Untitled Page 20

21

of embarrassment to you. I, therefore, beg leave to offer my resignation as professor of sociology, the same to take effect at the closeof the academic year, 1900-1901.

When I handed in the above, Dr. Jordan read me a letter which he had just received from Mrs. Stanford, and which had, of course, been written without knowledge of my resignation. In this letter she insisted that my connection with the university end, and directed that I be given my time from January 1st to the end of the academic year.

My resignation was not actedupon at once, and efforts were made by President Jordan and the President of the Board of Trustees to induce Mrs. Stanford to alterher decision. These proved unavailing, and on Monday, November 12th, Dr. Jordan accepted my resignation in the following terms:

"I have waited till now in the hope that circumstances might arise which would lead you to reconsideration. As this has not been the case, I, therefore, with great reluctance, accept your resignation to take effect at your own convenience. In doing - so, I wish to express once more the high esteem in which your work as a student and as a teacher, as well as your character as a man, is held by all your colleagues."

My coolie immigration speech is not my sole offense. Last April I complied with an invitiation from the Unitarian Church at Oakland to lecture before them on the "The Twentieth-Century City." I addressed myself almost wholly to questions of city growth and city health and touched only incidentally on the matter of public utilities. I pointed out, however, the drift, both here and abroad, toward the municipal ownership of water and gas works, and predicted that, as regards street railways, American cities would probably pass through a period of municipal ownership and then revert to private ownership under regulation. My remarks were general in character and, of course, I took no stand on local questions. Only months of special investigation could enable me to say whether a particular city like Oakland or San Francisco could better itself by supplying its own water or light. Yet this lecture was objected to.

Last year I spoke three times in public, once before a university extension center on "The British Empire", once before a church on "The Twentieth-Century City," and once before a mass meeting on collie immigration. To my utterances on two of these occassions objection has been made. It is plain, therefore, that this is no place for me. I cannot with self-respect decline to speak on topics to which I have given years of investigation. It is my duty, as an economist spirit, my conclusions on subjects with which I am expert. And if I speak, I cannot but take positions which are justified by statistics and by the experience of the old world, such as the municipal ownership of water works or the monopoly profits of street-car companies; or by standard ecnomic science such as the relation of the standard of life to the density of population.

21