Montana labor news., 1938-12-22

ness for students who would prepare
themselves for such municipal serv-
ice. There were a number of stu
dents in the class taking their pre-
medical work, and they sat open
mouthed, and some of them pale, at
this revelation of political useful
ness. Several came up and asked
questions, and said they had never
heard or thought of such things. The
figures of the number of city officials
and employees engaged in such So
cial service in the larger cities, and
the budget figures for such work
were impressive. That teacher lost
his position on account of admitting
such dangerous doctrines into his
classroom-under some other pre-
text, of course-and he was one of
the best in his line.
AS for sociology, it has largely
fallen into innocuous desuetude. In
one university, among the most
prominent, a discussion of the negro
question in a club connected with
this department was one the sub
ject of an evening meeting. A num-
Der of negroes had come in from
outside to listen to the discussion.
They were presented with figures
and statistics setting forth the in
feriority Of their race. Several ne
groes, educated men and women,
made an attempt to show the eco
nomic disabilities under which their
race labored; the difficulty of get
ting work that would enable them
to obtain an education, the prejudice,
the inferior sections they were forced
to live in, and kindred conditions.
To point the trend of the argument,
one pompous professor Of Scandi-
navian origin elaborated the lesson
to be drawn from the statistical
showing:
IF I were a negro" he said, point
ing to the columns of figures on the
board, IF I were a negro I would
study those figures till I knew them
by heart. Then | would use every
ounce of determination in me in the
effort to overcome the situation as
exhibited here"
There was no conception of what
part economic conditions played in
the chance of the negro to take adj
vantage of what civilization there is.
The poor, handicapped negro, fet-
tered at every turn, is supposed in
some miraculous way to lift himself
out of his Slough of Despond by his
bootstraps.
Another professor, the head of the
department of Sociology, felt the
urge to encourage the negroes.
"There is one thing about them,"
he said, mot one of them is a boil
shevik."
He had no idea that not many
blocks from where he stood was a
large negro socialist local, that negro
socialist mass meetings were being
held in a theater not far from him
every Sunday with negro speakers,
several of whom were among the
best socialist orators in America. So
much for what a leading sociologist,
an author of textbooks, knew about
social conditions. This same savant,
in 1921, was using the notes in his
classes he had used in 1910-and the
world had been made over since
then.
Volumes could be written by
specialists in the social sciences, those
far worthier to handle the material
than this writer, on the perversion
of authentic data, the distortion of
historical facts, the ignoring of sci
entific principles in research, the
deliberate Misrepresentation of
established laws in social evolution,
the superficial handling of material,
that characterize the purveying of
college Sociology in this country
all to delude, deceive, discourage,
dissuade, disaffect, ~dishearten, dis
may the seeker after life and liberty
in the social structure.
Although London, England, is the