ABRAHAM FLEXNER
"Extremists" as Flexner used the term were intellectual and philosophical extremists--at that time intellectual communists, fascists, atheists, libertarians, anarchists. In the 21st century, "extremists" tended to connote violence and terrorism. There were violent revolutionary communists, fascists and anarchists, but there were very few. Must were intellectual and philosophical advocates of the theories.
When he wrote this article, America was in the middle of the Great Depression. In its first 3 years, President Herbert Hoover, a great believer in private charity, was so rigid in his ideology, that he refused to allow the Federal Government to provide some relief to the vast number of people in need who had overwhelmed the capacity of private charities. At the same time, the more affluent whose generosity funded the charities, had seen their own fortunes slashed by the depression and the themselves were often failing. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected, he was much more flexible and when Flexner was writing this article, the Federal Government was performing many functions that before were only provided by private organizations.
The Institute was just getting started then. The stock market had crashed the year before, and we were one year into the Great Depression. Several of the trustees that that they should devote the first department of the institute to the study of economics to focus on the challenge of the depression. Flexner, the first Director, thought that a bad idea giving this quotation as his reason. He then persuaded the trustees to start with mathematics where the Institute has since done its finest work.
Abraham Flexner was an American educator, best known for his role in the 20th century reform of medical and higher education in the United States and Canada.
