Man of the Hour

by Jennet Conant

  His work ethic was the stuff of legend, and earned him a reputation for “living in his laboratory.” His friends and colleagues were much amused when they heard Conant had swung a deal allowing his family to move into a vacant dwelling on the grounds of the new chemistry building. In the original plan, the dilapidated wood frame house was to have been removed, but when Conant heard it was available for rent, he had it renovated instead. Charlie Crombie, who ran into him on campus, was not the least bit surprised to learn his old roommate was living next door to his lab. Even as an undergraduate, Conant could “never bear to be separated from his experiments,” and now those midnight runs to check on his work could be accomplished in robe and slippers.

  Conant’s unceasing labor was rewarded with rapid advancement. In 1929 he was elevated to the Sheldon Emory Professorship of Chemistry, the pinnacle of academic achievement. In two years, he was made chairman of the department. Ironically, Richards, who had held the same honored title, did not live to see his son-in-law replicate his success. His physical strength began to falter early in 1928, after the death of his brother, Herbert. On March 19 he gave his last lecture. Barely a month later, on April 2, after a final, prolonged bout of depression, he “turned his face to the wall and died.” He was sixty. His family was shocked by his sudden death. Miriam plunged into deep mourning. Harvard gave its Nobel laureate a grand send-off. At the memorial service, and later in the biographical memoir Conant penned for the National Academy of Sciences, he made only an oblique reference to his father-in-law’s illness, stating that the “nervous load Richards had been carrying for years was too much for the physical organism.”

  While Patty was distraught at the loss of her godlike father, Conant seemed liberated. Finally free from Richards’s censure, he overcame the old man’s prejudice against stooping to earn money in nonacademic pursuits. Joining the new breed of “hustling scholars,” as Harvard’s cultural critic Irving Babbitt dubbed them, Conant took on a number of industrial consulting jobs, including one with the American Petroleum Institute. He embarked on a lucrative relationship with DuPont, which was so eager to keep him that by 1930, it was paying him a monthly retainer of $1,500, more than doubling his annual salary. Conant, who commuted regularly to DuPont’s headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, not only served as an advisor on technical matters but also explored new pharmaceutical products.

  His ideas were eclectic and imaginative and, in some cases, ahead of their time. Inspired by the demand for bottled Perrier water in Europe, he even suggested a chemical process for “synthetic carbonated beverages.” (Today the industry is based on synthetic ethyl alcohol.) He suggested that DuPont study “the effect of changing the partial pressure of CO2 and the acidity on the taste,” adding that if he was right, carbonated mineral waters could be “put on a scientific basis,” and the venture might make a “profitable enterprise.” He further supplemented his personal income by producing three more textbooks, including a revised edition of his popular high school laboratory manual with Black, and two influential college textbooks, Organic Chemistry: A Brief Introductory Course, and with Albert Harold Blatt, The Chemistry of Organic Compounds, which went through several editions and became standard issue in classrooms across the country.

  His professional success, coupled with his various moneymaking schemes, largely insulated him and his family from the consequences of the stock market crash and the hard times that followed. Too conservative to ever “play the market,” he was horrified by the wild roller-coaster economy, the sudden collapse, and the ongoing eroding effects that slowly diminished his father’s real estate holdings. Even in the leanest times, however, Conant never felt the crunch, and actually saw his income rise steadily. “The depression days were affluent days for professors,” he recalled, noting that Harvard never cut its salaries and the cost of living was low. “I could read the news of the grim years of 1930, 1931, and 1932 with considerable detachment.”

  He made it a rule to avoid partisan politics, kept his views to himself, and put off probing questions by joking, “even my closest friends have to guess about how I vote.” Although a registered Republican—he hardly if ever voted for a Democrat at the local level—he was far less orthodox when it came to presidential candidates. During the 1920s, he switched his allegiance to the Progressive movement, supporting first Robert La Follette, who earned his respect for his opposition to America’s entry into World War I, and later Al Smith, an Irish Catholic Democrat who campaigned as a man of the people. In the election of 1932, he voted for Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, even though Harvard was heavily for Hoover, and won a bet with a friend that the Republican incumbent would not carry more than six states. He nursed a certain suspicion of Roosevelt’s glib charm, but approved of his regulatory expedients and, despite some mixed feelings, supported any New Deal legislation that would help mitigate the runaway inflation and unemployment that had crippled Germany.

