| CENTRALIZED AUTHORITY AND DEMOCRACY IN OUR HIGHER INSTITUTIONS[1] |
By Professor EDWIN D. STARBUCK
STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
IT is somewhat embarrassing to appear on a program that I myself have assisted in devising. It demands an explanation. It is, in short, an instance of too highly centralized authority in this association in the hands of our lively general secretary. It seemed eminently desirable to the committee that this topic to which I am to address myself should have consideration. When the first draft of the program came into the hands of the secretary, with a blank left after this topic, he rashly placed my name after it, rushed to print and scattered it broadcast over the country. So I am here against my will but, I must confess, not wholly reluctantly. The topic is of immense importance. It was a vain endeavor to find the proper person who should address you on this theme. All presidents and all who aspire to such position of power were condemned to silence from the start. That cut off the flower of the genius of the nation at a single stroke. The presiding officer of our department had an intimate way of knowing that presidents, being under indictment, so to speak, could not be trusted with the topic. There has been much written and spoken latterly on the theme, but mostly by those whose ambition has been punctured, whose pride has been stung or whose wings have been clipped. Were any of these turned loose in this place, they might enact a bloody scene not entirely consistent with the proper spirit of a religious association. Our general secretary must have known that I had no ax to grind, no grievance to right, no power except the power of righteousness to fear, and that I should speak in a wholly guileless manner. It is a temptation to admit that this was another instance of his rare insight; for however much my judgment may be at fault and wisdom limited, I shall address myself to this most delicate topic entirely without animus. I might follow the example, indeed, of one of our periodicals which recently declared that, with a single exception, theirs was the only sheet in the nation that is not subsidized. If I lay claim to being, with but an exception or two, the only mind in the nation that is dispassionate on this question, then every member in the audience will congratulate himself that he is that other person and we shall all be thinking through the subject helpfully to one another.
- ↑ Read at the meeting of the Department of Universities and Colleges of the Religious Education Association, Nashville, March 9, 1910.
