Stanley King of Amherst 9780231891189

Table of contents :
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
BACKGROUND AND EARLY INFLUENCES
THE COLLEGE UNDERGRADUATE
LAW SCHOOL AND BUSINESS
EUROPEAN ADVENTURES
IN WARTIME RUSSIA
ON DUTY IN WASHINGTON
VICISSITUDES OF BUSINESS
ALUMNUS EXTRAORDINARY
FAMILY MATTERS
A NEW HOPE
ELECTION AS PRESIDENT OF AMHERST
TIME OF TRANSITION
THE PRESIDENT AND THE FACULTY
KING AND THE UNDERGRADUATES
KING AS AN ADMINISTRATOR
FLOOD AND WIND AND WAR
RETIREMENT
THE CLOSING YEARS
AVE ATQUE VALE
APPENDIX I: MEMORIAL ADDRESS BY CHARLES W. COLE, PRESIDENT OF AMHERST COLLEGE, ON MAY 1, 1951, IN JOHNSON CHAPEL, AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS
APPENDIX II: MINUTE ADOPTED AT MEETING OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES HELD ON JUNE 9, 1951
APPENDIX III: MINUTE ADOPTED BY THE FACULTY OF AMHERST COLLEGE
INDEX

Citation preview

Stanley King

OF AMHERST

Stanley King OF

AMHERST

By CLAUDE MOORE FUESS

NEW YORK

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

1955

COPYRIGHT 1 9 5 5 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN, CANADA, INDIA, AND PAKISTAN BY GEOFFREY CUMHERLECE:

OXFORD UNIVERSITY

PRESS

LONDON, TORONTO, BOMBAY, AND KARACHI MANUFACTURED IN T H E UNITED STATES OF AMERICA LIBRARY OF CONCRESS CATALOC CARD N U M B E R :

55-6617

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A T HIS DEATH in 1951, Stanley King left behind him a considerable accumulation of personal material, including diaries, correspondence, and carefully prepared memoranda relating to various phases of his career. These have all been neatly arranged and filed so that they are now easy of access. This biography is to a considerable extent based on these documents, supplemented by official reports and files of the Amherst Graduates' Quarterly, the Alumni Council News, and the Student, the undergraduate newspaper. The written and published sources of information have been ample. Among King's college classmates and friends whom I have consulted are Henry P. Kendall, Arthur F. Ells, Frank L. Boyden, Gouverneur H. Boyer, Albert W. Atwood, Arthur T. Foster, Roland S. Haradon, Foster Stearns, Karl O. Thompson, Fayette B. Dow, Ernest M. Whitcomb, Ashley B. Sturgis, and George B. Utter. At Amherst I have been helped by President Charles W. Cole, Treasurer Paul D. Weathers, Dean C. Scott Porter, Alumni Secretary J. Alfred Guest, Director of Admissions Eugene S. Wilson, and Horace W. Hewlett. The Amherst Trustees have allowed me to examine the college archives and have provided me with every possible facility for carrying on researches. Among the members of the Faculty with whom I have talked

vi

Acknowledgments

have been Otto Manthey-Zorn, William J. Newlin, Gail Kennedy, Sterling P. Lamprecht, E. Dwight Salmon, Atherton H. Sprague, Frederick K. Turgeon, Karl Loewenstein, Newton F. McKeon, Charles H. Morgan, Vincent Morgan, Curtis Canfield, Oscar E. Schotte, G. Armour Craig, and the late George F. Whicher. My obligation to Mrs. Eudocia Flynt Dewey Jones is very great, for she turned over to me her extensive collection of family papers, including scrapbooks and photographs. Mrs. Edward Ballantine, sister of Gertrude King, has allowed me to read some important family letters. Among King's friends who have been particularly helpful are Lewis Ferry, J. Franklin McElwain, William H. Best, Felix Frankfurter, Ernest M. Hopkins, Ralph Hayes, Henry B. Hough, Frederick S. Allis, Mrs. Frederick S. Allis, Raymond Fosdick, Mrs. Clifford P. Warren, and Miss Rena Durkan. Margaret Pinckney King has been unfailing in supplying factual information, in correcting errors of judgment, and in directing me to people who could help. Her cooperation has been willing, continuous, and valuable, and she has spared neither time nor strength in her eagerness to make this book a faithful portrayal of her husband. CLAUDE M .

September 1,1954 Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

FUESS

CONTENTS

BACKGROUND AND EARLY INFLUENCES

3

THE COLLEGE UNDERGRADUATE

20

L A W SCHOOL AND BUSINESS

35

EUROPEAN ADVENTURES

51

IN WARTIME RUSSIA

62

ON DUTY IN WASHINGTON

78

VICISSITUDES OF BUSINESS

106

ALUMNUS EXTRAORDINARY

123

FAMILY MATTERS

149

A NEW HOPE

159

ELECTION AS PRESIDENT OF AMHERST

176

TIME OF TRANSITION

1Q4

THE PRESIDENT AND THE FACULTY

217

viii

Contents

KING AND THE UNDERGRADUATES

237

KING AS AN ADMINISTRATOR

262

FLOOD AND WIND AND W A R

286

RETIREMENT

304

T H E CLOSING YEARS

320

A V E ATQUE V A L E

331

APPENDIX I: M E M O R I A L ADDRESS RY CHARLES W . C O L E , PRESIDENT OF AMHERST COLLEGE, ON M A Y 1 ,

1951,

IN JOHNSON CHAPEL, AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS

347

APPENDIX H: MINUTE ADOPTED A T MEETING OF T H E ROARD OF TRUSTEES HELD ON JUNE 9 , 1 9 5 1

351

APPENDIX IU: MINUTE ADOPTED BY THE F A C U L T Y OF A M HERST COLLEGE INDEX

354 357

ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece

S T A N L E Y KING MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM N. FLYNT

4

JUDGE A N D M R S . H E N R Y P . KING

4

S T A N L E Y A N D CARRIE KING, 1 8 8 7

5

STANLEY AT ELEVEN

5

S T A N L E Y IN C O L L E G E

5

S T A N L E Y KING I N HIS COLLEGE R O O M

20

T H E A M H E R S T DEBATING T E A M O F

ZO

I9O3

KING A N D HIS ASSOCIATES

21

T H E KINGS ON T H E I R TRAVELS

164

S T A N L E Y KING I N

165

A T KING'S

1932

INAUGURATION

COLLEGE

AS P R E S I D E N T

OF

AMHERST L80

Illustrations

X

AT C O L E S INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT OF A M H E R S T COLLEGE

l80

MARGARET AND STANLEY KING, APRIL,

1932

l8l

S O M E OF T H E BUILDINGS OF A M H E R S T COLLEGE E R E C T E D IN KING'S PRESIDENCY: J A M E S AND STEARNS HALLS, T H E L I T T L E RED SCHOOLHOUSE, VALENTINE JOHNSON

CHAPEL,

KIRBY

MEMORIAL

ALUMNI GYMNASIUM, T H E WAR

HALL,

THEATER,

MEMORIAL

following 268

WARNING TO ALL BIOGRAPHERS FROM OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

The Poet at the Breakfast

Table

I WONDER whether it ever occurred to you to reflect upon another horror there must be in leaving a name behind you. Think what a horrid piece of work the biographers make of a man's private history! Just imagine the subject of one of those extraordinary fictions called biographies coming back and reading the life of himself, written very probably by somebody or other who could turn a penny by doing it, and have the pleasure of seeing

His little bark attendant sail Pursue the triumph and partake the gale. The ghost of the person condemned to walk the earth in a biography glides into a public library and goes to the shelf where his mummied life lies in its paper cerements. I can see the pale shadow glancing through the pages and hear the comments that shape themselves in the bodiless intelligence as if they were made vocal by living lips.

Stanley King

OF AMHERST

BACKGROUND AND EARLY INFLUENCES

THE culminating scene of Stanley King's career came on November 11, 1932—Armistice Day—when in the presence of hundreds of friends of Amherst College he was inaugurated as its eleventh president. Up to that time he had had an exciting life, packed with business successes, with financial prosperity, with adventure and romance. Now at the age of forty-nine, at his prime in body and mind, he had been chosen as the administrative head of the educational institution which he had loved with deep affection since his undergraduate days and which he had served as a Trustee for more than a decade. About Amherst he was to say: The college is the place from which men start in search of the Happy Isles of the Greeks, the City of the Sun of the Italians, the City of God of the Christian mystics—in quest of the good life. To the college come a throng of eager boys; from the college go forth each year a band of men, most of whom have caught some vision of the ideal, some dream of a better world. They travel towards the Eternal City. King had never intended to become a professional educator. Trained in the law, he had been drawn into industry and later into public service, and had retired at forty-four, with a comfortable income, expecting to spend the remainder of his days free from formal schedules and official commitments. That he

4

Background and Early Influences

became a college president was due to a combination of events and influences for which he could not possibly have prepared. But his background, equipment, and experience qualified him perfectly to meet the responsibilities of the position. Stanley King was a complex and interesting product of inheritance, environment, and opportunity. In his ancestry he found much that was exciting. Even in grammar school he was fascinated by genealogy, and before he was twelve he had become absorbed in his family ramifications and had begun putting down on paper, in a little notebook with brown covers, all he could find on the subject. Later he wrote: By the time I was fifteen I had examined many old family Bibles, visited a number of cemeteries, and taken notes from family tombstones, studied a great many town histories, and made notes from them, visited the library of the Genealogical Society in Boston and examined the material relevant to my search, and organized this material. From his father's secretary Stanley early learned to operate a typewriter—a habit which he continued all his life. Later he mastered the difficult but valuable procedure of composing direct from brain to keys, perhaps not with the speed of an expert stenographer but fast enough for his purposes. As business executive and college president, it was easy for him to correct his first typed draft in longhand and then have copies made by his secretary. At the period of his early ventures into genealogy, Stanley had not, of course, perfected his later techniques, but he worked like a real scholar. He jotted down his original notes in a methodical manner, then typed the manuscript, entitled it "Lineal Ancestors of Stanley King," and later had it bound by the Springfield Printing and Binding Company at a cost of fifty cents, saved out of his allowance. Next he made a huge chart, measuring about three feet by two, on heavy paper, with his own name in conspicuous red letters at the base of the family tree, and

JUDGE AND MRS. HENRY P. KING

S T A N L E Y AND C A R R I E KING,

STANLEY AT

ELEVEN

1887

IN

COLLEGE

Background and Early Influences

5

the branches reaching up as far towards Adam as they could be carried, with all the names and dates he had been able to check. The meticulous professionals who haunt the rooms of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston could have done no better. Very significant also were the persistence and thoroughness with which he pursued his researches. His inquiring mind followed legends to their obscure sources, and he was never content to accept hearsay evidence or myths or vague octogenarian recollections. Furthermore, he was amazingly systematic in his work schedule and careful about even trivial details. In these respects the child was father to the man, for in his maturity King could never tolerate or excuse carelessness or disorder. His desk was always neatly arranged, and he knew where he could lay his hands promptly on any important documents. What he did instinctively as a boy, under his father's tutelage, became one of his most characteristic traits in later life. In a memorandum headed "The Family," prepared in 1950 for the benefit of his son and daughter, Stanley commented on his relatives with amusing frankness. In the list were dozens of his kinsfolk, scattered throughout the East. Many of them had marked individuality, and they could be quite critical of one another, but like the members of a Scotch clan thev had a strong sense of family loyalty. The stock was sturdy and capable— what we call "upper middle class." Among its members were no spendthrifts or idlers or outcasts. They were chiefly business people, accustomed to all the comforts and most of the luxuries of life. Their ethical standards were high, and they took part in community enterprises. On the other hand, they produced no authentic artistic genius—no poet or musician or painter— and very few of them were pioneers. They included not only Kings but also Flynts (from the family of Stanleys mother), Vintons, Converses, Hillses, Greens, Putnams, Richardsons, Wymans, and many others, all Protestants and Yankees. In these

6

Background and Early Influences

families the normal operation of eugenics was almost a sure guarantee of physical vigor, superior intellect, and moral rectitude. The most scientific breeding could not have improved the record. The culmination of all this selective process was duly recorded in the diary of Ella Eudocia Flynt, the youngest sister of Stanley's mother, for Friday, May 11,1883: Mollie has a BOY! born at 3 A.M. this morn, rec. a telegram about 10. Chalmers Dale burnt out of house, no loss personally. At this precise moment, Stanley's father and mother were living in Troy, New York, but their roots were sunk deep in the little village of Monson, Massachusetts, about twenty-five miles east of Springfield. His two grandfathers, Dwight King (1810-88) and William Norcross Flynt (1818-95), were both substantial citizens of that community, and most of his ancestors further back had been residents of the Connecticut Valley. One of Stanley's direct ancestors seven generations back was Elder Thomas King, who sailed from London to New England, in June, 1635, at the age of twenty-one, in the ship Blessing. He united with the church at Scituate, February 25, 1637. Of Elder King's direct descendants, William Rufus King was VicePresident of the United States, four have been governors of states, and seven have been members of Congress. The first King to settle in Monson was William (1740-1815), who came there about 1767. The first Flynt to reach New England was Thomas, who arrived from Wales in 1642 and was one of the earliest settlers of Salem Village (now South Danvers). Jonathan Flynt, his descendant, came to Monson in the eighteenth century and became a textile manufacturer, thus laying the foundation of the family fortune. Monson in the nineteenth century was a place of considerable importance, the seat of some thriving industries and of Monson Academy, an independent boarding school with a fine history. Writing of the village in 1950, Stanley King said:

Background and Early

Influences

7

Monson is today a small town that seems down at the heel. It is obvious that it has seen better days—obvious from the buildings of Monson Academy, from the Holmes Library, from the large houses set in spacious grounds that line the main residence street. But Monson in its golden days was a very unusual town. Horatio Lyon, Cyrus Holmes, William Norcross Flynt, Solomon Cushman, and A. D. Ellis were a group of very able men. They would have made their mark anywhere. It happened that they all made their careers in one town at one period in the history of that town. Today there are almost no members of any of these families resident in Monson.

When his maternal grandfather, William Norcross Flynt, died, Stanley King was only twelve, but he remembered him vividly and later described him as "the most extraordinary man I have ever known personally." His photographs, showing a portly figure with a full spade beard like a Civil War general, reveal both pride and power. He was Monson's local magnate, the owner of a granite quarry and the head of the Flynt Building and Construction Company, who in the 1860's gave to Amherst College the stone material for Walker Hall. At times a member of both the State Legislature and the Governor's Council, he also held nearly every position of trust in the town. In 1883, he opened Flynt Park, a tract of about two hundred acres, which he made available to his fellow citizens for recreation. It contained not only a museum, a menagerie, and a ball field but also a tower 125 feet in height, surmounted by a telescope. Stanley wrote of him, "He took life at a gallop, and the days were not long enough for him to crowd in everything he wanted to accomplish." Seated among his children and his twenty-five grandchildren, he resembled a Biblical patriarch. To each grandchild at birth he presented one share of stock in the Aetna Insurance Company and one share in the Flynt Granite Company. Dictatorial and massive, "Grandpa" Flynt was a natural leader who made money easily and spent it lavishly. With his boundless energy, he had a tempestuous career, but he kept alert and active until his death at the age of seventy-seven.

8

Background

and Early

Influences

William N. Flynt was married twice—first to Joanna King, who died in 1850, after giving birth to a son, William King Flynt. In 1852 he took as his second wife Eudocia Carter Converse, a woman of exceptional strength of character, who looked like George Eliot, with curls and a long horse-face. She seemed to Stanley King the "perfect grandmother," and he insisted that her portrait should hang in the main hall of the President's House at Amherst. Although she was thirty when she married, she had six children—three boys and three girls—the youngest being born when she was thirty-nine. Stanley's mother, Maria Lyon Flynt, the oldest daughter, born on March 22, 1854, was regarded as the local heiress. Stanley's father, Henry Amasa King, was born in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Monson and brought up as a farmer's boy in a simple home. He did so well in school, however, that the principal of Monson Academy, the very able Charles Hammond, urged that he be sent to college. The ambitious boy eventually worked his way through Amherst, graduating in 1873 with an excellent record, and then, after teaching for two years in Monson Academy, saved enough money to put himself through Columbia Law School. He spent a few months as a clerk in a law office in New York City and then moved to Troy, New York. He was practicing law there when, on November 6, 1879, he married Maria Flynt, and he was still living in Troy when Stanley was born in 1883. In the spring of 1893, when Stanley was ten years old, Henry A. King was asked by his wife's great-aunt, Mrs. Lyon, who lived in Springfield, to take charge of her large estate, and he decided to return to the familiar Connecticut Valley. There he soon built up a lucrative law practice. To Stanley as a boy "Aunt Lyon" was a formidable figure—"in fact, the only great lady I knew"—and he regarded his visits to her mansion on the northeast corner of Union and School Streets, in Springfield, as part of his liberal education. Wrote Stanley:

Background

and Early

Influences

9

In March, 1895, when my sister came down with scarlet fever and our house was quarantined, Aunt Lyon invited mother to send me up to her. And up I went at once to be her guest for two or three weeks. I was twelve, and she was by far the oldest person I had ever met. She seemed to me to be august. She treated me during my stay as a guest and not as a child. And of course I responded. I suppose those two weeks were the best behaved weeks of my entire boyhood. . . . There was another fact about Aunt Lyon which intrigued us. She had married three times and survived three husbands. If we wished to give her full list of names, we would recite Nancy Maria Baker Webster Perkins Lyon, but of course never in her presence.

When Aunt Lyon died at an advanced age, she left a substantial estate, but her rather complicated will, with several codicils in longhand, brought about a bitter legal contest with her son-in-law, from whom she was estranged. The will was eventually sustained, mainly through the efforts of Henry A. King, who was an executor and employed the services of the two best trial lawyers in Springfield. The King family lived for a time on Union Street, but after the death of Mrs. Lyon they moved up the hill to 163 Dartmouth Terrace, which was to be their home for more than three decades. Mr. King served for three years as City Solicitor, and then, in 1907, was appointed by Governor Curtis Guild as an Associate Justice of the Superior Court of the Commonwealth. "The work of a trial judge," wrote Stanley, "was more congenial to him than anything else he had done, and I am satisfied that the fifteen years he served on the bench were the happiest and the most serene years in his professional life." He retired in 1922, having reached the age of seventy, and in 1927 Amherst College awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Judge King was an exceptionally handsome man, rather formal and dignified in manner. Of him Stanley was later to write, with justice and affection: I owe more to him than I owe to any other man, much more. He guided my education from the earliest days I can remember. He always in-

10

Background and Early Influences

sisted on my doing the best work of which I was capable. He was never satisfied with what I did. Even if I brought home a report card with "E" for excellence in each subject, he would inquire whether perhaps the class work was too easy and suggest the possibility that I skip a grade in public school. Twice I did this. He encouraged me to tutor in the summer so that I could enter a higher class in language study. He directed my reading and expected me to read much more than was required in class. . . . He taught me manners. He insisted on my studying public speaking, and participating in debating, and scheduling my time. But in addition to this he gave me a great deal of freedom and responsibility. I had a great deal of time to myself for which I did not have to account to any one. He disapproved of many of the ideas which I held, but let me hold them. The realization that he was always in the background, temperate, poised, judicial, kept me, I am sure, from excesses which my exuberance of nature might have led me into. To his mother, whom he very much resembled physically, Stanley felt less close than to his father, perhaps because she did not have so much to do with his education. Like her husband, she took pride in her son's achievements, but the latter seldom spoke of her influence on him. In that household Stanley had something of the status of an only child, for his brother, Ames, lived but two days, and his younger sister, Carrie, suffered a fall as a baby which left her subject to fits of epilepsy which became more and more frequent as she grew older until she finally sank into complete invalidism. Henry A. King was exceedingly proud of his only son and kept a careful record of his progress. He noted in his diary the fact that the baby weighed 8Y2 pounds at birth and that, when he was six weeks old, he was taken out of doors for the first time. In September, 1883, the mother took him to Monson to be exhibited to relatives. On the first anniversary of his birth, the father wrote: Stanley had an exceedingly happy birthday. Has one share Aetna stock from his grandfather Flynt, lace cover for carriage umbrella from his Aunt Sallie. First golden robin of the season.

Background and Early Influences

11

To the lad's training and education his father devoted much time and trouble. Inevitably Stanley was taken into the Congregational Church and, almost as soon as he could walk, attended on Sunday not only the two regular services but also Sunday school and later the meeting of the Christian Endeavor. He was not, of course, allowed to play games on Sunday, and his reading was restricted to the Bible, history, and poetry. Study and travel on what was called the "Sabbath" were forbidden. However rebellious Stanley may have been in his heart against these restrictions, he was an obedient son. But when he reached college, his independent spirit asserted itself. To the end of his days he was impatient with a too rigid orthodoxy. This attitude, however, was less a reaction against the narrowness of his father's belief than a feeling that in matters of religion men should be free and unchanneled. Writing of his college days, he said, "I had come unconsciously to the conclusion that my religious views and my religious life were my own affair, not to be questioned by well-meaning classmates or friends." Under paternal pressure Stanley acquired self-discipline and early showed himself willing to sacrifice a transient pleasure for a more durable satisfaction. By nature he was ebullient, rich in physical vitality, and fun-loving; yet he rarely as a child allowed even a harmless temptation to folly to divert him from his planned schedule. His own sympathetic and penetrating analysis of his father's character makes it clear that in the King family frivolity was discouraged not because it was immoral but because it was a waste of precious time. In that home life was real and earnest, and all the disciplines converged on the only son. But it never occurred to him to rebel, as Edmund Gosse did against his dominating father. Nevertheless, Stanley in middle life was more inclined to spontaneity and more responsive to impulse than he had been as a child.

12

Background and Early

Influences

Stanley was a bright boy, not extraordinarily precocious but quick to learn, eager to extend his knowledge, and very fond of reading. Furthermore, his parents encouraged him to do well. All their plans as a family were centered on him and his future, even the conversation at meals being deliberately aimed at improving his mind. When he took part in a debate against Hartford High School, his father was as much excited as the lad was, and just as delighted when the latter's team won. With such obvious advantages and under such favoring treatment, Stanley might easily have been spoiled in his youth and have become intolerable in his manhood. But while his superiority was recognized by his mates, he was not regarded as a prig, and he had his full share of schoolboy friendships. His well-regulated sense of humor and his generous traits made him a good companion. With his tendency towards self-analysis, he profited by his own mistakes, and he was wise enough to conceal his impatience with minds slower than his. A letter written in 1895, when he was on a visit to Monson, told his father what he had been doing. He was then only twelve years old. I intended to write to you last night but I did not have time. I went to the history club yesterday afternoon and read Motley for an hour and a half. Then Flynt and I went to the Children's Aid's Fair. W e had supper there and staid until quarter of eight. Then we went to the theater and heard Prof. Winchester lecture on "An Evening in London in 1780." It was very interesting and instructive. He told us about a great many men who lived there then. Among them were George III and his wife, Edmund Burke, Charles Fox, Joshua Reynolds, Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Goldsmith, Garrick, Sheridan, and Gibbon, the author of the history of the Roman empire. The house was full. I got to bed a little after ten and slept until half-past six. The furnace fire was out this morning and I had to dump it, start a new fire, take a bath, and have breakfast before quarter of eight. Mamma and Carrie are feeling well, but grandma didn't have a very good night. I was reading Mr. Harvey King's book Thursday evening, and he has named one of his sons "Harvey Roswell William

Background and Early Influences

13

King," after his ancestors on the King side. I have written my essay on Rip Van Winkle. Good by! In another letter from Monson, dated August 16, 1895, Stanley said: Professor Tyler of Amherst and his son, Mason, who is about my age, came. We drove up to the quarry, and while grandpa sat in the carriage we went all over the quarry, down to the Rock House on the engine, through all the sheds, and all over the office. Then we went through grandpa's new barn up at the quarry, and saw a machine that separated the milk from the cream almost instantly. Then we drove up to the park and saw the museum and animals. We went down to Mr. Reynolds and saw his old Bibles. He had one small one rebound, and it had cost twenty dollars. It is pleasant to think of the small boy, with his insatiable curiosity, moving with the eminent "Tip" Tyler, Professor of Biology at Amherst, on a tour from rocks to Bibles. The Mason Tyler here mentioned was later a member of the Class of 1906 at Amherst College. In his outdoor activities, such as swimming, skating, and tramping in the woods, Stanley was a normal healthy youngster; and in due season, like many other boys of that generation, he completed a "century run" in one day on his bicycle and received a certificate, ornately engraved, from the manufacturer. He did not, however, engage in organized or team athletics, either then or later in Amherst, and he once remarked that in his opinion much of the time spent by the undergraduates in sports was wasted. "As I look back on my college years," he continued, " I cannot say that I missed the excitement, the stimulus, or the kudos of intercollegiate athletics or even of intramural athletics." The two games which he really enjoyed most were pool and whist. His father had installed a pool table on the third floor of his Springfield home, and Stanley became a proficient player. At whist he was later regarded as an expert. Because some of the conversation around the family dinner table concerned money, Stanley early learned the purchasing

14

Background and Early Influences

power of a dollar and the importance of thrift. Although he was provided with everything essential, he was aware that his parents were making sacrifices to give him a good start in life, and he responded by avoiding extravagance. During his school vacations he served as junior clerk in his father's office, copying documents on the typewriter, keeping trust accounts, interviewing witnesses, and running errands. Over the Christmas holidays he was once a salesman in a bookstore, receiving $3.50 a week, payable in books at current prices, and in his library at the time of his death was a three-volume set of Plutarch's Lives which he had earned through this means. He even tutored boys of the neighborhood who were preparing for Harvard, his rate being fifty cents an hour. Through his father Stanley also became interested in financial matters, such as investments, bequests, and incomes. He recalled that his mother, at her marriage, had her own capital amounting to a little over $3,000, including a $1,000 bond of the Buffalo & Erie Railroad, six shares of Pullman Company stock, and five shares of Adams Express Company. He quoted from an old account book indicating that his father's law practice increased from $1,125 in 1880 to $4,561 in 1888. His father's first savings were put into twenty shares of Union Pacific, one share of Pullman, and ten shares of New York Central. Henry A. King was a firm believer in the importance of travel as contributory to education. Furthermore, he insisted that his son should keep a careful record of all his trips, even those of a few days' duration. In the summer of 1897, when he was fourteen, Stanley was taken by his father to the Ocean Side boarding house on Marblehead Neck and kept a careful diary of all that happened. Father and son brought their bicycles with them on the train and rode across Boston on them from the North Station to the Union Station, via Atlantic Avenue. In his little brown notebook Stanley kept the entries from day to day, in his neat and clear handwriting, omitting no detail. That autumn

Background and Early Influences

15

Mr. King took his son to Chicago, where the two visited the stockyards and "all the sights," even stopping overnight at Niagara Falls on the way home. In May, 1898, Stanley went with his father to New York City, where they rode around Central Park and watched the animals in the zoo. In the summer of 1899 the King family made a much longer journey to the Pacific Coast and Alaska, the father having explained that they should "see America first." Before setting out, Stanley prepared a neat "Guide Book to Southern California and Return," containing timetables of all the principal railroads, maps of the important cities, and a complete itinerary showing where they would have each meal each day—all pasted carefully in a book with "Copyright, May 31,1899, by Stanley King" on the title page. On his return he put together with equal care "Notes on Trip to Pacific Coast," with pictures illustrating their adventures. Father, mother, and two children set out from Springfield on Sunday, July 25, on a special train of Pullman cars packed with delegates to the annual meeting of the National Education Association in Los Angeles—surely a useful and illuminating experience for a future college president. Stanley occupied an upper berth for seven consecutive nights, but he had been taught never to complain of minor hardships. From Los Angeles the family traveled up the West Coast to San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, and then by boat to Alaska, visiting Sitka, Juneau, Skagway, and the White Horse Pass to the Klondike, where gold had been discovered only a few months before. They even sailed up Glacier Bay, with the Muir Glacier directly in front of them, went ashore, and started off with alpenstocks through scenery which the boy described as "wonderful and sublime." Stanley listened fascinated to the tales of the returning miners, one of whom gave him a small gold nugget which he always kept as a lucky piece. They were back in Vancouver on August 10, and returned east by the Canadian Rockies, via

16

Background

and Early Influences

Banff and Lake Louise. The boy's diary of this trip, kept faithfully day by day, reveals unusual powers of observation. Perhaps as a consequence of these childhood trips, Stanley became a modern Far Traveler, grasping every opportunity to see unusual places and meet possible strange adventures. All his life he had a desire to move "beyond the ranges," into other climes and far-off lands. Before he died, he visited Africa, Asia, and South America, as well as Europe, and he became cosmopolitan in his viewpoint. On all his many journeys he was to keep the same ample records of his wanderings, experiences, and impressions. Meanwhile Stanley had been introduced into the rich and vast world of books. Before leaving high school he had finished all of John Fiske's twenty-four volumes of history and philosophy, all of Parkman, most of Prescott and Motley, and even Lecky's History of European Morals. When he discovered Sir John Lubbock's famous essay on the "One Hundfed Best Books," he began to take the items one by one out of the library, checking each off his list as he completed it. Like Theodore Roosevelt, King could skim a printed page and master its contents before others had absorbed an entire chapter. He had learned the valuable lesson of discriminating between the important and the ephemeral, and he possessed a gift of selectivity which enabled him to recognize and concentrate on points which he could use effectively or fit into the pattern of his thinking. Stanley's formal preparation for college was gained in the Springfield Classical High School, one of the best of its type in New England. In those days the course of study was traditional and prescribed, including four years of English, four of mathematics, four of Latin, three of Greek, four of German, one of French, and three of history, with very little science. In foreign languages, the boy was especially proficient; and he even completed two extra years of German in summer vacations with the

Background and Early Influences

17

aid of his teacher, Mrs. Starr, who assigned him lessons and conversed with him in that tongue. In later years on his travels King learned to read and speak several languages with ease— even Rumanian and Russian. When Stanley was in his Senior year at high school, the principal, Fred W . Atkinson, wrote to Henry A. King a letter which must have been very gratifying: I have recently asked the teachers to hand in special reports of work done by their best pupils, and although these reports were handed in as confidential between myself and the teachers, I thought you would be interested to know the opinions of the teachers concerning your son's work. His teacher of mathematics says that Stanley "easily leads the boys in his class in original work." In English he is reported as "interested in English. He has read widely and thoughtfully, and this general knowledge of literature assists him in the interpretation of what we read in school. He gives much time to this study. He possesses the literary taste." His teacher of French is of the opinion that he is "endowed with a fine mind, is quick of perception and at the same time accurate and painstaking; not only has an unusually fine intellect but possesses noble qualities of heart and soul." In classes he has done very fine work, and Mr. McDuffee says that he is a boy whose development has been exceedingly interesting to watch. Mr. McDuffee says that he "impresses one as having unusual reserve power for a person of his age. Thoughtful, logical, earnest, and manly. Has outgrown the self-consciousness which was sometimes seen during the earlier part of his course. Has thorough control of himself. Power of expression both oral and written is well developed. Has an unusual breadth of intellectual vision and power. Accurate, thorough, persevering, and with marked power of concentration. Ought to develop into a man of marked ability and influence." I have written you this, knowing how much it would mean to you, and knowing that you would make use of it as you think best. When his class was graduated from the Classical High School in June, 1900, Stanley was one of the ten honor students for the year. Not until much later did his father inform him that Prin-

18

Background and Early Influences

cipal Atkinson had described Stanley's record as the finest made in the school during his recollection. It was, of course, easy for him to secure admission to Amherst, and after two weeks at Martha's Vineyard in the summer and a little rest at home, he entered the college which was so to dominate his life. Stanley's mature career spanned almost exactly the first half of the twentieth century—probably the most eventful and momentous years in human history. From the unnecessary and half-ridiculous war with Spain in 1898, the United States had emerged, rather unwillingly at first, as a potent factor in world affairs. In Stanley's senior year in high school, Albert J. Beveridge made a famous speech in the United States Senate in which he declaimed: And of all our race, he [God] has marked the American people as his Chosen Nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possible to man. We are trustees of the world's progress, guardians of its righteous peace.

In such faith and arrogance Americans moved, as the century opened, into what they were sure was to be a Golden Age. They were destined to have their illusions shattered and their dreams unfulfilled. The changes which Rip Van Winkle saw after sleeping for twenty years were trivial compared with those which Stanley King watched in his lifetime. When he was in Amherst, only two undergraduates—Ned Crossett and Sid Bixby—had their own automobiles, and a drive with either was liable to end in a long walk home. There were then fewer than ten miles of concrete roads in the entire United States. Forty years later Stanley King was to drive his high-powered car along magnificent highways at a rate sometimes of seventy miles an hour with ease and with safety to himself and his passengers. Possibly we have forgotten that in 1900 the general use of electricity was just beginning. King was to see successively the airplane, the motion picture,

Background and Early Influences

19

the radio, television, and atomic energy, with their appalling impact on our society. The vacuum cleaner, the deep freeze, insulin and penicillin, air conditioning, color photography, nylons and plastics, permanent waves, dishwashing machines, ranchtype houses—all these have altered the material world so gradually and so completely that it is only by looking back that we can realize how fast and how far we have gone. In 1950, Stanley King knew thousands of words which his father, in 1900, had never seen. The story of this broad transformation has been told by Frederick L. Allen in his retrospective volume The Big Change with accuracy, comprehensiveness, and brilliance. Throughout that tumultuous half century, so full of sudden surprises and unpredicted disasters, Stanley King learned to make countless readjustments to modern conditions. His thinking was of course affected as the pleasant Victorian Idea of Progress was replaced by the grim prospect of the Decline of the West. The mores of an entire people were greatly modified by war and its aftermath. The metamorphosis in the relationship between capital and labor, in the general attitude towards religion, towards prayer and immortality and Sunday observance, was indeed extraordinary. Over fifty years life had become more complex and less predictable. The boys and girls who were graduated from American high schools in 1950 faced a world far more puzzling and exacting than that of 1900. The Stanley King who entered Amherst in the autumn of 1900 was a promising specimen of American youth, well equipped to meet whatever lay ahead. Already he had learned to respect certain intellectual and spiritual values and knew how to discipline himself to attain them. As he entered Amherst he had a clear conception of what college had to offer and a well-defined ambition.

THE COLLEGE UNDERGRADUATE

o N Tuesday, September 18, 1900, Stanley King, with Robert H. Baker and Bernard J. Craig—two of his classmates at high school—left Springfield by train at 9:15 in the morning, arriving at the Amherst station at 10:05. The College was not new to Stanley, for his father had often talked to him about it and its traditions and had taken him there to show him the buildings. Later King wrote: Amherst is in my blood. My father was an Amherst graduate. My grandfather, although not a college man, was interested in Amherst and gave the mountain of granite needed to build Walker Hall. I must add parenthetically that he did not choose the architect. From my earliest boyhood I knew that I was preparing for Amherst. Many of my schoolmates were discussing what college they would attend. Some went to Yale, more to Harvard. But there was never any question as to my college. It was to be Amherst.

In those far-off days the undergraduate body numbered fewer than four hundred. The Class of 1904 graduated only eightyfour, and the Class of 1903, to which Stanley finally belonged, had only sixty-six members at Commencement. Everybody knew everybody else, at least well enough to exchange greetings on the campus. Rising out of the meadows and looking off in one direction to the Pelham Hills and in another to the Holyoke Range, the College seemed delightfully rural. Trolley cars, open

THE AMHERST DEBATING TEAM OF

1903

KING IS SECOND FROM THE LEFT; AT THE FAR LEFT IS JOSEPH B. EASTMAN

STANLEY KING IN HIS COLLEGE ROOM KING IS AT THE RIGHT

WITH RAYMOND FOSDICK,

WITH JOHN J . MCCLOY

(LEFT)

lgig

AND GENERAL GEORGE C. MARSHALL

AT AMHERST COMMENCEMENT,

I947

(CENTER),

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in spring and fall, transported "fussers" to South Hadley and "Hamp" (Northampton), and provided an inexpensive means of getting into the country. Except when "hops" or "proms" were held, girls rarely appeared on the campus, and the visit of a stray female, however respectable, to a fraternity house would have instigated a mild riot. It was a man's society, with the primitive amusements and rough language of males herded together. On the other hand, the students wore coats and neckties to lectures and chapel services, and would have been ejected if they hadn't done so. On Saturday evenings there was some harmless beer drinking at Dick Rahar's Inn, in Northampton, with many voices raised in song; but drunkenness was rare and was frowned upon by Seniors. The only luxury was in the fraternity houses, which were architecturally impressive and furnished with a lavishness to which many of the members had hitherto been unaccustomed. As a Freshman, Stanley lived in North College, in quarters which were almost monastic, but he moved in his Sophomore year into the "Deke" House, where existence was more comfortable. The fact that the college buildings were badly arranged and deficient in charm did not trouble the undergraduates. The laboratories were not up-to-date and the library was inadequate, but that made no difference. Fortunately the playing fields were spacious and the gymnasium had not yet become antiquated. Stanley King was later, as Trustee and President, to be the prime mover in bringing congruity and beauty to the campus architecture. Stanley was certainly not extravagant in his habits as an undergraduate. His "cash account" for his course shows the expenses for each year: $636 for the Freshman year; $581 for the second year; and $748 for the Senior year. He used a simple and very clear system of bookkeeping which he had learned from his father. His expenses as a Freshman were broken down as follows:

22

The College Undergraduate Tuition and Laboratory Fees Room Board Furniture Books Fraternity Miscellaneous

$119 115 118 85 25 60 114 $636

Some of the items would seem to a present-day undergraduate ridiculously low: board per week, $4.00; a trip to Mount Holyoke, including supper, thirty-three cents; a pool ticket good for ten games, twenty-five cents; contributions to the church collection, from two to ten cents (the maximum); a subscription for the support of a missionary in India, $1.50. For the fall term of his Freshman year, Stanley kept a diary, some of the entries of which throw light on undergraduate life as he lived it: Sept. 22. After supper I get ready for cane rush. In the rush I manage to get in front rank but am unable to get hand on cane. Go in stripped to the waist. Rush lasts three minutes. Sophomores win by score of 25 to 18 hands on cane. After the rush our class goes up and sits on college fence. Sophomores try to drive us off and we have a hard fight. Said to be the worst there has been in ten years in the college. I do not get hurt although many others are laid out. Sept. 28. Our class met at Pratt Field instead of at Gymnasium this morning. Each member of class ran a 220 yards dash. I won race in my squad of six easily. In afternoon Jones, Joost, and I walked off through the woods east of here hunting. They each had a gun but I did not. Oct. 4. After dinner Joost, Jones, Adams, Whitman, and I went hunting. Walked about eight miles altogether over the hills east of Amherst. Shot two red squirrels and flushed a partridge. Oct. 10. At 2 o'clock I take Porter Prize Examination in English given by Professor Churchill. Only four fellows have taken all the exams: Goold, Baker, Livingston, and myself. We agree that the one who wins the prize shall take the crowd to Hamlet, which is to be played in Hamp on the 19th of this month.

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Oct. 18. Porter Admission Prize awarded to Goold to-day. One of the profs told him it was very close, and he beat me by only a few points. He is from Albany and is several months younger than I am. Oct. 20. In afternoon Goold, Adams, and I take ten mile walk to Holyoke Range and back. We ran about two miles on the way home. Nov. 2. After declamation in afternoon Goold, Grant, and I take seven mile walk out Amity Street and back. Beautiful clear day. Jan. 3. In the evening the Freshman Class Supper takes place at the Worthy Hotel. We get there without any trouble. In fact the Sophomores did not find out about it in time to prevent it. The whole thing was a great success. With this entry the diary ends abruptly, but enough has been recorded to indicate that Stanley King was a thoroughly normal undergraduate, so far as recreations are concerned. He was, however, more serious minded, more mature intellectually, than most of his classmates, and eager to get a sound education. His friend Albert W. Atwood, '03, recalls the impression which Stanley made on him: My first memory of Stanley King was in his Freshman year, my Sophomore, taking long walks into the country. He was four years younger than I, sixteen or seventeen to my twenty, and soon after he entered college I sized him up as a very interesting chap, with a good stimulating mind, so I invited him to walk with me. I can still recall vividly his sitting on a stone fence arguing in his clear, incisive, calm way some subject more or less deep, as undergraduates do. How many of those walks we took, I can't remember, but there were several. I found him intellectually a most stimulating companion. He had none of the fuzzy mentality that characterized so many Freshmen in those days. His mind was strong, virile, and yet withal with a rather quiet modesty and poise. . . . I think Stanley King was a wonderful example of a man whose success in life was foreshadowed in youth. I knew "in my bones" as I stood in front of him as he sat on the stone fence that he was going to be a successful man, even when he was seventeen. He had a quality then, combined with mental clarity and strength, and sureness of direction, at the same time without unpleasant aggressiveness, that destined him for success. Also he was well mannered then, and he always remained so.

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Although Stanley was physically robust and could swim the Connecticut River when some of the varsity athletes refused the challenge, he respected his father's expressed wishes and took no part in organized sports. His classmate James W . Park, captain of the football eleven in 1903, writes: Stanley was keenly interested in athletics, but never tried out for a college team. He attended football practice so persistently, however, that I more than once urged him to join the squad. But he always shook his head negatively, though he offered no explanation or apology for his refusal. Years later I learned—but not from Stanley —that his stern New England father had forbidden him to waste his time on athletics under penalty of being removed from college if he disobeyed. Loyally Stanley accepted his father's decision without question or complaint, though I am sure he would gladly have played football if he had been permitted to do so, for he had the physique and the will to do anything he undertook. Commenting further on Stanley's attitude towards collegiate athletics, Park says: Though he was denied the satisfaction of playing in intercollegiate games, King was a faithful rooter for his team. Few were the games he missed as a spectator. Much later he was to be a vicarious participant in the sports he loved as an undergraduate. When his son was gaining distinction as the best sprinter in Amherst, Stanley told me with pardonable pride that he got more real pleasure from Richard's athletic success than he would have received from high marks in his studies. Not that Stanley undervalued scholarship, but he had missed something from his own life, I felt, that was being supplied through his son's prowess in athletics. However much Stanley may have been tempted to take part in athletics, he never forgot that the function of a college is to train the mind and that the chief business of a student is to study. Again conforming to his father's wishes, he invited no young ladies to dances and attended no "proms." Once on a wager he drank stein for stein of beer with a member of his fraternity delegation, mainly, according to his recollection, to prove that he had a good head for liquor. He never drank again

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25

until after graduation, when his father, while they were traveling in Europe, sometimes invited him to join him in a bottle of wine at a meal. Stanley took pride in securing good marks and refused to be drawn into less profitable pursuits. His aims were recognized and admired. Louis E. Cadieux, of the Class of 1903, writes, "I never knew a person who knew Stanley at all who didn't respect and admit his rather unusual intellectual powers." Stanley accepted with good grace his defeat by Goold for the Porter Admission Prize and was content with an honorable mention. He did, however, accumulate some high marks and take successfully some extra courses, and at the close of his Sophomore year he petitioned the authorities for the privilege of completing the college course in three years. It is remarkable that the Faculty, with their somewhat rigid conception of the requirements for a degree, should have allowed this to be done. But King was a persuasive young man, whose record was distinguished and whose earnestness was disarming, and he was allowed to take Senior work provisionally. He had little difficulty in graduating summa cum laude with the Class of 1903, ranking second in the class. For his shift in standing King paid some minor penalties. He missed the long association with one class which means so much in a small college like Amherst. He had started with 1904, but for the rest of his life his name was printed in the catalogue as a member of the Class of 1903. Amherst is a fraternity college, and the year opened then with a "rushing season," during which the incoming Freshmen were entertained, scrutinized, and appraised by the upper classmen. King's father had been a member of Delta Upsilon, which in the 1870's was a nonsecret organization. Stanley, however, had met some members of Delta Kappa Epsilon on earlier visits to Amherst, and they were at the station to welcome him. He confessed later, "When I arrived, I wondered if I would receive any invitations. I came from a public high school. I was not an athlete, not a musician, not a writer on my school paper. I had

26

The College

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no money to spare, and I did not smoke." Probably he had forgotten that the news of his exceptionally fine scholastic record had preceded him. Furthermore, his family was certainly well known socially in Springfield. Stanley survived the routine inspection, receiving bids from ten of the eleven chapters on the campus. In the hurry and bewilderment of "rushing," the decision by a Freshman is often a matter of luck; but Stanley was fortunate in choosing Delta Kappa Epsilon, a fraternity with a high standing both at Amherst and throughout the nation. Its chapter house was somewhat removed from the Common, and the "Deke" brethren for that reason seemed a little isolated, but of their reputation and influence there could be no doubt. In after years Stanley King was inclined to blame the system for the failure of fraternities to recognize potential ability and for the emphasis which they seemed to place on superficial characteristics, such as haircuts and neckties. No doubt some students at Amherst have been unhappy, either because they had no opportunity to join any fraternity or because, under pressure, they were persuaded to join one which proved to be weak. Many of the evils of the system, however, were eliminated by wise action of the College Trustees while Stanley was President. The introduction of Sophomore rushing has lessened the danger of snap judgments. In the present trend of American thought all beneficiaries of special privileges must justify their existence and are therefore often subject to investigation. In the 1900's, however, fraternity members would have regarded such criticism as unjustified. King's personal experience with Delta Kappa Epsilon was entirely pleasurable. As an undergraduate brother, he was one of those entrusted with authority, and he watched carefully what was going on in the house. When a new building was projected in 1914, he was opposed to moving to another site nearer the campus; and he, with Henry P. Kendall, '99, was

The College

Undergraduate

27

responsible for the decision to use the present fine location. His interest in his fraternity paralleled that in his college, and he performed many services for it. The President of the College since 1899 had been George Harris, previously a professor in Andover Theological Seminary, an urbane and witty scholar, quite content to preserve things as they were and keep his cherished peace of mind. His predecessor, Merrill E. Gates, had been a center of campus controversy, and after his departure the Trustees and Faculty were glad to have rest after stormy seas. Meanwhile several of the great teachers had grown older, and adequate replacements were not being made. More eager than most youths for enlightenment and stimulation, Stanley King looked around for the best instruction he could find. From the perspective of forty years afterwards, he felt that the professors who had meant the most to him were Henry B. Richardson (German), George D. Olds (Mathematics), and Charles E. Garman (Philosophy). He had Richardson in his Freshman year, Olds in his Sophomore year, and Garman as a Senior. Although Stanley entered Amherst with credits for four years of German, the only courses open to him in that subject as a Freshman were one for beginners and another for second-year students. The scheduled program had been framed on the assumption that no Freshman would offer such a thorough preparation in a modern foreign language, and the obstinate Registrar refused to make any concession. The resourceful Stanley then called upon "Richie" to ask permission to take his famous course in Faust, open only to Seniors. Pleading his case, he offered the Professor a sporting proposition, asking if he might enroll in the course with the understanding that if at the end of six weeks he earned an "A," he would be allowed to remain. If he fell below that grade, he would voluntarily withdraw and enter a lower German section. Professor Richardson, who had a keen sense of humor, answered, "Young man, I don't know

28

The College Undergraduate

you, but I can't possibly lose on such an arrangement. You're taking all the risks. Of course I accept." King fulfilled his part of the contract and remained under "Richie" throughout the year. Meanwhile he was also taking Freshman Latin under an instructor who was nothing but a drillmaster. "To go from Freshman Latin to Faust," wrote Stanley, "was like passing suddenly from a weary treadmill to the most exciting play. I was a Freshman, but I was no longer (for this hour) a schoolboy reciting a lesson to a teacher. I was enjoying the majesty of Goethe's poetry, the philosophy of a master, with a beloved teacher who seemed to be enjoying Goethe with us." Professor Richardson's essential bigness was shown by his willingness to disregard a foolish regulation in order to satisfy an undergraduate's thirst for knowledge. As a Sophomore, Stanley had a contact with another stimulating personality. He had been obliged to take Freshman mathematics and had done well in it. In the following year he elected the course in differential and integral calculus given by Professor George D. ("Geòrgie") Olds. "Richie" had carried Stanley along further in a field with which he was already familiar; "Geòrgie" introduced him to a world of which he had hitherto had little conception—the fascinating area of higher mathematics. "That course," said King, "was in some ways the high point of my college study. Never again in Amherst did I feel so excited intellectually. Perhaps part of the magic was the fact that I knew I should not go on into higher branches of Mathematics. Part, of course, was the contagion of Georgie's personality." One valuable lesson Stanley learned as a consequence of his work under Olds. The incident is best related in his own words: In Sophomore year Olds encouraged me to register for an optional examination in Mathematics for the Walker prize. The prize was substantial. I registered for the examination. Only two other students in my class registered for the test. We walked into a big room in

The College Undergraduate

29

Walker Hall, and received from Georgie the questions and a blue book, and went to work. As I recall, we were allowed three or four hours for the examination. At the end of two hours I walked up to the desk and handed Georgie a blank blue book, and walked out to think it over. I had not been able to answer a single one of the questions. I had not been able to devise a way to approach an answer to any of the questions. And as I walked into the country to digest my defeat, I came to a poignant realization of how little I knew of Mathematics after all the years I had studied it. The prize was taken by my classmate, Roland S. Haradon, who has spent his mature life in the field of Mathematics as an actuary for one of the large Hartford insurance companies. I felt no sense of envy then; I knew that in Mathematics Haradon was a better man than I. He was. Stanley was glad that, although he had skipped a year, he would still be able to pursue philosophy with Professor Garman, the member of the faculty with the most impressive reputation. Garman was an eccentric, so sensitive about his health that he wore several heavy scarfs about his neck, even in sultry June, and would not tolerate a draft in his lecture room. He was a dramatic showman, using secrecy as an instrument for winning the devotion of his students and making them think that they were a group set apart. Adopting his own modified version of the Socratic method, he broke down established and cherished beliefs and then, by a strictly logical process, guided his pupils through materialism, atheism, and agnosticism to Christian orthodoxy. He was a very great teacher, patient, sympathetic, and magnetic, but he allowed no independence of thought and insisted that the members of his course should accept his doctrines as he interpreted them. Some robust thinkers, like Joseph B. Eastman, later Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission, rebelled against his methods, but the majority accepted his obiter dicta as final. Stanley was equally skeptical but less argumentative. On this subject James W. Park writes: I was with King in only one course, Professor Garman's famous Senior class in Philosophy. Stanley never obtruded himself into the

30

The College Undergraduate

discussions and arguments, but when he recited, his mind matched our beloved teacher's in its incisiveness and clarity. Always he was able to go to the heart of the issue with a sureness which took one's breath. In a sense Stanley was a sort of Plato to Garman's Socrates, for he brought out the best our great teacher had to offer and made substantial contributions of his own. Then to review the term's work with him was a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Stanley was a born teacher; had he gone into the classroom he would surely have become one of America's greatest educational leaders.

At the time of his graduation, Stanley felt that Garman was the most brilliant teacher he had ever had. As he looked back later, he was inclined to think that Olds really did more for him. Of him he wrote, "He had no stage business, he welcomed disagreement, he welcomed freedom of thought in his students, in and out of class. There was not an ounce of dogmatism in Olds." With Professor George B. Churchill, who meant so much to many undergraduates of that period, Stanley was not very congenial, finding him pompous and crusty. He tried to enroll in geology under the Olympian Professor Benjamin K. Emerson, but was refused admission because he had had no chemistry. He would have liked to continue Latin under the suave and scholarly Professor Cowles, but was discouraged by his experience with the Freshman course in that subject. For President George Harris, Stanley had respect because of his ready wit and pungency of phrasing, but he was never invited to his house. Like all the students he was fond of "Old Doc" Hitchcock, the venerable Dean, one of the most picturesque figures on the campus. When Stanley was once summoned to his office for exceeding his allowance of "cuts," the old gentleman talked with him seriously for a few minutes and then, putting his hand on his shoulder in fatherly affection, dismissed him with the words, "Go, and sin no more!" Aside from the regular payment of bills, his only relationship with the Treasurer was when, a few days before Commencement, he received

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a form letter advising him that he could not be awarded his diploma until he had met all his college obligations. With the letter was a note in longhand to the effect that he owed five cents for a library fine. He never, so far as he could remember, saw the Trustees, and he certainly did not then understand their functions as officers of the College. Social contacts by the undergraduates with members of the faculty were rare in those days, but in Stanley's Senior year he and his classmate Gouverneur Boyer became well acquainted with two bachelor instructors, William J. Newlin and Ernest H. Wilkins, and arranged to play duplicate whist once a week throughout the winter. Newlin (who remained on the Amherst faculty until his retirement in 1948) and Wilkins (who was later President of Oberlin College) were brilliant scholars, one in mathematics and philosophy and the other in French and Italian, and it was stimulating to Stanley to be thrown with mature minds like theirs. Newlin and Wilkins had developed their own peculiar system—a form of early Culbertson—and the rivalry between faculty and undergraduates was keen. No one of the quartet was willing to claim a decisive victory. The most enriching experience of Stanley's days came not through a professor or a course but through his work in oratory and debating. He had a good clear voice and an attractive presence, but above all he was eager to improve and excel. His father had urged upon him as a child the importance of being able to stand up on his feet and address an audience or carry on a discussion, and he had done some creditable debating in high school. In college, however, he won recognition rather slowly. In January, 1901, he was listed as one of the "Kellogg Fifteen" selected from the Freshman Class to compete for prizes in declamation, but he was not one of the winners. He failed in a similar contest in his Sophomore year, but he was appointed as an assistant to help Professor Churchill in training Freshmen and learned much, as he admitted, by working "under a master."

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On March 1, 1902, he was mentioned in the Student as one of the competitors for the debating team, but was not successful. This is not astonishing, for he was only a Sophomore. In his final, and Senior, year, King was rewarded for his persistence and careful preparation. In what were known as the "Senior debates," conducted by Professor Churchill, he was repeatedly voted by his class as the best speaker and thus acquired the self-confidence which is so helpful on the rostrum. An intercollegiate debate had already been planned for 1903 with Bowdoin College on the highly controversial topic, "Resolved, that it is for the public interest that employers recognize trade unions in the arrangement of wage schedules." At the trials held in February the men chosen were Albert W. Atwood, '03, Stanley King, '03, and Joseph B. Eastman, '04—all of them destined to have distinguished careers in later life. Bowdoin, with the choice of sides, naturally selected the affirmative, thus leaving Amherst with the necessity of being critical of labor unions—which were not, however, as powerful as they are today. Stanley's father took a very active interest in coaching the Amherst team; and another alumnus, Talcott Williams, from his editorial desk in Philadelphia sent up files of relevant material. In the debate, which was held in College Hall, King spoke last for his side, and his summary was largely responsible for the unanimous verdict of the judges in favor of Amherst. The audience was large, the excitement was intense, and the jubilation was demonstrative, especially at the banquet which was held after the contest, when Stanley spoke modestly but with evident pride. Afterwards the college authorities granted the members of the team the privilege of wearing watch fobs presented by Henry A. King. These were of solid gold, with an "A" on the front in purple enamel, and the words "Intercollegiate Debating Team, 1903." The reverse read, "AmherstBowdoin Debate, March 6, 1903," with the names of the debaters.

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Stanley's college speaking was by no means over. With seven classmates he was awarded one of the Ladd Oration prizes for excellence in oratorical composition, his subject being "The Bloody Brook Massacre." He was one of the contestants in the Hardy Prize Debate, at Commencement, but the first and second prizes were won by Albert W. Atwood and James W. Park respectively. He was one of six Seniors selected by the Faculty to speak on the Commencement stage; on June 16, 1946, in his final address as President of Amherst, he told the story of what had happened forty-three years before: I recall that I delivered my first valedictory address from the Commencement platform on June 24, 1903, a few minutes before I received my bachelor's degree. My subject then was "American Diplomacy in the Orient." I had prepared my address without knowing whom the Board would honor on that occasion with honorary degrees. And I was a little dismayed to see in the front row the Chinese Minister to the United States—Sir Chentung Liang Cheng, who was about to receive the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa. But I gave my address with ardor, and the judges were generous in their appraisal and awarded me the Bond Prize of one hundred dollars. I must confess, after forty-three years of public speaking on Commencement platforms and elsewhere, no organization has offered to pay me so handsome an honorarium. And so I have had no difficulty in preserving my amateur status. At Commencement Stanley was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa and took final honors in philosophy and history—a brilliant record, particularly when it is considered that he had done in three years what it took his classmates four to cover. Some of the class statistics reported at the time are diverting. Fifty members used tobacco, and fourteen did not. Stanley's reply was, "Not so you would notice it!" Atwood was voted the man most likely to succeed in life, with Louis Cadieux a close second. King received six votes—a remarkable showing in view of the fact that he had been for so short a period enrolled with the Class of 1903. King was one of four men who acknowledged

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that they were "engaged," but this confession may have been jocular. He was politically a Republican and theologically a Congregationalist. He announced that he would spend the following year in a law office and that his life's work would be "Law." The Seniors in 1903 held their class banquet at the Massasoit Hotel in Springfield, with Stanley King among their number. He was with friends, and the members liked and respected him. Like Atwood and a few others, he had taken college seriously, as an opportunity for self-improvement, not as an end in itself but as a preparation for something more important. For him it was only another stage towards what he hoped might be success.

LAW SCHOOL AND BUSINESS

IN June, 1903, Stanley King, Bachelor of Arts, returned to Springfield with his Phi Beta Kappa key on his watch fob and his prize money in his pocket. Part of the ensuing summer he spent at Martha's Vineyard, which he had already learned to love; but in September he reluctantly obeyed Henry A. King's request that he settle down to study in his law office. Up to this time Stanley's career had been plotted, even in small details, by his affectionate but arbitrary father, and he had not felt free to make his own decisions. Hence about this phase of his life, when he yearned to be self-reliant but was kept dependent, there was an uncertainty which he tried later to forget. He believed that he was wasting precious time as a lawyer's clerk at a salary of four dollars a week; but there was no easy escape from his father's expressed wishes. Although filial loyalty had hitherto been a controlling factor in Stanley's conduct, he wanted to shake off the domestic chains just as soon as he could do so without a permanent rupture with his parents. For the next few months, then, King was "reading law" in the once familiar but then almost obsolescent tradition of Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, and other legendary figures of the legal profession. He did return to Amherst for the "Deke" initiation that autumn, and a few of his friends in the Class of 1904 came to visit him in Springfield. He lived at home with his parents,

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spent long hours in reading, and tried to be a dutiful son. He did, however, go out into what is called "society," where he was welcome, for he was a decidedly eligible bachelor, from a fine family and with excellent "prospects." Springfield's young ladies found him a pleasant addition to their circle. Lyman W. Besse, a prosperous retail merchant in Springfield, had five daughters and one son. With two of the daughters, Gertrude and Florence, Stanley had been acquainted in school, and while home on vacations from college he had often spent evenings at their home. Mr. Besse, about 1885, had built a large summer cottage at Oak Bluffs, on Martha's Vineyard, where Stanley occasionally was a guest. Gertrude Besse, the oldest daughter, who had been graduated from Vassar College in 1903, shortly afterwards became engaged to Richard Wells Foster, son of one of the Besse partners, who had received his diploma from Harvard in 1900. Later, however, he suffered a physical breakdown, and on September 1,1903, he died. During the following winter in Springfield, Stanley saw much of Gertrude; and by the next summer what is called in New England an "understanding" had been reached between them. She used her influence to persuade Stanley to leave his father's office and enroll at the Harvard Law School—a step to which Mr. King, for some reason, was opposed. For the first time Stanley, now twenty-one, disregarded his father's expressed desire, with the result that he was at last in most respects his own master. During the summer of 1904 Stanley accompanied his parents on a trip to the St. Louis Exposition and Yellowstone Park, and then, on his return, he matriculated at Harvard Law School and engaged a room at Dr. Edson's house, 20 Vare Street, in Cambridge. Recalling his experiences there, King wrote: When I attended the Harvard Law School, I roomed in a third-floor room in a private house in Cambridge, which had no heat whatever, not even a fireplace; and my landlady kept the door leading to the stairway to the third floor closed at all times so that no heat could

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possibly rise to my room and thus add to the expense of heating the first two floors. I was unable to keep water in a pitcher in the room, for it would freeze and break the pitcher, which would then be charged to me. True, it was a rugged mode of life in a New England winter, but I suffered no ill effects whatever, and I did not regard my life as a hard one. This was all very unlike the luxury of the "Deke" house at Amherst, but Stanley, although temperamentally no Spartan, had resolved to pay his way and therefore had to be economical in his expenditures. From time to time he tutored some of his less studious classmates, and he even for some weeks taught geography in a night class for postal railroad clerks. He made it clear that he wished to devote himself to his studies and avoid too engrossing social demands. Most of his time was spent at his books, either in the Law Library or in his cheerless room, and he even declined invitations from Amherst alumni, like Joe Eastman, who was then working at the South End House in Boston. Without becoming a recluse, he managed to isolate himself for one definite purpose, following a single track towards the mastery of the law. Among the Amherst men identified with Stanley's class in law school, the one whom he knew best was Arthur F. Ells, '02, who was later to be for many years Judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Errors in the same state and eventually, in 1951, was elected Chairman of the Amherst Board of Trustees. Still another was Clifford P. Warren, '03, a Springfield boy who preceded Stanley by one year to Amherst but was graduated in the same class, also as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. With Warren, who had a keen mmd and a gift for witty speech, Stanley had much in common, and the two were later to be closely associated in business. The member who achieved the greatest distinction was Felix Frankfurter, the Austrian lad who came to this country at the age of twelve, was graduated from the College of the City

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of New York in 1902, before he was twenty, became a professor in Harvard Law School, and crowned his brilliant career by being appointed in 1939 as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Describing him as he was in law school, Stanley wrote: He knew, I suppose, every man in his class. He was a steel spring, always in tension. He did his own work; he helped others with theirs, he had endless time for conversation, he slept little, and then only when there was nothing else to do, and his marks were somewhere in the stratosphere. No one in the class that I knew had so wide a vocabulary; no one was more fluent in classroom discussion. . . . Felix's name is, I suppose, better known throughout the country than that of any other member of the Class or than that of any other member of the Court. Those of the Class who are practising lawyers doubtless hold divergent opinions as to Felix's judicial opinions. But we are all proud to count him as a personal friend. He seems . . . to be one of the significant figures of our generation in this country. King and Frankfurter were later to be thrown together occasionally, first in Washington during the First World War and later at the Camp on Martha's Vineyard; and in 1940 it was Stanley's great pleasure to confer on his brilliant classmate and friend the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Amherst College. By special permission and in recognition of his year of study in his father's office, Stanley was allowed to join the Class of 1906 a year late. Christopher D. Langdell, who had been made Dean of the Harvard Law School in 1870, at the opening of President Eliot's administration, had retired eight years before, and the Dean in 1904 was the gifted James Barr Ames, who had been on the Law Faculty since 1877. Under him during his first year King took a course in Equity II, receiving a final mark of 80. The other courses which he pursued that year were Trusts, also with Ames; Evidence, with Eugene Wambaugh; Agency, with John Chipman Gray; and Property II, with Joseph Henry Beale, Jr. His recorded grades were 79 in Trusts, 75 in Evidence,

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78 in Agency, and 69 in Property, and his general average for the year was 75. To King, accustomed to much higher numerical marks from the Amherst professors, this record seemed at first distressingly low, but in Harvard Law School it placed him near the top of his class, and in due course he received the honor of election to the Harvard Law Review, a certain guarantee that he had met stiff competition successfully. For his second year, his courses, with his teachers and his grades, were as follows: Torts Conflicts Corporations Bills and Notes Sales

Jeremiah Smith Joseph Henry Beale, Jr. Edward Henry Warren Joseph Doddrige Brannan Samuel Williston

85 74 80 76 67

Stanley's contemporaries in the Law School formed a high estimate of his ability and promise. They speak of his "agile, penetrating mind," his direct method of approaching a legal problem, his impatience with verbiage and technical jargon, his enthusiasm in discussion, his judgment in reaching logical conclusions. Although he was not assertive, he moved with coolness and self-assurance, forming his opinions with deliberation but maintaining them with vigor. In short, he was regarded by both faculty and students as one of the ablest men in his class. At the end of a little more than a year and a half at the Harvard Law School, Stanley passed the examinations for the Massachusetts Bar and was formally admitted to practice law in the commonwealth. Then came what looked like disaster! He had some muscular difficulty with one of his eyes, and was not for some weeks allowed to read. He continued to attend lectures, memorizing as best he could what was said by the professor and thus acquiring a habit of concentration and summarization which was to be of much value to him in later life. The examiners at the end of the year gave him oral instead of written

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examinations, and he finished his course with credit, standing among the top eight. He was not entitled to a law degree, having completed only two years of residence instead of the prescribed three; but the authorities did grant him the degree of Master of Arts. Fortunately an operation early in the summer was successful and the trouble with his eyes cleared up, never to return. Although Stanley never practiced law professionally, he was always glad that he had taken the course at Harvard, for the knowledge and experience there acquired were to be useful to him both as business executive and college president. Later, on the Amherst Board of Trustees, he was able to argue with lawyers and judges on matters of statute and precedent and hold his own. Like most of his classmates, Stanley set out in the spring of 1906 to find a job. He had thought of returning to Springfield and taking over the office of his father, who had recently been made City Solicitor, and Henry A. King would have been pleased to have him do so. Before reaching a decision, however, he called on several of the better-known Boston firms and was formally interviewed. He received offers from all but one, but in each case he would have had to work for the first year without a salary except for a present of $100 at Christmas and "costs" in any case won by the firm in which he had assisted in the preparation. Stanley, who wished to get married, was somewhat discouraged by the low salary prospects, especially since no one of his friends in the class had received any more lucrative offer. One morning, however, his classmate Francis W. Bird (known to his friends as Bill) asked him whether he would be interested in a somewhat unusual business opportunity. It seemed that William H. McElwain, President and chief owner of W. H. McElwain Company, manufacturers of shoes, was looking for a man with legal training to come into his office as legal ad-

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viser. With a letter of introduction in his pocket, King called on Mr. McElwain, at 346 Congress Street, in Boston. He found there a large-framed, kindly man, a little under forty years of age, with gentle eyes, a soft voice, and a disarming smile— not at all the type usually associated with "big business" and certainly neither gruff nor dictatorial. Each man was pleased with the other, and terms were quickly agreed upon. Stanley had already been invited by his family to spend the summer in Europe, and McElwain was quite willing to have him begin work on September 1. F e w men are entirely self-made. Most leaders, it will be found, have learned much from their elders, studying their methods and philosophies and profiting by both their accomplishments and their mistakes. Stanley King always acknowledged gratefully his indebtedness to McElwain, who was one of the most enlightened and progressive manufacturers in this country; and McElwain, in his turn, owed much to Louis D. Brandeis, the brilliant Boston lawyer who ended his career on the Supreme Court bench. McElwain's life is a perfect American success story, like that of Silas Lapham in fiction and Henry Ford in fact. Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, February 11, 1867, the son of a Baptist clergyman, he left high school at the age of sixteen and obtained employment with George H. Burt, a shoe manufacturer, as order boy and office clerk, at a salary of $100 a year. In the traditional fashion of the industrious apprentice, McElwain rapidly mastered the details of the business and became the head salesman. In 1894, with a capital of $10,500, part of it borrowed, he bought a small factory in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and opened a shoe factory of his own. Having discovered for himself certain principles of scientific management, he perfected the technique of quantity production at a moment when it was becoming popular and was soon turning out shoes to sell at two dollars a pair. Because the stock in

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the company was controlled from the beginning by himself and his active associates, he was free from the perils of financial manipulation. Before many years had passed, he had built up what came to be widely known as a model industrial organization. McElwain was enterprising and imaginative, always ready to take a calculated risk. As his sales expanded, he opened new factories; and for the year ending May 31, 1908, the production of his company reached 5,716,955 pairs of shoes, the largest output of any shoe company in the United States. In 1902, when his employees resisted a wage cut, he consulted Brandeis, who pointed out that the workers, although apparently receiving high wages, lost many working days during slack times. Brandeis suggested that this irregularity of employment was quite unnecessary and advised McElwain to make out a schedule for many weeks ahead and ask the salesmen to get their orders in earlier. McElwain had the wisdom to profit by this advice, with the result that what had been regarded as a seasonal industry ceased to be intermittent, and the employees were more contented because their annual wages were not diminished. Ultimately McElwain developed what was called the "sheet system," based upon a searching analysis of every operation, and a time schedule was instituted calling for the maximum of production. When Stanley King met him first in 1906, McElwain had created one of the most efficient manufacturing plants in the world. Furthermore, understanding that he must win and retain the confidence and loyalty of his workmen, he tried earnestly to avoid possible misunderstandings and causes of irritation. He knew most of his employees personally, called them by their first names, and showed an interest in their welfare. Of him Brandeis once said: He worked for nobler ends than mere accumulation of wealth or lust for power. McElwain made so many advances in the methods and practices of the long-established and prosperous branch of in-

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dustry in which he was engaged that he may be said to have revolutionized manufacturing. He found it a trade; he left it an applied science. This, then, was the dynamic personality who offered Stanley King a job in the spring of 1906, thus not only starting him on the pleasant path to financial independence but also inculcating in him the social consciousness which was so evident in King's later career. With his massive body, vigorous manner, and contagious exuberance, McElwain looked and acted like a leader. One of his associates wrote, "There was about him a glow and freshness as though he had just emerged from a cold plunge." He inspired confidence and optimism in everybody within his range. In late June, Stanley set out for Europe with his parents and his fiancee, Gertrude Besse, on a trip which included Italy, Switzerland, France, and England and gave him a respite before settling down to routine work. When the travelers landed in New York in late August, King telephoned to Mr. McElwain at Northeast Harbor, Maine, and was promptly invited to come there for a week. During his visit the two men walked and swam and climbed mountains, living outdoors and getting well acquainted, learning one another's habits and partialities. When they returned to Boston after Labor Day, Stanley was assigned a desk in the President's office and sat in as an adviser on all important conferences. One of his immediate responsibilities was to pass on all leases of machinery from the United Shoe Machinery Company and to sign all new leases. At first the Shoe Machinery officials refused to accept Stanley's signature, demanding that of a recognized officer. When King reported this to McElwain, the latter replied, "Very well, that's easy to arrange!" On the following morning, Stanley was elected Secretary of the McElwain Company, after having been associated with it less than a month. The time had now come when Stanley, feeling that he was at

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last self-supporting, decided to get married. After some amusing and amicable discussion regarding the needs of a newly married couple, Mr. McElwain raised his salary to $2,200, effective on the date of their wedding, which took place in Springfield on December 12, 1906. Stanley recorded that at the time he owned $6,400 in stocks, all of which he promptly sold in order to invest in the second preferred stock of the McElwain Company. His income from this amounted to $600. In addition, his wife had an income of approximately $2,500 from a trust fund. Thus the young couple could count on $5,300 a year—a very comfortable income for that period. The bride and groom went to Virginia Hot Springs, but had been there only two days when Stanley received a telegram from Mr. McElwain directing him to proceed to Washington, make an appointment with Attorney General William H. Moody, and secure from him a ruling on an important business matter. The Kings at once packed their bags and took the train for the capital. That was the end of their honeymoon. In spite of Mr. McElwain's generous treatment of his employees, the labor leaders were greedy. While the Kings were still in Washington, a strike of lasters broke out in the company's Bridgewater plant, and McElwain summoned King back to Boston. Leaving his bride of a few days with her parents in Springfield, Stanley met with McElwain and Brandéis, who were resolved not to be intimidated. They sent him to Bridgewater as the emissary of the company, and he had his initiation as a negotiator. Deputies were sworn in, and a carload of toughminded southern Europeans were brought down from Manchester to act as strike breakers. Stones were thrown and knives were drawn, and King was more than once in bodily danger; but his cool carrying out of McElwain's instructions won the strike for the company, and the union leaders shortly signed a contract drawn up by Brandéis himself. King, then only twenty-three years old, made a lasting impression on Brandéis. His conduct

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also pleased his employers, who raised his salary to $2,500 and widened his authority. The aftermath taught Stanley a lesson in human relations. McElwain presented to his employees a proposal for effective communication between them and management and for the adjustment of disputes over factory conditions and wage scales. In explanation, he said, "I do not want to have any single individual in the factory feel that we ignore him at all. I would rather have every man feel that he has a perfect right to express his opinion in any way on any subject that we ask about or that he wants to consider." One of the labor representatives remarked later, "I feel that I was exceedingly fortunate in meeting Mr. McElwain, for he was one of those rare men whom to meet was an inspiration. He impressed one with the idea that to work hard was the greatest pleasure, and his intense application to whatever subject was under discussion, tempered with the kindest courtesy to an opponent, always sent one away feeling better for having been in his presence." The arrangement perfected at that time was in effect until after the First World War. In 1907, McElwain and his wife were living with their four children in Boston and owned a summer home at Northeast Harbor; after the wear-and-tear of a tense and hurried life, he was beginning to understand the value of leisure. Realizing that he was at a disadvantage as compared with college graduates, he now undertook to educate himself, with the advice of some of his younger associates who had enjoyed better cultural advantages. During the summer of 1907 he planned for himself an extended trip to Italy for the following winter and requested King to prepare for him a course of reading in Italian history, art, music, government, and religion. Stanley described what happened: I drew up two courses of reading, one a very complete and exhaustive course going into the subject in detail and including the most scholarly works on the subject, which extended over many volumes;

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the other a shorter course including perhaps half a dozen volumes, which I thought would be likely to appeal to a man who was as busy as Mr. McElwain. Without hesitation he said he wanted to go into the thing as thoroughly as possible, and asked me to order all the books which I had named in the longer course and have them shipped to Northeast Harbor at once. When I saw him at the end of the summer, he had read with great care and assimilated virtually all the books which I had sent down to him. His comprehensive grasp of the principles of Italian history and his apt comparisons of conditions there with conditions in this country showed the thoroughness with which he had undertaken the work. Unfortunately, William H. McElwain was never to take the trip which he had so carefully planned. The failure of the Knickerbocker Trust Company in October, 1907, accompanied by an acute business depression, placed him under an even heavier strain than usual, for he was resolved not to shut down his factories but to meet his financial obligations to the last penny. Just as he was emerging from the critical stage in his business, he was prostrated with an attack of what proved to be appendicitis. Before being taken to the hospital, he asked Stanley, as his personal attorney, to draw up a codicil to his will. While King was drafting this in another room, the other directors, including Mrs. McElwain, McElwain's brother, Frank (known in the office as "J- F")> and two Prescott brothers— Charles J. and Edward L.—came in for a conference with the Chief. William H. McElwain said to them, "I don't think anything is going to happen to me, but if I shouldn't come out of this, I believe that Stanley King should be elected to the Board in my place." To this they all agreed, without putting anything in writing and without King's knowledge. At the moment this seemed only a routine precaution, which not one of the five took very seriously. The diagnosis proved to be correct, the operation seemed to be successful, and in these days of antibiotics and improved medical care, McElwain would doubtless have made an uneventful recovery. For some

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reason, however, convalescence was slow, and finally, on January 12, 1908, the patient succumbed to an embolism. He was only a little over forty years of age, on the threshold of what promised to be a new and fuller life. Meanwhile Stanley had been having troubles of his own. T h e experience, unusual for him, is best described in his own words: I had my one and only breakdown in December, 1907. I was deeply disturbed by Mr. McElwain's illness, and was also carrying an unusual load of responsibility. On Christmas Eve at dinner with the family at my father's house I fell off my chair in a dead faint. When I came to, I was as weak as a child. The following morning the family called in the family doctor, a wise rough-spoken physician from the hill towns to the west. He looked me over carefully, sent the family downstairs, and then cussed me out as I have never been before or since. He laughed at my education in college and law school and said I had not learned the most fundamental lesson of all —the knowledge of my own limitations. He kept me in bed for a week and said if he was ever called to care for me again after a breakdown he would refuse to come. Fortunately Stanley's resilience brought about a rapid recuperation. Within a few days after William H. McElwain's death, he was duly elected a director and partner in the W . H. McElwain Company, before he was yet twenty-five years old. His associates suggested that profits be divided on the basis of one third to J. F. McElwain, one third to Charles J. Prescott, and one sixth each to E. L. Prescott and Stanley King. Commenting on this arrangement, Stanley remarked, "They were all much my senior in years, and had been with the company almost since its establishment. T h e y were very generous men." Just how generous they were he was soon to realize. His salary as Secretary was fixed at $3,500. For the first year following Mr. McElwain's death, his share of the profits amounted to almost $28,000. F o r the next year it was about $40,000, and in 1910 it rose to almost $50,000. From a worldly point of view he had surpassed any of his classmates.

