THE UNDERGRADUATE CHAIR

PERFORMING with all the acuity of professional ward-heelers, pollsters, and media men, Dartmouth students this fall turned Hanover into a microcosm of political activity.

Rallies were organized, voters were registered, posters, stickers, and buttons were distributed, motorcades were undertaken, and polls were conducted with an enthusiasm which refuted the allegation that this college generation is uncommitted or unconcerned. The youth of the candidates was a factor in summoning this enthusiasm.

The political rhythm set in early in the fall of 1959 when Nelson Rockefeller '30 made his ostensibly "nonpolitical" tour through New Hampshire. Later in the fall Hanover was the scene of the first-in-the-nation Rally for Rocky. That was when Dean Thaddeus Seymour dressed as Uncle Sam.

After "Rocky" had announced he would not be a candidate for the Republican nomination, political activity in Hanover threatened to die out. Kennedy, however, kept interest going. Up in New Hampshire bright and early for the so-called "early bird" Presidential primary, the junior senator from Massachusetts, amidst a throng of reporters from The Dartmouth, WDCR radio men with tape recorders, and joyous Democrats, addressed a jampacked Dartmouth Hall.

By the end of the school year last June the partisan campfires had been lit. A few resourceful students laid plots to get to the national conventions. Quite a few succeeded. One such student, Irwin "Red" Facher '61, after attending the Los Angeles Convention, returned to New Hampshire where he worked for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Bernard L. Boutin. After four weeks with Boutin, "Red" joined the forces of Dartmouth Professor Herbert W. Hill, Democratic candidate for U. S. Senator from New Hampshire. He was Hill's assistant campaign manager and was on leave from classes as a Class of 1926 Fellow.

Extracurricular politics blossomed this fall with a plethora of undertakings. Young Democrats and Republicans alike hastily called organization meetings. Attendance was standing room only. The Dartmouth and WDCR happily looked forward to ready-made news copy and planned for special coverage on election night.

Rushing conversation this year might have been a bit more contentious in nature than in previous years, particularly since the second night of rushing coincided with the first of The Great Debates. Yet, so far as is known, a man's politics were not considered a criterion for social acceptance, an idea not shared apparently by the candidates.

The Young Democrats with some eighty members, headed by Brian McCarthy '62, found themselves in the challenging position of working for a slate of candidates all of whom were running against Republican incumbents. Hill attempted against overwhelming odds to unseat long-time Republican Senator Styles Bridges, who over the years has become an institution in New Hampshire. "A-rootin' and a-tootin' " Bernard L. Boutin opposed Republican Governor Wesley Powell, who received considerable support, editorial and otherwise, from the powerful Manchester Machine. And then there was Kennedy, who needed as much help as he could get in New Hampshire against Vice-President Nixon who, some have said, tried to look like an incumbent.

Undaunted by the overwhelming Republican sentiment in the state and on campus, the Students for Kennedy, a subdivision of the Young Democrats, laden with stickers, posters, and pamphlets, set out to distribute their materials in dormitories and fraternities.

"We got booted out of nearly every house we went into," lamented Brian. "Everywhere we went we succeeded only in starting arguments among the brothers." Only four fraternities would permit posters, according to Brian, and the posters were gone the next day.

Road trips made by Students for Hill, another subdivision of the Young Democrats, were slightly colorful, admits Brian. Between towns the Democrats put up Hill, Boutin, or Kennedy posters, an act for which they were stopped twice by the State police. No posters of any kind, apparently, were allowed within 35 feet of the highway, or so the officer said.

In Littleton, some forty miles north of Hanover, while they were passing out literature in the streets, four members of the Students for Hill group spotted a Powell for Governor poster in the center of town. As Brian tells it, the four students put a Hill poster beneath the Republican one. Several townspeople objected, saying that the Democrats were nothing but a bunch of damned communists, and that they wanted "none of that kind of communist stuff around here." The students protested. Within a few minutes a fairsized crowd had gathered. Whereupon the constabulary, in the greater effort to preserve the peace in Littleton, sped the students on their way out of town.

The Young Democrats, together with the town Democratic organization, sponsored a rally in Hanover the latter part of October at which Boutin answered Powell's charges that he, Boutin, was "flim-flamming" the people of New Hampshire. Hill, in like manner, once again labeled Bridges as "the Senator from Yesterday."

In other kinds of activity, the Young Democrats, in a hearse, led a motorcade to Manchester to hear Kennedy wind up his campaign on November 7. Around campus, Democrats took to parking their cars in conspicuous places for passersby to see the bumper stickers. And the students for Kennedy sponsored a debate with the Young Republicans in which, admits Brian, "we got smeared."

The Young Republicans, boasting a membership of between 55 and 60 and headed by Art Kelton '61, confined their activities for the most part to Hanover. According to Art, the Republicans felt no need for road trips.

