The Roanoke times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1897-1977, 1897-06-29
DlsCIPLlNING A COLLEGE pREs1.
DENT, x 800

DENT.
President r. Benjamin Andrews of tbc
Brown University, is the latest ed,cator
to realize the dangers that accomnanv tbe
possession of opinions and Courage In ey
pressing them. 1t appears that tbat ,-rnnt
and good man, John D. Rockafe'ler
whose career should be an inspiration and
whose character Il beacon light to nil col.
lege youth, was on the point of giving
Brown million dollars, but refrained in
order TO express his disapproyal of the
PRESIDENTS "free silver and free trsde
views" The trustees of the college con-
ceiving that the chief purposes of insti.
tutions are to collect aims from million
aires and discourage thought among
students and professors, have therefore
| appointed a committee to wait upon the
misguided president and urge him to SIM
press his opinions, lest other millions
now held by trust magnates, gamblers,
highwaymen and ether criminals may
be diverted from naturalization.
The least important feature of this ed
flying incident is that in the sense in
which the phrase was used In the recent
campaign, President Andrews is not an
advocate of free silver. His principal
book on the financial question. can Hon
est Dollar" did indeed furnish the free
silver advocates with many pat texts and
pertinent arguments, but the authors,
| own position was that of man disagree.
ing with Mr.. Bryan both on the question
of the ratio and the eNpediency Of indie
pendent action.
But the really significant feature of the
affair is the new evidence it gives of the
intolerance OF concentrated wealth and
the determination of men possessing it
to control the institutions of learning, to
stifle in them free speech and free inves-
| tigation and to cause college bred men to
he cast in one mould. and that IL mould
formed by the benefciaries anh defenders
of special privilege. AS the fact that
President Andrews was not @Bryaniten
Is without pertinenoy, so. too, in this
particular case the fact that the lost mill
ion was tainted with wealth, wpn through
the nefarious and often criminal opera
tions Of the Standard Oil Cd,npanv, is
without hearing. The Willingness Of the
trustees to coerce the president into the
| abandonment or suppression of his con-
victions is the vital point. Other illus.
traticns of the coercive purposes of pro-
| fessed benefactors have been furnished
within Il week in the refusal of Il New
York merchant to attend the commence
ment of IL college to which he mad made n
| heavy benefaction merely because a man
for whom the American people cast
| 't'OV,NoV 'OUSS lNl bHc I'CeSlOencV nau
been invited TO deliver the commence
ment Grafton. 1t hnd still earlier cxem-
| plitication when the same trust magnate
whose millions are now to be used to gag
the president of Brown forced professor
OF economics out of the Chicago Univer-
sity for the high crime of uroing munic-
ipal ownership of gas works when the
Standard Oil Company was interested in
the local monopoly. =.
The insolence of those who would at
tempt tc poison the fountain head OF
learning under pretence of max ing it
more freely accessible to all is exceeded
only by their blindness. College bred
men WELD considerable influence in the
country. But this influence will be
wholly dissipated if it Incomes the gen
eral conviction that the educat ton they
have received has been given them by
teachers who have sold their intellectual
birthripht for a mess of pottage. If the
college Is but the echo TO the economic and
political sentiments of any millionaire
however corrupt his methods of wealth.
getting-who may endow it, the public
utterances of it's graduates will he dis.
credited in advance. York Journal.
FEWER LEGISLATIVE SESSIONS.
The underlying principle upon which