Robinson Rondo
WHILE most men pillowed their heads on unopened books and slept in the sun this spring, one sanctuary of student activity remained. In the subterranean passages and secret cubicles of Robinson Hall, the usual interorganizational long wars were still going on.
In Robinson, the gears have always ground exceeding small. Freshmen caught in the heeling machinery of the high-pressured campus organizations are winnowed for years, the wheat escaping and the chaff eventually rising to directorate positions. Upperclassmen sucked into the vortex of feverish activity by influential friends are drowned with high-flown phrases and aweinspiring titles. Weak men are broken on the wheel of organization politics, and strong men graduate with occupational twitches.
The last of the military caste are graduating this spring, men who ruthlessly threw expendable subalterns to the myriad maws of the Administration when things got too hot, and continued their dictatorial duties unchecked by the ravenous appetities in Parkhurst that long to expel Editors, Chairmen, and Presidents. But their memories will linger, and men who never got past the Boy Scouts will rise to take their place, brandishing cigars like clubs, and glowering at the lowly heelers.
Each organization has a system all Jts own for controlling its men and maintaining its niche in Hanover society. The larger ones keep goon squads ready to fight encroachment on their territory, while the small groups keep their status by adroitly playing the dangerous game of power-politics.
Policy shifts are frequent, and former sympathizers of the DOC in the Camera Club may find themselves liquidated overnight. The party line is never clearly defined, and outspoken men guess wrong often, and drop like flies. The amazing thing is that notwithstanding this constant internecine war, things do get done.
Some time before ten every weekday, The Dartmouth hits the streets and the mailslots of subscribers. Of all the student groups, its policy is clearest. It does not like any other student group, and it likes itself quite well. By selling College Notices to faculty and students at a nickel a throw, it turns a tidy profit which is distributed in an undisclosed fashion. While not a crusader like its pre-war namesake, the paper occasionally plants letters in its columns, throwing other organizations into a ferment with destructive criticism and malicious analysis. The campus newsbeat has been snared by WDBS, so that the local and international news from the AP ticker is only filler material, and the editorial content consists mainly of feature articles on visitors to Hanover and Dartmouth's invincible teams.
Next door to the paper, the staff of the Aegis works quietly, turning out the best college yearbook in the country on a college subsidy. Working for only one issue a year, the staff lacks the romantic appeal of their more periodic neighbors and fulfills a job that no one else seems to want.
In the airy front rooms of the first floor, the DOC men work in shirtsleeves amid sharpened axes and empty beer cans. They are the only organization to see the light of day outside Robinson Hall, and consequently the only one known nationally among non-Dartmouth people. Quick to take offense at slights in the publications and on the radio, they are the terror of RoHnson Hall, and the loosely thrown term "Chubber" has been the death of many. Operating on a regional scale through the Intercollegiate Outing Club Association, the DOC keeps house for weaker colleges, and sees to it that chubbers all over New England wear the rough wool shirts of the guild.
Down in the cellar the Camera Club and Quarterly live in darkrooms. The Camera Club runs photograph contests a few times a year and wishes fervently f°r another Wendy Neefus in their midst. The Quarterly sells at 35 cents an issue, and manages to break even. The two organizations in a,umt loosely known as the "cellar bloc" throw weight disproportionate to their size in the tangled politics upstairs.
COSO, which embraces a variety of organizations united by poor finances, extends its grasp from the Camera Club on through the first floor offices of The Players to the Little Theatre on the second floor. Limited in funds, COSO draws its strength from its pretty secretaries, its graduate tycoons, and large office space. The Players, though cramped in pocket and quarters, present creditable plays through the year, and the 8:30 curtains are the only times non-Robinson students dare enter Robinson unescorted.
Up on the second floor, the DCU and Jackolantern thrive in anomalous propinquity. The DCU alone of Robinson organizations manages to keep strictly to good works in the terror-ridden atmosphere surrounding their office. Running work trips to needy communities in the neighborhood and managing entertainments down at the Vets' Hospital in White River, they are the only respected student group on campus. A book exchange provides them with some income, and the rest of their limited budget is supplemented with funds from COSO, the Undergraduate Council, and directly from the College.
Jacko occupies a three-room suite which is always locked. Behind curtained doors ghastly business is in continuous production, ranging from average monthly editions to the American Monthly parody, which paralyzed the campus as well as Mr. Hearst and Col. McCormick. Practically any dirty work on campus is correctly attributed to the warped sense of humor which festers in the inner circle, and when the Jacko hits the streets, even the canine population takes cover. A fleet of closed sedans shuttles the directorate to a clandestine press on the Boston waterfront, where the enormities are printed. While profits are known to be enormous, a large part must be spent in paying fines of the United States Post Office Department. Students and alumni occasionally laugh at the magazine, but they never lose their awareness of its macabre overtones.
Perched on the top of Robinson Hall, WDBS broadcasts from a small unit and is heard only locally. This year they bought a UP ticker and adroitly inserted it as a wedge between the DCU and Jackolantern in a handy closet. They are not monitored by the FCC or the Post Office Department, so their analysts frequently get away with murder. Station policy calls for soporific tunes early in the morning that make many men miss their 8-o'clocks, and im- ported recordings in the evenings that drive men to take mid-week weekends. When an organizational war is on, WDBS talks more and longer to the local popula- tion, when anyone cares to listen.
Through the years the war will still go on in Robinson Hall, and it is small won- der that the average student would sooner brave the administration sanctuaries in Parkhurst Hall than risk his life and repu- tation in Robinson.
EDITOR OF JACKOLANTERN
