Montana labor news., 1939-10-26
LOOKED OVER BY The
kAIM|N; OVERLOOKED.
BY MI550ULIAN

/
ceived letters that the Kaimin has
chosen not to print:
Antioch College, Yellow Springs,
Ohio, September %, 1889.
To the staff of the Montana Kaimin:
l have before me six letters re-
ceived within the past two days from
graduates of Montana State Univer-
sity - letters postmarked Palmer,
Mass, New York, Minneapolis, San
Francisco, and two from small towns
in Montana. All of the letters were
spontaneous-voluntary. Only one of
the writers was a close friend of
ours at the University. But now we
all find ourselves united in our in
creasing humiliation at the destruc-
tion of academic freedom on the
Montana State University campus.
I have in mind, too, a Congress
sional Record report on the Keeney
case, the report of an investigation
made by the national academic free
dom committee of the American
Federation of Teachers on the Kee-
ney case, a New York Times news
article on some of the difficulties on
the Montana campus of two years
ago, a mimeographed release from
the American Civil Liberties Union
on the violation of civil liberties on
the Montana campus a Theatre Arts
Monthly note on the withdrawal of
"Ah Wilderness" from production at
a state university, and the horse
laugh I received from three alert
educators last winter when l hap
pened to say that I, at any rate, had
been graduated from a free uni
versity' State University of
Montana. Perhaps you haven't
heard,' they said perhaps you're
older than you look-Montana hasn't
been free for some time" Education
on the Montana campus, it appears,
has a peculiar smell in the nostrils
of university faculty members who
can speak freely.
I have in mind, too, that Mr.. Var
dis Fisher has just been granted the
Harper prize novel award; and that
his judges were such men as Carl
Van Doren, Henry Seidel Candy,
Thornton Wilder, and Sinclair Lewis.
And I have in mind, too, the news
paper report that the state board of
education has asked the resignation
of five men-one of whom was head
of my major department, Mr.. Mer-
riam and two of whom were heads
of Paul's, my husbands, major de-
partments, Mr. Lennes and Mr. Mer-
riam-because they had failed to
cooperate" and had engaged in in
terests contrary to those of the Uni
versity." These are not men Paul
and l have heard about from others
they are men we know. And be-
cause we know them, I shall not
waste time on such nonsense except
to point out that if ever there comes
a time when men of the intellectual
calibre and integrity of Mr.. Merriam
and Mr.. Lennes ''fail to cooperate"
it is a damning comment on the be-
haviour and mentality of the person
or persons unknown with whom they
fail to cooperate. If these two men
were dissatisfied and possibly ex-
pressed their dissatisfaction in their
own articulate ways, all I can do is
to echo John Stuart Mill in his essay,
"On Liberty" when he said, "It is
better to be human being dissatis-
fled than a pig satisfied; better to be
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool sat
isfied." If these men engaged in
interests contrary to those of the
! University" then l should like to
see a careful investigation of just
what the interests of the University
are in the year 1899. If the interests
of an educational institution are con-
trary to the interests of two of its
outstanding educators and scholars,
then there is something very fishy,
very fishy indeed, about the inter
ests of the educational institution.
This thing concerns us, however,
not only as former students of Mr..
Merriam and Mr.. Lennes, but as citi-
zens of a free country who have
come to feel that something must
be done quickly to halt this con-
tinued attack on academic freedom
in Montana Much as we admire and
respect and love Mr.. Merriam and
Mr.. Lennes and great as our per-
sonal debt is to them, there is more
involved in this than their individual
presentations: there is the preserva-
ton of civil liberties and academic
freedom at a time when these two
things are of utmost importance to
the country and to you who are 60
ing to follow us. This encroachment
upon your civil liberties is not some
thing which you see through a glass
darkly; it is something with which
you are face to face. This is all a
part of the tale of something which
is happening to the sharecroppers in
Arkansas, the itinerant fruit gather
ers in California, the Negroes in the
deep south; now it's happening to
you Who is SO wise that he can say
what another man should read, what
another man should see what an
other man should think?
You on the Kaimin have an un-