Perkins Called "Leading Citizen of Country," Praised for His Devoted Service and Public Spirit by Fellow Officers

Following are the statements issued yesterday on Mr. Perkins' death by his fellow members of the Corporation and by Jerome D. Greene '96, Secretary to the Corporation. Grenville Clark '03 and Henry James '99, the other members, could not be reached yesterday.

Charles A. Coolidge, Jr. '17: "Harvard shares, perhaps more than the rest of the community, the loss from Mr. Perkins' death. His complete mental honesty and directness, flavored with keen humor, kept him abreast with changing times and gave to his advice a wisdom which members of the Corporation, and those of the faculty who knew him, will sadly miss."

The Student Council passed the following resolution at its meeting last night:

"On behalf of the students in Harvard College, the Student Council extends its sympathy to the relatives and friends of Thomas Nelson Perkins '91."

Roger P. Lee '01: "Harvard men always thought of Nelson Perkins as belonging to Harvard. He served on the Corporation during the presidencies of Eliot, Lowell and Conant. Valuable as his services were to Harvard, he was much more than that. He was more than a leading citizen of Boston and of Massachusetts, he was a leading citizen of the whole country. He was called in to give invaluable advice on trying international problems. In spite of his eminence, his greatest attribute was his capacity for warm personal friendship and his willingness always to help in any situation."

Jerome D. Greene '96: "Mr. Perkins' career indicates the public spirit which chaaracterized his whole life, but it was a public spirit without the slightest pretension. In spite of a background and business activity that identified him with conservative interests, he was a man of truly liberal spirit, and in no field of his activity was this more manifest than in his devoted service to the University as a member of the Corporation. He gave his complete support to the liberal policies of the University, including its maintenance of academic freedom under Presidents Eliot, Lowell, and Conant. In the counsels of the University he contributed a hard-headed common sense, often expressed in a picturesque vernacular, that presented issues in their clearest and simplest form and aided greatly in arriving at sound conclusions."