On the official list of Stanford presidents, he is literally a footnote.
Just after the entry for Ray Lyman Wilbur, whose 27-year tenure remains the longest in university history, a superscript 1 leads to a single-line notation: “Robert Eccles Swain served as acting president from 1929-1933.”
History has so lightly regarded his role that even that bland sentence is inaccurate: His middle name, Eckles, is misspelled. But behind the brevity is a deeper story—of friends operating at the pinnacle of not just Stanford’s administration but the nation’s, and of an acting presidency so long that it exceeded the terms of three official presidents.
Most of all, it’s the story of a chemist who went by Bert, a son of Stanford who arrived with its fourth class in 1894 and who, upon his death at age 86, left a legacy of contributions, from pioneering air pollution scholarship to civic leadership to a vision of the modern research university. It’s also the tale of the ties binding Swain, Class of 1899; Wilbur, Class of 1896, MA ’97, MD ’99; and the man both called the Chief: Herbert Hoover, Class of 1895. Hoover and Wilbur may have gone to Washington, leaving Stanford in their friend’s hands, but they never quite relinquished control.
Good Chemistry
Like the university itself, Swain was a child of the West. Long before it became a world-famous fashion brand, Hollister was a California town organized in 1872 by a group of homesteaders that included his father. Swain was born there on January 5, 1875, and raised in a pioneer life that instilled in him a lifelong affection for fishing, hunting, and the outdoors.
Courtesy Stanford Special Collections and University Archives
The university he entered in 1894 was still in its infancy, only a year removed from the death of Leland Stanford and beset by financial crises as Jane Stanford struggled to resolve tax and legal issues surrounding his estate. On a campus oriented toward the practical sciences, Swain gravitated to the chemistry department and its first faculty member, John Stillman. He worked summers as a gold assayer, a job that may have led to his scholarly interest in air pollution from smelter smoke. Hired as a Stanford instructor after graduation, Swain left for brief periods to earn his master’s and doctoral degrees at Yale and study in Europe. By 1904, he was back on campus—and never left.
His friendships with Wilbur and Hoover were forged in those early days of the university through a shared view of its possibilities. But the friendships were cemented through their shared love of the outdoors. For fishing and hunting, the men frequented Wooley Creek, near the California-Oregon border. When they didn’t go together, they would often swap tales and occasionally share spoils. “Last night some fine ducks appeared on my hometable,” Wilbur wrote Swain after one such expedition. “I understand you are guilty . . . I can assure that there is no great penalty for a second offense.”
By 1911, Swain had become a full professor, eventually succeeding Stillman as the head of the chemistry department. At about 5’5”, he was hardly physically imposing, but he conveyed energy and authoritativeness. “He was a talkative fellow,” recalls his grandson Bob Swain, ’56, MBA ’60. “He wasn’t holding back.” Swain passed along the trait to at least one of his two children: his son, Robert C. Swain, Class of 1928, a chemist and corporate executive. “His personality was very ‘Don’t sit back on your ass,’ ” says the younger Swain’s granddaughter Nancy Apy.
Go Trees
Swain’s leadership abilities shaped not only the chemistry department but also the community beyond. Elected to the Palo Alto City Council, he served as mayor from 1914 to 1916. The most vexing issue was what to do about the many oak trees flourishing in the middle of streets, adding to the town’s charm but posing obstacles to its burgeoning ranks of motorists, who had an unfortunate tendency to hit them.
Among the residents voicing their feelings on the topic at a January 1915 meeting was one “Dr. Ray L. Wilbur of 1201 Bryant street,” the Daily Palo Alto Times reported. He came down clearly in the pro-tree camp, telling the council that “he bought his home for the very reason that right out in front was that beautiful oak standing midway in the street. . . . [H]e went on to say that any person that can’t miss the street oaks has no business driving a car.” Not for the last time, Mayor Swain sided with his friend.
They were in constant contact, sometimes multiple times a day: dictating letters back and forth (Wilbur’s on Department of the Interior letterhead), sending telegrams, posting handwritten letters from hotels.
In 1921, Swain moved into a campus home next to Hoover’s, which only deepened that friendship. Robert C. Swain remembered being treated as an unofficial member of the Hoover family, running with a pack of neighborhood teens that included Hoover’s sons Herb, Class of 1925, and Allan, Class of 1928, as well as future dean of engineering Fred Terman, Class of 1920, Engr. ’22. The crew annoyed neighbors with obnoxious experiments in radio transmission and self-built autos.
