Class of 1898

Reginald French, oldest son of our late classmate Ernest French, received his M.A. from Harvard last year, and is now working at Harvard for his Ph.D. in Romance languages. Everard French, the younger boy, spent two years at the University of New Hampshire, and is now at work in some construction work in Rochester, N. Y. A fine record for these two sons of our very much beloved classmate Ernest French. Sumner writes as follows:

"Returned today from a week's preaching at the Cathedral in Los Angeles. I spoke there also at the Dartmouth College annual dinner. Al Priddy was there and spoke. I sat with Pete Adams and Blackie Perkins. Ich Crane got there, but went on to San Diego. Had a good visit with Ich and Mary and Blackie and Mrs. Perkins. Best wishes,

"Walter."

Dick Marcy in Nogales and George Lockwood in Naco, Arizona, are at two centers of the Mexican revolution. We may expect to hear later how many bullets they dodged.

Our classmate Cortes M. Russell of Providence, R.I., together with his three children, started for the home of his sister in National City, Cal., on Friday, April 5. Russell is now totally blind. Charles Littlefield was very helpful in arranging for the departure and for the details of the journey West. Fletcher Burton, president of the Dartmouth Club of Providence, was exceedingly helpful in interesting the Dartmouth men of Providence in Russell and his family. Good old '98 swung into action in fine style and showed its fine class fellowship. I hope the fellows who knew Russell will write him a line at National City, Cal., in care of his sister, Mrs. Asa Porter.

During the week of March 17-24 both the president and the secretary of '98 lost their mothers. Mrs. Goodall passed away in Maine and Mrs. Patey in Wisconsin. Both Harry and I were privileged to attend the funerals. Bobbie Brown heard of the passing and sent the beautiful poem that I print below:

"It seerncth such a little way to me, To that strange country, the Beyond; And yet not strange, for it has grown to be The home of those of whom I am so fond; They make it seem familiar and most dear, As journeying friends bring distant countries near.

"I never stand about a bier and see The seal of death on some well-loved face, But that I think, one more to welcome me When I shall cross the intervening space Between this land and that one over thereOne more to make the strange Beyond seem fair.

"And so in truth there is no sting to death; And so the grave has lost its victory; Death is but crossing, with abated breath And white, set face, a little strip of sea, To find the loved ones waiting on the shore, More beautiful, more precious, than before."

Dave Macandrew has gained back the forty pounds he lost in his recent illness, and is busy at work once more with the Cities Service in Quincy.

The Boys and Girls 4-H Club is an organization for young people from ten to twenty years of age under the charge of the United States Department of Agriculture and the land grant colleges. There are about 565,000 boys and girls enrolled in these clubs in the United States. The work among these clubs in Massachusetts is organized and developed by our classmate George L. Farley, who is the state club leader. He goes all over the state of Massachusetts working with these young people from ten to twenty years of age. The name 4-H means the development of the head, heart, hands, and health. In a recent visit to Amherst, Mass., I was greatly impressed while taking dinner with George to find the wonderful work that is being done with these young people throughout the state of Massachusetts. In his capacity as leader he travels over the entire state and comes in contact with and influences a host of young people. Recently in one of our leading normal schools the question was asked of the entire school what influence brought them to the normal school. Over fifty of the three hundred said the influence of the 4-H clubs was the compelling factor in their case. George Farley is a bishop and older brother to hundreds and thousands of the finest young people. What an opportunity for inspiring service this presents.

On Saturday evening, April 6, Mr. and Mrs. Seelman were hosts to members of the class for dinner and bridge at their home in Brooklyn. There were present besides Mr. and Mrs. Seelman, Ted Leggett and Mrs. Leggett, Major and Mrs. Anderson, Fritz Robbert, and Denis Crowley. The Nolans were out of the city. Ted and Mrs. Leggett demonstrated that collection is not limited to the Class Fund, for they each collected the prizes at bridge. It was the introduction of Mrs. Anderson to members of '98, and caused them to regret that they have been kept for so long a time from meeting her.

During the week of April 7-14 Ted Leggett will have an extensive trip through the southern states for his company.

An article by Pete Adams occupied the larger part of an entire page in the New York Herald Tribune under date of Sunday, March 31, headed "Place of man is put between atom and star. His bulk is mean of two extremes. Planets' destiny great. May weigh ton per cubic inch, astronomer thinks." I will not attempt to give the entire article here, for I question if many members of the class of '9B, including myself, would be able to follow Pete in his flight amid the clouds. Fred S. Pope, administrative vice-president of the Chicago Trust Company, made a flying visit to Boston April 4.

