USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 38
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Every thing Is interesting: The bored Have never explored.
"The summation seems to be, as Carlyle once wrote to John Stuart Mill: 'So I keep on saying, at all turns of fortune: "God is great," and also "God is good," and know naught else that I could say.'
"And God keeps on revealing it through every man, woman and child."
MacKaye, the son of Steele and Mary Keith (Medbery) Mac- Kaye, was born March 16, 1875, at New York City. He prepared at Lawrence Academy, Groton, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., High School, and at home. He was with our Class four years and received his A.B. cum laude at our graduation. An honorary A.M. degree was conferred upon him by Dartmouth College in 1914, and a Litt.D by Miami University in Ohio in 1924.
"In college," continues Mackaye, "I made a few contributions in prose to the Advocate, which published my Commencement address, and one poem ( on Shakespeare ) to the Harvard Monthly, of which I was made an honorary editor ten years later. Though I entered with five conditions (having leisurely prepared myself for college), I was graduated cum laude.
"Memorable to me are the instigating characteristics of some
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of our professors, great teachers of our time: in Chaucer and the English ballads, the imaginative enthusiasms of bronze-curled Francis Child (to whose memory I dedicated, by a sonnet, my published first prose translation of The Canterbury Pilgrims, the Prologue and Ten Tales); in Shakespeare, the fiery thoroughness of Kittredge; in Goethe, the genial profundity of Kuno Francke (for whom, years later, I translated several German ballads for a projected volume of his, cancelled by World War I); in geology, the Elizabethan scope of gray-bearded Shaler; in a half-course on Jane Austen, the scintillant appreciations of A. S. Hill (who gave me my only A); in philosophy, with Royce, his twilit nebulosities, through which the evening-star glittered; with Palmer, his hu- maneness, which made logic bearable; with Santayana, his poetic concepts and personal charm; with William James, his artist pene- trations of the psychic world; in a half-course on Poetry, Comedy and Duty, the revealing moral humor of bald-pated C. C. Everett; in his emeritus lectures on Euripides, the fidgeting, radiant erudi- tion of snow-bearded Goodwin; in the Fine Arts and Dante, the urbane courtesy and illuminating, mediaeval wisdom of Charles Eliot Norton (in whose memory a sonnet of mine was published in the Harvard Graduates Magazine). His friendship and letter correspondence till his death are permanently dear to me.
"During terms 1893-1896, two terms as roommate of my brother, James, one term by myself, I lived at 35 Divinity Hall (which, with our brother, Benton, as our successor there, was oc- cupied by us MacKayes for nine years ). The windows faced east across Norton's Field to Shady Hill, where I used to call on Pro- fessor Norton to discuss poetry.
"Since graduation my friendships with classmates have happily widened, thanks chiefly to the gatherings called by our gentle herdsman,
Roger, blithe shepherd Of our dwindling flock, Greetings in gratitude! Each of your roisterous Ram-hornéd butters of Long ago, has at last
R. L. S. Sleekly been chastened to Come to your jocund pipe, And through old Harvard Gate In demure gladness now Follow your homing call Ever devotedly
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"While in college, however ( since earning my way by tutoring gave me scant leisure), I knew only a few intimately. Amongst those, my dear roommate at 28 Weld, in our senior year, Howard H. Davenport, had earlier commandeered my first printed volume, Johnny Crimson, A Legend of Hollis Hall ( a rhymed epic, illus- trated by Alice Davenport, his first cousin, later his wife) and hawked it on the steps of Massachusetts Hall to unsuspecting passers-by. He thus became in 1895 my first publisher, as he be- came in 1896 my first theatre-star in the rôle of Apollo (with the gout ) in a sylvan comedy, Sappho (produced at the Town Hall, Shirley Common, Massachusetts), written by me for a group of Wellesley and Harvard students, of whom Frank V. Stone enacted Hipponax, the villain; Wesley Wyman, Archilochus, the lover; my brother, Benton, Adonis, a country lout; and I myself, Kako- methos, an evil-minded necromancer, robed in Stygian black.
"Scores of merry college anecdotes rise in remembrance - too lengthy for the printer."
