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Columbia. Excerpt from Dean’s Report dealing with faculty of political science. 1930-1931

The previous post was a backward look from October 1930 at the first fifty-years of Columbia’s Faculty of Political Science (home of its graduate economics department). The following excerpts from the annual report of the Dean of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science give us a snapshot of the Faculty of Political Science for the year 1930-31.

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FACULTIES OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND PURE SCIENCE

REPORT OF THE DEAN
FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1931

To the President of the University

Sir:

As Dean of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science, I submit the following report for the academic year ending June 30, 1931.

The year was marked by a number of events of interest and importance to the Graduate Faculties. Scarcely was it under way when the University celebrated with appropriate dignity and simplicity the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Faculty of Political Science. The details of this celebration, having been elsewhere recorded in print, need not be repeated here. The presence on that occasion of the venerable founder of the Faculty, Emeritus Professor John William Burgess, still in vigor of mind and of personality, gave it peculiarly interesting and dramatic focus. It was a fortunate circumstance that this expression of the University’s homage and debt to him was given at that time. Only a few months thereafter, deservedly honored and mourned, he passed from the earthly scene.

As a permanently useful memento of this celebration there was published a Bibliography of the Faculty of Political Science containing the list of the several thousand books and important articles written by its members as well as the titles of the nearly seven hundred doctoral dissertations that have been prepared and published under its guidance. Important to our University life as the integrity and unity of this Faculty is both historically and presently, it is regrettable that because of this fact this Bibliography falls far short of including the total of our contributions to the field of the social sciences. A complete bibliography of our publications in this wide field would have included numerous books and articles by members of other faculties, notably the Faculties of Business and of Law.

But while the Faculty of Political Science momentarily paused on the threshold of the year to celebrate its semicentenary, to look back upon its achievements and modestly to rejoice in its traditions, its spirit was in 1930, as in 1880, the spirit of youth. Professor Burgess himself was only thirty-five when he fathered the Faculty. And of the early famous small group whom he called to aid him in his high adventure in scholarship Professors Mayo-Smith and Munroe Smith were only twenty-six, and Professors Goodnow and Seligman twenty-four. Even among later arrivals Professor John Bassett Moore was only thirty-one, Professor Dunning thirty-two, Professor Osgood thirty-five, and Professor Giddings thirty-seven, when they joined the Faculty. It was a youthful company courageously and energetically facing the future.

And so this Faculty continues. It was the Department of Economics that was especially called upon this year to take thought of tomorrow. It had suffered severe losses. Professor Henry L. Moore retired in the spring of 1930. Professor Seager died in August of the same year. Professor Seligman retired at the end of the year. Inevitably the School of Business and the Department of Economics have been developing along many related lines of teaching and research. It would have been calamitous had they developed at cross purposes or in ungenerous rivalry. Happily no such misfortune befell. From the inception of the School of Business these two units have been held to common purpose by ties of common sense and of that fine spirit of loyalty and of friendship that is so much a part of the Columbia spirit. But the breach in the ranks of the Department of Economics seemed an appropriate occasion for welding these separate units, at least in so far as graduate work is concerned, into closer organic integration. Everybody recognizes that under our more or less arbitrary, but certainly unavoidable, scheme of departmentalization there are subjects and interests appropriate to a professional school of business that might not properly be included under a graduate department of economics. Conversely, there are manifestly subjects and interests that not only may be, but also should be, included under both. We severed the knot of this difficult problem of University organization by asking five members of the Faculty of the School of Business to become members of the Department of Economics and accept seats in the Faculty of Political Science. These were Professors Bonbright, Haig, McCrea, Mills, and Willis. This is no mere paper arrangement; it means a vital amalgamation of intellectual forces working toward common ends.

In recognition of the growing rapprochement between law and the social sciences it seemed fitting also that two members of the Faculty of Law, whose fields of interest are considerably economic, should be invited into this enlarged departmental membership. Professors Llewellyn and Berle were in consequence drawn into the unit. This was in line with the historic dual relationship that has so long prevailed with profitable results to teaching and scholarship between the Department of Public Law and the School of Law.

In addition to these internal realignments several new members were added to the Department of Economics. These are: Leo Wolman, eminent economist and practitioner in the field of labor problems; Carter Goodrich, whose special field for development will be American economic history; and Harold Hotelling, a distinguished mathematician turned economist. Arthur R. Burns, Lecturer in Economics in Barnard College, will henceforth devote himself to graduate instruction and research upon problems of industrial and business organization. Michael Florinsky, working upon recent economic developments in Europe, and Joseph Dorfman upon the development of American economic thought, have been made Associates in the Department. The remolding of this important Department at a moment of unprecedentedly swift change in the economic world augurs for the years ahead rich results in scholarship and in service.

In the closely related Department of Social Science the appointment of Robert S. Lynd, distinguished sociological investigator and for some years past Secretary of the Social Science Research Council, is likewise an omen of certain promise. It can scarcely fail to quicken, expand, and deepen the activities of our sociologists in this great laboratory of society in which we live, the city of New York.

[…]

I express the deep grief of the University over the death in August, 1930, of Henry Rogers Seager, Professor of Political Economy, and in June, 1931, of Franklin Henry Giddings, Professor Emeritus in Residence of Sociology and the History of Civilization. For a quarter of a century or more here at Columbia, Professor Seager studied with and expounded to his students the problems of labor in a changing industrial society and the economic problems of corporations and trusts. Scholar, teacher, writer, humanitarian, active participant in welfare movements and organizations, he died at the age of sixty, depriving us of many years of companionship and service upon which we had never thought not to count. Beloved of both students and colleagues, his deep personal interest in and influence upon the former will not be easily supplied by another. His loss to the latter is irreparable.

Professor Giddings’ death brought to its close a long, rich life of labor, of profound reflection, and of purposeful achievement. Trail blazer in an almost unexplored and unstaked field of social inquiry he more than any other American gave meaning to the term sociology and direction to its course. His numerous writings attest the catholicity of his interests, the depth of his penetrating scholarship, and the clarity of his thinking on social problems and developments. Scholars the world over acclaimed him, while the large company of his students and the small company of his immediate colleagues held him in the affectionate regard which his rich humanity and his fineness of spirit inspired and compelled.

The end of the academic year brought with it the retirement from active service to the University of Edwin R. A. Seligman, McVickar Professor of Political Economy, and of Edward Delavan Perry, Jay Professor of Greek. Professor Seligman’s enormous and varied contributions to modern economic thought, especially in the field of public finance, as well as his numerous public and quasi-public services are so widely and so favorably known that it seems quite as useless as it is impossible summarily to estimate them here. His name is known and his views are valued wherever informed men in almost any land discuss problems of finance, and many are the important laws embodying fiscal policies of city, state, and nation that bear in their contours the impress of his studious acumen and practical genius. A scholar in affairs he was and continues to be. Happily he tarries with us in residence as active and as interested as ever. For him relief from classroom instruction can but mean an increase of productive scholarship and of public activity, if such a thing be conceivable.

[…]

Respectfully submitted,
Howard Lee McBain,
Dean

June 30, 1931

Source: Columbia University. Annual Report of the President and Treasurer to the Trusteesfor the year ending June 30, 1931. Pp. 202-204; 208-209; 214.

Image Source: Low Memorial Library, Columbia University from the Tichnor Brothers Collection, New York Postcards, at the Boston Public Library, Print Department.

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Columbia. 50th anniversary dinner of the Faculty of Political Science, 1930

The founder of the Columbia Faculty of Political Science (the home of the graduate department of economics), John William Burgess was 86 years old when the Faculty celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its founding in October 1930. He died only three months after receiving the tributes from his colleagues to him as the evening’s guest of honor.

The Faculty of Political Science celebrated itself in style and not a lily was left ungilded.

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A few related links

Alvin S. Johnson’s remembrances of the Columbia professors Burgess, Munroe-Smith, Seligman, and Giddings.

John W. Burgess, Reminiscences of an American Scholar; the Beginnings of Columbia University. Columbia University Press, 1934).

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THE POLITICAL SCIENCE DINNER
[15 Oct 1930]

On the evening of October fifteenth, by invitation of the Trustees of Columbia University, a dinner was served at the Hotel Ritz-Carlton to three hundred and eighty-five guests, in celebration of the semi-centennial of the Faculty of Political Science at the University. At the close of the dinner President Butler, who was presiding, stepped into the reception room and soon reappeared escorting Professor John W. Burgess to the head table. When the guest of honor had been seated amidst applause,

President Butler, turning to Professor Burgess, spoke as follows:

My dear Professor Burgess, My Fellow Members of the University and our Welcome Guests: We are fifty years old, and greatly pleased; but see how far we have to go! The world of letters is just now celebrating the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of the poet Vergil; so we may confidently anticipate one thousand nine hundred and fifty years more of life, if the doctrine of stare decisis is to hold!

Imagine, if you can, what would be the satisfaction of Alexander Hamilton if he could join this company tonight. Imagine that rare spirit and great mind witnessing what has happened in that little old college of his, to the study of those subjects of which in his day he was the world’s chiefest master. We have come a long way since Samuel Johnson put that first advertisement in the New York Mercury. We have climbed many mountains; we have crossed not a few rivers; we have trudged, in weariness sometimes, over wide and dusty plains; but in these latter days we have come into our academic garden of trees and beautiful flowers with their invitations to mind and spirit to cultivate and to labor for those things which mean most to man.

Fifty years ago, as Professor Burgess told us yesterday on Morningside in words and phrases that will never be forgotten by those who heard them, he carried to completion the dream of his youth. He told us how that vision came to him as he stood in the trenches, a young soldier of the Union Army, after a bloody battle in the State of Tennessee: Was it not possible that men might in some way, by some study of history, of economics, or social science, public law and international relations, was it not possible that they might find some way to avert calamities such as those of which he was a part? And then he traced for us that story, ending with one of the most beautiful pictures which it has been my lot to hear painted by mortal tongue, the picture of that evening on the heights above Vevey, when that little group had completed their draft of a supplement to the Statutes of Columbia College, had outlined their program of study, had discussed the Academy, the Political Science Quarterly, the Studies, and had gone out to look upon the beauties of that scene, with all that it suggested and meant in physical beauty and historical reminiscence, to be greeted by the brilliant celebration of the Fall of the Bastille. It was from the trenches of Tennessee to Bastille Day on the slopes above Lake Geneva that marked the progress of the idea, which like so many great ideas, clothed itself in the stately fabric of an institution whose first semi-centennial we are celebrating tonight.

Fifty years have passed and of that group so distinguished as to be famous, our beloved teacher and chief is himself the sole survivor. It is not easy for me to find words to express my delight and the gratitude which we must all feel that he has felt able to come to us out of his peaceful and reflective retirement, that we, his old and affectionate pupils and lifelong friends might greet him in person, hear a few words from his voice and give a unique opportunity to those of the younger generation to see this great captain of our University’s history and life. [Applause.]

I repeat, most of the others of that notable group have gone on the endless journey — Richmond Mayo-Smith, eminent economist and teacher of economics; Edmund Munroe Smith, brilliant expounder of Roman law and comparative jurisprudence; Clifford Bateman, the forerunner of our work in administrative law, who died so soon that he hardly became permanently identified with the undertaking and was followed by Goodnow, detained from us tonight, unfortunately, by illness. Then came Edwin Seligman, our brilliant economist, who is in the same unhappy situation as Frank Goodnow and greatly grieved thereby; then Dunning and Osgood in History, John Bates Clark and Giddings. One after another that group was built, John Bassett Moore coming to us from the Department of State, until in a few short years Professor Burgess had surrounded himself with an unparalleled company of young scholars, every one of whom was destined to achieve the very highest rank of academic distinction. What shall I say of its achievements of the greatest magnitude, of the brilliant men who from that day to this, as teachers, as investigators, as writers, have flocked to these great men and their successors, who have gone out into two score, three score, five score of universities in this and other lands, highly trained, themselves to become leaders of the intellectual life and shapers of scholarship in these fields? Are we not justified in celebration and in turning over in our minds what it all means, not alone by any means for Columbia, but what it means for the American intellectual life, for the American public service, for the conduct of our nation’s public business, for our place among the nations of the earth and for the safe and sound and peaceful conduct of our international relations?

To each and all of these that little group, the seed of the great tree, has contributed mightily, powerfully and permanently. If ever there was a man in our American intellectual life who could turn back to his Horace and say that he had “built for himself a monument more enduring than bronze” here he is!

It is not for me to stand between this company and those who are here to speak on various aspects of that which we celebrate; but first and foremost, as is becoming, before any junior addresses you, I am to have the profound satisfaction of presenting for whatever he feels able and willing to say, the senior member of Columbia University, its ornament for all time, the inspiration and the builder of our School of Political Science and the fountain and origin of influence and power that have gone out from it for fifty years, my dear old teacher, Professor Burgess. [Applause.]

PROFESSOR BURGESS responded:

Mr. President, Colleagues, Friends, all: I did not come here tonight to add anything to what I said yesterday. I had my say, and I came to listen, and I have been fully repaid for all the trouble I have taken to get here, with what has already been said.

In thinking over, however, what I said to you in my remarks yesterday, I was struck with their incompleteness, in one respect at least; the failure to make plain the aim which I had in mind in the establishment of the School of Political Science. I do not know that I had that aim clearly in mind myself from the first, but before the school was established, it became clear, that what we intended, all four of us, was to establish an institution of pacifist propaganda, genuine, not sham, based upon a correct knowledge of what nature and reason required, geographically in reference to foreign powers, policies of government, in reference to individual liberty and social obligations.

We thought that alone upon such a knowledge, widely diffused, we might hope to have, some day, genuine pacifism, but not before.

I only wish to impress upon you that one thought and I can illustrate it by one picture. I have said to you in general terms that the idea of the School of Political Science came to me in the trenches, but it was not exactly in the trenches. It was this way; it was on the night of the second of January, 1863, when a young soldier, barely past his military majority, stood on one of the outposts of the hardly-pressed right wing of the Union Army in Tennessee, in a sentry-box….

[Here Professor Burgess drew for his audience a vivid picture of the battle of Stone’s River and rehearsed the prophetic vow which he had taken in the midst of that tragic scene, a vow to dedicate his life to aid in putting law in the place of war. These passages, made more memorable by his tone and manner, had originally been intended for his historical address the previous day, but had been excluded then for lack of time. They may now be found as the third paragraph of that address printed on a preceding page.]

You cannot wonder therefore that I say now, that I want to leave that word with you as my parting word, the Faculty of Political Science, the School of Political Science, is an institution for genuine pacifist propaganda.

Mr. President, I have only now to thank you and the other members of the faculty, all of the students or who have been students in the School of Political Science, all the friends who have met here tonight for this glorious demonstration of the fiftieth birthday of the School of Political Science, I thank you all; I am deeply grateful. I cannot express myself, my feelings will not allow it. Amen! [All arose and applauded.]

PRESIDENT BUTLER then said:

We are to have the privilege of hearing an expression from one of our elder statesmen. I remember being summoned to a meeting of the Committee on Education of the Trustees on another matter at the time when Professor Burgess succeeded in having established the Chair of Sociology. The Chairman of the Committee was Mr. George L. Rives, one of the most charming, one of the most cultivated, one of the most influential members of the University. When Professor Burgess’ proposal had been accepted and a distinguished professor of Bryn Mawr had been called to be Professor of Sociology, Mr. Rives turned to Professor Burgess and said: “Now that we have established a Chair of Sociology, perhaps someone will explain to me what sociology is.”

That has been the task of Professor Giddings. He has not only explained what it is, but by the integration of material drawn from history, from economics, from ethics, from public law, from the psychology of the crowd, he has set it forth in the teaching with which his life has been identified. He belongs in the history of the School of Political Science to the second group, the one now left to us, fortunately, in active membership. I have the greatest pleasure in presenting our distinguished colleague and friend, Professor Franklin H. Giddings, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and the History of Civilization.

PROFESSOR GIDDINGS spoke as follows:

President Butler, Doctor Burgess, and a host of friends that I see here tonight, who in former years gave me the delight of welcoming and working with them in my classroom: It was thirty years ago that I began teaching in this Faculty; that was two years before my appointment as a professor here; Professor Richmond Mayo-Smith planning to spend a Sabbatical year abroad, asked me if I would take over some instruction in sociology at Columbia in place of the courses which he was obliged to drop in social science. The Trustees of Bryn Mawr College, where I was then teaching graciously gave their consent and made this possible for me, and I was glad to improve the opportunity. This action of Bryn Mawr was subsequently followed by the appointment here of a remarkable group of men drawn from that small faculty. They included E. B. Wilson, Thomas Hunt Morgan, Frederick S. Lee and Gonzales Lodge. They came from a small college for women to take up graduate work in the faculty of this University.

I began my work in the autumn of 1892, and the work was with a class of very interesting young men among whom were two dear friends whom I greet here tonight, Professor Ripley and Victor Rosewater, soon afterward editor of the Omaha Bee. The work of that Friday afternoon course then begun and now since my retirement from teaching continued by Professor MacIver, has been uninterrupted from that day to this, I think a somewhat remarkable case of continuity in an academic program.