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In estimating his debt to William H. McElwain, Stanley wrote in 1950: Mr. McElwain was forty years old when he died. Brandeis regarded him as the ablest business man in Massachusetts of his day. And Brandeis was in a position to make a competent judgment, for he had a wide acquaintance among business men and was an acute judge of men of affairs. I regarded Mr. McElwain as a teacher of the first rank. He did as much for me as he could have done for his own son. In fact I cannot think of anything he might have done for his son, if his sons had been older, that he did not do for me. I suppose he influenced my life more profoundly than any other man before or since, with the exception of my father. It was Mr. McElwain who oriented me towards business when all my previous life had been oriented towards a career at the bar. If I had not had my unusual experience in business, including my experience abroad in 1914-16, I would not have been invited to Washington in 1917. If I had not had an unusual experience in business, I do not think I would have been nominated for alumni trustee of the College in 1921. The Board at that time included a number of lawyers of distinction, it needed a relatively young business man. And if I had not been an alumni trustee, I do not think there is a remote possibility that I would have been seriously considered for the presidency—or, in fact, that I would have been competent to accept the challenge. As I look back over the half century, it seems to me that my decision in 1906 to accept McElwain's offer instead of going into a Boston law office was the most critical decision I ever made. It opened the door to the President's office in Amherst a quarter of a century later. Stanley King did not measure success in terms of money, and it had never been his ambition merely to get rich. Nevertheless, the fact that he did so rapidly acquire a competence was important in his life, for he was soon free from financial worries. He did not receive his share of the dividends of the company in cash. Under an agreement made by the directors with Louis D. Brandeis as executor of the McElwain estate, they applied all of their profits to the purchase of common stock of the company at par from the estate of William H. McElwain, who at his death owned all of the common stock, valued at approximately a

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million dollars. The cash income of the directors, however, soon began to increase under this agreement, for the common stock paid a cash dividend of 6 percent, if earned, before the distribution of profits to the partners. By the time all of the common stock owned by the estate had been bought up, Stanley had accumulated about $185,000 of the stock, at par. At the close of the First World War Stanley's investment in the McElwain Company had a book value of about $350,000. This was a large amount of capital, accumulated in a relatively short period and by a young man. But young though he was, Stanley gave a measurable quid pro quo; indeed he proved himself within a few months to be the most reliable member of the Board of Directors. Intuitively he "won friends and influenced people"; he had a gift for understanding and interpreting statistics; he knew when to make quick decisions and when to restrain his partners from rash action. He could dominate without offending, and was never hesitant, in a crisis, to seize the controlling power. The continuing prosperity of the company after Mr. McElwain's death was largely due to him. Their increased income enabled Stanley and Gertrude King to live about as they pleased, without being extravagant. After their marriage they settled for a few months on River Street, in Boston, but in 1908 they moved to 295 Beacon Street, at what was then the Hotel Royal. In 1909, Stanley bought a country residence at Sharon, Massachusetts, where they spent several months during relatively warm weather. A year or two later he purchased a property at 100 Pinckney Street which they occupied during the winter months. Three children were born to them: Richard, on February 3, 1913; Gertrude, named for her mother, on September 25, 1916; and Margaret, the youngest, on December 6, 1917. Shunted almost by fate away from the law, Stanley King had taken up an occupation which not only interested him but also called out his maximum powers of intelligence and concentra-

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tion. By good fortune he was thrown far earlier than most men into a position of importance and responsibility in the manufacturing field. When he was still a student in law school, he and his classmate Francis W. Bird had entered into a compact, promising each other that they would work hard for twenty years, accumulate a competence, and then turn to something entirely different—perhaps some form of philanthropy or public service. Bird died comparatively young, without having realized his hopes; but Stanley King retired from active business twenty years and six months after he had entered it. Long before that he had become a recognized leader in the world of industry.

EUROPEAN ADVENTURES

A L T H O U G H J. Franklin McElwain was only thirty-four years old when, in 1908, he became President of the W. H. McElwain Company, he had been associated for some years with his brother, William, and was familiar with manufacturing processes. With him as participating members of the firm were Charles J. Prescott, who was chosen Vice-President, and E. L. Prescott, his younger brother, who was named as Treasurer. Stanley King was elected as Secretary, but later held the position of Vice-President. Deprived of the dynamic leadership of W. H. McElwain, these younger men shrewdly formed a team, which divided and specialized responsibility. Because of their greater practical experience, J. Franklin McElwain and Charles J. Prescott assumed much of the control, McElwain doing most of the buying, selling, and styling and Prescott taking charge of factory methods. Another colleague, W. L. Shaw, took over much of the labor planning and piecework setting. King naturally attended to the legal end of the business and participated in all the policy discussions. One of his first tasks with the W. H. McElwain Company had been a careful study of the leases with the United Shoe Machinery Company, and as time went on every contract, indeed every important legal document, passed under his scrutiny.

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J. Franklin McElwain, known to his friends as Frank, was aware that Stanley did not care to devote himself to the details of factory management and saw to it that his developing talents were employed for more special purposes. Office routine would have cooled the ardor which was one of King's engaging and principal assets. Interested though he had become in manufacturing as an occupation, he had no intention of allowing himself to be completely absorbed in humdrum duties. He shortly was chosen a director of the Boston Chamber of Commerce and served on several of its important committees, thus becoming a public relations man for his firm. While Stanley was mastering the problems of the shoe manufacturing business, the W. H. McElwain Company was prospering. It was enlightened in its labor relations and watched out for the welfare of its employees, establishing policies which set a high standard for its competitors to follow. Year by year the balance sheets showed profits which placed it in the forefront of shoe manufacturers the world over. Furthermore, its management was constantly on the lookout for higher efficiency in production and new and broader markets. In the summer of 1910 Stanley made his first business trip abroad. He had gone to Europe three times before on purely vacation expeditions, but now he was sent by his company to purchase, if possible, a cargo steamer in Scotland. With him traveled his wife and her brother, Arthur Besse. What ensued was a fine illustration of King's capacity to meet new situations. Knowing nothing whatever about ships, he had consulted in advance a Professor of Naval Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had read many of the authoritative treatises on that complicated subject. By the time he arrived in Glasgow, he had mastered the technical vocabulary well enough to be able to converse intelligently with the professional engineer whom he had engaged. While his wife and her brother were touring Scotland, he made arrangements to take over the

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construction contract for a cargo vessel then being built on the Clyde. After the negotiations had been satisfactorily completed, he joined Gertrude and Arthur for a short automobile trip through Brittany. This happy combination of business and pleasure was something Stanley always very much enjoyed. Stanley's resourcefulness was displayed again in 1913, when the W. H. McElwain Company bought in Nova Scotia a tract of timber land on which were located eight miles of railroad track used to transport logs down to the sawmill in which they were converted to box shooks. This little spur track was not automatically included in the purchase of the forest territory. Although Stanley was not a woodsman and was only slightly interested in hunting and fishing, he did enjoy adventure of any type; accordingly he agreed to accompany Charles J. Prescott on a trip for the inspection of the property. The two men, wearing khaki clothing with heavy woolen stockings, looked as tough as any lumberman, and each carried a heavy pack. Stanley underwent the minor privations of life in the woods without complaint and even showed himself tireless at climbing mountains. On his return, King recommended the acquisition of the railroad, and it was shortly added to the properties of the W. H. McElwain Company. When Joseph B. Eastman was Interstate Commerce Commissioner, Stanley told him the story in humorously exaggerated language. "You may think you have some control over railroads, and I guess you do," he said to Joe, "but I once bought a railroad, tracks, engine, and all!" As their business grew, the McElwain associates were eager to expand their European connections, and Stanley was obviously the partner to represent their interests overseas. In the autumn of 1913 he went abroad by himself to sell to J. Sigle & Co., of Stuttgart—the second largest shoe manufacturer in Europe—the right to produce and use a patented process for the making of leatherboard. Of the four Sigle partners, only one spoke any English, and an interpreter whom they had en-

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gaged proved unreliable when technical language had to be employed. As we have seen, Stanley had had four years of German in school and more in college and did not lack in assurance. He described in his own words what happened next: The Sigles at my request brought in a shoe cut open from toe to heel. I pointed out each separate part, wrote down the English word and beside it the German word. Then I made a technical vocabulary of the necessary terms describing the process and the machinery and set down the German word after the English word. That afternoon I memorized my technical vocabulary. That night I dined with the senior partner and went to the theater with him. And the next morning I entered upon the negotiations in German. During the next week, Stanley was able to discuss matters with the German partners, using their own language. His grammar was not faultless, but he was sufficiently fluent, and he made himself understood by gestures when the words gave out. The transaction was completed to the satisfaction of both parties. As a dramatic and entertaining raconteur, Stanley could be relied upon to make the most of even a minor episode, and in his repertoire were many stories which he loved to relate in his library after dinner. He liked to tell how Herr Sigle, after the sale had been made, requested him to escort his pretty daughter, Hedwig, to England, where she had been invited to spend a month as the guest of a schoolmate. The trip had embarrassing possibilities, for the relationship between the handsome young American and his charming German companion could easily be misinterpreted. They had to spend one night at Ghent, where they arrived at midnight, and avoided being assigned the same bedroom only because Stanley was willing to sleep on the billiard table. They reached the Savoy in London very late on the following evening, and Stanley again had to spend several minutes explaining matters to the room clerk. Although the girl played her part very well, Stanley was much relieved when he could turn her over to her English hosts.

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On Monday morning, June 29, 1914, Stanley King, returning to his office after a week end at Martha's Vineyard, read in the Boston Herald the news of the assassination in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria, heir to that imperial but conglomerate throne. The story was dramatic but not particularly disturbing to Americans, who little realized that the incident in a far-off Balkan city was to set in action a train of events from which our civilization is still suffering. The Kings, with their first child, Richard, were living at their home in Sharon when, on August 1, the Germans mobilized their troops, thus bringing France and England into the conflict. The mood of the United States since the SpanishAmerican War of 1898 had been hopeful of a possible millennium, but as Quincy Howe has said, "It took just two revolver shots to bring those dreams to an end." That early summer of 1914 was a period of relative prosperity in the United States and of record crops and glorious weather in Europe. Winston Churchill, in his book The World Crisis, remarked nostalgically, "The old world in its sunset was fair to see." Certainly the King family had no ground for complaint. From 1914 on, however, confusion was to be the common state of most of mankind, although how bad conditions were to become not even the most gloomy pessimist could have predicted. With the consecutive declarations of war, all American trade with the belligerent countries was immediately curtailed; and the McElwain Company, which for years had been operating on a steady production schedule in good times and in bad, found that its orders had dropped 50 percent. Representing himself and his partners, Stanley at once approached the embassies and consulates of Great Britain, France, and Belgium, offering the facilities of his company for the manufacture of military boots, only to be informed everywhere that they had adequate supplies at home. On a morning in October, J. Franklin McElwain called an emergency meeting to consider the situation.

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The senior members had nothing constructive to suggest; but King, when his turn came to speak, stated that in his judgment the productive capacity of the warring nations was not sufficient to meet the inevitable heavy demands for shoes and recommended that someone be sent abroad at once on a scouting expedition. Mr. McElwain saw at once the importance of this maneuver and asked, "Well, Stanley, could you sail on the next steamer?" King replied, "I think that I can get ready," and everybody in the room applauded. "It's no sacrifice for me," he added, "I'll be glad to have another adventure!" Things then moved very fast, for the next available boat, the Lusitania, was sailing from New York on Tuesday, October 14. Because Stanley wished Gertrude to accompany him, arrangements had to be made with his mother in Springfield to take care of his infant son during the few short weeks that they expected to be away. Hastily secured passports arrived by special courier from Washington just half an hour before the vessel sailed. Their party included five other people: Mr. Herman Trull, General Superintendent of the McElwain factories, with his wife; Mr. J. H. Connor, Vice-President of the United Shoe Machinery Company; and two production experts from the McElwain firm. On board also, to Stanley's great delight, was Sir James Barrie. Although the Lusitania was blacked out every night, the voyage was comfortable and uneventful. On his arrival in London, Stanley engaged a suite in the Savoy Hotel and secured a secretary, Miss Eleanor Redwood. He had brought with him for emergencies five thousand dollars in gold, which he promptly placed in a safe deposit vault. He had then no idea that he would not be home for Christmas. A year and a half, crowded with excitement, went by before he returned to America. Stanley had letters of introduction to many top British officials, from whom he quickly discovered that the War Office would apparently be able to buy all the army boots it required

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from local and Canadian factories. While these fruitless investigations were being carried on, the Kings enjoyed a pleasant social life in London, having tea with Graham Wallas and dinner with Lord Eustace Percy—with whom Stanley established a firm friendship—and going often to concerts and the theater. They had Thanksgiving dinner with the journalist and lecturer S. K. Ratcliffe, and that evening saw a performance of Hardy's The Dynasts. They then proceeded to the continent, being welcomed at Stuttgart, Germany, by Stanley's friends, the Sigles. The little Sigle grandson, however, said to him, "I am going to shoot you." "Why?" inquired King. "Because you are making supplies for our enemies I" The Kings then moved on, without too many difficulties, to Berlin, where they met numerous Americans, newspapermen, bankers, and diplomats. His impressions of Germany at that moment were favorable, and he wrote his father, "German humanity, Prussian humanity, isn't very different from British when you get down to brass tacks. . . . The longer one stays the less one holds a brief for any side in this war." When he returned to England, he told of his experiences to the editors of the principal London newspapers at a dinner arranged by Ratcliffe, and his comments were widely quoted. It will be remembered that after the German repulse at the Battle of the Marne in September, and the subsequent capture of Antwerp on October 10, the Western Front had settled down to trench warfare, with the participants in a mood of indecision. In the United States there was as yet little support for intervention in an overseas war. On December 10, 1914, Stanley went to Liverpool to meet J. Franklin McElwain, who had come over at his request to review the situation. After some discussion, it was agreed that Gertrude King should return home, leaving Stanley to complete his mission. When she had sailed on the Franconia, King and McElwain undertook a trip to Paris, during which they had

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a dramatic adventure. When the travelers boarded their train at Victoria Station and Stanley showed his passport covered with notations in German script, he was escorted to a detention room and examined by a Scotland Yard officer. He had with him only an overnight case, but in his overcoat he was carrying a little bag containing about one hundred dollars in gold—which was contrary to the regulations. The English detective addressed Stanley in German, but the latter, too clever to reveal his knowledge of that language, shook his head and spoke in English. The officer then "frisked" Stanley very efficiently, running long needles through his bag at various points and carefully inspecting his toilet articles. When he insisted on looking through King's overcoat, the latter surreptitiously held the little bag of gold in the palm of his hand so that the officer could go through his pockets and search the hems, collar, and lapels. He found nothing to interest him in the coat, and Stanley replaced the gold in his pocket without its being discovered. "It was my first real encounter with a thorough inspection officer," he wrote, "and I had come off the winner. But I decided that I must be more careful in the future." For the next few weeks Stanley was almost constantly on trains, moving from one European city to another, conferring with government officials, showing the samples of army shoes which he had brought with him, and quoting prices. His life was busy, at times feverishly so, as it is recorded in his diary, and he sometimes had a dozen appointments in a single day. He was dealing with nations either at war or on the verge of it, and therefore unusually suspicious. Yet he was no conspirator, but just an American manufacturer trying to sell his company's products in foreign lands. His first extended trip was to Rumania, which he reached via Paris, Zurich, Vienna, and Budapest, finally arriving at Bucharest on January 19, 1915. He carried with him letters of introduction to Take Jonescu, the political leader, who helped

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him in approaching the War Office, and he was also assisted by one Captain Urechia, a reserve officer whom he had met in Paris and who was acquainted with the devious ways of politics in the Balkan states. Eventually Stanley secured a contract for the delivery of 200,000 pairs of army boots to be shipped direct to Saloniki, the Rumanian government agreeing to deposit the entire purchase price to Stanley's credit in Paris, to be released to him on delivery of the merchandise and its formal acceptance. It was a profitable contract for the W. H. McElwain Company and came at a moment when it was badly needed; this transaction alone would have justified King in taking the long trip. To the astonishment of his cynical European acquaintances, Stanley had not offered bribes or given presents to anyone. He explained: Roumania needed army boots; I was the only representative of an American manufacturer in the country; and the government representatives at all levels with whom I talked knew that I was a close personal friend of Take Jonescu, the leader of the opposition, who could ask embarrassing questions in Parliament. As soon as the business documents had been signed, Stanley felt free to pay his respects to the glamorous Queen Marie. At the appointed hour in the morning he appeared at the palace wearing full evening dress with white tie, all rented from the local counterpart of London's Moss Bros., and carrying a tall silk hat. The Queen entered the doorway of the reception room, with a great Borzoi on either side, her hands resting on their heads. The conversation, carried on in English, was easy and friendly, and at its close he agreed to carry back to America a longhand letter to Miss Helen Chamberlain, a classmate of Gertrude's at Vassar, through whom the audience had been arranged. Stanley tactfully asked Her Majesty for her signed photograph, which arrived for him by special messenger before he started back to Paris. This was only the first of five trips to Bucharest, during which

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Stanley became well acquainted with the Rumanian capital and even learned to carry on a conversation in the language. In completing the specifications of the contract there were some exasperating delays, due partly to political intrigue, and Stanley had to check the arrangements step by step. Finally, however, the money was placed to his account, and the boots were duly delivered and accepted. They were then placed, according to agreement, on a small freighter at Bordeaux and would presumably be unloaded at Archangel. "I doubt," confessed Stanley drily, "that the boots ever reached the Roumanian army." Stanley still kept his headquarters in London and was back there on February 4, but only for a few days. Soon he was off again on a trip which took him to Dijon, Lausanne, Turin, Zurich, and Schoenenwerd, where he was guided by Max Bally through his shoe factory, the largest of the kind in Europe. At this period he was very candid in sending back his impressions of political affairs to his family in the United States. From Zurich, on February 15, he wrote, "If Congress had spent two months in Europe it wouldn't let anything induce it to enter the war. I know very well I won't fight if we come in. My Lord, it would be criminal!" Two days later, after spending the week end in Stuttgart, he added, "The lies that are printed in Parisian, English, and even American newspapers about Germany are shameful. Any one who has been in this country since the war can't help feeling great sympathy for the German people in the wonderful way they take it." Until Germany undertook its ruthless submarine warfare, King's sympathies were rather more with that country than with Great Britain. Early March found Stanley in Italy, stopping briefly at Milan, Rome, and Naples. In Naples he took a long walk, observing the numerous shoe stores and noting in his diary the American products displayed there for sale. In Rome he visited St. Peter's and climbed to the ball at the top of the dome. He was told in Rome by a high government official that Italy was supplied

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adequately from her own factories with shoes, unless she should go to war—"Then she will buy in the United States." He found in Italy a strong anti-German sentiment, and the opinion was freely and hopefully expressed that the Italians would soon be involved. As he moved about, King had been more and more impressed by the desirability of securing Russia as a customer; but he had been unable to find anybody who had recently been in that country or could speak authoritatively about conditions there. Finally he called a meeting of his staff in London and suggested to his associates, Jim Tavares and Arthur Lawrence, that one of them should undertake a tour of investigation. Each one presented his respectful but sincere excuses. Then Stanley announced, "Gentlemen, I will volunteer!" When the point was raised that he would be deserting his wife and child, he cabled Gertrude, who replied that she would join him in Italy and accompany him to Russia. He was warned repeatedly and emphatically that it would be a dangerous expedition. Indeed, an American friend cheerfully wagered him ten guineas that he would not return alive. King accepted the challenge, but when a year later he was back in London and tried to collect his money, he found that his friend had died peacefully in his London flat. During the same period Stanley, although often uncomfortable and sometimes in danger, was not for one day incapacitated. Gertrude's boat, the Cedric, was held up at Gibraltar for nine days, while Stanley grew increasingly restless. At last it reached Naples on March 11, and Stanley came on to Rome to meet his wife. Within two days the Kings were en route for Russia and adventures which they were never to forget.

IN WARTIME RUSSIA

F O L L O W I N G their reunion in Rome, the Kings proceeded by way of Switzerland and Berlin to Copenhagen, on their journey to Russia. The ease with which they crossed borders in those days seems amazing. On the train from Berlin to the Danish frontier Stanley was approached by a gentleman whom he had met in the Balkans and who advised him in whispers to tear up any suspicious papers he might have and flush them down the toilet. This King was able to do, but unfortunately the inspector at the frontier discovered the small bag of gold which he had secreted in the tails of his morning coat. As a consequence, King was placed under arrest and might have been in danger of imprisonment if his friend had not talked with the chief inspector and explained the situation. Not until later was Stanley informed that his sponsor was actually a Danish manufacturer of high explosives for the German army and therefore in good repute with the secret police. Through his influence King was allowed to carry on with him all the "neutral gold" in his possession. Although the Kings arrived in Copenhagen at midnight in the midst of a blizzard, they were glad to be for a few hours in a country not at war, and the freedom from any form of constraint was very welcome. Next they moved on to Stockholm and from there by train to the northern end of the Gulf of Bosnia,

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where they hired a homemade sledge and, wrapped in fur coats and robes, were driven to the frontier station between Sweden and Finland. There Stanley met a railroad porter who had spent his boyhood in Michigan City, Indiana, and spoke English fluently. Continuing their frigid journey in a Finnish sleigh until they reached the railhead, they kept on across the border into Russia and finally, on March 25, arrived in Petrograd. It had taken them about twelve days of almost continuous travel from Berlin. On July 31, 1914, the Tsar, following the example of France, had ordered a general mobilization of five million men. Within a few weeks, however, German troops under General von Hindenburg had annihilated a huge Russian army in the Battle of Tannenberg, and the unwieldy Russian war machine had begun to break up. In the following February, both the Germans and the Austrians marched in force against the Russians, who managed to retreat in good order and for the moment were holding their own. Stanley King arrived in Russia while these withdrawal maneuvers were being executed. During the late spring of 1915, General von Mackensen broke through in the Carpathians, and the Russians suffered another colossal disaster. Against this tragic background of incompetence and failure, King's visit must be depicted. It was the Russia of 1915, so powerfully portrayed in Hugh Walpole's novel The Dark Forest, with its vacillating Tsar, its superstitious Tsarina, its contemptible and degenerate Rasputin, and its revolutionists always lurking in the shadows. It had mobilized suddenly with few rifles, few machine guns, little artillery, and almost no ammunition. Soon it was having to depend for its defense on its almost infinite supply of manpower and the vast open spaces to which it could retreat. No wonder that Russia's chief industrial leader said on June 2, 1915, "The days of Tsarism are numbered. Revolution is now inevitable!" During this period of indecision, corruption, and defeat,

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Stanley King was living in Russia, watching events, hoping to transact some business—for he had been told that Russian soldiers had no shoes—and constantly fascinated by a society more picturesque than any he had yet seen. He did not dare send his impressions back in letters, fearing that they might be read by the secret police, but afterwards he talked about them in a way which kept his American listeners in Boston and Sharon on the edge of their seats. The Kings brought with them, of course, letters of introduction and an adequate letter of credit. They were warmly received within a few minutes after their arrival by a Mr. Buckley, an Englishman who had spent most of his life in Russia and was ready with information and advice. He promptly invited them to dinner. Gertrude, completely exhausted, decided to go to bed, but the tireless Stanley donned his evening clothes and drove by fast sleigh to the Buckley apartment for dinner at midnight, in accordance with the Russian custom. From midnight until one o'clock the guests stood near the buffet and drank vodka, eating also vast quantities of zakuska, the Russian equivalent of hors d'oeuvres. Dinner, including many courses with an appropriate wine for each, lasted from one until three. The gentlemen then retired to the library, where they were served coffee, liqueurs, and cigars. At four they joined the ladies, but an hour later they all returned to the dining room, where supper was served from the buffet, with more vodka. At six in the morning, as the sun was rising, Stanley slipped inconspicuously away, but he learned later that the party continued for the others until late that afternoon. "Ever since," wrote Stanley, "I have had a great respect for the staying power of the Russians!" Stanley was in Russia primarily to sell shoes, and he lost no time in making the necessary approaches. Although he was always willing to combine pleasure with business, he did not allow caviar or vodka to divert him from his aim of securing

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contracts. He found a helpful friend in Charles Preston, a Massachusetts businessman who had lived a dozen years in Russia and spoke the language with fluency. Acting on his advice, King summoned to Petrograd a representative of the McElwain Company who brought with him from Boston samples of the latest models in military boots which could be used in talking to Russian officials. From one building to another Stanley moved, telling his story and quoting prices, always hopeful that he would get an order the next morning. But nobody seemed to feel in any hurry, authority was spread among various departments, and it was obvious that agents wanted the customary 5 percent, or more, in commissions. Finally King was forced to conclude that salesmanship, no matter how skillful, and pressure, no matter how strong and persistent, would accomplish nothing. He then settled down in a mood of watchful waiting, ready to seize an advantage when it appeared. But he was never able to secure a satisfactory contract. The Kings did have time, however, for amusement and pleasure. In early April they accompanied Lord and Lady French on an Easter trip to Moscow, in a private sleeping car supplied by the Russian government. With the others of the party they were the official guests of General Vorshtchak, the Commanding General of the Moscow District, and were entertained with regal courtesy and extravagance. Their social functions included an evening at the Moscow Art Theater, two performances at the opera, and the magnificent Easter service at the Uspenski Cathedral. The hospitality of the Russians was lavish, indeed almost unbounded, but King was frequently reminded that he was not living in an altogether free country. Shortly after his arrival in Petrograd, he came across John Reed, whom he had already met in the United States, and who had been sent abroad by the Metropolitan Magazine to describe the military operations at the front. In 1916 his reports were to be published in a book

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called The War in Eastern Europe. Reed at that period was an acknowledged Socialist, although not a Communist, and he was shadowed by the secret police wherever he went in Petrograd. The Kings invited Ernest Heyl, a young Hamilton College graduate who had come to Russia on business, to attend a popular concert and asked Reed to be a guest with him at dinner. When Heyl heard who was to be present, he declared that he would not sit down at the same table with a man under suspicion. King, with the resentment which he always displayed when he felt that anyone was being unjustly attacked, refused to recall his invitation to Reed. The outcome was that Reed came to the dinner and the concert, and Heyl did not. Then, as now, no one knew what might happen in Russia. On Independence Day, 1915, while Stanley was away in Bucharest, a group of Americans in Petrograd, including Heyl and Whiffen, of the Associated Press, went to one of the beaches for a patriotic all-day picnic. Naturally they talked and shouted in English, which was mistaken by some passing Russians for German. Soon a small detachment of troops marched up and placed the entire party under arrest. They were taken under military guard to Petrograd and locked up in the army prison. Fortunately Heyl was able to scribble a note and send it to the Assistant Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but not until the next morning were the unfortunate Americans released. By late spring Gertrude began to feel it unwise to remain away any longer from her small son and her home. In late June she went with Stanley on a business trip to Bucharest, where she too had an audience with Queen Marie. They returned to Petrograd on July 11, and ten days later Gertrude left, with Ernest Heyl and Mason, the McElwain representative, as companions. She was safely back in the United States in late August. At the Buckley dinner Stanley had been much impressed by a Russian engineer named Asancheyeff, a bachelor who lived in a comfortable apartment on the Islands, just across the Neva

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from the heart of the city. After Gertrude left, this apartment, with two servants, was offered to King, who gladly moved in. Stanley was puzzled at first how to communicate with servants who did not understand a word of his own language, but this problem was solved by Madame Stuart, a cultured and polyglot Russian lady. When King was completely perplexed, he telephoned Madame Stuart and explained to her in French what he wanted. She then called the maid and gave the necessary instructions in Russian. Not for long, however, was Stanley handicapped by ignorance of Russian. When he discovered that he was being "doublecrossed" by interpreters, he found a Berlitz School and arranged for private lessons in the language. He made rapid progress and within a few weeks was, if not proficient, at least able to make himself understood in ordinary situations; and at dinners he frequently astonished Russians by his acquaintance with their idiom. Before he left the country, he could converse acceptably in a party of four, although he needed some assistance when the conversation moved into politics or philosophy. Stanley's apartment was almost hermetically sealed, with double and triple windows, and the only fresh air which he could get was through a small diamond-shaped pane which he opened when he felt near suffocation. The maid, Tania, came in with his breakfast one morning, looked around and shivered from the draft, and then telephoned excitedly to Madame Stuart to explain that her employer had opened his window at night and would certainly die. Madame Stuart reassured the girl by answering, "The gentleman comes from a strange country far away, where the men look like Russian men and act in general like Russian men, but where they would certainly die unless they had some cold air in their bedrooms at night." Tania absorbed all this information with the placid, incredulous smile of the Russian peasant.

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At this period the Russian people were naturally on edge, for the German army was marching into their territory, and it was doubtful whether it could be defended. Timetables were ignored, and railroad connections were seldom kept. The hazards and complexities of a normal long rail journey were thus considerably multiplied. One such experience will show what sometimes happened. On a trip back from Bucharest to Petrograd, Stanley, finding at the border that no regular trains were running north and east, had to settle down in the primitive station and wait patiently for whatever transportation might appear. He spent the better part of a day improving his colloquial Russian by talking on religion with a priest outside his church. In the late afternoon he boarded a local train which carried him to Rasdyelnaya, on the main line between Odessa and Kiev. There he had no choice but to stack his luggage on the platform and make himself as comfortable as possible in the path of the cold wind blowing off the steppes. At two in the morning the fast express came along, but all the compartments were sold out, and the best King could do was to pile his suitcases in the corridor of the car before the engine left, and await developments. When the porter appeared, Stanley, with the nonchalance of the seasoned traveler, offered him a ten-ruble note if he would open his own compartment. After first declaring that this was against the rules, he finally accepted the donation, unlocked the room—which was packed with his own gear—and crowded Stanley and his belongings into the confined space. King sprinkled the usual disinfectant powder around him as a precaution, rolled up in his overcoat, and fell asleep in the lower berth. Early in the morning the porter unlocked the door and admitted into the compartment a Russian, with a brushlike beard, steely eyes, and a ferocious cast of countenance. He and Stanley ,had to sit side by side in the lower berth, the upper one being

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filled with the porter's possessions. The newcomer's only belongings consisted of a wicker basket, which proved to contain a teapot, a small canister of tea, a package of sugar, and at the bottom a revolver, which he showed proudly to Stanley, emptying the magazine to reveal that it was loaded with live ammunition. Once at a way station he beat on the door to attract the attention of the porter, who filled his teapot with hot water at the tap. Three times during the long day he emptied the shells from the revolver into the palm of his hand, on each occasion reloading and cocking the weapon and placing it by his side close to his hand. Having reached the conclusion that his companion was feeble-minded, King concealed his knowledge of Russian and was careful not to irritate him by word or action. On arriving at the metropolis of Kiev, Stanley found that the train north to Petrograd was being made up in the station but that all the accommodations had been sold out to refugees from the German advance. Indeed, the civilian population were in a panic, and it is probable that if he had gone out the gate into the city itself he might not have been able to escape from that area for a month or more. Through the judicious use of money King induced a porter to carry his luggage across the intervening track and load it on the waiting train, which was of the luxury type, tickets being sold only up to its capacity. When it pulled out, and the porter began to make up the rooms along the corridor, Stanley offered ,him ten rubles for the occupancy of a compartment, but he would not listen. Then two conductors came along and, hearing Stanley's explanation, broke into torrential expletives, in the .midst of which emerged again and again the word "Backmash." He did not understand its meaning, but a courteous Cossack officer who was listening explained that they had instructed the porter to put King off at Bakhmach, the first stop made by

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the express train. They would arrive there about two in the morning, and as the station was about twelve miles from the town, Stanley's situation was likely to be awkward. Fortunately a renewal of his offer to the porter brought a warmer response. Stanley was escorted to the end of the car, admitted to a compartment in which a Russian colonel occupied the upper berth, and locked in. When they were drawing near to Bakhmach, described by King as "an isolated station on the dreary Russian steppes," two employees appeared, evidently with orders to put him off, but Stanley feigned stupidity and the colonel took his part. Thus when the train left Bakhmach, he was still aboard. The next morning a German-speaking porter awakened him to announce that a car from Kharkoff had been attached during the night and contained a vacant first-class compartment. Without disturbing the cooperative Russian colonel, the porter moved King and his luggage to his more luxurious new quarters and even "lent" him, for twenty-five rubles, a ticket to Petrograd. The remainder of the trip was uneventful. The train was so full that the dining car served meals continuously, beginning at six in the morning. The Courier, Russia's crack express train, arrived in Petrograd twenty-four hours late. But the important fact for Stanley King was that he was on it! The date of his return to Petrograd was September 12, 1915. Meanwhile Preston had arranged to have his wife and small son return to Massachusetts and invited Stanley to occupy a suite with him at the Hotel de 1'Europe. Of the situation as he saw it in the early autumn, Stanley wrote: As the second year of the war wore slowly on, the tensions in Petrograd and doubtless in other large cities of Russia increased. And at the same time the restrictive measures imposed by government increased as a counter-check. One was not allowed to speak any language but Russian on the telephone. If one tried to speak English or French, one found oneself cut off. Rumors grew like weeds as the censorship clamped down more and more on news. . . .

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The American Embassy and the British Embassy were advising their nationals to leave the country unless they were detained by urgent business considerations. There was a strike in the Putilov Powder Works in Petrograd which employed some twenty thousand, as I recall. The Douma was in session, and a Polish member was a frequent guest at our apartment and kept us well informed. Our apartment was an inside apartment opening on the court. W e had two bedrooms, a bath, a comfortable sitting room, and a small hallway. Preston had brought his rifle, his shotgun, his revolvers, and his store of ammunition, for all of which he had permits. There was occasional shooting in the streets, and one did not go out in the evening unless it was necessary. The tension increased when an epidemic of cholera broke out in the city. Each day the papers carried a long list of the dead. W e became even more careful of our diet. W e ate no salads, no uncooked vegetables, no fish unless we had actually seen it caught, no uncooked fruit. Then the paper announced that a limited martial law was decreed in Petrograd, and General Russki, one of the leading generals at the front, was recalled and put in command of the Petrograd Military District. The American and British Embassies renewed their advice to their nationals to leave the country. Neither Preston nor I had a high opinion of our own Embassy staff, and we did not frequent the Embassy. W e were on intimate terms, however, with the Consul General of the United States, North Winship, whose ability we admired. Winship was at the time a bachelor with some private income, and he lived at the Consulate General. He invited us, if the city became too hot, to join him at the Consulate. Meanwhile we told him we preferred to sit it out in our own apartment at the l'Europe. There was not much business to be done, and we would attend to that in the morning. Afternoons we were in the habit of playing bridge in our apartment with Russian friends. And about five we would drop down to the English Club to say good bye to American or British friends who were leaving the country the next morning from the Finlandski Station on the one train a day out of Russia to Finland.

What had happened was indeed quick and melodramatic. The Putilov strikers sent a chosen committee to present their cause to the Duma, which the Tsar had prorogued for September 15. On the following morning every member of that

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committee, with his family, had vanished from the city—seized and sent off to Siberia. When violence developed on the streets and the police proved unequal to the occasion, troops were called out and fired on the strikers. T h e casualties were numerous, and the strike was soon broken. No wonder that Russia's exiled revolutionists in Switzerland and other neutral countries believed that their hour could not long be postponed! Even in such a crisis, however, the Russian people did not altogether abandon the pursuit of pleasure. Preston had a box at the races for the season; and King, although he had had little experience with horses and no criterion by which to predict their possible performance, frequently attended because he liked to see the crowds. One day as they were leaving the track a jockey gave Preston a "hot tip" for the following Saturday. When the afternoon arrived, neither Preston nor King could go, but they asked their room waiter at the hotel to take time off and place their bets. He returned just before dinner with his pockets filled with ten-ruble notes. T h e horse had paid off a hundred to one. Evidently no one else had placed a bet on that animal. The two Americans celebrated with a Lucullan dinner, and some weeks later, when he reached Paris, Stanley spent the remainder of his winnings at Charvet's, ordering a full suit of evening dress, a morning suit of blue oxford, and three lounge suits, as well as shirts, cravats, and underclothes. It is a tribute to both his tailor and his figure that he was still wearing the dress suit up to the close of his life. He attended only one other horse race during his trip to Europe. "That," he commented, "was in Rumania, and was very dull!" Despite some minor annoyances and the prevailing tension, Stanley had enjoyed his stay in Russia and had liked many of the Russians whom he had come to know. With his business perspicacity he recognized that it was a country with enormous undeveloped resources. Although he realized that he probably could not remain there through the war, he had seriously con-

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sidered building a manufacturing plant with funds supplied equally by Russians and Americans, and had even gone so far as to secure options on a site for his factory. His plan was to spend half of the year in Russia and half in the United States. He had become familiar with the Russian language and customs —so much so that he could make his way almost anywhere without difficulty in that country. Unfortunately, internal conditions in Russia in the autumn of 1915 were so unsettled that nobody was planning for the future. As the disorders became more violent, Stanley decided to leave by the Trans-Siberian railway for Vladivostok and board a ship for San Francisco. Then unexpected business complications made it essential for him once more to visit Bucharest. To get there was relatively easy, he thought, for by this time the border inspector knew him well and called him "Mr. American." The really serious problem was how to get out of Rumania. On Sunday, October 17, Stanley entered in his diary, "Left Petrograd in International Sleeper with whole compartment to myself at 9 : 4 5 P.M., on Sebastopol Courier Express." He had cleaned up his business affairs, not hurriedly but deliberately, leaving instructions with friends to cover any contingency. Before he departed, Mrs. Buckley asked him as a personal favor to carry with him a letter to her mother, who lived in Vienna. Although it was written in German and dealt only with family matters, her husband begged King not to undertake this mission and warned him that, if he were caught, he might find himself in serious difficulties. Stanley, however, had already given his promise and proposed to stand by it. In Kiev, where Stanley stopped long enough to pay a farewell call on some friends, the Peter Pierces, Mr. Pierce asked him to take a letter to his American chief, the head of the Standard Oil Company of Bulgaria. When Stanley first read the contents, he refused to be the messenger, but when Pierce rewrote it, King agreed to cooperate. He then proceeded to Odessa,

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which he not yet visited, and after a few hours of sight-seeing in that fascinating Black Sea city, boarded the train for Ungeni, the frontier station with which he was so familiar. There he found that the head inspector and the subinspector, both of whom he knew, had been transferred to other posts. The situation was embarrassing, for Stanley had not only two letters addressed to people in enemy countries but also a large number of personal papers, all in English and sure to arouse curiosity if not suspicion. Moreover, concealed in his suitcase was a supply of rubles larger than the regulations permitted. King noticed, to his dismay, as he watched the luggage queue, that the inspections were very thorough and that some of the passengers were even being led away to be searched. Thinking that he might flush the letters down the toilet, he asked permission of a guard to go to the washroom, but his request was peremptorily denied. There was no place where he could possibly dispose of the letters without being suspected. Stanley continued the story in his diary: I looked around the room where I was. There was literally no place in the room where I could conceal anything. I was in a very large goldfish bowl where everything I did was visible from every angle. It was too late now to destroy the letters; it was too late to get rid of them. It was dangerous even to take them out of my pocket, for there were inspectors all around, and I could not watch them all. It was a tough spot, and I saw no way out. Among the passengers waiting their turn was a captain in the uniform of the Serbian army. To pass the time I moved over to where he was standing and engaged him in conversation. We managed to get along in French, in which we were about equally poor. He told me that he had come to Russia to pick up about a score and a half of Serbian reservists and was escorting them back to Serbia to join the Serbian army. I offered him a cigarette and we went on talking. Presently the new inspector walked by, and the Serbian captain addressed him, told his story, and asked if the chief inspector wished all the baggage of the thirty or more Serbians opened up for inspection. The chief replied, "Not at all, you are good friends of ours.

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I will mark your baggage myself without detailed examination." Just then the chief inspector noticed me as I was standing beside the Serbian captain with my baggage open. "Are you a Serbian?" he asked. I wanted to say yes. What I did say was, "No, Mr. Inspector, I am not a Serbian. I am an American who has been in Russia to offer American supplies to your War Ministry." He looked at me for a moment, and I knew that my fate was hanging on a slender thread. Then he smiled and said, "You are a good friend of ours too. I will mark your baggage without looking at it." He did—and I breathed my first long breath. It was another hour before we were released from the shed, for all the other passengers had to be checked with care. I took out a large box of cigarettes and treated all the Serbian reservists. I invited the Serbian captain and any reserve officers in the group to be my guests at dinner that night in the Roumanian dining car. The time passed without incident. Our passports were restored, and porters carried our baggage out to the waiting Roumanian train. The train moved out of the station and crossed the bridge. We were out of Russia and in Roumania. Our dinner that night on the dining car was as gala an affair as as I could make it. With plenty of wine the Serbian officers relaxed and sang one Serbian song after another. They offered to take me with them on their dash by car from Bucarest to the Iron Gates in their effort to reach Serbia before the jaws of Nlackensen's nutcracker closed completely. It was the kind of adventure that appealed to me, particularly in the reaction I felt in getting out of Russia without trouble at the frontier. But I had to spend at least one day in Bucarest, and the Serbians were not planning to spend an unnecessary minute there. I had to decline. Stanley's planned "one day in Bucarest" lengthened into two weeks, for more business had to be transacted and more contracts had to be signed. In his free time he called at government offices, had tea and dinner with friends, and watched with interest the suppression of several popular demonstrations. He recorded in his diary, "Troops everywhere—impossible to get within two blocks of Royal Palace or German Embassy, on any side—Athenee Palace within zone and impossible to get to hotel." The American minister was so fascinated by the story

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of Stanley's experiences in Russia that he offered to make him a courier to carry the State Department pouch from Bucharest to Paris, with all the privileges which that distinction included. Before departing, King received from the minister the pouch, together with a formal appointment in English, with accompanying translations in French, German, and Hungarian. As a courier, he was entitled to special consideration all along the route. On the night trains he was to have a special car with compartments with special locks, and this car was always to be at the rear end of the train in charge of a special conductor. In fact, all his treatment was to be "special." King's route and schedule had been made out by the American legation, and he was expected to follow it without deviation. On the second night he was supposed to be at the Hotel Bristol, the best hotel in Vienna, but the manager declared that it was full. Stanley then explained that, as courier, he was required to spend the night in that hotel, even if he sat up in the lobby. After inspecting his pouch and credentials, the manager inquired when Stanley wished to retire. The hour of eleven was finally agreed upon, and as the clock struck he was escorted to his quarters by the night porter. He found that a large double bed had been set up behind a temporary screen in the Imperial Ball Room, which was hung with oil paintings and resembled a museum. He was so tired that he slept soundly, and the next morning found that he was charged only the courier rate of $1.80 for the night. He arrived in Paris without any further incident, delivered the pouch at the American Embassy, and resumed his status as a private citizen. He reached London on November 11, 1915. Meanwhile Stanley had cabled to his wife, who arrived in Bordeaux, on November 16, on the Rochambeau. He returned with her to Paris, where he spent the next few weeks rounding up his business with the Rumanian government. On Thanksgiving Day the Kings had turkey with cranberry sauce at Ciro's

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and saw Cyrano de Bergerac in the evening. On December 21, he wrote in his diary, "Considering going home next week— first time for a year that I have thought of immediate possibility of returning." On Christmas Day he took a long walk, visited the Invalides, attended morning Mass at the Madeleine, slept all the afternoon, and dined at the Meurice. The two went back to London on December 29, and Stanley recorded, "Dinner Carlton—everybody in evening dress—loads of champagne— do they feel the war?" They sailed from Falmouth, January 6, 1916, on the Nieuw Amsterdam, and a week later were back in Boston, where Stanley reported to his partners and saw his son after an absence of eighteen months. He never returned to the Balkans or to Russia.

ON DUTY IN WASHINGTON

A s A TRAVELER in Europe during the confused early stages of the gradually widening conflict, before national ambitions and aims had been fully disclosed, Stanley King had wavered in his attitude towards Germany, being at first rather sympathetic with the German people, but later, when the Kaiser's ruthless policies became evident, much more critical. He came back to an America which was pro-Ally in sentiment and consequently supporting preparedness measures. By January, 1916, when the Kings had settled down again in Boston, the German General Staff knew that their gamble on a quick, decisive victory had failed. On Christmas Day, 1915, General Falkenhayn, the Supreme Commander, had warned the Kaiser that a long war of exhaustion was ahead unless they pressed for immediate success. Accordingly the military strategy was altered. The major effort of the Central Powers was transferred from East to West, and on February 21 the Germans opened the bombardment of Verdun. The ensuing ebb and flow of battle was costly for both sides. The French, defending their own territory, upheld the defiance of their war cry, "lis ne passeront pas!," but the casualties were terrific, and civilians as well as combatants suffered in a combat on a scale never before known on this planet. Meanwhile President Wilson had notified the Germans of

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their "strict accountability" if they resumed unlimited submarine warfare; and the inexcusably stupid sinking of the Sussex on March 24, 1916, led him to send such a strong message that the German government agreed to modify its underseas campaign. The passage by Congress of the National Defense Act, followed in August by implementing legislation, indicated the national mood and trend of thought. During the autumn the presidential election occupied the minds of most American citizens, many of them casting their ballots for Wilson because of the feeling that he had "kept us out of war." But they were also behind him when he felt constrained, in January, 1917, to break off diplomatic relations with Germany. In early April came the American declaration of war, the culmination of a long succession of provocations. Before this action was taken, Stanley King was enlisted in the service of his government. Clifford P. Warren, a Springfield boy three years older than Stanley, had been a classmate of his at Amherst and later at Harvard Law School, and had then become a practicing lawyer in Boston with the firm of Colby & Bayley. In 1910 King had induced him to join the W. H. McElwain Company, and when he realized how long he might have to remain in Europe, he arranged to have Warren made Acting Secretary of the Company and take over his responsibilities as legal adviser. Warren had a keen mind and sound judgment, and more than once in the months ahead he stepped in while King was absent in Washington. The two men, with much the same background, worked admirably together. With a confidence enhanced by his European experience, Stanley resumed his business duties in Boston. His reputation for breadth of vision and fair-mindedness had been established in 1914, when the Ladies' Dress and Waist Industry in Boston appointed him as an impartial arbitrator, without pay, to settle a controversy, or controversies, between about fifty manufacturers of women's garments on the one hand and a strong, well-

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organized union on the other. King had been accepted without question by both parties to the dispute, although the relations between manufacturers and employees had been so strained that it was difficult for them even to confer together on problems which concerned them both. In this instance King had been able to work out a satisfactory agreement. The year 1916 was one in which King came to know well Frederick W. Taylor, now generally regarded as the father of scientific management in this country. He even visited Taylor at his home outside of Philadelphia and spent hours listening to the latter's progressive theories. Stanley brought these doctrines back to his associates in the McElwain Company, which had always been one of the most enlightened in New England, and his opinions considerably affected its policies. King maintained then, and later, that the best guarantee of maximum production is a group of contented workers, and he offered some tentative suggestions regarding profit-sharing. The war unfortunately compelled him to postpone further steps in this direction, but he had become known as an industrialist with liberal views. As early as December, 1915, President Wilson had urged upon the Congress the "creation of the right instrumentalities by which to mobilize our economic resources in any time of national necessity." When the Army Bill was passed in August, 1916, Wilson promptly set up a Council of National Defense, headed by the Secretary of War and including not only five other members of the cabinet but also seven men with expert knowledge in special fields. When he appointed them, the President made it clear that their duty was to unite the forces of the country "for the victories of peace as well as those of war." But everybody knew the danger for which he was preparing. Stanley watched closely what was going on in Washington. At the first meeting of the Council of National Defense on December 6, 1916, Walter S. Gilford was chosen as Director; but

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it was not until February 13, 1917, at a meeting of all the members, that the Council was divided into committees, with Supplies, including food, clothing, and other army needs, assigned to Julius Rosenwald, then President of Sears, Roebuck & Company. As his first assistant Rosenwald named Charles Eisenman, a retired shirt manufacturer from Cleveland, Ohio, a middle-aged gentleman with a high sense of public duty. King later described Rosenwald as a "big-hearted, generous, courageous—and very obstinate man." In late February, shortly after this meeting, King received a letter from Rosenwald, requesting him to call on him when he was next in Washington. This was all the encouragement Stanley needed. On the following morning he was in the capital, where he found that his law school friend, Felix Frankfurter, who had since, in 1914, become a professor in Harvard Law School, had recommended him to Rosenwald. After an interview of only half an hour, King agreed to serve with Rosenwald on the Committee on Supplies. He readily made arrangements with his associates in the McElwain Company for a leave of absence on government duty. As events turned out, he was to be kept busy in Washington until months after the war was over. Furthermore, his associate, J. Franklin McElwain, was shortly to become Chairman of the Shoe and Leather Supply Committee under the National Council of Defense. At first everything was confusion. As Rosenwald was obliged to be in Chicago most of the time, the task of organization fell on King and Eisenman. Congress had made a small appropriation for the expenses of the Council—just about enough for the rental of offices, equipment, and secretarial help. Quarters were found in the Munsey Building, and Stanley, at his request, was assigned a stenographer whose spelling and punctuation turned out to be atrocious. For an efficient executive like Stanley the situation was intolerable. As the business piled up and his letters continued to be disgraceful, he telegraphed his former secre-

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tary, Miss Catherine Smith, who had taken a position with Miss M. Carey Thomas, President of Bryn Mawr College. She secured a leave of absence for the duration of the war and remained with King in Washington until his office was closed. He sent the incompetent stenographer back to the Civil Service Commission without a recommendation. It soon developed that King's business was to be carried on largely with the Quartermaster General of the War Department and the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts of the Navy Department. Under Rosenwald's instructions, the Committee followed Sears, Roebuck methods, going directly to producers and manufacturers and refusing to deal with middlemen. The result was that retailers became antagonistic, and Eisenman in particular was the target of many attacks, some of them instigated by Congressmen. It should be added, in this connection, that Rosenwald would not permit Sears, Roebuck to sell any goods to the army or navy, or in any way to profit by his relationship to the Council of National Defense. Before very long King found himself involved in an acrimonious dispute. The Quartermaster General, Henry G. Sharpe, a well-meaning, estimable gentleman, had made a fine record in the old army but was a little overwhelmed by the unprecedented expansion which was occurring, and welcomed civilian assistance. Brigadier General Abiel L. Smith, directly under him, was an officer of a different and difficult temperament— slow-moving, suspicious, jealous of his authority, and "set in his ways." With him King had a frontal clash. Stanley's principal task at first was the redrafting of specifications for certain quartermaster supplies which the army had to acquire expeditiously in very large quantities. The peacetime specifications provided in many cases for an article of first-class merit, but one which could be manufactured by only a small proportion of the companies in the industry. Naturally in wartime the demands of the enlarged services might become so

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heavy that they would even strain the entire productive capacity of that particular branch of trade. This meant that the requirements often had to be rewritten in such a way as to maintain the quality desired while opening the way to industrywide manufacture. Furthermore, in some cases the specifications had not yet been modified to meet the new demands justified by the experience of the Allied Powers during the war. In short, the department had to be brought up to date; indeed, it was with this in mind that General Sharpe had requested Stanley to prepare drafts of new specifications. The latter, only lately returned from Europe and acquainted with the startling changes brought about by the war, was ideally qualified to advise and recommend. When Stanley rather proudly, as he admitted, showed Smith the first set of his revised specifications, the General bristled and told King, in effect, that he did not require the assistance of any "dollar-a-year man," and that he had no intention of even considering the changes which Stanley had suggested. He added in vigorous language that he would not be unhappy if all the "god-damned civilians" in the Munsey Building went home and left the professionals to do their assigned jobs. Somewhat exasperated himself, Stanley walked out of the room as the tirade was going on and went to General Sharpe's office on the floor below, where he related his experience, concluding, "I really think that I ought to take the first train back to Boston." The old gentleman listened and then asked, "You don't happen to have those specifications with you, do you?" "Yes, I have," answered King. "I put them back in my pocket, and here they are." General Sharpe merely glanced through them and signed his approval at the bottom. At that moment the irate General Smith strode into the office, and General Sharpe, handing him the papers, said, "Put these into effect at once." As he departed, King nodded courteously to General Smith, but was aware of considerable tension.

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On the following morning, King's associate, Eisenman, heard through the office grapevine that General Smith had preferred charges against Stanley with the Secretary of War and that the latter would hold a hearing on the ensuing Friday evening at eight o'clock. Eisenman suggested that King might, if he wished, undertake his own defense. Stanley rather astonished Eisenman by declaring that he had no intention of appearing unless formally summoned. He had already planned to go home to Boston for the week end. Furthermore, since General Sharpe had signed and approved the specifications, the action was properly his, and he was obviously competent to defend himself. When King returned on Monday morning to Washington, he learned that the Secretary of War had held the hearing—which was attended by the Chief of Staff and several of the bureau heads; that General Smith had presented his charges with some fervor and detail; that no reply had been made by anyone; and that on Saturday the Secretary had signed an order placing General Smith on the retired list and detailing Colonel H. J. Hirsch of the Quartermaster Department to serve as liaison officer between that and the Committee on Supplies, with the function of facilitating and expediting the business on which they were jointly engaged. From that moment full and patriotic cooperation was established. In reflecting later on this unfortunate episode, Stanley was careful to point out that it was not typical. As a rule, he found both army and navy officers easy to work with and not at all sensitive regarding their prestige or authority. He and his civilian colleagues, on their part, were making large financial sacrifices, and saw no reason for tolerating obstructionists when they became obnoxious. From early in 1917 until the spring of 1919—rather more than two years—Stanley was in Washington on one form or another of government service. During this period his official remuneration ranged from the conventional one dollar a year to a nominal salary of two hundred dollars a

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month. Meanwhile the McElwain Company paid him $6,000 a year—less than half his regular salary with that firm. Moreover, his duties were exacting, and his hours were long. Usually he was in his office by seven in the morning, and many of his evenings were spent in conferences. On the other hand, his job had a range and an importance which gave him real satisfaction. Occasionally on a Saturday evening, after a busy week, Mr. Rosenwald, known to his younger associates affectionately as "J. R.," would arrange a dinner party. The routine was invariably the same. Mr. Justice Julian W. Mack, of the United States Circuit Court, a gourmet of considerable reputation, selected the food and wines, Stanley chose the guests, invited them, and arranged for their transportation, and Mr. Rosenwald paid all the bills. Stanley was left entirely free to make it a stag party or to include ladies. The only stipulation was that the guests must be interesting, and it was King's recollection that no complaint was ever made on that score. When, in April, 1917, the United States formally entered the war, Stanley's duties, already heavy, became much more burdensome. On April 24, he was appointed an expert in the Council of National Defense and took his oath on the following day. During the months which followed he had little respite. As spring turned into summer, the weather became exceptionally hot, and offices in Washington were not then air-conditioned. At the end of August, feeling it necessary to take at least one week off, Stanley rented a camp at Skissy Hill, near Gay Head, on Martha's Vineyard, and invited his friends, the Clifford Warrens and the Boardman Robinsons, to join Gertrude and him for a short holiday. To protect himself against intrusion, he told no one where he was except his secretary in Washington and his father and mother in Springfield. He intended to cut himself off completely from the government world. On the second day after his arrival, however, when he had

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just begun to relax and forget his responsibilities, an Indian boy rode up on a bicycle to announce that an important longdistance telephone call had just come in for him at the Gay Head post office. Stanley dashed off at once in his Ford, and when connection had been established, listened to the voice of a gentleman whom he never identified except as that of "one of the leading citizens of Massachusetts." This man, having acquired some important confidential information, had persuaded Judge King to disclose his son's address. Two days earlier an Englishman had sailed for the United States under instructions from the British War Office to purchase all the available sheepskins in American markets. Only three people in England, and no one in the United States, knew the object of this mission. Stanley's informer added that if the United States government wished to avoid an embarrassing shortage, steps would have to be taken promptly. All this happened on a peaceful Sunday morning, and Stanley returned from his telephone conversation to lie on the beach and smoke the pipe of thought. Early on Monday he drove to Vineyard Haven, where he could talk undisturbed from the central office of the telephone company. He first directed his Washington assistant to send a cable message to General Pershing inquiring approximately how many sheepskins the army was likely to need. Next, through his associates in the McElwain Company, he had options taken out in his own name but for the account of the United States government on all procurable sheepskins in Boston, New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, the principal markets of the country. These options were arranged for the same day and hour, allowing for the difference in time, and were made at the prevailing prices. Although the operation was large and in some respects complicated, it was carried out in secrecy and without any delay; and at the end of the week Stanley King had control of virtually all the sheep-

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skins in the United States. Indeed, as he said, he was "up to his neck in sheepskins." This was quick, efficient action, and Stanley, even though his vacation had been interrupted, was gratified with the results. He had no doubt that the British agent would show up before very long; and, sure enough, after King had returned to his desk in early September, Mr. Rosenwald asked him one morning to come to his office to meet a gentleman who had just arrived from London. After the introductions were over, the Englishman asked, "May I have a word with you where nobody can hear us?" King led him down the corridor to his own quarters, where the visitor astonished him by locking the door on the inside, saying, "I don't want to be overheard by spies!" He then confessed that he had been sent to this country to buy sheepskins, only to discover that a mysterious Stanley King had secured options on all those on the market in New York and Boston. Much distressed, he had then proceeded to Washington to consult his embassy and ascertain, if possible, the motives of this enterprising rival. Having no reason for concealing his share in the proceedings, Stanley told him the exact truth, adding, however, that his committee would be glad to let the British government have as many sheepskins as it needed at the price which he had agreed to pay—but only when he had learned General Pershing's needs. He added also that he intended to increase this estimate by one third in order to be absolutely safe. He advised the amazed Britisher to sit in his hotel, read magazines, and enjoy himself until the details could be settled. As they parted, the visitor remarked, "This is really incredible. I am sure that only three persons in my country were aware of my mission." Stanley replied, "You could not have known that we Americans have an excellent intelligence service which keeps us posted on all matters of importance to our work."

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The sequel satisfied everybody. The British War Office was able to secure nearly as many sheepskins as it needed. King pointed out to the Englishman that he had saved his government a large sum of money, for if he had undertaken a trip to the widely scattered markets, the news would have spread and the prices would have been raised in anticipation of his arrival. As it was, he had secured a large supply at the lowest possible figure. When the agent learned the facts, he was most appreciative. Later, after his return to England, he was knighted for his contribution to the war effort. Hardly had this transaction been completed when Ralph Hayes, private secretary to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, telephoned Stanley to say that Mr. Baker would like to see him at his earliest convenience; and King agreed to call upon him on the following morning. Hayes, a graduate of Western Reserve University in the Class of 1915, was a brilliant young man only twenty-three years old whom Baker had brought with him from Cleveland. He and King were already acquainted, and it was he who escorted Stanley into the office of his chief and left him there. Newton D. Baker, in September, 1917, was only forty-six years old—a slim little man, very boyish looking, but with an appraising eye and a determined jaw. Formerly a lawyer in Cleveland, he had been City Solicitor from 1902 to 1912, and had later been elected Democratic Mayor of that city for two terms. On March 7, 1916, he had been appointed by President Wilson as Secretary of War, succeeding Lindley M. Garrison, who had resigned because of questions of army policy. Although Baker was a man of unusual personal charm and unquestioned integrity, he was soon made the target of partisan attacks, especially from the irresponsible and unscrupulous Colonel George Harvey, who assailed him as a pacifist and once declared that Baker was seated "on top of a pyramid of confusion which he had jumbled together and called a war machine."

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On the other hand, Baker was described by President Wilson in a letter of May 19, 1916, as "one of the most genuine and gifted men I know," and even his critics had to admit, as the war went on, that he was a masterly executive. Although he looked mild, and even meek, he was actually firm-willed, and as he became familiar with his cabinet duties, he definitely took control. By the date when Stanley King met him for an interview, he had both acquired and inspired confidence and had demonstrated his ability to say "No" and stand by his decision. Frederic Palmer, his biographer, describes him as "smoking his pipe, having his whimsical moments when it did not seem to very solemn people that he was taking his task seriously enough, never pompous, never indefinite in his language, never grumbling, bearing his burdens as they came with a certain jauntiness." Baker's loyalty to his subordinates was matched by their devotion to him. His influence on Stanley was salutary, strong, and lasting. As King entered, Baker was seated behind an enormous mahogany desk, in a huge high-ceilinged office, the dark walls of which were hung with portraits of former War Secretaries. On top of the desk, in addition to piles of official papers, were at least half a dozen pipes, all showing signs of being well used. After a few polite preliminaries, Baker said, "King, I want you to join my staff as an adviser on business matters which come to my desk. Walter Lippmann handles labor problems; welfare and personnel problems are taken care of by Fred Keppel, and legal difficulties by Felix Frankfurter, but I haven't anybody who knows anything about industry." Stanley replied, without hesitation, that he would be delighted to accept but that Mr. Baker ought perhaps to investigate him a little. The Secretary answered, "I've already consulted six men whom I trust, and you're at the top of each list. That's all the investigation I have time for. Of course the Department of Justice will keep its eye on you as it is doing on me. Now when can you begin?" "All I

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have to do is to notify Mr. Rosenwald," replied Stanley, "and I think that I can be here ready to work next Monday." On October 4 he was officially appointed Confidential Clerk to the Secretary of War at a salary of $1,200 per annum. Stanley was now installed in Room 237 of the State, War, and Navy Building, directly opposite the office of the Secretary of War. He had already represented the public on the National Harness and Saddlery Adjustment Commission and on the Cantonment Adjustment Commission, subsequently changed to the Emergency Wage Construction Commission. Soon he was to succeed Walter Lippmann as the representative of the War Department on the Arsenal and Navy Yard Wage Commission; and he alternated with Ernest M. Hopkins and Felix Frankfurter in directing the Industrial Relations Branch of the War Department. According to Frederic Palmer, King, Hopkins, and Frankfurter, with Lippmann and John R. McLane, composed a group which "in many cases managed to keep industrial peace where other boards failed." Later King also became a member of the War Policies Board, created in May, 1918, by the Secretary of Labor, with Felix Frankfurter as Chairman. Titles meant very little in those days so long as the business got itself done, and at times it was difficult for King himself to remember what functions he was fulfilling. He was furnished with passes admitting him to the various War Office installations, including the most secret projects. The effective but unostentatious way in which he moved from one enterprise to another led Senator Freylinghuysen, at a Congressional hearing in late December, 1917, to ask, "Who is this mysterious Mr. Stanley King?" King's reputation for skill in human relations brought him some disagreeable assignments, which he carried out smilingly and without protest. In January, 1918, the egotistical sculptor Gutzon Borglum gained widespread publicity because of his revelations of what he called in his biography in Who's Who in America the "colossal aircraft failure." Starting late in 1917

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with what Frederic Palmer called "a secret personal investigation," he had been given through Secretary Baker's good offices a very general letter of introduction signed by President Wilson, and soon turned out to be an uninhibited and unmitigated nuisance who, assuming the role of an official investigator, demanded reports from everybody. When Baker was confronted with Borglum's baseless charges, he wrote the President: I have attached to my office here Mr. Stanley King, a capable, upright, and disinterested business man. Would it not be wise to have Mr. Borglum urged to come to Washington, talk freely with me, let me associate Mr. King with him, and give them an absolutely free hand to investigate every suggestion which Mr. Borglum can make, for the purpose of reporting directly to you, or to you through me, so that on the basis of such an immediate and thorough-going inquiry we can remedy what is wrong and set right any unjustified apprehensions? On January 7, 1918, Borglum, with fire in his eye, called on Secretary Baker, who at once summoned King and directed him to cooperate with the irate sculptor. Borglum began by making impossible demands for quarters and personnel, followed by requests for completely confidential information. He annoyed General George O. Squier, then in charge of the Army Air Service, with absurd criticisms; and when finally he secured an interview of two hours with that much-enduring officer, Borglum told the press that the General's statements were "all camouflage." Within a few days everybody who came in contact with Borglum, including King, was disgusted. Borglum even pressed Secretary Baker to have the government seize all airplane factories and proceed itself with the designing and construction of aircraft. On January 21, King, his patience exhausted, had a conference with his chief, who approved of all his acts; and three days later the Secretary relieved King of his assignment and designated Eugene Meyer, Jr., as his personal intermediary with Borglum. After a heated discussion on February 6, in which several reliable officers joined with Stanley

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in relating their unhappy dealings with the sculptor, his investigations were discontinued. In late April, however, Borglum turned up again with a report to the President in which he charged that King had tried to block his inquiries and was associated with what he called the "Aircraft Ring." Evidence was accumulating that Borglum had boasted of his intimacy with President Wilson and declared that he could gain any authority he wished. As a last resort, the President asked Charles E. Hughes to accept full power, in cooperation with the Department of Justice, to look into the various charges and countercharges. Hughes's report, although it did not appear until two weeks before the armistice, reached the conclusion that the government officials and contractors engaged in aircraft production had been honest, patriotic, and zealous, and that Borglum's accusations had no justification. King had been bored by the whole affair and was particularly annoyed that a man of the sculptor's irrationality should have been given so much consideration. In December, 1921, Borglum had the audacity to present a claim for disbursements made by him to the amount of about $12,000. Replying to an inquiry from John W. Weeks, then Secretary of War, King wrote: In my first interview with Mr. Borglum in Secretary Baker's office and subsequently, my understanding was that Mr. Borglum was making his inquiries as a private citizen to satisfy himself as to certain questions connected with the aircraft program about which he felt greatly concerned. The President, as I recall in his letter to Mr. Borglum, asked him when he had satisfied himself as to the facts, to advise him as to his conclusions. So far as I know, no one in the War Department regarded him as an official investigator of the department. Mr. Borglum was not authorized by me to incur any expenses in behalf of the department; on the contrary I endeavored to make it quite clear to him that beyond the facilities of the Secretary's office for clerical and stenographic assistance I could not go. I was ready to assist him, however, in any way I could. I know of no reason why Mr. Borglum is entitled to any compensation for his disbursements

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in Washington. On the contrary, it seems to me quite clear that payment to Mr. Borglum would be purely a gift. Commenting on this very explicit letter, Baker wrote on January 5, 1922, to Stanley: When the government of the United States begins to pay people at extravagant rates for constituting themselves nuisances, Borglum will of course be entitled to a very large sum. Until the government adopts that disposition, however, it seems to me that his claim ought to be peremptorily refused. Borglum's preposterous claims were ultimately disallowed, and Stanley always looked back on the episode as one of the "comic opera" aspects of war, illustrating how much trouble an aggressive fanatic can cause. From time to time attacks were made upon King in the publications of the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union, alleging that he was prejudiced in favor of management. To these aspersions, he made no reply at the moment. On November 23, 1918, however, when hostilities had ceased, he wrote Felix Frankfurter a three-page letter, apparently to keep his record clear. In this he said, in part: In August, 1917, I advised Mr. Rosenwald, and subsequently Mr. Brookings, that I was unwilling to remain longer with the Committee on Supplies unless I were permitted entirely to disassociate myself from the W. H. McElwain Company. . . . Mr. Brookings told me that he could not permit me to do this as it would immediately raise the same question with a number of other men who were not free to take such action. . . . The question which I presented to Mr. Brookings was never finally disposed of, as within a week of my conference with him I was requested by the Secretary of War to join his staff. My work with the Secretary of War on Industrial Relations did not, of course, bring me into contact with the W. H. McElwain Company at any time, either directly or indirectly. . . . Since I have been Private Secretary, no shoe questions of any kind have come before me, either as to the Department's relations with W. H. McElwain Company or with any other shoe manufacturer.

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In June, 1918, Ralph Hayes, then Baker's private secretary, went at his own expressed wish to an army training camp, and Baker promptly asked Stanley to take his place. Before accepting the proffered appointment, however, King wrote Baker, on July 2, 1918, advising him that he held securities in a few corporations, including the W . H. McElwain Company, the Sable Lumber Company, and the Walpole Trust Company, and adding: I shall be glad to sever any or all of the above connections and to dispose of any or all of the above securities upon a suggestion from you that such a course seems to you desirable. In the meantime I ask that so long as any of the above relationships continues, orders be issued that no matters directly or indirectly affecting any company in which I have an interest be permitted to come before me for any action whatever. To this very frank communication, Secretary Baker replied a week later, as follows: I do not regard the relations detailed by you as in any way affecting your eligibility as Private Secretary to the Secretary of War. It does seem to me important that this relationship should be disclosed to the Quartermaster General, so that any matters coming up in that Department affecting these companies should be brought to my attention otherwise than through you, and I can see no reason for your disposing of any or all of the securities in these companies. The suggestion with regard to the disclosure of your relationship is in accordance with your own suggestion, and both meet with my approval and with the requirements of the situation. King's official appointment came through on July 20, 1918, when he was "transferred and promoted" to be private secretary of the Secretary of W a r at a salary of "$2,500 per annum (regular roll)." Before this, however, he had been moved to a room adjacent to that of Secretary Baker, with President Ernest M. Hopkins of Dartmouth College at a desk adjoining his. King and Hopkins occupied that room together until the war was over and the latter returned to his administrative duties at

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Hanover, New Hampshire. Close by was Frederick P. Keppel, Dean of Columbia College, who had joined Baker in April, 1917, as "Confidential Clerk" and had been appointed a year later as Third Assistant Secretary of War, responsible for "the life of the soldier in all its non-military aspects." Ralph Hayes has given an attractive picture of Keppel as he dealt with callers on the Secretary of War—"running interference or expediting traffic, officiating now as advance man, now as introducer, now as terminator, now as follow-up or anchor man." And wherever Keppel was, King was likely to be close at hand. For his accomplishment in Washington up to that date, Stanley received the highest praise. On July 27,1918, General Sharpe wrote him a letter regarding the service which he had performed in cooperation with the Quartermaster Department, saying in part: 1 want to repeat what I said to you about my deep appreciation of the cordial spirit of cooperation and the assistance that you always rendered in whatever work we were engaged, and to say that it is my belief that when the full history of the work that was then done is understood the people will realize how much is owed to "the mysterious Mr. King" for the work that he rendered with such devoted and untiring service for the government.

