A poor devil, Professor A, who had been teaching for a small salary in hopes of promotion, would receive some fine morning a notice from headquarters that his contract was terminated at the end of the year. Professor B would be advised that he had one year more to serve, during which time he had better be looking for a new place. Professor C would be notified that his salary would not be increased. Smothered with rage, disappointment and despair, he would rush to the president of the university to know in what particular he had erred or sinned. The president in his unctuous way would inform the professor that he was sorry for what had been done but could do nothing, because the matter lay in the hands of the advisory committee, with which he could not interfere. Our victim would then set out to find the advisory committee, but as it was made up of nine members and had adjourned, he could not locate it. He would continue his search, and perchance find one of the members of the illustrious committee. Upon his making inquiry as to why and to what purpose he would be assured of the member’s sympathy, but would be told that there was an understanding among the members of the advisory committee that nothing should be said as to what was done in the sessions or how the members voted. The disappointed pedagogue could get nothing from anybody; there was no one responsible; he had been sandbagged in a dark alley, but who did the job he could not learn.
Vincent was called to become head of the Rockefeller Foundation. Then came Marion LeRoy Burton, a former clergyman, and president of Smith College for young ladies, a “booster” from way back, an inspirationalist of the Chautauqua school; the university gave him a grand reception, with bands and torches. He said in the hearing of an acquaintance of mine that he was going to make Minnesota a gentleman’s school of the Yale type. What actually exists is a great academic department-store. Sinclair Lewis described it to me—“They sell you two yards of Latin and half a yard of Greek, and a bored young instructor hands it out over the counter.” Lewis heard President Burton addressing a meeting of the plutocracy to raise funds, and telling the touching story of his life—he was a little boy who carried newspapers on cold mornings, and now he had fifteen thousand dollars a year, and a big house, and a retiring pension—a wonderful country is America!