Instantly, of course, the whole machinery of intimidation collapsed; it had never occurred to anyone that a college professor might act like a man! They would drop the whole matter, say nothing more about the red card, give Ardzrooni promotion and increase his salary—anything to keep out of court! The professor of labor problems laughed at them, and following the example of all other self-respecting men, went out into the free world. CHAPTER XIII THE EMPIRE OF DULLNESS Those who have stayed in the great academic department-store have stayed under the shadow of disgrace; branded as men who love their pitiful salaries more than they love their self-respect and dignity as scholars, more than they love the cause of democracy and justice throughout the world. They stay on the terms that the voice of democracy and justice is silent among them, while the voice of reaction bellows with brazen throat. I have shown you the plutocratic president storming the banquet halls of merchants and manufacturers and bankers, pouring out what Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor, described as “his sweeping intolerance of free speech and of organization by those not of his belief.” And everything in Columbia or connected with Columbia has been stamped with the impress of Butler’s hard materialism, his cold and calculating snobbery. He uses the prestige of his university to confer honors on reaction both at home and abroad. In 1912 he honored Senator Underwood, praising him to the skies as the leader of democracy—this in the hope of keeping Woodrow Wilson from getting the Democratic nomination for president. In 1922 we find him glorifying an Episcopal bishop, the rector of Trinity Church, the governor of the Federal Reserve Board, a Belgian baron, a Portuguese viscount, the Chinese ambassador, and Paderewski, apostle of Polish militarism! With the help of his millionaire trustees Butler has built up an alumni machine, and the alumni paper is the organ of his personal glory. He has built up a faculty machine, of men who understand that they are free so long as they agree with their president, and who go forth to carry out the president’s will wherever the Columbia influence reaches—which is throughout the entire school and college system of our plutocratic empire.