King, according to Frederic Palmer, quickly became "guardian watchdog of the outer office" and, incidentally, the protector of the Secretary's time and strength. Not being in uniform, he could talk back to generals without fear of being courtmartialed. Once General March, who was peppery and sensitive about his prerogatives, said to King, "I see that you have been taking this order direct to the Secretary. Don't you know that such matters should come through me, as Chief of Staff?" "No, I didn't," replied Stanley, "but what difference does it make? Nobody knows about it but the Secretary and me. None of us is going to tell the CongressI" When this particular issue was brought up to Baker, who declared that King was right, all that

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March could do was to smile as agreeably as possible. Civilians did have a certain advantage! After Keppel had left the War Department he wrote an article so sharply critical of a military chief that Stanley said to him, "I hope for your sake you don't meet General Blank on a dark night. No one would hear the gurgle as you disappeared beneath the surface." During King's prolonged absence in Washington his family remained in Boston or Sharon, and he paid them visits when possible over week ends. By the end of 1917, the children required an increasing amount of Gertrude's attention, and she could not leave them for any extended period. After some experimental weeks in hotels, Stanley settled down in Washington in what came to be known as the House of Truth, so named because no newspapermen were allowed within its walls and the inmates could therefore talk freely on governmental affairs. Among the others living there were Felix Frankfurter (not yet a Supreme Court Judge), Willard Straight (until his death on November 28, 1918), and Lord Eustace Percy (who was then attached to the British Embassy). Others came and went from time to time, adding to the gaiety of the establishment. Here, as in other similar situations, Stanley was by common desire and consent entrusted with certain managerial responsibilities, which he performed to everybody's satisfaction. When Ellery Sedgwick, the distinguished editor of the Atlantic Monthly, appeared as a guest, it was Stanley who persuaded Lord Eustace Percy to bring out some of the Northumberland linen from his trunk; and Sedgwick accepted as a matter of course sheets and towels bearing the ducal crest. In the autumn of 1918, King was elected a member of the Cosmos Club, which he found to be a very pleasant place of refuge. During his association with the War Department King undertook several difficult assignments at the request of his chief. In the late summer of 1918 he had to deal with a harbor strike in New York City, and the story still persists of how he faced a

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group of tough and discontented longshoremen who were refusing to load ships for France and induced them, by talking straight from the shoulder, to go back to their work. On another occasion he went to Boston to assist Henry B. Endicott, Chairman of the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety, in ending a serious strike at the Watertown Arsenal. With his unusual gift of seeing the other man's viewpoint and motivation, Stanley was able to approach dissatisfied workers and win their confidence. The so-called Muscle Shoals Case is so typical that it deserves some attention. In the latter part of 1918 the electricians employed at Muscle Shoals, the government nitrate works in northern Alabama, made demands for an increase in wages, and the question was presented to King as a problem in public relations. He held several conferences with Mr. Cranford, the ranking official in charge of labor in that area, who had already declined to yield to pressure from the labor leaders. After a very careful investigation, King advised the electricians that, in the judgment of the War Department, Cranford's original decision was fair and equitable and should not be modified. The electricians then attempted to bring the matter before Congress through Senator Underwood, of Alabama, and even claimed back pay for many months at the increased rate which they demanded. At a hearing, King expressed the view that the claims of the electricians had no justice behind them. Furthermore, he had grave doubts as to whether the War Department could make any increases retroactive, as the workers wished. In conclusion he remarked, very wisely: It is, I am sure, needless to animadvert upon the effect which would result from any change in the Department's position at this time as a result of pressure exercised upon members of Congress. The refusal of the electricians' demands at Muscle Shoals is only one of many thousands of similar refusals of demands for increases in wages, which were not justified. If one of them is now opened up, the entire wage problem in all the construction projects of the De-

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partment will be opened up for readjustment. Of course, if the Department acted on incorrect information in reaching the decision in this particular case, or if the Department drew the wrong conclusion from the information before it, the decision should be reversed. This I do not believe to be the fact. In a more personal letter written at this period to Ralph Hayes, Stanley dwelt more at length upon the problems involved, and said in conclusion: I have no personal pride, of course, in this or any other action which I took, so that if anybody wishes to take the responsibility of overruling the decision, I shall not be in the least disturbed. I am, however, confident that I am right. In the end, Stanley's conclusions were sustained. Much of his work with the War Department was carried on, so to speak, anonymously, or at least without publicity, and he neither desired nor expected any special recognition beyond the approval of his chief. Writing to Ralph Hayes on May 14, 1932, when Newton D. Baker was being mentioned as a possible nominee for the presidency and his labor record was being questioned, King said: What Baker actually did on the question of safeguarding industrial standards in the war emergencies was concrete and sound. . . . He created a small board in Washington made up of men in the organization and led by Hopkins and me. This board established relations with the proper officials charged with the administration standards in each of the forty-eight states. The state officials declined to relinquish any state safeguard without a certificate of emergency from the War Department. Contractors who issued such a certificate had to come to Washington and prove their case. Doubtful cases came up to me. Before resigning as Baker's private secretary, King prepared a report ninety pages in length, entitled The Activities of the War Department in the Field of Industrial Relations during the War, which was published by the Government Printing Office under the date September 15, 1919. This was a factual

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narrative of administrative policies and procedures from April 6, 1917, when the War Department "had no labor problem recognized as such," to November 11, 1919, when "the War Department was a dominant factor in the industrial and labor situation in the country" and when "there was no aspect of the labor problem which it did not enter." It was difficult to make this material fascinating to the general reader, but Stanley did explain many of the operations with which he and his associates had been concerned and gave a clear picture of the way in which the War Department functioned. He pointed out that although there had been some temporary stoppages of work, no strikes of any long duration had developed. In commenting on this fortunate situation, King said: To the adjustment of individual controversies and to the development of the morale of labor, the war labor functions of the War Department contributed to no small extent. It is perhaps not inaccurate to say that they rendered an important contribution in a vital field in the industrial mobilization of the nation. That these were accomplished by voluntary methods, and without the application of compulsion, is particularly significant. As he drew to a close, Stanley paid a generous tribute to the labor leaders whom he had come to know so well: It is impossible to close this report without expressing the peculiar debt which this department owes to the leaders of organized labor, with whom it came in almost daily contact throughout the war. From them it received the most continuous and loyal assistance. One of the advance copies of this report reached John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who wrote Secretary Baker on July 29, 1919: May I congratulate you on the splendid record which this report contains? I had not realized, nor do I suppose that many citizens realize, what a colossal industrial enterprise the War Department was responsible for during the War. The problems arising in connection therewith were countless and many of them most intricate. It would seem to me as a layman that these problems were met and dealt with with wisdom, skill, and tact, and that for the final accom-

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plishment you and those who have been associated with you in the industrial part of your work are entitled to the highest praise. To these complimentary words, Secretary Baker replied on July 31, in part as follows: Your note of July 29, which reached me this morning, is so gratifying that I am taking the liberty of sending a copy of it to Mr. King. His work here was beyond all praise, and I am happy indeed that his report impresses you in the way your letter indicates. By this date the world had been for some months officially at peace. The hostilities in Europe ended on November 11, 1918, and the news of the armistice was followed by tumultuous rejoicing among all the Allies. Stanley spent most of that day with Secretary Baker, watching the excitement from the windows of the State, War, and Navy Building, and that evening Baker and his staff held an informal dinner by way of celebration. But plenty of clean-up work needed to be done, and the next morning they were all back at their desks as usual. Union agitators were still pressing for higher wages, new contracts had to be signed, and differences of opinion had to be adjusted. Not for many months did Washington return to its normal routine. In the spring of 1919 Stanley accompanied the Secretary of War to Europe on the latter's third, and final, trip of inspection. Baker and King left Washington on Sunday, April 6, taking with them Francis Warren Pershing—the General's nine-yearold son—Sergeant Charles Wels as an orderly, and Raymond Fosdick, who was then serving as Special Representative of the Secretary of War. They sailed from New York on the following day on the Leviathan, which had also on board Hugh C. Wallace, of Tacoma, Washington, recently appointed as Ambassador to France. Among the other passengers were several members of a Congressional delegation, regarding whom Stanley wrote in his diary:

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The members of Congress aboard seem entirely human now that they are away from the Capitol. But judging from Ralph's stories from the army, this appearance of merit is transitory and unsubstantial, as they appear to resume all their unpleasant qualities whenever they come in contact with the AEF. "Jimmy" Wadsworth seems to have been the only "gentleman," meaning the ordinarily decent citizen, who has come over from either House. With Baker, King had become increasingly congenial and intimate. They were men of much the same type, both scholarly, reflective, and philosophical. Stanley wrote, "I've had some engaging talks with my chief, whose range of interests is extraordinarily wide and who is informed on almost every subject." On one entertaining evening the Secretary "propounded the suggestion, which he has long cherished, of the abolition of the Senate." "I gave him twenty-five years to pull it off," added Stanley, "and he thought it might be done within that limit." On the voyage King read The Education of Henry Adams,

The Diary of James Gallatin, and Veblen's The Theory of the

Leisure Class—choices which indicate unmistakably the eclectic quality of his mind. Landing at Brest on April 14, the party were met by General Pershing and his staff and accorded a regal welcome, with solid squares of French infantry drawn up to greet them. After their arrival in Paris, Secretary Baker settled down to long hours with the Liquidation Commission, while Stanley, left on his own, broadened his circle of acquaintances. Among them was Lord Balfour, who remarked in the course of a conversation, "We have fought for five years a war to end war. Now we are concluding a peace to end peace." He spent almost an entire day with William C. Bullitt, called with Baker on Clemenceau, walked with Walter Heyl along the Seine, and breakfasted with Lincoln Steffens. Stanley was thrown into the kind of social and intellectual give-and-take which he especially enjoyed and in which he was well qualified to take part.

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On Good Friday, April 18, the two men rode in General Pershing's automobile to Chaumont, where, after a long day of parades, band concerts, saluting, and speechifying, Stanley confided to his diary, "Sec'y of War says there's nothing in this military business. He's right, based on to-day's evidence." This comment is sufficiently cryptic so that each reader can interpret it for himself. For the next few days the American party moved from one spot to another, frequently by a train from which, at stops, their automobile was driven off on a ramp. On Easter Sunday they watched a thrilling review of the 88th Division. After attending a dinner that evening, Stanley recorded, "Gen. Dawes up with a string of humorous stories. Profanity uninterrupted by presence of Bishop Brent." At Beaune, they visited the new "AEF University," with its 13,000 students; and in Luxembourg, Baker and King walked for two hours through the streets of the medieval city and had a talk with Crown Prince Leopold, of Belgium. At Treves, on April 23, they reviewed the 89th Division on the flying field, with much pomp and pageantry, and then moved along the Rhine Valley to Coblenz, where General Dickinson gave a dinner for twenty-six guests, followed by professional entertainment and dancing. When they returned to Paris on Saturday, April 26, Secretary Baker spent the day at the Crillon, keeping appointments. On the following morning, accompanied by General Harbord, they motored to Brest and embarked on the George Washington for home. On the ship were Bishop Brent, Raymond Fosdick, Leonard Ayres, the usual Congressional "junketeers," and Ralph Hayes, who was returning after his service at the front. On April 28, King wrote in his diary, "Sec'y War agrees to my resignation & Ralph's appointment within a week after my return." In his leisure hours on the voyage, Stanley read Bentley's "whodunit" masterpiece, Trent's Last Case, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (in two sittings), Strachey's Eminent Victorians, and

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Max Farrand's The Development of the United States. On deck and in the smoking room he discussed with Baker and others "the elements of strength in the Roman Catholic Church," the problem of sex relationships in the French social system, and the effectiveness of the battle maneuvers which ended the war. On Sunday, May 4, as they neared land, Secretary Baker conversed by telephone with General Peyton C. March, the Army Chief of Staff, at New Brunswick, New Jersey—"the first time in history that a person on the ocean has talked with the shore." On the next evening Stanley made his concluding entry, "Foggy! Came up N.Y. bay, escorted by hydroplanes and various welcoming vessels. Met at pier by Gertrude." Two days after his return to Washington, Stanley, in accordance with his agreement, tendered his resignation as private secretary to the Secretary of War, "effective upon the appointment of my successor." At the foot of this letter is written in longhand the following endorsement by Mr. Baker: Accepted. As this paper becomes a part of the public files of the War Department I desire here to record my appreciation of the singular wisdom, tact, and ability with which Mr. King has performed the difficult and responsible duties of his office. His service to the country has been more important than can be made to appear to any one not familiar from day to day with the work done.

On June 5, Secretary Baker wrote Stanley at 354 Congress Street, Boston, a personal letter which reveals the intimate relationship between the two men: Some day I am going to write a book on "The Friendships of Middle-aged Men," and as illustrations are to fortify my thesis, you are to be an example and so shall have autographed copy No. 1 of the book. As a matter of fact, I suppose I shall never write such a book, nor any other, now that all my youthful ambitions of learning and scholarship have been scrapped to keep afloat in the stream of events which has kept washing my books out of my hands just as I was about to become wise; but the title I have chosen implies a great and cheer-

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ing truth for men who are getting along in years. It is a great gain to know that in the hurry and absorption of great responsibilities there is still time and capacity left to father a friend here and there, and in spite of all the philosophers say, I am persuaded new friends are rarer than those we find more easily and less questioningly in our youth. Anyhow, I am grateful to the Gods—even if I must admit like the Latin pagans that I do not know which God it was— that brought me the help of your robust sense and good judgment and the deep satisfaction which our friendship gives me. After leaving Washington, Stanley spent some weeks on the drafting of his formal report, which Secretary Baker acknowledged on June 12, in a characteristic note: I have just finished reading your report and will see that it is printed at once. For some reason I find myself amazed at the story, though, of course, I knew much of it en passant. You have said it all with impressive directness and skill, and I am as proud of it as though I had had a hand in it. Perhaps, for strategic reasons, it would have been well to put in a sentence or two about Mr. Gompers, personally, as his patriotic devotion throughout the war was fine, so I shall write a foreword and do it, unless you think that what you have said is enough. Ralph took me on for tennis on Thursday and beat me about as you do. I am perfectly calm, however, as I learned from Vergil's Aeneid when I was a schoolboy how modest old men must be in the presence of youth about deeds of physical prowess. Were I a few years older I would have no right to draw a long bow about "things I used to do" before my hand became unsteady and my heart bad. But I am in the between state as yet, so I get my exercise, feel fine, and rejoice that anyhow I am not old enough to be expected to romance. The Graham Wallas book came—thank you. I shall read it on the way back to Washington this afternoon. He did not expect me to be Secretary of War of Nazareth apparently, but was "heart-broken" because I suggested military drill in colleges and high schools. The experience of the past in that matter shows such futility in the attempt that I never gave that part of the Saturday Evening Post article a single thought. He quite accepts all the rest of the program, and I care nothing for that part—so see what a few minutes of talk will

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do to clear up a misunderstanding. He is really a very good friend, and I should be sorry to find a real difference with so real a democrat. The Nazareth point of view, however, seems to me a little impracticable. Remember me heartily to Mrs. King and Dickie.

In late October, from Washington, Baker sent another brief longhand note to Stanley, saying: The bookbinder did a good job, and I shall take my copy of your report home with me—when I get a chance to go—for that reason, but far more for other reasons which you may go as far as you please in imagining.

Finally, on December 20, the Secretary wrote in a holiday mood: I send my Christmas greetings to you and Mrs. King and Master Dickie with all the affectionate good-will you can imagine. I think knowing you is the best Christmas gift the year has brought me.

Although King's relationship, official and unofficial, with Newton D. Baker was not yet entirely over, the meetings of the two men after the Wilson administration had departed were only intermittent. They moved in different geographical areas and engaged in quite different activities. Nevertheless, Stanley's own philosophy of life had been profoundly affected by Baker's liberalism, tolerance, and wisdom. For him those months in the War Department were a part of his adult education, a rare and rich experience, and his association with Baker remained one of his most cherished memories.

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URING his absence on government service, Stanley King had kept in touch with his partners in the W. H. McElwain Company and had occasionally attended their meetings. He had, of course, been thrown in Washington into contact with national leaders in both capital and labor and had learned much from them. Aware that some day he would probably be back in his office in Boston, occupied with the manufacture and marketing of shoes, he had watched current trends in business with keen interest and some apprehension. On January 19, 1919, while he was still with the War Department, he wrote to J. Franklin McElwain a letter so thoughtful, so carefully reasoned, and so farsighted that it deserves to be quoted almost in its entirety. Seldom again did he put down his ideas on this subject so lucidly and frankly, although he must have expressed them orally to his companions in the industry. The essential paragraphs not only represent his business philosophy but also illuminate the character of King at thirty-six:

I was keenly disappointed not to be able to attend your last directors' meeting. I know, of course, that I could have contributed little, if anything, to the meeting, but I should have been glad to have had the opportunity to participate in the discussion of the company's labor policy. For the past two years I have been what Shaw would call "the man in the aeroplane" and I will try to put down my observations.

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1—The W . H. McElwain Company has since it was first started by W . H. McElwain been a leader rather than a follower. It has had imagination and wisdom to see ahead of the present problems in the various fields of its activity, and the courage to act on its vision, many times in advance of the other industries in the same fields. This wisdom and courage have enabled it to make very substantial contributions year after year both to the communities in which it operates and to the industry. It is largely because of this that it holds the position it does to-day. It faces now in the field of labor as difficult and as untried a future as it ever has faced; and its vision and wisdom in dealing with the problem will, to a large extent, condition its contribution and its success during the next decade. W e need to-day, more than ever before, perhaps, the vision to foresee and the confidence to act. 2—W. H. acted on the theory that the company should adopt the correct business policy in a given situation, without too close an enquiry as to the effect of that policy on the Profit and Loss account. He maintained that if the company adopted the long view policy the profits would take care of themselves. That in my opinion is sound; that alone makes business more than profit and loss; it makes it a public contribution. 3—The world has entered upon a period of profound industrial uncertainty and unrest. How serious it will be we do not know. T h e industrial atmosphere from Russia to Buenos Aires is disturbed as never before. This country is not immune. At such a time more than any other an affirmative policy is the only safe policy—hesitation is hopeless. 4—During the past twenty months there has occurred in this country a substantial shifting of the balance of forces in the industrial world. Labor has become more class conscious, more conscious of its strength, more concrete in its demands, and more aggressive in the means it uses to secure their realization. Manufacturers on the other hand have been in general watching the process, at first with uneasiness and distress, and latterly with a realization that their old policies towards labor are unsatisfactory and with a growing desire to learn what they should do to meet the changed conditions. 5—During the war the Federal Government has necessarily had to take a more or less active part in the problem. The suggestions have been followed more or less reluctantly by both sides and have successfully avoided any trial of strength between the two parties.

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The Federal Government is now withdrawing from its emergency activities in the labor field and within a few months will probably be little more active than it was before the war. Any program of dealing with the problem from now on must come from one of the parties. Labor has a definite program and a confidence in its ability to carry it through. Employers have not yet produced any program and unless they do so, the initiative will lie with labor. You and I know that a defensive campaign is seldom a successful campaign and that until Foch took the initiative there was no possibility of our defeating the Germans. 6—I hope and believe the McElwain Company is going to take the initiative in its own field. I do not think that to-day they have progressed as far in this field as some other concerns, although they are ahead of the great body of industry. The time to take the initiative is now. 7—There are several questions with which I believe McElwain Company should deal affirmatively. The first is the hours of labor; the second is the development of some more formal and effective relations with employees in a representative capacity. 8—Hours of Labor. The forty-eight hour week is in my opinion definitely established. The momentum which it has obtained in the last twenty months has put it in a preponderant position. I believe in the forty-eight hour week, but whether I believed in it or not, I should recognize it as a fact that the subject is one that has gone beyond the scope of debate. I feel very sure the company should introduce the forty-eight hour week and should presently announce to its employees that effective on a certain date these hours will be adopted. In my opinion no more stabilizing action could be taken at this time. . . . 1 understand it will cost something to reduce to forty-eight hours. I should regard that cost as the best possible insurance which the company can take out to-day. In fact, it is about the only insurance that the company can take out against the possibility of loss by industrial unrest. 9—And just a word about the other problem of representation. The American Federation of Labor has grown tremendously in two years. But with this growth has come a widening division in the ranks of the Federation. The group headed by Mr. Gompers has grown relatively smaller. A year ago the insurgents put in their candidate for Treasurer. Six months ago the insurgents elected two

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members to the Executive Board. Two months ago the insurgents elected two members to a Board of Five to go to the Peace Conference. There is a solid, resourceful, and aggressive block in the Federation which will attempt to take control at the next election. If they succeed, they will have control not of the Federation of three years ago, with its limited membership, but of the Federation today, which is a very different "kettle of fish." What they will do and what their policies will be, I think I can judge from my acquaintance with the leaders. Up to the present time the employers' game, so far as there has been an employers' game, has played directly into the hands of these radicals. So long as the employers maintain their present position they are daily strengthening the hands of these radicals. What ought McElwain Company to do under these conditions? They should, in my opinion, formulate and make effective an affirmative policy of dealing with their employees in a representative way. Either through shop committees or otherwise they should confer with their employees and develop adequate machinery for simple, prompt, and effective contact with them. They should, furthermore, prepare to meet squarely the Union questions—not wait for those questions to meet them. They should advance rapidly, for the times are advancing with startling swiftness. Is the McElwain Company ready? Has it the courage? When Shaw recommends a 48-hour week, will it adopt it or will it pursue a Fabian policy hoping something will turn up? All this sounds conservative enough today, but in 1919 it was regarded in m a n y quarters as radical, indeed dangerous, doctrine. King was ahead of his time in his understanding of the moods and minds of workers and his recognition of their problems. T h e future justified every one of his policy suggestions. On the basis of this document alone he belongs with the most enlightened industrialists of his generation. In late May, Stanley was back in Boston, where he was promptly e l e c t e d Vice-President of the W . H. M c E l w a i n C o m pany, at a salary of $20,000 a year. His accumulated investment in the business h a d at this time a book value of about $350,000. His wife's trust fund amounted to rather more than $60,000.

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Furthermore, she owned their country estate in Sharon, as well as their house on Pinckney Street in Boston. There was no reason why he should feel apprehensive about the days to come. At precisely this moment he was offered the presidency of of a large financial institution in Boston, with apparently great possibilities for expansion, at a salary larger than he was currently receiving. He could easily have disposed of his interest in the McElwain Company to a friend of the firm, a man of large means who wanted to go on the Board. From a purely selfish aspect it was clearly the right move for Stanley to make. On the other hand, it would have meant the desertion of associates who had carried him along on half salary during his long absence and who now badly needed his counsel. King dallied with the temptation for just twenty-four hours, talked with a few friends, and then withdrew his name from consideration. The postwar period was marked not only by international unrest and rivalry but also by internal disorders in the United States, and the always smoldering antagonism between employer and employee burst sporadically into flame. More than four thousand significant labor disputes took place in 1919 in this country, and at least four million workmen were at one time or another out on strike. Because workers everywhere behaved in an aggressive mood, agitators were encouraged to display exceptional activity. In early September, following official disapproval of a Boston Police Union, the Boston police struck and were dramatically reprimanded by Governor Calvin Coolidge in his famous telegram to Samuel Gompers. Stanley, always on the side of law and order, supported the Governor's action. The widespread walkout in the steel industry which began on September 22 also ended in failure. But wartime inflation had greatly reduced the purchasing power of the dollar, and people on salaries, like teachers and clerks, were suffering badly. The spirit of revolt was in the air, and labor, in spite of occasional and temporary setbacks, was demanding, not re-

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questing, its rights. A conference called in the early autumn by President Wilson to find some remedy for the growing conflict between labor and management broke up in a row, without any possibility of agreement. On the morning of October 2, President Wilson suffered a stroke which left him partly incapacitated for the remainder of his life. Nevertheless, he was able to call a Second Industrial Conference, to meet in Washington on December 1, under the permanent chairmanship of Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson. Among the seventeen men invited were some of the nation's leading citizens, including Herbert Hoover (who was promptly and unanimously elected Permanent Vice-Chairman and presided at most of the sessions), two former United States Attorney Generals—Thomas W. Gregory and George W. Wickersham—Oscar W. Straus (Secretary of Commerce and Labor under President Theodore Roosevelt), Martin H. Glynn (former Governor of New York), Julius H. Rosenwald, and Owen D. Young. Besides Stanley King, the group included two other Massachusetts men, Samuel W. McCall, a former Governor, and Richard Hooker, editor and publisher of the Springfield Republican. Stanley was designated as temporary secretary until a permanent secretary, not a delegate, could be obtained. The Conference met almost continuously, except during the Christmas holidays, from December 1,1919, until March 4,1920, when its report was completed. Writing to his father on December 2, Stanley told of some of his early impressions: It seems like old times to be back in Washington again. I was extraordinarily happy to get away from here when I left in May, but there's a fascination to the atmosphere at the seat of government which is, after all, different in kind from anything in Boston. Some of my associates are highly stimulating. It's a rare treat, of course, to see Mr. Hoover on intimate terms. I had Mr. Wickersham and Mr. Gregory to lunch as my guests yesterday. Mr. Wickersham is one of the most entertaining talkers I have ever known. He is full of anecdotes, is witty and quick in repartee and altogether

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delightful. Mr. Gregory is quieter, but has an interesting mind and a fund of resourcefulness. Last night I was Mr. Rosenwald's guest at dinner. . . . Tonight dinner with Professor Taussig and some others. Our conference is making genuine progress. I'm temporary secretary as well as the official giver of interviews to the press—which is an irony of fate, after all, isn't it? I meet about twenty newspaper men twice a day and say as little as I can in fifteen minutes of questions and answers. Many of them I know of old, and it's really fun to match wits with them. My candidate for permanent secretary has been unanimously elected and I hope he is leaving Chicago tonight to take up his job. Our conference is naturally bringing to the front the more informed and aggressive men in the group, and the others are listening. Hoover, of course, is the most dynamic, Secretary Wilson the best informed on the problem. Mr. Wickersham is learning the fastest. We are making real progress, and it's a great undertaking to participate in. In his letter of invitation to the members, not one of whom had been consulted in advance, President Wilson had said, "It is not expected that you will deal directly with any conditions which exist to-day, but that you may be fortunate enough to find such ways as will avoid the repetition of these deplorable conditions." Reversing the procedure of the First Industrial Conference, this new group preferred to discuss "machinery and methods" rather than to formulate and enunciate principles. The subject was quickly divided into three phases, as affecting workmen in government service, in public utilities, and in private industry. The right to strike was not questioned in the case of employees in private industry, but some discussion did arise regarding the establishment of machinery to prevent the tremendous economic loss due to stoppage of work. After discussing means of settling disputes after they arise, the Conference took up the question of preventing them. When it sent out in mid-December a plan for regional adjustment boards and asked for comment and criticism, more than three thousand citizens expressed their opinions. In due course the Conference held hearings at which such representative Americans as Wil-

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liam H. Taft, Samuel Gompers, Glenn E. Plumb, Daniel C. Willard, and many others presented all possible phases of thought on the subject. Stanley took a very active part in all the debates and proved himself to be an invaluable interrogator. Richard Hooker wrote to King's father, March 25, 1920: There is no exaggeration in the statement that Stanley was, without exception, the most useful single member of the Conference. More than that, I do not see—and the thought has occurred to me not only now but many times during the last few months—how the Conference could have functioned without him. Not only did he bring a better equipment of actual knowledge than any other member, but he was wise and prudent in securing results. The formal Report of the Conference was certainly conservative and unsensational. It recommended that the nation be divided for its purposes into twelve regions, each with its permanent chairman. In case of any dispute in his area, this chairman was to call upon both sides for a statement of grievances; and if he deemed it advisable, he could ask both parties to meet in conference. If either party ignored or declined the invitation, the chairman himself was to select the conferees. When thus formed, the group became an investigating board, charged with ascertaining and publicizing the facts underlying the original controversy. The plan necessarily relied largely on public opinion as a determining factor in effecting a settlement. On this point Mr. Hoover, in an authorized statement, remarked, " W e believe that public opinion is the most powerful weapon in modern life." In its desire to secure unanimity, the Conference evaded such fundamental questions as the use of the injunction in labor disputes and the desirability of the preferential shop. It did, however, oppose child labor and support decreased hours of labor and better housing. It advocated the national investigation and development of plans for old age insurance, and also favored an attempt to convince the private insurance companies of the importance of unemployment insurance. Perhaps the most sig-

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nificant single achievement was the recognition and endorsement of the principle of employee representation in the management of the industry which it serves. Later Mr. Hoover said, "We flatly recommend collective bargaining by agents of labor's own choosing." The Conference was the first independent body to take such action. But in spite of the apparently unanimous agreement of so many eminent, public-spirited men, the Second Industrial Conference had little more influence than a debating society. A calm and temperate set of conclusions arrived at by persons only two or three of whom had ever been identified with organized labor was not likely to make much of an impression on potential strikers. Bitter opposition to the proposed plan was voiced by both Samuel Gompers and a prominent corporation executive, each of whom maintained, according to King, that "any conflict of interests now existing between capital and labor is a private fight with which the Government has nothing to do." At this period the interests of the general public were not regarded as worth considering. Stanley did what he could to argue for the Report, but the industrial depression during the spring of 1920 had become so serious that only remedies far more drastic were being considered. When Herbert Hoover came to Boston on March 24 to speak before the Chamber of Commerce on "The Industrial Conference and What May Be Expected from It," 1,650 people turned out to hear him, including King, who sat at the head table with his associates, McCall and Hooker. The Transcript, although it printed the entire speech, commented on the fact that "the great companies sat absolutely silent, without even a chair squeak, while he read his address." Mr. Hoover, in his Memoirs, has written: I accepted only on the urging of my colleagues of the Conference, as I knew it would be a very frosty audience. When I sat down from this address, the applause would not have waked a nervous baby.

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In the late spring of 1920 King moved from theoretical discussion to a very practical study of labor relations. Trouble had arisen at the Rock Island Arsenal, in Illinois, where Colonel Harry B. Jordan, the Commanding Officer, had been obliged to lay off some of the workers because of the cessation of war production. Secretary Baker, in need of counsel, invited Stanley to accompany him to the arsenal on a tour of inspection, and reported to the Chief of Ordnance that he was availing himself of the services of a man "who throughout the war was my personal and confidential adviser on labor questions, and to whose solid judgment and sympathetic comprehension of labor problems from the workers' point of view a great part of the success of our labor relations during the war is due." At the same time Stanley himself modestly delimited his qualifications: I know very little of the theory of industrial relations. My contacts with the problems for the past fifteen years have been entirely dayby-day contacts. I like to deal with facts, and I am sometimes impatient when I get into the field of theories. I say this because I want you to know my judgment is based purely upon the approach of the business man to industrial problems. This first visit to Rock Island was entirely exploratory, but in July Baker sent King a "hurry call," asking if he could make another trip and this time submit an official report. This King did, and on July 30 he wrote Baker, "After a long and very satisfactory conference with Colonel Jordan, I see no reason which would lead me to recommend a reversal or change in his decisions." Two days later, Baker wrote the Chief of Ordnance: Mr. King's study of these cases has been thorough and patient, and in a formal report to me he reaches the conclusion that the Commanding Officer at Rock Island Arsenal has acted "with entire candor and fairness and has pursued a wise policy in the lay-off necessitated by the cessation of war work. . . . " I adopt his conclusions as my own, both because of my study of the cases and because of such examination as I have been able personally to give the facts.

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On their trip together to Rock Island, Baker had said to Stanley that he might possibly wish to appoint him as Assistant Secretary of War if, or when, Benedict Crowell resigned that post. But on June 8, Baker wrote King, explaining what had happened: You must have been thinking me very negligent and inconsiderate. After talking with you about the possible need I would have to draft you on Crowell's leaving, I waited a while to see what course Ben really had in mind. He has seemed quite undecided as to what he wants to do. Finally I found a chance to take the matter up with the President—hypothetically—and found that he wanted me to push the whole thing aside, or at least not to ask a decision on it just now, so I feel obligated to free you from any sense of obligation to hold yourself in readiness to answer a call. At least you must not let your generous attitude be an impediment to any other plan. When you are next in Washington, I can explain more fully. The fact was that the ailing President Wilson was not at the time in a condition to make any decision, and Baker did not wish to go ahead without his sanction. Stanley, therefore, went back to his business, in which critical decisions had to be made. The purchasing policy of the McElwain Company had for some years been determined on the recommendations of Charles J. Prescott, one of the senior partners, whose calculations regarding the future had hitherto made him seem a competent prognosticator. As the war progressed, virtually every commodity market had risen to unprecedented heights, and the advance continued after the Armistice, the peak being reached in November, 1920. At a moment when prices were at their absolute top, Prescott had contracted for a year's supply of hides from India. Then suddenly a downward trend in prices—a movement towards deflation—began. The commodity markets broke, and hides went down from fifty cents to fifteen cents. A less scrupulous company might have canceled the contracts, but the McElwain partners accepted the hides as they arrived, meeting their obligations at a moment when leather prices were

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dropping off week by week. The inventory losses were catastrophic. Soon the Company owed the banks fifteen million dollars, and was losing more money every month. The crisis had to be faced, and a combination of events forced King into a position where the decisions rested mainly with him. Charles J. Prescott, whose errors of judgment had caused so much damage, suffered a nervous breakdown; and his brother, who was Treasurer of the Company, became so ill that he had to ask Stanley to take over his duties. These disasters came at a moment when it was perfectly clear that, without a miracle, the Company could not survive beyond the current fiscal year, ending July 1, 1921. Stanley had a conference with Mr. Frank C. Rand, President of the International Shoe Company—then the largest producer of shoes in the world—as a result of which he persuaded his partners to approve negotiations for the sale of the W. H. McElwain Company to the larger organization. This was a logical merger, for the McElwain business was largely in the cities, that of International Shoe mainly in the country. It was vital, of course, to secure the consent of the chief creditors, Lee, Higginson & Company, of Boston, whose representative was James J. Storrow, one of the first citizens of the commonwealth. On May 11, 1921, Mr. Storrow, with his attorney, William H. Best—one of King's law school classmates—met in Chicago with Mr. Rand and his attorney. King was also present. After this and several other meetings, an arrangement was completed under which the International Shoe Company, after inventory, audit, and appraisal of the McElwain Company's assets, accepted an estimate of the equity of that organization as $9,460,832.50, over and above its debts of approximately $17,000,000. At that time the outstanding McElwain stock was first preferred, $6,993,100, held largely by the investing public; second preferred, owned mostly by the employees and officials of the Company; and common, $3,494,800, held by the executive staff.

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Because J. Franklin McElwain, President of the Company, was not himself then a well man, the negotiations had to be carried through principally by Stanley. There can be no doubt that his timely action saved the good name of the McElwain Company, preserved jobs for some five thousand employees, and kept the factory organization almost intact. It also protected the investment of the first preferred and second preferred stockholders— which seemed to King a moral obligation. To do this, however, the four principal officers sacrificed most of their savings. After the purchase had been completed, Stanley was left with two houses and an indebtedness of about five thousand dollars. On a smaller scale, Stanley had done precisely what Walter Scott and Mark Twain had done before him—sacrificed his personal assets in order to keep his good name. He never hesitated, nor did he make any claims to any special virtue. James J. Storrow, however, who knew what had happened, said to King, "Your credit is so good that you can borrow up to six figures without any collateral, and pay it back as you please!" King later took some advantage of this flattering offer, to his own profit. But it was more important that he had preserved his private honor and his self-respect. Both parties to this transaction professed themselves well satisfied. In the published announcement of the consolidation on May 17, J. Franklin McElwain said: The merger is the result of a long-standing kinship of purpose and ideals between the two companies, and of the desirability of solving jointly the problems of the future. The companies do not compete except on the fringes of their respective lines. To this, Mr. Frank C. Rand, of the International Shoe Company, added his own corroborative statement: For more than three years we have not been able to make as many shoes as our customers wished to buy from us. Throughout the dull period of the past six months we have not closed down a factory. With this added strength, the International Shoe Company is prepared to produce 120,000 pairs of shoes daily.

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As soon as the transfer had been legally accomplished, King was asked by the International Shoe Company to become operating manager of its eastern business. He was not himself eager to undertake this job, and many of his friends thought that he would face an almost impossible task. On the other hand, he felt a definite obligation not only towards the McElwain Company and its good name but also towards its new proprietors; and without being egotistic, he was almost sure that he was the only person who could restore it to financial health. As a first step, he cut his own salary of $20,000 in half, and during the next five years while he was in charge of the eastern operations of the International Shoe Company his salary never exceeded $10,000 and his annual bonus was never more than $2,000. King was shortly elected a Director of the International Shoe Company, and within a few months was asked by the President whether he would become its Treasurer, with a large increase in salary. Stanley was aware that, if he took the place, he was almost certain to grow rich. Furthermore, the job would not have been difficult to fill, for he was thoroughly familiar with the problems involved. But he would have to move to St. Louis and devote the remainder of his career to business. His duties would absorb his time and energy for virtually every day in the year, and he doubted whether, under such restrictions, he could live what he regarded as a good life. Consequently, but only after careful deliberation, he declined the post. In Boston, in 1921, Stanley now resumed his place in the community. He was not only a Director of the Chamber of Commerce but also Chairman of the Transportation Committee which undertook to protect the interests of New England shippers in all rate adjustments affecting them. This Committee followed closely the hearings of the Interstate Commerce Commission relating to the general investigation of the railroad situation. Through it, King was brought again into the orbit of his college friend, Joseph B. Eastman, now a member of the Interstate Com-

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merce Commission, and the two men found that they had much in common in their broadly liberal attitude towards American industrialism. On March 7, 1924, King received a telegram from Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover reading, "Would you serve as a member of the St. Lawrence Commission announced two days ago by President Coolidge?" To this invitation Stanley gave very careful thought, but he eventually declined it "because of the present demands of my own business." Stanley had told his associates in the International Shoe Company that he could put the eastern business on its feet in five years, and this is precisely what he did. He was aided, of course, by the broad upsurge of industrial prosperity which began about 1922 and continued until the autumn of 1929, during the presidential administrations of Harding and Coolidge. Meanwhile, also, King was able to rehabilitate his personal fortunes. Examination of the situation had given him complete faith in the future of the International Shoe Company. As soon as he was elected a Director, therefore, he invested every dollar he could lay his hands on in the common stock of that organization. His system was interesting. His credit being excellent, he borrowed from month to month all the money he could get from the First National Bank of Boston, using the cash to purchase International Shoe stock. He then sent the stock certificates to the Bank, which paid the broker's bill and held them as collateral. As long as the dividends from the stock exceeded the interest on the loans, he could not lose. The stock was increasing steadily both in actual value as well as in quotation on the Exchange so that his security behind the loan grew better and better. Ultimately he had to sell some of the purchased stock in order to adjust his indebtedness, but by that time he was again independent. When, in April, 1927, he withdrew from active business, he had acquired about $500,000, nearly all of it invested in the common stock of the International Shoe Company.

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Perhaps this is the place for following the story a little further. Stanley's advisers urged him, on his retirement, to sell his International Shoe stock and diversify his investments—which was sound policy for him in his position. He did not follow this counsel for some time, believing that International Shoe would go higher; and his faith was justified by the fact that in 1927 and 1928 common stocks were rising almost daily and the market was booming. He did, however, in 1928 liquidate all his interest in International Shoe and put the proceeds into carefully chosen common stocks. In the spring of 1929, while Stanley and his wife were in Europe, he read in the newspapers of the failure of the well-known Hatry firm. Little notice was taken of this in the English or American press, but Stanley remarked at the breakfast table that perhaps he ought to return home and look over his investment portfolio. Shortly they took passage for the United States, only to find everybody optimistic; but to King the Hatry failure was like a red flag of warning. He paid a visit to Dwight W. Morrow at North Haven, Maine, and as the two men tramped over the golf course, Morrow admitted frankly that the current prices of stocks were not justified by their present earnings or future hopes. Morrow's calculated judgment confirmed King's "hunch," although to nearly everybody else the financial atmosphere seemed roseate. When, in August, 1929, Stanley put in some selling orders at Lee, Higginson & Company, the bankers tried to dissuade him, pointing out that his securities were of the highest grade. Disconcerted and a little hesitant, he walked around the block to smoke and meditate. Then, with his resolution strengthened, he returned and insisted that his orders be put through. Gradually he liquidated a large proportion of his investments, loaning the proceeds on call in the street at very good rates of interest. When the stock market broke in late October, Stanley was in excellent shape. Very few American investors were so fortunate, or so farsighted.

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The record as presented proves that Stanley King was an efficient businessman and a shrewd investor, with what might be called a financial instinct. Although he looked and behaved more like a college professor or a diplomat than a typical industrialist, he had earned the respect of both his colleagues and his competitors. For money as an end in itself he cared almost nothing. For the comfort, the pleasure, and the security it can buy he cared a great deal, and he was glad to have himself and his family free from financial worries. Usually he had enough to meet his not too extravagant needs. Rising taxes eventually claimed a larger and larger share of his dividends, but after he became President of Amherst he lived on his salary and was able to spend much of his outside income on various philanthropies, many of them for the good of the College.

ALUMNUS EXTRAORDINARY

A M H E R S T has always been a small and intimate college, and even though it has increased in size during the past half century, most of its graduates still know one another or are at least familiar with the names of those who have done something for it. Professional and industrial leaders in a long succession have taken time from their daily work in order to serve it and have not disdained to greet their younger brethren on the campus. Indeed it has made many a fledgling graduate proud to be able to refer casually to "Jake" James and "Charlie" Whitman and "Doc" Stone. Three men in recent generations have been preeminent in their devotion to the College—Frederick S. Allis, '93, Dwight W. Morrow, '95, and Stanley King, '03—all creatures "of loyal nature and noble mind," any one of whom deserved well the title of "Mr. Amherst." Until his death in 1941, Allis was behind every movement started for the benefit of Amherst, serving unobtrusively but effectively as a power for good. Lured back to Amherst from a business career in 1913 as Secretary of the Alumni Fund, Allis soon afterwards organized the Alumni Council at a meeting on May 20, 1914, in Springfield, with fifty-four representatives present. Among these was Stanley King, then only a little more than ten years out of college but already well known in Boston financial circles. Morrow, a brilliant New York lawyer who had

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joined J. P. Morgan & Company only two or three weeks before, was also there and soon became the dynamic chairman of the Alumni Fund Committee of the Council, the man chiefly responsible for its rapid and remarkable development. Morrow recognized in King a junior likely to accept, hold, and justify leadership. The two men resembled Wordsworth's Happy Warrior, who Plays in the many games of life, that one Where what he most doth value may be won. Each found in public service something that he missed in the less altruistic world of business and finance. Each, having accumulated a competence, turned to enterprises which he regarded as offering the maximum rewards in durable satisfactions. So it was that Stanley King, without any conscious planning, early became an asset to his college, having impressed older alumni as loyal, reliable, and potentially useful. But after the war broke out, he was occupied with other matters, first in Europe and later in Washington, and could devote little thought to Amherst. In early February, 1918, however, while he was completely absorbed in his duties at the War Department, he was called on the telephone by Morrow, who, having just been appointed by President Wilson as a member of the Allied Maritime Transport Council, was stopping in the capital for instructions before going overseas. Morrow asked King whether he could step for a few minutes over to his suite in the nearby Shoreham Hotel for a talk. Stanley thought that Morrow, whom he then knew only slightly, wished to establish a liaison avenue with someone in the office of the Secretary of War; but when he arrived at Morrow's room, the latter ignored international affairs and talked only about Amherst College, its unhappy financial position, its mounting deficits, its low professorial salaries, and its deteriorating plant. He concluded by saying that when hostilities were over, the alumni would have to take steps towards

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raising an endowment large enough to place it in a position of financial security. Morrow, who had been elected to the Amherst Board in 1916, then asked, "When this fighting has stopped, can't you do some work for the College?" Stanley replied, "I'd like nothing better, and I'll just wait for your summons when the right moment arrives." Morrow then continued, almost absent-mindedly, "Before very long there ought to be a place for you on the Board of Trustees." That terminated the conversation, and Morrow proceeded to London, while Stanley returned to his desk in the State, War, and Navy Building. But the two men understood each other. Later King wrote: While the incident was unimportant in Morrow's life, it was, though I did not realize it at the time, perhaps the most significant hour in my career up to that moment. For it altered in its consequences the whole direction and course of my life. It made Amherst my chief avocation and later my vocation for the rest of my active days. Morrow was an unusual combination of imaginative genius implemented by practical sagacity. He and two of his partners, Thomas W. Lamont and Thomas Cochran, were among the first to perceive that the postwar period in the United States would be psychologically favorable for fund drives in the interests of education. In the case of Amherst, the need and the inspiration coincided with the centennial of the founding of the College, and the auspices were therefore propitious. Rising prices had made the salaries of teachers so inadequate that something had to be done at once. There was little delay. In the early autumn of 1919 Morrow invited a select group of alumni to dinner and explained to them his blueprint for the proposed campaign. He wanted first a Committee of One Hundred, which would include the most eminent living graduates but would be mainly decorative—what is technically called "window dressing." He needed also—and this was far more important—a small Executive Committee, of which, he said, he would be Chairman

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if Eugene S. Wilson, '02, better known to his friends as "Tug," and Stanley King, '03, would accept posts as joint ViceChairmen. The idea was that Wilson, who was then VicePresident of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and King, who had not yet resumed all his duties with the W. H. McElwain Company, should attend to administrative details, while Morrow would be available for consultation and advice. Wilson and King, who had known each other since their undergraduate days, were close personal friends. Furthermore, their pattern for living, based on the assumption that men are governed by higher motives than the desire for material things, was substantially the same. They made a fine working team. All this happened at a moment in King's career when he was facing many problems—the issues raised by the approaching Second Industrial Conference as well as by the complicated affairs of the McElwain Company. But some of those present at the New York gathering recall that he accepted the new responsibility and burden without even a conventional demur. Long before that meeting he had resolved to help if he were asked. Having secured the assistance for which he had hoped, Morrow decided to organize the campaign without the aid of professional money-raising firms, and he and his associates agreed on a schedule by which other later drives were to profit. Throughout a year of careful preparation everything was to be built up to a climactic ten days in November, 1920, when the actual solicitation was to be quickly and comprehensivelv carried out. Since the first major aim was to educate the graduates, the entire program of the Alumni Council meeting in November, 1919, was devoted to a presentation of the needs of the College. The area assigned to Stanley was the physical plant, about which he then knew very little. He determined, however, to become an authority on that subject. To prepare himself thoroughly, King asked help from Homer

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Eaton Keyes, Professor of Fine Arts at Dartmouth College, who had been to a considerable degree the instigator of recent important developments on the Dartmouth campus. King and Keyes made a careful, systematic inspection of the entire Amherst setup, visiting every building, noting the type of construction, the age, the materials, and the cost of maintenance. They obtained from members of the faculty their views as to how conditions could be improved. They studied the lighting, the heating, the methods of purchasing supplies, and even the morale of the laborers on the grounds. Never before had the College been subjected to such a searching examination of its equipment, and in the process many anachronistic procedures were uncovered. The administrative methods were far from up-to-date, and it was relatively easy for two keen-minded and experienced men like King and Keyes to suggest ways of improving the existing practices. Stanley's talk to the Alumni Council in November was the first of many which he was to deliver before that body. Because he had not recently done much public speaking, he was, on his own confession, very nervous. Although the audience were attentive, he was conscious that their interest was not really much aroused. Indeed only one of them, Frank L. Babbott, '78, congratulated him afterwards on his carefully prepared address. The subject was difficult to dramatize, and the graduates had not been accustomed to thinking about buildings and grounds. The day was to come when King was to enlarge their education as a by-product of broadening his own. This 1919 speech was his first venture into a field where he was to become a master. President Alexander Meiklejohn, who in 1912 had succeeded President George Harris, was a controversial figure, with both admiring friends and candid critics. For reasons best known to himself, he took no part in planning the Centennial Gift; and just as the arrangements had been perfected, he petitioned his Trustees for a year's leave of absence for travel in Europe. It

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may well be that Dr. Meiklejohn, fearing that his presence might do harm to the campaign, resolved to depart and keep away until the money had been raised. But King wrote in retrospect, "From the point of view of a College President, I have never been able to justify to myself Meiklejohn's action in asking for a year's leave of absence in Europe at the exact time when the alumni across the country were girding themselves for a supreme effort to raise their first great gift to the college which he headed." During Meiklejohn's absence the Executive Committee requested his assistance only once. Wilson and King, just as the intensive solicitation of gifts was beginning, cabled the President asking for a message which they could print and send out to all the alumni. Meiklejohn's reply referred rather flippantly to the mythological story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, enjoining them to go out and shear the graduates and bring the gold back to the campus. The two men merely tore up the message, wrote some conventional sentences expressing what a cooperative college president under the circumstances might appropriately say, and sent them out to the alumni, together with a copy to President Meiklejohn in Europe. The latter never made any comment on the incident, then or later. The climax of the Centennial Gift campaign was scheduled for November, 1920. After months of careful preparation, it was planned to make an emotional appeal to the hearts and checkbooks of a large audience at Amherst and also of a far larger group who could be reached only by a printed report of the addresses. All this was, of course, before radio and television made it possible to talk simultaneously and easily to alumni in every city from coast to coast. Many distinguished graduates had promised to be present: Calvin Coolidge, '95, just elected Vice-President of the United States; Charles S. Whitman, '90, formerly Governor of New York; Bertrand H. Snell, '94, one time Speaker of the House of Representatives; Arthur Curtiss

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James, '89, the eminent philanthropist; and of course Dwight W. Morrow, the soul and center of the campaign, who was to deliver the final stirring address at a huge rally in College Hall on Saturday evening. On Friday a telephone message came through from Morrow saying that he had been delayed in New York on important business and could not promise when, or indeed whether, he would arrive. Not until later did it become known that, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 18, William C. Durant, one of the most audaciously spectacular and irresponsible of Wall Street promoters, then the President of the General Motors Corporation, had notified J. P. Morgan & Company that he was overextended and might have to go into bankruptcy unless financial assistance were forthcoming. Knowing what a collapse of this proportion would do to the market, Morrow toiled all night with lawyers, accountants, and Durant himself, endeavoring to get an accurate estimate of what was involved, and then, with the cooperation of the Du Ponts, arranged to have all Durant's obligations taken over by the Morgan firm. Harold Nicolson, Morrow's biographer, assumes that Morrow worked upon the contracts and other details during the entire ensuing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This is not quite accurate, but it almost happened. Having been warned by Morrow that he might have to substitute and deliver the keynote address, King made what preparations he could in the short period at his disposal. Saturday dawned, there was a gathering in the morning with several "pep" talks, and in the afternoon Amherst won a tremendously exciting football game with its ancient rival, Williams. Finally, to King's immense relief, Morrow arrived by motor, disheveled and weary but triumphant, and without having had more than a few winks of sleep for two nights, thrilled the audience with what Stanley often described as the most stirring Amherst speech he ever heard. King's primary function in the campaign was as an organizer.

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While the intensive solicitation was going on, from November 29 to December 9, he sat in his Boston office using the longdistance telephone, encouraging, stimulating, and cajoling the agents in the field. He seldom missed one of the daily luncheons in Boston for workers in that area. As the drive drew to a close, he found that a small number of alumni in out-of-the-way places had not yet been reached personally. When the names were read, Stanley volunteered to make calls on three people who lived on Cape Cod and started off that very afternoon on his "cleanup" errand. The story of his adventures is best related in his own words: My first call was on an older alumnus on the south shore of the Cape. I told him my story and tears came to his eyes. He told me that he was in bankruptcy and had no money of his own. I tried to get away but he wanted to ask questions about the college. His wife listened. Finally she went away and came back to hand me a dollar bill which she had taken from the pitifully small amount allowed her for household expenses. I tried to decline, but both insisted that I should accept it for the college so that her husband's name might be included in the Centennial Gift to his alma mater. My next call was on an alumnus who was running a gas station. It was Saturday night, business was very light, and we talked about the college. He asked me to return at ten-thirty, when he closed, and then gave me the entire take for the day. Sunday morning I drove well down on the Cape and entered the drive leading up to a remote farmhouse. Children were playing in the yard, and I asked for their father. He was asleep, and my questions elicited the information that he would be up about noon. I returned later and was very warmly welcomed by him. He was a school teacher with a large family. His salary was insufficient for the needs of his family, so he ran a large farm in addition. Every week-day he milked his cows, delivered his milk, and changed to his school clothes in time to teach all day. Then again he milked and delivered the evening milk. On Sunday he was able to catch up on his sleep after making the morning delivery. He had never been able to get back to Commencement at Amherst because of school and farm. He had worked his way through college by doing every job he could find. He was hungry for news of the college, and we talked until lunch time. He insisted on giving me a

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dollar for the fund. These three gifts seemed to me then, and seem to me now, to have been over-generous. I tried to decline them but could not. Each gave so much from the little he had. Stanley's own pledge, signed at the opening of the campaign, was a large one, payable in installments over several years. When he realized early in 1921 how precarious his business affairs were, he turned over to the Treasurer of the Centennial Gift his entire holdings of Liberty bonds in full payment of his subscription. Then, when his capital slowly dwindled as he helped to meet the obligations of the McElwain Company, he had no worries about his promise to Amherst. Meanwhile the campaign, after lingering through the winter, was drawing to a dramatic close. At nine o'clock on a June morning in 1921, Frederick S. Allis, after adding up the latest figures, found to his dismay that, if the goal were to be attained, more than $100,000 must be secured within the next few hours. He then called up one by one various well-to-do friends of the College—including Stanley King—and was able to raise before noon the sum of almost $110,000 from thirty-three gentlemen who had already stretched their resources to the utmost. That afternoon at the Centennial Dinner Morrow told the assembled alumni that the total amount in sight was slightly over the three million which was needed. Of the living alumni about 88 percent had made a contribution. This Amherst campaign was so smoothly run and so brilliantly successful that it became a model for many others started by colleges and independent schools in the prosperous 1920's. Stanley's part in this campaign was so conspicuous that it attracted the attention and won the admiration of Amherst men everywhere. He had furnished much of the energy and many of the bright ideas, and he was invariably available at critical moments. Furthermore, the knowledge which he had acquired of the physical plant of the College had made him one of the best-informed graduates. Although he had not been obscure

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before in Amherst circles, his talents and his loyalty were being increasingly recognized and talked about. In the early spring of 1921, when the drive was almost over but before the final report had been presented, King was approached by Edwin Duffey, '90, Chairman of the Committee to choose an Alumni Trustee, and asked whether he would accept a nomination as one of the three candidates to be voted upon in June for that office. King, who sincerely thought that "Tug" Wilson's name should be considered before his, inquired whether Wilson would also be nominated. When Duffey answered, "No, not this time," King consented to the use of his name. In due course the three nominees were announced as Cornelius J. Sullivan, '92, Ferdinand Q. Blanchard, '98, and Stanley King, '03. Perceiving at once that all three were members of the same fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Stanley telephoned Duffey at his home in Cortland, New York, calling his attention to the situation and offering to withdraw. Duffey replied that the matter was closed and the nominations must stand. "They're all good men, aren't they?" he asked; and nobody could dispute that fact. Sullivan was an exceptionally able New York lawyer with a fine reputation. Nevertheless, one of his legal contemporaries, also an Amherst graduate, took the unprecedented step of mailing a letter to all his classmates urging them not to vote for Sullivan because of the latter's connection as counsel with the notorious Stillman divorce case. This annoyed King so much that he immediately sent a note to the captious alumnus saying that he personally had cast his ballot for Sullivan and that he was writing to all the members of his class advising them to follow his example. Sullivan, a warm-hearted Irishman, was much moved by this act and replied that he had voted for Stanley on the same day that Stanley had voted for him. Thus compliments passed back and forth for everybody except the graduate who had criticized Sullivan.

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Stanley was so tired that he did not attend the Centennial Commencement, but he did motor up to Amherst for a day to see his friends. Dwight W. Morrow greeted him warmly and explained that he had not cast any vote for Trustee because "Sully" and Stanley were both men whom he would be glad to welcome to the Board. The next alumnus King met was Lucius R. Eastman, Morrow's classmate, who was very active in Amherst affairs but also, to use Stanley's words, "always enjoyed bad news and gloomy foreboding." He seemed surprised to see Stanley, said that he understood that he had lost his money, his health, and his job and was generally "washed out," and as a crowning touch added that he himself had voted for Sullivan and expected him to be elected. King replied that he agreed with that choice and had voted in the same way. Then he continued, "Don't be too sorry for me. I've lost nothing on which I set any particular value." He returned to Boston in no very cheerful mood, but two days later he received a telegram from Frederick S. Allis congratulating him on his election by a considerable majority as a Trustee of Amherst College for a fiveyear term. Stanley King joined the Amherst Board at a period when the transition had almost been accomplished from a group primarily clerical in background and spirit to one largely secular and practical. The oldest member, the Honorable Charles H. Allen, '69, a former Congressman and Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was seldom present at the meetings. The most vigorous personality was George A. Plimpton, '76, sixty-six years old, who had been President of the Amherst Corporation since 1907 and was also Treasurer of Barnard College and a Trustee of the World Peace Foundation. A member of the publishing firm of Ginn and Company, he was an ardent collector of books and manuscripts. Plimpton was a man of power and presence, a constant visitor to the College, who knew all its assets and weaknesses. He was both a money raiser and a money giver, and he became

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one of Amherst's most generous benefactors. Frank W. Stearns, 7 8 , the head of a well-known Boston department store, was in 1921 nationally famous as a backer of Calvin Coolidge. The two clerical members were the Reverend Arthur L. Gillett, '80, of Hartford Theological Seminary, then sixty-two, and Dr. Cornelius H. Patton, '83, of the American Board of Foreign Missions and an authority on Wordsworth, who was sixty-one. Chief Justice Arthur P. Rugg, of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, also a member of the Class of 1883, was a man of learning and imagination, still under sixty. Among those belonging to the younger group was Arthur C. Rounds, '87, a New York attorney, who, after serving as Alumni Trustee for several years, was elected in 1921 to the permanent board. He died in 1928. Other new members in 1921—which seemed to be a year of change and changes—were George D. Pratt, '93, of a family to which Amherst has owed much, and Calvin Coolidge, '95, who during his official residence in Washington was rarely at the meetings. Edward T. Esty, '97, a distinguished lawyer and judge from Worcester, Massachusetts, had been chosen an Alumni Trustee in 1919; and Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, '89, a professor and dean at Columbia, was elected in 1920 to a similar position. Although Woodbridge was fifteen years older than Stanley, the two men were intellectually and culturally most congenial and shortly became intimate friends. He had a richly endowed and stimulating mind of very broad coverage, together with a pervasive, and sometimes whimsical, sense of humor. He was often mentioned as a possible president for Amherst, but preferred to remain at Columbia. Finally there was Dwight W. Morrow, brisk, persuasive, and dynamic, who was to continue on the Board until his too early death in 1931. Now that the war was over, King needed an avocation which could be stretched into a major interest and which would also be a form of public service. These opportunities were offered

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to him by Amherst College. From the beginning he was the ideal Trustee—regular in his attendance, thorough and cooperative in his committee work, sound in his judgments, and full of bright ideas. He enjoyed his job, with the incentive which it offered for learning more about the past and present of an institution with great traditions. He liked dealing with figures —with budgets, estimates, reports, indeed all matters involving receipts and expenditures. Furthermore, he was clever at formulating plans for the construction of new buildings and the renovation of old ones. Said one of the janitors, "That guy knows every rat hole and broken pane of glass on the campus." As he strolled over the grounds, his fertile imagination drew him here and there as he considered possible vistas or corners where trees or shrubs could be used as decorative elements. He was interested not only in material things but also in people and their relations with one another, in the faculty and their peculiar problems, and in the unpredictable undergraduates. At meetings of the Board, as soon as he was sure of his facts, he was ready with his opinions. After all, he had only recently been exchanging views with Herbert Hoover and Owen D. Young and Newton D. Baker, and he was seasoned in the give-and-take of committee debate. On any subject within his range, he took pains to inform himself fully, with the result that he was a dangerous opponent in a controversy. The epitome of graciousness and courtesy, he could also stand his ground against all comers when that seemed necessary; but he was ready also to compromise when he could not secure all that he wanted and even to wait until the mood of his colleagues had softened. He knew the importance of both good timing and patience. Although in 1921 he was the youngest member of the Board, his influence grew month by month, for when information was required he was often the only one who could supply it. Members like him are invaluable in gatherings of busy men

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most of whom have had little chance to acquaint themselves with details. On any committee the person who knows has an initial and continuing advantage. In the 1920s Stanley's special and significant contribution to the welfare of the College was in the related fields of finance and construction. Three successive presidents—Meiklejohn, Olds, and Pease—made it a condition of their acceptance of office that they should not be asked to solicit funds for the institution, and this declination of responsibility placed a heavier burden than usual on the Trustees. King was not much concerned with educational policy, being content to leave that in the hands of the President and Faculty. The Finance Committee of the Trustees was headed by Morrow, who also directed the investment program of the College. From time to time at Morrow's invitation Stanley sat with this committee, other members of which were George D. Pratt and Calvin Coolidge. It is no secret that Mr. Coolidge's part in the deliberations was confined to injunctions of economy and caution. In fact, it has been revealed that his favorite question, sometimes unanswerable, was, "Where are you going to get the money?" Although Morrow insisted in 1923 that Arthur Curtiss James should assume the nominal chairmanship, he himself continued to make the major decisions. Meetings were usually held at the Morgan office, at 23 Wall Street, and Morgan investment experts prepared recommendations for Morrow and his associates. The Finance Committee, on June 30, 1924, submitted to the full Board a report, sixty-eight pages in length, telling in simple language the tangled story of the finances of the College. This had been prepared largely by Charles A. Andrews, '95, a member of a private banking firm in Boston, whose services had been subsidized by Morrow. With this document Stanley had little personally to do, for he was then very much occupied with his private business affairs. He did, however, express forcibly his

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opinion that it should be as free as possible from technical terms so that the average alumnus, whatever his occupation, could understand it. To clarify King's relationship to his alma mater at this period, it is necessary to comment on what is still known at Amherst as I'affaire Meiklejohn, a crisis in college history in which, through no wish or fault of his own, he became intimately involved. Harold Nicolson, in his biography of Dwight W. Morrow, has dealt with this unhappy episode so far as the latter was concerned with it. King, shortly before his death, prepared a confidential memorandum relating his own connection with the controversy. Much factual material is to be found in committee reports preserved in the Amherst archives. A short summary of events will throw light on King's conduct of human relations. Coming from Brown University, where he had been professor and dean, Alexander Meiklejohn, in 1912, took over as President of Amherst a college which at the moment was relatively static, even anemic, and injected into it a renewed vitality. Several of the ablest professors had retired, or were about to do so, and the College needed an infusion of fresh blood. This Dr. Meiklejohn indubitably provided, bringing in promising young instructors and lecturers full of zeal and the spirit of progress. Meiklejohn, himself a stimulating and provocative teacher, certainly stirred the institution out of incipient lethargy and soon had a considerable following among the undergraduates. The impression made by his idealism on enthusiastic admirers has been recorded by Lucien Price in his Prophets Unawares (1924). Meiklejohn, who was regarded in educational circles as a liberal, had his own broad program which he outlined in his inaugural address at Amherst. The mission of the teacher should be "the leading of the pupil into the life intellectual," and to this end all else on the campus was to be subordinated. Troubled by the weaknesses of the elective system, he called for its

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modification and expressed particularly a wish that every Freshman be "plunged at once into the problems of philosophy." He was an individualist in the pattern of Emerson, and in the Century Magazine for September, 1923, he denied the responsibility of faculty and president to the students, to their parents, to the public, to donors, to the church, to the alumni, and even to the trustees and to the state. The business of trustees, as he expressed it, should be "to see to it that education is placed in the charge of men who are competent to manage it and who are therefore not responsible to them." While he felt that the responsibility of scholars is in some degree "to other teachers and scholars," it was mainly "toward the truth itself." To quote his own words, "Each man must await assessment of his work, the measuring of the value of the thinking he has done. What have you done for truth? for knowledge? is the major question. Here is, I think, our real responsibility." Something has already been said of President Meiklejohn's avoidance of responsibility for the Centennial Gift. A few weeks after his election in June, 1921, as Alumni Trustee, Stanley King motored to Amherst and paid a courtesy call at the President's office. To his astonishment and embarrassment, Meiklejohn sent back word by his secretary that he was writing a magazine article and could not be disturbed. King then called on his old friend, Professor Harry de Forest Smith, who in the course of the conversation remarked that the President had promulgated a rule that members of the Faculty could communicate with the Trustees only through himself. These two incidents alarmed King very much. "As I drove back to Boston," he wrote, " I realized that the situation between president and faculty was more serious than I had guessed." A few weeks later, on November 12, 1921, King attended his first formal meeting of the Board of Trustees, held in a private dining room of the Hotel Kimball, in Springfield. Most of the

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time was spent on routine business, but an ad interim report was presented by the so-called Rugg Committee, consisting of Chief Justice Rugg and Messrs. Gillett, Plimpton, and Morrow, which had been appointed on the preceding May 28 to confer with President Meiklejohn regarding the "financial relations between him and the College." Although for various reasons the Rugg Committee did not make a formal report for almost two years, the facts as revealed to the Trustees at this November meeting disclosed what King called a "sorry story." In his personal finances the President had been so careless that individual members of the Board had already made generous contributions to help him—and this in spite of considerable increases to his original salary. Furthermore, by this date the President had so far lost the confidence of a majority of the Faculty that some of the Trustees felt he should resign. A few, including Plimpton, Gillett, Morrow, and Esty, were hopeful that the opposing factions could be reconciled. Stanley, who had been too short a time on the Board to express an opinion, kept his ears open and listened. He realized that in some quarters the President was regarded as a voice of educational liberalism in danger of being silenced by "reactionaries." Under such circumstances he preferred to reserve judgment. At a meeting of the Board in Amherst on May 13, 1922, President Meiklejohn recommended the appointment of an associate professor of Greek whose name had not been approved by the Classical Department in the customary manner, and an embarrassing inquiry ensued. Afterwards King, at the President's invitation, went to the latter's study, and there followed what Stanley described as "a long and extraordinarily unhappy interview," in the course of which he discovered that he and Meiklejohn "did not speak the same language." King, as he left, told the President that the latter could easily have carried his

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recommendation if he had been entirely candid and had told the Board that the full professors in the Department disapproved, why they disapproved, and why in spite of their disapproval he thought that it was for the best interests of the College to make the appointment. This was a method which Stanley had employed more than once with his own directors in the W. H. McElwain Company, and always with gratifying results. But Meiklejohn, according to King, only replied that he was the victim of a plot—that a small group of recalcitrant professors were trying to "get him"—and refused to listen to advice. Harold Nicolson has asserted that many senior members of the Faculty felt that the President was "volatile rather than inspired, rude rather than reasonable." Meanwhile the Executive Committee of the Trustees had requested the Faculty to elect a Committee of Five to confer with them and the President of the College, with the idea of airing their grievances. The Faculty promptly proceeded to choose Professors Harry de F . Smith (Greek), George B. Churchill (English), Frederic L. Thompson (History), Frederic B. Loomis (Mineralogy and Geology), and Walter W. Stewart (Economics)—a strong group, only two of whom were openly opposed to the President. As a consequence of several meetings of these committees, it became apparent that the matter required more study than the Executive Committee would be able to give to it. Accordingly a new special committee, consisting of Rounds, Esty, and King, was appointed, to consider all the questions involved. This was quickly dubbed the Rounds Committee, although Stanley did more than his share of the labor and wrote most of the Committee's final report. The members met several times with the President and the Faculty Committee of Five; they received and digested long memorandums and statements; they listened to almost endless argument, rebuttal and re-rebuttal on minor points of procedure and inter-

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pretation; and they eventually reached the conclusion that the administration was rightly regarded by the Faculty "with suspicion and distrust." In one summarizing paragraph the report said: Your Committee, therefore, concludes, in this section of its report, that the experience of the College during President Meiklejohn's administration has shown that the procedure of the Board in making the President primarily responsible for recommendations affecting its well-being and also the responsible medium of communication between the Faculty and the Board has failed in important respects. The Rounds report was duly printed, and on the day before it was submitted to the Trustees, on May 25,1923, King had one last private interview with Meiklejohn, while driving him in his automobile from Amherst to Springfield. The results of this conversation, however, were negligible, and Stanley commented pessimistically: The President told me that if the Board would give him autocratic power at the College for ten years, he would make it a good college. That was the nub. He could not work with the Board; he could not work with the Faculty; his answer was the delegation to him of autocratic power. That evening at the hotel I told Dwight Morrow that in my judgment the situation was hopeless. The most positive conviction arrived at by the Rounds Committee was expressed in the last sentence of its report: It is, in our judgment, useless to go forward with new plans unless the Faculty and the Board have confidence in President Meiklejohn as the responsible head of the College. By this date the mood of everyone concerned, including the Trustees, the Faculty, the Alumni, and even the undergraduates, was growing more tense under the continued strain, and it was obvious that the Trustees could not postpone action much longer. At their May meeting, after they had considered the Rounds report and listened to more of Meiklejohn's dialectics,

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they referred the whole matter for further clarification to still another committee, headed by Mr. Plimpton, the Chairman of the Board, and composed in addition of Gillett, Morrow, Esty, and King—the members supposed to be the least prejudiced. This Plimpton Committee heard patiently statements by various professors and also by a group of younger alumni known to be friendly to the President. At all these hearings, King, partly because of his legal training, partly because of his willingness to sift and weigh evidence, was a dominant figure. The President refused to reply to the questions raised in the Rugg and Rounds reports, and even declined to consent to their limited distribution. He simply stood pat, making no admissions or concessions. Interviews with each Faculty member then in Amherst showed that out of thirty-six willing to express an opinion, twenty-four answered "Yes" to the question "Do you think that the best interests of the College require that President Meiklejohn should cease to be President?" The usually festive Commencement period had now arrived, and the town was packed with returning alumni, all of them excited by the buzzing campus gossip. Although Stanley's class was observing its twentieth reunion, he had little leisure for greeting his classmates. Whenever he appeared on the street, he was buttonholed by faculty, alumni, and undergraduates, all avid for the latest news. On the evening of Sunday, June 17, Mr. Plimpton had a long conference with Meiklejohn, who at last declared himself willing to resign but asked first to meet with the Plimpton Committee for a final review of the situation. When the group assembled the next morning, Meiklejohn asked why the Board had lost confidence in him. Speaking only for himself, King declared bluntly, "I think that you have failed as administrative head of the College." To this observation the President answered, "I do not recognize the competence of your committee, or of you, to pass upon my fitness or unfitness!" Mr. Plimpton informed him of the decisive faculty vote, on which

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he made no comment. "It was a long meeting lasting for four hours," wrote Stanley, "and the day I remember was intolerably hot." Still another meeting took place after dinner on that torrid evening, during which, very close to midnight, the President made a bitter personal attack on each member of the Plimpton Committee in turn. Stanley recorded: I observed that Dwight Morrow was becoming restless and that the tempers of some of the others were wearing thin. So I interrupted the President and told him we were here—and I quoted the words of the morning session—to decide what was best for the College. When finally it was agreed that the President should resign then and there, the question arose as to the phrasing of the letters to be given out to the press. Professor Walter W. Stewart, whom Meiklejohn had brought along as his adviser, went out with Stanley to an adjacent room, where the two men drafted three letters, one to be signed by Meiklejohn and two by Plimpton. When the text had been slightly revised by the interested parties, Stanley found a typewriter and copied each letter in duplicate. The President then put them in his pocket, saying that he wished to consult his wife before announcing his definite decision, and broke out in an angrily passionate address, ending with the statement that he would never forgive the members of the Plimpton Committee. Nobody answered, and Meiklejohn walked out with Stewart into the night. When Meiklejohn had departed, Dwight Morrow told King that he had engaged a suite of rooms at the Hotel Nonotuck, in Holyoke, and invited him to share it. They drove off about two in the morning in Morrow's car, only to be told when they reached the hotel that a mistake had been made and that the one available room had only a double bed. Stanley's account of their subsequent adventures is diverting: VVe took the room. Morrow talked to me as I undressed, and at four we turned out the light for a short night's rest. Presently I awoke

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to realize that some one was moving restlessly in the bed, looked over at Morrow and found him wide awake. He suggested that we get up and take a walk and have a talk. I agreed. It was five o'clock. W e had had an hour's rest. We walked the streets of Holyoke discussing the situation, first if the President resigned and second if he did not. By six we found a lunch room where we could get breakfast, and after breakfast we drove back to Amherst. I have often wondered what Morrow's chauffeur did with two hours between four and six on that hot morning. At ten o'clock on Tuesday morning, June 18, in Walker Hall, the Corporation held its formal meeting, with every member present except Coolidge and Pratt. After routine business had been disposed of, Meiklejohn calmly offered his letter of resignation. T h e necessary formal votes were quickly passed, accepting the resignation to take effect at the close of one year, giving the President leave of absence at full salary for that period, and electing Dean George D. Olds as Acting President. Stanley's entry for that day needs no amplification: I found my car and drove out of Amherst, too tired to participate in the Commencement exercises. The curtain had been run down; what was to come on the morrow was epilogue. I had to stop on the road to Boston and drive up beside the road to rest. In a letter of explanation to Vice-President Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Morrow said: I came to the view that President Meiklejohn could not stay at Amherst much more reluctantly than some other members of the Board. It seemed to me that the issue of academic freedom was really an important one, and that as long as the faculty could stand him, we should put up with him. When it became perfectly clear that the faculty could stand him no longer, we certainly were justified in acting. Many years later, when hot heads had cooled and he could look back from a chronological perspective, King went to the core of the matter: "Meiklejohn could not admit to himself that he was responsible to any one. Fundamentally it has always

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seemed to me that it was this philosophy which was the underlying cause of his failure." Summing up all the testimony, he added: It seemed to me clear then—and my subsequent experience both as a member of the Board and for fourteen years as President have not changed my convictions—that the President was chosen by the Board to administer the College; that the President in accepting office from the Board recognized the Board's final responsibility for the College; that for a decade in his relations with the Board he implicitly confirmed this recognition that he was responsible to the Board; that the evidence was clear beyond the possibility of a doubt that he had failed egregiously to administer the College successfully; that the testimony of his own supporters confirmed this; and that when the record was submitted to him he made no reply. It seemed to me clear that one of the reasons for his failure was his fundamental philosophy that he was not responsible to any human group, either Board or Faculty, but only to "truth"; and that this philosophy led him into serious breaches of the fundamental obligation of candor in his relations with colleagues on the Board and on the Faculty. The Faculty I thought had the obligation to express its judgment even though it did not have the power to act; and the Board had the power and therefore the duty to act. It could not abdicate that duty in a crisis by resigning any more than a ship's captain could resign in time of storm. Throughout these proceedings no one ever questioned Meiklejohn's ability as teacher and scholar. The matter at issue was his competence as an administrator—which is quite a different matter. In this field, several members of the Board, including King, were at least as experienced as he. Freedom of speech, the right of the teacher to talk as he pleased, were brought up only in connection with the President's disregard of the opinions of his Faculty. The real problem was one in human relations, and on this issue the Trustees made their decision. One more salient comment was made by King regarding the President's attitude towards his Faculty: In his published articles and addresses Dr. Meiklejohn maintained the right and in fact the dutv of the Faculty to speak freely the truth

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as they saw it. There was to be no curtailment of the right of a teacher to say what he thought to his students. But he refused to permit even the older full professors to communicate with the Trustees except in writing and through him. This shocking restriction on the freedom of a teacher remained on the books until I abrogated it at the beginning of my term as President. Of course President Olds and President Pease never applied it.

