U.S. muckraking writer Upton Sinclair indicated which special corporate interests have historically controlled the tax-exempt and "non-profit"Columbia University campus, when he wrote the following in a chapter, titled "The University of the House of Morgan," that appeared in his 1923 book, The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education:
"How rich in their own right are the particular Money Trust lords who run this great University it is not possible to determine, because these gentlemen, for the most part, keep their affairs secret. But in the list of those who have died during twenty-two years we have means for an estimate, for the property of many of these was listed in the probate courts of New York and appraised by the transfer tax appraisers. A study of these records has been made by Henry R. Linville, president of the Teachers' Union, and he has courteously placed the manuscript at my disposal. There are twenty-one trustees who have died and been appraised, and the list of their stocks and bonds fills a total of twenty-three typewritten pages, and shows that the total wealth on which they paid an inheritance tax amounted to one hundred and seventy-three million dollars [equivalent to over $2 billion in 2017 dollars], an average of over eight million [equivalent to over around $114 million in 2017 dollars]. I note among the list five members of the clergy of Jesus Christ, and I am sure that if He had visited their parishes He would have been delighted at their state of affluence--He could hardly have told it from His heavenly courts with their streets of gold. The poorest of these clergy was Bishop Burch, who left $37,840 [equivalent to over $500,000 in 2017 dollars]; second came the Reverend Coe, who left $80,683 [equivalent to over $1.1 million in 2017 dollars]; next came the Reverend Greer, who left $172,619 [equivalent to over $2.2 million in 2017 dollars]; next came the Reverend Dix, rector of Trinity, who left $269,637 [equivalent to over $3.8 million in 2017 dollars]; and finally, Bishop Potter, my own bishop, whose train I carried when I was a little boy, in the solemn ceremonials of the church. I was duly awe-stricken, but not so much as I would have been if I had realized that I was carrying the train of $380,568 [equivalent to over $5.4 million in 2017 dollars]. Such sums loom big in the imagination of a little boy; but they don't amount to so much on the board of a university where you associate with the elder Morgan, who left seventy-eight millions [equivalent to over $1 billion in 2017 dollars], and with John S. Kennedy, banker of the Gould interests, who left sixty-five millions. [equivalent to over $900 million in 2017 dollars].