Читать книгу The Goose-step: A Study of American Education - Upton Sinclair - Страница 20

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We have seen President Lowell’s behavior when a group of Wall Street lawyers attempted to dictate to his university. We have next to investigate his attitude when it is his own intimates and financial supporters who are being attacked; when it is, not Wall Street, but State Street, which calls to him for help. Here again our Boston Brahmin has put himself on record, with exactly the same self-will and decisiveness—but, unfortunately, on the other side! We were promised some more evidence on the subject of Harvard in relation to Lee-Higginson and Edison Electric. Now we are to have it.

I am indebted for the details of the incident to Mr. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, an engineer of Philadelphia who was Director of Public Works under a reform administration. For a series of five years Mr. Cooke had been a regular lecturer at the Graduate School of Business Administration of Harvard University. He prepared two lectures on the public utility problem in American cities, which he gave at a number of universities, and was invited to give at Harvard. Mr. Cooke took the precaution to inquire whether he would be free “to discuss conditions exactly as they exist in the public utility field.” The reply was, in the magnificent Harvard manner: “I am desirous that your lectures be both specific and frank. I am anxious for the students to see clearly the real relation of local public utilities to the municipalities, and vice versa, and am not considering whether your remarks may hurt any one’s feelings.”

Mr. Cooke came and delivered his two lectures, and was announced to give them again; but four months later came a letter from the dean of the Graduate School, saying: “Mr. Lowell feels, and I agree with him, that in view of the use you made of your invitation to come here this last year, we cannot renew the invitation.” Mr. Cooke then wrote to President Lowell to find out what was the matter, and was told that he had violated academic ethics by giving to the press an abstract of his lectures. In answering President Lowell, Mr. Cooke pointed out that six weeks prior to giving the lectures he had written on three separate occasions to the Graduate School, giving notice of his intention to publish an abstract of his remarks, because officials in other cities wished the information on public utilities which he had accumulated. “Trusting that if this is not entirely satisfactory to you, you will so advise me at your convenience,” etc. The reply from the Business School had been: “I note that you intend to publish these two lectures later, which will be perfectly satisfactory to us.”

President Lowell now condescended to explain to Mr. Cooke wherein he had offended; he had violated “academic customs ... not in the least peculiar to Harvard, but true in all universities.” Mr. Cooke thereupon wrote to universities all over the United States; he obtained statements from a score or two of university professors, deans and presidents, showing that not only was there no such custom, but that it was a quite common custom for lecturers at universities to make abstracts of their lectures and furnish these to the press. The authorities quoted include the president of the University of Wisconsin, and a dean who is now president; Professor Dewey of Columbia, Hoxie of Chicago—and Frankfurter of President Lowell’s own university! Theodore Roosevelt wrote:

Until I received your letter, I knew nothing whatever of any rule prohibiting the remarks of academic lecturers from being published in the periodical press or in other ways being quoted as material used in the lecture room.

If you really want to test the sincerity of President Lowell’s statement, here is the way to do it: Imagine Theodore Roosevelt, distinguished Harvard alumnus, coming to his alma mater to deliver a lecture on “The Duties of the College Man as a Citizen,” and preparing a summary of his lecture and giving it to the press; and then imagine him receiving from President Lowell a letter rebuking him for his action, and informing him that because of it he would not again be invited to speak at Harvard!

No, we shall have to examine Mr. Cooke’s lectures, for some other reason why his career as a Harvard lecturer was so suddenly cut short. Mr. Cooke has printed the lectures in pamphlet form under the title “Snapping Cords.” On page 9 I find a statement of the over-valuation of public utilities in Philadelphia, and note that the Philadelphia Electric Company has securities to the amount of over fifty million dollars upon an actual valuation of less than twenty-five million. And this is an Edison concern, allied with Boston Edison and Lee Higginson! I turn to page 12, and learn how the National Electric Light Association, the society of electrical engineers, is being used as a dummy by the electric light interests. I turn to page 14, and find the American Electric Railway Association shown up as planning to corrupt American education, creating a financed Bureau of Public Relations for the self-stated purpose of “influencing the sources of public education particularly by (a) lectures on the Chautauqua circuit and (b) formation of a committee of prominent technical educators to promote the formation and teaching of correct principles on public service questions in technical and economic departments at American colleges, through courses of lectures and otherwise.”

