1923*
We will open this, our last column of the year, with news of two fellows who have spectacularly graced the headlines of recent weeks and are to be congratulated for the great honors bestowed upon them.
In its 1939 session the Connecticut General Assembly created a commission to study unemployment. Gov. Baldwin immediately appointed Carl Gray to Chairman this 5-man commission. Under Carl's able guidance the Commission made a complete study of the unemployment problem, the object of which was to discover not how many unemployed there were in the state but who they were, what they were, and why they were unemployed. The facts revealed by this survey and the program of job training unique to Connecticut which was conceived and inaugurated by Carl's Commission to fulfill a need established by these facts have gained national recognition with articles arid editorials in many of the country's leading magazines and newspapers. My attention had been called to Carl's work through a speech he delivered on the subject to a meeting of the New England Council and when I wrote him for further information he very modestly requested that I not quote him for fear the impression might be gained that his committee felt their accomplishments could not be improved upon. So instead I will quote from an article in a recent SATURDAY EVENING POST: "Because these projects begin from the bottom up rather than from the top down, keep close to the job level, and rely less upon public bounty for their success than upon private ingenuity, their contribution may be substantial. It is even possible that it has been for lack of so basically an American attack the trick has not been turned before."
In early April it was announced that Ralph Noble had resigned his position as State Supervisor of Secondary and Vocational Education in Vermont to accept an appointment as Superintendent of Schools in Springfield, Vermont. Thirty days later it was further announced that at the request of the State Board of Education the Springfield authorities had very generously agreed to release Ralph from his commitment and to allow him to accept the position of Commissioner of Education for the State of Vermont. Said one member of the State Board: "The appointment of Mr. Noble was obvious from the first. I have followed his career carefully. Wherever he has worked everyone thinks of him with the warmest admiration and respect."
Among our successful life insurance men we can't forget Mike May. The WEEKLY UNDERWRITER announces that he has been appointed a general agent of State Mutual Life in New York, the agency to be known as the Mitchell May, Jr., Agency. The same article quotes, "Though the directing head of a large general organization Mr. May has never sold less than one million dollars life insurance in any year."
Hats off also to Dick Cushman of Portland, Maine who has really gone places inbusiness having more irons in more successful enterprises than anyone we knowthe Cushman Baking Co., with plants in several New England cities, and headquarters in Portland—the Oakhurst Dairy, a large distributor of dairy products—Sebasco Estates, a very successful summer development on the ocean near Bath, Maine, with large hotel, swimming, boating, golf, tennis, etc. How many days do your Maine weeks have, Dick?
Leif Norstrand is struggling with the problems of importing wood pulp from Scandinavia which are the worst since 1805. When he finally succeeds inhartering ships, they inevitably end up by colliding with a mine, run aground trying to avoid mines, or just plain freeze fast in the ice. To further complicate life, Leif's wife, Sally, and two daughters, Trygve, 9, and Karin, 3, are in Florida until June Ist and he has had to commute between there and New York to be with them.
Jack Stanley has recently become associated with United Business Service, Investment Counsellors of Boston, and only slightly less recently satisfied a long-time ambition by purchasing a farm in Bryantsville, Mass. Just how much farming Jack does is not known but we do know that it makes an all-year residence for Jack, wife Holly, and their son.
You will all recall my describing in the October issue the wonderful week-end we had in Hanover last summer and the fact that it had been voted unanimously to repeat this August and in addition to include not only the class officials but any and all '23ers who would be interested in a grand informal summer week-end to- gether with an opportunity to sit down with those of the administration in charge of Alumni affairs to discuss the plans and problems of '23's organization. This year this meeting will be held over the weekend of August 17 and this is your invitation for you and your wives to join us. We hope for a big turnout and can assure those who come of a repeat of last year's memorable get-together. And now before we wind up for the year several votes of thanks are justly deserved:
To Bob McMillan; our Treasurer, for an outstanding job of dues collecting, providing the wherewithal to keep our operations in black despite the heavy burden placed on the Treasury by our sending the ALUMNI MAGAZINE to the class on the 100% basis. Reports from all sides prove this to have been one of the most worthwhile projects the class has ever undertaken and thanks to Bob's most capable handling of our finances one which will be continued next year.
To Pudge Neidlinger; whose monthly reminiscences of our Freshman year have been such an entertaining addition to these columns and one we hope we will be able to induce Pudge to carry on through our graduation.
To Sherm Clough, Ward Hilton, and Babe Miner as Class Agents and their staffs of assistants for our annual recordbreaking results in the Alumni Fund. You will have heard from these fellows and responded to their appeal for larger and early gifts long before this reaches you, with the assurance that '23's place in the final standing will be one in which we can all take pride.
To the Sectional Secretaries who have diligently and faithfully supplied their news items for these columns and also for the Fund News Letters and also for their very able assistance to Bob McMillan in collecting class dues.
And last and most important, to you the Class for responding so generously to all these calls and for your cooperation and assistance in putting across these class projects. You have placed and are keeping '23 up where it belongs, with the leaders of the Dartmouth Alumni body.
Have a swell summer!
JUNE, 1920 Eight days of classes, ten days of exams and the Class of 1923 was exalted to sophomore rank.
The appearance of the AEGIS, Sing-Out, Wet-Down marked the _ end of the year. The Keg Rush was fought to a draw, the green barrel, still sticky with dripping lemonade, never moved far from the middle of the campus in the allotted twenty minutes of shin-bruising fight. The line for the Gauntlet extended beyond the White Church and looked longer than that. Into a roaring bonfire went most of the faded freshmen caps. Jack Cannell won the Barrett Cup.
Excitement raged in the dorms when advance copies of several sets of examination questions were secretly circulated. Honorable men chuckled when different questions were hastily formulated by the faculty and written on blackboards at the gym.
Henry E. Maroney 'go was shot and killed in the Theta Delta Chi House by Robert T. Meads '21, after an argument, over a bottle of liquor, originating in' North Massachusetts. Student posses searched the countryside all night in a frame of mind for lynching but Meads was taken by the sheriff on a train at Canaan. For days the College seethed and suffered from a bad press. Meads was taken to Woodsville, later to be tried and sentenced to fifteen-twenty years. In 1925 a pardon was refused and Meads was permanently committed to a hospital for the criminally insane.
With exams successfully passed (by all except twenty-four men) the members of '23, richer in experience and stronger in class unity, dispersed for vacation. So ended the first year.
Secretary-Chairman, 17 Nottingham Rd., Worcester, Mass.
Class Agents,: go Webster St., Brookline, Mass.; WARD H. HILTON, A-1329 Insurance Exchange, Chicago, III. and 449 Washington Ave., Brooklyn, N. Y.
* 100% subscribers to the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, on class group plan.
