Butler Alumnal Quarterly University Special Collections

Butler University Digital Commons @ Butler University Butler Alumnal Quarterly University Special Collections 1927 Butler Alumnal Quarterly (1927) Butler University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/bualumnalquarterly Part of the Other History Commons Recommended Citation Butler University, "Butler Alumnal Quarterly (1927)" (1927). Butler Alumnal Quarterly. 15. https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/bualumnalquarterly/15 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the University Special Collections at Digital Commons @ Butler University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Butler Alumnal Quarterly by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Butler University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE BUTLER ALUMNAL QUARTERLY APRIL, 1927 INDIANAPOLIS Entered as second-class matter March 26, 1912, at the post office at Indianapolis, Ind., under the act of March 3, 1879. n/.\^-\A -^-iSK^i^ Harry S. New Postmaster-General of the United States CONTENTS Founders' Day Address Hon. Harry S. New ' Founders Day Dinner Talks . Messrs. Nicholson, Dearing, New William H. Wiley A Friend A Greek Vase Henry M. Gelston Concerning Dr. Schliemann The Editor A Prophecy Penelope V. Kern College News— Editorial The Chicago Luncheon The Woman's League Accomplishment From the City Office Around the Campus Athletics The Varsity Debating Teams A Beloved Alumna Commencement Program Alumni Luncheons Personal Mention Marriages Births Deaths 1 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/butleralumnalqua16butl i/\- V ''"'^^^^ THE BUTLEB ALUMNAL QUARTERLY Vol. XVI - /7 April, 1927 No. 1 Katharine Merrill Graydon, '78 Editor George Alexander Schumacher, '25 Business Manager Published four times a year, in October, January, April, July. Annual sub- scription, $2.00; single copies, 50 cents. Cheeks, drafts, etc., should be made payable to The Butler Alumnal Quarterly. Published by The Butler University Alumni Association. Printed by The William Mitchell Printing Company, Greenfield, Indiana. FOUNDERS' DAY CONFERRAL OF DEGREE Dean James William Putnam : Mr. President, I have the honor to present to you the Honorable Harry S. New, Postmaster- General of the United States, that you may confer upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Peesident Robert Judson Aley : Harry S. New, native of this city, educated in our public schools, a well-remembered student of Butler University, for the twenty-five years following occupying positions on the Indianapolis Journal, for four years member of the Indiana State Senate, for six years member of the United States Senate, and for the past four years Postmaster- General of the United States, a citizen and a friend absolutely dependable: It gives me great pleasure to carry out the wish of the Board of Directors of Butler University and at this time by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Board of Directors of the institution to confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Laws, with all the rights, privileges and duties appertaining thereto. I now have the pleasure of introducing Doctor Harry S. New, who will make the address of the morning. 3 4 Butler Alumnal Quarterly Postmaster-General New: President Aley, members of the faculty, students of Butler University, friends of the institution: It is with great pleasure and the highest degree of satisfaction that I am here this morning. I find that my feet have not forgotten the paths they trod just fifty years ago when I was a student upon this campus. I esteem it, Mr. President, one of the greatest honors that have come to me that at the end of fifty years Butler Uni- versity has found it possible to confer upon me this eminent dis- tinction. THE ADDRESS The eyes of the oncoming generation are turned toward the future, along the broad avenues that lead to the tomorrows. The realization of ambitions, the fulfillment of the dreams of youth, all lie in that direction. It is the way of life and is right, for other- wise there would be no progress. And yet it is becoming of us to pause at appropriate intervals that we may look back over the road we have traveled and make appropriate acknowledgment to those who have helped us on our way. There are those to whom our gratitude is due, men and women whose self-denial, frugal thrift, and generous benevolences have made a prosperous present a fact and an even more glorious future a possibility. I like to feel that the earlier generations of Americans were wiser and better than their contemporaries in other lands. In fact, I like to believe and do believe that in the quality of their citizenship they were unsurpassed. They stand unequalled in any like period of man's progress. Whatever we Americans may make of ourselves hereafter, it is certainly true that in the earlier and formative days there lived in this then new countrj^ men who have never been surpassed in strength of character, breadth of vision and ability to plan for the future. Not all of them became famous, many of them were unknown beyond the limits of their own communities, but they were strong in character, resolute in purpose and notably mindful of the interests and welfare of the generations to come. As American citizens we have set aside national holidays that on them we may honor the memory of those who established on the The Address 5 firm foundation of our Constitution the best system ever yet devised for the self-imposed government of free men. Let us observe those anniversaries in a spirit of national thanksgiving and on each recurring occasion renew our determination that the fruits of the wisdom of the founding fathers shall not be allowed to perish; that the sacrifices of those who gave us a country and those who later saved it to us may not have been in vain. We may be pardoned if a sense of great national pride influences our judgment somewhat, but I believe that there never at one time existed a coterie of an equal number of men of as great intellectual capacity or of as beneficent character as those of the earlier generations of Americans. It is natural and proper that upon this occasion our thoughts should dwell rather upon those from whom we are most directly descended, those whose lives had an intimate bearing upon our own present. The men who a century ago crossed the Alleghenies and the Blue Ridge, who in the span of a single human life trans- formed the unbroken forests and the boundless prairies of a wilderness into the granary of the world and established therein its greatest workshops, were not of a race of weaklings. They were stalwarts of the best type of the early American citizen. They knew but one fear and that the fear of God. Hard as were the conditions under which they lived and grew, great figures emerged from the cabins in the clearings. From behind their doors came barefooted boys in homespun who were later officially to represent their country as ambassadors to the most polished courts of Europe. From them there came forth future presidents of the United States. Men who were to become skilled in the arts, eminent scientists, great lawyers, healers, preachers, first saw the light as it streamed through the chinks in the walls of those cabins. From one of the most obscure among them emerged Abraham Lincoln. As a whole they were self- reliant, independent, jealous of the preservation of their own rights and scrupulous in the observance of the rights of others. One feature common to the citizens of that day stands out in my mind with great prominence and that was their sense of duty to the communities of which they were themselves a part. I be- 6 Butler Alumnal Quarterly lieve they came nearer meeting the ideals of the relation the citizen should bear to the State than the men of any other period in history. They never lost sight of and never shirked the perform- ance of their duties to the public. They were mindful of their obligations to their contemporaries and those who were to follow. As towns sprang up and cities grew, the men of greatest prominence, recognized highest mental qualifications and most sub- stantial means were chosen to fill the local offices, especially those of administrative character. In the rural communities they were the peace officers, the " 'squires," serving in such capacity only from determination that the laws should be enforced. The scramble for local political spoils had happily not yet arisen. The men who served as members of the town councils, the local school boards, and who passed upon the fiscal and educational affairs of the communities were the leading citizens. If any salary attached to these places it was merely nominal and the citizen served in response to public demand for no other recompense than that which comes from a knowledge of duty well performed. What better instance may I cite in illustration of the thought I would convey than to remind you that Benjamin Harrison, later to become President of the United States, Albert G. Porter, after- wards Governor of Indiana, and Byron K. Elliott, who became Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, served as duly ap- pointed legal advisors of the then small town of Indianapolis? Many of the characters of the earlier days of the period were most attractively picturesque. Many became notable figures in every line of progress and development. The churchman and the educator were welcome to what cheer the settler could afford. The circuit rider of that day traveled from one small settlement to an- other over trails not much less obscure and difficult than those pursued by the Jesuit missionaries of an earlier period and by the influence of their ministrations molded the thought and practices of the time.

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