Memories Of Late U President Vivid

r's Note: W. Sprague ! received a BA degree ' the University in 1930. i former editorial writ the Detroit Free Press kron Beacon Journal r the past 26 years has been chairman of the department of journalism at Wayne State University.) By W. Sprague Holden The recent death of Dr. Clarence Cook Little, at age 83, hit me with a special kind of force, as it doubtless hit others of a small group who may still be around. M a n y years ago he gave us a priceless and an unforgettable present. To have this special kind of reaction you must now be in your early or middle 60s. You were a student at the University of Michigan in the late 1920s. You admired Dr. Little, who was then a highly controversial president of the U-M. Most important of all, you were present in the large dining room of the Michigan Union in Ann Arbor on a spring evening in 1929. The obituaries reported Dr. Little's long dedication to cancer research at the Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory. They recalled his service as president of the University of Maine, from 1922 to 1925. They told how he went from there to Ann Arbor to succeed President Leroy Burton who had just died. They dwelt on his accomplishments, honors, survivors, funeral arrangements and the other usual matters. And, like most obits, Dr. Little's were not good enough. They gave the shadow and left out the substantial human being. They left out all of the man memorably glimpsed that spring night of 1929. Dr. Little's five years at Ann Arbor were turbulent. He blew up storms, because he I was vigorously outspoken on public issues. He made enemies on campus with his UniI versity College proposal and other innovative ideas about education. He was a strong proponent of birth control. He was brusque with societies that honored the deeds of the ancestral dead and paid little heed to the problems of the troubled living. Many groups were shaken to wrath by his plain talk. Sometimes he almost seemed to go out of his way to make enemies. If all tender toes within reach were trod upon, it was as if he went looking for more. Among others, he offended members of the State Legislature. Dr. Little had a short fuse for the way many politicians practised politics. He either could not or would not play the political game when it meant behind-the-scenes finagling and favor swapping. He refused to play it even for the sake of a great university. Came the time when his enemies refused to take any more. They were fed up with what they regarded as his farout radical views and his arrogance- traits that his friends properly defended as courage and visión. And when a Legislature becomes fed up with the president of i t s largest state university, something has to give. I Dr. Little's presidency gave. I That year was 1929, the year I he left Ann Arbor. A memorI able year by any measure for I Dr. Little. Thereafter came the move I to Bar Harbor, Maine. The I long years devoted to cáncer I research were begun. I However, a man like Dr. LitI tle doesn't simply turn in his jffice keys and teil the help J ;hat he won't be in tomorrow. To a large part of the U-M student body his departure ivas a disaster. He had been a ' tiero to them from the moment he took the first of his courageous stands on important public issues. Student admiration had to be expressed. What better way than a public testimonial? A few campus prime movers got together, reserved the main banquet hall of the Michigan Union, announced the ticket sale and quickly had a reservation sellout. I was there. It was that e v e n i n g that flooded into memory when I read of Dr. Little's death. The evening went along as such evenings usually go. Dr. Little was eulogized by a numer of speakers. The audience applauded everything of praise that was said. The climax, of course, was Dr. Little's valedictory. Part of the ticket money had been used to buy a gift. It was a chair and it was a beauty. It was big, highb a c k e d , well-upholstered, comfortable; exactly the kind of chair that a scientistthinker could relax in and ponder the imponderables. The chair was presented. The student who made the presentation finished his remarks and s'at down. Dr. Little faced us, a man in his prime years, tall, erect, handsome, black hair and black mustache accenting a strong face with eyes at once gentle and piercing. He began talking in an easy, conversational tone. He said the right t h i n g s . He thanked us for coming. He thanked us for the chair. He said he would miss the University and Ann Arbor. Most of all, he would miss the students. He didn't say anything about the enemies who had made it impossible for him to stay. Then his voice took on a new intensity. He said something like this : "May I leave you with a few personal comments, precepts by which I try to live? "I prefer the strong, tumultuous thunder of mountain cataracts to the placid beauty of quiet lakes. "i prefer the rush and push of strong winds to the dreamy indolent warmth of a lazy ■ summer's day. "I prefer the stir and exI citement of intellectual ferI ment to the uncritical accepk tance of things as they are. "I prefer the vigorous chaiI lenge of new problems, in new I fields of knowledge and enI deavor, to the acceptance of I stale routine and of deadly I custom." Those weren't his exact I words, for I took no notes. No L one around me was taking I notes. We didn't need to. The I sense of what he said was beI ing stamped unforgettably inI to our minds. That was the last time I evI er saw him. The pictures published I with the obituaries were of a I white-haired old man; but I still erect, still defiant. The I hair and mustache had gone I white. His face was etched I with the deep, sad lines that I derive from long experience I with the heartbreak of the huI man condition. The obit pictures were all I wrong. They showed the wrong I man. The real Dr. Clarence I Cook Little was not old and I white-haired. The real Dr. Lit tle was a man in his prime] who had talked with a fortúnate few that long-ago nigh! in the Michigan Union; the man who had praised the elix ir of mountain cataracts ano strong winds and intellectual I ferment; and of vigorous re I sponse to tough challenge His words were a shining I gift During the long years of I terrible depression, global I carnage and other horrors! that lay ahead, they werel words to live by. They still are. ■