Brinton Denounces Belief That Harvard Fosters Class of Privileged Aristocrats--Free From External Influences

"The fable that Harvard is a breeding ground for privileged aristocrats who all turn out to be bond salesmen is being laid by the heels more every year," said C. C. Brinton '19, assistant professor of History, in an interview yesterday. "A long and growing list of Harvard graduates who are liberal and radical leaders testifies to the contrary.

"Men like Heywood Broun '10, John Dos Passes '16, Walter Lippmann '10, and Henry Dana '03, are evidence of the liberalism which Harvard fosters, or at least does not quench. When a man comes to Harvard with the instinct of radicalism already developed, he is almost certain to maintain it; when the other type comes, the man with an aristocratic. New England training and a preconceived conservatism, he is almost sure to come in contact with ideas and theories that will give him at least a tolerance of liberalism. He often becomes a liberal himself, and sometimes turns into an out-and-out revolutionary. Since the days of President Eliot, Harvard has lost its New England dyed-in-the-wool conservatism and has assumed the real function of a University--to put before its students samples of all ideas and all theories.

"The great French historian and radical Mathiez once said to Harold Laski, a Communist member of the Harvard faculty, 'You sympathize with liberalism. Why do you stay in such a capitalistic hole as Harvard? Why don't you go West, where the colleges are really liberal?' The opinion of Mathiez, who had never been outside of France, is hardly supported by the insistence of Harvard's faculty on academic freedom. Of course it is impossible to conceive of a professional agitator on the faculty of any college. One can't expect an institution founded by capitalists on a capitalistic order to hire a Communist as professor of Economics. But Harvard has achieved noteworthy success in obtaining professors who are willing to examine radical sociological theories with open minds. There are few who will rate a student's intelligence low because he does not conform to their beliefs.

"Harvard is entirely free from the influence of pressure groups such as the American Legion and Daughters of the American Revolution, which cannot be said for all American universities. It has developed a tradition of 'multanimity,' or many-mindedness, which is growing stronger constantly while students in universities in New York city are forced to hold mass meetings in protest against restrictions on free expression of undergraduate opinion. The Conference on Students' Rights which met last Monday in New York City is the outgrowth of a type of administrative control which some schools have attempted, in an effort to allay radicalism, from which Harvard is entirely free."

Professor Brinton, who is a former member of the Harvard Liberal Club and now associated with the Harvard Inquiry, observed that "Harvard under- graduates as a whole are relatively uninterested in politics. A small group, composed mostly of those naturally 'again the Government,' maintain the so-called liberalism of the New Republic and Nation type. The Liberal Club, captured by the Communist element in a recent election coup-d'etat, represents a certain type of 'liberalism,' while the Inquiry, concerned with investigations of social phenomena from the student standpoint, represents another. Outside of these groups there is little organized radicalism among undergraduates, but that does not preclude the existence of a great amount of individual adherence to the left wing.

"There is certainly a place in Harvard for a real Communist Club, and although members of such a body might not be elected on masse to the Porcellian Club. Certainly there would be no objection on he part of the University. Freedom of speech and thought and action are prerogatives of both Harvard students and professors.