THE MAN-POWER MAN

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 99, 19 January 1918, Page 7

THE MAN-POWER MAN

AN ANATOMIST OF FACTS. Sir Auckland Geddes (says the "Daily Mail") is one of the new men the war has produced. Three years ago lie was Professor of Anatomy at M'Gul University, Montreal, Canada, with a reputation as a scientific investigator of n problems in anthropology and biology. Behind this was a history of student clays at Edinburgh—where lie played Rugby for his university and maintaincd the Geddes tradition for br allls and courage —war service in South Africa and then again surgery and re- . search. He is a wan *ho will never be taken for anyone but lumself—cleanshaven, high-domed forehead, large, long square jaw, wide, firm mouth, deep-sot, humorous kindly eyes; a tall man with a capacious handshake. Ho looked a unique and commanding personality in khaki, and has lost 110 part of his "presence," by putting on a well-cut civilian suit again. As Director of Recruiting, General Geddes was better known to the inner circle of the Cabinet and V> ;ir Council than to the public. Those who put him there to straighten out the muddle caused by our rapidly changing, sys* tem of raising men for the Army knew his capacity for clear flunking and calm reasoning, and his courage. Such qualities were needed To-day as M>nistcr of National Scrvicc and ■M**-* ho is becoming known as a man of large, broad ideas —one who talks facts and faces them. •> There is more than a hint or the professor of anatomy in his speeches. As a. professor of that exact science—, hcvfillcd tho chair of Anatomy at Dublin as well as at Montreal—lie has been accustomed to talk and illustrate facts to two and three hundred critical young men at a time; and ask to draw deductions from those facts. Hence his ability to explain tho process whereby the affairs of - men and nations get 'into a tangle, and the obvious steps which must be taken to unravel them. He' has studied cause and effect in the'most delicately balanced and wonderful machine in the world, tho human body. With the calm logic of the East, where his father lived and worked, ho can say, "What is, lias been; what has been, will be." ■ In his dealings with other men he can be courteous to all and firm withal. He has no illusions. To him the war appeals as a many-sided problem involving not merely the surface facts of life and death, victory and defeat, but also the vaster, broader issues of the birth of new empires, the death of old civilisations,( the creation of new. Ho is not blind to tho sordid side of human nature or the subtler forms of danger which beset a nation at war. His appeal to his recruiting staff to beware of corruption was a word from a man who has known what it is to be assailed by many temptations and has resisted them.