The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 11, 1918, Page 12

Do Colleges Fail to Teach Democracy? Big Business Has Centered Its Propaganda on the Universities, a Professional Man Wrrites, and Has Fooled Most of the Professors BY JOEL HENRY GREENE, M. D. Y EXPERIENCE in four years’ university environment has made me most skeptical as to university influences teaching democracy. In my experience the tendency is the opposite. Many of our schools and uni- versities do not teach demoec- racy and no one knows it better than the astute professors or discriminating stu- dents, particularly those who are working their way through school. It is just now beginning to filter through the consciousness of some university - leaders that they are guilty parties to our present evil economic and social condition. At last they begin to fear the Frankenstein they have helped create. They begin to realize that, as a class, they have been used to pull other people’s financial chestnuts out of- the fire. Nor have I found that the accumulation of learn- ing or degrees necessarily tends to conserve the natural intelligence. Oftimes ‘it seems to reduce it. Probably no class of preople has been struck harder, intellectually and morally, and in more vital places by this world war than the university teachers and leaders. All over the world social and economic doctrines long taught have been proven fallacious and untrue. There is no place like a university to teach the clear distinction between learning and intelligence. University people, as a class, oftimes do not rea- son as well as the less learned who have been obliged to struggle with recurring adversities of nature or the artificial. conditions of the eco- nomics of trade. THEY CERTAINLY DO NOT REASON AS WELL AS THE NORTH DAKOTA FARMERS, for the farmers found out just what hurt them and arose promptly and put it out of business. But my observation teaches me that the teaching fraternity is just begin- ning to realize where the shoe pinches. Heretofore university people have fallen for anything emanating from “learn- ed” and “cultured” sources, particularly if emphasized by “Ph. D.” or named in “Who's ‘Who.” CONTROL OF PRESS PARTLY TO BLAME The present incompre- hension on the part of the teaching profession arose primarily from blind adherence to au- thority, but principally from three great sources, the two first ones organ- ized to propagate error. The first is the organized control of the press and magazines directly or in- directly by the “six finan- cial groups and their af- filiated interests,” which virtually dictate their policies from the count- ing room. This has be- come so patent that Os- wald Garrison Villard, in an article in the January Atlantic, “Press Tenden- cies and Dangers,” makes astounding revelations. -~-Among these is the startling admission that they are run in the in- terest of the “intellectual ————— and that the “plain peo- ple” are dissatisfied. It is a notorious fact that G o A : . 5 5 3 A Two forces are making the world safe for democricy. - and ‘prosperous classes” big catch of German carp that prey on right and freed the Associated Press has never willingly ‘told the truth where a question between capital and labor was concerned. Its reports inviting and inciting violence have been the same untrue charges and misrepresentations against labor whether as to - existing conditions in Michigan, Colorado, West Virginia or New Jersey. Few of the “learned” and “prosperous” classes are aware that deportations-of farmers have oc- curred in the state of Minnesota similar in prin- ciple to those at Bisbee, Ariz., and I presume would doubt even the established facts that such things must always be from the very nature of things. SMOTHERED UNDER FALSE PROPAGANDA The second factor in the misconception of the facts in relation to social and economic questions is the result of the publicity campaigns which have been so carried on to.deceive the very elect. These are in the form of bulletins, pamphlets and essays, such as Professor John J. Stephenson’s “Capital and Labor,” Rev. Dr. Dwight Hillis’ “Ser- mons to Young Men,” Fra Elbert Hubbard's ar- -ticles, and unlimited trade and commercial journal articles that are circulated like Oakes Ames’ Credit Mobilier stock in the good old days, “where it would do the most good.” The patent insides of newspapers. carried until recently millions upon millions of dollars of paid articles deceiving the people as to facts regarding the railroad situation. I know personally that Iowa, Illinois and. North FISHERMAN’S LUCK! d & 4 -;// a4 cleaned of the greedy, finny tribe that would nibble away ‘the foundations of democracy at home. Fisherman’s tuck! The American tmbpé in Europe are hauling in a L exper; % om.: The organized farmers of the West are do-. to the ‘chauffeur or man, ing their part at home. Theirs is a double task, to feed the allied world, and to keep the home waters = Who . mows 'the lawn.: Dakota were flooded with them. Three big busi- ness publicity bureaus were maintained in “the United States. These articles put out in these publicity cam- paigns all misrepresent- the truth and are a dis- grace to civilization and public morality. To what source such publications are directed may be in- dicated by the letter of C. F. Carter to John D. Rockefeller Jr. It was proposed to sénd “a book telling the truth about the coal insurrection in - Colorado .exposing the criminal acts' of the United Mine Workers, etc., ete.” The following organi- zations and individuals were to,be reached: “To all public libraries in the United States and Canada. “To editors of all daily papers, the important weeklies and trade papers. “To the president, his cabinet and members ‘of congress. o “To governors, their heads of departments and members of the legislatures. “TO COLLEGE PROFESSORS. “To persons named in ‘Who’s Who’ and not in- cluding the foregoing. “To mailing list furnished by yourself and others interested in Colorado coal mining.” This furnished quite an interesting revelation of the extent of this propagation of deceit and du- plicity. As to the nature and character of this misinformation it is well summarized in an article by Ivy Lee, who afterwards became Rockefeller’s publicity manager. TUnder the subhead, “The Psychology of the Multitude,” he stated: “Crowds do not reason * % % Crowds are led by symbols and phrases. * * * Success * * *# ting believed in.” Mark the . phraseology. Not worthy of being believed in but “getting believed in” whether worthy or not.. This propaganda has been used to enlist uni- versity influence against labor with telling effect. LITTLE SYMPATHY 2 WITH LABOR ‘:‘ The third factor that Wz befogs the university f’,fi mind is a complete dis- belief in the ecapability of organized labor, agri- cultural and otherwise. My observations here have convinced me that university people fear la- bor and have no real sympathy with it if or- ganized. As an abstract “ proposition they will ad-, mit the right of labor to 'organize, providing: that - labor foregoes all ad- vantages arising from ‘organization. In - otheg words, they are, I have found, in favor of the “open shop.” Their boasted research seems . to grow weak just where Y mon people begin, and I will add this seemed to ‘ be the class Jesus Christ was most interested in. All their leading inter- ests 'seem to center in the commercial class and the “perfect 'love that . casteth out fear” seems reserved for them. As a . rule the fairly well-to-do ~professor knows but little .of the real laboring class. His or her observation ~-and experience is limited rests upon the art of get- . the interests of the com- . Often the virtues the ~ (Continued on page 14) \ b A B2 T N ool i e w b A [4