Ernest A. Paviour

Transcription:

JE: Mr. Paviour, when you were a student at the University in the early 1900s, who were some of the professors that impressed you the most?

EP: Well, at age eighty-four I still have vivid recollections of the splendid teachers of the period when I attended college, nineteen hundred and six to 1910. There was Joseph Henry Gilmore[1], the author of He Leadeth Me. He taught rhetoric and English. And so did John R. Slater[2]. John R. Slater inspired to me to want to write and to make speeches. Another professor that I have vivid still in my memory was William Carey Morey[3], professor of History and Political Science.  He drew large attendance at his classes. One time, a student continually interrupted him. He finally could stand it no longer, and he said, “Mr. Levis[4], if you want to make a speech, I suggest you go out and hire a hall.” [laughs]

Then there was Clarence King Moore[5] who was a language professor. He once marked a student minus ten. The student complained, asked how could a person get a minus on an examination paper. Fuzzy Moore said, “Well, that’s for the trouble of correcting your paper.” [laughs]

Another greatly admired teacher was Kendrick Shedd[6], professor of German. He was forced to resign by the Board of Trustees because of some alleged socialistic speeches which he made in forums outside the college. He had one of these addresses in a public school – he said that the flag of universal brotherhood was bigger and better than the flag of any individual nation. That, he was simply an advance agent for the United Nations, but the trustees felt he was socialistic and that statement was a reflection on the stars and stripes and “Sheddy,” as he was lovingly called, was forced to resign from the faculty.

Then there was Henry Fairchild. Henry – oh no, Herman LeRoy Fairchild[7]. Then there was Herman LeRoy Fairchild, professor of geology. He’s the man who discovered the underground river in this section. He wrote many books on geological subjects, papers of one kind or another. One could see him sometimes strutting down East Avenue with a rock in each hand. He was a unique character.

Arthur Gale[8] in mathematics was also head of a large class of people. They went to Gale’s classes because they like him, not because they liked mathematics. All these teachers were teachers, not researchers. We didn’t know, really, the meaning of research back in my days in college.

Ryland Kendrick[9] was a professor of art, and also a professor of Greek. I once listened to a lecture of his on the history of art. In the course of the lecture, Professor Kendrick said that the city hall was a blot on the Erie Canal; that the Douglass Monument in front of the New York Central Station should be put in a backyard where no one can see it. And that the chief function of the Chamber of Commerce was to bring tin cans factories to Rochester. [laughs] This aroused the anger of Roland B. Woodward[10], who was then secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. He complained to Rush Rhees. Rush Rhees called me and made it plain that it was not the privilege of a correspondent of – for an evening newspaper, to quote a professor in the classroom. I had written that lecture in the form of an interview and sent it in to the Evening Times[11].

JE: Was there a student newspaper in those days [12]? And, if so, how did it compare to our present Campus Times?

EP: Yes, there was a paper called the Campus, not the weekly Campus Times, and not long ago, I wrote out a comparison of our Campus of October 10, 1919 with an issue of the Campus Times of October four, nineteen hundred and sixty-eight under the heading, “The Coon-Skin Coat Has Gone Too.” [laughs]This article was never published but I would be glad to review it now. And the issue of October four, nineteen hundred and sixty eight, forty-nine years later, the Campus Times had no athletic groups whatever on page one. Its feature article concerns the forthcoming speech of Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther leader, in Strong Auditorium[13]. Dominating the page was a picture of Cleaver. Out of jail again on fifty thousand bail. In the earlier Campus, more than one half of page one was devoted to football. The schedule includes Princeton and Colgate. The choice of handling news is really a thermometer of student temperature. I might go on.

In the early Campus of 1919, in Anderson Hall there was a meeting of the YMCA addressed by President Rush Rhees and Dr. Albert Beaven[14], then pastor of the Lake Avenue Baptist Church and later president of Colgate-Rochester Divinity School. In that article Dr. Beaven said that the three fundamental questions facing the 1919 generation were democracy, justice against might, and humanity against exploitation. A writer in the ’68 paper apparently felt about the same way. He described the work of the Reverend Bennie Brass and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in fighting rats and decayed housing in the inner city[15].