MacKaye has three children: Robert Keith Mackaye, born Oc- tober 8, 1899; Arvia, born February 14, 1902; and Christy Loring (Mrs. Henry Barnes), born January 10, 1909. Robert was gradu- ated with the Harvard Class of 1923. MacKaye has two Harvard brothers: the late James Medbery Mackaye, S.B. 1895; and Benton MacKaye, A.B. 1900. There are four grandchildren, one of whom, Nancy MacKaye, as a freshman in the University of Michigan, was awarded the Avery Hopwood Prize in Poetry. There is one great-grandchild. Robert Keith MacKaye served in World War I.
"In World War I," writes Mackaye, "I registered for service, but was not called upon for military duty. During the years 1914 to 1919, I wrote and directed several dramatic works pertinent to that era, including: The Masque of Saint Louis, produced in 1914 by the City of St. Louis, with seventy-five hundred citizens; The New Citizenship, produced in 1916 for the Mayors' Committees of the cities of New York, St. Louis, Denver, etc .; Caliban, pro- duced by the City of New York at Lewisohn Stadium with twenty- five hundred citizens, and in 1917 by the Red Cross at Harvard Stadium with five thousand citizens of Greater Boston; The Ever- green Tree, 1917, a Christmas masque performed in many cities
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and army camps; The Roll Call, Red Cross masque, 1918, pro- duced in Washington, D.C., in other cities and on battleships; Washington, the Man Who Made Us, a ballad play, produced in 1919 in New York and elsewhere by Walter Hampden; and in French in 1918 in New York by Jacques Copeau before the American Academy of Arts and Letters. For the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Washington in 1932, I wrote and directed, for the U. S. George Washington Bicentennial Commis- sion, Wakefield, a folk-masque, performed by one thousand citizens before Congress, the Supreme Court, and foreign ambassadors at Constitution Hall, Washington, D.C. It is the only dramatic work ever commissioned, published, and produced by the federal gov- ernment.
"During World War II, after returning in 1940 in a refugee ship from four years in Europe and Great Britain (1936-1940), I spent three years living alone writing my 'Hamlet' tetralogy in a cottage- hermitage at Littleton, Massachusetts.
"From 1920 to 1924, I held the first American Fellowship in Creative Poetry and Drama, at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. From 1929 to 1931, I held a visiting professorship in Poetry and Folklore at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, and from 1932 to 1933 at Sweet Briar College in Virginia.
"In public activities, from 1908 to 1912, I initiated civic theatre and community playhouse movements by nation-wide addresses on my Drama of Democracy ideal, exemplified later as author- director of a number of large-scale masques, produced by munici- pal and federal governments. I, myself, have no church affiliations (except with the old First Parish Chruch, 1772, at Shirley Center, Massachusetts, where as a boy I pumped the organ, and as a man was married), though, in 1920, my Bible-Masque, The Pilgrim and The Book, was produced by hundreds of churches and reli- gious societies through many translations in oriental and occi- dental countries. In 1921 I initiated a folk-drama movement, later exemplified by works of my Kentucky Mountain Folk-Cycle.
"I am the author of about seventy volumes comprising poems (lyric and epic), plays (verse and prose), masques (verse), grand-operas (verse), essays, public addresses, folk-tales, fan-
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tasies, history, biography, autobiography, all of which are re- corded in Who's Who, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the like. I have written a number of magazine articles, memoirs, brochures, etc. I am editor of William Vaughn Moody's Letters to Harriet; editor-translator (with Professor J. S. P. Tatlock ) of the Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (The Modern Reader's Chaucer); translator of Sophocles' Oedipus for Isadora Duncan, and of Hauptmann's Hannele for Mrs. Fiske. Aspects of the Life and Works of P. M .- K. are recorded in Epoch: The Life of Steele Mackaye, my biography of my father (two volumes); in Annals of an Era: The MacKaye Family: 1826-1932; and in Poog's Pas- ture, The Mythology of a Child: A Vista (1881) of Autobiography.
"I was made an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa on deliver- ing my Harvard Phi Beta Kappa poem in 1908. I am a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, P.E.N., Dramatists' Guild, MacDowell Colony Association, and a charter member of the Poetry Society of America. I received the Shelley Memorial Award for Poetry in 1942 for My Lady Dear, Arise, a volume of poems to Marion Morse Mackaye, also, in dedication to her memory. I received a National Testimonial on my seventieth birthday at the National Arts Club in New York in 1945, announc- ing the completion of my largest work, The Mystery of Hamlet, King of Denmark, or What We Will, a tetralogy, in prelude to Shakespeare's masterpiece, comprising four plays in verse, entitled The Ghost of Elsinore, The Fool in Eden Garden, Odin Against Christus, and The Serpent in the Orchard.
