Thus there is nothing novel in the thesis of Dr. Sinclair’s book, which deals, in brief, with the internal organization of the American universities, and their abject subjection to the Money Power, which is to say, to Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club concepts of truth, liberty and honor. But there is something new, and very refreshing, in the manner of it, for the learned author, for the first time, manages to tell a long and dramatic story without intruding his private grievances into it. Sinclair’s worst weakness, next to his vociferous appetite for Remedies that never cure, is his naïve and almost actorial vanity. As everyone knows, it botched “The Brass Check.” So much of that book was given over to a humorless account of his own combats with yellow journals--which, in the main, did nothing worse to him than laugh at him when he was foolish--that he left untold a great deal that might have been said, and with perfect justice and accuracy, about the venality and swinishness of American newspapers. In “The Profits of Religion” he wobbled almost as badly; the subject, no doubt, was much too vast for a single volume; the Methodists and Baptists alone, to say nothing of Holy Church, deserved a whole shelf. But in “The Goose-Step” he tells a straightforward story in a straightforward manner--simply, good-humoredly and convincingly. When he comes into the narrative himself, which is not often, he leaves off his customary martyr’s chemise. There is no complaining, no pathos, no mouthing of platitude; it is a plain record of plain facts, with names and dates--a plain record of truly appalling cowardice, disingenuousness, abjectness, and degradation. Out of it two brilliant figures emerge: first the typical American university president, a jenkins to wealth, an ignominious waiter in antechambers and puller of wires, a politician, a fraud and a cad; and secondly, the typical American professor, a puerile and pitiable slave.