USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Harvard College class of ninety-seven : fiftieth anniversary report, 1897 > Part 54
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Chan married Poey Wing Wong at Hong Kong on August 22, 1898. Their children were: Eugene, born December 29, 1899; Elizabeth, born November 24, 1901; Mae, born in 1903; and Eu Sing, born in 1905 (died in 1906).
. Cheever's quest; drove us to Westwood; Lawyer ARCHIBALD GOURLAY THACHER
T HE arrival of our Fiftieth Anniversary," writes Thacher, "is, I suggest, an appropriate time to abandon the merely narrative form of autobiography and to attempt to replace it with the ex- pository type in order to state as briefly as practicable the reasons why we have followed certain courses of action provided that these matters are of general, rather than merely personal, inter- est. This does not imply that one adopting this approach assumes
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and manager's assistant on a mining expedition to Nome, Alaska. After his return, he engaged in land surveying and writing. He published stories and sketches in Century Magazine, Collier's, Youth's Companion, and the Atlantic Monthly. He was unmar- ried.
+ CHAN LOON TEUNG
C IAN LOON TEUNG was born at Canton, China, on August 25, 1866, the son of Chan Chen We and Yu Lu Teung. He pre- pared for college at the Mt. Hermon School and attended the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard, taking an S.B. in 1897. After graduating, he returned to China, where he taught English, physics, and chemistry in Foochow College for three years. Mov- ing to Nanking, he taught as a private tutor and then in a govern- ment school until 1911, when the revolution closed the school. He fled with his family to Shanghai, remaining until 1912, when he made a visit to the United States. The following year he went to Hong Kong, where he lived until his death on February 13, 1917. In his educational work in China, Chan pioneered in the introduction of many western customs and ideas, including the demonstration of the X-ray and the placing of emphasis on exer- cise and sports for students.
Chan married Poey Wing Wong at Hong Kong on August 22, 1898. Their children were: Eugene, born December 29, 1899; Elizabeth, born November 24, 1901; Mae, born in 1903; and Eu Sing, born in 1905 (died in 1906).
1. Cheever's quest; drove us to Westwood; Lawyer ARCHIBALD GOURLAY THACHER
"THE arrival of our Fiftieth Anniversary," writes Thacher, "is, I suggest, an appropriate time to abandon the merely narrative form of autobiography and to attempt to replace it with the ex- pository type in order to state as briefly as practicable the reasons why we have followed certain courses of action provided that these matters are of general, rather than merely personal, inter- est. This does not imply that one adopting this approach assumes
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that he has a valuable message for his classmates; rather, he is making a record of his motives for devoting a considerable portion of his life to one or more special objectives.
"The word 'avocation,' as meaning a 'subordinate occupation,' seems inadequate in its application to an effort, however small, to contribute toward world peace through national military secur- ity. Nevertheless, it most nearly describes the place that this work and study have occupied in my life for a considerable part of the last thirty years or more. So much for my apologia.
"A superficial glance at world affairs, immediately before and since our graduation, would merely note a series of events which followed the Sino-Japanese War (1894), the apparently small, but nevertheless important, Spanish-American War of 1898, and the great struggle between Russia and Japan for the domination of China and the western Pacific in 1904. In fact, though not then generally understood, these were new and great re-alignments of world power which were but the preliminary moves on the chess- board of world affairs preceding Germany's first great bid for world conquest in 1914.
"The group of men (principally graduates of Harvard) who originated and organized the Plattsburg Military Training Camps in 1915 did not then have in mind a plan for a broad military policy for the security of the United States. Theirs was a stop-gap effort by some who foresaw that we would inevitably enter the first World War and who recognized the civic obligation that all able-bodied men should be trained to render military service to their country in time of need. They then succeeded to the extent that their effort made possible the timely officering of the Army of the United States in that war.
"Upon the return of many (but not all) of these men from service in that war, we became convinced that as a part of a sound military policy for the United States, universal miltary training (not peacetime conscription for service) was essential to secure both the safety of the United States; and also, by balancing the strength of peaceful nations against the military power of ag- gressive nations, the latter would not dare attack. During the period of resulting peace, sincere plans for world peace agencies
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could be formed. The effort to enact such military training failed in 1920, partly because it was 'a presidential year,' and, also, be- cause the English-speaking nations believed there would never be another war!
