Realpolitik in the American University: Charles A. Beard and the Problem of Academic Repression

Abstract

Charles A. Beard resigned from Columbia University on October 8, 1917 at a time when modern universities were emerging as significant institutions in the economic and political development of the United States. Thus, Beard's highly publicized resignation came at a time when universities were under exceptional scrutiny by economic and political elites, who increasingly viewed higher education institutions as either private corporations which they owned or as extensions of the modern state apparatus. Moreover, Beard's resignation came after a long string of dismissals, resignations, and censures at American universities that progressive historians have ironically chronicled as a history of the development of academic freedom in the United States. In fact, the early “academic freedom” cases were successful acts of academic repression and, in this context, Charles A. Beard's resignation opened a window onto the realpolitik of American universities, which have never been ivory towers, but have always been fundamentally political institutions, where groups and individuals engage in contests for power, authority, and resources within the framework of even larger social conflicts.

Notes

¹ Clyde W. Barrow, Universities and the Capitalist State: Corporate Liberalism and the Reconstruction of American Higher Education, 1894–1928 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990).

² Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men (New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1918), p. 98.

³ Max Weber, “Science as a Vocation,” in Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 131.

⁴ David N. Smith, Who Rules the Universities? An Essay in Class Analysis (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974); Barbara Ann Scott, Crisis Management in Higher Education (New York: Praeger, 1983); Ellen Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

⁵ Richard Hofstadter and Walter P. Metzger, The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955).

⁶ Barrow, Universities and the Capitalist State, Chapters 7–8.

⁷ Theodore J. Lowi, The Politics of Disorder (New York: W.W. Norton Co., Inc., 1971); Theodore Lowi, “The Politics of Higher Education: Political Science as a Case Study,” in George J. Graham, Jr. and George W. Carey (eds), The Post-Behavioral Era: Perspectives on Political Science (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1972), pp. 11–36.

⁸ The historical narrative is what policy researchers call a “focused synthesis,” which synthesizes the existing academic literature—much of it published in obscure or little-known outlets, unpublished research papers, biographical and autobiographical references to Charles A. Beard, newspaper articles, and other materials to present the first truly comprehensive overview of Charles A. Beard's resignation for the purpose of identifying some of the structural mechanisms of academic repression that continue to operate in contemporary state-capitalist universities, see, Ann Majchrzak, Methods for Policy Research (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1984).

⁹ Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York: Free Press, 1913), p. 188.

¹⁰ Allan L. Benson, Our Dishonest Constitution (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1914), pp. 5–35.

¹¹ Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 181.

¹² United States Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1916).

¹³ Laurence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 410.

¹⁴ Barrow, Universities and the Capitalist State, pp. 190–199.

¹⁵ Nicholas Murray Butler, Scholarship and Service (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921), p. 64.

¹⁶ Ibid., 65, 89–90, 158–159, 179–180.

¹⁷ Ibid., 116.

¹⁸ Clyde W. Barrow, More Than a Historian: The Political and Economic Thought of Charles A. Beard (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2000), pp. 10–13; James T. Shotwell, Autobiography (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961), p. 43.

¹⁹ Frank J. Goodnow, Social Reform and the Constitution (New York: Macmillan Co., 1911), pp. 331–332.

²⁰ Ibid., 331.

²¹ Ellen A. Nore, Charles A. Beard: An Intellectual Biography (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 1983), p. 30; Samuel C. Patterson, “Remembering Frank J. Goodnow,” PS: Political Science & Politics 34:4 (2001), pp. 875–881.

²² Charles A. Beard, “A Statement,” New Republic 13, December 29, 1917, pp. 249–251.

²³ Quoted in Carol S. Gruber, “Academic Freedom at Columbia University, 1917–1918: The Case of James McKeen Cattell,” Bulletin of the AAUP (Autumn 1972), p. 300.

²⁴ James McKeen Cattell, “The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,” Science 29, April 2, 1909, pp. 532–539.

