FRANK, GLENN 1887-194O
University president, politician
A Varied Life
Evangelical preacher, philanthropist, journalist, college president, politician: Glenn Frank had many careers during his short life, and he excelled at each. A colorful, affable, and intelligent man, Frank was one of the leading college presidents and educational reformers in the United States during the 1930s. A moderate conservative who called himself a liberal, Frank proposed modest programs for educational reform at a time of radical alternatives. He successfully held to the center and then became one of the most articulate conservative critics of the New Deal, becoming for a time a figure who was proposed by many for the presidency of the United States.
Background
Frank was born in Queen City, Missouri, on 1 October 1887, and he grew up in nearby Green Top, a small agricultural community where almost everyone was white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant. Frank was the youngest—by fifteen years—of four boys. His father was a country schoolteacher, his mother a zealous Methodist, who instilled piety in her son. When Frank was twelve he became a boy evangelist, riding a circuit and giving as many as six sermons a day. In 1903 he was officially ordained a Methodist minister. In 1909 he came to the attention of the famous evangelist Billy Sunday, who hired him to assist in a summer crusade. That fall, however, Frank entered Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Despite a campus atmosphere that was more morally relaxed than his evangelical background, Frank fit in well, becoming a popular fraternity member and editing the Northwestern Magazine. He was an outstanding orator, winning several prizes and earning money for college by summer stints on the lecture circuit. His talent was such that the university administration hired him as its alumni fund-raiser following his graduation in 1912. It would not be the last time his skill as a speaker advanced his fortunes.
Among the Elite
In the three years Frank worked for Northwestern, he doubled the endowment fund, recruited many students, and traveled frequently. He developed a national reputation for oratory and made contacts with some of the most influential businessmen in the
United States. In 1915 he became a private secretary for one of them, Edward A. Filene, a Boston retailer and philanthropist. Relocating to Boston was an important step for Frank, In the East he amassed more business contacts, continued to refine his oratory, and took his first steps into politics, helping Filene administer pet projects such as the League to Enforce Peace, an antiwar association. In 1918 he wrote his first book, in collaboration with Lothrop Stoddard, a Harvard Ph.D. The Stakes of the War urged Americans to take an active role in the efforts to settle the peace following World War I. The book sold well, and Frank became much in demand as a speaker on political issues. His reputation as a speaker helped Frank to attain the editorship of the prestigious Century magazine, a position that gave him access to the political and cultural elite of the United States, and Frank made himself known to them. By 1925 he was a fixture of the American cultural establishment, and his appointment to the presidency of the University of Wisconsin that year was widely applauded.
President
At that time the University of Wisconsin was the premier public university in the United States. In the previous two decades Wisconsin had set national standards for sociological and economic research and provided academic expertise to progressive Wisconsin political reformers, such as Robert La Follette. By 1925, however, the close ties between the university and Wisconsin politics had made the university administration a minefield of special interests and factions. Frank's skills with politics and public speaking made him the ideal candidate for the post of president, which he assumed at the age of thirty-seven. Controversy nonetheless followed him to the office. To learn about the local politics and interest groups, Frank made the mistake of hiring a private detective firm to investigate the faculty, an act which immediately embittered many. As president Frank brought educational reformer Alexander Meiklejohn to the university to establish an experimental college dedicated to revolutionizing curriculum, another act which alienated him from the established faculty. Frank's own program for educational reform included the production of educational movies and the establishment of research laboratories for business and industry. Many found these ideas shallow and academically soft. The Depression forced cutbacks at the school, including the cancellation of the experimental college. Necessary salary cuts angered the faculty, and Frank's demands for continued funding from state legislators hurt his standing with them. In 1932 a scandal involving the moral code at the university was poorly handled by Frank, and the number of his critics increased. In 1935 several faculty firings by the Board of Regents undermined Frank's authority. After professional anticommunists claimed the university was a seedbed of sedition, it was investigated by a legislative committee, which found no subversion. Nonetheless, the ire of local vigilantes was aroused. On 13 May 1935 right-wing students attacked a small meeting of the League for Industrial Democracy, a socialist campus group. Frank denounced the attacking students and threatened them with expulsion, a position that was applauded. While Frank's mild attempts at educational reform had contributed to the accusations of communism, he was far too conservative for Progressive governor Philip F. La Follette. Following his landslide election victory in 1936, La Follette fired Frank.
Politician
In many ways Frank's political ambitions were responsible for his removal. Since the late 1920s he had cultivated powerful friends within the Republican Party, including Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. Following the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Frank became one of the important spokesmen for the business wing of the Republican Party, writing a book, America's Hour of Decision (1934), that helped unite business conservatives in their opposition to the New Deal. After 1934 he also turned his oratorical skills toward attacking the New Deal, condemning it as creating the "weapons of power to be captured by some yet-to-arise dictatorial government which will mean the end of all our fathers fought to establish in the American scheme of government." Many thought Frank would become the Republican candidate for president in 1936, but Frank refused to run. After he was fired from Wisconsin, he bought an obscure magazine, Rural Progress, and used it as a vehicle to attack Roosevelt. As the 1940 election approached, Frank joined the Republican National Committee, helping to draft the 1940 platform. He also ran for the Republican nomination as a U.S. Seriate candidate from Wisconsin, hoping to unseat Robert La Follette Jr., the governor's brother. These ambitions were dashed when Frank died in an automobile accident while campaigning. His death on 15 September 1940 brought to an end an extraordinary career.
Source:
Lawrence H. Larsen, The President Wore Spats: A Biography of Glenn Frank (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1965).
