Serious Discussion

Bernard M. Baruch, continuing in munificence, the Institute of Politics will meet again this Summer at Williams College.

The Institute has for three years past been a power-house generating serious discussion of international affairs. First projected in 1913 by Harry A. Garfield, President of Williams, it became real in 1921. Mr. Baruch guaranteed its expenses for three years. There were 138 members enrolled, most of them over 50 years of age; half of them from uni-versity faculties, the other half lawyers, diplomats, clergymen, journalists, business men, representatives of the Army and Navy. Distinguished men were secured to give lectures open to the public and to lead the Round-Table Conferences for members only.

This plan has been followed in successive years. Men associated with the Institute have been: As directors--William H. Taft; Archibald C. Coolidge, Harvard Historian; P. M. Brown, Princeton authority on international law; E. A. Alderman, University of Virginia President; Edward Asahel Birge, University of Wisconsin President; Harry Pratt Judson, University of Chicago President.

As instructors--the late James Viscount Bryce; Tomass'o Tittoni, former Premier of Italy; Count Teleki, former Premier of Hungary; Frank W. Taussig, Harvardeconomist; A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard President; Michael I. Pupin, inventor; John H. Latane, Johns Hopkins Dean; the Earl of Birkenhead (F. E. Smith).

The 1924 Program will feature Edouard Benes* (Foreign Minister of Czecho-Slovakia) as speaker, immigration as a problem. Professor Henry Pratt Fairchild of New York University will lead the immigration discussion. Other Round Table leaders will be: Lionel Curtis, of London; William S. Culbertson, of the Federal Tariff Commission; Boris A. Bakhmeteff, former Russian ambassador; J. A. V. MacMurray of the State Department; Dr. Leo S. Rowe, Director General of the Pan-American Union; A. A. Young, Harvard Professor; Sir Paul Virograd-off, Oxford don.

Mr. Baruch will be assisted in paying for the Institute by the General Education Board, which has voted partial support until 1928. "Barney" Baruch* became a name known many miles from Wall Street when on March 5, 1918, Woodrow Wilson made him head of the War Industries Board. The Board exercised supervision over virtually the entire industrial fabric of the nation, with power to commandeer plants, purchase for the Allies, allocate materials, place contracts. Mr. Baruch's was the "broadest authority and most autocratic control ever vested in any individual in the U. S."

Baruch magnified his office. Said Mark Sullivan, able Washington correspondent:

Just now Baruch seems to be the whole works here in Washington. He has pulled the reins out of everybody else's hands, and is flying down the road with his tail over the dashboard. He goes ahead and acts, regardless of authorization, money, or detail. When there isn't any money available, he uses his own. He has rented a whole floor for himself, and when his secretary reported difficulty about getting more rooms, he said: "Buy the building!" He is successful at getting things done, and with all his assumption of authority, no one gets mad at him. A nice fellow-- a little naive, a little over-eager--but not at all offending--indeed likeable.

Such power was bitterly assailed. But due credit was his when he bought copper for 16-c- when the prevailing price was 30-c-, and steel for $58. Then, quietly resigning on Jan. 1, 1919, Baruch became a student--of economics in general and American farming in particular. He went to Kansas, wrote a report on agricultural marketing, a sort of Magna Charta for the farm movement. And now, in spite of his Wall St. "past," he basks in the confidence and friendship of the farmer. It is also as a student that he endows the Williams Institute. There he will go this Summer to be a student among students of every race, religion and previous condition of prejudice.

*Benes, as much if not more than any other and man, has been responsible for the creation and the preservation of the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia, the "soundest" nation in Central Europe. Professor Masaryk, formerly of the University of Chicago, is the President, and is known as the "Father" of the new nation. But since its birth, he has not borne a preponderant part of the battle. He has been often sick. Benes is young, of sturdy build, shrewd, quick-witted, with a flair for conversation, light or heavy. When he speaks English he is never at a loss for a word; if he cannot remember the word for "mines" he snaps out "industries metallurgiques" in the French accent comprehensible to AngloSaxons. He has attended nearly every international conference since 1918. He has got big loans out of France. He has kept on reasonably friendly terms with Germany on his West and Poland on his East. He has lictored Hungary, made Austria humble. And by forming the Little Entente of Czechoslovakia, Yugo-Slavia and Rumania, he has made himself a Little Corporal among European diplomats.

*Bernard Mannes Baruch, born Camden, S. C., in 1870. His father, Dr. Simon Baruch, a Spanish Jew, emigrated from Polish Russia, was a field surgeon in Lee's army. His mother was Isabel Wolfe, daughter of a widely respected cotton planter. Bernard entered commerce as a glassware clerk, studied law and medicine, graduated from C. C. N. Y., of which he is now a trustee. When he visited Wall Street and made daily history there he acquired the reputation of "greatest speculator of our generation." Phrases such as "Baruch led the shorts today," or "Baruch, the well-known plunger," appeared regularly in the press.