"I am a member of the Harvard Club, MacDowell (honorary), Players, New York; Cliff Dwellers (honorary), Chicago; Cosmos, Washington, D.C .; Everglades (honorary), Palm Beach; Savage, and Garrick (honorary), London."
Summarizing his occupation since 1897, MacKaye writes: "Poet-Dramatist. In 1903, appeared my first published play (in verse), The Canterbury Pilgrims. From 1900 to 1904 I taught English in the Craigie Private School for Boys in New York City, where I wrote a ballad-play for the youngsters, amongst whom were two future ambassadors, W. Averill Harriman and John G. Winant. In 1904, on securing from E. H. Sothern my first pro-
TWENTY-FIFTH REUNION
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fessional commission, for another verse-play (Fenris, the Wolf), I joined the Artist Colony, founded by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, at Cornish, New Hampshire, P.O., Windsor, Vermont (still my home), where with my wife's ever-zestful help, I plunged into my life-long occupation - poetry, in various forms, regardless of 'social security.'"
+ JOSEPH WALTER MACKEMER
J OSEPH WALTER MACKEMER, who was born at Leavenworth
County, Kansas, January 3, 1872, the son of Irwin Le Clair and Emma Elizabeth ( Heinly) Mackemer, entered Harvard with our Class but left, for reasons unknown, at the end of our sopho- more year. He had prepared at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. He was older than most of his classmates, and since his marriage to Miss Annie Deshler of Allentown, Pennsylvania, occurred on June 5, 1895, it is likely that this pre-occupation was incompatible with attempting to pass final examinations.
He settled in Peoria, Illinois, and became the owner and oper- ator of a chain of retail lumber yards in central Illinois, and of timber and sawmill properties in Alabama and Louisiana. He was president of the J. W. Mackemer Lumber Company and the Farmers' and Mechanics Bank of Peoria. His clubs included the Creve Coeur Club and North Shore Country Club, both of Peoria.
Mackemer was a Republican in politics and ardently believed in private enterprise and the individual's responsibility to the community, views which made him opposed to the "New Deal." The tastes which made him seek a liberal education at Harvard led him to be widely read in history, biography, philosophy, and poetry, and, as a member of the Congregational denomination, to undertake intensive Bible study. His love of the out-of-doors expressed itself in week ends at his summer place on the Illinois River and in many fishing trips in the northern states and Canada.
Mackemer died on October 31, 1945, at his home in Peoria. He left his widow, two sons - Joseph Walter, Jr., born May 7, 1904, and Sumner Deshler, born July 15, 1906 - three daughters - Dorothy (Mrs. May), born March 18, 1896, Marian, born January
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9, 1898, and Marjorie (Mrs. Schnellbacher), born June 19, 1908 - and three grandchildren. J. Walter Mackemer, Jr., was a cap- tain in the Air Corps and served in the Aleutians. Sumner Macke- mer served in Africa and Italy as a major in the Air Corps. Neither son attended Harvard.
D. C.
HERBERT BUTLER MACKINTOSH
M ACKINTOSH wrote the Secretary that he had nothing to add to previous reports. He was born November 18, 1874, at Need- ham, Massachusetts, and attended high school there. His parents were James and Elizabeth (Hall) Mackintosh. After four years in college he took an A.B. with the Class in 1897, and in 1900 he received an LL.B. at Boston University. He then entered legal practice in Needham.
JAMES EMERY McWHINNIE
A' FTER forty years of teaching in the Boston Public School Sys- tem," writes McWhinnie, "I reached the august age of seventy years and was automatically retired. Upon my retirement I was asked to accept the position of night clerk at the Harvard Faculty Club. I am now finishing my third year in that capacity and am enjoying my work exceedingly and appreciate the opportunity of keeping in touch with Harvard affairs.'
McWhinnie, the son of James McWhinnie, Brown University, and Louise Shailor, was born January 29, 1873, at Lansingburg, New York. He prepared at the Cambridge Latin School. He was graduated in 1897 with distinction and honorable mention in French and later spent two years at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
He married Adeline Bonney, August 22, 1907, at Portland, Maine. She died February 13, 1937.
From 1901 to 1910, he was an instructor at the Rindge School in Cambridge, and from 1910 to 1943, was master of the High School of Commerce in Boston.
