The chairman of Yale’s economics department in 1951, Lloyd G. Reynolds, found his department in the crosshairs of alumni enraged by the charge of collectivist indoctrination leveled by young William F. Buckley, Jr. (Yale ’1950) in his book that was a call-to-action for religious and individualist alumni of Yale to voice their opposition to the influence of atheism and collectivism on campus. Paul Samuelson’s textbook Economics was offered as Exhibit No. 1 of the collectivist rot found in the Yale economics department. Buckley’s bottom-line was explicit though not specific.
Image Source: PBS, American Masters. S38 EP3: The incomparable Mr. Buckley.
“I shall not say, then, what specific professors should be discharged, but I will say some ought to be discharged. I shall not indicate what I consider to be the dividing line that separates the collectivist from the individualist, but I will say that such a dividing line ought, thoughtfully and flexibly, to be drawn. I will not suggest the manner in which the alumni ought to be consulted and polled on this issue, but I will say that they ought to be, and soon, and that the whole structure of Yale’s relationship to her alumni, as has been previously indicated, ought to be reexamined.
Far wiser and more experienced men can train their minds to such problems. I should be satisfied if they feel impelled to do so, and I should be confident that the job would be well done.”
Source: God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom”. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1951 (pp. 197-8).
And so, in the interest of damage control, Reynolds found himself out on the stump speaking to alumni and other potential donors. This post gives us Reynold’s response to youthful calumny from the future darling of the extreme conservative fringe in the U.S.
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An earlier post on Yale economics
1999 musings about Economics at Yale by a few Yale economics professors.
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In Memoriam: Lloyd Reynolds
[2005]
Shaped fields of labor relations and economics
Lloyd G. Reynolds, a scholar who shaped the fields of labor and economic development and transformed Yale’s Department of Economics, died April 9 at his home in Washington, D.C., after a series of strokes.
He was 94 years old.
Born and raised on a frontier settlement in the Canadian province of Alberta, Reynolds earned a B.A. at the University of Alberta, an M.A. at McGill University and a Ph.D. at Harvard University. He held an instructorship at the latter institution before becoming a professor at Johns Hopkins University.
During World War II, as federal spending increased at a furious pace, Reynolds took leave from Johns Hopkins to serve in 1942-1943 as chief economist of the War Manpower Commission, and in 1943-1945 as a public member of the Appeals Committee for the National Labor Relations Board. At these institutions, he successfully labored to prevent wartime budget deficits from turning into price and wage inflation.
During and after the war, Reynolds served widely in governmental and private agencies as labor mediator, consultant, officer and committee member, lending his analytic, organizational and administrative skills to the Bureau of the Budget, the Agency for International Development, the Industrial Relations Research Association, the Ford Foundation, the National Bureau of Economic Research and the American Economic Association.
In 1945, Reynolds joined the Yale faculty, where he remained for 35 years until his retirement in 1980. In 1951, he became chair of Yale’s Department of Economics. In the next eight years, he increased the number of faculty in economics from 31 to 65, including such notable scholars as William Fellner, Tjalling Koopmans, John Montias, Hugh Patrick, Gustav Ranis, James R. Tobin, Robert Triffin and Henry Wallich. Two later won Nobel Prizes. A third Nobel Laureate, Simon Kuznets, was soon wooed back to Harvard.
In later years, Yale President Kingman Brewster liked to tell the story of meeting Reynolds on Martha’s Vineyard. Brewster remembered asking Reynolds, “Would you take me out behind the barn some day and tell me how it is you turned one of the worst departments in the country into one of the best?”
“I don’t have to take you out behind the barn,” replied Reynolds. “It’s very simple — just be willing to hire people who are brighter than you are.”
Early in his term as chair, Reynolds confronted the firestorm caused by the publication of “God and Man at Yale,” in which William Buckley criticized “the hot collectivist turn taken by the [economics] faculty after the war” and argued that such faculty should be fired. “Whit Griswold [Brewster’s predecessor as Yale president] sent me out on the road,” he liked to recall, “with the football coach, to talk to the alumni. Usually the coach spoke first, and after that … the alumni didn’t much want to hear about the economics department.”
Twice during the 1950s, Reynolds took brief leaves from Yale to direct the Ford Foundation’s new program of support for developing countries. At the end of that decade, he convinced Ford to donate $15 million to establish the Yale Economic Growth Center, where he served as founding director until 1967. The center annually brings together about 30 faculty and visiting economists studying the growth process.