When I came here finally, resigning from Bryn Mawr in 1894, I was so cordially welcomed and so unfailingly assisted in every way, that you will not be surprised when I tell you my most vivid memories, my most cherished ones, of those years are of the faith, sympathy and support of these new colleagues of mine. I knew that as Professor of Sociology I was an experiment, but never once did my colleagues admit that I was, or that the teaching which I had begun was to be experimental; they assumed that it would achieve at least a measure of success. I felt many misgivings, but I wanted to find the answer to a question that disturbed me. Here was a group of gifted scholars of unsurpassed erudition in political theory, public law, history and economics, but I thought I saw multiplying evidences that the actual behavior of multitudes of human beings was not in line with the academic teachings of these men.

The carefully thought-out distinctions between the sphere of government and the sphere of liberty which our honored leader was year by year elaborating apparently had no interest for the multitude, and that embodiment of these distinctions which Americans possess in their heritage of Constitutional Law was subject to increasing disparagement and attack. That was in the days of talk about referendum, initiative, recall of judges and all that sort of thing; my question was, “Why is our political behavior so different from our political theory?”

I went to work on that question. My tentative answer was the naturalistic sociology which for two years I had been teaching in my Friday lectures. Increasing density and miscellaneousness of population mean an increasingly severe struggle for existence. The numbers of the unsuccessful multiply, and they have no understanding of the real causes of their misfortunes. Low in their minds, they attribute their hard luck to man-made injustice. Therefore, they think to better themselves by expropriation, by equalizing opportunity, by restricting liberty and, in the last resort, by communism.

In a population so constituted, government by discussion, by parliamentary methods, is obviously impossible. The working out of programs is handed over to dictators. At the present moment the political behavior of the multitude is more and more conforming to this picture, I think you will agree, and less and less to the parliamentarism and constitutionalism which half a century ago we thought we had achieved for all time.

Naturalistic sociology is abhorrent to sentimentalists, and to the men and women whom our former Fellow, Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, calls the professional sympathizers.

I found it seemingly incompatible also with the humane ideas of men and women of nobler quality. Foremost among these was President Low. He was deeply interested in a possible salvation of the unfit which nature would eliminate. At his wish and suggestion a close coöperation was brought about between the professorship of sociology and such agencies as the social settlements, the Charity Organization Society and the State Charities Aid Association.

A way of reconciliation was easier to find then to follow. It consists in logically developing the familiar discrimination long ago made in law and political theory between the natural man and the legal person. The legal person is a purely artificial bundle of immunities and powers. The state makes it and can unmake it. The natural man is biological and psychological only. He has neither social status nor legal powers. It is theoretically possible therefore, and presumably possible in fact, to exterminate the unfit as legal persons by extinguishing their law-made capacities and powers and yet at the same time without harm to the body politic or to future generations, to seek and save the lost, as human sympathy prompts and Christian teaching enjoins, provided we save them only as natural individuals, divested of social status and legal personality.

In the years that have passed we have made some real progress, I think, in working out these possibilities. Under the leadership of Dr. Devine, for some years a member of this Faculty, and of Professor Lindsay, still here, multiplying contacts were made with every kind of accredited social work; and the study of social legislation and the programs of the Academy of Political Science, always so practical and up-to-date under Professor Lindsay’s administration, have enabled us to achieve much.

But these years have not gone by without their disappointments. We have heard of the passing on of a large number of the men that were my colleagues and associates when I came here in those early days, but there still remain a goodly number of men, many of them here tonight, with whom my relations have always been of the most affectionate nature, and the chief word I want to say to you in conclusion is that so long as the years are spared to me I shall feel that the most satisfying moments of my life have been those in which, with the aid and support of these dear friends, I have been enabled in a measure to carry on the work I came here hoping to do.

For all the time that remains I know that I shall, day by day and through all the years, if there may be years, have the most affectionate regard for these colleagues for whom it is impossible to express my feelings of gratitude and love. [Applause.]

PRESIDENT BUTLER continued:

A part of Professor Burgess’ original plan was the organization of an Academy of Political Science. Its primary purpose was to bring together former students and alumni into a permanent body for the consideration and discussion of questions which fell within the purview of the political sciences, and then to add to such a group others like-minded in that and neighboring communities.

That Academy has flourished, done notable work from that day to this, and from its ranks we are to have the pleasure of hearing from an old, very old friend, despite his youth, Dr. Albert Shaw, Editor of the Review of Reviews and Vice President of the Academy of Political Science and associated with it these many years. I have great pleasure in presenting Dr. Shaw.

Dr. SHAW then spoke as follows:

President Butler, Professor Burgess, Friends of Columbia University and Members of the Faculty of Political Science in the University: I feel more than usually diffident in standing here as representative of the Academy of Political Science, a speaker on behalf of the Academy who is not himself a member of the Faculty of the University. I may say that I have come at times near to being considered a member of the Faculty. I came to New York almost forty years ago with some academic experience behind me, and a great deal of printer’s ink on my fingers, and a great ambition to present in my editorial work in a practical way to the man in the street some of the aims and ideals for social and public improvement that I knew were represented in the work of the men who were leading the University.

I realized that the University was a great and permanent source of inspiration and of help to the body politic, that government could derive enormous aid from the standards that could be set by the University and particularly here in this great metropolis by the Faculty that Professor Burgess was gathering about him in the University.

The hospitality of the University toward me when I came here is something I remember with gratitude. I had been here only a year, almost forty years from now, when the University asked me to give lectures in conjunction with Cooper Union, on the way Europe governed its cities in contrast to the way we governed ours. I had been criticised for my writings about the city government, as I had held up some of the practical and progressive ways in which European cities were trying to provide for their own people in contrast with some of our forms of government.

Columbia University did not mind in the least my seeming heretical point of view and gave me the opportunity to speak my mind.

At other times I had the same kind of more than kindly and generous recognition from Columbia, so I have always felt that though I was working at a practical, every-day profession, I was regarded at Columbia as of the same mind and as of the same purpose. So I have tried through long years to give a little of the touch and flavor of the academic spirit to the discussions of practical and current affairs.

A good many years ago, in an acute presidential campaign when tariffs and questions of that kind were in rather bitter controversy, I thought that it might be desirable to give to the politicians of the country a little booklet [The National Revenues: A Collection of Papers by American Economists, Chicago, 1888.] presenting those subjects from the academic standpoint, written by men working in the universities; that was before I had come to New York. I was then an editor in the west. I picked up today that forgotten little book and I found that the contributors had so presented their topics that my volume is very much like one of the current issues of the proceedings of an annual or semi-annual meeting of the Academy of Political Science. Professor Mayo-Smith contributed, Dr. Seligman contributed, Professor John B. Clark contributed, Dr. James H. Canfield contributed and one or two other men who were then or have since become conspicuously associated with the work of the Faculty of Political Science, contributed to this little book of mine, published in 1888, dealing with the most acute questions with the most perfect frankness. Professor Hadley from Yale, two men from Harvard, Dr. Ely from Johns Hopkins, himself a Columbia man, all dealt with the subjects with perfect candor and without reservations, telling their views about tariffs and similar pending questions, but all with that air of truth-seeking that was in such contrast with the kind of discussion that was current at that time. It gave me as a journalist a fresh understanding of the possibility of presenting subjects in such a way that there might be permanence in the quality of the discussion, although the issue itself might change with the lapse of time.

It seems to me this permeation of our social and political life by a great body of scholars, of men who were essentially statesmen, has had a greater effect upon the country, been a greater protection to our institutions as they have gone forward, than is commonly realized. There are so many conditions in our current political life, so many things that seem unworthy in politics, so many men who hold offices who do not exhibit in their expressions and in their work the standards we should like to set for them, that we are a little confused at times; but it does seem to me that the spirit that goes out from the universities is, to surprising degree, developing the standards of public opinion and they in turn bear upon the course of practical politics and save us from many things that otherwise might be more disgraceful than anything that ever comes to light in the processes of exposure or investigation.

I remember very well the growth and development of the Teachers College and the whole science and philosophy of education as centered in Columbia University and now that in a great metropolis like this we have more than a million children being trained, I have within the last weeks looked over reports and documents of all kinds pertaining to the courses of study and instruction and the standard now prevailing in the schools of New York in order to see if I might trace there what one might call the developing standard of education as fixed and set by our institutions, like the Teachers College. It seemed to me that the profession of teaching moves on, improves the school, lifts the lives of our children to far better standards than one found here twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ago; that in spite of any sort of condition in political life that may or may not be exposed, the standards of civilization are improving all the time in American life and largely through such agencies as that which we have heard described tonight, this remarkable leadership in the study of politics as a science and in the various departments of economic and political and social study.

The freedom with which men meet and discuss those subjects has been greatly improved by the practices that prevail in this Academy of Political Science which was one of the features of Professor Burgess’ scheme as he outlined it some half century ago. The Academy could not have developed as it has except in its close association with the University and it has enabled a great many men not in the University to come into contact with the University leadership and the association has been very valuable to them.

The Academy beginning with a small group at the University has now so extended that there are several thousand members. The Quarterly, founded at the same time, has grown and gone forward in association with the Academy; it and the annual Proceedings give the membership a sense of contact with Columbia thought. So it has been possible to hold the activities all together as an associated group, and their influence has been very valuable as the Academy has taken up from time to time current questions and problems and presented them to the country in such a way as to have undoubted influence on public opinion and the course of affairs.

Dr. Lindsay has been President of the Academy for almost a quarter of a century; he might better have spoken for it; but at least I have the opportunity to speak in praise of his work, and I know all of you would be glad to have that work so praised.

I am sure that I have spoken as long as I ought to. I can only thank the Faculty of Political Science and the Academy for permitting me to speak on its behalf. [Applause.]

PRESIDENT BUTLER then said:

I have a message from one of our seniors, kept from us tonight by illness, which I am happy to read: “It is with the greatest regret that I find myself prevented from attending the ovation to my old teacher, colleague and dear friend. Whatever of note has been achieved by the Faculty of Political Science in the half century of its existence is due in large part to the tradition of scholarship he emphasized, the spirit of tolerance he inculcated and the freedom of thought and expression he exemplified in person and so zealously guarded for all his colleagues. (Signed) EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN.” [Applause.]

It is becoming that we should turn now to one of Professor Burgess’ “bright young men.” Among those who in the early days of the Faculty came quickly to distinction and occupied the position of Prize Lecturer for a number of years is the distinguished economist of national and more than national reputation who has served so long and with so great distinction at Harvard University that he is now Professor Emeritus of Economics in that Institution. I have the very greatest pleasure in presenting to you, as a representative of the very early group of graduates in political science from this University, Professor William Z. Ripley.

PROFESSOR RIPLEY spoke as follows:

Beloved Dean, Mr. President, Professor Giddings, and my former colleagues and outsiders: I take it that this is a family party. First I want to correct the record. Our honored President is not the first man in New York who has tried to place me on the shelf; a taxi-driver tried to do it, also, a few years ago. [On 19 January, 1927, Professor Ripley was seriously injured by an automobile in New York City. — THE EDITOR.] I am no longer Professor Emeritus; I am back on the job; in fact, when depression came on they found they could not do without me. [Laughter.]

I am here, I take it, in a two-fold capacity; first, and by all means the pleasantest, is to present the felicitations of other universities, particularly of Harvard University, to the Dean and to the School of Political Science and to confess and acknowledge that it did a pioneer work that none of us can claim a place of priority in any respect in this field. I trust you will believe me when I say that in fealty to Harvard University, I have spent a good part of the last two weeks digging over every source that I could discover in order to find some way in which Harvard University scored in this field, and I cannot find it. [Laughter.] And so I come with the full acknowledgment of my colleagues that this was pioneer work.

Think back, and see where we stood at Harvard University in this field. Dunbar, a newspaper editor, was giving one course in economics. But the elective system had not yet come in; practically all of the time of the students was tied up on a fixed schedule. This course of Dunbar’s was admitted on the side as an extra and didn’t amount to much except in quality; in following it stood for very little at the time of the foundation of this School of Political Science. Macvane was there in history; there was nobody in government; there were one or two attempts by other men but they were half-hearted and one might characterize them as one did on a certain occasion speaking of a man, saying “he was a good man in his business career, but he was not a fanatic about it.” And so we acknowledge with the utmost gratitude the contribution that you made, sir, and that this University made, in founding the School of Political Science.

We have but one satisfaction. That was that in these endeavors there was a very happy understanding between the two institutions. The Political Science Quarterly and the Quarterly Journal of Economics, if I am not misinformed, started in the same year. For a moment there was a little feeling lest there might be rivalry, but I am told in the interchange of correspondence largely by Mayo-Smith on your side and Dunbar and Taussig on our end, that there was not only understanding but accord and agreement that they would divide the field. They have never been rivals and each has been utterly proud of the achievement of the other.

I spoke of there being a two-fold capacity in which I appear. I take it I am exhibited here as a horrible example, one of the products of this School of Political Science. I am tempted to paraphrase an introduction an acquaintance of mine told me he heard Mark Twain give in Sydney, Australia, the time he went around the world. He came on the platform for his lecture with a lugubrious countenance and said: “My friends, Julius Caesar is no more; Alexander the Great has passed on; Napoleon has joined his fathers, and I am not feeling very well myself!” [Laughter.] If I were to paraphrase that, I should put it something like this: The glacial epoch took place we will say ten million years ago; the Pyramids were set up six or eight thousand, (we won’t quibble about a thousand more or less) and I graduated from the School of Political Science thirty-seven years ago! [Laughter.]

There was a connection, perfectly happy on my side, as Prize Lecturer so long as I was at Tech, but Dr. Seligman told me frankly when chosen as Professor at Harvard, that would have to come to an end. He said, “You could hardly ride two horses, even if you ride parallel.” So I resigned, with a whole year to run on that Prize Lectureship; think of it!

Thinking back over the early days, it may take down your pride to think how modest some of those affairs were. My lot as a teacher here was not as happy as Professor Giddings’. He spoke about his class being experimental, in a way. I was there as a student the first year; there must have been thirty or forty of us at least; [turning to Professor Giddings] you didn’t have to worry when a rainy day came, or a snow storm, wondering whether you would lose your whole body of students. I did! For two or three years, in that course in anthropology, I had only two students, and when you have only two, the weather counts. [Laughter.] I realized that on another occasion when the Hartford Theological Seminary decided to go into sociology. I had two students. The next year the course was not repeated because those two married one another! [Laughter.]

In this Academy of Political Science that they are blowing about, I read a paper the first year of my attendance here at Columbia, down at Forty-ninth Street. We held the meeting in Dr. Seligman’s office; you remember what a little place that was? Francis A. Walker was there; I got him to go. Dr. Seligman was there. I think Mayo-Smith came. Nobody else but the faculty, Francis A. Walker and the speaker; we had a wonderful meeting, and I got the chance of publishing that paper in the Political Science Quarterly. But the existence of that Academy, even in that little way, in its early beginnings, was stimulating. The young student could feel that there was an opportunity to present something he had worked out in his own head, and all these agencies played in together, the Quarterly was there to publish the paper and when it appeared as an address before the Academy of Political Science the world at large didn’t know how many people there were not present at the time. [Laughter.]

In closing I want to emphasize for you the happy fact that this Faculty, this School of Political Science should have arisen in the greatest center of population and activity in our whole country; you don’t realize it, you who live in it. If you lived in a remote part of the country, where as Barrett Wendell once told me he doubted whether most of our colleagues realized that the Charles River was not mightier than the Mississippi, you would realize what a live spot New York is, and, I take it, to the economist and student of government it is a little bit like Vienna in its attractiveness to the medicos; you get what diseases you get in very, very advanced stages. As a spot where you get the ultimate fruition and decomposition of human endeavor, New York seems to me to be unsurpassed.

That is why it is such a royal laboratory, why there is such a stimulus to the young men coming from all over the United States to be suddenly thrown into this great aggregation of human beings. I like to apply the description that I ran across the other day in Hardy’s letters. Somewhere he spoke of London, “that hot plate of humanity, on which we first sing, then simmer, then boil, and dry up to ashes and blow away.” That is New York, viewed from the outside. Never in our history has there been such opportunity for wholesome, stimulating activity and an example of a body like this, than at the present time.

We are all of us appalled and discouraged at times by what we see, and tempted to lose faith and “let ’er slide,” but it is the continued activity of institutions of this sort and led by this particular School which means so much for the whole land. And so, from the outside, I bring felicitations, and from the inside I bring affectionate acknowledgment. [Applause.]

PRESIDENT BUTLER:

Not even in darkest New York can one always be wholly accurate. The other day a typical old-fashioned New Yorker, a former student in the School of Political Science, ventured to offer to the public a list of the really controlling personalities in the life of America. [See James Watson Gerard, 1889 C, 1891 A.M., 1929 LL.D., in the New York newspapers of 21 August, 1930.] Shortly afterward Rollin Kirby had a cartoon in which he had a bootlegger standing with a racketeer, and they were looking at this list. One said to the other: “That man is simply ignorant!” [Laughter.]

Yesterday, Professor Burgess made it clear in a score of ways why we honor at Columbia the name of Ruggles. He made it plain that it was the foresight and the energy and the persistence of Samuel B. Ruggles that enabled him to carry to a conclusion his project in the month of June, 1880. Mr. Ruggles left his physical mark upon the island of Manhattan in Gramercy Park. He left his intellectual mark through some forty years of service to old Columbia College as a Trustee, the crowning part of which was his making himself the agent to secure the approval by the Trustees for Professor Burgess’ plan. It is highly appropriate then that the Ruggles Professorship of Constitutional Law should exist and that its incumbent at the moment should be the Dean of the Faculty of Political Science, as well as the Dean of the Faculties of Philosophy and of Pure Science in Columbia University.

