educators who are just as plutocratic as the bankers. How plutocratic an educator can be when he is well paid for it is the next proposition we have to prove to you. CHAPTER VII THE INTERLOCKING PRESIDENT We have investigated the governing board of the University of the House of Morgan. We have next to investigate the president they have selected to carry out their will. Naturally, they would seek the most plutocratic college president in the most plutocratic country of the world. They sought him and they found him; his name is Nicholas Murray Butler, abbreviated by his subordinates to “Nicholas Miraculous.” I am going to sketch his career and describe his character; and as what I say will be bitter, I repeat that I bear him no personal ill-will. If I pillory him, it is as a type, the representative, champion and creator of what I regard as false and cruel ideals. His influence must be destroyed, if America is to live as anything worthwhile, kindly or beautiful. For this reason I have made a detailed study of him, and present here a full length portrait. If some of it seems too personal, bear in mind the explanation; you will understand every aspect of our higher education more clearly, if you know, thoroughly and intimately, one specimen of the ideal interlocking university president. Nicholas Murray Butler was born in Paterson, N. J., and his father was a mechanic. This is nothing to his discredit, quite the contrary; the only thing to his discredit is the fact that he is ashamed of it, and tries to suppress it. When he was candidate for vice-president in 1912 it was given out that he was descended from the old Murray family of New York, which gave the name to aristocratic Murray Hill; and this I am assured is not the fact. He has been all his life what is called a “climber.” Ordinarily I hate puns on people’s names, but the name of Butler seems to have been a special act of Providence. His toadying to the rich and powerful is so conspicuous that it defeats its own ends, and brings him the contempt of men whose intimacy he wishes to gain. George L. Rives, former corporation counsel of New York City, and chairman of the board of Columbia University for many years, said of him: “Butler is a great man, but the damnedest fool I know; he values himself for his worst qualities.”