- Transcription
Private
[1916]1
My dear Governor,
I hope you will see Gen. Carr soon, and thus get the money while times are good. Offer him this opportunity as the greatest favor and honor of your administration and the one opportunity for immortality. But, if he will not agree to put through a $30,000 monument, he is not your man, & shd not be appointed chm. Tell him you have $5000 in sight; also that the University of N.C. Alumni will give $5000, also that the Yale Alumni will give $5000- also that the [Presbyterians] will give $5000- also that the U.S. Scientists will give $5000, & that he can [easily] raise $10,000 to $15,000 from philanthropists &c, &c. If he is not willing & eager, he is not the man. If he hesitates, ask him to think it over, to go to Summit of Mitchell & see; to visit [Blk] [Mt] & Waynesville & see a sign of the future of Western N.C.- To link his name & fame with it all! Maybe he wd like to be buried there: a 250 to 300 ft obelisk (à la Washington Mont) is the thing, rough, [illegible], eternal, visible for 100 miles, & commanding views of 100m. in all directions.
I don't believe Poteat wd accept the A & M Presidency. How could he, after so recently demanding that the state institutions be managed with reference to the interests of the church colleges? If he accepted & was loyal to A & M, he wd be disloyal to his church college stand! If loyal to the latter, wd he be a proper President of a state institution? Same is true to some extent of Henry Louis Smith, who has been preaching church college education, as the sine qua non of manhood & citizenship. It doesn't taste good! "Omne ignotum pro magnifico est": [Tacitus]:-
I hope the Bd will not elect an unknown - nobody! If a reasonably competent man is in the Faculty, he is the man. Truth is, that all institutions, after getting funded & well under way, move forward [successfully] by their own momentum, provided they are not hindered, or throttled by an incompetent, or ill [behaved], President. See how the University grew even under Venable! V. was better than [Jarvis], or Dr. Curry, or any of that genus. He knew the University, was part of it, helped it, along its career of greatness, of course, adding nothing of his own.
I don't know Harrison. Withers is not of Presidential timber. Riddick is equal to the Presidency; is efficient, strong mentally, not a bigot, practical, well educated, possessed of executive ability. I think that all his defects will disappear if he becomes President. In the absence of a great man of commanding power & talent, why make a doubtful venture with some unknown mediocre? The good will & [enthusiasm] of the Alumni, the self [respect] of the college & faculty are all strengthened by promoting a professor.
The following college Presidents were promoted from Professorships-
Harvard: Eliot, & Lowell & (Edward E. Everett)
Yale: Dwight, & Hadley
Columbia: Nicholas Murray Butler
Univ of N.C: Winston, Alderman, Venable, Graham
Wake Forest: Poteat
Trinity: Few
Davidson: H L Smith & W. J. Martin
A & M: D. H. Hill
I am sure it wd not be a mistake for A & M to follow suit - again -
Yours
Tell Carr to come to Asheville & go with me to Mitchell,
1. The president for the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now North Carolina State University) was named on May 30, 1916, leading the editor of this project to believe this item of correspondence predates that announcement.
