CHICAGO ASSOCIATION
On January ninth, the Chicago Alumni turned out eighty-four strong to welcome President Hopkins and Dean Laycock at our annual banquet. In keeping with the spirit of the times, our dinner was a "wheatless," "meatless," but very acceptable one. We missed a lot of the men who are in France, and it was not until "Tommy" Abbott '90, accompanied by the Chicago Dartmouth alumni, sang "Eleazar Wheelock," that things got under way. The speakers were introduced by Edwin O. Grover, who read us some of "Dick" Hovey's war poems.
Dr. Hopkins told us of the serious spirit and purpose of the college. His description of the way in which the boys took their leave to go to war, and the two letters that he read from boys at the front left every man of us feeling prouder of his college. Though the sweat-shirt is fast becoming extinct, the Dartmouth man inside is as much a man as he ever was. The question as to whether or not the well dressed, fine looking crowd of young fellows seen about the streets of Hanover in recent years "had the stuff" has been answered.
Dean Laycock entertained us with a number of interesting points on the present undergraduate life, interspersed with a few of his personal experiences and two most excellent Scotch stories.
"Crust" Buck '13 gave an account of his experiences on the Eastern battle front with the retreating Serbian army. He has now gone back in the service as an aviator in the U. S. Signal Corps.
We were particularly fortunate in having Coach "Fat" Spears '17 tell us something of his war-time football team and its fighting spirit. Fat is now a regular member of the Association, as he is studying medicine at the University of Chicago.
At the business meeting after the banquet, the following officers were elected for this year: president, Hamilton Gibson; vicepresident, Robert Parkinson; secretary and treasurer, Joseph M. Cheney.
Although we have lost a number of our members through the war, we are trying to bind together more closely those who are left, and organize ourselves to do all we can for Dartmouth. We want to have the administration call on us for any assistance that we can render.
