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{{Short description|American philosopher, diplomat, and educator (1862–1947)}}
[[Image:NicolasMButler.gif|350px|right|Nicolas M. Butler]]
{{Distinguish|Nickolas Butler}}
'''Nicholas Murray Butler''' ([[April 2]], [[1862]] - [[December 7]], [[1947]]) was the co-winner with [[Jane Addams]] of the [[1931]] [[Nobel Peace Prize]]. Butler distinguished himself as president of [[Columbia University]] from [[1902]] to [[1945]] and as president of the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] from [[1925]] to 1945. He was also the [[United States Republican Party|Republican Party]] nominee for [[Vice President of the United States]] under [[President of the United States|President]] [[William Howard Taft]] in [[1912]], when the nominated vice presidential candidate [[James S. Sherman]] died in office a few days before the [[U.S. presidential election, 1912|election]].


{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2024}}
Butler was born in [[Elizabeth, New Jersey]] to manufacturer Henry Butler and Mary Murray Butler. He enrolled in Columbia College (which became Columbia University in [[1896]]) and earned his [[bachelor of arts]] degree in [[1882]], his [[masters]]' degree the following year, and his [[doctorate]] the year after. In [[1885]] he studied in [[Paris]] and [[Berlin]] and became a lifelong friend of future [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] [[Elihu Root]]. Through Root he also became acquainted with future [[President of the United States|Presidents]] [[Theodore Roosevelt]] and [[William Howard Taft]]. In the fall of that same year, Butler accepted a position on the staff of Columbia's [[philosophy]] department.
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Nicholas Butler
| image = Portrait of Nicholas Murray Butler.jpg
| caption = Butler {{circa|1902}}
| office = 12th [[President of Columbia University]]
| term_start = January 6, 1902
| term_end = October 1, 1945
| predecessor = [[Seth Low]]
| successor = [[Frank D. Fackenthal]] (acting)
| birth_date = {{birth date|1862|4|2}}
| birth_place = [[Elizabeth, New Jersey]], U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1947|12|7|1862|4|2}}
| death_place = New York City, New York, U.S.
| party = [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]
| spouse = {{ubl|Susanna Edwards Schuyler|Kate La Montagne}}
| education = [[Columbia University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]], [[Master of Arts|MA]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])
| signature = Nicholas Murray Butler signature.svg
}}
[[File:Nicholas Murray Butler in 1916.jpg|thumb|Butler in 1916]]
'''Nicholas Murray Butler''' (April 2, 1862 – December 7, 1947) was an American philosopher, diplomat, and educator. Butler was president of [[Columbia University]],<ref>{{Cite news |last=Pringle |first=Henry F. |author-link=Henry F. Pringle |date=October 17, 1928 |title=Publicist or Politician? A Portrait of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler |volume=150 |page=971 |work=The Outlook |issue=7 |location=New York City |editor-last=Bellamy |editor-first=Francis Rufus |editor-link=Francis Rufus Bellamy |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_new-outlook_1928-10-17_150_7/page/971 |access-date=March 23, 2022 |issn=2690-1811 |oclc=5361126 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}</ref> president of the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]], a recipient of the [[Nobel Peace Prize]], and the late [[James S. Sherman]]'s replacement as [[William Howard Taft]]’s running mate in the [[1912 United States presidential election]]. He was so well-known and respected that ''[[The New York Times]]'' printed his Christmas greeting to the nation for many years during the 1920s and 1930s.<ref>{{Cite news |title=TimesMachine: Saturday December 24, 1927 - NYTimes.com |language=en |work=The New York Times |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.comhttp//timesmachine.content-tagging.us-east-1-01.prd.dvsp.nyt.net/timesmachine/1927/12/24/issue.html |access-date=August 8, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Dr. Butler's Christmas Message. |language=en |work=The New York Times |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.comhttp//timesmachine.content-tagging.us-east-1-01.prd.dvsp.nyt.net/timesmachine/1930/12/23/118394853.html?pageNumber=20 |access-date=August 8, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=DR. BUTLER URGES FAITH.; Christmas Message Asks Courage in Face of World Ills. |language=en |work=The New York Times |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.comhttp//timesmachine.content-tagging.us-east-1-01.prd.dvsp.nyt.net/timesmachine/1933/12/24/105834761.html?pageNumber=3 |access-date=August 8, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=DR. BUTLER'S HOLIDAY CARD; His Christmas Message Defines Five Fundamental Human Institutions. |language=en |work=The New York Times |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.comhttp//timesmachine.content-tagging.us-east-1-01.prd.dvsp.nyt.net/timesmachine/1928/12/21/95686626.html?pageNumber=22 |access-date=August 8, 2023}}</ref>


==Early life and education==
In [[1889]] he established and administered the [[Teachers College]], which later became affiliated with Columbia. Throughout the [[1890s]] Butler served on the New Jersey Board of Education and participated in forming the College Entrance Examination Board. In [[1901]] he was installed as acting president of Columbia University and assumed the presidency the following year.


Butler, great-grandson of [[Morgan John Rhys]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Morgan J. Rhees papers, 1794–1968 |url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4079832/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201127204903/http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4079832/ |archive-date=November 27, 2020 |access-date=May 22, 2019 |website=[[Columbia University Libraries]] |language=en |quote=Abolitionist, Welsh republican radical, publisher, Baptist minister, pioneer and adventurer Morgan J. Rhees… was the great grandfather of Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University.}}</ref> was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Mary Butler and manufacturing worker Henry Butler. He enrolled in [[Columbia College of Columbia University|Columbia College]] (later Columbia University) and joined the [[Peithologian Society]]. He earned his bachelor of arts degree in 1882, his master's degree in 1883 and his doctorate in 1884. Butler's academic and other achievements led [[Theodore Roosevelt]] to call him "Nicholas Miraculous". In 1885, Butler studied in Paris and Berlin and became a lifelong friend of future Secretary of State [[Elihu Root]]. Through Root he also met Roosevelt and [[William Howard Taft]]. In the fall of 1885, Butler joined the staff of Columbia's philosophy department.
From [[1888]] to [[1936]], Butler was a delegate to the [[United States Republican Party|Republican]] convention. When Roosevelt ran in the [[U.S. presidential election, 1912|1912 presidential election]] as the [[United States Progressive Party|Progressive Party]] candidate, Butler became Taft's running mate on the Republican ticket. Four years later Butler attempted and failed to secure the Republican presidential nomination for Root. Attempts to secure the nomination for himself in [[1920]] (lost to [[Ohio]] [[Senator]] [[Warren G. Harding]]) and [[1928]] also failed.


