February 16 1965
The San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco, California, Tuesday, February 16, 1965
'Rebellion' At Institute
Mavericks at the Mechanics By Harry Bergman
Two maverick candidates, a mechanic and a professor, are injecting some spice into the usually cut and dried election of trustees to the governing board of the Mechanics' Institute and Library.
“It's high time that a mechanic be put on the board to loosen the tight-knit group we've had for years and years,” declared Kurt Josef Bendit, a consultant to the mechanical contracting firm of C. S. Hardeman, Inc.
“A little new blood will be good for the cultural life of San Francisco,” said Dr. Henry J. Ralston, physiology professor at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
“Theodore R. Meyer, institute president and a regent of the University of California, replied that “our election procedures are as democratic as they could possibly be.”
Welcomes Entry
He welcomed the entry of Bendit and Ralston. Nine candidates are running for seven seats in the annual election to the 111 year old institute's board of 14 trustees.
“I think it is a healthy thing to have a contested election now and then,” said Meyer, a San Francisco attorney who became a U. C. regent ex officio when he was chosen president of the Mechanics' Institute, as specified under the State Constitution.
As a result of this year's contest, a considerably larger voter response among the institute's 5,650 members is expected. Ballots mailed to the members will be counted next Tuesday.
The lineup features Bendit and Ralston against the administration slate of seven incumbents.
Autocracy
Bendit, a wiry man of 41 who has belonged to the institute for 23 years, contends that the “system of choosing our trustees has developed into something like a self-perpetuating kind of autocracy.” One of the trustees, he said, has been on the board for 20 years.
“With all the high-falutin' qualifications of the present incumbents—capturing industry and commerce of lawyers and doctors—there isn't one among them who is as intimately familiar as I am with the mechanical problems of the institute,” he said, including the institute's nine-story building at 57 Post Street.
One plank in Bendit's platform calls for improvements and modernization of chess room to the benefit of approximately 1,000 members who play the ancient game.
On that point, Ralston, whose membership number (3647) is the same as that held by his father and grandfather in the past 75 years, agrees with Bendit.
Ralston also advocates a renaissance of such events as lecture series, exhibitions and the “famous” Mechanics' Fairs which he said “somehow passed out of existence” in the Institute's programs during the 1920s.
President Meyer recalled there have been “several” contested trustee elections in the past five or six years.
As to the cries for improvements in the fourth-floor chess room, Meyer said the “great majority of people” who use the room are “pleased with the service they get” for yearly dues that have remained fixed at $6 since the Institute was founded.
