CLASS of 1919
By the time this issue is in the mails, most of our readers, if any, will be dusting off the suitcase and estimating roughly whether that front left tire should be replaced before starting the trip. The response to the reunion committee's call has been magnificient. Everyone we knew in our class is coming, and seventy-five or a hundred others whom we suspect of being outsiders just trying to horn in on a good—oh, a very good—party.
Louis Munro and the boys he has working with him are doing a great job. They have every diversion one could possibly desire all arranged. They have practically covered the world to get in touch with everyone who bears the 1919 stamp.
Max Norton was recently elected precinct commissioner of Hanover for three years. We haven't the slightest idea what this commission is or does, but we congratulate Max in case it is something at which to "point with pride."
Spider Martin has sent in a letter received in connection with the Alumni Fund. The letter head is: "Republique d'Haiti, "Direction Generate des Travaux Publics, "Bureau de l'lngenieur en Chef, "Port-au-Prince." It is from Paul Halloran, who states that after April 15 his address will be Naval Operating Base, Hampton Roads, Va., and that he will be in Hanover in June for the Tenth.
Spider also sends a plea for prompt and liberal contributions to the Alumni Fund. The class has always made its quota, for which it can take a little credit. Most of the credit, however, goes to Spider, who has worked like a steam shovel to make us come through. Our record to date is none too promising. Spider deserves your co-operation. Why not send him a check today?
Stub Stoughton joins the ranks of the Penning Pater Club, breaking a ten-year silence to say that Barbara is now ten months old and fully qualified to handle Sid Hazelton's job. Stub states that he is a traveling auditor for Stone and Webster, at present in Seattle. He hopes to get a transfer to somewhere in June, so that he cango via Hanover, but figures the chances slim.
Dale McQuiston, real estate and insurance, Riverside, Ill., announces that he and Mrs. McQuiston will be in Hanover in June. He mentions Freddie Ives, Hal Clark, Larry Milligan, Red Washburn, and Mose Forrest as others who will undoubtedly be sitting quietly around the Commons porch for a few days.
Lou Haerle writes from Indianapolis that he is having difficulty fixing the wholesale dry goods business of the Middle West so that he can leave it for a few days, but that he is still struggling and may make it yet.
Personally we try not to think about it very much, for we get a violent case of fidgets every time it comes to mind. We can hardly wait. You will no doubt find us when you arrive all unpacked and out on the front steps to greet you all by the wrong names.
This is Bill Cunningham's call to the reunion, condensed somewhat:
For half a decade, it's appeared that we were the major American casualty. The war smacked us exactly amidships. Freshman fright was scarcely over. Sophomore sophistication scarcely begun. Other classes had a chance. 1918 already had three years under the wire. 1920 was largely too young to feel the bite.
But we, the Sesqui-Centennial Class, that started so gallantly and with such happy prospects, was struck squarely by the blast and scattered so broadly that only in disorganized twos and threes have we ever since been able to find our ways back together.
But THE CLASS THAT DIDN'T HAVE A CHANCE IS GOING TO MAKE ITSELF ONE.
This Commencement would have been- IS GOING TO BE—our TENTH REUNION.
The one broken link in Dartmouth's succession of classes has been the one that was to have been ours. There's irony in this, because, if you'll recall, the President, and other official greeters, inductors, and exhorters, told us in Webster Hall that faraway morning that we had every appearance and every promise of being the finest class that had stepped on that campus in years. This wasn't altogether the official prairie mayonnaise either. We were proving plenty when the bugles suddenly pealed. And we proved plenty AFTER the bugles pealed, if you only knew the whole story.
That's why this class isn't destined to die. That's why we want to get together now, ten years after, get acquainted again, take stock of ourselves, see if we can't effect a real organization.
And we want YOU there.
We don't care whether you graduated or not. It makes no difference whether you went back after you took off the uniform. We don't care what your history is nor what the college records say. If you were one with us that morning in Webster Hall you're one with us still.
We want you and need you. The College wants you and needs you. We want to make this tenth reunion really our FIRST reunion.
This notice is one of a series being sent out by fellows like you who aren't class officers, and who don't want to be, but who have been discussing the situation from time to time, who'd like to take their places as real Dartmouth men, who believe there are dozens of the old class who would like to do likewise, and who will if somebody will only let fly the once familiar war cry of "NINETEEN UP, AND GIVE 'EM HELL!" And so here it is.
The first message, mailed out a month ago, brought at least one hundred resounding "YEAHS" from every corner of the country. We're hoping and believing this will bring one hundred more.
We're making no wild nor expensive plans. Organization is our chief aim this trip— organization and identification. We're not going to try to paint the town red, show anybody up, nor make ourselves especially conspicuous. We plan to have a golf tournament, a class picnic, and a few other orthodox and more or less dignified events. There'll be ample entertainment for the ladies—God bless 'em, and bring 'em—and the kids, too, if you've got 'em and can't park'em somewhere, bring them along to march in the parade.
The chief point is this: Your old class, that you were, and are still a part of, is making an honest effort to reassemble itself, get a real organization, and take its allotted and hitherto pitifully neglected part in the life and affairs of the College. If you aren't interested all right; but if you are, we want you present in person.
If Hanover, and all Hanover implies, hasn't already sold itself to you, we realize it's futile to attempt salesmanship through a letter. But if it has, and you've been waiting, as a lot of the rest of us have been waiting, for somebody to yell "Nineteen Up," here's the yell.
The rest is strictly up to you.
No class of them all has a cleaner claim, a clearer right, a more clarion call for unusual distinction and general recognition. We have furnished the College some of its most brilliant instructors, its competent and promising bursar, its football coach. Outside Hanover, our members have traveled at a speed that is truly phenomenal. We have at least two nationally known doctors, any number of high-placed business executives, an outstanding clergyman or two, several brilliant young editors, and writers with almost national following.
And reverently, but proudly, we stand with chins up, shoulders squared, when the flag marches past. Our war record is one of Dartmouth's finest possessions. It's a thing for any group to cherish and keep fresh forever. Our life's blood dripped on that Flanders sod. If we had a class flag—and perhaps we should have one—it would bear bright golden stars for Charlie Anderson, Charlie Bacon, Staff Brown, Phil Frothingham, Fred Gilpatric, Ernie Giroux, Warrie Hobbs, Frank McCreery, Don McMahon, Wainwright Merrill, Cush Nathan, Charlie Tayntor, and Giff Wilcox, who are now with the Great White Battalion.
Nineteeners then—Nineteeners now, God rest them, they are one with us still—our bond with what's waiting beyond.
A class with these accomplishments, this gallant tradition, has stood silent—has been inactive too long.
Come on back to the place we all started from, and let's make a new, and this time, a REAL start together.
"Nineteen Up"—Remember the thrill?
Assistant Secretary, R. F. D. 37, South Norwalk, Conn.
