Statue is tribute to trio
By Joan McCabe
For many years students have paused in their trek across Mount Oread to contemplate the man who is immortalized in bronze with Uncle Jimmy Green in front of the School of Law.
The questions of who he was and why he is there have plagued students since the dedication of the memorial to the former Law School dean, James Woods Green.
Some have claimed the student is the first KU man to die
GORDON SAUNDERS
in battle and others that he is one of two fraternity men. The figure in the statue can be said to bear some resemblance to all three persons.
The devotion and love which Uncle Jimmy merited from his students and his associates is apparent in a statement by the artist.
Because of Uncle Jimmy's closeness to his students the artist decided to place the figure of a student next to Green in the memorial statue,
Daniel Chester French, who also designed the statue of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., stated, "I have never seen such love for a man as this unless it be in the case of Lincoln."
It was only after a visit to Mt. Oread and conversations with several of the persons who had known Uncle Jimmy that he made the above statement and agreed to design and make the memorial to the man and to the school he had served for 40 years.
The earliest identification of the student seems to have come from the pages of the UDK where he is identified as Alfred C. Alford, class of '96, law '97.
Identifying the student and the memorial with Alford makes the statue a memorial to the many KU men and women who have given of themselves for their country,
as well as a memorial to Uncle Jimmy. Alford was killed in the Philippines during the Spanish - American War. Strangely enough his class prophecy read: "Evil times after graduation."
Clarence "Scratch" Oakes, the last surviving member of the original drama of the commissioning and constructing of the statue says the statue was not meant to portray Alford.
French needed someone who had known Uncle Jimmy to look at the preliminary model of the statue and suggest changes.
Oakes and Karl Koerper set out for New York.
The pair found few changes which needed to be made in the figure of the dean but the student was dressed in kne socks and knickers, a style which was in vogue among the Ivy League set. The attire was never popular on Mt. Oread. They objected to the knickers but the artist wanted them for artistic reasons. As he did not feel, "four legs encased in long trousers in exact line would be an object that would be pleasant to contemplate."
Oakes and Koerper agreed to supply the artist with the physical measurements and weight of a student athlete. They chose Delta Upsilon brother Bob Mosby as a secret promotion for their fraternity. Mosby was member of
both the football and basketball teams.
They sent the artist Mosby's weight and measurements, a sample letterman's sweater, and four photographs of Mosby for use in modeling the figure of the student.
At approximately the same time a local newspaper ran a story which stated, "A portrait of Gordon Saunders, the student used, was sent to France..."
Oakes says that the story was planted deliberately by a rival fraternity, Sigma Chi.
Reliable evidence would indicate that the artist did not model the student's face to resemble anyone in particular and that actually the student represents Alford, Saunders, and Mosby.
The photographs of Mosby were the cause of another oddity in the finished structure of the student however. Mosby was an engineering student, and wore engineer's boots with his trousers stuffed inside them. Mosby's costume was the answer to the artist's dislike of "four legs encased in long trousers in exact line." To this day to the amusement of the School of Engineering, Uncle Jimmy appears with a student dressed as an engineer.
The devotion of Uncle Jimmy's students is mirrored in the inscription on the pedestal of the statue;
ALFRED ALFORD
BOB MOSBY
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