The Hanover Scene
THE other day, fortuitously solitary in our salon except for a stray dog that lives with us, and beset for the nonce by the music of neither Aaron Copland nor Liberace, we sneaked in a half hour of Show Boat recordings. The stoic sentiments of "01' Man River" cast us into sombre reflection on the transitoriness of the individual as opposed to the permanence of institutions, and we had a good cry thinking of the immutability of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, the Boston Athenaeum, McSorley's, and Dartmouth College. Each of these, though not uniquely, has sturdily survived turns of fortune, both good and ill, which at times seemed completely independent of the character of the attendant personnel. Each has stood as firmly as Gibraltar against the dashing of waves and the scampering of monkeys, steered but not essentially swerved (if you follow the flux of metaphor) by mortal agencies. "What is man?" we demanded dramatically of our farm collie, and were answered by an affectionate pantomime and a soapy nuzzle.
This display of unquestioning trust restored our faith in humanity to the extent of an admission that even the most stolid of institutions takes a peculiar and temporary stamp from the individuals chiefly responsible for its operation. Our justifiably renowned Republic has felt the special work of such as Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, and Rutherford B. Hayes. Locally we have enjoyed days of strong influence, from the fabled times of the elder Wheelock, through the stormy and not unhonorable period of Nathan Lord, the reconstruction under Dr. Tucker, and the broadening of plant and stature and purpose in this present disturbed century.
Through all its permutations, any institution with fundamental integrity - be it the Pierian Sodality or the Boston Herald - will endure, like the British Constitution; but the head man, the Boss, will spearpoint its greatness or its littleness. Final decisions on policy must come from the fellow in the office with the rug on the floor, and lesser crises may often demand a ukase when irreconcilable disputes arise on lower levels. Over the ground-glass partition are tossed the most extravagant and costly bouquets, and through it are hurled the heaviest brickbats. The top job is a lonely one, and contentment must frequently depend on how much the incumbent enjoys his own company.
All the while, the doss must hold to the basic principles of the college or scats or spindle factory that be controls, and will show his degree of greatness in the extent to which he relates his decisions to these principles. Lut another display of greatness is in the acuity with Ire selects his underlings and delegates responsibility to them. Much of the day's work is clone by tlie second-stringers, tlie boys in the smaller rectangles of the organisation chart, the undersung and underpaid fellows bebind the scenes, who do the grunting and take the rap. the top of any outfit, or subdivision thereof, is a man whose stature and perspective allow him an occasional disregard of the "regulations," and the head man can often afford to be a tolk and a softie as long as he has the assurance that somewhere in the back, room is a backer-upper who will make certain that nothing goes arniss. The bosses write the Constitution, but the boys in the louver echelons vrite the By-I.Laws, and get the trial balances and determine the proper mustard allowance for hot dogs. Their names may not be on the letterheads, but they have seen to it that the letterheads are in supply and that no stenographer goes storming around the shop kor lack of paper. They are tbe vice-presidents in charge of sealing wax and the withholding tax. They are like dear Mrs. Toggywinkle, who washed all the clothes, and ironed them and goffered them and shook out the frills. And in many instances the yeoman can be much more belpkul than the admiral, or the house click then the managing director.
The chief executive Fives his stamp to the institution he heads but, if he has built wisely, somebody else has made sure of the mucilage. President McKinley once shook hands with. the engineer. Maybe he should have shaken hands with the brakeman too.