  His chief regret from his stint as a “professional chemist” was just missing out on the discovery of synthetic rubber, later known as polyethylene, and the financial rewards that would have been forthcoming. During his work with Percy Bridgman, their experiments showed that the polymerization of the hydrocarbon molecule isoprene, the basic unit in natural rubber, was essentially complete in fifty hours at room temperature when the pressure was twelve thousand atmospheres. The end product was a tough, transparent, rubberlike solid. Had he thought to try the effect of high pressure on another hydrocarbon, ethylene, it would have polymerized, yielding polyethylene. As a later edition of Conant’s own textbook on organic chemistry explains, polyethylene is a product with important insulating properties, used as a protective rubber coating for making everything from gloves to containers, as well as countless industrial applications. If he had only recognized its valuable characteristics, he and DuPont would have had a “monopoly on the production of a new commercial product now used on every hand.” From the point of view of an enterprising chemist, it was the big patent that got away, and even years later he could not read about it without feeling a “pang.”

  As his fame spread, Conant was sought after by prominent figures for his advice. In 1930 the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, in New York, appointed him a scientific advisor to the board of trustees. Impressed by his administrative skills, the institute’s founder and president, Simon Flexner, enlisted him in many strategic discussions of how to organize and direct their research, as well as soliciting his opinion on personnel matters. Conant became known for his shrewd counsel and the “sharp insight” with which he attacked problems and assessed people’s potential and the best way to get the most out of them. He was adept at raising research funds, and talked the Rockefeller Foundation into underwriting substantial grants for his department. He developed a large network of close friends, many of them dating back to the war, who occupied prominent positions in universities and industry, and their clout was reflected in his swift election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

  With his rise in the world, and a raft of prestigious awards from his peers, came a new sense of himself, and new social ease. While Patty shrunk from the “overpowering amount of publicity” that came with his prizes, and the endless banquets and newspaper interviews, Conant rose to the occasion. His dry wit and disarmingly informal manner made him a popular figure, and he thoroughly enjoyed participating in professional gatherings. An able lecturer, he spoke lucidly about the broad general aspects of pure science and, according to a journal notice advertising an upcoming talk in Chicago, was that rare chemist who could “refrain from the use of terrifying formulas.” Befitting his new stature and prosperity, he invested in some custom tailoring to replace the baggy flannels of his chemistry days. “Jim was the sensation of the day in his new dark blue cheviot suit, with vest and coat and all,” Patty informed her mother after one of his latest speeches. “He added a watch-chain across the front, which looked magnificent. He is very proud of
passing this milestone.”

  At the height of his powers in his chosen field, with his towering intellect and deep love of science and thrill of discovery, Conant was an enormously influential figure, and left his mark not only on the school of physical-organic chemists he taught, but on the modern practice of chemistry. “I came to think of Conant as probably the most truly intelligent man I ever knew,” Bartlett observed of his mentor. “For him, objectivity seemed to be a natural state of mind, rather than something for which one must strive. The habit of viewing the world as it revealed itself, rather than as he might wish it to be, was fundamental to his professional, political, and administrative life.” His “perceptiveness and mobility” meant that he never got stuck on any one problem, but was always looking to the future, to the next new idea or opportunity. “When, with a full range of choice, he repeatedly moved from a field where he had a strong position into something else not always even closely related, it was in pursuit of a bigger challenge, and ever more important activities.”

