Letters to the Editor

Crusades for Crusaders (Cont.)

TO THE EDITOR:

I am delighted that my friend and colleague, Roderick Nash of the History Department, has discovered psychology, and so informs us in the October ALUMNI MAGAZINE ("Crusades for Crusaders") that student civil rights workers, like their predecessors in American history, have been "in pursuit of personal satisfaction."

But who would quarrel with that statement? Of course the student helping to register Negro voters in Mississippi is seeking personal satisfaction, and so was Jane Addams, and so were the abolitionists. Indeed - as Professor Segal implied in the article which provoked the retort from our historian — isn't everybody? And there's the rub.

For what Mr. Nash unfortunately failed to mention is that the student who stays out of the civil rights movement is also seeking personal satisfaction. So is the student whose concerns do not go beyond "sports, sex, and scores on examinations." The "love of approbation. . . the brass notes from toughened palms," of which Jane Addams spoke, motivate the civil rights worker, to be sure, but they also motivate the murderer of the civil rights worker.

The crucial question to be asked about a man, then, is not whether he is driven by self-interest — we can take it for granted that he is - but rather what he defines his self-interest to be. If he identifies his own personal satisfaction with the freedom and welfare of his fellow men, he is behaving in the noblest possible way, and he deserves our admiration and applause, whatever may be the psychodynamics of his behavior.

Associate Professor of Sociology.

Hanover, N. H.

Lasswell's View

TO THE EDITOR:

Hearty applause for Roderick Nash's lucid analysis of the motivation of political agitators. The wellspring of political action is the displacement of private effect upon public objects - a fact established to my satisfaction by Harold D. Lasswell in Psychopathology and Politics. However, Professor Lasswell did not think that this motivation detracted from the nobility of politics as an occupation; he only asked that the agitator know himself as well as his cause in order to function more efficiently.

New York, N. Y.

Indian List Enlarged

TO THE EDITOR:

Jack Hurd's interesting article in the October ALUMNI MAGAZINE on students of American Indian lineage at Dartmouth omits at least three of recent vintage whom I have known. I'm not sure what percentage of Indian blood qualifies a student for inclusion in this group, but I believe these men are as well qualified from the blood standpoint as others listed:

T. John Wakefield '65 is the son of a full-blooded Ottawa father and an English mother. He attended Dartmouth in 1961-62, spent three years in the Marines, and is now back in college.

John C. Smith III '63 is one-fourth Iroquois. He attended Dartmouth in 1959-60, served in the Air Force, and has returned to college this year.

Leon L. Poitras '54, a Crow, is the nephew of Louis Poitras '33 who was named in the article. He attended Dartmouth only during his freshman year.

I hope Professor Hurd's article lays to rest the widely-held notion that students of Indian descent automatically get their education free at Dartmouth.

Director, Office of

Financial Aid

Hanover, N. H.

Another Addition

TO THE EDITOR:

A correction should be made in the list of American Indians attending Dartmouth appearing in the October issue. The name of Russell Ayers '29 should be added. He was a fellow freshman residing at South Hall in the fall of '25. In fact just before Christmas of that year he borrowed $10 from me in order to buy a suit of clothes from one of the door-to-door salesmen. He did not return the next semester. I forgot all about my loan until my 25th reunion on the campus when I received an envelope containing the $10 that Rusty Ayers owed me.

Rusty now lives on Staten Island. He has some interesting electronic inventions to his credit, the details of which I know little about except that the results of some of his efforts were being demonstrated at the World's Fair.

Perhaps it should be recalled too that at some variety show during freshman year Rusty did a very creditable imitation of the lasso-twirling, philosophizing Will Rogers.

New York, N. Y.

A Sort of Mix-Mox

TO THE EDITOR:

The October issue just arrived, containing John Hurd's article about the Wheelock Dream. I was both pleased and surprised.

I was, perhaps, more surprised than pleased, but I'm certain that a number of other people are going to be surprised. Personally, I was surprised to learn that I had changed my name. The name of "Perley" is an old one among northeastern Indians, and a number of my cousins are going to be surprised. This syndrome is easily explained: most Indians have two names - one that is native and one that white men can pronounce. Practically all the Indian names on the eastern seaboard were Anglicized before the turn of the century. I was christened Henry Gabriel Perley, but my father was known as Henry Red Eagle. To circumvent the white man's law, I went to public schools as Henry Perley Eagle - a sort of mix-mox of names.

My friends and neighbors in Maine, however, recognized not the existence of Henry Perley Eagle. When the white man declared war, and declared me in on it, he went back to my birth certificate and requested that I appear for the convenience of the army as Henry Gabriel Perley. Three hun- dred years of fighting had proved that it is futile to oppose the Great White Father in Washington, so I went. I had a helluva time proving that I was me, so when I went back to Dartmouth, I had the record changed to prove that there was only one of me. No, Mr. Hurd, I did not change my name: I merely straightened out the record.