Harold Nicolson describes in lively fashion a later meeting between Morrow and King when the Meiklejohn affair came up once more. King, passing through London when Morrow was busy with the Naval Conference of 1930, called upon him at his office, which was full of roar and rattle: He found him buried in tonnage and calibre statistics, pestered by callers of every nationality, buzzed around by secretaries, experts, and reporters, with the telephone shrilling in all corners of the disordered sitting room, and the click of typewriters mingling with the incessant droning of the elevator. "Why, this," said Stanley King, "is hell on earth!" "No, Stanley, it's not as bad as that Meiklejohn business. Besides, in that business we failed to cure." "But Dwight," protested Stanley King, "an amputation in that case was quite inevitable." "Amputations create wounds; they do not heal them. No, Stanley, we did poorly over that business. W e did not do well."

Unlike Morrow, Stanley felt that the outcome was as inevitable as the crisis of a Shakespearian tragedy in which Character is Destiny. Things could not have gone on as they were much longer without disrupting the College. The President refused to alter his views or his behavior. Consequently the Trustees were compelled to accept his resignation. The logic seemed to King irrefutable. He was ready to defend his own conduct, both privately and publicly, for the remainder of his life. The affair did have for a time some effect on the College. Three of the twenty-nine professors and five out of fifteen associate professors resigned in protest against the action of the Trustees. At Commencement, twelve Seniors refused to accept their degrees. Meiklejohn himself at the Alumni Dinner— which Stanley did not attend—delivered a farewell address in

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which he attempted to confound his critics. Certain newspapers and magazines published articles reflecting on the tolerance and judgment of the Trustees. But Dean Olds, in spite of his age, took charge effectively, poured oil upon the troubled waters, built up the Faculty, and restored the confidence of the alumni. This biographer would be unjustified in fanning the embers of these bygone quarrels and recriminations if it were not for the influence of the Meiklejohn affair on Stanley's development and career. In the first place, it gave his associates on the Corporation for the first time a chance to measure and test his quality. As one irritation followed another, King stood out coolheaded, courageous, and trustworthy. In spite of his relatively short period of service, he gained rapidly in leadership, as was shown by his appointment on two important committees, and he was frequently accepted by common consent as the spokesman for his colleagues. In the second place, his interest was aroused in the office of the President of Amherst College, with its pains and perplexities, its opportunities and satisfactions. In the third place, he was compelled, because of his participation in the controversy, to think out rather carefully his own conception of the privileges and duties of the administrator in a collegiate world. He knew something of business management, but he had not realized the obligation of a college president to work amicably with trustee, faculty, alumni, undergraduates, and the general public—the five groups always in the background and frequently in the foreground of his existence. Stanley now saw that Meiklejohn, although a distinguished scholar and an educational reformer, had failed to get along with his associates. From his relationship to the Meiklejohn controversy King learned much which was of value to him when he himself became President. In 1926, when Stanley's five-year term as Alumni Trustee expired, he was, of course, placed in nomination to succeed himself. Everybody familiar with Amherst knew that he de-

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served a reelection, but the regulations made it necessary to have two other names on the ballot. It would have been a colossal misfortune if the College had been deprived of Stanley's services at a moment when he was reaching his maximum of usefulness on the Board. The alumni body did not fail to recognize this, and he was reelected by a large majority.

FAMILY MATTERS

Stanley King was working on business and government policies and struggling with President Meildejohn's complicated problems, he was also a husband, a father, a son, a brother, and a community member. During the winter the Kings lived with their three young children at 100 Pinckney Street, in Boston, between Charles and Brimmer Streets, in a four-storied house with the narrow frontage typical of that neighborhood. It had plenty of comfortable rooms and was well located near the Charles River and within a short walking distance of Stanley's office. As the weather became hotter in the spring, they usually moved to the estate which the Kings had bought at Sharon, south of Boston, and named romantically "Romany Rye." The house, since burned, was large and rambling, with pleasant views from the windows, and the countryside had great charm. Stanley enjoyed here playing the role of Squire of the Manor, and liked to meet guests at the railroad station driving a very smart runabout and pacer. The colored cook, Sylvia Holt, added to the Kings' reputation for providing good entertainment and warm hospitality. Stanley loved the spot and even after he had sold it in 1924 wrote: WHILE

Every pine grove through which the moon shifts in summer, every meadow where the arethusa grows secluded, every hillside where the wood thrush sings at evening, every window that looks out on

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Mt. Wachusett, every lawn where children romp in playtime, is my Romany. Always a man of strong family feeling, Stanley kept in close touch with his father and mother, visiting them frequently in Springfield, writing to them often when he was abroad, and always remembering significant anniversaries. His sister, Carrie, at this time required a constant companion. Stanley made the arrangements for her care, and finally placed her in a nursing home in Wellesley, Massachusetts. On Christmas Eve in 1921 he received a telephone message saying that she was much worse. He at once left the Pinckney Street house, where a celebration was going on, and drove to Wellesley in a terrific blizzard. He was by her bedside when she died in the early morning. W h a t happened next is best told by him: My father and mother were at 163 Dartmouth Terrace, in Springfield, and I recall that it seemed important to me at the time to break the news to them in person instead of by telephone. The storm of the night before was over, and the countryside was covered with a deep blanket of snow. My brakes on my car had frozen. I left Wellesley at five in the morning and drove to Springfield as fast as I could drive my car and without my normal regard for safety. As my brakes did not function, I took the curves at high speed. Fortunately the roads were blanketed with snow, and there were no cars out at that time in the morning, and I made the trip without incident. Carrie is buried in the family lot in the Springfield Cemetery where father and mother were later buried, and where Ames had been buried. Gertrude, Stanley's wife, was slightly above the average in height, with brown hair and blue-green eyes and distinct personality. A woman of exceptional ability, she sought and enjoyed the friendship of brilliant people. She has been described by Roger Baldwin as "the leader in wise and witty talk among an unusual intellectual company of liberals"; and Ernest M. Hopkins recalls her as "a woman of real charm who knew how to get along with men." Walter Lippmann wrote of her that she

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had "a cavalry temperament which made her wish to go far and take a chance, to swim too far out in bad weather and drive too quickly on slippery roads, which made her in controversy a distressingly incisive and ironical adversary." She was introspective, a reformer and visionary by disposition, with a spirit somewhat like that of Margaret Fuller. She wrote some poetry and a number of essays, mostly about books, and in her later years she was engaged in preparing "a rounded statement of her own thought"—never completed. In the summer of 1918, Gertrude and Stanley King were mainly responsible for starting on Martha's Vineyard an interesting experiment in cooperative living, called later by the members "Barn House," although Stanley preferred to refer to it as "The Camp." Stanley apparently first saw the Vineyard in the summer of 1899, when, with three other boys of his own age, he went there for a summer vacation. They took their bicycles with them, camped on the beach, and explored many of the fascinating side roads. Later Stanley occasionally visited the Besse family, and after his marriage to Gertrude the two were often guests at the Besse cottage during the hot months of July and August. The best interpreter of what is locally called "The Island" is probably Mr. Henry Hough, editor of the very distinctive local newspaper, the Vineyard, Gazette, published at Edgartown, who has put into book form many of the facts and legends concerning it and its inhabitants. Within its one hundred square miles the Island displays an amazing variety of topography and scenery. From the moment the visitor steps off the ferry boat and drives his automobile west along the South Road over Stanley King's customary route to Chilmark, he finds himself in picturesque surroundings. Gay Head, the vividly colored promontory on the west end, is still an Indian reservation where descendants of the aborigines wander around in modern dress. Edgartown, the prosperous settlement

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on the southeast shore, once the center of a whaling industry and the home of scores of sea captains, active and retired, is a popular resort, with a harbor crowded with small sailing craft. Oak Bluffs, where camp meetings flourished in the nineteenth century, caters more or less to transient visitors. West Chop, facing the mainland towards the north, is a delightful haven for people who crave relaxation and quiet. Almost anybody can find what he wants in this diversified vacation land. Stanley gradually came to know everything about the Island. In his library he accumulated every procurable book about its history, traditions, geography, and personalities. He was a familiar figure to tourists; and sight-seeing busses as they approached his house, Salt Meadows, would often stop while the barker announced, "This is one of our show places—the residence of Stanley King, President of Amherst College. There he is now, playing croquet." It was the simple natural attractions, the ponds and estuaries, the paths through the pines and over the moors, the quaint fishing boats at Menemsha, the sand dunes shutting off the fury of the sea, that appealed most to Stanley King. Henry Hough has summed all this up in his delightful

volume, Marthas Vineyard, Summer Resort, 1835-1935, by saying:

Notwithstanding the flowering of the new period out of the culture of the times, the basic attractions of Martha's Vineyard as a summer resort have remained, oddly enough, exactly what they were a hundred years ago: Gay Head cliffs and the Gay Head light, the Indian town, the surf on the South Beach, bluefishing, the land, the water, the sky, the hills, and the plains. On Martha's Vineyard, Stanley spent many summers, first as a member of a group and later, to his infinite satisfaction, as a landowner and proprietor. There he found solace, stimulation, companionship, and peace. When in later life he drove with his wife, Margaret, from Vineyard Haven to Chilmark and reached the signboard marking the town line, he always blew his horn

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in salute. It was his way of indicating that he had come back home. In 1915, on his extended trip to the Balkans and Russia, Stanley met for the first time the red-bearded artist Boardman Robinson, known to his friends as Mike, who had been sent there to make drawings for the Metropolitan Magazine. Robinson was an uninhibited individualist who looked like a Viking and talked like a revolutionary and loved to be the center of attention. For brief periods he was on the staff of The Masses, The Liberator, and Harper's Monthlij, and he was also the author, with John Reed, of an interesting book, The War in Eastern Europe. With Robinson and his wife, Sally, the Kings formed a close relationship. In the summer of 1918 the Kings, with the Robinsons and the Clifford Warrens, went for a short time to Gay Head, camping out in a farmhouse which, although it provided few creature comforts, had the advantage of being near the beaches. With them also was Wolcott H. Pitkin, Stanley's classmate at Harvard Law School, who had just returned from Siam, where he had served for two years as adviser on foreign affairs to that government. Another visitor was Dorothy Kenyon, a Smith graduate who had become one of the early woman lawyers in this country and was later to be a Justice of the Municipal Court of the City of New York as well as a distinguished feminist. They had a good time together, and as the party was breaking up after Labor Day, Stanley said gaily, "Let's buy a place on the Vineyard!"—a suggestion warmly seconded by Gertrude. In the following April the Kings and the Warrens spent an exploratory week end on the Island, finally choosing the "Mayhew Place," the oldest farmhouse on Martha's Vineyard, which Stanley promptly purchased in his own name. Although the building needed some renovation, the large barn was in excellent condition, the location was good, and the price was reasonable. The site was on a ridge on the north side of the road between Vine-

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yard Haven and Gay Head, overlooking Chilmark Pond and the Atlantic Ocean beyond, about two thirds of a mile away. A considerable acreage was available for possible future development. Within a few weeks the group was organized as the "Chilmark Associates," with the Kings, the Robinsons, the Warrens, Pitkin, and Miss Kenyon as charter members. Gertrude invited her friend, Natalie Haskell, with her husband, Adam Haskell, to join, and the two soon became very active in the project; indeed, Stanley often referred to Adam Haskell as "the uncrowned king of Chilmark." Another early member was Edwin De Turck Bechtel, a New York attorney, who remained active in the organization until Stanley left it. The group was shortly enlarged by the addition of L. Valentine Pulsifer, a chemical engineer who had invented the first waterproof varnish, and his wife, Ethel. The members were all people with marked intellectual interests, gregarious and cooperative. They had the status of proprietors, and the others who came from time to time as visitors never were legal members. Among these later guests were Felix and Marion Frankfurter, the Walter Lippmanns, Raymond Fosdick, Ralph Hayes, Max Eastman, Elihu Root, Jr., Graham Wallas, and Henry P. Kendall. Clifford Warren was Secretary of the Chilmark Association and Stanley was President and Treasurer. According to Margaret Warren, Stanley "accomplished prodigies in making the old farm usable for the summer of 1919." He bought furniture wherever he could find it, and soon had an equipment adequate for all immediate needs. Some small sheds which an earlier owner had used for his chickens were converted into sleeping quarters and quite properly called "coops." Everybody pitched in with the true pioneer spirit, and within an incredibly short time the colony was in full operation. What it became was described by Gertrude in her poem "Chilmark":

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Here is the long roofed house, so neat, so old, The blinds we painted and the paths we cut, There are the curtains where the lamp shone gold, And there the door that only storms could shut.

A pleasant feature of the community was its complete informality. Under an arrangement highly satisfactory to parents, the children had their meals by themselves and enjoyed guided recreation in a healthful outdoor atmosphere. Everybody, male and female, did about as they pleased, although it was assumed that they would do nothing to interfere with the happiness of their neighbors. Life for all focused on the huge old barn, which served as dining room, social center, and general gathering place. It is a tribute to Gertrude and Stanley King that in such a group of independent thinkers they were leaders. In the evening, after a day spent in swimming, walking, bicycling, possibly even of writing or reading, they all sat after dinner around a leaping fire of logs in the big barn; and somebody—very often Gertrude—would introduce a subject for discussion—political, artistic, or even religious. There was never any lack of fluent and spirited talk. Raymond Fosdick recalls an evening during the 1924 presidential election, with Coolidge running against John W. Davis, when the debate lasted almost until dawn. "We were all young," writes Fosdick, "and the fact that we all went barefoot was indicative of the kind of life we lived." In other moods they had costume parties, and Gertrude even formed a class in interpretative dancing. The atmosphere, according to Fosdick, "was simple, informal, and rather Bohemian." Stanley found the environment and the personalities most congenial, and as time went along he took over, with the tacit approval of all concerned, the business direction of the organization. Former members recall that he was the most practicalminded of the group, the one who saw to it that its financial affairs did not fall into confusion. There were plenty of brilliant

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dialecticians and artists in the colony, but no one could run things as well as Stanley King. In 1922 Stanley had a serious, indeed a critical, illness, regarding which he wrote, "I faced death for myself the first time, faced it open-eyed and calm. It had no terror. I did not tremble or grow sick at heart." And then, in the spring of 1923, came a double catastrophe. Their youngest child, Margaret, then in her sixth year, was taken suddenly ill and died on April 7, of what must have been a ruptured appendix inaccurately diagnosed. Three days later, her mother, Gertrude, who had been suffering for some weeks from a strange malady, went into a delirium and died of what was probably a brain tumor. The effect on Stanley, who had been ill himself not so long before, was devastating. For some weeks Stanley, uncertain of the future, went through his routine duties like a man benumbed. Later in the spring he had to undergo the fatiguing ordeal of the Meiklejohn affair, and it is remarkable that he did not break under the strain. A widower with children dependent on him, he was indeed in a difficult position. Mrs. Boardman Robinson came to manage his household for a few months, but as she had two children of her own, the Pinckney Street residence was far from peaceful. During the summer of 1923 the entire family went to the Camp on the Vineyard, where everybody tried to make things as easy as possible for Stanley. In the autumn, Mrs. Kingman Brewster, Gertrude's sister, took little Gertrude King into her house and Richard was enrolled at Belmont Hill School. Stanley then sold the large house on Pinckney Street and moved into a small apartment on Grove Street, in Boston. There he had a competent Filipino servant to take care of his needs, and room could always be found for the children during their vacations. For a while Stanley had to undergo a painful adjustment. He moved restlessly from place to place, visiting friends and keeping busy with the affairs of the International Shoe Company and Amherst College. Once he wrote Florence Brewster:

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I've quite surprised myself this week, if I may confess it, lifted myself by my bootstraps as it were. Sunday night when I got in from Springfield I was so near the jumping off place that I could look over the edge. There seemed to be little left to hold on to, and my usually steady will was so tired of holding on to nothing at all that it wanted to lie down on me—and did. I locked myself in my room, had supper served to me alone, fairly jumped out of my skin at any noise in the house. And mutiny reigned in my mental garrison. But Monday morning the will took command again, put the garrison in its place, and won. And it's kept a relentless watch ever since. Stanley also occupied himself with the editing of Gertrude's papers, and in 1924 Harcourt, Brace and Company published a volume of her prose writings under the title Alliances for the Mind. These included reviews of works by such authors as Bertrand Russell, John Maynard Keynes, John Dewey, Graham Wallas, and others, together with some comments on the Russian theater. In a short introduction, Walter Lippmann said of these essays, "They are often about difficult books, sometimes about extremely technical books, but they are always about books in which she had found companionship, and about ideas which seemed to her allies in the search for meaning in the universe." In 1926, also, Stanley had printed privately a volume of Gertrude's verse under the title To My Dreams. In the spring of 1924 Stanley sold the Sharon estate, all but about twelve acres. It was a difficult decision to make, but he wrote, "Don't let any one draw a long face and be sorry for me because I've sold Sharon, for Romany Rye will live in my spirit wherever I am." Stanley's love of nature in all her aspects was very deep. The Sharon place near the Blue Hills had been a convenient refuge, and he had attached poetic names to many of his favorite spots. But the sea had come to mean more and more to him, especially since he had seen so much of Martha's Vineyard, and he found there all the refreshment and recreation that he required. Writing about the ocean, he said:

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To children of Massachusetts such as we are by long descent there is a sure call from the surges of the Atlantic that comes distinctly in times of crisis, and that nothing else can answer. I have known for several years that this I should miss perhaps as much as anything if I moved to an inland city. And I know too that I want to spend my sunset years close to the sea, with the salt air in my nostrils and the sand beneath my feet.

On the first anniversary of Gertrude's death, Stanley wrote with much feeling: An almost endless year has ended, and another begins. I've tripped and stumbled sometimes. Sometimes I've been almost blind. But I haven't wavered. Folks have been writing me sad letters this week, about sorrow and all that. They are heavy-footed pedestrians. Only the poets know. The rest they may live and learn.

But the wound was beginning to heal. He spent part of the summer of 1925 at the Camp, among his loyal friends. On December 9, of that year, he was writing a whimsical letter in his old mood to Florence Brewster, giving her a list of presents that he would like to receive, among them "a certified check or certificate of deposit on any bank which is in good standing socially" or "Rabelais, in translation, unexpurgated, in as expensive a set as may be appropriate—no expurgated edition for children desired." Amherst was claiming more and more of his time, and new interests were arousing his attention. After all, he was young and vigorous, responsive to beauty in all its forms. Fortunately a new and rich period of happiness was about to open for him.

A NEW HOPE

W H K N Stanley King was in Paris in the spring of 1919, he came across one of his law school classmates, Colonel G. Edward Buxton, who said to him one day, "There's a girl in Providence, Margaret Allen, whom I hope youll meet some time. You'd get along famously." Stanley wrote the name down in his Little Black Book, but many months were to go by before the opportunity arrived for an introduction. Margaret Pinckney Jackson was a Vassar graduate of the same period as Gertrude Besse. In college she had taken part in many campus activities, tying for the highest scholastic position in her class and being twice its president. She was a person of broad intellectual interests, both literary and artistic, and at Commencement was voted the "most gifted." On June 1, 1904, she had married Arthur M. Allen, an attorney in Providence, which had been her home since early childhood. In June, 1921, she met Gertrude King on a train going back to a Vassar reunion and was invited by her to visit the Camp on Martha's Vineyard. There she first saw Stanley King. During the next few years the two met only intermittently, but after Gertrude's death Stanley was thrown frequently with Margaret Allen, and the two reached what is known as an understanding. In the spring of 1927 Mr. Allen agreed to allow his wife an uncontested divorce on the ground of incompatibility,

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and she and Stanley made arrangements for their marriage in the following summer. Meanwhile King, with new plans for his future in mind, decided to retire from the International Shoe Company, and on November 15, 1926, he met with Frank C. Rand, its president, and announced his intended withdrawal on June 1,1927. At this period he was offered lucrative partnerships by Ernest G. Howes and L. Valentine Pulsifer, but made it clear to both of them that he was done with business—as he said, «f » iorever. King had also another crucial decision to make. On November 12, 1926, George D. Olds, still alert and active but conscious of his burdensome seventy-three years, declared his intention of resigning on June 30,1927, as President of Amherst College. To it he had given a brief but fruitful administration, and he well deserved the gratitude of all Amherst men for reconciling, at the expense of his own strength and peace of mind, the conflicting elements on the campus. The Trustees at once appointed a committee consisting of Morrow, as Chairman, with Woodbridge and King, to recommend a new president. In his book "The Consecrated. Eminence," King tells the story of how he and Woodbridge, at a private meeting, decided that Morrow was the logical choice for the presidency and found, after a poll of the Board, that this feeling was unanimous. The two then went to Morrow and told him their conclusions, at the same time letting him know that they were ready to help in any capacity if he would only accept. Indeed King offered to move to Amherst, without title or salary, to assist in every way possible. Morrow took a full month to consider this invitation but eventually refused it. He had but recently declined to be a candidate for the presidency of Yale. Furthermore, he had some good reasons for believing that he might soon be offered an important government post by his Amherst classmate and friend, President Calvin Coolidge. Following Morrow's definite refusal, King's own name was

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suggested for the presidency by several members of the Board, but he had in mind other projects, some of which he outlined in a letter written on May 4, 1927, on board the Leviathan, to President Ernest M. Hopkins, of Dartmouth College: For twenty years I have lived a more or less conventional life of the business like order, and for the time being at least I am done. I have become the gypsy for which I was always intended, and am now on the first lap of my wanderings. I have finished the job in International Shoe which I undertook in 1922 and which proved more difficult than I had anticipated. But now happily it is done, and there remains only the operating job for which the operating organization developed in these five years is quite competent, and which does not particularly interest me. So with the cordial approval of my St. Louis associates, who however suspect me of being quixotic at the moment, I have retired from the company, taking a few essentials in my trunk and a letter of credit in my pocket, and set out to see more of the places I have always wanted to know. We have not yet chosen a president for Amherst, but after the most careful thought I took my name off the list of possibilities and took it off irrevocably at this time. It really isn't what I want to do most, and from the point of view of the college I suspect we ought to have a scholar. I am off for a year at least, perhaps longer, and I am making no plans whatever thereafter. . . . I had hoped to get up to see you before I sailed, but the details of arranging the affairs of my children for next year took up more time than I had anticipated. Send me your blessing when you can, and I will send you an occasional bulletin on the pilgrim's progress. To this disclosure of King's hopes and purposes Hopkins replied on May 27, saying specifically with regard to the Amherst presidency: You are certainly right in withdrawing your name unless you are definitely interested, should it come your way. It is not the kind of a job that a man can work on with maximum effectiveness unless it is something that he particularly wants to do, or unless he has some particular purpose that he wants to achieve.

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I am not sure what is likely to happen at Amherst, but I have a feeling, somehow, with you out of the picture something not of maximum advantage may happen. However, I trust this may not be so. Shortly after his arrival in Paris, Stanley, at Woodbridge's request, flew to Marseilles to have a talk with Professor Arthur Stanley Pease, of the Amherst Latin Department, who was then enjoying a leave of absence and was being seriously considered for the presidency. King reported favorably on him to the Trustees, who on June 18, by a unanimous vote, elected Pease to succeed Olds as President. A few days later, from Vevey, on L a k e Geneva, King wrote to Dr. Hopkins a note of further news and explanation: I am most appreciative of your letter. I should have liked to believe that I was fitted to be President of Amherst. The administrative side of the work would not have bothered me. For its other aspects I felt unqualified. But the occasion of this letter is not the problem of Amherst College, interesting as that is to me, but rather to tell you that I am profoundly in love, that I am engaged to be married, and that I am wildly, deeply happy. All of me is involved to the very core of my being. My fiancee is Margaret Allen, at whose house at Seal Harbor I met you at tea two summers ago when I was a house guest for a week with Leonard Ayres. Margaret and Arthur Allen were divorced this last winter in Paris, and Margaret remained in Europe completing her first novel. For the past month we have been here visiting my sister-in-law, and in July we shall be married in Paris. W e shall then go to the Near East in the fall, and in the winter, if all goes well, after spending the holidays with my children in Switzerland, we shall sail for the Far East. Margaret you know somewhat, and you can see for yourself how enchanting and brilliant and moving a personality she has. I am the happiest man on the continent, and that is an understatement. On July 2 3 , 1 9 2 7 , then, Margaret Allen and Stanley King were married and drove at once in their small Peugeot convertible to Saint-Raphael, the attractive resort on the F r e n c h Riviera, for

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their honeymoon. From then on for almost two years they were on the move, seldom settling long in one place. They both liked to travel, to see strange lands and meet interesting people, and they welcomed the opportunity now granted them to wander as they pleased. Rather than be bound by arranged tours, they preferred to follow their own inclinations, going here and there as the spirit moved and changing their plans to meet unexpected situations. For such a program no pair could have been better suited, since their tastes and temperaments were completely congenial. On September 3, the Kings met the two children, Gertrude and Richard, who had just arrived on the France, and motored them to Switzerland, where they were placed in school at Gstaad, in the Bernese Oberland. Two weeks later, Margaret and Stanley arrived in Trieste, where their adventures began. By small boats they cruised along the picturesque Dalmatian coast, ending their voyage at Ragusa, from which they entered Montenegro, intending to go over into Albania. But they were advised against that trip and returned to Ragusa, proceeding from there by boat to Bari and thence to Athens, passing the island of Ithaca in the evening twilight. In Greece the Kings made their headquarters at Athens, motoring from there to other focal points on the peninsula, including Corinth and Mycenae. One evening they sat for three hours under the light of a pale new moon, looking at the Temple of Zeus, only to find that they had been, according to Margaret, "on the exact spot where the last waters of the deluge receded and Deucalion founded the new race." In their enthusiasm they raced each other half the length of the empty stadium, ending, to Stanley's surprise, in a dead heat. On October 11, after receiving letters from home, the Kings decided to return to America for the inauguration of Arthur Stanley Pease as President of Amherst. Leaving Athens on the Orient Express, they stopped at Vevey to see the children and

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then went to London, where they dined with various friends, including the Harold Laskis, Sir Campbell Stuart, and Lionel Curtis. They were back in time to hear Dr. Pease give his inaugural address on "The Aims of a Liberal College." Two weeks later King was again in Amherst with Professor Woodbridge, studying plans for the new chemical laboratory. His family excepted, the College had now become his major interest. The Kings were back in Paris on December 17 and went at once to Vevey and Gstaad, where they spent the Christmas holidays with Gertrude and Richard, talking over plans for the future. By this date they had perfected arrangements for a trip which would carry them eventually the length of Africa, and on January 19, 1928, they sailed from Genoa, on the Esperia, for Alexandria. There they dined with the judges of the Mixed Tribunal and had lunch with North Winship, the American chargé d'affaires. At Cairo they stayed for a week at the famous Shepheard's Hotel, camped on the desert, rode camels, and visited Professor George A. Reisner, of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, who took them to the various exhibits. Already, Stanley wrote home, they were "overwhelmed with Egypt." In early February, with the weather clear and warm, they boarded the Nile steamer Victoria and voyaged slowly upstream, stopping off at villages for donkey trips and sight-seeing. At Luxor they spent a week, having an entire day with Professor James H. Breasted, of the University of Chicago, who was directing excavations. Of this stage of their journey, Margaret wrote, "Wonders pile on wonders, and I feel like a pinch of sand at the bottom of the largest pyramid." After three days at Assuan, they went by railroad, on "the most perfect tropic day imaginable," to Khartoum. Khartoum was a frontier city, occupied by a military garrison, and the Kings were entertained lavishly by the local officials. Stanley devoted part of the time to investigating the senna

ON T H E ROAD TO PORTOFINO, T H E ITALIAN RIVIERA

IN FRONT OF SUGAR L O A F MOUNTAIN, RIO DE J A N E I R O

ON THE EQUATOR, CENTRAL AFRICA,

AT T H E BASE OF A LIVE

9 , 0 0 0 FT. HIGH

VOLCANO IN JAVA

ON THE SAHARA

THE KINGS ON THEIR TRAVELS

Bachrach

STANLEY KING IN

I932

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market in Omdurman for an American merchant. At Khartoum, in a mood of "utter relaxation and forgetfulness," they boarded another small government boat, the Nafir, for the long trip of two weeks up the river to Rejaf, the head of navigation. The heat was blistering, seldom below 100 and with a maximum one day of 112, and the mosquitoes were almost unescapable. Along the banks they could see every form of tropical animal life—"hippos" and "crocs" and an occasional herd of elephants. Leaving the boat on March 17, at Rejaf, they rented an automobile from a British resident and were motored "across sunbaked plains, through savage, tortured, twisted, unkempt tropic growth, over roads much better than we had expected," finally reaching Fort Portal, Toro, Uganda, on the edge of the Great Rift. There, in the Mountains of the Moon Rest House, Stanley had a sudden chill and was half-delirious with fever all night. On the next morning, the British local doctor took a blood test and diagnosed Stanley's illness as malarial fever of the subtertian type—the most malignant form of that unpleasant disease. Margaret wrote, "Stanley has been having the most fearful doses of quinine and feeling like nothing on earth." King's diary for March 25 has the following laconic entries: Sunday, Fort Portal. Showers. Clearing. Temp, normal. Called Dr. Griffin. Blood test. Shows malaria. Began quinine treatment. Spend day with M. on veranda reading. Fortunately Stanley responded quickly to the huge doses of quinine and, miserable though he was, he was never immobilized. But the tension for them both in that remote spot was not easy to bear, especially with the long trip to the coast ahead of them. In a letter home, Mrs. King wrote, "My heart sank when I looked at the Mountains of the Moon and thought of the 750 miles that stretched between them and Nairobi, with only rest houses or poor hotels and maybe torrential rains between us and comparative comfort. Stanley looked like death, and his liquid

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quinine almost paralyzed his throat, it's such terrific poison, and his ribs were like the ribs of animals bleaching on the sunscorched plains." Fortunately the rains held off longer than usual that spring, and the Kings were able to set out on March 28 on a morning which Stanley labeled as "clear and warm." The journey had its grim features, but Stanley came through the ordeal with only one serious recurrence. On April 3, Stanley wrote his parents: Last night we drove into Nairobi, the principal city of all East Africa, and our sixteen hundred mile motor trip came to an end. The trip has been a wonderful success, and seems incredible to me even now. The road from the Sudan on which we started has been open less than two years, the rest houses and little hotels at which we stayed are either still unfinished (which applies to about half of them) or were finished only a few months ago. Yesterday was the climax of our trip. In the morning we crossed the Equator at 10:30, but as we were nearly 9000 feet above sea level, we both wore overcoats. Last night just before sunset we crossed the Great Rift Valley, which stretches all the way from South Africa to Abyssinia, and climbed the precipitous escarpment which forms its eastern wall until we were again nearly 9000 feet high, twice in one day.

After some heavy shopping in Nairobi, the Kings moved on, and a week later, on the deck of the steamship Mombasa, Stanley wrote: For three months we have been in the interior of a great continent, desert, jungle, the great river, and finally the highlands of equatorial Africa, and I had become homesick for the tang of the salt breeze in the nostrils, the soft air of the sea, and the lazy routine of life on shipboard.

After a short stop for sight-seeing at Zanzibar, the Kings reached Beira, in Portuguese East Africa, on April 13, and were soon off again for the interior. On their journey they had met a picturesque Englishman, J. Russell Allcroft, who carried with him a portable victrola and an abundance of records, listening to which they whiled away the time. The Kings and Allcroft engaged a second-class railroad carriage which was attached to a

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goods train and carried them, over a rough roadbed, with much bumping and straining, to Salisbury, capital of southern Rhodesia. Two days later they were at Victoria Falls, which Stanley described as "the greatest natural wonder I have ever seen." They made a pilgrimage to Bulawayo and the Matapopo Hills, where Cecil Rhodes and Dr. Jameson lie buried on a lonely mountain top. Finally, on April 22, they arrived at Cape Town, where they spent several days in civilization, resting and shopping and enjoying some gay parties with friends. There they were able to secure a stateroom on the Franconia, which was on the last lap of a world cruise, and managed to ship their South African furniture as luggage and thus to take it along with them on the ship. Later several of the beautiful pieces ornamented their houses at Chilmark and Amherst. The voyage was a delightful conclusion to their wanderings. On May 2, Stanley recorded in his diary, "Fancy dress ball. M. in Persian and S.K. Arab costume. Dancing until midnight. Divine day." The Franconia stopped for short periods at Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Martinique, and the Kings were back in Boston, at Stanley's apartment, the Turret, on June 3. In midJune, Stanley returned to Amherst for a meeting of the Trustees and his twenty-fifth reunion. The Kings now had to make an important decision as to where they would establish their permanent home. Although they both liked Martha's Vineyard, they preferred to acquire their own property rather than to live at the Camp, with its lack of privacy. On June 26, they went to the Island and, with the assistance of some of the members, opened the Camp for the season and started to investigate available real estate. At just that moment the Poole House, built about 1850 by Captain Matthew Poole, came on the market with eleven acres of land, and the Kings, who already knew the place and its potentialities, bought it forthwith. It had a very desirable location close to Chilmark Great Pond on the South Road from Vineyard

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Haven to Gay Head, with plenty of space for gardening and landscaping. Within a day or two they were planning the changes which they proposed to make in the house and on the grounds; and before the month was over the necessary work of alteration had begun under Margaret's direction. Although they first called it King Place, they later christened their new home "Salt Meadows," and in making it beautiful they expended not only money but love. On July 23, Stanley entered in his diary: Monday, Chilmark, our first anniversary. Morning with M. to Greene's for flowers & to King Place. Wine at our Coop before lunch. Afternoon to King Place with Dugan & Hancock. Letters and telegrams of congratulation. Met Rosamond Brooks in evening. Big fancy dress party at barn to welcome us back.

Dick King had arrived from Europe in July, and the Kings arranged to go back with him on the France on August 4, on what Stanley noted was his twenty-seventh Atlantic crossing. The three of them met Gertrude at Vevey for a family reunion. Stanley, with the two children and a guide, climbed Sphinx from Grindelwald "over steep snow, with knife edges, roped." They had a delightful summer vacation together, motoring, climbing, playing tennis, and Stanley's diary notes morning after morning which he describes as "incredibly beautiful." His happiness breaks out emphatically in his entry for August 27: Vevey, clear and warm. Tennis with M. & Gertrude. To Montreux with Gertrude. Errands with M. in village. Tea in garden. Decided to sail round the world. Most divinely happy day in memory.

Having resolved thus casually to go "round the world," the Kings lost little time in getting under way. On October 3, they embarked for home at Marseilles, on the leisurely President Monroe, of the Dollar Line. From New York, Stanley went direct to Amherst for the fall meeting of the Trustees. Returning to Boston, he made some changes in his will and his investments, and then accompanied Margaret to the Vineyard to inspect the progress at Salt Meadows. On November 1, they were off by

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train across the continent to the Grand Canyon of Arizona, where they stayed in a hotel which had "a phlegmatic solidity, built of boards, like a Gargantuan log cabin, and full of unexpected anachronisms." At Los Angeles, they lingered only a few hours—"and long enough it was!" In San Francisco, which they liked much better, they remained for a few days, meanwhile casting their absentee ballots for Herbert Hoover for President. On their voyage across the Pacific on the President Cleveland, they stopped for a few hours at Honolulu; and on November 25, when they landed at Yokohama, Stanley entered in his diary, "The Orient at last!" Two days later they were in Tokyo, entering upon a round of continuous and generous hospitality from diplomats, educators, industrialists, and public officials. Especially kind were the faculty of the Doshisha School, founded in 1875 by Joseph Neesima, a graduate of Amherst in the Class of 1870, and sponsored largely by Amherst men. To his parents Stanley wrote: Japan has made a profound impression on us in the two weeks we were there, and has inspired us beyond almost any other country we have seen. The vitality of the people is immense, and has enabled them in sixty years to assimilate western civilization—its science, its commerce, its industry, its culture. . . . We even thought of cancelling some of the later portions of our trip and remaining another month in Japan, but decided that instead we would return some later year when we could stay longer. At Kobe, on December 7, the Kings reoccupied their familiar stateroom on the President Monroe, and moved on to Shanghai and Hong Kong, where some university professors to whom they had letters were very cordial. Disregarding warnings, they went up to Canton by night boat, saw some shooting in the streets, and felt as if they were in the midst of a revolution. Although they had intended to have a look at the Philippines, they now decided that they would proceed direct to Saigon, the port of French Indo-China. On arrival there, they hired a seven-passenger automobile, with a chauffeur and a footman, taking two

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days of fast driving to reach the Angkor ruins. They stayed at a rest house, studying with great care all aspects of the Angkor W a t and even watching a native dance by torchlight in front of that marvellous temple. T h e close of the year found them at Bangkok, where they were the guests of Ray Stevens, a friend of Stanley's ,who was an adviser to the Siamese foreign office. T h e y were feted by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, had luncheon on the royal yacht, were received by the Prime Minister ( t h e last polygamist left in S i a m ) , and joined in a gala supper on New Year's Eve. In his diary, Stanley wrote: So the year's done with, Love me forever. From Bangkok they went by boat to the British port of Singapore, which they found "no more romantic than a flowerpot." Here again they changed their plans and instead of going to India, decided to visit Java and Bali and learn something about the early Cambodian kings. Stanley mastered Malay sufficiently well so that they could drive about without a guide in "a wonderful open touring car." Margaret wrote of her first experience on Bali: We dashed along breathlessly and without interference. On arrival, however, as we walked around the car to see if all was well, there was a chicken or two caught in the radiator, a pukka Malay, turban and all, on the running board, and a Chink with the remains of his travelling restaurant caught on the rear spare. At Tosai, in Java, the Kings had a private bungalow with two piazzas, each over fifty feet in length, one glass-enclosed, the other hanging almost over the edge of an abyss. One morning at two o'clock they started off on horseback to see Bromo, the great volcano: On we went for nearly three hours, almost in complete silence. Then an incredibly rough double-S turn, lifting us quickly a good many feet more, and we were at the top of the pass. Suddenly there was light, and through the clouds and mist the sun! A sheer drop of

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several hundred feet led the eyes down to a strange inland grey sea. The Sand Sea, rimmed in by high green walls, behind it a high uneven dark grey line, now hidden, now revealed, by broken fragments of cloud. In the midst there rose a white cloud of deeper texture. "Bromo! Smoke Bromo!" said my horse boy, pointing.

In Bali they saw the native dancers, reaching the conclusion that there were no more wonderful figures among the women than anywhere else, although their brown skins made them seem more attractive. After becoming familiar with the sarongs, Margaret described the country as "the land of the universal skirt." They were sorry to leave Bali, with its exotic charm, but it seemed wiser to move on, and they returned to Singapore. There they boarded a French liner for the long voyage to Europe, enlivened by a stop at Ceylon and a passage through the Suez Canal. Landing at Marseilles, they motored again to their much loved Switzerland and paid a visit to the children. From there they went to London, where, as we have seen, Stanley became apprehensive about the state of the stock market and decided to get back at once to the United States. Margaret and he arrived in New York in June, just in time for him to attend the Amherst Commencement and then to sell out his securities before the stock market collapse in the autumn. By this date Stanley had covered much of the known globe, with the exception of India and the islands of the South Pacific, and had acquired a wholesome respect for other nationalities and racial customs. He was elected to the club called The Ends of the Earth, made up of far-travelers. Among its presidents had been Admiral Dewey, who helped to found it, Mark Twain, and Rudyard Kipling. In the early summer of 1929 the Kings moved themselves and many of their belongings to the house at Salt Meadows, which had been partly remodeled for them during their absence abroad. The old barn was removed, but the carriage house was kept, and to it additions had been made, including a two-room guest house, maids' rooms, a laundry, and a three-car garage.

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Within a short period Margaret set out dozens of shrubs and trees, including Scotch and Austrian pines, Chinese dogwood, and a Siberian elm, all of which are unusual on the Island. Paths were made through the woodland and meadows, one to the bath house and the shore of Chilmark Pond, another branching west through a gate into the "fatting pasture," where it rose steadily to what the Kings called the T.A.Q. (Terminus Ad Quern). There a seat in front of a huge boulder commanded a broad view of Chilmark Pond and the surf pounding up beyond the sand dunes. Margaret and Stanley had a happy custom of assigning quaint names to pleasant places, and they built up over the years their private store of memories and associations. Once established as an Island proprietor, Stanley could not resist the temptation to acquire other parcels, amounting in all to eight and comprising more than 150 acres. Among these was a tract on which was located what they called "The Other House," almost directly across the South Road, assigned to the farmer and caretaker. This dwelling was built by Jeremiah Mayhew, a direct descendant of the original settler of Martha's Vineyard. The Kings had a gift for improving everything they touched. From the Persian lilacs to the turf on the croquet ground, all was well kept and good to look upon. They filled their new home with treasures brought back from foreign lands: a samovar carried by Stanley out of Russia; "burgher chairs" made of stinkwood acquired in South Africa; spears and axes from the Sudan; daggers from Uganda; and krisses from Java. With these exotic objects were mingled maps and prints of the Island and some old American tables and chairs. Stanley's own study on the second floor at the front of the house was dominated by an enormous metal desk, so extensive that it could hold piles of books and papers. He valued space and convenience more than beauty when he undertook to write. In developing Salt Meadows, the Kings had in mind spending

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about half the year there and the remaining six months either in their Beacon Street apartment, in Boston, or in travel. Once established in their home on the Vineyard, they led a very full life, for they had countless friends not only among the summer residents and members of the Camp but also among the Islanders. Their neighbors included the Lewis Perrys, the Whitney Griswolds, the Raymond Fosdicks, the Guy Emersons, the Paul Cruikshanks, and, as time went on, several devoted members of the Amherst faculty. Not far off were Katherine Cornell, Max Eastman, and Van Wyck Brooks. July and August offered a continuous succession of parties, to which they contributed their full share, and somebody was always dropping in for tea or luncheon. But they liked it best when the summer visitors had either gone or not yet arrived—in October, for example, or in May. Again and again in the 1930's they set out from Amherst for Woods Hole, not minding in the least the motor trip of almost five hours. When they arrived, the car would be driven on the ferryboat, if possible in the front stall, and the minute the way was clear, off sped the Kings at a hot pace down the South Road to their destination. Once there, the Kings really required no entertainment beyond that which they could supply for themselves. On the Island they rose early and had eaten breakfast almost as soon as the birds had begun their piping. When Stanley was President of Amherst, his office called him each morning to tell him about any important mail and to receive instructions. While he was at his desk, drafting speeches, answering correspondence, or planning policies, Peg—as her friends were accustomed to call her— worked with her hands on the grounds. She was, and is, an organic gardener, and no commercial fertilizer or sprays have been used at Salt Meadows since they settled there. They both enjoyed canoeing on Chilmark Pond, which stretches for several miles along the shore, and they swam daily in the ocean surf. Cold water did not prevent their ocean bathing—indeed they

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once went in on the day of the Harvard-Yale game in midNovember. In the evening after supper they motored slowly along the Island roads, to favorite spots near Menemsha Pond or to watch the sunsets at Gay Head. In that section the Vineyard is a peaceful place. Automobiles drive, of course, on the main thoroughfare, but the side roads are unpaved and narrow. There are no summer hotels, and the houses are far enough apart so that noise in one does not disturb the others. Consequently, even though it took time and trouble to reach Salt Meadows, the trip was always worth while for Peg and Stanley. In acquiring his new property Stanley became almost automatically a member of the "Association of Owners of Lowlands and Meadows around Chilmark Pond," an organization formed to consider and determine problems of privilege and control. Into details of ownership and history he loved to probe, and he spent many happy hours in the Court House in Edgartown going through old documents. In 1930, he was chosen a Commissioner, and with Roger Allen and John Bassett became largely responsible for the business of the Association. At the same time he was also elected Secretary and Clerk, and kept the records with the prescribed "care and clarity" in his own handwriting. T h e last meeting which he attended was in August, 1950, the summer before he died; and for the preceding twenty years he had given unsparingly of his time to maintain the prestige of the Association. He had even prepared and printed a brochure on Fishing and Fowling Rights as laid down by the early settlers. Some of the Islanders called Stanley the "Duke of Chilmark," and the legend was abroad that he was worth five million dollars; but the minute prepared by his colleagues after his death shows that they felt for him both respect and affection: None of us who attended those meetings of the Association with Stanley King will ever forget his directness, his clear mind, his ever ready humor. He was a citizen of the world, distinguished as a business man and as a civic leader. He had travelled widely in many

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lands. Yet at the simple and informal meetings of the Pond Association, Stanley King, Clerk, was as much a part of the life of Chilmark as John Bassett had been. Even a cursory visitor can sense the satisfaction which Stanley King found on Martha's Vineyard. The climate is more salubrious than that of the "Continent," with less snow and cold in winter and often less heat in summer. The scenery over both land and water is picturesque and unmonotonous. One remembers the wharves at Menemsha Bight, where unpretentious restaurants serve the finest lobsters in the world; the tangled shore foliage of wild grapes and beach plums and marsh grass; the impressive spectacle of the soaring Atlantic surf, seen from the ridge above Chilmark; the view of No Man's Land and Naushon and the Elizabeths from Gay Head; the broad expanse of the Great Plain, the last haunt of the extinct heath hen, now denuded of all but dwarf oaks. And no guest of the Island can forget the infinite variety of birds, the almost abandoned lanes shaded from the summer sun, and the mournful notes of innumerable cicadas.

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of these thrilling events in his private life, Stanley King, whenever he was in this country, attended meetings of the Trustees of Amherst College and served effectively on their committees. From all other assignments, except a directorship in the Kendall Company, he had cut himself completely free. As we have seen, he made a special trip back from Europe in order to attend the inauguration of President Arthur Stanley Pease at Amherst on November 4, 1927. Dr. Pease was a cultured gentleman, well poised, serene, and fastidious, an apostle of both sweetness and light (as defined by Matthew Arnold), and as a Greek and Latin scholar he was, and is, internationally known. He did not, however, endure patiently the burden and distractions of academic detail. Moreover, it was his unfortunate lot to hold office during an unprecedented and catastrophic succession of national economic disasters, all of them affecting the welfare of the College. The times called for more toughness—perhaps more ruthlessness—than he possessed. On the August 2 preceding Pease's inauguration, Calvin Coolidge, a Trustee of the College, had issued from the Black Hills of Dakota his dramatic announcement—which some persons regarded erroneously as enigmatic—"I do not choose to run for President in nineteen twenty-eight." Nevertheless, even with I N THE MIDST

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Coolidge out of the picture, prosperity continued while Herbert Hoover was elected and inaugurated as President, and all the omens seemed propitious. But something resembling Nemesis was about to crash upon a materialistic people. As we have seen, King, disturbed by rumors and trends, and more astute than most Americans, returned in June, 1929, to survey his personal investments; and he promptly took steps which for him averted calamity. The first break in the stock market came in early September, when the Kings were still at Chilmark. This was followed by the tragic financial landslide of October 24, when even large fortunes were dissipated overnight. In the late autumn of 1929 the Kings went to Bermuda for a vacation in the sun, and from there sailed for Europe on what was to be, although they did not realize it, their last sojourn on that continent. They were back in the United States for the Amherst Commencement in 1930, and spent the following summer at the Vineyard. From there on August 3 Stanley wrote to Louise (Seaman ) Bechtel a letter which reveals perfectly the inner workings of his mind and spirit: Sometimes the happiest heart is the least articulate. Sometimes the most poignant joy is silent. This is my case for the past few weeks. For never in all my life—not in the flush of youth, nor yet in the brimming happiness of the first days of our honeymoon—never in all my life (and I use the phrase with precision) have I been so happy as in the past month. And now as the August moon waxes to the full and summer reaches its crest, I know that whatever the remaining weeks have in store, this is the summer to which I would say with Faust, "Bleibe, du bist so schon." We are profoundly happy in our Salt Meadows, which has blossomed this year in spite of the outward drought—blossomed in its spiritual content, if you follow my imperfect metaphor. Here we could be profoundly happy as island hermits together, here we could be equally happy as the center of our friends who come and go. Our autumn and winter are so crowded with plans, each enticing, that we shall have difficulty in making the choice of Paris between the seductions of Bermuda, the stimulus of Europe, and the lure of more distant adventure. And

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our new apartment in town which we visited this week is going to have a charm and a peace which will be difficult to leave. Over the Christmas holidays the Kings took the children with them to Bermuda, planning to spend several weeks at least, but a fire broke out in the building in which they were sleeping and destroyed most of their belongings so that they thought it best to return to their Boston apartment for the winter. In February, 1931, Stanley underwent a major surgical operation and spent three weeks in a Boston hospital. On March 19, Margaret and he went to the home of Henry P. Kendall, in Camden, South Carolina, where they enjoyed a month in the sun, reading and talking and planning for the future. Fortunately Stanley's recovery was rapid and complete so that they were able to go from Camden almost direct to Salt Meadows. Most of the spring and summer they were on the Island, with trips now and then to New York and Washington. The health of Judge King, Stanley's father, was precarious, and finally he was placed in a nursing home in Wellesley, Massachusetts; and as he was failing rapidly, the Kings did not wish to go too far away. He did not die, however, until December 20,1932, shortly after Stanley's inauguration as President of Amherst. Meanwhile, as unemployment increased and dividends were reduced, all phases of American life, including independent education, were affected. Because fewer families were able to send their children to college, applications for admission to institutions like Amherst dropped sharply in number. A Faculty committee reporting in April, 1928, had recommended that the size of the Amherst undergraduate body be gradually reduced until it reached 600; and under President Pease the registration had been arbitrarily lowered until by the autumn of 1931 the students numbered only 644. Unfortunately, however, the applications fell off so markedly that when all qualified candidates had been accepted the Freshman enrollment was only 191—not enough to allow for normal shrinkage. At the same time Amherst officially insisted on maintaining its traditional entrance requirements,

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with continued emphasis on Latin and, to some extent, on Greek, which fewer young Americans were willing or able to offer. The Old Guard on the Faculty refused to budge. One competent outside observer remarked that Amherst, more completely than any college which he knew, was resistant to modern trends in education. Many of the best preparatory schools were advising their ablest Seniors to go elsewhere than Amherst. Privately endowed colleges cannot long operate in a vacuum. Nothing is more pathetic than a campus without students. The national prospect in 1931 and 1932 was such as to produce its full share of doubt, indecision, and fear. At a moment when economic principles once regarded as fundamental were being questioned, college faculties were naturally restless, and even the Trustees, with their remote control, talked vaguely of "taking steps." One of the wisest of them, Professor Woodbridge, wrote Stanley on September 8,1931: I am inclined to think that the whole internal administration of the College needs a fundamental overhauling. Sometimes I think it calls for an inquiry by the Board. That, however, would be unfortunate, as the matter is, first of all, a matter for the President. But I have this suggestion: let the President associate with himself a group of the Faculty which will contain representatives of the different factions —for there are factions—and sit down with them and lead them to work out the problem and then submit the solution to the Faculty. He need not shape a solution, but he should make them feel their responsibility and not let them rise until they had discharged it.

The relationship between Woodbridge and King had been for some time an intimate one, based on mutual regard and respect. Woodbridge, born in 1867, was the older by sixteen years. A graduate of Amherst in the Class of 1889, he was immortalized in the College annals by his authorship of that convivial lyric, "Paige's horse is in the snowdrift." Afterwards he had a brilliant scholarly career, becoming Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy at Columbia in 1904; and he was Dean of the Graduate Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science at the same university from 1912 to 1929, when he retired from that administra-

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tive post. After serving as an Amherst Alumni Trustee from 1920 to 1929, he had then been chosen as a permanent member of the Corporation. He shortly became Chairman of the Executive Committee, holding that position until 1931, when he went to Germany as Theodore Roosevelt Professor at the University of Berlin. As a younger man, he had been considered as a possible President of Amherst, but had consistently declined to allow his name to be used. Physically Woodbridge was massive, with powerful shoulders, thick neck, and Olympian head, not unlike that of Beethoven. His keen glance radiated power, but he dominated others also by his strong convictions, his facile and penetrating mind, his rare blend of knowledge and shrewdness, and his skill in verbal expression. His correspondence with King over many years is packed with projects and ideas. By an agreement between the two men, any letters from Woodbridge to King on yellow paper were to be regarded as important and highly confidential. Busy though he was in New York, and sometimes in Europe, Woodbridge could usually steal the leisure for writing Stanley in his distinguished calligraphy paragraphs of spicy comment on men and events. King on his part frequently shared his secrets with Woodbridge, certain that his trust would never be betrayed. Stanley regarded Dwight W. Morrow as "the most significant figure in modern Amherst history," and the superlative is well justified. In appearance the two men were very different—King tall and erect, impeccably tailored, dignified, and outwardly calm; Morrow below the average in height, his hair rumpled and his necktie usually askew, tense and restless in his gestures. Throughout Morrow's career, his astounding vitality was transmitted to those around him, even to such outstanding personalities as Thomas W. Lamont and Thomas Cochran. Writing of him, King said truthfully, "No member of the Board was as beloved as Morrow; no alumnus had the affection and confidence

Wide

World

A T KINGS INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT OF AMHERST ALEXANDER

MEIKLEJOHN,

LEFT;

STANLEY

CALVIN

KING;

ARTHUR

COLE, LEFT;

PEASE;

COOLIDGE

AT COLE'S INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT OF AMHERST CHARLES WOOLSEY

COLLEGE

STANLEY

ALFRED STEARNS;

STANLEY

COLLEGE KING

Bachrach

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of so many alumni; no member of the Board had exercised equal influence in the determination of college policies; and in the management of the portfolio Morrow was for fifteen years the directing force." Speaking before the Alumni Council as early as 1925, King remarked: Mr. Morrow has done for the College in the handling of its finances a really unique piece of work. I do not know of another institution whose investments have been so well made. . . . From him has come the vision which has inspired the development of the program for the physical plant of the college of the future. Morrow and King, both practical idealists, admired one another, and their relationship, as we have already seen, was at times very close. Morrow was to King almost like an older brother, and indeed the two men had much in common—exceptional personal magnetism, early success in the world of affairs, and a strong urge to public service. Undoubtedly Stanley learned much from Dwight, and it is certain that Morrow had an unconcealed respect for King. Harold Nicolson reports that, in a moment of disillusionment with politics, Senator Morrow had said to King, "The life which you and I have led thus far has completely unfitted us for service in the United States Senate." This remark, by implication, shows what Morrow thought of his fellow Amherst man. When Stanley had resigned from the International Shoe Company, he found himself with more free time to devote to the College, and his associates on the Amherst Board were quite ready to place upon his shoulders as much of a burden as he was willing to take. Whenever a Trustee is both efficient and eager for responsibility, plenty of committee work is likely to be found or created for him. Mr. Plimpton, the President of the Corporation, had confidence in King and consulted him on every major problem. When Mrs. William H. Moore decided to give Amherst a new building in memory of her husband, it was Stanley who stressed the need of a new chemistry laboratory

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and arranged with McKim, Mead & White to have the preliminary sketches drawn. In the late summer of 1929, Morrow, who had just retired as Ambassador to Mexico, discussed with Stanley the advisability of adding to the Finance Committee a new member who would gradually relieve him of the duty of making investments, and strongly suggested that King was the man. Stanley, however, evaded this approach, insisting that he was not sufficiently familiar with the stocks and bonds market, and recommended instead Robert W. Maynard, '02, of Boston. Not the least important of Stanley's characteristics was his wisdom in avoiding jobs for which he did not regard himself as well qualified. Thus he escaped a considerable amount of trouble and worry. More and more frequently Stanley began to go back to Amherst to inform himself about conditions or to attend meetings of committees. In November, 1930, when he was nearing the close of his second term as Trustee, he addressed the Alumni Council, to render, as he said, an account of his stewardship. He dealt almost entirely with the buildings and grounds, referring especially to the notable physical changes which had taken place in recent years and stressing particularly the need for a new gymnasium. He concluded: I ask your indulgence for a single personal word in closing. The opportunity which the alumni gave me ten years ago has given me more durable satisfaction than any work I have ever undertaken, and to you as representatives of the alumni I offer my sincere appreciation. When Stanley's second term on the Corporation expired in 1931, he was ineligible for reelection, and in June Lucius R. Eastman, '95, was chosen to succeed him. No vacancy then existed on the permanent board, but Woodbridge, who was about to assume the duties of his Berlin professorship, resigned as Amherst Trustee without consulting King; and the latter was then, by previous arrangement and at Woodbridge's request,

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elected a life member. Stanley was then immediately named as Chairman of the Executive Committee. By the date when Woodbridge returned to Columbia after his year in Germany, another vacancy had developed on the Amherst Board and he resumed his former place on the Corporation. This unusual incident shows both the generosity of Woodbridge's spirit and the respect with which Stanley was regarded by his fellow members. In the spring of 1931, also, Stanley had a large share in persuading Charles A. Andrews, '95, known to his collegiate generation as Charlie, to come back to Amherst as Treasurer. Andrews had already performed some important services for the College in the field of finance, and was admirably suited to his new post. Taking office on July 1, 1931, during the administration of President Pease, he continued through the early years of King's presidency, until his death in 1940, meanwhile becoming one of those indispensable specialists in public relations who know how to lubricate organizational machinery. Although he worked theoretically under Stanley, the two were almost partners, who understood and trusted one another, talked the same professional language, and were united in their devotion to the College. On October 5, 1931, Dwight W. Morrow, literally worn out with living, died very peacefully in his sleep, in his fifty-ninth year. Not long before, he had remarked to Stanley, "Most of my friends think the world is coming to an end, that is, the world as we know it. I don't think it is. But if it is, there is nothing I can do, so I am not worrying." But, as his biographer points out, he was worrying, worrying about many things, and three days before his death, when he was asked how he had slept on a train from Washington to New York, he replied, "Not very well; I kept waking up thinking what a hell of a mess the world is in." His last speech, on the evening before he died, was on a characteristic theme—the nature of human charity. Amherst's President, Arthur Stanley Pease, had never been

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altogether happy in his administrative position and, as a scholar, was irked by the constant necessity for making decisions when the evidence was neither complete nor conclusive. In the late autumn of 1931, on the death of Professor Edward K. Rand, he was unexpectedly offered a professorship of Greek and Latin at Harvard College, his alma mater, where, a quarter of a century before, he had begun his career as a teacher. The opportunity was too alluring for a man of his tastes and temperament to resist; accordingly, on December 19, 1931, he offered his resignation as President to take effect on June 30,1932. At a meeting of the Board of Trustees called on the following day in Springfield, at which Stanley was present, the resignation was accepted "with profound regret." The Springfield Republican, in editorial comment, said: President Pease has been averse to personal publicity and has not been conspicuous in the public discussion of educational questions or of political issues, but his administration has not suffered in consequence or lacked in responsiveness to progressive ideas. The Trustees at once appointed a Special Committee to recommend a new president, with Stanley King as Chairman, and as other members Alfred E. Stearns, Lucius R. Eastman, Edward T. Esty, and George A. Plimpton, ex officio. Stearns, who had been Principal (later Headmaster) of Phillips Academy, Andover, since 1903, had been elected as Alumni Trustee in 1927. Stearns's grandfather, William A. Steams, had been President of Amherst from 1854 to 1876, and his father, William F. Stearns, a merchant and importer, had been the donor of the College Church, dedicated in 1873. Alfred Stearns had been as an undergraduate one of Amherst's outstanding athletes and was a popular figure among the alumni. In November, 1931, he had undergone a major surgical operation, from which he was still convalescing at the time of Pease's resignation. His own Andover Trustees had given him a leave of absence until September 1, 1932.

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At the Springfield meeting of the Amherst Corporation, there was the usual informal gossip among the members, and King, writing that evening to Woodbridge, said: Mr. Coolidge told me privately that he thought we should select a minister and suggested the Dean of Hartford Theological Seminary, whose name he does not know but whom he heard preach once. Mr. Plimpton tells me we must select a deeply religious man and suggests Dan Bliss, a young Congregational minister. . . . Mr. Rugg tells me his candidate is President Wilkins [Ernest H. Willans, of Oberlin College], King then introduced a sentence revealing his own personal relationship to the business of choosing a president. "Two members of the Board have suggested my name, but I intend to take myself out of the picture completely." As Chairman of the Special Committee, he was indeed, as he saw, in a position which might become embarrassing. Professor Woodbridge, who, although he was no longer a Trustee, was regarded by his former colleagues as one of their most judicious counsellors, was notified of Pease's resignation by cable message, and before he had heard from Stanley at once sat down and wrote on his confidential stationery a long letter under date of December 21, 1931, in which he left no doubt as to his own opinion: I have just written a letter to Plimpton, telling him that although a nominating committee will naturally be appointed, with you a member of it, I think the first thing to be done is that he should get the Instruction Committee together and consider with you the possibility of your taking the presidency. I need not dwell on your qualifications. I have mentioned one or two of them to him. I may say, however, that I think you should not hesitate because you have had no experience as a member of a college faculty. You know enough about such faculties, and about colleges, already, and your method of tackling the job is sufficient guarantee that you would proceed with the spirit of an inquirer. Stanley was much impressed by this prompt proof of friendship and admiration, especially since the suggestion now in

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some respects struck a responsive chord in his thinking. The idea of the presidency had been mentioned to him earlier, in 1927, but then, with his marriage to Margaret imminent and their plans for extensive travel arranged, he had not wished his name to be used. Even now they were still eager to move hither and yon as they pleased, and they had their cherished plans for what Margaret described as a "foot-loose, fancy-free future." At Chilmark on summer evenings they dreamed of "a spring in the Vale of Kashmir" or "a winter in a temple in Peking." No one knew better than Stanley what urgent problems the next President of Amherst would have to face and how assiduously he must devote himself to their solution. On the other hand, Stanley was justified in feeling that his career up to that point had equipped him for just such an administrative position. He had held the reins of authority and knew both how to drive and how to check. He had initiated important projects and carried them through to completion. As his inclinations were clarified, he was encouraged by his wife, who was willing to make sacrifices for his happiness and used her influence in favor of the College. King had many factors to consider and weigh, but his loyalty to his college and his deep concern about its future made it difficult for him to resist the importunities of friends. It is easy to understand, then, why Stanley, after some serious soul-searching, replied to Woodbridge, January 3, 1932, unlocking his heart: Your letter has touched me very deeply. But it has also upset me. Your phrase "a challenge to a career" has been fermenting in my mind ever since. It is a potent phrase; it may overturn all my previous thinking on the subject. . . . Mike Smith is passionately eager that I should be the President: Tom Esty says he has no other candidate. On the second point, the attitude of the Board, I am also uncertain. Lucius has spoken to me; Caldwell has written me; George Pratt has indicated he would like me to take it. Plimpton has sounded me out but is disturbed because I am not "religious" enough. He is now for a minister first, with scholarship and administrative ability

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secondary. Frank Stearns would be against me with all the weight he could muster. He also wants a man so obviously "religious" that no one would ever raise the question. Mr. Coolidge also. Patton has written suggesting several ministers, some Amherst men, some not. The group wanting a minister are active, aggressive, and perhaps a little confident. As you must realize, there is no leadership on the Board now that you are away except what I supply. I do not mean this egotistically, but I think it is an objective statement. Lucius is too new to assume leadership. No one else has done so. . . . And so what the Board may do is on the lap of the gods. But I believe it unlikely that they will make me a tender; and if they do, it will be by a divided vote. I am willing to leave the matter to the Board. If they make me a tender, I shall probably go off for a week and think about it. I may go to Berlin in that event. You may consider this a promise.

While Stanley was balancing pros against cons, he was also, as Chairman of the Special Committee, conscientiously reviewing the qualifications of suggested candidates. The list as preserved in the Records of the Trustees is formidably long, but a large proportion of the names could be quickly rejected because of age or manifest inexperience or obvious unsuitability. A few retained "for very special consideration" were investigated by King himself. On New Year's Day, 1932, after a visit to Amherst, he made the entry in his diary, "Pondering on problems of the Amherst presidency all day." One graduate mentioned favorably in many quarters, although he was in his sixty-second year, was "Al" Stearns. A little investigation made it evident that Stearns, although still recuperating from his recent operation, was not unreceptive to the suggestion that he might round out his distinguished educational career by becoming president of his old college. On January 7, Stanley drove to Danvers, Massachusetts, Dr. Stearns's country home, for a frank talk. During the following week he saw several other persons who had been mentioned and then conferred with some members of the Corporation. On January

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21, he and Margaret motored again to Danvers, where he had another long conversation with Stearns. As a consequence, he entered in his diary, "Phoned Hop [Ernest M. Hopkins, President of Dartmouth College]. Withdrew my name definitely. Evening at the typewriter. The die is cast." On January 25 King wrote to Woodbridge a long analysis of the complicated situation, saying in part: Whenever I reflected on the problem alone, my instinct was clear against my becoming President. I could not get away from that conclusion. After seven weeks of reflection I made the decision; and on Friday last I notified my associates that I must withdraw my name. I have proposed A1 Stearns for President. You know as well as I do his great qualities. And you know his defects, age, recent operation, lifetime in secondary school, and the tragedy of his wife in an institution for the mentally unbalanced. I know the whole story in its sad details. But A1 seems to me, with my name off the list, the most satisfactory candidate in the entire field of available Amherst men. Mr. Gillett is opposed to him; but he has resigned. I am canvassing the rest of the Board in the hope that I can secure unanimous approval. If so, he will be elected and will accept. On February 1, Stanley made his position even clearer. "The name of Al Stearns was presented to the committee," he wrote Woodbridge; " I was unwilling to be a competitor of Al's, and withdrew my name from consideration." And then in one very candid paragraph he allowed his friend to know the state of his mind: If the Board should offer me the presidency of the College by a vote with not more than three dissenters, I suppose I should accept. And if I accepted, I should throw myself into the new life with all the enthusiasm and energy I have. And let me say this too—that the fact that two or three of my associates may vote against me doesn't bother me in the least, and wouldn't jar my subsequent relations with them in the slightest. . . . I have tried my best to avoid the issue. I have done everything I could think of except to say that I should decline the office if offered. I have withdrawn my name formally. And now if the Board after full discussion decide to tender me the office, my present judgment is to accept.

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Throughout February these two fine men, Stearns and King, so unselfish in their devotion to their college, saw much of each other. On February 9, King wrote Woodbridge: I have spent another afternoon with A1 Stearns and had a full and frank talk with him. I am very anxious that he and I should understand each other throughout this business, and I think we do. I shall see him again this week. Stearns was also going through some painful moments of decision, but the hour came when, for personal reasons which do not belong to this narrative, he deliberately and irrevocably put himself out of the running. Meanwhile, frequent informal conferences among the Trustees were leading to the conclusion that Stanley King was the best man available. On March 2, when he saw Plimpton and Eastman in New York, the two volunteered him their support. A week later he met in Boston with "Al" Stearns, Esty, Eastman, and Maynard, and that evening King entered in his line-a-day book, "Formal offer by Committee. Walk with M. Evening at home." On the following morning he drove to Amherst for talks with President Pease, Frederick S. Allis, Charles A. Andrews, and Professor Harry de F . Smith. He also saw his son, Richard, then a Freshman in the College, and his mother, who was still living in Springfield. T h e opinion was unanimous that he should accept. Some of these significant events Stanley reported to Woodbridge in a letter on March 12: On Wednesday of this week Lucius, Edward, and Al Stearns formally advised me that they were going to recommend my name to the Board as President of the College. . . . They feel that they should have an answer by April 1, and in this they are of course right. Peg and I are going away for a couple of weeks into the country and get what perspective we can. I talked with Walter Lippmann just before he went abroad, and he urged me very strongly to accept it if it were tendered. Both President Pease and Mike Smith urged the same course. I shall let you know as soon as I decide. I am profoundly unhappy that I cannot explore the question in conversation with you.

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By this date no doubt really existed as to what Stanley would do. Margaret and he set out for Chilmark, and from there, on March 24, he telegraphed his formal acceptance to the Committee. In a note to Woodbridge on March 30, King said: Peg and I drove to Martha's Vineyard for ten days where I worked in the woods and smoked my pipe on the edge of the sea. Then I wrote Lucius that if the Trustees elected me to the presidency of Amherst, I should accept. The more I think about it, the more excited I get about the possibilities at Amherst.

On April 8, Stanley motored with George D. Pratt from Boston to Amherst, where he attended meetings of two committees of the Trustees, had supper with some of his brother "Dekes," and talked at length with Fred Allis, whose knowledge of the college community was very helpful. On the following day he made this significant entry in his diary: Saturday. Amherst. Cloudy. Elected 11th President of Amherst College with no opposing votes. Funeral B. K. Emerson. Trustees Meeting. Met M. at lunch at Peases. Calls Dick, Mike Smith, Fritz. Drove to Boston.

In amplification of this laconic statement of facts, it may be said that at the meeting of the Board, King was asked by President Plimpton to withdraw from the room. Lucius R. Eastman then presented the recommendation of the Special Committee, which was approved unanimously and without discussion. It was next voted that the salary of the new President should be fixed at $12,500 a year, with the use of the President's House. Judge Esty was designated to go out and bring in Stanley, who was received with applause. Mr. Plimpton then said a few words announcing the decision of the Corporation, and King replied, "I accept the trust you have imposed on me, and I shall carry it out to the best of my ability." Everybody gave him a congratulatory handshake, and the members sat down for less important business, with King at Plimpton's right. That evening Stanley sent a cable message to Woodbridge,

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whose answer came back the next morning from Berlin, "A new era begins for Amherst, its great tradition utilized in the modern world." In an explanatory letter sent off the following day, King said: Caesar crossed the Rubicon—and I have crossed the "Freshman." I am tremendously happy about it now that the election is over. . . . You are more responsible than any one else for the election by the Trustees, and for my acceptance of the office that is tendered. I think that if it had not been for you I should have completely withdrawn my name from consideration. As I look forward with hope and great anticipation to the work ahead, I realize appreciatively that I owe the opportunity to you, and so I am more affectionately than ever yours. In return, Woodbridge commented shrewdly on the situation at the College as he saw it: I have long thought that since the day of President Seelye, Amherst has been mainly marking time. The College has kept on being a good college, but it has let itself be too much occupied simply with the enjoyment of its memories, too self-satisfied, too negligent of important movements of thought and opinion. It has kept admiration, but it has lost authority. The two men who tried to alter this tendency, Gates and Meiklejohn, were incompetent, to say the least. The latter had a most exceptional opportunity, but wasted it. He thought that he was called to found a new college, instead of to use the great riches of an old one. As Dwight used to say, it was not the Trustees that rejected him, but the Valley—that beautiful valley in which the Lord permitted the giver of the Sunderland Library to be born. T h e feeling everywhere among friends of the College was one of very genuine satisfaction, joined with relief that the choice had been so intelligently made. Much pleased with the favorable reaction to his election, Stanley wrote Woodbridge on May 6, when the initial excitement had somewhat subsided: I have literally been flooded with letters and telegrams, some from personal friends, but mostly from alumni of the College or members of the faculty. They evince an enthusiasm for and a confidence in the

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coming administration which give me a very profound sense of humility. . . . I learn informally, however, that Mr. Justice Stone is under the impression that the choice of a President is a step backward in the sense that it implies a conservative business administration of the College. I have met the Justice only twice for a few moments, and his impression is a natural one based on my record. I hope that my work up there may meet with his approval, for I have a very high regard for his ability and his point of view. B y way of relevant digression, it should be said that this slight early acquaintance between Stanley and Justice Harlan Fiske Stone deepened later into a close and firm friendship. Stone was elected a permanent Trustee of Amherst in 1932 and served through King's administration until his death on April 22, 1946. During this period Stanley's liberal words and acts gave the Justice increasing gratification. When King, in 1944, announced his wish to retire, Stone remarked, "I have known many Presidents who stayed too long and some who retired just in time, but Stanley King is the only one who got out too soon!" Shortly after Stanley had accepted the presidency, he and Margaret paid a call on the Calvin Coolidges at their home, the Beeches, in Northampton. As they stepped out of their automobile, they were greeted by the ex-President, with his hat and coat on. "Were you going out?" queried Stanley. "I thought I was," responded Mr. Coolidge, but he went back in with them. As they entered the hall, he said to Margaret, "You go in that room there and sit down. Grace'll be in before long, and I want to talk with your husband!" As their brief conversation terminated, King asked Mr. Coolidge whether he had any advice for the incoming President of Amherst. Back came the sententious answer, "You can't please everybody. Better not try!" Writing to Woodbridge on June 20, 1939, not long before the latter's death, Stanley said in affectionate remembrance: I should not have been the President of the College to-day if it had not been for you. I suppose it is true that the Board might have tendered me the presidency in '32 in any event, but I am confident

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that I should not have accepted the opportunity if it had not been for your wise counsel and your deep interest expressed in the letters you wrote me from Berlin during the early months of 1932. Replying a few weeks later, in what turned out to be his last letter to Stanley, Woodbridge commented reflectively, from a heart filled with devotion to the College: I am thinking of what the love of a place like Amherst is and of what "from generation to generation" means as actually lived out. "Our fathers taught it to their sons, and they again to theirs." We share it era by era, according to our birthdays, making it thereby ageless. There is the sense of loneliness and loss, but it is companioned by the realization that a new era has always begun before the old had closed. This intimate friendship between King and Woodbridge, the younger man and his mentor, both concerned with the welfare of institutions and the common good, renews our faith in the human race. In the course of daily living we meet with many low-motived people whose conduct is determined by greed or envy or hatred; but we forget them when we see others who have a scorn for "miserable aims that end with self." Woodbridge and King were unostentatiously and often unconsciously exponents of William James's dictum, "The great use of a life is to spend it for something that outlasts it." And so, as June closed in 1932, the Old Order gave place to the New on the Amherst campus, and Stanley King, now eager and certainly unafraid, began his administration.

