Class of 1918
Asi usual, news items of Eighteeners living in the outlying provinces other than those covered by the metropolitan district are about as hard to get a hold of as taxicabs on stormy nights. And most of us here know what that means.
About the only thing we've heard from the wide open spaces is a little card from Fiedler of Ottumwa, lowa, announcing the arrival of the most beautiful of all of 'lBers' budding debutantes, "Alice". Weight, January 24, 8 lbs'., 3 ounces, IS grains. (Somehow, notices of this kind always trickle in when nothing else does).
Dutch Rau, the eminent basketballer, dropped in on us the other day from the waste spaces of Ohio. He is walking up and down Fifth Avenue these days estimating the amounts expended on those new apartments in the upper Eighties and Nineties. His work at present is: cost engineering with Dwight P. Robinson Company, builders in this city and elsewhere.
Chris Christgau, deciding that he needed no further Christianization, has dropped social and church work for something more remunerative. He is now on the roster of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, hot-footing after Ernie Earley's record.
Children's diseases is the latest specialty of Ru Hes'se, the exclusive woolen merchant, who recently developed, a severe case of the chicken pox. When asked whether that was any indication of the age of the women he was going with, he waxed indignant and viciously denied the cradle-snatcher allegation. We think, however, that it was a dead give-away.
Our New York news scavengers, Stan Jones and Syl Morey, have been very active of late. In their search for scandal they have invaded the homes of the best and very few of them escaped unscathed in the remarks they have to offer. Their reports are before us now, and since what they reveal is interesting to most of us we might as well let the sensationalists have their fling.
Syl Morey reports that he dropped in to see Dick Aishton at the Continental and Commercial Bank in Chicago, last December. Dick was found occupying a prominent position on the officers' platform. Syl cheered us up by saying that Dick had discarded that musty old sweater that was such a familiar sight over the rail of the old Alpha Delt house. Otherwise Dick was pretty much the same as ever.
No gray hairs in evidence; and the same ability, as of old, to draw a battery of admiring eyes as he passes down the stenographers' row at the bank.
Syl says Dick is the first man he has seen in Chicago who didn't insist on taking him to the stockyards. But he did take him to a show called "Pigs."
Speaking of Alpha Delts;, it would take an Alpha Delt to work this one. Lewie Lee pulled his firm's leg for a trip to Florida this winter. Lewie says his work, until June, is all cut out for him. He's got to figure out some way to get the firm to pay his expenses to Europe next summer.
Rog Warner of Philadelphia has asked us to officially deny rumors that he has; gone into the trucking or any allied business. The horse he bought recently is a saddle horse. He (the horse) wouldn't consider dragging such loads as pianos or egg crates. It is said that he has thrown better men than Rog. Yes, possibly the Prince of Wales himself.
Mike Pounds should now be addressed: Pounds, printer and politician. During a recent political campaign in Westchester County, Mike called regular meetings of his constituents in the billiard room of his Larchmont home. When he got them all herded in, they say, he let loose with some of the most powerful oratory heard since Max Spelke ran for mayor of Hanover. The audience was chiefly made up of women, and the idea is credited to his wife. She knew the handsome printer would drag out the female vote. And he did. And Mike has been a prime mover in other Larchmont affairs. He is a charter member of the Larchmont University Club. When questioned about this by some of his fellow 'lBers, over the regular 65 cent lunch, Mike's only comment was, "Well you know there s a lot of printing jobs to be had in a club.
What 'lBer is safe from the wicked, wild New York life? Eight o'clock New Year's morning found our little Wart McElwain leading cheers for a group of rather rowdy looking individuals in the quiet Brooklyn streets. We are glad to say that his roommate at the St. George Hotel, Andy Ross, gave the Wart a stern talking to as he was stumbling out of his tuxedo. Wart has promised to behave in the future and go with Andy every Sunday to the Epworth League.
Jones says that among recent visitors appearing on the Gotham police blotter is the name of H. Krousemeyer Whitmore, the former "Wild Bull of the Campus." Our argus-eyed reporter thinks that he was locked up on account of the large, black cigar which he was using to foul up the metropolitan air with. Between the soft coal nuisance and birds like Whitmore, Gotham is beginning to look like any other city, say we.
Gene Markey has a story appearing in the February issue of Photoplay magazine. A good one, too, according to the word of Syl Morey, the big copy-and-layout man from Brooklyn. And you know what that is worth. Or do you?
