Montana labor news., 1938-12-22
Economics Sociology
By IDA cRoUCH-HAzLETT

The attitude of American colleges
towards the social sciences is so well
known that any detailed discussion
here Of the situation is unnecessary.
Before the Great War, that struggle
to the death Of mad dogs at each
others Threats, socialism was taught
as a separate course in many of the
first-grade American colleges. When
voracious capitalism and predatory
patriotism had bullied and beaten
the thinking part of society into
silence, when professors were cowed
and lost their places, and Columbia
disgraced itself by dismissing DR..
Harvey Robinson, DR.. Charles A.
Beard, and DR.. Harry Elmer Barnes,
who had connected history with the
social sciences, and inaugurated a
scientific treatment Of that subject
in American education, when the
ablest scholars in this country were
martyred after a supine toadism of
university heads to those drunk with
greed of the billions they could
gouge out of a terrorized-after this
bloodthirsty orgy American students
might no more be taught the devel-
opment and tendency Of social insti-
buttons.
Only in the last year or two has
socialism been restored to the cur
riculum in a few colleges. The effect
Of the censorship, however, on the
social sciences was an emasculation
that was ludicrous. In one college
the textbook on the Principles Of
Economies written by the dean,
presented a most amazing set of
definitions. There were no stand
ards for wealth or value other than
personal estimates, however various
they might be. The object of this
chaos is to avoid giving a labor
basis in the production of wealth or
values-to destroy the creative char
acter of labor, and thus minimize
its essential Importance to the vast
body of social wealth. Such view
point destroys the fundamental value
of labor in the productive process,
%depreciates it as a social factor, and
in consequence degrades the laborer
and repudiates whatever p~retenses
he may make to the rightful owner
ship of wealth.
1t gives to secondary factors an
Importance and responsibility that
does not belong to them-as capital,
which is non-existent except through
the functioning of labor; power of
intellect, a functioning of mans
power, a form of labor; saving, a
process of preserving the product of
labor. Material in the ground is
only cosmic material, of no use to
man till he has transformed it for
his needs. In these definitions of
what man must have to exist on is
Incorporated the social intent of the
robbery of the producer by the
forces that have possessed them
selves of the productive processes.
ALI these crafty ways of influencing
the public mind in the interest of
insidious class control may be found
within the lids of an innocent-look-
ing textbook.
The most elaborate arguments
against municipal, and government
ownership r regularly presented,
with very nearly a hundred per cent
taboo against all demonstrations in
their favor-of which we have such
recent evidence in the college scan
dals connected with the power trusts.
One teacher l knew who rather
gingerly permitted a paper on NUM-
cipal ownership in the government
class, with the Ontario electric plant
as one of the illustrations. The paper
concluded with a discussion of the
progress that had been made in city
health control, presenting figures on
city hospitals, physicians, nurses,
clinics, laboratories, inspect of school
nhtIdrap md oI1ioJ data. o,nJ call