 1909-10, working in the seminars of Dean Kinley and Professor E. L. Bogart, and, in philosophy, in the seminar of Professor B. H. Bode. He received the A. M. degree at Illinois in 1910. As Garth Fellow in Political Economy at Columbia University, 1910-11, he studied under Professors Seligman, Seager, H. L. Moore, Giddings and John Dewey, doing seminar work with Professors Seligman, Seager and Giddings. He was appointed in 1911 Instructor in Political Economy at Columbia University. In May, 1909, he was married to Miss Margaret Louise Crenshaw, at St. Louis, Mo.

Source: Benjamin M. Anderson, Social Value–A Study in Economic Theory Critical and Constructive, p. i.

_______________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 3. Asst. Professor Anderson, assisted by Mr. Laporte.—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 38: 13 Seniors, 15 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 6 Other.

 

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1917-18, p. 54.

_______________________

 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
1917-18

SYLLABUS FOR ECONOMICS 3

(Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises)
Assistant Professor Anderson

Required reading is marked with an asterisk

 

Part I. MONEY

  1. FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS.
    1. Definitions: money; specie; currency, etc.
    2. Origin of money; origin of gold and silver money; gold as a commodity.
    3. Functions of money; common measure of values; medium of exchange; legal tender; standard of deferred payments; store of value; bearer of options; reserve for credit operations.
    4. Standard and subsidiary money; Gresham’s law and monometallism; the gold standard.
    5. Value of money: preliminary statement.

Reading.

Anderson, Value of Money, pp. 397-427.*
Phillips, Readings in Money and Banking, pp. 1-26.*
Moulton, Money and Banking, Pt. I, pp. 45-62.*
Laughlin, Principles of Money, passim.
Menger, art. “Geld” in Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften.

  1. GOVERNMENT PAPER MONEY.
    1. Colonial and Revolutionary Paper Money.
    2. The French Assignats.
    3. The Greenbacks.
    4. Causes governing the value of inconvertible paper.
      1. Gold premium and index numbers.
    5. Financial results of inconvertible paper.
    6. Social and industrial consequences of inconvertible papers.

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. I, pp. 134-162; 168 (chart); 178-209, 260-66.*
Horace White, Money and Banking, chs. on Revolutionary Bills of Credit, and Greenbacks.*
Phillips, pp. 26-70, 115-120.*
Mitchell, W. C., History of the Greenbacks, and Gold, Wages and Prices under the Greenback Standard.

  1. THE STANDARD QUESTION.
    1. Early history of metallic money.
    2. History of bimetallism.
      1. Mediaeval and early modern times.
      2. England
      3. France
      4. United States.
    3. Theory of bimetallism:
      1. Theory of the ratio:
        1. Gresham’s Law.
        2. The compensatory principle.
      2. The standard of deferred payments: justice between debtor and creditor:
        1. Index numbers: of commodity prices; of wages.
        2. The commodity standard upheld by bimetallists.
        3. The labor standard by monometallists.
      3. Theory of exchanges between gold and silver countries.
    4. The monetary system of the United States.

Reading.

Phillips, Chs. VI and VII.*
Moulton, Pt. I, pp. 66-68, Chs. IV, VI, and VIII.*

    1. The gold exchange standard, and the triumph of the gold standard.
      1. India.
      2. Philippines.
      3. Mexico.
      4. Straits Settlement.
      5. Gold standard in 1914.

Reading.

Phillips, Chs. XII and XIV.*
Kemmerer, Modern Currency Reforms.

  1. THE VALUE OF MONEY.
    1. Economic Value.

Reading.

Anderson, Ch. I.

    1. Must the value of money rest on a commodity basis? Quantity theory doctrine that inconvertible paper may be sustained in value by limitation in supply.
    2. The quantity theory v. Gresham’s Law.

Reading.

Anderson, Chs. VII and XVII.
Fisher, Purchasing Power of Money, pp. 14-32.*

  1. STABILIZING THE GOLD DOLLAR.

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. I, pp. 258-60; 266-71.*
Phillips, Ch. XIII.*

PART II. CREDIT AND BANKING

  1. NATURE OF CREDIT.
    1. Kinds of credit instruments.
    2. Definitions of credit.
    3. Bank-credit—analysis of bank statement.
    4. The mechanism of the modern bank.

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 12-37.*
Anderson, Ch. XXIII.*
Dunbar, Theory and History of Banking, Chs. I-V.*
Fiske, The Modern Bank, pp. 25-260, omitting Chs. XXI, XXVIII, XXX.*
Horace White, ch. on Bank Statement.*

    1. The use of checks in payments in the United States.

Reading.

Phillips, pp. 150-58.*
Kinley, The Use of Credit Instruments in Payments in the United States, National Monetary Commission Report.

    1. The volume of money and credit and the volume of trade,—trade and speculation.

Reading.

Anderson, Ch. XIII.*

  1. BANK-NOTES AND BANK DEPOSITS: “CURRENCY SCHOOL” v. “BANKING SCHOOL.”
    1. Currency School and the quantity theory.
    2. Essential identity of notes and deposits under “assets banking.”
    3. Systems of bank-note issue: Suffolk system; Canada; England; France; Germany; Austria; United States national banking system.

Reading.

Anderson, Ch. XIV.*
Mill, J. S., Principles of Political Economy, Bk. III, Ch. XXIV, pars. 1 and 2.*
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 225-58.*
Conant, Modern Banks of Issue, passim.

  1. THE ENGLISH BANKING SYSTEM.
    1. History.
    2. Analysis of present system in London: Bank of England; Joint Stock Banks; branches of foreign banks; discount houses; acceptance houses; bill brokers; Stock Exchange; commodity speculation; warehousing system and commission houses; insurance; foreign exchange.

Reading.

Withers and Palgrave, English Banking System, National Monetary Commission Report, pp. 3-110.*
Phillips, pp. 435-442; 464-473.*
Withers, The Meaning of Money.
Bagehot, Lombard Street.
Conant, Modern Banks of Issue.

  1. FOREIGN EXCHANGE.

Reading.

Escher, Foreign Exchange.*
Anderson, Ch. XVI, and Appendix to Ch. XIII.*
Weekly article in Annalist on foreign exchange market.

  1. SPECULATION ON THE STOCK AND PRODUCE EXCHANGES.
    1. Theory of speculation.
    2. The New York Stock Exchange.
      1. Methods of doing business.
      2. Contrasted with London, Paris, and Berlin exchanges.
    3. Investment bankers and underwriters.
    4. Chicago Board of Trade; New York Cotton Exchange.

Reading.