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became President of Amherst College in an hour of national financial crises and international uncertainty, when even usually optimistic citizens were fearful of the future. On the same day in September, 1931, Great Britain had announced that she could no longer maintain the gold standard, and the Japanese army, occupying cities in South Manchuria, had opened a succession of unjustified aggressions which, followed by the depredations of Mussolini and Hitler, were to lead directly to the Second World War. It seemed, according to Henry L. Stimson, Hoover's Secretary of State, "as though from the Occident to the Orient, politically and economically, the world was rocking." Moreover, in the summer and autumn of 1932, the United States was deep in what has been called by Frederick L. Allen "the cruelest year of the Depression." Thoughtful men and women were in a mood to despair of the republic and even of the human race. To most observant persons the situation throughout 1932 seemed to be moving from bad to worse, and the Republican Party had to take the blame. King, who was an independent in politics, was inclined to support his former chief, Newton D. Baker, for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, and his declaration evoked from Felix Frankfurter a letter under STANLEY

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date of January 9, 1932, some paragraphs of which are both frank and critical: I have never been so troubled in my feelings in any presidential campaign, just because Baker and I are such old friends, and he is such an engaging fellow, and one has a hard time realizing that a person so extremely humane and civilized, so free from the usual pettinesses and corrosions of politics, should after all not be such an effective instrument for one's social desires. But, putting the League of Nations to one side—and for me that's no test of liberalism; Wickersham and Lowell are great League of Nationists—what is there in Baker's actions or utterances since he left the cabinet that distinguishes him in the slightest from Ritchie's more aggressive and articulate laissez-faire philosophy and general contentment with the present economic and social order of the world? . . . Baker, I am afraid, is fast getting to be a myth. His extreme niceness is in itself deemed proof of liberalism, or, rather, one forgets about his views or his deeds in the genial atmosphere generated by Baker. And then one assumes that the Baker of Tom Johnson's days and the earlier Woodrow Wilson days, is the Baker of to-day. But, alas, men grow older, and only rarely, as was true of Haldane, as is true of Holmes and Brandeis, do they become more truly radical. The Hughes of 1906 was not the Hughes of 1916, and is not the Hughes of to-day. I am afraid Baker's liberalism has largely evaporated. The "tired radical" was more than a happy phrase by Walter Weyl. I have my own theory that in Baker's case we have an extremely cultivated, impressionable person, who was finely loyal to liberal directions so long as he was swayed by the much more powerful personalities of his two great chieftains, Tom Johnson and Woodrow Wilson. Once he was freed from the control of their coercive leadership, what I believe to be his temperamental bent, fortified by his age, came on top—namely, an urbane skepticism and acquiescence about things as they are, charmingly expressed, which make him feel at home with the men who now exercise control over the financial and industrial forces of the country. In conclusion, Frankfurter indulged in prophecy, expressing opinions which are exceedingly interesting in the light of what has happened since 1932:

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Of course my judgment on political matters depends ultimately not upon agreement or disagreement on this or that particular issue, but upon the general socio-economic direction of a party or a person. I expect relatively little to happen during the four years of the next presidency, no matter who will be President. But these four years become important in their influence on the future. For me, the whole post-war direction in this country has been fundamentally mischievous. Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover all have promoted—because they believed in—the predominant importance of the money motive rather than the essential justification and responsibility of our complicated industrial system. The socialization of industrial and financial processes versus the traditional American individualism appears to me the central issue of American politics. Of course the conflict will not, like slavery, be dramatically settled. It calls for ad hoc adjustments and piecemeal efforts. But into the perspective of that issue fall all specified questions. King was too much occupied with Amherst affairs to answer this letter immediately, but on April 26, after he had been elected President of the College, he replied to Frankfurter, saying in part: Most of your statement of January 9 contained statements of opinion on which men may easily disagree. So far as I personally am concerned, Baker seems to me to be intellectually honest and able, as well as expert in administration. I know pretty well Mr. Baker's attitude on social questions and respect it. I regard Frank Roosevelt as neither intellectually honest nor able, and I do not know his attitude on public questions except the power question. So far as Roosevelt is represented by his chief supporter in Massachusetts [James M. Curley] I regard both his point of view and his methods as dangerous to the whole fabric of our institutions. You and I are obviously in complete disagreement, both as to Baker and as to Roosevelt, in spite of the fact that our social objectives are similar. Stanley's critical comment on Roosevelt was based on his experience with him in Washington during the war, when the two men served together on several committees; and although his respect for him increased during the early years of Roose-

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velt's administration, his doubts were never quite resolved. In response to King, Frankfurter said, rather caustically: Since you do not know, as you say, Roosevelt's attitude on many public questions, even as to him you cannot be in complete disagreement with me. And if you don't mind my saying so, I think you ought to be a little sparing in throwing around accusations of intellectual dishonesty against a public man with whom you disagree. . . . There is no question in my mind as to the intellectual superiority of Baker over Roosevelt. But I hardly need tell you that intellectual power does not determine the direction in which one goes. And as to much of politics, I am not really profoundly interested in the immediate events. I am essentially concerned with the direction in which an emphasis is thrown. T h e Republican Party had in June no solution for these fundamental problems except the renomination of the ill-fated Herbert Hoover. Later in the month followed the dramatic Democratic Convention, also held in Chicago; and after being chosen on the fourth ballot, Roosevelt flew to that city to accept the leadership of his party and herald the New Deal. King's friend, Walter Lippmann, who certainly knew something of politics and people, described Roosevelt at the time as "a very pleasant man, who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President." Even the wisest commentators are not always sound prophets. As the campaign went on and the issues became more evident, Stanley, making his choice between two men whom he knew fairly well and with both of whom he had been associated, felt impelled to vote for Hoover. During that spring King and Frankfurter corresponded on other subjects, especially Amherst College. When Stanley's election as President was announced in the press, Frankfurter wrote, on April 11: Surely I do not have to tell you what I think of the task to which you have been called. It isn't merely the natural importance that a man attaches to that to which his life is given. What is most depressing to me in these terrible days is by no means the economic

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deterioration with its awful human toll. Far more ominous is the intellectual bankruptcy that is revealed in the places of influence and power whence guidance and wisdom are to be expected. Year after year at college commencements and at reunions of alumni we have prattled with Rotarian shallowness about the function of colleges and universities as training grounds for leadership. Now it must be clear even to the most ostrich-like temperament that what should give us most concern is not the flight of the dollar but what Archie MacLeish has well termed the flight of the idea. And if this inadequacy of insight and penetration, of courageous and candid understanding, be not charged against higher education in America, I have wholly misconceived the opportunities and the duties of higher education. And so you come to the direction of a college with a great history at a time that must be particularly exhilarating to any one who covets a chance to put his whole soul at the disposal of majestic and subtle problems. How to shape in the minds of the next generation disinterestedness, courageous skepticism, pertinacious efforts to win nature's bounties and man's mechanical contrivances for the making of a gracious and civilized society—surely there is nothing more exciting and surely nothing less than that is the meaning of your post. Long before this depression, I ventured the observation that even five hundred courageous minds, filled with a zeal of what man can do in the shaping of a good society, scattered in the various colleges and operating in an atmosphere of ardor for their effort, could perceptibly revolutionize this country from one in which the chief preoccupation on the whole has been the love of money and power to one that deservedly could be called civilized. You have it largely within your power to foster conditions so that Amherst will be one of the radiating centers for such a civilized life. Truth is not within the keeping of any one man. But it will make all the difference in the world to hundreds of men each year that candid and courageous truth-seeking is the very air of Amherst. That feeling, that milieu, is, as you know, a very subtle plant. It can be made to bloom, and it is amazing how easily it can be made to wither. You can make scholars feel that Amherst is a place for scholars and that scholarship matters profoundly for society. Gradually you can help the understanding that universities and schools give us our

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intellectual capital. If they give it not, there will be no intellectual capital, and the modern world needs intellectual capital beyond any society that ever lived. And so I send you my high hopes and the deep wishes of an old friendship. Stanley King had his own lofty conception of the duties and conduct of the President of Amherst College. He sincerely believed that the position was one of the most important in the American social and cultural organism. For him the office was not a steppingstone to a more exalted station but rather the culmination of his career. He once remarked, "I would rather be the head of this College than the chief of General Motors or a member of the Cabinet." Furthermore, he agreed with Frankfurter's conception of the function and responsibility of a college. Although he was not professionally a scholar, he had a gift for research and could have been a first-rate professor of economics or history. Something he must have learned from his legal studies, but his instinct for discovering, assembling, and digesting information went deeper. Once embarked on a quest for knowledge, he refused to let up until he had consulted every document, published or unpublished, bearing on the subject. He did not, like some men in his position, employ a research student but went at the job himself, often in the Boston Athenaeum, which he found a perfect place for this kind of work. He had a naturally inquisitive and acquisitive mind, retentive and orderly, in which ideas could be filed away compartmentally for future use. When he wrote a speech or a paper, he drafted a skeletal organization, paying especial attention to logical sequence, emphasis, and proportion. Later he refined and polished, to give an edge to his phrasing. In time, the Amherst Faculty grew to observe and respect these qualities, so much like those which had earned them their doctorates in graduate school. One of them con-

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fessed, "Stanley King was as much of a scholar as any of us, and most of us knew it." Judged by any valid standards, the Amherst Faculty in 1932 was strong, and the new President inherited from his predecessors a group who were not only learned but also stimulating as teachers in the fine humanistic Amherst tradition. At least nine of them had been on the Faculty when King was an undergraduate, the oldest in age and service being Professor Arthur J. Hopkins (Chemistry), who had come as an Instructor in 1894. Several of them Stanley already knew well, and a few, like Harry de Forest Smith (Greek), William J. Newlin (Philosophy and Mathematics), Otto Manthey-Zorn (German), and Thomas C. Esty (Mathematics), had been his staunch supporters for the presidency. To draw comparisons among teachers so many of whom have been and are distinguished would at this point be unprofitable and unnecessary, but several of them will appear as actors later in this narrative. Although Stanley was not to take office until July 1, he resolved that some planning should be started at once; and President Pease, who for himself preferred a slower pace, was not averse to having his successor take charge as soon as practicable. King's first object was to win the cooperation of the Faculty, who, under the terms of the Amherst charter, have great power if they choose to assert it. Not unaware of the trouble which an aggressive and courageous professor like George Bosworth Churchill had been able to cause President Meiklejohn, he wanted the strong teachers to be his allies. Having read carefully every document which had any bearing on the prerogatives and limitations of the President, he was determined to observe the intent of the regulations. On April 11, King was formally elected as President. With the approval of President Pease, he invited the Faculty to meet with him on May 24, and there talked to them rather intimately about his plans. While the situation at the College was not ex-

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actly critical, it had for some time been plain to those familiar with current conditions in education that changes must be made in order to adjust Amherst to the spirit of the age. The longcontinued wrangle under President Meiklejohn, in which King had played such a conspicuous part, had caused schisms among Faculty and alumni, and the wounds had not yet entirely healed. President Olds, through tact and conciliation, had to a considerable degree reunified the College. President Pease, in a position unsuited to his very considerable talents, had at least marked time. Olds and Pease, as well as Meiklejohn, had brought some brilliant scholars and teachers to the Faculty and had maintained Amherst's excellent reputation in the educational world. Nevertheless, the applications for admission were falling off in number, and the temper of the campus was uncertain. Clearly positive action was required, although opinions differed as to what precisely ought to be done. The first step was revitalization, the restoration and assertion of confidence. It was a period when the word "crisis" was frequently on people's lips. Franklin D. Roosevelt, on a larger stage and in the midst of economic disasters throughout the nation, was to face a similar exigency when he took the place of Herbert Hoover in March, 1933. His first task was to change the mood of those whom he represented, and this was what Stanley King had to do at Amherst in the spring of 1932. Three presidents who had been lifelong teachers were to be followed by a successful, though retired, businessman who, although his scholastic record at college and law school was almost legendary, had no doctorate, either earned or honorary. Amherst had never had a leader with a record like that, and many of the professors were apprehensive, not knowing what was coming. King had to win at once their respect, if not their complete approval, and in this he unquestionably succeeded. Whether or not they liked his program as he outlined it, the Faculty had to admit that he knew what he wanted and that he talked like a man. He was

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direct, lucid, and constructive, speaking with an air of optimism and faith. Standing before that expectant Faculty group on a warm May evening, Stanley said, very simply but with evident emotion, " I am devoted to this college; I would rather be President of Amherst than hold any office that life could offer me; I shall devote the rest of my life to Amherst, and shall give it the best I have." Then frankly and tactfully he outlined his conception of the functions of a college chief executive. The members of the Faculty were to plan the curriculum and teach its courses, as they always had done. His job was to provide them with the optimum conditions under which they could instruct and inspire. His own task being largely administrative, he intended to familiarize himself with the duty and accountability of every business officer on the campus. He added, "To my mind, the president of an institution is responsible for discipline. . . . I wish to participate actively in the detailed administration of discipline at Amherst." Not one person in that audience had ever heard words like these from an Amherst president. Touching next upon a delicate and crucial subject, King expressed the opinion that Amherst, in its admission requirements and to some extent in its curriculum, had been lacking in flexibility, unwilling to adjust itself to the needs of a modern age. In this connection he remarked, "Power of adaptation is as essential to survival in an educational institution as in biology." With this one cogent sentence he silenced potential critics who feared, like Mr. Justice Stone, that the new President would provide a conservative, perhaps a reactionary, "business administration." For some time Amherst's insistence on a Latin requirement which was impossible for some candidates to meet had kept many otherwise well-qualified applicants from seeking admission. In a college steeped in the classical tradition it was not easy to convince certain stubborn Faculty members that the

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Latin requirement should be modified. Sheer inertia, fostered by a desire to avoid protracted and heated discussion, had served to maintain the long-established procedure even after the warning had been sounded. Now Stanley King was openly challenging a system which had outlived its usefulness. Although he had been a zealous student of Greek and Roman literature, he made it clear that, as he saw it, unless some concessions to modernism were yielded, the College might before very long have to resign itself to the inevitability of a decreasing enrollment. With the emphasis of understatement, he declared, "It is not clear that our present standards of admission will continue to bring us the number and quality of boys that we have received in the past." Thus quietly he reminded the opposition that a college without students might easily become an institution without teachers. More specifically, Stanley referred to the limitations of the library, making it plain that he was "tremendously interested in the enlargement of funds for the purchase of books"; and he also mentioned briefly the recurring problem of compulsory chapel, which he proposed to settle himself before the opening of the fall term. But most of his time was devoted to Faculty procedure. A study of the catalogue had shown him that the Faculty had fourteen existing committees, some of them without any real function. Indeed the original object in creating them seemed to have been to set up so many committees that every member of the Faculty could serve on at least one. On this matter King said bluntly, "In general, I regard committees as consumers of time, wasters of patience, and inefficient in administration. Fourteen committees would take entirely too long to educate me. I propose a single committee." What King had in mind was the abolition of most standing committees and the formation of a new Committee of Six, to be elected from year to year by the Faculty by secret ballot. Its membership would presumably rotate, and would include both

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Young Blood and the Old Guard. This would act basically as an Executive Committee, passing on questions of policy and procedure and reporting periodically to its creator, the Faculty. The President would himself take the chair at the meetings, which would be held either weekly or fortnightly. As King was careful to point out, one purpose of such a group would be to educate the President. It was his hope and expectation that the routine business of the Faculty could be transacted more satisfactorily, and at a smaller cost of time and energy, than under the existing arrangement. Finally he requested that the new procedure be adopted for the year beginning July 1, 1932, and that the Committee of Six be chosen if possible before Commencement so that he might have one meeting with them before the summer vacation. Stanley sent a copy of this address to Woodbridge, who was still in Berlin. In his reply, dated July 4,1932, the latter said: What you said was so sensible, so simple, and so direct that confidence must have been established at once. Judging from our past experience I can imagine that the faculty felt that they were listening to a presidential statement so unusual as to be almost incredible. I much wonder why men who accept a position of leadership do not more often see that the straightforward method of dealing with the situation is the best way. Woodbridge's approval was comforting, but the Presidentelect was disappointed, even chagrined, by the immediate reception accorded to proposals to which he had devoted so much thought. Only one member of the Faculty came up to congratulate him when his remarks were over; and he walked back to the Lord Jeffery Inn, discouraged and a little hurt, feeling that even his friends were unresponsive to his ideas. Although not easily depressed, he felt that in this case he had made a poor beginning. The truth was that the professors, unaccustomed to direct talk of this kind, needed time to adjust themselves and think the

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proposal over. They were not irritated, but some of them were puzzled and a few were suspicious. Several were inwardly pleased at the prospect of being relieved of what had been onerous, unexciting, and time-consuming labor. Others, more politically minded, wondered what the new "Prexy" might be up to. Fortunately Stanley's logic was unassailable; and after the usual grumbling and discussion of minor details, the Faculty decided that he was probably right—or at least that the plan deserved a fair trial. In the end they gave him their full cooperation. Without delay the Faculty chose the following six members of what was at first called the Advisory Committee: Bennett (Latin), Doughty (Chemistry), Esty (Mathematics), Loomis (Geology), Packard (History), and H. de F. Smith (Greek). Five of these had had long experience at the College. The youngest, Packard, had been brought to Amherst by President Olds and made a professor in 1925. King was greatly pleased by the result, for these men clearly represented the most popular, the most respected, and the most distinguished element on the Faculty, from whom he was sure to get honest and sound advice. Just before Commencement they met with him to discuss possible agenda for the autumn. By this date Stanley, who had been hearing from several of the Faculty leaders, was considerably more encouraged. The real test, however, was to come when the Advisory Committee presented their first recommendations and their colleagues had their chance to approve or reject them. The Amherst Trustees, on June 18, 1932, decided to make King's inauguration a special occasion and appropriated $6,300 for the necessary expenses. Mr. Plimpton remarked to his colleagues that never before in Amherst history had one of the Trustees been elected president and that the event was therefore worth celebrating. The date was set for the coming week end in November, coinciding with the annual football contest with

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Williams College. Stanley himself suggested many of the arrangements and was requested to invite the speakers. At this Commencement meeting, also, Lucius R. Eastman was chosen in Stanley's place as Chairman of the Executive Committee, and the latter told his fellow Trustees about his talk to the Faculty and his plans for the future of the College. Academic honors were already coming his way. On June 13 he was given a Doctorate of Laws by Colgate University—his first distinction of this sort. On June 20 he received a similar degree from Wesleyan and on the following day one from Dartmouth, with a generous citation from his old friend, President Ernest M. Hopkins. Then he and Margaret went to Martha's Vineyard for a well-deserved rest. From time to time during the summer the Kings returned to Amherst, mainly to check on the renovation of the President's House, which was being carried out in accordance with their own ideas but under the direction of the Treasurer and the Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds. On July 2, for example, King made the following entry in his line-a-day book: Saturday, Amherst, clear and warm. All day office and home. MLK to lunch. Conf. Esty, Newlin, Bennett, Porter, Allis. Call from Mrs. Olds. Evening call Mike Smith. Went over all changes in house with Thacher and Andrews. On July 26, the Kings paid another trip to the College, recorded as follows: Tuesday, Amherst, clear and warm. With M. on early boat, drove to Amherst—Thacher, Newlin, Allis, Marsh, Glaser. Evening at Allis's. M. working at home. Finally, on August 22, they drove again to Amherst, this time sleeping in their new quarters in the President's House. Then they went back to Chilmark until after Labor Day, while Stanley read not only the inaugural addresses of his ten predecessors in office but also those of Presidents Eliot and Lowell, of Harvard. In September he spoke at the luncheon of the Amherst

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Rotary Club, telling the members that he hoped to be their good neighbor and would do his utmost to maintain friendly relations between Town and Gown. His first regular Faculty meeting, on September 20, was occupied with routine matters, but several of the older members commented favorably on the new President's skill and decision as a presiding officer. On September 22, Professor Woodbridge came up from New York for a conference and attended the opening chapel service, held in Johnson Hall, with all the undergraduates present. At this meeting the new President first extended a greeting to the undergraduates, speaking in general terms about the relationship between them and the administration. By way of preliminary clarification, he said: I shall treat you as young men who are here because you wish to be here, not as schoolboys, driven to their studies by vigilant schoolmasters. It seems to me as unsound to treat young men of 18 to 23 as schoolboys as it would be to treat schoolboys as men. I am used to dealing with men—all kinds of men. It will therefore be easy for me to deal with you—both in groups and individually—as men. The College will have as few rules as possible. I should like to have none, but that is impossible in dealing with human nature at any age. Certain conventions are necessary wherever men associate together in social groups. Anarchy is possible only for the pioneer, the Robinson Crusoes on a desert island. Such rules as may be necessary will have no fixed penalties for violation. Penalties, when imposed, will be entirely within the discretion of the administrative officers, based on their judgment of the individual case. They will, therefore, lack superficial consistency. King then proceeded to mention more specifically certain changes which he had instituted, after conferring with the Advisory Committee and C. Scott Porter, the Dean. On the subject of chapel exercises, the center of so many undergraduate "gripes," he minced no words: Chapel exercises will be held at 8.50 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. The Sunday service remains unchanged, at 5.00 P.M. The daily service will be conducted by Mr. Cadigan, Mr. Cleland, and the President. The President will attend every day

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he is in Amherst. The service will be conventional in the sense that it will have a religious content rather than a content of history, economics, or political or social science. Attendance will be required, with a limited number of cuts. I trust I do not need to say that I shall expect decorum in both chapel and church, such as you would expect to give any speaker in any church at home. That is the tradition of gentlemen. Breaches of decorum will be my particular privilege to deal with. Decorum includes appropriate dress, no smoking or eating in church or chapel building anywhere, and it is violated by reading either book, notebook, paper, or magazine. . . . I realize that on the subject of compulsory chapel, men disagree. In such a situation, I feel entirely competent in following my own conviction. This policy is, therefore, the President's policy, for which he assumes full responsibility. I am confident that you young men, with the instincts of gentlemen and of sportsmen, will support me, whatever your individual predilections on the subject. On the subject of the ownership and driving of automobiles, which had for some years been troubling the College authorities, King had also something to say: I said earlier that you were young men and not school boys. The College intends to treat you as such. It is commonly said that motor cars have passed from the category of luxuries into that of necessities in our present mechanized civilization. Whatever may be the fact in the world at large, the statement is not true in college. Motor cars are in general a distraction from rather than an adjunct to the primary purpose for which you are here. The use of motor cars in the vicinity of Amherst will therefore be considered a privilege and not a right. The privilege will be open to Juniors and Seniors in good standing whose average is above 7 5 % and who file with the Dean a written request from their parent or guardian for an automobile permit. The Dean's permit will be revocable for scholastic default or breach of discipline in his discretion. Wild parties, parties in which the driver is apparently under the influence of liquor, fast driving, parking contrary to college rules, will be among the causes considered adequate for revocation of the permit. Failure to maintain the scholastic average of 7 5 % will likewise result in such revocation.

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Regarding these essential regulations King spoke seriously and firmly, and no one of his listeners could doubt his earnestness. He ended in a different vein: And now one personal word in closing. My office door is always open to you. There is no need of formality, of making appointments. You are welcome to drop in at any time to discuss any problem whatever. I am here to help in any way I can, and I hope that we shall come to know each other not only formally as we meet here in chapel, but informally and as man to man. You are welcome whenever you come. Obviously Stanley was following out his earlier announced intention of taking disciplinary matters into his own hands. Perhaps the students did not then quite realize to what an extent rules had been tightened. At any rate, they applauded when he had finished, and the Faculty were pleased with the strong stand he had taken against campus laxity. On the other hand, King had no ambition to become a dictator. When the Trustees assembled for their autumn meeting in mid-October, Professor Woodbridge, now reinstated as a permanent member of the Corporation, spoke of the powers of the President and expressed the view that they should be enlarged. According to the official minutes, "Mr. King said he wished the Board to understand that he had no desire to see these powers enlarged, but would abide by the judgment of the special committee." No action on this matter was taken, then or later. Stanley King's inauguration on November 11 took place against a complicated background in the American scene—a blend of present gloom mixed, in some quarters, with hope for the future. Nobody at Amherst on Armistice Day, 1932, needed to be reminded that fourteen million Americans were unemployed and that countless citizens were unable to live decently upon their incomes. Early in that week Franklin D. Roosevelt had defeated Herbert Hoover for the presidency by an overwhelming popular majority and a vote of 472 to 59 in the Electoral College. Largely because of his distrust of Democratic

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leadership and particularly of Roosevelt, King had voted again for Hoover. Most Americans did not fully comprehend until the following March that a revolution, no less momentous because it was accomplished without guns or barricades, had taken place. Roosevelt had said on September 23, in San Francisco, "Every man has a right to live, and this means that he also has a right to make a comfortable living. A glance at the situation to-day only too clearly indicates that equality of opportunity as we have known it no longer exists." As he spoke in city after city, touching on current problems, the mood of the country had changed, and it was clear that he had the people with him. The New Deal was about to be instituted for the benefit of the recently discovered Forgotten Man. Not since Thomas Jefferson succeeded John Adams as President in 1801 had such a startling political transformation occurred in the United States. But at Amherst, three days after the election, all this was completely ignored—perhaps out of consideration for ex-President Calvin Coolidge, who sat on the stage in College Hall with his fellow Trustees, looking weary and despondent, and actually rose and left the platform before the exercises were over. Only Walter Lippmann, of the guests of the day, made a reference to contemporary affairs when he remarked, without emphasis, "The occasion seems a little unreal, and it brings to me the mysterious realization that in the cycle of time another generation is taking its place in the seat of power." On the evening of Thursday, November 10, the LockeSpinoza tercentenary was appropriately observed at the College, with addresses by Professor Woodbridge, on Locke, and by Professor Adolph Oko, of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, on Spinoza. As house guests the Kings had the Walter Lippmanns, Raymond Fosdick, and members of the family, and Felix Frankfurter joined the party for dinner that evening. Present for the inaugural ceremonies on the following morning, in addition to Calvin Coolidge, were Joseph B. Ely, Governor

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of the Commonwealth; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Arthur P. Rugg; the presidents of a score of other colleges and universities; and the two living former presidents of Amherst, Alexander Meiklejohn and Arthur Stanley Pease. Dr. Meiklejohn, who had come in response to King's personal invitation, wrote to the Graduates' Quarterly a letter of greeting to the incoming president, rejoicing "in the fineness and generosity of Amherst's new leader." The day opened with fog and storm clouds, but favoring winds soon blew the mists away, and the sun broke through for the academic procession. The important personages were gowned and hooded in the Converse Memorial Library and then, headed by the High Sheriff of Hampshire County carrying his medieval halberd, marched with slow dignity across the campus to College Hall. President Plimpton, of the Corporation, who had been graduated fifty-six years before under President Stearns and had walked with five other presidents, remarked that Stanley King was the first Amherst president with whom he had been able to keep step. Within the building, after an invocation by the Reverend Arthur Lee Kinsolving, recently elected a member of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Plimpton handed the traditional emblems of office to the new President, who replied: I accept the trust imposed in me by the trustees, and symbolized by the charter, the seal and the keys which you have handed to me. The opportunity to serve the College I shall fulfill to the best of my ability. The President's address confirmed the faith of his supporters. At the beginning he struck a significant note when he said: There is expectation in the air, for each of us knows that a new personality will determine to some substantial extent the orientation of the College for perhaps a generation. Referring to the teaching reputation of his alma mater, he remarked:

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Teaching to me is the greatest profession in the world. I should like to make Amherst a college which no great teacher would ever wish to leave, and to which great teachers in other institutions would welcome an appointment. And I do not doubt that the secret of our Amherst heritage of distinguished sons is due not to our curriculum, not to the air of the Connecticut Valley, not to any advantage in the type of student that has come to us, but directly to the great tradition of Amherst teachers.

In alluding to the challenge offered by the undergraduates, with their "unknown potentialities" and "passionate enthusiasms," King amplified what he had already said in his first chapel talk: I see in the four years of college an opportunity for young men to live here and now as young citizens, in contact with the best knowledge man has been able to discover and in intimate association with their fellows and the faculty. W e must get away from the all too prevalent coddlings and immaturities in our attitude towards young men. I would trust them to live from day to day as young men should, instead of trying to prepare them for living. I would regard them from the start as young citizens, instead of hoping to train them to be citizens in the future.

Stanley touched briefly on the perennial but very pressing problems of daily chapel and of admissions. On educational policy he reserved judgment, approaching the subject in the spirit of an inquirer, and he had little specifically to suggest except the abolition of the uniform course of study for Freshmen. He was, however, strongly opposed to the contamination of a liberal arts college by vocational or preprofessional courses, and he declared categorically, "I would not apply the yardstick of utility to the curriculum." He believed in placing more stress on the fine arts, including music and painting and the drama, and promised that before long Amherst would have its own art gallery and building. He commented on the method of awarding honorary degrees and on the importance of the unique Folger Library, dedicated in Washington in 1931 and administered by

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the Amherst Trustees. Then, with sincere eloquence, he closed as follows: The College holds dominion over its sons scattered as they are around the globe. It exercises an authority independent of the particular men who at the time may guide its destiny as faculty and president. For some of us this is symbolized by a bronze tablet on the wall of the library of a neighboring town, bearing these words: In gratitude to Him who permitted me to be born In this most beautiful valley. This tablet has been a shrine to three sons of Amherst whose birthplaces geographically were a thousand miles apart, but each of whom felt that his spiritual birthplace was in this valley. We three shared that reverent attachment to the sources of our being and the steadying of life by that attachment which Santayana calls piety. Dean Woodbridge and I are here to-day, and our feeling for this valley and this College is heightened and illumined by our affection for our friend and Amherst's most beloved son, Dwight Whitney Morrow. It is with a deep and poignant sense of piety that I return to this valley and to my College. King's inaugural address was neither a rounded philosophy nor an educational formula, but a practical and timely talk on what he conceived to be the immediate needs of the College. It was, in fact, the comment of an experienced and enlightened executive on the problems and demands of an exciting new job. He spoke in a calm, restrained tone, without hesitation or embarrassment, and with the simple dignity which made his words even more impressive. The alumni in his audience felt that they were hearing a man not only of conviction but of action, who could be relied upon, in that crucial hour for the College and the country, to lead and inspire. Ralph Hayes wrote Stanley on November 18: The inaugural address is a magnificent document, and from Lippmann, Tead, and others who were present, I have heard that it was perfectly suited to a most distinguished occasion.

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As the bells struck eleven o'clock, Stanley had interrupted his speech and requested two minutes of silence in observance of the anniversary of the signing of the armistice in 1918. When he finished, alumni and guests to the number of more than twelve hundred assembled in the athletic building—known locally as the "Cage"—for luncheon and oratory. The toastmaster, Dean Woodbridge, discoursing with scholarly levity on "Omens and Auguries," developed an idea suggested by a reference in King's inaugural address to "signs and portents." He did not overlook the fact that the new President's name reminded one of a great explorer and a monarch. Then he played wittily with the number eleven, pointing out that the eleventh president, with eleven letters in his name and born on the eleventh day of the month, was elected in the 111th year of the College and inaugurated on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. He might have added, as Ripley did later in his "Believe It or Not" syndicated column, that King's inauguration was scheduled for eleven in the morning. As Woodbridge amplified his unusual theme, the crowd burst into renewed laughter with each successive sally. So perfect was its organization and phrasing that most listeners felt that the talk had been carefully prepared and memorized, but Woodbridge later wrote Stanley: I am happy that my speech pleased you and the audience. When it was in my head, I was afraid that when it got out, it would sound like an attempt to be clever. Fortunately it was unwritten, and the acceptance of the audience pulled me on. I sensed cooperation. Then the words came. I could see integers and especially the prime ones. The other luncheon speakers were Frederick S. Fales, '96, President of the Society of the Alumni, who described Stanley as the new skipper of that fine old ship, the Alma Mater; Walter Lippmann, who spoke affectionately of King as "a man of the world who is too wise to be worldly"; President Hopkins, of Dartmouth, who warned colleges and college presidents that they might be called upon in the very near future to revise their

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opinions of what they ought to do; and Governor Ely, a Williams graduate, who remarked very happily in conclusion : I listened to an inaugural address this morning that even my simple mind could understand. I appreciated the humanity that was expressed in every word and intonation of his voice. I understood thoroughly his sympathy with the undergraduate body of this great institution. I followed, as well as any man could follow, his treatment of the curriculum and, above all, his desire to be a part of this institution in fact, not merely its head, but also its heart. And to my mind that is the secret of his possibilities. I am glad to be here as a friend and to pay my very meagre tribute to him as the President of Amherst College.

Many of Stanley's intimate friends of college and business days were there to sustain him and voice their confidence in his leadership. The congratulatory telegram which he most appreciated came from Ralph Hayes—"Always a King and now a President. I predict you'll yet be Pope. More power to you." The festivities were not yet over. On Friday afternoon the Kings held a reception in the beautifully renovated President's House. In the evening Stanley went to the "Deke" House, where his son, Richard, was a Sophomore brother, to attend his fraternity initiation. His entry in his diary for the following day, November 12, reads as follows: Saturday, Amherst, glorious day. Address to the Alumni Council. Soccer game. Gov. & Mrs. Ely to lunch. Williams game, 31-7. Calls Woodbridge, Lucius. Looked in at dance in evening.

In his frank talk to the Society of Alumni on Saturday morning, King emphasized especially the need for a new dining hall, available to all the undergraduates. This, as we shall see, led within a shorter period than he or anyone else expected, to the erection of Valentine Hall, a very important addition to the campus equipment. The football game with Williams, in which that college was a strong favorite, was won by an alert Amherst eleven which took advantage of all the breaks. The omens still continued to be propitious!

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Writing on November 18, when the College had relapsed after the excitement into its normal routine, Professor Woodbridge summed up his own impressions of the inauguration: Yes, it was a great party. Many said it was the best ever, in the memory of living men. And what a suggestion of power! I wish I could write something adequate on the call for leaders. This is a queer world, Stanley. F o r two centuries we have been trying to reduce it to the implications of the Copernican system of astronomy, and now it protests. It wants leaders instead of astronomers, morality instead of psychology, religion instead of science. It wants to be led out of Egypt, into a promised land. . . . Lord, how we need sanity, confidence, and piety!

What is known as the "presidential honeymoon" is a familiar phenomenon in the progress of educational institutions. The advent of a new head is accompanied by a general literal and symbolic house cleaning—the sweeping away of accumulated debris, the washing of dirty windows, the painting of fences, and the cutting of dead branches off the trees. The Trustees do for a newcomer what they would have hesitated to do for his long established predecessor. Reform—or at least change—is the prevailing watchword, and often improvements which have been delayed for years through sheer inertia are accomplished without opposition. This is what happened in the case of Stanley King. The new President had stood the test in his opening speeches, and nearly everybody was glad that Amherst seemed likely to be again dynamic instead of static. The Graduates' Quarterly, in an editorial in its "Inauguration Number," summed up campus and alumni opinion: Other presidents have been ushered in with equal pomp; others have been inducted with similar expressions of confidence and good will; others have delivered distinguished and significant inaugural addresses; but none within the memory of living alumni has assumed office with the auspices more notably in his favor.

THE PRESIDENT AND THE FACULTY

on his relationship to the Amherst Trustees and Faculty, Stanley King once quoted approvingly a passage in Professor Arthur L. Perry's Williamstown and Williams College, published in 1899: I N COMMENTING

No man ever did have, or ever will have, all the qualities seemingly requisite for a good college president; but he must have the essential qualities, namely, the ability to draw and hold the confidence of all the bodies with which he has specifically to do, as an open and competent and faithful official.

Of these bodies, the one most important for the welfare of the College, year in and year out, was undoubtedly the Faculty, who, under the Statutes of Amherst College—subject always to the final authority vested in the Trustees—were empowered "to fix the requirements for admission, the course of study and the conditions of graduation, to establish rules for ascertaining the proficiency of students and to fix the time of general examinations," as well as to make rules of conduct for the students and establish penalties for their violation. The Statutes also defined in general terms the authority and responsibilities of the President of the College, specifically granting him the right to veto any action of the Faculty. On the other hand, the Faculty could, by a two-thirds vote, pass a resolution over the President's expressed disapproval.

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The power of the President, if or when he chooses to assert it, can, of course, be very great. But any president would be unwise if he took an important step without being reasonably sure of the support of the abler and more experienced professors, many of whom have seen presidents come and go. The Faculty could have had no doubt, after King's address to them in the spring of 1932, that he hoped for their cooperation and would try to win and retain it. Later, when he was contemplating changes, he laid his plans carefully, informing himself fully on controversial questions and scrupulously following the accepted protocol in his efforts to gain support for his program; indeed he never advanced a proposal without consulting those best capable of offering sound advice. Although he himself liked speedy action, he had learned in business to be patient. Frederick P. Fish wrote to A. Lawrence Lowell, in 1909, when the latter had just been elected President of Harvard: Your extraordinary fertility of thought and definiteness of expression, which will develop the utmost enthusiasm in the comparatively few active-minded men who are working with you and for you, may have a sort of bewildering effect on the dull minds of most of us. When you come to great things, therefore, I think that you may think it wise to work on your associates and the community rather carefully and slowly, so that they have time to assimilate your ideas before action is required.

Never was the desirability of administrative caution in high places expressed with more tact and clarity. The wisdom thus imparted to Lowell in Fish's letter had, however, been acquired by Stanley King through training. Thus he rarely betrayed the impatience which he must sometimes have felt; or, if he did reveal it, it was with good humor and to intimate friends. Furthermore, King was a skilled politician, who knew how to persuade as well as how to convince. His intuition warned him when it was best not to press a plan too hard or too far; and if he was thwarted in one project, he could always turn to another. He met opposition with argument and discussion, not with sup-

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pression, but when he had moved too impetuously and had to retreat, he admitted failure with a smile. He was too shrewd to waste energy against organized and determined resistance. Stanley early learned a lesson which Woodrow Wilson, with all his vision, never mastered—that in promoting reforms it is better to gain something than to lose everything. Wishing to leave the Faculty untrammeled, King notified them, with characteristic directness, at their first full meeting in the autumn of 1932, that a member could at any time propose a resolution of lack of confidence in the President and that if such a motion was carried, he would forthwith send his resignation to the Trustees. He added, "Our faculty need never feel, as faculties have sometimes felt in the past, that my tenure as President continues irrespective of faculty confidence in my leadership." Once, as a somewhat heated Faculty discussion was drawing to a close, a well-meaning but tactless supporter moved a vote of confidence in the President. King rose from his seat and said with dignity, "I am leaving the room, of course, but you understand, gentlemen, that if this motion is rejected, my resignation goes to the Trustees immediately." When he had departed, Tom Esty, a universally popular and respected professor, took the chair as Vice-President and remarked affably, "I hardly think we need to vote on this." He then went out and escorted the President back to his seat. Honest applause greeted them both. King did not, however, desire or expect docility from the professors, and any suggestion of disagreement was to him like a challenge to battle. Instead of shrinking from controversy, as some presidents have been disposed to do in order to keep the peace, he rejoiced in the imminence of conflict. He enjoyed the marshaling of evidence, the matching of wits, the give-and-take of debate. Here his lawyer's training helped him immensely, for although he was no legalist, he had studied the rules and precedents and could argue forcibly within them.

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Some of the Faculty were undoubtedly at first disturbed because the new President had made his reputation in business and public service and had had no experience teaching in the classroom. But their reservations were soon dissipated as they watched him in action. As a matter of fact, not all of his predecessors had been teachers. Two of the ablest, Heman Humphrey and William A. Stearns, had been active clergymen until they were called to the presidency and had little acquaintance with educational theory or practice. Moreover, the derogatory phrase "just an industrialist" hardly applied to King, for although he had been a successful business executive, he had also, as a member of the Amherst Corporation, learned a vast amount about the College. That he had a sincere respect for educators and education had been emphasized in his inaugural address by the remark, "Teaching to me is the greatest profession in the world." Every head of an educational institution is bound sooner or later to meet criticism. He cannot escape expressing his choice among men who are rivals for the same position, and the rejected aspirant is superhuman if he does not become in some degree hostile to the administration. If the president tries to reward efficient and loyal supporters, he may be accused of partiality. The best he can do is to go his lonely way, being as honest as possible with himself and considering primarily the welfare of the college. The great President Eliot, of Harvard, was careful never to discriminate in any way against a faculty member who opposed him. So too the professors who raised their voices in opposition to King's policies suffered no penalty for their independence. He did not expect a body of free-thinking men to achieve unanimity. On the delicate matter of faculty promotions the President naturally had his own ideas, but he was well aware that a college could not be run like a factory, and he never failed to consult the departments concerned and followed their judgments. Any school or college faculty which did not include teachers who

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are "agin the government" or "anti-administration" would be unique and altogether too tame. As a matter of fact, strong men are likely to feel less subservient when they are occasionally out of step with the "Chief." An effective administrator naturally wishes to control the key positions on his staff, but prefers to fill them with competent people, not with mere "yes-men." Some professors want only to be left alone to pursue their scholarly or scientific researches. Some are disinclined to accept responsibility. Still others are aggressive and eager for recognition. Among these types, and others, the President had to move in a sincere effort to be fair to each. Very much to King's credit was his insistence on complete academic freedom for members of the Faculty. Everybody familiar with American colleges is aware of small groups of reactionary and vociferous alumni who insist that so-called radical teachers should be dismissed. The definition of "radical" is seldom specific, but is ordinarily broad enough to include Socialists and Laborites as well as New Deal Democrats—indeed any critics of the capitalistic system. On the Amherst Faculty there have always been scholars who have advocated various forms of economic liberalism and whose utterances have occasionally led conservatives to include Amherst among colleges branded as "pink." King had himself been a capitalist, in the generally accepted meaning of that word. But when protests reached his desk, he consistently maintained that a college was a community where mature men were entitled to hear all sides of current issues, and he flatly refused to listen to those who asserted that it was the function of the College to indoctrinate its students. On November 21, 1936, he reported to the Trustees that two professors had not yet taken the Massachusetts Teachers' Oath and asked their advice as to what he should do. It was finally agreed, mainly because of King's cogent reasoning, that he should express to both teachers his hope that they would comply with the law, but should make no further statement to them. It often took

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courage for the President to resist alumni pressure, but he never yielded or compromised when what he thought to be a moral question was involved. The Faculty soon learned that their President was a philosophical liberal, sure that existing conditions could be improved but tolerant always of the opinions of others. He was disturbed by injustice, wherever it appeared, believing that social and economic inequalities should be rectified; and he was the sturdy defender of the underdog. Although he belonged politically with the liberals, he was no blind partisan or even a consistent party man. He did, however, hate totalitarianism in all its aspects and no matter how disguised; and he felt that our government, in the 1930's and later, had allowed too little play for individual initiative. On some controversial matters King had, at times, a clear majority of the Faculty against him, but even when this was the case, his opponents did not really want a change in administration. Although a few professors were critical of him in their own homes and among close friends, they respected him as a competent and fair executive. Furthermore, they realized that in all his dealings with them he was working primarily for the good of the College. According to the records, the first formal meeting of the Advisory Committee—known on the campus as the Committee of Six—was held on Tuesday, September 13, 1932, at three o'clock in the afternoon, in the President's office. The members of the Committee, all of whom Stanley by this time knew well, were prepared to work with him in the exciting business of revivifying the College. There were several routine matters to consider. The Committee recommended the appointment of a committee of two to draft resolutions on the retirement of President Pease. It approved the text of a revised rule book for undergraduates prepared by Dean Porter. It voted to recommend to the Faculty that courses in Greek, Latin, and mathematics scheduled for

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four hours a week be reduced to three hours a week. Then, at the suggestion of the President, it recommended that a series of lectures be required of all Freshmen, in which representatives of the various departments should outline the aims and content of their courses. The concluding vote stipulated that all official stationery be ordered through the Treasurer of the College and follow a letterhead form approved by the executive office. When the necessary business had been transacted, the President sat back and said quite informally, "Gentlemen, what can I do for the comfort of the Faculty that won't cost very much— for the budget at the moment is rather tight?" The response was immediate and unanimous, "Let us smoke at Faculty meetings!" A little questioning brought out the fact that smoking had hitherto not been allowed, and further that the room in Williston Hall where the meetings were customarily held had no ventilating system. Here was the President's opportunity! He asked Professor Doughty, one of the Committee, why the Faculty could not use the lecture room of the Moore Laboratory. An invitation was promptly extended, and the next meeting was held in the new quarters, with tobacco provided by the administration. Obviously, however, a lecture room was not ideally suited to such a purpose, and the President undertook to explore further possibilities. His investigations convinced him that the large room on the second floor of the so-called Octagon was ideal in size, location, and general convenience. It was then being used only for storage by the Department of Music, of which Professor William P. Bigelow was the head. When Stanley approached him on the subject, the latter was indignant and stubbornly refused to relinquish the room, even when storage facilities were offered him elsewhere on the campus. He actually contended that the building was legally his, having been transferred to his jurisdiction by Professor Benjamin K. Emerson when he moved his geology specimens to new quarters.

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In retrospect, it seems absurd that one member of the Faculty could conceive of himself as having a vested interest in property owned by the College; but "Biggy," as he was affectionately called by students and alumni, had built up his department against many obstacles and was jealous of his prerogatives. The matter had to be referred to the Trustees, who, of course, decided in favor of the President. He then had the room remodeled in honor of Frank L. Babbott, 78, one of Amherst's most beloved and generous graduates. The Frank L. Babbott Room, decorated in excellent taste and dedicated on May 3, 1935, has proved to be exceedingly useful and is now devoted not only to Faculty meetings but also to informal talks and gatherings. Its attractiveness was later enhanced not only by a portrait of Babbott over the mantelpiece but also by a series of drawings of trustees and professors by Ercole Cartotto in charcoal, crayon, and silverpoint. The Committee of Six, entirely King's idea, proved to be an extraordinarily helpful and convenient medium for coordinating and expediting Faculty business. President James B. Conant, on a visit to Amherst, remarked that he wished that Harvard had a similar setup, and his language indicated that this was no perfunctory compliment. Although the original members were preponderantly Old Guard, there was later a wide distribution among the younger teachers. During the first six years, seventeen men were chosen to the Committee, and it had gradually become representative of most of the Faculty elements. The average age of the first Committee of Six in 1932 was approximately fifty-eight; that of the same Committee for 1937 was about forty-six. King thought that this increased accent on youth was good. Membership on the Committee of Six was regarded as a high honor, and the President fostered the distinction through devices of his own. He persuaded the Executive Committee of the Trustees to invite three members of the Committee of Six to sit

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with them at their meetings; and later he asked the same Faculty members to meet three times a year with the entire Board. Thus the professors had an opportunity to bring to the attention of the Corporation the Faculty viewpoint on questions under discussion. The Committee of Six lost no time in attacking the pressing problem of admission requirements. Amherst alumni engaged in secondary education throughout the country were called upon for advice, and an undergraduate committee also presented a report. After all the testimony was in, the Faculty, moving with the speed required in an emergency, passed on February 13, 1933, a resolution, which was quickly approved by the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees, establishing new requirements for admission to the Freshman Class. Commenting on the significant changes, the President said: The new admission requirements at Amherst are an attempt to give greater flexibility to the administration of admissions and are not in any sense an attack upon the classics. Amherst is recognizing the fact that secondary education has made marked changes in the last decade and that the educational policy from school to college is continuous. Amherst is placing greater emphasis on the implications of the school record and less emphasis on the specific subjects which the students have studied. The aim of the requirements is to secure students intellectually qualified to do the work of the College. I myself believe that a thorough study of the classical civilization and languages of Greece and Rome is a sound preparation for college but not the only one. In brief, my point of view is that Amherst is seeking men of sound character and intellectual capacity to do the work of the College rather than students who have accumulated the required number of credits through any narrowly specified course of study.

The modernized policy gave preference to applicants offering three points in English, three in mathematics, and at least five in foreign languages, ancient still preferred. The College did not abandon its classical tradition; but in permitting candidates to

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enter in some cases without any knowledge of Greek or Latin, it recognized that the day had arrived when many otherwise intelligent high school graduates had been unable to secure instruction in the ancient languages. Thus Amherst faced realistically a trend which it had not created or encouraged and of which many of its professors did not approve. With regard to Faculty promotions, King from the beginning supported the existing system under which the younger teachers, provided their ability was evident, moved up step by step as the older men retired or died. Seniority was thus fully recognized. If there was a marked objection on the part of a teacher's departmental colleagues, his advancement might be retarded or his appointment might be terminated; but when he had no open critics or enemies he was assured of an uninterrupted progress. Promotions were regularly recommended by department heads but must also be passed upon by the Committee of Six and the President. A typical procedure was that followed by King on January 20, 1937, when he invited to his house all the full professors who had been members of the Committee of Six during the preceding five years. He concluded his letter of invitation as follows: I am not yet clear what if any promotions we can make this year within the framework of our budget, but I should like to get the advice of the full professors before I begin work on the budget for the coming year. On the afternoon after promotions had been voted, all the fortunate teachers were asked to come to the President's House at five o'clock. No others were present except Mrs. King. At an appropriate moment Stanley proposed a toast by way of celebration—a very pleasant way of making the announcement. When men not Amherst graduates were appointed as professors, he arranged a dignified ceremony in the Chapel at which they were awarded the Amherst honorary degree of Master of Arts. Their colleagues attended in full academic regalia.

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King was greatly concerned over the salary scale for the Faculty and administrative officers and was constantly trying to improve it. He took office during a period of financial depression, when the budget was a serious cause for concern and when it was impossible to embark upon a comprehensive program of salary increases; yet he rightly prided himself on the fact that the Trustees never even contemplated a general salary reduction, such as some other institutions had been obliged to make. Sabbaticals were continued as usual, and there were no cuts in Faculty numbers. The President was even able to report, moreover, that Faculty salaries, especially in the lower grades where the need was great, had been considerably improved. At the time when King retired, the maximum salary for a full professor was $8,000. The effect of this wise policy on Faculty morale was understandably beneficial. In 1930, under the Pease administration, the Trustees adopted a program providing for permissive retirement of Faculty members at sixty-five and mandatory retirement at seventy, with retirement stipends equivalent to one half their pay, not in any case to exceed $3,000. The plan was noncontributory, with the entire cost borne by the College. Recognizing that Amherst was almost alone among educational institutions of its class in its noncontributory pension plan, and much troubled over the huge future obligations which the College had assumed, King, shortly after his inauguration, arranged for a joint TrusteeFaculty committee to study all aspects of the complicated and very important problem. The final report as presented to the Faculty and the Corporation had been so carefully prepared that it was adopted without a dissenting vote. The salient feature was the withdrawal of the College from the obligation of paying annuities out of current income and the completion of a contract with the Teachers' Insurance and Annuity Corporation. The details are not relevant here, but it is significant that King's study of the original arrangement convinced him that, while it

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was reasonably generous, it could not have been carried out without leading the College into bankruptcy. In this and similar instances a college president has a strategical advantage over most faculty members in being able to see the whole field instead of only a section of it. If he properly fulfills his function, he becomes acquainted with the various shades of alumni opinion, with the personalities of potential and actual benefactors, and with the plans being made by comparable institutions. He must consider the welfare of the college in all of its aspects, not merely those which are temporarily the talk of the campus. On the other hand, he must never underestimate or disregard the opinions of professors who wish sincerely to improve existing conditions. While the President made it clear to the Committee of Six that they had nothing to do with administrative matters, they did, as time went on, pass on departmental allotments of funds, give their sanction to lectures and entertainments under college auspices, change the arrangement of the collegiate year, investigate the system of athletic controls, and approve courses to be given by the various departments. When, on March 4, 1937, a professor reported that an excessively high proportion of Seniors was being graduated with distinction, the Committee of Six undertook its own investigation. Most important of all, perhaps, was the fact that the President could keep in touch month by month with what was being said and felt by the Faculty and could also, when he so desired, voice quietly his personal views on college affairs. Thus he was sometimes able to rectify minor abuses which had irritated teachers, and he often disarmed criticism before it became widespread. On February 22, 1936, after the Committee of Six had been operating for three and one-half years, King said in a speech at Williams College that it had been successful and that he had heard only one member of the Faculty express a wish that the former multiplicity of committees could be restored. In describ-

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ing its operation, he summarized what has already been stated regarding its functions: The Committee of Six, as it is called, covers all aspects of college policy and practice. Its members are free to raise any question for discussion and review. It advises the President on many matters on which he wishes confidential advice, such as promotions and reappointments. Its six members are for the time being, and are known to be, constitutional advisers. And if at any time the Faculty should lose confidence in its six members, it can retire them all forthwith and select six others.

On June 30,1932, when King officially took over the College, it had a faculty of seventy-five and the instructional budget amounted to $371,000. In November, 1941, he reported that Amherst had a faculty of eighty-six, of whom fifty-one held the rank of professor or associate professor, and that the 1940-41 budget for instruction was $443,000. During those nine years fifteen members resigned or retired by reason of age or poor health or died, and thirteen resigned to accept calls to enter other institutions or to take up other occupations. The war so completely disrupted the normal operations of the College that comparable figures for the later years of King's administration have no significance. A considerable number of the older men on the Faculty lived through King's term of office, and even when one of them died, his place was ordinarily filled by the promotion of a younger man already in the same department. Consequently the President had to content himself by appointing young instructors, whom he selected very carefully. It would serve no useful purpose to call the roll of names. But one of the men chosen by King was Charles W. Cole, '27, who came as Associate Professor of Economics in 1935 and remained until 1940, when he resigned to accept a professorship at Columbia University. Later he returned to Amherst, to King's deep satisfaction, as the latter's successor in the presidency.

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Although the policy of including the coaches of athletic teams as members of the regular faculty was not instituted by King, he fully approved of it and took a keen interest in the type of men chosen for key positions. For the appointment of four of these coaches he was largely responsible: Lloyd P. Jordan, in 1932; Paul W. Eckley, in 1936; Ellsworth E. Richardson, in 1943; and Steven M. Rostas, in 1943. The President and his wife attended practice frequently and seldom missed a game with an outside team when they were in town. Stanley liked to watch these contests, and on many occasions praised the participants not only for victories but also for good sportsmanship. Although when King became President he was already acquainted with most of the senior members of the Faculty, there were many in the junior grades whom he had never met. He realized that he should learn to know these younger men just as soon as possible so that he might appraise their work and personalities and form his own conclusions as to their qualifications for reappointment and promotion. Accordingly he invited them to come to his office one by one so that he might discuss with them their duties and ambitions. It should be added that he had an excellent memory for names and faces and never forgot the place which each filled in the organization. Some of them still remember the words of advice and encouragement which he gave to them at crucial stages in their careers. A few of King's experiences with teachers had their highly amusing aspects. In one department was an instructor who had been on the staff only one year before Stanley's arrival and whom his older associates had indicated they did not wish to retain. Curious to see what this instructor was like, the President invited him to his office at an hour suited to his convenience. When the young man arrived a little in advance of his appointment, King, who was scrupulously punctual about engagements, sent word by his secretary that he would be free in five minutes. After sitting for precisely this period, the instructor rose, watch

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in hand, and said to the secretary, "I'm not in the habit of being kept waiting." He then walked out. The incident was so extraordinary that Stanley could not forget it. In due course the instructor departed, and it was later discovered that he had been a paid agent of the Nazis in the United States. He was eventually arrested by the F B I under suspicious circumstances and deported. No matter how patient a president may be, the hour is bound to arrive, if he remains in office long enough, when he has to insist on a showdown with a disaffected faculty member. But the problem of removing a full professor, no matter how obviously unworthy or incompetent, is not easy in a college like Amherst. The president always wishes, in such crises, to have the support of his faculty colleagues, for they are rightly resentful of any infringement on their rights of tenure by the president or even by the Board of Trustees. Hence to get rid of a "misfit" requires no small amount of tact and diplomacy. In such unhappy situations King was diligent in assembling evidence, sensitive to currents of public opinion, and anxious to be just to everybody. In one such case in which King was about to take drastic action he was called upon by a group of Seniors, several of them class leaders, who very respectfully warned him that if he removed a certain professor from one of his subsidiary positions, it would make King unpopular with the undergraduates. The President rightly regarded this as a challenge which had to be met decisively. After thanking them for their warning, he continued, "Gentlemen, what makes you think that I came to Amherst to be popular with the undergraduates? I definitely did not. I had a very happy life before I came here, and I accepted the presidency to do the best job I could for the College. I have no interest in undergraduate popularity. You know that it is ephemeral, coming easily and going easily. All I want to ask is whether this action will be good for Amherst College or not. If

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it will not, tell me why. You are Seniors—you have been here nearly four years. What, considering the best interests of the College, is the answer to my question?" The three undergraduates, one of whom was the football captain and another the president of the Christian Association, were clearly astonished at the President's frankness and remained silent. Then King turned to the spokesman for the group and asked again, "Will this be good for the College?" The young man answered with a smile, "Yes, I think it will." The others gave the same reply. The interview was clearly at an end. As they started to file out, the leader, who has since become a distinguished clergyman, paused and said, "President King, you will get along all right with the students!" The professor in question eventually departed, with the unanimous approval of Faculty and Trustees, and with no further protest from the undergraduates. Writing on May 20, 1894, to William James, President Eliot, of Harvard, said: I thank you for including in the list of my serviceable qualities devotion to ideals." I have privately supposed myself to have been pursuing certain educational ideas; but so many excellent persons have described the fruits of the past twenty-five years as lands, building, collections, and thousands of students, that I have sometimes feared that to the next generation I should appear as nothing but a successful Philistine. King, too, was a little hurt when well-meaning friends laid what he thought to be too much emphasis on the material achievements of his administration. He had been responsible, it is true, for an extensive building program and a gratifying increase in the endowment, and he had actually rehabilitated the College. But he was even prouder of his Faculty, and was inclined, in his quiet way, to boast about them. Furthermore, his most enduring accomplishment was in the field of education, through the instigation of surveys which culminated in the adjustment of the college program to a modem age.

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In October, 1941, as the result of much study and deliberation, the President, with the approval of the Committee of Six, appointed a Faculty Committee on Long Range Policy. The original members were Professor Lester V. Chandler (Economics), as Chairman, with Ralph A. Beebe (Chemistry), George B. Funnell (French), Gail Kennedy (Philosophy), and Vincent Morgan (Music). The Committee had barely gotten under way before the incident at Pearl Harbor put an end to what were later described as its "leisurely deliberations," and it did not resume activity until February, 1944. It was then reconstituted with Professor Kennedy as Chairman, and two additional members—Bailey Brown (Mathematics) and George R. Taylor (Economics). Professor Kennedy, by arrangement with the President, was given a leave of absence for two terms in order to visit other colleges, assemble relevant material, and draft the final report. This Committee met on the average twice a week over a period of nearly a year and considered every phase of college activity. In constituting this unique committee the President expressed his own expectation of what it might accomplish: W e all realize that the present emergency is likely to produce profound changes in our social fabric. These changes are likely to affect our program of higher education. It seems to me of vital importance that Amherst College should be considering now how best to adapt itself to meet the changed conditions. It may well be that we shall wish to make radical changes in our practices and procedures. A study of these questions is the function of your Committee. Amherst College was founded in a time of profound national unrest. It has survived succeeding crises in our national life. It has adapted itself to meet conditions of each generation. I do not need to emphasize the seriousness of the problems which will face us in years which lie immediately ahead. I am confident, however, that with foresight and prudence and flexibility the College can adapt itself to serve with even greater usefulness the society of tomorrow.

When requested, King supplied this Committee with information, provided the members with every essential facility, but

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never interfered or dictated. The Committee recognized its unusual function and opportunity by saying: Here at Amherst we are attempting something that has rarely if ever been done, to secure through the democratic processes of study, report, and discussion the cooperative agreement of the whole faculty upon a comprehensive long term policy for the College. It is certain that this is the most opportune occasion we are likely to have for that attempt. . . . The College is passing through a critical period during which it is possible to plan and carry out on a democratic basis an intelligent reconstruction of its whole pattern of organization. The Committee's formal report, published in January, 1945, was a document of 157 pages, of tremendous importance in the history of American higher education. Never before had the faculty of a small college undertaken to scrutinize itself, to indulge in searching self-criticism, and, at the same time, to point the way to reform. The Harvard Report, entitled General Education in a Free Society, appeared at about the same period; and the two documents, although dealing with different types of institutions, reached many of the same conclusions. The Amherst Report had a definiteness and clarity which made it in some ways superior as a guide to future policy. The Amherst Committee, leaving almost nothing unconsidered, finally made twenty-nine specific recommendations, eighteen of them regarding the curriculum and four on admissions and scholarships. What was called the New Curriculum, put into operation under President Charles W. Cole, stemmed directly from the conclusions of this committee. It also recommended that fraternities at Amherst be abolished and that attendance at church services be made voluntary. It must again be stressed that King deserves great credit not only for constituting this committee but also for insisting that it should be free and independent. Almost parallel with this very important report was one submitted by a Special Alumni Committee on Postwar Amherst

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College, formed with King's warm approval in the autumn of 1943. This committee, appointed by the Executive Committee of the Alumni Council, was headed by Professor Cole, then of Columbia. Working with him, men of high distinction in business and the various professions contributed their wisdom and experience. Their report, printed as an issue of the Alumni Council News, was dedicated to President King, "in recognition of his enthusiasm for this free discussion of Amherst policy." It inevitably covered much the same ground as the Faculty Report and agreed with it in many respects. Although it did not feel that fraternities at Amherst should be abolished, it did suggest certain reforms which could be instituted and which would do away with many of the existing evils. Simultaneously, also, the Fraternity Business Management of the College, also with the President's approval, appointed a Committee on Postwar Fraternities, which offered a report in February, 1945, pointing out the advantages of the fraternity system and stating that most of its defects were due to "a lack of continuous, constructive, and understanding guidance obtainable only through the friendly cooperation of Administration, Faculty, alumni, and undergraduates." With all three of these committees, so well intentioned and efficient, King was cooperative. He was most punctilious about keeping aloof from any debate on the curriculum, giving the Faculty the complete latitude to which they were morally—and legally—entitled. He was sure that out of the clash of conflicting opinions only good could come. On the other hand, whenever the Faculty or alumni wished on crucial matters to have the benefit of his experience, he was willing to say in private discussion what he would have remarked in a formal meeting. He never, however, accepted any praise for himself, and often quoted Dwight Morrow's aphorism, "There are two kinds of persons, Stanley—those who do things and those who get the credit!" Seldom in collegiate circles have so many thoughtful

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minds been united in an effort so dispassionate and constructive. And throughout the informal discussions, King displayed one of his most engaging qualities—that of being, not only an originator, but also, when the occasion demanded, an attentive, sympathetic, and appreciative listener. Although certain questions can easily be raised regarding King's relationship to his Faculty, they cannot always be categorically answered. Did he trust their collective judgment? Yes— within limits. He valued their opinions on strictly educational matters, but had his reservations when they entered other fields, political, administrative, or financial. Did he play favorites? Probably—if by that it is meant that he trusted some members more than others and liked to associate with them. Any head of a personnel group, military, industrial, or spiritual, learns very quickly who is potentially or actually hostile, and governs himself accordingly. But King never allowed his dislikes or prejudices to affect his attitude towards others. Was he susceptible to obsequiousness or flattery? I can find no evidence of it. Like most men, he undoubtedly preferred to have others think well of him, but this is an excusable human weakness. He certainly had respect for those with the bravery to meet him head on! No Amherst president is comparable with Stanley King as a faculty leader. Some of his predecessors deliberately followed a policy of laissez faire, unwilling to risk the upsetting of any campus apple cart. This is the easy way. But King believed that the danger of undesirable change was less than that of complacent inertia. Finally he brought the best out of those professors who had a bent for thinking and planning, infusing them with his own thoroughness, persistence, and vision. And he was always the advocate of experimentation and of progress.

KING AND THE UNDERGRADUATES

I T HAS BECOME an almost unchallenged truism that American college undergraduates of the 1920's—the muchberated Postwar Generation—were bored, reckless, and uncontrollable. Lurid works of fiction have established and perpetuated the legend that the Hard-boiled Virgin and the Coonskincoated Collegian were the picturesque but accurate symbols of a degenerate age. Fortunately many of its most captious critics have lived to see these same exasperating boys and girls metamorphosed into conscientious fathers and mothers, deeply concerned over the antics of their own offspring and active on school committees. Indeed some of the wildest children have become the strictest parents. As a matter of fact, the mood of the succeeding Depression Decade of the 1930s was in some respects even more disturbing to those who, from the pinnacle of middle age, watched at the time what was going on in schools and colleges. This was precisely the period when Stanley King, a fervent advocate of order and discipline, had to confront on the Amherst campus a change, or changes, which he could not help viewing as undesirable. He did his best, under difficult circumstances, to check, or to modify, a trend which was nation-wide.

Among the superficial faults of undergraduates in the 1930's was a laxity in dress symptomatic of an attitude best described

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as "sloppy." It took some faith for the President to believe that the unshaved students whom he faced at his first chapel service could offer much hope to a world already disordered and disorderly. Just where the prevalent cult of barbarism, of the lumber camp and of the slums, originated is difficult to ascertain. Not from the army and navy, where tidiness and cleanliness are basic virtues! At any rate, King, himself a model of neatness, did not enjoy seeing undergraduates rushing into Johnson Chapel each morning in lumbermen's jackets, soiled blue jeans, and tousled hair. He insisted that coats be worn at meals in Valentine Hall and undertook to enforce regulations regarding decent attire in the lecture rooms. He made it clear what he thought on the subject and was able in his position of authority to retard the prevailing tendency. But, as he came to be aware, he was fighting a losing battle. It was ironic that a man who advocated discipline as an indispensable instrument of education should be the official guardian of young men who cared little for it. In a manner not easy to explain the Great Depression of the early 1930's broke down many of the barriers which had fostered respectability. An Age of Impulse developed, when students who as small children had been subjected to few or no restrictions in their homes naturally resented rules laid down later by teachers. Meanwhile the Progressive Education Movement, of which many of the young had been victims, was encouraging "self-expression." Whatever the causes—and they were many—the consequences were obvious. Schoolboys entering Amherst as Freshmen soon caught the prevailing distemper and felt released to follow their own inclinations. When the state authorities, in order to save gasoline for urgent war needs, tried to discourage the unnecessary use of automobiles, the Seniors complained, rebelled, and denounced, as if they had no patriotic duty. Once an undergraduate, his face discolored with a three days' growth of beard, entered King's office to request a special privilege. "When did you shave last?"

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inquired the President suavely. After the student, astonished at this unconventional greeting, had stammered some vague reply, the President said, "You go out and make yourself presentable, and then I'll consider your request!" The action in this case may have seemed severe, but it was unquestionably salutary. King once declared before an undergraduate audience, "Openmindedness and tolerance are two qualities of the civilized man," and he himself displayed these attributes repeatedly in dealing with the perennial problems which agitate the campus. On the matter of chapel and church exercises, however, he had firm convictions. The attitude of the average student then as now towards formal religion, while not precisely hostile, was cheerfully indifferent. At his first service in Johnson Chapel, King, as we have noted, announced that compulsory chapel would be the "President's policy" and asked his listeners to support him. His language was unmistakably clear and his manner was resolute. But his announcement did not silence the customary and intermittent student "gripes." After all, a denunciation of compulsory chapel was always good as a space-filler in the undergraduate periodicals. The grumbling, however, produced no concessions from the administration. On February 12, 1934, the auditorium of the Chapel, after a long remodeling process, was opened again for use. This had been one of King's cherished projects, and he was justifiably proud of the results. For the first time the magnificent new organ given by Mrs. Edwin Duffey, of Cortland, New York, in memory of her husband, was publicly played and for the first time also the more than two hundred Freshmen sat in the benches so familiar to many generations of earlier undergraduates. King had hoped that chapel services in these attractive surroundings would appeal to some latent feeling for beauty in Amherst students. But he was too optimistic. Their mood of resistance could not be softened, and in the autumn of 1935 the whole question of compulsory chapel was again being agitated, with accentuated grum-

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bling. Having learned that the students proposed to take their own ballot on the subject, the President anticipated trouble by making a speech in which he warned them that he had no intention of yielding to undergraduate pressure. In a letter to Dean Woodbridge, dated October 11, 1935, he gave a full account of what had happened, ending, "So far as the undergraduates are concerned I think that the matter is settled for the time being." Woodbridge, who had heard that President William A. Neilson, of Smith College, had been critical of Amherst's policy on chapel exercises, replied with his customary frankness: Your chapel talk disturbed me neither by its substance nor its form. My anxiety was and is about its reception. I think of the audience both in and out of college—Neilson himself, for example. Put bluntly, and with an exhibition of my own egotism, that audience is not yet educated up to the level of your remarks. . . . Lucius Eastman talked with me over the phone last night about the meeting, and I hung up the receiver with the impression that Neilson had suggested, by implication, that we were twenty years behind the times in the matter of Chapel. I felt like shouting out: No, we are a hundred years ahead of the times! At the height of this compulsory chapel controversy, an anonymous writer in the Student complained of being aroused out of bed after a long night's sleep, just for "a four-and-a-half minute meeting in which we have grace said over us like so many veal cutlets." Stanley, who usually kept his temper even under extreme provocation, was this time so indignant that he rose in chapel and said that if the author of the communication would be man enough to present himself, he would be only too glad to hand him his "walking papers." When the undergraduate villain of the piece, thoroughly ashamed and penitent, came to King's office after the service was over, the latter had cooled off and realized that he had let his anger carry him too far. With the common sense which so often rescued him from dilemmas, he had a heart-to-heart talk with the young fellow, in the course of which each apologized to the other. On the following morning, King

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told his expectant audience his favorite story, originated by Dwight W. Morrow, about Rule Six, "Don't take yourself too seriously!" "Gentlemen," he continued, "I have myself violated Rule Six, and I herewith beg your pardon for losing my temper in public." His listeners applauded, and a situation which might have been disastrous was turned to his advantage. One of his associates said of him later, "He always emerged from a mistake of this kind with renewed luster!" The President viewed these morning exercises as an especially important opportunity for interpreting administration policies to the students, for announcing and elucidating his plans, and for giving the undergraduates words of admonition or praise. The rostrum in Johnson Chapel was a perfect sounding board for his purposes. He frankly enjoyed appearing before the student body and, with experience, he became a graceful and convincing speaker, sedulously avoiding bombast and flights of fancy, ready with the appropriate reference or anecdote, and talking with a simplicity and naturalness suited to the hour and the place. The contact was one which he insisted on retaining, even against the intermittent outbursts of undergraduate complaint, and he never missed chapel when he was at home. The compulsory church service on Sunday was, however, less defensible. In one of his addresses to the undergraduates, King said: Religion is not something set apart to be considered on Sunday morning and then put away for a week, but on the contrary religion is part and parcel of life. The strands run through the warp and woof of daily living, sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit. Its strands are interwoven with strands of government, of economics, of home life, of children, of education. One cannot wisely dissect life, and say this is sacred, that is profane; this is the Lord's and that is Caesar's. Life is a seamless web.

This was Stanley King's private and personal philosophy, not often thus put into words for others to hear but very earnestly

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held. Yet the fact remained, as he well knew, that by the 1930's the Sunday church service which he had attended regularly as a boy and on which thousands of Amherst graduates had been brought up was almost unknown in many homes, and nothing satisfactory had been created to replace it. The situation at Amherst was not unique. Every American college, large or small, was facing similar conditions and trying to effect some compromise which would preserve the Christian tradition without arousing open hostility among the students. Many of the Amherst professors were openly cynical and did nothing to solve the local problem. Meanwhile some of the older alumni, with little conception of the change which had taken place in campus opinion, were talking sentimentally and sometimes foolishly about a matter which they did not understand. The choices, as the President saw them, were limited in number. The ubiquitous and alluring automobile, the development of the modern long week end during which a large proportion of the undergraduates were away from the campus, the general relaxation of puritanical standards of Sunday observance—these were rapidly tending to make a compulsory church service obsolete; and he was doubtful whether any form of required religious gathering on Sunday would survive his administration. On the other hand, if devotional services were optional, only a handful of the pious would attend, and a distinguished preacher like Harry Emerson Fosdick or Henry Sloane Coffin might face a congregation pitifully small. Furthermore, although he did have a strong spiritual nature, King could not, with his pattern of thinking, deny the right of mature citizens to worship God or not, as they pleased, and if they pleased, each in his own way. For the moment he temporized, wisely seeking counsel where he could find it and encouraging discussion on the subject. The Stearns Church, dedicated on July 1, 1873, had been for many years the center of Sunday services on the campus. It was, however, badly arranged and ill-suited to a college body of more

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than eight hundred. With the renovation of Johnson Chapel and the installation there of the new organ, King felt justified, under the broad executive authority vested in him, in transferring the Sunday vesper service from the Stearns Church to the much more attractive new auditorium; and in 1936 he reported to the Trustees, "For several years the church has remained closed, except for an occasional funeral or memorial service." A year later he informed them, "Stearns Church is now used for voluntary chapel services which are attended by about a dozen students." A small minority of the Trustees objected to the abandonment of the Steams Church, and Mr. Plimpton, the Chairman, once announced at a Corporation meeting that he was planning to raise funds for its restoration. This troubled the President so deeply that he undertook a special trip to New York in an effort to dissuade Plimpton from this project. In the course of the amicable, though rather spirited, debate, King warned Plimpton that he intended to retain the Sunday service in Johnson Chapel, no matter what happened. When Plimpton inquired, "What would you do if I came before the Board with an offer of the sum necessary to put the church in good condition?," the President replied without any hesitation, "I should ask the Board to refuse the offer. This would place you and the prospective donor in an embarrassing position. The Board, of course, has great confidence in you, but it also has confidence in me. They would not know what to do, but in my judgment they would in this dilemma support the President of the College." Plimpton, a man of sagacity as well as of great loyalty to Amherst and to King personally, considered this statement carefully and then answered, "Stanley, I did not know you felt so strongly on this question. I will drop it. But I have lived to see presidents come and go at Amherst. I will not bring up the matter again during your administration, but when you retire, I would like to do this, if your successor has no objection." The humor of this response is heightened by the fact that Plimpton was thirty years older than King.

