Class of 1878
Miss Beatrice Winser, for twenty-seven years John Dana's assistant in the Newark Library, his successor as librarian, and now a trustee of Newark University, is heading a committee of the trustees intent upon raising a fund of $135,000 to found the John Cotton Dana Library for the university. Donations large and small will be gratefully received, and the donors' names are tq be inscribed in a book, "FRIENDS OF THE JOHN COTTONDANA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEWARK". This opportunity to share in establishing a permanent memorial to our eminent classmate will surely reach the pockets of those of us that have anything in them. What our foreign debtors call "token payments" will be welcome and honored.
Harvey is the first of the class to send in a contribution to the Alumni Fund this year.
The last of Hayt's three sons, Walter D., veteran of the Spanish, Philippine, and World wars, died in Sutter Hospital at Sacramento February 11, after an illness of some weeks. He was engaged in the Federal service in the construction of the great dam at the mouth of Sacramento River Canyon. An older son was killed in the Philippines in 1904, and a younger one died at home in 1930. As if to emphasize his affliction, Hayt's ranch was drenched in California's greatest rainfall and swept by its most destructive wind storm, wrecking his garage and out buildings, uprooting a 60-year-old olive grove of a hundred large trees, and doing plenty of other damage.
Mr. and Mrs. Parkhurst returned the middle of March from a delightful trip around the Caribbean, friends with then calm seas, hot weather. They went as fat east as Barbados, as far south as Venezuela west to the Canal and the Pacific, and came home in good condition.
Bouton's review is the one for this month. Responding to inquiries, he reports digestion, breathing, heart, sleep, all good, memory playing queer tricks, rheumatism causing some aches, jiggers (a Florida specialty), if they penetrate socks and skin, providing abundant itches. Finds his avocation in amateur astronomical work. Ears have failed, but eyes permit excellent work with telescope and a degree of usefulness in the field of variable stars. Thinks we should go slowly in adopting public ownership, as our country, by far the most prosperous in the world, and still in its privileges and opportunities the most bountiful, has developed under private ownership and initiative. In the field of government and politics is both a wanderer and a wonderer. Sees a little of the New Deal cracking up and a whole lot cracking down, so far down as soon to be out of sight; for he finds more of folly than of wisdom in many of its proposals and experiments. Does not look upon laborers in this country as enslaved except in special instances, such as sharecroppers in some sections, but rather as a class enjoying a wealth of privilege. Thinks they are exploited as much by some of their leaders as by capital. Nor does he regard manufacturers and industrialists in general as tyrants and oppressors. Believes the great majority are trying to make their methods and products a blessing to all. Nevertheless recognizes that many adjustments between capital and labor must be made before strife ends. Expects the eternal verities to work out in the social world in spite of the present lowering of standards, the craze for gambling, the increase of drinking, the extreme freedom between the sexes, lessened reverence for marriage and the home. Concedes that past standards were too narrow, but is sure the "breadth" of the present has gone out of bounds, and that the moral and spiritual laws that confront mankind are not to be overridden or circumvented. Says he is looking upon many things with less certainty than once he did. Still holds opffiions, but is not disposed to utter them prophetically. See world affairs threatening the breakup of civilization, but holds with unshaken faith the conviction that under the guidance of the Infinite Mind the Kingdom of God will ultimately emerge upon the earth.
Secretary, 321 Highland Ave., Fitchburg, Mass