"353 B. St., Corvallis, Oregon March 25, 1929

"Dear Phil: "This letter business seems to get me both going and coming. I hardly know what to do with the troublesome subject. For a long time I wrote no letters at all. This saved much time and effort, but lost me all but my staunchest friends, who seem so devoted that nothing I may do or fail to do can ever drive them away. Then, overcome by regrets, remorse, and loneliness, I changed my usual practice and wrote just a few. Trouble again—more and better.

"I can see very plainly now that if I had begun long ago and told a finely assorted string of lies in those letters which I did not write, I could have built up my credit in the East so that I could now tell any kind of a yarn and command belief. But I did not find this out in time.

"My oldest brother lives at Schenectady, N. Y., has five daughters, about all married with children. They write letters which are sent about the family in a bunch. A Round Robin they call it. These evidently go to all the eastern relatives, quite a number of people. Now in all this wide and fertile field of family affection I had sown no seed save those of neglect. I deserved none of the treasures it contained; but one of those relatives, or relatives-in-law, who thought I had befriended her, sent me one of those multiple letters. It was filled with news of babies, the announcements of new sons, those confidences and intimacies which make a lonely fellow catch his breath, brush his eyes, and resolve to be a better man. I laid it carefully away. Some day, when I could write tender things, I would send that on again. Another came and another. They all fell in my desk, that slaughter house of friendships, and died there. Time and again I was ready to write, filled with nice things to say, but I just could not get to going and let loose on them.

"Time passed—no more letters came—the Christmas season of '27 arrived. I took my failings in hand and considered them seri- ously. I would have to square myself or some day I would drive back East and find that I no longer belonged to my own family. I was worried. No use to try to explain this 'away or to defend myself at all. I just wrote to my brother and told him that I wasn't worth mentioning and I went to considerable trouble—some hundred words—to compare, explain, elucidate, and draw parallels—the parallel being a prospector who was to play Santa Claus at a community Christmas event at Swanson's Bay, a small, shut-in, mountainbound, roadless, rain-swamped, frost-bitten, churchless, broken-down, pulp-mill town, one hundred and twenty-five miles from anywhere, far up the rugged desolate waste of British Columbia. Our main office was four hundred miles away at Vancouver, too far to give us much assistance, too near for comfort. We were constantly distressed by orders by wireless, countermanded by letter, and reprimands by both sources. Tortured by gloom, darkness, and unbelievable rain, we filled the intervals between breakdowns with the questionable pleasure of internecine strife. We had reached a very low state of mind indeed. Then the wireless operator, a very sissified young English chap, proposed the Christmas celebration, and was at once a popular leader with much assistance. A tree was set up in one corner of our recreation hall stage, and in the other a big wooden fireplace was built to accommodate Santa and his pack. The prospector was well chosen for his part—sound, cheerful, likable fellow, very willing to help us out, and he took great pains to prepare thoroughly for his duty.

"The great night arrived. The whole town was packed in that hall. There was a short program of recitations, etc., then the children gathered on the stage near the fireplace, ready for Santa, and the hall was silent with intense interest. But no Santa appeared. Time passed. Still no Santa. Something had gone wrong. The men began to whisper in the back of the hall. The women were worried, and the children, with high hopes crushed with despair, began to cry.

"A hurried search revealed the trouble. Our prospector had begun early to prepare his mind, loosen his tongue, and quicken his b'ody by a liberal use of moonshine. The effects had been good for a time, but finally became confusing. Further stimulation did not help, and at last when it was time to do his part he managed to reach the foot of the high flight of steps to the hall but could go no farther.

"Now this was the point I wished to reach in my letter to my brother. I was like this prospector, full of good intentions which I was perfectly willing to better, but at the critical moment I could not make the grade. I explained this carefully later on, but I did not stop to do it here. I went right on with the story, which was entirely true, and told how that young Englishman, recovered from his rout, grasped the situation, and saved the day by himself assuming the part of Santa, and doing far better than the prospector could possibly have done.

"I must tell you that this elder brother of mine was an unusually kind one. Until I left the East at the age of thirty-six he had virtually been my confessor, always listening with sympathetic interest to all my hopes, successes, failures, and sorrows. I could not afford to lose his goodwill, so I put much thought and care into my letter, and tried to please him as well as illustrate my unworthiness. When I felt that I had accomplished my double object, I edged gracefully away into family gossip, fish stories, etc., but in all my very long letter I never told him a lienot one lie.