Emery, Speculation on the Stock and Produce Exchanges.
Pratt, Work of Wall Street.
Van Antwerp, The Stock Exchange from Within.
Passages to be assigned.
Weekly articles in Annalist on stock and bond markets.

  1. “COMMERCIAL BANKING” AND SPECULATION; BANK ASSETS AND BANK RESERVES.

Reading.

Fisher, Purchasing Power of Money, pp. 47-54.*
Anderson, Ch. XXIV, and pp. 363-81, and 177-85.
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 66-89.*

  1. CLEARING HOUSES.
    1. Methods.
    2. Extraordinary functions.
    3. The interpretation of “clearings.”

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XIX.

  1. THE “MONEY MARKET.”
    1. “Money” v. money.
    2. “Money rates” v. interest rates.
    3. Analysis of causes governing money rates:
      1. General causes.
      2. Causes affecting special types of “paper.”

Reading.

Scott, W. A., Money and Banking, ch. on “Money Market.”* (1910 or later editions.)
Anderson, pp. 375-79; 425-32; 453-58;495-97; 516-27; 529-44.*
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 120-136.*
Weekly article on “Money” in the Annalist.

  1. BANKING IN GERMANY.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXV.*

  1. BANKING IN CANADA.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXI.*

  1. BANKING IN FRANCE.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXIV.*

  1. BANKING IN THE UNITED STATES.
    1. Before the Civil War.
      1. The two National Banks.
      2. State and private banks.
    2. Origin of the national banking system.
    3. State banks and trust companies; private banks; savings banks, etc.
    4. Comparative growth and present status of different classes of institutions. Geographical distribution.

Reading.

Horace White, Chs. on First and Second National banks, The Bank War, The Suffolk Bank System, The Safety Fund System, The Free Bank System, The National Bank System.*
Phillips, Chs. XV and XX.*
Barnett, State Banks and Trust Companies.

 

PART III. CRISES AND PANICS

  1. THEORY OF CRISES.
  2. FINANCIAL PANICS.

Reading.

Phillips, pp. 644-71.*

  1. HISTORY OF CRISES UNDER THE NATIONAL BANKING ACT.

Reading.

Sprague, History of Crises under the National Banking System, National Monetary Commission Report, pp. 153-320.*

  1. THE ENGLISH BANKING SYSTEM DURING THE FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
  2. NEW YORK AND THE CRISIS OF 1914.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXXII.*

  1. REMEDIES FOR CRISES AND PANICS. BUSINESS BAROMETERS.

 

PART IV. THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 259-337.*

 

PART V. MISCELLANEOUS

  1. AGRICULTURAL CREDIT.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXVII.*

  1. THE “MONEY TRUST.”

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXVIII.*
Anderson, pp. 516-20.*
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 471-95.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 1, Folder “Economics 1917-1918”.

Image Source: Benjamin M. Anderson in Harvard Album, 1915.

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. History of Economics Department. Luncheon Talk by Arthur R. Burns, 1954

The main entry of this posting is a transcription of the historical overview of economics at Columbia provided by Professor Arthur R. Burns at a reunion luncheon for Columbia economics Ph.D. graduates [Note: Arthur Robert Burns was the “other” Arthur Burns of the Columbia University economics department, as opposed to Arthur F. Burns, who was the mentor/friend of Milton Friedman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Fed, etc.]. He acknowledges his reliance on the definitive research of his colleague, Joseph Dorfman, that was published in the following year:

Joseph Dorfman, “The Department of Economics”, Chapt IX in R. Gordon Hoxie et al., A History of the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955.

The cost of the luncheon was $2.15 per person. 36 members of the economics faculty attended, who paid for themselves, and some 144 attending guests (includes about one hundred Columbia economics Ph.D.’s) had their lunches paid for by the university.

_____________________________

[LUNCHEON INVITATION LETTER]

Columbia University
in the City of New York
[New York 27, N.Y.]
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

March 25, 1954

 

Dear Doctor _________________

On behalf of the Department of Economics, I am writing to invite you to attend a Homecoming Luncheon of Columbia Ph.D.’s in Economics. This will be held on Saturday, May 29, at 12:30 sharp, in the Men’s Faculty Club, Morningside Drive and West 117th Street.

This Luncheon is planned as a part of Columbia University’s Bicentennial Celebration, of which, as you know, the theme is “Man’s Right to Knowledge and the free Use Thereof”. The date of May 29 is chosen in relation to the Bicentennial Conference on “National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad” in which distinguished scholars and men of affairs from the United States and other countries will take part. The final session of this Conference, to be held at three p.m. on May 29 in McMillin Academic Theater, will have as its principal speaker our own Professor John Maurice Clark. The guests at the Luncheon are cordially invited to attend the afternoon meeting.

The Luncheon itself and brief after-luncheon speeches will be devoted to reunion, reminiscence and reacquaintance with the continuing work of the Department. At the close President Grayson Kirk will present medals on behalf of the University to the principal participants in the Bicentennial Conference.

We shall be happy to welcome to the Luncheon as guests of the University all of our Ph.D.’s, wherever their homes may be, who can arrange to be in New York on May 29. We very much hope you can be with us on that day. Please reply on the form below.

Cordially yours,

[signed]
Carter Goodrich
Chairman of the Committee

*   *   *   *   *   *

Professor Carter Goodrich
Box #22, Fayerweather Hall
Columbia University
New York 27, New York

I shall be glad…
I shall be unable… to attend the Homecoming Luncheon on May 29.

(signed) ___________

Note: Please reply promptly, not later than April 20 in the case of Ph.D.’s residing in the United States, and not later than May 5 in the case of others.

_____________________________

[INVITATION TO SESSION FOLLOWING LUNCHEON]

Columbia University
in the City of New York
[New York 27, N.Y.]
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

May 6, 1954

 

TO:                 Departments of History, Math. Stat., Public and Sociology
FROM:            Helen Harwell, secretary, Graduate Department of Economics

 

Will you please bring the following notice to the attention of the students in your Department:

            A feature of Columbia’s Bicentennial celebration will be a Conference on National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad, to be held May 27, 28 and 29.

            The final session of the Conference will take place in McMillin Theatre at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 29. The session topic is “Economic Welfare in a Free Society”. The program is:

Session paper.

John M. Clark, John Bates Clark Professor. Emeritus of Economics, Columbia University.

Discussants:

Frank H. Knight, Professor of Economics, University of Chicago
David E. Lilienthal, Industrial Consultant and Executive
Wilhelm Roepke, Professor of International Economics, Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva

 

Students in the Faculty of Political Science are cordially invited to attend this session and to bring their wives or husbands and friends who may be interested.

Tickets can be secured from Miss Helen Harwell, 505 Fayer.

