The young instructor received a copy of this letter; his opinion was asked for, and he gave it; he said that he thought the views expressed in the pamphlet were wrong, and he added: “When you state that you are not circulating it for propaganda purposes, I must say plainly that I think you are lying.” Let me point out that the young instructor did not rush to the newspapers with this opinion; he wrote it in a private letter, at request. He was specifically invited to say frankly what he thought, and he said frankly what he thought, to the organization which asked his opinion and no one else. But, of course, he had insulted one of the great moguls of the plutocracy; he had committed lese majesté in its grossest form. It is easy to imagine what happened; the huffy mogul sent the letter to some mogul regent, or perhaps to a mogul administrator, and before many days the young instructor was summoned to appear before his mogul dean. Maybe you imagine that the dean pointed out in a friendly way that the youngster had been injudicious in using a short and ugly word, and ought to use longer words while he was connected with a state university. If that is what you imagine, you know very little about universities. What actually happened was something I had to drag from the young man by half an hour of tactful questioning. It was evident that the experience had been a cruel one; he did not want to think about it, he could not speak about it without his hands trembling, and his voice also. He had been stormed at and denounced, he had been told that he was a fool and a puppy, and that he should there and then take his pen in hand and write an abject apology to the great mogul he had so insulted. And here was a young man trying to exist upon the pitiful salary of a university instructor, and with a young wife expecting a baby. He demanded twenty-four hours to think it over, and he went away and wrestled it out with himself. He wrote the letter, and since that time has retired into his own shell; he never thinks about public questions, he writes no letters to anyone, he hardly even reads a newspaper, but lives and labors in a little specialty, where he hopes to make some contribution to human knowledge. Meantime, the dean who did this thing is one of the most prominent and powerful persons in the university, in charge of the moral destinies of several thousand future citizens of the state of Wisconsin. And that is what “academic freedom” means in America’s freest university! CHAPTER XLIX THE PEOPLE AND THEIR UNIVERSITY