And of course in their university they watch incessantly to make sure that no dangerous ideas reach the students. Last summer there was a meeting of all the clergymen of Denver on the campus of the university to listen to Dr. Harry Ward, general secretary of the Social Service Commission of the Federated Council Churches of America. The chancellor intervened at the last minute and forbade Ward to speak, denouncing him as “a menace to the present social order.” Instead, he got copies of a report on the steel strike, which Judge Gary had had prepared by one of his kept clergymen, as a reply to the attack by the Inter-Church World Movement. Every member of the graduating class of 1921 received a copy of this report, being solemnly called in to receive it personally from the hands of the chancellor. A professor at the university, who had been scheduled to speak at the church of a Socialist clergyman in Denver, was called up and warned that if he wished to have a career at the university he must avoid that kind of thing. Shortly after this a representative of the Rockefeller education fund was invited to luncheon at the university, and the chancellor made a public appeal to him for funds, on the ground of his services in barring Dr. Ward. This was a trifle too raw, and the chancellor did not get his money!
The old man has just been retired; but the same gang still rules the board of trustees, with Evans the infamous as grand duke. As assistant he has an attorney for the “Big Four” corporations which run the city of Denver, who spends his spare time leading crusades against the “reds”; also a prominent banker, a corporation lawyer, a real estate speculator, a capitalistic preacher, a corporation lawyer from Pueblo, a millionaire oil man and lawyer, a millionaire miner and banker—and finally, as Grand Duke junior, “Boss” Evans’ son, John.
CHAPTER XL THE COLLEGES OF THE SMELTER TRUST
The interlocking directorate of Colorado maintains also a state university at Boulder, on the Colorado and Southern Railroad; which road has a trustee of Williams College for president, and a General Theological Seminary trustee for director. The standards of academic freedom prevailing at the University of Colorado are very interestingly revealed in a case which occurred seven years ago.