President Jones complains of untimely and unwarranted telephone calls from 'lBers suffering from violation of the 18th Amendment. One snowy morning about 2.30, he was rudely jerked from slumber by insistent ringing. Floundering, bare-footed, through the snowdrift by the window, he knocked the mouthpiece to bits on the floor, "Hello, hello, hello," roared a thick, coarse voice through the shrinking receiver. "Thisj is Hal Doty how are you?" "Not so good, right now. What do you want?" (Loud, vulgar screams of laughter, and the clash of bottles.) "Jus' wanted to see how the hell you are. How are you?" Seeing that this could go on indefinitely, President Jones delivered a few warming words into the shattered instrument and hung up. And last night it was Lewie Huntoon, the brisk tube-and-cap man from R.I. For God's sake cut it out, willya?
Ernest Earley, that upright life-and-death man from Boston, recently slipped his rabbits, goldfish, and colored flags into his grip, and astounded a gathering of neophyte salesmen by telling them how it was done. Ernest Earley was the headliner, second place on the bill being accorded to some measley college professor or other. As quoted in the AP, the big friend of the young widows gave the following as prime requisites in the battle for success in life: 1. Early to bed and early to rise. 2. Win fairly, if you can. 3. Don't wear a Deke vest. 4. Plenty of fresh green vegetables. 5. Don't be afraid. The bigger they are, the harder they fall—if they fall. 6. Woman's place is, the home.
New Year's Eve in Gotham was made notable by the wholesale destruction of other people's property by Karl Hutchinson, 'lB's Durable Dane. He was, rashly invited on a party by Mr. Morey (the sister ship, you will recall, of the ill-fated "Shenandoah"). The party was given in some other man's flat, needless to mention. Anyway, it is alleged that the Dane so far forgot his early New England training as to commit the following depredations, under the stimulus of fresh gin, made that very afternoon, mind you. He disregarded the ladle, upending the punchbowl on three occasions. "The glasses were filled, weren't they?" he retorted indignantly, when reproved by the host. (A small man, need we add?). "Yes, and so is my table drawer, and half of the floor of the apartment." "And both my shoes," wailed Mrs. Morey. Shortly afterward, the behemoth floundered onto a small antique Chippendale table, "reducing it to chips," in the pungent words of Leigh Rogers 'l6, whose unerring nose had brought him to the scene, also without an invitation. The city authorities seem utterly unable to cope with situations like this. The bars should have been shut down on immigrants—especially the Danish and Swedish undesirables—long ago.
Many bright and shining 'lB faces helped to make the annual alumni dinner the success that it deserved to be. Some came to eat, like Morey, and some came to drum up business, like Earley, and some to get away from their wives for an evening, like—well, the list is long, and time is short. Anyway, everybody knows you can't blame the wives for everything today, though you pretty nearly can. It's just the rapid, complex life, don't you think ?
Paul (T.Ai.) Miner was in evidence, proudly showing- his three new sprigs of hair, which he compared jealously with the vigorous five outshoots of Andy Ross. Who says, wimmen do all the hair talking? These bankers hold up their end—if you know what we mean. Rudie Hesse assisted the newspaper reporters to ball things up, pointing out Bob Morrison as C. K. Woodbridge, and Wart McElwain as the stern-visaged Doc O'Connor. Daniel Shea, the big chart-and-figger man from downtown, was in his element, hurling olives arid celery about with men like Opper, Earley, Cassebeer, and H. J. A. Collins. John Martinez snoozed fitfully between bites. Morey left with the final gulp of his ice cream, to bowl with the other clerks from his office. Pete Colwell got into bad company from the start, trying to keep up with notorious bon vivants such as Dudensing, Sterling, and Rand, the dealer in fashionable hand-me-downs. All in all, a great evening, and quite the most orderly banquet of the scribe's eighty-odd years of attendance.
There seems to be a certain unruly element at every notable sporting event held in Mr. Rickard's new temple. Your correspondent hates, however, to see this obnoxious influence seeping into the more or less pure field of collegiate athletics. At the recent Yale-Dartmouth hockey game, some five or six rather uncouth looking plumbers sat in the row behind us. Their outcries and general rowdy deportment incensed the decent sprinkling about them. Imagine our surprise, therefore, on turning, to behold the most uproarious of the lot in the person of F. Runyon Colie, the Newark pettifogger. It seems a pity that some of us cannot appreciate good, clean, manly sport without the insidious company of the cup that kills. On the other hand, we can now take considerable stock in the rumor that Colie was requested, by the New York Bar Association, to confine his sp-called practice to the outer boundaries of this great state. Jersey is a fitting habitat for men of his stamp.
"Bob" Ritter is now located in Allentown, Pa., where he is in the advertising department of a large department store.
Secretary, 953 Madison Ave., New York
