Dartmouth Night

THE 1949 observance of Dartmouth Night, the 55th annual celebration without a break since President William Jewett Tucker started it in 1895, was staged on the lawn in front of Dartmouth Hall on October 7, the night before the Dartmouth-Holy Cross game. The outdoor program was held under threatening skies but the rain did not begin to fall until near the very end and by that time nothing could mar the success of the "old tradition."

Aerial bombs and clanging bells heralded the start of the celebration, and after a torchlight parade had followed the Band around the campus the crowd assembled before floodlighted Dartmouth Hall, impressively white in the dusk. Bob Kilmarx '50, president of Palaeopitus, introduced the speakers, who included Coach Tuss McLaughry, Captain Herb Carey, Sidney C. Hayward, who read telegraphic greetings from Dartmouth alumni clubs, and finally President Dickey. The Dartmouth Glee Club and a Holy Cross octet also took part in the program.

President Dickey's short and informal talk was punctuated with rain drops, but even if it had poured (which it later did) no one would have missed the lighting of the giant bonfire in the center of campus. The freshman class had done itself proud in building the biggest and most neatly engineered pile seen in many a year. One more aerial bomb scared the Hanover kids, out in full force along with the balloon men, and the kerosene-soaked bonfire went up in a roar, the rain hissing as it struck. It was a spectacular conclusion to a big evening, and as The Dartmouth commented editorially the next morning, "It can rain in Hanover, as it did last night, but Dartmouth College doesn't ever get completely wet.... because Dartmouth College is too big a thing to ever get rained on all over at the same time. That's something you know, but it really hits home on Dartmouth Night."