Seventy Years of It
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SEVENTY YEARS OF IT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS, Ph.D., LL.D. PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN ILLUSTRATED D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY INCORPORATED NEW YORK 19 36 LONDON CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. E a r l y Y e a r s ................................................................................. 1 II. C o l l e g e ......................................................................................1 1 III. T e a c h in g in F ort D o d g e .................................................. 21 IV. E u ro pean Stu d y and T r a v e l ...........................................26 V. J ohns H o pk in s, I n d ia n a , C o r n e l l .... 40 VI. St a n f o r d ......................................................................................53 VII. T h e “ Sta n fo rd C a s e ” ........................................................ 64 VIII. T h e U n iv e r s it y o f N e b r a s k a ......................................... 87 IX. T h e U n iv e r s it y o f W is c o n s in ........................................10 1 X . Two B ooks in So c ia l P syc h o lo g y . .106 X I . M y A t t it u d e T oward R e l i g i o n ................................ 1 1 5 XII. S o c ia l E x plo r a tio n o f C h i n a ........................................120 XIII. P u ttin g I t A c r o s s ...............................................................128 XIV. South A m e r ic a n So c i e t y ................................................ 136 XV. R ussia in U p h e a v a l ..............................................................150 XVI. A f t e r m a t h of M y R ussian E x ped itio n . .167 XVII. I m pressio n s o f So v iet R u s s i a ........................................171 XVIII. T h e P r in c ip l e s o f So c i o l o g y ........................................177 XIX. M e x ic o : A P ost-R evolutionary So c ie t y . 183 X X . T r e a t m e n t o f t h e N a t iv e s in P o rtu gu ese A f r i c a ..................................................................................... 190 X X I . T h e U nion o f S outh A f r i c a ....................................... 205 XXII. T h e U n iq u en ess of I n d i a ...............................................212 XXIII. Two B ooks on P o p u l a t i o n ........................................223 vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTER PACE XXIV. E xcerpts from M y Correspondence . .830 XXV. Some Celebrities I H ave M e t ...........................245 XXVI. R ound the W orld with the Floating U niver sity ........................................................................ 257 XXVII. I A rrive a t a W orld V i e w .................................275 XXVIII. Fifteen W eeks in Pa r a d i s e ...........................280 XXIX. T hirty Y ears at the U niversity of W isconsin 288 XXX. I A m A n a l y z e d ............................................... 307 XXXI. I A m Investigated ..........................................313 XXXII. H appy Da y s ........................................................320 A p p e n d i x .................................................................................... 331 I n d e x .....................................................................................337 ILLUSTRATIONS The author at age sixty-seven.................................. frontispiece FACING PAGE The author as college freshman.........................................14 R o sa m o n d .................................................... .... 44 The author in his first year at St a n fo r d ......................... 56 The author at age th irty-n in e.........................................92 The author in his office at the University of Wisconsin . .178 At h o m e ............................................................................250 Getting ready for the p o r t a g e .......................................250 Frank Alsworth Ross, Gilbert Ross, Lester Ward Ross . 304 ix CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS 1866-1881 I w a s bom in Virden, Illinois, on December 12, 1866. Left an orphan at eight, I never learned much about my family background. My father, William Carpenter Ross, was one of a large pioneer family, some of whom became lawyers and judges. I have any number of worthy cousins but never found time to cultivate their acquaintance. When I had to furnish a sketch of myself for the Dictionary of American Biography I applied to a lawyer cousin of mine in Illinois for data about the Rosses. In his reply he remarked on the first page, “ The Rosses came from Scotland where many of the clan were hanged.” He had me aghast until on the last page I came to the waggish postscript, “ Oh, I forgot to mention they were hanged for being Covenanters.” My mother was Rachel Alsworth, a tall, stately woman of strong character who had come from Cannonsburg, Pennsyl vania, to teach in the Marion, Iowa, high school. She married a local lawyer, Abel Gowdy, by whom she had a son, Willie. Gowdy died of tuberculosis in 1859 and two years later she married my father. Many times I have been told that in looks I am my mother over again. When I was called to a chair at Stanford an anonymous writer drew attention to it in our home paper and added: “His mother was a very gifted and noble lady who at one time taught school in Marion, the writer being one of her pupils. His father was an able con tributor to the press before and during war times, being an ardent opponent of human slavery. Well do we remember the words from his caustic pen. Professor Ross inherited a literary tendency and his present high position shows how well he has improved his natural talents.” 1 2 SEVENTY YEARS OF IT As a young man father had dug gold in California in 1849. In 1870 he “ took up” a quarter section of Government land near Centralia, Kansas, and I have dim recollections of a sod- house, of oxen yoked to a “breaking” plow, of playing as a three-year-old among deer-skin tents with Indian children and dogs. Then we lived four years on a farm just outside Davenport, where father became crippled by paralysis; then a year or so in Marion. Mother died of tuberculosis at the end of 1874. Home was broken up and Father was cared for in the home of a brother, where he died in 1876. I have no idea how our family kept going after father lost his health. We lived in comfort and, despite my parents’ long illness, I was left property of about $2,200 in value, which bridged for me much of the gap between the district school and my Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins. I emerged from childhood with at least two “complexes.” One related to Sunday afternoons (see Chapter XI). The other related to drink. I have an ingrained dread of what liquor does to one. Wilfully fogging the only lens through which we see the world so revolts me that I have never been able to detect anything funny in getting “ lit up.” I respect those who imbibe until they babble and lurch about as much as I respect those who neglect soap and water till they are noisome. As for the “ moderate drinker,” who must have a “ bracer” because he is “ low,” “ all in,” or “sunk,” I can only pity him. Whatever ordeals I have had to meet have been faced without alcoholic prop. I was thus “conditioned” by an incident I witnessed when I was seven. My half-brother Willie, eight years my senior, a tall slim handsome blond, took to running with a wild crew and got expelled from high school. One Sunday evening after supper Willie proposed to go down to the hotel to drink and play cards. Mother forbade him to go and when he defiantly started down the steps caught him by his sleeve. The devil- may-care boy of fifteen turned and struck her in the mouth with his fist. He broke away and without a word mother dragged herself into the house. The impression of horror this scene made upon me is with me still. After mother died, I lived more than a year with father’s EARLY YEARS 3 sister, Aunt Hannah Moriarty. The Moriartys, who lived two miles out of Marion, were old pioneers who had come from Indiana to Iowa in the thirties and hewed their farm out of the dense oak and hickory woods along Indian Creek, the open prairies being at that time little esteemed for farm ing. The original log-cabin, now serving as kitchen to a frame house, was a perfect fairyland to a child on account of the fascinating activities carried on in it. Before the big open fireplace we passed many an autumn evening paring, quar tering and stringing apples and hanging them in festoons about the kitchen to dry. These “ dried apples” were the forerunners of the grocer’s “ evaporated” apples. In the au tumn great crocks of plum-butter and apple-butter were prepared, as well as jars of marmalade, kegs of pickles and barrels of salt pork. In the smoke-house hams and bacon were curing, while in every corner of the cellar lay a pile of vege tables preserved under straw and dry earth. From the ashes in the leach was drained the lye which, when boiled from time to time with refuse fat in a huge iron kettle out of doors, furnished “soft soap” for the use of all save guests.