Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

and to take a very objective viev of political theory of
govemnt .32
Meanwhile, an unfortunate impasse had been reached between
Frankfurter and Flexner. It arose over the question of the Institute's
policy on professorial salaries, and was touched off by a question from
Prenkfurter in December 1933 when he received a copy of the minutes of
the Executive Cornittee meeting at which Hermann Weyl was appointed.
He asked Flemer vh2t his intention was as to salaries in the second
School. Flemer hedged a bit, then recited the salaries so far estab-
lished, which were at two different rates, with differing provisions for
retiring annuities. In the argument which folloved, he might have stood
rezsonably on the ground that the salary rates were justified according
to the age and qualifications of the recipients. But he could not, for
he was even then intending to complete the second School and initiate
the third in the face of inadequate funds to enable payment of salaries
according to the scale set in the School of Mathematics. Indeed, he
vas short of funds, and contemplated the necessity of offering salaries
lover than any heretofore paid. But as was his habit, he would not admit
his embarrassment. Instead, he defended individually-negotiated salaries
on the ground that the English and German universities followed that
practice. Moreover, he argued that he had arranged grants for study on
the basis of individual need at the General Education Board, with what he
telwd complete success. 33
Mr. Frankfurter advocated classified salary rates objectively
applied, and warned that individually-negotiated salaries were alien to .
institutions in the United States and were inevitably sources of discord