PARIS

means "home," and a lovely one in Spring, for the 12-man Dartmouth colony there

DARTMOUTH men in Paris an interesting subject! But it might be better to look a little beyond, and consider for a few moments the subject of Americans in Paris.

The American living in Paris is apt to be a bit of an individualist, and yet a person who is at home in France as well as in the United States. He profits from his knowledge of both of them. As an American he doesn't live in the past but thinks toward the future with a certain faith and confidence. He has the habit of producing and consuming, and of saving for these purposes. More concretely he might be called a materialist, but only by those who haven't realized that production is a matter of faith, a pure spiritual affair, for he who is cynical and disabused produces not. Our faith in the future of man, in God and in ourselves is the one side of us that most Europeans never understand. However that may be, Dartmouth men in Paris share with other Americans everywhere in the world the same straightforward beliefs as well as their more evident material manifestations. We remain American.

But France in general and Paris in particular have many things to offer us too. We find here a sense of the past, and thus are better able to judge our own accomplishments and ideas. But more basically, we enjoy a greater personal freedom. Life here isn't a matter of keeping up with the Joneses, living in the right neighborhood, belonging to the right club in short, of competing, competing, competing. There is time here to think, to relax, to enjoy life; there is time to come face to face with fundamental values. In short, to be an individualist.

The French call France douce. I've never been able to translate that word satisfactorily, but I believe that it is a sort of combination of mellow, soft, sweet, quaint, charming, unique, all blended together by the innate good taste of the French. This is something like the type of thing I've noticed in beautiful old New England towns. Transfer the site to a much milder climate, people the site with an essentially Latin population, and one has an excellent idea of the many petits coins found all over France, many of them within a short weekend trip of Paris.

And then of course Paris itself has a great deal to offer to an American. A listing of the theaters, cinemas, orchestras, museums, etc. would be banal, to say the least, but it would give some indication of the enormous intellectual and cultural activity of this city. All of these activities overflow into the many cafes and parks, in effect, into daily life. Certain aspects of it are almost unknown to tourists.

Pleasant as all this may be, most Americans in Paris are here because they are very interested in their work. I know that such is the case so far as Dartmouth men are concerned. The largest concentration of alumni in Paris is to be found at the Hotel Wagram on the Rue de Rivoli. The hotel, among other buildings, has been taken over by the Office of the Special Representative of the Mutual Security Agency. Guy Mallett '43 is comfortably installed there in a private office on the second floor. Guy first came to Paris with TWA way back in the days of rationing of food, electricity, gas, coal and oil. After a period as traffic manager in Geneva, he returned to Paris a few years ago to take a position with E.C.A. and he is now a member of the Industrial Resources Division of M.S.A. Guy and his wife and child are old Paris hands, and life is now considerably gayer in rationless Paris.

Up three more flights in the Hotel Wagram, Ralph Holben '39 is hard at work. Ralph, the son of a Dartmouth professor, is an economist. He has been with the Government since 1939, and is an expert on labor questions, an always difficult and delicate job in this divided country. Ralph and his wife have become devotees of the French theater, but many weekends are spent traveling around France. It is possible to cover a very large part of France in this manner; by car the chateaux of the Loire, Bourgoine, Normandy, Brittany and Reims are not far at all.

Also in the Hotel Wagram is Bob Marr '30 of the Personnel Division. Bob and his wife returned to the States in May, as did Ralph and his wife, but in each case, it is only a matter of leave to visit the United States after the usual two-year tour of duty. They expect to return to Paris this summer.

So far as classes are concerned, 1943 has the strongest representation. I have already ready mentioned Guy Mallett. Howie Thomas '43 is attached to the United States Embassy in Paris, but he actually lives and works at one of the consulates in France. To return to Paris, however, there is also Dick Pierce and myself. Dick works on the mezzanine at American Express, Hotel and Travel Reservations Section. He has a French wife and may be counted among the real Paris veterans. Dick came to Paris right after the end of the last war when he was discharged from the service. He should be rated as one of the luckiest Dartmouth men in Paris for just after the war he met and became a good friend of the head of the chefs' association. He subsequently tasted more rare wines and good food than most Parisians experience in a life time. His luck has been compounded by the purchase of an entire wine cellar at a ridiculously low price.

The dean of Dartmouth men in Paris is Horton P. Kennedy '18. Mr. Kennedy, of Morgan & Cos., received me in the magnificent offices of that company, which is located on Place Vendome, just across from the Ritz Hotel. Mr. Kennedy, who came to Paris in 1920, after having seen it for the first time during World War I, has considered Paris his home ever since that date. He has a great many friends, both French and American, in Paris. He is President of the American Club of Paris, and he has been on the boards of the American Students and Artists Center, the American Chamber of Commerce in France, the American Overseas Memorial Day Association as well as other charitable and commercial French and American organizations.

We in Paris are also honored to have with us two members of the enormous Frothingham clan. Bob, of the class of '41, has recently been working in Brussels, but he came to Paris last year. He has a wife and family, and has now settled in for a long tour of duty with General Motors. Fortunately Bob has an apartment, for Tony '44, who returned a couple of months ago after six months in the States, has not yet found his own flat. Apartments are very hard to come by in Paris, even when one pays a high rent. A small furnished independent place is the goal, of course, of every unmarried American in Paris. Tony, one of the two Americans working in the large Kodak establishment in France, has an office in the Avenue Montaigne building. He speaks fluent French and German, with the result that he entertains a good many of the visiting firemen, of which Kodak seems to have its share.

Living in Paris on the Quai de NewYork, but working at windswept Orly International Airport is Richard A. Gratz '35 of TWA. I asked for Mr. Gratz only to learn that he was on a round-the-world trip and would be back Saturday night. Monday I dashed out to Orly to see him, only to find him in conference with the C.A.A. He left again that night for Athens. His responsibilities extend from Paris to India: a busy man indeed. At the time this is written, J. H. W. Sawyer '31 T. General Manager of Marvet on Rue Miromesnil, is in New York. His office informed me that he would return soon.

In the suburbs of Paris, at Pare Saint Maur, resides Tom Wright '44 with his charming wife and children. They have now completed several years of residence in this area. Tom is studying voice. He is, in this as in other things, a perfectionist, but he does hope to return to the United States in another year or so to take up the more active phases of his singing career.

I believe that it was Ralph Holben who evoked Hanover the other day by saying that he would like to spend every fall in Hanover, and every spring in Paris. Spring has come to Paris.

Carl Batter '43, the author, is practicing law in Paris, at 3 Avenue Bertie Albrecht. He was graduated from Georgetown Law School in 1948 and is a member of the bar in both Maryland and the District of Columbia.