The native-born America will frequently brag about the great liberty of thought and speech prevailing in America, and scornfully laugh at the restrictive laws of the Old World. Like the Pharisee of the Bible, he thanks God that he is not like these others. He does not notice that this much-praised freedom is more or less of a phantom, which disappears with the shadows of the night. How can freedom live and thrive whom it is being supressed on its first appearance at the seats of learning in the country, that, is the institutions where freedom of thought and speech ought to have its real home? He who reads the news of the day and knows the manner of instruction at the institutions of higher learning in America cannot avoid seeing that this much-praised liberty has been forced to yield its place to a rule of oppression which paralyzes the tongue and fetters the mind as it [the mind] attempts to roam.

Only a few days ago, the faculty of Washburn university in Kansas ordered the dissolution of the student Socialist Club at the university. It is true that the faculty did not originate the order; the command originated with the capitalists in the East who control the university because they pay part of its expenses.

The young men who belonged to the Socialist Club are not "dangerous socialists;" they are merely followers of the well-known minister, Charles M. Sheldon, who, in the book In His Steps, dared to suggest what Jesus might do if He were back on earth at the present time. The socialistic tendencies of the club did not meet with a favorable reception in the minds of the capitalists in question, and so there was an end to freedom of thought and speech at the university.

But let it be supposed that the young men in question really were socialists. Is the purpose of our our universities to suppress all sociological investigation and simply teach subjects which have been sanctioned by the plutocrats? Do our philanthropists make special reservations regarding instruction when they 3make their donations to a school? If so, they are merely doing what they have a right to do. If the students at Washburn University in Kansas take up for discussion topics that may hurt the money lords in the East, then, of course, these money lords have the right to withhold further donations to the university. But if, on the other hand, the faculty of Washburn University prohibits the students from discussing topics which do not appeal to the money lords; [if they do this] merely to conform with the demands of a handful of selfish philanthropists, so as to get from these men a few thousand dollars each year, then Washburn University is no longer a university but simply a coffin in which thinking finds its grave.