1897

In our February column Senator WalterKelly was maliciously charged with sitting under the "cheese box" capitol at Columbus. Tain t so. He is a State Senator in the Hoosier State and he sits there, says what he wants to say in the State Capitol of that great state which is located in Indianapolis, Ind.

If "Hiram" Tuttle spells Indianapolis by ear, the letters may go wrong. If "Hiram" can't spell Indianapolis, he might address it to "Mike" at Squash Hollow, New Milford, Conn.—marked "Forward." This is "Mike's" summer goose farm. It is a nice place to drive to if you are sober, quite a ways in the woods, crooked road, liable to slew a little going around maple stumps.

In the two years of class reporting for the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, there comes from your letters a lot of satisfaction which grows. Reading over these letters, four of them are so definite that they stand out and I want to refer to them in this article. First the letter from "Poddy" Parker. He said in a few words enough to bring back to me the "Poddy" that we knew so well in college. I personally knew him very closely and loved him as a jolly companion. It jolted me a little at first to learn that he was a deacon of a church, but as I mull over this and the fact that he had also been a selectman of Pepperell. I have come to the conclusion that if all the churches had a man like "Poddy" for a deacon it would be better for the churches. I like to feel that his outstanding characteristic through life has been friendliness. I'd like to bet that as a selectman he would "insist" that the lumber dealers who sold the town lumber with knot holes in it should furnish tins to cover the holes.

John Henderson down by his furnace with a kitten playing with the shavings while he planes off a good piece of Vermont maple leaves in my mind a picture of a man I should like to know better, should like to talk with him about woods and tools and the making of things. Would like to exchange ideas about this hobby of his and some of my own. I have a chair, a copy of one made by a minister (I like the title minister better than clergyman), which was reproduced in the spirit of the Rev. Barlow chair—made in Danbury a long time ago; the original sold for §l7OO. I am sending John a picture of this chair. Maybe he will want to copy it. I would like to have him see a table made with various kinds of wood—apple, cherry and black birch for the top and legs, and trimmed with boxwood, ebony and curly maple. This table was made for a fraternity house some years ago in the middle of the depression by a craftsman who was paid S3OO for making it. This income at that serious time saved his business. I see in this table hidden interests and I think John would feel as I do about it. I think it's one of the best tables in Hanover. I know John would join me in being happy that there was money to buy such a table in that difficult time and save the business of a man who has a certificate signed by the Mayor of his own city in Denmark as to his having finished with honor under the supervision of the University seven long years as an apprenticed craftsman wood-carver.

I had a chance to see the bare cupboards in the depression and also an opportunity to do something about it. Using wool, iron and wood, as our ancestors did, thirty families were saved because of my being able to guide them and sell their handicrafts. Everyday I see beautiful things that these people made and sold. Outstanding among these was one woman who spun yarn with a spindle stick, nothing but a dowel pin about 14" long with a button hook on one end and a door knob-size weight at the bottom. She spun yarn just as it was spun a thousand years ago, and she made about a thousand dollars doing this right in the middle of the depression. I never went to her home to get the yarn and pay her the money that I didn't see the tears of joy in her eyes and hear her say, "God bless you." I am writing this to John Henderson because he wrote me about his cellar, the kitten and his wood working tools shiny bright. You fellows can read it if you want to but it is to John I write. He has promised to send me a sermon sometime. I hope he does.

Judge Sibley's letter had to be expurgated to get by the censor. If any of you fellows will write me asking for the one paragraph that was left out, I'll send it to you. It's a honey. I think of our times as being taken over by three ideologies. I like Webster's definition of the term as it relates to sensations—and I make a plea for plenty of sensations in our present-day programs lest we settle down as docile followers of some commentator in his twelve minute statements in between two ends of a soap opera with a reference to some kind of pills in the middle of it. "Sib" put into his letter a sensation that is really written in bold letters with black ink on snow-white paper. No doubt about where he stands. I like to think of these ideologies as being of three types—front door—back door—and side entrance; front door-America as it ought to be, back doorRussia as it is, and side entrance—all kinds of socialism. I like to think of "Sib" standing on his porch with his feet apart right in front of his front door speaking out what he said in his letter. His is the best I've seen of what I call "front door ideology." I didn't know "Sib" much in college, remember him as small and quiet. I am sorry as I read his letter over and over that I missed growing up with him during our four wonderful years at Dartmouth. If you fellows would all write me letters as good as John's and "Sib's," I'll have them printed in a book to leave behind us a showing of ourselves as we really are.

Eddie Carr is more to be pitied than blamed for standing still in a world that moves, as John Poor told me, at the rate of 17 miles a second, going down the milky way (some supersonic speed). If Eddie had written his letter as an essay in English in 1897 not a sentence would be out of place and only one reference to the Deity. Ain't it true that the same sparkle, the same sub-conscious wit comes out from that ink well of his fifty vears after? When I get mad about some fool regulation, I have to obey "or else," I get out Eddie's letter and laugh and read it to my wife and she laughs and the brighter colors of a sunset become apparent. I knew Eddie well in college. I am happy about that. I think when I print this book of letters Eddie's will sell it. If Eddie wants another pair of pants on reasonable terms as to depreciation and some down-payment, I'll make a pair for him from some cloth I have leftover from my handcraft days, pretty scratchy cloth, but durable.

Secretary and Treasurer

886 Main St., Bridgeport 3, Conn.

Class Agent, 862 Park Sq. Bldg., Boston 16, Mass.