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Mr. Plimpton died shortly afterwards, and the question of restoring the Stearns Church was never brought up again. At the opening chapel service of the winter term in January, 1940, the President unburdened his heart to the undergraduates, saying, "The College Church, latterly known as the Stearns Church, stands uninhabited and unused for the most part and is falling into a state of disrepair. What would you do with it if the decision rested with you?" This was a pertinent and fair question which every critical alumnus had to ponder and answer. The Alumni Sub-Committee on Religion recommended in 1945 a compromise program. A questionnaire had indicated that a considerable majority of graduates favored compulsory church but that most of them were out of touch with contemporary undergraduate thought on this controversial subject. Accordingly the Committee suggested that church attendance might well be required of Freshmen and Sophomores but should be voluntary for upperclassmen; that students be given a voice in the selection of preachers; and that the College should provide a building "architecturally dignified and religiously expressive." Almost simultaneously the Faculty Committee on Long Range Policy reached the conclusion that while daily chapel might well be required as a college meeting or convocation, attendance at church services on Sunday should be voluntary. Out of these prolonged investigations, it became clear that both alumni and Faculty were perplexed, wavering between their desire to hold fast to that which was good and the necessity of admitting that times had changed. The outbreak of the war altered the constituency of the undergraduate body, but vesper services were continued until 1943. After that date those undergraduates who wished to worship God on Sunday had to do so in one of the village churches. Very few regard this solution of the problem as altogether satisfactory, but no better one has yet been suggested. To round out the story, it should be added that, with the construction of the Mead Art Building in 1949, after King had retired

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as President, the Stearns Church was razed. The spire, however, was retained as a concession to the traditionalists. Its aesthetic appropriateness in its present surroundings is today a provocative cause for debate when alumni revisit the College. In his reminiscent memoranda Stanley King conceived of several appropriate titles for his proposed chapter on "Undergraduate Life," among them "Crime and Punishment—College Style" and "Undergraduate Exuberance." The one which he really preferred, however, was "Never a Dull Moment." President George Harris often remarked to friends that he had two surprises every spring: the flies swarmed into the President's House before the screens were installed by the college workmen and the students broke out in some unpredicted form of deviltry. Dr. Pease, Stanley's immediate predecessor, once told him that he never went to bed at night without wondering what undergraduate prank might rouse him from his slumbers and drive him forth into the darkness. King's temperament was less apprehensive. From the beginning of his administration he boldly took over disciplinary problems himself, in consultation with the Dean, recognizing and accepting his full share of responsibility for the conduct of the students. He wished to have amicable relations with all the undergraduates, and in his inaugural address said frankly, "I have come to Amherst with the hope that I can come to know personally every student that completes his course with us." But he had hardly been in office a month before he realized that this aim, though laudable, could not be achieved. He learned also what all school and college administrators discover sooner or later—that two generations can rarely meet on completely even terms when one has authority over the other. Ultimately he was satisfied if he could command respect and be an impartial judge. Early in his term of office the President asked Dean Porter to codify the rules of the College as they were recorded in the Faculty minutes. In addition to the broad and vague stipulation requiring students to behave at all times like gentlemen and

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certain specific rules governing attendance at college exercises, there were Faculty enactments extending back for many years which had never been collated and in many cases had been forgotten after some particular emergency had passed. Having studied the situation, Stanley informed the Faculty that, as a man trained in the law, he could not administer justice under a set of rules with which neither he nor the Dean was familiar. He then suggested that they start absolutely fresh by repealing all legislation regarding undergraduate conduct except that printed currently in the Student Handbook. With this sensible proposal the Faculty agreed, clearly with relief. "After fourteen years," wrote Stanley later, "the Dean and I found that the rule that every student was expected to behave as a gentleman was about all we needed except for the specific rules on class attendance, chapel attendance, and the use of automobiles." He also liked to quote approvingly a principle laid down by his father, Judge King, "There's no law against a man's being a fool, but there usually is a statute against his being a damned fool!" King's initiation into administrative grief came at the end of his first year in office when, on a lovely May evening, a group of lively students in Morrow dormitory started an argument as to whether it was protocol to stand at attention when the national anthem was played over the radio in a private room. In the spontaneous enthusiasm so easily generated in springtime, a few blithe spirits indulged in some mild "roughhousing," and then one "nitwit" proposed a mock Communist rally outdoors, at which an undergraduate exhibitionist denounced the Pratt family and Dwight W. Morrow and other capitalistic benefactors of the College. Finally, after somebody had lighted a bonfire, a student brought out a small American flag and cast it into the fire, in unconscious imitation of the similar action by William Lloyd Garrison at Framingham, Massachusetts, on July 4, 1854. When the noise increased and empty bottles began to fly from the windows, the campus "cop," Officer O'Brien—known locally

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as "Obie"—appeared on the scene, quelled the rioters, and sent the turbulent students back to their rooms. Shortly after midnight, the Springfield Republican roused Stanley by telephone from his bed to inquire whether he cared to make any statement regarding the burning of the American flag on the Amherst campus. King, of course, had heard nothing of the incident; but an upperclassman who wrote the college notes for the Republican, seeing the journalistic possibilities in the story, had telegraphed it promptly to the editor, who promptly put it on an Associated Press wire, describing it, not as a stupid undergraduate prank, but as a serious "left wing" demonstration by Amherst students. Within a few minutes the President's telephone was ringing with calls from reporters in Boston and New York. Realizing that the incident as it was likely to be described in the press was sure to give the College some undesirable publicity, King instructed "Obie" to prepare his official statement and bring it, together with the chief culprits, to his house at seven-thirty that morning. Meanwhile he had to do some quick and serious thinking. At six-thirty he called Dean Porter, and an hour later the two administrative officers confronted the offenders, who were now very sober indeed and whose gloom was not lightened when they were informed that they had violated a law of the Commonwealth as well as all the canons of decent behavior. Their chief offense had been thoughtlessness, but the consequences might be grave. The President first placed them all on probation. He then warned them not under anv circumstances to leave town, advised them that they would probably be arrested during the day by the state police, and instructed them to say nothing whatever to reporters. This done, he set out for New York to keep some long-standing engagements in that city. On his return in the evening, the President found that the students involved had been arrested by the police but had been quickly bailed out, in accordance with his orders, by his secre-

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tary. Meanwhile undergraduate animosity had not unnaturally developed against the Senior who had foolishly given the story to the press, and King sent him off surreptitiously to his grandmother in Goshen, to remain in seclusion until the excitement had died down. Soon King's office was piled high with telegrams and letters of protest from alumni, patriotic societies, and "screwballs" of every type, and editorials began to appear in the newspapers. He had a conference with the District Attorney, in the course of which he pointed out that the culprits—all Freshmen—had been more careless than criminal in their acts, never comprehending the legal or social implications of their stupidity. The District Attorney agreed to recommend to the court that it accept a plea of nolo from the offenders and that they be paroled in the President's care. At the trial, Judge Mason did accept the plea of nolo, but refused merely to parole the defendants. He found two of the five not guilty and three guilty, and then imposed fines ranging from twenty-five to fifty dollars. With this unsensational disposition of the case it soon ceased to interest the press, but it did have a sequel which Stanley liked to relate. At the Commencement meeting of the Trustees, the President recounted the whole story, feeling confident that the stand which he had taken would be approved. But Chief Justice Rugg at once expressed the opinion that the offenders should be expelled from the College. When King asked for his reasons, Judge Rugg replied, "These students have been convicted of a crime, they are therefore criminals, and the College should not expose other students to their society." At this point Stanley recalled a detail from his law school days. In his most courteous and deferential manner, he said, "Mr. Chairman, I hesitate to differ from the Chief Justice of the Commonwealth on a matter of law. But when I was in law school we were taught, as I remember it, that if a trial judge accepted a plea of nolo then the defendant is not considered a criminal. There has been no conviction of crime in

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these cases; and if we assume that these young men are criminals we shall be going beyond the trial judge." T h e Chief Justice, a fine gentleman of the old school, replied, also in courtly fashion, "Mr. Chairman, the President is of course right as to the law," and the Board passed on to other business. Neither Rugg nor King ever touched again upon the matter in conversing with each other. T h e foolish undergraduates returned to their classes as Sophomores in the following autumn, having presumably learned a lesson, and were later uneventfully graduated. King's own philosophy in handling such cases is best expressed in some later comments: My constant aim in the administration of discipline at the College was to keep the erring student in college if possible. It is easy for a president or dean to remove a student from the College; it takes only a few words. It is sometimes very difficult to make a good citizen of the College out of a student who is constantly breaking minor regulations or who is abusing his new-found freedom from home constraints. It always seemed to me a part of the responsibility of dean and president to use time and patience and every device at your command to get an undergraduate who has run off the rails back into the normal life of the college with some sense of responsibility to himself, his family, and his fraternity mates. In this effort the Dean and I received the full and complete cooperation of the officers of the fraternities. Many of the officers of the chapters would come to my house to talk with me "off the record" as to how to get a particular underclassman into line so that he would not get into trouble with the Dean's office. This statement makes it clear that Stanley's corrective methods were intentionally therapeutic rather than strictly punitive. Under provocation, however, he was sometimes justifiably arbitrary. A group of Freshmen living in Morrow Hall once, in a sportive mood, started a small fire in a corridor. Although it was quickly extinguished, the walls of the hallway were badly blackened. When the incident was brought to his attention, King promptly directed the Department of Buildings and Grounds to estimate the cost of repainting, multiply by two, and send the bill

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to the Comptroller's office to be entered pro rata on the term accounts of the undergraduates involved. Furthermore, he gave orders to delay the repairs until just before Commencement so that the smoke-stained walls would be a continuing reminder of the episode to all the occupants of Morrow Hall. After the spring recess, one of the participants in the affair called at the President's office to protest against the postponement of the repainting. King replied that he had ordered this done deliberately and with due consideration to the nature of the offense. The boy then added that he had been told by his father, a corporation lawyer, that the President had no right to impose a fine in addition to the costs. King made it clear in his response that if the young man did not choose to pay the two dollars and a half which had been assessed as his share of the damage, he could resign from the College. H e continued, "You may tell your father that doubtless he knows everything about the legal affairs of the corporations for which he is attorney, but that I feel perfectly competent to handle the legal problems arising out of my relations with the Amherst undergraduates." The boy paid up; and two years later, when Stanley met the father face to face for the first time, he found that the son had been a far from accurate reporter of what was actually said within the family circle. It took King only a short time to learn that direct and decisive measures are often the only kind which undergraduate rowdies understand or respect. In the winter of 1944, at a critical hour in the war, a group of students had been observed by the wife of a Trustee breaking the windows of their fraternity house with snowballs in what was obviously meaningless and wanton destruction. When she stopped and politely suggested that this was a wasteful procedure at a time when materials were limited, one of them replied curtly that onlv in a democracy could the citizens smash their own windows; and his unabashed com-

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panions, to demonstrate their independence, proceeded to smash a few more panes of glass. As soon as King heard the story and could check on the five boys involved, he summoned them to his office on the following morning at eight o'clock. When he himself arrived at five minutes past eight, they were all in his reception room—one of them stretched out dozing on the meetinghouse bench in the alcove. The President peremptorily ordered the boy reclining on the bench to lie down on the floor, because he was obviously "too tired to sit up." He then spoke to them very seriously, placed them on the strictest probation, and instructed them that each one must write a note to his parents, confessing his misdemeanor, and must bring back to him a letter saying what they thought of the incident. The news of what had happened spread around the campus, and incredible though it may seem, many undergraduates and even a few of the Faculty thought that the President had been too severe with the vandals. He stood his ground, however, and by the end of the week he had received letters from four of the five fathers concerned, approving of his action. The fifth young man came in to say that he would have to resign because he just didn't have the courage to confess to his parents what he had done. The President, with characteristic kindness, then relented and told the boy that he need not write; and this decision also caused discussion and some criticism. In this instance, several of the Trustees were eager to expel the offenders, but Stanley restrained their anger. Those who maintained that the President sometimes used preparatory school methods of punishment should have been willing to admit that the window-breakers showed a lack of social and moral maturity and needed to be aroused to a sense of their responsibility. One alumnus has related an amusing example of how the President was able to fit the punishment to the crime:

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In my Senior year at Amherst I was campus mail boy, delivering morning and afternoon mail to all campus offices. Just at exam time one morning, after I had finished the usual morning delivery, near my exam room I was handed an extra piece of mail for delivery to the President. Thinking the delivery could keep, I marched off to take my first mid-year test. In the agony of test-taking the letter was forgotten, until I received a personal call—in distinctly harsh tones —from the presidential sanctum. I rushed over with the letter and was told in the outer room to enter (the secretary was trembling with a mixture of obvious horror and sympathy) and make delivery in person. Dr. King was cold, but gentle, in the beginning. He asked, rather solicitously, I thought, whether I had ever read Hubbard's A Message to Garcia. I said I hadn't. He then recommended it in quiet tones, as a work every young man should master. Then he proceeded, softly at first, rising in intensity and acidity as he warmed up, to give me the finest dressing down I have ever experienced. I think I never understood the awful power of the spoken word until that moment. He ended by suggesting (sic!) that I write out, in longhand, A Message to Garcia. I left that office in quite unmanly tears. I have since been told that I kept from him for almost six hours after its arrival on the campus the official decision of the Trustees of the Kirby Estate concerning the Memorial Theater. I think it typical of the man that when I handed him the completed text, he had forgotten the whole thing and was, in fact, amusedly apologetic about it. He never forgot it again, however, and made frequent reference to it whenever we met later at alumni gatherings of any kind. I remember the incident, and Dr. King, with amusement and almost joy now. Certainly I needed just that kind of thing then. I was in my earlier years as arrogant as a small college athlete can be and as insufferably careless as the pseudo-intellectual, diligently bohemian ass of the 1930s ever was. There are times when I need it now. No one, I think, who knew Dr. King could fail to respect him. There were, perhaps, only a few that loved him. He was not a man to be loved—and, I think, didn't care much. He was, I fear, the Vanishing American—a man with a job to do—who did it as well as it could be done—and loved the doing!

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When parents were at fault for their sons' delinquencies, King never hesitated to tell them so. Once he invited a prominent alumnus with a boy in the Sophomore Class to call at his office when he was next in the vicinity. When the two men met, Stanley, after the conventional preliminaries, said, "Bill, I'm thinking of putting you on Probation!" "What in the world have I done?" was the inquiry. "You're ruining a good boy by giving him too large an allowance, and we can't save him unless you'll cooperate with us." The father then inquired how much spending money an undergraduate should have, and Stanley answered, "I don't know. That's your problem, not mine, and the answer depends on the boy. All I'm sure is that this young fellow is too extravagant and at this moment is on the toboggan because of it." When this father learned the full extent of his son's indiscretions, he withdrew him from college and put him to work for a year—a decision which turned out to be salutary and productive. In the President's office nobody could tell what would occur before the day was over. One morning an alumnus entered with a sad tale of a neighbor of his who wished to send his son to Amherst but felt embarrassed about taking the initiative. He had attended Amherst for a brief period a quarter of a century before, but had been involved in a youthful escapade and had suffered the maximum penalty of expulsion. At that time his name had been expunged from the college records, but Stanley could find in the Faculty minutes no mention of the sin or its punishment. Fortunately an elderly professor with a good memory recollected the details. A little group of exuberant undergraduates had jumped to the stage of a Holyoke theater during a burlesque show and had sung a ribald song, to the demonstrated delight of the audience. The incident had found its way into the newspapers, and the perpetrators had been expelled from Amherst. Since then, the man in question had been an exemplary citizen, indeed had become a leader in his community. When

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the President learned the facts, he at once wrote an order quietly restoring the father's name to the college rolls, as an "ex" member of his class. The son was admitted to Amherst as a student, but the sequel was not good, for his habits of study were so intermittent and poorly directed that he was unable to finish his course. Like other college presidents of the 1930's, King had to face the problem of undergraduate drinking on and off the campus— and he always met it squarely. When he took office, Prohibition was still in operation, but in February, 1933, Congress voted to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment and by the next November American voters had declared the experiment to have been a failure. But Prohibition or not, young men were not to be kept from drinking, even at Amherst College. In the autumn of 1932, King, attending for the first time a meeting of the New England Association of College Presidents, was shocked to hear some of the members assert that as far as they knew their students did not use intoxicating liquors. His own account of his reactions is very interesting: Finally I could keep silent no longer, and I said that at Amherst the students drank; they had drunk before Prohibition and during Prohibition and I was satisfied they would drink after Prohibition. I said that they drank when my father was in college and when I was in college, and that their habits had not changed for the better during Prohibition; that facing these facts I preferred to have them drink beer rather than hard liquor and that I preferred to have them drink on the campus rather than in Northampton or in Holyoke. In the latter case, they were likely to drive back to Amherst in student cars with the consequent danger to themselves and others.

This candid declaration was received with alarm by several of the college presidents. And when Stanley added boldly that he was planning to try the experiment of serving beer in the college cafeteria, a very much older president said, "I would not dare to consider such a procedure because the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court is a member of my Board of Trus-

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tees." "So he is of mine," commented King, "and if he disagrees, he can say so!" When this session had adjourned for a respite, three deans came up to thank King for the realistic honesty with which he had approached the issue. To one of them whom he had known for years, Stanley said, "Doesn't your chief know that the students at your university sometimes drink?" The Dean replied, "I'm never allowed to mention the subject to him. He just doesn't want to hear anything about that aspect of life on the campus." King learned then and there that on matters of discipline and student behavior a dean was likely to be better informed than a president; and after that, he made it a point at the annual meetings to see as much as possible of certain deans. Stanley's own habits, though temperate, were not ascetic, and he certainly had no illusions about the conduct of American males of college age. Furthermore, he was sure that a majority of Amherst undergraduates came from homes where moderate drinking was, to say the least, not unusual. At the close of his administration, however, he declared that he had never seen an Amherst student drunk and only very seldom had he come across one who had taken too much. It was very difficult to decide the wisest policy to follow. Serving beer in the cafeteria did not work, mainly because the surroundings lacked atmosphere, and the undergraduates out for an evening of mild relaxation preferred Rahar's, in Northampton, even though the prices were higher. Eventually, with the President's approval, the fraternity houses established their own recreation rooms, where drinking could be carried on as in a private club. This to some degree met the need, but King was never fully satisfied with even this solution of the problem. The President could always be trusted to bring common sense to bear on questions of this nature. Once at a Faculty committee meeting the name of a prominent Senior was presented as a

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candidate for a graduate fellowship. During the discussion one professor remarked, "I understand that this fellow about a week ago appeared in public in an intoxicated condition"; and accordingly the decision was postponed until further information could be secured. When the President asked the student whether the report was true, the latter answered without hesitation, "Yes, it is." "May I inquire what really happened?" continued King. "Why, sir, it was the Phi Beta Kappa dinner. I had just been elected, and the fellow who arranged the dinner thought we should have cocktails, two kinds of wine, and a cordial, as they would have done in Europe, where he prepared for college. The mixture was just too much for me." King found out that the story was true in every detail. The person who had planned the dinner was the son of an officer of the College, had spent two years at school in Switzerland, and was one of the top scholars in the Senior Class. When the President explained the evidence to his Faculty colleagues on the committee, they agreed that the applicant was no real sinner, and accordingly he received their unanimous vote for the fellowship. One perennial undergraduate problem concerned the ownership and use of motorcars. King himself was an ardent motorist, a fast although a very careful driver, and a connoisseur of fine automobiles. During the early 1930's many well-to-do parents of Amherst students had given their sons motorcars as soon as they could qualify for driving licenses. When they were first allowed on the campus in 1932, the number was large enough to cause trouble about parking, and some fatal accidents made the administration feel that a scheme of regulation was necessary. In his first chapel address, as we have seen, the President made his position clear. Controls could not be avoided, but the restrictions were frequently altered to meet changed conditions. Once the President, annoyed by complaints from the police, laid down in morning chapel some very specific injunctions regarding the use of automobiles, saying at the close of his remarks, "I haven't

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notified the Faculty yet about this, but I have an idea they will concur." The mere intimation that the Faculty might not agree with the President brought a laugh, but on the next morning King said whimsically, "I told you yesterday that I hadn't consulted the Faculty about my automobile regulations; now I find that they don't think as I do, and we'll have to start again." The truth was that no code could possibly have satisfied everybody; but King was always trying to preserve a happy balance between a reasonable degree of freedom and a safe method of control. Involved in these and other problems of the period was the fraternity system, long established at Amherst and cherished sentimentally by large numbers of alumni. It had been alleged by critics, with some justice, that it encouraged snobbishness and complacency. More than 20 percent, or approximately 150 undergraduates, were not chosen for the Greek letter societies, and parents in many cases were justified in feeling that their sons were the victims of discrimination. King, himself a loyal fraternity man, saw as clearly as anybody the evils of the system and endeavored to mitigate them, first by forming the Lord Jeff Club and second by urging the local chapters to be a little less selective and enlarge their membership. But it was a matter on which many people were acutely sensitive, and he did not wish to move rashly. Meanwhile the undergraduate chapters had been modifying their ideals and procedures to a degree which pained deeply many of the graduate brethren. Fraternities which had long and proudly maintained a literary tradition became less scrupulous about preserving it and resented preaching from their alumni. In the careless and carefree 1930's even the stated meetings on "Goat Night" were poorly attended, and almost any excuse for absence was allowed. Attempted disciplining by the Senior members was no longer potent in keeping order. Young ladies from neighboring colleges came and went almost as they

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pleased, and rules had to be promulgated forbidding the locking of bedroom doors and insisting on lights in rooms where bovs and girls were together. On October 3, 1933, the fraternities, wishing to cooperate with the new President, announced the adoption of uniform regulations concerning the presence of girls in their chapter houses; and the conservative Quarterly commented, "According to President King's views, Amherst is a man's college, not a coeducational institution, and the Amherst fraternities are men's clubs." But these and other equally wellintentioned acts did little to alter a trend which affected every college in the land. To the older graduates these phenomena were disturbing in degrees depending on the environment of the observer, his tolerance of change, and perhaps also on the number of his children and grandchildren. What had been known as the fraternity spirit, compounded of idealism and reverence and loyalty, suffered much during the 1930's. Moral standards were disregarded, even laughed at; responsibilities were ignored; and the cooler heads among the undergraduate leaders often found the resulting disorder hard to control. Stanley King was far from being the only Amherst alumnus to be deeply concerned over what he heard and saw. Even on their best behavior at initiation time the undergraduate brothers were not very well behaved. In November, 1941, just before Pearl Harbor, the Quarterly published an editorial praising the President for his recent admonitions to the undergraduates: Oh, they are good boys at heart, about the same as they were in 1885 and 1925, but President King is right in calling the trend dangerous. Anyway it looks as if the young aristocrat of the present day might have to take a little democracy with his meals and like it, and one ventures to predict that a quarter of a century from now, when he sends his son to college, he will be glad if Amherst is something more than a group of eating, drinking, lounging, and crabbing clubs linked together by a curriculum. Shall we have more undergraduate freedom or more disciplinary

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restraint? Shall we allow the undergraduates to draw up their own Bill of Rights, and require us, with the threat of decreased enrollment and diminishing tuition returns, to accept their own interpretation of the word privilege? Shall we lower our academic and moral standards on request? This somewhat pessimistic quotation is of interest as showing what thoughtful members of the older generation, in a position to observe what was going on, felt about their younger contemporaries. Perhaps it could have been duplicated in spirit, if not in detail, in the days of President Hitchcock or President Gates, for adults will always find it difficult to excuse the caprices of collegians. But the mood of the campus was certainly different in the 1930s from what it was in the 1900's, and Stanley King was not alone in his unwillingness to tolerate changes which seemed to threaten American society. And then, to add to the confusion, came a sudden shock which affected profoundly the lives of all the undergraduates. On the evening of Saturday, December 6, 1941, most of them were engaged in their pleasant week-end pastimes, and on the following afternoon many of them, sitting with their "dates," heard over the radio the almost incredible news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The ensuing events rapidly and completely disrupted the stability cherished by older generations. The campus quickly began to swarm with young Americans intent on just one end—preparation for military service. The army discipline was good for those subjected to it, but soon the luxurious fraternity houses were occupied by tenants who cared little for Greek mottos and rituals and pledges of inviolable secrecy. The fraternal organizations disintegrated, and some thoughtful alumni who had been watching them wondered whether it might not be wise to let them die. "Alpha Delt" and "Psi U" and "Deke" had played their significant part in the evolution of the College, but their contribution would no longer be important if the idealism which had been their strength disappeared and

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they degenerated into mere collegiate clubs. The wonder is that, under the circumstances, the essential things survived. But somehow the light was kept burning by a few conscientious members, and at the time when King retired in 1946, the local chapters were making a valiant effort, with his encouragement, at rehabilitation. Whether or not thev are anachronisms in our very realistic modern world remains to be decided. Stanley King never lost faith in their aims and purposes. The undergraduates who thought of the President as aloof really meant that he was dignified. Disposed himself to lead the intellectual life, he had little patience with the wasters who regarded college as a place for their entertainment. He did not like absurd costumes, infantile pranks, the adolescent dogmatism of the Student, the assumption that collegians are above the law. He thought that Sophomores should be old enough to put away childish things. He felt it his duty to see to it that the students behaved like gentlemen. On the other hand, President King as an instrument of justice was reasonable and fair, and some of the immature undergraduates who composed letters to the Student denouncing his alleged autocratic policies have lived to admit that they were wrong. Far from being a martinet, he was always ready to listen to the other side of the story and to change his mind when new evidence was presented. He made, and retained, the friendship of many students who now, as alumni, write about him with gratefulness and affection. He lent money to several who were in financial difficulties, and through his influence assisted others to obtain positions in the business world. And both by precept and example he did everything in his power to make Amherst College a training ground for good citizens. To complete the picture, it must be added that Stanley King, more than any other Amherst president up to his time, was vitally interested in the extracurricular concerns of the undergraduates. Mrs. King and he not only went regularly to athletic

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contests but also attended fraternity and college dances and encouraged a system of chaperonage by younger members of the faculty and their wives. They instituted a reception on the opening day of the college year for Freshmen and Faculty. They invited students to their home to meet visiting lecturers and had all the Seniors, in groups of fifteen, at their house to sit around the fire and talk. To the social side of undergraduate life the Kings made a contribution which many of the alumni of that period recall with pleasure and gratitude.

KING AS AN ADMINISTRATOR

W H E N Stanley King became President of Amherst College, he had already served two terms as Alumni Trustee and was well acquainted with each member of the Corporation—his temperament, his peculiarities (if any), and his efficiency. After Dwight W. Morrow died in 1931, King was recognized as the most active working member of the Board, and his election as permanent Trustee was regarded as both appropriate and desirable. Indeed by that date he knew more about the buildings and grounds than any living man. From the beginning of his administration he was on good terms with his colleagues on the Board, and he had long before that won their confidence. The Board of Trustees in 1921 had included two men in public life (Allen and Coolidge); four in the field of education and religion (Gillett, Patton, J. T. Stone, and Woodbridge); five businessmen (James, Plimpton, Pratt, Frank W. Stearns, and King); four lawyers (Breed, Esty, Rounds, and Rugg); and one banker (Morrow). By 1938 only Patton and Woodbridge remained, and the occupational proportion had changed considerably. Besides President King, six others had had experience on the staff of an educational institution (Boyden, Douglas, Ladd, Alfred E. Stearns, H. F. Stone, and Woodbridge). Two were clergymen (Patton and Kinsolving); three were bankers (Bale,

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Kingman, and Pierce); three were businessmen (Eastman, Maynard, and Pratt); two were lawyers (Stone and Caldwell); and one was a physician (Ladd). To King this seemed an exceptionally well-balanced group, representing most phases of alumni opinion. The routine procedure of the Board had long been well established. It had met formally three times a year—in the autumn and early spring at Springfield and at Commencement in Amherst. After King took office all meetings were held at Amherst. Its operations were carried on largely by committees—an Executive Committee (empowered to act in emergencies), a Finance Committee, an Instruction Committee, a Committee on Buildings and Grounds, and a Committee on Honorary Degrees. Assignments to these were made annually at the autumn meeting, upon recommendation of a nominating committee. As is usual with such groups, some members were very active while others performed their duties in a perfunctory way. But the attendance was ordinarily good, and when matters of importance were under consideration, absences were rare. The Secretary of the Board from 1929 until his death in 1941 was Frederick S. Allis— also the Alumni Secretary—one of the most fair-minded, discreet, and influential figures on the campus. He was followed in 1941 by Eugene S. Wilson, Jr., who had also succeeded Allis as Alumni Secretary. George A. Plimpton, President of the Corporation since 1907, died in 1936. He had long been a loyal and generous friend of the College; indeed his last visit there was made only a week before his death. Stanley seized a fitting moment to persuade the Board that its head should have the title of "Chairman" rather than that of "President," so that there might be no confusion with the President of the College. Lucius R. Eastman, who had been a Trustee since 1931, was frankly eager for the chairmanship, but Alfred E. Stearns, then Headmaster Emeritus of Philhps Academy, Andover, was the candidate of several members.

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When the right moment came, King threw his influence on the side of Stearns, who was duly elected and served as Chairman until his death in 1949. King and he worked verv well together, to the manifest advantage of the College. In businesslike fashion, King submitted to the Trustees each year a formal President's Report, which was printed and distributed to the alumni. Because he tried to summarize in these pages the significant events of the year, these documents offer a continuous and cumulative record of the College during his administration. Carefully planned and phrased, they are models of brevity and clarity, presenting all the essential factual information together with King's comments. With his eyes fixed on the condition of Amherst, the President endeavored to interpret to the Trustees what he considered to be its greatest immediate needs. He realized that they, although they were the supreme source of authority, were necessarily absentee directors, and that he himself had to be their responsible and reliable agent. On questions involving money—its acquisition, investment, and expenditure—Stanley King could speak from a wealth of experience. But he took office, as we have seen, in the very midst of the Great Depression and felt the need of sound financial advice. The Treasurer, Charles A. Andrews, elected on July 1, 1931, was a highly competent officer whom King trusted implicitly, as he did also George E. Pierce, '09, Vice-President of the National Shawmut Bank, of Boston, who had succeeded Dwight W . Morrow as Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Trustees. The tale of what was accomplished by these three men in maintaining the financial stability of Amherst through a very difficult period has been related in detail by King in his book A History of the Endowment of Amherst College, written after his retirement from the presidency and published in 1950 —a volume unique in the annals of American education. Nobody ever dealt with figures more intelligently—or more entertainingly—than Stanley King. It was a subject which ab-

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sorbed him and called forth all his latent powers. The accumulation and contemplation of statistics, the perusal of the reports of treasurers and auditors, the establishment of capital funds, and the preparation of budgets—these to many people are not only dull but worrying. But Stanley managed to surround such monetary details with the magic of romance. Behind each donation he saw the personality of the donor. For each suggested expenditure he could visualize the product in salaries or bricks or trees. In his own lively imagination he could transmute dollars into the tangible instruments of education. In this book, covering a field neglected or dealt with only superficially by most college historians, he infects his readers with his own dynamic enthusiasm. Consequently, to anybody concerned with institutional financing, it is almost indispensable. King was justifiably proud that during his fourteen years as President the operations of the College were "in the black" for every year except one—1944-45—when it was running on a war basis of risk and uncertainty. The net operating surplus during his administration amounted to rather more than a million dollars. A comparison with earlier administrations reveals how carefully and systematically King planned the budget and watched even the smallest items. He assigned deserved credit when he said, "My faculty colleagues gave me the most wholehearted support in saving every cent it was possible for them to save." But the example set by the administrative head in insisting on the strictest economy was not only salutary but decisive. Some of King's predecessors in the presidency had specifically stipulated that they be relieved by the Trustees of the burden of raising money. He not only made no such request but actually took over the responsibility from the aging Mr. Plimpton, who had been a solicitor of gifts to Amherst for nearly forty years. The period during which King was in office could hardly have been a prosperous one for most industrialists; nevertheless, the gifts to endowment amounted to $4,709,605, those to the plant

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to $565,764, and those for current purposes to $747,030—a total of somewhat more than six million dollars. King was an effective money raiser. He had a certain advantage in that he was usually able to say, if questioned, that he had already made his own substantial contribution; and he was in many ways, some of them undisclosed, very generous to Amherst. He was also a first-rate pleader for the College, knowing just when to put on more pressure and when to abandon temporarily his importunities. He was not easily discouraged and, when thwarted in one direction, he resourcefully turned to another. He also was willing to bide his time and wait for his arguments to sink in. In his fascinating book "The Consecrated Eminence" he gives an account of his approach to Arthur N. Millikin, '80, a wealthy and generous alumnus, for a gift to provide a memorial room for "Old Doc" Hitchcock, one of Amherst's notabilities, in the Morgan Library. The tale is an amusing but impressive example of how interest can be aroused in a man who is at first brusquely resistant to an appeal. When Harold I. Pratt, '00, told Stanley calmly, but firmly, that he and his family would not contribute towards a proposed new Alumni Gymnasium, the President did not argue with him but replied simply, "Very well—we'll just have to build without your help." But as he left the room, he remarked, "You know my address is still Johnson Chapel." Sure enough, in good season the Pratts, having changed their minds, gave to this cause with their customary liberality. The Board of Trustees appointed a special committee consisting of Lucius R. Eastman (Chairman), Robert W. Maynard, and George D. Pratt to consider each building problem as it arose; but on all matters connected with the plant, King knew so much more than anybody else that his judgment was trusted by his colleagues and he became the dominating spirit. As President Lowell had done at Harvard, King made himself acquainted with every brick and stone on the campus, keeping

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always in direct contact with all aspects of building and maintenance. In every statement he submitted to the Trustees he included a report of progress. Furthermore, he allowed few days to go by without walking through the corridors and around the campus, noting what shingles were loose and what lawns were growing bare. He possessed not only an alert eye for details but also a constructive imagination which carried him far into the future, even to the close of the current century. Early in his administration, King proposed to the Board of Trustees three projects near to his heart—house libraries in the four dormitories, the reconstruction of Johnson Chapel, and the erection of the Davenport Squash Building—all of which were approved and carried out. The background of the libraries is especially interesting. In December, 1932, after a long illness, Stanley's father, Judge Henry A. King, died in his eighty-first year. Dean Woodbridge wrote Stanley at the time a letter which is not only a remarkable tribute to Judge King but also reveals much of the writer's personality: I did not know your father. As I read about him, I am again impressed by what such men as he with their ancestry have meant in the making of this country. I wish we could have their story adequately written. These men, of eighty years or more, who devoted themselves to their communities, who worked with what they had and did not find fault because they had not something else, who knew certain human distinctions and stuck by them, who are often called provincial by metropolitans, but who were more thoroughly and consistently American than the usual metropolitan ever is—these men as they pass away ought to make us remember and ought to make us profoundly thankful for them and their lives. I grow to admire them more and more. They labored to leave us a great inheritance, and I often wonder what we are doing with it. They knew much more clearly than we the road they were travelling. They knew—in the words Dwight loved to quote—the rock from which they were hewn and the pit from which they were digged.

Stanley had recently inspected with President Lowell the new Harvard houses and had been impressed by their libraries.

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When Mrs. King suggested that a similar project could be undertaken in North College, Stanley was at once receptive to the idea and joined with his son, Richard, in establishing there such a library as a memorial to his father, who had been a lover of books. It was designed by Frederick J. Woodbridge, '21, Dean Woodbridge's son, and the furnishings and draperies were selected by Margaret King. This was the "little acorn" out of which grew libraries for the other dormitories—attractive, distinctive rooms, with a highly intimate quality. These had various donors but followed the same general plan. The enlargement and remodeling of Johnson Chapel realized one of Stanley's cherished hopes, for he wished to make it, as he said with emphasis, "a real center for the College." Plans drawn in the 1920s by McKim, Mead & White were available, and Stanley was able to secure the necessary money from two sources—a trust fund established by 1925 by Dwight W. Morrow and left to the College at his death and Mrs. Edwin Duffey, who contributed $40,000. With the completion of the reconstruction, the President moved to Johnson Chapel all the offices of academic administration, choosing for his own purposes two rooms on the west front of the second floor. Mr. and Mrs. King took a keen delight in furnishing them with chairs, tables, rugs, and books, and to her particularly they owe their warmth and charm. The rarest item was the Gainsborough portrait of Lord Amherst, which had been purchased by George D. Pratt and was ultimately given by his widow to the College. The transformation of Johnson Chapel was regarded by King as one of his most important accomplishments as President. The need for a new gymnasium was brought to the President's attention by the insistent clamor of undergraduate opinion, which he was quick to understand and use as a basis for appeal. With his approval the editors of the Student opened a campaign as early as January, 1934; and the Student Council followed a familiar pattern by voluntarily levying a tax of ten dollars per

J A M E S AND STEARNS HALLS

THE L I T T L E BED SCHOOLHOUSE

S O M E O F T H E BUILDINGS O F A M H E R S T ERECTED IN KING'S

COLLEGE

PRESIDENCY

JOHNSON CHAPEL

ALUMNI

GYMNASIUM

KIRBY M E M O R I A L

THEATER

T H E WAR

MEMORIAL

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undergraduate for four years. In this instance the Trustees were skeptical about the wisdom of a drive at such a time, and even the usually optimistic Plimpton urged King not to run the risk of failure when the affairs of the College were going so well in other respects. Stanley replied, "I'm ready to accept the challenge if you'll only let me go ahead!" Finally, against the judgment of several members of the Board, he agreed to undertake the difficult task. Although it was regarded as a poor period for money raising, committees were organized among the alumni and the President started out on the road with what he called his "begging bowl." The cause proved to be popular, and even Mr. Plimpton was persuaded to make a substantial gift at a time when he declared himself "as poor as Job's turkey." King was never discouraged, and within a year he was able to report to the Trustees that $250,000 had been raised. The new gymnasium, so useful to the College, was opened in September, 1936, followed a year later by the magnificent Harold I. Pratt Swimming Pool; and Amherst's athletic equipment was then unsurpassed by that of any college of its size in the country. The enterprise could never have been carried through without Stanley's infectious enthusiasm; and it was with justifiable satisfaction that he sent personal thank-you notes to each of the thirteen hundred alumni who had made a contribution. Several other urgent needs of the College were supplied in that decade of the 1930's. In the summer of 1937, King approved a comprehensive plan for carrying the steam mains and other campus services in concrete tunnels instead of the usual conduits, and this was completed at a cost of $60,000. A new and modern college infirmary, the gift of Arthur Millikin, '80, was dedicated on February 24, 1938. The Little Red Schoolhouse, intended for the primary education of children of faculty members, was the gift in 1938 of James Turner, '80. The Kirby Memorial Theater, built at a cost of about $250,000, was dedicated in March, 1939, as a unique addition to the cultural facilities of

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the College. In the conception and designing of these diverse building projects King's imagination was always present. And these improvements were brought about during years generally regarded by college administrators as decidedly lean. King was especially proud of Valentine Hall, which he once described as "the most important addition to the plant ever made by the College." For many years the eating accommodations for the undergraduates had been uneven and frequently inadequate. Some of the fraternities had opened their own dining rooms, but these could seldom be made to pay and they had unquestionably fostered provincialism and snobbishness. The private eating houses could hardly be termed inviting. Various committees from time to time had studied the problem but had produced no satisfactory solution. Finally, in November, 1939, King boldly suggested to the Trustees that they anticipate a promised bequest of approximately $500,000 from Mrs. Samuel H. Valentine and build a dining hall which would bear her husband's name. Again the Board were cautious, even somewhat critical, but they did authorize the preparation of working drawings and specifications. During the following winter King sounded out Amherst opinion and reported that a majority of faculty, alumni, and undergraduates was favorable to the project; but two of the more conservative Trustees, one of them the Chairman of the Buildings and Grounds Committee, were advocates of postponement. Once again, by persistent argument and lucid handling of figures, Stanley won over his colleagues so that the Executive Committee voted unanimously, on August 28, 1940, to proceed with the project. Delays in construction occurred, and pressure had to be brought to bear on the contractors. During the summer of 1941 King came up frequently from Martha's Vineyard to speed the work, and it was touch and go whether the building would be ready for the opening of the fall term. It was only

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through his unceasing efforts that the cafeteria was in full operation when the students returned from their summer vacation. As events turned out, Amherst would have found it almost impossible to function during the war years without Valentine Hall. But it was also important because it emphasized membership in the College rather than in a fraternity, and brought different groups and cliques together. Its completion was the result directly of King's vision, pertinacity, resourcefulness, and courage. It was his personal project, conceived and carried out by him almost singlehanded. When it was successfully completed, even his critics acknowledged that he had been right. It was not easy to shake Stanley s confidence in his own carefully formed opinions. In the 1920's a majority of the Buildings and Grounds Committee recommended that the so-called Octagon be demolished as an "architectural monstrosity." When the estimates of cost were brought in, Stanley, then an Alumni Trustee, led the opposition to the proposal and was supported by Chief Justice Rugg with such vigor that the original signers of the report withdrew their suggestion. This was a negative, but valuable, decision in college history. The matter of a war memorial illustrates the President's constructive imagination. In the later days of the Second World War, when the list of casualties was growing tragically longer and the mood of the nation was tense, King began to think of the future as well as of the present. He thought that he knew what type of memorial would be most appropriate; and one afternoon, when he was standing on College Hill facing the Holyoke Range he studied, as he had done a hundred times before, the strip of undeveloped land between him and the mountains. There his fancy pictured a playing field which would serve generations of students, conveniently adjacent to the new gymnasium. On the slope above it, directly below where he was standing, he could visualize a location for a monument which would appropriately

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symbolize the American spirit of sacrifice and devotion to country. Without delay, the President raised the question with the Board of Trustees, who voted to proceed with plans for a war memorial and asked the Committee on Buildings and Grounds to study the project. Preliminary drawings presented by Arthur Shurcliff in the autumn of 1944 were unanimously approved. Meanwhile some prominent alumni who had been favoring what they called a "living memorial"—such as an endowment fund for scholarship purposes—were critical of the President's general idea and specific suggestions. Characteristically, King asked the privilege of appearing before the Executive Committee of the Alumni Council, where he presented his arguments so persuasively that they had to agree with him. Indeed the Committee voted to devote the Alumni Gift of that year to the war memorial, and the sum thus obtained amounted to rather more than $100,000. This affair confirmed the impression that Stanley, once aroused, was a very persistent person who was ready to b a t t l e — although always courteously—for something dear to his heart. In this case he converted all his opponents. On August 22, 1946, Eugene S. Wilson, Jr. wrote King, who had then retired as President: I have been cleaning out some old files and I have just read the very thoughtful note you sent me in September, 1945, in which you commended me for hiding my personal feelings about war memorials in our drive for $100,000. I am saving that letter. The purpose of this note is to tell you something I have wanted to tell you for six months. Every time I show visitors about the campus I take them to the War Memorial. Every time I do this, the visitors remark with feeling and enthusiasm about the view and Amherst. You were 100% right about the War Memorial, and I was wrong. I have said so to all I meet who shared my views. You made a great contribution in many ways, but none was or will be more enduring than that war memorial. It was your original idea and your determined drive that produced it.

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The dedication of the completed War Memorial took place at Stanley's last Commencement, which coincided with the observance of the 125th anniversary of the College. On the morning of Sunday, June 16, 1946, two thousand sons of Amherst gathered on the green lawn under a bright sun shining from a cloudless sky. Nearby, on a level area cut from the hillside, was a granite circle on which were incised the names of the sons of Amherst who gave their lives in the two twentieth-century world wars. Around this, forming part of a larger circle, were fourteen small stone benches, seven on each side, on which were carved the important battles—the Argonne and Belleau Wood along with Okinawa and North Africa. The inscription dominating these symbols reads: M E M O R I A L FIELD IS DEDICATED BY THE

ALUMNI

TO THE AMHERST M E N WHO IN T W O GREAT WARS CALLANTLY RESPONDED TO THEIR COUNTRY'S CALL

Below lies Memorial Field, an extensive area devoted most usefully to outdoor sports of various kinds—football, baseball, soccer, and tennis. In his brief address at the dedication, the President said, in part: Today the alumni of Amherst dedicate these playing fields and this quadrangle as a living memorial to the Amherst men who in two great wars gallantly responded to their country's call. The majesty of nature's setting we owe to the founders of the College who chose this "Consecrated Eminence" as the site for their young institution of learning. The playing fields below will each returning spring be clothed in living green. The trees and shrubs which frame the picture will bloom again each year. And every autumn a new group of boys from school will enter Amherst thrilled with the idealism and the hope of youth. For the four happy years of their student days they will throng the playing fields in manly

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sports. And as they pass and repass from the classroom and laboratory to playing fields and from playing fields to dormitories, they will see the enduring granite circle carved with the names of their elder brothers who fought and died for freedom.

The memorial address was delivered by John J. McCloy, '16, formerly Assistant Secretary of War, who said, as he concluded: By our assembly here in pride and grief, we seek to install this monument deep into the life and soul of the College. It is placed to overlook a spot of great activity and a scene of great repose— playing fields and the eternal hills. May it be given to those who from time to time in the long life of the College rest at this monument, to catch beyond the horizon of the hills the moving banners of an heroic column. They are the dead, and they bid all go on in the struggle for a world they thought was building. All discouragements and painful efforts which harry men's endeavor, they know, and more, but still they urge us on. It is to that column and those who have the vision to see it and the faith to respond that we dedicate this memorial.

The improvements in Memorial Field have done much to help athletic sports at the College; but as time has gone on, it is the symbolic features of the Memorial which most thrill the visitors. Gazing across the lettered stones, the spectator has his eyes lifted almost unconsciously to the distant hills, rising from art to nature, indeed from man to God. Nowadays no one comes to Amherst without visiting ultimately that beauty spot; and he must be dull indeed if he is not deeply moved. It is a memorial to Stanley King, as well as to the brave men in whose honor it was conceived and constructed. Besides these major enterprises, other minor changes helped to improve the efficiency of the plant. One project in which King took a keen interest was the remodeling of the Faculty Club, at a cost of $20,000. Alterations to Walker Hall made it more comfortable for its occupants. He kept in mind the desirability of an art building and of two dormitories, the ground for

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which was broken before he retired. Year by year the President drove ahead, balancing one need against another, attempting to foresee demands which must take priority, seeking diligently for possible donors, and discussing blueprints with architects and contractors. This was a field in which he felt peculiarly at home. He viewed the campus as a domain over which he was temporarily the overlord and which he was bound by duty to leave better than he found it. Unfortunately a building program is easier to imagine than to carry out. It has its annoying delays and disasters, when material does not arrive on time and progress has to be halted for weeks. But he was never disconcerted. The physical development of Amherst in the 1930's and 1940's, so exciting to the alumni who watched it, was due primarily to Stanley King. Not all the President's problems had to do with carpenters and bricklayers and electricians. With the general policy of awarding honorary degrees he was much concerned, and he even prepared a memorandum of considerable length examining in scholarly fashion the history of the subject, not only so far as it related to Amherst, but also with reference to universities in Great Britain and Europe. His thinking on the matter underwent certain changes as his experience lengthened. At one period he was inclined to abandon the giving of any honorary degrees. At another he favored bestowing them only at some special convocation. On March 8, 1935, Woodbridge wrote that he was prepared to recommend to the Trustees that they abolish the conferring of honorary degrees at Commencement and described it as "a practice which has long impressed me as a rather inane academic spectacle." But he made no such formal recommendation, and Stanley altered only slightly the long-established procedure. On May 19, 1933, in a ceremony which was colorful and impressive, Stanley allowed himself the satisfaction of conferring at a special convocation the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws

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on his former chief, Newton D. Baker. The entire student body was present in College Hall, where Mr. Baker, after receiving his citation, delivered an address. The President's guests at luncheon included not only the Trustees but also the president of the Student Council, the editor-in-chief of the Student, the president of each class, and Dwight W. Morrow, Jr., just appointed as Assistant to the President. No one of his official acts gave King quite so much pleasure as this public recognition of a leader who had meant so much in his career. At King's first Commencement, in June, 1933, the honorary degrees were distributed for the most part to members of the Amherst family—to the retiring President, Arthur Stanley Pease; to Frank L. Babbott and Frank W. Stearns, both members of the Class of 1878; to George H. Haynes, '87, and Lewis W . Douglas, '16; and to Mrs. Dwight W. Morrow. At Commencement in 1934 the Trustees, at King's instigation, began the practice of awarding Distinguished Service Medals to alumni who had been unusually loyal to the College. The men so honored at the first ceremony of the kind at Amherst were Professor Arthur J. Hopkins, '85; Henry T. Noyes, '94; Luther Ely Smith, '94; and Eugene S. Wilson, '02. George D. Pratt, '93, generously subsidized these medals, which are attractive in design and greatly cherished by the recipients. Up to 1951, thirty-seven medals had been bestowed at Commencement on such graduates as Charles A. Andrews, '95; Ernest M. Whitcomb, '04; Richard B. Scandrett, '11; George W . Witney, '12; Dwight B. Billings, '18; and others whose fitness nobody could doubt. In 1946, the year of Stanley's retirement, the medal was presented by him to "The Faculty" as a collective unit. During King's administration much attention was devoted to the delicate matter of honorary degrees and the choices were recognized as discriminating and just. The customary recognition was accorded to such distinguished graduates as Congressman Allen T. Treadway, '86; Judge Edward T. Esty, '97; Judge

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Arthur F. Ells, '02; Frank L. Boyden, '02; Robert W. Maynard, '02; Professor J. Maurice Clark and Dean Edwin J. Van Etten, both of the Class of 1905; President J. Seelye Bixler and John J. McCloy, both of the Class of 1916; and President Dexter M. Keezer, '18. Among the new college presidents honored were Tyler Dennett and James P. Baxter III, of Williams; James L. McConaughy, of Wesleyan; Herbert J. Davis, at Smith; J. Roswell Ham, at Mount Holyoke; Alan Valentine, at Rochester; and James B. Conant, at Harvard. Leading Americans from other occupations were Governor Leverett Saltonstall, Bishop William Lawrence, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Colonel Henry L. Stimson, Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, Felix Frankfurter, Learned Hand, and Samuel E. Morison. The standard of "distinction" set by the President and Trustees was obviously high. Several recipients were Stanley's very personal choices, such as Aiske Kabayama, '89, the Japanese statesman; Sam Higginbottom, '03, whose career as a missionary in India had been so outstanding; and Horace D. Taft, the grand old man of the Taft School. Inevitably Stanley King, because of both his position and his personal qualities, received his full share of honorary degrees. In the June after his election as President he was given an LL.D. from Dartmouth, Colgate, and Wesleyan. Columbia followed in 1933, Williams in 1936, Hamilton in 1938, Rochester in 1939, and the University of Massachusetts in 1946. In June, 1946, at Amherst, when the President had finished granting the usual honorary degrees, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Alfred E. Stearns, walked to the microphone and asked King to come forward. Then and there Dr. Stearns conferred upon President King the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, with the following citation: Stanley King: distinguished son of a distinguished father, Judge Henry A. King of the class of 1873, and father of Richard King of the class of 1935. Born in Troy, New York. A graduate of Springfield

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High School in Springfield, Massachusetts, you entered Amherst as a youth of seventeen and in three years graduated summa cum laude in the class of 1903. You completed your course at Harvard Law School in two years, with an outstanding record. Your achievements as a successful industrialist were recognized by your appointment as Special Assistant to the Secretary of War in the First World War. More than half of your life has been devoted to Amherst College. For twenty-five years you have been a trustee and now, in years of service, the oldest trustee. You have a unique record as trustee— alumni trustee, life trustee, ex-officio trustee, and soon you will be emeritus trustee. Called from your retirement, you became the eleventh President of Amherst College in 1932, and for fourteen years you have served the College brilliantly. You have strengthened the faculty, you have developed a campus unsurpassed in beauty, you have increased the financial resources, you have nurtured the loyalty of the alumni, and you have fostered the heritage and traditions of the College. With deep gratitude and affection, the Board of Trustees is pleased to honor you with its highest degree. Although every college president feels responsible to his alumni, some presidents find them difficult to approach. Stanley King, on the contrary, enjoyed traveling from city to city and meeting Amherst graduates, and he was at his best in telling them about the College. On these occasions he talked informally, with plenty of spice and sparkle, and he did not shrink from reminding his listeners of their obligation to their alma mater. In the spring of 1946, when the Amherst fraternities were under fire not only from the Faculty but also from the Trustees and the Executive Committee of the Alumni Council, the St. Louis alumni, a very aggressive and articulate group, were much disturbed and even threatened to withdraw their support from the Alumni Fund. When Stanley on his tour arrived in this city, he found alumni sentiment at a boiling point; and at the dinner, held at the University Club, he stood up and began, "Gentlemen, I know that you're after my scalp, and I'm here to defend myself." He then read a letter which had been sent to him by a very

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prominent St. Louis alumnus, asked the author to stand up, and cross-examined him on several of his rash statements. Within a few minutes Stanley's courageous frontal tactics had won the admiration of a crowd which had been prepared to be highly critical. Whenever the tension threatened to become too great, the President related some diverting anecdote about his undergraduate days and set everybody laughing. One alumnus, who had come equipped with a point-by-point indictment of the administration, was won over completely by King's presentation of his cause. One of the chief reasons why King was so effective was because of his care in preparation. He never went into a meeting without having anticipated the strategy of his opponents. Indeed he even secured advance information regarding alumni who were likely to be troublesome and was thus ready to answer them. It always annoyed him when opposition developed with so little warning that he was caught off guard. When he knew that he was to meet parents at a reception before a scheduled alumni dinner, he had a list made of the sons who were then in college, together with their scholastic records. He was then ready to tell fathers and mothers how their boys were getting along. Stanley found his duties as President so engrossing that he had no temptation to engage in public service. He had his own private theories about the obligations of a man in his position, and throughout his administration maintained that his job at Amherst was sufficiently important to claim all his energy. When he became President, he had been for some months Chairman of the Massachusetts Commission on Stabilization of Employment; and on August 1,1933, he was appointed a member of the Committee of Nine to manage the employment campaign of the Massachusetts State Recovery Board under the National Recovery Act. In neither case, however, did he have to be absent more than a few hours from his Amherst office.

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On May 18,1933, after Governor Joseph B. Ely, of Massachusetts, had positively refused to run for a third term, the Boston Evening Transcript published an editorial suggesting Stanley King as a possible strong Democratic candidate, describing him as "a good mixer" with a talent for leadership. The article was actually a political trial balloon intended to test popular sentiment; but Stanley eliminated himself at once by declaring that under no circumstances would he permit his name to be used. Some of his friends on the Amherst Board poked a little fun at him, intimating that he was imitating Woodrow Wilson and using a college presidency as a step towards political advancement. But it would, of course, have been absurd for Stanley King to leave a position for which he was preeminently well fitted in order to undergo the hazards of a political campaign. During the industrial and economic crises of the 1930's, various attempts were made to bring King into government service on either a temporary or a permanent basis. When he was asked on June 28, 1933, by General Hugh S. Johnson to be a member of a Consumers Advisory Committee in the National Recovery Administration, he replied that his Amherst duties were such that he could not be available for at least three months. In August of that year he was notified that President Roosevelt had appointed him as one of ten members of the State Recovery Board for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, among his associates being Edward A. Filene, as Chairman, Allan Forbes, Edward A. French, and P. A. O'Connell. Furthermore, in December he was named by Johnson as a member of the Planning and Fair Practices Committee for the Boot and Shoe Manufacturing Industry. King accepted this last appointment, but on April 9, 1934, he was released because, as Johnson wrote, "Experience has demonstrated that it is essential that Administration Members reside in the city in which the meetings of the Code Authority are held, which unfortunately is not the case with you." On December 26, 1940, King received from his old friend,

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Frederick P. Keppel, then President of the Carnegie Corporation, a letter reading as follows: Would you be interested in a proposition which would take you away from Amherst and plant you for two or three months in Washington in the late winter or spring? Leonard Ayres, who has been called back to the War Department, believes that an intelligent layman with experience in 1917-19 could do a job of the greatest usefulness in studying the actual workings of the present War Department machinery and its relations with the Defense Commission, the Treasury, etc., and reporting his impressions to the Secretary of War and General Staff. Leonard has been discussing these matters with his brother-in-law, W . Randolph Burgess, who is now one of our Trustees, and they are both convinced that you are the man for the job (and I agree with them) if you can be pried loose, and Burgess is further convinced that the costs of the undertaking should be met by the Carnegie Corporation as part of its national emergency program. Of course, the invitation should come to you from Mr. Stimson, who as yet knows nothing about the matter, and this letter is just a feeler to find out whether by some lucky chance you would be available. T o this alluring proposal King gave the most careful consideration, but finally, on January 16, 1941, wrote Keppel as follows: After leaving your office on the 7th I went down to Sec Root's, where I met Sec and Randy Burgess. W e discussed the War Department picture in some detail and after my meeting with them I discussed the situation informally with my friend, Lew Douglas. Sec. later conferred with Grenny Clark. Under all the circumstances, it seems to us clear that no advantage is to be gained at the present time by making a study along the lines you suggested. Perhaps at a later date such a study would be valuable. I am ready to be of help whenever it becomes reasonably clear that I can be useful. W h a t really happened was that when Secretary Stimson was told of the plan for studying the W a r Department he expressed his disapproval in such vigorous language that its proponents simply did not dare to pursue it any further.

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In April, 1943, Donald Nelson, Chairman of the W a r Production Board, approached Stanley with regard to the directorship of that Board's Office of Civilian Supply, emphasizing so much the matter of patriotic duty that the latter could not ignore the offer. He consulted his Trustees and found that, while thev would not stand in his way, they obviously did not wish him to leave. After some investigation and thorough consideration, he finally sent Nelson the following telegram: I deeply appreciate the confidence implied by our conversation of Friday last. After careful reflection I am convinced that I ought to remain in my present post and that I have no special qualifications to justify my withdrawal from the College at this time. It would have been a pleasure, however, to work under your leadership. T o his friend Ernest M . Hopkins, President of Dartmouth College, Stanley wrote on April 22, explaining at some length his reactions to the invitation: Your letter of April 16 has touched me very much. Fortunately my guardian angel has once more kept me out of trouble, although for a few days I was uncertain as to whether the angel was really on the job. When Mr. Nelson first made me the offer I declined it. Then Washington put a good deal of heat on—too much, I think. I finally said I was at the disposal of the President, under certain conditions. One of these conditions was that my authority and responsibility should be clearly outlined in an executive order and have the support of certain Senate leaders. To my great relief the various conditions which Mr. Nelson and I agreed on were not met. Frankly, I do not feel that I am equipped for this kind of job. I think Arthur Whiteside has admirable qualifications for it. I hope he succeeds. I have been entirely convinced in my own mind that my job is at Amherst, and I still think so. I have no desire whatever to play a "distinguished role" in Washington. I go to Washington as little as I can, and when I am there I make my headquarters at the Folger Library, where I am of course just as much at home as I am in Johnson Chapel. The fact that I have been "disinfected" from my former business associations by eleven years at the College does not

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impress me as a reason for asking me to undertake a Washington job for which I have no special fitness. On April 2 9 , 1 9 4 4 , King was asked by Arthur W . Page, Chairm a n of the Joint A r m y and Navy Committee on Welfare and Recreation, to devote " a month or more" to visiting the army camps and naval stations in N e w England and making a report on conditions as he found them. T o this request he replied in part: I am sorry that I cannot accede to your request in your letter. In the same mail I received a letter from the War Department advising me of additional military units that will be sent to this campus. In a small college the President himself is engrossed with plans for new units, with the allocation of faculty to these units, and with the transformation of the campus from a civilian to a military program. I feel that the work I am doing here is directly in the National Interest and I ought not to withdraw from it at the present time even for so short an assignment as you suggest. This, so far as c a n be ascertained, was Stanley King's last temptation to go to Washington on public service. In February, 1946, however, when his withdrawal from the presidency of Amherst had been announced, Richard B. Scandrett, Dwight W . Morrow's nephew, wrote him a confidential letter asking permission to recommend him to President Truman for the post of Ambassador to Russia. In presenting his arguments, Scandrett said: It is a hell of a position and far removed from the possibility of "gracious living," but it is the most important position in the world today and can affect the lives of the people in the world, including the graduates of Amherst College, to a very great extent. If I were in your position and retiring after fourteen years of distinguished service to Amherst directly, and enjoying the health and vigor which I assume you are enjoying, I couldn't imagine anything more fitting or proper from all points of view. I am sure Peg would have the Russians eating out of her hand in short order, and you would be starting out with a considerable knowledge of what not to do as well as an understanding of the potentialities of what might be done.

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Stanley's reply to this flattering suggestion is worth quoting as an illustration of how his mind worked when he was faced with the necessity of making a decision. I have read and reread your letter and your memorandum. I think you and I are in agreement as to the prime importance of developing a better understanding between the USA and the USSR. I think I am as sympathetic with the aspirations of the Russian people as you are. When I lived in Russia thirty years ago I formed a deep attachment both for the country and for the people. I read everything I could get hold of about Russia, I worked three hours a day on the language, and I left Russia with the intention of returning soon. I am deeply appreciative of your confidence in me. I do not need to tell you how much that means, for you have known me a great many years and have had an opportunity to watch my performance, and so I am grateful for your confidence that I might be helpful perhaps in what seems to us to be one of the most difficult problems of our foreign relations. Because of this you are entitled to know just how I feel about your suggestion. I can put it in a few words. If President Truman offered me the appointment, I should decline it. My reasons are more complex. For fourteen years I have held the position which I have prized more than any other in the world. If I wanted to continue in either a public or a semi-public position for the next half-dozen years, I should prefer to be President of Amherst rather than hold any other position that life could offer. I have not now, and I have never had, what is generally called ambition. If Dwight had been named Ambassador to Russia twenty years ago and had wanted me to go with him as his office boy, I should have been glad to go without compensation or title. This would have been partly because of my devotion to Dwight, but only partly so. For example, if George Rublee had been named Ambassador to Russia and thought that I could help him, I should have accepted with equal alacrity. But fourteen years ago I was permitted to undertake the work I cared most to do. My heart is in Amherst today and not in Russia and that settles the question for this particular individual. I know that these are private reasons and that they may not make sense to many people. But there they are!

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Very few college presidents have devoted themselves as diligently and consistently to their responsibilities as Stanley King. In a time of national stress and tension he made his choice deliberately—and wisely. That Amherst profited greatly by his continued presence on the campus was the opinion of those familiar with the situation. His attitude was unostentatiously but genuinely patriotic, and by working directly with young men and aiding them to prepare for military service, he did his share to win the war and save his country.

FLOOD AND WIND AND WAR

STANLEY KING b e c a m e President of Amherst at

a time when the Federal government was striving desperately to bring about a recovery from a severe economic depression. In February, 1933, as the Hoover administration drew to a tragic close, banks all over the nation were in dire straits, unemployment was widespread, and many communities were facing disaster. T h e income of even well-to-do citizens had dropped to a point where many of them had to pinch pennies in order to pay for the education of their children. It was not a propitious moment for taking over a college, especially since Stanley had little confidence in the new Roosevelt regime. How he triumphed over these difficulties, balanced the budget, and rebuilt the College has already been told. Before his term of office had closed, moreover, King had to face local emergencies of a serious nature. In the early spring of 1936 the heavy snows of the previous winter were melting rapidly, and several days of torrential rain had so swollen the tributaries of the Connecticut River that warnings had been sent out over the radio. On March 17, after addressing the Philadelphia alumni, the President took a midnight train for New Haven, where he got off at three o'clock in the morning and boarded the milk train north up the valley. From the car window through the half-darkness he could perceive the obvious indications of a

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flood, and when he picked up his automobile in Springfield, he was obliged to drive very much out of his way over bad country roads in order to avoid being blocked. At Amherst, which he reached via Belchertown, he learned that the highway to Northampton was covered with water, that the bridge over the Connecticut was closed, and that the huge dam at Turners Falls, supplying water for the entire valley, was threatened. After a busy day, during which the news over the radio was consistently alarming, the President's telephone rang at eleven o'clock at night to notify him that the residents of the near-by village of Hadley were to be evacuated and to ask whether the College could care for them. "Of course we can—and will," was Stanley's response. "Where shall we report?" was the next question. "At Pratt Gymnasium!" That was all! King then called Lloyd P. Jordan, the football coach and Director of Athletics, and Henry B. Thacher, the Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds. Through them a group of volunteers, undergraduate captains and managers of teams, was mobilized, and automobiles were quickly dispatched to the stricken area. Meanwhile, faculty wives took over the college cafeteria and began making doughnuts and coffee. By two in the morning through effective organization four hundred men, women, and children—some of them infants in arms—were in beds of some sort in the Cage, guards had been posted, and the road to Hadley had been closed. By this time the raging stream had spread over gardens and meadows, in some cases up to the second story of houses. The marks at the Huntington Farm, Forty Acres, in Hadley, still show the height to which the flood rose, covering everything on the ground floor. The waters reached almost to the Hadley-Amherst line on Northampton Road. By morning the campus resembled an army post. Two physicians moved about observing health conditions among the refugees. Interpreters of Polish volunteered from the undergraduate body. Students acted as playground supervisors for the children.

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The local motion picture theater put on continuous free shows for all who chose to come. The collegians rose to the occasion, as they usually do in emergencies, and each new problem was solved in turn. Then the flood receded as rapidly as it had risen. The exodus from Hadley had taken place on the night of Thursday, March 19. On the following Monday the weather was clear and warm, and the State Police advised that the refugees might return to their homes; but many of them were reluctant to depart from a place where they had been so well cared for. Finally Jordan, King's aide, announced that the flood victims were free to go when and where they pleased, but that once gone they could not return. That afternoon a few of the more venturesome set out for their homes. When they did not come back, others, driven by a normal curiosity, could not refrain from following them. But not until Friday, March 27, had the last Hadleyite departed, and then Amherst closed for the spring recess. With a long sigh of relief the Kings saw the undergraduates vanish from town, and they went off to Martha's Vineyard for a breathing spell. The incident offered Stanley a convincing argument to present to the Trustees for a new infirmary. Next came a hurricane—the hurricane, so far as New England is concerned. On September 21, 1938, the College resumed operations for the fall term, and King presided at the opening chapel service at two in the afternoon. Although rain had fallen intermittently for several days, the precipitation had ceased and the air was heavy and lifeless—so oppressive that the Kings decided to hold their usual garden party in College Hall instead of outdoors. As Mrs. King reached the President's House after the chapel exercises, she received a telephone call from the caterer that his truck was unable to proceed beyond Worcester because of flood conditions; and she tried in vain to find a substitute in Springfield or Northampton. Some occult warning led her, before leaving for College Hall, to instruct the servants to take care of the windows.

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Professor Warren Green, of the Department of Astronomy, the first to arrive, announced that he had never seen the barometer fall faster and further. Many of the guests, including both Freshmen and Faculty, were coming through the doors when the storm struck in all its fury. While the wind howled and great elms toppled over outside on the Common, the Kings continued to shake hands and behaved outwardly with complete nonchalance. Then finally the lights went out, and Stanley walked out on the campus, over fallen trees and poles and debris, and through a shower of flying objects. "The outer world was chaos!" he wrote later. The furniture had been blown off the veranda of the President's House. The heavy copper roof of Morrow Dormitory had been rolled up like paper and tossed to the ground four floors below. Windows were out in every building, and the walks and drives were everywhere blocked by fallen trees. The electricity was off, but Mrs. King, after she returned home, lighted dozens of candles. Then, at the height of the excitement, in walked Professor Atkinson, of the French Department, who bowed and announced formally, "Mr. President, I desire to report that the roof of my house is lying on the golf course and my family and I have moved into the garage!" No one needed to be advised that a state of emergency existed, and King, with Superintendent Thacher and the president of the Student Council, made a hurried tour to ascertain the damage. Thursday dawned clear, and at morning chapel, which was packed to the doors with students and faculty wondering what would happen, Stanley faced the audience with the touch of the dramatic that he loved and said, "To-day we begin to rebuild Amherst College!" He then canceled all classes until the following Monday—an announcement received with more than the conventional burst of applause—and called for volunteers to help with the salvaging. Again the organizing was accomplished through Jordan and Thacher, who enlisted as foremen the athletic coaches and members of the Faculty familiar with

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the use of axe and saw. Gangs of student laborers were assigned to different locations on the campus and had little rest for three days and three nights. Some of the undergraduates who had been missing Phi Beta Kappa by a wide margin turned out to be natural leaders in the practical business of rehabilitation. On Saturday morning, Mrs. King met a member of the Freshman squad assigned to the grounds about the President's House. In the course of the conversation he said, "When the President announced that there would be no classes until Monday morning we were all delighted. Now my arms are lame, my shoulders are lame, my back is lame, and my shoulders are all blistered. I can hardly wait to get back to class!" Summarizing conditions in his Report to the Trustees, the President noted that 134 trees had fallen on the campus, 110 on fraternity properties, and 300 on land owned by the Trustees. Roofs and windows of the buildings were damaged to the amount of $35,000. That this was covered by insurance was due to a combination of luck and good judgment. On the preceding Monday the college insurance agents had telephoned from Boston to say that, although a comprehensive insurance program had been arranged, nothing had been said about coverage for wind damage, which Amherst had hitherto never carried. "What shall we do about it?" asked Treasurer Andrews; and Stanley, looking out the window at the driving rain, replied, "Charlie, the rate is pretty low. The wind is blowing hard, and you and I are responsible for the property of the College. We just can't take the risk of being without coverage in any one respect. You'd better telephone Boston to put on wind coverage at once." This Andrews did; and later when the story was spread abroad, King was credited with clairvoyance. At any rate he had made a decision fortunate for Amherst. In some respects the hurricane was not a disaster but a blessing. A special committee appointed to tell the sad story to the alumni and solicit contributions for rehabilitation collected

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about $25,000. The Buildings and Grounds Committee were now able at last to carry out a plan originally proposed by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1925, for denuding and regrading the entire area between Johnson Chapel and the Stearns Church, and now revived by Arthur A. Shurcliff, landscape architect for the College. During the autumn the campus was cleared entirely of debris. In the following spring eighty-five trees of substantial size—white pine, red oak, white oak, rock maple, elm, and beech —all of them indigenous to the Connecticut Valley, were set out. On the morning after the hurricane, indeed before breakfast, Mrs. King had purchased from a nurseryman fifty young trees to replace those which had been destroyed on the grounds of the President's House and in the vicinity. In his Report, dated October 16,1939, King was able to say, "The program of campus reconstruction is now completed." In carrying out the landscape architect's proposals one significant difference of opinion developed. The Shurcliff Plan, based on the original Olmsted Plan, calling for the planting of new trees in formal rows, was enthusiastically favored by all the members of the Buildings and Grounds Committee except Lucius R. Eastman, who preferred what was termed "naturalistic" planting. Eastman, as Stanley remarked more than once, was "a hard man to convince," and finally his associates simply had to outvote him. His complaints ceased when the work was finished and the attractive results were apparent, but he never admitted openly that Shurcliff was right. Although at the moment everybody lamented the destruction of the noble old trees, it was a fact that a few were dying each year and that most of them had only a short life expectancy. The hurricane actually gave the College a needed opportunity to model the campus on a more beautiful pattern than before. Alumni returning for Commencement in June, 1939, were in general delighted with what they saw, and the feeling of satisfaction has been confirmed with the passing of the years, as the

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trees have grown. What seemed like a colossal misfortune turned out to be for the good of the College. A far more extensive calamity than flood or hurricane was already in the offing. The dictators in Japan, Italy, and Germany had formulated their sinister plans during the 1930s—indeed were on the march. On September 1, 1939, the German army invaded Poland, and the tale of the ensuing atrocities was spread throughout the civilized world. On June 15, 1940, at the annual meeting of the Society of the Alumni, a resolution was adopted by a substantial majority of the three hundred people present, urging the establishment in the United States of a system of compulsory military training. This action was followed by an indignant protest from a vocal minority who asserted that no opportunity had been offered to debate what was obviously a controversial issue. At that period it was healthful that these conflicting views should be aired. But many citizens felt that Christian civilization as they had known it might be coming to a tragic end. Meanwhile American public opinion was moving towards unanimity. On January 9, 1941, President Roosevelt delivered his famous Four Freedoms speech, and on March 11 the Lend Lease Bill was passed, formulating a new and vigorous policy for the United States. In his Senior Chapel Address in June, 1941, Professor Dwight Salmon, of the Amherst Faculty, compared the existing mood of the Seniors with that of his own class in 1917, when it "stood face to face with a war-dark world." Professor Salmon's words were loudly applauded when he said in conclusion: It is with conviction and compulsion that I tell you the truth I see now: (1) we possess things worth fighting for; (2) unless we fight we shall lose these precious things; (3) the triumph of fascism means something worse than war. . . . I am convinced that we in the United States, and perhaps in both the Americas, must fight, and I have no shadow of doubt of our ability to win on any terms of conflict.

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Stanley King followed the course pursued by most intelligently patriotic Americans, moving from initial incredulity through anger to resolution. At the meeting of the Alumni Council on November 7, 1941, the President of the Student Council, J. Robert Rowley, '42, reported that three fourths of the undergraduates favored the repeal of the Neutrality Act and that only 22 percent answered "Yes" to the question, "In case of further Japanese aggression in the Pacific do you favor a conciliatory policy?" President King reported that, with the approval of the Committee of Six of the Faculty, he had authorized the appointment of a Faculty Committee on Long Range Policy. He concluded his remarks with special reference to the international situation: I think you can have confidence that your college is alert to the present situation, is alert to the problems that face us, and that with God's help we will come out of this crisis at least as strong and perhaps a little stronger than we went in, and equipped to play the part that we ought to play in the period of reconstruction that will follow.

On the matters which were in everybody's mind that autumn, King had already commented in his ninth report, signed on October 1,1941: The most significant factor in the life of the College during this year has been the European war. It has affected the thinking of students and Faculty; it has been the principal subject of discussion in forum and public lectures; it has affected the registration in existing courses and the introduction of new courses; and the drafting of a number of our Faculty for defense work has resulted in more numerous changes in our Faculty personnel than normal.

