It is fair to say that, though an early job as a University of Chicago secretary allowed her to take free, uncredited courses–including from John Dewey, comrade Marcy had very little time for the Academy. When she became editor of ISR it was transformed from a largely academic journal by her insistence that the magazine focus on working class authors. An exception to her general disdain for the professoriat was Scott Nearing. Here, she looks at his political firing from the University of Pennsylvania and the role of ‘higher education.’

‘The Reward of Truth-Telling’ by Mary E. Marcy from International Socialist Review. Vol. 16. No. 2. August, 1915.

SOME of us still imagine that the academic mind may lead the world in progress, that university men, professional men of high mental training, may be expected to point the way toward a broader and happier civilization.

But the facts do not square with our hopes. Neither among the colleges nor the churches is there the slightest evidence of any considerable deep-rooted movement for the material improvement of industrial conditions in Europe or America.

We have yet to hear of one church or one university whose aim is the abolition of poverty—the greatest social evil in the world today. We know of no college or church that even devotes itself to the prevention of preventable disease or of unemployment. A few petty reforms have found their origin in the university but most of these have died young through inacition.

This is not the fault of the students, many of whom enter the colleges and universities every year with their hearts filled with high hopes of a career of usefulness to society. They imagine they are about to drink of the fountain of truth and hope to take their degrees more fully equipped to meet the emergencies of life because of the years they have spent in study, attending lectures, in the laboratory and in research work. They believe the university requires the truth above all things. This is a mistake some never recognize because their minds are so crammed with twaddle beneficial to the capitalist class.

The institutions of any given period of society represent the dominant interests in that society and, as the capitalist class is overwhelmingly the ruling class in the “civilized” world today, we find reflected in the church, the state and in all institutions of learning, the interests and viewpoint of this propertied class.

It was therefore to be expected that Professor Scott Nearing, one of the leading exponents of sound economics, one of the keenest minds engaged in research in the field of sociology and economics, should have been eliminated from the list of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania.

Nine years ago Dr. Nearing entered the sacred halls of the Philadelphia institution as a member of the teaching force in the Wharton School of Finance. He had previously studied at the university, and, later, had acted as secretary of the Pennsylvania Child Labor Association. From the first he was a thorn in the flesh of big business in that feudalistic state. He effectively fought for child labor laws, and, in that way, secured the displeasure of the powerful mining and other interests of the state.

He advocated workmen’s compensation laws. He told the public about the overcapitalization of the transportation system of the city. He examined the wages paid to the workers of the country, and wrote books explaining the abominably low remuneration in many of our industries.

Last month the Macmillan Company, New York, brought out Prof. Nearing’s work on Income, which they announced as “an examination of the returns for services rendered and from the property owned in the United States” (net price $1.25), from which we quote the following on page 199:

“The recipients of property income and of service income face each other and prepare for the conflict. Those who have put forth the effort, declare their rights to the products of that effort. Those who own property hold fast to their property titles and to the prerogatives which are inseparable from them.

“Law, custom and business practice have made property income a first charge on industry. There can be no considerable readjustment of income values until the preeminent position of property is overbalanced by some social action.

“The present economic tendencies will greatly increase the total amount of property income and the proportion of property income paid with each passing decade. Land values will continue to rise as population grows denser, demand for land increases and methods of using land are perfected. The return to capital (the interest rate) shows every indication of advancing. It certainly will not decrease in the near future.

“The day when capital could be easily dissipated has passed away. When once created, capital does not disappear. Instead, every conceivable method has been devised to perpetuate it. It may even add to itself, as it frequently does, when earnings, instead of being used for the payment of dividends, are reinvested and turned directly into new capital.

“The workers, meanwhile, are living, for the most part, a hand-to-mouth existence, successful if they are able to maintain health and keep up appearances. Against the value of the products which their energy creates is charged the property incomes for which the labor of someone must pay. Today, the producers of wealth are saddled with an enormous property income charge which increases with each passing year—increases far faster than the increase in the population; and which, from its very nature, cannot be reduced, but must be constantly augmented.

“Were there no protest from the producers of wealth, the future of capital would be a bright one. With increasing stability, increasing safety, decreasing risks and increasing land values, the property owners might face a prospect of unalloyed hopefulness.

“Actually no such situation exists. On the contrary, there is every indication that, with the passing years, the producers of wealth will file a protest of ever increasing volume against an economic system which automatically gives to those who already have.

“While the spirit of protest grows in intensity, the form remains a matter which future years alone may determine. An appeal to the available facts leads to the conclusion that the most effective protest the producers can make will be based on a clear recognition of the distinction between SERVICE INCOME and PROPERTY INCOME. Shall the economic world decide that only those who expend effort shall share in the wealth, which is the result of that effort?

“Shall the economic world decide that each person expending effort is entitled to all the value for which his effort is responsible — no more and no less? Shall the economic world set its stamp of approval on EFFORT and its stamp of disapproval on parasitism, by turning the income (that springs from) activity INTO THE HANDS OF THE WORKERS, and denying income to all others?

“Has the time arrived when a few may no longer live in idleness upon the products created by those who give their lives to labor? Shall not the social blessing be bestowed upon those who labor and the social curse be hurled upon the idler and the wastrel? Lo! these many years has mankind looked forward to a day when economic justice could prevail. Is not this the day and this new century the seedground for its fulfillment?”

