The Goose-step: A Study of American EducationSinclair, Upton
History
The Goose-step: A Study of American Education
Sinclair, Upton
Education -- United States; Universities and colleges -- United States
Twelve separate cities feed the Harvard purse from their traction
lines, and more than half a hundred pay tribute from their lighting,
heating, gas and power plants. Harvard has two million dollars in the
traction game. The two-cent transfer charge on New York City trolleys
goes to pay the interest on three-quarters of a million dollars’ worth
of traction bonds in Harvard ownership, and Boston ten-cent fare goes
partially to Harvard’s third of a million in Boston traction bonds.
Mr. Wildes goes on to study the effect of these investments upon
Harvard, and the effect which Harvard, through the power of these
investments, might have upon the industrial life of the country. I
cannot present the subject better than he has done, so I quote his
words:
With rapid transit lines throughout the nation in a state of rising
fares, and continual labor strife taking place, the intervention of a
conciliatory investor holding any such amounts might aid in bringing
better harmony between the companies on the one hand and the public
and the workmen on the other. But nothing has been done by Harvard
University, nor by any educational body in the land, to work for the
friendship of either public or labor towards the transit lines....
How strenuously the influence of Harvard will be thrown on the side of
limitation of armaments and the ending of war may be gauged by the
total of more than a million dollars’ worth of ordnance bonds and
munitions stock owned by the corporation. And, as these are largely in
great steel corporations such as Bethlehem, Midvale and Illinois, the
attitude of the college heads towards the move for unionizing workers
can be clearly understood.
When railroad brotherhoods put forth a plan for guild operation of the
lines, they face a mighty opposition from security investors. The
eight million dollars which Harvard holds in railroad stock and bonds
would be affected by victory for the Plumb Plan. The professors of
economics and particularly of railroad operation and finance can
scarcely be expected to imbue their scholars with a holy zeal for the
securing of the Brotherhood aims....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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