In 1887, he co-founded with [[Grace Hoadley Dodge]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Tribute to Grace Hoadley Dodge |url=http://www.tc.columbia.edu/news.htm?articleID=3006 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210917201305/https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2000/december/a-tribute-to-grace-hoadley-dodge/ |archive-date=September 17, 2021 |access-date=March 16, 2015 |website=[[Teachers College, Columbia University]] |language=en}}</ref> and became president of, the New York School for the Training of Teachers, which later affiliated with Columbia University and was renamed [[Teachers College, Columbia University]], and from which a co-educational experimental and developmental unit became [[Horace Mann School]].<ref name="History">{{Cite web |title=A Long Tradition |url=https://www.horacemann.org/our-school/a-long-tradition |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210625120639/https://www.horacemann.org/our-school/a-long-tradition |archive-date=June 25, 2021 |access-date=March 23, 2022 |website=[[Horace Mann School]]}}</ref> From 1890 to 1891, Butler was a lecturer at [[Johns Hopkins University]] in [[Baltimore]]. Throughout the 1890s, Butler served on the New Jersey Board of Education and helped form the [[College Board|College Entrance Examination Board]]. During the 1890s Butler edited The Great Educators book series for [[Charles Scribner's Sons]].<ref>Thomas Davidson, ''[https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/40552/pg40552-images.html Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals]'', New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892, title page. Retrieved February 8, 2024.</ref>
Butler also chaired the Lake Mohonk Conferences on International Arbitration that met periodically from [[1907]] to 1912. In this time he was appointed president of the [[United States|American]] branch of International Conciliation. Butler was also instrumental in persuading [[Andrew Carnegie]] to establish the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace with a gift of $10,000,000, where he served as head of international education and communication, founded the European branch of the Endowment headquartered in Paris, and held the presidency of the parent Endowment for twenty years.


==Presidency of Columbia University==
Butler first married in [[1887]] and had one daughter from the [[marriage]]. His first wife died in [[1903]] and he married another in 1907. In [[1940]], Butler completed his [[autobiography]] with the publication of the second volume of ''Across the Busy Years''. When Butler became almost [[blindness|blind]] in 1945 at the age of eighty-three, he resigned from the posts he held and died two years later.


In 1901, Butler became acting president of Columbia University and, in 1902, formally became president. Among the many dignitaries in attendance at his investiture was President [[Theodore Roosevelt|Roosevelt]]. Butler was president of Columbia for 43 years, the longest tenure in the university's history, retiring in 1945. As president, Butler carried out a major expansion of the campus, adding many new buildings, schools, and departments. These additions included [[Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center]], the first academic medical center in the world.
== See also ==
* [[U.S. presidential election, 1912]]


In 1919, Butler amended the admissions process to Columbia in order to limit the number of Jewish students (it became the first American institution of higher learning to establish an [[anti-Jewish]] quota). Butler's policy was successful and the number of students hailing from New York City dropped from 54% to 23% stemming "the invasion of the Jewish student".<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Ballon |first=Hillary |date=January 2002 |title=The Architecture of Columbia: Educational Visions in Conflict |url=https://archive.org/details/ldpd_12981092_043/page/136 |magazine=[[Columbia College (New York)|Columbia College Today]] |volume=28 |issue=3 |page=14 |issn=0572-7820 |oclc=12357245 |access-date=March 23, 2022 |lang=en |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kingston |first1=Paul W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jh-oHk85EO8C&dq=%22the+invasion+of+the+Jewish+student%22+columbia&pg=PA81 |title=High Status Track, The: Studies of Elite Schools and Stratification |last2=Lewis |first2=Lionel S. |date=January 1, 1990 |publisher=State University of New York Press |isbn=978-1-4384-0912-2 |language=en}}</ref> This is one of the reasons why Butler has been called an anti-semite.<ref name=":0" />
{{start box}}
{{succession box | before = [[James S. Sherman]] | title = [[United States Republican Party|Republican Party]] [[Vice President of the United States|Vice Presidential]] [[:Category:U.S. Republican Party vice presidential nominees|candidate]] | years=[[U.S. presidential election, 1912|1912]] (lost) | after = [[Charles W. Fairbanks]]}}
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In September 1931, Butler told the freshman class at Columbia that totalitarian systems produced "men of far greater intelligence, far stronger character, and far more courage than the system of elections."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schlesinger |first=Arthur Meier |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UAjls3YykzgC&pg=PA204 |title=The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933 |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]] |year=1957 |isbn=978-0-618-34085-9 |location=New York |publication-date=2003 |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=204}}
[[Category:1862 births|Butler, Nicholas]]
[[Category:1947 deaths|Butler, Nicholas]]
[[Category:Nobel Peace Prize winners|Butler, Nicholas]]
[[Category:U.S. Republican Party vice presidential nominees|Butler, Nicholas M.]]


In 1937, he was admitted as an honorary member of the New York [[Society of the Cincinnati]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Honorary Members |url=http://nycincinnati.org/HonoraryMembers.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210602214651/http://nycincinnati.org/HonoraryMembers.htm |archive-date=June 2, 2021 |access-date=March 23, 2022 |website=New York State [[Society of the Cincinnati]] |language=en}}</ref>
[[de:Nicholas Murray Butler]]

[[es:Nicholas Murray Butler]]
In 1941, the [[Pulitzer Prize]] fiction jury selected [[Ernest Hemingway]]'s ''[[For Whom the Bell Tolls]]''. The Pulitzer Board initially agreed with that judgment, but Butler, ''ex officio'' head of the Pulitzer board, found the novel offensive and persuaded the board to reverse its determination, so that no novel received the prize that year.<ref>{{Cite news |last=McDowell |first=Edwin |date=May 11, 1984 |title=Publishing: Pulitzer Controversies |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/11/books/publishing-pulitzer-controversies.html |url-access=subscription |access-date=March 23, 2022 |language=en}}</ref>
[[fr:Nicholas Butler]]

[[ja:ニコラス・バトラー]]
During his lifetime, Columbia named its philosophy library for him; after he died, its main academic library, previously known as South Hall, was rechristened [[Butler Library]]. A faculty apartment building on 119th Street and [[Morningside Drive (Manhattan)|Morningside Drive]] was also renamed in Butler's honor, as was a major prize in philosophy.

A polemical attack on Butler's time at Columbia University appeared in ''[[The Goose-Step (book)|The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education]]'', by Upton Sinclair.

