Duke University's law school lost an elder statesman and a free spirit Saturday with the death of Arthur Larson, a ground-breaking attorney
who was a confidant of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Larson was 82.
Do you know any other 82-year-old
who drives a black Saab turbo
convertible -- generally with the top down?" asked Thomas Robinson, a lawyer
and minister who paid part of his Duke Divinity school tuition by working
for Mr. Larson for six years.
Mr. Larson an expert on Workers' Compensation
since his days as a
young scholar, became a government official before he retreated again to
academia and the pursuit of music.
"Arthur Larson was one ofthe best
known scholars on the faculty
through his work on Workers' Compensation and employment discrimination, and
through his work on international law and foreign affairs," said law school
Dean Pamela Gann.
"He was a fine teacher; he worked
with dozens of students outside
the classroom and involved them in his research and publications."
Ms. Gann said Mr. Larson and his late
wife, Florence Faye Newcomb
Larson, were very active in the life of the law school and its alumni.
Mrs. Larson's death a few years ago
sapped him of much of his
energy, said Duke law school colleague William Van Alstyne.
"He clearly had an old-fashioned,
very warm, preposterously romantic
relationship with his wife," Mr. Van Alstyne said.
In recent years, Mr. Larson came on
campus despite back and leg
difficulties that hobbled his ability to move.
During World War II, Mr.Larson held
a position in the Office of
the Price Administration in Washington, D.C. After the war, he became
associate professor of law at Cornell University and later served as
professor and Dean of the law school of the University of Pittsburgh.
He arrived at Duke in 1958 and became
only the second James R.
Duke professor of law after having served as undersecretary of labor,
director of the U.S. Information Agency and as special assistant in charge
of speeches to President Eisenhower.
Before his posts in the Eisenhower
administration, Mr. Larson
practiced law in Milwaukee and joined the law faculty of the University of
Tennessee in Knoxville.
Mr. Larson continued his consulting
work after he joined the Duke
faculty, serving as consultant on international affairs to President Lyndon
B. Johnson, the U.S. State Department and the United Nations.
He was considered a sage representing
the moderate strain of the
Republican Party, and his public criticism of the isolationist Republicans
led by Robert Taft brought speculation about a bid for national office.
But Mr. Larson bowed out of politics
after coming to Duke and
instead wove a rich life based on his family, culture and the law, friends
and colleagues said.
"In moments of really candid self-appraisal. I
have always been
convinced I had not the taste nor the temperament for partisan politics,"
Mr. Larson told the Durham Morning Herald in 1977. "In retrospect, other
people were thinking about my political future more than I was."
Together, the Larsons often hosted
parties at which they would play
music for their guests on different pieces from their impressive collection
of rare stringed instruments.
Mr. Larson also forged and headed
the Duke law school's Rule of Law
Research Center, which was involved in early efforts to make contactwith
the Soviets through a series of Soviet-American citizens' conferences.
After interest in international law declined, he returned to his first area
of interest -- Workers' Compensation.
His pioneering insights into that
field decades earlier had
foreshadowed the tricky negotiations of malpractice and employment
discrimination, Mr. Van Alstyne said.
Although he retired from teaching
in 1980, Mr. Larson continued to
work on publications, most notably his 11-volume legal treatise on workers'
compensation.
"He is quoted by Supreme Court Justices
in decisions." Mr. Robinson
said. "That's very rare for secondary sources."
Other publications include a treatise
on employment discrimination,
numerous books and articles on international law and several other books.
Mr. Larson graduated from Augustana
College in Sioux Falls, S.D. As
a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a bachelor's degree in jurisprudence at Oxford,
England, in 1935. Oxford subsequently conferred on him the degree of
Doctor of Civil Laws.
Mr. Larson is survived by his son,
Lex Larson of Durham; his
daughter, Anna Barbara Larson of Takoma Park, Md.; a sister Marguerite
Hogue of Seattle, Wash.; a brother, Richard Larson of Madison, Wis.;and
six grandsons.
A memorial service will be held Friday
at 2 p.m. at St. Paul's
Lutheran Church, 1200 West Cornwallis Road, Durham. In lieu of flowers,
gifts may be made to the Duke University School of Law's Arthur Larson
Scholarship fund.