Widney Society Gala
November 1, 2012
C. L. Max Nikias
President
Good evening. This is indeed a very special evening!
Yes, we have seen that the ideal Trojan is Faithful, Scholarly, Skillful, and Courageous. And we have seen these qualities embodied here tonight, in our own beloved Trojan Family members.
One other quality defines the ideal Trojan: Ambitious. To understand what Trojan ambition means, let us consider the life of the founder of our University of Southern California.
Robert Maclay Widney was an ambitious man. He was ambitious in his desire to spread the love of learning across a young American Wild West. He was ambitious in his desire to open up new human possibilities along a vast Pacific frontier. He was ambitious in his desire to go farther than those around him. What was enough for others was not enough for him. And such was his ability that others could not resist being pulled along with him toward goals that never seemed practical or possible.
Robert Maclay Widney is considered the chief architect, the chief founder of USC. He is also considered the chief architect of modern Los Angeles. Los Angeles would not be what it is without USC, and USC would not be what it is without Los Angeles. He was raised on a farm in central Ohio. He would spend years hunting and trapping in the Rocky Mountain wilderness. When he arrived as a young man in California he was humble enough to chop down trees for a living.
But he was ambitious enough to know that California offered him infinitely greater possibilities. He began studying at the College of the Pacific. In 1863, he graduated from the young institution. But it was his ambition to make sure others could get the same education. So he became a professor there—without any pay!
Robert Maclay Widney was a true renaissance man. It wasn’t enough for him to teach advanced mathematics. He also taught geology and chemistry and engineering and religion. He even studied law at the same time where he was admitted to the bar in 1865. Two years later, he moved to Southern California. He married Mary Barnes, a college schoolmate, and he began a new life in Los Angeles.
Where others saw only a dusty village in a lonely frontier, Robert Widney saw something special in LA. His eyes saw one of the most favorable environments ever known to humanity: majestic mountains within easy reach; a vast ocean nearby, which offered open access to the world; and a climate that seemed to be designed by Heaven itself to allow for the unlimited expression of the human mind, body and spirit. This, he said, is where the next great American city could arise. This, he said, is where the next great university will arise!
He would move heaven and earth to remove obstacles from the achievement of his vision. He worked to make sure the Southern Pacific Railroad ran through Los Angeles. He became a U.S. district judge. He was known as the pistol-packing judge. He organized the first chamber of commerce and the city’s first light and power company. He became one of the area’s major real estate developers and co-founder of the city of Long Beach. In short, he laid the foundation for a major metropolis.
During that same time, the American West was struggling with an early collision of cultures: Anti-Chinese sentiment ran high across the West. Economic fears, and labor disputes fanned the flames of violence and murder. One night, anti-Chinese riots broke out in Los Angeles. Deadly mobs took to the streets. At a moment of high fever during those riots, Judge Widney plunged into the crowd, at the risk of his own life.
Judge Widney held his gun high and fired a single shot. The crowd stepped back, the future founder and first chairman of USC then escorted a number of Chinese immigrants to safety. It was at that moment, on that evening, my fellow Trojans, that the DNA of USC as a global institution was called into being.
Robert Maclay Widney knew what was crucial for LA to reach its full potential: It needed a great university, to provide the intellectual capital and the leadership on which a true world-class city depends.
Tonight, we are here in that once-empty field, where possibility blossomed into destiny. Here stands the Widney Alumni House, the original building where destiny sprang forth!
It actually took nearly a decade for Judge Widney to finally realize his dream of a University of Southern California. The economic uncertainties of the 1870s had convinced many that such a university could never happen. But Widney kept planning for the right moment. And, when that moment arrived, he and the tiny LA community embraced it!
A global university was humbly born, as 53 students and nine teachers made their way into this building in early October of 1880. USC’s founding enabled Los Angeles to swell from a dusty village of 10,000 residents into one of the nation’s ten biggest cities within a few decades. During this time USC produced most of the entrepreneurs, educators, doctors, dentists, and lawyers, pharmacists, engineers, storytellers, artists, journalists, social workers, business leaders, architects and other professionals who shaped one of the world’s most distinctive young cities. USC was nearly a half-century old when this visionary, this giant, this very first donor to USC’s endowment passed away in 1929 at the age of 91.
There is a touching story about one special day, not long before his death: His daughter Frances and her husband took him on a long automobile tour of the city he helped build, the city that was just a cattle town when he arrived.
They traveled from his downtown home through the growing areas of Pasadena and Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. They showed him world-class railroads being built across the city, and the massive harbors that now connected LA to the world. They visited the magnificent new Civic Center, which was under construction. They gazed upon massive office buildings, and new movie studios. They saw a great city coming into maturity.
Throughout the day, Judge Widney said almost nothing. Occasionally, he gave out a “Hmmmph.” Then, at the end of the long day, they brought him to the busy USC campus. Robert Widney turned to his daughter Frances, and said: “All my life, I have been telling people about the incredible future of Los Angeles. But in my wildest dreams, I never conceived anything as wonderful as this university!”
Judge Widney could not have imagined what he saw in those later years of his life; he could never, never imagine what has happened since then: USC is now a rising global powerhouse in the cultivation of the human mind, body and spirit. And Los Angeles is the gateway to America’s best future.
The journey that Robert Maclay Widney set us on is a journey that never ends. There is no satisfaction in having gone “far enough.” There is only satisfaction that comes from knowing that we have gone farther than anyone expected us to.
The Trojan Family kept working, for 132 years, to build a great research university: Brick by brick, building by building, achievement by achievement, gift by gift, generation after generation after generation. The Trojan Family did it, though. We all did it together, because we share our founder’s passion and love for this university.
The word ambition comes from ambire, an old Latin word which signified the manner in which aspiring leaders of the Roman Republic would campaign for office, by going around town to recruit support for their dreams. For each of us, let us make it our ambition to do more together for USC than we thought possible.
Our university is poised to achieve full maturity, as not just a “good” university, not even a “great” university, but as a university that stands within the pantheon of world-class universities! Let us move forward, together, with purpose and determination and passion. Work with us, and let us write together, the most glorious chapter in USC’s history.