When Reynolds retired from Yale, the Graduate School minutes recorded a tribute which reads in part: “[I]n the early 1950s, he was able to convert a spirited defense of the department against right wing critics into an occasion for the substantial infusion of outside resources. It was his great capacity to recognize talent in others which helped attract a first-rate faculty, including the move of the Cowles Commission to Yale.”
In 1949, Reynolds published “Labor Economics and Labor Relations” (Prentice Hall). Now in its 11th edition, this textbook is widely credited with creating the field of labor economics. Over the course of a half century, Reynolds published 10 scholarly books and dozens of articles in the fields of labor economics, economic development and comparative economic systems. He published five introductory economics texts, trying his ideas out first on Yale’s undergraduates. Reynolds was an institution at Yale graduations, where for more than 30 years, as senior fellow of the college, he carried the Berkeley mace as he led the seniors into the Old Campus.
Reynolds had a lifelong fascination with mountaineering, a passion that took him to the summit of Mt. Blanc at age 23, and to the top of Kilimanjaro at age 41. In his 50s, on three Nepal treks with his wife, he reached the Mt. Everest Base Camp and the Annapurna glacier.
Reynolds was married for 63 years to Mary Trackett Reynolds, who died August 28, 2000. He is survived by three children, Anne Skinner of Williamstown, Massachusetts, Priscilla Roosevelt of Washington, D.C., and Bruce Reynolds of Charlottesville, Virgina; as well as seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. He was a member of the Century Club of New York, the Cosmos Club in Washington and the West Bend (Wisconsin) Country Club.
A memorial service in Reynolds’ honor will be held at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 11, in Battell Chapel, corner of Elm and College streets.
Source: Yale Bulletin & Calendar, Vol.33, No. 27 (April 22, 2005). Links added by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.
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The State of Economics at Yale
[1951]
By Lloyd G. Reynolds,
Chairman of the Department of Economics.
The following paper was delivered by Mr. Reynolds at the meeting of the Alumni Board on October 20th. During the meeting the Board passed a unanimous resolution that it should be published in the November issue of Y.A.M.
AMERICAN economists in 1951 are doing about the same things they have been trying to do for the past hundred and fifty years. First, we aim to present a clear picture of what the economic system looks like and how it operates. How many business concerns, big and little, are there in the United States? How are they organized and managed? How much money do they take in and pay out, and for what purposes? How many people work for a living in the United States? What work do they do and how much are they paid for doing it? A great deal of economics is concerned simply with providing an accurate description of our economic institutions and how they have changed over the course of time.
Economic Analysis
BUT economists are not content to operate only at the level of description. We are interested always in the question of why things happen as they do in the economy. Why does one kind of work pay 80 cents an hour and another $1.50? Why does wheat sell for $2.50 a bushel and cotton for 33 cents a pound? Why has the retail price level risen by 10 per cent since June 1950? In order to answer this sort of question one needs not only a knowledge of facts but methods of arranging and thinking about the facts — in short, what we call economic theory or economic analysis. Theory is not just day — dreaming or idle opinion. It plays much the same role in economics as in physical science. It is a way of organizing and focussing facts to explain and predict economic events.
Economics aims to be, and is steadily becoming, a factual, quantitative science. It aims to get behind mere opinion to a solid basis of truth. The tests of an economist are these: is he thoroughly grounded in the facts and the history of our economic system? Has he mastered the methods of analysis which economists have gradually been developing over the past century and more? Can he use these methods with skill and good judgment to explain and predict actual developments in the economy? If he cannot pass these tests, it does him no good to come around claiming that he is a warmhearted fellow who wants to improve the lot of the workingman, or that he is a sound conservative and a hundred per cent American. If he cannot pass the tests, we would not trust his judgment, we would not give him an advanced degree in economics, we would not employ him for the Yale faculty.
I want to make it clear that economics and politics are quite different things. The study of economics can of course be applied to political issues — it would not be of much use otherwise. Our courses involve discussion of taxation systems, tariffs, the federal budget, labor laws, social security, foreign economic aid, agricultural price supports, and a host of other issues. But the job of an economist with respect to these issues is not to say what policies should be followed. His task is to discover and point out the consequences of different possible policies. Ideally, economics should be able to say what will happen if the tariff on pottery is reduced by ten per cent or the federal minimum wage is raised ten cents an hour. Whether the public, or our students, like and approve what will happen is up to them. Economics is not politics, and it is not up to us to sway people in one political direction rather than another.
