Chancellor Bowman and Robert Frost
In 1937, with the support of Percival Hunt, Chancellor Bowman wrote to Robert Frost to see if he had any interest in coming to Pittsburgh for a visit, with the hope that Frost might be persuaded to join the faculty. The letters are surprisingly eloquent exercises in style and self-definition. Bowman is not to be underestimated and Frost not to be outdone. Bowman speaks of the arts; Frost of football.
On September 23, 1937, Bowman wrote:
Dear Mr. Frost:
Once upon a time we had some talk. Part of it was about the possibility of your coming to Pittsburgh. We are now vastly more ready to attempt seriously to resolve this Pittsburgh community to an essence; in other words, to say by means of painting, sculpture, poetry, or other arts, what David once said about his land, when he told his people that the Lord was his shepherd. The twenty-third psalm is an essence of the Land of Judaea. Perhaps if we could do as much for this Pittsburgh district we should discover what education is for.
Could you find time to spend a day with me, at our expense, in Pittsburgh. If not, maybe you would invite me to see you at some reasonably convenient place, like New York. The idea in mind is that you come and live with us and we’ll do our best to make you glad you came.
With kind personal wishes, I am
Faithfully yours,
Frost’s hand written reply is dated Amherst, Mass; November 7, 1937. He says:
Dear Mr. Bowman:
All things considered a long time, we think we are too old for a new social venture: which is what it would mean if we came to Pittsburg and what it ought to mean. Mrs. Frost has just been through a very serious operation that makes us both feel our age with sudden force. She is not up to entertaining much anymore or even to being entertained; and for me, I couldn’t undertake anything important that she couldn’t hope to have at least some small part in.
I have thought of you often in heart-felt sympathy with the great big American thing you are doing for the city of Pittsburgh. Too bad I couldn’t have been called to share in it twenty or thirty years ago. I am no reformer and no social service worker. I’d rather do things well than do people good. But I should have liked nothing better than to spend time where the brave and none too privileged were girding themselves for struggle. I enjoy your mighty football teams if only as a symbol of that struggle. I trust the love I have sent you by friends once or twice has reached you with effect. Your success is on my mind.
Sincerely yours,
Jock Sutherland and William Don Harrison
William Don Harrison, an Associate Professor of English and the former Dean of Men, was named Athletic Director in 1928 by the Chancellor, John G. Bowman. Harrison was in charge, then, during the peak years of the Jock Sutherland era, an era that included a win at the Rose Bowl in 1937, national success in basketball, track and swimming. This was a time when Pitt was trying to position itself to replace Chicago in the Big Ten. Harrison would resign the position in 1937, when, representing the Chancellor, he and Sutherland were locked in a battle over money to support athletics--a battle over the sources as well as the levels of funding.
There was a history of bad feeling between Sutherland and Harrison. According to Sutherland, Harrison once said to him, “I made you and I can break you.” Sutherland felt, with some justification, that he and his players were not receiving the kind of support they needed to continue to compete at the highest level. The university alumni took Sutherland’s side and, in 1937, the executive committee of the Athletic Council (an alumni group) prepared a report to resolve the conflict and presented it to Harrison. The Chancellor and Harrison resented the pressure from the alumni council. In the face of their demands, and to try to forestall controversy on campus, Harrison chose to resign, saying, however, “Such a situation should, under no circumstances, exist in any department in the University.” James Hagan, who had played football for Pitt, took his place as A.D. With Chancellor Bowman, Hagan prepared a plan that became known as the “Hagan Plan” and then later, by 1938, the “Bowman Code.” Under this “Code of Conduct for Athletics,” there would be no scholarships awarded on the basis of athletic ability, and the alumni were forbidden to provide gifts or private assistance to university athletes.
In response, Jock Sutherland submitted his letter of resignation, which the Chancellor accepted. This was in the Spring of 1939. The disagreement between Harrison and Sutherland created substantial controversy and attracted the attention of the national press. After his resignation, Harrison left Oakland to teach at the University’s Erie extension campus and then at Johnstown. He remained on department’s faculty roster. Sutherland went on to coach professional football with the Brooklyn Dodgers and, from 1946 until his sudden death in 1948, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Credits
The images of Wayland Maxfield Parrish and Richard Murphy are courtesy of the University of Illinois Archives, Faculty, Staff and Student Portraits, RS 39/2/26.
The photograph of Thomas Matthews Pearce, Jr. comes from the Thomas M. Pearce Pictorial Collection (PICT 000-255-0012), Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico. Accessed online, http://econtent.unm.edu/.