TYPED LETTER SIGNED BY DISTINGUISHED EDUCATOR AND PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. by Butler, Nicholas Murray (1862-1947). Educator and President of Columbia University - 1928.

Butler writes to future Congressman Seymour Halpern: "If you are expecting to enter Columbia College you must get in communication with the Director of Admissions at an early day....Hundreds of students of ordinary preparation and accomplishment are turned away each year through lack of our capacity to care for them."

Nicholas Murray Butler [1862-1947] was an educator, an advisor to seven presidents, a prolific author and the recipient of numerous international decorations and honorary degrees. He was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. His good friend Theodore Roosevelt called him "Nicholas Miraculous Butler". Four years after joining the staff of Columbia's Philosophy Department in 1885 Butler gave administrative form to his philosophical theory of pedagogy by founding an institute, later affiliated with Columbia, which became known as Teachers College. He was named acting president of Columbia University in 1901 and president in 1902, a post he held until his retirement in October 1945. Columbia grew phenomenally under his presidency and became a major university.

The Queens, New York Republican Congressman Seymour Halpern (1913-1997), at this time still a high school student, started his political career as a campaign aide to New York's powerful mayor Fiorella La Guardia and first served in New York's State Senate for 14 years before seeking a seat in the U.S. Congress. In Albany Halpern sponsored 279 bills that became law, including measures on schools, housing, civil rights, nutrition and mental health. A Liberal, he was something of an anomaly as the lone Republican representative from New York City, and generally garnered support from Labor Unions and endorsement from the Liberal Party. Yet he never even considered switching parties as he considered membership in the Republican Party a family tradition and commitment. While he found ample time for his private pursuits, including painting and collecting autographs, he took his legislative duties very seriously. Of these, he was proudest of his co-sponsorship of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and of the original 1965 Medicare legislation.