Volume 1997 Issue 3
A Tribute to Harry D. Krause: Colleague and Friend
John E. Cribbet*
It is a privilege for me to be able to write a short tribute to my good friend, Harry D. Krause, Max L. Rowe Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois College of Law. Harry has been a colleague of mine since 1963 when he joined the law faculty at Illinois. I would be proud to say that I recruited him while I was Dean of the College but that honor goes to the late Dean Russell N. Sullivan who spotted Harry as a rising young star, fresh from a stint as an associate with Covington & Burling and as an international lawyer with Ford Motor Company. We knew that he would bring strength to our comparative and international law programs, but I doubt if anyone, including Harry, could have foreseen that he would become one of the preeminent family law scholars in the world. It is a long step from Ford Motor Company to a deep involvement in one of the important social problems of our times--the role of the family in contemporary life!
When I was in law school, at the end of World War II, the family law course went by the quaint title, Persons, and was viewed as one of the "cats and dogs" of the curriculum to be assigned to an unsuspecting young faculty member as a "filler" but not as an area of serious research.
Although this was true in Anglo-American law, the Romano-Germanic legal systems had treated family law as an essential link between law and culture and as one of the most demanding fields of law. Harry, with his comparative law background and interests, came naturally to a broad view of the importance of family law. How well he succeeded is summed up by Harvard Professor Mary Ann Glendon in an elegant tribute--Harry D. Krause: Scholar for All Seasons--published in The Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy1 and reprinted here as one of the tributes to Professor Krause. I would like to incorporate Professor Glendon's remarks by reference since they capture so well the essence of Professor Krause the scholar.
True scholarship, in any field, is a lonely business. It requires intellectual discipline and a willingness to resist the lure of immediate satisfactions in an effort to cast some light on the more deep-seated problems of a given area of the law. It involves a serious attempt to see the "Big Picture" and to share one's own perspective with other scholars in the field. It is one reason why scholars strive for the "immortality of a footnote" because even small references indicate that the result of one's research is not simply an offer lanced into the void. In this sense, Professor Krause is one of the immortals who has seen the broad pattern of a significant area of the law and succeeded in passing on that vision to others who have chosen to labor in the same vineyard.
Although Harry is a true scholar--one of the best it has been my privilege to know--he has never been a scholar purely for scholarship's sake. His myriad books, articles, and reports carry a common theme of involvement between the academy and the profession. As a member of the American Law Institute, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the American Bar Association's various committees on Family Law, etc., Harry has put his ideas and scholarship into direct use in seeking a more rational system of family law in all of its many manifestations. As mentioned earlier, it is quite fortunate that Harry has played a role in European law as well as in American law, and this has meant the enrichment of both legal systems. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar, a Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., and has lectured on a nearly regular basis to a large variety of American, English, and European universities. Truly, in Professor Glendon's fine phrase, he has been a "Scholar for All Seasons."
I am always dissatisfied with my tributes to retiring colleagues because the skeleton of achievements, contributions, etc. so lacks the warmth of the vital dynamic person being honored. How does one convey the countless discussions about life, law, and other things that matter and are so much a part of the collegiate atmosphere? Harry was always a prime participant in these discussions, and his dislike of cant and pomposity kept many a discussion moored to reality. He saw law with the blinkers off and helped others to do the same. Or how does one catch the full favor of the social life of the college to which Eva, as well as Harry, contributed so much? Suffice it to say that Harry and Eva have been a vital part of this college of law since 1963, and it would take volumes to describe their material contributions to us all--faculty, staff, students, and alumni. Fortunately, they are only quasi-retiring so we will have them with us at least one semester each year for the indefinite future. Meanwhile, they will enjoy international travel, their Florida home, and the boats that are so much a part of their lives. Good sailing, Harry and Eva!
* Corman Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Illinois College of Law. A.B. 1940, Illinois Wesleyan; J.D. 1947, University of Illinois; LL.D. 1971, Illinois Wesleyan.