Students for Nixon-Lodge, as they were called (there was no Students for Bridges group on campus), joined with the Hanover Republican organization for the first time and divided the town into precincts, facilitating local campaigning and election preparations. In addition, the Dartmouth Republicans helped organize permanent clubs in three Vermont colleges.

The club held weekly meetings right up until the election, at one of which U. S. Representative Thomas B. Curtis '32 (Republican, Missouri), in town for a Great Issues lecture, addressed the group for more than an hour.

An absentee-voters campaign was set up by the Young Republicans, the purpose of which was to stimulate voting enthusiasm among the students. The group was organized into dorm captains, in much the same way professional politicians organize block leaders. Then on election day, explains Art, the Young Republicans, and Young Democrats too, drove people to the polls, baby-sat, and made phone calls to insure a good turnout.

Near the end of October the Flying Squadron, a group of prominent New Hampshire Republicans, among them Governor Powell, Senator Bridges, Representative Perkins Bass '34, along with a few of the county officials, passed through Hanover, stopping long enough for a luncheon at the Hanover Inn co-sponsored by the town and college Republican committees.

"Perhaps the most widely publicized thing that happened," says Art, "was when we made the trek to Manchester the last of September." One of the thirty students who made the trip to hear Nixon managed to place himself near the speaker's stand with a sign which read "Alger Hiss Doesn't Like Richard Nixon." The sign drew a chuckle from the Republicans on the stand, Nixon included.

The campus pollsters, meanwhile, were scurrying around looking for preferences. In an election year which found the professional politicians and pollsters alike chucking aside all their figures and theories and hurrying off to Delphi, the Dartmouth scene was somewhat reassuring.

In a poll sponsored jointly by TheDartmouth and WDCR, Nixon polled 59.6% among the students while Kennedy got 36.4%, with 4% of the students uncommitted. This is the lowest percentage figure ever compiled by a Republican on the campus. The figures were based on an 81.5% return on 2,900 postcard ballots mailed to students. In all good tradition of liberal orthodoxy, the faculty endorsed Kennedy by more than a 3-to-1 margin.

Tuck and Thayer students preferred Nixon by 65.5%, giving Kennedy 29.7% return.

Once the poll results were in and everyone knew the answer, once the number of letters to the editor began to dwindle (this year there was a rash of anti-Nixon letters), once The Dartmouth had endorsed its favorite (Kennedy got tapped this year), the campus was primed for the election night.

With extensive coverage in mind, WDCR swept into the College Hall ballroom on election night and staged an extravaganza unmatched anywhere among colleges in New England. A crew of 75 students manned the ballroom installations, masterminded and organized by Hal Levenson '61. A Dartmouth student was standing by in Washington, D. C., for an on-the-scene report, two were posted in Hyannisport, two in Manchester, and one in Rutland.

"WDCR invested more money in election-night coverage this year," comments Levenson, "than it ever has in anything up to now."

The whole set-up was coordinated by telephone headsets from the telephone company. Specific students were assigned to keep track of returns from each of the fifty states, a job which according to Hal, "required that each man know the nature of the campaign in his state, the political personality of the state, who was running in which party, and something about each of the candidates."

A special UPI trunkline was purchased for the night, in addition to the one already in use. Huge boards with sections for up-to-the-minute returns for each state were arranged for visitors to the show. In addition to national returns, every fifteen minutes the local returns were broadcast. Attractive hostesses were on hand with coffee, cider, and doughnuts to rescue any drowsy announcer or listener. Students got most of the refreshments.

During the course of the electionnight coverage, lasting from 8 until 4 in the morning, telephone interviews with Governor Powell, Vermont Governor (now U. S. Senator-elect) Robert T. Stafford, Professor Herbert Hill, State Representative (now Senator) Robert Monahan '29, and others were broadcast.

By the morning after - or in this unusual election, two days after — it was fairly evident Kennedy had made it and clinched it. The Class of 1965 will be seniors when the next national election rolls around. Meanwhile the Young Democrats and Young Republicans will be forever having a go at each other, as was so when this writer tried interviewing them together. The interview turned into a political hatdance, and lasted three hours.

The Hanover Inn Board of Overseers took part this fall in cornerstone laying ceremonies for the Hanover Inn Motor Lodge, scheduled to be opened next spring. L to r: Richard Olmsted '32, Business Manager of the College; Richard Treadway '36; James Landauer '23; Dale Nelson, contractor; Paul Young '43, assistant treasurer of the College; Donald D'Arcy '33; Eugene Tamburi '36; Ambrose McLaughlin '28; Alex McFarland '30; Victor Borella '30, and Chandler Foster '15, chairman of the Inn overseers.

Thomas K. Dalglish '61, who occupiesThe Undergraduate Chair this month, ismanaging editor of The Dartmouth. Agraduate of Park School in Indianapolis,he lives in Weston, Conn., and is a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity. Hisfather is J. Garven Dalglish '30.