Remarks of Elvis J. Stahr President, Indiana University Introduction of Dr. Erwin D. Canham Clowes Hall, Indianapolis April 11, 1966 - 8 P.M
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Remarks of Elvis J. Stahr President, Indiana University Introduction of Dr. Erwin D. Canham Clowes Hall, Indianapolis April 11, 1966 - 8 p.m. Ladies and Gentlemen: I have experienced few platform privileges which have given me as much pleasure and pride as the opportunity to introduce this evening to the capital city of my adopted state, my distinguished friend, Erwin Canham. Our one-time Hoosier humorist, Abe Martin, observed that "a friend that ain't in need is a friend indeed." Dr. Canham "ain't in need." In fact, the size of this audience indicates he ain't even in need of an introduction' There are, however, a few sequestered facts about him that the long coupling of his name with the Christian Science Monitor may have obscured, though I disclose them with no thought that a career of such eminence requires enhancement from the details of its making. Erwin Canham was born in Auburn, Maine, and chose the vocation of his father in preference to the traditional call of his state to the sea. A graduate of Bates College and Oxford University (where like me he was a Rhodes Scholar but where he preceded me by exactly ten years) Dr. Canham has since acquired 21 additional degrees--the kind that take long years and extra- ordinary work and service to acquire--21 honorary degrees' The only one of these I shall mention this evening is that of Franklin College, the Alma Mater of our distinguished Governor. The Monitor enlisted Dr. Canham's services the moment he graduated from Bates and, except for the interlude at Oxford, he has been in its employ ever since--or it in his' Long a fine newspaper, the Monitor has become one of the outstanding journals of our country during Dr. Canham's association with it, as he progressed from reporter to Geneva correspondent, to chief of the -2- Monitor's Washington Bureau, then Editor in 1945 and Editor in Chief in 1964. The quality of Dr. Canham's editorial performance early brought him public recognition and assignment. He is a past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors; Chairman of the National Manpower Council; a director of the National Bureau of Economic Research; a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and a director of the World Peace Foundation. He serves on the governing boards of four colleges, two philanthropic organizations, and numerous other concerns as diverse as the Boston Public Library, the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Here again we find common interests, for the chairman of the John Hancock Board, Byron Elliott, is a distinguished Indiana University alumnus, a former Indianapolis Judge, and a present member of the I.U. Foundation Board, and my own current membership on the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago parallels Dr. Canham's in Boston. To all these services I've recited should be added the nationwide responsibility our distinguished visitor undertook as president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States in 1959, and since then as Chairman of the Board. Since busy men are popularly reputed to have the most time, it may not be surprising to some people but it still is to me that a man with so many commitments has also authored or co-authored five books: Awakening: The World at Mid-Century; New Frontiers for Freedom; Commitment to Freedom: the Story of the Christian Science Monitor; Man's Great Future; and The Christian Science Way of Life, with a Christian Scientist's Life. -3- Although the catholicity of Dr. Canham's interests is abundantly apparent, the authority he brings to his world view stems from experience he has gained as a firsthand observer at many of the conferences and events which have shaped recent history. Twenty years after Dr. Canham filled a reportorial assignment to the League of Nations in Geneva he returned there in the capacity of vice chairman of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Confer- ence on Freedom of Information in 1948, and the following year he was appointed Alternate American Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Were I to recite the long list of honors which have attended so much accomplishment, Dr. Canham's message to you would be too long postponed. But the regard for him other nations have shared with us may justify a few more moments' account. He has been appointed a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor; a Commander of the Order of Orange-Nassau, the Netherlands; an Officer of the Order of the Southern Cross of Brazil; and most recently, an Honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a privilege indeed to present to you Dr. Erwin D. Canham, whose subject tonight is "The Spiritual Revolution.".