Dr. Hugo Wall: Exemplary Citizen, Activist Professor
by H. Edward Flentje and George M. Platt
from Selected Solely Upon the Basis of Administrative Ability. Edited by H. Edward Flentje. Wichita, Kansas: Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs, Wichita State University, 1993, pp. 53- 67.

Dr. Hugo Wall [1] was one of a group of pioneering educators in the central United States who championed professionalism in public administration. Colleges and universities, he felt, should and could educate young people to become better citizens, train people to be qualified public servants, and have a direct impact on the quality of life in communities by working closely with local governments. Hugo, along with others like professors Anderson and Short of Minnesota, Redford of Texas, Farber of South Dakota, Allen and Stene of Kansas, added a community orientation to the emerging field of public administration with their "centers," "bureaus," and "institutes" aimed at providing services directly to state and local governments.

Although tempted by offers to go elsewhere, Hugo came to Wichita and found as good a stage as any to pursue the causes of education, research, and public service. Hugo's world was the University that he helped nurture from Fairmount College to the Municipal University of Wichita to Wichita State University; his students, both in class and after they graduated; local officials to whom he was a "behind-the-scenes" advisor; and professional organizations, especially the International City Management Association (ICMA). He also found time for his family and his hobbies of observing politics and cultivating irises.

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Hugo Wall's roots are found in the Mennonite settlements of south-central Kansas where he was born on January 7, 1901. He grew up on a farm near Inman, attended a rural school where instruction was in both German and English, and graduated from Bethel Academy in Newton in 1919. He then attended Bethel College for two years. During the 1921-1922 school year, Hugo was junior high principal at Protection, Kansas, and taught the seventh and eighth grades. That summer he attended the University of Kansas.

The following year found Hugo in a similar position but in Creede, Colorado, a rough and tumble mining town where students were not always docile. According to his faculty colleague Geraldine Hammond, Hugo "...once faced a shoot-out....Only the persuasive wisdom of the gunslinger's father and the fact that Hugo wasn't wearing a gun prevented highnoon from striking that day and perhaps changing the course of history for this entire institution." [2]

Attracted by the "oil boom" in California, Hugo moved to Oakland where he worked as an electrician's helper for the General Petroleum Corporation for a year. Education proved more alluring, however, and he enrolled at Stanford University in October of 1924. There, Hugo's mentor was Professor Edwin A. Cottrell, head of the department of political science, who had started one of the first university programs in public administration in 1921. Cottrell actively worked with cities, counties, and states on charters, budget issues, and personnel matters. Unlike Hugo, Cottrell also ran for public office, serving on the Palo Alto City Council and as mayor.

Hugo was awarded his A.B. degree "with distinction" from Stanford in 1926 and his Ph.D. in 1929, both in political science. He was a graduate assistant and held the Commonwealth Club of California fellowship in 1927-28. His dissertation topic was "License Laws in Eighteen Selected States," which Professor Cottrell called "an exceptional piece of research." [3]

During his more than four decades at Wichita State University, Hugo served as professor and head of political science, director of summer school, dean of the graduate school, and vice-president for academic affairs. When hired in 1929 he received an annual salary of $2,900, and in 1965-66, while serving as vice-president of academic affairs, he received $18,000. He spent his last five years before retirement in 1971 as director of the new Center for Urban Studies, and continued to teach a popular course on literature and politics with Professor Hammond.

Hugo's chosen role in life, one he performed superbly, was that of teacher. In the classroom he inspired and motivated hundreds of young men and women to become public administrators or to participate in civic life as citizens. Hugo applied these same skills to short courses for public officials, workshops for city managers, community forums, city task forces, and committee work. [4] He was equally adept whether the subject was fire department record keeping or the origins of U.S. democracy. In these settings Hugo performed as provocateur, catalyst, facilitator, and mediator. He had an uncanny ability to stimulate members of groups toward identifying goals and moving to achieve those goals. Those who knew Hugo best remember him as teacher.

Hugo enjoyed great success in placing his "boys" in prestigious graduate schools and important jobs. He attracted quality people and placed them in quality positions as city officials, college presidents, and lawyers as well as other careers in the public and private sector. Although he was a frequent contributor to the national programs of the International City Management Association, Hugo devoted his primary attention to the University and to Kansas local government. [5]

After retirement, Hugo continued his interest in both University and community, but he also was able to spend more time with his flowers and served as president of the American Iris Society in 1971. Hugo Wall died in 1975.

EXEMPLARY CITIZENSHIP
Hugo Wall felt that citizenship and good government were evolving components of Western civilization. Our ideas emerged from the brightness of Greek civilization, which still could not solve the conflicts between the city states, and from the Roman Republic and Empire, which over extended its ability to govern. Hugo's conclusion was that:

...the generals of the Roman armies became the emperors of Rome, though quite unlettered except in the arts of war. These emperors, together with their administrative staffs, were unequal to the task of governing an empire of great size and complexity. In other words, the perfection of their administration was not commensurate to the bulk and mass to be administered. [6]

Feudalism became the new form of social organization and out of it eventually developed the American experience.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century most American cities were inefficiently and corruptly governed, some of them being classed among the worst governed cities in the world. Today, not only are our American cities, as a whole, well governed, but some are among the best governed cities of the world.

This change cannot be ascribed solely to a change in the moral character of our people. Men then were not all dishonest and men today, honest. The difference, I submit, can more reasonably be accounted for by the fact that we had to learn how to administer our municipal affairs in an efficient manner. We had to learn both how to apply the principles of ethics to governmental affairs and how to establish accountability for the conduct of public affairs.