It might be worth while to mention that at the very time that Allen Eaton was fired from the University of Oregon, Professor Foerster of the University of Munich, an ardent pacifist, was denouncing the German government and being widely quoted by the allies; he was ostracized by the entire faculty of his university—nevertheless, the Kaiser’s government let him continue to teach, because in Germany they really understand what academic freedom is, and stand by the principle. In all Great Britain there was only one case during the war of interference with academic freedom, and that was the case of Bertrand Russell, who was prosecuted and sent to prison for his pacifist activities. But in America, which understands no kind of freedom except the freedom of mobs to suppress anybody they do not like, I know of just two great universities in which some man or group of men were not hounded from their positions, for pointing out this or that unwelcome truth to the public. CHAPTER XXXVI THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CHIMES We move a couple of hundred miles farther north to Seattle. It may be difficult to believe that there was ever a time when students in an American university took an active interest in the people’s rights, and declined to receive favors from wholesale corrupters of public life; but such was actually the case ten years ago, at the height of the Progressive movement in the state of Washington. The grand duke who ran the higher education of that state was Colonel Blethen, publisher of the Seattle “Times,” an exceptional old scoundrel who had manipulated street railways in Minnesota, and then brought his fortune to Seattle and bought a newspaper, which he used for the rawest kind of blackmailing, by a “strong arm” advertising department. Colonel Blethen had been made a member of the board of regents of the university; and in the effort to rehabilitate himself and his family name, he spent twelve thousand dollars for a set of chimes, which he presented to the university with the stipulation that they were to be known by his name. The students of the university did not feel grateful; fifty-one of them composed and signed a letter of protest which was inserted in the student daily, and put on the presses, when the printer “tipped off” Colonel Blethen’s university president, and the presses were stopped. The students took the letter to the city and there printed it and distributed it. The editor of the college paper refused to publish again until he could publish the letter. When ordered by the authorities to issue the paper, he did so with a blank space where the letter had been!