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Retires
The Michigan Alumnus 361
Bates Retiring After 29-Year Deanship
Retirement Of Law School Head This June Finds School He Has Served For Over A Quarter Of A Century Among Top-Ranking Legal Institu tions Of The Nation.
E. Blythe Stason, Former Student Of Retiring Dean, Chosen To Replace Him In Summer.
With the retirement of Dean Henry Moore Bates at the conclusion of his twenty-ninth year of administration approaching in June, the realization has come, not only to the University of Michigan Law School but to the University as a whole, that a career significant in more than a quarter of a century of the Law School's history nears its close. At the same time, a new administrator arises in the Law School just seventeen years after his graduation from it and fifteen years after becoming a member of the faculty, as E. Blythe Stason, '221, a graduate under Dean Bates, prepares to take up duties as Dean of one of the finest institutions of legal instruction in the United States.
A far cry it is from the law school Henry Moore Bates came to direct in 1910 to the distinguished school he is leaving today. During the intervening period has come a marked change in curricul a, bringing about greater emphasis on the economic and social as pects of the law, as the study of re ports of actual cases, statutes, and extra-legal materials related to and influencing the development of law has superseded the old lecture and text book system. Requirements have stif fened, too, for high school graduates once entered Michigan's Law School without other preparation, whereas to- day 153 colleges in all are represented among its enrollment, and in its Fresh- man class last fall could be found students from 90 colleges and universities. Materially, the Law School has also prospered, for it has acquired the beautiful architecture and the comfort able quarters of the William W. Cook Quadrangle, a gift from a distin guished alumnus.
The faculty of the "Law Department'' in 1910 consisted of Jerome Knowlton, Bradley M. Thompson, Vic tor H. Lane, Horace L. Wilgus, Robert E. Bunker, James H. Brewster, Frank L. Sage, Edwin C. Goddard, Edson R. Sunderland, John W. Dwyer, John R. Rood, Thomas A. Bogle, and Otto Kirchner. Comparison of these men with today's faculty shows the change over the years in conception of what should comprise a law faculty, for of these thirteen nearly all were former practitioners and judges, while the nineteen members today, fifteen of whom were graduates during the ten ure of Dean Bates as head of the School, are, for the most part, legal scholars.
These students of the retiring Dean shared his classrooms with many an other distinguished American citizen, as evidenced by a roster of some of the students at Michigan's Law School during this period. There is Frank Mur phy, Attorney-General of the United States and former Governor of Michigan; former Michigan Governor Wil bur M. Brucker; Senators Henry F. Ashurst, Sheridan Downey, and Bur ton K. Wheeler; Thomas McAllister, of the Michigan Supreme Court; Her bert B. Rudolph, of the Supreme Court of South Dakota; Regent David Crowley and Regent-elect Joseph Her bert; Elwyn Shaw, Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court; William J. Steinert, Chief Justice of the Washing ton Supreme Court; New York Dis trict Attorney Thomas M. Dewey, and George Malcolm, former Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court and at present legal advisor to the Amer ican High Commissioner, to name only a few.
Dean Bates' own collegiate and educational career began with his enroll ment in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, October 6, 1886, at the age of 17. Armed with a degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, he entered Union College of Law, then only form ally a department of Northwestern University, where he obtained his LL.B. degree in 1892. The practice of law in Chicago as partner in the firm of Harlan & Bates followed, with his call to a professorship bringing him to Ann Arbor in 1903. He became Dean in 1910, succeeding Harry B. Hutch ins, who at that time took office as President of the University.
Dean Bates has served in a public capacity on many occasions through out his years as a leader among edu cators in the law. During the term of Herbert Hoover as President, he was called as one of the three representa tives of the public on the Committee of Nine for Conservation of Oil, and during the historic battle in Washington over the Roosevelt plan to change the Supreme Court, he appeared as an authority on constitutional law to tes tify against the proposal, at that time finding himself in close association with two of his former students, Sena tors Ashurst and Wheeler, the former being Chairman of the Senate com mittee which held the hearing, and the latter leader of the opposition to the plan. In addition, he served as Com missioner for Michigan at the Na tional Conference on Uniform State Laws until 1933.
His active participation in the affairs of state and national organizations for the advancement of standards in the legal profession is attested to by some of the connec tions he is holding or has held with various organizations in the field, including membership on the National Advisory Committee of the Institute of Law, Presidency of the Association of American Law Schools (1913-1914), as an organizer of the American Law Institute, Director of the American Judicature Society, as member of the American Academy of Sciences and Arts, and National Presi dent of Coif (1916-1919). He has also been author of numerous articles in the bar association journals of Michi gan, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Kansas.
These activities in connection with the law have not kept Dean Bates from indulging other interests to the profit of Michigan's student body on many occasions. As an alumnus in Chicago in 1892-1903, he took an ac tive interest in the University's athletics program. The Big Ten Confer ence was organized while he resided in Chicago, and he became Michigan's representative and President of the Board. He was a member of the Mich igan Board in Control for two years after coming to the Campus to join the Law faculty. The organization of the Michigan Union in the same year that Dean Bates came back to Ann Arbor was more than a coincidence, for he has long been recognized as an instigator of this development from its inception in 1903 through its form ative years down to 1905 after the Union had been incorporated in 1904. He was chairman of the campaign committee for funds and of the build ing committee on plans; served as a member of its Board until 1929, and was from the first its Financial Secretary-Treasurer.
The retirement of Dean Bates from the Commission on Uniform State Laws in 1933 brought to that body, as his retirement from Deanship this spring brings to the Law School, a legal scholar and administrator whose varied educational career and swift rise as a member of the University's executive force has been signalized by energy and ability.