What it amounts to today, that the student now is very much interested in outside civic affairs, while back in 1919, and in the earlier days of 1906 and 1910, campus life completely absorbed the student. He had really no interest in political and outside affairs – social, political, and outside affairs.

JE: You were very active in fundraising campaigns for the University. Do you think it was more difficult then or is it more difficult now to persuade people to contribute to higher education?

EP: Well, I participated in three major fundraising campaigns. They were all successful on reaching the goals. In 1919, we raised a million dollar endowment with much difficulty; the endowment was for the purpose of raising teachers’ salaries[16]. Then in 1924 I was again involved in the publicity of a ten million dollar campaign. George Todd[17], close friend of George Eastman, had suggested the removal of the men’s college to the River Campus site between Genesee River and the Mount Hope Cemetery then occupied by the Oak Hill Country Club. Ten million was raised under the slogan, “Dad! Give for me! A Greater University for a Greater Rochester.”[18]

Then, the third campaign was in nineteen hundred and fifty three, another ten million dollar effort[19]. De Kiewiet[20] was then President of the University and he took the position that the University could no longer bear the excessive cost of two separate colleges, a college for women and a college for men. The purpose of this campaign was to remove the women to River Campus, Oak Hill site. Many said at that time de Kiewiet wanted to send Prince Street’s princesses up the river.

That campaign was a very difficult one. Three different people who were principals in it were taken ill and had to retire from the organization efforts of the campaign. One was Joseph R. Wilson[21], the other was Dr. Albert Kaiser[22], and the third was Donald Gilbert[23]. Two of these men eventually died of heart attacks. Because of the dearth of leadership, I finally – I agreed to take over the chairmanship of the campaign to succeed Dr. Albert Kaiser, who was ill.  No one else wanted it but they put the pressure on me to take it over. We – at that time we had an outside money-raising campaigner there. We were in constant friction with him on ideas of how to raise the money and all the elements of the campaign. We didn’t agree very much. But we did finally succeed in getting together the ten million dollars and of course we know that the women were moved over to the River Campus[24].

Well, I really do think that it would be more difficult to raise ten million now than back in the days of those two ten million campaigns. There’s no question about it. The so-called “establishment” has a certain hostility against some of the campuses because of student unrest. ‘Course Rochester has been more or less free of that situation but it has to participate to somewhat in the national feeling against the giving to colleges on the part of some of the wealthy givers of the past.

I really think that this situation on the American campuses started improving; will continue to improve. I think one of the jobs of the – get off the campus the students who are not attending for the purpose of getting an education at all. I’m sure that all of the universities and colleges do have numbers of those people. They’re either there just to pass the time away or they’re there to create a disturbance. And there again Rochester – because otherwise the leadership hasn’t had the numbers that other institutions have had of that character. And pretty soon I think the protestors will take the place of those that are protesting against the [leadership of industry and that ought to change the situation somewhat.

JE: I think it was in 1923 a group of Rochesterians proposed putting the Eastman Theatre and the Eastman School of Music on the tax rolls of the city. What were the circumstances surrounding this episode?

EP: Well, George Eastman at that time had begun to give money to the University. At the outset he told Rush Rhees he was not interested in higher education at all. He wasn’t interested in giving money to a Baptist institution. He had previously told . . . his attorney, Walter S. Hubbell[25], who was also a member of the Board of Trustees at the University of Rochester and a teacher of a large Bible class in a local church, that he wasn’t interested in the education of Baptist ministers.