An anniversary of this kind offers two invitations: one to look back; with sentiment, with rich memory and affection; the other to look forward with hope, with courage and high purpose. What could be more fitting then than that we should hear in conclusion this evening from that colleague and friend who is the captain of our enterprise as it enters upon its second half century, Dean McBain.

DEAN MCBAIN responded as follows:

Professor Burgess, Mr. President, my friends and guests: We celebrate a birth, the birth of the Faculty of Political Science and of its hand-maiden the Academy of Political Science. Fifty years have unrolled since our distinguished founder called together, as he told us so vividly, so dramatically, yesterday, that small but remarkable group of young scholars who then and there dedicated their lives to the difficult but most inspiring task of applying at least the aspirations of science to the study of actualities of society. For thirty years and more he guided and he shared the life of these twin children of his youthful vision. Happily he tarries with us, as rich in intellect and experience as in years. He lingers to behold that unlike the ephemeral grass of the Scriptures this vision of his youth which grew up in the morning is not in the evening of his life cut down, dried up and withered.

I say we celebrate a birth. Much more truly do we celebrate the passing of a mere paltry half-century of our indomitable and perennial youth. Our youth must be perennial because the fields of our interests never have been and never can be fallow fields. On the contrary, they are all too fertile of problems old and of problems new, that call for investigation and study in the intensely interested but dispassionate spirit of scientific inquiry. As long as man remains on earth in something like the present estate of mind and of body just so long will the political and social sciences also remain.

I confess that as my mental fingers move across the keys of my memory, I find some difficulty in choosing the chord I would most like tonight to sound and for a moment to hold. For one thing the possible chords are numerous; for another, they are intricate of execution; for a third, I do not perform well, either in public or private, upon a theme that lies very close to my heart. The Faculty of Political Science is such a theme.

Obviously, as the President just indicated, I have a choice of toasting the past, or of hailing the present or feasting the future. Of these, to toast the past would no doubt seem the most appropriate. The occasion invites to reminiscence, to appraisal. But the truth is that our past needs no toasting; certainly it needs no toasting at our own hands. Even for our honored dead we pour our libations in reverence and affection rather than in praise or exaltation. Moreover, were I competent to the task, it would ill become me to venture to appraise the men of this Faculty and their work.

Professor Burgess yesterday told us of those thrilling events that marked the fateful fourteenth of July, 1880. I beg leave to mention another event that happened almost at the same moment, wholly unknown to that little band in Switzerland. Under that same summer moon that smiled gloriously down upon the birth of the Faculty of Political Science, in that same week of July 14th, in that same year 1880, another very important event also occurred: I was born. Important, of course only to me. The Faculty and I crossed our first quarter century mark in company, though I need scarcely remark that I, then a student under the Faculty, was somewhat more aware of and more interested in this coincidence of anniversary than were my revered preceptors. Fortunately for me we are likewise crossing our second quarter century in company.

Since the beginning of its history, only sixty-three men have held membership in this Faculty. I have personally known every one of them save two who passed beyond the portals of the University before I entered them. I can say, therefore, that I have known and that I know the Faculty, which makes it all the more difficult, not to say impossible, for me to talk to the Faculty about the Faculty.

But this I must record, striking again the beautiful note just sounded by Professor Giddings: Scholars I suppose are essentially individualists. Men have been and are appointed to this Faculty primarily on the basis of scholarly achievement and scholarly promise. But the quality of being a scholar does not inevitably preclude such qualities as irascibility, even pugnacity. It is, therefore, or it may be, only a chance, but surely a very providential chance, that this Faculty, this company of scholars, have lived their lives together in such splendid harmony. They are the most coöperative group I have ever known. Indeed, they exemplify better than any other group I have ever heard of that non-existent thing, the group-mind.

I do not imply that we have not known occasional trouble and disagreement. We are human beings. But such experiences have been Faculty ever passed, one of my fundamentally irreligious colleagues once said to me: “Jesus was right; the only thing worth while in life is love, and our Faculty has that.” He spoke truly, and I feel no shame in avowing the deep affection that the members of this Faculty have and have had for one another.

In connection with this celebration, it was at one time mooted that we should publish a history of these fifty years of the Faculty of Political Science. But such a history written by or under the aegis of the Faculty could with Jeffersonian decent respect for the opinions of mankind have been little more than a record without appraisal. It might not have been wholly barren of interest, but in its indispensably backward leaning objectivity could scarcely have failed to minify or otherwise mispresent facts. Nor could it possibly have expressed that many-faceted, flashing thing of spirit that is and always has been the Faculty of Political Science. And so it was abandoned, this project of a history. In its stead we are publishing a bibliography of all the members of the Faculty, past and present-a stark list of the titles of the books, the articles, the pamphlets, the papers of their authorhood. The list runs to something over three thousand five hundred items. To this we are appending the titles of the nearly seven hundred dissertations that have been written under the guidance of the Faculty, into the warp of which (perhaps I should say some of which) there have been woven many hours of love’s labor in the cause of sound scholarship. To some of you such a volume may seem both deadly dull and useless. I think you will find it is neither of these. To the members of the Faculty themselves this volume cannot fail to be a treasury of historical recall. To them and to others it cannot fail to be of use as a locator of vaguely remembered contributions that lie in widely scattered depositories. But more than that, I think you will find, strange to relate, that this skeleton of titles tells a story, partial it is true, but a story of the progress of the intellectual life and intellectual interests of the Faculty, and something of its services.

Consider the period in which this Faculty has lived its life. Measured in terms of cosmic history, it is less than infinitesimal. Measured in terms of even authentic human history, it is almost negligible. But in terms of social, economic, even political change, this fifty years just past is probably longer than the millennium between the fall of Rome and the discovery of America, or the tercentenary span between Gutenberg and Arkwright. In this packed period of change in the subjects of its interest, the Faculty has lived its thus far life; and its deep absorption in the problems of its own age is reflected in this list of writings, not, of course, but what numerous other interests are also reflected. Our distinguished founder, as our distinguished President remarked the other day, was indeed both prophet and seer. But of a certainty, as Mr. Justice Holmes once said of our constitutional fathers, he and his coadjutors “called into life a being the development of which could not have been foreseen completely by the most gifted of its begetters.”

A glance at the formidable list of its publications might convince one that the members of this Faculty, apart from student contacts, have spent their entire lives behind locked doors reading, pondering, writing. This is far from fact. Again and again its members have responded to knocks upon those doors calling them to exacting public and quasi-public service. To you, Mr. President, both the public and the Faculty owe an unpayable debt, in that you have not only given sympathetic ear and understanding thought to the scholarly interests and desires of the Faculty but have also aided and abetted in every possible way their ambitions to be of use in the formulation of public policies and the direction of public affairs. You recognized, as one would know you would recognize, that their scholarship equipped them for service as their service enriched their scholarship. Pericles once said of Athens that it differed from other states in that it regarded the man who held himself aloof from public affairs not as quiet but as useless. Almost, though not quite—it should not be quite the same may be said of the Faculty of Political Science.

You see I have, despite my disclaimer of intention, been toasting the past. I would do more. The loss of a great scholar whether by retirement or resignation or death is always irreparable. Someone else may take his chair, may succeed to his subject, though not even that always happens. But nobody ever takes his place. He would not be a great scholar if his place could be taken. We have had losses from time to time with the results I have just mentioned, and so the company with the passing of the years gradually changes in personnel, in point of attack, in point of specific interest, in method of approach. It could not be otherwise, and those who have gone before would not wish it otherwise. They need no reflectors, no echoes. And well they know that each scholar must with his own hands laboriously carve his niche in the huge hall of human fame, and that the work of carving is not the work of a day or a year, but of a life. The spirit alone remains unaltered—the spirit of fearless and unrelenting search for social truth and of devotion to the high and precious ideals of scholarship.

And so, Mr. President, while with all my heart and soul I toast our honorable past and the achievements that have gone into its making, I also hail with satisfaction our honorable present, and feast with great confidence the honor of our future. [Applause.]

PRESIDENT BUTLER said in conclusion:

This notable and memorable evening comes to its end. My dear Professor Burgess, may I, for all this company, say once more to you what a satisfaction, what a deep satisfaction, your presence and your words yesterday and today have given us. As to our younger members who are personally known to you for the first time, we, their elders, may well feel that we have offered them a benefaction. We only say, my dear Teacher, Au revoir! As you go back to your quiet home, your books and your reflections, it will continue to be your spirit, your teaching, your ideals that will guide and inspire us, as we set out on the second half-century of the study of what Mr. Oliver has so charmingly described as The Endless Adventure, the government of men. [Applause.]

SourceColumbia University Quarterly. Vol. 22 (December 1930), pp. 380-396.

Image Source: John W. Burgess in Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2. Boston: R. Herndon Company, 1899,  p. 481. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Columbia Economists Germany Popular Economics Princeton Teaching

New York City Schools. Essay on Economics and the High School Teacher of Economics. Tildsley, 1919

Every so often I make an effort to track down students whose names have been recorded in course lists. I do this in part to hone my genealogical skills but primarily to obtain a broader sense of the population obtaining advanced training in economics beyond the exclusive society of those who ultimately clear all the hurdles in order to be awarded the Ph.D. degree. This post began with a simple list of the participants in Professor Edwin R.A. Seligman’s seminar in political economy and finance at Columbia University in 1901-02 published in the annual presidential report for that year (p. 154).

 John L. Tildsley’s seminar topic was “Economic Aspects of Colonial Expansion.” I began to dig into finding out more about this Tildsley fellow, who was completely unknown to me other than for the distinction of having attended a graduate course in economics at Columbia but never having received an economics Ph.D. from the university.

It turns out that this B.A. and M.A. graduate from Princeton had indeed already been awarded a doctorate in economics from the Friedrichs Universität Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), renamed the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in 1933, before he took any coursework at Columbia. A link to his German language doctoral dissertation on the Chartist movement is provided below.

I also found out that John Lee Tildsley went on to a distinguished if controversial career [e.g., he had no qualms about firing teachers for expressing radical opinions in the classroom] in the top tier of educational administration for the public high-schools in New York City. No less a critical writer than Upton Sinclair aimed his words at Tildsley.

For the purposes of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror John L. Tildsley is of particular interest as someone who had done much to introduce economics into the curriculum of New York City public schools.

Following data on his life culled from Who’s Who in America and New York Times articles on the occasions of his retirement and death, I have included his March 1919 essay dedicated to economics and the economics teacher in New York City high schools. 

_________________________

Life and Career
of John Lee Tildsley

from Who’s Who in America, 1934

John Lee Tildsley, educator

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mar. 13, 1867;
Son of John and Elizabeth (Withington) Tidsley;
Married Bertha Alice Watters, of New York City, June 24, 1896;
Children—Jane, John Lee, Margaret, Kathleen (deceased).

B.A., Princeton, 1893 [Classmate of A. Piatt Andrew], M.A. 1894;
Boudinot fellow in history, Princeton, 1893-94;
Teacher Greek and history, Lawrenceville (New Jersey) School, 1894-96;
Studied Universities of Halle and Berlin, 1896-98, Ph.D., Halle, 1898;
Teacher of history, Morris High School, New York City, 1898-1902;
Studied economics, Columbia, 1902;
Head of dept. of economics, High School of Commerce, 1902-08;
Principal of DeWitt Clinton High School, 1908-14;
Principal of High School of Commerce, 1914-16;
Associate Superintendent, Oct. 1916-July 1920;
District Superintendent, July 1920, City of New York.

Member: Headmasters’ Assn., Phi Beta Kappa.
Democrat.
Episcopalian.

Formulated and introduced into public schools of New York City, courses in economics and civics for secondary grades. Speaker and writer on teaching and problems of school administration.

Club: Nipnichsen.
Home: [2741 Edgehill Ave.] Spuyten Duyvil, [Bronx] New York.

Source: Who’s Who in America 1934, p. 2356.

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Tildsley’s 1898 doctoral dissertation on the Chartist movement (in German)

Tildsley, John L. Die Entstehung und die ökonomischen Grundsätze der Chartistenbewegung, Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der philosophischen Doktorwürde der hohen philosophischen Fakultät der vereinigten Friedrichs-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Halle a.S. 1898.

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New York Times, September 2, 1937

Dr. John L. Tildsley, Associate Superintendent of Schools, retired on Sept. 1, 1937.

One of Dr. Tildsley’s pet ideas has been the formation of special schools for bright pupils. As a result of his efforts two such schools are to be established in this city, the first to be opened next February in Brooklyn.
‘This new school will develop independent habits of work on the part of the superior student,’ he has explained. ‘Special emphasis will be placed upon the development of social-mindedness.’

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New York Times, November 22, 1948

Dr. John L. Tildsley died November 21, 1948 in St. Luke’s Hospital, New York, N.Y.

In 1920, having fallen out of the graces of Mayor John F. Hylan because of a political speech, he was denied a second term as associate superintendent.
At the urging of many admirers, he was assigned to the position of assistant superintendent which he held until the Fusion Board of Education restored him to his former rank in the spring of 1937.
When Dr. Tildsley was demoted he refused to be silenced, constantly championing controversial causes. He attacked the ‘frontier thinkers’ of Teachers College, and charged that under the existing high school set up much waste resulted to the city and to the pupil.
He urged the development of ‘nonconformist’ pupils, and angered patriotic organizations by suggesting that patriotic songs and holidays have little value in the schools.
Born in Pittsburgh of British parents, Dr. Tildsley received his early education in schools in Lockport, N.Y., and at the Mount Hermon School. Instead of becoming a minister, as he originally had planned, he decided to study at Princeton University, where Woodrow Wilson was one of his instructors for three years.

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Tildsley became a target of Upton Sinclair’s critical pen for his campaign to regulate teachers’ opinions expressed in school

Upton Sinclair, The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools (1924). See Chapters XV (Honest Graft) and XVI (A Letter to Woodrow Wilson), XVII (An Arrangement of Little Bits).

Cf. Teachers’ Defense Fund. The Trial of the Three Suspended Teachers of the De Witt Clinton High School (1917).

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HISS TILDSLEY FOR PRAISE OF GERMANS
School Superintendent Aroused Criticism by Talk in Ascension Parish House.
LIKES TEUTON DISCIPLINE
When He Said Their Military Success Was a Credit to Them the Trouble Began.

The New York Times, December 10, 1917.

Dr. John L. Tildsley, Associate Superintendent of Schools in charge of high schools, whose investigation of the opinions of the teachers at the De Witt Clinton High School resulted in the suspension and trial of three of them and in the transfer of six others, was hissed last night in the parish house of the Church of the Ascension, Fifth Avenue and Eleventh Street, when he said that the success of the Germans in military affairs was a credit to them rather than a discredit, and that their “good qualities” ought not to be ignored even if “they happen to be our enemies.”

Dr. Tildsley was also denounced as a “Prussian by instinct and education,” because of his laudation of family life in Germany and because he asserted that it was desirable to have in this country more obedience instinctively to authority as exemplified by the obedience of the German child to its father. The denouncer was Adolph Benet, a lawyer, who said that Dr. Tildsley’s sojourn in Germany, where he studied at the University of Halle, caused him to misunderstand Germany.

“There is one thing that is bad in Germany,” declared Mr Benet. “That thing is unqualified and instinctive respect for authority. And Dr. Tildsley, after living in Germany and observing the country, would come here and try to introduce here the worst part of the whole German system. I say Dr. Tildsley is a Prussian by instinct and a Prussian by education. Why did he not say these things two months ago when many were denouncing a Judge who is now Mayor-elect?”

The stormy part of the evening took place in the parish house, where the audience repaired to ask questions after Dr. Tildsley delivered an address in the church on “Regulation of Opinion in the Schools.” The hissing of the speaker occurred during his explanation of his ideas on obedience. He explained the system of instinctive obedience to authority which marks all Germans, and then said: “German family life is magnificent, and we ought to emulate it.” Here the hissing began. A minute later it began again and grew in volume for about minute, when it stopped.

In reply to another question relating to his charges against teachers, Dr. Tildslev. said that teachers have too much protection in the schools, and that not a single high school teacher in nineteen years has been brought up on charges. In this connection he declared that when a teacher is brought up on charges the Board of Education is handicapped in the handling of the case because must accept such a lawyer as it gets from the Corporation Counsel while the teacher may get the cleverest lawyer that money can buy. This was taken by the high school teacher in the audience to mean that Dr. Tildsley was dissatisfied with handling of the trial against the three teachers by the Corporation Counsel.

In his formal address Dr. Tildsley said that the teachers who were tried and those who were transferred were not accused of disloyalty. Later. in the parish house. he said he believed they were all internationalists and doubted whether a teacher who had the spirit of internationalism had the spirit necessary to teach high school students.

He said the teachers he investigated held that unrestricted expression of opinion was the best means of developing good citizenship. With this point of view he said, he and others differed. He quoted one teacher as being a believer in Bertrand Russell and he read from one of Russell’s works a passage which said in substance that it did not matter what the teacher said but what he felt and that it was what he felt that reached the consciousness of the pupils. It was Dr. Tildsley’s belief that the opinions which the teachers hold are accepted by the pupils, even if they if they were unexpressed. Dr. Tildsley read the letter of Hyman Herman, the sixteen-year-old pupil whose composition was the basis for a charge against Samuel Schmalhauser one of the suspended teachers. In this letter President Wilson was denounced as a “murderer.” Dr. Tildsley said the teacher was in in no way responsible for the letter.

