The state of North Dakota is small in population, likewise in its influence in the academic world; but its story is important, because its people have blazed a path upon which the rest of us are destined to travel for the next decade. What has happened in North Dakota education will happen in hundreds of our institutions, and therefore it is desirable that academic liberals should know the story.
The University of North Dakota is located at Grand Forks. The president from 1909 to 1913 was Frank L. McVey, who was chairman of a tax commission in Minnesota, and got in the way of “Jesse James” Hill, and was shunted off to North Dakota to get rid of him. That he was not a dangerous radical may be judged from the fact that in 1912 he objected to three of his professors taking part in the Progressive movement. In 1914 Professor Lewinsohn of the law school resigned his position with a dignified statement, and the president replied by a letter, in which he set up the contention that college professors are in the same position as judges.
The grand duke of the board of regents at this time was Judge N. C. Young, railroad attorney. Needless to say, Judge Young did not refrain from politics; on the contrary, he ran the Republican machine of the state—and incidentally never hesitated to denounce the liberals at his university. Judge Young’s assistant was Mr. Tracy Bangs, aggressive attorney for the Northern States Power Company and the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company. Mr. Bangs defended in a murder case the son of a rich farmer, and got his client off on a plea of “self-defense,” despite the fact that the victim, a farm-hand, had been shot in the back. Thereupon, several hundred of Mr. Bangs’ fellow citizens, including many university professors, signed a petition to the grand jury, charging him with jury-bribing and demanding his indictment. One professor, A. J. Ladd, asked him to resign from the board of trustees while he was under this indictment. Mr. Bangs did not resign, but he bided his time, and as I write he is seeing to it that Professor A. J. Ladd is separated from the university!
In 1915, when the Non-partisan League was started, the university “opposed it by nature”—so a former professor phrased it to me. One man, Professor Gillette, consented to speak at the first meeting of the league, and his life has been one long struggle with the reactionaries ever since. In 1917 President McVey resigned, and the board hastened to nominate his successor, before the Non-partisans got in and appointed Frederick C. Howe! They selected President Kane of the University of Washington—upon the reputation which he had made for himself by forgiving the crimes and accepting the chimes of the Seattle “Times.”