The Undergraduate Chair

THERE will be no talk of undergraduate caprice under bright blue autumn skies this month. For, in spite of fond hopes, prayers and imprecations, the Hanover heavens (fully exercising their prerogative as Administrators of NewEngland Weather) alternately drenched the campus with April rain and February snow, while the Administration underneath considerably narrowed the horizons of collegiate whim by a series of new restrictive edicts.

The first came as no great surprise on October 14, as the Undergraduate Council Judiciary announced that the minimum penalty for violation of the new 1 a.m. drinking curfew was to be increased to probation. Punishments for minor offenses were also upped, in retaliation for "excessive violations" of the drinking rules last year.

The Interfraternity Council, with an eye to the rapidly approaching Houseparties, asked that the Sunday curfew be relaxed, and on October 15 the new Dean and the Committee on Administration met to issue the first positive ruling of the year. Drinking was to be permitted between 12 and 2 on Sunday afternoon of big weekends, but the early morning "milk-punch-jazz-band" parties were given the official heave-ho.

With a drinking compromise effected, the Committee turned to new matters, and four days later came the first official ukase on class-cutting: an official College warning was to be the penalty for all pre- and post-holiday cuts.

Meanwhile, a satisfied IFC set itself to a little introspection. A detailed investigation of procedures in the rushing period just ended provided the first major scandal of the year: Psi Upsilon, after due process and several hearings, was fined $50 and fifty points in interfraternity competition for what was delicately called "illegal rushing procedures." Investigation of other suspected violations led to a three-week-long debate on rushing procedures, no definite action on revision has yet been taken.

As the IFC and the College Administration were putting the clamps on the fraternities, Palaeopitus was wondering what to do about the freshman hats, which hadn't appeared on many freshman heads since the eminently successful Holy Cross bonfire. On Tuesday before the Rutgers game, the student policy committee issued an edict of its own: all freshmen were to buy hats and to wear them until the freshman-sophomore tug-of-war which would be held in a week. The Class of '56 complied and disgruntled upperclassmen were a little placated by the sea of white caps on the 30-yard-line the following Saturday. And the entire student body was more than a little placated by the showing of the football team the same afternoon.

As the election pace grew tense, the campus occupied itself with prosaic necessities of the year. The freshmen (500 of them) pulled the sophomores (250 of them) across the green and into the mud in the annual inter-class skirmish. With bitter memories of a split log and several broken limbs, Palaeopitus used a single rope, stretched diagonally across campus. This didn't help the sophornores any: they got just as wet as they usually do.

Assistant Dean Arthur H. Kiendl received a big package in the mail that week. No Christmas present, it turned out to be a collection of trophies lifted from fraternity houses during the first football weekend by exuberant Holy Cross fans, and interrupted in their Worcester distribution by the public-relations-minded administration of that Crusading college.

Meanwhile, the IFC declined to kill fraternity pledge trips because they "don't incur much public resentment," and Wheeler Hall was put on and off probation after a bottle-bowling game on the third floor. The Theta Delts piled into their purchased bus for the two-block trip to G.I. every Monday night, and two Tuck School men disguised themselves as mismatched sophomores and laughed at rushing chairmen in five different fraternity houses before they were unmasked. But that was just a baby hoax.

As Hanover migrated en masse to Cambridge for the Harvard weekend on the 24th, forty members of The Dartmouth staff lingered mysteriously behind. The reason was a sweet revenge that had been long in coming: a parody of the HarvardCrimson, announcing that, among other things, Governor Dever had "condemned" the Harvard Stadium as unsafe after revamping, that the Crimson was changing its editorial stand from Stevenson to Eisenhower, that Dick Clasby had broken a contact lens, and that the Harvard Dining Association was revoking its food ties with John Faris Jelke.

At 4:30 a.m. Saturday, copies of the parody were substituted for almost every copy of the real Crimson delivered on campus.

The Crimson circulation manager discovered the substitution at 6:go, and the "great chase" of the weekend was on. Campus police were alerted, and promptly became so confused that they began to confiscate copies of the real Crimson. All newsstands in the Square were switched. Radcliffe College, switched at point of distribution, received parodies delivered by the regular Crimson newsgirls. A second emergency run was also hi-jacked. The weekend, thought the Dartmouth directorate, was a perfect success.

As the election drew nearer, the campus forgot its prosaic necessities. Sixty members of the faculty signed a letter endorsing Stevenson for the presidency. Four students crashed a party for the Illinois governor and waved a Dartmouth banner in his face. The Great Issues Steering Committee turned its pre-election program over to a student panel. And William G. S. McKee '54 found himself arrested for "attempted assassination of Adlai Stevenson."

McKee watched with the multitudes Sunday morning of Harvard weekend as the Democratic candidate rode to church in Harvard Square. As he watched, the police snapped to attention and the motorcycles roared. And, as he watched, one policeman ran so fast that he dropped his gun from his holster. Being a polite soul, McKee stooped to hand it back, and, before three seconds had elapsed, had caused three double-takes, a motorcyclesquad car smashup and a local riot.

"Just about that time, three policemen grabbed me from behind," he said. " 'Hands up in the name of the law,' they said. So in the name of the law I put my hands up."

The three policemen dragged him through the crowd, and as they stopped to sympathize with the injured motorcycle driver, McKee slipped through the throng. "Assassination," he said indignantly, "why I never even got a good look at the guy."

Election Day neared, and WDBS, TheDartmouth and most of the campus made plans for an all-nighter. A second student poll by The Dartmouth showed Eisenhower still ahead, 1457-470. But only 1388 on election night thought that Eisenhower would win.

Perhaps the biggest news after the election was a change in the local picture: Hanover switched from "dry" to "wet" in a 800-773 referendum.

Houseparties came and went, and with it went the change of the seasons. It was autumn when the bonfire was lit Friday night, but it was Winter Carnival already with the victory celebrations Sunday morning. The weather bureau gave the town an official 2½" of snow, and two student auto accidents gave warning that winter was upon us, and that the tarred roads and the green campus were gone until duckboard time next spring.

To former members and other inter- ested alumni the Dartmouth Outing Club is offering for sale the new DOC pin pictured above. Made of gold- plated silver, the pin is enameled in green and white and is a permanent insignia of the Club as distinct from the annual membership pin. The price is $1.50. Persons interested in purchasing pins should send their order and payment to the Secretary of the Dartmouth Outing Club. Robinson Hall, Hanover, N. H.