_____________________________

[REMARKS BY PROFESSOR ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS]

Department of Economics Bicentennial Luncheon
May 29th, 1954

President Kirk, Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of the Department of Economics I welcome you all to celebrate Columbia’s completion of its first two hundred years as one of the great universities. We are gratified that so many distinguished guests have come, some from afar, to participate in the Conference on National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad. We accept their presence as testimony of their esteem for the place of Columbia in the world of scholarship. Also, we welcome among us again many of the intellectual offspring of the department. We like to believe that the department is among their warmer memories. We also greet most pleasurably some past members of the department, namely Professors Vladimir G. Simkhovitch, Eugene Agger, Eveline M. Burns and Rexford Tugwell. Finally, but not least, we are pleased to have with us the administrative staff of the department who are ceaselessly ground between the oddity and irascibility of the faculty and the personal and academic tribulations of the students. Gertrude D. Stewart who is here is evidence that this burden can be graciously carried for thirty-five years without loss of charm or cheer.

We are today concerned with the place of economics within the larger scope of Columbia University. When the bell tolls the passing of so long a period of intellectual endeavor one casts an appraising eye over the past, and I am impelled to say a few retrospective words about the faculty and the students. I have been greatly assisted in this direction by the researches of our colleague, Professor Dorfman, who has been probing into our past.

On the side of the faculty, there have been many changes, but there are also many continuities. First let me note some of the changes. As in Europe, economics made its way into the university through moral philosophy, and our College students were reading the works of Frances Hutcheson in 1763. But at the end of the 18th century, there seems to have been an atmosphere of unhurried certainty and comprehensiveness of view that has now passed away. For instance, it is difficult to imagine a colleague of today launching a work entitled “Natural Principles of Rectitude for the Conduct of Man in All States and Situations in Life Demonstrated and Explained in a Systematic Treatise on Moral Philosophy”. But one of early predecessors, Professor Gross, published such a work in 1795.

The field of professorial vision has also change. The professor Gross whom I have just mentioned occupied no narrow chair but what might better be called a sofa—that of “Moral Philosophy, German Language and Geography”. Professor McVickar, early in the nineteenth century, reclined on the even more generous sofa of “Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Rhetoric, Belles Lettres and Political Economy”. By now, however, political economy at least existed officially and, in 1821, the College gave its undergraduates a parting touch of materialist sophistication in some twenty lectures on political economy during the last two months of their senior year.

But by the middle of the century, integration was giving way to specialization. McVickar’s sofa was cut into three parts, one of which was a still spacious chair of “History and Political Science”, into which Francis Lieber sank for a brief uneasy period. His successor, John W. Burgess, pushed specialization further. He asked for an assistant to take over the work in political economy. Moreover, his request was granted and Richmond Mayo Smith, then appointed, later became Professor of Political Economy, which, however, included Economics, Anthropology and Sociology. The staff of the department was doubled in 1885 by the appointment of E. R. A. Seligman to a three-year lectureship, and by 1891 he had become a professor of Political Economy and Finance. Subsequent fission has separated Sociology and Anthropology and now we are professors of economics, and the days when political economy was covered in twenty lectures seem long ago.

Other changes stand out in our history. The speed of promotion of the faculty has markedly slowed down. Richmond Mayo Smith started as an instructor in 1877 but was a professor after seven years of teaching at the age of 27. E. R. A. Seligman even speeded matters a little and became a professor after six years of teaching. But the University has since turned from this headlong progression to a more stately gait. One last change I mention for the benefit of President Kirk, although without expectation of warm appreciation from him. President Low paid J. B. Clark’s salary out of his own pocket for the first three years of the appointment.

I turn now to some of the continuities in the history of the department. Professor McVickar displayed a concern for public affairs that has continued since his time early in the nineteenth century. He was interested in the tariff and banking but, notably, also in what he called “economic convulsions”, a term aptly suggesting an economy afflicted with the “falling sickness”. Somewhat less than a century later the subject had been rechristened “business cycles” to remove some of the nastiness of the earlier name, and professor Wesley Mitchell was focusing attention on this same subject.

The Columbia department has also shown a persistent interest in economic measurement. Professor Lieber campaigned for a government statistical bureau in the middle of the 19th century and Richmond Mayo Smith continued this interest in statistics and in the Census. Henry L. Moore, who came to the department in 1902, promoted with great devotion Mathematical Economics and Statistics with particular reference to the statistical verification of theory. This interest in quantification remains vigorous among us.

There is also a long continuity in the department’s interest in the historical and institutional setting of economic problems and in their public policy aspect. E. R. A. Seligman did not introduce, but he emphasized this approach. He began teaching the History of Theory and proceeded to Railroad Problems and the Financial and Tariff History of the United States, and of course, Public Finance. John Bates Clark, who joined the department in 1895 to provide advanced training in economics to women who were excluded from the faculty of Political Science, became keenly interested in government policy towards monopolies and in the problem of war. Henry R. Seager, in 1902, brought his warm and genial personality to add to the empirical work in the department in labor and trust problems. Vladimir G. Simkhovitch began to teach economic history in 1905 at the same time pursuing many and varied other interests, and we greet him here today. And our lately deceased colleague, Robert Murray Haig, continued the work in Public Finance both as teacher and advisor to governments.

Lastly, among these continuities is an interest in theory. E. R. A. Seligman focused attention on the history of theory. John Bates Clark was an outstanding figure in the field too well known to all of us for it to be necessary to particularize as to his work. Wesley C. Mitchell developed his course on “Current Types of Economic Theory” after 1913 and continued to give it almost continuously until 1945. The Clark dynasty was continued when John Maurice Clark joined the department as research professor in 1926. He became emeritus in 1952, but fortunately he still teaches, and neither students nor faculty are denied the stimulation of his gentle inquiring mind. He was the first appointee to the John Bates Clark professorship in 1952 and succeeded Wesley Mitchell as the second recipient of the Francis A. Walker medal of the American Economic Association in the same year.

Much of this development of the department was guided by that gracious patriarch E. R. A. Seligman who was Executive Officer of the Department for about 30 years from 1901. With benign affection and pride he smiled upon his growing academic family creating a high standard of leadership for his successors. But the period of his tenure set too high a standard and executive Officers now come and go like fireflies emitting as many gleams of light as they can in but three years of service. Seligman and J. B. Clark actively participated in the formation of the American Economic Association in which J. B. Clark hoped to include “younger men who do not believe implicitly in laisser faire doctrines nor the use of the deductive method exclusively”.

Among other members of the department I must mention Eugene Agger, Edward Van Dyke Robinson, William E. Weld, and Rexford Tugwell, who were active in College teaching, and Alvin Johnson, Benjamin Anderson and Joseph Schumpeter, who were with the department for short periods. Discretion dictates that I list none of my contemporaries, but I leave them for such mention as subsequent speakers may care to make.