While the speaker said that the teachers loyal he investigated were not disloyal and declared their convictions were honest, he also said that though the nation had gone to war they were unable to subscribe to the decision of the majority. He divided the radical group among the teachers into three classes, those who believe in absolute and unrestrained expression by the students, those who are opposed to the war and do not believe in it, and a third class, born in Germany, , who cannot be blamed for feeling as they do about Germany. The last mentioned he declared, must not allow any of their feelings to escape into their teaching. He gave a clean bill oi health as to loyalty to all the teachers in the De Witt Clinton High School.

“A teacher is not an ordinary citizen who has the right to express his opinions freely,” continued Dr. Tildsley. “Every teacher always teaches himself, and if he has not the right ideas toward the Government he has no right to accept payment from the taxpayers. We make no claim that any of these teachers were consciously disloyal, but if because of this belief in unrestricted utterance they spread disloyalty they are not persons to be intrusted with the teaching of citizenship to students.”

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From the New York Times, November 5, 1918:

…the dismissal of Thomas Mufson, A. Henry Schneer, and Samuel D. Schmalhausen in the De Witt Clinton High School was upheld by Acting New York Commissioner of Education E. Thomas Finegan.

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ECONOMICS AND THE TEACHER OF ECONOMICS IN THE NEW YORK CITY HIGH SCHOOLS

John L. Tildsley,
Associate Superintendent in Charge of High Schools.
[March 1919]

Every student graduated in June, 1920 and thereafter from the general course of the high schools of New York City, must have had a course in economics of not less than five periods a week for one-half year. This requirement, recently adopted by the Board of Superintendents, is one of the changes which may be charged directly to the clearer vision of our educational needs which the war has brought us. Many of us have long believed that economics is an essential element in the curriculum of the public high school, whose fundamental aim is to train the young to play their part in an environment whose ruling forces are preeminently industrial and commercial. But it has required the revelation of the dangers inherent in our untrained citizenship to cause us to force a place for the upwelcome intruder among the college preparatory subjects whose vested rights are based on immemorial possession of the field of secondary education.

One of the chief aims of the Board of Superintendents in establishing this new requirement is, without doubt, to give high school students a specialized training which shall bring to them some understanding of the forces economic and political which so largely determine their happiness and general well being, to the end that these students shall discharge more intelligently their duties as citizens in a democracy, and shall develop their productive capacity to the increase of their own well being and to the resulting advancement of the common good. A further reason for introducing economics is the belief that the boys and girls who have had this training will be better able to analyze the various remedies proposed for the evils of our social organization and to detect the iallacies which are so often put forth as measures of reform. These students should find in such training an antidote to the movements which have as their aim the over throw of institutions which the experience of our race has evolved through the centuries.

Because of this realization that economics deals not only with the conduct of business enterprises but also with political institutions and with movements for social amelioration, it is apt to enroll among its teachers the enthusiastic social reformer whose sympathies are all-embracing, who readily becomes a propagandist for his or her pet project of reform, and who finds it impossible to resist the temptation to enroll converts among the trusting students of his or her classes. It is because of this conception of the nature of economics teaching in our educational program that the new subject has been some what despised by the teachers of the sterner disciplinary subjects.

With full sympathy with the vocational aim of economics, I would offer as its chief claim for a place in our high school curriculum, that it is essentially a disciplinary subject, that it can be taught and should be taught so as to yield a training of the highest order, somewhat different in its processes, but no less searching in its demands upon the students, than mathematics or physical science.

It is a subject, therefore, to be taught by the man with the keenly analytical mind, by the man who can detect the untruth and train pupils to detect the untruth in the major premise, by the man who from tested premises can proceed to a valid conclusion. Economics is essentially applied logic rather than a confused program of social reform, as too many of its advocates have led the layman to believe.

Economics in the past has been for the most part a college and university subject. Consequently the well-trained student of economics has found his work in the college, in government service, on newspaper or magazine, and, in ever-increasing numbers, in bank ing and finance. Practically none has sought to find a career for himself in secondary work.

With full knowledge of this fact, we have added economics to the high school curriculum in the hope that ultimately the demand will create a supply of teachers thoroughly trained in economic theory before they begin their teaching. Meanwhile, we confidently expect that men thoroughly trained in other subjects which require a high degree of analysis and synthesis, will come to the rescue as they see the need. Applying the knowledge of scientific method which they possess to the new subject matter, these teachers may speedily acquire that mastery of principles which is necessary for the effective teaching of economics.

In my own experience, as I sought for economics teachers in the High School of Commerce, I found them among the teachers of mathematics and of biology. Certain of these teachers, who had an interest in business and public affairs and who were masters of scientific methods, became in the course of a single term expert teachers of economics. They even preferred the new subject to the old, because of the greater interest manifested by the students in this subject which never fails to enlist the enthusiastic interest of students when properly taught.

I trust, therefore, that some of our teachers who enjoy close, accurate thinking will take up some economic text, such as Taussig, Seligman, Seager, Carver, or Marshall, and, having read this, will follow it up with other texts on the specific fields of economics to which they find themselves attracted. Very soon, I believe, such teachers, in view of the urgent need for teachers of economics, will realize the very great service they can render our schools by utilizing their knowledge of boys and girls, their mastery of method, their awakened interest in economics and social phenomena, in training these boys and girls in this most vital subject.

As a text book for classroom use, I recommend a systematic book, such as Bullock’s Introduction to [the Study of] Economics, which lays the emphasis on principles rather than on descriptions of industrial processes or on the operation of social agencies. There are several books which are more interestingly written, but in the hands of most teachers they will lead to a descriptive treatment of industry and social institutions, to discussions for which the students are not qualified because of their ignorance of and want of drill in economic principles.

Our students need to be trained in economic theory before they attempt to discuss measures of social reform. They need to grasp the meaning of utility, value, price, before they take up the study of industrial processes. It is because of hazy conception of these primary elements that we fall so readily into error. The key to economic thinking lies in a clear understanding of the terms margin and marginal. The boy who has digested the concept “marginal utility” is already on the way to becoming a student of economics. Until he has arrived at an understanding of the nature of value, he is hardly ready to discuss socialism, wage theories, the single tax or other like themes.

The temptation for the untrained or inexperienced teacher is to begin with the study of actual business, partly as a means of interesting the student by causing him to feel that he is dealing with practical life, partly because he conceives business as a laboratory and desires as a scientist to employ the inductive method. The study of the factory or store takes the place of the study of the crayfish. The analogy does not hold. Induction in economics is the method of discovery, it is not the method of teaching, especially of secondary teaching. The method is deductive. The teacher must assume that certain great principles have been shown to be valid. He should drill on these principles and their application till the pupil has mastered them.

Let no one believe that this means a dull grind. Even such a subject as marginal utility can be made interesting to every student. It is altogether a matter of method. The concept must be presented from a dozen different angles. There must be no lecturing, no mere hearing of recitations. The pupil must not be assigned a few pages or paragraphs in the book and then left to work out his salvation. The real teaching must be done in the recitation period, with the teacher at the blackboard with a piece of chalk in his hand, ready to answer all questions and with a dozen illustrations at his command with which to drive home the principle, illustrations with which the pupils are thoroughly familiar because taken from the daily occurrences about them. For example, to explain the principle that the value of any commodity is determined by its marginal utility and that its marginal utility is the lowest use to which any commodity must be put in order to exhaust its supply, take the teacher’s desk as the illustration. Elicit from the pupils the different uses to which that desk may be put, and write the list as it is given on the blackboard. Some boy will remark that the desk could be used for firewood and will ask why the value of the desk is not determined by its utility as firewood; then comes the query, will not the supply of desks be exhausted before it is necessary to use them as firewood? As a result of this give and take process, the boys, in one recitation, may grasp this principle which is the very keystone of our modern economics.

John Bates Clark, our foremost theorist, once said to me that there is no principle in economics so difficult that it cannot be understood by a ten year old child if it is properly taught. But how often it is not properly taught! Teaching economics is like kneading bread. The teacher must turn over these principles again and again until they are kneaded into the boy so thoroughly that they have become a part of his mind stuff. When he has once had kneaded into him the concepts of the margin, marginal utility, the marginal producer, the marginal land, the marginal unit of capital, the marginal laborer, he can move fearlessly forward to the conquest of the most involved propositions of actual business. In business, in government, in all the multitudinous activities of life, we come to grief because our concepts are not clearly defined. Because of deficient analysis, we accept wrong premises and because of muddy reasoning, we allow factors to enter into the conclusion which were not in the premises. If economics be taught with the same degree of analysis of conditions, with the same accuracy in checking the reasoning as in geometry, the teacher will find himself surprised by the ability of the students to solve a most difficult problem in the incidence of taxation or one in the operations of foreign exchange. As a means of testing whether the student has gained a clear concept, problem questions should be assigned at the close of every discussion, to be answered at home in writing by the pupil, and written tests should be given at least once a week. Purely oral work makes possible much confusion of thought on the part of the pupil without the knowledge of the teacher. The slovenly thinking which may thus become a habit will produce a wrongly-trained citizen more dangerous than one who has had no training in economics at all. The problems which this training fits the student to solve are precisely the kind of problems that every businessman is called upon to face every day of his life. For example, the man who keeps the country store at Marlborough or Milton on the Hudson will soon need to decide how large a stock of goods he will order for the fall trade. This may seem to be a simple problem and yet he needs all his experience to enable him to analyze the problem of demand for his goods. This involves the effect of the mild weather on the vines and peach trees, the possibility of his customers again securing boys and girls from New York to pick the crops, the matter of freight rates on fruit, the buying capacity of the people of New York which, in turn, involves a knowledge of conditions in many industries. After he has considered all of these elements, he has come to a conclusion as to demand for his goods, but he has not yet touched the question whether the cost of his goods is to be higher or lower before September next. Do we wonder that failures are so common when we realize that few of our people, even our college graduates, are trained in accurate observation, keen analysis, rigid reasoning? The development of these powers in his pupils should be the fundamental aim of every teacher of economics this coming year. If this aim should be realized for every high school pupil in this country, we should not need to fear for the future of our city, our state, our nation. Inefficient government is due chiefly to the failure of our people to realize the connection between incompetent or dishonest officials and the well-being of the individual. Dangerous movements like the I. W. W. and Bolshevism are due to slovenly thinking, poor analysis of conditions by both the members of these organizations and those responsible for the conditions which breed these dangerous movements. Marxian socialism is based on premises which will not bear analysis, namely, the Marxian theory of value, which is not evolved from experience, the resulting expropriation theory, which depends upon this false theory of value, and the inevitable class struggle and the ultimate triumph of the proletariat, an unwarranted conclusion from invalid premises.

I have indicated that the primary aim of the Board of Superintendents in making economics a required subject was vocational in character. Through the medium of this subject it seeks to train good citizens. I trust I have made clear that this vocational aim can be best realized by making all aims subsidiary to the disciplinary aim; that we should, therefore, make the recitation periods in this subject exercises in exact analysis and rigid reasoning. If our schools can produce a generation of students with trained intelligence, students who can see straight, and think straight on economic data, we need not fear the attacks on our cherished institutions of the newcomers from lands where they have not been permitted to be trained and where the nursing of grievances has so stimulated the emotional nature as to render the dispassionate analysis of industrial movements and civil activities almost an impossibility.

Effective teaching in economics brings to the teacher an immediate reward, for the efficient teacher of economics must keep in touch not only with the changes in economic theory but with the movements in industry and finance, with problems of labor, problems of administration, local and national, with the vast field of legislation, and these not only in America, but in Asia, Australia, South America and Europe as well. Every newspaper, every periodical yields him material for his classroom. Almost every man he meets may be made to contribute to his work. The boundaries of his subject are ever widening. There is, moreover, no need of the stultifying repetition of subject matter, for there is no end to the material for the elucidation of economic principles. Nor is the teacher of economics in the high school compelled to create in his pupils an interest in the subject. for every New York boy is an economist in embryo. Questions of cost, price, wages, profits, labor, capital, are already the subjects of daily discussion.

The complaint so often heard that the teacher is academic, that he is removed from the world of practical affairs, and has little touch with the man in the street, cannot be made of the teachers of economics, who is vitally interested in his teaching. The more he studies his subject, the more he becomes a citizen of the world with an ever-deepening interest in all kinds of men and in all that pertains to man, the broader becomes his sympathies, the wider his vision.

The New York high schools offer great opportunities for men and women who, whether trained students of economics or not, are students of life. Here they may serve the state as effectively as the soldier in the field. Here they may train the young for lasting usefulness to themselves and to the city, while at the same time they are broadening their interests, expanding their vision and growing in intellectual vigor under, the compulsion of keeping pace with the demands of a subject which reflects as a mirror the changing needs and desires of men. The teaching of economics in high schools demands our strongest teachers. There is no place for the man who has finished his growth, who cannot change to meet changed conditions; nor is there place for the man who loves change just because it is change. The teacher of economics in the New York City high schools should be a co-worker with all those who seek to preserve and to develop those institutions, economic and civic, which have stood the test and gained the approval of the wise among us through the years. He should be a man who is fundamentally an optimist, constructive in his outlook on life, not destructive. If his motto be, “All’s wrong with the world,” there should be no place for him as a teacher of economics in a high school in New York City or in any other American city.

Economics is closely allied with the study of civics or government. In every school where there is not a full program in economics, the teacher of economics should also teach the civics. With the great increase in our civics work, there should be established in each school a department of economics and civics. For each of these subjects a license is being issued and separate examinations are being held. For the new department first assistants may be appointed and will be appointed.

May we not, therefore, confidently expect that some of our strongest teachers shall prepare themselves for this most interesting and vital work which will be given in every high school beginning September next?

Source: Bulletin of the High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City, Vol. I, No 3 (March 1919), pp. 3-7.

Image Source: Photo of Dr. John L. Tildsley in “Modern Girls Not All Wild; Here is Proof” [Construction of a new building to house Girls’ Commercial High on Classon Avenue, near Union Street] Sunday News,Brooklyn Section, p. B-15.

Categories
Columbia Economics Programs Economists Germany

Columbia. Munroe Smith’s history of the faculty of political science as told by A.S. Johnson, 1952.

 

The following paragraphs come from Alvin S. Johnson’s 1952 autobiography that is filled with many such nuggets of fact and context that are relevant for the work of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. The institutional histories from which departments of economics have emerged provide some of the initial conditions for the evolution of organized economics education. Like Johns Hopkins and unlike Harvard and Chicago, Columbia University economics was to a large part made in Germany.

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[p. 164] …Munroe Smith gave me detail after detail of the history of the faculty. Dean Burgess, as a cavalry officer in the Civil War, had had much time for reflection on the stupendous folly of a war in which citizens laid waste other citizens’ country and slaughtered each other without ill will. All the issues, Burgess believed, could have been compromised if the lawyers who controlled Congress and the state legislatures had been trained in history, political science, and public law. As soon as he was discharged from the army, after Appomattox, he set out for Germany to study the political sciences. He spent several years at different universities, forming friendships with the most famous professors and imbuing himself thoroughly with the spirit of German scholarship. On his return he accepted an appointment in history at Columbia College, then a pleasant young gentlemen’s finishing school. He was permitted to offer courses in public law. Although these could not be counted for credit toward the A.B., many of the ablest students were drawn to his lectures.

From among his students he picked out four and enlisted them in a project for transforming Columbia College into a university. The four were Nicholas Murray Butler, E. R. A. Seligman, Frank Goodnow, and Munroe Smith. They were to proceed to Germany to get their doctorates. Butler was to study philosophy and education; Seligman, economics; Goodnow, administration; Munroe Smith, Roman law. The young men executed Burgess’s command like good soldiers and in due time returned to offer non-credit courses at Columbia College.

Burgess’s next move was to turn his group into a graduate faculty. Such a faculty had been set up at Johns Hopkins, the first in America, and commanded nationwide interest among educators. Burgess argued with President Frederick Barnard on the need of a graduate school in the greatest city of the country. After some years the Board of Trustees authorized in 1886 the setting up of a graduate School of Political Science, manned by Burgess and his disciples, now advanced to professorial rank.

Butler early stepped aside to develop courses he later organized into Teachers College. Burgess and his three younger colleagues watched for opportunities to enlist additional abilities: William A. Dunning in political theory, Herbert L. Osgood in American history, John Bassett Moore in international law, John Bates Clark in [p. 165] economics Franklin Giddings in sociology. This process of expansion was going on energetically while I was on the faculty; Henry R. Seager and Henry L. Moore were enlisted for the economics department, Edward T. Devine and Samuel McCune Lindsay for sociology, James Harvey Robinson and later Charles A. Beard for history. In the meantime other graduate courses were springing up throughout the institution. The towering structure of Columbia University had risen up out of Burgess’s small bottle.

