1939 Alumni Fund

DARTMOUTH'S 25th annual Alumni Fund campaign opened April 21 with the mailing of the Fund Committee's first appeal, An Enduring Partnership, to approximately 18,000 alumni of the College. Earlier in the month class agents and their assistants met at Boston and New York to hear an outline of the 1939 program from Fund directors, both of which meetings were preceded by a similar gathering of agents and assistants in Chicago on March 31.

Sumner B. Emerson '17 of New York City, chairman of the Fund Committee of the Alumni Council, spoke at all three dinners. Additional speakers at the Boston and New York meetings were Albert I. Dickerson '30, executive secretary of the Fund Committee, and Prof. Leon Burr Richardson '00, Fund Committee member.

For the third successive year an objective of $110,000 has been set for the Fund, and strenuous efforts will be made to reach the campaign quota for the first time since 1928. Last year 99% of the Fund objective was reached when 8,782 Dartmouth men contributed $108,688.01 to the College. The number of contributors was the highest in the history of the Fund, while the percentage of contributors to living graduates, 76%, surpassed the previous high mark of 73% reached in both 1926 and 1927.

EARLY GIFTS SHOW GAIN

On April 12 early contributions to the 1939 Alumni Fund totaled $8,635.99 from 524 contributors, as compared with last year's total of the same date of $6,889.57 from 304 contributors. This early gain is largely accounted for by the pre-campaign organization in a number of classes, particularly in 1878, 1887 and 1900, all of which have already surpassed their objectives, 1900 with more than 100% contributors. Notable progress this early in the campaign has also been recorded by 1899, 1901, 1902, 1909, 1918, 1923, 1926, 1930, 1932, 1933, and by the last three classes to graduate, 1936, 1937, and 1938.

Theodor S. Geisel '25 (Dr. Seuss) has contributed some new cartoons for the 1939 Fund campaign. For the past several years he has presented the Committee with drawings, and many of the cartoons from the Dr. Seuss Alumni Fund library will be repeated as features of the current campaign.

This year's Alumni Fund Committee,, in addition to Chairman Emerson, Executive Secretary Dickerson, and Professor Richardson, includes Edward K. Robinson '04 of Boston; Whitney H. Eastman '10 of Milwaukee, Wis.; and Fletcher R. Andrews '16 of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Having made its opening appeal in the mailing piece, An Enduring Partnership, the Committee will pass active direction of the campaign over to the class agents and their assistants, and will make a second and final appeal to all alumni before the Fund closes on June 30.