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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].
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:
"...This University of the House of Morgan is run by a board of trustees. Under the law these trustees are the absolute sovereign, the administrators of the property, responsible to no one. They cannot be removed, no matter what they do, and they are self-perpetuating, they appoint their own successors. Their charter, be it noted, is a contract with the state, and can never be altered or revised. Such was the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Dartmouth case, way back in 1819.
"Who are the members of this board? The first thing to be noted about them is that there is only one educator, and that is the president of the university, an ex-officio member. Not one of them is a scholar, nor familiar with the life of the intellect. There is one engineer, one physician, and one bishop; there are ten corporation lawyers, and eight classified as bankers, railroad owners, real estate owners, merchants and manufacturers....The chairman of the board is William Barclay Parsons, engineer of the subway, and director in numerous corporations. The youngest member of the board is Marcellus Hartley Dodge, who was elected when he was 26 years old, and was a director of the Equitable Life while still an undergraduate at Columbia; he is a son-in-law of William Rockefeller, and is chairman of the Remington Arms Company and Union Metallic Cartridge Company. He is said to have cleaned up twenty-four million [equivalent to over $538 million in 2017 dollars] in one deal in Midvale Steel, and in October 1916, he is credited with making two million [equivalent to over $44 million in 2017 dollars] by cornering the market in munitions machinery. Frederick R. Coudert is one of the most prominent attorneys of the plutocracy, a director in the National Surety and Equitable Trust, Herbert L. Satterlee is a Morgan attorney and a Morgan son-in-law. Robert S. Lovett is chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad, and director of a dozen other roads. Newcomb Carlton, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, guides the affairs of a great university in spite of the fact that he is not a college man. Reverened William T. Manning is an ex-officio member, one might say, being the bishop of the church of J.P. Morgan and Company. You must understand that Columbia is descended from Kings College, an Episcopal institution, and the bishop, and three vestrymen of Old Trinity are on its board. Perpont Morgan, the elder, was on all his life, and Stephen Baker, president of the Bank of Manhattan and the Bank of the Metropolis, is still on. A study of those who have held office on the board of Columbia, from 1900 to 1922, shows fifty-nine persons classified as follows: bankers, railroad owners, real estate owners, merchants and manufacturers, 20; lawyers, 21; ministers, 8; physicians, 6; educators, 1; engineers, 3. The six physicians were on because of their connection with the College of Physicians and Surgeons, a branch of Columbia..."
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:
"The headquarters of the American plutocracy is, of course, New York City...It is inevitable that this headquarters of our plutocratic empire should be also the headquarters of our plutocratic education. The interlocking directors could not discommode themselves by taking long journeys; therefore they selected themselves a spacious site on Morningside Heights, and there stands the palatial University of the House of Morgan, which sets the standard for the higher education of America. Other universities, we shall find, vary from the ideal; there are some which have old traditions, there are others which permit modern eccentricities; but in Columbia you have plutocracy, perfect, complete and final, and as I shall presently show, the rest of America's educational system comes more and more to be modeled upon it. Columbia's educational experts take charge of the school and college systems of the country, and the production of plutocratic ideas becomes an industry as thoroughly established, as completely systematized and standardized as the production of automobiles or sausages.
"Needless to say, the University of the House of Morgan is completely provided with funds; its resources are estimated at over seventy-five million dollars [equivalent to over $1 billion in 2017 dollars] and its annual income is over seven million [equivalent to over $100 million in 2017 dollars]. A considerable part of its endowment is invested in stocks and bonds, under the supervision of the interlocking directors. I have a typewritten list of these holdings, which occupies more than twenty pages, and includes practically all the important railroads and industrial corporations in the United States. Whoever you are, and wherever you live in America, you cannot spend a day, you can hardly spend an hour of your life, without paying tribute to Columbia University. In order to collect the material for this book I took a journey of seven thousand miles, and traveled on fourteen railroads. I observe that every one of these railroads is included in the lists, so on every mile of my journey I was helping to build up the Columbia machine. I helped to build it up when I lit the gas in my lodging-house room in New York; for Columbia University owns $58,000 [equivalent to over $830,000 in 2017 dollars] worth of New York Gas and Electric Light, Heat and Power Company's 4 per cent bonds; I helped to build it up when I telephoned my friends to make engagements, for Columbia University owns $50,000 [equivalent to over $715,000] worth of the New York Telephone Company's 4 1/2 per cent bonds; I helped to build it up when I took a spoonful of sugar with my breakfast, for Columbia University owns some shares in the American Sugar Refining Company, and also in the Cuba Cane Sugar Corporation.
"The great university stops at nothing, however small: `five and ten cent stores,' and the Park and Tilford Grocery Company, and the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company. I have on my desk a letter from a woman telling me how the Standard Oil Company has been dispossessing homesteaders from the oil lands of California; Columbia University is profiting by these robberies, because it owns $25,000 [equivalent to over $357,000 in 2017 dollars] worth of the gold debenture bonds of the Standard Oil Company of California. Recently I met a pitiful human wreck who had given all but his life to the Bethlehem Steel Company; Columbia University took a part of this man's health and happiness. Crossing the desert on my way home, in the baking heat of summer I saw far out in the barren mountains a huge copper smelter, vomiting clouds of yellow smoke into the air. We in the Pullman sat in our shirt-sleeves, with electric fans playing and white-clad waiters bringing us cool drinks, but even so, we suffered from the heat; yet out there in those lonely wastes men toil in front of furnace fires, and when they drop they are turned to mummies in the baking sand and their names are not recorded. Not a thought of them came into the minds of the passengers in the transcontinental train; and, needless to say, no thought of them troubles the minds of the thirty thousand seekers of the higher learning who flock to Columbia University every year. With serene consciences these young people cultivate the graces of life, upon the income of $49,000 [equivalent to over $701,000 in 2017 dollars] worth of stock in the American Smelters Securities Company..."