Still in my time the controlling nucleus of our faculty consisted of Burgess, Seligman, Goodnow, and Munroe Smith. They all knew American colonial history well and had followed the step-by-step evolution of Massachusetts Bay from a settlement governed by a chartered company in England to a free self-governing community, germ of American liberty. Step by step Burgess and his lieutenants built up the liberties of the School of Political Science. They got the Board of Trustees to accept the principle of the absolute freedom of the scholar to pursue the truth as he sees it, whatever the consequences; the principle of absolute equality of the faculty members; the principle that no scholar might be added to the faculty without the unanimous consent of the faculty. The principle was established that the president and trustees could intervene in the affairs of the faculty only through the power of the purse.

President Seth Low, regarding himself justly as a recognized authority on administration, sought admission to the meetings of the faculty. He was turned down. A university president could not conduct himself as an equal among equals. When Nicholas Murray Butler became president he thought it would be a good idea for him to sit in with the faculty. After all, he had been one of Burgess’s first panel. We voted the proposition down, unanimously.

Since my time the faculty has grown in numbers and its relations with other departments of the university have become closer. But the spirit of liberty and equality, established by Burgess and his lieutenants, still lives on at Columbia and has overflowed into the universities of America. From time to time a board of trustees steps outside its moral sphere and undertakes to purge and discipline the faculty. But established liberties stricken down are bound to rise again.

Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952.

Image Source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Columbia College, Madison Ave., New York, N.Y” [Architect: C. C. Haight] The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1886-09-04. Image of the Mid-town Campus from The American Architect and Building News, September 4, 1886. (cf. https://www.wikicu.com/Midtown_campus)

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. Alvin S. Johnson’s impressions of Edwin R.A. Seligman, 1898-1902

Alvin Saunders Johnson’s 1952 autobiography, A Pioneer’s Progress, provides us a treasure chest of granular detail regarding his academic and life experiences. This co-founder of the New School for Social Research in New York City went on to live another 19 years after publishing his autobiography to reach the age of 96.

Economics in the Rear-View Mirror will clip personal and departmental remembrances of Johnson’s own economics training and teaching days. This post shares a transcription of his impressions of Edwin R. A. Seligman.

Previously posted Johnson observations: John W. BurgessFranklin H. Giddings.

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Other posts with
E.R.A. Seligman content

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Alvin Johnson reminisces
about Seligman

[p. 123] Edwin R. A. Seligman was head of the Department of Economics.

He was a strikingly handsome figure, with his thick dark beard, wavy in structure, with mahogany overtones. We called it an ambrosial beard; I doubt great Zeus had a handsomer.

No economist living had read so widely in the literature of the social sciences as Seligman. He had a catholic mind and found some good in every author, no matter how crackbrained. A man of large income, he was the foremost academic advocate of progressive income and inheritance taxes at a time when all regular economists abominated the idea of the income tax as a Populist attack on the wealthy and cultured classes. He was a staunch supporter of trade unionism and government regulation of railway rates. It was hard for me to distinguish between Seligman’s populism and mine.

As a lecturer he was systematic and eloquent. He never appeared before a class without thorough preparation, and in the seminar meetings at his house he was always primed with all the facts and ideas that might supplement the students’ papers. He was a great teacher, and most of the graduate students turned to him for direction…

*  *  *  *  *  *

[p. 137]…As the doctoral examinations approached in the spring of 1901, three of our group of students — Jesse Eliphalet Pope, Allan Willett, and I — spent much time together cramming. We were to be examined on the entire literature of our major economics — and on the courses in the minors for which we had registered, in my case sociology under Giddings. It goes without saying that we hadn’t a chance to load ourselves up for the particular questions we might be asked in a three-hour oral examination. Still we boned manfully.

Our Columbia professors were as a rule very humane. If a student seemed to be floored by a question the examiner made haste to substitute another and easier question. I felt I was getting on very satisfactorily under the questioning of Seligman and Clark. But then Giddings pounced on me with blood in his eye. He was having a feud with Seligman at the time and meant to take it out of my hide. He did, and I resented it, for he was my friend.

After the examination I waited in the corridor to hear the results of the examiners’ deliberations. Soon Seligman came out and announced that I had passed with flying colors….

We were all three candidates for teaching positions, and Seligman had a powerful reach out into the colleges of the country. Three openings came to his jurisdiction: an associate professorship at New York University, which he awarded to Pope, the faculty favorite; an instructorship at Brown University, which went to Willett; and a position as Reader at Bryn Maw College, which he reserved for me. I was [p. 138] so very young, he said — all through my undergraduate life I had felt reprehensibly old. At Bryn Maw I would give only one three-hour course and have nearly all my time for finishing my doctor’s thesis.

*  *  *  *  *  *

[p. 151] … [At] Columbia and Barnard, in the fall of 1902, instruction presented problems quite new to me. Sometimes the problems were perplexing, often annoying, but usually capable of some sort of solution. By the end of my four years at Columbia I had been whipped into the shape of a fairly good teacher, although I was quite incapable of rising to the quizmaster heights many heads of departments at that time regarded as ideal.

My principal function was to drill classes of juniors, at Columbia and Barnard, in Bullock’s Introduction to Economics. At Columbia, Professor Seligman would lecture one hour to the assembled classes.

At Barnard, Professor Henry L. Moore would likewise assemble all the students for a general lecture. Then I would take over the students in smaller, though still large, groups and try to polish them off by quizzing them. It was on the whole a bad method.

*  *  *  *  *  *

 

Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952.

Image Source: E.R.A. Seligman in Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2 (1899), pp. 484-6. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

 

 

Categories
Columbia Sociology

Columbia. Alvin S. Johnson’s impressions of Franklin H. Giddings, 1898-1902

 

Alvin Saunders Johnson’s 1952 autobiography, A Pioneer’s Progress, provides us a treasure chest of granular detail regarding his academic and life experiences. This co-founder of the New School for Social Research in New York City went on to live another 19 years after publishing his autobiography to reach the age of 96.

Economics in the Rear-View Mirror will clip personal and departmental remembrances of Johnson’s own economics training and teaching days. This post shares a transcription of his impression of the sociologist Franklin H. Giddings and his experience with him as one of his doctoral examiners. Economist readers are gently reminded that at the turn of the twentieth century sociology was still regarded by many economists (and sociologists) as a subfield of economics. 

Trigger warning: Giddings appears to have been both an academic bully and one who spoke fluent anti-semitic speech.

Previously posted Johnson observation: John W. Burgess.

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Other posts with
Franklin H. Giddings’ content

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Alvin Johnson reminisces
about Giddings

[p. 122] …Columbia men swore by Franklin H. Giddings as the greatest living sociologist. He was a large, genial man, with bluntly pointed red beard and a markedly dolichocephalic skull, of which he was very proud. In his view, all distinction in the world, all energy, all genius, were carried by the dolichocephalic blonds Aryans, we called them then. Other peoples might acquire merit by imitation.

“Look at the Jews,” he would say in the privacy of the Sunday evening meetings at his house. “They are middlemen in economic life and middlemen in the world of ideas.”

Down the corridor from Giddings’ office was the office of Franz [p. 123] Boas, anthropologist. Logically he belonged in the School of Political Science, and in scholarly attainment, originality, and intellectual leadership he ranked with the best of them. Years later, when I was a member of the faculty, I urged the annexation of Franz Boas, then recognized throughout the world as the foremost anthropologist. Giddings vetoed the idea with the vigor of a Gromyko. Anthropology was either a natural science, having no proper place in a School of Political Science, or an amateurish sociology we could not afford to recognize…

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

[p. 137] … the doctoral examinations approached in the spring of 1901 …. We were to be examined on the entire literature of our major economics — and on the courses in the minors for which we had registered, in my case sociology under Giddings. It goes without saying that we hadn’t a chance to load ourselves up for the particular questions we might be asked in a three-hour oral examination. Still we boned manfully.

Our Columbia professors were as a rule very humane. If a student seemed to be floored by a question the examiner made haste to substitute another and easier question. I felt I was getting on very satisfactorily under the questioning of Seligman and Clark. But then Giddings pounced on me with blood in his eye. He was having a feud with Seligman at the time and meant to take it out of my hide. He did, and I resented it, for he was my friend.

After the examination I waited in the corridor to hear the results of the examiners’ deliberations. Soon Seligman came out and announced that I had passed with flying colors. Giddings followed, jovially slapped me on the back, and said, “Well, Johnson, I made you sweat. I knew it wouldn’t hurt you. Seligman would have bulled you through if you had flunked every question. But say, you knew more of the answers than I’d have known if I hadn’t loaded up for you.

So it was just good, clean fun, like pushing an absent-minded companion off an embankment…

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

[pp. 163-164] … There was, to be sure, a certain amount of personal friction, particularly between Giddings and Seligman. It was aired in the offices, not at faculty meetings. Giddings would encounter Seligman in the Political Science Quarterly office, where I was working, and would roar out his discontent with some plan of Seligman’s. Seligman always remained imperturbably courteous.Once I asked Giddings what he really had against Seligman.

“What I’ve got against him? I can’t get under the skin of that infernal Christian. You know, Johnson, I sometimes think only Jews can really behave like Christians. The Jews created that religion, and it suits their temperament. It doesn’t suit the temperament of us Aryans.”…

Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952.

Image 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. Vol. II, pp. 453-5. Portrait colorised by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

 

 

Categories
Barnard Columbia Economist Market Economists

Columbia. Early Industrial Organization. Career of Arthur Robert Burns, husband of Eveline M. Burns

In the previous post we encountered social security pioneer Eveline Mabel Burns née Richardson at the point in her career when the Columbia University economics department signaled a definitive end to any hopes for promotion from the rank of lecturer to a tenure track assistant professorship in economics for her with them. In this post we follow the parallel case of her economist husband, Arthur Robert Burns (and no, not the Arthur F. Burns of Burns-Mitchell fame!), who cleared the promotion to assistant professor hurdle at Columbia relatively easily, but was stuck at that rank for nine years, in spite of repeated proposals by the department to promote him sooner.

The heart of this post can be found in the exchange between the  Arthur Robert Burns and then economics department head R. M. Haig in November 1941. Biographical and career backstories for Arthur R. Burns through 1945 can be found in excerpts posted below from budgetary proposals submitted by the economics department over the years. Burns was seen as a pillar of Columbia University’s Industrial Organization field at that time and remained at Columbia through his retirement (ca. 1965) while his wife took up a professorship in Social Work.

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From: Seligman’s 1929-30 budget recommendation to President Butler (December 1, 1928)

“During [Clara Eliot’s] absence [from Barnard College)  Mr. A. R. Burns has been acting as substitute. In our judgment he has been a valuable addition to the staff, and we recommend that he be reappointed as instructor. In Miss Eliot’s absence the course in statistics has been reduced from two semesters to one. There is a distinct demand for an additional course, though it would be on a different basis from formerly, and our proposal is that Miss Eliot be appointed solely to give two three-point courses in statistics, conducting a statistical laboratory as part of this work. This would relieve Mr. Burns from the course in statistics, and enable him to offer a new course of a somewhat more theoretical character than any now given at Barnard, on “the price-system and the organization of society”, a course which would distinctly help to round out the present offerings in Economics”.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Department of Economics Budgets, 1915-1934 (a few minor gaps)”.

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Biographical and professional background through 1930-31
of Arthur R. Burns

…Arthur R. Burns was born in London, in 1895. He served in the army from September, 1914, to April, 1917, when he was discharged as no longer fit because of wounds. He entered the London School of Economics at once, took his B.Sc. degree with honors in 1920, taught economics in King’s College for women (University of London) for four years, and took his doctor’s degree in 1926. The award of Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fellowships brought Dr. Burns and his wife to this country, where they traveled somewhat widely for two years, studied competitive conditions in industries characterized by large business units, and where they were induced to stay by Columbia.

Dr. Burns has now been a lecturer in economics at Barnard College for three years. Members of our department have thus had an opportunity to become well acquainted with his quality. We think that he is by native ability, temperament and training an investigator, and that, given such opportunities as the graduate department affords, he will make significant contributions to economic science. His publications include several technical papers and two books: Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times, 1926, (a learned treatise on the origin and early history of coinage and monetary practices), and The Economic World, 1927 (written in collaboration with Mrs. Burns).

Source: Letter outlining plans for the future development of the economics department by Wesley C. Mitchell to President Butler. January 16, 1931. In Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890-, Box 667, Folder 34 “Mitchell, Wesley Clair, 10/1930 – 6/1931”. Carbon copy also in Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Department of Economics Budgets, 1915-1934 (a few minor gaps)”.

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Department recommends promotion to Associate Professorship
already in 1937-38
[Note: actual promotion only occurred Apr. 3, 1944]

[…] I would make the following budgetary recommendations for the coming academic year [1937-1938]:

(1) That the salary of Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be advanced from $3,600 to $4,000. In the opinion of his colleagues Mr. Burns is an indispensable member of our group whose scholarly competence and accomplishments entitle him to recognition far beyond that yet accorded him by the University. At the earliest possible moment he should be advanced to an Associate Professorship.”

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1937-1938”.

____________________________

Department again recommends promotion to Associate Professorship
[Note: Burns was given the salary increase this time]

[…] I would respectfully make the following budgetary recommendations for the coming academic year [1938-1939]:

(1) That the salary of Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be advanced from $3,600 to $4,000. In the opinion of his colleagues Mr. Burns is an indispensable member of our group whose scholarly competence and accomplishments entitle him to recognition far beyond that yet accorded him by the University. At the earliest possible moment he should be advanced to an Associate Professorship.”

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1938-1939”.

____________________________

Department then begins unsuccessfully to push for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship
[Nov. 28, 1938]

[…] I respectfully recommend budgetary changes for the coming academic year 1939-1940, involving increase of compensation to the following members of the staff:

[…]

3. Arthur R. Burns from $4,000 to $4,500;

[…]

[Assistant] Professor Arthur R. Burns has established himself as an authority in his chosen field, and it is the desire of his colleagues that he be advanced to a full professorship as rapidly as university resources will allow. His tenure has already been long, and his advancement slow. It is our thought that he be given current recognition and enccouragement, with hope of promotion to rank commesurate with his repute among economists.”

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, “Economics Budget 1938-1939”. [note: incorrectly filed!]

____________________________

Requesting unpaid leave for a Twentieth Century Fund project

March 1, 1939

Nicholas Murray Butler, LL.D.
President of Columbia University

Dear President Butler:

Professor Arthur R. Burns has been invited to take the directorship of a study of the public utility industry, under the auspices of the Twentieth Century Fund. We of the Department think it wise that he do this and recommend that he be granted leave of absence without pay for the academic year 1939-40. I shall be prepared before long to make recommendation of some outstanding person to serve as a partial substitute for Professor Burns during the coming academic year with a stipend which will absorb approximately three-fifths of Professor Burns’ current compensation.

Very sincerely yours,

Executive Officer
Department of Economics

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1939-1940”.

____________________________

Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship
[Nov. 18, 1939]

[…] I respectfully make the following recommendations affecting the budget of 1940-41:

[…]

6. That Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be granted added compensation of $500 [i.e. from $4,000 to $4,500].

[…]

[Assistant] Professor Arthur R. Burns has served a long apprenticeship with subordinate rank in the Department. At the moment, either from the standpoint of scholarly attainment or from that of efficiency in graduate instruction he suffers not at all by comparison with the best endowed and most effective of his colleagues. Because of his merits and of the importance of the field he covers, he should be advanced rapidly to full professorial status.

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1939-1940” [note: incorrectly filed!]

____________________________

Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary reducing  promotion to Associate Professorship
[October 27, 1941]

MEMORANDUM
Department of Economics
October 27, 1941

[…]

Arthur R. Burns. Proposed: Advancement–assistant professor to associate professor.
Present salary $4,500
Proposed salary. $5,000

[…]

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Budget Material from July 1941-June 1942”.

____________________________

Arthur R. Burns demands promotion to the rank of professor

3206, Que Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.

November 1st 1941.

Dear Professor Haig,

As I shall not be in New York this year to talk about the departmental plans for next year I must write. It seems to me that the question of my status in the department now calls for definitive action. Doubtless the unsettled times will be advanced as a reason for postponing promotion. At the outset, therefore, I wish to emphasise that I should regard any such attitude as entirely unfair. If the University is to go through hard times (as well it may) its misfortunes should be shared equitably among all the members of the faculty. To be frank, I feel that I have already been asked to bear an altogether unreasonable share of such financial stringencies as the University may have suffered. There have been many occasions in the past thirteen years on which I have been told that my promotion has been recommended (and more in which I have been told that it would have been recommended) but that no action has been taken for general financial reasons. I fully expect to bear my share of the burden of contemporary events but I feel that the time has come for my position to be given special consideration irrespective of those events, no matter how serious.

Various reasons have been given to me during my thirteen years of service to the University for its failure to promote me. But I think I am justified in believing that there has been less than the usual amount of criticism of my scholarship or my teaching capacity. The number of my students who have progressed in the outside world (sometimes already beyond my own rank and salary) indicates that I have been reasonably effective. Furthermore, I think that you will find that in recent years there has been an increasing number of graduate students coming to Columbia to work with me.

I now ask you, therefore, to have my academic status reviewed, whether or not the University wishes on principle again to avoid promotions. And after this long delay promotion only to an associate professorship will not, in my opinion, be compatible with my professional reputation and status. For six or seven years now my recognition outside the University has been widely at variance with my academic rank. My salary as Director of Research for the Twentieth Century Fund was $10,000 per annum. I have recently been invited to join the Anti Trust Division of the Department of Justice at a salary of $8,000 per annum. I am now the Supervisor of Civilian Allocation in the Office of Production Management. I suggest that this evidence justifies promotion to a full professorship. If economies are necessary, I am ready, as I have said, to accept them on the same basis as my colleagues.

