The American High Commissioner to the Philippines

Title

Language

English

Source

The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume XVII (Issue No.4) April 1937

Year

1937

Subject

McNutt, Paul Vories

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

Entered as Second Class Matter May 25, 1921 at the Post Office at Manila. P. I. Single Copies: 35 centavos WALTER ROBB Editor and Manager The American High Commissioner to the Philippines When they told President Manuel Luis Quezon of the Phil ippine Commonwealth that President Roosevelt had appointed ex-Governor Paul Vories McNutt of Indiana, American High Commissioner to the Philippines, they say Quezon asked, “Is he a scholar?” When they talked with McNutt himself about it, they say he told them he approached his task in Manila “in a spirit of high adventure.” When news paper readers in the Philippines conned over what the report ers gleaned from the two men who arc to cooperate in admin istration of these Islands under the Tydings-McDuffic act, they didn’t get the significance of President Quezon’s inquiry; and if Governor McNutt anticipated high adventure here, wonder was where he would turn it up. But there was point to Quezon’s inquiry. Scholars are not numerous among politicians. President Quezon had undoubtedly heard that McNutt was one, and was check ing up. Commissioner McNutt’6 outstanding scholarship is in law. He began teaching law in 1917, a year after his gradua tion from Harvard, LL. B. Notre Dame and Indiana univer sities gave him Ph. D’s for his work in law in 1933. He has published extensively in the leading law journals; for a number of years he was chairman of the editor’s board of the Indiana Law Journal; he has published a text on Indiana law, and was dean of Indiana University School of Law from 1925 to 1933, when, for four years, he was elected state governor. He is a scholar, Phi Beta Kappa. He is sociable, too, and like the typical public-career man, a member of many organizations: a Mason and an Elk, he is a Methodist, Rotarian, Kiwanian. He was born at Frank lin, Indiana, July 19, 1891; he is forty-six years old, and he married Mrs. McNutt (Kathleen Timolat, of San Antonio, Texas) in 1918 when he was twenty-seven. Mrs. McNutt and their daughter, Miss Louise, their only child, come with him to Manila together with a staff mado up of folk asso ciated with his political career in Indiana. He is a vice president of the American Peace Society, but he is a distinguished 0. T. C. advocate, and former officer, too. His World War service was with the field artillery, with high rank. The most familiar fact about him is that he is a past national commander of the American Legion; but involving more work, and more scholarship, was his long membership in the directorate of the Legion’s publication corporation, of which he has also been the president. He is a high-ranking reserve officer and takes unflagging interest in the peacetime duties his commission imposes upon him. In 1927 and 1928 he was civilian aide to the Secretary of War. In a community of Americans largely made up of the oldest extensive group of veterans of overseas wars, such as the American community in Manila, Commissioner McNutt should soon feel at home. He intends to live fully up to the social and official rank of his extremely elevated office. From the 6taff he has made up, it is evident he also intends to remain a figure, not too distantly removed, in national and Indiana political affairs in the United States. His press tie-ups are those of an old campaigner, and a successful one who is still ambitious: he is not averse to its being known—in fact, well understood—that the Democratic presidential nomination in 1940 is not beyond his ken. Thus in the first high commissioner, Murphy of Michigan, and the second, McNutt of Indiana—the one having cut his wisdom teeth on a state governorship, the other now cutting his by the same means—the Democrats have two scholarly politicians anxious for the party’s favors when the chief they mutually admire, F. D. Roosevelt, steps out of the running. The prescription for success, of both of them, is hard work at the job immediately in hand. As to the high adventure approach, that too may not be far fetched. Frank Murphy’s job as commissioner was never defined, he had to feel his way along in the lack of formal instructions from Washington; and that, certainly, though the public never learned much about it, was most adventurous. But it set the administration going. Commissioner McNutt comes into office under different circumstances. Murphy persisted, it seems, and his successor bears a set of formal written instructions: the scope and authority of his office, no doubt. Getting acquainted, putting into effect a newly based policy, keeping in touch with the home folks; it all calls upon the best qualities of an official and is 6urely charged with persisting, if perhaps quiet, adventure. To J. Weldon Jones, public thanks for extended and able work as acting commissioner. Here as in the insular auditor’s job he has consistently justified his appointment to the Philip pines.

pages

5

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