CHAPTER LI THE UNIVERSITY OF STANDARD OIL
Providence arranged it that soon after the University of Chicago was built, the oil king’s digestion gave out, and he retired to the country to live on graham crackers and milk and play golf all day. The job of turning his two hundred million dollars into two billions was left to his efficient subordinates, and they were not so much interested in the old man’s advertising ventures, so that the university was left to run itself. Veblen describes its spirit as “a ravenous megalomania.” For years President Harper followed the plan of buying everything he wanted, and sending the bill to John D. But that was stopped, and now the running of the university is seen to by the usual board of interlocking directors, mostly elderly Baptists. They have had in past times some first-rate scientists; what they have now is a faculty of aged dotards, who set the tone of the place, and the young men try to act dotards to the best of their ability.
They are sensitive on the subject of petroleum at the university; they blush at mention of the word, and do not admit the conventional book-plates showing the lamp of knowledge. Some time ago a wag composed a “doxology” for use by the students, and the young radicals have fun with this—
Praise God from whom oil blessings flow, Praise him, oil creatures here below, Praise him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son—but John the most.
I met one professor at the University of Chicago who insisted that teaching was entirely free. He added, with some asperity: “Of course you will do the Bemis story! We shall never hear the end of the Bemis story.”
“Too bad!” I said, sympathetically. “I haven’t heard that story; what is it?”
“Just a piece of slander,” said the professor. “I know positively that the case of Bemis was not a case of academic freedom at all, and he himself admits it.”
That was something definite. I ascertained that Edward W. Bemis is an economist and engineer, with offices in Chicago and New York, so I wrote and asked him about the matter. I quote his letter, and leave it for you to form your own judgment:
I was called from Vanderbilt University to the University of Chicago to the chair of Associate Professor of Economics and Sociology, at the opening of the University of Chicago in October, 1892. In March, 1895, President Harper informed me that the trustees had dropped me from the faculty the previous December, to take effect in July, 1895. He informed me then and in subsequent conversations that my attitude on public utility and labor questions was the cause, and that if he cared to talk about the reasons for my dismissal, I could not secure any other college position in the country.