1951 Fredericton Encaenia
Gannett, Frank Ernest
Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)
Orator: Cattley, Robert E.D.
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L to R: Albert W. Trueman, Lord Beaverbrook, Frank Ernest Gannett
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Source: UA PC-25 no.8(4)
Citation:
ENCAENIA, MAY, 1951
FRANK ERNEST GANNETT
to be Doctor of Laws
Frank Ernest Gannett is a man to whom none of our customary orations can do justice. Let the following halting phrases tell why.
He is the American spirit incarnate. He is the small boy on the backwoods farm who by sheer application, a business head, a photographic memory, a nose for opportunities and a frightening alacrity in seizing them, made good. And, like our own esteemed Chancellor, Lord Beaverbrook, whose friend he is, he made good in Newspapers.
He began on one newspaper, when at the age of ten he took to task the accounting system (always his strong point) of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in the relatively serious discrepancy of 4¢ (including cost of mailing, 3¢)! He now owns or fosters 21 newspapers and 6 radio stations.
He is the paradox of his age. Though he owns these great journals he never attempts to control them -- the Editors will not let him. And the Editors will not let him because he himself will not let the Editors let him. So literally does he support the freedom of the Press that on an independent stumping campaign he has had to work hard and fast in competition to sell his own political views to his own papers.
He has known, advised, or fought against the Great of the earth, yet he is the most modest of private individuals. He has encountered Hitler, Laval, Mussolini and the Kremlin, and seen through them all. The lessons he learned from those despots served only to stiffen his suspicion of all centralization and his hatred of all bureaucracy. He is Democracy personified.
He is the one man who organized to break Roosevelt's packing of the Supreme Court and, right or wrong, he broke it. He broke it by what his enemies were pleased to call 'mail order lobbying', by mailing to his fellow citizens letters with the facts -- 15 million letters, followed as the crisis deepened by thirty-two and a half thousand telegrams at $1.27 apiece. He broke that bill!
And against his native instincts they made him run for President.
A man like this needs no speech but a book to himself; and that book is in our new University library: Imprint of a Publisher by Williamson.
My Masters, here standing before you is a great American. This champion of freedom versus bureaucracy is best described in the vernacular of his own explosive reaction to any creeping infringement of the rights of man: "This burns me up!"
Such is the man on whom I now humbly invite you to bestow the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
FRANK ERNEST GANNETT
to be Doctor of Laws
Frank Ernest Gannett is a man to whom none of our customary orations can do justice. Let the following halting phrases tell why.
He is the American spirit incarnate. He is the small boy on the backwoods farm who by sheer application, a business head, a photographic memory, a nose for opportunities and a frightening alacrity in seizing them, made good. And, like our own esteemed Chancellor, Lord Beaverbrook, whose friend he is, he made good in Newspapers.
He began on one newspaper, when at the age of ten he took to task the accounting system (always his strong point) of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in the relatively serious discrepancy of 4¢ (including cost of mailing, 3¢)! He now owns or fosters 21 newspapers and 6 radio stations.
He is the paradox of his age. Though he owns these great journals he never attempts to control them -- the Editors will not let him. And the Editors will not let him because he himself will not let the Editors let him. So literally does he support the freedom of the Press that on an independent stumping campaign he has had to work hard and fast in competition to sell his own political views to his own papers.
He has known, advised, or fought against the Great of the earth, yet he is the most modest of private individuals. He has encountered Hitler, Laval, Mussolini and the Kremlin, and seen through them all. The lessons he learned from those despots served only to stiffen his suspicion of all centralization and his hatred of all bureaucracy. He is Democracy personified.
He is the one man who organized to break Roosevelt's packing of the Supreme Court and, right or wrong, he broke it. He broke it by what his enemies were pleased to call 'mail order lobbying', by mailing to his fellow citizens letters with the facts -- 15 million letters, followed as the crisis deepened by thirty-two and a half thousand telegrams at $1.27 apiece. He broke that bill!
And against his native instincts they made him run for President.
A man like this needs no speech but a book to himself; and that book is in our new University library: Imprint of a Publisher by Williamson.
My Masters, here standing before you is a great American. This champion of freedom versus bureaucracy is best described in the vernacular of his own explosive reaction to any creeping infringement of the rights of man: "This burns me up!"
Such is the man on whom I now humbly invite you to bestow the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
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