"To demonstrate its peaceful belief the United States engi- neered the Washington Conference of 1921, which became a Naval Limitation Treaty in 1922, coupled with other treaties to guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China by the signatory powers, including Japan. (Germany and Russia did not participate. )
"This idealistic, but unwise attempt to rely solely upon the pledged word of aggressive nations was unsuccessfully opposed by some of us, and the treaties were signed.
"While the peaceful nations were thus innocently smoothing the path of the warlike aggressors, and having made doubly valu- able, from a military point of view, Japan's possession of the islands in the western Pacific (sold by Spain to Germany in 1899 and taken by Japan from Germany in the early days of World War I), they stupidly permitted a much greater danger to de- velop, and through their own express agreement.
"By the Treaty of Versailles it was not only stipulated that Germany should disarm, but also it was agreed that the Allies should, through a Control Commission, inspect and direct such disarmament. From the first it was a failure. Germany resisted, deceived and lied to the Allied Commission. The Germans demon- strated that 'inspection' of a great power (not one-fifth the area of Russia ) is impracticable. Germany, however, had still greater plans for armament, but their accomplishment required the termi- nation of the Franco-British 'inspection.' The adroit Stresemann, therefore, dangled before the Allies the bait of Germany's signa- ture to the Locarno Pacts (October, 1925), expressely condi- tioned, however, upon the abandonment of Allied inspection of German disarmament. The Allies stupidly took the bait ( and the hook with it), thus giving Germany a ten-year period for secret military re-armament on a great scale. In March, 1935, Hitler denounced the clauses in the Treaty of Versailles, providing for the disarmament of Germany, and in March, 1936, also denounced
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the Pact of Locarno through which he had jockeyed the Allies out of their fragile rights of 'inspection,' eleven years before.
"Meanwhile, Britain and the United States had quite thor- oughly disarmed, and we, especially, had neglected the develop- ment of military aviation. France had allowed politicians to enter her army, forcing out many capable officers, while her Socialist government had encouraged 'sit-down' strikes and a general slow- down in industry. Russia had not yet recovered from the Revolu- tion of 1917-1918, whereas Japan, with the ink scarcely dry upon the Washington Conference Treaties of 1922, secretly evaded them, invaded Manchuria and seized Mukden on September 19, 1931, denounced the treaties made at the Washington Confer- ence and notified her withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933. Again the world balance of power was thrown violently out of equilibrium, not only through the affirmative armament of Germany and Japan, but, to a very great degree, through the mili- tary weaknesses of the former Allies, the democracies, Britain, France, and the United States. At the same time, the danger of war between the United States and Japan increased as we made evident our opposition to the domination of China by Japan, but, militarily we did nothing.
"In May, 1940 (one month before Germany invaded France, and nineteen months before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941), a small group of the 1915 Plattsburgers (of whom I was one), met in New York and concluded that, as the war clouds were threatening, it was advisable to do something about it. Grenville Clark, '03, headed this movement. Others were Philip A. Carroll, '02, Kenneth P. Budd, '02, (P), Alfred Roelker (Amherst '95) and others. It was decided that a nation- wide Selective Training and Service Act (covering all the armed services ) was essential, and the outline was promptly submitted to Washington. It received little encouragement from the Ad- ministration, but was approved by the War Department and by the leading Congressional authority upon the national defense, Honorable James W. Wadsworth, Yale '98, who, together with Senator Burke of Montana, sponsored the Burke-Wadsworth Bill. Substantial sums were raised by private subscription to give na-
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tionwide publicity to this measure and to demonstrate its need, with the result that the first, privately sponsored, compulsory military training and service statute ever enacted became a law in September, 1940, or about fourteen months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
"In 1944 (during the war) it seemed to substantially the same group of men that, as part of our future military policy, it would be necessary for the United States to adopt Universal Military Training for Young Men, and I became chairman of a citizens' committee of that name, with corresponding committees in most of the states of the United States.