When one turns to the students who are responsible for so much of the history of the department, one is faced by an embarrassment of riches. Alexander Hamilton is one of the most distinguished political economists among the alumni of the College. Richard T. Ely was the first to achieve academic reputation. In the 1880’s, he was giving economics a more humane and historical flavor. Walter F. Wilcox, a student of Mayo Smith, obtained his Ph.D. in 1891 and contributed notably to statistical measurement after he became Chief Statistician of the Census in 1891, and we extend a special welcome to him here today. Herman Hollerith (Ph.D. 1890) contributed in another way to statistics by his development of tabulating machinery. Alvin Johnson was a student as well as teacher. It is recorded that he opened his paper on rent at J. B. Clark’s seminar with the characteristically wry comment that all the things worth saying about rent had been said by J. B. Clark and his own paper was concerned with “some of the other things”. Among other past students are W. Z. Ripley, B. M. Anderson, Willard Thorp, John Maurice Clark, Senator Paul Douglas, Henry Schultz and Simon Kuznets. The last of these we greet as the present President of the American Economic Association. But the list grows too long. It should include many more of those here present as well as many who are absent, but I am going to invite two past students and one present student to fill some of the gaps in my story of the department.

I have heard that a notorious American educator some years ago told the students at Commencement that he hoped he would never see them again. They were going out into the world with the clear minds and lofty ideals which were the gift of university life. Thenceforward they would be distorted by economic interest, political pressure, and family concerns and would never again be the same pellucid and beautiful beings as at that time. I confess that the thought is troubling. But in inviting our students back we have overcome our doubts and we now confidently call upon a few of them. The first of these is George W. Stocking who, after successfully defending a dissertation on “The Oil Industry and the Competitive System” in 1925, has continued to pursue his interest in competition and monopoly as you all know. He is now at Vanderbilt University.

The second of our offspring whom I will call upon is Paul Strayer. He is one of the best pre-war vintages—full bodied, if I may borrow from the jargon of the vintner without offense to our speaker. Or I might say fruity, but again not without danger of misunderstanding. Perhaps I had better leave him to speak for himself. Paul Strayer, now of Princeton University, graduated in 1939, having completed a dissertation on the painful topic of “The Taxation of Small Incomes”.

The third speaker is Rodney H. Mills, a contemporary student and past president of the Graduate Economics Students Association. He has not yet decided on his future presidencies, but we shall watch his career with warm interest. He has a past, not a pluperfect, but certainly a future. Just now, however, no distance lends enchantment to his view of the department. And I now call upon him to share his view with us.

So far we have been egocentric and appropriately so. But many other centres of economic learning are represented here, and among them the London School of Economics of which I am proud as my own Alma Mater. I now call upon Professor Lionel Robbins of Polecon (as it used sometimes to be known) to respond briefly on behalf of our guests at the Conference. His nature and significance are or shall I say, is, too well known to you to need elaboration.

[in pencil]
A.R. Burns

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Bicentennial Celebration”.

_____________________________

[BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION FOR ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS]

 

BURNS, Arthur Robert, Columbia Univ., New York 27, N.Y. (1938) Columbia Univ., prof. of econ., teach., res.; b. 1895; B.Sc. (Econ.), 1920, Ph.D. (Econ.), 1926, London Sch. of Econ. Fields 5a, 3bc, 12b. Doc. dis. Money and monetary policy in early times (Kegan Paul Trench Trubner & Co., London, 1926). Pub. Decline of competition (McGraw-Hill 1936); Comparative economic organization (Prentice-Hall, 1955); Electric power and government policy (dir. of res.) (Twentieth Century Fund, 1948) . Res. General studies in economic development. Dir. Amer. Men of Sci., III, Dir. of Amer. Schol.

Source: Handbook of the American Economic Association, American Economic Review, Vol. 47, No. 4 (July, 1957), p. 40.

 

Obituary: “Arthur Robert Burns dies at 85; economics teacher at Columbia“, New York Times, January 22, 1981.

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”.

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Uncategorized

Johns Hopkins. Henry L. Moore on Thünen, 1893

Henry L. Moore was an early pioneer of econometrics whose most important disciple was Henry Schultz who later brought econometrics to the University of Chicago. Today’s posting is a summary of Moore’s presentation to the “economics conference” at Johns Hopkins in March 1893. Moore’s dissertation,“Von Thünen’s Theory of Natural Wages”, was published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. IX, Nos. 3 and 4 (April and July, 1895) and reprinted as a book with that title by George H. Ellis of Boston in the same year.  An overview of Moore’s career is provided in George Stigler’s article in the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (1968). 

While Moore was a graduate student at Johns Hopkins, John Bates Clark offered a series of lectures on the economics of distribution.  The intense personal bond between Clark and Moore, at least felt on Moore’s side judging from the letters he wrote to his revered “Pater”, most certainly can be traced to that time.

Here is a “fun” link to the von Thünen Estate Museum in Tellow, Germany. While the website is in German, there are some nice pictures. 

______________________

If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled thus far. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

_______________________________

[The Economics Conference of the Johns Hopkins University, 1892-93]

 

Dr. [Sydney] Sherwood has conducted on alternate Fridays throughout the year a voluntary conference of nineteen graduate students, giving special attention to economics. The work was devoted mainly to the investigations of recent tendencies in economic theory, and was carried on with great enthusiasm by the members. Several valuable contributions were made to economic literature. Among the papers read and discussed at the Conference may be mentioned the following: “The Theory of Final Utility in its Relation to Money and the Standard of Deferred Payments,” by L. S. Merriam, published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, January, 1893; “Value and its Measurement,” by David I. Green, published in abstract in the University Circulars, May, 1893; “The Place of Abstinence in the Theory of Interest,” by T. N. Carver, published in abstract in the above named Circular; “Mill’s Fourth Fundamental Proposition concerning Capital,” by J. H. Hollander, published in abstract in the above named Circular, “The Logical Content of the Terms Labor and Capital,” by Frank I. Herriott, published in abstract in the above named Circular; “The Wage Theory of Von Thünen,” by H. L. Moore, published in abstract in the above named Circular; and “Marshall’s Theory of Distribution,” by A. F. Bentley.

 

Source: Eighteenth Annual Report of the President of the Johns Hopkins University. (Baltimore, Maryland: 1893), p. 61.

_______________________________

 

Some Notes on von Thünen. By H. L. Moore.
[From a paper read before the Economic Conference, March 10,1893.]