Ground Rules
ECONOMISTS are also human being of course, and I see nothing wrong with an economist occasionally expressing his personal opinion on a political issue. But he should be careful to point out when he is stepping out of his shoes as a scientist and speaking as a plain citizen. He should also be mindful of contrary opinions, and should not strive just to convert his hearers to his own point view. I believe that these ground rules are well observed in the teaching of economics at Yale. I don’t think there is much political preaching in our courses and if there is some it is certainly not all on the same side. The department includes everything from Roosevelt Democrats to Hoover Republicans, and our students have ample opportunity for exposure to different points of view.
This brings me to my main point — the state of the Yale Department of Economics and its prospects for the future. I note first a substantial strengthening of our senior staff since the end of the war. In the first year after the war, we had nine teaching members of the department in the rank of assistant professor and above. Today we have sixteen men in the professorial ranks. The newcomers to the department have been most carefully chosen from among dozens of a candidates whom we have considered in the last five years. They are men of whom Yale can well be proud, not only scholars but as individuals. They are highly regarded by their colleagues in New Haven and by their fellow-economists throughout the United States — so much so that we are constantly fending off raids from other institutions which want to hire them away from us.
Our two most recent appointments are Professor Henry Wallich, who comes to us from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he has been chief of research and has also acted as consultant to several of the Latin American countries in the revision of their banking systems; and Professor Robert Triffin, who has had a distinguished career with the Federal Reserve Board, the International Monetary Fund, and as American representative on the governing board of the European Payments Union. These men, both excellent economists with a wealth of practical background, have at one stroke put us ahead of any university in the country in the area of international finance and international trade.
Research and Teaching
NOW a word about the job which we are trying to do here. As scholars, we are all concerned with trying to push back the frontiers of knowledge in our chosen field. During the last two years alone, members of the department have published ten books on subjects as diverse as the pricing of military supplies, the effect of federal taxation on executive compensation and retirement systems, the history and structure of the American cigarette industry, and the human relations problems of a large public utility company. We have other studies currently in process, some of which I will mention in a moment. I do not think that any department of economics in the country excels the Yale department in terms of the quality and significance of its research work.
Our main responsibility in the University, however, is for teaching. How are we doing on this front? Judging from the comments of the students who come though my office, and from other reliable sources of student opinion, I would say that about half of our undergraduate courses are excellently taught. The other half are good solid courses but not outstanding, and we may even have one or two which are a bit on the dull side. The department has currently under way a thorough study of our course offering and degree requirements in the College, and we are of course seeking continuously to strengthen the teaching staff in areas of weakness. We expect that these efforts will bear fruit in a steady increase in the quality of our teaching work.
Our most difficult teaching problem has been the course in elementary economics, Economics 10. It is enormously difficult to cover all aspects of the economic system in a year’s time and to arrange the material in the best possible way. No one textbook or combination of textbooks is ever fully satisfactory. I can assure you that the Department has given much prayerful thought to this matter over the past five years. We have changed both the structure of the course and the reading assignments almost every year. The course is still not ideal — it never will be — but it is a good deal better than the course we were giving four or five years ago.
An even more serious problem in this course has been to find enough fully qualified instructors. We were faced just after the war with the largest enrollment in the history of the University. In the peak year we had almost fifty divisions of Economics 10, requiring a staff of 20 to 25 instructors. There are just not that many good economists, even at Yale. We were forced to take on a considerable number of partially-trained men from the graduate school as teaching assistants, often on very short notice. Some of these men turned in an excellent teaching job but we also drew a few lemons who had to be dropped after a short time.
This phase is now happily behind us. Enrollments have declined to a more normal level, and we are much better staffed to handle them. Of the nine men teaching in Economics 10 this year, only one is without previous teaching experience; and this man is a mature individual who in fact owned and operated a profitable business for several years before coming here for graduate study.
The central purpose of our teaching work is to give students an understanding of the history and present operation of American economic institutions, and to train them to think systematically about the economic issues of the day. We hope to develop habits of reflection and careful analysis which will stand our students in good stead as they emerge to take their place as citizens and as leaders of public opinion.
We are not trying to sell the American economic system to our students as one might sell a package of breakfast food. We believe that such an approach is both futile and unnecessary. We have found from experience that, if our economic institutions are carefully explained and thoroughly understood, the great majority of students will support them of their own accord. They will support them, not in a spirit of blind adherence to a fixed creed, but with an understanding of why they prefer our system to any sort of totalitarian regime. They will seek to perpetuate American institutions, not by freezing them into a fixed mold, but by striving constantly to improve them over the years to come. This outlook, which I would term intelligent conservatism, is characteristic of most of our faculty members and most of our student body.
