Zig-Zag-and-Swirl: Alfred W. Lawson's Quest for Greatness

10. Toward the Self-perpetuating Social Body

10 TOWARD THE SELFPERPETUATING SOCIAL BOD Y "So, balancing all things as a whole, this writer decided that the State of Iowa would be as favorable a spot as any from which to inaugurate the birth of a new species," Lawson proclaimed in a June, 1944, issue of Benefactor. Chief among the factors he cited as giving the edge to Iowa was the state's location: "The State of Iowa is situated in about the center of the most progressive nation on Earth." On this occasion he made no mention of the exhaustive investigation of thirty campus sites which he earlier had claimed. Instead, he hinted at providential help in finding the campus of the former Des Moines University: "As if the law of maneuverability upheld his past efforts in behalf of human improvement, Alfred Lawson was guided to an abandoned university within the city limits of that beautiful city of Des Moines, Iowa." Quickly recognizing that it was the perfect place for his new undertaking, he arranged the purchase in August, 1943. Surely it was no insignificant detail in this saga of the founding that this ideal site was also an extraordinarily good buy: fourteen acres of urban property and six large buildings for a price of $80,000. (The 1941 assessed valuation of the property was $106,110, but in 1943 Polk County had reduced the value for tax purposes to $34,850.) Lawson was quoted in the Des Moines press as finding the sale price "very satisfactory." Situated at the corner of Second and Euclid avenues in the Highland Park district on the north side of Des Moines, the 204 UTOPIA IN DES MOINES campus Lawson had bought occupied the equivalent of nearly four city blocks and was surrounded on two sides by residences and on the other two sides by a small neighborhood commercial area. The campus buildings included a gymnasium, heating plant, science and engineering buildings, and two dormitories capable of housing 240 and 150 students, respectively. The weathered brick of the buildings, the many big shade trees, and the large, well-established lawns produced the serene and inviting park-like effect acquired by many an American college campus with the passage of much time, which in the case of this campus had been over fifty years. Originally laid out in 1889 as the campus of Highland Park University, in 1911 the property had passed into the control of a board of trustees affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and then in 1918 was purchased by the Baptist Church, which changed the institution 's name to Des Moines University. In 1927, the property was again sold, this time to a fundamentalist religious group known as the Baptist Bible Union of North America. However, the new owners' tenure was very short-lived. Their attempts to impose a creedal test on faculty members and new restrictions on student activities stirred up great strife on campus, culminating in a violent student riot to which the trustees responded in September, 1929, by voting to discontinue the university. The timing of the trustees' action could not have been worse. The arrival soon thereafter of the Great Depression, followed by World War II, dried up the market for university campuses, discouraging even buyers who might have had ideas for alternative uses for the Des Moines property. Incredible though it will seem in the light of today 's high demand for well-situated urban properties having development potential, the Des Moines University campus went for fourteen years unoccupied, unused, and unable to attract a buyer until Lawson came along. Although Lawson always claimed afterward to be the "donor" of the new institution, he spoke more candidly to a Des Moines Register reporter shortly after coming to Des Moines to take possession: he "isn't putting a nickel" of his own money into the purchase, he said on that occasion, but was using money raised by voluntary donations to the Humanity Benefactor Foundation. THE SELF-PERPETUATING SOCIAL BODY 205 Nearly two years later, the Register sent reporter George Mills to Detroit , capital city of Lawsonomy, to learn more about these "voluntary donations" and the financial relations between Lawson and his followers . Mills uncovered a Lawson circular dated February 16, 1944, which listed contributions totalling $84,219 for the purchase of DMUL. That is, within only six months of signing the purchase agreement, Lawson had been able to raise from his followers $4...