"Until the United Nations has been tried and tested for a generation, until the sincerity and good faith of its leading mem- bers have been proved by acts and not mere words, the English- speaking nations of the world will not deserve to survive unless they maintain a system of volunteer (if possible) regular armies and navies, supplemented by large reserves of trained manpower created through compulsory military training. (A book written in 1913 by our classmate, Sinclair Kennedy, entitled, The League of the Pan-Angles, deserved to have been read by more thought- ful men than did read it. )
"Never before in history has the military power of the nations suddenly become so unbalanced. Two great vacuums of power have been created through the sudden and crushing defeats of Germany and Japan. Such unbalance is always dangerous. Fresh power always moves in to fill such vacancies; it is moving now. We need only compare the fluid maps of Middle Europe and Asia of today with those of yesterday to appreciate the value of strategic geographic positions now occupied by Russia, in China, in Europe, and in the Near East, to understand that the inevitable struggle for power is again in motion. At the Congress of Vienna (1815) the need for an adjusted balance of power was under- stood and adopted; the representatives of the Nations appreciated that the task of statesmanship is to translate principles into active policies. The Peace of Paris, containing the main principles of the reorganization of Europe, was made first by the victorious pow- ers, the congress of all Europe, and the details of the adjusted
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equilibrium followed. So just were the terms and so sound the balance at Vienna that these endured (with some interruptions ) for a hundred years, or until the military preponderance of Ger- many in 1914 and the unpreparedness of the English-speaking nations again produced a dangerously unbalanced power condi- tion.
"The United States was chiefly responsible for the dangerous inversion of the Vienna order of procedure following World War II, with the result that we first demobilized in Europe, and then struggled at San Francisco to form the United Nations. Mean- while, Russia has occupied a large part of the territory she hopes for in Europe, has created quite powerful satellite and Com- munist states through which she threatens Greece and Salonica, the most important port in the Eastern Mediterranean, and which flanks the entrance to the Dardanelles, dominates Poland, occu- pies East Prussia and rules all the eastern shore of the Baltic. In Asia she holds Manchuria (the disappearance of Japan's great North China Army is still a mystery), Port Arthur, and Dairen, thus controlling the Gulf of Pechili. We have conceded to her the rest of Sakhalin Island and Kuriles, north of Japan.
"There are very few 'accidents,' though some interesting 'coin- cidences,' in international relations. When Maxim Litvinoff, at a meeting of the Preparatory Commission on Disarmament, meet- ing at Geneva in November-December, 1927, proposed immedi- ate and complete disarmament, was it genuine or did it merely 'coincide' with Russia's military weakness at the time, requiring a breathing space for complete recuperation? Was it by chance or design that, in 1946, Russia's first suggestions for disarmament followed, within a few hours, the statement by Prime Minister Attlee that Britain would continue military conscription? Or is it possible that the sudden termination of the Lewis Coal Strike (and threatened general strike) increased the 'friendly' urgency of Russia toward limitation of armaments within the space of a few days?
"In discussing with Russia any proposals for disarmament or limitation of armaments, even though coupled with stringent and explicit provisions for 'inspection' ( which will be 'impracticable'),
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we must include a provision for the complete abandonment and prohibition of Russia's most dangerous engine of warfare - her Communist propaganda and interference with the internal affairs of foreign countries. Through these means she now controls a large part of Europe, keeps China in a state of civil war, and other friendly nations in a state of industrial ferment. England once insisted upon such an agreement. Let us do likewise, and make it clear that we intend to enforce it in all parts of the United States.
"We speak of 'balanced justice' and recall the figure of Justice holding the fairly balanced scales. To such an extent, however, has 'power' become anathema in recent years that the average mind, and even many superior minds, notwithstanding the teach- ings of history, seem incapable of reasoning logically and factu- ally respecting the inescapable participation of power in world affairs.