I have written to you with complete frankness because I have been keenly disappointed with the disposal of suggestions for my promotion and I am anxious that you shall be clearly informed as to my feelings. I gather that for a number of years now there has been no serious objection but also no vigorous effort in my behalf. I now feel that if after all these long delays Columbia is unwilling to take special action to recognize my professional status I had better know before I am much older. I am now forty six years of age and if I must seek academic recognition elsewhere I must obviously begin to take the necessary steps without delay. I would of course prefer to stay with Columbia. I think you will agree that these long years of patient waiting are evidence of my loyalty but I think you will also agree that I cannot continue much longer to accept the present wide discrepancy between my status inside and outside the University.

Very sincerely yours,

[signed]

Arthur R. Burns

Professor Robert Murray Haig,
Chairman,
Department of Economics,
Fayerweather Hall,
Columbia University,
NEW YORK CITY

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection. Box 2: “Faculty”,  Folder: “Faculty Appointments”.

____________________________

Department responds to Burns’ demands:
Associate professorship when your rejoin the faculty

November 22, 1941

Professor Arthur R. Burns
3206 Que Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.

Dear Professor Burns:

Last night our group met at dinner to consider the budget. This afforded an opportunity to comply with your request that your academic status be reviewed. I wish you could have listened to the discussion that took place. It was highly friendly and appreciative in tone, but at the same time it was pervaded by a deep sense of responsibility for the ultimate objectives for which we are striving. I am sure that it would have impressed you, as it did me, with the essential soundness of the policy of placing heavy dependence upon the deliberate, critical judgment of one’s colleagues in considering questions of promotion.

Your letter of November 1st, which I read to the brethren in full, arrived at a time peculiarly unfavorable for the consideration of finalities and ultimatums. Moreover, I regret to have to report some of the statements and implications of that letter were not altogether fortunate in the reactions they inspired. Let me elaborate on this last statement first.

(1) You state that you gather that in the past there has been “no vigorous effort” in your behalf. I can speak with full knowledge only regarding last year. If the implication is that your failure to secure more adequate recognition is ascribable to lack of vigor on the part of your colleagues as a group, or of the chairman of the Department in particular, I wish to state that I know it to be untrue with respect to last year and have reason to believe it to be untrue of several previous years. As a matter of fact, last year as the program moved forward from the Faculty Committee on Instruction, the recommendation for your promotion was placed at the very top above all others in the Faculty of Political Science. Until the very end, when the Trustees at their March meeting ruthlessly scuttled the program, I had high hopes that the effort would be successful. The only budgetary changes last year in this entire Department of 32 members were a) a $300 increase for which the College authorities had obligated themselves to secure for Barger and b) the temporary allocation of $600 to Wald for one year only from a sabbatical “windfall”.

(2) The citation of the salaries and fees you have been able to command in the government service and in the service of private research organizations as evidence that “justifies promotion to a full professorship” does not greatly impress your colleagues. We rejoice in the recognition and rewards that have come to you in return for your efforts while on leave of absence from your post at Columbia. Certainly the work of the Department has been carried on under a distinct handicap when your courses haven manned by part-time substitutes and we should like to believe that the sacrifices involved had borne rich fruits in professional and material rewards to you personally as well as to the general cause of science. However, you will readily agree, I take it, that our promotion and salary policy cannot be based on the principle you seem to suggest, viz., that the University must be prepared to match, dollar for dollar, the potential earning power of the staff on outside jobs. The rate of compensation for such outside work is, to my certain knowledge, likely to run over four or five times the rate of University compensation. Indeed, I can think of many of our colleagues who, on the basis of such a principle, could cite evidence even more convincing than your own.

(3) In the next place your letter seems to imply an understanding of the nature of the University connection that is not in complete harmony with our own. While it may be the policy elsewhere that mere length of service by a person who joins the staff at an early age, even though that service be reasonably effective and untouched by unfavorable criticism, carries assurance of promotion to the highest rank, this is definitely not the policy at Columbia University. Theoretically, at least, the University retains complete freedom of action to withhold advancement subject to a continuing critical appraisal of the individual’s value to the institution, against the background of changing circumstances, among which the University’s ability to supply funds must be listed near the top. Everyone is continually on trial to the very end of his career. This is evidenced in the practice regarding early retirement, the working of which I have recently had an opportunity to observe. Assurance regarding stability of tenure at a given level is a different point and mere humanitarian considerations are given generous weight. However, fundamentally the University connection is to be regarded as an opportunity (an opportunity, incidentally, of which you, in the opinion of your colleagues have, on the whole, made very good use) and promotion and early retirement are certainly affected and, in many cases at least, determined by the manner in which a member of the staff rises to that opportunity. Moreover, when such heavy dependence is placed upon the continuing critical appraisal by one’s colleagues, each man must have regard for his responsibility for the long-run interests of the department and of science. If, as the years roll along, the department is to contain a reasonably large percentage of intellects of the highest order, the critical appraisal must be a continuing process and sufficient freedom of action must be retained in promotion and salary policy to enable the group to make reasonably effective its collective judgment as to what is best for the department in the light of the individual’s developing record and the fluctuations of the resources available for supplying opportunities. I hope that you will forgive me for laboring this point but it is important that you understand what I am certain is the sentiment of the group of which you are a valued member, viz., that no matter on what basis of rank you may return to us, say, for example, as an associate professor, further recognition in rank or salary will be dependent upon decisions reached in harmony with the general policies outlined above.

I now revert to my earlier statement that your letter arrived at a peculiarly unfavorable time.

(1) On November 13th a letter was received from the President of the University indicating that Draconian economies were indicated for this year’s budget. Our own enrolment in the graduate department of economics has shrunk this year about 25 per cent and this shrinkage is on top of last year’s substantial shrinkage. Even in advance of the preparation of the formal budget letters, the department chairmen were summoned before a special committee at the behest of the trustees and urged by the elimination of courses and other means to contract the normal budget to smaller proportions. Consequently only in emergency cases where the interests of the University are considered to be vitally affected, will serious consideration be given to recommendations involving an increased expenditure.

(2) With the retirement of McCrea, the question of the future of the School of Business has been thrown open for discussion. Under the new Dean a radical revision of policy is being formulated, including as one item the transfer of the School to a strictly graduate level. The intimate interrelationships of staff and curriculum between our department and the school are being reexamined. Plans are still in a state of flux but your particular field of interest is involved. So highly dynamic is the situation that the budget letters of both the Department and the School are to be considered tentative documents, subject to modification as decisions of policy are taken during the weeks that lie ahead.

(3) The situation is further complicated by the fact that within our Department itself we have reached the stage, which arises every decade or so, when long-time plans require consideration. Not only are we faced with an important retirement problem, but we are also asked to have regard for the situation that will result if the present trend toward lower enrolments continues. To deal with this situation, a special committee has been set up in the department, headed by Professor Mitchell, to formulate plans for the future. A series of meetings is being held at which the present and probable future importance of the various subjects falling within the scope of the departments are being discussed and questions of staff and curriculum are being intensively studied. Here also important decisions are in the making but definite conclusions have not yet been reached.

I am writing at such length in order that you may understand clearly and fully the background against which we were called upon to consider your letter and the reasons underlying the action that was taken in your case.

The recommendation that I am instructed by our colleagues to include in the budget letter is that I renew the recommendation made last year that you be promoted to the rank of associate professor at a salary of $5,000. I realize that this will be a disappointment to you. You have stated that you consider this degree of recognition, if we are successful in securing it for you, would not be compatible with your professional reputation and status. I infer from your letter that you consider it so inadequate that you are not prepared to accept it. However, you do not make yourself unequivocally clear on this point. If your mind is definitely made up, it will simplify the procedure if you will inform me of the fact at once. On the other hand, there is no disposition to press you for an early answer in case you are not as far along toward a decision as your letter would seem to imply.

In considering the problem of your probable future with us, as compared with the various flattering alternatives open to you, I feel that I should make the following statements:

(1) I have no assurance that the recommendation will be adopted. It will carry the vigorous support of the department and of the Chairman. I have already raised the question informally before the Committee on Instruction of the Faculty and am happy to be able to report that this committee is warmly friendly to your cause. Frankly, however, I am not as optimistic as I was last year at this time regarding the outlook for a favorable outcome when the trustees finally take action.

(2) I should report that, in view of all the circumstances, including the state of ferment that exists at the moment regarding future plans for the department, your colleagues would not be willing to urge your appointment to a full professorship immediately, even if they were convinced that such a recommendation would stand a chance of acceptance by the trustees. You are highly regarded and much appreciated. Your colleagues regret the harsh circumstances that have made it impossible to give you more recognition than you have already received. They consider you an excellent gamble for the long future. They consider the fields of your special interest important. However, it is hoped and believed that you have not yet reached a full development of your potentialities. When faced with the question as to whether they are convinced that, on the record to date, you are reasonably certain to be generally regarded, during the next twenty years, as one of the dozen or so most distinguished economists in active service, there is a general disposition to reply “not yet proven beyond a reasonable doubt”. Although they have no illusions about the difficulty of carrying out this policy with success, they have decided to take the position that they will henceforth recommend for a full professorship no one who does not meet such a test. They prefer to have you return with the clear understanding all around that the final issue, the question of the full professorship, shall not be decided in your case until more evidence is in. They take this position with the best of will and with a considerable degree of confidence that the final decision will be favorable. In connection with this, they feel that the important work upon which you are now engaged should contribute substantially to your “capital account” and should have a highly favorable effect upon your future record as a scholar and teacher.

You paid me the compliment of writing me a candid and forthright letter. In return I have attempted to lay before you with complete frankness all the considerations I know of that bear upon the question you have to consider.

Finally, I should like to say, speaking both in a personal capacity and as the chairman of the department, that I hope you will find it possible to send me word that you desire to continue as a member of our group under these conditions. We have an interesting and important task before us. I believe that you have a rôle to play in its accomplishment. If, unhappily for us, your decision takes you away from us, we shall sincerely regret the termination of our close association with you. To a remarkable degree you have earned for yourself not only the respect but the affection of your colleagues at Columbia.

Faithfully yours,

R.M. HAIG

P.S. At your early convenience will you be good enough to send me a note of any items that should be added to your academic record for use in my budget letter.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection. Box 2: “Faculty”,  Folder: “Faculty Appointments”.

____________________________

From: Economics Department’s Proposed Budget for 1946-1947
November 30, 1945
[Burns recommended for professorship]

[…]

We recommend that Arthur Robert Burns, now an associate professor at a salary of $5,000, be promoted to a professorship at $7,500. Professor Burns, who has been connected with the University since 1928, was appointed an assistant professor in 1935, an associate professor in 1944. He has returned this year to his academic work, after a six-year leave of absence devoted to research and to important governmental service. His war-time activities have included service as Chief Economic Adviser and deputy Director of the Office of Civilian Supply, Deputy Administrator of the Foreign Economic Administration, and a mission to Europe in 1945 as a member of the American Group of the Allied Control Commission, advising on economic and industrial disarmament of Germany.
Professor Burns is carrying one of the fundamental graduate courses on Industrial Organization. He has agreed to offer one of the courses that will be central in the curriculum of the School of International Affairs–a course on “Types of Economic Organization”. His close acquaintance with the organization of the economies of the United States, Britain, and Germany, and his scholarly background in the field are of great value in this development of systematic academic work on comparative economic systems. Burn’s scholarly reputation is high. His study of The Decline of Competition, which is accepted as a standard in the field, is one of the major products of the Columbia Council on Research in the Social Sciences. He has served the country in recent years in administrative and advisory posts of high responsibility. We believe that he should have the rank of full professor.

[…]

Annex C

ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS

Academic Record

1918. Gladstone Memorial Prize, London School of Economics, London.
1920. B.Sc. (Economics) degree with First Class Honors, University of London.
1926. Ph.D. degree, University of London.
1926-28. Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship.

Teaching

1922-26. University of London.
1928-31. Lecturer in Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University.
1931-35. Lecturer in Economics, Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.
1935-44. Assistant Professor of Economics, Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.
1939. Special Lecturer, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Leaves of absence without salary for 1940-41 through 1944-45.
1944-45. Promoted to Associate Professor of Economics
Returned to Columbia University for 1945-46.

Published Work

“Indian Currency Reform.” Economica, about 1925.
“The Effect of Funding the Floating Debt,” Economica, about 1933.
Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times.” London: Kegan Paul & Co., 1927. About 650 pp.
The Economic World.” London, University of London Press, 1928. [sic: co-authorship of wife Eveline M. Burns was not included in the citation].
“The Quantitative Study of Recent Economic Changes in the United States.” Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, 31: 491-546, April, 1930.
“Population Pressure in Great Britain.” Eugenics, 3: 211-20, June, 1930.
“The First Phase of the National Industrial Recovery Act 1933”. Political Science Quarterly,  49:161, June, 1934.
“The Consumer under the National Industrial Recovery Act.” Management Review, 23:195, July 1934.
The Decline of Competition. New York, McGraw Hill, 1936. 619 pp.
[not listed: “The Process of Industrial Concentration” 47 Q.J.E. 277 (1933)]
“The Anti-Trust Laws and the Regulation of Price Competition.” Law and Contemporary Problems, June, 1937.
“The Organization of Industry and the Theory of Prices.” Journal of Political Economy, XLV: 662-80, October, 1937.
“Concentration of Production,” Harvard Business Review, Spring Issue, 1943.
“Surplus Government Property and Foreign Policy”, Foreign Affairs, April, 1945.

Unpublished Studies

1935-38. Investigation of the pricing of cement with special reference to the basing point system (in collaboration with Professor J. M. Clark).
1939. Report on the pricing of sulphur.
1938-39. Study of distribution costs and retail prices.
1939-41. Director of Research, Twentieth Century Fund study of “Relations between Government and Electric Light and Power Industry.” Has been completed and is now in hands of the Twentieth Century Fund.

Other Work

1935. Alternate member. President’s Committee to report on the experience of the National Recovery Administration.
1938-39. Chairman, Sub-Committee of Price Conference on Distribution Costs and REtail Prices.
1939-41. Member of Board of Editors, American Economic Review.
1941. Supervisor of Civilian Supply and Requirements, Office of Production Management.
1942. Chief Economic Adviser, Office of Civilian Supply, War Production Board.
1942 (July-August). Member of mission to London to study British methods of concentration of industry.
1943. Deputy Director, Office of Civilian Supply.
1943. Director of Planning and Research, Office of Civilian Requirement
1943, December to March, 1945. Special assistant to Administrator, Deputy Administrator to the Foreign Economic Administration.
1945-continuing. Consultant to Enemy Branch of the Foreign Economic Administration.
1945, Summer. In Europe with the American Group of the Allied Control Commission to advise on the economic and industrial disarmament of Germany.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Department of Economics Budget ’46-47 and related matters”.

___________________________

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”.

Categories
Chicago Economics Programs Economist Market Economists

Chicago. Memos discussing guests to teach during summer quarter, 1927

 

 

Apparently the 1926 summer quarter course planning at the Chicago department of political economy in 1926 was so wild that the head of the department, Leon C. Marshall, decided to start the discussion for 1927 on the second day of Summer, 1926. Four of the seven colleagues responded with quite a few suggestions.

This post provides the first+middle names where needed in square brackets. Also links to webpages with further information about the suggested guests have been added.

______________________

Copy of memo from
Leon Carroll Marshall

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Department of Economics

Memorandum from L. C. Marshall. June 22, 1926

To: C. W. Wright, J. A. Field, H. A. Millis, J. Viner, L. W. Mints, P. H. Douglas, W. H. Spencer

We really must break through the morass we are in with respect to our summer quarter. Partly because of delayed action and partly because of an interminable debating society in such matters we finally get a patched up program which is not as attractive as it should be.

I shall proceed on the basis of the homely philosophy that the way to do something is to do something. I shall try to secure from every member of the group a statement of his best judgment concerning the appropriate course of action for the summer of 1927 and then move at once toward rounding out a program.

Won’t you be good enough to turn in to E57 within the next few days your suggestions and comments with respect to the following issues.

  1. Do you yourself expect to be in residence the summer quarter of 1927?
  2. If you do, what courses do you prefer to teach? Please list more than two courses placing all of the courses in your order of preference. In answering this question, please keep in mind the problem of guiding research. Should you offer a research course?
  3. What are your preferences with respect to hours? Please state them rather fully and give some alternatives so that a schedule may be pieced together.
  4. What courses or subject matter should we be certain to include in the summer of 1927?
  5. What men from outside do you recommend for these courses which we should be certain to include? Please rank them in the order of your preference.
  6. Quite aside from the subject matter which you have recommended above, what persons from the outside ought we try to make contact with if our funds permit? This gives an opportunity to aid in making up the personnel of the summer quarter in all fields.
  7. Please give any other comments or suggestions which occur to you.

Yours very sincerely,

LCM:G

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

Response from
Jacob Viner

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

July 1, 1926

Dear Mr. Marshall

I will want to offer 301 (Neo-class Ec.) & 353 (Int Ec. Pol) as usual next summer, though if we have a good outside theorist to give 301, I would like to give a course on Theory of Int Trade in addition to 353. I think we need someone especially in Banking, next in theory. Beyond these we should offer work in some of the following, if we can get first rankers: statistics, private finance, transportation, economic history of Europe & ec. Hist. of U.S.

