Class of 1908
Dr. John A. Detlefsen (Det, to you '08ers) is all mixed up with crime—from the outside. According to Readers' Digest and more than 100 metropolitan newspapers he is doing a real job, as director of the Police School of Eastern Pennsylvania. As we cull the information from newspaper clippings (a personal letter from Det says the newspapers get it about 75% right), he was one of the prime movers in organizing a group of vigilantes in Pennsylvania, as a civic endeavor, and in a short time most of the state outside Philadelphia was organized. It affects upwards of four million people in Pennsylvania, and then, Det says, "I was picked to put it over."
Dr. Detlefsen, it seems, is the head of a chain of police schools. They first operated in cities, though the original one was at Swarthmore College, where Det is located. Experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation act as instructors in detective work. Good lawyers train police in court procedure, law, and presentation of evidence. Other subjects include traffic problems, communication, use of force and strategy, use of firearms, finger-printing, first aid, preparation of evidence, and physical fitness. The whole idea is to increase the efficiency of law enforcement.
Three hundred New York city policemen were among the first to take the training, which lasts several weeks. Recently several universities have sponsored schools for cops, among them Villanova, Ohio State, Purdue, Kentucky, University of Southern California, and University of Washington. In most places $10 is the fee for the course in police work, and members of police forces are given preference in enrollment.
March 23 Det opened a school in WilkesBarre. He says the idea is taking hold everywhere, and cities and counties in many states are seeking to train their police in modern methods to "outsmart the crook." Thomas Cheney, New Hampshire's attorney general, recently wrote our classmate in regard to a school in New Hampshire.
Det says it is very interesting. He adds that it is not unusual to have crooks try to enroll for the course.
Gossip of the classmates has bogged down in the spring mud in New Hampshire. It must have, little has reached the editorial desk. We can report that Art Wyman's new summer home in Milford is almost finished, the Wymans are spending week-ends there, and the new artesian well reached water before it got to the bottom of the Wyman resources. At $5 a foot it had Art worried, when we told him they sometimes go down 1000 feet without striking enough water to make chasers for his Sunday guests.
Bill Knight is engaged in some extra large law cases in Illinois. No news has come from him of classmates in the Middle West, and that means that Bill is working day and Knight.
Larry Symmes and Mike Stearns, walking on Sixth Avenue last month, were badly shaken up when the new subway caved in and both were buried. They were fished out by Detlefsen-trained police. Last reports from them were that neither was seriously injured, and both are able to receive visitors, but unable to write.
Fred Cooper, in Chicago, is reported to be in correspondence with one Saltonstall. This information comes from Art Soule, and is not very recent. Anyway, Fred never writes any news to his old classmates. The Saltonstall address is, or was, in Boston.
"Harry" Harriman writes from Providence that he hasn't been in Hanover since his son graduated in '35, at which time he attended the 30th reunion of '05, of which he was a member his freshman year. Says it was surprising the fellows he knew but who didn't know him and vice versa after an absence of 30 years from any connection with the class.
Reports business—textile machinery manufacturing—rushing—running two shifts and can't get help enough.
Benjamin '35 is taking a P. G. in chemistry at Penn State College and received his M. S. degree last June. Is back there again, working for his Ph.D., which will take two more years, as part of his time is occupied as an assistant graduate instructor. He recently joined the Alpha Chi Sigma chemical fraternity and has just been elected to the honor chemical society, Phi Lambda Upsilon, which corresponds to Phi Beta Kappa in Liberal Arts.
Betty is a freshman at the University of New Hampshire, and Ann is taking her first year high school work.
He is counting the months to the goth, and if they come around as often as Saturday nights do, when you have to take a bath or lay out your church clothes it won't be long.
Milford, N. H.
