Some of his Crimson staffers would recall his leadership as no better than competent. Managing editor Walter Russell Bowie ’04, who later became dean of Union Theological Seminary, was more positive. “He had a force of personality which was latent,” said Bowie, “and which subsequent occasions would call out. He liked people, and he made them instinctively like him. Moreover, in his geniality, there was a kind of frictionless command.”
That fall’s top stories included the opening of the Germanic Museum, the bequest of millions to Harvard from the estate of Gordon McKay, the completion of Harvard Stadium, and the shortcomings of the football team. An industrious editorial writer, Frank tried to spur on the team (its manager was his roommate). Certain linemen, he declared in one of his editorials, were “of a spirit that will not awake till the team is in a desperate crisis, and goes to sleep again when the crisis is fancied to be past.” He campaigned for wider boardwalks in the muddy Yard, and (successfully) for better fire apparatus and the installation of fire escapes in Yard dormitories. He stepped down as Crimson president in February, and Russell Bowie succeeded him.