1916

The Class has been saddened by the death of Mason Huse which occurred the latter part of November. Mase was back for the Fantastic Fortieth, for which all of us can be very grateful. Although he was a prominent banker, with all the dignity that implies, Mase had his lighter moments. He was a member of the Ethan Allen Four quartet, and at the time of his death president of the Burlington chapter of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America. He was also a member of the Masonic order and of the Ethan Allen Club. His standing in the community and in banking circles is attested by the hundreds of people who attended his funeral. These included Burlington city officials and bankers from New York city and New England. The Class expresses its deepest sympathy to his wife, Mathilde and the other members of his family. A fuller account of his life will be found in the In Memoriam section.

I have had word from Sig Larmon '14 that he is establishing a scholarship at Dartmouth as a memorial to his brother, Pike Larmon. Sig writes that because of Pike's devotion to Dartmouth it has seemed to the family most appropriate to provide a scholarship for deserving young men who otherwise could not attend the College. He said that they would like to call this, the Class of 1916 Scholarship, and the Executive Committee is only too glad to have it so named. The terms would be the same as those under which the 1914 Scholarships were established, namely that the award would be in addition to any scholarship appropriations that might be made by the Board of Trustees. The qualifications for the applicants would be generally those which apply to Rhodes Scholarships. While candidates might be suggested by any members of our Class final selection would be entirely within the province of the College authorities. The scholarships will be established in the principal amount of $35,000, which, at the current rate of return, would produce about $1,500 per annum for the recipient. This would mean that there would be a 1916 Scholarship man continuously in the College. Sig, we are highly honored and very grateful to you and your family for associating the Class with this Scholarship in memory of Pike, who was such a loyal member of the Class of 1916, and who loved Dartmouth so dearly.

Dick Parkhurst tells me that the novel, "Wine of Fury" which Leigh Rogers wrote in 1924, following his being in Russia in the employ of the National City Bank, has not been lost to posterity. The book was widely discussed upon its publication. The Morning Post (London) called it "a wonderfully vivid, circumstantial and understanding picture of Russia in revolution, - by far the most illuminating study that has yet been written of that tremendous event." The Illustrated News (London) referred to it as an extraordinarily powerful book,— in atmosphere alone a tour de force. In this country the New York Times said that among modern novels it stood a unique and compelling work of tremendous force. The World (New York) called it powerful, thrilling and thought-compelling, while the Boston Transcript referred to it as a remarkable novel, intense, sustaining and compelling. Quite an array of talent on display there. As Leigh wrote Dick:

About the only adverse comments were from the pink or red publications. The great Manchester Guardian, for instance, said that the Reds never indulged in terrorist tactics in Russia and it was obvious that I had never been inside that country! I remember what a shock it was to me at that time to learn that serious publications would slant their book reviews according to their political inclinations. Hence all the more power to the old Boston Transcript which did no slanting, despite the fact that is was a great admirer of Ernest Poole, who wrote The Harbor, a novel which was published while we were in college. Poole was a close friend of John Reed, the American communist (Harvard) who meddled around in the Russian Revolution when I was in Petrograd, and was said to be a Socialist, at least. Funny thing about Wine of Fury; published 33 years ago, you'd think it would be dead as a dinosaur by this time. But no. Word comes in from time to time of its being put on the required reading list in courses in history at one university or another. Shades of the old Dartmouth Library! Not so long ago the British Broadcasting Co. paid me 100 pounds for permission to use excerpts from it on one of their programs, and there's been one instance of permission being asked to use certain parts in a textbook on English composition as illustrations of the proper way to construct a paragraph. This last is a killer-diller to me, who has never been able to do anything with the English language beyond carrying on a guerrilla warfare with it for 40 years. In fact, as I readily admit, the literary style of the book is uneven at best, and the least good thing about it. As one English review said, "It is a rocky journey, but one well worth making."

News of our erstwhile (I hope) invalids: Gran Fuller and Alec Jardine are both home from the hospital and well repaired, due to the kindly ministrations of our own Park Hayden. Stirling Wilson, at a Christmas writing, was still undergoing many tests in the Naval Hospital at Bethesda, Md. Jack English has returned from the Chelsea Naval Hospital and reports that the blood clots in his eye are disappearing, thanks to the miracle of the new drugs. Word from Gil Tapley is that he is feeling better, thank you. Gardner Morey has had a rough year, but says that he is "licking the ol' debil." Apparently they didn't remove his sense of humor, as you will see if you watch closely for the next issue of this column. Jock Fletcher was under the weather for about two months, but is now back at work. Judge Phillips has been quite ill and I am sorry not to have a more definite word as this sheet goes to Hanover. I hope that the New Year brings to all of the above a return to good health.

To wrap up the football season: I hadn't intended to go to the Columbia game, but that Saturday dawned clear and beautiful and the old car headed naturally for New York. However it should have stood in bed a couple of weeks later, - the Princeton game. Believe it or not, I enjoyed the game, snow and all. It was one that bore out the observation of the Ivy League, made many times during the season, that on a given Saturday almost any team in the league could run up a score on any other.

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