"We overlook that, since childhood, we have been taught and warned about the conflict between the powers of good and the powers of evil; yet, so prejudiced have we become against so- called 'power politics' and 'balance of power' that we forget that, unless the powers of good are the stronger, they will be overcome by the powers of evil. This is not to be mistaken for a purely materialistic argument or tortured into meaning that 'might makes right' - far from it. It does, however, mean that the material power for good must control aggressive powers of evil so that spiritual forces for good will be given time to grow so strong that they will be able to carry, unaided, the burden of the maintenance of world peace. Ill-advised attempts to force the Millenium (Rev. XX) upon an unready and selfish world have retarded, rather than promoted, a sane idealism and peace among the nations.
"Throughout our history we have, until 1941, depended, in peacetime, upon a volunteer army and navy, and have drafted men only when great losses or overwhelming danger suddenly threatened. We have never once been prepared for war before the storm was upon us. We have never by our peacetime strength been able to prevent the outbreak of a single war. Our, and
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England's military weakness has invited aggression and brought on the two most terrible wars in history, the first so aptly de- scribed by Kipling in a letter to an American friend: 'A recrud- esence of barbarism aided by the acme of modern science.' Since persistence in military unpreparedness and futile paper agree- ments have proved dangerous and costly failures, why not try something else?
"Does not the National Security come first? Can we have reli- gion and education as usual, business and politics as usual, luxury and selfish comfort as usual, or even exist if we are in acute danger of destruction? The next time, and it is immaterial whether it comes in this generation or the next, we shall be the first object of attack. Appeasement is no longer fashionable or possible, short of unconditional surrender. If South America 'goes Communist,' the Monroe Doctrine may join other scraps of paper in the inter- national wastebasket.
"The above activities, plus the practice of law, have fully occu- pied my time in recent years, and from what I have written in this Report, you may expect me to be equally busy in the same direc- tions until some other hand writes my obituary."
Thacher, the son of George and Isabel (Gourlie) Thacher, was born January 16, 1876, at Boston. He prepared at Hopkinson's School in Boston and attended a Swiss school for a short time. After four years with our Class, he was graduated magna cum laude. He entered the Law School in 1897 and received his LL.B. in 1900. As an undergraduate he was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, D.K.E. (hon.) Fencing Club, and Signet. On his return from World War I, he was made an honorary mem- ber of the Owl Club. He was captain of the fencing team which won the intercollegiate fencing championship three years in suc- cession ('94, '95, '96). He is a member of the Episcopal Church. He has shot and fished in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, and Norway.
In 1915 he attended the Plattsburg Military Training Camp. A year later he was at the Plum Island Training Camp, and in 1917 attended the First War Camp, receiving his commission as captain of Infantry in that year. He was appointed adjunct, 306th
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Infantry, at Camp Upton and went overseas in April, 1918. He was promoted to the rank of major in June and was in command during the capture of St. Juvin, France, on October 14, 1918. He was commissioned colonel of Infantry in the Officers Reserve Corps. During World War II, he served as chairman of the Com- mittee on National Defense of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, from September, 1940, to July, 1942, and as treasurer of the War Committee of the Bar of the City of New York, from March, 1942, to February, 1945. Mrs. Thacher was a nurse's aide and was active in the work of the British War Relief Society.
Thacher's stepson, Edwin M. Burke, entered the Naval Reserve Corps in June, 1940, and attended The Naval Academy at Annapo- lis for four months. Thereafter he was promoted in various grades to lieutenant commander and served with distinction in the North Atlantic and Western Pacific. His first destroyer, Gwin, was sunk. His second, the Twiggs, was severely damaged and Burke was seriously wounded. The Twiggs was sunk three weeks later.
Thacher married Ethel Davies, August 9, 1902, at Newport, Rhode Island. She died at New York, February 24, 1935. He married Edna Marston Beeckman of New York at Honolulu, Hawaii, July 29, 1937. His children: Alice Davies, born Decem- ber 2, 1906 (died January 20, 1907); Archibald Gourlay, Jr., '29, born November 24, 1907 (died October 17, 1944); and Isabel Davies, born June 4, 1910. He has two Harvard brothers: George Oxenbridge Thacher, '01; and Hamilton Thacher, '04, A.M. '05, LL.B. '07.