The tactless Mr. Cooke goes on to examine the activities of “prominent technical educators” who have lent themselves to this program. Among the names I find—can such a thing be possible?—George F. Swain, professor of civil engineering in the Graduate School of Applied Science of Harvard University! Professor Swain, it appears, has done “valuation work” for Mr. Morgan’s New Haven Railroad—our interlocking directorate, you perceive! You may not know what “valuation work” consists of; it is the job of determining how much money you shall pay for your water, light, gas and transportation, and needless to say, the utility corporations want the valuation put as high as possible. Mr. Cooke, since the incidents here narrated, put through a rate case whereby the Philadelphia Electric Company collects from the city and the people of that city one million dollars less per year. So you see just what an ornery cuss Mr. Cooke is!

Professor Swain lays out “principles” for the doing of this ticklish “valuation work.”^[C] One of his “principles” is that when anything has increased in value, the increased valuation shall be allowed the corporations, but when anything has decreased in value there shall be no corresponding decrease in the valuation! (We used to play this game when we were children; we called it “Heads I win and tails you lose.”) Another of Professor Swain’s “principles” is that when states, counties or cities have helped to pay the cost of grade crossings, the railroads shall be credited with the full value of these grade crossings. (We used to play that game also when we were children; we called it “Findings is keepings.”) Needless to say, a man who is so clever as to get away with things like that regards himself as superior to the rest of us, who let him get away with it. So, as president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Professor Swain voices his distrust of democratic ideals, and informs the engineers that “present-day humanitarianism leads to race degeneracy.”

C. See record of hearing, May 3, 1920, at State House, Trenton, N. J., before Governor Edwards, on motion of City of Jersey City for removal of Public Service Commission.

And then I turn on to page 35 of the pamphlet, and stumble on still more tactless conduct on the part of this dreadful Mr. Cooke. He tells us about Dugald C. Jackson, professor of electrical engineering at Harvard University,^[D] who also does this fancy “valuation work.” Says Mr. Cooke: “Professor Jackson has never really been so much a university professor as a corporate employe giving courses in universities. While he probably receives five thousand dollars from his present teaching post he must receive at least four times this amount from his corporate clients—charging as he does one hundred dollars a day for his own time and a percentage on the time of his assistants!”

D. Professor Jackson, in qualifying as an expert before the Pennsylvania Public Service Commission, introduced himself by the single statement that he was “professor of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and professor of electrical engineering at Harvard University.” It should be explained that he held the last two positions only ex-officio, by virtue of the affiliation of the two institutions which existed for a few years.

Mr. Cooke goes on to show that before taking up teaching, Professor Jackson was a chief engineer for the Edison General Electric Company. In 1910, while a professor at Harvard, he rendered a report showing that the Chicago Telephone Company was running behind over eight hundred thousand dollars per year; but two years later it was proven that the company could afford a reduction in rates of seven hundred thousand dollars per year! Again, Professor Jackson rendered a report showing that the Buffalo General Electric Company had a valuation of $4,966,000; but the state commission subsequently fixed the valuation at $3,194,000. He valued three thousand municipal arc lamps at $21.70 each, but the New York commission showed that the actual cost of these lamps was $13.53. Says Mr. Cooke:

“What constitutes being employed by a corporation? Professor Jackson is to all intents and purposes consulting engineer in chief as to rates and valuations to the entire electrical industry in the United States. He has made inventories of the Boston Edison Company and the New York Edison Company. He is now engaged in doing similar work for the Philadelphia Electric Company. These three companies have a combined gross annual income of thirty-five million dollars.”

Do you see the “nigger in the woodpile” now? If you are a mine guard or strike-breaking gunman, experienced in shooting up the tent-colonies of striking miners, the corporations will pay you five dollars a day and board for your services. If you are a “prominent technical educator,” with a string of university degrees and titles, who can enable the great corporations to swindle the public out of tens of millions of dollars every year, then you can command a salary of a hundred dollars a day, with a percentage on the time of your assistants. That is what a college education is for; and if you think that an over-cynical statement, I ask you to read the whole of this book before you decide!

And what is a college president for? A college president is paid by the interlocking directorate to take their “consulting engineers” and “valuation experts” and cover them with a mantle of respectability, enabling them to do their dirty work in the name of education and public service. And if any freak individual comes along, trying to break in and spoil the game, the function of a college president is to furnish what the college football player knows as “interference“—tripping the fellow up, slugging him, maiming him. In football there are strict rules against fouls; but in this game of plutocratic education “everything goes.”