EISENHOWER COMES  TO  COLUMBIA
 

Travls Beal Jacobs
 

Ami(
 

mid the pomp and splendor of a
medieval pageant, General of
the Army Dwight D. Eisen¬
hower, the leader of the victorious Allied crusade against Nazi Germany in
World War II, was installed as the thirteenth President of Columbia
University in the City of New York on October 12, 1948. Nearly 20,000
persons had assembled in front of Low Memorial and Alma Mater to
witness the ceremony and the beginning of his second crusade, this one for
youth and democratic citizenship. Never had there been such a gathering
of American college and university presidents to pay tribute to a new
colleague, and they were joined by representatives of thirty-eight foreign
universities, including ancient Bologna, Padua, Oxford, and Cambridge,
delegates from thirty learned societies, and Columbia's trustees and facul¬
ties. Forty-six years earlier Nicholas Murray Butler, in his inaugural address
in front of Low Memorial, had declared: "(ireat personalities make great
universities," and he went on to become the greatest university president of
the twentieth-century, fulfilling his own prophecy.^

The dignitaries marched under overcast skies from Nicholas Murray
Butler Library across South Field and 116th Street to the platform, and that
afternoon Columbia's prominence was unchallenged in an awesome
display of academic brilliance and media attention. Eisenhower, World War
II's most popular and widely acclaimed general, had an infectious grin, and
his expressive blue eyes conveyed his intensity and vitality; grim and without
any trace of his famous smile on the day of his installation, however, he
walked in the solemn and slow procession with the University's Provost
through the center of the campus and the huge crowd.
 

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