  * * *

  At the time, no one dreamed there was anything more important to Conant than chemistry. Rumors of Lowell’s impending retirement were beginning to circulate, but Conant gave no indication he had the slightest interest in the office. He was too young and had too much to do. Already the names of possible successors were being bandied about and Conant’s boyhood friend Ken Murdock was whispered to be Lowell’s choice as heir apparent. Patty sent the press clippings to her mother about his promotion to dean of the faculty of arts and sciences and speculated cattily about the negative effect of too much advance publicity. “Of course, the more talk in the papers about him there is, the less chance he has of the Presidency, I suppose! Also, if he is marked as Pres. Lowell’s choice, that may hurt his cause fatally.” But it was all in the way of idle gossip, grist for the mill at Boston tea tables, nothing more.

  For the summer of 1930, Conant planned another sojourn in Germany which, given the increasing political tensions, he feared might be the last in a long time. Patty was also in need of a holiday to help restore her health and good cheer. She had suffered two consecutive miscarriages and complained of being worn ragged from minding their two boys, aged seven and four, whom she had come to view as increasingly difficult and “highly strung.” He was sending her and the children on ahead to spend a month in the country near Freiburg, on the edge of the Black Forest.

  Sharing a small steamer cabin with her sons on the ocean crossing meant that Patty spent a good deal more time alone with them than she was used to at home, where they were relegated to the nursery. She was not reassured by what she saw. Jimmy, her firstborn and favorite, was outwardly a sturdy, handsome boy, but at times his behavior frightened her. “I have been a little shocked to watch him at his rests,” Patty wrote her husband from aboard the SS Cleveland. “He writhes about as if he were having a kind of fit, a good deal of the time lying doubled up on his back with his legs in the air [she included a small sketch of a flailing figure] and his eyes glaring into space in an intent stare and his lips muttering softly—stories about pirates and wars apparently seething in his brain.” He was becoming “fearfully introverted,” and, left to himself, sank quickly back into an intense “fantasy life” that did not seem normal. “It doesn’t seem quite healthy, do you think so?” she asked, adding it was probably best to just ignore it and hope he outgrew it. “I am showing no interest, and he will forget this stage soon.”

  Unlike his brother, little Teddy was a frail, awkward child. He was emotional, spasmodic, and tended, Patty wrote her mother after one of his frequent upsets, to be “a bit neurasthenic.” Whereas Jimmy received glowing reports that made her “fairly blush” from his teachers at Shady Hill, a small, private day school founded by the philosopher Ernest Hocking and his wife, Agnes, for the children of Harvard faculty, Teddy did not seem to be profiting from that fine institution. She had often been called to meetings to discuss his “problems,” and was afraid he was already exhibiting a defiant streak that marked him out as a black sheep.

  In the pages of her diary, she worried that she might be to blame for the “nervous strain” her sons exhibited. She knew she had “irritable streaks,” when she was unaccountably angry and cruel, and believed she could see Jimmy already beginning to shrink from her touch. “I pounce on him, hound him, nag him with cutting innuendos,” she wrote. “I victimize this helpless, gentle, lovely little soul by my reproaches, which really spring from my own sense of being responsible. He’ll learn soon that I’m selfish and full of alibis—then it will be too late to win him back.” These fears, stemming from the turbulent spirit that had darkened her family history, she hid from her husband. After a few weeks in Germany, she reported that while both boys continued to be “somewhat unmanageable,” it was probably just the tension and excitement of travel, and they would soon settle down.

  If Conant shared her concerns about the children, he never mentioned it in his letters. He wrote chiefly about wrapping up his work in his laboratory and how much he looked forward to joining them in Heidelberg in August. Finding himself alone in the Oxford Street house on the long, light summer evenings, he told Patty he had taken up painting as a relaxing pastime. One night, James Phinney Baxter III, a young professor of diplomatic history, dropped by unannounced to take him to dinner and was surprised to find the chemist in a paint-spattered smock. Too embarrassed to admit to his new hobby, Conant led him to believe he had been refurbishing an upstairs bedroom. Later that night, after two glasses of port, Conant came clean and apologized for the deception. “It’s all right,” Baxter reassured him, “the best submarine captain I know paints pictures.”

