1921
President of Canadian Facts Limited, Jack Graydon is that rare specimen, a trained scientist with a creative imagination. His is a custom-marketing research house, which in 1945 had only a dozen on its staff but now more than 80 in Toronto and another half dozen in Montreal, plus some 700 interviewers from Vancouver to Newfoundland. Jack's research problems are rooted in sociology and psychology, economics and statistics, and public relations and advertising. The projects may involve product research, labor relations and public relations research, public opinion polls, political and sociological studies, and a continuing program of experimental research. Thus Jack has developed into an amateur-specialist in English and history, mathematics and engineering, sociology and psychology, and economics and business administration. Amateur is a pejorative word; specialist, an ambivalent word. Let Jack speak:
We have moved against the tide of the times, specializing in not being specialists. We have assembled a variety of skills and talents and backgrounds in our executive ranks. We have tried to establish a professional consulting relationship with our clients. We have consciously organized our company to provide our clients with a flexible and imaginative research team, capable of tackling each problem as it comes up with a fresh and vigorous approach. We don't sell subscription research services. We live in fear of the mechanical and routine approach that often comes of specialization. And we don't sell surveys; we serve clients.
In combing Canadian and American universities for new talent Jack may pick a candidate from one of two diverse groups: (1) the highly trained technician who loves a puzzle for its own sake and (2) the practical market man who does not care a rap how the research puzzle is solved but wants to concentrate on the practical challenge of the marketing problem itself. Happy is Jack when he finds that rare man who combines felicitously both points of view. Such a man is a linguist; he speaks Graydon.
His friends cried out, "Tough luck!" Sandy Sanders murmurs only, "Boy, am I lucky!" In Fort Worth for a week to set up a new construction and contracting business for his son Don, a soft-drink truck grazed him as he crossed a street. To ward it off, Sandy put up his arm. His coat sleeve caught the door handle of the driver's cab, which spun him around and threw him violently on to the pavement. It ripped off his wrist watch, which a passer-by stole, and ripped up his topcoat. Until he is sure that no hidden injuries develop (he is still nursing a weak kneecap), Sandy is holding off on settlements. Opposed to the rash of fake injuries resulting in outrageously high damage awards by modern juries that keep jacking up insurance rates, Sandy is taking a strong ethical stand and will make no claims beyond a new watch and a new topcoat, unless serious disabilities develop.
With the Spring Term off from Columbia, Nels Smith with Terry is leaving for Europe well ahead of the tourist rush. How do you like this? Fly to Lisbon the middle of this month. Madrid and Seville. In a rented car from Cadiz to Barcelona and the Costa Brava. Dash to Majorca. Flight to Zurich. Lucerne for a few days. Vienna. Munich and Stuttgart to pick up a new car. South to the Swiss border and the Titisee. The Black Forest and Baden-Baden. Heidelberg and Kronberg. Wiesbaden. Steamer to Cologne. Drive to Amsterdam and Brussels. Paris to embark the car. Plane to Copenhagen. Over to London. Edinburgh and Glasgow. High above the Atlantic at night for New York. Home and Bronxville. Or as philosopher, do you prefer to sit in your own March garden and look at the stars?
A devoted summer gardener, Dan Ryder, feeling better than in years with headaches gone, is off to sit in Arizona March sunshine and dream of Vermont stars in June.
In an article in the Feb. 2 Saturday Evening Post Ellis Briggs denounced the prevailing practice of moving our diplomatic envoys so rapidly. Ellis, who had a record of seven posts as Ambassador during the last 18 years of service and an eighth pending in Madrid when he retired last year, argued that five years ought to be the average ambassadorial tour of duty. Otherwise, a man's talents are wasted learning his way around and struggling with languages. Ellis reports dividing his Hanover time sniping at bureaucracy and dreaming nostalgically of all the years he spent in the tropics.
