So now behold our professor summoned before the interlocking trustees in solemn conclave! They demanded to know what he had said, and he told them, and then, thinking that the incident was closed, he started to leave the room. But one of them called to him, and to the consternation of this leading economist and scholar, he was grilled for half an hour concerning his beliefs and teachings, by two members of the board—Frederick R. Coudert, lawyer, and director of a trust company, a safe deposit company and a surety company; and Francis S. Bangs, lawyer, and director in five express companies, a trust company, a savings bank, and a water power corporation. They demanded his views on war and peace, on Americanism and the constitution, on capitalism and the rights of property; and when they had satisfied themselves that he did not believe anything for which he could be arrested, they dismissed him, with orders to warn all others in his department “against teachings likely to inculcate disrespect for American institutions.” Professor Beard went back to his colleagues, and reported this extraordinary scene, and the members of his department burst into roars of laughter; asking whether among the “American institutions” for which they were to “teach respect” the trustees included Tammany Hall and the pork barrel! Shortly after this it was announced that the trustees had appointed a special committee to investigate the ideas which were being taught at Columbia. “The Committee on the State of Teaching,” it was called, and its members were four lawyers and one banker. The response of the faculty was to meet and protest, and appoint a committee of nine to defend themselves. The Faculty Council adopted a very strong resolution on the subject of academic freedom—which resolution, be it noted, was afterwards suppressed.