Johann Heinrich v. Thünen was descended from a noble Frisian family. He was born June 24, 1783, upon his father’s estate, Kanarienhausen, in Jeverland, and received his first training at the high school at Jever. Later, he studied agriculture under Thaer at Celle, and spent the two semesters of 1803-1804 at Gottingen.

In consequence of his betrothal to a lady of Mecklenburg, he left Jeverland, and in 1810, he purchased his Tellow estate in Mecklenburg, where he remained, pursuing his favorite studies agriculture and political economy until his death, September 22, 1850.

Von Thünen’s chief work is “Der Isolirte Staat.” [The Isolated State] The scope of the first part of this work, well indicated by its title: “Untersuchungen über den Einfluss, den die Getreidepreise, der Reichthum des Bodens und die Abgaben auf den Ackerbau ausüben,” [Investigations on the Impact of Grain Prices, Land Fertility and Levies on Agriculture] is more concisely pointed out by the statement of Rodbertus that it teaches “the law of the relative worth of each system of husbandry.” This part of the work first published in 1826, was translated into the French by Laverrière in 1851.

The second part of Der Isolirte Staat, which is by far the more important, is entitled “Der naturgemässe Arbeitslohn und dessen Verhältniss zum Zinsfuss und zur Landrente.” [The Natural Wage and it Relation to the Rate of Interest and Land Rent] It was published for the first time in 1850, and was translated into the French in 1857 by Mathieu Wolkoff under the title: “Le Salaire Naturel.”

This work, i. e. Der naturgemässe Arbeitslohn, like every other great work in economics, was the outgrowth of the spirit of the age in which it was written. The great labor agitations which originated in France about the time of the French Revolution did not reach Germany with all their force until shortly before the Revolution of 1848. Von Thünen was among the first to take up the discussion. He profoundly feared a dangerous conflict between the middle class and the proletariat, and went to work to avert, if possible, what he believed to be an impending calamity. After almost twenty-five years of labor, he completed his work, arriving at what he supposed to be a solution of the question.

The primary object of his work is to ascertain the natural wage. As, however, in complex modern society so many forces operate to obscure the proposed problem, von Thünen makes an ideal state the groundwork of his investigation. This state, isolated from the rest of the world by means of a wilderness capable of cultivation, is a plain of uniform fertility. Its only city, in which are concentrated all of its non-agricultural industries, is located at its centre. Neither railroads nor navigable waters are found in this ideal state. Its population is constant, and individual differences in the character of the laborers are not considered.

With these conditions placed upon the isolated state, von Thünen obtains by means of very complex mathematical reasoning the formula for the natural wage, viz.: \sqrt{ap}, where a represents the means of subsistence of the laborer, and p the product of his labor when he uses a definite amount of capital. Since a:\sqrt{ap}::\sqrt{ap}:p, he expresses the result of his work as follows: “The natural wage is the mean proportional between the means of subsistence of the laborer, and the product of his labor.” Von Thünen thought so much of this formula that he directed that it should be placed upon his tombstone.

A criticism of the formula cannot be given here, but the result to which it led must be noted. In the formula, \sqrt{ap}, the means of subsistence, is supposed to be constant for all men. Therefore as p, the product, increases, the natural wage must increase, since the natural wage is equal to \sqrt{ap}. In other words, according to von Thünen, the natural wage demands that as the product increases, the wage must increase also. Convinced of the correctness of his work, he followed up his belief by instituting in 1847 a system of profit-sharing on his Tellow estate. This was the first instance that was made known of agricultural profit-sharing in Germany.

One peculiar feature of the system founded by von Thünen was that the share of the laborer was not paid him in cash, but was credited to his account. On the sum credited to each laborer, von Thünen allowed 4 1/6 per cent. interest, which was paid out in cash at Christmas. When the laborer was sixty years of age, he was permitted to draw the capital sum. If, however, he died before attaining that age, the sum went to his widow.

Although the heirs of von Thünen had full power to abolish the system which he established, they continued it with no important change. In a letter dated November 22, 1881, Herr A. von Thünen, the grandson of the economist, wrote Mr. Sedley Taylor the following: “The results of the participatory arrangement here are very gratifying.”

Von Thünen’s work was a masterly attempt to solve the great social question of his day, and in view of the fact that it was published before the works of Rodbertus, Marx, and Lassalle, it may reasonably be asked, “Why has von Thünen received so little attention?” The answer is found in the extremely abstract mathematical character of his work. Pythagoras himself could not have attached more importance to mathematics. Von Thünen confesses that in his work he is unable to make progress unless he has a mathematically secure foundation.

However, those who undismayed by the multiplicity of figures and formulas have studied the book would doubtless join Prof. Roscher in saying: “Sollte unsere Wissenschaft jemals sinken, so gehören die Werke von Thünen’s zu denjenigen, an denen sie die Möglichkeit hat, sich wieder aufzurichten.” [“Should our science ever be lost, von Thünen’s contributions would be among those works that would allow us to reconstitute it once again.”]

 

Source: The Johns Hopkins University Circular, Vol. XII, No. 105 (May 1893), pp. 88-89.

Image: Close-up of Thünen’s grave taken by Irwin Collier in June 2008.

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. Richmond Mayo-Smith. Life and Death, 1854-1901

Material from Richmond Mayo-Smith’s course at Columbia, Historical and Practical Political Economy (1891-92),  was posted earlier. Below some biographical information from his entry to a four volume collection of portraits and biographical sketches of distinguished university graduates published between 1898-1900 which is followed by the report of his death and funeral ceremony in the Columbia University newspaper, The Columbia Spectator.

The circumstances certainly point to suicide. According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography (2004), “Following a crippling boating accident, Mayo-Smith sustained a nervous breakdown and committed suicide a few months later in New York City.”

Here a link to his colleague E.R. Seligman’s 1919 tribute to Mayo-Smith published in Vol XVII of Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (1924).

A few pages in the paper by David John Gow [“Quantification and Statistics in the Early Years of American Political Science, 1880-1922”, Political Methodology, Vol. 11, No. 1/2 (1985), pp. 1-18] help to put Richmond Mayo-Smith within a larger context.

Incidentally Mayo-Smith’s wife, Mabel Ford, was the daughter of Gordon Lester Ford, editor of The New York Tribune, and the great granddaughter of Noah Webster according to her New York Times obituary of 4 February, 1938.

The pioneer of applied demand analysis, Henry L. Moore, was hired in 1902 to fill Mayo-Smith’s position. “Genealogically” speaking, we could think of this year’s economics Nobel laureate, Angus Deaton, as a direct descendent in the line: Mayo-Smith to Henry L. Moore to Henry Schultz to Milton Friedman (to name only one of the numerous legitimate heirs of Henry Schultz) down to Deaton, so Richmond Mayo-Smith was Angus Deaton’s great-great grandfather as far as applied consumption DNA can tell.

