University of Virginia Library

No careful observer can fail to
notice the sinister turn given to the
recent controversy over the James
Wilson Department of Economics
by your editorial of March 19.
Following the maxim that attack
is sometimes the best defense, you
combine innuendo with name-calling
to impugn our integrity.
On the authority of what you
describe as "a feeling among the
University's faculty," you level the
equally vague and unsubstantiated
charges against the department of
"imbalance," "monolithic conservatism,"
"messianic zeal," and
"purging of liberals." At no point
do you bother to spell out what
members of the faculty raise these
charges, what they mean by them,
or what relevance each charge may
have for appraisal of a scholarly
community. Instead you rely on
emotive words to accomplish your
objective, whatever it may be.

Some of your insinuation, including
the caricature of my own
views, do not deserve to be dignified
with a response. Your accusation
that the department has
been purged by Mr. Buchanan or
any other chairman is, however,
so false and pernicious that it
cannot go unanswered. I regret
that you must bear the blame for
this libel, but that is the risk you
took in not quoting a source.

In your editorial of March 19,
you write about "reports that when
Mr. Buchanan became chairman
in 1957, he 'purged' the department
of liberals and even some
conservatives who were not of his
particular school of thought." On
being asked in a letter printed three
days later to substantiate this
charge with a bill of particulars,
you published the following as a
statement of facts: "Shortly after
Mr. Buchanan became chairman
of the department of economics,
six members of the department
left for other jobs-messrs. James
R. Schlesinger, Raymond F. Mikesell,
George R. Hall, Lionel Weiss,
Robert E. Kuenne and Warren
L. Smith....While this may not
have been a purge, it certainly
represented an inhospitality on the
department's part toward unorthodox
thought...."

This statement is absolutely false
in all essentials.

Mr. Buchanan joined the department
in September 1956 and
served as chairman until July 1962.
Messrs. Wess, Kuenne, and Smith
were not even here when he came.
They had already departed in the
preceding academic year to accept
positions at other universities.

Mr. Schlesinger joined the department
in September 1955. On
completion of only one three-year
term as assistant professor and at
the age of 29, he was promoted
to associate professor upon recomposed
by Mr. Buchanan as chairman.
Mr. Schlesinger did not
leave the University until June
1963, when he accepted a position
with the RAND Corporation.
Messrs. Buchanan and Schlesinger
were colleagues for seven years.

Mr. Hall was not appointed to
the faculty until 1959. He was reappointed
for a second term as
assistant professor in 1962. He left
in 1963 to accept a post with the
Federal Reserve Board. He joined
the faculty during Mr. Buchanan's
tenure as chairman and left after
it. They were colleagues for four
years.

Mr. Mikesell was the only
faculty member to leave "shortly
after Mr. Buchanan became chairman."
He resigned from the University
in 1957 to accept an endowed
chair at the University of
Oregon at a salary almost half
again as large as what he was
receiving here. The records will
show that the department urged
the administration to do what it
could to induce Mr. Mikesell to
remain, but our salary scale at
that time could not meet the test.

This charge of a departmental
purge turns out, then, to be a base
falsehood, deserving apology. I
would hope that there is a lesson
to be learned from it. Let me
state flatly, once and for all, that
the other rumors being spread
about us are equally void of foundation.

A university is supposed to be a
community of scholars dedicated to
the pursuit of truth through freedom
of enquiry, wherever it may
lead. Scholars may be justly censured
for dogmatism, intolerance,
dishonesty, hypocrisy, immorality,
or incompetence, but not for candor,
a critical outlook, or nonconformity.
The department of
economics stands ready to spread
its academic credentials before any
and all interested parties, but it
will not submit to thought control.

There is something unhealthy
about a scholarly community engaged
in inquisition or the futile
pursuit of so-called "balanced
points of view." For "balance"
can only mean imposition of an
arbitrary quota for every belief,
and truth can hardly emerge when
ideas are rationed.