But it was Dr. Rhees, of course, that started the U of R on the road to greatness. The development – the education of George Eastman by Rush Rhees is one of the epics of higher education.  Rhees first approached Eastman for a small – relatively small gift in about nineteen hundred two for the establishment of a science school on the Prince Street-University Avenue Campus. Eastman refused at first; then he finally came around and gave some money for the building because “Dr. Rhees didn’t bother me.” And later, then other gifts started.

Of course, the Medical School came to a head just before nineteen hundred and twenty. The General Education Board – the Rockefeller Board approached Eastman and Rhees with the idea of organizing a new type of medical school in this area[26]. For that enterprise Eastman gave four million, the General Education Board gave five million, and the two daughters of Henry A. Strong, the first president of Eastman Kodak, threw in a million dollars for the hospital section[27]. In those days you could get a hospital room for four dollars and fifty cents. And also, bear this in mind: the hospital was built back in the early twenties for one million dollars. The present hospital under construction is going to cost more than sixty million dollars[28].

Then, prior to the Medical School, Eastman had also decided that he wanted to see a music school established in Rochester.[29] He was going to put up the entire bill for that school and theater. And both of the music school and the hospital and medical school, he spent an endless amount of time with the architects and working out details. He was very much interested in the building plan of both these big schools.

Well, then in – soon after the opening of the Eastman School of Music and Theatre in 1922 . . . Julius Hoesterey, Jr.,[30] President of the Lithographers Union, James L. Brewer[31], a liberal attorney, decided they were going to test in the courts the tax-exemption of the Eastman Theatre[32]. When that news broke on the newspapers, Eastman was infuriated. I received a call from Dr. Rhees to meet him over in his home of that time, the old Seelye House[33] at the corner of University Avenue and Prince Street. When I arrived, George Eastman was prancing around the big reception room with his fists clenched. He said, “If that theater’s taxed I am going down with hammer and nails and closing the door myself.”[34]

After a long discussion, we decided to work out a publicity campaign and enlist the support of Frank Gannett[35], publisher of the Union newspaper[36]. The first step that I took was to write a ringing editorial denouncing the proposed taxation and describing Eastman’s efforts to make Rochester the musical center of the world and he would with the best pictures and the best music[37]. At the same time I wrote twelve letters to the editor supporting the editorial. I called on my friends to give authenticity to these by lending the use of their name. Then I started, after the editorial was run, I fed in the letters to the editors supporting the editorial, and that brought in other letters[38]. And pretty soon the other newspapers also came to the defense of Eastman Theatre and the big musical enterprise. And finally the Central Trades organization repudiated the whole effort of Hoesterey and Brewer’s “tax the theater.”[39] The theater wasn’t taxed until Paramount-Publix, leased it . . . 1929[40].

After the excitement subsided somewhat, Frank Gannett called me up and congratulated me on the editorial. He said, “I have written many an editorial for the Times-Union but I never got the response that you obtained on this one of yours that I ran.” But I didn’t tell him I furnished my own applause, though. [laughs] And a short time later, he offered me a position on one of his newspapers[41].

JE: Well, what do you think of the present proposal to put certain buildings on the River Campus on the city tax rolls?

EP: Oh yeah. Perhaps they will be taken care of automatically. The University of Rochester seems to be slowly acquiring all the fraternity houses for direct University purposes. I believe that where most of the criticism arose over taxation of fraternity houses. And that’ll be sound all right. Well, I really believe that if a non-profit educational or any other kind of non-profit organizations owns certain companies that are operated for profit, well then those companies operated for profit ought to be taxed. I think that has been brought up in New York City and some other parts of the country where universities actually own profit-making businesses. We don’t have that situation here at all.

JE: You’ve been active in publicity and advertising all of your adult life. What is your opinion of the value of a public relations department in a university?

EP: Well, when I left college in 1910, I first had this job as a newspaper reporter. Even after I left the newspaper business for the insurance agency of my father, I still was called upon to run many publicity campaigns and write publicity for various organizations. One of those organizations was the University of Rochester[42]. Well I had a hard time convincing Rush Rhees that publicity wasn’t dangerous. He really feared publicity.

