Davenport, Horace W.

Name not available

Letters 
Editor: I have just read Judith 
Goodstein's chapter on the history of the 
Cal tech biology division in the last issue 
of Engineering & Science. I have, of course, 
immediately ordered a copy of the book. 
I am writing to make a few com-
ments on the question of anti-Semitism. 
As I am sure you know, that was a pre-
vailing attitude in the 1920s, and it is 
by no means extinct now. When I was 
chairman of physiology here at the 
University of Michigan, I was criticized 
for having too many Jews in the depart-
ment. I gave up science 10 years ago, 
and I have occupied my time writing 
history of physiology and medicine. In 
going through the university archives in 
the Bentley Historical Library, I have 
encountered the warning that So-and-so 
is Jewish so watch our. There is the 
complimentary remark that although he 
is Jewish he is all right. Michigan is full 
of families descended from Germal1 im-
migrants, and I have encountered also 
the remark that someone who has a 
German name is not Jewish, as a 
recommendation. 
As for T. H. Morgan, in 1933 I was 
an undergraduate at Cal tech, and I spent 
one afternoon a week working with 
Morgan in the laboratory. On my 21st 
birthday my chief task was to fend off 
reporters, for that was the day the notice 
of the Nobel Prize reached Morgan. 
Morgan's assistant was Albert Tyler, 
who was also my teacher in a couple of 
courses. Once when Morgan and I were 
alone he made an entirely gratuitous, 
rather snide remark to the effect that you 
could always tell aJew by the way he 
walked. That was stimulated by hearing 
Albert Tyler approach down the hall. 
There is another side to this story. I 
In this photo from 
"The Thomas Hunt 
Morgan Era in 
Biology" in the last 
issue of E&5, the 
man standing third 
from left between 
Robert Millikan and 
Guglielmo Marconi 
was misidentified as 
Allen Balch. He is in 
fact Harry Chandler, 
publisher of the Los 
Angeles Times and 
another of Caltech's 
early benefactors and 
trustees. The 1933 
occasion, besides 
welcoming the Mar· 
con is, was in celebra-
tion of Morgan's 
Nobel Prize. Morgan 
is second from right. 
heard (and I have no recollection, how-
ever, where I heard it) that Morgan had 
been so impressed by Jacques Loeb that 
he concluded that only aJew could be a 
good biochemist. The result was that he 
looked for the brightest young Jewish 
biochemist he could find, with the result 
that he brought Henry Borsook to Cal-
tech. It's a good story, whether or not it 
is true. 
Apropos your story about Morgan's 
remark at the Royal Society, the story I 
heard was that Morgan had been pro-
vided with a list of good British neuro-
physiologists among whom he might 
find a recruit. One on the list was Jack 
Eccles [later to win a Nobel Prize}, who 
was not asked. Eccles told me when I 
was his student at Oxford that he would 
have accepted the job if it had been 
offered. The Wiersma-Van Harrefeld 
team really wasn't very good, though 
Wiersma was by far the better of the 
two. 
All this is without documentation, 
anathema to a historian. 
Horace W. Davenport (BS '35, 
PhD '39) 
The real Mr. and Mrs. 
Allen Balch, who 
financed the Athenae· 
um and part of Kerck· 
hoff Laboratory, are 
shown above. Is Mrs. 
Balch also standing 
next to Millikan in the 
top photo? We're no 
longer certain, though 
it looks like her, and 
we would appreciate 
hearing from anyone 
who knows. 
Engineering & ScienceIFall1991 39 


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