HENRY LEWIS STIMSON

1867 -1950

The public career of Henry Stimson is familiar. As a lawyer, U.S. District Attorney, unsuccessful candidate for the Governorship of New York, Secretary of War under Taft, Governor of the Philippines, Secretary of State in the Hoover Administration and again Secretary of War in the regime of Franklin D. Roosevelt, his long services mount up to a notable and in fact a unique record. Two generations of his fellow Americans admired and trusted him as a public servant.

Next to his interest in governmental service, his love of outdoor life was the dominating element in his annual plans, and his daily conversation. Much less is generally known of this side of his character. Some occasional articles he wrote and one privately printed book, My Vacations (1949), reveal something of his passion for hunting, riding, camping, fishing and mountaineering; but only those who knew him intimately realize how these avocations held his thoughts, commanded his spare time and even influenced his course of life.

Riding and hunting were his prime interest. He began them as a boy in Andover and ended only when crippled by arthritis in his last years. He rode if possible several times a week all his life and managed to take dozens of expeditions, indeed almost annual trips to ride, hunt or fish in Canada, the Rocky Mountains and other areas. His first ambitious exploration was a trip to the Colorado Flat Tops when he was 17. He had no interest in golf or cards, but a day for him was lost if he could not get some exercise abroad.

Secretary Stimson’s devotion to mountaineering as such, that is to ascents, never occupied his whole horizon, but he did much climbing and was always interested. In 1892 he made a first ascent of Chief Mountain in the Glacier National Park area. The ascent was repeated in 1913 by an easier route. The story of the buffalo skull he found on the summit and replaced 21 years later on the second trip is known to thousands. In 1883 and again in 1896 he climbed in the Alps. The Matterhorn, the Rimpfischhorn and Zinal Rothorn were his main ascents. He was an honorary member of the Alpine

Club of London and a member of the American Alpine Club from 1913, and he took a lively interest in our Club’s participation in the training of mountain troops for the Second World War. He was largely responsible for getting permission for the Club’s expedition to K2 in the Himalayas in 1938.

The Secretary—as those who worked much with him came to call him—loved to battle with natural forces, with wind, cold, storm, wild animals and even wild men. He waged outdoor adventure as he waged war, or the battle of civic righteousness, with zest and élan. He was never afraid, but also he was never careless or ill-prepared. He was an outdoor sportsman of the top rank.

J. G. Rogers