The Hanover Scene
IT was, ohneZweifel, a production. How it all started is shrouded in the mystery of who puts and who takes honorary degrees from educational institutions, but the news leaked out from Washington in time for TheDartmouth to headline that come June 14 the President would receive an L.I.D. from the College. Immediate smart speculation was for a Homburg, but to many on the College official staff it was a more serious matter. Various high local brass hegiraed to the White House for consultation with Presidential assistants and the Secret Service, and started the considerable process of laying out a volume of maps and blueprints.
We ourselves are fairly relaxed in the matter of productions, dying only nine deaths every autumn for the weather, the state of the national economy, the unpredictable performance on the playing field of a couple of dozen of our students, and the even more unpredictable performance of the old and seasoned players of sister institutions. We will admit, however, that this time it was a special case, not faced by the College since James Monroe, hon. 1817, was awarded a Doctorate of Laws. An observer was sent to William and Mary to see how they worked it, and our people were in constant touch with the Secret Service to set things up on a basis satisfactory to that understandably meticulous agency.
Our view of the whole procedure was a strictly cross-campus one, even though our narrow little nook was for a time threatened as an alternate robing locale. We have, however, been privileged to scan the thirty-two pages of detailed instructions to everybody from Jeanette Gill, who furnished sandwiches for the Press, to the unsung hero who posted rest room signs in seven College buildings. It was a triumph of organization, and there is no local Abou Ben Adhem to head the list of those to whom credit should go; too many people were equally involved in planning and carrying out the extraordinarily intricate program.
Eight special local phone lines were installed, in addition to the state-secret direct lines to Washington. Eleven thousand, seven hundred folding chairs were imported, and seventy straightbacked chairs and twenty-five ashtrays were installed in the Little Theatre for the use of the Press. As a matter of fact, the College treated the Press with even more than its customary hospitality, furnishing them a plethora of turkey sandwiches, and other delights, to say nothing of thirty-five pages of beautifully typed information which left them nothing to speculate on but the President's "book-burning" statement.
But that was only part of it. Traffic, parking, tickets, the airport, seating, grounds, ushering, direction signs, music, security all required a wealth of attention to timing and detail that is approached locally only in the staging of athletic contests. And all this was further complicated by the necessity of making four separate plans: (a) clear day or drizzle exercises at Baker; (b) light rain exercises at Baker; (c) downpour exercises at Gymnasium; (d) exercises start at Baker shift to Gymnasium.
"It is requested that the Chief of Police have available men to handle any traffic situation which may arise as a result of the above four plans; also to handle crowds as the Secret Service may request."
The Secret Service was on the job early, three of them losing eighteen golf balls in one afternoon the week before Commencement. When der Tag arrived, they were thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks in Vallom-brosa. One could spot them by their hats definitely for the subway even though they might have been disguised as roustabouts, telephone linemen, B.M.O.C.'S, or Gallup pollsters. They were housed, along with the Press, in dormitories, and were all given in-scribed pictorial booklets of the College by President Dickey in sincere appreciation of their friendly efficiency. When somebody stole the head man's copy, he was given a replacement.
Saturday evening, Main Street and the West Lebanon road were lined with spectators of the cavalcade from the airport, and if their welcome was not quite as emotional as that on an early Sunday morning in 1921 when the football team returned from a 7-59 lacing by Cornell, it was none the less a sincere tribute to an honored guest.
Sunday morning early the President and John Dickey looked through Baker Library and inspected the ski jump. The President chatted with Tommy Keane and walked along the 15th fairway, but even the Commander in Chief of our armed forces would not attempt the 14th, or Boy Scout, hole. Then, at Sherm Adams' suggestion, they all dropped in to call on Jay Gile, sick abed, and if we were an early morning visitor in Hanover we couldn't think of a pleasanter thing to do.
Some of the seniors affected to be a little unhappy over the arrangements, holding, with not unprecedented undergraduate inaccuracy, that Commencement had always been staged in the Bema. For our own inadequate money, the setting on the Baker lawn was perfect. A pretty little salvable platform had been erected (at some length) in front of the main entrance of the building; a slight shallowness of lawn contour had previously been levelled, that our first Republican President since 1932 might not have to face a depression; the shade was much more gratifyingly ample than in the College Park; and Sherm Adams sneaked around and took a couple of Leica shots.
The President of the Class of 1953 gave the President of the United States a senior cane. We wonder what he will ever do with it. We wonder, for the matter of that, what we ever did with ours.
REHEARSAL: President Dickey and other college officers make sure that everything will go off smoothly at Commencement—which it did.
