Richard P. McCormick – A Brief Eulogy
Read at the
Rutgers University Senate
Meeting of January 20, 2006
By Professor Rudy Bell
I am honored today by the opportunity to say a few
words as we remember our distinguished colleague, Rutgers University
Historian
and Professor Emeritus Richard Patrick McCormick, who died on Monday,
January
16 of this year, at the age of 89.
He was the father of our current
president, Richard L. McCormick, and of a daughter, Dorothy Boulia;
husband of
Katheryne Levis, an underpaid chemistry lecturer at Douglass
College for many years and
then an
iron-willed New Brunswick
scheduling officer; and grandfather of Dorothy’s son Christopher and of
Richard
L. and Suzanne Lebsock’s two children, Betsy and Michael. Dick’s first
love was
his family, even more than the Alexander Library despite what you may
read
elsewhere, and it was only in telling about their activities that he
would set
aside his usual reserve and beamingly display his deep pride in their
accomplishments. Dick and Katheryne did not travel all that frequently,
apart
from their summer stays at Cape Cod, of course, and a year in England
as a
Distinguished Visiting Professor, but Dick was absolutely certain that
the
world’s premier tour guide for a visit to Paris was his then teenage
granddaughter Betsy, whose boundless energy, fluent-at-least-to-his-ear
French,
and astounding knowledge of the history of France made their trip
something
that he delighted in talking about for months and years after their
return. His
grandson Michael was a golf caddy ready to go on the pro-circuit and
could
write with deep passion even at a young age about his misgivings in
moving from
Seattle.
Dick’s
favorite story about his son’s accomplishments at the University of Washington
was that his secretary somehow wangled tickets so that Betsy could
attend a sold-out
baseball game between the Mariners and the Red Sox – now there was a
sign of
power that Richard P. found worthy of praise. So also he would glow
with
unstinting admiration in describing Katheryne’s prowess as a golfer and
her
dedication to doing free tax returns for the underprivileged senior
citizens of
Piscataway.
He, too, was extraordinarily generous with his abundant talents,
but
modesty kept us from knowing much about his quiet good deeds.
Dick McCormick had the temerity to hire me in the
spring of 1968 as an instructor, with a thesis-in-progress which at
that point
was an indecipherable four-page computer-generated factor analysis
purporting
to show how political parties formed in the United States
in the 1790s. He
asked whether I intended to look at any real evidence, such as
correspondence
among congressmen or newspaper accounts but he did not dispute my
response that
there was no need for such documentation since the statistical analysis
would
be sufficient to show the real voting patterns that led to party
formations.
Further along in the interview, I asked him why there were no girls at
this
school, a question he forgave. He did check with my thesis advisor,
telling him
I seemed a little green and unprepared but held some promise and would
be
offered the position. In the thirty-six years since that spring, Dick
was a
mentor, a friend, and a very wise counselor. In a department where
several
colleagues in those early days might be described with adjectives such
as
cantankerous, obstreperous, curmudgeonly, and pompous, Dick was
even-tempered,
fair-minded, self-effacing, and generous. Many of you knew these
qualities in
him but few of you were as fortunate as I was with the opportunity to
enjoy
their benefits in such full measure.
I want to say a few words about his
publications, looking less at their prodigious number than at the range
of
interests they display. As reflected in his recognition by the American
Historical Association half a decade ago with an award reserved for its
most
distinguished lifetime scholars, Richard P. McCormick’s work shaped the
field
of American political history. His 1966 book titled The Second
American
Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era became required
on
American History Ph.D. examination reading lists nationwide, and to
this day
remains a rock-solid interpretation found in every college textbook in
the
field. His interest was always in how politics worked at the ground
level and
there was in his approach a commitment to democracy that never wavered
even as
he explored the failures and seamier aspects of the political process,
especially in New Jersey.
His earliest book focused on New
Jersey in the Confederation years, wherein he
traced
the need to balance localizing democratic impulses with more
centralized power.
Then he went on to document the significance of electoral machinery in
the
state over a period of nearly 250 years, showing that how, when, where,
and why
people voted mattered.
As a scholar, McCormick sweated the
details, and the payoff was enormous. He believed, quaint as this may
sound,
that knowledge might help to resolve an issue and bring people to
reasonable
positions. Several of his books reflect this commitment, for example
his
co-authored study of the Bergel-Hauptmann case involving the Nazi
sympathies of
a Douglass professor in the 1930’s, his history of The Black
Student Protest
Movement at Rutgers, and several shorter pieces on the history of
attempts
to federate the colleges in New Brunswick, a task that has proven more
complex
and enduring than federating the United States, which had been the
context of
McCormick’s first book in 1950. He also did a piece on the secret
history of
going to big-time athletics at Rutgers
in the
1970s but chose not to publish that one. His bicentennial history of
Rutgers,
sometimes assumed by those who have not read it to be a nostalgic
institutional
study, actually reflected his profound commitment to making Rutgers
into
something it never had been, to wit, a great, public, research-oriented
state university.
Already in 1966, he had the vision.
In all his books, in his teaching,
and in his myriad campus activities, we see his unswerving belief that
knowledge is the key to problem resolution. His defining moment, I
think, was
when in the late 1960’s he led several faculty colleagues into the
midst of a
group of protesting Black students. With great dignity, and conveying a
sense
of shared concern, he convinced the assembled crowd that this was the
time for
dialogue, for getting to know each other’s positions, needs, and
values. But he
did not just talk the talk; he took action, working tirelessly to
establish
with both with private faculty contributions and then state government
support
what would evolve into the Educational Opportunity Program. For Richard
P.
McCormick, education was the ultimate foundation for effective
democracy and it
was to this goal that he dedicated his life's work.
<>Rudolph M.
Bell
<><>History
Department – Rutgers
- NB
<>Jan.
20, 2006