And then there is Harland Manchester. Scribner's has recently published his new book, "Trail Blazers of Technology," which deals with the lives and works of 19th-century inventors. He felt so good about it that he invited Laetitia to spend a few weeks with him in Guatemala and Yucatan. She accepted. Over her shoulder she slung a camera to take pictures of pre-Columbian ruins for which Harland has more than a passing interest.
Emory and Olive Corbin are receiving congratulations about Al. Their actor son has been playing the male lead opposite Eva Gabor in the Harry Kurnitz adaptation of the play by Marcel Archard at the Ponciana Playhouse, Palm Beach. From there Al goes on to Miami, the Mineola Playhouse on Long Island, and the Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, N. J. A graduate of Syracuse University, Al has had wide experience playing Shakespeare and Shaw, stock in the theatre and in film, New York and college theatres, off-Broadway productions, and he is hardly a stranger in any corner of the United States interested in footlights.
Art Foley, a retired gunsmith, ranks high in the opinion of such dead shots as EllisBriggs and John Sullivan, Corey Ford and George Gaffield, Ted Sonnenfeld and ValGardner. Four years ago he hit the target 50 times out of 50 from a distance of 16 yards. Some two months ago he fell, broke his right shoulder, and no longer enjoys target practice. In our undergraduate days we called Art by the nickname of Spike. He was particularly eager to have news, on a recent telephone call from California, about his good friend Doug Fay. As a Phi Kappa Psi, he knew best among his classmates CoryLitchard and Jack Hubbell, Paul Sanderson and Homer Cleary.
Open to all sorts of suggestions about the full life on a long-term basis, George andMadeline Harris are considering a trial flight of a year's residence in or near San Diego. Thus they will not be too far away from Art Ross (Manhattan Beach), Bill McClintock (Sherman Oaks), and George Beaudoux (Whittier). Though San Francisco is not near, Madeline and George are unlikely to resist its lure. That is the region associated with Guy Wallick and Reg Parks, JimWicker and Warren Homer. Nor should they forget Mary Palmer, Henry's widow (Pasadena), Dorothy McAdams, Bill's widow (Manhattan Beach), and Rowene Kerlin, Red's widow (Kentfield). Rowene visited Hanover last summer with her children, Martha and John, and missed seeing OrtHicks and Joe Folger, Hal Braman and BillAlley, Abe Weld and Ray Mallary. Next time these men intend to roll out a double length of red and royal carpet for Rowene. It was all Jack Hurd's fault that Rowene missed connections, and a faulty calendar of dates is no excuse. The Class of 1921 is strong in California. The others: HarrisonBarton (Fresno), Milt Dexter and FurbHaight (Los Angeles), Bunny, now called Val, Gardner (Kingsburg), Jack Gariein (Daly City), Fred Hale (San Jose), ClarenceKing (Walnut Creek), and Floyd Wilson (Ontario).
While still a student at Dartmouth, he first learned how to meet deadlines in his own home town, Troy, N. Y. After more than 41 years as a newspaperman, HerrickBrown has retired. He worked on the Springfield Republican and the Philadelphia Ledger before moving to Manhattan and the Sun in May 1922. He joined the World Telegram and Sun after the sale of the Sun in 1950. For the last eight years head of the copydesk, he spent his final day in the city room Dec. 31. A happy, full, and exciting life it has been for Herrick who will now temper his pace at Quonochontaug, R. 1., where he and Avalita have spent the last 28 summers in a steadily growing all-year-round colony, but they are still in New Rochelle. With the birth of Jane Eileen Claypoole to Hester, Herrick now has five grandsons and four granddaughters. He longs to show to 1921 men the lovely view from his Quonochontaug picture window of moors and a pond with dunes and the ocean in the background. The house is just two miles from Route 1 between Westerly and Wakefield. Ask him what he did in the old days at Dartmouth in Pi Delta Epsilon and Proof and Copy. He will lead you from there quietly into that fascinating world of the headlines and deadlines of New York newspapers.
Secretary, 33 East Wheelock St. Hanover, N. H.
Treasurer, 2728 Henry Hudson Parkway New York 63, N.Y.