  When Conant finally worked up the courage to show his “collection” to his visiting sisters, they were speechless. “Marjorie withstood the shock pretty well,” he wrote Patty of his younger sister, an accomplished painter whose works hung in museums and galleries in Atlanta, where she lived with her husband, Harold Bush-Brown, the head of the Department of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Esther, when she recovered her voice, tartly reminded her brother of all his condescending remarks about art being a “queer and unremunerative” occupation. “I hadn’t realized I had made such a deep impression as a dyed-in-the-wool specialist,” he added, much amused. “Dear, dear.”

  * * *

  I. Conant continued to wrestle with the difficult problem presented by the five-membered keto ester ring of chlorophyll. The complete structure of chlorophyll, in all its glory except for the stereochemistry of the ring, was ultimately presented by Fischer and his collaborators in 1940.

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  The Dark Horse

  1933 was quite a year for Germany, America, and me. Hitler rose to power, Franklin Roosevelt took office, and I became president of Harvard.

  —JBC

  It all started because he had not learned to keep his “mouth shut.” Conant had not even contemplated “abdicating from chemistry” in the autumn of 1932 when he was approached by a member of the Harvard Corporation who wanted to pick his brain about the challenges facing the college and the names of scholars capable of directing its fortunes. Naturally he was aware that Lowell, nearing his seventy-sixth birthday, had announced his retirement and that a search committee had been formed and was busy compiling a list of possible successors. But since he was not privy to the inscrutable workings of the Corporation, all he could do was listen to the rumors about the candidates and guess at the outcome like everyone else. So immersed was he in his research, and so far removed from college politics, that when the topic came up at a monthly meeting of the Shop Club, and a list of some fifty likely prospects was read off by one of the members, his name was not among them. Conant had been ill with flu and unable to attend the dinner, but on hearing his wife’s account of the proceedings, he could not help feeling “somewhat piqued.” After all, he admitted later, “It was a bit hard to be considered beyond the pale of discussion.”

  The Co
rporation, cloaked in more mystery and stealth than a papal conclave, met behind closed doors, its deliberations a closely guarded secret. All the intrigue only served to fuel the public and press speculation about the momentous decision: “Harvard Scans the Rolls of Her Sons in Search for President,” the Boston Globe announced on November 27, 1932. The article went on to explain that the responsibility for naming the new chief rested with the Harvard Corporation, “a little circle of seven men” who made up the “absolute powerful governing body of the university.” It was a compact unit that consisted of the current president and six fellows, including Charles P. Curtis, Robert Homans, Dr. Roger I. Lee, Thomas Nelson Perkins, and Henry L. Shattuck. The sixth, and only out-of-towner, was Grenville Clark, a prominent New York lawyer. Final approval of their nominee would have to be obtained from the Board of Overseers, commonly referred to as “the most exclusive club in Boston,” a body of thirty members of the alumni that had theoretical veto power over the acts of the Corporation, though it was seldom exercised.

  The local papers covered the thrilling business like a horse race, printing the names of the front-runners and handicapping their odds. The betting was that it would be a vigorous young leader, with thirty-seven-year-old Murdock the heavy favorite. But it was a wide-open field with as many as fifty senior professors and patrician luminaries said to be in the running. Adding to the drama, at least three members of the Corporation—Clark, Perkins, and Shattuck—had put themselves forward, despite the apparent conflict of interest. There was no law that it had to be a Harvard man, but it was a precedent of some 260 years standing.

  This time, however, there was real pressure to see an “outsider” elected. There was a growing apprehension that Harvard was suffering from what one critic called “the chilling effects of its institutional introspection,” and a great many out-of-state alumni were demanding a change from the decades of Yankee stewardship. The principal criticism of the aging Lowell, cast as a kind of “Back Bay Lear” by his detractors, was that he was a tired representative of his class, insular and out of touch. Much of their ire dated back to 1927, when Lowell agreed to head the three-man commission appointed by the state’s governor to review the infamous Sacco-Vanzetti case, and determine if the trial and conviction of the two Italian-born anarchists for a 1920 payroll murder had been fair and just, and their execution should take place as ordered. For six years, the plight of the condemned men, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, had polarized people on the right and left, and enraged intellectuals and radicals who believed the pair had been improperly tried.