The General Takes Command

When it was all over, the Hon. Sir David Smith, chancellor of the University of New Zealand, confessed to a vague feeling of disappointment: "Not a single joke! I rather prefer the way we do it in our British universities--more zest." Last week's inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower as president of 194-year-old Columbia University was as solemn as a funeral, as impressive as a coronation, and as carefully mapped as an invasion.

As the bells of St. Paul's Chapel tolled the zero hour (2 p.m.), a 700-man academic task force debouched from Nicholas Murray Butler Library and cut across the campus north to Low Memorial Library. In the procession marched the presidents and representatives of 310 U.S. and 38 foreign universities and colleges, ranged in order of seniority--from the University of Bologna (founded 1088) down to New York State University, which so far exists only on paper. Oxford was represented by British Ambassador Sir Oliver Franks, the University of Pennsylvania by President Harold Stassen, Kansas State College by President Milton Eisenhower (whom some nearsighted spectators in the crowd of 19,000 greeted with applause and whispers of "There's Ike!").

A Good Omen. At the end, just in front of the university macebearer, came General Ike himself, wearing the hood of an honorary LL.D. (trimmed in purple, for Law, and lined in blue & white, for Columbia). A ripple of applause followed Eisenhower down the aisle; he grinned at old friends like General Omar Bradley and Admiral Thomas C. Kincaid, and saluted Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch.

Under an overcast sky, Ike took his place on the Low Library steps--at the right hand of Frederic K. Coykendall, chairman of Columbia's trustees, who was enthroned on a great horsehair armchair that had once belonged to Ben Franklin. Four times Ike heard his praises (and Columbia's) loudly sung; each time he tipped his gold-tasseled mortarboard to the speaker. Then Chairman Coykendall surrendered to President Eisenhower the university charter, the keys and the horsehair throne. At that instant, as if on cue, the sun smiled through the clouds.

A Bad Cold. Ike donned horn-rimmed spectacles to read his 20-minute inaugural address, stopping once to snuffle into a handkerchief because of a bad cold. The new president's address was proper, unexciting, and meant to reassure everyone that he had laid down his sword & shield. Said Eisenhower: "If this were a land where the military profession is a weapon of tyranny or aggression--its members an elite caste dedicated to its own perpetuation--a lifelong soldier could hardly assume my present role. But in our nation the Army is the servant of the people ... Hence, among us, the soldier who becomes an educator . . . enters no foreign field . . ." Eisenhower was going to see to it, he said, that Columbia remained a bastion of freedom: "Only by education in the apparently obvious [fundamentals of freedom] can doubt and fear be resolved . . . There will be no administrative suppression or distortion . . ."

Ike's fellow educators gave him a respectful hearing--and a thorough looking-over. Said the president of a state university: "An astute, middle of the road speech, just the kind Ike's trustees and colleagues wanted to hear. Ike obviously doesn't know a good goddam about education--but then, who does?"

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