Class of 1895

While in Manchester just before Christmas I called up John Gault. His full-toned voice was as familiar to me as it was when we were Freshmen at Dartmouth. It had no trace of advancing age. It is still a young voice. I regretted that I was unable to accept John's cordial invitation to call at his home. My train was about to leave for Boston.

While in Boston I called up John Letteney and Walter Lane. I learned that the former had just recovered from an attack of influenza. Mrs. Lane reported that the doctor was attending a medical conference. She reported that the doctor and his family were all well and happy.

I called on John Hayes at his office in the Pemberton Building in Boston. John insisted that I go to lunch with him at the City Club, and he called up Gile and tried to induce him to join us. Gile was too busy to accept, so John and I spent a pleasant hour at the City Club together, talking over the old days at Dartmouth.

In the last issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE I referred to a questionnaire regarding the Social Security Act. The returns are now all in, and it is interesting to note that the number of replies corresponds exactly with the number of men .at the 40th reunion. There were 29 at the reunion. There are 29 replies to the questionnaire. This seems to indicate that class interest is revived by reunion attendance. A few replies were included in last month's class notes. Here are some more of them:

(Soc. Sec. Act) "1. Yes, subject to modification whenever and however experience with it dictates."

(Townsend Plan) "2. No." (Old Age Pensions of any kind) "3. Yes in principle and objective. The term by which the principle is known is not important."

"1. Not exactly. "2. No. "3. Yes, but I am not sure just how they should be made possible."

"1. Yes (some changes). "2. No. "3. Yes, employer to employee to stand expense 5°%-5°%."

"I. Yes. "s. No. "3. Yes. California plans to drill its own oil wells for this purpose. National resources should be handled wholly as a benefit for all the people, under federal control. For instance: oil companies should pay for the natural product, then their profit should be limited to their 'byproducts.' Mining, timber, etc., the same."

"1. In exactly the present form No."2. No. "3. Yes. No particular remarks re above, except that opponents to old age security plans, unemployment security, and more or less than a million other things are simply butting against, not mere opinions, but a trend of thought which is certain in the end will be found to be irresistible.

"Off the Record:—Being a Vermonter and still spending a couple of months each year in that holy land, I'm sort of wondering what date will be set for the declaration of secession. I want to be on hand."

"1. No. "2. No. "3. Yes. The Soc. Sec. Act is wonderfully crude, the Townsend plan, weirdly visionary. I favor no Soc. Sec. Act or old-age pension plan which tends to impair or undermine the moral responsibility of the individual to trive to be self-dependent during his entire adult life. An old-age pension law of very carefully drawn limitations, so defined as to preclude the possibility of a thriftless, lifelong endeavor on the part of any person to benefit eventually thereby might be a blessing, but of this I am not plumb-sure."

"1. No. "2. No. "3. Yes. The old and decrepit will have to be taken care of in some way after they reach the age that their employer wants younger men to better do the work required."

"1. No. "2. No. "3. Will have to be convinced of its wisdom. Do not favor present plan of handling funds subject to pleasure of Congress. Not unwilling to give it a trial (Old Age Pensions)."

"1. In part only. "2. No. "3. Yes, within reasonable limits and with proper safeguards. Such a program and such a huge fund are a tremendous temptation to political jugglers. That part of the Act needs greater safeguards. It is a step in the right direction, but how many steps to take is a grave question."

"1. I favor it for a start and expect it to be revised and improved.

"2. No. "3. Yes."

"I am returning your card and responding to your request that I write somewhat fully.

"1. I do not favor the Social Security Act as it is. In the first place, because I think it is fraudulent and a particularly cruel kind of fraud, used as part of a similar series of frauds employed in achieving the coup d'etat of November 3. In the second place, because I utterly disagree with the underlying social philosophy of the thing.

"a. I no more favor the Townsend Plan than I believe in the possibility of perpetual motion machines.

"3. I do not favor old-age pensions of any kind, in so far as they establish civil rights and must be supported by taxation. The effect will inevitably be demoralizing, and the pensions themselves futile save under a competent autocracy. Various countries have been experimenting with so-called social security, including old age pensions, since Bismarck's time. They have never worked, but have always assimilated themselves to poor relief and then to the belief that the individual has an indefensible right to support at the hands of the community. Our sympathies constantly delude us and incline us to escape from facts and logic.

"The truth of the matter is that from the Roman annus, down through medieval society, the English poor law, the shortlived French workshops of a hundred years ago, to the English dole and American relief, experience shows one unvarying lesson which Giddings in 1898 summed up in commenting on the English poor laws by saying that history shows that any nation can have all the poverty it is willing to pay for.

"Now as to the other side of the question, of course, I believe in old-age pensions, but only as deferred compensation and based on sound actuarial principles. We had made immense progress in that direction until the visionaries began to upset the apple-cart."

"Willie" Wight writes: "My wife and Iare living very quietly here in Londonderry near the Derry line. I do not hearmuch about the '95 men, though I see Mr.Cochran occasionally in Derry village.Our son Addison enjoys his work in theoffice of the U. S. Steel and is very busy.He speaks of the prospective World'sPair quite often. The exhibit will occupy16 acres, the entrance being about onemile from his home in Flushing."

Roland E. Stevens Jr., Dartmouth '53, has been appointed interne in surgery, under Dr. John Morton, at the Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, N. Y., beginning next July. He has recently been elected president of the newly organized Rochester Ski Club.

Secretary, White River Junction, Vt.