_____________________________

MAYO-SMITH, Richmond, 1854-

Born in Troy, O., 1854; received his early education in the public schools and High School of Dayton; A.B., Amherst, 1875; studied in Berlin, 1875-77; and at Heidelberg during the summer term of 1878; Assistant in Political Science at Columbia, 1877-78; Adjunct Professor History and Political Science, 1878-83; Professor of Political Economy and Social Science since 1883.

RICHMOND MAYO-SMITH, M.A., Professor of Political Economy and Social Science at Columbia, was born in Troy, Ohio, February 9, 1854. Through his father Preserved Smith, he is descended from the Rev. Henry Smith, who came to this country during 1638 and took up ministerial work at Wethersfield, Connecticut. His mother was Lucy Mayo. He received his early education in the public schools of Dayton, Ohio and at the Dayton High School, entering Amherst College in 1871 and graduating in 1875. He studied abroad at the University of Berlin during the two years following, and also at Heidelberg during the summer term of 1878. He was appointed Assistant in Political Science at Columbia in 1877, and was promoted to Adjunct Professor History and Political Science in the following year. In 1883 he was elected to his present position in the Chair of Political Economy and Social Science. Professor Mayo-Smith married, June 4, 1884, Mabel Ford. They have four children: Lucy, Amabel, Richmond and Worthington Mayo-Smith. He is a member of the Century, University and Authors’ Clubs, and is not actively interested in politics.

Source: University and their Sons. History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Alumni and Recipients of Honorary Degrees. Editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain, LL.D.  Boston: R. Herdon Company.  Vol. 2, 1899, pp. 582-3.

_____________________________

 

PROF. MAYO-SMITH

Death by Fall from Fourth Story Window of His Home
Funeral Yesterday Morning
An Appreciation by Professor Giddings.

The sad story of the sudden death of Richmond Mayo-Smith, Ph. D., Professor of Political Economy and Social Science is by this time well known. For several months he had been ill with nervous prostration and was taking his seventh year of rest from university work. At six o’clock Monday evening his wife and daughter left him resting in his study on the fourth story of his home at 305 West Seventy-seventh street. Fifteen minutes later he was found dead on the flagging in the rear of the house. It is supposed that in opening the window to air the room, which was very warm, he slipped on the hard wood floor and fell out.

Richmond Mayo-Smith had been a professor of political economy at Columbia since 1883. He was born in Ohio, and was graduated from Amherst College in 1875. After leaving Amherst College he studied for two years in Berlin University. While abroad he also was a tutor in Heidelberg University. His connection with Columbia began in 1877, when he was called to the University as a teacher of history. The year following he was made an adjunct professor, and in 1883, as stated, he was made a Professor of Political Economy and Social Science. He was an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society of Great Britain and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was a writer on economic subjects and the author of “Emigration and Immigration,” “Sociology and Statistics,” “Statistics and Economics.” These works were published in 1890, 1895, and 1899.

Professor Mayo-Smith was a member of the Century, University, Authors’, and Barnard Clubs, and of the Amherst College Association. He was a vestryman i’ Christ Episcopal Church, Seventy-first street and Broadway, of which the Rev. Dr. Jacob S. Shipman is pastor.

 

On Tuesday Acting-President Butler issued the following order :

President’s Room, Nov. 12, 1901.

As a mark of respect to the memory of Professor Richmond Mayo-Smith, for twenty-four years an officer of Columbia University, and in token of the affectionate regard in which he was held by his colleagues and by the student-body, the exercises of the School of Political Science will be suspended until Friday morning, Nov15.

On Thursday, Nov. 14, the day appointed for the funeral of Professor Mayo-Smith, the exercises of Columbia College and of the Schools of Law and Philosophy, will be suspended entirely; the exercises of the Schools of Applied Science and Pure Science will be suspended until 1:30 o’clock P. M.

The Trustees of Columbia College, members of the University Council, and all officers and students of the University, are invited to attend the funeral services of Professor Mayo-Smith in a body, on Thursday morning, Nov. 14, at 10 o’clock A. M., in Christ Church, Broadway and 71st St. Officers and students of the University will assemble in the basement of the Church, entrance on 71st St., at 9:45 A. M. Professor James Chidester Egbert. Jr., is designated to act as Marshal.

Nicholas Murray Butler,

Acting President.

 

The funeral services were held yesterday morning in Christ Church and were conducted by Chaplain Van De Water and Dr. Shipman. President Low and Acting-President Butler followed the coffin, and members of the faculty and student-body, about 200 in number, followed in procession.

 

Professor Franklin H. Giddings has written the following tribute:

The death of Professor Richmond Mayo-Smith has made a gap in Columbia’s Faculty which no mere closing-up of the ranks can ever fill or conceal. Some losses are irretrievable. The place that a great man has held may be taken by another. In a nominal sense his work may be done by another; but it is never the same work. Professor Mayo-Smith was a man in whom rare gifts were in a very rare way combined. No one came under his personal influence, or into the circle of his friends, who did not recognize the accuracy of his knowledge, and the remarkable poise of his judgment; who did not soon feel the singular beauty and kindliness of his nature.

At Columbia Professor Mayo-Smith had taught history, political economy and statistics, and he had long served in the University Council. As a teacher he presented every subject with the utmost clearness. He insisted upon accuracy and thoughtfulness in all required work; but his judgment of students was marked by great considerateness and fair-mindedness. Students taking advanced work under his direction were admitted to his friendship and confidence, and he never ceased to take a deep personal interest in their success.

As a scientific investigator Professor Mayo-Smith made important contributions to both political economy and social science. His most distinguished work was in the domain of statistics, and there he stood easily first among Americans, and was recognized by Europeans as ranking with the three or four greatest names on the Continent and in England. The characteristics of his scientific work, as of his teaching, were scrupulous accuracy, perfect clearness of presentation, and that balanced judgment which is the highest mark of the scientific mind. He never attempted to make figures prove anything. With endless patience he sought to read in them their own sincere story, to discover so much of truth as he might; content always to admit that neither he nor any one else knew half the things that scientific investigators are commonly supposed to have discovered.