==Political activity==

Butler was a delegate to each [[Republican National Convention]] from 1888 to 1936; in 1912, after Vice President [[James S. Sherman]] died eight days before the [[1912 United States presidential election|presidential election]], Butler was designated to receive the electoral votes that Sherman would have received: the Republican ticket won only 8 electoral votes from [[Utah]] and [[Vermont]], finishing third behind the Democrats and the [[Progressive Party (United States, 1912)|Progressives]]. In [[1916 United States presidential election|1916]], Butler tried to secure the Republican presidential nomination for [[Elihu Root]]. Butler also sought the nomination for himself in [[U.S. presidential election, 1920|1920]], without success.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Shapiro |first=Gary |date=December 29, 2015 |title=Ask Alma's Owl: Butler for President |url=https://news.columbia.edu/news/ask-almas-owl-butler-president |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210609212121/https://news.columbia.edu/news/ask-almas-owl-butler-president |archive-date=June 9, 2021 |access-date=March 23, 2022 |website=[[Columbia University]] |language=en}}</ref>

Butler believed that [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]] was a mistake, with negative effects on the country. He became active in the successful effort for [[Repeal of Prohibition|repeal]] Prohibition in 1933.<ref>{{Cite news |title=DRY LAW CHANGE NEAR, SAYS BUTLER; Thinks Senate Debate Initiates Movement Which Must End in Prohibition Reform. CALLS FAILURE COLOSSAL Columbia Head Holds Attempt Was Immoral -- Contends the Tide Has Now Turned. DRY LAW CHANGE NEAR, SAYS BUTLER |language=en |work=The New York Times |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.comhttp//timesmachine.content-tagging.us-east-1-01.prd.dvsp.nyt.net/timesmachine/1925/12/21/104198245.html?pageNumber=1 |access-date=August 8, 2023}}</ref>

He credited [[John Burgess (political scientist)|John W. Burgess]] along with [[Alexander Hamilton]] for providing the philosophical basis of his Republican principles.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/stream/acrossbusyyearsr01butl#page/362 |title=Across the busy years: recollections and reflections |date=1939 |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |location=New York City |page=363 |lccn=39027850 |oclc=568730477 |ol=13530857M |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref>

In June 1936, Butler traveled to the Carnegie Endowment Peace Conference in London where, at the meeting, fundamental problems of money and finance were explored.<ref>{{Cite news |title=DR. BUTLER URGES ECONOMIC PARLEY; Calls for World Meeting on Fundamental Problems of Money and Finance. SEES DANGER OF WARFARE Borrowing Power of Many Nations May Be Exhausted Next Year, He Declares. |language=en |work=The New York Times |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.comhttp//arch-timesmachine-fe-prd-40741-2-575473780.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com/timesmachine/1936/07/20/85410707.html?pageNumber=17 |access-date=August 8, 2023}}</ref>

=== Attitude towards Fascism and Nazism ===
According to historian [[Stephen H. Norwood]], Butler failed to "grasp the nature and implications of Nazism...influenced both by his antisemitism, privately expressed, and his economic conservatism and hostility to trade unionism".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wills |first=Matthew |date=December 10, 2021 |title=Silence in the Face of Intellectual Conflagration |url=https://daily.jstor.org/silence-in-the-face-of-intellectual-conflagration/ |access-date=August 8, 2023 |website=JSTOR Daily |language=en-US}}</ref> Butler was a longtime admirer of [[Benito Mussolini]]. He compared the Italian Fascist leader to [[Oliver Cromwell]]<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Elon |first=Amos |date=February 23, 2006 |title=A Shrine to Mussolini |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2006/02/23/a-shrine-to-mussolini/ |access-date=June 2, 2022 |website=[[The New York Review of Books]]}}</ref> and, in the 1920s, he noted "the stupendous improvement which [[Fascism]] has brought".<ref>{{Cite news |date=September 20, 1943 |title=FOREIGN NEWS, ITALY: Axis (1936-1943) |work=Time Magazine |url=http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,774563-4,00.html |access-date=June 2, 2022}}</ref>

In November 1933, months after the [[Nazi book burnings]] began, he welcomed [[Hans Luther]], the German ambassador to the United States, to Columbia and refused to appear with a notable German dissident when the latter visited the university. Butler was criticized for his "remarkable silence" and complicity towards [[Nazi Germany|Hitler's regime]] until the late 1930s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Wills |first=Matthew |date=December 10, 2021 |title=Silence in the Face of Intellectual Conflagration |url=https://daily.jstor.org/silence-in-the-face-of-intellectual-conflagration/ |access-date=June 2, 2022 |website=[[JSTOR]]}}</ref><ref>Stephen H. Norwood, “The Expulsion of Robert Burke: Suppressing Campus Anti-Nazi
Protest in the 1930s,” Journal for the Study of Antisemitism 4:1 (2012): 89-114.</ref>
[[File:1921 N M Butler.jpg|thumb|[[Autochrome Lumière|Autochrome]] portrait by [[The Archives of the Planet|Auguste Léon]], 1921]]

==Internationalist==

Butler was the chair of the [[Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration]] that met periodically from 1907 to 1912. In this time, he was appointed president of the American branch of International Conciliation. Butler was also instrumental in persuading [[Andrew Carnegie]] to provide the initial $10 million funding for the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]].

Butler became head of international education and communication, founded the European branch of the Endowment headquartered in Paris, and was President of the Endowment from 1925 to 1945. For his work in this field, he received the [[Nobel Peace Prize]] for 1931 (shared with [[Jane Addams]]) "[For his promotion] of the [[Kellogg-Briand pact]]" and for his work as the "leader of the more establishment-oriented part of the American peace movement".

