In one of President Butler’s published speeches I find him sneering at the progressives as “declaimers and sandlot orators and perpetual candidates for office.” What this refers to is men like Roosevelt and LaFollette, who go out to the people and seek election. It does not apply to those who go in secret to the homes and offices of political corruptionists and wire-pullers, there to plead, almost on their knees, for nominations and favors. A prominent Republican politician of New York said to me: “He begged in my office for two hours. He told me he had the support of this man and that, and then I inquired and found it was not so.”
It is embarrassing to find so many people asserting that the president of Columbia University does not always tell the truth. It will be still more embarrassing to have to state that most of the presidents of colleges and universities in the United States do not always tell the truth. A curious fact which I observed in my travels over the country—there was hardly a single college head about whom I was not told: “He is a liar.” I believe there are no effects without causes, and I have tried to analyze the factors in the life of college heads which compel them to lie. I shall present these to you in due course; for the present suffice it to say that a man who has held the highest offices in New York state told me how Butler had assured him that Pierpont Morgan had promised to “back Butler to the limit for President,” and later this politician ascertained that no such promise had been given. Butler stated that he had the unqualified endorsement of another man; the politician questioned him closely—the matter had been settled only yesterday afternoon, so Butler declared. As soon as Butler left, this politician called up the man on the telephone, and ascertained that the man had not seen Butler for a month, and had made no promise.
Also, my informant had attended a caucus of the Republican party at the Republican Club in New York City, when President Butler was intriguing for the nomination for President. Butler came out from that caucus and was surrounded by a group of reporters, who asked him: “Was Theodore Roosevelt’s name proposed?” Roosevelt, you understand, was Butler’s most dreaded rival, and to keep him from getting the nomination was the first aim of every reactionary leader in the country. Said President Butler to the assembled reporters: “Gentlemen, you can take this one thing from me—Theodore Roosevelt’s name was positively not mentioned in this caucus.” But, so my informant declared, Roosevelt’s name had been mentioned only a few minutes before in the caucus, and President Butler had opposed it! It is worth noting that Butler denounced Roosevelt and abused him with almost insane violence; but when Roosevelt died he made lovely speeches about him, and hailed himself as the true heir of the Roosevelt tradition. He sought the support of one of Roosevelt’s close relatives on this basis, and the report was spread among newspaper men that he had got it.