DINNER IN HONOR OF PROFESSOR JOHN BATES CLARK * 
Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman, Chairman 
Gentlemen, at this celebration we had intended to accomplish three 
things. We had intended to have eighty people present; we had intended 
0 have a birthday cake with eighty candles; and we had intended to have 
oighty speeches. Unfortunately, the pressure to attend the dinner was such 
‘hat we had slightly to overstep the limit of eighty people. In the next 
place, the pastry cook informed me that it would take six men to carry 
in a cake large enough for eighty candles, so we gave that up; and finally 
the gentlemen who are to speak tonight insisted that if their speeches were 
to be eut down to two minutes, they would refuse to proceed. So for all 
these reasons we had to abandon the magic figure of eighty. At all events, 
however, we do know that the figure is present in one case, in that of our 
beloved friend and guest who becomes an octogenarian today. 
It is not often that that ripe old age is attained by individuals in the 
plenitude of their powers. I have noticed that longevity is more par- 
ticularly true among scholars, and I have often wondered why that should 
be so. There are three reasons why, perhaps, it is true of the professorial 
class. In the first place, I should say that it is due to their poverty. 
[mpecuniousness makes, of course, for plain living; and the fact that we 
have to live so plainly may perhaps tend to our longevity. 
In the second place, I think that it is perhaps due to our holidays. We 
have the long summer off and we can indulge in all sorts of diversions that 
are not possible to the ordinary man. The more fun, the greater the 
chance of a long life. Finally, I think that it is due to the liberty we enjoy. 
Everybody in active life is more or less under obligations to some superior 
or some client or some customer. The university professor nowadays really 
enjoys more freedom, at all events in the private universities, than is 
accorded to any other member of the community. Of course, I know that 
this runs counter to common opinion. They will point, for instance, to the 
gentleman at my left and speak of him as a benevolent despot, and some- 
times will even omit the word benevolent. I can assure you, on the con- 
trary, that, far from being that, we all feel he is not a despot but a 
sympathetic colleague. 
I remember as if it were yesterday when this octogenarian first came to 
Columbia. It has been my bad fortune to be the executive head of the 
department for these many years. I have a family of forty or fifty now; 
but in those days there were only two of us, Mayo-Smith and myself. 
When Professor Clark came, we felt that our strength, if not our numbers, 
was multiplied manyfold. If we have been able to keep ourselves a happy 
! In celebration of Professor Clark’s eightieth birthday, January 26, 1927, 
at the University Club, New York City 
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