²⁵ Barrow, Universities and the Capitalist State, Chapter 3; Clyde W. Barrow, “Corporate Liberalism, Finance Hegemony, and Central State Intervention in the Reconstruction of American Higher Education,” Studies in American Political Development 6 (Spring 1992), pp. 420–44.

²⁶ James McKeen Cattell, “Concerning the American University,” Popular Science Monthly (June 1902), pp. 180–182.

²⁷ James McKeen Cattell (ed.), University Control (New York: Science Press, 1913).

²⁸ Willis Rudy, The Campus and a Nation in Crisis: From the American Revolution to Vietnam (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1996), Chapter 3; Carol S. Gruber, Mars and Minerva: World War I and the Uses of Higher Learning in America (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University, 1975).

²⁹ Joseph Freeman, An American Testament: A Narrative of Rebels and Romantics (New York: Octagon Books, 1973), p. 107; Nore, Charles A. Beard, pp. 72–74.

³⁰ Upton Sinclair, The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education, revised ed. (Pasadena, CA: Privately printed, 1923).

³¹ Robert A. McCaughey, “‘Men of Our Type’: A Social Profile of the Columbia Trustees in the Butler Era, 1902–1945,” (2000), < http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/cuhistory/archives/TrusteesTalk.htm>.

³² Barrow, Universities and the Capitalist State, Chapter 2.

³³ Robert A. McCaughey, “1917: The Twilight of the Idols and Columbia's ‘Jewish Problem’” (2000). Accessed at < http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/cuhis3057/Lecture%20Notes/LectNotes12.htm>.

³⁴ Francis Bangs's law partner (Francis Stetson) was selected by J.P. Morgan in 1887 to become chief counsel for his bank. His adept legal maneuvers allowed Morgan to consolidate several electrical companies into the General Electric Corporation and he also figured prominently in the creation of US Steel, International Paper, and International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT).

³⁵ The 1810 Charter, which governed the university's operations, stated: “That the Trustees, and their successors, shall have forever hereafter full power and authority to direct and prescribe the course of study…and the discipline to be observed…and also to select the president…and such officers as the Trustees shall seem meet, all of whom shall hold their offices during the pleasure of the Trustees,” quoted in McCaughey, “Men of Our Type,” p. 1.

³⁶ McCaughey “1917: The Twilight of the Idols and Columbia's ‘Jewish Problem,’” p. 3.

³⁷ Sinclair, The Goose-Step, pp. 45–49.

³⁸ In 1905, Pennsylvania created the first state police force, which developed such a notorious reputation for violent strikebreaking that union officials often called them “the American Cossacks.” In 1916, the New York State legislature was considering a controversial bill to create its own state police.

³⁹ James Hudson Maurer, It Can Be Done: The Autobiography of James Hudson Maurer (New York: Rand School Press, 1938), p. 192.

⁴⁰ Ibid., 192–194.

⁴¹ Quoted in Nore, Charles A. Beard, p. 78.

⁴² Quoted in Beard, “A Statement,” p. 249.

⁴³ Gruber, “Academic Freedom at Columbia University,” p. 298.

⁴⁴ Beard, “A Statement,” pp. 249–250; Nore, Charles A. Beard, p. 79.

⁴⁵ Quoted in New York Times, March 6, 1917, p. 2.

⁴⁶ “Disloyalists at School,” New York Times, March 9, 1917, p. 6.

⁴⁷ Quoted in Beard, “A Statement,” p. 250.

⁴⁸New York Times, March 24, 1917, p. 10; New York Times, May 1963, p. 14.

