MB: What sort of a president if he had resigned in 1941 after you'd been here 5 years and he'd been in about 7 or 8 how would you have characterized his presidency?
EB: At that time, about '41, I would have characterized it as a very, very good administration. He was moving along all across the board and with no regard for financial dealings at all, but academically he was doing a good job.
MB: He seemed to be trying to put into effect a number of programs that Dr. Wright had had on the drawing board but without the funds to do it. And then as the economy better during the late '30's like with the business, he put that in, and tried to do some other things that the school needed.
EB: I think the fight, the division on the campus after about that time destroyed him. Whether it was his fault or not, but very definitely I thought at that time that he shouldn't compromise it, and both sides should, but they didn't. And then neither one wanted to compromise. So they fought it out to the end
MB: To the bitter end.
EB: But he was a good academician. He came from the English Department. A highly cultured gentleman, in every respect. On the face of it, a gentleman interested, when I came here I thought quite interested in the welfare of the college and no apparent trouble. But by '41 it was another story.
MB: Surfacing
EB: Yes, surfacing.
MB: I've heard some people refer to him, not necessarily critically, but just refer to him as a sort of maternalist as an administrator. And I believe that some said they even called him the great white father. That he was very fatherly, very maternalistic.
EB: Yes.
MB: Which was not inconsistent with the way colleges were operated at that time.
EB: No, no I don't think so either.
MB: But he was a rather maternalistic person.
EB: Yes, he was toward me because I was young, one of the youngest members. He didn't talk down to me, but he was always giving fatherly advice and none of it bad, but some of it not good either. But I would have to stay just quiet and not react either way and go ahead and do what I wanted to do. Because he would know nothing about the Business School or the Business Department.
MB: I have sort of tried to look on this in extending that sort of paternalism where people get to feeling, as he may have done after being here 25 years before he became president, that this was just sort of his extended domain. That he handled it as you would handle family finances . . .
EB: Yes, that's right.
MB: . . . rather than as you would a very highly organized business.
EB: And he handled people that way too. And some of them resented it.
MB: Yes, and some of them liked it.
EB: And some of them liked it. As a newcomer I rather liked it. I was getting what I wanted to do and it wasn't no time until we built up a faculty of 8 or 10 people.
MB: It was a growing department.
EB: Growing. I came in '36 and when I left in '68 we had 1000 students and 54 teachers. And you know that not only Dr. Meadows, but all the other presidents had supported me.
MB: Very much.
EB: Very much. They had given a lot of support.
MB: You came in being new. I've talked with several other people about this period, but not anybody that was in the situation you were of coming in new and uninvolved without entangling alliances before this developed. So you were there through it. Did you get the impression that there was some friction also between him and the students before this erupted?
EB: No. Not at all. I thought that the student, my impressions, the student unhappiness was also to some extent agitated by the people who opposed to him. Because I saw many little incidents of student revolt about things that really they couldn't have mattered with them. And at least for the first four or five years I didn't see any student rebellion at all. Not at all. But then suddenly it came forward in the early 40's. What was back of it I really don't know.
MB: You don't know how it developed. And then they, well they had a new constitution a lot of student government things.
EB: Student government was something new and one of the things that made them a little cocky about it was that boys were coming in. And if it had been all girls and I must say the girls naturally probably would have been easier handled and not been a coed thing. And in '41 the boys are coming on the campus and also the rebellious type of people who resisted. I worked as advisor to two or three organizations and the student government at one time. The worst rebellion from the students was when I got back from the war and the G.I.s were pouring onto campus then. Then there was trouble because the G.I.s were so much older than the typical student. And there was a lot of agitation then. But I believe maybe that was after Meadows had stepped aside.
MB: You were in England, you said and France during '45 and '46 you were there.
EB: '45 and '46.
MB: When you returned, I guess, Dr. Cooke was here for one year.
EB: He was the most unhappy of the presidents. He never did get, he was here that one year in which the GI's were pouring on the campus. And he was very disturbed about the relationship between the men and women students, you know. And more drinking than usual, than they'd ever been used. It was almost a new campus.
MB: They weren't dealing with boys, they were having men.
EB: Yes, they were dealing with veterans of the war and it wasn't easy for him. Because he was, from the day he walked on the campus he started throwing up his hands in despair and finally, quickly left. He couldn't handle it.
MB: That was sort of a transitional time. Then Dr. Messick.
EB: Yes a transitional period. Dr. McGinnis was acting president before Cooke.
MB: Before Cooke, yes.
EB: He acted for about a year. Dr. McGinnis was a real close friend, a West Virginian.
MB: Yes
EB: Yes. He and Dr. Meadows and Dr. ReBarker, M.L. Wright didn't hunt very much, but McGinnis, myself, and ReBarker, and Meadows were old hunting pals. Because in those days you never had anything to do on Tuesday, Thursday afternoon, you could go hunting.
MB: You didn't have classes?
EB: No, in the early days, not many. We would always go during the week two or three days to go hunting. You wouldn't imagine that now.
MB: Yes. You did more hunting than fishing?
EB: More hunting than fishing, yes.
MB: Where did you go?
EB: Bird hunting, off, we used to go down toward Grimesland and that area.
MB: That was strange cause ReBarker was one of those then that was not, as I mean more unfriendly. But they had been friendly earlier.
EB: Yes they'd been friendlier earlier and when I hunted with them I knew there was friction between them but they still hunted together. It hadn't developed to the hatred that developed later.
MB: Dr. McGinnis had a rather unhappy period too because he was in the midst of atrying, it wasn't of his creation, but it was difficult.
EB: I don't think Dr. McGinnis really wanted to be acting president, but he was sort of was pushed to. Nobody else to do and he accepted it. I don't think he would have ever accepted the presidency because he was so perplexed about that recent history that he would have been, he would have dreaded it too.
MB: Sort of had some cooling off time and finally by the time Dr. Messick arrived it was a whole different situation.
EB: Yes. It was beginning to settle down, yes.
MB: That's when it became truly coed. And I guess your school then, your department really grew fast.
EB: Yes and after from about '45 on was getting a lot of the men students, the new men students. So we were growing fast with the coeducational department. Which I liked and we could get new departments, new sub-departments in the Business thing, they finally made it a school. But we could do so many more things when we got away from just the secretarial side of it.
MB: It gradually evolved into the School of Business.
EB: The School of Business.
MB: With more business administration.
EB: And finally we took over the Economics from Dr. A.D. Frank's department because AACSB [American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business] required that we do it. I was between the devil and the deep blue sea on that because AACSB said forget about it. They said, "Forget about it. If you don't have Economics you're not a School of Business." The Administration resisted putting it over in the School of Business. And A.D. and I were always good friends. It had to be an undercover competition, not, not really personal. But finally the Administration, under Dr. Messick just before he went out, decided that it had to be, so they just ordered Economics professors over to the School of Business.
