Drake University - Quax Yearbook (Des Moines, IA)

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Two lives were moulded in the span ot years from i897 to I94l-that ot Daniel Walter Morehouse and ot Drake university. As student, athlete. pro- fessor, department head and president, Dr. More- house matured with his university, each gaining new depth, responsibility and tame as the years un- folded. Those ot us on campus now cannot picture the younger man. But in these scenes are recorded the teacher, scholar, administrator and builder that shall remain indelible in our memories. To the right is Dr. Morehouse pictured at his chosen profession -that ot teacher ot his science, astronomy. One ot the last pictures taken ot him, it is also one ot the most typical and beloved. Sara Lee Tesdell is. the apt student. Familiar to both students and taculty is this scene ot Dr. Morehouse at his spacious desk. It was sitting at this desk that Dr. Morehouse made many a weighty decision. settled many a disciplinary prob- lem, called to order many an executive council meeting as well as pass a cheery time ot day with the numerous students who habitually stopped in tor a chat. It was here that persons ot world-wide tame, such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover or the meekest and most self-conscious ot prospect- ive students with their parents were greeted with the same dignified, gentlemanly sincerity. Dear to the memories ot some 5,000 persons throughout the United States is this picture ot Dr. Morehouse giving them their diplomas. His stately figure in cap and gown, and his voice firm as he called the roll ot graduates caused many a heart- ache among the seniors as they realized they had reached the end ot their college days, and lite was just commencing. Always an inspiring person- ality, Dr. Morehouse seemed to radiate even more ot the genuine search for knowledge and truth on Commencement days. Dr. Morehouse otticiated at the graduation exercises tor I8 years, and during that time issued approximately 5,000 diplomas. Here is pictured Dr. Morehouse at the ground break- ing tor the new Cowles library. Always a leader in expanding the university as tunds allowed, Dr. Morehouse saw the erection of tour buildings dur- ing his presidency-the Student Union, the Cowles library, the Drake tieldhouse and the Women's dormitory. Dr. Morehouse took great pride in the buildings and grounds ot the university and it was a tamiliar sight to see him standing at the window ot his office gazing tondly upon the campus grounds, It was a titting tribute to him as well as the granting of his request, that his ashes are buried in the Drake Municipal Observatory.

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Tribute to Dr. Morehouse DANIEL WALTER MOREHOUSE is woven into more than two-thirds of the total years of Drake University. In those years he has run a valiant gamut, as athlete, student, instructor, professor, dean of men, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, acting president and president. Seldom has a man achieved such complete identification of himself with his institution as has Dr. Morehouse with Drake University. And he had an inordinate ambition for the University. He probably has never put it more stirringlv than he did in his address to the alumni on the University's forty-third anniversary: Let us make Drake a veritable dynamo whose field of force will be intensified, whose potential level will be raised, whose magnetic power will transform the untutored and unstimulated mass of humanity into radiating centers which will produce leaders in all walks of life. As our leader Dr. Morehouse was impelled always by a strict determination to make higher education at Drake Uni- versity a deeply serious enterprise. He believed that higher education should beget in men and women a dignity, a dignit so absorbed in genuine beauty and truth as never to be attracted by the fetid and the cheap. A fellow-educator voicedlit in words our president liked often to' quote: 'The real student detests fashions, reveres permanence. He cares nothing for the fact that a man has a million dollars, everything for the fact that he has some moral principles and is not incorrigibly stupid. He measures men and women by their preferences for perfection-and their knowledge that they will always tall a little short of it.' Through the years and especially in recent days, men have talked much of the greatness Daniel Walter Morehouse achieved in the world of overt deeds and substance. But just now we pay tribute to the greatness he achieved within himself. For, within the subtle, intrinsic texture of a man's own inner being is the true reality of him and the full measure of life's meaning and of human greatness. Herein he achieved greatness: in his extreme sensitivity to human suffering: in his responsiveness to the magnet of perfection: in his staunchness to standards of personal purity and nobility ot character. Here was a man who could reach out into magnitudinous universes in stellar contemplation. Inspired by a universe of such permanence and perfection he could reach back with dreams of perfection for men. To the end he kept a vigil of yearning, yearning for answer to his dreams of perfection, of completeness. He loved so much to quote Alfred Noyes' The Watchers of the Sky. Might he not have found his answer glimmering there? For there the poet puts into the mouth of his revered Copernicus these lines: . . . . . ln the noon Of life's brief day, I could not see the need As l now see it, when the night shuts down. I was afraid, perhaps, it might confuse The lights that guide us for the souls of men. But now l see three stages in our life. At first, we bask contented in our sun - And take what daylight shows us for the truth. Then we discover, in some midnight grief, How all day long the sunlight blinded us To depths beyond, where all our knowledge lies. Then. last, as death draws nearer, comes a night ln whose majestic shadow men see God, Absolute Knowledge, reconciling all. -Luther W. Stalnaker. Bust of Dr. Morehouse sculptured by Pasquale Sposeto. B.E. '37. I t 2 I

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Commencement 1940 EVERAL thousand persons, in the University Church of Christ attendin the annual Drake commencement exercises, listened 5 S intently. ' I have the honor to present the speaker in absentis, Mr. .I. Edgar Hoover, Dr. D. W. Morehouse, president of Drake univer- sity, said. There was a half minute of silence broken only by occasional coughing in the audience. Dr. Morehouse turned to look toward the off-stage control room. This is Station WOL, Washington, D. C.- The sound broke forth from a half dozen loud speakers about the audi- torium. It was the introduction of the director of the federal bureau of investigation, who radioed his address when an unusual emergency forced him to cancel his trip to Iowa. It was believed to be the first remote control com- mencement address in the nation. Hoover, whose presentation was as audible and clear as if he had stood before his audience, warned his listen- ers against Communists, Bund organizations espionage agents, saboteurs, and other foreign deterrents of Ameri- can preparedness. The crowded church audience applauded its unseen speaker when the loud speakers became silent. Dr. Morehouse awarded 230 diplomas as he watched for the last time the long line of Drake graduates file out of the University Church. He also presented honorary doctor of law diplomas to Dr. George H. Gallup, founder of the American Insti- tute of Public Opinion and the Gallup polls, and Dr. Roy G. Blakely, professor of economics at Minnesota University. - Busy commencement week included the annual Com- mencement play St, Joan given May 23, 24, 25 in which the senior dramatists had their final appearance on the alma mater stage. Then the Phi Beta Kappa dinner was held in the Women's Dormitory on May 3I. June I saw the annual alumni-graduate dinner. Baccalaureate exercises were held June 2 in the Uni- versity Church of Christ with the Rev. Marvin O. Sansbury delivering the sermon. On the sunny, warm morning of Monday, June 3, 1940, the 230 capped and gowned graduates filed across Uni- versity avenue and into the Church auditorium. At noon they filed back and were inducted into the Drake alumni association standing under traditional ChanceIor's elm. In the afternoon Dr. and Mrs. Morehouse held the Presi- dent's reception in their home, and the 59th Commence- ment activities came to a close.