1897
At this time of year, when we are starting out on a campaign to raise the Alumni Fund, we ought to look facts in the face pretty squarely. Our College is in the same "perdicament" as most of the other institutions are, and that is some "perdicament."
The dollar we are using is better known than the old shin-plasters as we speak of it in the world market, but let a professor in college take one of these dollars and try to buy a couple of pork chops and some spuds and he'll find, if he looks back over the history of the pig, that he was fattened on grain that was regulated in price—not down like rents have been but up like eggs are being regulated and spuds are also regulated, so as to keep them on a high plane, not quite as high as truffles but near'bout.
We have done everything to make it hard to buy grub or repair shoes. If we could only get some robot-kind of professor who could lecture by playing records, we might figure out a way to beat the game of price juggling and price increases. Pork chops and books and bricks are up almost too expensive to think about—bricks anyway. We used to throw them in the wall with a mason getting $3.50 a day and he laid 1000 bricks. He went home feeling as if he had done a day's work. Now the gentleman of the trowel has to get about $20 a day and you all know he ain't going to lay over 500 bricks
—sort of become a habit with the crafts. Colleges use pork chops, spuds, books, bricks and shoes and lots of other things, all sky high in price and the dollar takes on a sort of shin-plaster value as it goes from cash register to cash register.
Some of the G.I. boys have money given to them and not worked for—l don't begrudge this at all—but they kind of thought that the long green grew on trees. Now we are getting about done with that group of fellows that went through on Uncle Sam in partawful nice fellows—but the College has got to go on now with finding its money and paying its bills like most anybody else, and a professor has got to buy grub and shoes and shirts just like a regular guy that lays bricks or mends shoes or works in a foundry.
What's all this economy talk got to do with a liberal arts college? Old "Gabe" in our day used to say, "All mentality has its corporeal relations." Translating that into today's meaning seems to indicate that the wise guy with a doctor's degree who is teaching has got to cater to a physical personality that eats and has to pay. The College has to have these wise guys around to keep its standing. It is too cold up in Hanover for them to dress like Gandhi and be economical with victuals. It just can't be done and that leads me up to this thought—our classmate, Hiram Tuttle, has got a job starting right now. This job is to take some shekels from us guys so that these wise guys that teach can eat and wear shirts and shoes. It is just as simple as that. We "fin de siecle guys" should get a little more free with the ink marks on bank paper to spruce up the "old gal" we call Alma Mater.
Postscript addressed to Hiram: I am sending my subscription to the Alumni Fund on a basis of 50% increase, doing this because I am afraid the "old gal," Alma Mater, may start making goo-goo eyes at Uncle Sam, and I hear he's been acting bad lately; drinking heavy a new kind of liquor known as English Socialism. Understand he has ordered a new pair of pants with quart-size pockets instead of pints that he used to wear. Kind-of got in trouble with his assets and liabilities, calling some liabilities assets because he owes them to himself. Think we've got to get behind the "old gal" before she runs away from home.
1897 Fund Contributors 39 Gifts (Participation Index 93). Total gifts: 11,134.00 (103% of objective). MORTON C. TUTTLE, Class Agent.
Adams, Benjamin F. Appleton, Fred S. Bacon, Arthur A.1 Balch, William H. Bolser, Charles E. Brown, Jay D. Butterfield, Ernest W.2 Carr, Edward G. Chase, Henry M. Christophe, Herman Drew, Frank E. Foss, George E. Gibson, H. Hamilton Gibson, Harry A.3 Ham, William H. Henderson, John R. Hilton, George F. Holt, Hermon Johnson, Frank C. Kelly, Walter F. Lull, Henry M.4 McCornack, Walter E.5 Marshall, Benjamin T.8 Meserve, John S. Mosher, Loren A. Noyes, Frank H.
Pender, Horace G. Rollins, Weld A. Rowe, Brainard A. Ryan, Joseph F. Sibley, John O. Smith, Erdix T. Temple, Winfield Tent, George E. Tracy, Charles A. Tuttle, Morton C. Ward, Roy J. Watson, Albert P. Woodworth, Edward K.7 MEMORIAL GIFTS FROM: 1 Son, Richard E. Bacon'30.2 Niece, Miss Minnie S.Butterfield.3 Brother, Hamilton Gibson '97.4 Mrs. Lull.5 Mrs. McCornack.6 Son, Andrew Marshall,'22.' Daughter, Mrs. C. LaneGoss.
CLASS AGENT HARRY D. LAKEMAN '96
CLASS AGENT MORTON C. TUTTLE '97
Secretary and Treasurer, 886 Main St., Bridgeport 3, Conn.
Class Agent, 862 Park Sq. Bldg., Boston 16, Mass.
