Meetings of the board of regents are by law required to be public, but they get around this by the simple device of having “executive sessions”—and once in a while a champagne picnic on Dr. Mayo’s private yacht! A member of the faculty will be hauled up—he has never seen one of the regents before, and has no idea who has accused him, or what are the accusations. They do not scruple to ask him the most personal questions, not merely about his beliefs, but about his private life. Is it true that he is separated from his wife? Is it true that he took a young lady to dinner? They will call in his dean and his fellow professors, and if the charge is a serious one, he is decapitated in advance. Here sit the angry plutocrats, brutal, full of hate—“I understand this”—“Is it true that”—and so on. “Did you vote for Debs?” “Did you belong to the Progressive party?” “Do you believe in God?” “Have you studied the constitution of the United States?” “Do you believe in abolishing the capitalistic system?” “What church do you go to?” Sometimes a professor gets “sore,” and tells these mighty ones to go to hell; after that he can get no job in any American university. I was told of a leading authority on state government taxation and political science who is now making washboards. This man was listed as a “war case;” that is to say, he had served on a charter commission in Minneapolis, and had put through certain franchise provisions opposed by the public service companies; so when the war came he was called unpatriotic. He writes me as follows: Usually the intimidation of a professor is so veiled and vague that he hardly knows what is wrong. A certain significant remark dropped at the right time, a certain coldness of attitude, failure to be included in certain social affairs, a certain slowness to get well earned increases, granted with gusto to others, many other little hints that his views do not meet with favor in certain quarters will serve to curb many a man with wife and babies to provide for. For instance, there were a score or more called before the regents at the time I was, every one of whom had opposed our entrance into the war and had not changed views as to the wisdom or justice of our going in, but they were willing to disavow their attitude, when confronted with instant dismissal. Some of these men told me they had to lie or starve their wives and babies, and they took the easier road.