Scope and Contents
Edward A. Ross. Autograph Letter Signed. Stanford University, Stanford, California,
December 9, 1900. 4pp. To Dr. Albert Shaw, Editor-in-chief of the Review of Reviews,
with a typed copy of a letter from David S. Jordan of Stanford University to Dr. Ross,
June 15, [1900], sent to Shaw by Ross with his signed note: "This letter is
confidential and I am not at liberty to print it. It must not be published, quoted, or
even alluded to. Even the phraseology should not be followed closely. Please keep it
in your own hands and return it to me when you are through with it. ... " With
Benjamin I. Wheeler. Typed Letter Signed as President of the University of California.
Berkeley, Calif. December 8,1900. 1pg., marked "Confidential". To Dr. Shaw.
Ross first sent Shaw - in confidence - a copy of the letter he had received from
President Jordan explaining that Mrs. Stanford "likes you personally, and respects
your brilliancy", and, while having "no desire to limit freedom of speech ... feels
that the reputation of the University for serious conservatism" was impaired by "hasty
acceptance" of "social and political fads" not approved by "conservative thinkers" and
businessmen. While she was indeed disturbed by Ross' views on immigration, her greater
concern was for "the good name of the University" in upholding what Jordan called "the
status quo". Ross' accompanying letter to Shaw said that Jordan had been placed in an
"intolerable position" in "seeming to restrict free speech", which "galled him into
resentment toward me ... ", being "alarmed lest Mrs. Stanford should break with him"
because he had made no secret that it was her demand that Ross be fired. A week later,
the President of the University of California, Benjamin Ide Wheeler, sent Shaw still
another confidential letter lamenting the "sharply divided" academic opinion on the
Ross case, especially at Stanford, where "two hostile camps" were divided by "very
bitter feeling". Wheeler noted that Jordan had privately defended Ross and "urged Mrs.
Stanford, in every possible manner, to desist from her resolution that Ross must go" -
until Ross dishonorably revealed things Jordan had told him in confidence, making
public statements "which he had no business to make at all." Ross himself was "not a
true university man ... has not the university scientific spirit"; "his place is not
in a university faculty", but "the way in which he has been dislodged" and" the spirit
in which it was done is entirely wrong." Moreover, "there is no doubt that Mrs.
Stanford, and her opinions concerning him, were the sole cause of his removal."
