Ardzrooni was summoned before Butler, and instead of taking it meekly, he demanded a showdown. Who was it that accused him of belonging to the I. W. W. and of carrying a red card? Butler refused to tell him, evading the issue, so the professor went on the warpath. It happens that he is a rich man, not dependent upon anybody’s favor, so he went to Woodbridge, dean of the faculty, announcing that he was going to bring suit against the university that very day; he would put Butler on the witness stand, and find out whether a college professor has any rights, or can be slandered at will!
Instantly, of course, the whole machinery of intimidation collapsed; it had never occurred to anyone that a college professor might act like a man! They would drop the whole matter, say nothing more about the red card, give Ardzrooni promotion and increase his salary—anything to keep out of court! The professor of labor problems laughed at them, and following the example of all other self-respecting men, went out into the free world.
Those who have stayed in the great academic department-store have stayed under the shadow of disgrace; branded as men who love their pitiful salaries more than they love their self-respect and dignity as scholars, more than they love the cause of democracy and justice throughout the world. They stay on the terms that the voice of democracy and justice is silent among them, while the voice of reaction bellows with brazen throat.
I have shown you the plutocratic president storming the banquet halls of merchants and manufacturers and bankers, pouring out what Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor, described as “his sweeping intolerance of free speech and of organization by those not of his belief.” And everything in Columbia or connected with Columbia has been stamped with the impress of Butler’s hard materialism, his cold and calculating snobbery. He uses the prestige of his university to confer honors on reaction both at home and abroad. In 1912 he honored Senator Underwood, praising him to the skies as the leader of democracy—this in the hope of keeping Woodrow Wilson from getting the Democratic nomination for president. In 1922 we find him glorifying an Episcopal bishop, the rector of Trinity Church, the governor of the Federal Reserve Board, a Belgian baron, a Portuguese viscount, the Chinese ambassador, and Paderewski, apostle of Polish militarism!