Ray Morris

Pessimists among us have been known to shake their heads about the Club’s finances. But within the memory of the oldest Centurion, no Treasurer—and who, if not he, would know about alarming deficits?—has ever been seen shaking his head, even privately. On the contrary, it is our Treasurers, who in the darkest days of the world outside, have buoyed us up with the figurative jingling of coins and, like a celebrated general who followed a sequence of bad news with the statement “the situation is excellent,” have pointed toward the future with a smile. We older ones will never forget Twelfth Night, 1933, when that “noblest Roman of them all,” Henry de Forest Baldwin, Treasurer, let our Roman revelers put on the gayest and probably the most expensive party in the Club’s history.

The late Dick Pratt followed in the same tradition and so, conspicuously, did Ray Morris. Whoever served with Ray on the Board of Management will remember how he followed each slow and solemn reading of figures with some remark so funny that the glasses rang with the laughter of the august board. He had a way of speaking without emphasis and with a deadpan face that made what he said funnier. Indeed, when he spoke seriously, his tone was so casual that, sometimes, the immense significance of his statements did not, for a moment, register with his listeners.

On a less formal level Ray contributed gaiety as well as wisdom to one of the Century’s many inner circles—a group of members that dined and wined periodically and talked about economics. They discussed the threats of depression and inflation. “Out of his own rich experience” writes a member of this “Economic Group,” “Ray contributed fruitfully to the substance of our discussions. More than this, his gentleness and native courtesy did much to establish an atmosphere conducive to good talk.”

Born in New Haven in 1876, he was educated at Phillips Andover and Yale. He graduated from college in 1901 and took his A.M. two years later. From Yale, he went to the editorial staff of Railroad Gazette and, from 1903 to 1910, was its managing editor, secretary, and director. In 1911, he became a partner in the firm of White, Weld and Company. In the war years, he was in the Federal Reserve Bank, and from 1921 to his retirement in 1957, he was a partner of Brown Brothers Harriman and Company. In the course of his business life, he served as director of thirty-two corporations, including several with international affiliations.

He was at various times, president of the Investment Bankers Association, trustee of Vassar College, of Sarah Lawrence College, of the Society of St. Johnland, and of Brearley School of New York, and governor of the Yale Publishing Association. He was active in the American Scandinavian Foundation whose finances he helped manage, and he made annual trips to Scandinavian countries. Denmark, Finland, and Norway all decorated him.

Ray has gone to join the band of our immortals but he has left much with us. Courage to face what dark hours may lie ahead is of his legacy. “Pay no attention” we hear his even voice saying, “to those red marks on the balance sheet. Give them a month or so and they will all turn black.”

Roger Burlingame
1962 Century Association Yearbook