Who Ruled Columbia University In Early 20th Century?--Part 1

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..."