To all these interests of the teacher and the scholar Professor Mayo-Smith added the activities of the citizen, which he discharged in a way that was an inspiring revelation to all who knew him of his deep sense of duty. For many years a most valued member of the Central Council of the Charity Organization Society, he was also chairman of the Eighth District Committee, and he made it his business to know the exact facts about every case that came before the committee for consideration or relief. I have personally known of instance after instance in which his feeling of obligation to the suffering was discharged only by an expenditure of time and energy in visitation which I felt sure he could ill afford to give. In social life he was one of the most charming of men, whose delightful humor made him always in demand as the toastmaster or chief speaker whenever, in meetings of the many learned societies to which he belonged, relaxation and good-fellowship succeeded the more serious business of the occasion. As a friend he was unselfish to a degree, thinking always first of others, always last of himself. My own obligation to him is one which no words of tribute can ever repay.

Source:  Columbia Spectator, Vol. XLV., No. 1 (Friday, November 15, 1901), p. 1.

 

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. Henry L. Moore’s Memorial Minute, 1959. Salary issue, 1924.

 

 

We begin with an example of the honored academic tradition of a faculty minute entered into the record following the death of a present or former colleague. In the year that the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Angus Deaton, in part, for his work in applied consumption analysis, I post the Columbia University Faculty of Political Science memorial minute for Henry L. Moore.

I follow the Memorial Minute with a letter written by Moore to his chairman Edwin R. A. Seligman appealing for a pay raise on the grounds that his research performance had been undervalued relative to administrative work and teaching of a colleague.

________________________________

[Memorial Minute]

FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

April 17, 1959

Henry L. Moore

Henry Ludwell Moore was born in southern Maryland in 1869, the seventh in direct male line of descent from a Henry Moore who settled in Virginia in 1635 and who later moved to Maryland. After obtaining a B.A. at Randolph Macon in 1892, he pursued his studies at the University of Vienna and later received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1896. After one year as instructor of economics at Johns Hopkins and five years at Smith College, he came to Columbia in 1902 as adjunct professor, continuing as Professor of Political Economy from 1906 to his premature retirement from professional activity for reasons of health in April, 1929. He died at the age of 88 on April 28, 1958.

Professor Moore was a pioneer in the application of statistical theory, founded on the calculus of probabilities, to the evaluation of economic relationships in a context of a mathematically developed economic theory. Under the influence of his colleague John Bates Clark, 22 years his senior, and of Karl Pearson, Moore developed a statistical verification and extension of Clark’s theory of distribution in his “Laws of Wages,” published in 1911. In his “Forecasting the Yield and the Price of Cotton,” published in 1917, the inherent brilliance of his use of multiple correlation techniques by which he was able to outpredict, in retrospect at least, the elaborate crop forecasting machinery set up by the Department of Agriculture is in no way diminished, though somewhat disguised by the fact that the advent of the boll weevil completely upset the older relationships and made his formulas useless for subsequent forecasting, though the techniques remained valid.

In addition to his interest in economics, Moore had a deep attachment to classical philosophy and an interest ranging over many other fields; one of his courses was entitled “Interrelations of Political Economy and Sociology.” His interest in astronomy is perhaps responsible for his ill-fated attempt to relate the eight year business cycle, which he considered to be well established, to a corresponding weather cycle, and thereby to the corresponding periodicity of the transits and near-transits of Venus. In this he demonstrated a willingness to look for hypotheses to test wherever the data seemed to lead him, regardless of how remote the connection may initially seem, a procedure which, however dangerous it may be for the individual, is salutary for the progress of a science that finds it easier to weed out error than to develop new truth.

Moore’s pioneering steps have been to a considerable extent eclipsed in the minds of the current generation of economists by the tracks of those who have used the methods he pioneered. Henry Schultz’ all too brief but important career was given its initial impetus under Moore’s tutelage. Among the many others whose work was strongly influenced by Moore are Holbrook Working, Hugh Killough, Bradford Smith, Edmund Daggit, Fred Waugh, Louis Bean, and Mordecai Ezekiel. Moore’s final work, “Synthetic Economics” provided a significant bridge between the now classic work of Walras and Pareto in the field of mathematical economics and the more recent formulations of Hotelling and Samuelson.

In the nearly 30 years that have elapsed since his retirement, most of those who knew him intimately have left the science; yet it is appropriate to recall once more the significant role he had in the advancement of quantitative economics before the onrush of his successors hides his work completely from view.

 

Source: Department of Economics Collection, Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Box 8, Faculty of Political Science Minutes 1913-1959; Folder, “Faculty of Political Science Minutes”.

________________________________

The following letter of Henry L. Moore reflects a severe salary structure problem within the Columbia economics department going into 1924-25. Professors Wesley C. Mitchell, Henry L. Moore and Vladimir G. Simkhovitch were all receiving $6,000 annual salaries whereas the second-highest paid professor, Henry R. Seager, was getting paid $7,500. Highest paid was the chairman, Edwin R. A. Seligman at $10,000. In his departmental budget request to Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler (November 23, 1923), Seligman reminded Butler of an “understanding that the salaries of a number of professors now receiving $6,000 will be advanced next year to $7,500, the minimum, as everyone must agree, compatible with the maintenance of the standing of living desirable for Columbia professors” and made the case for pay raises for Mitchell, Moore and Simkhovitch. The pay raises were ultimately granted, not for 1924-25, but for the following year.

Henry L. Moore’s lament should probably be read as expressing as his disappointed hope and/or that he might have been unaware of Seligman’s efforts in 1923 to get him the parity with Henry R. Seager that he was petitioning for.

________________________________

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Faculty of Political Science

September 20, 1924

My dear Professor Seligman:

We are about to begin the work of another year and I am anxious to do all in my power to contribute toward the solution, within the Department, of the personal problem before us. I ask leave, therefore, to present to you and, if you think it advisable, to other members of the Department, a statement of the relative amounts received in salary by Professor Seager and myself from the University:

 

Year Prof. Seager Prof. Moore
1902-3 3000 3000 I have had to rely on my memory for the changes in Prof. Seager’s salary. The figures relating to my own income are taken from my records.
1903-4 3500 3500
1904-5 3500 3500
1905-6 3500 3500
1906-7 3500 3500
1907-8 3500 3500
1908-9 4000 4000
1909-10 4500 2800 Here Professor Seager’s salary went up $500 and mine down $1200
1910-11 4500 2800
1911-12 6000 2800
1912-13 6000 2800
1913-14 6000 2800
1914-15 6000 2800
1915-16 6000 2800
1916-17 6000 2800
1917-18 6000 2800
1918-19 6000 4500
1919-20 6000 4000
1920-21 7500 6000
1921-22 7500 6000
1923-24 7500 6000
$117500 $82200

Several facts in this table need comment:

(1) Our salaries and rank were the same until the year 1909-10 when, at my request, in order that I might devote more time to research, I was relieved of much teaching and administrative work. I gladly paid for the increased leisure by suffering a reduction of my salary from $4000 to $2800. The same year Professor Seager’s salary was increased from $4000 to $4500. This annual difference of $1700 continued until 1911-12.