There is a widespread notion among the immigrants to our country that Indians must be known as Eagles, Owls, Bears, Sundowns, etc. Rather than argue, most have gone along. Who in the world would want to meet an Indian named John Smith? On top of that, most Indian words are dependent on inflection, and they are both unpronounceable and unspellable. When I was a freshman, I was asked by the DOC to name "The Star Shooter" for Winter Carnival. Now, no matter what the romantic notions may be, the concept of a star shooter is foreign to the aboriginal intellect - they knew better than to waste arrows that way, while there were good English and French targets around. The best I could come up with was P'sas'em'ka'he'ma'ga - which, sure enough, means "He who is shooting at stars." It wouldn't fit on the pedestal, though, and the statue wound up being Kwanapakwa. . . .

I ain't no Penobscot, sir. My tribe are the St. John Indians, who have been called a number of unprintable things in the course of American history. Currently, they go by the name of Maliseets, which is a Micmac word meaning "Lazy One Who Sits." The Micmacs did not like us. In addition to being both St. John and Maliseets, they have been yclept "Etchimin" by the French, who figured we were the End of the Road Injuns between Louisburg and Quebec. In all this to-do among foreigners, the modest name of the tribe has been forgotten: they called themselves "Wooloostook," or "People of the Healthy Place" - which is how Aroostook County, way up there in Maine, got its name. Harry Hamilton, Horace Nelson, and Alec Sapiel were Penobscots, but I ain't a part of their club. My family comes from Tobique, New Brunswick, and my cousins are mad at me as it is without having me called a Penobscot. It's bad enough being a Lazy One Who Sits and an End of the Road Person without having my name Mud. . .

Which brings up another point. The Wheelock Dream may be a bit of local lore, but it's generally unknown among modern Indians. There are a lot of bright, athletic boys up there on the Tobique River, and they've never heard of Dartmouth. There must be a lot of others.

Greenville, Maine

"Monstrous Hostage to the Past"

TO THE EDITOR:

On that drear morning in September 1925 when Joe Pilver's bus mounted the final rise, northerly, en route WRJ-Hanover, I noted the rich, red pylon and its trailing smoke that announced Hanover.

A College needs its power plant, as I was to learn, and I am certain that there are those who love that phallic monster as a symbol of the place and many other things.

But, it seems to me, it has stood too long. No self-respecting community can long endure today such a monstrous hostage to the past. And it seems assured that Dartmouth-Hanover qualifies as self-respecting.

There is, today, another pylon that announces Dartmouth better and its beauty should not be compromised by that remnant stack of brick for smoke.

I should like to think that 1 may be suggesting a project for a sharp cadre of those Thayer-Tuck brilliants. The tools are available. All we need is the blueprint and the dough.

I'll go to work on the dough, if perchance the College should buy the idea.

Quechee, Vt

Interstate 91 Travail

TO THE EDITOR

I wonder how many of the alumni of Dartmouth are aware of the imminent changes in landscapes familiar and dear to them contingent to the construction of Interstate 91. The new superhighway will be completed as far as White River Junction next year (1966) and work on its course up through Wilder into Norwich is under way.

Everyone knows the highway must be built and many of us will be glad that it will enable us to reach Hanover more quickly. But as planned now there will be an interchange in the meadows between Lewiston and Norwich with access roads from all directions. This will mean the separation of Hanover from Norwich to a de- gree as yet unrealized and will also ruin any pleasure in the trip between the two interdependent communities. It will involve stopping for at least two traffic lights and pausing at at least two blinkers. It will entail also the sudden and dangerous narrowing of a four-lane approach road into two lanes on a steep grade through what remains of Lewiston to Ledyard bridge. Worst of all for Dartmouth men it will mean a flood of traffic up into Hanover either by way of the already inadequate facility of West Wheelock Street or by disfiguring forever the shores north or south of the bridge.

A petition has been circulated to delay construction - not of the highway but of this particular interchange. While a better and safer location is being considered access to Hanover and Norwich could be by the Wilder exit and it is hoped that the closer exit can be a bit further to the north than the presently planned location. Sooner or later a new bridge will have to be built and this should supplement, not replace, Ledyard bridge. It could be located north of Wilder or just north of Norwich if a new and preferable place for an interchange is located there. From such a point a road could enter route 10 just north of the Hanover golf links and provide access to Hanover with a minimum of despoilation and a maximum of safety.

If you agree that there must be reconsideration of the placing of the interchange please write to the Board of Selectmen or Planning Board of Hanover. I hope it is not already too late.

Norwich, Vt.