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FLOURENCE JOSEPH MAHONEY
M AHONEY did not return a questionnaire. He was born Janu- ary 15, 1869, at Hopkinton, Massachusetts, the son of Jere- miah and Ellen (Donohue) Mahoney. After attending Phillips Exeter Academy, he spent seven years at Harvard, four in the Col- lege and three in the Law School, leaving with an A.B. and an LL.B. For a year he was in the office of Choate & Hall, Boston attorneys. He was then appointed an assistant clerk of the Supe- rior Civil Court for Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and as far as is known continued in court work thereafter.
* WILLIAM FRANCIS MAHONEY
W ILLIAM FRANCIS MAHONEY, who was at Harvard only during 1893-94, where he was in the Lawrence Scientific School, died October 18, 1910, at Charlestown, Massachusetts. After leaving Harvard he went into engineering and worked first in the Boston sewer department. He was later a civil engineer in Colo- rado, Arizona, and Wyoming, and was with the Union Pacific and the Denver and Gulf Railroads. He was also in an engineer's office in Colorado before his death. His travels included several trips to Europe. He was unmarried. He was born on April 19, 1873, at Charlestown, and prepared for college at the English High School in Boston.
ROBERT ELWOOD MANLEY
M Y freshman year, 1893-1894," writes Manley, "was spent at Hillsdale College, Michigan. In September, 1894, I went to Harvard and was classified as a special student. In September, 1895, I was admitted as a junior to the Class of 1897.
"After graduation for two years I taught Latin and Greek at the Cattaraugus, New York, High School, and at Trinity Hall School, Washington, Pennsylvania. My object in teaching was to get money to go to the Harvard Law School. However, I found the savings therefrom too meager. I, therefore, in 1900, started to study law by myself, registering with Carey D. Davie, Surro-
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gate of Cattaraugus County, New York, to comply with legal requirements. As to what to read I was advised by Professor Beale of the Harvard Law School and Professor Pound of the Cornell Law School, later chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals.
After my admission to the Bar in 1903, I came to New York City and after two years in New York law offices, I was appointed on January 1, 1906, Deputy Assistant District Attorney of New York County by William Travers Jerome, who had just been elected District Attorney for the second time. On February 1, 1912, I was appointed Assistant District Attorney by Jerome's successor, Charles S. Whitman. I remained in this office for ten years, four years with Jerome, five years with Whitman, and one year with District Attorney Charles A. Perkins.
"During the first year and a half in that office I had charge of the Homicide Bureau preparing homicide cases for trial and con- ducted seventy homicide inquests before coroners' juries. For the next eight and a half years in that office I was a trial assistant and tried about five hundred felony cases before juries. These trials, of course, covered the entire list of crimes.
"On January 1, 1916, I resigned and started to practise general law at 120 Broadway. In 1918 I was appointed Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York for investigations under the War Acts at a dollar a year. I have not yet received the two dollars. That reminds me that my first fee was two dollars. I procured the acquittal of a Seneca Indian in western New York who was charged with assault with intent to kill. After his discharge, he very gravely, without any discussion as to the fee, handed me a two-dollar bill, which I, of course, thankfully accepted. Twice, in 1920 and 1921, I was appointed Deputy Attorney General of the State of New York for investiga- tions and trials of a criminal nature.
"In March, 1925, Emory R. Buckner of the law firm of Root, Clark, Buckner & Ballantine, having just been appointed United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, asked me to go into that office with him as his partner - something new in an appointive public position - and take the newly created posi-
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tion of Chief Assistant United States Attorney. He said he could stay there only two years and had so informed the New York Republican leaders. He further said that he had told them that he wanted to say to the man he should ask to become Chief As- sistant that he would be recommended to succeed him as United States Attorney, and that this was satisfactory to these leaders. This looked good to me and I accepted.
"While in that office, I was nominated, in 1926, by the Republi- can party as its candidate for judge of the Court of General Ses- sions of the County of New York, the highest criminal trial court in New York County, and was indorsed by the New York bar associations. However, there are not enough Republican votes in New York.
"I remained in the United States Attorney's office for six years. After Buckner resigned in March, 1927, political modes of pro- ceeding caused the appointment of another, Charles H. Tuttle, as United States Attorney. In September, 1930, Tuttle was nomi- nated for governor of New York by the Republican party. He then resigned as United States Attorney and I was designated by the United States Department of Justice to run the office as acting United States Attorney. I did until February, 1931, while the then president of the United States, about to be nominated for his second term, was making up his mind whom to appoint in this important district. Politics finally prevailed, another was ap- pointed, and I resigned.