In December 1916, Butler, Roosevelt and other philanthropists, including Scottish-born industrialist John C. Moffat, [[William A. Chanler|William Astor Chanler]], [[Joseph Choate]], [[Clarence Mackay]], [[George von Lengerke Meyer]], and [[John Grier Hibben]], purchased the [[Château de Chavaniac]], birthplace of the [[Marquis de Lafayette]] in [[Auvergne (province)|Auvergne]], to serve as a headquarters for the French Heroes Lafayette Memorial Fund,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lafayette Memorial |url=http://www.chateau-lafayette.com/Lafayette-Memorial.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210509041523/http://www.chateau-lafayette.com/Lafayette-Memorial.html |archive-date=May 9, 2021 |access-date=March 22, 2022 |website=Lafayette - Château Musée |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=January 6, 1917 |title=Americans buy Lafayette's Home |volume=57 |page=3 |work=[[The Sacred Heart Review]] |issue=4 |url=http://newspapers.bc.edu/cgi-bin/bostonsh?a=d&d=BOSTONSH19170106-01.2.14# |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210420133431/https://newspapers.bc.edu/cgi-bin/bostonsh?a=d&d=BOSTONSH19170106-01.2.14 |archive-date=April 20, 2021}}</ref> which was managed by Chanler's ex-wife, Beatrice Ashley Chanler.<ref>{{Cite book |url={{GBurl|id=oZEVAAAAYAAJ|p=110}} |title=Harper's Pictorial Library of the World War |date=1920 |publisher=[[Harper (publisher)|Harper]] |editor-last=Hart |editor-first=Albert Bushnell |editor-link=Albert Bushnell Hart |volume=7 |location=[[New York City]] |page=110 |lccn=20007999 |oclc=1180489 |via=[[Google Books]] |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=August 4, 1918 |orig-date=1918-08-03 |title=Americans Aid War Refugees in Paris |volume=179 |page=11 |work=[[The Philadelphia Inquirer]] |issue=35 |location=[[New York City]] |publication-place=[[Philadelphia]] |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/170105932/ |url-access=subscription |access-date=March 23, 2022 |via=[[Newspapers.com]] |language=en}}</ref>

Butler was President of the [[Pilgrims Society]], which promotes Anglo-American friendship.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Seabury |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Seabury |date=May 29, 1966 |title=The Establishment Game: Nicholas Murray Butler Rides Again |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_reporter_1966-05-19_34_10/page/24 |magazine=[[The Reporter (magazine)|The Reporter]] |volume=34 |issue=10 |page=24 |access-date=March 23, 2022 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |lang=en |url-access=registration}}</ref> He served as President of the Pilgrims from 1928 to 1946.<ref>{{Cite news |title=DR. BUTLER RESIGNS POST; To Be Succeeded by J.W. Davis as Pilgrims' President |language=en |work=The New York Times |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.comhttp//arch-timesmachine-fe-prd-40741-2-575473780.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com/timesmachine/1946/04/04/93070671.html?pageNumber=25 |access-date=August 8, 2023}}</ref> Butler was president of [[The American Academy of Arts and Letters]] from 1928 to 1941{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}<ref>{{cite web|title=Nicholas Murray Butler|website=C250 (Columbia University celebration 250 years after its founding in 1754; c250.columbia.edu)|url=https://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/nicholas_butler.html}}</ref> and was an early member of the academy.<ref>{{cite book|chapter=American Academy of Arts and Letters|title=World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1919|date=January 5, 2024 |location=New York|publisher=The Press Publishing Co. (The New York World)|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=faBtNh34xREC&pg=PA216|page=216}}</ref>

==Personal life==
Butler married Susanna Edwards Schuyler (1863–1903) in 1887 and had one daughter from that marriage. Susanna was the daughter of [[Jacob Rutsen Schuyler]] (1816–1887) and Susannah Haigh Edwards (born 1830). His wife died in 1903 and he married again in 1907 to Kate La Montagne, granddaughter of New York property developer [[Thomas E. Davis]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=March 6, 1907 |title=Dr Butler wed Miss La Montagne |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1907/03/06/106742751.pdf |url-status=live |access-date=March 16, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210830213632/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1907/03/06/106742751.pdf |archive-date=August 30, 2021 |language=en}}</ref>

In 1940, Butler completed his autobiography with the publication of the second volume of ''Across the Busy Years''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/acrossbusyyearsr02butl |title=Across the Busy Years: Recollections and Reflections |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |year=1940 |edition=1st |volume=2 |location=New York City |oclc=568730477 |access-date=July 6, 2017 |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref>

Butler became almost completely blind in 1945 at age 83. He resigned from the posts he held and died two years later.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Nobel Peace Prize 1931 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1931/butler/biographical/ |access-date=August 8, 2023 |website=NobelPrize.org |language=en-US}}</ref> He is interred at [[Cedar Lawn Cemetery, Paterson, New Jersey|Cedar Lawn Cemetery]], in [[Paterson, New Jersey]].{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

Butler was not universally liked. In 1939, a former student of Butler, [[Rolfe Humphries]], published in the pages of ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]'' an effort titled "Draft Ode for a Phi Beta Kappa Occasion" that followed a classical format of unrhymed [[blank verse]] in [[iambic pentameter]] with one classical reference per line. The first letters of each line of the resulting [[acrostic]] spelled out the message: "Nicholas Murray Butler is a horses [sic] ass". Upon discovering the "hidden" message, the irate editors ran a formal apology.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gamaliel |title=Nicholas Murray Butler |url=http://everything2.com/?node_id=1091716 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210515210108/https://everything2.com/?node_id=1091716 |archive-date=May 15, 2021 |access-date=September 3, 2011 |website=Everything2 |language=en}}</ref> [[Randolph Bourne]] lampooned Butler as "Alexander Macintosh Butcher" in "One of our Conquerors", a 1915 essay he published in ''[[The New Republic]]''.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Juvenis |date=September 4, 1915 |title=One of Our Conquerors |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_new-republic_1915-09-04_4_44/page/121 |magazine=[[The New Republic]] |volume=4 |issue=44 |page=121 |issn=0028-6583 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |lang=en}}</ref>

Butler wrote and spoke voluminously on all manner of subjects ranging from education to [[world peace]]. Although marked by erudition and great learning, his work tended toward the portentous and overblown. In ''[[The American Mercury]]'', the critic [[Dorothy Dunbar Bromley]] referred to Butler's pronouncements as "those interminable miasmas of guff".<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Bromley |first=Dorothy Dunbar |date=1935 |title=Nicholas Murray Butler—Portrait of a Reactionary |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_american-mercury_1935-03_34_135/page/286 |magazine=[[The American Mercury]] |volume=34 |issue=135 |page=298 |issn=0002-998X |access-date=March 23, 2022 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |lang=en}}</ref>