I suggest the following from which selections could be made:

Banking

Theory Statistics Transportation

Ec. Hist.

[Eugene E.]
Agger

 

[Benjamin Haggott] Beckhart

 

[Allyn Abbott]
A.A. Young

 

[Chester Arthur]
C. A. Phillips

 

[Oliver Mitchell Wentworth]
Sprague

 

[James Harvey] Rogers

 

[Ernest Minor] E.M. Patterson

[Allyn Abbott]
Young

 

[Jacob Harry]
Hollander[Frank Hyneman] Knight

 

[Albert Benedict] Wolfe

 

[Herbert Joseph] Davenport

[Henry Roscoe] Trumbower

 

[Homer Bews] Vanderblue

[Melvin Moses] M.M. Knight

 

[Abbott Payson] A.P. Usher

As other possibilities I suggest [George Ernest] Barnett, [James Cummings] Bonbright, [Edward Dana] Durand, [Edwin Griswold] Nourse, [Sumner Huber] Slichter, John D. [Donald] Black, Holbrook Working, [Alvin Harvey] Hansen.

[signed]
J Viner

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

Response from
Paul Howard Douglas

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration

June 29, 1926

Professor L. C. Marshall
Faculty Exchange

Dear Mr. Marshall:

You have hit the nail on the head in your proposal to get under way for next summer, and I am very much pleased at your action. Answering your questions specifically may I say—

  1. That I do not expect to be in residence for the summer quarter of 1927.
  2. &3. Since I shall not be in residence no answers to these questions are, I take it, necessary.

 

  1. We should, I think, be certain to include adequate work in the following fields (a) Economic theory, (b) Monetary and banking theory, (c) Labor problems, (d) Statistics and quantitative economics, (e) Taxation and Public finance, (f) Economic history.
  2. As regards men from outside, I would recommend the following in each field: (a) Economic theory—[Herbert Joseph] H. J. Davenport, [John Rogers] J. R. Commons, [Frank Hyneman] F. H. Knight; (b) Monetary and banking theory—[Allyn Abbott] A. A. Young, [Oliver Mitchell Wentworth] O.M.W. Sprague, [James Waterhouse] James W. Angell; (c) Labor problems—Selig Perlman, Alvin [Harvey] H. Hansen; (d) Statistics and quantitative economics—[Frederick Cecil] F. C. Mills, [Robert Emmet] R. E. Chaddock, [William Leonard] W. L. Crum; (e) Taxation and public finance—[Harley Leist] H. L. Lutz, [William John] William J. Shultz; (f) Economic history—[Norbert Scott Brien] N. S. B. Gras.
  3. As people from outside to try for, might it not be possible to secure some one from England, such as [John Atkinson] John A. Hobson, Henry Clay, or [Dennis Holme] D. H. Robertson? Might it not also be possible to get Charles Rist from France or [Werner] Sombart from Germany?

Faithfully yours,
[signed]
Paul H. Douglas

P.S. The news that [Henry] Schultz and [Melchior] Palyi are to be with us next year is certainly welcome. Should we not let everyone know that they are coming, and should not a news note to this effect be sent on to the American Economic Review? [Handwritten note here: “Mr. Wright doing this”]

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

Response from
Lloyd Wynn Mints

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration

July 16, 1926

Memorandum to L. C. Marshall from L. W. Mints, concerning the work of the summer quarter, 1927.

  1. It is my present intention not to be in residence during the summer quarter, 1927, although I will be in the city, I suppose.
  2. It appears to me that we should attempt to get men from the outside who would represent some of the newer points of view rather than the orthodox fields. I should suppose that it would be desirable to have a man in statistics and, if he could be found, somebody to do something with quantitative economics. For the statistics I would suggest [William Leonard] Crum, [Frederick Cecil] Mills, [Frederick Robertson] Macaulay, [Willford Isbell] King, [Bruce D.] Mudgett, [Robert] Riegel. I am ignorant of the particular bents of some of the statistical men, but I should suppose that in quantitative economics [Holbrook] Working, [Alvin Harvey] Hansen, or [William Leonard] Crum might do something. Perhaps [Edmund Ezra] Day should be added to the men in Statistics.
    In economic history, as I remember it, we have had no outside help for a long time. I should like to see either [Noman Scott Brien] Gras or Max [Sylvius] Handman give some work here in the summer.
    Particular men who represent somewhat new points of view, and who might be had for the summer, I would suggest as follows: [Lionel Danforth] Edie, [Oswald Fred] Boucke, [Morris Albert] Copeland, [Sumner Huber] Slichter.
    In addition I should like very much to see either [Edwin Robert Anderson] Seligman or [John Rogers] Commons here for a summer.

[signed]
L.W.M.

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

Response from
Harry Alvin Millis

Answers to questions re Summer Teaching, 1927

  1. Yes, I feel that I must teach next summer unless that plan you have been interested in goes through.
  2. 342 [The State in Relation to Labor] and 440 [Research].
  3. 342 at 8; 440 hour to be arranged.
  4. 5. 6.: Should get a better rounded program than we have had. Should have an outstanding man in economic theory and another in Finance. For the former I would mention [John] Maurice Clark, [John Rogers] Commons, and [Frank Hyneman] Knight—in order named. For the latter I would mention [Allyn Abbott] Young, [James Harvey] Rogers. If we can get the money I should like to see [George Ernest] Barnett brought on for statistics and a trade union course.

 

  1. Would it be possible to have a seminar which would bring together the outside men and some of the inside men and our mature graduate students—these hand-picked? It might be made very stimulating.

[Signed]
H. A. Millis

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

Response from
Chester Whitney Wright

The University of Chicago
The Department of Political Economy

Memorandum to Marshall from Wright

Summer 1927
First term some aspects of economic history
1:30 or 2:30
May have to teach the whole summer but hope I can confine it to first term.
Can teach any phases of subjects in any fields suitable for term.

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

Response from
James Alfred Field

[No written answer in the folder: however L. C. Marshall noted that Field would not be teaching in the summer term of 1927]

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

Response from
William Homer Spencer

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration
Office of the Dean

July 12, 1926

Mr. L. C. Marshall
The Department of Political Economy

My dear Mr. Marshall:

As Mr. [Garfield Vestal] Cox does not wish to teach during the Summer Quarter of 1927, I wish the Department of Political Economy would try to get Mr. [Edmund Ezra] Day of Wisconsin [sic, Michigan is correct] who could give both a course in statistics and a course in forecasting. Forecasting is not given this summer and unless we get someone from the outside to give it, I presume it will not be given next summer.

Why does not the Department of Political Economy for the coming summer get someone like Mr. [Leverett Samuel] Lyon to give an advanced course in economics of the market for graduate students? The Department of Political Economy could handle half of his time and I perhaps could handle the other half for market management

Now that it appears that the Department of Political Economy cannot get any promising young men in the Field of Finance, why do you not try for [Chester Arthur] Phillips of Iowa? He will give good courses and will draw a great many students from the middle west to the University.

So far as my own program is concerned, I have not made much progress. I tried to get [Roy Bernard] Kester of Columbia, but he turned me down. I am placing a similar proposition before [William Andrew] Paton of Michigan. In the Field of Marketing, I am trying for [Frederic Arthur] Russell of the University of Illinois to give a course in salesmanship primarily for teachers in secondary schools. Otherwise I have made no progress in getting outside men for next summer.

Yours sincerely,
[signed]
W. H. Spencer

WHS:DD

Source:  University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics. Records. Box 22, Folder 7.

Categories
Columbia Economists Socialism

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. alumnus. Social insurance pioneer Isaac M. Rubinow, 1914

 

In the process of identifying participants in Edwin R.A. Seligman’s advanced seminar in Political Economy and Finance at Columbia University in 1902-03, I came across the name of Isaac Max Rubinow. His life and career were definitely interesting enough to warrant a separate blog post. Rubinow was a Russian-Jewish immigrant who became interested in social insurance after writing a paper on “Labor Insurance” for Seligman’s seminar. I’ll let the materials put together below speak for themselves, but I am puzzled by the three year delay between the submission of a printed draft of his dissertation submission (1911) and the awarding of a Ph.D. (1914). 

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Rubinow’s major works on social insurance

Studies in Workmen’s Insurance: Italy, Russia, Spain“ Copy of dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy” in the library of the University of California. New York, 1911. These are the three chapters he wrote for Volume II of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor 1909. Workmen’s Insurance and Compensation Systems in Europe.  Two volumes. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1911. [First volume: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany]

Social Insurance, With Special Reference to American Conditions. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co; 1913.

From a series of fifteen lectures given at the New York School of Philanthropy in the spring of 1912.

The Quest for Social Security. New York: H. Holt, 1934.

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Negative review of Columbia Professor, Vladimir Simkhovitch,
on Karl Marx and socialism

Was Marx Wrong? The Economic Theories of Karl Marx Tested in the Light of Modern Industrial Development. New York: The Marx Institute of America, 1914.

Revised review of Vladimir Simkhovitch’s book Marxism versus Socialism originally published in the Sunday magazine section of the New York Call (Nov. 2 and 9, 1913).

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Rubinow’s life up to age 36
(The addenda to his submitted dissertation)

VITA

I.M. Rubinow was born on April 19, 1875, in the Province of Grodno, Russia. In 1883 he moved with his parents to Moscow, where he remained until 1892, receiving his secondary education in the Classical Department (Gymnasialabteilung) of a German school, Petri-Pauli-Schule.

He arrived in America in February, 1893, and entered the junior class of Columbia University in the fall of the same year, graduating in 1895 as A.B. He was appointed University Scholar in Biology for 1895-1906, and studied Biology, Physiology and kindred subjects under Professors Henry F. Osborn, Edmund Wilson, Frederick S. Lee and others. In 1898 he graduated from the New York University of Medicine with the degree of M.D., and remained in medical practice until 1903. Meanwhile in 1900 he entered the School of Political Science of Columbia University, and studied there until 1903, taking courses in Economics, Statistics, Sociology and Political Philosophy, under Professors Edwin R A. Seligman, Franklin H. Giddings, Henry B. Seager, Henry L. Moore and William A. Dunning.

In July, 1903, he gave up the practice of medicine to accept a position of examiner in the United States Civil Service Commission in Washington, D. C. In July, 1904, he was transferred to the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Department of Agriculture, as Economic Expert; in May, 1907, to the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, as Chief of the Division of Foreign Statistics, and in March, 1908, to the Bureau of Labor of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, as Statistical Expert.

He severed his connection with the United States civil service on May 1, 1911, to accept a position as Chief Statistician of the Ocean Accident & Guarantee Corporation in New York.

In the fall of 1911 he was appointed lecturer on Social Insurance in the New York School of Philanthropy.

He began his literary activity in 1897 as American correspondent of several Russian daily papers in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and since 1898 was the staff correspondent of all the publications of the Russian Ministry of Finance which include a daily and weekly, and at one time a monthly economic review.

In addition to fifteen years of newspaper work he has published many Government reports and magazine articles on economic, statistical, financial and social topics in English and Russian, a list of which is given on the following pages.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

ENGLISH

  1. How Much Have the Trusts Accomplished? Soc. Rev., Oct., 1902.
  2. Bernstein and Industrial Concentration. Soc. Rev., Feb., 1903.
  3. The Industrial Development of the South. Soc. Rev., March, 1903.
  4. Concentration or Removal, Which? Hebrew, July 17th and 24th, 1903. (Reprinted in Menorah, Aug., 1903.)
  5. The Kisheneff Pogrom. Arena, Aug., 1903 (signed “A Russian”).
  6. Removal: A New Patent Medicine. Hebrew, Sept. 25th, 1903.
  7. Labor Insurance. Pol. Econ., June, 1904.
  8. Compulsory State Insurance of Workingmen. Amer. Acad., Sept., 1904.
  9. Compulsory Insurance. The Chautauquan, March, 1905.
  10. Economic and Industrial Conditions of the Russian Jew in New York. (A chapter in the “Russian Jews in the United States,” by Ch. S. Bernheimer, Philadelphia, 1905, John C. Winston Co.)
  11. The New Russian Workingmen’s Compensation Act. Bulletin, U. S. Bur. Labor, May, 1905.
  12. Premiums in Retail Trade. Polit. Econ., Sept., 1905.
  13. Poverty and Death Rate. Publ. Am. Stat. Assoc., Dec., 1905.
  14. The Jews in Russia. Yale Review, Aug., 1906.
  15. Is Municipal Ownership Worth While? Soc. Review, Aug., 1906.
  16. Meat Animals and Packing House Products. S. Dept. Agric., Bur. Statistics, Bull. No. 10, 1906 (published anonymously).
  17. Norway, Sweden and Russia as markets for packing house products, Ibid., No. 41, 1906, (published anonymously).
  18. Russia’s Wheat Surplus. Ibid., No. 42, 1906.
  19. The Problem of Domestic Service. Polit. Econ., Oct., 1906.
  20. Women in Manufactures: A Criticism. Journ. Polit. Econ., Jan., 1907.
  21. Economic Condition of the Jews in Russia. No. 72, U.S. Bur. Labor., Sept., 1907.
  22. Western Civilization and the Birth Rate (discussion). Journ. Sociol., March, 1907.
  23. Russia’s Wheat Trade. S. Dept. Agric., Bur. Statistics, Bull. No. 65, 1908.
  24. Russian Wheat and Wheat Flour in European Markets. Ibid., Bull. 66, 1908. 99 pages.
  25. Commercial America in 1907. (Compiled and edited anonymously). of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Statistics, 1908.
  26. The Economic Aspects of the Negro Problem. Soc. Rev., Vol. VIII: Feb., March, April, May, June, 1908. Vol. IX: July, Sept., Oct., 1908; Jan., March., June, 1909. Vol. X: July, Sept., Dec., 1909; May, June, 1910. (Signed I. M. Robbins.)
  27. Problem of Domestic Service (discussion). Journ. Sociol., March, 1909.
  28. Depth and Breadth of the Servant Problem. McClure’s, March, 1910. (In conjunction with Daniel Durant.)
  29. Domestic Service as a Labor Problem. Home Econ. April, 1911.
  30. Compulsory Old Age Insurance in France. Sc. Quart., Sept., 1911.
  31. Workmen’s Insurance in Italy. Twenty-fourth An. Rept., S. Comm. and Labor, Chapter VII. 1911.
  32. Workmen’s Insurance in Russia. Ibid., Chapter IX. 1911.
  33. Workmen’s Insurance in Spain. Ibid., Chapter X. 1911.
  34. Workmen’s Insurance in France. Ibid, Chapter IV. (In conjunction with G. A. Weber) 1911.

