Nicholas Murray Butler

Nicholas Murray Butler (April 2, 1862 – December 7, 1947) was an American philosopher, diplomat, and educator. The co-winner with Jane Addams of the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize, Butler was president of Columbia University from 1902 to 1945, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1925 to 1945, and received the Republican Party electoral votes for Vice President of the United States in the 1912 presidential race, when the nominated vice presidential candidate James S. Sherman died in office a few days before the election. Butler's name was so widely recognised and his influence so great that he was able to deliver a Christmas greeting to the nation every year in the New York Times. Butler was, however, often criticized as arrogant. He also disliked Jews so much that as president of Columbia, he worked to limit the admission of Jewish students, and to prevent the election of Jews to the Board of Trustees. He was president of Columbia University for 44 years, the longest tenure in the university's history. He doubled the size of the campus and increased the enrollment by 30,000. Image File history File links NMButler. ... Image File history File links NMButler. ... April 2 is the 92nd day of the year (93rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 273 days remaining. ... 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... December 7 is the 341st day (342nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... Jane Addams Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was an American social worker, sociologist, philosopher and reformer. ... Lester B. Pearson after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is the name of one of five Nobel Prizes bequested by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel. ... Columbia University is a private university whose main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City. ... The Endowments headquarters at 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a private nonprofit organization promoting international cooperation and active international engagement by the United States of America. ... This article is about the modern United States Republican Party. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Chief Justice Associate Justices Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Minor parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures State Courts Counties, Cities, and Towns Other countries â€¢ Politics Portal • • The Vice President of the United States is the first in the presidential line of succession... Presidential electoral votes by state. ... James Schoolcraft Sherman (October 24, 1855 – October 30, 1912) was a Representative from New York and the 27th Vice President of the United States. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...

Early Life and Education

Butler was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey to manufacturer Henry Butler and Mary Murray Butler. He enrolled in Columbia College (which became Columbia University in 1896) and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1882 at the age of twenty, his master's degree in 1883, and his doctorate in 1884. Butler's academic and other achievements led Theodore Roosevelt to call him "Nicholas Miraculous." In 1885, Butler studied in Paris and Berlin and became a lifelong friend of future Secretary of State Elihu Root. Through Root he also met Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. In the fall of 1885, Butler joined the staff of Columbia's philosophy department. Map of Elizabeth in Union County Union County Court House Elizabeth is a City in Union County, New Jersey, in the United States. ... Columbia College is the main undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the universitys main campus of Morningside Heights in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York. ... A Bachelor of Arts (B.A. or A.B., from the Latin Artium Baccalaureus) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or program in the arts and/or sciences. ... A masters degree is an academic degree usually awarded for completion of a postgraduate (or graduate) course of one to three years in duration. ... Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ... Part of the Paris skyline with from left to right: Montparnasse Tower, Eiffel Tower, and in the background, towers of neighboring La Défense. ... Berlin is the capital city and a state of Germany. ... Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. ... Elihu Root Elihu Root (February 15, 1845 – February 7, 1937) was an American lawyer and statesman, the son of Oren Root and Nancy Whitney Buttrick. ...

In 1887, he co-founded, and became President of, the New York School for the Training of Teachers, which later affiliated with Columbia University and was renamed Teachers College, Columbia University. Throughout the 1890s Butler served on the New Jersey Board of Education and participated in forming the College Entrance Examination Board. Teachers College, view down West 120th Street. ... The College Board is a non-profit examination board in the United States that was formed in 1900 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB). ...

Presidency of Columbia University

In 1901, Butler became acting president of Columbia University, and in 1902 formally became president. United States President Theodore Roosevelt attended Butler's inauguration. Butler remained president of Columbia for forty-two years. During Butler's presidency, the university expanded its campus, erected a number of new buildings and added several new schools and departments. Among the innovations he oversaw was the opening of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, the first academic medical center in the world. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. ... New York-Presbyterian Hospital is a prominent university hospital in New York City, composed of two medical centers, Columbia University Medical Center and New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, each affiliated with an Ivy League University. ...

However, Butler also worked to limit the admission of Jewish students to the university, and to prevent the election of Jews to the Board of Trustees. (See "Butler and Anti-Semitism" below.)

Columbia named its main library building and a faculty apartment building in Butler's honor, along with a major prize in philosophy. Butler Library The Nicholas Murray Butler Library, commonly known simply as Butler Library, is the largest single library in the Columbia University Library System, which contains over 8. ...

