Dartmouth Awards Honorary Degrees to Six
Always a highlight of the Commencement exercises, honorary degrees wereconferred this year upon six men, two ofwhom received the Doctorate of Laws, twothe Doctorate of Letters, and two the degree of Master of Arts. In awarding thehonorary degrees during that portion ofthe program which was held in WebsterHall, President Dickey read the followingcitations:
Louis STEPHEN ST. LAURENT Canadian Secretary of State forExternal Affairs Ottawa, Canada
Louis STEPHEN ST. LAURENT, honored and welcome guest of Dartmouth College at this Commencement in her 179 th year, you come to us today as a man who already has had two distinguished careers and now may be on the threshold of an even greater one. Born in Quebec, graduate of St. Charles College and of Laval University in law, former President of the Canadian Bar Association, you have been for many years one of Canada's outstanding barristers. Since 1941, first as Minister of Justice and more recently as Secretary of State for External Affairs, you have served Canada with a measure of fidelity and competence far beyond the call of political duty even in your great country. The forthright and responsible lead you have given in working for a strong United Nations commands the respect and the thanks of good men everywhere. Ties of mutual interest and close association bind the traditional friendship of this college in our North Country with you across the border. Dartmouth prizes the privilege which is now hers of conferring on you her highest honor, the degree of Doctor of Laws.
FRANK PORTER GRAHAM President, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, North Carolina
FRANK PORTER GRAHAM, your name and your life have been in the mainstream of North Carolina history for forty years, as student, professor, and President at the University of North Carolina, as leader and participant in well-nigh every good cause in the community and for some years now as the most versatile and useful representative of your state and indeed the entire South in the critical affairs of this nation and of the United Nations. At real personal risk and sacrifice you have been willing to walk the path of public interest and wisdom through such bramble patches as social security, labor relations, racial relations, civil rights and the settlement of a bitter imperial quarrel. You possess that rare quality in human statecraft of being able to test your own convictions by principle and to govern your actions as to other men by the more lenient rule of reason. In tribute to the exemplary quality of your citizenship and to the great university whose spirit you both reflect and nurture, Dartmouth awards you her Doctorate of Laws.
BEN AMES WILLIAMS '10 Author Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
BEN AMES WILLIAMS, born a Mississippian and son of a father named Daniel Webster Williams: whatever else was ahead, you were surely predestined to be a graduate of Dartmouth College—it happened in 1910—and as one of America's foremost novelists, someday-it happened last year—to turn back to the struggle between North and South for your epic story, House Divided. After thirty highly productive and successful years as a professional writer of fiction and comment you have the truly earned satisfaction of having today achieved both your best work and the continuing acclaim of a "best seller's" audience. A past President of the General Alumni Association, you have been ever and keenly solicitous of Dartmouth's welfare and this Doctorate of Letters which she now confers upon you bespeaks the real warmth of family pride in you and your distinction.
ELWYN BROOKS WHITE Author, Poet, and Editorial Writerof The New Yorker New York, New York
ELWYN BROOKS WHITE, better known to most of us, including especially these gentlemen before you, as E. B. White of New Yorker fame, and possiby somewhat less well known, at least in these parts, as a graduate of Cornell University and a former editor of the Cornell Sun, you are among friends and followers here on Hanover Plain. In our time no man has said more, more clearly, more pleasantly and more briefly than you. With the prod of your pen you have lifted and loosened those man-made masks of nationalism and sovereignty and thereby you have recovered for men the truth that individual men are responsible for their world precisely because as individuals they hold its authority in their care. In token testimony of what you and your forum, that indispensable journal, mean to the joy and sanity of the literate world. Dartmouth confers on you her Doctorate of Letters.
LAURENCE FREDERICK WHITTEMORE President, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Boston, Massachusetts
LAURENCE FREDERICK WHITTEMORE, born and reared a New Hampshireman in Pembroke; it is through lives such as yours that we know what we mean when we use those select words of praise—"a good New Englander." Your extraordinarily broad experience in public office and in the private affairs of the North Country has given you a rare capacity both to perceive and to point out to others those areas of common ground between self-interest and public good on which the democracy of our industrial society thrives. You are no stranger to the Dartmouth family and it is with particular pleasure and genuine pride that we now formally seal the bond with her honorary degree of Master of Arts.
FRANK SCHUYLER DODGE '11 Proprietor of The Mountain View House Whitefield, New Hampshire
FRANK SCHUYLER DODGE, native and lifelong resident of Whitefield, New Hampshire, graduate of Dartmouth College in 1911; for three generations now you and your family have added grace and true distinction to one of the most ancient callings by which man has served his fellow men. Your home community, your illustrious class and your College have all been constant beneficiaries of your concern and uncommon generosity. In awarding you her honorary degree of Master of Arts, Dartmouth acknowledges her debt to you as a truly faithful servant of both her fellowship and her obligation to human society.
HONORARY DEGREE RECIPIENTS: Front row, left to right, Hon. Louis S. St. Laurent, President Dickey and Dr. Frank P. Graham. Back row, left to right, Frank S. Dodge 'll, Ben Ames Williams 'lO, Laurence F. Whittemore and Elwyn B. White. Honorary degrees were conferred by Dr. Dickey in Webster Hall.
ALUMNI HONORED AT 179 TH COMMENCEMENT: President Dickey chats with Author Ben Ames Williams 'lO, center, and Frank S. Dodge 'll both of whom received honorary degrees from the College.