RUSSIAN

  1. The School Season in New York. Viestnik Vospitania (The Messenger of Education.), Oct., 1897.
  2. American University Education. Ibid., Jan., Feb., 1898.
  3. A University for the People. Ibid., Oct., 1898.
  4. The Social Movement in the United States. Sieverny Viestnik (The Northern Messenger), March, 1898.
  5. The Policy of Expansion. Znamya (The Banner), May, 1899.
  6. New Journalism in America. Knizhki Nedieli (The Week’s Library), March, June, July, 1900.
  7. Coeducation in America. Viestnik Vospitania (Messenger of Education), Oct., 1900.
  8. Secondary Education in America. Russkaya Shkola. (The Russian School), Nov., Dec., 1901.
  9. The Process of Concentration in American Industry, Narodnoye Khoziaistvo (National Economics), March, Apr., 1902.
  10. Letters from America. Voskhod (The Dawn), Apr., 1902.
  11. John B. Clark’s Trusts. A Review. Russkoye Economicheskoye Obosrenie (Russian Economic Review), July, 1902.
  12. Peters’ Capital and Labor—A Review. Ibid, Aug., 1902.
  13. Roberts’ The Anthracite Coal Industry—A Review. Ibid, Sept., 1902.
  14. Burton’s Commercial Crises—A Review. Ibid, Oct., 1902.
  15. The American Immortals. Obrazovanie (Education). Oct., 1902.
  16. Industrial Feudalism in the United States. Nauchnoe Obosrenie (The Scientific Review), Jan., Feb., 1902.
  17. Hamilton’s Savings and Saving Institutions—A Review. Russkoye Economicheskoye Obosrenie (Russian Economic Review), Jan., 1903.
  18. Seligman’s Economic Interpretation of History—A Review. Ibid, Jan., 1903.
  19. Labor Legislation in the U.S. Congress. Ibid., Aug., 1903.
  20. Laughlin & Willes’ Reciprocity—A Review. Ibid., Sept., 1903.
  21. Laughlin’s Money—A Review. Ibid., Nov., 1903.
  22. The Jewish Problem in New York. Voskhod (The Dawn), May, June, July, Aug., 1903.
  23. Chautauqua—an Educational Center. Russkaya Shkola (Russian School), Nov., Dec., 1903.
  24. Child Labor in America. Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought), Oct., Nov., 1903.
  25. Mead’s Trust Finance—A Review. Ibid. Russkoye Economicheskoye Obozrenie (Russian Economic Review), Feb., 1904.
  26. Mitchell’s Organized Labor—A Review. Ibid., Feb., 1904.
  27. Roberts’ Anthracite Coal Communities—A Review. Ibid., May, 1904.
  28. Gillman’s Methods of Industrial Peace—A Review. Ibid., August, 1904.
  29. To My Correspondents. Voskhod (The Dawn), Sept., Oct., 1904.
  30. American Imperialism. Viestnik Samoobrazovania (The Messenger of Self-Education), Nos. 34, 37, 39, 1904.
  31. Children’s Courts in America. Pedogogicheski Listok (The Pedagogical Monthly), Jan., 1905.
  32. Economic Condition of the Russian Jews in New York. Voskhod (The Dawn), Jan., 1905.
  33. Letters from America. Ibid., April, 1905.
  34. New York Impressions. Ibid., Aug., Sept., Nov., 1905; Jan., 1906.
  35. Ghent’s Benevolent Feudalism—A Review. Russkoye Economicheskoye Obosrenie (Russian Economic Review), Feb., 1905.
  36. Leroy Beaulieu’s Les États-Unis au XX Siècle—A Review. Ibid., Aug., 1905.
  37. Evolution of Domestic Life. Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought). June, 1905.
  38. American Bureaucracy. Mir Bozhi (God’s World), Sept., 1905.
  39. The Cotton and Cotton Manufactures in the United States. Viestnik Finansov (Messenger of Finance), 41-44, 1905.
  40. Municipal Corruption in the United States. Izvestia Moskovskoi Gorodskoi Dumy (Annals of the Moscow Municipal Council), Oct., 1905.
  41. The Struggle Against Municipal Corruption in Philadelphia. Ibid., Nov., 1905.
  42. Municipal Elections. Ibid., Feb., 1906.
  43. Franchise Capital in American Municipalities. Ibid., March, Apr., 1906.
  44. Municipalization of Street Railways in Chicago. Ibid., June, 1906.
  45. Care of Dependent Children in the United States. Ibid., Sept., 1906.
  46. The Public School System of New York City. Ibid., Oct., 1906; Jan., Feb., 1907.
  47. Domestic Service in America. Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought), Feb., 1906.
  48. Women in American Industry. Ibid., Apr., 1906.
  49. Professional Work of American Women. Ibid., Sept., 1906.
  50. Capital and Nation’s Food. Sovremenny Mir (The Modern World), Sept., 1906.
  51. Russian Jews in America: I. Economic Condition. Ibid., March, 1907.
  52. Russian Jews in America: II. Social Life. Ibid., June, 1907.
  53. Current Municipal Problems in America. Izviestia Moskovskoy Gorodskoy Dumy (Annals of the Moscow Municipal Council), Aug., 1907.
  54. Finances of New York City. Ibid., March, April, May, 1908.
  55. Women in American Universities. Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought), Sept., 1908.
  56. The Labor Problem and the American Law. Russkaya Bogatstvo (Russian Wealth), Sept., 1908.
  57. The Presidential Election in the U. S. Ibid., Jan., Feb., 1909.
  58. American Milling Industry. Russky Melnik (The Russian Miller), Jan., Feb., 1909.
  59. A New Study of Municipal Ownership. Ivziestia Moskovskoy Gorodskoy Dumy (Annals of the Moscow Municipal Council), March, 1909.
  60. The Pure Milk Problem. Ibid., May, June, 1909.
  61. Medical Inspection of Schools. Ibid., Sept., 1909.
  62. Playgrounds in American Cities. Ibid, March, 1910.
  63. One Week at a Negro University. Pusskoye Bogatstvo (Russian Wealth), Jan., Feb., 1910.
  64. The High Cost of Living. Viestnik Finansov (Messenger of Finance), No. 20, 1910.
  65. The Problem of Accident Compensation in American Legislation. Ibid., No. 38, 1910.
  66. The Sinking Funds of New York City. Izviestia Moskovskoy Gorodskoy Dumy (Annals of the Moscow Municipal Council), June, 1910.
  67. The Housing Problem in America. Ibid., Dec., 1910.
  68. Industrial Education in the United States. Ibid., March, 1911.

 

Source:  Studies in Workmen’s Insurance: Italy, Russia, Spain. “A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy”. New York, 1911.

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Two Roosevelts

Rubinow’s views influenced Theodore Roosevelt in the drafting of the Progressive Party platform in 1912, which was the first major political party platform to call for social insurance. His 1934 book, The Quest for Security, further established Rubinow as probably the most eminent theorist of social insurance in the first three decades of the 20th century.

Former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Wilbur Cohen, would say of Rubinow: “I.M. Rubinow was one of the giants in the field of social insurance in the pioneering days of social reform in the United States. . . In my 35 years of work in social security, I.M. Rubinow has been an inspiration and an example.” According to former U.S. Senator Paul Douglas (D-IL), President Roosevelt was much influenced by Rubinow’s book and Roosevelt considered Rubinow to be the “greatest single authority upon social security in the United States.”

President Roosevelt owned a copy of Rubinow’s 1934 book “The Quest for Security” and had been reading in the months surrounding the formation of the Committee on Economic Security (CES) which drafted the Administration’s Social Security proposals. When he learned Rubinow was terminally ill, he autographed his copy of Rubinow’s book and sent it to him with this inscription on the flyleaf: “For the Author—Dr. I. M. Rubinow. This reversal of the usual process is because of the interest I have had in reading your book.” (Signed) Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Source: United States Social Security Administration. Social Security History Web page: Social Security Pioneers: Isaac M. Rubinow.

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Rubinow’s relations to the American Medical Association and to Jewish philanthropy

Also active in various political and reform movements during America’s Progressive Era, Rubinow was a member of the American Association of Labor Legislation (AALL) from its formation in 1906. In the early 1910s, he was one of the most effective advocates for workmen’s compensation legislation. Inspired by the success of that movement, in 1913 he turned with other AALL leaders to what Dr Rupert Blue, president of the American Medical Association (AMA), called “health insurance—the next great step in social legislation.” The AMA joined the campaign and appointed Rubinow executive secretary of its newly created Committee on Social Insurance. Rubinow worked tirelessly in this position until, in early 1917, the AMA, in a sharp reversal, cut off funds to the committee.

After several short-term positions and a 4-year stint as head of the American Zionist Medical Unit in Palestine, Rubinow returned to the United States in 1923 and made a new career in the world of Jewish philanthropy and social service. Between 1925 and 1929, he also edited the Jewish Social Service Quarterly and in 1927 became vice president of the American Association for Old-Age Security. In this position and others, he led efforts in the late 1920s and early 1930s to create unemployment and old age insurance. In 1931, Rubinow chaired an important conference in Chicago whose purpose was to draw up a unified program of legislation for old age. Early in the New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to Rubinow to express “great interest” in his suggestions. When the president appointed the Committee on Economic Security in the summer of 1934 to advise on drafting the Social Security Act, Rubinow served as a consultant.

Source: Theodore M. Brown and Elizabeth Fee. Isaac Max Rubinow: Advocate for Social Insurance. American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 92, No. 8 (August 2002), pp. 1224-1225.

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Biographical Timeline of Isaac Max Rubinow

1875 Born in Grodno, Russia

1893 Immigrated to the United States

1895 Columbia University, A.B. Degree

1898 New York University Medical College, M.D.

1899 Practiced medicine

1900-03 Columbia University, Studied political science

1903 Gave up practice of medicine

1903-07 Examiner, U.S. Civil Service Commission

1907 Economic Expert, Bureau of Statistics, U.S. Department of Agriculture

1907-08 Member, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Commerce & Labor

1908-11 Member, Bureau of Labor

1911-16 Chief Statistician, Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation

1913 First book published, Social Insurance.

1914 Columbia University, PhD.

1914-16 President, Casualty Actuarial Society

1916-17 Executive Secretary, American Medical Association, Social Insurance Commission

1917 Expert, California Social Insurance Commission

1917 Director, New York City Department of Public Charities, Bureau of Labor Statistics

1917-18 Investigator, Federal Trade Commission

1919-23 In Charge of American Zionist Medical Unit (renamed Hadassah Medical Organization)

1923-28 Director, Jewish Welfare Society of Philadelphia

1926-36 Executive Secretary, B’nai B’rith

1929 Executive Director, United Palestine Appeal

1932-33 President, National Conference of Jewish Social Service

1934 The Quest for Security published.

1936 September, Died at the age of 61.

Source: Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library. Guide to the Isaac Max Rubinow Papers.

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Secondary Literature

Obituary, Isaac M. Rubinow, 1875-1936 in Casualty Actuarial Society Proceedings Vol. XXIII, Nos. 47 (1936), pp. 118-120.

New York Times Obituary for Isaac M. Rubinow. September 3, 1936.

J. Lee Kreader. America’s Prophet for Social Security: A Biography of Isaac Max Rub inow [dissertation]. Chicago, Ill University of Chicago. 1988.

J. Lee Kreader. Isaac Max Rubinow: Pioneering Specialist in Social Insurance. Social Service Review Vol. 50, No. 3(September 1976), pp. 402-425.

Achenbaum WA. Isaac Max Rubinow. In: Garraty JA, Carnes M, eds. American National Biography. Vol 19. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 1999:25–26.

Deardorff NR. Isaac Max Rubinow. In: Schuyler RL, James ET, eds. Dictionary of American Biography. Suppl 2. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons; 1958:585–587

 

Image Source: Isaac M. Rubinow Papers, Labor-Management Documentation Center, M. P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Columbia

Columbia. Economics Seminar participants. J.B. Clark, 1901-1902

 

The original version of this post only provided a transcription of hand-written notes by John Bates Clark that appears to be an incomplete draft of part of an “teaching activities report” for the annual Dean’s report. The two semester course Economics 14,  Seminar in Political Economy and Finance, alternated every other week between Clark and E.R.A. Seligman. The next post will provide information about Seligman’s seminar schedule.

This post is another exercise in establishing the identities of students who attended advanced economics courses. I feel confident that I have identified eight of the seventeen paper-presenters. That information follows the schedule.

The participants of the Harvard Economics Seminary for 1897-98 have been tracked down for an earlier post, as have the Radcliffe women who signed a letter requesting permission to attend the Harvard Economics Seminary in 1926.

_____________________

Seminar in Political Economy and Finance
Professor Clark. 2 hours fortnightly. 16 members.

The following papers were presented:

Municipal Activities. Ray McClintock

Municipal Activities in England. Frank F. Nalder

Municipal Activities in the United States. Ray W. Thompson

Socialism. James A. McQueen

Socialism in the Southwest. Wallace E. Miller

The Theory of Monopolies. Henry R. Mussey

Governmental Monopolies. Yoshimasa Ishikawa

Laws Concerning Monopolies. George B. Keeler

Theories of Protection. Arthur J. Boynton

Modern Aspects of the Tariff. Harry B. Bennett

Theories of Wages. Isaac R. Henderson

The Bargain Theory of Wages. John S. Hershey

Von Böhm-Bawerk’s Theory of Interest. Robert B. Olsen

Over-Production. Samuel Peskin

European Trusts. Everett B. Stackpole

The Value of Money. Joseph C. Freehoff

Child Labor in the United States. Anna M. Cordley

Source: Columbia University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer to the Trustees for the Year Ending June 30, 1902, p. 155.

_____________________

Handwritten note of John Bates Clark
[no date]

1—The seminar in Political Economy and Finance has held 14 meetings under my direction and the same number under the direction of Professor Seligman. The following papers have been presented:—

by Mr. F. F. Nalder, on Municipal activities in England;

by Mr. J. C. Frihoff [sic], on The Value of Money;

by Mr. Ray McClintock on Municipal Activities.

by Mr. H. Thompson on Municipal Activities in the United States;

by Miss. A. M. Cordley on Anarchism Child [Labor] in U.S.

by Mr. A. J. Boynton on Theories of Protection:—

by Mr. J. S. Hershey on The Bargain Theory of Wages:—

by Mr. I.R. Henderson on Theories of Wages:—

by Mr. H. B. Bennett on Modern Aspects of the Tariff:—

by Mr. Y. Ishikawa on Governmental Monopolies:—

by Mr. H.A. Keeler on Present Laws Concerning Monopolies:—

Source: Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. John Bates Clark Papers (MS #1419). Box 9, Folder 1. Series II.4.

_____________________________

Frank Fielding Nalder

Frank Fielding Nalder was born on November 5, 1876 in Penhurst, Providence of Victoria, Australia, and brought to the United States in 1884. He received his B. A. from the State College of Washington in 1901, his M.A. from Columbia in 1902, and his Ph. D. from the University of California in 1916. He was Registrar and instructor in history at the State College of Washington from 1903-1908, superintendent of schools in Tekoa, Washington from 1908-1909, with the department of state public instruction in Washington from 1909-1911, director of education for the Washington State Reformatory from 1912-1913, with the extension division of the University of California 1914-1919, and professor of social science and director of the college extension at the State College of Washington from 1919. He died on January 17, 1937.

Source:  Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State Libraries. Guide to the Frank Fielding Nalder Photographs 1913-1914

Note: According to the Columbia University alumni register, Nadler was awarded an A.M. in 1904.

Source: Columbia University alumni register, 1754-1931, compiled by the Committee on General Catalogue. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932, p. 635.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Joseph C. Freehoff

Cornell College.-Mr. Joseph C. Freehoff has been appointed Professor of Economics in Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa. He was born on December 25, 1869, near La Crosse, Wis., attended the public schools of this region and the State Normal School at River Falls. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with the degree of B.S. in 1897 [sic], where he also pursued graduate work in Sociology and Political Economy. In 1898 he became Acting Professor of Political Economy at Cornell College. In 1899 he declined an election as Fellow at the University of Chicago, to accept a similar election at the University of Wisconsin, but resigned this fellowship upon receiving the permanent appointment at Cornell College.

Source: Personal Notes. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 14, Issue 3, 1899. p. 349.

(INSP.) Ph.D., 04; B.S., 91, Univ. Wis.
b. La Crosse, Wis.; River Falls (Wis.) Normal Schedule., 89; Univ. Wis., 89-91; N.Y.U. Grad. Sch., 02-4; fellow of sociol. and pol. econ., Univ. Chicago, 96-98; actg. prof. pol. econ., Cornell Coll., Ia., 98-01; sanitary inspector, N.Y.C.; publ.: Value of Money.

Source: New York University. General Alumni Catalogue, v. 2 (1905), p. 176.

Joseph C. Freehoff, formerly of New York University, was recently appointed statistician for the Public Service Commission of New York, first district.

SourceThe Economic Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Dec. 1908), p. 285.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Holland McTyeire Thompson

Thompson, Holland A.M. 1900, PhD 1906, College of City of NY, NYC, coll prof.

Source: Columbia University alumni register, 1754-1931, compiled by the Committee on General Catalogue. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932, p. 876.

See: Biographical entry “Holland Thompson, 1873-1940” in Dictionary of North Carolina Biography.

Published dissertation:  From the Cotton Field to the Cotton Mill: A Study of the Industrial Transition in North Carolina. New York: Macmillan, 1906.

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Annie Minto Cordley

Born September 26, 1863 in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Cordley, Annie Minto. Glen Ridge, N.J.
Lawrence; 82 [non-graduate of Mount Holyoke]; B.S. Wellesely Coll. 87, M.A. Columbia Univ. 03; teacher New York N.Y. 87-05, Briarcliff Manor N.Y. 05-10.

Source: General Catalogue of Officers and Students of Mount Holyoke College 1837-1911., p. 167.

Annie Minto Cordley. AM 1903, d. Jan 1, 1915.

Source: Columbia University alumni register, 1754-1931, compiled by the Committee on General Catalogue. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932, p. 180.

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Arthur Jerome Boynton

Arthur Jerome Boynton–Emerald Grove, Wis.
Ph.B., Beloit College, 1896;
A.B., Harvard University, 1901
Major subject: Political economy and finance
Minor subjects: Sociology and Statistics; International Law
Essay: The philosophy of the single tax.

Source: Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1902, p. 93.

Arthur Jerome Boynton, A.B., 1901, (Harvard); A.M., 1902, (Columbia). Associate Professor of Economics, 1910; 1903 [first appointment at the University of Kansas]

Source:  Annual Catalogue of the University of Kansas, 1912-1913p. 13.

Professor Arthur Jerome Boynton. Lawrence Kan., March 18 (AP). Arthur Jerome Boynton, Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas, died here today.

SourceThe New York Times, March 19, 1928 (p. 16).

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J. S. Hershey

J. S. Hershey, School of Law [graduate], 1904.

Source: Columbia University alumni register, 1754-1931, compiled by the Committee on General Catalogue. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932, p. 1102.

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Yoshimasa Ishikawa

Ishikawa, Yoshimasa. A.M. 1903, 584 Omori Iriarai-Machi Tokyo Japan, coll prof.

Source: Columbia University alumni register, 1754-1931, compiled by the Committee on General Catalogue. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932, p. 434.

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Howard Allan Keeler

Columbia College class of 1903.  Intercollegiate chess player for Columbia

Source: Columbia Spectator (January 23, 1903).

Worked as an advertising manager, living in New York City according to the 1920 U.S. Census.
… at an advertising agency, living in Great Neck Estates in New York according to the 1930 U.S. Census.
….as an agent for casulty insurance in Great Neck Estates in New York according to the 1940 U.S. Census

Born January 23, 1883 in Manhattan, died November 1963.

 

Image Source: John Bates Clark portrait from the webpage “Famous Carleton Economists“.