The burning of the magnificent Renaissance library of the University of Louvain in August 1914 was a classic "German atrocity" barely eclipsed by the shooting of Nurse Edith Cavell. Classic too is the furious quarrel which has raged for more than a year about what inscription shall stand over the new Library of Louvain, built with U. S. cash (TIME, Oct. 17, 1927, et seq.). Even amid the excitement of campaigning to become President of the U. S., Herbert Hoover found time to air his strong view about the inscription. Last week that view was overruled by a Belgian court. Piquant was the triumph of the new library's U. S. architect, potent and temperamental Whitney Warren, famed in Manhatten alike for his ability and for appearances at socialite functions in a blue silk shirt and bulging white scarf tie.
Proud and peculiar is Mr. Warren's concept of the roles of architect and client. He might have been speaking of any of his achievements when he said of the Library of Louvain : "As the architect and artist of the building I possess the right to insist that it shall be constructed as planned, and even after the completion of the building I have the right to insist that the structure shall remain as I built it!" Architect Warren planned to top the library with a heavy balustrade of floral pillars so shaped and intertwined as to spell out suggestively rather than distinctly the inscription: Furore Teutonico Diruta; Dono Americano Restituta ("Destroyed by Teuton Fury; Restored by American Gift"). He has always claimed that this inscription was written and entrusted to him by Belgium's late famed hero-prelate, Desiré Cardinal Mercier. To alter the wording by so much as one letter would, he said, not only outrage his artistic conscience by spoiling the effect of the balustrade, but it would also be a base betrayal of the sainted Cardinal.
As the library neared completion potent U. S. pacifist groups, spokesmanned by President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University, finally persuaded Monsignor Ladeuze, Rector of Louvain University, that the Warren-Mercier inscription was "likely to breed hatred." Soon rector and architect openly quarrelled. Dramatically Monsignor Ladeuze brandished a cablegram beneath the slightly beaked patrician nose of Architect Warren:
REPRESENTING THE DONOR OF THE LARGER SHARE OF FUNDS EMPLOYED IN BUILDING THE LIBRARY I SUGGEST YOU OBTAIN IMMEDIATE SETTLEMENT OF PRESENT CONTROVERSY ON LINES WHICH WILL ELIMINATE WAR BITTERNESS AND WILL REFLECT THE TRUE SPIRIT OF A GREAT EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION AND BE IN ACCORD WITH MATURE PUBLIC OPINION.
HERBERT HOOVER.
To reporters Architect Warren wrathfully snorted: "The greater share of the money Mr. Hoover sent consisted of the residue of the Belgian Relief Fund, which by the will of the donors already belonged to the Belgian people!