(2) In 1911-12 Professor Seager’s salary was increased to $6000; mine remained at $2800. The annual difference of $3200 continued until 1918-19 when, during the War, I was transferred to Barnard College at a salary of $4500. Professor Seager’s salary was $6000.

(3) The next year, 1919-20, I was transferred to Columbia, with a salary of $4000. Professor Seager’s remained at $6000.

(4) In 1920-21 Professor Seager’s salary was increased to $7500 and mine to $6000. The annual difference of $1500 has continued to the present time.

It would appear from these figures that if no account be taken of the reduction in our pay when we have been on leave of absence, Professor Seager’s aggregate salary has exceeded mine by more than thirty five thousand dollars.

*   *

A few years ago there was a Convocation of the Faculties of the University to consider methods of promoting research. You made a memorable speech in which you went directly to the heart of the matter in saying: “The only way to promote research is to find a man who can do it and then let him alone”. You were absolutely right. But how does it work in the particular case of our own Department? For twenty odd years Professor Seager and myself, who entered Columbia together with the same rank and same salary, have pursued different ends. he has preferred administration and teaching and has justly prospered in honors and income. I have accepted the necessary isolation and incurred the risks of the investigator who attacks new problems and devises new methods, but after nearly a quarter of a century of unremitting labor I have received from the University some thirty thousand dollars less than my honored colleague.

*   *

I am grateful to the University for giving me the opportunity for creative thought, and you will bear witness that I have never evinced any other sentiment than pleasure in the progress of a colleague. But isn’t there a principle at stake? Is it just to permit the financial discrimination between us to continue?

Yours sincerely,

[signed]
Henry L. Moore

Source: Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Seligman Collection Box 37 (aggregation of original Seligman boxes 100-102). Folder: “Box 100, Seligman, Columbia 1924-30”.

________________________________

For more about Henry Moore, see George J. Stigler, Henry L. Moore and Statistical Economics. Econometrica, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan., 1962), pp. 1-21.

Image Source: Precedes the Stigler article.

Categories
Columbia Courses Economists Syllabus

Columbia. Introductory Economics. First-term, 1912-13.

According to the Columbia University Catalogue for 1912-13, Economics 1-2, Introduction to economics–Practical economic problems was a 3 hour course taught by Professors Seager, Mussey, Agger, and Dr. Anderson. According to this outline it would appear that these instructors taught the material in the assigned textbook readings listed and once a week, a professor from the graduate faculty of Political Science would hold a lecture. The printed copy of the lectures and assignments transcribed here was found in the Papers of John Bates Clark.

________________________

Columbia College

Lectures and Assignments, Economics I.
[1912-13]

 

SEPTEMBER
27 Introductory Lecture. Professor H. R. Seager
30 ELY, Chapter I.—Nature and Scope of Economics.
OCTOBER
2 SELIGMAN, Chapter V.—The Economic Stages.
4 Lecture. The Accumulation of Economic Facts. Prof. R. E. Chaddock.
7 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER IV.—The Historical Forms of Business Enterprise
9 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER IX.—Private Property
11 Lecture. Conservation as an Economic Movement. Prof. R. E. Chaddock.
14 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER X.—Competition
16 SELIGMAN, CHAPTER XI.—Freedom
18 Lecture. A Method of Approaching and Testing Economic Reforms. Prof. R. E. Chaddock.
21 ELY, Chapter VII.—Elementary Concepts. To page 101.  
23 ELY, Chapter VIII.—Consumption. Pages 106 to 113 to “Luxury”
25 Lecture. Value and Price. Dr. B. M. Anderson, Jr.
28 ELY, Chapter IX.—Production. Pages 121-131 incl. (omitting 132-145).
30 Written Quiz covering all the above.
NOVEMBER
1 Lecture. Normal Price. Dr. B. M. Anderson, Jr.
4 ELY, Chapter XI.—Value and Price. Pages 156-163 to “Elasticity”. [corrected by hand from “Electricity”]
6 ELY, Chapter XI.— Value and Price. Pages 163-168 incl.
8 Lecture. Capitalization of Value. Dr. B. M. Anderson, Jr.
11 ELY, Chapter XII.—Value and Price. Pages 170-177 to “The Surplus of Bargaining”.
13 ELY, Chapter XII.— Value and Price. Pages 177-186.
15 Lecture. The Size of the Population. Prof. H. L. Moore.
18 ELY, Chapter XIII.—Monopoly. Pages 187-192 to “Classification” and page 197 “Monopoly Price” to page 201.
20 ELY, Chapter XIII.—Monopoly. Pages 201-208 to “Monopolies and the Distribution of Wealth”.
22 Lecture. The Quality of the Population. Prof. H. L. Moore.
25 Review.
27 Written quiz.
29 Thanksgiving Holidays.
DECEMBER
2 ELY, Chapter XIX.—Distribution as an Economic Problem, Pages 315-325.
4 ELY, Chapter XIX.— Distribution as an Economic Problem, Pages 326-333.
6 Lecture. Efficiency and Income. Prof. H. L. Moore.
9 SELIGMAN, Chapter XXIII.—Profits. Sections 152-154 incl.
11 SELIGMAN, Chapter XXIII.—Profits. Sections 155-157 incl.
13 Lecture. Profits. Prof. J. B. Clark.
16 ELY, Chapter XXI.—Rent of Land. Pages 348-357 to “The Different Uses of Land”.
18 ELY, Chapter XXI.—Rent of Land. Pages 357-366.
20 Lecture. The Rent of Land and the Single Tax. Prof. J. B. Clark.
Christmas Holidays
JANUARY, 1913
6 ELY, Chapter XXII.—The Wages of Labor. Pages 367-376 to “Subsistence Theory.”
8 ELY, Chapter XXII.—The Wages of Labor. Pages 376-385.
10 Lecture. Wages of Labor. Prof. J. B. Clark.
13 ELY, Chapter XXIV.—Interest. Pages 416-425 to “The Shifting of Investment”.
15 ELY, Chapter XXIV.—Interest. Pages 425 to 438 omitting fine print.
17 Lecture. Capital and Interest. Prof. J. B. Clark.
20 Review

The text assignments are to the 1910 editions of Prof. E. R. A. Seligman’s Principles of Economics and to Prof. R. T. Ely’s Outlines of Economics.

 

            COLLATERAL READING: (Pages to be assigned)

Bücher Industrial Evolution

Bullock Readings in Economics.

George Progress and Poverty. [Memorial Edition(1898): Vol. I, Vol. II.]

 

Source: John Bates Clark Papers, Series II.4. Box 9. Folder “Administrative Records and Course Material Undated”; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.