== Honors ==
* Knight Grand Commander in the [[Order of the Redeemer]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Coon |first=Horace |url=https://openlibrary.org/works/OL4785924W/Money_to_burn |title=Money to Burn: Great American Foundations and Their Money |date=1990 |publisher=[[Longmans Green]] |isbn=0887383343 |location=New York City |lccn=89020465 |ol=2199648M |orig-date=1938 |via=[[OpenLibrary]]}}</ref>
* [[Order of Saint Sava]].
* Grand Cross of the [[Order of the White Lion]] on 1926-07-14.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Československý řád Bílého lva 1923–1990 |trans-title=Czechoslovak Order of the White Lion 1923–1990 |url=https://www.prazskyhradarchiv.cz/file/edee/vyznamenani/cs_rbl.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220323221453/https://www.prazskyhradarchiv.cz/file/edee/vyznamenani/cs_rbl.pdf |archive-date=March 23, 2022 |access-date=March 23, 2022 |website=[[President of the Czech Republic]] |language=cs}}</ref>
* Grand cordon of the [[Order of Leopold (Belgium)|Order of Leopold]].
* Knight Grand cross in the [[Order of the Crown of Italy]].
* Commander in the [[Order of the Red Eagle]].
* Knight Grand cross in the [[Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus]].
* Doctor [[honoris causa]] - [[University of Szeged]] (Hungary) in 1931.
* Elected member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1938.<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Nicholas+Murray+Butler&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=May 18, 2023 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

==Works==
* {{Cite book |last=Hake |first=Alfred Egmont |url=https://archive.org/details/regenerationare00butlgoog |title=Regeneration: A Reply to Max Nordau |date=1896 |publisher=[[G. P. Putnam's Sons]] |location=New York City |contribution=Introduction |lccn=22018013 |oclc=2886930 |ol=6647134M |author-link=Alfred Egmont Hake |access-date=March 24, 2022 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |contributor-last=Butler |contributor-first=Nicholas Murray |language=en |contributor-mask=4}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/truefalsedemocra00butliala |title=True and False Democracy |date=1907 |publisher=[[The Macmillan Company]] |location=New York City |oclc=1085980194 |author-mask=4 |access-date=July 6, 2017 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/philosophy00butlgoog |title=Philosophy |date=March 4, 1908 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |edition=Third Thousand |location=New York City |publication-date=1911 |ol=20542028M |author-mask=4 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/internationalmin00butliala |title=The International Mind: An Argument for the Judicial Settlement of International Disputes |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |year=1912 |location=New York City |oclc=1047511494 |author-mask=4 |access-date=July 6, 2017 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/whyshouldwechang00butliala |title=Why Should we Change our Form of Government? Studies in Practical Politics |date=1912 |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |location=New York City |oclc=1158379286 |author-mask=4 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/greatwaritslesso00butl |title=The Great War and Its Lessons |date=October 1914 |publisher=American Association for International Reconciliation |location=New York City |lccn=21003338 |oclc=1158379286 |author-mask=4 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite interview |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |title=The United States of Europe |url=https://archive.org/stream/unitedstatesofeu00butl |access-date=July 6, 2017 |publisher=[[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] |place=New York City |date=1914 |author-mask=4 |interviewer-last=Marshall |interviewer-first=Edward |via=[[Internet Archive]] |lang=en |oclc=1086146230 |ol=23638844M}}
* {{Cite interview |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |title=The United States as a World Power |url=https://archive.org/details/unitedstatesaswo01butl |access-date=March 24, 2022 |publisher=[[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] |place=New York City |date=1914 |author-mask=4 |interviewer-last=Marshall |interviewer-first=Edward |via=[[Internet Archive]] |lang=en |oclc=1086146637 |ol=13497116M}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/buildingofnation00butl |title=The Building of the Nation |date=April 25, 1916 |publisher=[[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] |location=New York City |lccn=16014796 |oclc=1041645865 |ol=23283299M |author-mask=4 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/basisofdurablepe00butl |title=The Basis of Durable Peace: Written at the Invitation of The New York Times |date=1918 |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |location=New York City |lccn=24003441 |oclc=1041043446 |author-mask=4 |access-date=July 6, 2017 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/5925391upenn |title=Problems of Peace and After-Peace |date=February 11, 1919 |location=[[Paterson, New Jersey]] |oclc=181661998 |author-mask=4 |access-date=July 7, 2017 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/makingliberalmen00butluoft |title=Making Liberal Men and Women; Public Criticism of Present-day Education; The New Paganism; The University, Politics and Religion |date=February 21, 1921 |publisher=[[Columbia University]] |location=New York City |oclc=1049618080 |author-mask=4 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/scholarshipservi00butliala |title=Scholarship and Service: The Policies of a National University in a Modern Democracy |date=1921 |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |location=New York City |oclc=1084595889 |author-mask=4 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/buildingtheameri013132mbp |title=Building the American Nation: an Essay of Interpretation |date=1923 |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |location=New York City |ol=14798157M |author-mask=4 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL14125156M/The_faith_of_a_liberal |title=The Faith of a Liberal: Essays and Addresses on Political Principles and Public Policies |date=1924 |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |location=New York City |lccn=24030512 |ol=14125156M |author-mask=4 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6303958M/Between_two_worlds |title=Between Two Worlds: Interpretations of the Age in Which We Live |date=1934 |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |location=New York City |lccn=34010046 |oclc=1124951 |ol=6303958M |author-mask=4 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/acrossbusyyearsr01butl |title=Across the Busy Years: Recollections and Reflections |date=1939 |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |volume=1 |location=New York City |oclc=1038753871 |ol=13530857M |author-mask=4 |access-date=July 6, 2017 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Nicholas Murray |url=https://archive.org/details/acrossbusyyearsr02butl |title=Across the Busy Years: Recollections and Reflections |date=1940 |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |volume=2 |location=New York City |oclc=1038780341 |author-mask=4 |access-date=July 6, 2017 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |language=en}}

