1897
When a Judge addresses the Sheriff, it's important. A letter from one of our classmates signed "Sib" is worth reading at this time. I hope others of you will express your opinions as frankly.
"Dear Sheriff: Caesar was warned to beware of the Ides of March. For thirty-five years that warning has been the nightmare of the tax department of my office. And now, dear Bill, you have adopted that fateful date as an adornment to and a 'Come On' in your correspondence. So instead of using the language of Petrillo, Lewis and other Roosevelt Cronies I will be good and come clean.
First: I can't identify any of those culprits whose pictures you found in the Rogues gallery and about whom you are seeking further information. They look harmless enough to me—so park your gun Sheriff. You won't need it while eating, drinking, fishing, golfing, or playing Contract with them or even while attempting to extract some of their worldly wealth.
What a different looking bunch of Guys they turned out to be from the boys who in 1893 took their part in the birth of the Class of 1897. And that raises a question—more medical or legal than engineering—did the birth occur in September of 1893 or was that the date of conception and did the Blessed Event actually take place three years and nine months thereafter ? Have you an answer to that one, Sheriff?
And what a different world it was in those days. Compare the passenger coaches, heated with coal stoves and lighted by kerosene lamps with the Fullman Parlor cars of today—Hamp Howe's 2 to 4 H.P. busses, in which we rode, eating clouds of dust rising from the rutted sandy roads,—with the present 12-cylinder Packard or Caddy limousines rolling over the smooth hard paved highways Arriving at our dormitory as freshmen we found two empty rooms—went and bought from some upper classmen a bed, wash bowl and pitcher for one room and a table, chair and stove for the otherand then waited for the Sophs to yell, 'Come out Freshie for the football rush.'
When the weather got colder, a ton of coal paid tor in advance, was left in back of your dormitory and a slip of paper with your name on it stuck in the pile. If you were fortunate enough to discover this fact, you got the fall and tackle, borrowed a coal hod and shovel and put the coal in your own room before some upper classmen borrowed it without even lend lease. In the morning you flipped a coin with your roommate and if you called heads when it was tails you grabbed the pitcher and ran to the pump in back of Thornton Hall and pumped enough HsO for the daily absolution This was all right in the warm weather but travelling through the snow and sleet was a different Poem. There were no showers or bath tubs in the dormitories and Mum had not been born.
For over a Century there had been a new arrival each year in the Dartmouth family, but in 1893 there was unusual anticipation. Mother Dartmouth had been passing through a period of weakness the children produced by her had grown smaller in number, the buildings were in need of replacement and improvements and a strong man WaS "li i as head of the family to give it new blood, a stimulus for expansion and wider activities, and a physical plant that would be the equal of other Colleges of like numbers.
"At this critical period, William J. Tucker was elected President and the first class to enter the college under him—the class of 1897—was the largest in its history. Under his wise leadership Dartmouth grew and prospered but it remained an institution where a poor man's son had an equal opportunity with other more fortunate ones to obtain an education. Were it not for this fact many of us, myself included, could not have remained four years in Hanover.
Graduating at the age of 20, with an ambition tor a legal education but without any money I felt that I must teach awhile before going to a law school. However I was so youthful looking and under age that I didn't get a chance to teach the young idea how to shoot and so decided to get my legal education in a law office. Working in a drugstore in the summer time and in a law office in the winter I was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1901. For fifty years I have been in the same office where I began my studies and I have been a partner in the firm since 1917. In politics, I was a member of the Republican City Committee for several years and was elected three times to the Board of Aldermen. Governor Draper appointed me a Special Justice of the Central District Court and I served in that capacity 18 years before I was obligated to resign on account of the pressure of my own private practice.
It is on account of my intense desire that ambitious young men, willing to work but without should have an opportunity to go up the ladder that I am troubled with the political teachings of the times and especially by the College Professors. How far has Dartmouth drifted from the College we knew and loved? Has it become a rich man's college? How far to the left are most of the members of the faculty?
In 1932 the Professors went Hell Bent and en assSr Misdeal. How many this year are tor Wallace or Progressive Liberalism with someone else's money? Are members of the Faculty teaching the immature minds—that the government owes them a living—that there is a divine right to strike—that under the slogan of peaceful picketing the strikers may by force, threats and violence stop every one else from working—that they have the right t9 starve and freeze the innocent public and during the strike collect unemployment insurance—that they may sit down and trespass on the employer's property—that injunctions to restrain the same issued by the Courts shouid not be enforced by the Governor of the Mate for fear that (as Roosevelt said) someone would get hurt—and that the pay-off for such political action should be an appointment to the Supreme Court.
Are they teaching the "New Order' so called in finance—that you never need to balance the Budget -just promise to and then run the debt up higher and higher—that what you owe is an asset and lecause you owe it to yourself it is not a liability that the thrift taught by the teachers of our day and the multiplication tables are relics of the Horse and Buggy days? ....
Having invoked the Ides of March warning and the suggestion of penalties for non-compliance you have opened the door of my thoughts, Bill' and after reading the foregoing you will probably advise me to offer the prayer familiar to Uncle Willie in the Moon Mullins comics; 'O Lord give me the strength to keep my big mouth shut when I don t know what the Hell I'm talking about'
Before closing Bill, I want to congratulate you on your response for the 50-year class at the Alumni Meeting. Was sorry I was not there to hear it but I enjoyed reading it in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE.
My family is the same as in previous reports one wife, the best there is and one son named after his dad.
With best wishes for your health and that of your good wife and trusting that you will continue your interesting articles in the MAGAZINE, I am as ever, Cordially Yours, 'SIB ' "
'99 SON AND GRANDSON: Roger Benezet '32 with son Louis P. Benezet 11, who is shown wearing the jersey given him by Reginald Abbott '32. Roger and Louis II are son and grandson, respectively, of Prof. Louis P. Benezet '99, who retires from Dartmouth this month, after ten years as Professor of Education.
Secretary and Treasurer, 886 Main St., Bridgeport 3, Conn. Class Agent, 862 Park Sq. Bldg., Boston, Mass.