And that was true also of the medical people. When the Medical School and hospital opened, I was writing articles there, but apparently Dr. McCann[43] or Dr. Whipple[44] didn’t like one of them. I don’t know which one it was. But anyway, they called me down to the University Club at a luncheon meeting and told me – I think they thought the best publicity for a medical school and hospital was no publicity. And they read some paragraph from the Monroe Medical Society booklet about publicity not being proper for hospitals and medical schools.

Well, it wasn’t until 1919[45] when Raymond Ball[46] became the first Alumni Secretary of the University that we really got started to operate. Rush Rhees, he was a hundred percent for sometimes a concerted publicity action. But we made some ground, but still Dr. Rhees was skeptical of publicity. And . . . I was the unofficial, unpaid publicity writer – in those days we called them “publicity agents”; we didn’t have any high-sounding names –for the University up to the time Alan Valentine[47] became President in nineteen hundred and thirty-five.

Rhees was president for thirty-five years from 1900 to nineteen hundred and thirty five, then Alan Valentine followed for fifteen years, then de Kiewiet for another ten years.

During the office of Alan Valentine, he decided that the University needed publicity. He had an entire office of news out of Dr. Rhees and the Medical School people, and he set up the first University News Bureau under Armin Bender[48]. Bender did a good job in those early days. But at least we had both the Presidents of the University be publicized.

It’s absolutely essential to have news handled by a bureau or by some committee or by some organization in order to get the – create the proper atmosphere. You don’t have to always be complimentary to the institution either; you can give them news occasionally and some of it might be slight reflection, on the institution. I believe in being honest in publicity and telling the story; I’m sure if you use too much puffing and glorification that the desk doesn’t respect you, but you can get the compliments of the newspaper by playing the game well. Of course, it was a lot easier to get news stories in the newspapers back in my days anyway; you couldn’t possibly get away with what we did in those days. Now there’s no shortage of local news apparently at all, and a lot of stories that they played up in one- or two-column headlines when I was handling publicity would have a paragraph and a lot of miscellany today. The whole handling of college news is entirely different than it used to be.

JE: What are your impressions of the several Presidents who were here during your long association with the University?

EP: Well, I worked with the three of them: Rush Rhees and Alan Valentine and de Kiewiet now. The glamorous days were those with Alan Valentine, I think. I enjoyed when I worked at that time the most. Of course, he was the wartime President of the University of Rochester. The students from fifty-two colleges were being trained for the Marines and Navy on the U of R campus[49].  That was why we were able to beat Yale University at football in the Yale Bowl. We had some good athletes from other colleges[50]. [laughs]

But also, it was exciting days when the University of Rochester participated in the Manhattan Project, which was the project that you know for the atomic bomb. We had a big part, an important part in that. Then later our scientists, some of our scientists were – went over to the Bikini bomb[51].

All these things were interesting. And then also, Alan Valentine, aside from starting a news bureau, he also inaugurated the Rochester Prize Scholarships[52]; he made some of the best appointments, I think, of any President, staff appointments. He made the U of R a national institution. He got national publicity; his own speeches were typed at the Press Association picked up. He had a sense of publicity that many others didn’t have. His articles were widely quoted.

And then his commencements were really glamorous. There’s no question about it. He brought to Rochester distinguished people that we don’t do anymore. That included people like Walter Lippmann[53], Stanley King[54], George Washington Carver[55], Cornelia Otis Skinner[56], Douglas Freeman[57], Branch Rickey[58], Ralph J. Bunche[59] – I guess that’s B-U-N-C-H-E, Ralph Bunche, I guess you pronounce it – Anne Morrow Lindbergh[60]. And then he gave an honorary degree to Winston Churchill in nineteen hundred and forty-one by trans-Atlantic telephone[61], which attracted worldwide attention. He really publicized U of R far and wide. And Walter Lippmann, I remember his commencement address. It was simply the reading of the column that he was going to use the next day in his syndicated work. He was a syndicated news columnist and he just read a column that was going to be syndicated all over the country the next day as his speech at the U of R commencement[62].