Presidential Ambitions

Butler was a delegate to each Republican National Convention from 1888 to 1936. In the 1912 presidential election, Butler received the 8 vice-presidential electoral votes that would have gone to Vice-President James Sherman, who had died shortly before the popular election. In 1916, Butler failed in an effort to secure the Republican presidential nomination for Elihu Root. Butler himself attempted unsuccessfully to secure the Republican nomination for President in 1920 and 1928. The Republican National Convention, the presidential nominating convention of the United States Republican Party, is held every four years to determine the partys candidate for the coming Presidential election and the partys platform. ... Presidential electoral votes by state. ... Presidential electoral votes by state. ... Presidential electoral votes by state. ...

Butler became disillusioned with the negative effects he believed the 1920 national prohibition of alcohol was having on the country. He became active in the successful effort to bring about the repeal of prohibition in 1933. Prohibition is any of several periods during which the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages is restricted or illegal. ... In 1919, the requisite number of legislatures of the States ratified The 18th Amendment to the Federal Constitution, enabling national Prohibition within one year of ratification. ...

Internationalist

Butler was the chair of the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration that met periodically from 1907 to 1912. In this time he was appointed president of the American branch of International Conciliation. Butler was also instrumental in persuading Andrew Carnegie to make the initial investment in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace with $10 million. Butler became head of international education and communication, founded the European branch of the Endowment headquartered in Paris, and was President of the Endowment for twenty years. The Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration was founded in 1895 to support the cause of international arbitration, arbitration treaties, and an international court, and to generate public support on behalf of the cause. ... Andrew Carnegie (November 25, 1835 – August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-born American businessman, a major philanthropist, and the founder of the Carnegie Steel Company which later became U.S. Steel. ... The Endowments headquarters at 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a private nonprofit organization promoting international cooperation and active international engagement by the United States of America. ...

Continuing the clear sense that he was trusted by the many internationalists in power, Butler was made President of the elite Anglo-American integration society, the Pilgrims Society. He served as President of the Pilgrims from 1928 to 1946. Butler was president of The American Academy of Arts and Letters from 1928–1941. The Pilgrims Society, founded in 1902, is a British-American society established, in the words of American past-president Joseph Choate, to promote good-will, good-fellowship, and everlasting peace between the United States and Great Britain. Over the years it has boasted an elite membership of politicians, diplomats, businessmen... The American Academy of Arts and Letters is an organization whose goal is to foster, assist, and sustain an interest in American literature, music, and art. ...

Personal life

Butler married in 1887 and had one daughter from that marriage. His wife died in 1903 and he married again in 1907. In 1940, Butler completed his autobiography with the publication of the second volume of Across the Busy Years. When Butler became almost blind in 1945 at the age of eighty-three, he resigned from the posts he held and died two years later. Butler is buried at Cedar Lawn Cemetery, in Paterson, New Jersey Cover of An autobiography, from the Greek auton, self, bios, life and graphein, write, is a biography written by the subject or composed conjointly with a collaborative writer (styled as told to or with). The term dates from the late eighteenth century, but the form is much older. ... Cedar Lawn Cemetery is a cemetery located in Paterson, New Jersey. ... The skyline of Paterson, New Jersey, showing the canyon of the Passaic River in the foreground. ...

Criticism

Despite Butler's accomplishments, many people regarded him as arrogant. In 1939, a former student of Butler's, Rolfe Humphries, was asked to contribute a piece for Poetry. He was given the title ("Draft Ode for a Phi Beta Kappa Occasion"), and asked to follow a format of blank verse and one classical reference per line. Following these provisos, Humphries penned the infamous acrostic:

Niobe's daughters yearn to the womb again,
Ionians bright and fair, to the chill stone;
Chaos in cry, Actaeon's angry pack,
Hounds of Molussus, shaggy wolves driven

Over Ampsanctus' vale and Pentheus' glade,
Laelaps and Ladon, Dromas, Canace,—
As these in fury harry brake and hill
So the great dogs of evil bay the world.

Memory, Mother of Muses, be resigned
Until King Saturn comes to rule again!
Remember now no more the golden day
Remember now no more the fading gold,
Astraea fled, Proserpina in hell;
You searchers of the earth be reconciled!

Because, through all the blight of human woe,
Under Robigo's rust, and Clotho's shears,
The mind of man still keeps its argosies,
Lacedaemonian Helen wakes her tower,

Echo replies, and lamentation loud
Reverberates from Thrace to Delos Isle;
Itylus grieves, for whom the nightingale
Sweetly as ever tunes her Daulian strain.
And over Tenedos the flagship burns.

How shall men loiter when the great moon shines
Opaque upon the sail, and Argive seas
Rear like blue dolphins their cerulean curves?
Samos is fallen, Lesbos streams with fire,
Etna in rage, Canopus cold in hate,
Summon the Orphic bard to stranger dreams.