So reads the last chapter of Prof. Nearing’s new work on income. But the capitalist class of Pennsylvania has doubtless observed that with each new contribution, Scott Nearing enlarged his public. College youths, university professors, trade unionists and rebels of every hue alike, widened their horizon by reading his works. Facts and figures proved an unanswerable indictment of the capitalist system and the fine hand of the propertied interests arranged for the removal of one of the few remaining scholars in the state university.

Even articles and works of a largely statistical character brought Prof. Nearing into disrepute among the capitalists of Pennsylvania, who maintain state universities and colleges and other institutions of “learning” NOT for the propagation of truth, nor for scientific research that may benefit society as a whole, but for the inculcation of information and ideas that will prove economically and industrially PROFITABLE to the property-owning class.

Probably Professor Nearing did not enter upon his labors in the spirit of revolt with which so many young men embark upon their professional careers today. He brought to it, we believe, rather the broad vision of the true scientist, who observes and records and draws his conclusions from the data at hand. Note the scientific spirit with which he approaches his subject in the Adequacy of American Wages, recently published in the Annals of the American Academy:

“The adequacy of American wages, like any other question in social science, should be discussed in a spirit of honest truth-seeking. Everywhere the problem is leading to endless and often to bitter controversy between employers and wage earners, who ordinarily base their contention that wages are ‘too high* or ‘too low* upon tradition or prejudice rather than upon scientific analysis. The result is dissention and misunderstanding. The student of economics approaches the matter scientifically.” (The italics are ours.)

Naturally he concludes that “American wages are inadequate, grossly inadequate, when viewed from any point of vantage afforded by the available social facts…Speaking generally and in terms of family living, the present American wage scale is pathetically, grotesquely, viciously inadequate.”

The University of Pennsylvania is a quasi-public institution. Before it appealed to the state for aid, private capitalists had donated to it some $18,000,000. And they ruled its policies through the agency of a self-perpetuating board of trustees with an iron hand. This board contained many capitalists, but not one working man. The Baldwin Locomotive Works, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, the Girard Trust Company, the big department stores, the gas company and multifarious other corporations were well represented. But labor, not at all.

The members of this board naturally became restless under the stinging accusations of this youthful instructor, and many rumblings were heard. Nearing was offered other positions, but refused to accept them. His salary remained stationary, in spite of the recommendations of the head of the Department of Political Economy.

In the middle of June the trustees held a meeting, and a few days afterwards Prof. Nearing was curtly told of his discharge. No reason was assigned therefor. No case since, perhaps, that of Prof. Ross, has stirred up such a protest in the academic world. Few cases have shown so plainly the power of capital. In most other instances, the trustees can point to poor teaching, general incompatibility, lack of personality, bad character. They can thus divert attention from the real issue.

But here the case is a clear one. Professor Nearing is recognized by his fellow professors and students as one of the most successful teachers in the university; as a man of high moral standards; as a congenial colleague, as an excellent administrator.

“In losing Dr. Nearing,” said Simon N. Patten, head of the department of economics at Wharton School, “the university loses one of its most effective men, a man of extraordinary ability, of superlative popularity and a man who, to my mind, exerted the greatest moral force for good in the university.

“He had the largest class in the university — there were 400 in his class—and no one could have done his work better. I taught his course fifteen years and superintended it for ten, and I know.”

The testimony of Prof. Roswell C. McCrea, dean of the Wharton School, of J. Russell Smith, professor of Industry and others, is similar in its nature. The fact’ that Dr. Nearing s resignation was not made public until after the college body had scattered and were unable to get together in protest meetings, is indicative of the known popularity of Dr. Nearing and the fear that, if the report was circulated in any other portion of the year, the uproar would have been most disconcerting.

The issue is clearcut. Prof. Nearing was discharged—discharged at the time of the year when it was impossible for him to obtain another job for the coming season in the academic world—because he held views obnoxious to the conservative board of trustees.—American Socialist.

The removal of Scott Nearing might have been foreseen long ago. He was a man among a class of men generally composed of caterers and panderers, a true scientist in the field of American industry and economics, who found, and, this is his unpardonable offense, made known the facts and conditions surrounding the production of wealth in America.

College professors are required to SUPPORT and eulogize the Rockfellers, the Morgans, the Baer mine owners, in order to hold their jobs just as governors and congressmen and politicians are expected to serve the interests of the capitalist class, and as the Billie Sundays and less spectacular clergy are encouraged to preach to the workers those “virtues” that shall mean more output in the factory and greater profits to the employers of labor.

The old party politician who fails to protect the interests of the propertied class commits political suicide. John P. Altgeld wiped out all hope of future political favors when, as governor of Illinois, he signed the pardon for the so-called Chicago anarchists, although it was acknowledged even then by Chicago newspaper reporters and the Chicago police force that the men imprisoned were innocent of the charges for which they had been sentenced.

The day of the clergymen who have meddled with things “temporal” (unless it be to the interest and profit of the capitalist class) has always been a short one. The college professor who performs brilliant research work in any field without due regard for the interests of the profit takers, is removed, both to make an end of his inimical investigations and to serve as a warning to other scientists.

The rewards for men in the professional classes are for those who serve the men who perpetrate gigantic social robberies, for those who lie about and misrepresent, the working class and the conditions under which it labors.

There is little freedom and less incentive for professional men to do honest, scientific work under the present system of society. Real education is only possible when untrammeled by the economic power of a ruling class.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v16n02-aug-1915-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf