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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

about some of the things I thought had been good over the years that had been discarded by other editors. Every editor of the Jester had his own way of doing things. We had a strange system in the Jester. The board didn't elect its editor. The outgoing editor appointed his successor.

Q:

Now, you were made editor in your sophomore year.

Cerf:

Yes. That was when Morrie Ryskind was thrown out of Columbia. As I told you, he called Nicholas Murray Butler a blithering idiot, and Nicholas Murray Butler didn't like that. I think I told you how after our first issue we met Nicholas Murray Butler when we printed a joke he didn't like. Well, that's the last time I saw Nicholas Murray Butler. I never ran into him again, because I wasn't there to get my diploma. I had it sent by mail. I graduated ahead of time. Butler's behavior was quite different from the way college presidents act today. Today I think college presidents have to speak the language of the students and know what they're thinking or they're no good at all. In my day, the main job of the president was to get money for the university.

Q:

I think that's a good part of his job today.

Cerf:

Sure, it is. But he's somebody in the college who knows the students. Nicholas Murray Butler had no more knowledge of his students than he did of the man in the moon.





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