Guide to the Edward Alsworth Ross Papers SC0110
University Archives staff
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
October 2010, March 2024
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Stanford 94305-6064
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Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Edward Alsworth Ross papers
Identifier/Call Number: SC0110
Physical Description:
1.25 Linear Feet
Date (inclusive): 1892-1970
Summary: Correspondence about
Professor Ross' dismissal, including resignation letters of faculty departing in protest,
news clippings, pamphlets, and pamphlets by Ross.
Language of Material:
Undetermined .
Information about Access
This collection is open for research.
Ownership & Copyright
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Cite As
Edward Alsworth Ross Papers (SC0110). Department of Special Collections and University
Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Biographical/Historical Sketch
In the late 1890s, sociology professor Edward A. Ross gained notoriety following several
years of political activism in favor of the free silver movement, municipal ownership of
utilities (including the railroads), and Japanese exclusion. While Mrs. Stanford found his
opinions personally objectionable, her main concern was the reputation of the univeristy
which, she felt, would be damaged by hasty espousal of political and social fads. The
founders had intended the university to be free from the pressures of political
partisanship; the apolitical nature of the university was now endangered by Ross's
activities. Publicly, Mrs. Stanford affirmed President Jordan's power as defined in the
Founding Grant to "remove professors and teachers at will," giving him full responsibility
for clearing up the matter; however, privately, she pressed for Ross's dismissal. She
disagreed with Ross's economic theories and was indignant about the idea of municipal
ownership of the railroads, but she was particularly shocked by his anti-Japanese stand.
Mrs. Stanford identified such attitudes with the earlier anti-Chinese movement instigated by
Dennis Kearny and its resulting "reign of terror" which had pervaded San francisco. Ross,
she felt, was a racist.
Mrs. Stanford wished Ross to go quietly, as a gentleman; President Jordan surmised that the
activist had little intention of doing so. A man whose administrative style had strongly
impressed the academic community, Jordan now vacillated between pleas ing Mrs. Stanford and
upholding his image. After several confused attempts at compromise, which engendered
misunderstandings between Jordan, Mrs. Stanford, and Ross regarding the latter's
reappointment to the faculty, Jordan finally asked Ross to resign in November 1900.
To ensure public sympathy, Ross promptly issued his version of the dismissal to the press
on November 14, 1900. He had been dismissed arbitrarily by Mrs. Stanford, he declared, over
the opposition of President Jordan. The actual roots of dissension were immediately blurred
by extreme public reaction to the touted issue of academic freedom. The entire matter proved
to be greatly embarrassing to the university, particularly to its President. Mrs. stanford
was thenceforth disturbed by the notoriety the university received from the incident. Having
assumed that in her absence (she was traveling in Europe) Jordan would handle the situation
discreetly and with dispatch, she failed to understand that Jordan had no control over
Ross's continuing press statements. Her trust in Jordan was shaken; following the incident,
she increasingly questioned his actions in the areas of salaries, hiring, planned growth of
the academic program, and faculty control of student conduct.
For more detail on the Ross Affair, see: Elliott, Orrin Leslie.
Stanford University the First Twentv-five Years; Mohr, James C. "Academic Turmoil
and Publ ic Opinion: The Ross Case at Stanford,"
Pacific Historical
Review
, v . 29, #1 (Feb. 1970) pp. 39-61.
Description of the Collection
Correspondence about Professor Ross' dismissal, including resignation letters of faculty
departing in protest, news clippings, pamphlets, and pamphlets by Ross.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Academic freedom
Pamphlets
Stanford University -- Administration.
Ross Affair.
Clippings.
Papers
Language of Material: English.
Box 1, folder 1
Jordan, David Starr--statements
Box 1, folder 2
Jordan, David Starr--statements
Box 1, folder 3
Jordan, David Starr--statements
Box 1, folder 4
Jordan, David Starr--statements
--Correspondence
1893, 1900
Box 1, folder 5
Jordan, David Starr--statements--Correspondence;
correspondence with the Committee of Economists
1900-1909
Box 1, folder 6
Correspondence, miscellaneous
Box 1, folder 7
Report of the Committee of Economists
Box 1, folder 9
Wrltings--Statements by several faculty in support of the
university
Shaw, Albert and Wheeler, Bejamin
correspondence
1900
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."
Addenda, 2024-577 ARCH-2024-577
Box 4
Edward Alsworth Ross from "Seventy Years of It" An Autobiography, As reviewed
by Francis V. Keesling
undated
