Class of 1919
Spider reports on the annual dinner in New York. As secretary of the New York Club, he evidently gets all the inside dope, for he claims to know that there were only four classes at the dinner who had more men at their table than did 1919- Those present were: Jackson, Wallis, Little, Batchelder, Sandoe, Bresnahan, Stone, Martin, Picken, Treat, Greeley, Hitchcock, Clements, Henderson, and Hooven. The silence must have been deafening without Fiske.
Mai Drane breaks a long silence to wonder why we have reunions as we do, on a five-year basis. We have often wondered if the systems in use at Yale and Wellesley, under which you reune on a schedule that brings you back with other classes with which you were in college has ever been considered. We intend to find out and will report here or in the Nineteen .News at an early date. He says further, "As anopening gun in a campaign of disapprovalof the present system, and partly becausewe had such a good time last year, some ofus have decided to go back again this yearwith 192.0. Since there is no intention ofmaking a private party of it—the more themerrier would you think it a happy ideato circularize the class in reference to it?" We would. And we will do it at once, also reporting from time to time who is signed up.
Under news we might note that John McCrillis, photographer, skier, and insurance expert, has been made clerk of the courts of Sullivan county, N. H., succeeding his father, who has resigned after 48 years of service. Rudy Stewart has just been elected to the Jacobites, an organization of alumni who used to waste their time running the Jacko. Jimmie Capps was recently elected vice-president of the Syracuse Club. Earl Blaik has been up and down the country, meeting with alumni groups and particularly his old 1919 buddies. We saw somewhere a picture of him banqueting with the above-mentioned Capps. He is now back in Hanover and working hard but quietly with spring practice.
Spen Dodd, who has been suffering from ill health during the winter, was finally forced to fold up and take himself to the hospital. They did a very thorough job on him there, taking things out right and left, and now he is well on his way to being better than ever. A small group who missed him from the Monday luncheons at the Parker House felt very sorry for him and sent off a bunch of spring posies. We were chagrined a couple of days later when Phil Bird reported that he was having a swell time being nursed by a beautiful blonde and nursing a large bottle of choice port. We must call in soon.
New faces at the luncheon club since our last: Elmer Pilsbury, who is still working on the Boston Emergency Relief Campaign; Bill Higgins, stocks and bonds. Recently seen in a Boston restaurant, Jack Reilly, looking as rosie as ever.
The big mush into the north country came off as advertised, except that Bird, just as we prophesied, gradually got cold feet and finally couldn't make it because he was housebreaking a dog. Rock and Alice Earl Hayes, Mary, and we streamlined to Warren, and with the aid of overhanging branches managed to ski into the Ravine Cabin. We thought for a while we would have to send for the St. Bernard, but finally made the mile and a half in the surprising time of one hour and thirty minutes. Leaving the ladies at the cabin to hot soup themselves into shape for the dash out, Rock and your Secretary fearlessly climbed at least a hundred yards up the famous Hell's Highway, and came sliding down on the back of our necks to be greeted with cheers from the crowd, who supposed we had come all the way and were ending up with a new fancy somersault turn. It was great fun however, and we wholeheartedly recommend the Moosilauke Ravine Cabin to any who want to get out into the woods summer or winter.
And last of all, a word about the Alumni Fund. We are again off 011 a No-Quota program. Nineteen nineteen is going to raise a sum of money of which we may be proud. There is never any doubt of that as long as Spider is on the job. But this year we are going to do better than that. We are going to step up the number of contributors to a point where we don't have to hide our heads in shame everytime we are compared with other classes. We have been studying the list of contributors last year. It is stimulating to read the names of those men who are always with you, all the way, on anything to do with the College or the class. It is gratifying to think of them as among your friends. But as you read the list names keep popping in between the lines, and you wonder if that old faithful has run into such tough luck that he can't get together a dollar, or whether after all these years he has lost his loyalty to the old place. The few cases we have been able to investigate show that neither thing has happened, but that the individual feels that because he can't give fifty dollars or twenty-five he'd better give nothing, for it won't count. Now we want no more of that. We want every man as a giver even if he can only give ten dollars, or five, or even one. Givers to the Alumni Fund are not judged on their ability to give any more than they were when they were undergraduates. It is one of Dartmouth's most cherished heritages that wealth plays no part in ranking in the Dartmouth fellowship, but her continued progress depends on everyone's giving something and maintaining his active interest. Help the Fund, the class, and Spider by giving promptly.
Secretary, 11 Traill St., Cambridge, Mass.