==See also==
* ''[[Educational Review]]''
* [[Institute of International Education]]
* [[Jerome Klein]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Alogdelis, Joanna. "A Critical Evaluation of Selected Educational Speeches of Nicholas Murray Butler" (PhD dissertation, University of Iowa; ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  1949. 10991965).
* {{Cite magazine |last=Comte |first=Edward Le |date=1986 |title=Dinner with Butler and Eisenhower |magazine=[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]] |volume=81 |issue=1 |issn=0010-2601 |oclc=488561243 |lang=en}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Hewlett |first=Charles F. |date=1983 |title=Nicholas Murray Butler and the American Peace Movement |journal=[[Teachers College Record]] |volume=85 |issue=2 |issn=0161-4681 |lccn=92645723 |oclc=1590002 |language=en}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Hewlett |first=Charles F. |date=1987 |title=John Dewey and Nicholas Murray Butler: Contrasting Conceptions of Peace Education in the Twenties |journal=Educational Theory |volume=37 |issue=4 |pages=445–461 |doi=10.1111/j.1741-5446.1987.00445.x |issn=0013-2004 |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Marrin |first=Albert |title=Nicholas Murray Butler |date=1976 |publisher=[[Gale (publisher)|Twayne Publishers]] |isbn=978-0-805777-06-2 |series=Twayne's World Leader Series |volume=52 |location=[[Boston]] |author-link=Albert Marrin |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Rosenthal |first=Michael |title=Nicholas Miraculous: The Amazing Career of the Redoubtable Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler |date=2006 |publisher=[[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]] |isbn=0-374-29994-3 |language=en}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Sokal |first=Michael M. |author-link=Michael Sokal |date=May 2009 |title=James McKeen Cattell, Nicholas Murray Butler, and Academic Freedom at Columbia University, 1902–1923 |url=https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-06968-004 |journal=[[History of Psychology]] |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=87–122 |doi=10.1037/a0016143 |issn=1093-4510 |url-access=subscription |access-date=March 24, 2022 |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |last=Thomas |first=Milton Halsey |title=Bibliography of Nicholas Murray Butler, 1872–1932: A Check List |date=1932 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |publication-place=New York City |ol=16551925M}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Williams |first=Andrew |date=2012 |title=Waiting for Monsieur Bergson: Nicholas Murray Butler, James T. Shotwell, and the French Sage |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09592296.2012.679471 |journal=Diplomacy & Statecraft |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=236–253 |doi=10.1080/09592296.2012.679471 |s2cid=153505243 |issn=0959-2296 |url-access=subscription |access-date=March 24, 2022 |language=en}}
* {{Cite book |title=En guerre pour la paix. Correspondance Paul d'Estournelles de Constant et Nicholas Murray Butler (1914–1919) |date=2018 |publisher=Alma éditeur |isbn=978-2-362792-63-2 |editor-last=Akhund |editor-first=Nadine |location=Paris |translator-last=Akhund |translator-first=Nadine |trans-title=At war for peace. Correspondence between Paul d'Estournelles de Constant and Nicholas Murray Butler (1914–1919) |oclc=1101112844 |editor-last2=Tison |editor-first2=Stéphane |language=fr}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
{{wikisource author}}
{{Commons category}}
* {{Nobelprize}}
* {{Find a Grave |id=155 |name=Nicholas Murray Butler |last=Davis |first=Linda |access-date=March 24, 2022}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=40475|name=Nicholas Murray Butler}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Nicholas Murray Butler}}
* {{IMDb name}}
* {{PM20}}
* [https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_4078570 Nicholas Murray Butler papers, 1891-1947] at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York, NY
* [http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Home?lookfor=%22Butler,%20Nicholas%20Murray,%201862-1947.%22&type=author&inst= Works by Nicholas Murray Butler], at [[Hathi Trust]]
* [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/rbml/collections/carnegie/index.html CEIP archive at Columbia University]
* {{Cite web |title=Nicholas Murray Butler, ca. 1930 |url=http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/images/detail/nicholas-murray-butler-3432 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220324045114/https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/nicholas-murray-butler-3432 |archive-date=March 24, 2022 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |website=[[Archives of American Art]] |language=en}}
* {{Cite web |title=Portrait of Nicholas Murray Butler: Augustus Vincent Tack |url=http://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/browse-the-collection/index.aspx?id=1924 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516103908/https://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/portrait-nicholas-murray-butler |archive-date=May 16, 2021 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |website=[[The Phillips Collection]] |language=en |place=Washington, D.C.}}
* {{Cite web |date=June 6, 1932 |title=John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Letter to Nicholas Murray Butler |url=https://archive.org/download/355897-1932-rockefeller-to-buttler-letter/355897-1932-rockefeller-to-buttler-letter.pdf |access-date=March 24, 2022 |language=en |via=[[Internet Archive]] |place=New York City}}
* {{Cite web |date=November 27, 1915 |title=Address by Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler to the members of the Union League of Philadelphia |url=http://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:356778 |access-date=March 24, 2022 |language=en |via=Digital Library@[[Villanova University]]}}
* {{Cite web |last=Thorkelson |first=Jacob |author-link=Jacob Thorkelson |date=August 19, 1940 |title=Documented in the United States of America Congressional Record, Proceedings and Discussions of the 76th Congress, Third Session, Remarks of Hon. J. Thorkelson of Montana, in the House of Representatives, Aug. 19, 1940: Steps Toward British Union - a World State and International Strife--Part IV (Page 12) |url=https://archive.org/stream/CongressionalRecordRegardingBritish-khazarZionistWorldGovernmentAndTha/CongressionalRecordRegardingBritish-khazarZionistWorldGovernmentAndThaUs-1940_djvu.txt |access-date=March 24, 2022 |website=[[Congressional Record]] |language=en |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-aca}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Seth Low]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[List of Presidents of Columbia University|President of Columbia University]]|years=1902–1945}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Frank D. Fackenthal]]<br>{{small|Acting}}}}
|-
{{s-ppo}}
{{s-bef|before=[[James S. Sherman]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] [[List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets|nominee]] for Vice President of the United States|years=[[1912 United States presidential election|1912]]}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Charles W. Fairbanks]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Nobel Peace Prize Laureates 1926-1950}}
{{1931 Nobel Prize winners}}
{{USRepVicePresNominees}}
{{United States presidential election, 1912}}
{{United States presidential election, 1920}}
{{Columbia University presidents}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butler, Nicholas}}
[[Category:1862 births]]
[[Category:1912 United States vice-presidential candidates]]
[[Category:1947 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American politicians]]
[[Category:American academic administrators]]
[[Category:American Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:Burials at Cedar Lawn Cemetery]]
[[Category:Candidates in the 1920 United States presidential election]]
[[Category:Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]]
[[Category:Columbia College (New York) alumni]]
[[Category:Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:Columbia University faculty]]
[[Category:Education school deans]]
[[Category:Episcopalians from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of the White Lion]]
[[Category:Johns Hopkins University faculty]]
[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society]]
[[Category:New York (state) Republicans]]
[[Category:Nobel Peace Prize laureates]]
[[Category:People from Elizabeth, New Jersey]]
[[Category:Presidents of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:Presidents of Columbia University]]
[[Category:Republican Party (United States) vice presidential nominees]]
[[Category:American people of Welsh descent]]

Latest revision as of 17:37, 23 June 2024

Nicholas Butler
Butler c. 1902
12th President of Columbia University
In office
January 6, 1902 – October 1, 1945
Preceded bySeth Low
Succeeded byFrank D. Fackenthal (acting)
Personal details
Born(1862-04-02)April 2, 1862
Elizabeth, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedDecember 7, 1947(1947-12-07) (aged 85)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouses
  • Susanna Edwards Schuyler
  • Kate La Montagne
BildungColumbia University (BA, MA, PhD)
Signature
Butler in 1916

