Background

David Prescott Barrow was born on June 27, 1873, in Ravenswood (now a part of Chicago), Illinois, the only son of Thomas and Ella Cole Barrows. Thomas Barrows left his Chicago sewing-machine business shortly after David Prescott's birth to migrate to the Ojai Valley of rural Ventura County in California.

Education

Barrows received his education in the public schools and from private tutors. He entered Pomona College the year it opened (1888); after graduating in 1894 he pursued graduate studies at the University of California (M. A. , 1895), Columbia University (1895 - 1896), and the University of Chicago, from which he received the Ph. D. in anthropology in 1897.

Career

Following completion of his graduate work, Barrows taught at California State Normal School in San Diego (1898 - 1900) and then served in the American colonial government in the Philippines as the first superintendent of the Manila school system (1900 - 1901), the first director of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes (1901 - 1903), and director of education for the Philippine Islands (1903 - 1909). Although his later career was more illustrious, he always regarded his years in the Philippines with particular affection. He was deeply committed to the educational and social development of the Filipinos and resigned when the government downgraded these goals in favor of material development. But Barrows never believed that Philippine society was ready for complete self-government, and he deplored successive Democratic efforts to give the islands independence.

In 1910 Barrows began his thirty-three-year career at the University of California, where he was a colorful and popular professor of political science. As a traditionalist, Barrows deplored the decline of classical education and written expression and was a foe of John Dewey's educational theories; nevertheless he modernized the political science curriculum, teaching courses in international relations, colonial government, and comparative government. Barrows' academic strength lay in his teaching. His scholarly writing was respectable but not of the first rank. Probably his dissertation, The Ethno-botany of the Coahuilla Indians, which was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1900, is his best work. Carefully researched and humanely inspired, it is a classic in California anthropology and was reprinted in 1967 by the Malki Museum Press. Barrows also wrote an early history of the Philippines and a study of colonial administration in Africa and collaborated on a book on British politics. In addition, he produced scores of articles and reviews for scholarly and popular journals on a wide variety of topics from anthropology to military tactics.

With the outbreak of World War I came the first of many interruptions in Barrows' academic career. Like Theodore Roosevelt (to whom he is sometimes compared), Barrows led a strenuous life and wanted to be directly involved in world crises. From January through April 1916 he worked under Herbert Hoover for Belgian relief. He then joined the army, and when the United States entered the war he was assigned to the Siberian intervention as an intelligence officer.

In March 1919 Barrows returned to Berkeley and in December succeeded Benjamin Ide Wheeler as president of the university. Barrows had previously demonstrated his administrative ability as dean of the faculties and, for a time in 1913, as acting president. But his tenure as president was short and unhappy. He never gained the full support of the faculty (taking office shortly after the so-called faculty revolution of 1919) or of some student elements. More importantly he lacked the regents' support on crucial issues. These officers rejected his proposal to relocate the medical school and ignored his protest against the location of an athletic stadium. Moreover they established a southern campus of the university in Los Angeles, despite Barrows' contentions that this would drain the resources of the university and create a bad precedent. He resigned in 1922, leaving office in June 1923. After a year's leave of absence he returned to the political science department. After 1923 Barrows traveled extensively in Europe, Africa, Asia, and especially Latin America. In addition to his professional duties, he continued his active public life.

A strong supporter of the military since his work in the Philippines, Barrows played a major role in reorganizing the California National Guard. Eventually he achieved the rank of major general and commanded the Fortieth Division, comprising guard units in California, Nevada, and Oregon. In 1934 he led the troops that helped break the San Francisco longshoremen's strike. He also acquired something of a reputation as an expert on communism and testified on communist ideology and tactics at the trial of Harry Bridges, leader of the strike.

During the war itself Barrows was a consultant to the Department of War and directed the San Francisco branch of the Office of Strategic Services where he was involved in the relocation of Japanese aliens and citizens living on the West Coast. Although he fully recognized the grave constitutional issues that the relocation raised, tried to lessen the hardships involved, and served as chairman of the Northern California Committee on Fair Play for Citizens and Aliens of Japanese Ancestry, he nevertheless did not oppose the policy itself.

After retiring from the University of California in 1943, Barrows became a radio commentator (1943 - 1944) and then a columnist for William Randolph Hearst's International News Service. He died in Orinda, California.

Achievements

• Barrows made a long and highly distinguished career. He went on many travels, publishing works of his findings in countries such as Morocco and the Philippines. Barrows also was an eminent educator and political commentator. He is the namesake of Barrows Hall on UC Berkeley's campus, which was built in 1964.

Works

More photos

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  • The Ethno-Botany of the Coahuilla Indians of Southern California ..

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • A Decade of American Government in the Philippines, 1903-1913

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultura...)

  • The Ethno-Botany of the Founded Indians of Southern California, a Dissertation Submitted to the Faculties of the Graduate Schools, of Arts, Literature ... of Philosophy, (Department of Anthropology)

    (This monograph was accepted in candidacy for the degree o...)

  • Inauguration of David Prescott Barrows as president of the University, Wednesday, March 17 to Tuesday, March 23, 1920

    (Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this clas...)

  • Berbers and Blacks: Impressions of Morocco, Timbuktu and the Western Sudan

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • A History of the Philippines: -1905

    (Originally published in 1905. This volume from the Cornel...)

  • The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and The Ilongot or Ibilao of Luzon
  • Memoirs Of David Prescott Barrows 1873-1954

Politics

He was a "humanitarian imperialist" to the end.

In Siberia, Barrows developed the profound hatred of communism that marked his later life. He was also critical of President Woodrow Wilson's handling of the intervention and thought the general in charge, William S. Graves, incompetent.

Barrows, a lifelong Republican, was an outspoken opponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. He considered running for governor of California in 1934 and almost entered the United States Senate race in 1938. In 1937 he became president of the League for the Independence of the United States Supreme Court in response to Roosevelt's efforts to "pack" the court, and in 1938 he called for Roosevelt's resignation. Although he mistrusted Roosevelt, he supported the president's efforts to assist the Allied cause in World War II, feeling only that the administration was not doing enough. In June 1940 he called for active intervention in Europe and in February 1941 for similar action to stem Japanese aggression.

He was generally critical of Democratic foreign policy throughout the 1940's, praising unreservedly only President Harry S. Truman's handling of the Japanese surrender and General Douglas MacArthur's subsequent governance of the islands; otherwise, he thought Truman a "disaster" as a world leader. His columns accused Roosevelt of "appeasement" at the wartime conferences at Teheran and Yalta. He expressed ambivalent feelings about the Marshall Plan but generally considered the administration's policy of containment too expensive and defeatist and, in any case, badly implemented. He was especially angered at American policy toward China, accusing Department of State officials of being "sympathetic with the communist movement, " and he was in agreement with those Republicans who wished an end to a bipartisan foreign policy.

Connections

On July 18, 1895, he married Anna Spencer Nichols, a Pomona classmate; they had four children. Anna Barrows died in 1936 and on December 3, 1937, Barrows married Eva S. White, the widow of a former associate in the Philippines.

Father:

Thomas Barrows

Mother:

Ella Cole Barrows

Wife:

Anna Spencer Nichols

Wife:

Eva S. White