King also discussed various phases of the Amherst program aimed at preparing students for war activity, and he pointed out that the College was sure to lose a considerable number of undergraduates to the armed forces. To offset this probable loss, Amherst admitted that autumn the largest Freshman Class in its history, numbering two hundred and seventy-three. But while

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he was dealing with these questions of immediate policy, the President was looking even beyond the impending crisis. He was ready to confront the aftermath of war even before the shooting for the United States had begun. Meanwhile King had to deal with an unfortunate exhibition of undergraduate selfishness. For nine years the College had permitted members of the two upper classes who maintained a certain academic standard to operate automobiles in the town of Amherst. In the autumn of 1941, however, when Secretary Harold Ickes imposed restrictions on the use of gasoline, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, of which Stanley was a member, requested colleges to forbid all resident students to operate automobiles during term time. At once a group of undergraduates rose in protest, and the President, who was convinced that their behavior had no justification, had to explain his attitude. Some of the more coolheaded students approached him with a supposedly constructive compromise plan, which he reluctantly accepted. He felt, however, that the campus leaders were shortsighted, with a lack of understanding of what was at stake. After we entered the war in December, following Pearl Harbor, the President was able to move with a freer hand. Seeing with clarity what would be expected of the College, he made his plans accordingly. In his Report for 1941-42, he began by saying: The central fact in the life of the College, as in that of the nation, is the war. This college is dedicated to the war effort of the nation of which it is a part. Everything which we can do to advance the war effort we shall do. Anything which impairs the war effort we shall avoid. Every decision we make must first be considered from the point of view of its relation to the war. The record of the year that has closed is one of organization of the College for war. On December 18, 1941, after consulting Faculty and Trustees, he announced that the work of the second semester would

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be accelerated and the Easter vacation shortened to three days so that the Seniors might be graduated on May 17, some weeks ahead of the customary time. On January 9, 1942, he further stated that the College would hold an optional summer session of twelve weeks, staffed by members of the Faculty who had agreed to teach without remuneration. King did everything within his power to make the undergraduates realize that for the moment their duty should keep them in college, where they could prepare themselves by hard work for future service at camps and in the field. The Alumni Council News praised the results of this policy, saying: The students began to understand that the very qualities most needed by the armed forces, by business and by the Government, were to be found in a liberal arts course and in Amherst College— such qualities as adaptability, self-discipline, perspective, cooperation, industry, and trained intelligence.

As a consequence of this enlightened procedure, although eighty men had rushed almost immediately into uniform, about 810 remained on the campus in March, 1942. Courses in astronomy, meteorology, navigation, and mathematics were "bulging with eager students," and undergraduate participation in the Civil Aeronautics Program was most gratifying. The Quarterly, voicing King's sentiments, frankly admitted the possibility of a decreasing enrollment and confessed that Amherst had deliberately taken up the slack in its waiting list. Always in the background, as the war went on, was the problem of preserving the values of the fraternities at a period when nothing was stable. In May, 1942, then, was held the first War Commencement since 1918. Seniors in the uniforms of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps accepted their diplomas with a crisp salute to President King, and twenty-four men in the Class of 1942 received their degrees in absentia. As Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Alumni Council, this author had the pleasure

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at the Commencement luncheon of presenting Stanley with a silver bowl, bearing the following inscription: STANLEY KING PRESIDENT OF AMHERST IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF HIS VIGOROUS LEADERSHIP,

INTELLIGENT

ADMINISTRATION AND UNSWERVING DEVOTION TO THE COLLEGE THROUGH A DECADE OF UNCERTAINTY IN PEACE AND WAR H E HAS COURAGEOUSLY KEPT THE FAITH MAY

16, 1942

In the bowl were hundreds of letters and telegrams of congratulation from alumni in all sections of the country. At the same time his fellow Trustees presented him with a beautiful gold watch, appropriately inscribed, and the Faculty gave him a silver cigarette box. In his speech of presentation, Professor Howard W. Doughty, commenting on the dislocations of war, said, "We are glad that the 'Old Man is on the bridge!" Regarding these tributes Stanley wrote: The extraordinarily generous recognition which was accorded me at Commencement by undergraduates, faculty, alumni, and trustees moved me deeply. What has been accomplished at Amherst during these ten years is the result of the continuous and I might almost say unparalleled cooperation of students, faculty, alumni, and trustees. No president could ask for more generous support from all the elements which make up the College. For this I express my profound gratitude.

At the opening of the College for the summer session on June 28, the enrollment was 657, far larger than had been expected. In greeting the students, the President said with noticeable emphasis: The central fact to-day in college as in industry and in all civil life is the war. This college is dedicated to the nation of which it is a part. Everything which we can do to advance the war effort we shall do. Everything which impairs the war effort we shall avoid.

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Every decision we make must be considered from the point of view of its relation to the war. Meanwhile the President had appointed a W a r Service Committee, consisting of Dean Porter, Professor Green, and Professor Jordan, to assist undergraduates in obtaining accurate information concerning their draft status. Members of the Faculty in the younger brackets were departing month by month for government service, and satisfactory replacements were difficult to find. To meet a local emergency a large number of undergraduates became for several hours each week "dirt farmers," laboring on farms in the fertile Connecticut Valley. Professor Lumley, who volunteered to take charge, calculated that 278 students and 9 members of the Faculty and administration had toiled a total of 15,680 hours for 38 employers, earning a total of almost $8,000 at an average wage of forty-five cents an hour. Projects in the order of man hours included harvesting potatoes, apples, and tobacco, brushing and land reclamation, haying, harvesting onions and corn, weeding and harvesting asparagus, filling silos, and weeding and harvesting cucumbers. These were very useful contributions to the war effort. There was another side to the picture, and the President was sometimes annoyed by what seemed to him undergraduate indifference, negligence, and selfishness. In September, 1942, after the College had opened for its 122d year, he delivered a caustic rebuke to the student body, saying: You have just used, because you thought it was necessary, three days of some eight hundred men for fraternity rushing. This means twentyfive hundred man days for a purpose that has so little value for the war effort that I cannot discover it with a microscope; twenty-five hundred man days, forty thousand man hours, for rushing, when the country is crying out for men to harvest its food crops, for men to make ships, for men to fly airplanes. I venture the prediction that this form of rushing is out for good and all, that you must find some quicker way to choose members for your social clubs. I do not think that this college or any college can hereafter countenance such a use of twenty-five hundred man days.

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As a matter of fact, anything like "normalcy" was rapidly becoming impossible on the Amherst campus. As a sound precaution, the Trustees, in March, 1942, requested the fraternities to adopt a pooling program, under which the thirteen chapters agreed that, while the war continued, they would forego any opportunity for financial profit and jointly run the risk of loss. This pool then proceeded to manage the fraternity buildings in the same manner as the College operated its dormitories. On October 24, 1942, the Trustees adopted a resolution stating that because of the decline in enrollment and the needs of the Federal government it might shortly become impossible for the chapters to operate their own houses. They therefore "respectfully" recommended to the corporate chapters "that by formal vote they authorize the College at the discretion of the Board of Trustees to take over the houses for housing of personnel on a basis of return to the chapters to be determined by the Trustees of College." Chi Phi and Phi Kappa Psi followed this suggestion in January, 1943, and by the close of the collegiate year all of the houses ceased to function as fraternity headquarters. At the opening of the 1943 summer term the Student Council voted to suspend rushing for the duration of the war, and this action was approved by the College. The President had just made arrangements with the Federal government to provide facilities for certain Army and Navy units in the autumn, and it was necessary, therefore, to use the fraternity houses as barracks for soldiers. Under such conditions, it was obvious that the local chapters could no longer operate as separate groups; and the plan as it worked out was a farsighted policy designed to aid all the fraternities not only to survive the dislocations inevitably brought about by the war but also to preserve their durable values. Appropriate steps were taken by the chapters to protect their records, and their secret meeting rooms were locked and sealed. At Commencement on May 23, 1943, only thirteen Seniors

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presented themselves before President King in College Hall to receive their degrees—the smallest number since 1823. Only 154 alumni registered at headquarters—the fewest to appear at any Commencement since the Civil War. Honorary degrees were, however, awarded as usual, and the chief speaker at the luncheon was Sir Arthur Salter, Chairman of the British Merchant Shipping Commission. When the second summer session opened on June 30, only 183 bona fide college students appeared, of whom 68 were Freshmen. Seventy-four members of the Faculty were present for the ceremony. The figures a century before, in 1843, had been 124 undergraduates and seven teachers. Under the stress of war the College was changing to meet extraordinary conditions. But these were not all the young Americans at Amherst. The President reported on October 1, 1943, "The College has had military and naval units on its campus throughout the year." The registered undergraduate body on that date numbered only 155, but in the dormitories and fraternity houses were approximately 900 other young men in military uniform, representing five different forms of service. One detachment of rather more than a hundred were cadets attending a Navy Pre-Flight school, who used the Turners Falls air field for training. Another group, chosen from the Army Air Corps because of proficiency in mathematics, came to receive instruction for four terms of twelve weeks each in the Pre-Meteorology C Program, thus preparing themselves to become expert "weather men." Perhaps the most interesting unit in many ways was a group of about 360 enlisted men selected from the entire army as candidates for admission to the United States Military Academy at West Point. For more than a year, also, Amherst gave its facilities to a War Department Civilian Protection School, through which more than 1,400 students passed in preparation for specialized service. In July, 1943, the College received an Army detachment of 115 for instruction in "Area and Language."

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These men, subjected to military discipline, led a very different life from that of the pampered collegians of the 1930's. From six in the morning until ten at night thev were on a tight schedule, including approximately seven hours of classroom recitation, four hours of study hall, and four hours of brisk physical exercise. Everywhere on the formerly peaceful campus could be heard the regular beat of military bands and drum corps, the bugle notes of reveille and retreat, the ships' bells sounding the hours in the Navy quarters in the Phi Kappa Psi House, and the sharp staccato of officers' commands. Everybody was busy, intent on his present business, and the members of the Faculty assigned to these units found themselves teaching heavier programs than ever before in their lives. With the government plan for training service men on college campuses King was entirely in sympathy. Speaking on January 14,1943, at a chapel service, he made his position clear: The Government program for education has been bitterly criticised by many college presidents. Some regard it as the knell of liberal education; some fear it may mean the death or crippling of their colleges. The distinguished presidents of certain great universities have been particularly vocal and particularly critical. I do not share their critical point of view. . . . The liberal arts college has been a central force in post-high-school education in the United States for over a century. I do not believe it can be extinguished by the war. Amherst College is strong enough, in my opinion, to survive even a long war. At the annual meeting of Class Agents and the Alumni Council, held on January 17, 1944, these and other relevant matters were introduced by the President for discussion. He reported that Amherst was a "war college," with a student body of about nine hundred, the military and naval units of which were there under contracts negotiated by the Treasurer of the College with the United States government. All the College wanted from the government was "a fair payment for the costs we have actually incurred." King continued:

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The Government is good pay. Our bills are rendered monthly and paid within ten days. While I make no predictions as to the future, I can tell you that at the present time the College is operating in the black. During this stirring period nobody could predict what would happen next. It proved impossible to synchronize the calendars of the Army, Navy, and civilian units, the result being that instruction never ceased. Amherst held a military Commencement on February 11, 1944, for the Pre-Meteorology C Unit of the United States Army Air Forces, and the President awarded academic certificates to the 141 members who had completed the course. In September, 1944, the members of the Second United States Military Academy Preparatory Unit arrived, with a maximum strength of 300. In January, 1945, however, came orders transferring the unit to Fort Benning, Georgia, for intensive drill in infantry weapons, and from mid-March until the close of the academic year no military or naval trainees dwelt on the campus. The standards which they had set did, however, remain behind them for a short period. On February 27, 1945, the first chapel service in two years was held for the purpose of awarding a cup to the house group with the highest average. The Alumni Council News, with an irony not too subtle, commented: The undergraduates presented a strong contrast to the last chapel audience in 1943, for they wore ties and sports shirts, and the hair on most heads was carefully combed. These breaks with the past might be explained in two ways: chapel was at 12:00 noon instead of 8:40, and most of the men were Freshmen and, therefore, unacquainted with what Sophomores might call the rougher demands of tradition. Meanwhile the war was clearly drawing to a close. The channel crossing of June 6, 1944, had been followed by heavy pressure on Berlin from the west by the Allies and from the east by Russia, and Germany was gradually but very perceptibly giving way. In the autumn, President Roosevelt was elected for a fourth term and was inaugurated on January 20,1945. The Yalta Conference, so controversial in its results, took place in Febru-

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ary, and on the fifteenth of that month came the news that our air force had bombed Tokyo. And then, on April 13, President Roosevelt died at Warm Springs, Georgia, only two weeks after the Hamburg radio had announced the death of Adolf Hitler. Clearly the Germans could not continue the struggle much longer. In the summer of 1945, however, at the request of the War Department, Amherst received a Third United States Military Academy Preparatory Unit, with a maximum enrollment of 500. Classes opened for this group on September 13, 1945, and when the first phase of the program was completed on March 2, 1946, most of the trainees were transferred to Fort Benning. The second, and much smaller phase, opened on March 4 and continued until June 14. When the War Department inquired whether the College was prepared to undertake such a program during subsequent years, King advised that the staff and plant would be fully engaged after July 1,1946, in the routine operations of the liberal arts college. The last military unit departed from the campus on June 16,1946. Military equipment was removed from all college buildings, and the contracts with the War Department were terminated. When Amherst closed the academic year on June 30, 1946, it was again the civilian college which its founders intended it to be. During the war years it had received a total of 4,379 young men for training in government programs, and the maximum number of students on its campus at any one time had been over 1,100. Meanwhile Amherst was beginning to receive an increasing number of veterans seeking an education under Public Laws 16 and 346—the so-called G.I. Bill of Rights. The civilian registration at the opening of the spring term in 1946 was 470, of whom about two thirds were veterans. The College promptly made application to the Federal government for emergency housing for married veterans; and the Federal Housing Authority soon erected at government expense ten temporary apart-

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ment buildings on the eastern slope of the campus below the church, containing sixty-one housekeeping apartments for married veterans. The President felt that this "G.I. Village"—as it was promptly called—was "the best temporary housing development on a college campus" that he had seen. As the married veterans finished their course, these buildings, in accordance with the government contract, were torn down one by one, until all but three have disappeared. On any basis of judgment, Amherst College under President King had performed patriotically and capably during the war. It had responded cheerfully and efficiently to every request from the Federal government. It had carried on without strain or friction the unaccustomed business of preparing men for the armed forces. Its organization had proved flexible enough to meet unexpected contingencies and had adjusted itself readily to unusual and constantly changing demands. The College well merited the commendation, official and unofficial, which it received from the highest quarters.

RETIREMENT

laconic line-a-day diary contains the following entry for April 14, 1944: "Clear and mild. Office in the morning. Short drive with M. Cocktails & dinner for trustees at Jeff. Meeting at house and presented resignation. Discussion till midnight. Lew Douglas as house guest." Although the decision thus unexpectedly announced to the Trustees had been planned by the Kings for some time, Stanley had not apparently discussed it with any member of the Corporation. As early as 1937, however, when he had been in office only five years, he said one evening to Peg, "I think I may resign next June!" "Why?" was the only too obvious question. "Well, I've done about all I can accomplish here, and I'd like to travel some more while I'm able." His sagacious wife contented herself by remarking, "I know you've done miracles, but you can't tell me that your job is finished yet." They little guessed the strenuous years that lay ahead. Shortly after, Hitler's sinister expansionist policies were more clearly revealed, and in the resulting national and international confusion, Stanley could hardly evade his Amherst responsibilities. But in the spring of 1944, with an American victory in sight, the idea of retirement presented itself again forcibly to his mind. The President, it is true, was only sixty-one years of age STANLEY

KING'S

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and had never seemed more healthy and dynamic. His administrative record was unblemished, clearly defined, and impressive, and he had brought to Amherst enhanced prestige. He had carried through an extensive building program; he had increased the total assets of the College from twenty million to thirty million dollars; he had initiated investigations which were to lead to a modernized curriculum. Furthermore, he had expanded the program of the College in several different fields, including Biology, History, Political Science, Economics, Fine Arts, Music, and Dramatic Arts. He would leave Amherst incomparably richer and more productive than he had found it. On the other hand, no one recognized better than he the advantage of withdrawing at the height of his powers, before anybody had detected in him "the slow gradations of decay." Amherst would inevitably face new crises in the postwar period, but King's major task was done. He had the supreme wisdom to step off the collegiate scene with wisdom and energy unimpaired. Numerous educators in similar situations have deluded themselves into the belief that they were indispensable and have therefore lingered too long. King had the satisfaction of leaving at just the right psychological moment, when he could turn over Amherst at the end of a well-marked era in good order to his successor. King did not intend to cease working. He had an urgent desire to write some badly needed articles and books dealing with the College, and he also wished to put together some autobiographical material. He was sure that he would find enough to do. And without perhaps fully realizing it, he needed a change of pace and direction in his career. On a Friday afternoon in April, 1944, then, the members of the Board of Trustees assembled at the President's House for cocktails and then strolled across the Common to the Lord Jeffery Inn for dinnner. In the evening they returned to the Kings' home to discuss informally the business to be taken up on the

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following morning. About ten o'clock, as they were about to proceed to the dining room for refreshments, Stanley

said

quietly, but with a full sense of the dramatic, "Gentlemen, I wish to read you a document which may be interesting!" H e then read the following letter addressed to his colleagues: Twelve years ago you invited me to be President of the College. My term has included years of profound and world-wide depression, the Connecticut River flood of 1936, the devastating hurricane of 1938, and five years of world war. When I accepted the presidency, the only instructions I received from the Board were given me by its distinguished chairman, Mr. George A. Plimpton. He told me to "go to Amherst and lick the College into shape." These instructions I attempted to interpret and carry out. And in this enterprise I had the whole-hearted cooperation of trustees, faculty, undergraduates, and alumni. Much progress was made, but much remained to be done, when our program was interrupted by war. Since December 7, 1941, the College has been effectively reorganized to carry out the war program assigned to it by the War and Navy Departments, while maintaining at the same time a sound academic program in the liberal arts for the remnant of its civilian undergraduates. Its wartime program is now diminishing in size and complexity, at least for the present. And now we are making plans for the postwar college, working in close cooperation with our sister colleges and with representative committees of our own alumni. These plans now in process of development will of course be carried into execution in the next ten years under the leadership of my successor. It seem to me important to the College that the president who is to execute them should have a central position in their formulation and development. And from a personal point of view, Mrs. King and I have been looking forward to the opportunity for leisure and travel. As you know, I have been retired once before, and I want to savor again the enjoyment of people and books which leisure will afford. I therefore tender you my resignation as President of Amherst College, to take effect on June 30, 1945. I shall then have served longer as active administrative head of this College than any predecessor in my high office since 1876. And I shall have completed twenty-four years of service as a member of this Board.

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I express to you my deep and abiding gratitude for the opportunity you have given me to serve my alma mater, my appreciation for your nourishing support throughout my term, and my acknowledgment of my indebtedness to my faculty colleagues, to the undergraduates, and to the alumni for their tolerance, their understanding, and their confidence. Only my immediate colleagues know how much the College owes to the wisdom, the imagination, and the hard work of my wife. In the years which lie ahead I shall always be available for any counsel or assistance you may request. With abiding faith in the high destiny of Amherst, with affection for you all, and with a full heart, I shall lay down my administrative duties and hand the symbols of my office over to my successor. Eugene S. Wilson, Jr., then Secretary of the Board of Trustees, was present on this occasion and has furnished a description of what happened next: The Board was completely taken by surprise. Several of the members said that they would not accept the resignation. Stanley had asked to be allowed to resign in June of 1945, as I remember. Stanley urged the Board to accept it and handed it to the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Stearns. Mr. Stearns put his hands behind his back and refused to take the document. I believe Stanley then handed it to Paul Weathers, the Treasurer of the College, who also refused to accept it. He then crossed the room to me and said, "I shall, then, have to give this to the Secretary of the Board." I took it and put it in my pocket. The discussion during the rest of the evening and over the weekend was Stanley's resignation. After protracted consideration of the numerous problems involved and as a concession to the wishes of his colleagues on the Board, Stanley reluctantly agreed to postpone announcement of his intentions until the following spring. Meanwhile the secret of his letter was carefully kept, and no effort was made to seek a possible successor. At each ensuing meeting of the Board, however, he brought the matter up; and at last, in April, 1945, it was agreed that the President should retire on and as of July 1,1946. Accordingly, Dr. Stearns, as Chairman of the Corporation, sent King an official letter, under date of May 1, 1945:

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The Trustees of Amherst College have received with no little emotion and with profound regret your letter indicating your desire to retire from the presidency of the College at an early date. W e were, of course, not unprepared for this, since you have for several years assured us that the time was rapidly approaching when you felt that this step should be taken. We agree with you that it is only fair that you should be allowed to gratify your wish, often expressed to us in the past, to retire at a time when you could still enjoy the opportunity for leisure and travel to which you are justly entitled. Above all, we are conscious of the abiding gratitude we owe you for your generous response to our urgent request that you remain on the bridge until the troubled and dangerous waters through which we have been passing in these unusual times shall have been safely navigated and the storm which caused them have subsided. The Trustees wish to put on record their sincere appreciation of the masterly way in which you have directed the course of the College during the difficult period of your administration. In 1932 your college called upon you to take command of her destiny. Serving her was no new role for you, since you had been a valued trustee for eleven years, chairman of both the Buildings and Grounds and Executive Committees, and an active member of the Alumni Council for eighteen years. For the past thirteen years, in peace and war, you have been an untiring leader in every endeavor to strengthen your alma mater and enhance her influence. During your administration we have seen the student body noticeably increased in size, the faculty strengthened, many new and important buildings added to our equipment, the grounds of the college significantly beautified, and our financial structure enlarged and made secure. It was due to your almost prophetic vision and sagacious planning that even in the earlier years before the chaos and strain of war, which was so completely to undermine established procedure and put to tests then undreamed of our American colleges and universities, Amherst established and steadily increased an emergency reserve fund which alone has enabled her to weather this unprecedented storm and face the future unafraid. More than any one also the Trustees realize the bewildering difficulties which have beset you, in changing college procedure from a peace to a wartime basis, and we gratefully acknowledge the debt we owe you for the rare efficiency with which this perplexing task was performed.

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When you were called to the presidency of Amherst College, my predecessor, Mr. George A. Plimpton, then Chairman of the Board of Trustees, told you your job was "to lick the College into shape." Wisely enlisting the support of your faculty and with their effective cooperation, you successfully carried out that order. And if the Trustees have been of any aid to you during this process, it is largely due to the fact that, as a former and active trustee yourself, you were familiar with our special problems, aware of our interest but necessary limitations, and hence worked with us in a spirit of rare and sympathetic understanding. We would record an expression of our deep appreciation of the extent and value of the unwavering support accorded you by Mrs. King, which has contributed so much to the efficient completion of your many tasks and to the success of your administration. Both of you will carry with you through the many and happy years which we hope are still to be yours our affection, our gratitude, and our good will. Hardly had the President's resignation been thus regretfully accepted before the war with Germany was officially terminated. On the evening of Tuesday, May 8, the undergraduates assembled in Johnson Chapel to celebrate the victory of the Allies. King announced solemnly, "The war is over," and then spoke with deep emotion on the meaning of the day. The Student reported that the President ended, "God grant you and I both vision and humility!" but it is to be presumed that the grammar was due to a careless editor. The ceremonies ended with "The Star Spangled Banner" and what was described as "the recessional of the speakers." Before relinquishing the presidential title, Stanley King had the satisfaction of seeing some controversial issues settled, at least for the moment. The fraternity problem, so vigorously debated back and forth, had reached a point where a decision had to be made. The alumni Quarterly for February, 1944, had said: The postwar period will offer fraternities an unusual opportunity to launch new ideas. The first men to be initiated will begin their fra-

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temity life free of any pressure from upper classmen to conform to past standards or attitudes. If ever any determinate changes are to come to fraternities and fraternity life, this is the time to formulate them. But it was not yet altogether clear that there would be fraternity chapters on the campus during the postwar period. There was strong sentiment among the alumni for the abolition of secret societies, and this feeling was sustained by a majority of the Faculty. The tense situation had aroused so many rumors that the President, in the issue of the Alumni Council News for October, 1944, felt justified in preparing a summary of what had been done and what was likely to be done. He pointed out that specific recommendations might be expected very shortly from both the Faculty and alumni committees. Largely to allay the suspicions of the advocates of fraternities, he added his own viewpoint—that it was "a wiser procedure to attempt to improve the fraternities and remove the grounds for criticism, so far as possible, than to abolish the fraternities." He concluded, "The Dean of the College is in agreement with me. My faculty colleagues are obviously divided in their opinion." King was right in making it clear where he stood. He had been entrusted with administrative leadership, and out of his experience as undergraduate, trustee, and president he knew more than anybody else about the issues involved. On the other hand, while alumni and Faculty were probing to the very heart of the College, he answered every inquiry for information, offered every facility for investigation, but carefully refrained from any interference. This was the ideal way to get results from a body of very busy men. They were led to believe that their conclusions would be thoroughly considered and not rejected without cause. Commenting on the part which he was supposed to play, Stanley said: What is the role of the President? In Amherst, I regard the President as a catalyst, an intermediary between Faculty, Trustees, and

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Alumni. It will be his responsibility to suggest compromises and adjustments between conflicting points of view which will result in precipitating a program on which I hope all parties can unite. The Report of the Faculty Committee on Long Range Policy, published in January, 1945, disposed of the fraternity question with the recommendation "that the Faculty pass a resolution advising the Trustees that it is to the best interests of the College that fraternities be abolished at Amherst." The Fraternity Business Management Committee, on the other hand, published a month later a report strongly in favor of maintaining the existing system, with a few suggested reforms. The Executive Committee of the Alumni Council, on April 25, 1945, sent to the Board of Trustees a letter, three crucial sentences of which read as follows: We would have it clearly understood that we do not speak for the alumni of Amherst, or for the Alumni Council, we speak only for ourselves. We are unanimously agreed, however, that for the present the best interests of the College will be served by reopening the fraternities as soon as possible after the conclusion of hostilities. Just how they shall be opened and under what conditions, we leave to the appropriate authorities. At their meeting on June 2, 1945, the Trustees studied all the available and somewhat contradictory evidence and, under the guidance but not the dictation of the President, passed certain resolutions: 1—That the fraternities have failed markedly in recent years to make a positive contribution to college life. 2—That the interests of the College can best be served at this time by a policy of radical reform rather than one of abolition, with its inevitable untried substitutes. This unanimous conclusion was implemented by a further constructive resolution: That at the proper time and under requirements to be set forth at a later date by the Board of Trustees, the fraternities be permitted to reopen in Amherst College.

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Not until the war had been over for some time and Stanley King was no longer President of Amherst did the fraternities actually resume their former status, and then with their privileges and responsibilities much more clearly defined. Under the new system no Freshmen were allowed to be initiated, and the chapters were placed under the acknowledged supervision and control of the college administration. The items of reform were those which King had long had on his mind, and he was greatly pleased by the conservative solution of an issue which was of supreme importance to the College. King's last Alumni Council meeting, held on November 10, 1945, was the first official gathering of that body since 1942. Because there were no fraternity initiations, no football and soccer games with Williams, and no visiting committees, the attendance was not large. In his address to the group, the President spoke on several problems which the College would shortly have to face: rising costs, deferred maintenance, student housing, and the heating plant. He referred especially, however, and with emphasis to a recent Faculty meeting at which fourteen specific recommendations had been discussed and eventually adopted. These together set up what was shortly, after Stanley's retirement, to be called the "New Curriculum," prescribing a course of study which was compulsory for every Freshman and Sophomore. The New Curriculum was one of the most fruitful products of King's administration. In ending his address, the President said, "Amherst is ready for the postwar world into which we are now entering." In this moving talk Stanley expressed the affection and regard for the alumni which he had felt during his long association with them as Trustee and President. Another perennial problem was settled when, at their April meeting in 1946, the Trustees, for an accumulation of reasons, decided that the Stearns Church "was no longer suitable for the purposes of worship in the Amherst College of the future and therefore should be taken down." King had long felt that this

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was desirable but had hesitated to make the recommendation because of Dr. Alfred E. Stearns, Chairman of the Board, who was a grandson of the donor. It turned out that his apprehensions were needless, for Dr. Stearns was not sensitive on the matter and was entirely ready to approve any action taken by his colleagues. To put themselves on record, the Trustees at this time concurred in the decision of the President and Faculty discontinuing the requirement for attendance at church on Sunday. Furthermore, they approved a recommendation that morning chapel should be maintained, "the program and schedule for chapel exercises to be determined by the President-Elect upon his taking office, after consultation with the Faculty." Stanley's resignation, publicly announced in May, 1945, was received with universal regret. When an inquisitive reporter asked Mrs. King why her husband was leaving his job, she responded, "How old are you, young man?" "I'm thirty." "Well, you should be old enough to understand the President just doesn't want to work any more." The young man laughed heartily at what he thought to be a joke. He just couldn't believe that an executive in King's position could deliberately and of his own accord say to himself, "I'm going to leave and do something else." While a committee of the Trustees set at the difficult task of finding a new president, Japan collapsed suddenly in August, 1945, and the nation began to adjust itself gradually to peace conditions. By Christmas the student body included more than three hundred "G.I.'s" who had shed their uniforms for old slacks and sweaters and lumberjack shirts. After months of army discipline, the veterans relaxed, and the President faced an earnest body of ex-servicemen who protested vigorously against the Student Council rule requiring neckties and coats at the evening meal in Valentine Hall and wrote caustic editorials denouncing the compulsory chapel regulation. The Alumni Council News commented tersely, "Old times are here again!"

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Meanwhile, in February, 1946, excavation had been begun for two new dormitories, James Hall and Stearns Hall, to be paid for out of college funds, for the accommodation of 120 students. Even in 1939, before the war, most of the Sophomore Class had to live in rooms in the town, and it was obvious that Amherst would in the future have an enrollment of considerably more than eight hundred. As a matter of fact, eight years after the war was over it had nearly eleven hundred students. Once again King realized that plans should be made far ahead for what was likely to come. The new dormitories were ready for use in the autumn of 1946. By that date another president had taken over. In February, 1946, after a very thorough examination of suggested candidates, the Trustees announced the choice of Charles W. Cole, who was no stranger on the campus and had long been a friend of Stanley King. In 1927, when Cole was editor of the Amherst Student, he had written an article highly critical of the College; and King, then on the Board of Trustees, had been so much interested that he asked him to lunch at the Lord Jeffery and discussed with him the aims and policies of that undergraduate publication. At the time King had been much impressed by the cogent and courageous thinking of the brilliant Senior. In 1935, when Cole was Instructor in History at Columbia, Stanley had called him back to Amherst as Associate Professor of Economics and two years later had appointed him as George D. Olds Professor. In 1940, however, Cole returned to Columbia as Professor of History. He had important administrative experience with OPA during the war. In 1943 he had been named by the Executive Committee of the Alumni Council as Chairman of the important Alumni Committee on Postwar Amherst College, and in this capacity had supervised the work leading up to the publication of the Committee Report in February, 1945. Stanley King was much pleased with the choice of Cole for President and paid him an enthusiastic tribute in the Alumni Council News.

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The climax of the year's program, and indeed of King's career, was the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the founding of the College, observed in June, 1946. Throughout he was the central figure, indeed the "observed of all observers." At the meeting of the Society of the Alumni on Friday, June 14, he spoke felicitously on the topic "The Amherst Alumni—A Glimpse into the Future," suggesting out of his experience various ways in which the graduates could make their contribution to the postwar college. At the Alumni Luncheon on the following day he was the principal speaker, being preceded by three other college presidents—Frank P. Graham, of North Carolina, James P. Baxter III, of Williams, and Victor L. Butterfield, of Wesleyan. At the dedication of the War Memorial on Sunday morning he presided, introducing John J. McCloy as the orator of the occasion. Finally, on that afternoon, as previously noted, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws by Amherst and delivered his valedictory address as its President. King's final speech, entitled "The Freedom of the College," was both timely and eloquent—perhaps the finest he ever delivered. Very early in his address, he announced his theme in words which no one could misconstrue: The threats to political freedom which we have witnessed in the past dozen years have come from what we call bad men—men whose life and actions have won the general condemnation of society, men like Mussolini, Hitler, and our own Huey Long. Of course such men must destroy academic freedom in the process of destroying political freedom. But it is not the danger to academic freedom from bad men to which I wish to draw your attention to-day. Academic freedom is constantly threatened by good men, and, because the threat to academic freedom so often comes from good men, the issues are not so clearly drawn, and the danger is not so obvious. After citing conspicuous instances of the pressure brought by well-meaning American businessmen to sustain what he called "economic orthodoxy," King ended with words which have even more significance now than they had in 1946:

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In the years ahead I hope that every Amherst alumnus will be vigilant in protecting the freedom of the teacher against all pressures, whether the teacher is on this faculty or on any other faculty in the land. . . . The greatest threat to the freedom of the college comes to-day from the doctrine of statism, the doctrine that denies the dignity of the individual and makes the will of the state the sole criterion. Under such a system the freedom of the college is submerged with the freedom of the citizen and what is left is naked authority. Amherst College is dedicated to freedom. . . . This precious heritage, the freedom of the College—freedom of the teacher, freedom of the students—is not in the keeping of any president. It is for the president and trustees, for faculty and students, and for every alumnus to guard and to cherish as he loves his alma mater. In conclusion, King said a few very moving sentences to the gentlemen of the Senior Class: You and I are completing our formal course at Amherst together. This is our Commencement. You are about to receive your diplomas, voted by Faculty and by Trustees, certifying to one and all that you have completed a course in the liberal arts to the satisfaction of the Faculty and of the College. When you leave this quadrangle tonight you will be Amherst alumni. I too am completing my course and in a few days I shall be graduated by the Trustees and return to my status as a fellow alumnus of yours. My course has been much longer than yours, it is true, but I venture to suggest that the Amherst Faculty has spent at least as much time and thought in my education as in yours. Your course and mine have fallen in troubled years. If you have worked three terms a year, so have I. If you have lost your holidays on which you used to set such store, so have I. If you have felt the pressure of a regiment of soldiers in uniform, marching and countermarching in these academic groves, so have I. And reveille has changed my early morning routine as I daresay it has disturbed yours. And so I shall graduate a little ahead of the normal time, as many of you are doing. I have gained about two years, I should say, by acceleration. The College has given us everything it had to give. That gift was opportunity—opportunity to work and to play, to live side by side

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with young men of varied talents and interests, to sit at the feet of older and wiser men. As you and I take leave of each other, I give you my good wishes from the bottom of my heart. Good luck, and God be with you! No one who was present at those Commencement exercises at Amherst in 1946 is likely to forget the cumulative impression made by the sequence of events—the Alumni Luncheon, the dedication of the War Memorial, the award to the President of the LL.D. honorary degree, and, as a climax, his moving and masterly defense of academic freedom. As he stepped back to his chair from the rostrum, the audience spontaneously rose and cheered. One could hear the echoes of the universal "Well done!" Once again gifts testified to the affection in which Stanley was held: a silver box, bearing the autographs of the Trustees; a combined clock and barometer from the Faculty, as symbols of his punctuality and his good luck in having fine weather for all his celebrations; and other even more personal manifestations of regard. As the hour for Stanley's departure drew near, the Graduates' Quarterly for May, 1948, published an estimate of the King administration by Professor Otto Manthey-Zorn, of the Department of German, under the title "This is Your Heritage"—words taken from a chapel address delivered by the President in October, 1940. Here out of the recollection of the teacher of longest service on the Faculty, with one exception, was a measured summary of Stanley King's accomplishment—the finest of the many tributes paid to him in the hour of his retirement. On one subject, often discussed by alumni, Manthey-Zorn could speak with knowledge and authority. In an address to the Alumni Council, the President had once remarked, "When at some future year I retire I shall be happy if you will judge me by the character and competence of the young men who have joined the faculty

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during my administration." Commenting on this statement, Manthey-Zom responded: What shall we say about it? This is not the place to mention individuals or names. But let me just say this. . . . I look with the greatest satisfaction and confidence in Amherst's future upon the present generation of Amherst's teachers. President King has reason to be proud indeed, and the friends of Amherst have every reason to be grateful to him. That heritage he has guarded well. In that issue also the Quarterly published an editorial dealing with the same topic from another angle: We have occasionally heard it said that President King has not been an educational leader. This is not just or true, in our opinion. From the day of his inauguration he has refused to accept the label "educator," and he has placed the responsibility for the educational policy of the College on the Faculty. In 1940, when it became apparent that some educational changes would be made in institutions of higher learning, he appointed a faculty committee on long-range policy. The war interrupted the work of this committee, but not for long, for it was reformed in 1943. It was this committee which reexamined the College and presented in February, 1945, a lengthy report. From this report will come a totally new curriculum which will be placed in operation in the fall of 1947. This report stands as evidence of the fact that there has been educational leadership at Amherst. And it is worth noting that the President not only refused to appoint himself to this committee but he presented his thoughts only when they were called for; he supplied the committee with all the facts and records they requested; and he made no attempt to influence the thinking of this committee. The final paragraph of this editorial assembled and expressed some truths which it was important to bring out: In conclusion we want to remark on Stanley King's long, constant, and intense devotion to Amherst College, a devotion which was first manifested in 1913, when he was one of the alumni who founded the Alumni Council. Since that time he has always been ready to give his alma mater a triple "A" priority on his time, energy, thought, and money. For the past fourteen years he has had only one interest, the College. He has refused outside appointments to important positions

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and committees because he wanted to give all of his time to Amherst. The College will long remember the contributions of this loyal and devoted son. The Commencement visitors left Amherst for their homes and the students gradually drifted away for their summer vacations. Two weeks later Stanley and Margaret King moved their belongings out of the President's House into the Kings' house on Lincoln Avenue which they had prepared some years before in anticipation of Stanley's retirement. Charlie and Kitty Cole took possession on July 1, in accordance with an earlier arrangement, and Amherst College had a new president.

THE CLOSING YEARS

L O N G before Stanley's formal resignation as President, he and his wife had considered plans for future residence when their official connection with Amherst would be over. They had no desire to live dully on schedule or to sink back into a conventional routine. After all, Stanley was only in his sixty-fourth year, and many adventures could lie ahead. But they did not wish to spend all their time in travel. Since 1929, they had enjoyed greatly their attractive summer place on Martha's Vineyard, which they usually occupied in July and August and visited at other periods when they could arrange for a vacation. Some time they needed also a pied-a-terre, a headquarters into which they could move their furniture and books and which after retirement they could call home, where they could perhaps even settle down in their old age, when the wanderlust had weakened. In 1936, when the Quabbin Reservoir project was about to inundate five old villages in the vicinity of Amherst, the Kings purchased what was known locally as the Joshua Crosby House in Enfield, took it apart, moved it to Amherst, and set it up again on land which they bought on Lincoln Avenue, within easy reach of the College and their friends. Under Peg King's artistic direction it was then remodeled into a charming residence, relatively small but suited to their modest spatial requirements and

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with all the most modern housekeeping conveniences. Two comfortably large living rooms were lined with their books, and a study at the left of the front door offered Stanley all the advantages of a private office. The landscaping of the grounds, with their pleasant lawns and variegated shrubbery, was also Mrs. King's work. When the rehabilitation was complete, the Kings, who did not at the moment need the house for their own purposes, offered it to Professor and Mrs. Manthey-Zorn, who occupied it until 1944. After Stanley's retirement, the Kings spent longer and longer summer sojourns at Salt Meadows, where they had guest accommodations for a steady stream of visitors. During his term as President, they had frequently gone for the Christmas holidays to Florida, once at the Breakers, in Palm Beach, and sometimes at Boca Grande or the Hillsboro Club, in Pompano. They both greatly enjoyed ocean swimming, and dancing in the evening was always for them a favorite recreation. In 1942, Stanley bought a small house at Boca Raton, on the banks of the inland waterway, but a few years later he sold it and a year after his retirement moved to Deerfield Beach, directly on the ocean. They found and made many friends in Florida, and Stanley often discussed quite seriously the possibility of forming a colony there of retired college presidents and headmasters. In the late spring and autumn, however, he wanted to be back in Amherst, and he regularly made his plans so that he could attend the meetings of the Trustees and of the Alumni Council and the closing football game of the season in early November. In accepting Stanley's request for retirement in 1946, his fellow Trustees paid him the extraordinary honor of making him not only President Emeritus but also Trustee Emeritus, with the privilege of attending all the meetings of the Board—of course with no vote. Although he was urged by them and by President Cole to avail himself of this privilege, he adopted the policy of never sitting in at the formal meetings; but he always,

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at the invitation of the Chairman, joined the informal discussions at the President's House on the evening before. He never spoke even then unless requested; but his advice was frequently sought on matters with which he had been well acquainted, and in several instances he was able to be of considerable service. On one occasion, Stanley's knowledge saved the Trustees from possible embarrassment. In 1936, the College received, on the death of Mrs. William R. Mead, two large trust funds set up by her husband, and also the bulk of her estate, amounting in all to over $900,000. Mr. Mead had often expressed the hope that the Trustees would erect a building which would be a worthy "repository of the Fine Arts," but the problem of a site had been difficult, and with the outbreak of the Second World War any action had been by common consent postponed. When the matter came up for discussion at the meeting of the Corporation in April, 1948, the members were divided, some feeling that the money from the Mead bequest ought to be conserved to support an improved salary scale for teachers and employees and that the erection of the proposed art building should be postponed, perhaps indefinitely. When Stanley heard of this proposal, he was disturbed, feeling that the wishes of the donor were about to be disregarded. He finally decided to send a memorandum to the Trustees, pointing out that they were morally bound to carry out the "informal commitments" pledged by responsible members of the Board—Plimpton, Morrow, and himself—after their conferences with Mr. Mead. At their next meeting the Trustees, thus reminded of their obligation, authorized the Treasurer to proceed with the plans for the Mead Building. In this, the only case in which King, as Trustee Emeritus, made an attempt to influence Board policy, his conscience would not allow him to remain silent. At the inauguration of President Cole, on October 27, 1946, Stanley King, as was most appropriate, delivered an address of greeting to his successor. After some humorous persiflage re-

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garding the name "Charles" in human history, he entered into a defense of the liberal arts to which Amherst had always been committed and to which it had been rededicated in the establishment of the New Curriculum. He concluded: And this college which has just celebrated its 125th anniversary has been dedicated to the liberal arts since its foundation. Its program and its procedures have been revised and revitalized to meet the needs of each generation. Its teachers have had a deep sense of their mission and of the challenge to good teaching. Its graduates have made outstanding contributions in the field of government. What would we not give to-day for a Morrow in the White House, or a Stone on our highest court? Our sorest need to-day is, I submit, not the adaptation of nuclear fission to industrial purposes, not some new rocket to the moon, not the ability to move ourselves faster from one place to another. Our sorest need to-day is the development and application of new devices of political adjustment which will permit and if possible insure our ability to live together in peace, and in peace to enjoy the fruits of our labor. This is the challenge to the liberal arts. Amherst College, staffed with a strong faculty dedicated to the liberal arts and led by its twelfth president, is going forward. Eight thousand Amherst men stand behind you, President Cole; their hopes, their confidence, their affection are yours. Go forward, Amherst, Terras Irradient. At the annual meeting of the Alumni Council held at this time, President Cole announced a campaign for a Second Century Fund of two million dollars, to be raised through the contributions of alumni and friends. When this was first proposed, King was urged to accept its honorary chairmanship and also the working chairmanship of the important Special Gifts Committee, but declined both nominations. He did, however, make an immediate personal contribution of $2,500 and then, at the request of the committee, called on several "prospects" in the autumn of 1946. By July, 1947, when the amount secured was only a little more than $500,000, King set again to work, sending out a circular letter, under date of October 10, 1947, signed by him

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and addressed to "Men of Amherst." His correspondence during this period with Clarence Francis and Eustace Seligman, both of whom frequently sought his advice, was very heavy. Unfortunately it was an unpropitious moment for raising substantial sums, but the Fund closed in 1948 with a total gift of $1,018,907 from 4,741 contributors. Stanley had planned to devote some of his time in his so-called retirement to the preparation of memoranda on picturesque and significant phases of his varied career. He liked nothing better than relating stories of his adventures with the vividness and skill of a superb raconteur. But he was also a sound research man, who knew how to select, evaluate, and arrange material, with the proper perspective and proportion. Typical of his work in this field is an unpublished manuscript dated March, 1944, with the title "A Preface to the Place of Religion in Amherst College," in which he examined the historical background of the "orthodox Congregationalism" of the College, including even the courses in religion offered from time to time by the Faculty —all this with the aim of determining for himself what would be a reasonably modern program to institute with regard to religion. He followed the same scholarly procedure in investigating the policies of American colleges on the awarding of honorary degrees. In 1950, the Trustees printed a forty-four page monograph by King entitled Recollections of the Folger Shakespeare Library, incorporating much detailed information which no one but King could possibly have remembered. Of the six Amherst Trustees closely concerned with the early days of the now famous library, only King was still alive. The story, so far as Amherst was concerned, began with the death, on June 11, 1930, of Henry C. Folger, of the Class of 1879. Mr. Folger, a wealthy Standard Oil magnate, had already given the money for the erection of the beautiful building next to the Library of Congress, in Washington, the cornerstone of which had been laid in May, only a few

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weeks before his death. Soon the New York Times carried a dispatch saying that the library and the bulk of Folger's large estate had been bequeathed, under certain liberal conditions, to Amherst College. King, who had never known Mr. Folger personally and had had no idea that Amherst would benefit under his will, was from that moment implicated in a succession of fascinating events. His fellow Trustees gladly relied on Stanley to carry on most of the necessary legal negotiations with Mrs. Folger, who was very cooperative with the project. When the library was formally dedicated on April 23, 1932 (Shakespeare's birthday), King, who had just been elected as the new head of Amherst, was present in Washington, and he and Margaret were delegated to receive President and Mrs. Hoover. Later he engineered the purchase for the library of the famous Harmsworth Collection of books printed in England from 1475 to 1640. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Stanley and Joseph Quincy Adams, the Director, decided as a precaution to move the rarest books to Amherst for safekeeping, and they were stored throughout the war in the basement of the Converse Memorial Library. Stanley succeeded in making the tale of these and other associated events read like a bibliophilic romance, with elements of mystery, intrigue, temporary frustration, and eventual triumph. He himself was at various periods agent, diplomat, intermediary, and judge. In the summer of 1948, Stanley began the extensive investigation required for his book, A History of the Endowment of Amherst College, published under the auspices of the Trustees in 1950. This was a unique volume on a subject never before discussed in this fashion by a man of such high competence. Step by step from the establishment of the Charity Fund in May, 1818, three years before Amherst College opened its doors, King traced the gradual financial development of the institution, interspersing his narrative with brief but diverting sketches of

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Amherst personages and stories resurrected from the past. Here, for example, Amherst men read for the first time how Dwight W. Morrow, in the summer of 1931, at a meeting of the Finance Committee in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, in Boston, persuaded the members to buy a block of the common stock of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. "This," commented Stanley, "was the first purchase of common stock by the College at any meeting of the Finance Committee which I attended." In preparing this book Stanley worked in several places, including the pleasant alcoves of the Boston Athenaeum and the Hitchcock Memorial Room at Amherst, as well as his study at Amherst and Chilmark. The research was more intensive than that required for most Ph.D. theses, and the product was incomparably more interesting and significant. Indeed a striking feature of this unusual volume is its readability. Volumes of statistics are easily prepared by specialists and sent out far and wide, but they usually end up on shelves in obscure corners, gathering dust. Stanley's book was not only widely distributed but also widely read. When a prominent alumnus, meeting Stanley at Commencement, criticized the title as too long and clumsy, King replied, "That's what the book's about!" It was what Calvin Coolidge might have said. King was talking about the finances of Amherst College, and when he showed that, on June 30,1948, its investments totaled $20,420,254, many alumni were impressed at reading the list of securities. This was a tribute to the ingenuity and literary method of the author. An edition in paper covers, with the statistical material omitted, enabled the Trustees to send a copy to every alumnus. Having finished his History of the Endowment of Amherst College, King undertook the preparation of a companion volume, called "The Consecrated Eminence," the Story of the Campus and Buildings of Amherst College. This was a careful study of the history and development of the physical plant. Although the outline of the book had long been in his mind, he did

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not begin composition until the late spring of 1950. A year later he had finished the first draft, and at the time of his death on April 28, 1951, the manuscript was in such good shape that it needed only some minor editing by Mrs. King and the addition of certain tables of statistics, together with the earliest and latest photographs of buildings, to make it ready for the printer. She wrote in her Foreword, "It must stand as it is, his last work for the college which he had served with so much devotion and happiness for thirty years." The book, dedicated "To the Alumni of Amherst Everywhere," was published by the College in late 1951. Although "The Consecrated Eminence" is somewhat longer than the earlier History, it follows the same general plan, integrating statistics and anecdotes into a delightful narrative. The two books are unique in their discussion of phases of collegiate evolution ordinarily unknown or little comprehended. After all, no educational institution can survive without buildings or revenue, and no college president has been more familiar than Stanley King with what these assets mean even to the intellectual and spiritual aspects of a place of higher learning. Thus even in nominal retirement Stanley King's thoughts still centered on his college. When, in the autumn of 1950, the Trustees approved in principle a plan for remodeling Williston Hall and making certain essential changes in the interior arrangements of Walker Hall, President Cole asked Stanley, as his personal representative, to make a study of the architectural alterations required. Within an incredibly short period, King, who was thoroughly familiar with the two buildings, presented a written report of what was needed, and his recommendations were followed in detail. At the meeting of the Alumni Council in November, 1950, Stanley was present and took part with gusto in some "close harmony" with a number of his old friends. He seemed, as always, cheerful, eager to talk of books which he had been reading

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and people whom he had met. And he was pleased with the obvious success of the New Curriculum, the seeds for which had been planted in his administration. In late March and early April, 1951, the Kings, who had motored to their winter home at Deerfield Beach, Florida, invited Professor Frederick K. Turgeon, of the French Department at Amherst, with his wife, to pay them a visit. For a week the four congenial people basked in the sun. Stanley was not only swimming but diving through the surf, apparently in the most robust health and certainly in high spirits. In the evening under the palm trees he told stories of his picturesque life. Once back in the North, the Kings attended a supper on April 12, of the Trustees and their wives, where he seemed "the life of the party." On April 18, at a dinner of the Connecticut Valley Alumni, he made a speech which was regarded by the guests as one of his finest. One alumnus wrote, " T h e Old Maestro was never more eloquent!" The rest of the story is told by Peg King in her own words: On April 19, we went to Chilmark for two or three days of our usual early spring planting. Unexpectedly a strike on the ferry was declared the following Monday, the day we had planned to return. It was to last for more than a week, but that did not matter to us for Stanley had some work with him, his first draft of the book, and the manuscript of the Harvard Law School Bulletin, which, as secretary of his class, he was finishing for their coming reunion. And for me there was plenty to do in the garden. So we settled down happily. They were lovely, those last spring days, walks in our woodland, evenings before the fire. But on Thursday morning, the 26th, Stanley said very casually that he had had a very severe attack of heart pain in the night. I persuaded him to see a doctor. But after a few attempts, when everybody seemed busy, we gave up and went on with our usual holiday pursuits. And next morning, Friday, he said he had had a comfortable night so we had a happy day, driving about, looking over new houses, making a few calls. When the sun rose on that last morning, it brought one of the loveliest days of spring, clear and crisp and still. When I asked

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again what sort of a night it had been, he said, "Well, not too good," and promised to make an appointment with a doctor, after telephoning the College. So I went out to my pruning on the seaward side of the house. A little later he joined me to say he had just talked with Charlie Cole and had accepted an invitation to be the Commencement speaker in June. Then he said, "I think I'll walk down to the pond and have a look at the bath house. Ill be back soon." I watched him walk away, so erect and vital. Perhaps twenty minutes later, a sudden gust of wind out of the clear sky startled me, and hardly knowing what I did, I almost ran down the meadow path. He was not at the pond's edge. When I called, there was no answer, but the bath house door was ajar and there I found him fallen forward. He had gone. I finally called the gardener to phone for a doctor. When he came, he said death had been instantaneous. Then for awhile I was alone. I did all the phoning to the College and the family. Dick came by private plane in mid-afternoon, and next morning we chartered a small boat to the mainland and I returned to Amherst. We had never spoken of old age and death, except that we hoped to leave life together. But it was his happy fate to die without suffering any diminution of power, either physical or mental, with his books for the College completed, and full of plans for the future. He had gone in time not to be old, and late enough to have had a life of full achievement, all intense, all gallant from the first, and fortunate in its swift and unexpected end. The tragic news came as a sudden and sharp blow to the Amherst community of which he was still a part and the members of which had thought him to be in robust health. His body was cremated, and on May 1 more than six hundred trustees, faculty, alumni, townspeople, and other friends gathered in Johnson Chapel for memorial services which were conducted by the Reverend John B. Coburn, the College Chaplain, with music led by the College Choir. President Cole delivered an exceptionally appropriate and moving address. The devotion of Margaret King has been responsible for two unique memorials: one a boulder at Chilmark, on a spot which Stanley dearly loved, the other a marble bench in the shaded

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cemetery at Amherst. A Stanley King professorship has already been established by the Trustees, and undoubtedly a building will some day bear his name. Two portraits of him are in existence. The earlier, painted in 1933 by Ernest L. Ipsen, hung in the President's House until King's retirement, when it was transferred to the reading room of the Converse Library, with the portraits of other Amherst presidents. The other, painted in 1953 by Raymond P. R. Neilson, from photographs, now hangs in the Delta Kappa Epsilon House, at Amherst, the gift of the fraternity. But records in stone and canvas are not needed to preserve King's memory. Amherst College, in its every phase and aspect, felt the impact of his personality and still cherishes his spirit.

AVE ATQUE VALE

S T A N L E Y KING'S physique and personal appearance were among his noteworthy assets. Just six feet in height, he was slender and erect all his life, and his bearing made him conspicuous in any gathering. He was robust and very active, with unusual powers of endurance. His features were well formed and impressive, with his head often slanted towards the right as if in quizzical scrutiny of his neighbors. In middle age he began to wear long sideburns, which were distinctive and becoming. At times Stanley seemed almost jaunty in his attitude towards the world and its perplexities. His pleasure in dressing for and holding the stage was an amiable weakness which made him all the more attractive. "I like a show," he once remarked, and it was a frank and honest confession. Naturally gregarious, he enjoyed seeing and meeting and entertaining people. He had what Lord Bryce once described as "a lofty sense of personal worth," and his manner could be very dignified, especially with intrusive strangers or bores. But he was ordinarily cheerful and gracious, with a charm which drew others to him and made them his well-wishers. Although Stanley has been presented largely as a man of action, he was also not only reflective but exceptionally articulate, and welcomed opportunities for expressing his views. He

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never complained in the least about being constantly on a platform, but was rather stimulated by facing an audience. His early and easy success as an undergraduate debater had furnished him the necessary assurance; and he later, as part of his legal training at Harvard, took lessons in speech from the famous Professor Charles T. Copeland—better known as "Copey." Indeed he studied to be a good public speaker as he did to become a graceful dancer or a competent mountain climber. He never seemed embarrassed, no matter how large the assembly. His voice had adequate carrying power, and his enunciation was clear, although he had a slight difficulty in pronouncing his "R's," which, though noticeable, was in no sense a handicap. Indeed he often laughed at it himself, and it actually seemed as much a part of his personality as his sideburns. Although not eloquent in the conventional sense, he was very persuasive. His good taste led him to avoid both sentimentality and bombast, and even his gestures showed dignified restraint. Moreover, what King had to say was usually excellent, and his public addresses were well organized and carefully planned, with a firm basic structure and a discernible continuity of thought. His logical mind was shown in a cumulative development of his argument, without rambling or repetition. His thesis always had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Humor he used only sparingly, and then solely to illustrate or emphasize a point, not to titillate his listeners. Furthermore, he rarely employed anecdotes to retain the attention of an audience. Indeed he disdained all the tricks of the professional orator, relying rather on clarity, simplicity, and sincerity. One of the best of his occasional addresses was a Senior Chapel talk delivered at Commencement in 1929. By vote of the graduating class King, who was then an Alumni Trustee, was invited to speak instead of the customary member of the Faculty. Flattered by this spontaneous request, King took much pains in

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preparation. In discussing the "good life," he criticized scathingly a "pecuniary ideal based on a pecuniary standard": Our generation in giving impetus to the tremendous mechanical development has at the same time narrowed and intensified a pecuniary criterion of judgment. And I submit to you that it is in essence an immature ideal. In the older countries the dominance of this point of view has been contested and its accidence mitigated by the older aristocratic ideal—the ideal of the cultivated gentleman. In America, on the other hand, the democratic concept has canalized our popular thinking into the narrower channel of the pecuniary ideal. I do not decry political democracy. I say, however, that the popular American doctrine that one man is as good as the next, irrespective of breeding, of education, of refinement of taste, of breadth of sympathy, conduces to uniformity, sterility, and dullness; it makes the good life as I have defined it more difficult of attainment. To the considerable number of Seniors who, in that boom year, were planning to go into banking or industry, King offered more special advice: Do not take your business too seriously. Use the margins of your life—develop them as persistently, and as wisely, as you use your working day. Keep all the varied interests you now have and add more. Read not alone your professional journals, but read in other fields. Spend your play time not with your fellow manufacturers, or salesmen, or lawyers, but with men of other interests. Two of King's college mates who heard him on this occasion for the first time since their undergraduate days were deeply impressed by his earnestness. "The striking thing about his words," wrote one of them later, "was the fact that they were spoken not by a teacher or a clergyman but by a business executive who had also been in public affairs. Those boys certainly did listen!" Outside the Amherst family, King made few speeches of importance. Although he received many invitations to address women's clubs and community organizations, he seldom ac-

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cepted them, preferring to devote himself primarily to the College. In planning his monthly routine, he always put his administrative duties first. He wished to think out very carefully what he was to say in morning chapel, for he would have been ashamed to offer only perfunctory platitudes. Furthermore, the demands of the alumni upon his time and nervous energy were heavy. Few college presidents of his period, or indeed of any period, were as conscientious in fulfilling their executive obligations or less interested in building up an outside reputation. When Stanley made speeches away from the College, he was well received. On February 28, 1933, while on a western trip among the alumni, he addressed the Rotary Club of Chicago on the subject "Educating Your Son," dwelling on the advantages of the small college. In the following June, he delivered the Phi Beta Kappa Address at Columbia University, speaking "In Praise of Politicians." His thesis was summarized conveniently in one paragraph: If our colleges and schools could send into the world each year a group of politically minded young men and women who regarded politics as a great profession, and the art of government as the concern of every citizen, if they should count the great politicians as more to be admired than leaders of business, then we might be sure that the political institutions of a free people might survive. England has for years sent her best men from her colleges and universities into the civil service. Professor Laski remarked to me that while he was in Harvard 1100 students passed through his course, of whom one went into government service; in the University of London 800 students have come under his instruction, of whom 50, and those his best students, are now serving the government. I leave to the mathematicians the computation of the relative weight of these simple figures; all of us can understand their significance. If the faculties of our colleges believe in peace, they must hold up our civil leaders to admiration and emulation. They must encourage their best students to enter government service. On November 8, 1933, while he was still Chairman of the Massachusetts Commission on Stabilization of Employment,

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President King spoke before the annual meeting of the Academy of Political Science, in Philadelphia, on "Current Problems of Unemployment and Recovery Measures in Operation." In this address, later published by the Academy, King dealt mainly with the Report of the Massachusetts Commission, which included two of the leading employers in the state, two representatives of labor, the Commissioner of Labor and Industries, and President Karl T. Compton, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as himself. Pointing out that the chief recommendation of the Commission was for the establishment of unemployment insurance, King, then as always an advocate of measures for social justice, said: If the employers' associations in our industrial states continue to maintain their traditional policy of opposition, my own judgment is that public opinion will force legislation in this field and that the employers will find themselves operating under laws which they had no share or participation in drafting.

On September 27,1934, at the annual Herald Tribune Forum in New York City, King discussed much the same theme under the title "Economic Security." On February 22, 1936, when he was awarded an honorary degree at Williams College, he spoke on "Some Problems of College Administration," dealing frankly with such topics as a president's tenure of office, the participation of the Faculty in the administration of a college, the relationship between the Faculty and the Trustees, the problem of undergraduate morale, the proper policy to pursue regarding chapel, and the management and control of college athletics. Seldom has a college president talked more candidly or courageously regarding the difficulties which he had been obliged to face. He said at one point, "The changes we have made at Amherst are an expression, partial as yet, of my philosophy"—an observation which few of his professional colleagues would have dared to utter. Although Stanley could discourse at length, as he did in this

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instance, on Amherst and its needs, he took no great part in the meetings of strictly educational organizations. In the year 1943-44 he was the President of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and fulfilled his not too onerous duties most acceptably. But although he had his own clear ideas on both teaching methods and the curriculum, he preferred to listen to those who had been trained as experts. Indeed he never abandoned his earlier conviction that curricular policies should be determined by the Faculty and that his own contribution should be the selection of the best available teachers and scholars. This explains his unwillingness to pose as an authority on education. Commenting on his relationship with the professors as a group, some of them said after his death, "In the deliberations of faculty meetings he liked to think of himself as a catalyst who out of diverse arguments could effect an acceptable solution." Naturally he did more than this when intervention seemed necessary. Stanley King was exceptional in his tireless energy. When he was a Trustee, he sometimes left his Boston home at four in the morning, arrived at Amherst before seven, and returned to Boston at ten, having made a whirlwind inspection of the campus buildings and grounds. As President, he was in his office at eight each morning and was accessible all day to undergraduates, teachers, and others who needed his advice or help. During the army "occupation" of the College, he overheard some students grumbling about the obstacle course set up on Hitchcock Field. To satisfy himself, he went down to the field and, in his middle fifties, covered the course in record time. Being himself a human dynamo, King could not sympathize with protests from faculty members that they were overworked. Although he tried to be fair in his judgments, and make allowances for physical deficiencies, he was concerned when some teachers attained their professorship, lost their scholarly ambition, and settled down to unproductive routine. In pessimistic

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moments he regretted the system of tenure which made it possible for a drone to be immune from removal. His comments were, however, made in private, and he never, even under great temptation, indulged in public expressions of his disapproval. King's exuberant vitality found an outlet not only in work but also in recreation. Everybody who knew him was aware of his delight in motoring. Shortly after starting with the McElwain Company, as soon as his income permitted, he began owning automobiles and always liked to possess the latest model. His favorite in later years was streamlined, with a very powerful motor. Although he was a fast driver, he did not alarm his passengers, for he had keen eyesight, was well coordinated, used good judgment, and never took chances. On their vacation trips south, the Kings often covered four hundred miles or more a day, making the distance from Amherst to Florida in seventytwo hours. Motoring never seemed to fatigue Stanley, and he emerged from a long day's journey looking as fresh as when he left the garage. Although King did not care for such outdoor sports as fishing, golf, and hunting, he was a first-rate mountain climber and a member of the Appalachian Club, and he enjoyed swimming. At the Hillsboro Club, in Florida, and on the beach at Chilmark he loved to ride the waves and dive through the surf, to the amazement of companions who had thought of him as sedentary in his tastes. As a matter of fact, he was muscular and supple, and when put to the test could hold Ills own with most men of his age and with many of the younger generation. Those who watched Stanley King in his later years realized that his devotion to Amherst College was dominant in all that he thought and did. He studied carefully the personalities of the men who had helped to build it—not only the founders but also such presidents as Heman Humphrey and William A. Stearns and Julius H. Seelye—and measured the contribution of each to

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its evolution. He enjoyed his position as their successor, and was actuated by a profound desire to make his own administration fruitful and constructive. Just being President of Amherst College was pleasant, but that was not enough. He wished to be its best president, in terms of usefulness. He conceived of himself as like the director of an orchestra, harmonizing trustees, faculty, alumni, and undergraduates, bringing out the best in each for the benefit of the College. Thus during the fourteen years of his presidency, it absorbed all his energies. As we have seen, King stimulated the intellectual life of the College. Because he never felt at ease when his information was inadequate, he questioned members of the Faculty about recent developments in their own fields, thus broadening his own culture. He did his utmost to raise scholastic standards, encouraging both alumni and Faculty to carry on investigations leading to a revision of the curriculum. A scholar himself by temperament, he realized with President Eliot, that "a university cannot be managed like a railroad or a cotton mill." Whenever he was convinced that a course of action was right, he was ready to assume leadership and responsibility, but he insisted on free discussion at Faculty meetings and on Faculty committees, and profited by it. Stanley's childhood interest in genealogy was an early evidence of his wholesome respect for the past, and he was careful not to break too violently with traditions or even with the established order. Changes in the college entrance requirements were overdue; indeed Amherst might not have survived long as a college unless they had been promptly made. But King did not act until he had won over many of the potential objectors on the Faculty, and he took pains to consult all shades of alumni and professional opinion before disclosing his own views. Liberal though he was on such crucial matters as civil rights and academic freedom, he was conservative enough at heart to hold fast to that which was good. He had little regard for radicals who

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insisted that progress could be made only by upsetting the whole apple cart. Fundamental in King's educational philosophy was the need of adjusting the curriculum to the times, but he always tried to keep a proper balance. In 1928, when he was Chairman of the Committee on Buildings and Grounds, he had a conference with F. Curtis Canfield, then an Instructor in Dramatics, regarding the possibility of placing more emphasis on plays and acting. Looking across the campus from the Lord Jeffery Inn towards the Baptist church across the Common, he remarked, "That would be a fine site for a theater, and perhaps we can get one some time." The founders of the College would have been horrified by the mere suggestion that a church be replaced by a playhouse. But that type of dead hand never weighed heavily on Stanley King. Nothing could be done at the moment to raise the money required for a little theater, but Stanley cherished the project in his mind; and after he became President he visualized other possible locations, including one north of the Converse Library and another south of the Alumni Gymnasium. During Commencement Week in 1934, Richard MacMeekin, a member of the graduating class, said quite casually to Canfield, "I understand you would like to have a little theater." "I certainly would," was the prompt and natural reply. "All right, I'll get you one," MacMeekin responded. This sounded like a rash youthful promise, but within a year MacMeekin persuaded his father, who was a trustee of a charitable fund established by Dr. Ellwood R. Kirby, of Philadelphia, to offer to the College a grant of approximately $90,000 for the construction of a theater. Through King's patient, unremitting efforts, involving some complicated negotiations, this generous gift was accepted and supplemented by an appropriation from the Amherst Trustees. The site was determined by Margaret King, who, as she strolled with her husband about the campus, saw with a discerning eye how the proposed

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theater would have a perfect setting on a location north of the Gymnasium, on land then occupied by the Boyden House. This dwelling, one of the oldest on the campus, was moved to another site, and there were other problems to be solved. Eventually, as we have seen, the Kirby Memorial Theater, as completed, gave Amherst a unique position among American colleges. In 1952 the existing professorship, then held by Canfield, was appropriately named by the Trustees the Stanley King Professorship of Dramatic Arts. Certain traits of King's character revealed in these incidents explain in some degree his success as a college president—his creative vision, his persistence in eliminating obstacles blocking his plans, his resort to all legitimate methods in reaching his goal, and his broad conception of a liberal education. In his efforts to secure a little theater for Amherst he was opposed at various stages by well-meaning but reactionary persons with a narrow view of the preparation desirable for adjustment to our modern world; but this resistance only confirmed him in his ambitions for the College. Several of the same qualities were displayed by Stanley in the development of the Wildlife Sanctuary, at the foot of the hill below the Infirmary. The area had been acquired as early as 1924, but not much had been done by the college authorities to improve it. The Kings early saw its possibilities and undertook to set out trees and shrubs, build benches, cut paths, and place markers at strategic points. Before long, with the cooperation of Professor Goodale, a botanist, the Sanctuary became a nearby haven for pedestrians and plant and bird lovers. When Morgan Hall was reconstructed in 1934, the old metal gratings of the floors were used to pave muddy sections of the Sanctuary and make it more traversible. King had a well-trained, highly civilized mind, which moved readily among the connotations and subtleties of language. A few of his associates felt that he was too much of an intellectual

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machine; and indeed he was impatient with blurred words and vague ideas. Rough-and-ready disputants expecting to stampede their way through an argument thought him too reserved, and he did not meet them gladly. But it was dangerous to engage him in discussion without being fortified with facts, for he deserved the complimentary title bestowed by Winston Churchill on Harry Hopkins—"Lord Root-of-the-Matter." Stanley made his mistakes and regretted them, but he could also laugh at them and himself without embarrassment. In crucial debates he marshaled and aimed the evidence with a lawyer's skill and stated his conclusions with a compelling logic. On such a matter as the site of a building or the proper use of a gift to the College he was careful not to commit himself prematurely. His very caution inspired confidence in his final decision. The social climate of Amherst under President King was very important for the College. The Kings not only welcomed outside visitors in their home but also shared them with members of the Faculty and their wives; and their hospitality was both abundant and sincere. Their long list of guests included many distinguished persons, some of them from foreign countries. Margaret and Stanley enjoyed playing hosts and were always ready themselves for a party. One very special event was a visit from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, the former of whom was to deliver a lecture at the College. Stanley motored to Springfield to meet them and escort them to Amherst; and the two ladies were so much pleased with their reception that instead of marching off to their rooms they sat down and had tea. Miss Stein then asked who were coming to dinner and when she was told that no outside guests were expected, announced that she would like to dine with the family—an unusual concession for her. Miss Stein's lecture that evening in Johnson dealt chiefly with punctuation, and she expressed her general philosophy of life in terms of commas, colons, and apostrophes. Naturally this

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aroused some debate among the Faculty. After the talk, a group of professors and students were invited to the President's House, where Miss Stein proved herself to be a scintillating critic, able to hold her own with the most erudite doctors in the English Department. The Kings guided the conversation tactfully, urging the teachers to ask questions, and keeping everybody in a good humor. "I remember," writes Frederick S. Allis, Jr., "being greatly impressed throughout this affair with the grace and urbanity with which both Stanley King and his wife dealt with a rather difficult situation." Miss Stein and Miss Toklas enjoyed their visit so much that they stayed on in Amherst for several days, keeping the intellectual life of the campus in a state of high and healthful activity. The Kings planned each year to bring the Faculty group together for fun and relaxation. In February, 1933, for example, they sponsored an Amateur Night, in which various professors and their ladies participated. Some supposedly shy men displayed unexpected talent and for that evening forgot their inhibitions. For one such occasion members wrote and produced Murder in the Kitchen, a one-act play modeled on T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. Again the Kings invited their guests to a dinner dance at the Lord Jeffery Inn, with the injunction, "A headdress of some sort is required for everyone. Conventional hats cannot qualify." Once, when Stanley and Margaret held a masquerade party at the Inn, Frederick S. Allis, Jr., and Luther Ely Smith, Jr., both undergraduates with strong Amherst family traditions, persuaded the management of the hotel to allow them to blacken their faces and appear as colored waiters. They carried on their deception successfully for a few minutes, but were finally discovered by Mrs. King, who enjoyed the joke, gave each one a glass of punch, and ushered them out. In a quite unostentatious way, Stanley was unsparing of himself and generous with his resources. For years before he died he was the most liberal contributor from his Class of 1903 to the

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Alumni Fund, and more than once he paid the expenses of classmates back to Amherst reunions, doing this so tactfully that he did not hurt the sensitivity of the recipients. Furthermore, he made gifts of considerable size to relatives as well as to many worthy causes. A man's religion is his private business into which not even a biographer should pry too closely. The bright boy in Springfield who read at fifteen The Veracity of the Hexateuch always had some curiosity about humanity's beliefs and hopes. Although not concerned much with creeds and rituals, King enjoyed the chapel and church services at the College, with their pleasant blend of brevity and simplicity, and resisted the pressures brought to bear to abandon them. Without talking too much about it, he lived in his thoughts and conduct a thoroughly Christian life. Margaret and Stanley King enjoyed an ideal marriage, based on mutual confidence and respect, kindred interests, and devoted love, all harmonized by a responsive perception and an unfailing sense of humor. Their absorption in each other was accepted by their friends; indeed many of them have commented on the attention which Stanley paid to his wife, watching out for her comfort and anticipating her wishes. Margaret showed on her part an equally unselfish consideration for her husband's welfare and happiness. To Stanley's success as President, Margaret King made a very important contribution. Her work in improving the President's House and grounds was formally recognized in a letter to her from President Cole, under date of May 6, 1947: This is an official letter, since the Trustees asked me to express on their behalf their gratitude and the indebtedness of Amherst College to you for the planning and development of the President's House and grounds over a period of fourteen years. They wanted me to tell you how much they appreciate the skillful and artistic landscape engineering and gardening involved in the fourteen years of work that you put into it.

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They also wanted me to say that they were very grateful to you for your report which summarized the work of those years and forms a most useful addition to the material available on the development of the President's House and grounds. May I add a word of personal gratitude to you for creating the beautiful setting for the President's House? Though, as you know, I regard myself only as an amateur, and though I have been too busy to pull even an occasional weed since July 1, I know something of the tremendous thought, skill, and labor that went into your fourteenyear project. Beyond this, moreover, Margaret was a perfect partner in Stanley's administrative enterprise, assisting him to make plans and decisions, tactfully smoothing over strained relationships, and remaining close at hand in case she might be needed. And he never failed to assign her deserved credit for what had been accomplished. No man, however fortunate, can altogether escape the natural sorrows of his kind—the accidents, the disappointments and bereavements, which flesh is heir to. Stanley King had his share of these and bore them uncomplainingly. But essentially he had a happy life, rich in friendship and in achievement and its rewards, tangible and intangible; and he died suddenly, without any prolonged illness, before his powers had in any visible sense abated. He was a person of exceptional and comprehensive gifts, capable in several fields; and his accomplishment as industrialist and government servant was outstanding long before he became President of Amherst. Moreover, as a College Trustee he had been a notable success. Thus his record up to his fiftieth year as a constructive citizen was not merely useful but brilliant. But his later work at Amherst, combining the functions of scholar, legal adviser, executive, and community leader, was an appropriate and crowning culmination of a distinguished career. The position of president was one for which he was admirably fitted, offering him, as it did, a chance for the purposeful employment of all his abilities.