"I thought I knew my brother's reactions. I surely did twenty-two years ago. But he must have changed since. He had not been displeased with me at all. He knew all the time that I would come around again sometime, just as sound as ever. He thought that carefully worked up illustration of mine was just a yarn, a Christmas story told to please him, his wife, and all the younger Robins, and he was perfectly willing to be pleased with it, as he said in his return letter. He and his wife had agreed that it was a literary production of merit, that I must work it over a little more, extend it, and sell it to some publisher for some real money.

"For some time after that, as I read his letter, I was convinced that the man was demented, and this sorrowful conviction was only dispelled when I came to a sort of summary of his in which he took exception to a fish story, or part of a story—the bait partwhich I had told him. I had said that when Ash and I went fishing on the ocean beaches we took along a pickaxe and dug rock oysters from the ledges (where they lived in neatly fitting holes they had formed there) and used them for bait. My brother recoiled from this perfectly true bit of zoology. He told me that my stories were interesting, that he would stand for my jokes, but that I could never make him believe that an oyster could bore a hole in stone. I was deeply grieved at this first shocking doubt of my word that my brother had ever exhibited; but after long and careful meditation I decided that it was due to his long residence in those squalid cities of the East where the streams are so polluted that no one believes that a trout can grow to be over six inches long, where the land is so covered with pavements and the sea so encroached upon by harbor works and other abominations that all natural wonders have long since been buried and forgotten.

"But I considered that on the whole I was in a much better position with the family than I had dared hope, so I let things stand as they were, and another year passed. Craving touch with old friends again, I attempted more letters. Two to you failed. One got lost in the rush of Yankee narrative. The other had some weakness, a fish story perhaps, and was rejected. I put them in my desk and they died there. One to Luther Oakes '99 was taken kindly enough, but then he has been much in the West and has some sense. One went to Nolan. He has not replied, shocked perhaps; but he has peddled that thing over his back fence like any other piece of gossip, and hints of it have gotten into print and come to the attention of various naturally kindly people, in a manner which gives me little credit. A third went to my brother. I think it stupefied him before he could reply or use it against me.

"Just after the departure of the above letters, the disaster at which I have hinted above arrived. That Santa Claus letter fell into the hands of my sister—my long respected sister—whose silence was often a stronger guide than the words or hands of my parents. For thirty-five years she has been a recognized authority on English in the high schools of Washington, D. C. By this time one would expect her to look for the reason for things. But no, she just swallowed that tale whole, and this is what she wrote:

"Your last Christmas letter and story for the Round Robin are now in my possession. I admire its literary excellency and feel sure that you can market , such stories as that for a real compensation. You gave a real picture of the place, vivid and clear, type of people, country, spirit for the time, and good character sketch. I urge you seriously to go to it in any spare time, write and write and write. You like to tell stories, have always had a graphic touch, and now should cash in on it. There are hundreds of Christmas stories published which are not as good stuff as you wrote . . . Get to it and stick to it. Write just as you did in telling the story ... I haven't used a critical faculty as to style and composition for 35 years for nothing. When I have told the boys their stuff was good enough to publish, they have been able to sell it. One boy's article was used in St. Nicholas, without the change of a word. Long ago when you were at Dartmouth you wrote me a thrilling letter about life there, what you were doing, and something about your friends. I read it aloud to Aunt May and a dressmaker who was here that day. She seemed much interested. Several years later she told me that because of that letter and her account of it, her brother went to college and she helped him through.'

"What an awful mess of trouble I have brought upon myself through just one innocent letter. Now can you say that my usual silence is unwise? I have got to go to work. When can I ever go fishing?

"Your suggestion to write to Hewes for a job is a good one. I have worked for friends sometimes much to their profit; but they invited me to do so. I have always felt sensitive about asking one for a place. It puts him in an embarrassing position.

"I am enclosing my check for $1.75 as subscription for the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. You seem to be covering your job well in that publication, but go lightly on me, for you know I have been laughed at about as much as any man in the class.

'Thank you for all your letters. You are very kind. I should write more, but find it a great hardship. Please give my regards to all the boys. With all kind wishes to yourself and family,

"I am as ever yours,

"H. W. CLARK."

The story in the March number of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE of the burning of Dartmouth Hall twenty-five years ago brings to mind the fact that the year 1929 is the thirtyfifth anniversary of the founding in that historic edifice of the intra-dormitory society of Delta Alpha.

