The Fifty-Year Address

William H. Ham '97 Recalls Lively Events of Student Days and Gives Some Advice to the Graduates of '47

Mr. Ham's address in behalf of theGolden Anniversary Class of 1897 was oneof the highlights of the meeting of the General Alumni Associatioti in Webster Hallon Saturday morning, June 14. Followingis the complete text:

IN DARTMOUTH COLLEGE in 1895, Dr. Samuel Colcord Bartlett, the retired President, said this: "In these latter days there has developed a theory called evolution. I have thoroughly and critically examined this theory and find it is absolutely false."

Our class entered Dartmouth College in a period of change. Dr. Bartlett was the last rock on the end of the fundamentalist range.

I remember him with his erect posture, wearing a Prince Albert coat and white tie and high silk hat, walking with a goldheaded cane past the campus, his personal negro servant rolling his bicycle which he recently had learned to ride.

When they arrived at the new athletic field, he passed his cane to his servant and mounted the bicycle and rode around the quarter-mile cinder track, and then he walked back again with the same dignity, the servant rolling the wheel.

We had him in a course known as natural theology which we called, "godology," in which he taught us by lecture, Genesis in the raw. He informed us that God made the earth and the firmament in six days, just like our days—24 hours long, 60 minutes to the hour, 60 seconds to the minute, and God rested on the 7th day.

To me the picture was God sitting on a rock all day long. Our class rustled a little and tapped with the feet slightly and the old man accepted our applause as our endorsement.

He went on with God's work after the serpent had gone into the garden, which pictured for us Eve unadorned standing there tempting Adam with an apple. That upset us. The class couldn't take that. We whistled and stamped and rose up and gave the college yell in the class, and the old man threw back his head and laughed with us, sitting there at the long table between two wood burning stoves, his high hat on the table and his gold-headed cane across the top of his hat. Here is a photograph of Dr. Bartlett at his lecture table.

Dr. Tucker, our great leader, came to the college after the courts of Massachusetts had set him and his alleged heretic associates on a new path of freedom. His orderly mind, his intensive honesty, his powerful imagination, made the College stand up and go forward.

Week by week in the chapel his thoughts were developed and his inspired words moved every man that heard his voice. We, who loved him and knew him well, go humbly to the simple sepulcher in the quiet cemetery just over yonder to pay our respects to his memory.

"Hoppy," alias Ernest Martin Hopkins, a great leader, came up from the ranks of business to become the outstanding builder of the new Dartmouth: and also one of the outstanding scholars of our day. I have a letter from "Hoppy" which I prize very highly. When the Hamp Howe stable on Allen Street burned, I wrote him that it was lucky for me that I wasn't in Hanover that day, for I had threatened to burn that stable many times. He wrote, I quote, "I've had similar ideas myself."

I bring no charges, but I do say Hanover has need for "arson" now. Let's pass the torch to Dickey who now leads the College in these trying times.

The College has moved to the north, the east and the west. To the south and southwest the land is cluttered with unsuited structures. Land here should be coveted. The torch, the wrecking bar, hammer, saw and trowel used to the south would make a better college and a better Hanover.

Our class has measured this man Dickey by the four square rule and we have found him to be a scholar, a leader, a truth teller and a fisherman,—paradoxical as it may seem.

We come now to our class. If there is anything that is good that has been done in this generation, we make a claim to it in full. If there is anything bad done in our generation, we deny having any part in it.

As we went out from the College, change was in the air, and we of '97 have kept our eyes on the ball and followed through. In a rapidly changing world the mark set for us has been a flying goal, moving with accelerating speed.

I recall, soon after leaving college, building a bridge. Our power plant was a steam boiler that was old and leaky. The steam gauge had been set at 80 lbs. and that wasn't enough. The old Irishman who fired the boiler said to me, "give me some horse manure and I'll give you steam," and he did. He put the horse manure in the boiler and hung the fire poker on the safety valve.

We finished the job 10 days before the ice went out of the river. If we had been delayed five days, the bridge would have gone out. A little manure saved that bridge.

Crude tools of our time have changed with an accelerating speed since then, with harder and still harder steel, higher and ever higher pressures, faster and ever faster speeds, voltage increased by the hour and miracles of chemistry.

The world has been made smaller by cable, plane and radio and there are now lots of careless words going round the world, and far too much dangerous mouthing.

There was an old Vermont farmer who had no radio, and his son, home on a visit during the recent war, said, "Dad, you must have a radio. These are stirring times, you must keep up." The old man said, "I can get it just the same out of the weekly Republican." "No," he said, "Dad, I am going to give you one," and he did.

The old man avoided it till Lincoln's birthday. After his chores had been finished early, he came into the house and took off his "cot" and sat down in the rocking chair and reaching over turned the knob, and was delighted to hear a wonderful voice saying, "Lincoln was a man who came up from the people. He freed the slaves and saved the Union, and is lovingly referred to as the martyred president, going down generation after generation with growing acclaim even among his enemies."

The voice changed slightly and the old farmer heard this: "But there is a man in the White House today who will go down in history and far outshine the martyred president."