Nicholas Murray Butler (April 2, 1862 – December 7, 1947) was an American philosopher, diplomat, and educator. Butler was president of Columbia University,[1] president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the late James S. Sherman's replacement as William Howard Taft’s running mate in the 1912 United States presidential election. He was so well-known and respected that The New York Times printed his Christmas greeting to the nation for many years during the 1920s and 1930s.[2][3][4][5]

Early life and education

[edit]

Butler, great-grandson of Morgan John Rhys,[6] was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Mary Butler and manufacturing worker Henry Butler. He enrolled in Columbia College (later Columbia University) and joined the Peithologian Society. He earned his bachelor of arts degree in 1882, his master's degree in 1883 and his doctorate in 1884. Butler's academic and other achievements led Theodore Roosevelt to call him "Nicholas Miraculous". In 1885, Butler studied in Paris and Berlin and became a lifelong friend of future Secretary of State Elihu Root. Through Root he also met Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. In the fall of 1885, Butler joined the staff of Columbia's philosophy department.

In 1887, he co-founded with Grace Hoadley Dodge,[7] and became president of, the New York School for the Training of Teachers, which later affiliated with Columbia University and was renamed Teachers College, Columbia University, and from which a co-educational experimental and developmental unit became Horace Mann School.[8] From 1890 to 1891, Butler was a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Throughout the 1890s, Butler served on the New Jersey Board of Education and helped form the College Entrance Examination Board. During the 1890s Butler edited The Great Educators book series for Charles Scribner's Sons.[9]

Presidency of Columbia University

[edit]

In 1901, Butler became acting president of Columbia University and, in 1902, formally became president. Among the many dignitaries in attendance at his investiture was President Roosevelt. Butler was president of Columbia for 43 years, the longest tenure in the university's history, retiring in 1945. As president, Butler carried out a major expansion of the campus, adding many new buildings, schools, and departments. These additions included Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, the first academic medical center in the world.

In 1919, Butler amended the admissions process to Columbia in order to limit the number of Jewish students (it became the first American institution of higher learning to establish an anti-Jewish quota). Butler's policy was successful and the number of students hailing from New York City dropped from 54% to 23% stemming "the invasion of the Jewish student".[10][11] This is one of the reasons why Butler has been called an anti-semite.[12]

In September 1931, Butler told the freshman class at Columbia that totalitarian systems produced "men of far greater intelligence, far stronger character, and far more courage than the system of elections."[13]: 204 

In 1937, he was admitted as an honorary member of the New York Society of the Cincinnati.[14]

In 1941, the Pulitzer Prize fiction jury selected Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. The Pulitzer Board initially agreed with that judgment, but Butler, ex officio head of the Pulitzer board, found the novel offensive and persuaded the board to reverse its determination, so that no novel received the prize that year.[15]

During his lifetime, Columbia named its philosophy library for him; after he died, its main academic library, previously known as South Hall, was rechristened Butler Library. A faculty apartment building on 119th Street and Morningside Drive was also renamed in Butler's honor, as was a major prize in philosophy.

A polemical attack on Butler's time at Columbia University appeared in The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education, by Upton Sinclair.

Political activity

[edit]

Butler was a delegate to each Republican National Convention from 1888 to 1936; in 1912, after Vice President James S. Sherman died eight days before the presidential election, Butler was designated to receive the electoral votes that Sherman would have received: the Republican ticket won only 8 electoral votes from Utah and Vermont, finishing third behind the Democrats and the Progressives. In 1916, Butler tried to secure the Republican presidential nomination for Elihu Root. Butler also sought the nomination for himself in 1920, without success.[16]

Butler believed that Prohibition was a mistake, with negative effects on the country. He became active in the successful effort for repeal Prohibition in 1933.[17]

He credited John W. Burgess along with Alexander Hamilton for providing the philosophical basis of his Republican principles.[18]

In June 1936, Butler traveled to the Carnegie Endowment Peace Conference in London where, at the meeting, fundamental problems of money and finance were explored.[19]

Attitude towards Fascism and Nazism

[edit]

According to historian Stephen H. Norwood, Butler failed to "grasp the nature and implications of Nazism...influenced both by his antisemitism, privately expressed, and his economic conservatism and hostility to trade unionism".[20] Butler was a longtime admirer of Benito Mussolini. He compared the Italian Fascist leader to Oliver Cromwell[21] and, in the 1920s, he noted "the stupendous improvement which Fascism has brought".[22]

In November 1933, months after the Nazi book burnings began, he welcomed Hans Luther, the German ambassador to the United States, to Columbia and refused to appear with a notable German dissident when the latter visited the university. Butler was criticized for his "remarkable silence" and complicity towards Hitler's regime until the late 1930s.[12][23]

Autochrome portrait by Auguste Léon, 1921

Internationalist

[edit]

Butler was the chair of the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration that met periodically from 1907 to 1912. In this time, he was appointed president of the American branch of International Conciliation. Butler was also instrumental in persuading Andrew Carnegie to provide the initial $10 million funding for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Butler became head of international education and communication, founded the European branch of the Endowment headquartered in Paris, and was President of the Endowment from 1925 to 1945. For his work in this field, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for 1931 (shared with Jane Addams) "[For his promotion] of the Kellogg-Briand pact" and for his work as the "leader of the more establishment-oriented part of the American peace movement".

In December 1916, Butler, Roosevelt and other philanthropists, including Scottish-born industrialist John C. Moffat, William Astor Chanler, Joseph Choate, Clarence Mackay, George von Lengerke Meyer, and John Grier Hibben, purchased the Château de Chavaniac, birthplace of the Marquis de Lafayette in Auvergne, to serve as a headquarters for the French Heroes Lafayette Memorial Fund,[24][25] which was managed by Chanler's ex-wife, Beatrice Ashley Chanler.[26][27]

Butler was President of the Pilgrims Society, which promotes Anglo-American friendship.[28] He served as President of the Pilgrims from 1928 to 1946.[29] Butler was president of The American Academy of Arts and Letters from 1928 to 1941[citation needed][30] and was an early member of the academy.[31]

Personal life

[edit]

Butler married Susanna Edwards Schuyler (1863–1903) in 1887 and had one daughter from that marriage. Susanna was the daughter of Jacob Rutsen Schuyler (1816–1887) and Susannah Haigh Edwards (born 1830). His wife died in 1903 and he married again in 1907 to Kate La Montagne, granddaughter of New York property developer Thomas E. Davis.[32]

In 1940, Butler completed his autobiography with the publication of the second volume of Across the Busy Years.[33]