But these – all these distinguished people that he brought – I only named a few of them – attracted publicity. They all had publicity value and U of R really had – became better and better known under Alan Valentine.

But both Alan Valentine and de Kiewiet didn’t always get along with the trustees. That’s a funny thing. Here Rush Rhees, the publicity-shy President, had the best public relations in the three of them. No question about it. He got along better with the student body, with the faculty, with the trustees, with the alumni, and with the outside public. He got along better than either Alan Valentine or Cornelis de Kiewiet. And yet he was publicity-shy.

Alan Valentine, then, his kind of – well, put it this way: Rush Rhees put the University in the big time, started on this . . . path of glory, you might say, with the help of George Eastman. And Alan Valentine really made the University a national institution, and Dick de Kiewiet, big function was the graduate work.[63] He emphasized graduate work and got us started in graduate work, which is very, very important today in any institution.

Also de Kiewiet and the ten million dollar campaign, which was successful. It did make the important contribution of cutting down our duplication costs of two separate colleges, one for women and one for men. And that was essential but there again, a very important trustee resigned at that time because he didn’t agree with the removal of the women to College for Men.

It’s interesting to note, though, after Rush Rh – after George Eastman – he first said he wasn’t interested in higher education and then he said he wasn’t interested in a college turning out Baptist ministers and the education of Baptist ministers. And he finally said he’d give money to U of R under the influence of Rush Rhees until he’d given over fifty million dollars to the U of R and large sums to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology[64] and sums to two Southern Negro colleges.[65] And he ended up by saying that “Progress of the world depends upon education.” Fortunately, the most prominent institutions of man are educational. They frequently endure even when governments fall.[66] That gives an idea of the change in the Eastman philosophy over a period of years from the time Rush Rhees first met him.

As a matter of fact I sent out a news article, an interview with Rush Rhees; finally, he consented to give me an interview two years before he died[67]. I was after him for many years to tell me the relationship of Rhees and Eastman. He finally did it. He gave me a long interview and his only restriction was he wanted to see the proof piece before I used them in any way. And I sent him, when he was done with his Maine summer home that year, a copy of the report of his interview. He made very, very – few changes. The three press associations picked this up. They also sent it out to leading newspapers and it provoked comment all over America. The New York Times used a column and three quarters of this interview with Rush Rhees on the development, you might say, of George Eastman.[68]

JE: What do you think the future of the University is going to be like?

EP: You’re talking about the University of Rochester. I had an idea that the arts college might have substantial changes. Of course, the University of Rochester has these two great world-famous schools of music and schools of medicine, and also it has widely recognized scientific laboratories, and splendid research projects. Those things will undoubtedly keep going on, but I’m wondering if the liberal arts college isn’t going to have some substantial changes. All over, not only in Rochester, everywhere – well, it may be that the liberal arts college will be reduced from four years to three years.

And this is my idea on that. When I was in college, the parents of most of the college students were only high school graduates or high school dropouts. Today the parents of the college students are generally college graduates. And the student grows up with the idea that he’s going to college. He has the college urge, it’s almost hereditary. And also the methods of teaching have changed. They’re so much improved. There’s no question about it: the college student today can learn faster. The result may be that you get the four years in three years in the future. I think that’s a real possibility.

And also, I think more and more people are, because of the high cost of education, are going to be satisfied with two years in a junior college or a community college. Those may grow faster than liberal arts colleges. I’m sure that the liberal art – the small liberal arts college will have a very tough time; it is already. It will continue to have a tough time. It’ll be in the same class as the corner grocer or the corner drugstore. It perhaps can’t survive.

But U of R is quite different – the school of – the various schools and the other features that I just mentioned.

JE: Thank you, Mr. Paviour.

[recording ends]

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