St. Drogo's Books

With this entry in the Dead Hand series, Upton Sinclair once again predates later books that would draw much more attention than his would - this time developing his theory of American college education, demonstrating how it was inspired by the Prussian system of hierarchical education under Kaiser Wilhelm, and how corporate interests used that system to shape American minds to use in their system of economic dominance. This is nearly an identical theory to the one John Taylor Gatto would put forth 70 years later in The Underground History Of American Education, as well as Jeff Schmidt in his book Disciplined Minds.

P. 19 - "Interlocking directorates" are "the device whereby three great banks in New York, with two trust companies under their control, manage the financial affairs and direct the policies of a hundred and twelve key corporations of America. The three banks are J. P. Morgan and Company, the First National Bank, and the National City Bank; and the two trust companies are the Guaranty and the Equitable. Their directors sit upon the boards of the corporations, sometimes several on each board, and their orders are obeyed because they control credit, which is the life-blood of our business world."

P. 247 - "I talked with another professor at Chicago, who does not want his name used. I asked him what he thought about the status of his profession, and he gave the best description of academic freedom in America that I have yet come upon. He said, 'We are good cows; we stand quietly in our stanchions, and give down our milk at regular hours. We are free, because we have no desire to do anything but what we are told we ought to do. And we die of premature senility.'"