No Bishop

In 1841 the Rev. Adam Poe knocked on every door in Delaware, Ohio, until he had begged enough money to buy the town's unprofitable stagecoach inn. To the Methodist minister, little Delaware, 20 miles north of Columbus, seemed like the perfect site for a Methodist college.

In time, Ohio Wesleyan University turned out so many prominent churchmen that its 20,000-odd alumni (paraphrasing Ohio's claim as the "Mother of Presidents") proudly call their alma mater the "Mother of Bishops." Last week, for the first time in its 106 years, Ohio Wesleyan picked a layman president: U.S. Civil Service Commissioner Arthur Sherwood Flemming, 43.

Brooklyn Dodgers Boss Branch Rickey* ('04) and the 41 other trustees knew what they were getting. Able Administrator Flemming, an Ohio Wesleyan man himself ('27), has been a trustee for six years. He is a leader in the Federal Council of Churches, a Sunday-school superintendent, the father of five.

Teetotaling, non-smoking Arthur Flemming never takes off his coat or his dignity at staff meetings. But Civil Service Commission staffers like his insistence on group decisions. In 1939, when 34-year-old Republican Flemming was named by President Roosevelt to the Commission, he became the second youngest member in U.S. history (younger: 30-year-old Teddy Roosevelt). Flemming also served on the War Manpower Commission, is now a member of the new Hoover Commission (set up by Congress to study the executive branch). At Ohio Wesleyan, President Flemming plans to teach a course in political science, hopes to get more "first-rate" graduates to go into politics.

* For more personal news of Mr. Rickey, see PEOPLE.

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