⁴⁹ Fraser had been a protégé of President Butler in the AIC, while Beard had originally resisted his appointment to the Faculty of Political Science on the grounds that Fraser was unqualified for an academic appointment. Butler forced the Department of Public Law to accept the appointment of his young protégé. However, as the pro-war sentiment increased in the country, and the trustees became concerned about faculty activism, Fraser's pacifism became an embarrassment to Butler, see, Hofstadter and Metzger, The Development of Academic Freedom, pp. 498–499; and Beard, “A Statement,” p. 250. As Nore, Charles A. Beard, pp. 79–80 points out: “To Beard, Butler was practicing the worst kind of disloyalty and immorality. Having promoted the career of a younger man, he was now abandoning him when his views, formerly endorsed by Butler himself, were under attack.”

⁵⁰ Beard, “A Statement,” pp. 249–50; Horace Coon, Columbia: Colossus on the Hudson (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1947), p. 126.

⁵¹ Beard, “A Statement,” p. 250.

⁵² Nicholas Murray Butler, “President Butler's Speech at the Alumni Luncheon, Columbia University, June 6, 1917,” < http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/cuhis3057/textscans/butler_speech.htm>. Also quoted in Gruber, “Academic Freedom at Columbia University,” p. 302.

⁵³ Nicholas Murray Butler, “President Butler's Speech at the Alumni Luncheon, Columbia University, June 6, 1917,” < http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/cuhis3057/textscans/butler_speech.htm>. Also quoted in Gruber, “Academic Freedom at Columbia University,” p. 302.

⁵⁴ Gruber, “Academic Freedom at Columbia University,” p. 302.

⁵⁵ E.R.A. Seligman for the Committee of Nine, quoted in ibid., 302.

⁵⁶ Nore, Charles A. Beard, pp. 77–82; Gruber, “Academic Freedom at Columbia University.”

⁵⁷ Quoted in Gruber, “Academic Freedom at Columbia University,” p. 300.

⁵⁸ Quoted in ibid., 300.

⁵⁹ Quoted in ibid., 301.

⁶⁰ Quoted in New York Times, October 2, 1917, p. 1.

⁶¹ Freeman, An American Testament, p. 105.

⁶² Gruber, Mars and Minerva, p. 202.

⁶³ Charles A. Beard, “Professor Beard's Letter of Resignation From Columbia University, October 8, 1917,” School and Society 6:146 (October 13, 1917), pp. 446–447.

⁶⁴New York Times, October 9, 1917, p. 1; New York Times, October 10, 1917, p. 10.

⁶⁵ Quoted in Nore, Charles A. Beard, p. 82.

⁶⁶ Freeman, An American Testament, pp. 107–109; Randolph Bourne, History of a Literary Radical (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1920), p. 98.

⁶⁷ Quoted in Gruber, “Academic Freedom at Columbia University,” p. 304.

⁶⁸ Freeman, An American Testament, pp. 107–109.

⁶⁹New York Times, October 11, 1917, p. 24; October 13, 1917, p. 13; October 18, 1917, p. 5.

⁷⁰ Annie Nathan Meyer, “Letter to the Editor,” New York Times, October 13, 1917, p. 10. Meyer's reference to “radical colleges” is probably an allusion to Beard's long association with the Socialist Party's Rand School of Social Science in New York City, see, John L. Recchiuti, “The Rand School of Social Science During the Progressive Era: Will to Power of a Stratum of the American Intellectual Class,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (April 1995), pp. 149–161. In 1921, Beard joined with Herbert Croly, James Harvey Robinson, Thorstein Veblen, Wesley Claire Mitchell, Harold Laski, and other progressive luminaries to found the New School for Social Research, see, William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff, New School: A History of the New School for Social Research (New York: Macmillan, 1986). Beard also remained active in the left wing of the workers' education and labor college movement until 1929, see, Barrow, More Than a Historian, pp. 10–12.

⁷¹New York Times, December 4, 1917, p. 22.

⁷² Quoted in Nore, Charles A. Beard, p. 82.

⁷³ Beard, “A Statement,” p. 250.

⁷⁴ Butler quoted in the New York Times, December 3, 1917, p. 11.

⁷⁵ Stowell quoted in New York Times, March 2, 1918, p. 11. Stowell accepted a position in international relations at American University soon after leaving Columbia University.