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Judged by any valid standard, Stanley King must be rated as Amherst's ablest president. The administrations of Zephaniah Swift Moore (1821-23), George Daniel Olds (1924-27), and Arthur Stanley Pease (1927-32) were too brief to make any enduring impression upon the College. Merrill Edwards Gates (1890-99) was generally regarded as a failure, and George Harris (1899-1912), who took the presidency when he was fifty-five, adopted by choice a policy of laissez faire. Heman Humphrey (1823-45), Edward Hitchcock (1845-54), and William Augustus Stearns (1854-76) were conscientious and reliable leaders who fulfilled creditably their executive functions without winning distinction. Alexander Meiklejohn (1912-24), intellectually very gifted, was an iconoclast rather than a builder, a controversial figure who left little behind him but dissension. Of King's predecessors undoubtedly the most eminent was Julius Hawley Seelye (1876-90), a man of power and presence as well as of faith and confidence. Like King, he was interested in public affairs; indeed he was serving a term in Congress when he was elected as President of Amherst. Seelye was an orthodox and rather dogmatic thinker, who moved in conventional religious channels and was more devout, in the strict sense of that word, than King. Although he was not altogether averse to educational reform, he was out of sympathy with his great contemporary, Charles W. Eliot; and he was inferior to King in imagination, in constructive planning, and in willingness to experiment. Seelye stood firm in an age of transition. King adjusted himself and Amherst College to rapidly shifting conditions and also built for a coming generation. Professor George F. Whicher, speaking on June 9,1951, at the Alumni Luncheon at Amherst, summed up Stanley King's career with his usual felicity: An academic historian looking back from the perspective of future years will recognize Stanley King as the best embodiment in our

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time of Amherst's continuing traditions. His connection with the college covered exactly the first half of the twentieth century; he entered the Freshman Class four months before the century opened and his life ended four months after the century had passed its midpoint. The neat coincidence would have pleased his strong sense of order and symmetry. As an undergraduate in a halcyon period of liberal teaching he was inspired by three great professors. When later he returned to the college as its head, he tried by every means to preserve and extend this heritage and to make it valid for a new age. He took an institution that mildly tended to rest on its record and transformed it into a college competent to face a challenging future.

All the earlier presidents of Amherst had been either teachers or preachers, or both. The unprecedented experiment of choosing a businessman was successful because Stanley King was much more than an industrial executive. Indeed his qualities were such that he would probably have become a leader in any occupation which he entered. But as a college president he had ample scope and latitude for his ability. Devoted to Amherst and steeped in its history, animated by a passion for efficiency and perfection, he gave himself unstintedly to the task of its rehabilitation. More than once he was styled a "practical idealist," and the characterization seems applicable when we consider his record as a whole. As Professor Whicher said, he took over Amherst College when its destiny was uncertain. He left it strong and united, with a well-defined program, ready to meet fearlessly the problems of the unknown but critical years ahead.

APPENDIX I: MEMORIAL ADDRESS BY CHARLES W. COLE, PRESIDENT OF AMHERST COLLEGE, ON MAY 1, 1951, IN JOHNSON CHAPEL, AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS

W

E WHO KNEW and worked with Stanley King here have difficulty in thinking of him save in connection with Amherst, and even with this chapel itself. W e are prone to forget that there were other Stanley Kings. There was the brilliant young law student at Harvard who completed the course there in the abnormally short space of two years, and who mastered so thoroughly the techniques of legal thinking that all through his life he could apply to every problem a dispassionate and logical analysis and could bring to every controversy an impartial and judicial approach. There was the businessman who combined an enthusiasm for scientific management with an uncanny ability to settle labor disputes; who upheld the loftiest standards of business ethics, and who retired at the age of forty-four because he had learned all that there was for him to learn in that world of men and affairs. There was the public servant who more than any other person helped the Secretary of War in World War I to confront and conquer tasks of a magnitude never before equaled in the history of this country. It was on Stanley King's shoulders that Newton D. Baker laid burdens when they grew too heavy for one man to bear alone. There was the Stanley King who, by the appointments he made and the acquisitions he arranged, built up the Folger until it was the most important library in its field in the entire world.

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There was the Stanley King who had a myriad of friends in every profession and pursuit—diplomats and generals, editors and Supreme Court justices, statesmen and educators, reformers and philanthropists —friends who came to see him and his wife in Amherst, or at Chilmark, or in Florida—friends who sought his advice, learned from his experience and trusted his judgment—friends who just enjoyed being with him and partaking of the Kings' gracious hospitality. But to us, and to him, it was Stanley King, the Amherst man, who was most important. Bom of an Amherst father, Judge Henry Amasa King, of the class of 1873, Stanley King could not remember a time when he did not know about Amherst College. He entered here as a freshman in 1900 and graduated with honors in 1903. With Amherst he was intimately associated for more than half a century. More than any other single man, he is responsible for the College as we have it today. More than any other man in this century he personified unswerving, selfless devotion to Amherst College. For thirty years he served on the Board of Trustees and is the only man in its history to have been a member of it in every possible fashion —alumni trustee, life trustee, trustee ex officio and trustee emeritus. For fourteen years he was president, and guided the College through the most difficult period it had encountered since the 1840s. For five years, as President Emeritus, he continued undiminished his zeal for the service of the College, working on committees, actively participating in fund raising, advising his new and inexperienced successor, and giving counsel to all of us here from his unparalleled knowledge of Amherst and Amherst men. It is symbolically characteristic that an hour before his death he accepted an invitation to perform one more service to the College by making a speech on an important occasion. But even before he was elected to the Board of Trustees, Stanley King had been one of the most active alumni working for the College. He had, for example, been a key figure in organizing the Centennial Gift for the College, under Dwight Morrow, and had been largely responsible for the success of that campaign, which rescued Amherst from a desperate plight. Nor did he ever slacken his efforts to build up the endowment of the College. Under his hand it grew steadily, and continually fructified the educational program developed here. Within the last year, he completed and published an eloquent history

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of the endowment of Amherst which, itself, has already brought new gifts to the College. Stanley King had a vitalizing interest in the buildings and grounds of Amherst. We can truly stand here and say of him "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice." For all about us are the evidences of his imagination and his matchless ability to turn dreams into reality. Wherever you look from this hill are his monuments—the Alumni Gymnasium, Valentine Hall, Memorial Field, Kirby Theatre, James and Stearns Dormitories, the Moore Chemistry Laboratory, the Faculty Club, the Infirmary, the Little Red Schoolhouse—every one might appropriately bear over its portals the name of Stanley King. The Mead Building, completed only a year ago, was the product of his dreams and his planning. The reconstruction of Williston Hall is today going forward to fulfill a plan worked out by him only last autumn. But the physical creation of a new and larger Amherst was only a part of his contribution, for it was his fate to meet a series of crises at the College, as it was his genius to surmount them. The financial crisis of 1920 he helped to liquidate through the Centennial Gift. He had just come on the Board of Trustees, in 1922, when it was faced by a severe internal crisis, in the solution of which he was an active participant. When, as President, he took the helm in 1932, the College faced a double crisis—one resulting from the depression which was eroding the economic foundations of Amherst—the other arising from the fact that our requirements and course of study had become too antiquated for survival. The first he solved by administrative skill so that Amherst, almost alone among the colleges, knew no annual deficit and no salary reductions. The other he solved by wise and tactful leadership as the faculty re-cast the entrance requirements and the curriculum. Most severe of all was the crisis that came with World War II in 1941 and threatened almost to destroy Amherst as a going educational enterprise. With tireless energy and incredible resourcefulness, Stanley King steered the College through the hazards of the ensuing fiveyear period—so successfully that Amherst emerged actually stronger and more vital into the post-war world. It is my considered judgment that the way in which he spent his health and strength during the war must have shortened his life-span by a decade. Very early in the war period he had the vision to see that the war-

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time disruption was an opportunity as well as a menace. Almost alone among educators he set to work to create a post-war college amid the confusion and chaos of war. He appointed an Alumni Committee to study the problem. He worked with the trustees to make plans. Most important of all, he set up the Faculty Committee on Long Range Policy early in the war. Thus, when the war ended, Amherst had an invigorating New Curriculum sketched out and plans for every phase of college life from fraternities to chapel and from dining halls to athletics. Other colleges are still striving, in a period that makes planning impossible, to find appropriate mechanisms to meet the new conditions. But, thanks to Stanley King, Amherst has already found those mechanisms. The first class under the New Curriculum will graduate this June. Most men who had presided over such planning would have stayed on to inaugurate the execution of the plans. But, Stanley King, with his usual selflessness, insisted, despite the pleas of the trustees, on entrusting the development of these plans to other hands. The endowment, the buildings, the curriculum are tangible things, or nearly so. But in the realm of the intangible, Stanley King's leadership will long be felt. By his courageous, continued, and judicious defense of academic freedom, for example, he made it part of the very atmosphere we breathe here, and yet he did it so quietly that anyone who does not have access to the presidential files might well be unaware of the number of battles he fought and won. From Stanley King's career we can learn much. But the transcendent lesson is, I think, the importance of devotion to an ideal larger and more significant than oneself. To him, Amherst College was that ideal. He knew its every fault and failing as no other man did. But he dreamed of it as improved, perfected, and made flawless, the better to serve this nation and all mankind. Toward the realization of that ideal he labored ceaselessly and with a success that it is given few men to achieve. If we believe in this College, in the best that it stands for and in the most that it can achieve for truth and for enlightenment, then we cannot but believe in the enduring significance of the life and work of Stanley King.

APPENDIX II: MINUTE ADOPTED AT MEETING OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES HELD ON JUNE 9, 1951

S T A N I £ Y KING. Many men over the long years have contributed to the making of the College that is Amherst today, but none so much as Stanley King. Son of a distinguished Amherst father, Judge Henry A. King, 73, he was born into the Amherst tradition which meant so much to him and to which he meant so much. Brilliant with a driving brilliance, he graduated from this College summa cum laude in three years with the class of 1903, and finished, without precedent or successor, the Harvard Law School's vaunted three years in two. Invited into industry, he fashioned a career noteworthy for intelligent application of the principles of scientific management combined with the clear-eyed perception that industry depends upon men even more than upon machines. Recognized as an enlightened and enlightening leader in industrial relationships it was natural that Newton D. Baker, as Secretary of War, should call upon him in World War I as a principal assistant to meet the challenging problems of this country's first industrial mobilization, and equally natural that he should have met those problems with searching intelligence and conspicuous success. Many a man dreams when he is young of working in the world of business until he has won through to security for himself and his family and then using that security in the world of service to others. Stanley King is one of the few who has actually lived out that dream. Amherst College was always his avocation—witness his energetic leadership, under Dwight Morrow, of the drive for the Centennial

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Gift in 1921, and his election as an Alumni Trustee in 1921 for the first of thirty years of service on this Board. But with his retirement from business this College became his real vocation, the central and focal point of his energies as it had always been of his loyalties. He was elected the eleventh President of this College in 1932, a year of depression to challenge the stoutest hearts. He met that challenge as he met all challenges to this College, with calm courage and unswerving faith, for it took courage and faith to do what he did in those early years—strengthen the faculty and maintain its salaries and build Amherst's superb athletic plant at a time when all other colleges were marking time or worriedly retrenching. And so he met other challenges; from the debris of the 1938 hurricane he created a new campus more beautiful than the old; the steady erosion of inflation never wore down his prudent budgets—budgets which were models of intelligent planning but which never sacrificed the important for mere economy; the crises of World War I I swept over Amherst but left the College, thanks to his skillful and steady hand, the stronger for having withstood the strains and stresses of these crises. Indeed, it is due to Stanley King that this is today a far stronger college than it was when he first assumed its Presidency. It is far stronger in its physical equipment, with Valentine Hall, the Infirmary, Kirby Theatre, the Gymnasium, the Squash Courts, the Swimming Pool, Memorial Field, Stearns Hall, James Hall, the Mead Art Building, the Faculty Club, and the Little Red School House, all planned and well planned, and built and well built under his leadership. It is a far stronger college financially, with a unique record of virtually no annual deficits and with an endowment greatly increased through his tireless efforts and resourceful influence. And let no one minimize the importance of the administrative efficiency and wisdom with which he brought the material side of Amherst to this high estate, for they have provided a firm foundation without which the future of the College in all its aspects would be troubled and uncertain. Even more important, the College is far stronger in the things of the mind and the spirit because of Stanley King. He unshackled the pre1932 entrance requirements and curriculum, and his foresight and encouragement were responsible for the searching analyses by alumni and faculty, made during the war itself, that led to the Amherst of today with its rounded and invigorating New Curriculum and its faculty alive with the stimulus of making that Curriculum work. That

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faculty was broadened and strengthened by his appointments and its freedom of teaching and freedom of action steadfastly protected by his untheatric and calm but steadily firm defense of the high principle of academic freedom. He was steeped in the traditions and history of his College and knew them as few men have ever known them, but he used his long view back, not for scholarly contemplation, but as perspective for his long view forward of what this College should and can be. All of his clarity of thinking, suppleness of mind, administrative ability, decisiveness of decision, imaginativeness and resourcefulness, all were devoted with singleness of purpose to make Amherst College a better place. The sweep and reach of his knowledge and experience of men and of things were nation-wide and world-wide, yet all the rich resources of that knowledge and experience he devoted with unreserved loyalty to this College. The Board of Trustees of the College which he served with such selflessness and devotion here records its profound sorrow at his passing, its warm and affectionate regard for his memory, and its high pride that this College should have produced and been led by a son of such enduring distinction.

(signed)

ARTHUR F . E L L S

(signed)

CHARLES W . COLE

Chairman of the Board of Trustees President of the College

APPENDIX III: MINUTE ADOPTED BY THE FACULTY OF AMHERST COLLEGE

S I N C E the multifarious activities and achievements of Stanley King have already been fittingly memorialized, the intention of this minute is to speak of him only in his relation to the Faculty of Amherst College. After several years of service on the Board of Trustees, Stanley King made his first appearance before this Faculty one spring day not long after his election to the presidency. In a friendly address he expressed his appreciation of the teacher and scholar and his deep concern for intellectual freedom. He further stated that he hoped to arrange conditions of life for members of the teaching staff which would permit them to concentrate maximum attention on their work in classroom, laboratory, and study. As a first step he then proposed that the many Faculty committees be reduced to one, to be known as the Committee of Six. By thus redistributing energy to make it count for most he showed at once the quality of his administrative genius. He delighted to refer to the six professors elected as the "Committee to Educate the President," for he was conscious that he was the first holder of the office to have no previous background in directing church or school. There was also a certain modesty. Beneath the excited interest roused in him by the challenge of his new position lay a genuine humility. His admiration for the professors who had taught him while he was an Amherst student led him to idealize the professor's calling in the abstract, and this sentiment withstood even the shocks of intimate contact with professors in the concrete. Yet it was not long before the flow of education in the Committee of Six changed direction. The members of the Faculty who served on that body had many opportunities to enlarge their conception of the meaning of leadership.

Minute Adopted

by the

Faculty

355

As he had been a brilliant student in college and law school, so Stanley King remained a student of wide intellectual interests as lawyer, business executive, public servant, and college president. He was an eager traveler and his mind ranged abroad through many books. But even before he assumed the presidency his heart was always in Amherst. As a leading alumnus and Trustee he made himself thoroughly familiar with every phase of the college and worked tirelessly to advance its prosperity, often coming from Boston to make flying tours of inspection and arriving on the grounds before the college community was well out of bed. He epitomized the devotion of Amherst graduates to their college which is our particular good fortune and our pride. It was in this spirit of dedication and fellowship that Stanley King guided the affairs of the college through fourteen difficult years. In this spirit he established relations with his colleagues on the Faculty. No one can estimate the countless hours he spent planning how he might best support the work of the teachers and how he might take the burden of less essential tasks from their shoulders. It is indicative that he asked no one to assist him in the conduct of Chapel. To those who knew his leadership he communicated the enthusiasm that he himself felt in whatever he found to do. He was a man of the world, tested in action, widely informed, wise in counsel. He could be quick in making decisions and vigorous in implementing them, but he believed in arriving at them normally by hearing all opinions, even the inexpert. In the deliberations of Faculty meetings he liked to think of himself as a catalyst who out of diverse arguments could effect an acceptable solution. One or another of us may at times have thought that he was endangering our pleasantly monastic isolation, whether by detaching liberal studies from the restraining influences of Greek and Latin, or by encouraging undergraduates to seek for adjuncts to their education beyond the horizon. But he never failed to uphold the values of an Amherst training. One by one he smoothed out obstructions that hindered college operations: the conditions of entrance, the problems of eating and housing, the reconstruction of the campus after the hurricane of 1938, the innumerable adjustments necessitated by military invasion, the regulation of fraternities after their restoration, the planning of a new curriculum for the post-war college. On all these points there were legitimate differences of opinion. All interested parties were heard and conflicting points of view were rationally discussed. When decisions were reached, they were reached without friction. No one could doubt at

356

Appendix III

any time that Stanley King was acting for what he believed to be the best interests of the college. No one can doubt now that he succeeded magnificently in leaving Amherst stronger and happier than he found it. He was an accessible man. His office and his home were open at all times. In the former he was a thoughtful and friendly administrator, always ready to discuss personal as well as academic problems, careful not to overstep the predetermined limits of his authority, and never impatient with those who could not agree with him. His home was a place of warm and joyous hospitality. Here, together with Mrs. King, he offered us the rich experiences of his varied activities and shared with us the many famous and fascinating visitors who gathered there. He dearly loved to play the host, but he could be an equally charming and easy guest in the homes of his friends. He may have exerted at intervals certain strong compulsions on our sheltered lives, as when he introduced the Dean to the night clubs of New York. He was perhaps given to illegal speeds. But these extravagances were symptomatic of an overflowing nature. His geniality was always in evidence at Faculty Club dinners, where he often reported on his less formal activities with wit and grace. Our debt to him is great indeed. Intellectually and physically he recreated Amherst College and gave it new shapeliness and power. Hardly an old building stands on our campus that he did not improve, and many new buildings that today serve essential functions in the life of the college we possess because he envisaged the need for them and brought them into being. He moved mountains to make playingfields; he gave bedrock stability to our financial structure. Above all else the harmonious cooperation of Faculty, alumni, and undergraduates in the continuing life of this institution was his incessant care. In health and sickness he gave himself without stint to the one enterprise of Amherst education. When he retired from office he found his greatest satisfactions in exploring and recording the achievements of Amherst in the past and in watching the realization of plans for its future which he had himself initiated and inspired. What we are today, what we shall be for many years to come, we owe in large measure to Stanley King. (signed)

OTTO M ANTHEY-ZORN CHARLES H . MORGAN GEORGE F .

WHICHER,

Chairman

INDEX

Academic freedom, King's defense of, 315 f. Academy of Political Science, King's speech before, 335 Activities of the War Department in the Field of Industrial Relations during the War, The, King's report, 98 Adams, Joseph Quincy, 325 Adams Express Company, 14 Adjustment boards, regional, 112 "AEF University," Beaune, 102 Aeneid (Vergil), 104 Aetna Insurance Company, 7, 10 Affaire Meiklejohn, 137 ff. Africa, King's trip into, 164 ff. "Aims of a Liberal College, The," inaugural address of Dr. Pease, 164 Allcroft, J. Russell, 166 Allen, Arthur M., 159, 162 Allen, Charles H., 133 Allen, Frederick L., 19, 194 Allen, Margaret, invited to Camp: understanding with King: divorce, 159; married to King, 162; honeymoon, 163; see further King, Margaret Allen, Roger, 174 Alliances for the Mind (G. King), 157 Allied Maritime Transport Council, Morrow a member of, 124 Allis, Frederick S., 131, 189, 190, 263; devotion to Amherst, 123 Allis, Frederick S., Jr., 342 Alumni Council News, 301, 310, 313, 314, 325; excerpt, 295

"American Diplomacy in the Orient, King's valedictory address, 33 American Federation of Labor, widening division in ranks, 108 American Telephone and Telegraph Company, purchase of common stock by Amherst, 326 Ames, James Barr, 38 "Amherst Alumni—A Glimpse into the Future, The," King's address to the Society of the Alumni, 315 Amherst-Bowdoin Debate, 32 Amherst College, Henry A. King's record at, 8; Stanley King as undergraduate, 20-34; Richardson's course in German, 27; Walker prize examination, 28; Carman's class in Philosophy, 29; King's valedictory address and final honors, 33; unhappy financial position of college, 124; Centennial Gift campaign, 124 ff., 348, 349, 351; Executive Committee, 125; Centennial Dinner, 131; resignation of Meiklejohn, 144; King declined to be candidate for presidency of, 161; resistant to modern trends in education, 179; resignation of Pease, 183; formal offer of presidency to King, 189; his acceptance and election, 190, 200 {see further under King, President); genuine satisfaction at King's election, 191; program outlined before Faculty, 201 ff.; essential to modify Latin requirement, 202; need for concessions to modernism, 203; compulsory chapel contro-

358 Amherst College (Continued) versy, 207, 239 ff., 313; King inaugurated as president, 209 ff., 3; educational policy: abolition of uniform course of study for Freshmen advocated, 212; King and Faculty, 217-36; authority and responsibilities of Faculty and of President, 217; College branded as "pink," 221; reduction in hours for courses in Greek, Latin, and mathematics recommended, 222; Freshmen lectures, 223; admission requirements, 225; New Curriculum, 234, 312, 350, 352; Faculty given complete latitude on curriculum, 235; compulsory church attendance on Sunday, 241, 244, 313; mood of campus in the 1930's, 259; King as an administrator, 262-85; financial stability, 264 ff., 352; War Memorial, 271 ff.; Memorial Field, 273; awarding of honorary degrees, 275; awarding Distinguished Service Medals to alumni, 276; St. Louis alumni threaten to withdraw support from Amherst Alumni Fund, 278; care of Hadley evacuees, 287; hurricane of 1938, 288 ff.; plan for regrading campus, 291; World War II, 292 ff.; organization of the College for war, 294; courses accelerated: summer session, 295; Civil Aeronautics Program, 295; first War Commencement, 295; United States Military Academy Preparatory Units, 299, 301, 302; Pre-Meteorology C Program for "weather men," 299, 301; College operating in the black during war, 301; contracts with War Department terminated: again a civilian college, 302; number of men trained in government programs, 302; veterans seeking education under G.I. Bill of Rights, 302, 313; housing for married veterans, 302; King's retirement, 304-19 ( s e e further under King); undergraduate assembly to celebrate victory of Allies, 309; Cole chosen President, 314; 125th anniversary: King's final address as President, ex-

Index cerpts, 315 ff., 33; dedicated to freedom against all pressures, 316; King's educational leadership, 318; made President Emeritus and also Trustee Emeritus, 321; inauguration of President Cole, 322; Second Century Fund, 323; financial development traced by King, 325; King's death, 327; King's speech at Connecticut Valley Alumni dinner, 328; memorial services, 329; his portrait in Converse Library, 330; Stanley King Professorship of Dramatic Arts, 330, 340; King's Senior Chapel talk, 332; need to adjust curriculum to the times, 339; Wildlife Sanctuary, 340; social climate under King, 341; Amateur Night, 342; Presidents, 345; physical equipment, 349, 352; King at Faculty Club dinners, 356 Alumni Council, organized by Allis, 123; Fund Committee, 124; Chairman of Executive Committee, 295; Executive Committee on reopening fraternities, 311 buildings: Walker Hall, 7, 20, 327; President's House, 8, 206, 343; badly arranged and inadequate, 21; North College: "Deke" House, 21; Stearns Church, 184, 242 ff., 312; "Cage," 214, 287; Valentine Hall, 215, 270; Octagon: Frank L. Babbott Room, 223, 224; Johnson Chapel, 239, 241, 309; Sunday vesper service transferred to Johnson Chapel, 243; Mead Art Building, 244; student pranks started in Morrow Hall, 246, 249 f.; building projects, 266 ff.; Davenport Squash Building, 267; reconstruction of Johnson Chapel, 267, 268; dormitory libraries, 267 f.; memorial to Henry A. King, 268; gymnasium, 268; Harold I. Pratt Swimming Pool, 269; college infirmary, 269; Little Red Sehoolhouse for faculty children, 269; Kirby Memorial Theater, 269, 339 f.; remodeling of Faculty Club: alterations to Walker Hall, 274; fraternity houses used as barracks, 298; dormitories, James Hall and Stearns Hall, 314; Converse Memorial Li-

Index brary, 325; Williston Hall, 327, 349; Boyaen House: Wildlife Sanctuary: Morgan Hall, 340 committees, 263; Rugg Committee, 139; Faculty Committee of Five: Rounds Committee, 140; Plimpton Committee, 142; abolition of standing committees and formation of Committee of Six advocated, 203; Committee of Six, 203, 222-29 passim, 293, 354; Advisory Committee, 205; Executive Committee, 224; Faculty Committee on Long Range Policy, 233, 244, 293, 311, 350; Special Alumni Committee on Postwar Amherst College, 234; Alumni Sub-Committee on Religion, 244; special committee to consider building projects, 266 S.; Buildings and Grounds Committee, 271, 272, 291; War Service Committee, 297; Special Gifts Committee, 323; "Committee to Educate the President," 354 Corporation: Faculty viewpoint on questions under discussion brought to, 225; Chairman, 263 Faculty: strong group inherited by King, 200; schisms among Faculty and alumni: registrations falling off: positive action required, 201; King's program outlined before, 201 ff.; cold reception of King's proposals, 204; final cooperation, 205; relations with King, 217-36; authority and responsibilities, 217, 235; disturbed because of King's lack of teaching experience, 220; academic freedom for, 221, 235; desire to smoke at meetings, 223; Frank L. Babbott Room devoted to meetings of, 224; promotions: professors who received honorary degree of Master of Arts, 226; salaries for, and administrative officers: sabbaticals, 227; retirement: pension plan, 227; young instructors, 229; Distinguished Service Medal presented to, as a collective unit, 276; minute adopted on death of King, 354-56 Faculty Committee on Long

359 Range Policy, 233, 293, 350; conclusion re chapel and church attendance, 244; recommended abolition of fraternities, 311 fraternities: "rushing season," 25; abolition of, recommended, 234, 310; Fraternity Business Management of the College: Committee on Postwar Fraternities, 235; drinking carried on in fraternity houses as in a private club, 255; evils of system, 257 ff., 26; regulations re presence of girls in chapter houses, 258; oranizations disintegrated, 259; uner fire, 278; problem of preserving values of, 295; rushing in wartime, 297; suspended, 298; pooling program: fraternity houses as barracks, 298; decision on, imperative, 309; King's stand on abolition of, 310; Fraternity Business Management Committee in favor of maintaining fraternities, 311; resolution to reform rather than to abolish, 311 Society of Alumni, need for a new dining hall emphasized in King's talk to, 215; compulsory military training urged, 292 Student Council: tax levied for new gymnasium, 268; voted to suspend rushing for duration of war, 298 Trustees, Board of: King a member of, 40, 132, 133, 348; Finance Committee headed by Morrow, 136; celebrate King's inauguration, 205; King's colleagues on Board in 1921, 262 ff.; routine procedure, 263; minute adopted on death of King, 351-53 undergraduates : King's student days, 20-34; Sophomore-Freshman fight, 22; Senior debates, 32; King's greetings to, 207; student ownership and driving of automobiles, 208; Postwar Generation and mood of Depression Decade, 237-61; disciplinary problems taken over by King, 245; Porter asked to codify rules, 245; repeal of legislation re conduct of, 246; mock 'left wing" demonstration by, 246 ff.; King's aim

360 Amherst College ( Continued) to keep erring student in college, 249; window-breakers, 250 f.; restoration of name expunged from records, 253 f.; drinking, 254 ff.; problem re ownership and use of motorcars, 256; contribution of Kings to social life, 261; selfishness and indifference, 294, 297; registered undergraduates: military and naval units on campus, 299 Amherst-Williams football game, 129, 215 Andrews, Charles A., 136, 183, 189, 264, 290; Distinguished Service Medal, 276 Appalachian Club, 337 "Area and Language," Army detachment at Amherst for instruction in, 299 Army Air Corps, 299 Arnold, Matthew, 176 Arsenal and Navy Yard Wage Commission, 90 "Association of Owners of Lowlands and Meadows around Chilmark Pond," 174 Athletics, King's attitude toward, 24 Atkinson, Professor, 289 Atkinson, Fred W., report on King's Senior year at high school, 17 Atwood, Albert W., 32, 33; impression of King in Freshman year, 23 Automobiles, injunctions re use of, by undergraduates, 256 Ayres, Leonard, 102, 162, 281 Babbott, Frank L., 127, 224; honorary degree, 276 Baker, Newton D., 88 f., 135, 347, 351; on Borglum's criticism of aircraft program, 91; on Borglum's claim against the government, 93; mentioned as a nominee for presidency, 98; appreciation of King's work and friendship, 100, 103 f.; trip of inspection to Europe, 100; letters to King, 103, 104, 105; on Rock Island Arsenal lay-off, 115; desire to appoint King Assistant Secretary of War, 116; King inclined to support for presidency, 194, 196; Frank-

Index furter's opinion of, as candidate, 195; honorary degree of Doctor of Laws conferred on, 275 f. Baker, Robert H., 20, 22 Baldwin, Roger, 150 Balfour, Arthur James, 101 Bali dancers, 171 Bally, Max, 60 Bangkok, 170 "Barn House," 151, 155 Barrie, Sir James, 56 Bassett, John, 175 Baxter, James P., Ill, 315; honorary degree, 277 Beale, Joseph Henry, Jr., 38, 39 Bechtel, Edwin De Turck, 154 Bechtel, Louise (Seaman), 177 Beebe, Ralph A., 233 Beer, experiment of serving in college cafeteria, 254, 255 Bermuda, 178 Besse, Arthur, 52 Besse, Florence, 36 Besse, Gertrude, 36; King's fiancée, 43; marriage, 44; see further King, Gertrude Besse, Lyman W., 36 Best, William H., 117 Beveridge, Albert J., quoted, 18 Big Change, The (Allen), 19 Bigelow, William P., 223 Billings, Dwight B., Distinguished Service Medal, 276 Bird, Francis W., 40, 50 Bixler, J. Seelye, honorary degree, 277 Blanchard, Ferdinand Q., 132 Bliss, Dan, 185 "Bloody Brook Massacre, The," 33 Bond Prize, awarded King, 33 Boot and Shoe Workers' Union, attacks upon King, 93 Borglum, Gutzon, unjustified criticism of aircraft program, 90 ff. Boston Chamber of Commerce, King a director of, 52, 119 Bowdoin College, intercollegiate debate with, 32 Boyden, Frank L., 262; honorary degree, 277 Boyer, Gouverneur, 31 Brandeis, Louis D., 41, 44, 48, 195; quoted, 42

Index Brannan, Joseph Doddrige, 39 Breasted, James H., 164 Brent, Bishop, 102 Brewster, Florence (Mrs. Kingman Brewster), 156, 158 British War Office, purchase of sheepskins, 86 ff. Brooks, Van Wyck, 173 Brown, Bailey, 233 Brown University, 137 Bryce, Lord, 331 Bucharest, 58, 59, 75 Buffalo & Erie Railroad, 14 Bullitt, William C., 101 Burgess, W. Randolph, 281 Burt, George H., 41 Business, vicissitudes of, 106-22 Butterfield, Victor L., 315 Buxton, C. Edward, 159 Cadieux, Louis E., 25, 33 Caldwell, Louis G., 186, 263 "Camp, The," 151, 156 Canfield, F. Curtis, 339 Canton, 169 Cantonment Adjustment Commission, 90 Carnegie Corporation, 281 Century Magazine, 138 Chamberlain, Helen, 59 Chandler, Lester V., 233 Cheng, Sir Chentung Liang, 33 Child labor, 113 ^Chilmark" (G. King), 154 "Chilmark Associates," 154 Chilmark Pond, 172, 173 Choate, Rufus, 35 Cholera epidemic in Petrograd, 71 Christian tradition, effort to preserve among students, 242 Churchill, George Bosworth, 22, 30, 31, 140, 200 Churchill, Winston, 55, 341 Clark, J. Maurice, honorary degree, 277 Clemenceau, Georges, 101 Cobum, John B., 329 Cochran, Thomas, 125, 180 Coffin, Henry Sloane, 242 Colby & Bayley, 79 Cole, Charles W., 229, 234, 235, 321, 329, 353; chosen President of Am-

361 herst: academic career, 314; installed in President's House, 319; inauguration, 322; on Margaret King's development of President's House and grounds, 343; memorial address in Johnson Chapel, 347-50 Cole, Kitty (Mrs. Charles W.), 319 Colgate University, Doctorate of Laws bestowed on King, 206 Collective bargaining by agents of labor's choosing, 114 Columbia University, Woodbridge's connection with, 179 Commodity market, unprecedented heights: downward trend, 116 Communist rally, mock, 246 ff. Compton, Karl T., 335 Compulsory military training, 292 Conant, James B., 224; honorary degree, 277 Congressional delegation, on the Leviathan, 100 Connecticut River flood, 286 ff. "Consecrated Eminence, The" (King), 160, 266, 326 Converse, Eudocia Carter, 8 Coolidge, Calvin, 120, 134, 136, 155, 160, 176, 210, 262; stand on Boston police strike, 110; Vice-President of the U.S., 128; thought a minister should be President of Amherst, 185; answer to King's request for advice, 192; postwar policy, 196 Cooperative living, experiment, 151 Copeland, Charles T. ("Copey"), 332 Cornell, Katherine, 173 Cosmos Club, King elected a member of, 96 Council of National Defense, 80 ff.; committees, 81; King appointed an expert in, 85 Cowles, Professor, 30 Craig, Bernard J., 20 Crossett, Ned (Edward C.), 18 Crowell, Benedict, 116 Cruikshank, Paul, 173 Curley, James M., 196 "Current Problems of Unemployment and Recovery Measures in Operation" (King), 335 Curtis, Lionel, 164 Cushman, Solomon, 7

362 Dale, Chalmers, 6 Dark Forest, The (Walpole), 63 Dartmouth College, Doctorate of Laws bestowed on King, 206 Davis, Herbert J., honorary degree, 277 Davis, John W., 155 Dawes, General, 102 Deerfield Beach, King's winter home, 321, 328 Delta Kappa Epsilon, King a member of, 25, 132 Delta Kappa Epsilon House, 330 Delta Upsilon, King's father a member of, 25 Dennett, Tyler, honorary degree, 277 Depression, financial, see Financial crisis, 1929 Depression, industrial, 1920, 114 Dewey, Ccoigc, Admiral, 171 Dewey, John, 157 Dick Rahar's Inn, 21 "Dirt farmers," Amherst undergraduates as, 297 Distinguished Service Medals, 276 Doshisha School, 169 Doughty, Howard W., 205, 223, 296 Douglas, Lewis W., 262, 281, 304; honorary degree, 276 Drinking, undergraduate, 254 ff. Duffey, Edwin, 132; gift to Amherst, 268 Duffey, Mrs. Edwin, 239 Durant, William C., 129 Dynasts, The (Hardy), 57 Eastman, Joseph B., 29, 32, 37, 53, 119 Eastman, Lucius R., 133, 182-90 passim, 206, 240, 263, 266, 291 Eastman, Max, 154, 173 Eckley, Paul W„ 230 Economic disaster, see Financial crisis, 1929 "Economic Security" (King), 335 Edgartown, 151 "Educating Your Son" (King), 334 Education, postwar period favorable for fund drives in interests of, 125 Egypt, the Kings' trip into, 164 ff. Eighteenth Amendment repealed, 254 Eisenman, Charles, 81, 84; target of attacks by retailers, 82

Index Eliot, Charles W„ 38, 220, 338, 345; quoted, 232 Eliot, T. S., 342 Ellis, A. D„ 7 Ells, Arthur F., 37, 353; honorary degree, 277 Ely, Joseph B., 210, 280; quoted, 215 Emergency Wage Construction Commission, 90 Emerson, Benjamin K., 30, 190, 223 Emerson, Guy, 173 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 138 Employee representation, 108 f., 114 Employers, lack of a labor program, 108; strengthening hands of radicals, 109 Endicott, Henry B., 97 Ends of the Earth, The, 171 Esty, Edward T., 134, 139, 140, 142, 184, 189, 190, 262; honorary degree, 276 Esty, Thomas C., 186, 200, 205, 219 Europe, King's impression of political affairs, 60 Evening Transcript, Boston, 114, 280 Eyes, muscular difficulty, 39, 40 Fales, Frederick S., 214 Fancy dress parties, 167, 168 Farming projects, of Amherst students, Faculty, and administration personnel, 297 FBI, 231 Federal government, King's work for, during war, 78-105; assigned to Committee on Supplies, 81; salary, 84, 90; appointed an expert in Council of National Defense, 85; as Confidential Clerk to Secretary of War, 89 ff.; commissions and boards served on, 90; as private secretary to Baker, 94; on trip of inspection to Europe, 100; resignation, 103; formal report, 104, 105; active part in labor problem during the war, 107; government's withdrawal from its emergency activities, 108; attempts to bring King into service during industrial and economic crises, 280 ff.; on encouraging best students to enter service, 334

Index Government Printing Office, 98 Federal Housing Authority, 302 Filene, Edward A., 280 Financial crisis, 1929, 176 ff.; weathered by King, 121; effect upon Amherst enrollment, 178; broke down many barriers which fostered respectability, 238; College rebuilt while nation in dire straits, 286 Financial crisis, 1931: Great Britain off the gold standard, 194 Fire, started by Freshmen, 249 First National Bank of Boston, 120 Fish, Frederick P., 218 Flag, burning of American, in mock Communist rally, 246 f. Flood, Connecticut River: evacuation of Hadley to Amherst, 286 ff. Florida, 321 Flynt, Ella Eudocia, 6 Flynt, Jonathan, 6 Flynt, Maria Lyon, 8 Flynt, Thomas, 6 Flynt, William King, 8 Flynt, William Norcross, 6, 7 f. Flynt Building and Construction Company, 7 Flynt Granite Company, 7 Flynt Park, 7 Folger, Henry C., 324 Folger, Mrs. Henry C., 325 Folger Library, 212, 347 Forbes, Allan, 280 Fort Benning, Ga., West Point Preparatory Unit at, 301, 302 Fort Portal, 165 Forty-eight hour week, 108 Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 242 Fosdick, Raymond, 100, 154, 155, 173, 210 Foster, Richard Wells, 36 Four Freedoms speech, Roosevelt's, 292 Francis, Clarence, 324 Frankfurter, Felix, 89, 90,96,154, 210; King's most distinguished classmate, 37; honorary degree from Amherst, 38; professor in Harvard Law School, 81; on political situation in 1932, 194 ff.; conception of function and responsibility of a college,

363 197 ff.; on Amherst as a radiating center for a civilized life, 198; honorary degree, 277 Frankfurter, Marion, 154 "Freedom of the College, The," King's final speech, excerpts, 315 ff. French, Lord and Lady, 65 French, Edward A., 280 Freylinghuysen, Senator, 90 Fuess, Claude M., Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Alumni Council, 295 Gainsborough, portrait of Lord Amherst, 268 Garman, Charles E., 27, 29 Garrison, Lindley M., 88 Garrison, William Lloyd, 246 Gates, Merrill Edwards, 27, 191; as President of Amherst, 345 Gay Head, 151, 152, 153 General Education in a Free Society, Harvard Report, 234 General Motors Corporation, 129 George D. Olds Professor, Cole appointed as, 314 George Washington, 102 Germany, King's attitude towards, 60, 78; military strategy altered, 78; diplomatic relations with, broken off; war declared, 79 G.I. Bill of Rights, 302 Gifford, Walter S., 80 Gillett, Arthur L., 134, 139, 142, 188, 262 G.I.'s, compulsory chapel regulation denounced by, 313 "G.I. Village," 303 Glynn, Martin H., I l l Gompers, Samuel, 108, 110, 113; patriotic devotion throughout war, 104; opposition to plan proposed at Industrial Conference, 114 Goodale, Professor, 340 Goold, Edgar H., 22, 23, 25 Gosse, Edmund, 11 Government, see Federal government Graduates' Quarterly, 211; excerpt from "Inauguration Number," 216; estimate of King's administration, 317, 318

Index

364 Graham, Frank P., 315 Gray, John Chipman, 38 Creat Britain, unable to maintain gold standard, 194 Great Rift Valley, 166 Green, Warren, 289, 297 Gregory, Thomas W., I l l Griswold, Whitney, 173 "Guide Book to Southern California and Return," 15 Guild, Curtis, 9 Hadley, residents evacuated: care of refugees at Amherst, 287 Ham, J. Roswell, honorary degree, 277 Hammond, Charles, 8 Hand, Learned, honorary degree, 277 Haradon, Roland S., 29 Harbord, General, 102

Harbor strike, New York City, 96 Harding, Warren G., 120; postwar policy, 196 Hardy, Thomas, 57 Hardy Prize Debate, 33 Harmsworth Collection, 325 Harper's Monthly, 153 Harris, George, 27, 30, 127; on undergraduate pranks, 245; as President of Amherst, 345 Harvard Law Review, King's election to, 39 Harvard Law School, King enrolled at, 36; his courses, teachers, grades, 38, 39; granted degree of Master of Arts, 40 Harvard Law School Bulletin, 328 Harvey, George, 88 Haskell, Adam, 154 Haskell, Natalie, 154 Hatry firm, failure, 121 Hayes, Ralph, 88, 94, 102, 154, 215; picture of Keppel, 95; quoted, 213 Havnes, George H., honorary degree, 276 Herald Tribune Forum, 335 Heyl, Ernest, 66 Heyl, Walter, 101 Higginbottom, Sam, honorary degree, 277 Higher education, opportunities and duties of, 197 f.; power of adaptation essential to an institution of, 202

High Sheriff of Hampshire County,

211

Hirsch, H. J., 84 History, final honors taken by King, 33 History of the Endowment of Amherst College, A (King), 264, 325 Hitchcock, Edward, as President of Amherst, 345 Hitchcock, "Old Doc," 30, 266 Hitler, Adolf, 194, 304, 315; death, 302 Holmes, Cyrus, 7 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 195 Holt, Sylvia, 149 Honorary degrees, awarding of, 275 Hooker, Richard, 111, 114; quoted, 113 Hoover, Herbert, 111, 112, 113, 114, 135, 169, 177; invitation to King to serve on St. Lawrence Commission, 120; postwar policy, 196; renomination: King's vote for, 197; defeated for presidency, 209; tragic close of administration, 286 Hopkins, Arthur J., 200; Distinguished Service Medal, 276 Hopkins, Ernest M., 90, 94, 98, 150, 188, 214, 282; correspondence with King, 161 f.; citation for King, 206 Hopkins, Harry, 341 Horse races, see Races Hough, Henry, 151, 152 Hours of labor, 108, 113 House of Truth, 96 Housing, 113 Howe, Quincy, 55 Howes, Ernest G., 160 Hubbard, Elbert, 252 Hughes, Charles E„ 92, 195 Human relations, King's reputation for skill in, 90 Humphrey, Heman, as President of Amherst, 220, 337, 345 Huntington Farm, 287 Hurricane of 1938 in New England, 288 ff. Ickes, Harold, 294 Industrial Conference, First, 111 Industrial Conference, Second, 111 ff.; Report, 113 "Industrial Conference and What May Be Expected from It, The" (Hoover), 114

Index Industrial depression, 1920, 114 Industrial relationships, King a leader in, 349, 351 Industry, uncertainty and unrest: shifting of balance of forces, 107; upsurge of prosperity, 120 Inflation, wartime, 110 "In Praise of Politicians" (King), 334 Intellectual capital, modern world's need for, 199 Intercollegiate Debating Team, watch fobs, 32 International Shoe Company, merger with McElwain Company, 117; production, 118; King elected a Director, 119; his retirement, 161 Interpretive dancing, class in, 155 Interstate Commerce Commission, investigation of railroad situation, 119 Ipsen, Ernest L., portrait of King, 330 Jackson, Margaret Pinckney, 159; see further King, Margaret James, Arthur Curtiss, 123, 129, 136 James, William, 193 Jameson, Dr., 167 Japan, Kings' visit to, 169; attack on Pearl Harbor, 233, 259; collapse, 313 Java, 170 Jefferson, Thomas, 210 Johnson, Hugh S., asked King to be member of Consumers Advisory Committee, 280 Johnson, Tom, 195 Joint Army and Navy Committee on Welfare and Recreation, 283 Jonescu, Take, 58 Jordan, Harry B., 115 Jordan, Lloyd P., 230, 287, 288, 289, 297 Joshua Crosby House in Enfield moved to Amherst, 320 J. P. Morgan & Company, 124, 129 J. Sigle & Co., 53 Kabayama, Aiske, honorary degree, 277 Keezer, Dexter M., honorary degree, 277 "Kellogg Fifteen," selected to compete for prizes in declamation, 31 Kendall, Henry P., 26, 154, 178 Kendall Company, 176

365 Kennedy, Gail, 233 Kenyon, Dorothy, 153, 154 Keppel, Frederick P., 89, 95, 96; on plans for studying War Department machinery, 281 Keyes, Homer Eaton, 127 Keynes, John Maynard, 157 Khartoum, 164 Kiev, civilians in a panic, 69 King, Ames, 10 King, Carrie, 10; death, 150 King, Dick, see King, Richard King, Dwight, 6 King, Gertrude (daughter), 49, 156, 163,168 King, Gertrude (wife), 49, 57, 103; in Italy, en route for Russia, 61; audience with Queen Marie: return to U.S., 66; in Paris, 76; financial status, 109; character and personality, 150; poem, 154; death, 156; writings published, 157; invitation to Margaret Allen, 159 King, Harvey, 12 King, Harvey Roswell William, 12 King, Henry Amasa, 8, 9 ff„ 32, 277, 348, 351; Stanley's study in law office of, 35; made City Solicitor in Springfield, 40; ill health: death, 178, 267; principle laid down by, 246; memorial to, 268 King, Joanna, 8 King, Margaret (daughter), birth, 49; death, 156 King, Margaret (wife), 152, 268, 339, 342; work on King's last book, 327; on King's last days and death, 328; memorials to husband, 329; as wife, 343 f.; development of President's House and grounds, 343 King, Richard, 49, 156, 189, 268, 277; athletic success, 24; at school in Switzerland, 163; vacation, 168; fraternity initiation, 215 King, Stanley, personal life: background and early influences, 3-19; interest in genealogy, 4, 338; ancestors, 5 ff.; father's influence, 9 f.; childhood and youth, 10; record at Classical High School, 17; a born teacher, 30; desire to shake off domestic chains, 35; fiancée, 36, 43;

366 King, Stanley, personal life (Cont.) marriage to Gertrude Besse, 44 ( s e e also King, Gertrude); critical illnesses, 47, 156, 165, 178; children, 49 ( s e e also King, Gertrude; King, Richard); a director of Boston Chamber of Commerce, 52, 119; as courier to carry State Department pouch from Bucharest to Paris, 76; family matters, 149-58; home in Sharon, 149; death of first wife and youngest child, 156; engagement to Margaret Allen, 160, 161; marriage and honeymoon, 162 f. ( s e e also King, Margaret); an independent in politics: support of Baker for presidency, 194, 196; distrust of Democratic leadership, 210; ideal marriage with Margaret, 343 personality, character, and mentality, 17, 23, 180, 199, 331 ff., 340 ff.; as raconteur, 54; love of nature, 157; liberalism and tolerance, 222; a political independent, 222; physique and personal appearance, 331; as a speaker, 332 ff.; a human dynamo, 336 travels: in the U.S., Alaska, and Canada, 14 ff., 36; Europe, 43, 162 f.; Africa, 164; return to Boston and to Amherst, 167; decision to go round the world, 168; Orient, 169 business life: contact with McElwain, 40 ff.; association with McElwain Company (q.v.), 43 ff.; development of social consciousness, 43; salary, 44, 45, 47, 85, 109; initiation as a negotiator in labor dispute, 44; elected a director and partner in McElwain Company: share of profits, 47; estimate of his debt to McElwain, 48; investment in Company, 49; European adventures, 51-61; a director of Boston Chamber of Commerce, 52, 119; trip to England with Hedwig Sigle, 54; in Europe at outbreak of World War I, 56; encounter with inspection officer, 58; in wartime Russia, 62-77; under arrest, 62; trip from Bucharest to Petrograd, 68 ff.; return to U.S., 77; vicissitudes of business, 106-22;

Index policy suggestions to McElwain, 106 ff.; understanding of workers and their problems, 109; financial status, 109; at Second Industrial Conference, 111; indebtedness: sacrificed personal assets to keep good name, 118; connection with International Shoe Companv: cut own salary in half, 119; Chairman of Transportation Committee, 119; rehabilitation of fortune, 120; "hunch" re 1929 stock prices: liquidation of investments, 121; retirement from business, 160, 161; able to avert calamity in stock market crash, 177 — government service: on duty in Washington, 78-105; attitude towards Germany, 78; as arbitrator in labor controversy, 79; assigned to Committee on Supplies, 81; given task of redrafting specifications for quartermaster supplies, 82 f.; frontal clash with Smith, 82 f.; salary in government service, 84, 90; appointed an expert in Council of National Defense, 85; control of sheepskins in U.S., 86; as Confidential Clerk to Secretary of War, 89 ff.; commissions and boards served on, 90; unwilling to remain on Committee on Supplies unless disassociated from McElwain Company, 93; advised Baker of corporate securities held, 94; as private secretary to Baker, 94; with Baker on trip of inspection to Europe, 100; reading matter and topics of discussion on voyage home, 102 f.; resignation as private secretary to Secretary of War, 103; formal report, 104, 105 — Amherst College: undergraduate, 20-34 (see further under Amherst College); Freshman year diary, 22 f.; shift in standing at Amherst, 25; Delta Kappa Epsilon member, 25 ff., 132; work in oratory and debating, 31; Senior year, 32 ff.; college course done in three years, 33; "reading law" in father's office, 35; enrolled at Harvard Law School, 36-40; most distinguished classmate, 38 ( s e e further

Index Frankfurter, Felix); passed bar examinations, 39 postgraduate activities: philanthropies, 122; alumnus extraordinary, 123-48; devotion to Amherst, 123 ff., 337; Vice-Chaiiman on Centennial Gift campaign, 126 ff.; knowledge acquired of pnysical plant of College, 127, 131; pledge to fund, 131; as Alumni Trustee, 132, 133, 148; relations with Meiklejohn, 138 ff.; summoning up testimony on Meiklejohn, 144 ff.; declined to be candidate for presidency of Amherst,161; relationship between Woodbridge and, 179 ff.; on Morrow, 180 f.; elected life member of Amherst Corporation: named as Chairman of Executive Committee, 183 President: formal offer of presidency, 189; acceptance, 190; election, 190, 200; conception of duties and conduct of President of Amherst: intellectual qualities, 199; essential to win respect and approval of Faculty, 201; administrative task, 202; program outlined before Faculty, 201 ff.; intention of taking disciplinary matters into own hands, 202, 209; Woodbridge's approval of program: chagrin at Faculty's reception, 204; full cooperation of Faculty, 205; academic honors, 206, 277, 315, 335; greeting to undergraduates, excerpt, 207 ff.; inauguration, 209 ff., 3; relations with Faculty, 217-36 (see further Amherst Faculty); never allowed prejudices to affect attitude towards others, 236; and the undergraduates, 237-61; violation of Rule Six, 241; initiation into administrative grief, 246 ff.; respected but not loved, 252; contribution to social side of undergraduate life, 261; as an administrator, 262-85, 352, 356; Report to Trustees, 264; interest in institutional financing, 264 f.; an effective money raiser, 266; building projects undertaken at Amherst, 266; address at dedication of War Memorial, 273; Distinguished Service Medal presented by, to "The Fac-

367 ulty," 276; public service while President, 279; suggested as candidate for governor of Massachusetts, 280; attempts to bring him into government service during economic crisis, 280 ff.; gifts to, on tenth anniversary, 296; approval of government plan for training service men on college campuses, 300; stand on abolition of fraternities, 310; recreations, 337; Amherst's ablest president, 345; crises met, 349, 352, 355 retirement, 301-19; letter of resignation, 306; resignation publicly announced, 313; climax of career, 315; defense of academic freedom, 315 f.; awards to Senior Class, 316; ovation to: gifts, 317; as educational leader, 318; made President Emeritus and also Trustee Emeritus, 321 closing years, 320-30; address of greeting to President Cole, 322 f.; writings, 324 ff.; death, 327 memorials: services in Johnson Chapel, 329; portraits, 330; ave atque vale, 331-46; memorial address by Cole, 347-50; tributes to, 347-56 King, Thomas, 6 King, William, 6 King, William Rufus, 6 King Place, 168 Kinsolving, Arthur Lee, 211, 262 Kipling, Rudyard, 171 Kirby, Ellwood R„ 339 Kirby Estate, 252 Knickerbocker Trust Company, 46 Labor, class conscious, 107; has definite program, 108; hours of, 108, 113 Labor leaders, tribute to, 99; see also Gompers, Samuel Labor-management relations, 106 ff.; employee representation, 108; conferences called to find remedy for conflict, 111; conflict between capital and labor a private fight, 114 Labor troubles, 42, 44, 110; King's dealings with, 96 ff.; his report on, 98 ff.; after armistice, 100; see also Lay-off; Strikes Ladd Oration prize, 33 Ladies' Dress and Waist Industry, 79

368 Lamont, Thomas W., 125, 180 Langdell, Christopher D., 38 Languages, King's proficiency in, 16 Laslti, Harold, 164, 334 Law, reading in father's office, 35 Lawrence, Arthur, 61 Lawrence, William, honorary degree, 277 Lay-off, Rock Island Arsenal, 115 League of Nations, 195 Lee, Higginson & Company, 117, 121 Lend Lease Bill, 292 Leopold, Crown Prince of Belgium, 102 Leviathan (boat), 100, 161 Liberator, The, 153 Lindbergh, Anne Monow, honorary degree, 277 "Lineal Ancestors of Stanley King," 4 Lippmann, Walter, 89, 90, 150, 154, 189, 197,210, 214; quoted, 157; honorary degree, 277 Liquidation Commission, 101 Locke-Spinoza tercentenary, 210 London, University of: students serving the government, 334 Long, Huey, 315 Loomis, Frederic B., 140, 205 Lord Jeff Club, 257 Lord Jeffery Inn, 305, 342 "Lord Root-of-the-Matter," 341 Lowell, Abbott Lawrence, 195, 218, 266 Lumley, Professor, 297 Lusitania (boat), 56 Lyon, Mrs. ("Aunt Lyon"), 8 Lyon, Horatio, 7 McCall, Samuel W„ 111, 114 McCloy, John J., 315; address at dedication of War Memorial, 274; honorary degree, 277 McConaugny, James L., honorary decree, 277 McEiwain, J. Franklin, 46-47; made President of McEiwain Company, 51; in Europe, 57; Chairman of Shoe and Leather Supply Committee, 81; quoted, 118 McEiwain, W. H., Company, 40 ff.; King's association with: elected Secretary, 43; strike of lasters in Bridge-

Index water plant, 44; King elected a director ana partner, 47; officers, 51; enlightened labor relations, 52; purchase of timber land and railroad in Nova Scotia, 53; enlightened management, 80; King unwilling to remain with Committee on Supplies unless disassociated from, 93; business policy and labor relations, 1069; urged to take initiative in own field, 108; effect of fluctuation in commodity market, 116; merger with International Shoe Company, 117; good name, jobs, and factory organization preserved: officers' sacrifice of savings, 118 McEiwain, William H., 40 ff.; proposal re adjustment of labor-management disputes, 45; course of reading, 45; operation and death, 46 f.; King's estimate of his debt to, 48 McEiwain, Mrs. William H., 46 Mack, Julian W., 85 McKim, Mead & White, 182, 268 McLane, John R., 90 MacLeish, Archibald, 198 MacMeekin, Richard, 339 Manthey-Zom, Otto, 200, 321, 356; estimate of King's administration, 317 Manufacturers, old policies towards labor unsatisfactory, 107 March, Peyton C., 95, 103 Marie, Queen of Rumania, 59, 66 Martha's Vineyard, 35, 36, 151 ff. Martha's Vineyard, Summer Resort, 1835-1935 (Hough), 152 Massachusetts Bar examinations, 39 Massachusetts Commission on Stabilization of Employment, 279, 334 Massachusetts Committee of Safety, 294 Massachusetts State Recovery Board, Committee of Nine, 279 Massasoit Hotel, 34 Masses, The, 153 Mathematics, Old's course in, 28 Mayhew, Jeremiah, 172 "Mayhew Place," 153 Maynard, Robert W., 182, 189, 263, 266; honorary degree, 277 Mead, Mrs. William R., 322

Index Mead Building, 322 Meiklejohn, Alexander, 191, 200, 201; avoidance of responsibility for Centennial Gift, 127, 138; declination to solicit funds for Amherst, 136; 1'affaire Meiklejohn, 137 ff.; rebuff to King, 138; regarded as a voice of educational liberalism, 139; Plimpton Committee agreed that ne should resign, 143; letter of resignation, 144; could not admit that he was responsible to anyone, 144; real problem, 145; Morrow troubled about decision on, 146; effect of affair on College, 146; letter of greeting to incoming president, 211; as President of Amherst, 345 Memorial Theater, 252 Menemsha, 152 Menemsha Bight, 175 Message to Garcia, A (Hubbard), 252 Metropolitan Magazine, 65, 153 Meyer, Eugene, Jr., 91 Military training, compulsory, 292 Millikin, Arthur N., 266; gift to Amherst, 269 Mixed Tribunal, 164 Monson, 6 f. Monson Academy, 6 Moody, William H„ 44 Moore, Mrs. William H., gave chemistry laboratory to Amherst, 181 Moore, Zephaniah Swift, President of Amherst, 345 Mores modified by war and its aftermath, 19 Morgan, Charles H., 356 Morgan, J. P., & Company, 124, 129 Morgan, Vincent, 233 Morison, Samuel E., honorary degree, 277 Morrow, Dwight W., 139, 142, 182, 191, 241, 322, 326, 348, 349; believed 1929 stock prices not justified, 121; devotion to Amherst, 123 ff. passim; member of Allied Maritime Transport Council, 124; concern for unhappy financial position of Amherst, 124; Chairman on Centennial Gift campaign, 125 ff.; on Board of Trustees, 134; head of Finance Committee of Trustees, 136;

369 troubled about decision on Meiklejohn, 144, 146; declined presidency of Amherst, and declined to be a candidate for presidency of Yale, 160; "most significant figure in modern Amherst history," 180; death, 183, 262; Amherst s most beloved son, 213; on two kinds of persons, 235; trust fund established by, 268 Morrow, Mrs. Dwight W., honorary degree, 276 Morrow, Dwight W., Jr., 276 Moscow, 65 Motion picture theater, free shows for Hadley refugees, 288 Mountains of the Moon, 165 Murder in the Cathedral (Eliot), 342 Murder in the Kitchen, 342 Muscle Shoals Case, 97 Mussolini, Benito, 194, 315 National Council of Defense, 80 ff., 85 National Defense Act, 79 National Education Association, 15 National Harness and Saddlery Adjustment Commission, 90 National Recovery Administration, King asked to be member of Committee, 280 Navy Pre-Flight school, 299 Nazi agent at Amherst, 231 Neesima, Joseph, 169 Neilson, Raymond P. R., portrait of King, 330 Neilson, William A., 240 Nelson, Donald, 282 Neutrality Act, repeal favored by undergraduates, 293 New Deal, 197; instituted for benefit of the Forgotten Man, 210 New England Association of College Presidents, 254 New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, King President of, 336 New England Historic Genealogical Society, 5 Newlin, William I., 31, 200 New York Central Railroad, 14 Nicolson, Harold, 129, 137, 140, 146, 181

370 Niebuhr, Reinhold, honorary degree, 277 Nieuw Amsterdam, 77 Nile voyage, 164 f. Nolo, plea of, 248 Northeast Harbor, Maine, 43 Noyes, Henry T., Distinguished Service Medal, 276 Oak Bluffs, 152 O'Brien, Officer ("Obie"), 246 O'Connell, P. A., 280 Oko, Adolph, 210 Old age insurance, 113 Olds, George Daniel, 27, 28, 30, 147, 160, 201, 205; declination to solicit funds for Amherst, 136; elected as Acting President, 144; President, 345 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 291 Oratorical composition, prizes, 33 Orient, 169 "Other House, The," 172 Packard, Laurence, 205 Page, Arthur W„ 283 "Paige's horse is in the snowdrift" (Woodbridge), 179 Palmer, Frederic, 89, 90, 91, 95 Park, James W., 33; on King's attitude towards collegiate athletics, 24; quoted, 29 Patton, Cornelius H., 134, 187, 262 Pearl Harbor, 233, 259 Pease, Arthur Stanley, 146, 176, 189, 200, 201, 211, 222, 345; declination to solicit funds for Amherst, 136; elected as President of Amherst, 162; inauguration, 163; offered a professorship at Harvard: resignation as President of Amherst, 183 f.; on undergraduate pranks, 245; honorary degree, 276 "Pecuniary ideal based on a pecuniary standard," criticized, 333 Percy, Eustace, 57, 96 Perry, Arthur L., 217 Perry, Lewis, 173 Pershing, Francis Warren, 100 Pershing, John J., 86, 101 Petrograd, cholera epidemic: martial law, 71

Index Phi Beta Kappa, King elected to, 33 Phi Beta Kappa Address, King's, at Columbia University, 334 Phi Kappa Psi, 298 Phillips Academy, Andover, 184 Pierce, George E., 263, 264 Pitkin, Wolcott H., 153, 154 Planning and Fair Practices Committee for the Boot and Shoe Manufacturing Industry, King on, 280 Plimpton, George A., 139, 142, 181, 184-87 passim, 190, 205, 211, 262, 322; personality, 133; plan to restore Steams Church, 243; death, 263; a solicitor of gifts to Amherst, 265; advice to King, 269, 306, 309 Plumb, Glenn E„ 113 Police Union, 110 Political transformation in U.S., 210 Politics, central issue, 196; Frankfurter's concern with direction in which emphasis is thrown, 197 Poole, Matthew, 167 Poole House bought by Kings, 167 Porter, C. Scott, 207, 222, 247, 297; asked to codify rules of the College, 245 Porter Admission Prize, 22, 23, 25 Postwar period, 110 Pratt, George D„ 134, 136, 186, 190, 262, 263, 266, 268; Distinguished Service Medal, 276 Pratt, Mrs. George D., gift to Amherst, 268 Pratt, Harold I., 266 "Preface to the Place of Religion in Amherst College, A" (King), 324 Prescott, Charles J., 46, 47, 51; trip to Nova Scotia, 53; purchasing policy of McElwain Company determined by, 116; break down, 117 Prescott, E. L., 46, 47, 51; illness, 117 "Presidential honeymoon," 216 Preston, Charles, 65, 70, 71 Price, Lucien, 137 Progressive Education Movement, 238 Prohibition, 254 Prophets Unawares (Price), 137 Public Laws 16 and 346, see G.I. Bill of Rights Public opinion, power of, 113

Index Public relations problem presented to King, 97 Pullman Company, 14 Pulsifer, Ethel, 154 Pulsifer, L. Valentine, 154, 160 Putilov Powder Works, strike, 71 f. Quabbin Reservoir, 320 Quarterly, 295; excerpt, 258; on fraternities, 309 Races, Preston and King win at, 72 "Radical," definition, 221 Rahar's Inn, 21 Rand, Edward K., 184 Rand, Frank C., 117, 160; quoted, 118 Ratcliffe, S. K., 57 Recollections of the Folger Shakespeare Library (King), 324 Redwood, Eleanor, 56 Reed, John, 153; in Petrograd, 65 Reisner, George A., 164 Religion, 241 Republican, Springfield, 111, 184, 247 Republican Party, 194; renomination of Hoover, 197 Rhodes, Cecil, 167 Richardson, Ellsworth E., 230 Richardson, Henry B. ("Richie"), 27 Rip Van Winkle, 13, 18 Robinson, Boardman, 85, 153, 154 Robinson, Mrs. Boardman, 153, 156 Rockefeller, John D., Jr., quoted, 99 Rock Island Arsenal lay-off, 115 "Romany Rye," King's home in Sharon, 149; sold, 157 Roosevelt, Franklin D„ 280; King in disagreement with Frankfurter re, 196; nominated for presidency, 197; facing exigency amidst economic disasters, 201; elected President, 209; revolution without guns, 210; Four Freedoms speech, 292; elected for fourth term, 301; death, 302 Roosevelt, Theodore, 16 Root, Elihu, 281 Root, Elihu, Jr., 154 Rosenwald, Julius, 111, 112; chairman of Committee on Supplies, 81; dinner parties, 85 Rostas, Steven M., 230 Rotary Club of Amherst, luncheon, 207

371 Rotary Club of Chicago, 334 Rounds, Arthur C., 134, 140, 262 Rowley, J. Robert, 293 Rublee, George, 284 Rugg, Arthur P., 134, 139, 185, 211, 248, 262, 271 Rugg Committee, 139 Rule Six, 241 Rumania, contract for army boots, 59 Russell, Bertrand, 157 Russia, Kings en route for, 61; wartime, 62-77; war machine breaking up: revolution inevitable, 63; midnight dinner, 64; hospitality, 65; King unable to secure satisfactory contract, 65; approached re post of Ambassador to, 283; declined, 284 Russian language, King leams to converse in, 67 Russki, General, 71 "Sabbath" restrictions, 11 Sable Lumber Company, 94 St. Lawrence Commission, King invited to serve on, 120 St. Louis Exposition, 36 Salmon, Dwight, quoted, 292 Salter, Sir Arthur, 299 Salt Meadows, 321; King's house on Martha's Vineyard, 152, 168, 171 ff. Saltonstall, Leverett, honorary degree, 277 Santayana, George, 213 Saturday Evening Post, 104 Scandrett, Richard B., 283; Distinguished Service Medal, 276 Scholars, real responsibility of, 138 Scientific management, 80 Scott, Walter, 118 Sears, Roebuck not permitted to sell goods to army or navy, 82 Secret societies, see Amherst, fraternities Sedgwick, Ellery, 96 Seelye, Julius Hawley, President of Amherst, 191, 337, 345 Seligman, Eustace, 324 Sharon, 49; King's estate at, 149; sold, 157 Sharpe, Henry G., 82, 83, 95 Shaw, George Bernard, 109 Shaw, W. L„ 51

372 Sheepskins, British agent sent to purchase all available in U.S., 86 ff. "Sheet system," developed, 42 Shoe manufacturing plant, King considered building in Russia, 73 Shurcliff, Arthur A., 272, 291 Shutdown, see Lay-off Siam, 170 Sigle, Hedwig, 54 Sigle, J., & Co., 53 Smith, Abiel L., 82; placed on retired list, 84 Smith, Catherine, 82 Smith, Harry de Forest, 138, 140, 186, 189, 190, 200, 205 Smith, Jeremiah, 39 Smith, Luther Ely, Distinguished Service Medal, 276 Smith, Luther Ely, Jr., 342 Snell, Bertrand H., 128 Socialization of industrial and financial processes versus individualism, 196 "Some Problems of College Administration" (King), 335 South End House, 37 Spinoza, Baruch, 210 Springfield Classical High School, 16 If. Springfield Printing and Binding Company, 4 Squier, George O., 91 Starr, Mrs., 17 State Recovery Board for Massachusetts, King appointed a member of, 280 Statism, greatest threat to freedom, 316 Steams, Alfred E„ 184, 262, 263, 313; suggested for presidency of Amherst, 187, 188; put himself out of the running, 189; address conferring honorary degree of Doctor of Laws upon King, 277; to King on his resignation, 307 ff. Steams, Frank W., 134, 187, 262; honorary degree, 276 Steams, William Augustus, 184, 220, 337; as President of Amherst, 345 Stearns, William F., 184 Steel industry walkout, 110 Steffens, Lincoln, 101 Stein, Gertrude, 341 Stevens, Ray, 170

Index Stewart, Walter W., 140, 143 Stillman divorce case, 132 Stimson, Henry L., 194, 281; honorary degree, 277 Stock market financial landslide, see Financial crisis, 1929 Stone, Harlan Fiske, 123, 192, 202, 262, 263 Stone, J. T., 262 Storrow, James J., 117, 118 Straight, Willard, 96 Straus, Oscar W., I l l Strikers, Russian: sent to Siberia or fired on by troops, 72 Strikes, Putilov Powder Works, 71 f.; Watertown Arsenal, 97; in postwar period, 110; right to strike: prevention of, 112; see also Labor troubles Stuart, Sir Campbell, 164 Stuart, Madame, 67 Student, 32, 240, 260, 268, 309, 314 Student Handbook, legislation re undergraduate conduct printed in, 246 Sullivan, Cornelius J., 132 Sunday observance, 242 Taft, Horace D., honorary degree, 277 Taft, William H., 113 Tannenberg, Battle of, 63 Taussig, Professor, 112 Tavares, Jim, 61 Taylor, Frederick W., 80 Taylor, George R., 233 Teachers, reactionary insistence upon dismissal of radical, 221 Teachers' Insurance and Annuity Corporation, 227 Teachers' Oath, 221 Telephone, first conversation from ocean to shore, 103 Thacher, Henry B., 287, 289 "This Is Your Heritage" (MantheyZom), 317 Thomas, M. Carey, 82 Thompson, Frederic L., 140 Times, New York, 325 Toklas, Alice B., 341 Tokyo, bombed, 302 To My Dreams (G. King), 157 Transportation Committee, King Chairman of, 119

Index Treadway, Allen T., honorary degree, 276 Trull, Herman, 56 Truman, Harry S„ 283 Truth-seeking, the ideal of Amherst, 198 Turgeon, Frederick K., 328 Turner, James, gift to Amherst, 269 Turners Falls air field used for training Navy pre-flight cadets, 299 Twain, Mark, 118, 171 Tyler, Mason, 13 Tyler, "Tip" (Prof. John M.), 13 Underwood, Senator, 97 Unemployment, 1932, 178, 209 Unemployment and recovery measures, King's address on, 335 Unemployment insurance, 113 Ungeni, King in a tough spot at, 74 Union Pacific, 14 United Shoe Machinery Company, 43, 51 United States, diplomatic relations with Germany broken off: war declared, 79; see also entries under Federal government War Department, war labor functions of, 99; plan for studying, 281; Amherst's contracts with, terminated, 302 Industrial Relations Branch: King's work on, 90, 93 War Department Civilian Protection School, Amherst gave its facilities to, 299 War Policies Board, 90 War Production Board, Office of Civilian Supply: King approached re directorship, 282 United States Army Air Forces, PreMeteorology C Unit, 299, 301 United States Military Academy at West Point, Preparatory Units at Amherst, 299, 301, 302 Urechia, Captain, 59 Valentine, Alan, honorary degree, 277 Valentine, Mrs. Samuel H., gift to Amherst, 270 Van Etten, Edwin J., honorary degree, 277

373 Veblen, Thorstein, 101 Veracity of the Hexateuch, The, 343 Verdun, bombardment of, 78 Vergil, 104 Victoria Falls, 167 Vineyard Gazette, 151 Vorshtchak, General, 65 Wadsworth, James, 101 Walkouts, see Strikes Wallace, Hugh C„ 100 Wallas, Graham, 57, 104, 154, 157 Walpole, Hugh, 63 Walpole Trust Company, 94 Wambaugh, Eugene, 38 War in Eastern Europe, The (Reed), 66; Robinson's collaboration, 153 Warren, Clifford P., 37, 79, 85, 153, 154 Warren, Edward Henry, 39 Warren, Margaret (Mrs. Clifford P.), 154 War with Spain, 18 Washington, King on duty in, 78-105; see further under Federal government Weather men, Pre-Meteorology C Program for, 299, 301 Weathers, Paul, 307 Webster, Daniel, 35 Weeks, John W., on Borglum's claim against the government, 92 Wels, Charles, 100 Wesleyan University, Doctorate of Laws bestowed on King, 206 West Chop, 152 Weyl, Walter, 195 Whicher, George F., 356; summing up King's career, 345 Whitcomb, Ernest M., Distinguished Service Medal, 276 Whiteside, Arthur, 282 Whitman, Charles S., 123, 128 W. H. McElwain Company, see McElwain, W. H., Company Wickersham, George W„ 111, 112, 195 Wildlife Sanctuary, 340 Wilkins, Ernest H., 31, 185 Willard, Daniel C„ 113 Williams, Talcott, 32 Williams College, King awarded honorary degree at, 335

374 Williamstown and Williams College (Perry), 217 Williston, Samuel, 39 Wilson, Eugene S. ( " T u g " ) , 132; Vice-Chairman on Amherst Centennial Gift campaign, 126 flF.; Distinguished Service Medal, 276 Wilson, Eugene S., Jr., 263; on Amherst War Memorial, 272; on King's resignation, 307 Wilson, William B., I l l , 112 Wilson, Woodrow, 116, 124, 195, 219; warning to Germany, 78; declaration of war, 79; Council of National Defense, 80; industrial conferences called by, 111 ff.; stroke, 111 Winship, North, 71, 164 Witney, George W., Distinguished Service Medal, 276 Woodbridge, Frederick J. E., 160, 213, 262, 268; professor and dean at Columbia: Alumni Trustee of Amherst, 134; relationship between King and, 179 ff.; on overhauling internal administration of Amherst: career,

Index 179 f.; Berlin professorship: resignation as Amherst Trustee, 182; return to Columbia and to Amherst Corporation, 183; correspondence with King re presidency of Amherst, 185-93 passim; quoted, 204; view that powers of college president should be enlarged, 209; as toastmaster at King's inauguration, 214; impressions of the inauguration, 216; on chapel attendance, 240; on Judge King, 267; on conferring of honorary degrees, 275 Wordsworth's Happy Warrior, 124 Work stoppage, see Lay-off; Strikes World Crisis, The (Churchill), 55 World War I, 55 ff., 78 ff. World War II, 292 ff.; incidents leading to, 194; officially terminated, 309; Amherst emerged stronger and more vital, 349 Worthy Hotel, 23 Yalta Conference, 301 Yellowstone Park, 36 Yoimg, Owen D., I l l , 135