The 50-Year Address

JOHN CROSBY, the popular columnist, remarked recently that we are being crucified by the clock. I know now what he meant because twelve minutes have been allotted to me within which to recite the saga of men whom "the Still North will remember" for a hundred years.

THE BIRTH OF 1911

In September 1907 a feeling of suppressed excitement pervaded Hanover until one day the cry was heard " 'leven up." It came from the throats of 376 lads who hailed from 26 states and included one from China. From the timbre of that cry one knew that 1911 had arrived and that it was rugged.

Another rugged character was in town that fall. He was ludge David Cross of the Class of 1841 who spoke to the College on Dartmouth Night in our freshman year at the age of 90. He had known Webster and had heard him speak many times. He had attained the age of 19 during the lifetime of one member of the Class of 1771, the first to graduate under Wheelock. We found in Judge Cross our point of contact with the romance and fortitude of Dartmouth's historic past and elected him an honorary member of 1911.

UNDERGRADUATE DAYS

The memoirs of the colorful Jake Bond - the official babysitter of that era — would disclose, lam sure, his opinion that we were a class that would bear watching. But certainly we were more respectful and tolerant than were the students in a class in psychology to whom an instructor lectured for 45 minutes. At the conclusion he observed that if his young men had followed the lecture closely they should know his age. With surprising speed a hand was raised and a voice called out "44." The instructor beamed but then pressed his luck too far. He asked the student to explain how the lecture had helped him find the correct answer. Said the student, "Sir, I have a cousin who is 22. He is half nuts, so I figured you must be 44."

1911 takes justifiable pride in many accomplishments. To cite but one, we are gratified that, thanks to the vision of that intrepid classmate who founded the Outing Club, our class will always be associated with the conversion of the Hanover winter from a bleak liability to the fabulous asset it is today. That classmate died just two days ago. His face bore many wrinkles and, if I may be permitted to paraphrase Shaw's affectionate comment about Duse, I would say with like affection that his wrinkles were the credentials of his humanity.

Then too, although this is by no means unique with 1911, when we were in college the tuition we paid covered only 55% of the cost to the College for our education so that when we graduated the College had invested about $165,000 in our 376 men. But we have evened that score, having reimbursed the College over the years to the extent of well over half a million dollars.

The faculty of our day was composed of many splendid scholars and devoted teachers who, without any apparent strain to themselves, exposed us to all the learning we were competent to absorb. But the most important factor in our progress from boyhood to manhood in college was the access which was ours during freshman and sophomore years to the mind and heart and conscience of our great leader, Dr. Tucker.

DR. TUCKER

We are all indebted to Dr. Tucker. He accepted the Presidency in 1893, determined to test Dartmouth's potential as a national college. In sixteen years he practically rebuilt the plant, the teaching fa. cilities, and the faculty; and then, without turning his back on New England, he faced the rest of the country with a come hither look in his eye. How well he planned (with important assists from those two giants who followed him, "Hoppy" Hopkins and John Dickey) is evidenced by the fact that last year on this campus all fifty states of the Union, the District of Columbia, the Canal Zone and thirty foreign countries were represented in the student body. What a liberal education it is merely to live and move and have one's being for four years in such a community the size of Hanover!

And I dare to hope that one day a certain tablet in Webster Hall may be replaced by another reading substantially as follows:

Founded by Eleazar Wheelock; Refounded by Daniel Webster; And on their historic foundations Reconstructed by William Jewett Tucker That Dartmouth might fulfill its Destiny as a college for all America.

THE GREAT ADVENTURE

Fifty years ago we left Hanover anticipating a warm reception in "the wide, wide world," little thinking how soon it would get so hot. Indeed within six years we were part and parcel of the First World War. Then. followed a succession of tremendous events, both international and domestic; the financial crash of 1929-30; twenty years of the New Deal; the Second World War in which the dictators of Germany, Italy and Japan were beaten to their knees; and later the war in Korea.

More recently, we have stood in awe as a fantastic revolution in science has unfolded before us, the results of which promise immeasurable benefit to mankind. The informed man on the street, however, has hardly had time to keep up with this development because he has had to battle on the domestic front and must continue to oppose those whose economic and political theories permit them, like the White Queen, "to believe six impossible things before breakfast." Finally we confront at this moment that vast, encircling movement by the atheists of Red Russia and Red China, cunningly designed to divide and conquer the world by infiltration and fear.

All this in fifty years since 1911 — "an eyeblink in recorded time" - but for us, what an adventure! And though the part played by our 376 men has been infinitesimal, nevertheless, in today's vernacular, "they were there."

A BREATHER

And now tonight we return home for a breather. We return about 84 strong out of 158 living classmates; mindful of the friendship and inspiration of those classmates of happy memory who can be with us only in the spirit; grateful for the support of the fairest and most exciting group of Dartmouth wives and widows of whom any class may boast and for the 78 sons of ours and of Dartmouth, the best legacy many of us can leave this College.

We return with the intriguing slogan "Our First Fiftieth." No classmate suggested this gem. It was the gift of Margaret Pearson, the wife of one of our classmates and the gal of distinction at this reunion. Margaret may well have been influenced by that passage in the Book of Mark, "For the poor ye shall have with you always." But I prefer to read into her slogan a deeper and more worthy implication, perhaps even of immortality.

And now in conclusion, what is most important for all of us today is tomorrow.

TOMORROW

The events of the last fifty years, to which reference has been made, test the faith of the best of us. Arnold Toynbee said recently, "Here is a challenge which we cannot evade and our destiny depends on our response."

Our response is overdue. We are at war already. We know this but appear afraid to admit it. The weapons are different. We no longer face rifles that carry slugs to the body but rats who carry the poison of fear to our minds, and as Eddie Rickenbacker has said within the week - "a nation afraid is a nation that is dead."

If it is still a tenet of our faith that the Kingdom of God shall one day reign on this earth as it does in Heaven, then our response to the challenge must be that we will develop the character, capacity, courage and commitment to use whatever means are needed successfully to defend this good earth from those who would "bury us" and the Kingdom; and to justify our right to continuing possession for the realization of this high purpose. We may not have adjusted our minds as yet to this great issue but this may nevertheless be America's "Unmanifest Destiny."

President Dickey, 1911 appreciates the compliment the College pays us today. We salute you, our brilliant leader, and Dartmouth men everywhere but in particular the men of 1961 -

"Here's to a greater tomorrow That is born of a great today."

Kenneth F. Clark '11