Letters to the Editor
Hovey's Idea?
To THE EDITOR
I take my typewriter in hand to heave through your October cover. I can understand that Mr. Humphrey's originals will be decorative in a tap room. I can understand that after three or four rounds that Mine Host and his pretty Algonquins will be quite in harmony. But when you say that he has caught the spirit of Richard Hovey's poem, that is too too much. Hovey was subtle in his humor, and this is as evident as the funnies. I could stand my Eleazar a little less rowdy and my Indians a little more so.
Say the first three lines of the song over to yourself, what sort of a picture do you get? I see a figure something like Saint- Gaudens' Puritan at Springfield. Then comes the contrast in the last line and the chorus. I put rollicking eyes in a sober face and a smiling mouth in a grim jaw. I don't see this prettied FalstafE stuff. And yet there is a squirrel in the corner of the picture. Perhaps Mr. Humphrey is laughing at all of us. Perhaps he agrees with some of us as to the other figures.
No. II Maplehurst Park,Knoxville, Tenn.
Do You Want $25?
To THE EDITOR:
The editors of the Reader's Digest are gathering material for an article on College pranks. They have decided that the best way to obtain such material is to apply directly to you for such instances of undergraduate hoaxery as you can summon to mind. We are eager to secure some good examples of College pranks and are willing to pay $25 for every anecdote we use.
The Katzenjammer type of college fun, such as putting a horse in the Dean's study is not of much use to us: what we want are the brilliantly executed hoaxes that demonstrate the originality of the undergraduate practical joker at his best. One of the classic instances of the collegiate prank occurred when DeVere Cole, an Oxford freshman, hoaxed that great University by posing as a visiting Indian potentate. A good contemporary example is that of the Harvard undergraduate who drove up to Boston's leading jeweler in an expensive car, and after much build-up and crowd-collecting, emerged from the store with a mountainous armful of bundles. A confederate jostled him and sent the packages tumbling to the sidewalk. The crowd grabbed the supposedly valuable packages and ran off, only to find that they contained Old clam shells and words of moral import. These examples dimly indicate the type of thing we are looking for. It is our hope that you have much better ones in store.
Do you personally happen to know of any college prankery? Don't you think that an announcement in your alumni bulletin would round up some grand examples past and present? Any assistance that you can give will be greatly appreciated by our editors.
Reader's Digest,2 Beekman Place,New York City.
Class Directories
To THE EDITOR:
While the ALUMNI MAGAZINE is a splendid medium for keeping the alumni in touch with the College, I wonder if a better means could not be found for keeping the alumni in touch with each other? I believe that the various classes publish at times a class book with the names and addresses of their members but these lists soon become out of date as the members roam round the girdled earth.
I would suggest that each class through its secretary publish each year a current list in alphabetical order of the names and addresses of its living members. This could be printed in booklet form at small expense and sold at a nominal price to cover the cost. The booklets for each class could be made up the same in size and sold not only to the members of the one class but to members of other classes as well. For example, suppose I could purchase from you at a cost of 25 cents per booklet a list, revised within a year, of the names and addresses of all the members of my class which happens to be 1913. This would be fine and by sending in an extra dollar, I could get the names and addresses of all my friends in the classes of 1910, 1911, 1913, and 1914 who were in College with me. Any alumnus regardless of his class could obtain the addresses of men who were in College with him by buying the combination of booklets to fit his case.
It seems to me that this plan is entirely feasible and could be handled by the ALUMNI MAGAZINE in cooperation with the class secretaries, on a basis whereby the proceeds from the sale of the booklets would more than liquidate the expense.
[Some classes now publish pocket sizedirectories at irregular intervals for use ofmembers. Dartmouth College Publicationspublishes a complete alumni directoryevery five years.—ED.]
Chicago Chateau
To THE EDITOR:
Thanks to your cooperation, our Chateau alumni party was a huge success.
Three of the original members and five of those shown in the picture, a total of 16 regulars, including the following were among those present: Aborn '93, Burnap '94, Jake Smith '05, McGrail '06, Fassett '07, Kennedy '07, Liscomb 'O7, Plummer '07, Soule '08, Stearns 'OB, Farley '09, Watson '09, Wellsted '09, Tobin 'to, Pendleton '11, and Knight '12.
We received regrets in the form of a radiogram from London (Burbeck '11), a letter from Chicago (Pfau '13), and a telegram from New Haven (Chuck French, Cornell '09).
We will repeat the effort next year at the University Club the night before the Harvard-Dartmouth game.
69 Bonair Street,
Somerville, Massachusetts.