Thacher has served as director of various insurance corpora- tions. In 1926 he was elected trustee of the Seaman's Bank for Savings in the City of New York, and served as a member of the Executive Committee and Counsel. For a time he was a trustee of the Nassau Hospital and of the American Seamen's Friend Society. He has written articles on military training and partici- pated in the writing of a history of the 77th Division, American Expeditionary Force. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the French Legion of Honor, and was made a member of
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the Grotius Society of London. His clubs are the Harvard Club of New York, Knickerbocker, Southside Sportsmen's Club, Megantic Fish & Game Club, and Anglers' Club of New York. He is also a member of the American Bar Association, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, State Bar Association, Maritime Law Association, Society of International Law, and Council on Foreign Relations and Foreign Policy Association.
His postgraduate college activities include membership on the Harvard War Memorial Committee, directorship of the Harvard Alumni Association, presidency of the Harvard Law School Asso- ciation of New York, chairmanship of the Committee on Recep- tion of Allied Officers, Harvard Club of New York, and member- ship on the Alumni Committee of the Tercentenary Celebration.
In 1931 he participated in the formation of a Dinner Club for the discussion of international affairs. In 1940 he was a member of a special committee of civilians who advocated and obtained the passage of the Selective Training and Service Act in Septem- ber, 1940. The following year he appeared before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs in support of the extension of the Act.
ARTHUR FRANK STOCKDALE THOMAS
T NIME flies so swiftly that one wonders where it has gone," reflects Arthur Thomas. "Since 1938 I have been acting as trial examiner for the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D. C."
Thomas was born April 7, 1874, at Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of Richard Kendall and Caroline ( Stockdale) Thomas. He entered the Lawrence Scientific School in 1893 and transferred to the College the following year. After two years there, he received his A.B. at our graduation. He entered the Law School in 1896, from which he received an LL.B. in 1899.
He married Ida Smith in November, 1894, at Salt Lake City. They were divorced in July, 1897. Their daughter, Carrie S., was born May 25, 1895.
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+ CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS
C YHARLES SWAIN THOMAS, beloved teacher of English, dean of American students of the arts of teaching in that field, died in West Newton, Massachusetts, on June 26, 1943. To hundreds of teachers in the secondary schools of this country the death of Professor Thomas will bring a sense of personal loss, even if they had not known him through personal meeting; for the circle of his influence had widened through his writings far beyond the very extensive group of those who had studied with him or taught under his direction, and there was in what he wrote a friendliness and an intimacy of understanding which endeared him to his readers, as his sweetness of character endeared him to those who met him in the flesh. During a long life of professional service he had come into contact with a host of students, teachers, authors, critics, and publishers, and among them all there will be none who would not pay tribute to the fine balance of his mind, the con- stancy of his interest in all things lovely and of good report, the loyalty with which he carried out his tasks, his great skill as a teacher, the charm of his English style, his firm common sense, and the warmth of his attachment to his pupils, his associates, and his friends.
Dr. Thomas taught in the Harvard Graduate School of Educa- tion for sixteen years, and was at the time of his death Associate Professor of Education, Emeritus, in Harvard University. As a service during the war, he had returned to his teaching in the School of Education and was to have conducted his regular courses in the Teaching of English in the Summer School of 1943. He held to his duty in the field of his choice until the very end.
Charles Swain Thomas was born in Pendleton, Indiana, on December 29, 1868. He was the son of John Lewis and Caroline (Swain) Thomas. He graduated from the University of Indiana in 1894 and received a master's degree from that institution in 1895. He took an additional A.B. degree at Harvard in 1897, and, in 1933, the Rhode Island College of Education conferred on him the honorary degree of Litt.D. His first teaching was done in Pendleton, Indiana, in 1887. Then he was principal and later
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superintendent of schools in Bedford, Indiana. In 1894 he be- came Instructor in English at the University of Indiana and in 1897, Professor of English in Center College, Danville, Kentucky. He might have gone forward in a collegiate career in English, but his major interest was in the young and in their education.
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