Believing that a resume of the number of Harvard men (graduates or former students) employed in important positions as public servants would be of general interest, the CRIMSON has compiled statistics dealing with this subject, which are given below. The phases of work investigated are: the Supreme Court, Congress, the Cabinet, the State Executives, and the consular and diplomatic service. The figures were taken from various sources, the main ones being the "World's Almanac" and the "Harvard University Directory."
In the Supreme Court, we find a Harvard graduate, Oliver Wendell Holmes '61. He was appointed in 1902. In the 61st Congress there are thirteen Harvard men: three of these are in the Senate. They are H. C. Lodge '71 of Massachusetts, J. Bourne ex-'77 of Oregon, and B. Penrose '81 of Pennsylvania. Of these, Mr. Lodge is perhaps the best known; he has served in the Senate since 1893 and has been on many important committees. Of the ten Harvard men in the House, the oldest is A. Douglas '74, and the most recent one is A. J. Peters '98. Four of these ten are from Massachusetts, three from Ohio, two from Illinois, and one from Wisconsin. It is worthy of note that over half of these men are not from the East, although Harvard is sometimes accused of being a strictly eastern college.
F. H. Hitchcock '91, Postmaster-General, and G. vonL. Meyer '79, Secretary of the Navy, are the two Harvard representatives in the Cabinet. The governors of three states are Harvard graduates. They are: R. P. Bass '96 of New Hampshire, J. A. Dix '62 of New York, and A. E. Wilson '69 of Kentucky.
The diplomatic and consular service has 82 Harvard men in its employ. The most noted is Robert Bacon '80, a former cabinet officer and now Ambassador to France. The diplomatic and consular service distributes its men to all parts of the world. The following list gives the number of Harvard men in this service in foreign countries: England 2, France 8, Germany 3, Italy 3, Switzerland 2, Russia 1, Austria 1, Sweden 1, Norway 1, Roumania 1, Belgium 1, Morocco 1, Oaxaca 1, Turkey 2, Greece 1, China 3, Japan 1, Honduras 1, Mexico 2, Cuba 2, Panama 1.
From the figures given in this article it may be seen that a large number of Harvard men are found in all sorts of positions as public servants and that they are scattered over a large part of the world. According to the "Harvard University Directory," 815 Harvard men are employed by the government; we have mentioned only about 100 men; the rest are employed in other branches of work, as follows: government civil service 412, judiciary 159, military 138, legislative (not including members of Congress) 11.
Some very interesting figures have been gathered and put in the form of a table showing a comparison between the number of men in Congress from some of the eastern colleges. In order that the size of the college might not affect the comparison, the figures in the last column were compiled. They express the ratio of the men in Congress to the number in a graduating class twenty years ago. The size of a class twenty years ago was taken, because that is about the time the average Congressman graduated. The ratios for the different colleges are approximately the same, from which we may conclude that each college sends about the same proportion of its men to Congress. This fact would hardly be expected, since the colleges differ so widely. It is, perhaps, an argument that all the colleges, large or small, produce approximately the same percentage of successful men. The table is as follows:
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