Mr. Patten was twice elected mayor of Evanston, and when he ran again, Professor Gray, who was a Progressive, talked against him, and led the Progressive forces in the legislature that drove Patten’s chairman out. Naturally, that caused Mr. Patten intense annoyance. He had given the university a gymnasium, and a generous share of the millions he had extracted from the bread supply of the American people. So he demanded that the president should support him; and the president sent for Gray, and proceeded to administer a rebuke. Gray asked: “Are you speaking officially or as an individual?”
The climax of the affair was that Gray asked to meet Patten and thresh the matter out face to face. They met at luncheon, and Patten presented his complaint. He was sore because Gray had quoted him as saying with regard to the pious students of the university—“it had cost more to get out the Bible vote than any other.” “But,” said Gray, “you did say that, didn’t you?” Patten admitted that he had said it, so Professor Gray finally offered to settle the matter by writing a letter to both the Evanston newspapers, stating exactly what Mr. Patten admitted he had said, and exactly what he denied; but Patten was not satisfied with this settlement of the difficulty!
A little later Professor Gray was appointed by the National Civic Federation as one of a committee of economists to investigate municipal ownership in Europe. They were all supposed to be reactionaries, and their findings were supposed to be what they knew the National Civic Federation wanted; but Professor Gray had the wretched taste to become converted to the doctrines of municipal ownership by the facts he observed in Europe, and he so stated in his report. When he got a proof of this report he found that it had been doctored in the office of Mr. Ralph Easley, the very ardent “open shopper” and hundred per cent plutocratic secretary of that organization. The professor had to threaten a law-suit against the National Civic Federation in order to force them to correct the report.
Also, Gray had a “run-in” with Charles Deering, Harvester Trust magnate, the second grand duke of the board. Deering asked Gray to speak against a strike of the Harvester Trust workers, and said that he purposed to put this strike down with guns. “Yes, Mr. Deering,” said the professor, “but suppose the day comes when you are under the sod and the other fellow has the guns.” Needless to say, the authorities of Northwestern were glad when this too popular professor received an offer from the University of Minnesota, which had come for the moment under a liberal administration. A friend of mine was present at a private luncheon, at which Mr. Patten made the statement that he had got rid of Gray, and was now going to get rid of another man.