Dr. Charles Fairman always looked like a professor should look—well-dressed, usually in a blue suit, white shirt and red necktie. His hair, a glistening gray, was combed back over his head without any part. He ran his hand through it as he lectured. A serious human being, not many smiles or humorous stories, but a man filled with warmth. I was a junior in 1938 and we became friends during the first political science class I took from him.
I liked him immensely until he gave me a “C.” I was dumbfounded. I asked him about it. “I wanted to give you a wake-up call,” he responded. “You’re not working hard enough. Get with it!” He was right. I didn’t disappoint him, or myself, again.
War clouds were gathering in Europe, and the draft was calling. I turned to Dr. Fairman and we reviewed my options. “You have the grades. You are interested in government and politics. Why don’t you go to law school?” he said. “Apply to Harvard. Ask for a scholarship. Go after it.” I was admitted and got a scholarship.
But how could I afford to live so far away from home? Only years later did I learn that Dr. Fairman had been thinking about this, too. When an uncle from Chicago visited Palo Alto, I had introduced him to my counselor. They had corresponded about my future, and Dr. Fairman said I was worth investing in. Out of the blue—at least that’s the way it appeared at the time—came my uncle’s offer to pay my living expenses.
Pearl Harbor occurred in my second year of law school. By February 1942 I was in an ensign’s uniform at the Navy Department in Washington, D.C. In June, Charles Fairman entered my life again. He had volunteered to go on active duty and was working in the judge advocate general’s office. I asked him to be the best man at my wedding and was proud to have Col. Fairman beside me on that important occasion.
- ROBERT W. PUTNAM, '40, JD '48
