Heads

At Washington, the Jesuit community of Georgetown University sat down to its dinner. With it sat the Rev. Charles Williams Lyons, S.J., onetime President of Gonzaga College (Washington, D. C), of St. Joseph's College (Philadelphia), of Boston College, and latterly head of the Boston College Philosophy Department. Dinner over, the Rev. John B. Creeden, S.J., Georgetown's President, introduced Father Lyons to the Georgetown faculty with the simple explanation that Father Lyons would succeed him at once as their President. In accordance with the Jesuit custom of simplicity, no further ceremony marked the induction. In the morning, Father Creeden took the first train for Boston. There he assumed the philosophical duties relinquished by Father Lyons.

Father Creeden was "one of the most popular Presidents" in Georgetown's history. Reason for his departure was seen in the fact that he had served six years--the longest time allowed a man to hold one office according to the Jesuit rules; and in the fact that Father Lyons is "renowned as a developer of colleges and was the leading influence in the recent Boston College drive." Funds are already in the gathering for "Greater Georgetown." Father Lyons had been called to supervise.

Born and educated in Boston, successful as a young man in the wool business, Father Lyons was ordained in 1904. His administration of Boston College during the War days "won him the admiration of all New England." He served on the Massachusetts State Military Commission (1915), was last year chosen to deliver the historic Fourth of July address in Faneuil Hall, "Cradle of American Liberty."*

At Austin, Tex., a slender, active man of 41 completed his first month's work as the new President of the University of Texas. Before accepting office, this man had asked his friends to refrain from seeking the appointment for him, had said: "I never aspired to the presidency of the University of Texas because I believed the position to be the most important post . . . probably the most responsible public office in Texas." Notwithstanding, the office commandeered the man.

Dr. W. M. W. Splawn is the name --Splawn of Wise County. He has grown up with Texas; knew the prairies when cowboys trailed flaming kerosene-soaked lariats over it for miles to burn off dead grass and shrubbery that their cattle might eat in the spring. He saw the farms come, land go up, towns spring into being. He attended Decatur College, Decatur, Ill., refused an appointment to West Point and entered Baylor University, at Waco, Tex.

After Baylor came Yale; then a law practice* in Fort Worth. Then the University of Chicago, where he became a Doctor of Philosophy. Then teaching at Baylor and at the University of Texas. Last July, he was nominated by the Democrats to succeed himself as Railroad Commissioner of Texas, to which position he was appointed by Governor Neff in 1923.

Now, in "the most responsible public office," Dr. Splawn can work more effectively than ever for his dream. This is his dream: "Some day the vast stretch of country along the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico may develop a civilization surpassing that of the countries along the Mediterranean when they were at their peak of splendor and grandeur. Texas and Texans should lead in the development of this greater civilization; and the most potent influence should be that which comes from the University of Texas."

And whom did Dr. Splawn succeed? Dr. Robert Ernest Vinson, President of Texas University these seven years. And what of Dr. Vinson? Well--

At Cleveland, Western Reserve University had a busy day. It dedicated a new School of Medicine, Dr. Harvey W. Cushing, Professor of Surgery at Harvard, delivering the speech. And it inaugurated the seventh President the University has had since its foundation in 1826. Dr. Livingston Farrand, President of Cornell University, spoke at a dinner celebrative of both the dedication and the inauguration.

But this seventh President--he was none other than Dr. Robert Ernest Vinson, erst of Texas. President Emeritus Charles F. Thwing saluted him; and Dr. Vinson replied: ". . . We already have more facts than we have assimilated. Our knowledge has already outrun our moral and spiritual development. Our chief duty now is to bring the ethical and spiritual character of the Nation up to the point where its intellectual development will be in safe hands. . . ."

A Southerner (South Carolina), a scholar (Hebrew, Philosophy), a clergyman, Dr. Vinson was warmly welcomed in Mr. Thwing's salutation. Dr. Splawn, down in Texas, may well have noted these phrases about his former chief: "In Austin, he fought with political beasts from almost the beginning to the close of his illustrious career. He overcame them by wisdom, persistence, high idealism and personal charm. The qualities which won in the Southern give great promise of a like wining in the Northern field."

* First made July 4, 1783.

* Say Splawn's friends,"He's never lost a case."