⁷⁶ Barrow, More Than a Historian, Chapter 7.

⁷⁷ Theda Skocpol, “A Reply [to G. William Domhoff],” Politics and Society 15:3 (1986/87), pp. 331–332.

⁷⁸ Lowi, The Politics of Disorder, Chapters 6–7; Theodore J. Lowi, “The State in Political Science: How We Become What We Study,” American Political Science Review 86:1 (1992), pp. 1–7; James Farr, “Political Science and the State,” in James Farr and Raymond Seidelman (eds), Discipline and History: Political Science in the United States (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1993), pp. 63–79.

⁷⁹ John G. Gunnell, The Descent of Political Theory: The Genealogy of an American Vocation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 39.

⁸⁰ Charles A. Beard, “The University and Democracy,” The Dial, April 11, 1918, p. 335–337.

⁸¹ For a bibliography, see, John S. Brubacher, and Willis Rudy, Higher Education in Transition: A History of American Colleges and Universities, 4th ed. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997), pp. 543–555.

⁸² Barrow, Universities and the Capitalist State, p. 232.

⁸³ James Gray, The University of Minnesota, 1851–1951 (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1951), pp. 246–247; William E. Matsen, “Professor William A. Schaper: War Hysteria and the Price of Academic Freedom,” Minnesota History 51:4 (1988), pp. 130–137.

⁸⁴ John T. Hubell, “A Question of Academic Freedom: The William A. Schaper Case,” The Midwest Quarterly—A Journal of Contemporary Thought 17:2 (1976), pp. 111–121.

⁸⁵ Ibid., 112.

⁸⁶ Quoted in Gray, University of Minnesota, p. 256.

⁸⁷ Quoted in ibid., 257.

⁸⁸ Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (London, UK: Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1974), pp. 42–43.

⁸⁹ Beard, “University and Democracy,” p. 336.

⁹⁰ Clyde W. Barrow, “Intellectuals in Contemporary Social Theory: A Radical Critique,” Sociological Inquiry 57:4 (1987), pp. 415–430; Clyde W. Barrow, “What is to be Undone? Academic Efficiency and the Corporate Ideal in American Higher Education,” Found Object 10 (Spring 2001), pp. 149–180.

⁹¹ Charles A. Beard, “Political Science,” in Wilson Gee (ed.), Research in the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan Co., 1929), pp. 269–291.

⁹² Barrow, More Than a Historian, Chapter 7. A textbook content analysis conducted by Maurice Blinkoff, The Influence of Charles A. Beard Upon American Historiography (Buffalo, NY: University of Buffalo Monographs in History, 1936), Vol. 12, found that Beard's economic interpretation of the US constitution had achieved “orthodox status” in American colleges, high schools, and even junior high schools by the mid-1930s. In this respect, Beard's election to the presidencies of the American Political Science Association (APSA) (1926) and the American Historical Association (AHA) (1934) suggest that not just Beard, but the method of economic interpretation and class analysis was riding a crest of academic respectability in both disciplines. John Patrick Diggins, “Power and Authority in American History: The Case of Charles A. Beard and His Critics,” American Historical Review 86 (October 1981), pp. 701–702, observes that “in the years between the two world wars, Beard's reputation was so firmly established that the adjective ‘Beardian’ was not only considered a compliment but denoted a respected school of thought,” which fell into disrepute only after a post-Progressive generation of historians and political scientists massed a blistering counter-offensive against Beard during the Cold War.

⁹³ Barrow, Universities and the Capitalist State, Chapters 4–6.

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Clyde W. Barrow

Clyde W. Barrow is Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas—Rio Grande Valley. His publications include Universities and the Capitalist State (1990), More Than a Historian: The Political and Economic Thought of Charles A. Beard (2000), and Globalisation, Trade Liberalisation, and Higher Education in North America (2003). He has also published numerous articles on state theory and higher education policy.