Signs of Financial Collapse
When the Wald Sculpture was unveiled the following September, in a ceremony for her alone, the Directorship of the Hall of Fame was in the hands of Russell D. Niles, Dennison Professor of Law at New York University. The loyal Dr. Sockman was gone after twenty-one years of somewhat divided attention. There was no longer a Helen Gould Shepard to augment NYU contributions, and as always it was outside support from friends of the newly-elected who paid for both sculptures and ceremonies.
The struggle for money continued. Since 1963, medallions of Great American occupants of the Hall had been cast in bronze and silver, and sold to the public for profit. Made by recognized artists, the medals are rather attractive. One is an oddity. The 57th medal of an ultimate 96 shows Theodore Roosevelt wearing a wide grin on the obverse. On the reverse is the quotation, “Man can never escape being governed.” Most appropriate for the man who made the American presidency the “most powerful position in the world.” A bully boy (“I took Panama!”), fit to govern everywhere (“I have constantly meddled with what was not my business.”), vigorous (“I am as strong as a bull moose,”) dead at sixty-one, and larger than life at Mt.. Rushmore.
Some members of the University community looked on such efforts as “gimmicks.” One senior administrative officer, who was occasionally cynical about the Hall of Fame and its occupants, observed that “the coinage companies with committee selections are making a greater impact” than the selection committees of the Hall of Fame.
Russell Niles had been Chancellor and Executive Vice President of the University (’64-’69). When he became Director, the Hall of Fame was reflecting the radiance of success and maturity, and was disintegrating financially.
Budgetary headaches apart, Niles’s administrative duties were not heavy. The Hall was filled almost to capacity with busts of the elect. A few ceremonies, another election under its supervision, and New York University was to reach the end of its long stewardship.
In the presence of Chief Justice Warren Burger, the sculpture of Chief Justice Holmes was unveiled in 1970. The next year, Director Niles read a message from Governor Rockefeller at the unveiling of Lillian Wald. On more than one occasion, in keeping with a familiar American custom, the principal remarks had been read by a stand-in or a second choice because of the “pressure of current affairs.”
By the time Albert Michelson, first American winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, was formally installed in 1973, Dr. Niles had been named Professor of Law at the University of California. The following month, the results of the election of 1973 were announced, the period between elections having been shortened in keeping with the MacCracken Constitution of 1900. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis was admitted (as of this writing, there is no bust of him on a pedestal). George Washington Carver, agriculturist and lifelong promoter of education (“the key to unlock the golden door of freedom to our people”), was an easy winner with 104 votes. FDR made it (his second try) with 87 votes.
The Winds of Influence: Blowing Out