And so for us who raise Athene's torch.
Sufficient to her message in this hour:
Sons of Columbia, awake, arise!

Upon discovery, an irate Poetry editor ran the following editorial:

"Not being accustomed to hold manuscripts up to the mirror or to test them for cryptograms, the editors recently accepted and printed a poem containing a concealed scurrilous phrase aimed at a well-known person. This was not called to their attention until several weeks after the issue had been published. The phrase in question is puerile and uninteresting, and would not be referred to except that it is necessary to disclaim editorial responsibility. Apparently it is also necessary to state a principle which one would have thought obvious; namely, that any contributor who allows such matter to be printed without the editors' knowledge is guilty of a serious breach of confidence, and will automatically disbar himself from the magazine."

The ban was lifted in 1941, when three of Humphries' poems were published. Poetry, published in Chicago, Illinois, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. ... Blank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. ... An acrostic (from the late Greek akróstichon, from ákros, extreme, and stíchos, verse) is a poem or other text written in an alphabetic script, in which the first letter, syllable or word of each verse, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out another message. ...

Butler and Anti-Semitism

Butler considered Jews aggressive and vulgar.^[1] For many years of Butler’s tenure, Columbia had a strict quota limiting the number of Jews who could attend. In 1928, the Board of Trustees authorized the creation of “Seth Low Junior College” in Brooklyn as a way to deal with the number of Jewish applicants. If Columbia College (the university’s more prestigious undergraduate school) had already admitted its modest quota of Jews for the year, other Jewish applicants would be shunted to Seth Low. Noted science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote that he had to attend Seth Low Junior College for just this reason.^[2] (Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach also went to Seth Low.) Graduates of Seth Low were not eligible to transfer to Columbia College.

In 1928, the Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals (later U.S. Supreme Court Justice) Benjamin N. Cardozo (an alumnus of Columbia College and Columbia Law School) was appointed to Columbia’s Board of Trustees, the first Jew to serve on the board in 113 years. But when Cardozo resigned in 1932, Butler and the board prevented the election of Adolph Ochs, publisher of the “New York Times,” to the board. Another Jew did not serve on the board until 1944, when Arthur Hays Sulzberger (an alumnus of Columbia’s Journalism School) was elected a Life Trustee.^[3]

Butler was also an early supporter of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, though Butler’s enthusiasm for him may have diminished markedly after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. ^[1]

Anti-Semitism was common in American education during Butler’s day, and it may be argued that his personal dislike of Jews, and discriminatory policies against them, were no worse than average for that time. ^[1] But this hardly makes them praiseworthy.

Butler’s well-known attempts to limit Jewish admissions to Columbia are discussed (among other places) in the book Nicholas Miraculous: The Amazing Career of the Redoubtable Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler by Columbia English professor Michael Rosenthal.

One notable critic of Butler was Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. While attending Columbia University, Ginsberg drew a swastika on a dirty window and accused both Butler and the maid of being anti-Semites. This was one of the reasons he was expelled from Columbia. The term beat generation was introduced by Jack Kerouac in approximately 1948 to describe his social circle to the novelist John Clellon Holmes (who published an early novel about the beat generation, titled Go, in 1952, along with a manifesto of sorts in the New York Times Magazine: This is... Allen Ginsberg (left) with his lifelong companion, poet Peter Orlovsky Irwin Allen Ginsberg (IPA: ) (June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American Beat poet born in Newark, New Jersey. ... For the town in Ontario, see Swastika, Ontario. ...

Quotes Attributed to Butler

"An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less."

"America is the best half-educated country in the world."

"The man who thinks only of himself is not educated. He is not educated, however instructed he may be."

Notes

1. ^ ^a b c Interview with Professor Michael Rosenthal, reported in “The Guy the Library’s Named After,” Blue and White Blog, entry of March 4, 2006, 11:17 pm, http://www.theblueandwhite.org/index.php?page=post&article_id=584
2. ^ Isaac Asimov, In Memory Yet Green, Doubleday, 1979
3. ^ Robert A. McCaughey, Stand Columbia, Columbia University Press, 2003, Appendix “F”, “Topical Timelines #9,” “Columbia and the ‘Jewish Problem’” http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/stand_columbia/f.html

Works

• Between Two Worlds, 1934

Biography

• Michael Rosenthal, Nicholas Miraculous: The Amazing Career of the Redoubtable Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2006, ISBN 0-374-29994-3

See also

• U.S. presidential election, 1912

Presidential electoral votes by state. ...

External links

• Nobel Prize biography
• IMDb biography for Nicholas Murray Butleraom