He was mad and snapped off the radio, put on his "cot" and went to the barn and kicked a cow that was lying down and started milking an hour early

He didn't touch the radio again until Washington's birthday, when he heard a marvelous voice saying, "Washington was a man of wealth, who gave up a life of luxury and ease to lead the armies and suffered with them at Valley Forge. He freed the States. He became responsible in large measure for the Constitution of the U. S., and is lovingly known as the Father of his country, going down generation after generation with growing acclaim even among his enemies. But—There is a man in the White House today that will go down in history and far outshine the Father of his Country."

The old man snapped it off hard; called up his son and said, "You git that thing out of here 'fore Easter."

In our generation from college to now there have been developed tools of industry which have taken over the lifting and the lugging for mankind and wiped away the sweat from the brow of the worker in our considerable part of the world.

I like to recall a stanza from McAndrew's hymn by Kipling, the old engineer coming home across the seas talking to his engines:

'What I ha seen since ocean steam began Leaves me na doot for the machine, but what about the man? The man that counts, we' all his runs, one million mile o' sea Four times the span from earth to moon. How far, O, Lord, from thee?"

During our days we have fought three wars to try to better the lot of mankind. We have bulged forward in science. We have sagged in for lack of religion. We have circumscribed our scholars by lack of money and respect, and we come now to your advent into the world of action right on top of the atom.

What to do about the atom? This is a tough one and I am going to give you a short, tough answer to my question. My answer comes from . the Dartmouth poet, Richard Hovry, and the Prussian philosopher, Kant. The atom program is for you an "unmanifrst" categorical imperative.

My class won't let me get away with this jaw breaker without some defense so I have added three footnotes which I will read.

ist note: Unmanifest Destiny, title of a poem written by Hovey in July 1898 while we were in college.

'To what new fates, my country, far And unforeseen of foe or friend, Beneath what unexpected star,

Compelled to what unchosen end. (Two lines 6th Verse)

There is a Hand that bends our deeds To mightier issues than we planned."

and note: Refer to Dr. Tucker's My Generation, page 439-443.

3rd note: Categorical Imperative, Webster's dictionary: "The Kantian doctrine that one's acts should be determined only by principles that one wills to be binding on all men."

I repeat the atom program is for you an "unmanifest" categorical imperative.

As an engineer, I was taught here at Dartmouth that to have an accurate foresight you must have a long backsight. I want to put in simple words a picture of the Dartmouth spirit as I saw it, heard it, and felt it on this campus in September 1893. I want to give you this for a long backsight.

After our supper, we came out to find the air charged with something, and soon there came out to us from the north end of the campus a challenge—"Football-freshy, Football-freshy, Football-freshy." Out we came to the campus—a few first—more and more—and then all were there. Soon the ball was kicked up high in the air and the fight was on. To carry the ball off the campus was to win. The fight was hard and long. Men were kicked in the shins and we were tired and winded at times.

A few with tempers sharpened tried fist fighting. But there were men of brawn, men of character on the campus that night who stood guard as masters of the spirit of the College. They told us to go in and fight —fight hard to win, but in no uncertain words they told us that night this was a fair fight and not a fist fight by individuals. "Matt" Jones, "Squash" Little, Elmer Carleton, Frank Dodge, and "Chuck" Emerson were the men that I remember. They were there to see that the new class made a hard fight to win, but a fair one. We won and here is a piece of that football.

I know of no better way to tell you about the Dartmouth spirit. I know no better way for the College to express itself in the world today. I know no better guidepost to set up for the future of your class going out with the tools that we have developed and the atom coming up.

As you go out, make it a hard fight—a fight to win—but make sure that it is a fair fight. That is, to me, the spirit of Dartmouth. My class saw it. We heard it; we felt it. Make sure that the spirit which can be seen, can be heard, can be felt, doesn't leave the campus at Dartmouth. Take a full measure of it with you as you go out.

Now I come to the essence of this discourse which is to give the message of the 50-Year Class to the graduates of 1947.

I think our class would advise you to hang the fire poker on the safety valve, but have an eye on the steam gauge. We would tell you not to drive so fast that you can't see the flowers by the roadside. We will tell you early in life to develop a hobby. We will tell you that the key to ownership is thrift.

I think we have found out and should tell you that the home of the working man is the balance wheel of our republic. I think we will advise you, if you bet on the high stakes of life, not to play the other fel- low's game. I know our class will tell you that we still believe that-two and two make four, and that a small surplus is better than a large deficit.

We must come to an end of deficit financing.

It's a long way from the horse and buggy in a dusty road, to a jet-propelled flying wing in the stratosphere. This has been the change in our time. You will see far greater changes in your fifty years.

Dartmouth graduates, since the first class of 1771, have garnered 97 varieties of academic degrees—an assortment interpreted by a special glossary in the General Alumni Catalogue.

Thirty-four different bachelor degrees are listed in the catalogue, among them B.H., Bachelor of Humanics; Bachelor of Literary-Interpretation; B.S.F., Bachelor of the Science of Forestry; and S.T.B., Bachelor of Sacred Theology. Most persons would be stumped by M.O., Master of Oratory; M.L.A., Master of Landscape Architecture; M.C. P., Master in City Planning; and J.U.P. (Juris Utriusque Doctor) Doctor of Both Laws, Canon and Civil.

GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY SPEAKER: William H. Ham '97, class secretary from Bridgeport, Conn., shown delivering the traditional 50-Year Address at the General Alumni Association meeting in Webster Hall.