Butler became almost completely blind in 1945 at age 83. He resigned from the posts he held and died two years later.[34] He is interred at Cedar Lawn Cemetery, in Paterson, New Jersey.[citation needed]

Butler was not universally liked. In 1939, a former student of Butler, Rolfe Humphries, published in the pages of Poetry an effort titled "Draft Ode for a Phi Beta Kappa Occasion" that followed a classical format of unrhymed blank verse in iambic pentameter with one classical reference per line. The first letters of each line of the resulting acrostic spelled out the message: "Nicholas Murray Butler is a horses [sic] ass". Upon discovering the "hidden" message, the irate editors ran a formal apology.[35] Randolph Bourne lampooned Butler as "Alexander Macintosh Butcher" in "One of our Conquerors", a 1915 essay he published in The New Republic.[36]

Butler wrote and spoke voluminously on all manner of subjects ranging from education to world peace. Although marked by erudition and great learning, his work tended toward the portentous and overblown. In The American Mercury, the critic Dorothy Dunbar Bromley referred to Butler's pronouncements as "those interminable miasmas of guff".[37]

Honors

[edit]

Works

[edit]

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Pringle, Henry F. (October 17, 1928). Bellamy, Francis Rufus (ed.). "Publicist or Politician? A Portrait of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler". The Outlook. Vol. 150, no. 7. New York City. p. 971. ISSN 2690-1811. OCLC 5361126. Retrieved March 23, 2022 – via Internet Archive.
  2. ^ "TimesMachine: Saturday December 24, 1927 - NYTimes.com". The New York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  3. ^ "Dr. Butler's Christmas Message". The New York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  4. ^ "DR. BUTLER URGES FAITH.; Christmas Message Asks Courage in Face of World Ills". The New York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  5. ^ "DR. BUTLER'S HOLIDAY CARD; His Christmas Message Defines Five Fundamental Human Institutions". The New York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  6. ^ "Morgan J. Rhees papers, 1794–1968". Columbia University Libraries. Archived from the original on November 27, 2020. Retrieved May 22, 2019. Abolitionist, Welsh republican radical, publisher, Baptist minister, pioneer and adventurer Morgan J. Rhees… was the great grandfather of Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University.
  7. ^ "A Tribute to Grace Hoadley Dodge". Teachers College, Columbia University. Archived from the original on September 17, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
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  11. ^ Kingston, Paul W.; Lewis, Lionel S. (January 1, 1990). High Status Track, The: Studies of Elite Schools and Stratification. State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-0912-2.
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  13. ^ Schlesinger, Arthur Meier (1957). The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (published 2003). ISBN 978-0-618-34085-9.
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  17. ^ "DRY LAW CHANGE NEAR, SAYS BUTLER; Thinks Senate Debate Initiates Movement Which Must End in Prohibition Reform. CALLS FAILURE COLOSSAL Columbia Head Holds Attempt Was Immoral -- Contends the Tide Has Now Turned. DRY LAW CHANGE NEAR, SAYS BUTLER". The New York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  18. ^ Butler, Nicholas Murray (1939). Across the busy years: recollections and reflections. New York City: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 363. LCCN 39027850. OCLC 568730477. OL 13530857M – via Internet Archive.
  19. ^ "DR. BUTLER URGES ECONOMIC PARLEY; Calls for World Meeting on Fundamental Problems of Money and Finance. SEES DANGER OF WARFARE Borrowing Power of Many Nations May Be Exhausted Next Year, He Declares". The New York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  20. ^ Wills, Matthew (December 10, 2021). "Silence in the Face of Intellectual Conflagration". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  21. ^ Elon, Amos (February 23, 2006). "A Shrine to Mussolini". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
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  23. ^ Stephen H. Norwood, “The Expulsion of Robert Burke: Suppressing Campus Anti-Nazi Protest in the 1930s,” Journal for the Study of Antisemitism 4:1 (2012): 89-114.
  24. ^ "Lafayette Memorial". Lafayette - Château Musée. Archived from the original on May 9, 2021. Retrieved March 22, 2022.
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  27. ^ Written at New York City. "Americans Aid War Refugees in Paris". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Vol. 179, no. 35. Philadelphia. August 4, 1918 [1918-08-03]. p. 11. Retrieved March 23, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. ^ Seabury, Paul (May 29, 1966). "The Establishment Game: Nicholas Murray Butler Rides Again". The Reporter. Vol. 34, no. 10. p. 24. Retrieved March 23, 2022 – via Internet Archive.
  29. ^ "DR. BUTLER RESIGNS POST; To Be Succeeded by J.W. Davis as Pilgrims' President". The New York Times. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  30. ^ "Nicholas Murray Butler". C250 (Columbia University celebration 250 years after its founding in 1754; c250.columbia.edu).
  31. ^ "American Academy of Arts and Letters". World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1919. New York: The Press Publishing Co. (The New York World). January 5, 2024. p. 216.
  32. ^ "Dr Butler wed Miss La Montagne" (PDF). The New York Times. March 6, 1907. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 30, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  33. ^ Butler, Nicholas Murray (1940). Across the Busy Years: Recollections and Reflections. Vol. 2 (1st ed.). New York City: Charles Scribner's Sons. OCLC 568730477. Retrieved July 6, 2017 – via Internet Archive.
  34. ^ "The Nobel Peace Prize 1931". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  35. ^ Gamaliel. "Nicholas Murray Butler". Everything2. Archived from the original on May 15, 2021. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
  36. ^ Juvenis (September 4, 1915). "One of Our Conquerors". The New Republic. Vol. 4, no. 44. p. 121. ISSN 0028-6583 – via Internet Archive.
  37. ^ Bromley, Dorothy Dunbar (1935). "Nicholas Murray Butler—Portrait of a Reactionary". The American Mercury. Vol. 34, no. 135. p. 298. ISSN 0002-998X. Retrieved March 23, 2022 – via Internet Archive.
  38. ^ Coon, Horace (1990) [1938]. Money to Burn: Great American Foundations and Their Money. New York City: Longmans Green. ISBN 0887383343. LCCN 89020465. OL 2199648M – via OpenLibrary.
  39. ^ "Československý řád Bílého lva 1923–1990" [Czechoslovak Order of the White Lion 1923–1990] (PDF). President of the Czech Republic (in Czech). Archived (PDF) from the original on March 23, 2022. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  40. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved May 18, 2023.

Further reading

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[edit]
Academic offices
Preceded by President of Columbia University
1902–1945
Succeeded by
Party political offices
Preceded by Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States
1912
Succeeded by