In November 1928, Herbert Hoover was elected president of the United States—and he wanted his friend Ray Wilbur with him in Washington. As the most powerful member of the university’s Board of Trustees as well as its most famous graduate, Hoover had little difficulty persuading his fellow board members to grant Wilbur a sabbatical to allow him to become secretary of the interior in 1929.
Despite their new responsibilities across the continent, Hoover and Wilbur weren’t inclined to abdicate their roles in Stanford’s governance. Instead, they followed a pattern set during Wilbur’s shorter absences and designated Swain as acting president. “A Tried Friend Assumes a New Task,” reported the Stanford Illustrated Review, a forerunner of today’s STANFORD.
The sabbatical was to end in a year, but Hoover was of no mind to release Wilbur so soon. In October 1929, the stock market crashed, and by early 1930 the nation had fully entered the Great Depression. But Wilbur, viewing his Cabinet job as a temporary detour, was unwilling to give up his campus authority and influence.
What evolved was something like a co-presidency. Swain possessed both ability and authority, and, when circumstances required, could take swift and decisive action. He oversaw the day-to-day running of the university, its ceremonial functions, and the care and feeding of the trustees. He eventually even moved into the Knoll, the then-presidential residence.
All the while, though, he maintained a steady flow of correspondence with Wilbur in Washington, apprising him of events on campus, seeking his input on pending issues, and informing him of decisions made. The Chaparral, Stanford’s humor magazine, was closer to the truth than it might have realized when it described the university as having a “President-by-mail.”
It was a solution that in no way should have worked, and that it more or less did was largely a testament to the level of trust between the two men.
The surviving correspondence shows a dialogue about not only big issues but also many small ones. Should Stanford schedule a football game with Dartmouth? Where should the reception for graduating seniors be held? A valued professor is being wooed by Ohio State; should we match their offer?
The Depression injected new issues of concern on both ends of the correspondence. Swain and Wilbur sought to dispel the notion that Stanford—land rich but cash constrained—was wealthier than it really was. The two exchanged approving notes over a San Francisco Chronicle editorial that read, “Dazzled by the original Stanford gift, the world has ever since assumed that the university rolls in money. The truth is that Stanford University is very poor.”
Should Stanford schedule a football game with Dartmouth? Where should the reception for graduating seniors be held? A professor is being wooed by Ohio State; should we match their offer?
Even so, Swain and Wilbur fought off drastic cost-cutting proposals, including one floated by trustees to abolish the nascent Business School. Eventually, Stanford was able to avoid laying off faculty through a combination of deferred spending, higher tuition, and salary cuts. (Legendary football coach Glenn “Pop” Warner took the news of a potential $200 reduction in stride, Swain reported.)
Oh, Brother
Not all crises were financial. In May 1930, as Swain was attending a Board of Trustees dinner at Branner Hall, word came of an impending Stanford Daily editorial that denounced language in the Mining and Metallurgy 101 syllabus of Theodore Hoover, Class of 1901, the president’s older brother and dean of the School of Engineering. “The human race develops by war and succeeds in war in proportion to its use of metals; races perish in peace,” Hoover had written. “Culture is increased by invention of new weapons. The pacifist errs in assuming that peace is desirable.”
Though the Daily piece did not name Theodore Hoover, the timing could not have been worse for his brother. Less than a month before, the United States had signed the London Naval Treaty, aimed at limiting ship construction and regulating submarine activity, and the president was in the midst of an effort to get a skeptical Senate to ratify it. The Daily, well understanding the context, made its editorial available to other newspapers ahead of time.
As an unaware Swain dined with the trustees, other faculty members huddled outside and summoned Robert Speers, ’30, the Daily editor and the author of the piece, in an effort to get him to withhold it. “A little later Dean Hoover was called out into the corridor to confer with them,” Swain later wrote Wilbur. “Unfortunately this brought Theodore into the argument and led to his making a statement substantially affirming the syllabus quotations. . . . Speers, aware that the City papers had the story, felt that he must hold his ground.” The Daily published.