"In 1928, while in the United States Attorney's office, I was Associate Counsel to the New York bar associations in a so-called ambulance-chasing inquiry conducted by the Supreme Court. This investigation resulted in the disbarment or suspension from practice of a number of lawyers.
"Since 1931 my office has been at 63 Wall Street, where I rent space from the law firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt and Mosle, and use the facilities of their office. My practice is general, both civil and criminal. Since 1916 I have been assigned thirty-six times by the judges of the Court of General Sessions of New York County to defend indigent defendants indicted for murder in the first degree.
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"Our secretary suggests that we flavor the narrative of our activities with observations on life. I will give one observation. It is that chance, not logical reasoning, is the most potent force in human affairs. My meeting, in my senior year, a student who lived in the same house where I did, started a line of causation that resulted in my going at first into criminal law. Because of the conviction of a police lieutenant for complicity in the killing of a gambler, my chief, District Attorney Charles S. Whitman, became governor of New York. Because of the conviction of a Tammany leader, Thomas E. Dewey, who succeeded me on my resignation as Chief Assistant United States Attorney, became governor of New York and later the Republican candidate for president of the United States. In a large city newspaper head- lines make and unmake men in their effect on political availability as determined by politicians seeking votes.
"I live on the site of old Fort Washington at the north end of Manhattan Island where I can look out on the Hudson River, the Hudson River Parkway and the George Washington Bridge with their ceaseless activity."
Manley, the son of Wilber Jesse Manley and Henrietta Mc- Duffie, was born May 3, 1875, at Cattaraugus, New York. He pre- pared for college at the Cattaraugus High School. From his undergraduate days at Harvard, he says he has always remem- bered the following incident:
"Dean Briggs, in my first year, called me to his office and asked me why I was not eating more. I said it was because I could not afford it. He said he had a fund for such a situation and drew me a check for $35. He did the same thing a few months later. I was then eating at the Foxcroft Club."
Manley was graduated cum laude with honorable mentions in history and philosophy. During World War I, he was counsel to the United States Quartermaster, Eastern Department. He has been a member of the Harvard Club of New York since 1907, and belonged to the Dunwoodie Golf Club from 1911 to 1923, Winged Foot Golf Club from 1924 to 1944, and Seventh Assembly District Republican Organization Club from 1916 to 1943. He has been a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York
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since 1906; of the New York County Lawyers Association since 1928, and belonged to the National Republican Club from 1914 to 1932. He is unmarried.
WALTER RALPH MANSFIELD
A' FTER leaving college," writes Mansfield, "I kept up for several years an active interest in sports and was a member of the Suffolk Athletic Club, Boston Athletic Association, and Newton Athletic Club. I was also interested in military affairs and served with the First Corps of Cadets, the Naval Brigade, and Coast Artillery.
"While I was practising medicine, many of my vacations were spent in Maine, and there is hardly a well-known spot where I have not cast a line. The highlights of my life have been in travel. I visited the European countries three times, went to Bermuda, Nova Scotia, Panama Canal, Hawaiian Islands, and Mexico. This country held its own with the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Yosemite Park, and the High Sierras. While I have selected Cali- fornia as my year-round home, my second love is the rugged New England Coast and Maine, where I have just spent the past three months.
"I have had a full, happy life with excellent health. There is one desire left, however. I want to visit the South American countries, and then I would be satisfied to write 'finis.'"
Mansfield, the son of George Frank and Hattie Maria (Wood) Mansfield, was born October 10, 1872, at Boston. He prepared at the Berkeley School there. After spending four years with our Class, he entered the Medical School, where he received an M.D. in 1907. He had previously obtained an L.M. from the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, in 1902. Of his undergraduate years, he writes:
"While I went the full four years with the Class, I missed gradu- ating because of a flunked algebra course, which I never could master. I was especially interested in sports and was vice-presi- dent of the Harvard Athletic Association and a member of the Track Team. I belonged to the Pi Eta Society."
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Mansfield married Mary Elizabeth Bastedo, April 19, 1904, in Boston. She died June 6, 1925. He married Blanche Butler Potter, June 26, 1926. She died January 25, 1933. On July 23, 1934, he married Elizabeth Sayle Hudson. His son, Walter Ralph, Jr., was born November 25, 1927. Walter, Jr., enlisted in the U. S. Marine Corps Reserve and is still in service.
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