Nicholas Miraculous bided his time, and several months later came the chance to get rid of Cattell and at the same time to exhibit his new patriotism. Cattell wrote a letter to a congressman, in support of pending legislation exempting from combatant service in Europe conscripts who objected to war. The interlocking trustees, who had already conscripted themselves to make money out of the war, took the position that in writing this letter Cattell had committed a crime, and they suddenly dismissed him from the university. In spite of his twenty-six years’ service, they did not even take the trouble to notify him what they proposed to do, but left him to learn of their action from a newspaper reporter who waked him in the middle of the night. The trustees declared that a professor could not take a stand on any public question as his own personal opinion; to which Cattell replied: “When trustees announce that no statement can be made by a teacher that is not affirmed by Columbia University, they challenge the intellectual integrity of every teacher.” These ferocious old men who had conscripted themselves to make money out of the war were not content to get rid of a too-independent professor; they wished to brand him for life, so they rushed to the press with a statement charging him with “treason,” “sedition,” and “obstruction to the enforcement of the laws of the United States.” And this although Professor Cattell was actively engaged in psychological work for the army, and his only son who was of war age had already volunteered! Professor Cattell, in his counter-statement, referred to the trustees as “men whose horizon is bounded by the two sides of Wall Street with Trinity Church at the end.” He described the university as a place “overrun with intrigue and secret diplomacy.” He said of President Butler: “He has run the university as a department store, playing the part of both proprietor and floor walker to the faculty, while an errand boy to the trustees.”[A] Cattell brought suit for libel and threatened to sue for the pension to which he was entitled. The trustees waited several years, until the libel case was about to come up for trial, and then admitted their guilt by paying forty-five thousand dollars of the university’s money. ----- Footnote A: The statements concerning Columbia University in the above paragraph were contained in a confidential statement sent by Professor Cattell to some of the Columbia faculty. In fairness to Professor Cattell, I wish to state that he did not furnish me with this statement, either directly or indirectly, and I have not asked his permission to quote from it. -----