January, 1994

Now that I have passed my 80th birthday, I often reflect on the people who shaped my life -- nurtured my various interests and helped shape my order of values. I don't have to think about it for more than a few seconds because the answer becomes obvious: my mother and Cortez A.M. Ewing.

During the first 18 years of my life, my mother, of course, had a tremendous influence for obvious reasons. And then there appeared in my first year at OU in 1931 a new guardian angel. I had been told before I enrolled at OU to be sure and take at least one course that Professor Ewing taught. I do not recall how many courses I ultimately took, but I do know that I kept the notes I took in his political theory course in 1933 and, as I will explain in a moment, have actually used them during the past few years.

During my first year at OU, I reversed normal roles and adopted Ewing as my father. Since he and Ina, his wife, had no children, some of his students became, in effect, their children. I have a feeling that a number of other students had the same relationship with him.

Although, of course, he did certain things that were required of him as a professor, he never lost his individuality -- within the confines of what is rightfully expected of a professor at a state university. Let me give some illustrations.

He wore a beret and knickers and his classes were taught not only in the classroom, but also at his home where students would stop by at all hours to continue the discussion that had started in the classroom. The "campus" and "classroom" were wherever you met him: in the coffee shop, on the sidewalk between buildings or in his home.

His dress, his relaxed way of teaching, his casual and informal relations with students, his unorthodox willingness to spend time on academic subjects with individual students, as well as giving personal advice and counsel to them -- all of which were beyond the prescribed duties of a teacher -- epitomize his love for teaching and dedication to freedom.

In his courses of political theory, he covered the great philosophical anarchists and, indeed, I often think that some of those intellectual giants, such as Ibsen, Thoreau, Wilde and Rousseau, had an influence on him in the same way that he had an influence on me.

Almost every year he went out to the panhandle with his favorite dog and spent a week or so in what amounted to seclusion -- just as I visualize Thoreau at Walden Pond. It gave him uninterrupted time to think and read.

He played billiards for one hour every afternoon with the manager of the recreation area at the Student Union. I once asked him why he was so committed to the game; I will never forget his reply: "One can never be perfect in the game; there is always a new challenge and -- most importantly -- an unreachable goal." (There are, of course, an infinite number of locations on the billiard table for the 3 balls (two white and one red) that are used; the object is to have the cue ball (which is one of the white balls) touch the other white and red ball and if that becomes easy you then progress to the point where the cue ball has to first hit one of the sides of the table before hitting the two other balls. And if you're able to do this, then you advance even further by making the cue ball first hit two sides of the table before it comes in contact with the other two balls.)

I once asked him whether he had ever given consideration to teaching at prestigious schools, such as Harvard, Columbia or Yale rather than OU. He said he had not only given consideration to it, but indeed had been offered several positions at practically all of them. When I pressed him as to why he didn't accept any of the offers, I will always remember his reply: "I am needed more here."

I think I know what he meant. Most, if not all the professors, taught by the book and offered little to challenge the minds of young men and women with new and unorthodox ideas. It just wasn't done at that time at a state university where the state legislature kept an eagle eye on what was taught and how it was taught.

Although he taught political science courses and, indeed, from time to time dealt with various political theories, he used the courses also as a springboard to make the students think in broad philosophical and abstract terms. Once a student used the word "progress" in class, Ewing asked the student what he meant by the word and there then followed a discussion that lasted for a number of weeks. And today, whenever I use the word, or hear others use it, I think about that Socratic Ewing dialogue.

He influenced the lives of many of his students, one of whom was Carl Albert. It was Ewing who gave Carl the idea about running for Congress. Since Carl was a Rhodes Scholar, he had a built-in handicap with the farm constituency that he represented. Since Ewing was the one who gave Carl the idea of running for Congress, he felt an obligation to follow through. He went to the District (without knickers or a beret; instead, he wore overalls and a dirty shirt). He spent time at the local drugstore, in the pool hall and other places that he knew would be the gathering places to meet the basic core of Carl's local constituency. In the course of meeting the voters, I am told that Ewing put a straw in his mouth, leaned back on a pole or sat on a chair in the drugstore or poolhall and talked about that bright student of his who was now running for Congress.

Carl was elected and at some point in his career -- I don't remember exactly when it was -- he reminisced about the important of Ewing' efforts.

There were a number of different students, who as they rose in their professions, recognized that the seeds for their intellectual success were planted in a classroom at OU where Ewing taught. Jack Fisher, who became editor or Harpers magazine, recognized his indebtedness to Ewing and the influence that teachers have on our lives. Jack edited The Teacher which contains not only an essay on Ewing by Jack but essays by a number of prominent individuals in various disciplines who credit their success to a teacher whom they had along the way.

At lunch one day during my junior year, Ewing said that it was time for me to leave OU and go to another school. I was startled and a bit taken aback because I had no idea what on earth he was talking about. He then told me that he thought I should go to the University of Chicago. I couldn't believe my ears. I was a kid who was able to travel from Tulsa to Norman, but it was inconceivable that I would travel all the way to Chicago in order to complete my college education. He then told me that, in effect, behind my back, he had talked to Dr. Charles Merriam, who was head of the Political Science department at the University of Chicago, and arranged for a scholarship. Not only had he done that, but he told me that he and Ina recognized that traveling to Chicago might be a financial burden to me and, therefore, they would pay part of my train fare.

After his death in 1962, Mrs. Cohn and I decided to sponsor various programs at OU in his honor. We first thought of an annual lecture and the first year, we invited Carl Albert to give an address. The second year was far more venturesome. We selected a number of small-town Oklahoma mayors who spent two weeks at the University counseling and talking with professors in various fields whom they thought could help them in performing their positions as mayor. That worked exceedingly well but, somehow or other, it didn't relate itself to younger people and, particularly, the students at OU.

I then decided that we would establish and endow the Cortez A.M. Ewing Foundation which would send political science students to intern in Congress during the summer. The students applied for the internship and the professors in the Political Science department selected four or five each year. The Foundation paid the major portion of their expenses. The internships, of course, required the cooperation of a number of Oklahoma congressmen and senators and, fortunately, there was no difficulty getting their enthusiastic cooperation.

One of the by-products of that program was that a number of these young men and women fell in love with Washington and, after their internship, decided to stay in the nation's capital. Today, there are approximately 15 of those student who live and work in the Washington area and each year, Mrs. Cohn and I have a Ewing swim party to which all the former interns and their children are invited.

Ewing had other assets. He was married to Ina, who loved horses and stabled one of her two horses in Norman. She asked me one day whether I did any riding. I told her that I did and then we made a deal: I would ride Babe, her horse, several times a week. It got to the point where Babe actually recognized my footsteps and started neighing the minute I got near the stall. I don't recall where we rode, but I do remember that it was away from any paths and, in effect, "over the hills and valleys."

One last comment. I have been involved for a number of years in the Institute for Learning in Retirement here in Washington D.C., and I am now Chairperson. I am positive that the reason for my enjoyment of the institute is because of the seeds which were planted a long time ago at OU where I adored one of the teachers. He, in effect, after all these years, awakened my interest in teaching and indeed, because I kept the notes that I took in his classes, have used some of them in courses which I have taught sixty years later.