The true story of the origin of this society has never been published in all of its refinements and details, and in this anniversary year it seems meet and proper that the true history should at last be made a matter of record, and not be merely a legend to change from year to year in the telling of the tale.

That mighty oaks from little acorns grow is well exemplified in the growth of this fraternity. Its inception came from the thought, conceived in the minds of Clarke and Chase of the class of '95 and of Maben '97, who roomed together in Dartmouth Hall, that the freshmen, members of the then incoming class of '98, rooming in Dartmouth Hall, and for the most part in that portion then and even later so well known as Bed Bug Alley, should provide a set-up for the upper classmen also domiciled in the hall. It was in October, 1894, that these freshmen were informed that they were to have the signal honor conferred on them of being the hosts to the upper-classmen and to provide the necessary food for the sumptuous feast on a night certain and designated.

While the preparations were being carried out by the freshmen the matter was further discussed by the upper-classmen, with Clarke the master mind and spokesman, with the result that it was decided that preceding the banquet the freshmen should be initiated into a society, local and limited to that dormitory. It was deemed appropriate that the society should be named after the hall, but here arose an obstacle, for in the Greek language there was no letter H. The fertile mind of Clarke overcame this trifling objection by the simple expedient of placing the Greek aspirate over the letter A, and so was born the name which could at the same time signify the home and origin of the society and represent the words Dartmouth Hall. It will thus appear that, though the society, from the date of its foundation, has been called Delta Alpha, the true and correct pronunciation is Delta Halpha.

On the night appointed, with due and proper ceremonies, the freshmen were led through the impromptu rites, ceremonies, and ritual into the mysteries of Delta Alpha. One part of the ritual consisted in having the initiates, while blindfolded for a portion of the particular rites, drink from a well-known receptacle containing sweet cider and a cruller. This particular rite may now be lost in the realms of oblivion, but at that time it was one well known to the undergraduates and alumni. Following the initiation, the bacchanalian feast was held in one of the rooms occupied by some of the upper-classmen. In passing it might be of interest to the younger members to know that the entire cost as assessed upon each freshman, proportionately, did not exceed seventy-five cents.

There were initiated on that historic night these members of the class of '98, who therefore were the original initiates: Bugbee, C. E. Clark, Crane, Crowley, Forbes, French, Gilman, Nichols, Robbert, and Shea. It is possible that there may have been omitted someone or more from this list or that a similar number may be wrongly included.

The success attained on this first occasion prompted the perpetuation of the idea. To no man is there due so much credit for the continuance as to F. W. Robbert '98, who, during the following season in collaboration with Maben '97, with an unabridged dictionary at their elbows, drew a constitution for the future conduct and guidance of the society. It is not known whether or not this constitution, or a copy of it, remains in existence. If there be no copy remaining the world has sustained a real loss. It was so bright and witty and humorous that its reading at the initiation could not be made in its entirety by one man, and with the reading of each clause it was passed to another to continue the reading. This passing was always accompanied by the stentorian call from some other initiator for all levity to cease, and then occurred a toppling of the line of freshmen. The only portion of this constitution alive in the memory of any of the original members of the society is that portion in which the freshmen, in swearing to honor and defend woman, took this impressive vow:

"And I promise and swear to protect, honor, and defend the glaucopis trailingtressed mammileuous biped."

To accompany the constitution, as prepared by Robbert and Maben, there was also adopted a ritual to be followed in the initiation.

Robbert was elected Custodian of the Sacred Goat for his sophomore year, and during his junior and senior years was the Primarius of the Mother Chapter.

Beginning with the fall of 1895 other chapters began to be established, and in the year 1896 there were four, located in different dormitories. It was then a requirement that the initiation and banquet of the various chapters be held on different nights, for it was a perquisite, carefully guarded and enforced, of the Primarius of the Mother Chapter to attend each initiation and feast, especially the latter.

From this simple beginning and purpose sprung the society, which has since grown and spread into the proportions and place it now occupies in Dartmouth.

It may be of at least passing interest to know that of the original initiates in the fall of 1894 all are still living, with the exception of one, French, who died in 1912.

The facts as above set forth may be considered as authentic for they have been written after consultation and in collaboration with several of those who were of the original initiates and some of whom continued as active members during their whole college course.

H. D. CROWLET.

Secretary, 57 Grove Hili Ave., Newtonville, Mass.