"Monument to Freedom"

University of Minnesota Regent Pierce Butler (now an Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court) picked up the telephone in his Minneapolis law office one September day in 1917, angrily demanded that University President Marion LeRoy Burton call the Board of Regents together at once. A young law clerk in Butler's office named Elmer Austin Benson pricked up his ears when he heard his chief shout the name "Schaper."

No small fry was William August Schaper. Chairman of the University's political science department, where he had taught 17 years, he was an internationally famed expert on taxation and government. Unaware that his academic neck was about to be chopped, square-bodied William Schaper was suddenly called before the regents September 13, harshly questioned by Pierce Butler about a complaint by the superpatriotic State Commission of Public Safety that he was "a rabid pro-German." Despite his denial of disloyal acts, the regents that night fired him for "his attitude." Schaper's friends charged the real reason for his dismissal was not his attitude toward the War but his advocacy, as a member of the Minneapolis Charter Commission, of public ownership of the street railways. Said Pierce Butler: "We must see that sincere, loyal Americans are made instructors of our youth, and not 'blatherskites' such as this man."

Broken-spirited, Schaper made a precarious living selling washing machines and the like, finally in 1925, when War hysteria had subsided, went to University of Oklahoma as professor of finance. But the incident rankled in the mind of Pierce Butler's young law clerk, Elmer Benson, as he marched up the political ladder. It still rankled when, 20 years later, the law clerk had become the Farmer-Labor Governor of Minnesota. Last week came the day he had been waiting for.

Into the oak-paneled board room marched the regents once again, listened to a letter from Governor Benson requesting that they right an old injustice. "We cannot suffer a precedent to stand, under which, during periods of hysteria, honorable teachers are humiliated and dismissed in disgrace because their views happen not to coincide with the views of those in power." With only one dissenting vote--that of Fred B. Snyder, president of the board in 1917 and now--the board rescinded the 1917 dismissal, voted Professor Schaper $5,000 as salary for the year 1917-18. Because, at 68, Dr. Schaper is too old to return to his former job, the board gave him the title of Professor Emeritus.

Said Professor Schaper's good friend, famed Historian Charles A. Beard: "... A monument to freedom of inquiry." In Oklahoma, William Schaper, now white-haired, bit his lip to hold back the tears, faltered: "It is so sudden I hardly know what to say. I never have borne a grudge against any man involved in my dismissal. Of course I am profoundly grateful. . . ."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.