FOUR DARTMOUTH CAPTAINS

The accompanying photograph which was recently taken in Denver is of especial interest to us as it shows a group of men who were prominent in their undergraduate days and who have been equally successful in their chosen fields of work since graduation. In order of graduation the men are: Walter Edwin McCornack '97, Myron Ellis Witham '04, John William Knibbs '05, and David John" Main '06. During his senior year in College, each one was captain of the football team, a position which the present-day sentiment of the campus considers one of the highest honors that an undergraduate can receive. Two of them entered college from Massachusetts and two from the West, though all are now settled in the West. The two from New England prepared at an academy, the other two at public high schools.

Of the four, the greatest honors in the athletic world came to McCornack, probably greater than to any other man in the history of Dartmouth athletics. He played on the varsity football and baseball teams every year of his undergraduate course, captained the football team his last two years and the baseball team in his senior year. He also found time for work on the track. His career as a lawyer since graduation has been similarly successful and his rise, almost startling. Taking the degree of LL.B. at Northwestern University in 1899 he soon found scope for his abilities as attorney for the Interstate Commerce Commission in Washington. He is the author of a volume on the Insurance Law of the State of Illinois, and among other important cases in private practice he has served as attorney for the defence in the prosecution of Hayward and Moyer for the outrages during the Colorado -labor troubles.

In his undergraduate days Witham was a member of the football team for three years, and the track and baseball teams for one year each. Aside from this he was president of the College Club and of the Y. M. C. A. After graduation from the Thayer School he went West with a firm of engineers, but is now one of the firm of Bull and Witham. This firm is considered by competent judges one of the leading authorities on irrigation engineering.

Knibbs was a member of the football team for four years and also sang in the glee club. Since graduation he has been very successful in business in Denver as manager of the Otis Elevator Company.

. While in College Main was a member of the football team three years and on the baseball- team for two years. He is now a member of one of the leading insurance companies of Denver, the MainHarry Company, where he does a general fire insurance and surety bond business. He is the efficient secretary of the Dartmouth Alumni Association of the Great Divide, which has created a little center of Dartmouth interest in a section previously exceedingly ignorant of our existence.

This Association is one of the most active in the country. Recent correspondence with the secretary tells of its affiliation with the organizations of other colleges in the formation of an Intercollegiate Club. At the last meeting in May all the prospective Dartmouth men met with the Association for final instructions as to what Hanover etiquette and the Dartmouth spirit demands of its freshmen.

. This too brief synopsis of the activities of this group of men is interesting from more than one standpoint, but principally, perhaps, for the evidence it brings that leadership in college often presages success in after life. To be sure this success in college is largely considered from a physical rather than an intellectual aspect, but high scholarship often accompanies it as a corollary. The case of these four men is a concrete example of the sometimes disputed fact that the qualities which bring men to the front in college continue to give them success after graduation.

Main Knibbs McComack Witham FOUR DARTMOUTH CAPTAINS