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Millikan and Gale even advised me to publish a translation of your letter in the
weekly Science, provided you give me your permission to do so. (Write me whether
you want it.) But even so, the content of your letter will spread among scientific
circles well enough, through the many friends I had shown the letter to.
This being settled, I come to another (as I believe) important point:–
Prof. Millikan (who was appointed as director of a new institute in Pasadena,
California)[5]
decided a short time ago to leave Chicago; we just held a farewell
banquet for him, and he is leaving the Ryerson Laboratory on October 1. In con-
nection with this and after many close consultations (on the part of Dr. Gale), on
Sept. 1, Dr. Gale (full professor, coordinates with Millikan at the Ryerson Lab., and
dean of the Science Faculty, Univ. of Chicago) commissioned me now with the
urgent request that I sound you out “informally,” whether you would be inclined to
accept a professorship in the Physics Department (seat in the Ryerson Lab.), as
“head” (director) of studies and research in theoretical physics (not necessarily lec-
tures, provided that did not suit you), and—more or less—what your terms would
be. In case of a favorable answer (as Dr. Gale told me), Prof. Michelson would
write you officially as director of the Ryerson Lab.
You would receive every conceivable funding to devote yourself freely to
research in entirely free cooperation with the experimental physicists at the Ryer-
son Laboratory. You will only have to devote as much (or as little) time to lecturing
as happens to agree with you,—especially considering that the faculty has the
intention of engaging for your assistance here in America an assistant professor of
theoret. physics [Dr. Gale offered this position to me; I told him I would be only
too pleased to work with you as my superior.], who would be responsible for the
systematic lectures—in consultation with you. In short, you would have entirely
ideal conditions for your own research.
For my part, I would very much like to urge you to say “yes,” the more so, since
I realized these past three months in Chicago that the intellectual atmosphere as
well as the social one there is quite excellent. Instead of envy and demonstrations
of animosity, you would find in Chicago the best sympathy, respect, and friend-
ship—and these are important motivations for such a thoroughly ideal (and affec-
tionate) and sensitive man as you are.
Mrs. Einstein did tell me (in
Princeton),[6]
you had a kind of moral “duty” (a per-
fectly mystical concept in the present case) not to abandon the Germans just now,
“who had lost virtually
everything.”[7]
Nevertheless I am deeply convinced that
Germany [I mean the atmosphere of German profs., privy councillors, court advi-
sors, and the like—for the working class in Germany is also free from Junkerdom