"Cotton Top" Elected

As foretold last fortnight by the Boston Globe (TIME, Sept. 28), 36-year-old Kenneth Ballard ("Cotton Top") Murdock, associate professor of English and master of Harvard's new Leverett House, was elected last week to be dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences of Harvard University. It was also reported, unofficially, that he would be relieved of his teaching duties for the year, save for a little tutorial work. As dean, he will be chief assistant to President Abbott Lawrence Lowell More & more, as Harvard becomes larger and richer, as President Lowell grows older (he will be 75 in December), are the routine duties of the presidency being passed on to the deanship, a strenuous post which undermined the health of the late Clifford Herschel Moore who held it until his death last August, and of his predecessor, Professor Charles Homer Haskins.

Last spring young Professor Murdock was frequently seen at President Lowell's house when there were potent benefactors and distinguished visitors to be entertained. Many an observer thinks he is the man President Lowell has in mind for his successor. But keen, white-whiskered President Lowell surprised his pressmen last week. Calling them together for his second "interview" in 20 years (he never allows himself to be quoted directly), he took them on a tour of Harvard's seven houses (three new, four remodelled), built with $15,000,000 of Edward Stephen Harkness's money. He was spry, hopped up stairways two steps at a time. Lovingly he pointed out the features of the House Plan which he (says Harvard legend) wangled from Donor Harkness. who had planned to give only one or two houses, only one or two million dollars. Newshawks quoted an "official spokesman" as saying: "You will notice that these houses are as different as it has been possible to make them. No student, no matter how little attention he has paid to the Volstead Act, should have difficulty in finding his way home to his proper house." Then President Lowell heard that photographers were waiting for him. Hating them as much as does John Pierpont Morgan and as much as St. Gandhi says he does, he popped out of the way.

That President Lowell loves his House Plan too well to resign in this its first full-fledged year--or even in its second year-- was the opinion of many a newshawk. Harvard's next president, whether he be Dean Murdock or any other, might have a long time to wait. Harvardmen recall that last spring, long accustomed to being driven by a chauffeur. President Lowell resumed driving himself, motored down in his Buick sedan to his summer home at Cotuit, Mass. There, says another robust Harvard legend, President Lowell dismayed and shocked an elderly female neighbor several years ago by bathing almost nude in the surf.

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