1932
A comment in a letter from Harry Rowe, wherein he identified his four children, aged 11/2 to 8 years, has inspired a little reflection on the nature of a class secretaryship. In referring to my selection, Harry said, "I think you secretly enjoy it very much." The "secretly" was a challenge; if I do enjoy it, why secretly? One aspect obviously cannot easily be enjoyed: it involves work to meet a monthly deadline. With office hours like mine in these days of international crises at the tender mercies of domestic politics, home work is not fun, especially with the lively brood Alice and I delight in. Other aspects of the job, however, have a strong appeal, as I am sure they would for anyone with a yen to express himself. Being a columnist, like being a judge, gives you a rare chance to let people know what's on your mind. The fact that the purpose of this column is not to give the rest of you a chance to hear what I feel like saying, but to let you keep up with class activities, merely offers a challenge to see if some personal ideas can legitimately be sneaked in now and then. Then the possibility of making the column interesting to readers who are not of '32 is tempting. Surely all of you have found enjoyable examples in some of the notes of other classes. Such a catholic example may be found in the column prepared, until recently, by Mr. Parkinson of the Class of 1878. His comparison, in the June 1947 issue, of the discovery of fire with the dawn of the Atomic Age was delightful. Mr. Watson's notes for 1883 in the February 1948 issue were obviously prepared with the idea of interesting others as well as his classmates; it contains an unusual resume of the start of the idea of an ALUMNI MAGAZINE. With a class like ours, of course, there is too much current news to permit much digression from the main point of the column, but now and then there is an opportunity to follow a special theme. This month, for example, let's take a look at what our classmates have been saying to the rest of the world.
Quite a number of the class have been expressing themselves publicly in one way or another in recent weeks. Top billing on this score clearly goes to Howie Sargeant; this became obvious to me when I saw the picture of him looking over President Truman's left shoulder at the signing last January of the Smith-Mundt Act to provide for the overseas information program of our Government. As Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs these many months since Mr. Benton's resignation, Howie's voice, it's safe to say, has been heard round the world. He has been responsible for this program as well as the many other functions of that part of the State Department which handles the information and cultural programs by which our country is to become known to the rest of the world. Let me quote Howie's own words (as though he had written them in a letter) to describe his work; I have found them in the January issue of that bottomless fount of information, the hearings before the House Appropriations Committee:
"We are in the business of disseminating a representative cross section of American opinion. We occasionally send to our ambassador, occasionally for use with the press in that country, if it is a free country, or where a free press still exists—you will find that we send out editorial background sheets. We are very careful to include representative editorial opinion from all kinds of papers. We try to do a job of evaluation Whether it is in accord with the foreign policy of the United States is not the determining factor. It is what, in fact, our free press in this country is writing and saying that governs what we send out to our information offices and to our missions.
"No matter how much money this committee is willing to appropriate for the purposes of an information program, in my judgment we cannot expect to do the job that is required in the world climate in which we live today, without mobilizing the total American resources, just as we had to mobilize them in time of war. You cannot do this job by a Government information program alone. I also think that we have to recognize that you need the hard core of the Government information program to facilitate the work of private agencies and to provide a basis on which some of our private resources can build, as we have seen demonstrated particularly in the countries in the Eastern European area and to some extent even in Western Europe.
(On Palestine:) "Basically, our answer to the charges that the United States has directly taken action in Palestine is that the United States is supporting the action of the United Nations; it is the cornerstone of our foreign policy to support the actions taken by a majority vote in the United Nations; so that no one can point to the United States in this instance and indict us for some unilateral action that we have taken in regard to Palestine.
(On another matter:) "Now you are treading right in the middle of the area of my ignorance Congressman."
Though these are, in many cases, isolated sentences taken out of context, I think they convey the nature of the job Howie has been handling, and also the skill with which he can say he doesn't know an answer. Besides the tremendous routine of running his office, Howie has spoken at the February opening of the UNESCO exhibit at the Library of Congress (where the picture was taken with Luther Evans, now Librarian of Congress, but erstwhile (1928-9) teacher of Citizenship to your secretary and others of our class); at the Conference on Human Rights and Freedom of Information in Washington in March; and before the Radio Advisory Committee with which the State Department consults on its overseas broadcasts, also in March. Just to keep busy in between all this, Howie has retained his posts as Executive Secretary of the National Science Fund, which was formed by the National Academy of Scientists in the interest of scientific research, and as sort of class secretary of his contemporaries among the Rhodes Scholars. Howie's bachelor quarters are at The General Scott, Scott Circle, Washington.
I have quoted so much from Howie that I shall have to skimp too much on some of the others. John Clark's Personal Statement, with which he started his career as publisher of The Claremont Daily Eagle, on February 11, would, in toto, be very interesting to all of you. Excerpts: He tells who put the money into the venture:
"A community should know such facts about its newspaper A community is entitled to know the background of the publisher of its paper. It is also entitled to know his motives. In this case the story is quite simple. Newspapering being the only trade he knows, the publisher proposes to earn a living by running The Daily Eagle. Except for the vanity that lies within anyone who would speak or write for public consumption (N.B. MHC), there is no other motive, political or otherwise He will try to present in the best language at his command an accurate and decent summary of the day's events in Claremont, throughout the Valley, and, as space permits, from the world at large. In addition, he will make occasional comment on these events. His ideas cannot always jibe with those of all his readers, especially because he has never voted a straight ticket or entirely agreed with any but one or two social theories."
Surely Marks and Owsley in far-off Helvetia will hear, on Howie's short waves, some of those comments of John's.
Just a sentence from one of Carl Baker's recent, and always learned, book reviews in TheN. Y. Times-, it's such a good warning to us scriveners:
"Often, too, the extreme chosen-ness of the ornamental languages forestalls and desensitizes where it ought to stimulate."
Wedding Bells: in Brooklyn, where JohnKeller, no less, married Irene Rose Lyons on January 27; best man, John Clark, and reception at the Joe Boldts'. And in Waterbury, Conn., where Edmund Scully Smith married Eleanor McGrath on February 10. All good wishes! What a slice that takes out of the bachelors' list.
Secretary, 3909 North sth Street, Arlington, Va. Treasurer, 607 Front Street, Hempstead, N. Y, Class Agent, 3448—8ist St., Jackson Heights, N. Y.