How do our students come out from this sort of training? If you could read the departmental examinations which our economics majors write at the end of the senior year, I believe you would find that most of them show a good grounding in economic facts and economic analysis. They also show a healthy diversity of political viewpoint. We do not and should not turn out students whose minds are tailored to a particular pattern. If a student is intellectually honest, accurate in his use of facts, willing to state his basic premises, capable of reasoning logically from those premises — then I respect him. Let him come out where he will, politically speaking. I believe this is good American doctrine and sound educational policy.
I realize that some people hold a contrary point of view. They believe that the function of an economics department should be to propagandize students for a particular political and economic creed, that only professors willing to swear allegiance to this creed should be allowed to teach, and that students should be carefully protected against contrary opinions. This totalitarian outlook, though it has had much success in Europe, seems to me completely at variance with American traditions. The members of the economics department at Yale would, I am sure, be unalterably opposed to the establishment of any official party line on economic questions. I do not see how a free university in a democratic country can take any other view.
Now before closing I want to admit in all humility that there are many things wrong with our understanding of economics and our teaching of it. A great deal of the economics currently taught in universities is undoubtedly unrealistic, ivory-tower, out of touch with the facts of economic life. Too many of the books which we read and teach were written strictly in the library. Too many of our teachers of economics have had no contact with practical affairs.
I want to assure you that this ignorance of the real world is not deliberate on the part of the professors. It comes about mainly because of the way in which young economists are trained and employed. On finishing college, a prospective economist is usually advised to go directly into graduate school to work toward the hallowed Ph.D. without which his future career is hopeless. If he is a really good student he may receive a fellowship to support him in his studies. This phase lasts at least three or four years, during which time he spends his life mainly in the classroom and the library. As he hears the end of his graduate training, he begins to cast about for a job and, if he is capable and lucky, he lands an instructorship somewhere. But he is now being paid to educate students, and only incidentally to educate himself. He is not especially encouraged to wander outside the academic walls. If he does so on his own initiative and tries to learn something about business operations, he may quite possibly be rebuffed by executives who are busy with their own affairs or worried at the idea of stray professors wandering around the plant.
I am very conscious, and I believe any economist who has had much contact with industry is conscious, of how much economists have to learn about the facts of life and how wide a gap still exists between economic theories and business practice. I have given much thought to the question of how young teachers in their formative years can gain more experience of practical affairs, and have a few ideas on the subject. The difficulty, is that all of my ideas would cost money and money is not the most plentiful thing on the University scene.
We are not taking a defeatist view of this problem. We have already made some beginnings toward building bridges between industry and the University community. Professor Healy’s work in transportation has brought him into close contact with the largest railroad systems in the country. Professor Bakke’s studies of human relations in industry have included a thorough analysis of the management structure of a large New England Company, and he is going on from this to similar studies in other companies. I am currently working, along with my colleague Professor Miller, on a study of top management organization and policy which will involve discussions with the top officers of a dozen or so companies. Professor Westerfield, who has been in charge of our teaching of money and banking for many years, is president of a highly successful savings and loan association. Professor Wallich, I am sure, will not neglect his banking contacts in New York because of his move to New Haven.
We believe in this sort of thing and hope to develop it increasingly in the future. We consider that the factories, stores and offices of the country are the laboratories in which a real science of economics can be developed. There are difficulties, of course, in using these laboratories without upsetting normal business operations, but we are confident that these difficulties can be overcome. We believe that in this way the practical experience of men of affairs can be gradually translated into economics textbooks and economics teaching. If some of you can take a little time from your businesses to educate us, we shall stand a better chance of educating our students. Until both you and we have done more in this direction, economics will continue to be too largely an ivory tower subject.
I have tried to give a realistic picture of our present situation, not simply a rosy one. We are certainly doing a better job than we were doing five years ago, and five years ahead we expect to be doing still better. But we are not complacent about our progress. We realize that we have still a long way to go and will never do the job perfectly. We welcome advice and suggestions on what we are doing. We hope for sympathetic interest and support.
Source: Yale Alumni Magazine (November 1951), pp. 18-20. A copy of this article was provided to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror directly by the Yale Alumni Magazine. On behalf of the history of economics community I thank the executive editor, Mr. Mark Branch for his help.
Image Source: 1954 Fellow, Lloyd G. Reynolds. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
