Honorary Degree Recipients
Page two

partment of Sociology. He has been a member of numerous boards, commissions, and
social work organizations, and an active social worker devoting special attention to
youth and persons physically incapable of competing in normal society relationships.
He is the author of a half dozen scholarly books and numerous articles in scholarly
journals. Professor Best has gained the solid respect of his colleagues in the Univer-
sity and in his field of special interest. During the past decade of his retirement he
has remained a diligent scholar.

                            PHILIP GRANT DAVIDSON, JR.

Philip Grant Davidson, Jr. , President of the University of Louisville, was educated at
the University of Mississippi, the University of Illinois, and the University of Chicago.
He was Professor of History and Head of the Department of History at Agnes Scott
College in Decatur, Georgia, and Dean of the Graduate School and Senior College of
Vanderbilt University. In 1951 he became President of the University of Louisville.
His services to higher education in the South have been of major significance. He
served as President of the Deans of Southern Graduate Schools, of the Southern Univer-
sity Conference, of the Association of Urban Universities, Vice Chairman of the Southern
Regional Education Board, and Chairman of the Southern Regional Committee for selec-
tion of Marshall Scholars.

As President of the University of Louisville he has been active in local and state affairs.
An important layman, he has been a member of numerous religious boards and bodies.
As a scholar Philip Grant Davidson, Jr. has made a major contribution to the field of
American Colonial History in his study, Propaganda and the American Revolution. He
is a Phi Beta Kappa lecturer and a member of the Board of the Woodrow Wilson National
Fellowship Foundation.

                             JAMES WALTER MARTIN

James Walter Martin is an economist specializing in the field of taxation and public
finance. He was educated at the East Texas State College, George Peabody College,
Vanderbilt University, and the University of Chicago. He has held Rosenwald, Peabody,
Hart, Shaffner and Marx research fellowships. He has served on the instructional staffs
of the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Peabody College, and Emory
University. In 1928 he came to the faculty of the University of Kentucky as Director of
the Bureau of Business Research in the College of Commerce. Professor Martin retired
in 1964.

Professor Martin served as Kentucky State Commissioner of Revenue, as Commissioner
of Finance, and as Commissioner of Highways. He has also been a special consultant
to the Turkish Minister of Finance, consultant to the United States Treasury Department,
the Interstate Commission on Conflicting Taxation, the United States Census Bureau, and
the United States Department of Commerce Civil Aeronautics Board, In 1948 he was
raised by the Board of Trustees of the University to the rank of Distinguished Professor.
He is a nationally known figure, having written during his career more than 375 articles,
monographs, and special reports. His lasting service has been to the organization of
orderly procedures in the field of public finance in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.