As Swain had feared, the story became front-page news across the nation. “Dean Hoover Assailed for ‘Militarism,’ ” proclaimed the San Francisco Examiner’s front page. “President’s Brother Is Quoted Believing Pacifist Wrong,” said the Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) over an Associated Press dispatch reporting the dean’s anger at what he termed a “flagrant violation of a long-established academic privilege, the inviolability of the class room.”
An embarrassed Hoover administration could do little except look to Swain to contain the damage. “Important repair situation promptly if can be done,” Wilbur wired Swain.
The effort was already underway. Swain prevailed upon Theodore Hoover not to issue any further public statements, then sought to shift the public spotlight onto the Daily, which he said had maligned the dean and churned up controversy. Editor Speers was summoned for a reprimand, but Swain decided against formal disciplinary action.
Anger at the newspaper nonetheless persisted; at one point, a group of engineering students even attempted to kidnap the editor. “Fortunately, it did not succeed, or we would have had another bad situation to meet,” Swain later wrote Wilbur.
While the controversy blew over, restiveness about the university’s unusual leadership structure did not. In the summer of 1930, President Hoover himself intervened behind the scenes when a group of trustees attempted to block an extension of Wilbur’s leave. But the issue burst into the open that fall, including a page-one Daily editorial demanding that Wilbur either return or resign. “While Dr. Wilbur is away from the University, policies and decisions of the institution are delayed. This is hampering the educational program and is proving to be an obstacle in the University’s progress,” the Daily said, dismissing Swain in an aside as “an acting president, whose powers of administration are limited.”
If the situation rankled the proud Swain, there’s no evidence of it. The correspondence continued to flow freely between the two friends, even as Wilbur’s absence—eventually converted from paid sabbatical to unpaid leave—extended to the entirety of the Hoover presidency.
A Legacy
In 1933, following Hoover’s reelection loss to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wilbur duly returned to campus to reassume the presidency—and Swain moved back to the chemistry department. But his role in shaping Stanford’s future was not yet finished.
Back in the 1920s, Swain had begun advocating for a new center on campus to conduct research as a way to enhance the university’s standing and tap into the swelling corporate (and later government) research budgets of an industrializing America.
CHEMICAL BONDS: The department in 1939. (Photo: Courtesy Stanford Special Collections and University Archives)
The Depression and World War II delayed but didn’t derail Swain’s vision. In December 1945, Swain and two colleagues—dubbing themselves the Three Musketeers—wrote a memo to Wilbur’s successor as president, Donald Tresidder, ’19, MD ’27. It laid out the name, mission, and mandate for the Stanford Research Institute, which came into existence the following year and would become one of the foundational components of modern Silicon Valley. (Among other things, it played key roles in the development of optical videodiscs, the computer mouse, and ARPANET, the predecessor of today’s internet.) The institute split off from Stanford in 1970 amid Vietnam-era protests over its military contracts; now known as SRI International, it remains one of the world’s preeminent nonprofit research institutions.
Swain’s postpresidential years saw him return to his air pollution research—a calling that took him from the smog-choked highways of 1950s Los Angeles to the backwoods haunts of Tennessee moonshiners. He also faced upheaval in his personal life when his wife, Harriet, fell down cellar stairs, suffering severe injuries from which she would never fully recover. A year after her 1946 death, Swain married her former caregiver, Juanita Jaffe, a widow who spoke seven languages. “One smart woman,” Apy recalls.
Robert Swain died on May 31, 1961, after suffering a heart attack during a conversation with W. Glenn Campbell, director of the Hoover Institution. His death came just 18 days before the commencement ceremony where he was to have been named an Honorary Fellow of Stanford, then among the university’s highest honors. The award was conferred posthumously and accepted by his son.
But that wasn’t the final word on Swain’s long relationship with the university. At his death, he left his estate not to his family but to Stanford. “It was a fair estate, a lot of money,” recalls grandson Bob Swain. His grandfather apparently left no formal explanation for his largesse, but it isn’t hard to imagine his motivation. He had devoted his life to helping take Stanford from a struggling regional school to the cusp of global prominence, and he wanted the work to continue. “My father didn’t need it, didn’t want it,” Bob Swain says. “So where would it go other than there?”
Rich Jaroslovsky, ’75, is a longtime journalist and a senior adviser at SmartNews. Email him at stanford.magazine@stanford.edu.
