One of the government employes who is not a corporation hireling is Professor W. J. Spillman, chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and editor of a farm paper. Professor Spillman states that a wealthy friend came to him, with a statement that the Rockefeller General Education Board was seeking to control the educational institutions of the country, to see that the men employed in them were “right.” They had been successful with the smaller institutions, but some of the larger ones had held out, and Rockefeller was now adding a hundred million dollars to the foundation, “for the express purpose of forcing his money into these big institutions. He is looking for a man who can put this across. I think you are just the man for the place. There is a fat salary in it for the man who can do the thing,” and so on. Professor Spillman expressed some doubt of the Rockefellers being able to accomplish their purpose, and the friend explained that the removal of the unsatisfactory educators would be brought about as the result of “local dissatisfaction.”
You will call this a “cock and bull story”; but just notice—in the years 1915 and 1916 there were nine liberal presidents of Western colleges turned out of their jobs, and at least twenty professors, mostly of economics and sociology! Do you really think that the masters of the Money Trust, having bought up the last newspaper and the last popular magazine, would overlook your schools and colleges? If so, you are exactly the kind of foolish person they count upon you to be!
Most influential among the farmers are the so-called “land grant colleges,” which, way back in the days of President Lincoln, received from Congress large grants of government land for their support. Much of this land was stolen outright by the grafters. I am told that in Maine large tracts of the most valuable timber land were sold for a mere song, and without advertisement; exactly the same thing was done in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Oregon—these land steals form the basis of the power of those old aristocratic families whom we found running Reed College and the University of Oregon. From what I know of my United States, I feel quite sure that an investigation in any state between Maine and Oregon would reveal the same kind of thing.