3-025-284 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Désiré-Joseph Mercier at Columbia University, 1919. Shows Belgian Cardinal De´sire´-Joseph Mercier (1851-1926) at a ceremony at Columbia University, New York City where he was given an honorary Doctor of Law degree on October 7, 1919. Also depicted (left to right) are Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler (1862-1947), Patrick Joseph Hayes (1867-1938), Archbishop of New York; and Colonel William Barclay Parsons (1859-1932). Mercier was in the United States for a fundraising trip to rebuild the Library of Leuven, Belgium which was destroyed by German forces during World War I.