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[7J 000 The Fate ofa Noncandidate T HO MAS D. C LA R K, in the second volume of his history, Indiana University: Midwestern Pioneer, states that whereas I may have borne the title "acting president" I never really cast myself in that role. He went on to say, "Clearly, he acted like a president from the start." While Dr. Clark was writing this volume he made similar remarks to me. At the time they seemed farfetched, almost preposterous. I remembered little of what took place from July 1, 1937, to June 30, 1938. Throughout my life I have tended to think infrequently about the past, concentrating rather on the future. I have that habit even now. The story of an incident that occurred long ago might illustrate the point. At the death of Val Nolan, a trustee of the university, it was of course the sad duty of the trustees and officers of the university to attend the funeral. The transportation from Bloomington to Evansville was organized by Ward Biddle, the university comptroller . President Emeritus Bryan was to take his Buick, driven by his old chauffeur, Rocky, and Mr. Biddle assigned Trustee Paul Feltus and me to go with him. Feltus approached Ward Biddle privately, I heard later, and objected to his assignment, saying, "Can't you put me in another car? I don't want to ride 120 miles to Evansville and 120 miles back with two men who don't smoke and don't even know they live in the present. Bryan talks only about the past and Wells is somewhere off in the future." What little memory I have of that period centers on the incident , of which I have already written, when I told Judge Wildermuth that I would undertake the acting presidency if he would promise not to consider me for the position of president. I-also recall a great sense of inadequacy in undertaking the office. In other words, I was just plain frightened at the prospect of stepping into the po- [94] The Fate of a Noncandidate 95 sition that William Lowe Bryan had held with great distinction for thirty-five years. Thus I discounted Dr. Clark's comments almost wholly. Much to my surprise, however, when I began to read the minutes of the Board of Trustees' meetings for the fall of 1937 and the spring of 1938, reviewed my correspondence files for that period, and read some of the contemporary accounts of the events of the year in Alumni Association publications and in newspapers, I came to understand the'basis for Dr. Clark's conclusion. From the record, one can easily gather the impression that he had. My interpretation of that record is something like this: When I began as acting president I had been a dean for two years, had had many contacts with President Bryan, and had been active in university-wide administrative affairs. I was already familiar with the university's current problems and opportunities. It seemed to me that in the final years of his presidency Dr. Bryan had grown even more vigorous and had accelerated the pace of his leadership. Several new members had joined the Board of Trustees in the previous two or three years. They were youthful, vigorous, ambitious for the progress of the university, and quite imaginative and courageous in their outlook. In the period just prior to 1937 a building program had become possible because of the availability of federal Works Progress Administration (w P A) and Public Works Administration (p W A) grants, which encouraged the state either to appropriate matching funds or to provide them by a general-purpose bond issue. These federal funds had been appropriated to help states alleviate their unemployment. The state legislature wished to get its share of these funds to stimulate the economy of Indiana, which was still sluggish after the Great Depression. Further, the General Assembly in the spring of 1937 had authorized and funded a pension system for the faculty in the state universities. This provision had been long sought because a large number of our faculty had grown old in the service of the university without any state provision having been made for pensions and thereby for a dignified retirement. The only choice faculty members had under such circumstances, if they were not independently wealthy, was to teach as long as they lived, even though their health might be failing or they might have grown weary after so many years of...

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